“It’s not. This will be over. I don’t know what the plan is, but there is one.”
“Three by three, you cannot see…”
“What the heck is she singing?” Bonnie asked.
“It’s like the buckle my shoe song.”
“One by one, we all come run…”
“Should I put this away?” Bonnie asked.
“There’s an empty cell next to Sonny’s. We could keep it there.”
“Two by two, we look for you...”
Bonnie lifted the box again and headed in the direction I pointed. A few steps into her walk, she stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Three by three, you cannot see…”
“That son of a bitch,” she said, staring into Sonny’s room.
“What?”
“Those posters, curtains, the Piggy Wiggy blanket?”
“Yeah?”
“I boxed those up when I found them in storage. They were marked Flea Market. Why in the world would Sonny take that from me? I wanted that Magnum PI poster.”
My mouth dropped open. “Alex. He’s such an asshole.”
“Tell me about it. I should have—” Her eyes widened. “Do you smell that?”
“One by One, we all come run…”
My hand went to my mouth and nose.
“Mera!” one of the kids yelled. “I think someone needs a diaper change.”
“That’s not a diaper,” Bonnie said with wide eyes and flew into Sonny’s room to dump the box. “Sleepers.”
“Two by two, we look for you...”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’ll lock the door. Get the kids in the center.”
I rushed to the window.
“Three by three, you cannot see…”
If I thought there were a lot around Grace, I was mistaken. Outside, at least from what I could see, was no less than a sea of Sleepers.
I flew from that room yelling, “Everybody in the center!” and I made it across the area to another window.
There were just as many. You could see them, hear them, and more than anything, you could smell them. The stench of the Sleepers crept into the building. There weren’t hundreds, there were thousands.
As I registered the incomprehensible number of the Sleepers I also registered something else... Jessie’s singing.
“One by One, we all come run…”
Suddenly it sounded eerie.
“Two by two, we look for you...”
Hypnotic.
“Three by three, you cannot see…”
It sent chills up my spine, especially when she repeated the last line.
“Four by four, we come to the door.”
I raced toward the dorm just as Bonnie slammed our main door.
Then Jessie screamed, a loud, bloodcurdling scream.
I ran into the dorm to see her sitting on the bed, holding her ears and rocking back and forth.
“Make him stop, Mommy. Make him stop!” she cried.
“Who, Jessie?” I grabbed her hands and pulled them down from her face. “Make who stop?”
“Make him stop!”
“Who, baby, who?”
She locked yes with me. “Phoenix.”
I looked across the room and sure enough, Phoenix was staring out the window.
“He’s telling them to come, Mommy. Make him stop!”
I ran to Phoenix and grabbed him.
“He’s telling them to come for us!”
Just as I lifted Phoenix, I looked out the window in horror.
Whether Phoenix was calling them or not, the sea of Sleepers was now a tsunami rolling our way in a devastating wave.
41. SONNY
“On my call, squads three and two!” Beck blasted on the radio. “Detonate… now!”
A single war cry, demonic in sound, was the starting bell and the Sleepers surged forward.
Danny said they were at least two football fields deep all round the camp.
We actually were ready.
The explosions rang out sequentially. If the circle of Sleepers were the face of a clock it started at twelve and every two seconds it made its way around the circumference of the building.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Huge pockets of Sleepers exploded, limbs and various other body parts flew upwards and out. The explosions were working, but it didn’t stop them. They charged forward, not running. Not yet.
If the Sleepers felt confident that we were going to use all we had, they apparently didn’t know Beck.
He, Alex and I had spent the night setting up charges beyond the fence. It was nothing short of a mine field. Rows of explosives.
“Round two!” Beck ordered. “Now!”
Second wave. More Sleepers went down.
More kept coming.
“Get ready with that, Sonny,” Beck said. “Do not hit it until they are on it.”
“Got it. There’s a two second delay,” I told him as I held the box to charge the fence.
“Then time it right.” Beck peered out. “Round three. Get ready.”
I was not round three; I was the fourth line of defense. Our shooters, our small army, ready and aiming, would take out any and every one that they could.
It was not conceivable to me, given the amount of Sleepers, that we were going to get them all. I had faith in my fence that they wouldn’t get in.
The third and final round of explosions rang out.
The ones still ambulatory stepped over their dead counterparts and then they stopped.
Ten feet from the fence.
“What are they doing?” Beck whispered. “What are they doing?”
My finger was ready.
“Beck,” Danny called on the radio. “When do we shoot?”
“Wait for my order. Hold your fire. Get em in your scope. Do not waste shots, gentlemen.”
There were maybe thirty seconds of silence and then another damnation scream and the remaining Sleepers didn’t walk, they charged forward at full speed.
“Now, Sonny!” Beck yelled.
Please work, I thought and hit the button.
It was the Fourth of July in October because the second they slammed into the fence in a vain attempt to climb, the fence went live.
It sounded like firecrackers, the continuous snapping, the blue flashes of light. Sleepers screamed and were ejected off that fence as fast as they hit it.
The best part about it was, they weren’t getting it. They didn’t understand.
The first wave went down, the second wave came in and snap, crackle, pop, they went down as well.
Fried.
I could smell them. A barbecue of sour and bad meat.
Snap. Snap. Snap. Crack.
Fourth wave. The mound of bodies grew.
“Don’t lower your weapons,” I told Beck. “If they create a big enough mound, the others will climb over the bodies.”
“And hop the fence,” Beck said. “Yeah, I’m seeing that.”
That was what they were doing. But the back end of Sleepers, those who survived, were thinning out.
“Danny,” Beck radioed. “How’s it looking to the West?”
“Beautiful. Some are stuck to the fence, though, and they are still moving.”
“Alex, East? Report.”
“Frying nicely. I’m a little concerned they’re making a grounding wall out of themselves.”
“Me, too. Tony, North. Report.”
“Going, down, Major, Going down.”
It wasn’t long, I figured, before the mound of bodies was indeed big enough for them to make the jump.
We waited. Everyone aimed.
And then… it stopped.
The surviving Sleepers walked away from the fence and went back to their starting positions. They stumbled over bodies, took their original spots and turned around, staring again.
There weren’t as many, but there were still a lot.
“What the hell?”
“Wha
t are the orders, Major?” Tony called out.
Beck brought the radio to his mouth. “Keep watching.”
I switched off the juice to the fence but wasn’t keeping my finger far from the button. I saw Levi come from the building.
“Levi!” Beck blasted him. “Get your ass back inside!”
“I need to speak to you. It’s important,” Levi said.
“I’m dealing with this right now.”
“What I have to say may help.”
Beck brought the radio up. “Alex, can you come down here? It’s important.”
Knowing Alex wasn’t the only person holding that position, I knew he would. He arrived in under a minute.
My eyes stayed primarily on the Sleepers. “Fuck,”
“What?” Beck asked.
“More are coming.”
And they were. Filing in from all directions.
“What is this shit?” Beck asked.
“There’s a beacon,” Levi said. “A scary one.”
“What’s happening?” Alex said as he arrived. “More are coming. We have to get in position.”
“I’ll do this quickly,” Levi explained. “I know how to send them back. Give us a reprieve to regroup. But first, time travel wasn’t invented until hundreds of years from now.”
“Aw, what the hell?” Alex snapped. “Time travel again…”
“This is important!” Levi barked. “Listen to me. Phoenix is calling them. So get the baby to Phoenix and tell him to tell them to stop.”
“This is ridiculous,” Beck said. “The baby is calling them?”
“No, Phoenix is calling them. The baby can stop it.” Levi handed Beck a clipboard. “Not that I expect you to understand that. That is a blood work breakdown from blood samples. That is Phoenix’s blood. DNA match, everything.”
“Okay.” Beck returned the clipboard. “My son is here.”
“I didn’t take your son’s blood yesterday; I didn’t need to. That was from a new, unmarked tube. I thought it was an error but it wasn’t. We took that blood yesterday. That is not the baby’s blood. That is from someone in this camp. An adult male.”
My eyes shifted from the growing number of oncoming Sleepers to Levi. “What are you saying?”
Levi answered. “My time machine is controlled. The one you told Randy to bring is not. So, by doing that you started time travel early.”
Alex groaned. “No, don’t tell me. Sonny. What the hell did he do?”
“Opened the door,” Levi answered. “So twenty, thirty years from now, the ability to travel is there. And he came through to ensure a short and victorious war, doing his damage early as an adult.”
I closed my eyes briefly, then peered back out to the growing number of Sleepers on our horizon.
No wonder they were getting the best of us, no wonder they knew what we were thinking and doing.
He was among us.
Trusted.
Helping them from inside our walls.
Phoenix.
Sleepers 4 Page 17
