"Hope?" said Maggie. Confusion still reigned in her voice.
"Not Hope," said Ken. "The thing she is. The thing…." He frowned, his jaw working, struggling for words. "The thing she will be."
Christopher spoke. "The queen?"
Ken looked at him. Surprise in his eyes, like he had forgotten anyone else was present. "Queen?" he said. The word rolled around in his mouth. Then he nodded, a brusque up-and-down that somehow managed in itself to convey that this was no longer completely Ken – it was a thing that was perhaps both more and less. "Yes. Queen."
"It's your daughter," Maggie whispered.
After a moment, Ken nodded. That same motion. "Yes. But also, inside her…" Ken's face still looked more or less human – maybe a bit higher in the cheekbones than it had been, skin that was perhaps a shade darker. But when he said "inside her," something shifted in his expression.
Not his expression. His skull.
The bones flexed under his skin. The eye sockets narrowed, the forehead suddenly seemed thicker. Jaw tapering to an alien point that thrust the teeth into sharp relief against thinned lips.
Ken shook himself. Took a few more steps back. His face returned to – not normal, but closer to what Ken had once been.
"She… she calls me," he managed. He forced his hands to his sides, and as he did the blades at the ends of his hand retracted and turned back to fingers, clenched into fists. "The queen. She calls us all. I can't… I can't be too close."
Maggie turned back. She didn't slide this time. She placed each foot carefully.
Christopher was closest to her. She headed right for him. Without a word she thrust Hope into his arms.
The queen. She calls me.
The words made his skin crawl. He had an image of the little girl just exploding like the monster in that movie The Thing right before biting his face off.
She didn't. Just hung, loose and insensate, in his arms.
Maggie waited until he had a firm grip on Hope.
Then she turned back. And ran.
This time Ken didn't dance away from her.
This time, he caught her in his arms.
98
There are moments in time, moments that are wonderful and strange and miraculous. Moments that remind us that we are not truly alone. That there are others who suffer with us, who cry with us. Who smile and laugh with us.
Moments that give us hope, for we are loved. And love cannot exist with fear. It pushes it out like the sun pushes away the night. Only brightness, only light.
This was one of those moments.
Christopher watched Ken and Maggie hold each other. Wondered how it must be, to lose someone forever, then find them again – not in eternity, but in the finitude of the now. He wasn't jealous. For once watching others' love didn't remind him of the feelings he had never experienced himself. He was with them, he felt what they did.
He was happy.
He realized this was the first time he had been completely, unconditionally happy in a long time. Since long before the Change, in fact. He had felt like this when he found out he was going to be a father. Had felt like this sometimes after he made love to Heather, in the good days before he went away and then returned to find her a hopeless junkie.
And it had only taken the end of the world to make him feel this way again.
Maggie and Ken drew apart. She looked at him, and said, "What happened to you?" The words could have been angry, or disgusted. But as she said them she touched his cheek with her fingers. A tender gesture that spoke only of concern, of care and love.
Ken's eyes darkened. Not the inhuman shifting of his features that Christopher had seen a moment ago; this was the too-human look of someone who would not answer a question that led too deep into darkness.
Ken shook his head. His neck swiveled too far to each side, a motion impossible for Christopher – or anyone else – to replicate. Maggie saw it, and pulled herself away from Ken for a moment. "What happened to you?" she repeated. But it was a whisper. It was the echo of the first time she said it.
Ken waited a moment. No longer shaking his head, but not answering either.
He looked at the others. "Buck?" he said.
Christopher shook his head. Tears pushed at his eyes, then spilled suddenly over his cheeks.
All the people we've lost, and I finally cry over that cranky s.o.b.
Out loud, he said, "He saved us. Just a minute before you got here."
He didn't have to say what price Buck paid. Ken nodded somberly. He pushed Maggie away a bit. The motion was tender, but again Christopher got the sense there was more than just a human need for a bit of space.
Ken was two things. And one of them… one of them was not human.
Could it be trusted?
"I am sorry I didn't come sooner," he said. "I… I lost myself for a time, then had to find you again."
"What do you mean, 'lost yourself'?" said Maggie.
Another question answered only with a look. A narrowing of the eyes that managed to be both apologetic and slightly hostile. Maggie took a step back. She looked at Ken, then at the bulges on his back where the wings had disappeared.
"Are you still… are you still you?" she managed.
No one spoke. The smoke roiled above them as though it, too, worried what the answer might be.
Ken looked at each of them in turn. His eyes rested longest on Lizzy and Hope. "I am more." His voice deepened. "I am all." He shivered.
Ken looked away from the unconscious girls. He smelled the air, nostrils flaring like those of an animal scenting prey.
"We should leave," he said. "More will come." The blades extended from his hands. "I can protect you, but not if there are too many." The blades shot the rest of the way forward. His hands were gone, and he was more weapon than man. "I cannot try if there are too many. If I lose myself again…."
He didn't finish his sentence.
No one asked him to.
If I lose myself again….
Christopher looked at Aaron. And saw an unusual look in the old cowboy's eyes.
Fear.
99
"Can we hotwire this thing at all?" said Theresa. She pointed at the dump truck.
"Don't know," said Aaron.
"I bet I can get it to run," said Christopher. His voice sounded ragged. It trembled at the edges.
Dammit, Buck.
"You?" said Theresa. She had her hands on her hips and was eyeing him as though trying to decide whether he was joking or just a liar. "How's that?"
"It's not like in television, son," said Aaron.
Christopher ignored them. He looked at Ken. "How much time do we have? Before more of them get here?"
Ken shook his head. "Minutes."
"Long enough."
Christopher gestured for Amulek, then handed Hope to the teen, who looked startled and slightly uneasy.
So the kid does have emotions. Good to know.
Then Christopher started running.
Running again.
"Where are you – wait for me!" shouted Theresa. She took off after him.
The sand was thick underfoot, and slowed Christopher down considerably. Still, he managed to set a decent pace.
"Wait up!" rasped Theresa. "What are you doing?"
There were sand dunes all around. They obscured any view of more than a couple hundred feet, but he could see they weren't placed randomly. They had enough space between them for purchasers to come in trucks and pick up their orders. And there was a large path between them that headed more or less consistently in one direction.
Christopher followed the path. Came around one last, huge dune.
"There," he said.
"What?" Theresa caught up to him as he slowed.
"Come on," he answered.
There was a small building to the right. A mobile office trailer that sat on concrete blocks, a set of dust-covered wooden stairs that led up to a white door set into the side. Above the door hung a simple sign: "O
FFICE" in faded red letters. To the left and right of the door were small windows, one of them over a window air conditioner that jutted out of the side of the building like a strange tumor.
Christopher ran up the stairs.
"What are you doing? How do you know it's even unlocked?" asked Theresa.
"The Change happened during business hours," said Christopher. "I doubt the zombies bothered to lock up." He turned the doorknob. It rattled, then something clicked inside it and it turned in his hand.
He pulled open the door – there was barely enough room to stand on the steps and pull the thing open at the same time.
He wondered if it would be better to pull the door open slowly, or yank it open with a quick jerk. What if there were more of the things in there?
Screw it.
He yanked the door open.
The room beyond was empty. He waited a moment, listening for movement in any part of the trailer.
Nothing.
"Come on," he said. "The keys are in here."
"How do you know that?" Theresa demanded. But she came in the room with him.
It was a typical construction office: a few battered desks at the front where the secretaries probably sat. A table to one side with rolls of architectural plans, order sheets and invoices piled six inches high. A pair of doors in the back that would lead to the supervisor's or owner's offices.
"What if the driver got Changed and wandered off with the key?"
Christopher shook his head, then jerked open the drawers on the first desk. "No, the truck had the logo of the mine on the door. And there was nothing in the bed, which means they weren't using it for anything right now. So they wouldn't have the keys with anyone, since no one needed them."
Theresa didn't voice an opinion as to his logic, but she pulled open the other desk's drawers. Pawed through pens and pads of paper and hanging files. "Nothing," she said.
"Me, either."
He saw something useful, though, and grabbed it off one of the tables: a balled-up t-shirt that, when unrolled, revealed a beer logo on the back. He put it on, sighing in mock sadness as he did so. "Sorry, darling," he said. "I know you were hoping I'd go shirtless until the stars turned cold, but every good thing must come to an end."
Theresa rolled her eyes. "I'll try to find another reason to live."
Christopher went to the office on the right. Inside was a bare-bones desk, a computer on top that looked like it probably still used floppy discs and a screen that ran only monochrome green.
There were no drawers in the desk. Just a file cabinet on one side. He tried the top drawer, but it was locked. So were the others.
He looked at the desk again. There was a large paperweight that looked like it was made of granite. In the dim of the office, he could make out "Miners Are Dumb As A Rock" written on it in gold lettering. He picked it up and hammered it against the top drawer.
Two hits, and Theresa tore into the room.
"Chris!" she shouted, then stopped short when she saw him attacking the file cabinet. "I heard… I thought…." She cleared her throat, then glared at him. "You scared the hell out of me."
"Sorry." He slammed the rock into the file cabinet a few more times. By the fifth hit the front panel of the drawer was so bent he could reach around it. He felt the inside. A moment later, the lock pinged open.
He pulled the drawer open. Nothing but papers. The next held more of the same. He glanced at the door. Theresa was still there. "No one's called me Chris in a long time."
There was hardly any light, but he thought she was blushing. "I thought something was killing you or something," she said.
"You do care," he murmured. The last drawer was empty. "Damn." He looked at her. "You find anything?"
"It looks like a break room. Just a little table and some chairs with a few coffee cups on it." She swallowed. "A lot of blood on the walls."
Christopher grimaced. "Sorry about that," he said.
She shrugged. "At least it wasn't mine."
Christopher stood. Looked around at the bare office.
"We should get back," said Theresa.
"The keys have to be here."
"They're not. And more of those things are coming."
Christopher pushed past her. Into the main office. He was about to ransack the secretary's desk again when he stopped. Turned.
There was a bathroom to one side. The door was closed.
Silent.
He moved to the closed door. Held the knob as though waiting for it to move under his hand.
Nothing.
He twisted the knob. Knowing that the keys might be in there. But if they were, it was highly unlikely they had just wandered in on their own. Which meant….
The lock mechanism clicked under his palm. He shivered, the noise seeming almost painfully loud in the dark office.
The door swung open.
Eyes stared out at him.
Theresa gasped, and he heard a slap. He thought it might be her grabbing for the gun she had lost in the river.
The zombie just stood there. Waiting. Eyes looking straight ahead, mouth sagging open with the slack look of someone in a coma.
Only people in a coma didn't stand up. Didn't weave ever so slightly, as though caught in a breeze that no one could feel, no one could see.
Christopher fell back, hands going up to ward off the inevitable attack, the bite that had to come.
Nothing happened. The zombie didn't move. Its eyes remained fixed in the same position they had been, its mouth didn't clamp shut. There was none of that chittering noise, the growl didn't come.
The creature's pants were around its ankles, and the smell that came off it left no doubt about what this once-man had been doing when the Change took it.
Christopher took a step toward it.
"Don't," said Theresa.
He ignored her. Bent over and grabbed the waist of the thing's pants. "It's not doing anything," he mumbled. The words were as much to reassure himself as they were to put Theresa's concern to rest.
The pockets were hard to find. Bunched up and stiff, and he hated to think what might be all over them.
He felt in the first pocket, the one on the zombie's left. Came up with some kind of credit or swipe card – he couldn't make it out in the dark.
The other pocket jingled slightly when he moved to that side.
Yes.
He felt inside it.
And came up with change.
He froze there. He had been so sure. And now….
"Dammit," he muttered.
He let the pants drop back to the floor.
They clinked.
He looked at them. Back up at the zombie. Still unmoving, unseeing. Dead to the world.
Bad choice of words.
He pushed his hand back into the pocket. Felt nothing. Then realized he could barely fit half his hand inside.
The other pocket was bigger.
He pushed his hand farther in. This pocket wasn't smaller after all. It was just twisted up at the bottom. He wriggled his fingers, parting the folds in the fabric.
The zombie moved.
The motion was barely more than a twitch, but Christopher felt it as a shockwave that rode up his hand, his arm, nearly stopped his heart.
He looked up. The thing hadn't moved.
Or had it?
"Hurry," breathed Theresa. He looked back at her. She was staring the thing in the face. Christopher looked up… and saw the thing had turned its head. Just slightly. Now it was looking down.
The thing's eyes found his.
It didn't move, other than that, but Christopher knew time was short. He pushed his fingers deeper into the pocket. He felt something hard and cool. Curled his fingers around a ring.
Something touched him. He looked behind him automatically.
Theresa was gone.
The hand on his shoulder was its hand.
He shouted. A sound of disgust, horror, hope quashed yet again. Expecting to be grasped in t
he too-strong hold of things that should be dead and unmoving but were instead stronger than anything Christopher had experienced.
The hand lay firmly on his shoulder. But the thing's fingers didn't curl with that bone-crushing force. Its eyes stared at him, but there was no fire behind them. None of that viciousness.
Christopher yanked the keyring out of its pocket. The pants fell again.
The thing made a sound. A moan, followed by the chirping noise he had heard before. A sound that could be nothing – or could be some kind of communication.
The thing shook itself. Its eyes were still clouded, but –
(the fire in its eyes)
– its fingers began, slowly, to turn inward. Christopher felt his flesh compress.
And something flashed out. Smashed the thing in the throat. Black ichor splashed across Christopher's face. The thing let go of him, fell back.
Theresa – one hand still holding the rock from the office – reached in and yanked the bathroom door shut.
A half-second later, the thing started to moan. Something slammed into the bathroom door from the other side.
Theresa dropped the rock. It thudded to the floor with a loud, hollow thock.
"What was that?" she breathed. "What just happened?"
Christopher looked at the keyring he still held. Just one silver key, teeth slightly blunt-looking in the way old keys had. There was a fob on the ring as well, a black leather circle with "DUMP" written across it in what looked like Wite-Out.
He straightened and headed to the door. "Come on," he said.
She was close at his heels as they exited the office.
As soon as the door opened, he heard something. He went still.
Heard it again.
The growl.
100
They ran. Christopher felt the sand reach up to pull at every footstep, dragging him back so the zombies that were coming would be able to find and kill him.
He heard slamming behind them. The sound of the thing still captive in the bathroom. Heard it growl, the sound mixing with the dimmer noise nearby.
Wood splintered.
They ran faster. Arrived at the dump truck. Aaron was already in the cab, Amulek and Maggie next to him, each of them holding one of the little girls on their laps.
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