After what seemed a horrible eternity—twenty or thirty seconds, not a single crazed was standing. A voice Clay recognized blared from a megaphone.
“HEY! IDIOTS! GET THE HELL BACK ON THE BUS AND GET INTO TOWN.”
It was Daniels. Clay grinned. He’d made it. In this wild and horrible world, one of his own had made it. Laughing, he dropped his arm over his daughter’s shoulders, bringing her closer to him.
“I SAID STEP ON IT,” Daniels squawked. “BUT ALSO, YOU ARE IDIOTS. CLAY, YOU ESPECIALLY. IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU, DAMMIT. IT’S REALLY GOOD TO SEE YOU.”
Chapter 36
Clay parked the bus in the middle of the square, near a bell tower. His passengers were silent, still stunned at the ferocity of the crazed—and their unlikely demise. Daniels was waiting for them, his hands on his hips, and his chin high. One by one, Clay’s crew climbed off the bus and vied to shake Daniels’ hand.
“My God, Alayna!” Daniels cried when he saw her. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. They met like old friends, or like family members. Not like people who’d fought and bickered throughout much of their journey.
After a long moment, he was on to the next person—shaking Agnes’ hand, introducing himself. His voice was jovial, almost childlike. Clay wondered where the others were. Perhaps Daniels was manning the town alone?
“Maia!” Daniels cried, seeing Clay’s daughter. He swept her off the ground into a hug and said to Clay, “You did it, my man. You found her. That must have been a wild ride. I’m sure you have quite a story to tell.”
“Not one to be told now,” Agnes smiled at him. “We’re exhausted.”
“And what of you strapping guys?” Daniels asked, offering his hand to Quintin and Sherman. They shook his hand. Both were a full head taller than Daniels, who was usually the tallest person in any group. “Where did they find the two of you?”
“Where else?” Sherman not giving anything away. “On the road. Where we’ve been since this all began.”
Daniels’ smile faltered. Releasing Sherman’s hand, he turned at last to Clay, his emotion at the reunion plain to see. They came together like brothers.
Daniels said, “I really wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again, my friend. But now I know I was foolish to ever doubt you, wasn’t I?”
“You should have made it to the base weeks ago,” Clay said, releasing Daniels’ hand. “What happened? And where is everyone?”
Daniels cringed. “We ran into a few snags along the way, not unexpected.”
Alayna interjected, “We saw one of the scooters, abandoned at a gas station. What—who?” She faltered under the weight of the question.
“Ah, yeah,” Daniels looked embarrassed. “We got boosted, is all. We went in to gather supplies and someone stole all but one of the scooters. We’ve been on foot ever since. But, yeah. We found this place along the way, as you can see.”
“This place, it safe?” Clay asked, looking at Daniels with an element of distrust. “The minute we got in, the crazed were on us. We wouldn’t have been able to stop them, even if we were all armed. Not without the device.”
“I saw you coming up the road miles away,” Daniels said. “I Didn’t know it was you until you were practically at our door. A Lutheran bus? Ha. The irony’s not lost on me, at the end of the world. But anyway, the energy field is powered by twin generators. I had to let you in, but I saw the crazed coming. No more than we could handle, though.” Daniels winked. “We’ve got this place pretty well sealed. Any crazed that get in get their heads blown off. Well, you saw it.”
“That we did,” Sherman agreed.
Clay tried to parse this new information, feeling like it couldn’t possibly be reality. Ridgeway. Their next stop on a path to—what? What kind of future?
“What about the others?” Clay asked again, turning back to Daniels. “Brandon? Marcia? Jacobs, even?”
“They’re all here,” Daniels said solemnly. “We’re all safe. And, imagine this. We have a special, surprise guest for you to meet. C’mon.”
Chapter 37
Daniels led the others up the steps and into the church. The building was historic, made of limestone, with a lobby featuring several stained glass depictions of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the shepherds, and the Wise Men. Clay stared at one of the shepherds tending his flock. He felt such a kinship with him. To the dedication in the man’s eyes. Back then, surely, with wolves howling in the hills, highwaymen poised to murder you, death seemed just as imminent as it did now.
“It’s the safest place for us right now,” Daniels said. “Or the place where we can all kinda do our own thing. Plus, who wouldn’t want to live in a church for a little while. Gang, look who’s here!”
Clay saw scattered people in the pews—not in any order and keeping a healthy distance from one another. Brandon’s head poked up from between the pews. His hair was long and straggly, and his crooked smile lit up his face. He leaped from the pew toward Clay, who was surprised at the maturity he’d found in just a few weeks. His muscles were firmer, his cheeks were gaunter, his eyes were older.
Clay hugged him tight, slapping on his back. “Good to see you, kid,” Clay said sincerely. “I bet she wouldn’t recognize you.”
“Yeah, sure,” Brandon laughed. “I haven’t changed that much.”
“You’d be surprised how much,” Clay said.
Clay found Marcia, then Jacobs with relief. They’d made it this far. He nodded at them both. Lane wrapped Marcia up, crying and laughing at once, kissing her on the cheek.
Brandon shook hands with Sherman, Quintin, Hank, and Walt. When he reached Maia, he stopped, his eyes dancing.
“Well, well, well. Where the hell did you come from!” he asked, raking his curly, wild hair with his fingers.
Maia giggled like the teenage girl she was. She adopted a flirtatious pose, youthful and vital. Behind her, Alex’s eyes burned with anger and confusion.
“Brandon! What the heck?” she exclaimed.
But Clay’s eyes were drawn across the pews, toward the corner of the church. There, seated alone, was a woman he hadn’t seen in months. A woman he’d worked alongside for years, ever since he’d first taken the sheriff’s position in Carterville. A woman he’d trusted, confided in, and followed blindly, even as it seemed she’d moved their town ever closer to the ends of the Earth.
“Lois Washington,” Clay’s voice echoed.
The mayor of Carterville—or ex-mayor—Lois, got up as quickly as her sixty years would allow. Her jet-black hair—dyed, surely, made her look almost demonic. Her eyebrows were dark lines that gave her a perpetual frown. As she got closer, Clay realized with a start, that while he knew his people’s stories, and he knew Daniels’ situation generally, he couldn’t begin to comprehend Lois’.
Maia and Brandon were giggling together. “I have to admit, I thought about you a few times on this weird journey,” Brandon said. “Course, I knew you were Clay’s daughter. But I didn’t—well. I wasn’t sure—”
“If he’d find me?” Maia asked. “But he’s my dad, Brandon.”
Brandon assessed Clay. “He looks a bit different than when I last saw him. Stronger, maybe. Stands up straighter. He seems, I dunno, angrier?”
Maia tilted her head, as if she were seeing her father for the first time. She wondered how much her disappearance had changed him. If he was angrier, more volatile because of the stress of trying to find her. Brandon gazed at her with large, hungry eyes—eager to hear her speak.
And Alex’s face was bitter. He steeled himself to meet this interloper.
But then Clay’s voice thundered across the pews. At Lois Washington, the ex-mayor of Carterville.
“You must have seen her, Lois. You must know where she is,” Clay’s rage was palpable. “Where is my wife? Where is Valerie?”
Chapter 38
“Oh, Clay,” Lois’s pose was prayerful, her expression beatific. “Clay, I never imagined I’d see you again. I thought you were gone, like so
many others. God, we’ve lost so many. It’s why I love being in this church. I spend all day praying to Him to save the ones who’ve become … changed. What a terrible, horrific situation—”
“Lois,” Clay cut her off. “Out with it. What’s going on with Val? Where is she? Is she all right?”
“It’s just … it’s not what we thought would happen, Clay. You have to understand that. But you also need to know that I did everything in my power to save her, Clay. But it was too late. Everything about this life has been too late …”
Clay tensed, stunned. Still, he tried to make sense of her words. “She’s … gone?” he gasped, shaking his head. The rage began to flood his veins. The sensation was similar to the initial nanite infection—anger rising and powering him. “What the hell do you mean, save her?”
Lois unclasped her hands, licked her lips, then smiled warmly. “You remember the colonel, don’t you, Clay? Colonel Scott Wallace?”
Clay remembered. The man had a boorish manner when he’d marched into town, demanding the impossible and ordering his townspeople into buses to be taken away. Clay remembered, for sure. The chaos was unforgettable.
“What the hell did he do?” Clay spat. “Tell me!”
“Well, the colonel obtained a device that the scientists had been working on—” Lois gestured at Marcia, Leland, and Lane. Clay’s eyes didn’t waver. He remained focused on Lois. “I’m not sure how he found it. But anyway, he had heard that the device would be an appropriate way to control the crazed. That he could manipulate them—make them walk, or run or even duck. Which, I know, sounds absolutely nuts! But apparently, they really were cooking up something like that—”
“It’s the whole reason this happened, you idiot,” Marcia snapped, her eyes burning. “We’ve told you that countless times this past week. We wanted to make a better, more useful weapon—”
“Let her finish.” Clay glared at Marcia. The silence that followed was punctuated by Maia sobbing quietly at the loss of her mother.
“We were here in Ridgeway, working,” Lois said. “And the colonel had this idea to bring some of the crazed into the town square, to test it. To see how well the device worked. The crazed were corralled at first, but each test the device passed made the colonel more reckless. He decided to introduce humans into the testing and surrounded the field with people. Valerie was there. She didn’t have a lot of fear at that point. She was behind the fence and for the most part, her mind wasn’t on anything around her. She’d been separated from your daughter, and …” Lois trailed off.
She took a deep breath and continued. “At first, the device worked well. The general could control the crazed like they were like his personal puppets. It was almost funny, really—yet eerie. I remember in particular, even Valerie laughed when the general had the crazed walking backwards, their arms flailing around. It was odd. When the device was controlling them, their eyes were still wild and alive-looking—as if something completely different was going on in their head.
“But the general got sloppy,” Lois’s tone shifted. “He marched the crazed a bit too close to a few of the survivors. And just like that, their teeth were out. They tore into the people. I was in the bell tower, and—” she wiped her nose, “one by one, the crazed knocked the survivors to the ground. And from up there, the only thing we could think to do was—well … eradicate the whole lot.”
Alayna and Agnes gasped. Clay staggered and caught the back of a pew. He imagined it, over and over again: his gorgeous bride, his Valerie. Her face, being ravaged by the crazed monsters. The blood soaking her dress when one of them tore her throat out. Bile filled his mouth.
But his eyes burned with anger. He knew, with a single tug, he could break Lois’s neck. If he wanted to. And, God, he did. He yearned to twist it, until there was no resistance—no pulse.
The world was growing fuzzy, blurred. Clay felt a scream escape his lips. And then, for a long while, he felt nothing at all.
Chapter 39
Pain.
Aaaaah! I scream, but there is no sound. It’s only in my head.
I open my eyes and everything I see is tainted … stained red. I’m lying—lying on the floor, and there’s a halo or an aura around my vision.
Where am I? Who … am I?
Aaaaaah! The pain is so bad and I don’t know why. I’m burning —my blood is boiling inside.
What’s the last thing I remember? I—I can’t think with … all this … HUNGER!
I try to get up and run away from this confusion, but I can’t balance. I sway from side to side, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I only see fire. Or is that the blood in my vision?
It’s heat, and it’s making my eyes bleed. Jesus, the hunger is scalding my gut. I tear at myself, ripping through my clothes.
MAKE IT STOP!
Teeth pierce my lips, and I stagger forward, HUNGRY. HUNGRY. STARVING. I chase her. I can smell you … don’t run!
I lunge for the neck—latching on and feeling—tasting the blood. It gushes—the blood—into my hungry maw. It pours across my cheeks and I lick it. The body crumples, no more than a sack of bones and guts and brains, and I fall on it, ripping at the flesh.
Sustained, but only for a moment.
Through my hazy vision I see a woman. Who are you? I ask, but only I hear my words. I am silent.
She doesn’t answer. Not because she cannot hear me, but because she is dead. Death, I can smell it.
What is this? Who am I? I know nothing but hunger. I am wild.
What is this? I can hear you. Don’t run! I NEED YOU! HELP! I MUST …
I MUST FEED.
Chapter 40
Clay tightened his hands on the wooden pew and yanked it free. A scream erupted from his throat and filled the church with echoes like demons. Pieces of the floor became flying debris exposing the darkness of a cellar below.
Clay threw himself at the wall on the opposite side of the nave and ripped an ornate crucifix down, the splinters tearing into the skin beneath his fingernails. As stared into the dead wooden eyes of the savior, the voices in his head returned—louder and more insistent than before. FEED. FEED, they cried out to him, although he had no hunger for anything but violence. He drove his fist through a stained-glass window, not caring about the blood running down his arms. Again, he screamed. He couldn’t control the rage.
Only a few feet away, Maia had curled into a ball, rocking and sobbing and screaming in turn. Brandon tried to comfort her, to calm her down, but she kicked at him like an animal. “NO. NO, NO!” she cried. “STOP! NO!”
Alayna was terrified. She implored Sherman, Quintin, anyone. “Someone. Please. Stop him. He’s going to hurt himself. He’s going to destroy himself …”
Clay was bleeding from his forehead, his nostrils, his arms. He grunted as he tore another vestige from the wall, ripping his clothes along with it. Being the only one who was big enough to even try, Daniels raced forward and finally wrapped his arms around Clay’s shoulders, trying to stop his tirade. Clay slammed his elbow into Daniels’ nose. Blood exploded from his face, pouring down his lips and chin. But Daniels was not giving up.
Clay was blind to anything but his rage, deaf to all but the voices in his mind. When Daniels grabbed him again, Clay slammed his forehead against Daniels’ cheek. This brought him the same rush as breaking anything else, and he drove his fist at Daniels’ chest. But this time, Daniels caught it, using the momentum to drive Clay toward the wall. Clay overbalanced and staggered, trying to regain his footing. But before he could, Daniels sent his own considerable fist into Clay’s nose, putting him on the ground.
Clay landed like a stone. Daniels was already on top of him, pinning his arms to the ground. Clay spit out scream after scream, devolving into sobs when he recognized he couldn’t overpower Daniels.
He finally surrendered, and tears fell as he began to grasp the enormity of his loss. This life. This life that he’d been trying to build. It had been for his family. For Valerie, for Maia. A
nd now Valerie was gone. His first love. The woman to whom he’d pledged his life.
“FUCK! FUCK!” Clay screamed with finality. With a final surge of energy, he pulled his pinned limbs away from Daniels and pounded them against his own thighs, coming back into his human mind. “NO. NO. TELL ME IT’S NOT TRUE!”
No one spoke. No one knew what to do, faced with such devastation. Even Agnes, who’d only just lost her husband, was unable to find the words. She knew, better than most, that nothing worked. Nothing was ever enough.
Chapter 41
Finally, Maia rolled over and crawled to her father. She collapsed against him, hugging him close. Clay wrapped his arms around her slim frame, feeling her sob. This, beyond anything, reminded him that he was still alive. That there was still a purpose.
Maia pulled away from Clay’s shoulder for a moment, revealing her blotchy cheeks. “Daddy, no. No. No,” she begged. “It can’t be true.”
Clay cupped her face, marveling at the softness of her skin. He remembered what an angelic baby she had been. How he and Val had stared at her with incredulous eyes, as she’d slept in her crib. In certain lights, he could see Valerie’s nose on Maia’s face. Her eyes, so dark and forceful and alive. In so many ways, his wife lived on in the angel in his arms. But so much of his soul felt dark.
“I really loved her. You know that,” Clay said, scarcely able to believe that he’d found the words. “You know she was my entire world. You and her … for so much of my life. It was just us.”
Maia nodded. “I love her, Daddy. I never stopped.”
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