No. Ken doesn't seem human. Aaron just seems creepy.
Mo grunted as well. "You also, cowboy."
Surprisingly, when Aaron tied off the final bandage around Mo's hands, he was smiling. Then the two seemed to be grinning like a pair of fools, apparently bound as brothers by their ability to murder one another at great distance.
The world's gone insane.
Then Amulek was back.
He handed Christopher what he had asked for.
What he hoped would keep them alive.
13
He put it all together quickly. The slowest parts were cracking open the remote and stripping the wires out of the iPod's earbuds. The other things – wiring the cell phone battery to the remote's circuit board and cross-wiring the circuit board itself – those were the work of only moments.
Which was good, because moments were all they had.
"What is it?" asked Aaron.
Christopher permitted himself a grin. "What, they don't teach this in special forces rodeo clown cowboy school?" Then, before Aaron could growl out a reply or simply murder him, he looked at Amulek. "Go get Hope."
"Do you think that a wise idea, e kare?" said Mo. "I have been… hearing things. In my mind." He hesitated. "I know you will think this mad, but –"
"It's the girls. We know. You're late to the party on that one, Mo." Christopher looked at Aaron. "Go with him. Get her here. Fast. Buck's with her and he's going to put up a fight. I need you to… convince him to let her come here with you."
"I get to take a poke at that sourpuss?" said Aaron. He cracked the knuckles of his good hand. "My pleasure."
"But I need him to come here as well. Conscious. It's important. Critical. Like, it's the best way to know if we're going to die or not."
"So I gotta bring the crazy alien girl and the guy who doesn't want to come along. Gotcha."
"Aaron," said Christopher as Amulek turned toward the kitchen, where Buck and Hope were confined. The cowboy turned back. "If you kill her, we're still going to die." He waved the contraption he had cobbled together. "This is it. This is our only hope. And I can prove it, but I don't have time right now. So if you screw around with this, we're all going to die. And I think… I think so will everyone who's still left in whatever's left of the world."
Aaron nodded.
Left.
Christopher went back to the final touches on what he had put together.
Please let this work.
14
Christopher heard the hatch to the kitchen open.
(COME TO ME
COME TO ME
COME TO ME)
The sound increased in his mind, a raw shriek that nearly pushed him off his feet. He saw it hit the others as well, saw it drive Theresa to her knees.
(COME TO ME
COME NOW
COME –)
He hit the "Volume Up" button on the TV remote.
(– now come now….)
He saw Theresa blinking. Saw Mo looking around like he was in a daze.
Short range. I'm not affected, but Mo and Theresa still are. There's just a small bubble around me.
He heard a struggle.
Realized he couldn't wait for Aaron and Amulek to deal with Buck and the seven-year-old the big man was protecting.
Instead, he ran to them.
15
He heard twin thuds behind him. Theresa and Mo falling back as he left their presence.
That was fine. He was leaving them at the mercy of the shout/screech/shriek. But he was going to kill the source.
He hoped.
He ran down the small passage. Saw Aaron struggling with Buck as Amulek did his best to hold onto a screaming, flailing ball of arms and legs and hands and feet that moved so fast it could barely be made out as Hope. Saw them struggling as well with the scream that had to be incredibly intense at the positions they had taken – standing right on top of the source: the little girl.
(Help!
Help!
help.
hel….)
Christopher came within five feet of them. And as he did, Hope slumped. Buck weaved on his feet, then fell as well.
Aaron shook his head. Looked at his hands as though he had just witnessed a stunning magic trick: Now you see the big homicidal ex-construction worker, now you don't!
"What just happened?" he said.
Christopher shook his head. "No time to explain. Grab those two," he said, pointing at Hope and Buck with his free hand. His other gripped the jury-rigged remote.
"We've got to hurry."
16
He moved quickly, but didn't run. Hard not to –
(How close are the things? How close are the hordes?
Are they still even coming our way?)
– but he managed to restrain himself to a fast walk. He had to make sure Aaron and Amulek stayed close. Very close. He didn't know what would happen if Hope went out of range of his little gizmo, but….
Probably not good.
"Stay close."
"How close?" asked Aaron. Amulek didn't speak. The kid hadn't spoken a word since Christopher had known him.
"Make me your new best friend, Aaron."
"Gotcha."
He caught Amulek looking at him. Raised eyebrow. Me, too?
"No. Buck's not as important. Just Hope has to stay close."
I hope.
He didn't add that last. And even managed not to gulp a la Shaggy from the Scooby Doo cartoons.
They entered the wet room. Theresa had managed to lean Mo against a cot. And as they entered Christopher heard something.
(Come. Come. I'm alone.
Easier now.
Maybe the Other gone.
Maybe the Other dead.
Come.)
The voice in his head was that second one. That strange one that was the same one he had been hearing all this time. But also different. Unique.
Lizzy.
"Stay close," he said again to Aaron. Unnecessary, since he could practically feel the cowboy's breath on his cheek.
He turned his attention to Theresa. "How is he?" he asked, gesturing at Mo.
"He'll live." She furrowed her brow. "I think."
Christopher gestured at Amulek. "Help her," he said. "Get everyone in the kitchen and get ready to close the hatch in a hurry.
Amulek nodded.
(Almost here.
Good.
Good.
Goooood.)
Christopher didn't wait to see if his instructions would be carried out. They either would, or people would die.
That was it.
And he couldn't change what was next.
All he could do was hope.
17
(Hurry.
Hurry.
Hurr….)
The sound drifted away as he grew closer. Whether that meant it was dying off completely, or simply being muffled around him, he couldn't tell. He suspected the latter.
He needed the former.
He and Aaron – the cowboy with Hope slung over his shoulder, unconscious and limp – got to the closed hatch that led to the sleeping area. It was secured with a belt – the same way Christopher guessed the one to the kitchen must have been held shut.
Aaron looked at him. "Want me to open it?" The cowboy had produced a short but very sharp-looking knife from somewhere.
Christopher nodded. Aaron slashed the belt.
Christopher wondered how close the hordes were.
He spun the wheel.
The door opened.
He saw Lizzy. The two-year-old had been standing against the door.
(Hurry.
Hur –)
She fell down. Crumpled into a ball on the floor. Eyes shut, looking for all the world like a normal toddler who had crashed after the world's most extreme sugar high.
And as she did something leaped out of the room beyond her. Straight at Christopher. A white and black blur. Something that weighed slightly less than he did, but what th
ere was of it was all muscle.
And it was angry.
The snow leopard jumped at him, claws bared, teeth gleaming.
Sally growled, and the growl was one of pure rage.
18
The snow leopard landed with both paws against Christopher's chest, so high they were almost on his shoulders. They drove him down, slammed him to the floor of the bunker.
He almost let go of the remote. Almost let it clatter away into the hall.
That would have been doom.
Sally's face was inches from his. Snarling, drool dripping in thick ropes against his face.
Then the snow leopard blinked. Something passed over its eyes. Not recognition, exactly. Nothing so clear or defined. Something deeper. Perhaps an understanding that Christopher was something still unChanged in a world transformed.
The creature, he knew, was no longer what it had been. It was no longer the protector. No longer the friend.
It was simply a snow leopard again.
It looked up. Growled deep in its throat. Aaron took a step toward it, knife flashing in the light of the corridor.
Christopher whispered, "Don't."
He regretted it immediately. Sally looked back at him. Leaned in so close that hot breath washed over him. Whiskers tickled his face. He wanted to sneeze.
Sure. Sudden movements with a hundred-and-fifty-pound attack cat on you. Great.
He bit back the sneeze. Felt like his face was going to implode.
Then, suddenly, the weight was gone from his body.
The cat loped off down the short corridor that led to the wet room. Away.
Gone.
Aaron looked at him, stunned surprise on his face.
"What the hell is going on, son?"
"Not now."
Christopher scooped up Lizzy's tiny form. Tried not to think of the other child it reminded him of.
Little Carina. Beautiful. Small.
Changed.
Axe in her forehead.
Beyond her, he saw the also-unconscious form of Lizzy's mother: Maggie.
He shoved the remote in his pocket. Slung Maggie over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, then managed somehow to get Lizzy under his other arm. It was awkward, and he almost fell over twice in the maneuver. The only thing that kept him from pitching onto his face was pride – he'd be damned if he was going to trip in front of Aaron.
He slogged his way back into the corridor. Toward the wet room. "Stay close."
"Don't have to keep telling me that."
"What can I say? I'm needy."
The kitchen was a straight shot from the sleeping area.
The hatch was open.
There was no one in the kitchen.
The others were gone.
19
Christopher kept moving. In large measure it was simply a matter of momentum. He was going in this direction; he would keep going in this direction.
Inertia is a great substitute for thought. Before the Change it kept people in bad relationships, in dead-end jobs, in any number of situations they could have left. Now it just kept Christopher's feet pounding forward.
Even though there was nothing to move forward to.
And that saved his life. Because in another moment he would have left. He would have turned and gone looking for Mo and Amulek and Theresa and Buck. Would have left the TV remote – what he had made it into – with Aaron and the little girls and gone looking for the others.
It's the right thing to do, after all.
For some reason he thought of Dorcas. The farm woman who had sacrificed herself for the group.
He thought of Derek – Ken's son who had thrown himself to a death, and worse, to save his mother.
Of Sally, gone.
Of Ken, strange and alien.
Of all they had lost. An entire world.
And he ran forward. Into the empty kitchen.
And then, suddenly, the not-empty kitchen.
20
Christopher remembered rooting around in the bunker for supplies. Remembered bending over to look for something, and feeling an arrow at his cheek. Wondering how Amulek could have hidden from him, snuck up behind him.
Now he knew.
The side wall of the kitchen, near the back, split open silently. Beyond was another room, smaller than the kitchen but still roomy enough to hold Amulek, Mo, Theresa, and the still-unconscious form of Buck.
Amulek beckoned for them to come.
Aaron started forward.
"Wait." Christopher couldn't let him get ahead. And he wasn't ready to hide. Amulek had intuited that hiding was the next step of Christopher's plan – if you could even call it that – but he wasn't ready to go into that small room. Not yet.
He heard a sound.
It bounced in from the direction of the bunker's entrance. Grunting. Trilling.
The sound of footsteps.
The horde had arrived.
"Whatever you're going to do, son, do it fast," said Aaron.
Christopher spun. He dropped Maggie and Lizzy, then slammed the hatch shut.
And heard something slam into it on the other side at the same moment.
21
The zombies were fast. Far faster than normal humans. They could spew acid that – near as Christopher could tell – burned through anything. And some of them had charming little buzz saws for faces that would turn the steel of the hatch to so much jagged metal in a matter of moments.
"E kare." Mo called quietly, weakly, from the hidden room. "Come. At least be with us. Fight with us at the last."
Christopher didn't move.
Aaron tugged at his sleeve.
Christopher still didn't move. He listened.
"Come on, son. We should go."
Christopher shook his head. "They decide to come in, then they'll come in and we're dead no matter what we do." He kept listening.
Shuffles. Scratches and scrapes.
But they were different than the last time the zombies had come into the bunker. That time, they had streamed in as an unstoppable river of death. Only Ken – in his own way as alien as they, and infinitely more frightening – had saved them.
But now….
The scratching on the other side of the hatch didn't sound determined. Didn't sound focused. It sounded like the demented clawing of a child who has found an obstacle it's not quite sure how to deal with. No, less. An animal, reduced to base instinct. A dog left in a room too long, needing to piss. Knowing it should leave, scratching the door to pieces then leaving a puddle all over the floor in spite of its efforts, then skulking off into the corner, confused and ashamed and not really sure why.
"You hear that?" Christopher said.
Aaron listened. He frowned. "What's going on out there?"
Not my imagination. He hears it, too.
"I think I know."
He looked at the remote in his hand. At Hope. At Lizzy.
"I think I know how to stop this. At least some of it."
"You gonna explain that, son?"
"After."
"After what?"
Christopher pressed his ear to the hatch.
Scratch. Scratch-scratch. Scraaaatch.
Sounded like a lot of them out there. Dozens? A hundred?
"After they leave."
If they leave.
He thought they would.
Hoped they would.
Please, God, let me be right on this. We could use a break, and that would be fair, after all the crap You've put us through.
But he thought of the Bible school he'd attended when he was fourteen. And thought of the one great lesson he'd learned during his time there: God may or may not be real, He may or may not even be loving. But "fair" was not something He seemed to worry overmuch about.
22
The sounds went on a long time.
Christopher didn't know how long. Not really. It seemed like hours, but it could just as well have been minutes or days. There was no way of telling time, not
here in the bunker, with the lights ever bright and no sun or moon to give a hint. He put Lizzy down at his feet. Motioned for Aaron to prop Hope beside him.
Aaron did, then went to help tend to Mo.
"How is he?" asked Christopher. Only then did he realize that Mo was no longer being looked after. Instead, Amulek and Theresa had stripped off Aaron's shirt and were working on binding a nasty wound on his shoulder: the spot where Mo had shot him.
Aaron was white-faced as they worked, but he didn't make a sound. Mo was propped up on a wall nearby, and his face was just as impassive. But Christopher sensed an admiration in the Māori, one warrior to another.
Scratch….
Scratch….
Those weren't the only sounds. Things fell in the other room. The sounds of items breaking, of boxes tumbling to the floor, of glass shattering – all these made it through the thick metal of the hatch.
Then, slowly, they ceased.
Christopher realized that Aaron was standing beside him again. The older man's ear pressed against the hatch as well.
"Think they're gone?"
"I think so."
"They could have just come in. Burned in or chewed in."
"I know."
"But they didn't."
"I know."
"And you know why they didn't." It wasn't a question.
Christopher nodded. "I think so. I'm pretty sure."
"You care to enlighten us now?"
Christopher looked at Mo. "When I was in the hospital part of the bunker earlier, I thought I saw an ultrasound machine. That right?"
Mo nodded. He pushed himself painfully to his feet. Torn bits of cloth shrouded his hands completely. He had fought off one of the zombie buzz saws with his bare hands, and Christopher doubted he would ever use those hands again.
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