“But—”
“Declan is right. Let’s go,” Nico said, grabbing her elbow.
“You don’t have to drag me,” Sophie said, snatching her arm back. “I’m going already.”
They backed toward the car. As Declan drew the garage doors closed, the egg jumped again, and a small fissure appeared along the front of it. He breathed out hard. Not a good sign. He hustled back to the car. Sophie was in the front seat this time, Nico in the back. Declan struggled to get the engine turned over. Come on, come on …
On the third try, the engine caught. He ground the gas pedal down, and they jerked out of the parking lot. He didn’t slow until they’d put five blocks between them and the garage.
“At the next intersection, take a right,” Nico ordered from the backseat.
“Got it,” Declan said.
“What were those things?” Sophie asked again. “Do you think … were they the creatures?”
“Their babies, maybe.” His mind leapt to the henhouse at his aunt’s place, the way the hens would attack anyone who got too close to their nests. Glancing back in the rearview mirror, Declan could have sworn he caught a flash of movement in the tangle of trees lining the road. After making the turn, he sped up and said, “Lots of warning before the next one, yeah?”
“Sure,” Nico said. “It’s a few blocks down.”
“Brilliant,” Declan muttered. The sooner they got to Nico’s dad’s place the better.
The fence bowed for a second, resisting, then gave way with a piercing shriek of shearing metal. It split around them, the ragged edges scraping along the top of the sedan. Anat winced at the sound but slammed her foot on the gas.
On the other side of the fence was a large open parking lot. She kept the pedal floored and the car lunged forward.
Another howl from behind them.
Anat glanced back. The thing was tangled up in the slashed fence, fighting to free itself. She counted three more figures in the distance, a hundred meters behind the lot.
Yosh made a strange noise. Anat glanced in the rearview mirror.
“What?” Anat demanded.
Yosh didn’t say anything, but tears streamed down her cheeks. Anat couldn’t worry about it now—they were far from home free. As their car approached the far end of the parking lot, it shuddered and groaned like a living thing.
“Come on,” Anat hissed in Hebrew under her breath. “You can do this.” The gate at the far end was open. She tore through it and spun the wheel left. They bounced onto a long road parallel to the one they’d just escaped, past houses that looked long abandoned.
“We need to find that store,” Anat said. “We need guns to fight those things.”
“I know where the store is,” Yosh said in a small voice.
“What?”
Yosh leaned forward. Her cheeks were wet, but she’d stopped crying. “Take a left on the next street.”
Anat opened her mouth to protest, then realized they didn’t have another option. No matter what, those creatures would catch up to them at any moment. She could only hope that at least one had been seriously injured.
“Turn right here,” Yosh said. “It’s on the other side of the street.”
Anat followed her finger and saw a dimmed neon sign with a bullseye that read, MIDDLE ISLAND GUN RANGE.
She jerked the wheel left, and the car bounced violently over bumpy pavement. She drove straight to the front door, nearly crashing into it before screeching to a halt. “Come on,” she said, already halfway out of the car. She threw open the back door and yanked Yosh out.
Luckily, the front door was unlocked. The plate glass windows had been boarded over, which was both good and bad. Good, in that it would help them hold off whatever was after them. Bad, in that it meant the store might already have been emptied of inventory.
Once she and Yosh were inside, she slammed the door and bolted it. It was heavy, reinforced steel and had a solid lock. With a shaky exhale, Anat leaned her forehead against it. She took a second to collect herself. Then she turned around.
It was pitch black inside. The darkness reminded her of the tunnel, and for a second she felt as if she were being smothered again, like there wasn’t enough air, and the walls were closing in. She drew a few deep breaths to calm herself down. This was nothing like that. In fact, she reminded herself, her current situation was much, much worse.
“First we need to make sure this is the only way in,” she said.
“It is,” Yosh said softly.
“How do you know that?” Anat asked.
Nothing but the sound of soft breathing for a minute, then Yosh said, “I can’t explain how. I just know.”
“We’ll check anyway,” But Yosh was probably right—it would be unusual for a gun shop, especially one with an indoor shooting range, to have more than one entrance. Still, better to be sure. “I will try to find a flashlight.”
She extended her hands out protectively so that she wouldn’t smack into anything. In spite of that, a few yards into the store her hip knocked against something.
“Are you all right?” Yosh asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, groping with her fingers. They slid across something that felt like well-worn wood. “I think I found the counter.”
Yosh didn’t respond; it didn’t sound like she was moving. How had she known where the store was? And that whole thing about the exits, what was that? Something about the girl was seriously off. No matter what, she wasn’t going to let Yosh handle a gun.
Anat felt her way along the hard wooden edge of the counter until she reached the end, then eased down the other side. There she felt cabinets—if this was anything like the ammunition depot at her training camp, they would be locked. She took a deep breath, said a silent prayer, then tried the first handle. The cabinet opened; Anat dug around inside. Her heart leapt: the rattle of boxes filled with ammunition. Now all she had to do was find guns, and, ideally, a flashlight. If only she hadn’t dropped hers back in the tunnel, along with her backpack; she’d had a knife with a serrated edge in there, and some MREs, too. Maybe she would have made a lousy soldier. After all, she’d done exactly what her instructors had warned against, panicking and losing her supplies at the first sign of trouble.
Well, nothing to be done for it now. Anat opened a few more drawers. All were unlocked, but unfortunately most were also empty. In the last one on the left, her fingers finally closed around a hard metal object. She drew it out carefully: a flashlight, she was sure of it. She found the button halfway up the smooth case and pressed it.
Nothing.
Anat cursed under her breath, then tried again. Of course she’d have the bad luck to find a flashlight with dead batteries. Totally useless.
“What’s wrong?” Yosh’s disembodied voice floated out of the darkness.
“I found one, but it doesn’t work,” Anat said resisting the temptation to hurl it across the room.
“Of course it does,” Yosh said. “Give it to me.”
“Why? It won’t make a difference—” She jerked away as small fingers brushed her arm. “It’s just me,” Yosh said in a small voice. “Please?”
Anat hesitated, then handed it over.
Yosh mumbled something under her breath. That was followed by a strange sound, like a small wheel spinning.
“What are you doing?” Anat asked, puzzled. “I told you, it doesn’t—”
A cone of light illuminated Yosh’s face.
Anat’s jaw dropped. “How did you …?”
“It has a crank here, see? In case the batteries are dead.”
Anat squinted. Of course, she should have checked for something like that. Her father had a similar one in their home emergency kit.
“All right,” Anat said, fighting to refocus—the Yosh mystery would have to wait. She held out her hand for the flashlight.
Yosh paused, her eyes flickering. But she handed it over.
Anat panned the beam across the walls. As she’d feared: only
empty pegs in the glass cabinets where a wide assortment of firearms had probably once rested. She rifled through the drawers again. Nearly all of them contained boxes of bullets, but no guns. She did find a few novelty items: ninja throwing stars and a set of brass knuckles. Nothing that would be very useful against the thing that had landed on their car, but she tucked them in her pocket anyway.
“Kus emek,” she finally muttered after checking the last drawer. “Bullets, but no guns. I’ll have to check the range. Do you want to come?”
“I’ll stay,” Yosh said.
“Suit yourself.”
Anat swung the beam across the store. The floor was old linoleum, so worn in places that bare concrete peeped through. She found a door in the back and pushed through.
It led to a small firing range, just four lanes divided by narrow partitions. At the far end, a few ragged targets still hung. They were pocked with holes and browning, the edges curling up.
Anat swung the flashlight across the partitions: nothing, the shelves designed to hold reserve weapons and ammo were all empty. Slowly, she ran the flashlight beam across the lanes toward the targets and back: nothing. And the section of the room she was standing in appeared empty, too.
But she wasn’t about to give up; she’d been coached on being meticulous. One of her instructors talked a lot about the things your eyes were trained to miss, ordinary items that you automatically skipped over unless you took the time to examine everything carefully. Going slower on her second pass through the room, she spotted a small pistol on the floor near the far wall. Hurrying forward, she scooped it up: a standard Glock G21. Anat smiled. She’d trained on this gun; it took .45 automatic bullets. And there had been plenty of those stashed in the drawers.
Scattered on the floor around it were shell casings. Another bad sign. It looked like someone had unloaded on something, then dropped the gun.
Not her concern, Anat reminded herself. She had a real weapon now—that was the important thing.
She hurried back to the front room. Yosh was sitting on top of the counter, swinging her heels. If she was upset about having been left alone in the dark, she didn’t mention it.
“Have you heard anything?” Anat asked, lowering her voice. “From outside?”
Yosh shook her head. “No, but they’re still there. I can tell.”
“We need to talk,” Anat said, panning the flashlight up to Yosh’s face. “Tell me how you know so much.”
Yosh blinked in the light and shrugged. “I can’t explain it. I just know.” She lowered her voice and whispered. “I can hear them, in my head.”
Anat’s grip tightened. “What are you talking about?” Privately, she thought, In her head? She is insane.
“More of them are coming,” Yosh continued, her voice eerily calm. “And they’ll be here soon.”
“Hello?” Nico called out from the front hallway. “Vater?”
Sophie held her breath. Please let him be here. Please let him have a phone …
“I thought his dad was American,” Declan said in a low voice.
Sophie shushed him.
“Wait in there,” Nico said, gesturing to a room on the left before heading for the back of the house.
She and Declan crept into the living room. Spartan was an understatement. Plain white walls, a black walnut floor, a black leather sofa, and matching chair. Everything looked spare and utilitarian—and filthy, illuminated by the bright sunlight pouring through the windows. Not a single picture hung on the walls, not so much as a magazine on the two end tables. Aside from the coating of dust, it was like a spread out of some Scandinavian furniture magazine.
“Cozy,” Declan murmured in her ear.
Sophie repressed a giggle. He seemed to be warming to her again; hopefully he’d forgiven her for last night. “I’d sit, but it doesn’t look like the furniture was designed for that.”
“Definitely not,” he agreed. “Looks like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, eh?”
Nico came back down the hall. “I’m going to check upstairs,” he said, sounding choked up.
Sophie nodded, feeling a pang of empathy for him. Her family was across the country on the west coast, which in some ways made it easier. No chance of tracking them down until they found a functioning phone.
Declan was frowning as he held his cell up again. “The battery’s almost dead,” he explained, catching her expression. “Maybe I should keep it off.”
“Probably a good idea.” Sophie didn’t add what she was thinking, that if none of them had gotten a signal yet, they weren’t likely to. The two of them stood in the middle of the room, listening to Nico upstairs, his voice increasingly desperate. “Vater! Vater!”
“Should we check for a note or something?” she asked, scanning the room. “Maybe he left something behind to tell Nico where he was going.”
The footsteps and shouting stopped.
Declan frowned and called out, “Nico?”
No answer. They looked at each other. Declan’s grip tightened on the hoe he’d carried in from the car.
“I’ll go first. Stay back a bit, and be ready to run.”
Sophie swallowed hard. The stairs were the same dark maple as the living room floor, with no runner. At the top, they hooked right into a long hallway lined with doors, two on each side. The spare motif continued: bare white walls, bare floor. Sophie repressed a shudder. It didn’t feel like a house anyone had ever lived in.
“Nico?” she called out. “Are you okay?”
Still no response.
“Damn, I wish he’d answer,” Declan said in a voice just above a whisper.
She stuck close as they edged down the hall, wishing she had some sort of weapon. Not that she’d be able to use it, but gripping something would probably stop her hands from shaking.
They peeked in the first door on the left: a home office with a bare black desk, black chair, white rug on the black floor. Not a single paper or framed photo in sight.
The room on the right turned out to be a bathroom, done up in black and white tiles. A series of matching towels hung in a perfectly straight row below the sink.
“Model houses have more personality,” Sophie mumbled nervously.
Declan raised a finger to his lips. They tiptoed towards the final two doors. The one on the left opened into a bedroom—Nico’s, probably, since there was evidence that an actual human being had lived there. A checked bedspread on the twin bed, a few posters of sports cars pinned to the walls, a desk overflowing with papers and other paraphernalia.
But no Nico.
They exchanged a glance, then approached the final room. The master bedroom, based on its size. More of the black and white color scheme: a king-size bed that rode low to the floor, a long bench beneath picture windows, and a dresser in the corner. Nico sat on the bed, facing away from them.
Declan heaved a sigh and said, “Feckin’ hell, you scared us.”
Nico didn’t respond. He was holding something in both hands.
Sophie approached him tentatively. From a few feet away, she could see that he was gripping a photo in one hand and some sort of official looking document in the other. “Nico?” she asked gently. “Are you all right?”
“No.” He choked out.
“Can I see?” She reached out her hand.
His cheeks were wet. He wiped them as he handed her the photo: it was printed out on a plain sheet of paper rather than glossy photo stock. It showed a boy in a hospital bed, hooked up to even more machines than she’d been attached to in her last days. With a jolt, she realized it was a photo of him.
“But … when was this taken?” she asked.
Nico shook his head. “I’ve never been in the hospital. Not like this. I broke my wrist when I was twelve, but they sent me home the same day.”
“So no memory of this, then?” Declan asked, peering over her shoulder.
“I said no,” Nico snapped. “That’s not me.”
“Looks just like you,” Decla
n pointed out. “What does the paper say?”
Nico handed it over, but didn’t meet their eyes.
“Bollocks,” Declan said, scanning it quickly. “Says here they were about to pull you off life support.” He held it out for Sophie to see. She recognized it immediately: a standard Do Not Resuscitate order. At the sight of it she shuddered, remembering the awkward conversation she’d had with her parents before signing her own, six weeks ago. Her mother had sat in the chair by her hospital bed the whole time, wringing her hands while silent tears rolled down her face. Easily the worst day of her life, the day when she’d confronted the fact that no miracle was going to save her …
She brushed away the memory. “It must be some sort of mistake.”
“No mistake,” Declan said, shaking his head. “Says that you—Nico Bruder, the name’s right here in black and white—were in an irreversible coma. Stony Brook Medical Center was planning on discontinuing life support on September first. Is this your mother’s signature?”
Nico didn’t respond.
“Your father hadn’t signed it yet, though,” Declan said. “So they were going to pull the plug—”
“Declan,” Sophie said sharply, “stop.”
“But this explains it, right? Why he doesn’t remember anything after hiking in April.” He scrutinized Nico. “So maybe you took a nasty tumble and spent the next few months in a coma.”
“Then how did I wake up in the lab?” Nico snapped. “Why am I here now?”
Declan shrugged. “Dunno. We could ask the same thing about you, right, Sophie?” Seeing her expression, he hastily continued, “No offense, but the both of you were deathly ill, and then you landed here, and … well, you’re a little weak, but otherwise you feel fine, yeah?”
Sophie was thrown. This was something she’d trusted him with; she hadn’t planned on sharing it with the group. Angrily, she shook her head. “That’s different.”
“Is it? Maybe not. Maybe Nico here had a miraculous recovery too.”
“I wasn’t sick,” Nico protested. “And I don’t feel weak.”
“Right.” Declan arched an eyebrow. “I’d think you’d be happy. It’s not every day that you come out of a coma, yeah? So cheers on that. Maybe whatever happened cured the both of yas.”
Strangelets Page 14
