“One of them almost got our friend,” Sully said. “We drove a truck into it and pinned it to the wall of the gravel office, then used this cement mixer to get away.”
The officer nodded. “Good for you. But you need to get inside. The high school’s set up as a shelter. What are you doing out here? Did you run out of gas or something?”
“Oh, my God.” Hunter stepped from behind the mixer holding out the Slate Grays. “It worked. Oh, my God, it worked.”
Sully gaped at the Slate Grays. Their deep, rich color was restored.
“And you know what? I can’t sing worth a damn.” Hunter belted out a few lines of a song Sully didn’t recognize. She was right, she wasn’t very good. “It’s like I never burned them.”
The police cruiser’s door slammed. “What the hell is going on here?” The officer approached Hunter, frowning. “What happened to you? Are you the one who was almost eaten? Did it infect you or something?”
“It’s makeup for a school play,” Dom blurted.
The officer reached out to Hunter, swept his finger across her cheek, examined his finger. “That’s not makeup.”
“It’s waterproof. Spray-on,” Dom said.
The officer studied Hunter. The name badge pinned over his shirt pocket said WILKES.
As if she could care less about the police officer, Hunter turned to Sully. “Where are the spent Midnight Blues? We have to get them.”
She was right. That was all that mattered now. If they went to the shelter, Mandy might be able to get medical attention, but people were dying, and they might be able to stop it.
Sully tried to remember where the Midnight Blues were. He’d been holding them when the gate opened. Had he dropped them right away?
“Come on,” Officer Wilkes said. “I’m going to take you somewhere safe, or as safe as we’ve got, and you can explain what you’re doing out here and why this girl looks the way she does.”
“Look,” Dom said. He stepped close to Wilkes. “We need your help. We may know how to stop this, if you can get us to the city.”
“Stop what?” Wilkes asked.
“All of this.” Dom swept a hand at the sky. “All the dying.”
Scowling, Wilkes studied each of them in turn. “Are you all high?”
“No, we’re not high.” Dom took a deep breath, clearly trying to control the wild sense of urgency he felt. “We know how this whole thing got started, and we may know how to stop it—”
“The whole invasion? You may know how to stop the invasion of Earth?”
“Look out.” Hunter pointed down the road at a harvester coming their way. Its neck was crooked, its face bent to the right.
Sully looked at Officer Wilkes’s teeth. They were impressive. White and straight. “I’m pretty sure it’s coming for you.”
Wilkes looked at Sully like Sully had lost his mind. Then he ran for his cruiser. They needed that cruiser, but stopping Wilkes would be the same as killing him, so Sully watched as he made a frantic U-turn and peeled out.
The wounded harvester slithered past without slowing. For a moment, Sully watched—it blended into the blacktop so well it almost looked as if the road itself was moving. It slammed into the nose of the cement mixer, shifted course, and slithered around it. When harvesters were moving slowly, Sully had seen them use their tentacles to avoid obstacles. But they were rarely moving slowly.
“Let’s go!” Dom shouted from the cement mixer. “We have to find a faster vehicle. We can drop Mandy with her parents on the way.”
As they climbed inside, Mandy said, “I’m staying right here.”
“No you’re not,” Dom said. “You’re hurt. You could be bleeding internally or something.”
“Oh, there’s a cheery thought.”
Sully thought she looked a little better. She was clearly in pain, but the glassy sheen was gone from her eyes.
“I’m not leaving you guys,” Mandy said. “A few more hours won’t matter. Just get us back to the city.”
CHAPTER 33
On the radio, a breathless announcer was assuring people who’d never burned spheres that they were safe and should report to their local police station to help with the crisis. Sully tried to remember what percentage of the U.S. population had never burned spheres, not even the common ones you could buy for a hundred bucks. Was it even ten percent? Certainly no more than that. In poorer countries, where a lot of found spheres were exported to the U.S. and Europe, they’d face better odds.
Dom slowed the Volvo station wagon they’d taken after kicking down the front door of a dark house and locating the key. In the trunk were an ax and some two-by-fours they’d found in the garage.
“Shit. There’s another,” Dom said. “What color is that?”
Sully studied the harvester heading toward them, right down the center lane of I-87.
“Indigo,” Sully said. Better eyesight. They’d all burned Indigo, except Mandy.
Dom leaned forward, gripped the wheel with both hands, and accelerated. The whine of the engine grew higher as Dom steered right at the harvester, as if they were playing a game of chicken.
The harvester kept coming; it might have sped up in its eagerness to reach them, but it was hard to tell.
“Wait till the very last second,” Sully said.
“I know, I know.” If Dom signaled his move too early, the harvester would move to block him.
Hunter clutched Sully’s leg; Sully wrapped his arms around her, unable to look away as the harvester bore down on them, looming….
Dom jerked the wheel left, then straightened as the Volvo fishtailed.
Sully looked back. The harvester was turning to give chase, but it had no chance of catching them.
If they broke down, they were dead. The harvesters were getting thicker by the mile as they headed toward the city, and they were seeing more of the rarer colors, the ones they’d burned. They’d spotted a Chocolate twenty minutes earlier. Sully had no idea how they were going to make it back into Holliday’s to retrieve the spent Midnight Blues. They’d need a tank to keep the harvesters away.
It occurred to Sully that they didn’t have to be the ones who personally retrieved the Midnight Blues. It could be someone else, someone who hadn’t burned any spheres, who wasn’t in danger of being swallowed. Such as his friends at the Garden Apartments. Mike hadn’t burned any spheres as far as Sully knew. Laurie had burned Army Greens. He wasn’t sure about the others.
“I think I have an idea,” Sully said.
—
As soon as they left the interstate, a Periwinkle harvester slithered from behind Walmart and headed toward them. Dom took off, but it was harder to build up speed on the surface roads. Other drivers were on the road to avoid harvesters, weaving among abandoned vehicles, most of which had one broken window where a harvester had extracted the occupants.
The Periwinkle harvester was a few hundred yards behind when Hunter shouted, “Another!”
A Cream glided out of a crossing road.
Cursing, Dom hung a right. “This was a mistake. Even if we make it to the apartments, how are we going to stop long enough to pick someone up?”
Sully hadn’t thought that part through. Their phones hadn’t worked since before they reached the gravel office in Rhinebeck, so he couldn’t call his friends.
“All right,” Sully said. “Let’s head back to the interstate. We’ll have to get the Midnight Blues ourselves.” He didn’t know how they were going to do that. There were even more harvesters in the city. There’d been so many people for the harvesters to prey on at first that they’d been able to slip through the cracks at the outset, but that wouldn’t be the case now.
Dom turned right, barely slowing. The turn was wide; the Volvo jumped partway over the curb and onto the grass before Dom straightened it out. The Cream harvester loomed in the rear window, its tentacles brushing their bumper. Dom swerved around a truck stranded in the left lane and gunned it. A half mile on, they hit the on-ramp for the
interstate, and the harvesters fell behind.
Hunter lifted Sully’s hand and kissed it. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I was so sure I knew what I was doing.”
“We were all fooled,” Sully said. “The whole world.”
Still squeezing Sully’s hand, Hunter looked out the window. “I thought the marbles were the best thing. It turns out you’re the best thing.”
Sully brushed her golden braids, kissed her temple.
Outside, moons filled the sky with brilliant colors. Here and there, harvesters rose like giant black eels.
A bulldozer was keeping the Tappan Zee Bridge clear, dozing empty vehicles over the railings and into the Hudson. Dom honked thanks as he passed. The bulldozer operator must have been one of the volunteers who hadn’t burned any spheres.
As they pulled off the West Side Highway, Sully spotted twenty or thirty harvesters surrounding a school with boarded-up windows. Automatic rifle fire lit the air; one of the harvesters shuddered as bullets ripped into it. The school must be a refugee center.
“Should we make a run for the place?” Dom said. “We could get soldiers with rifles and flamethrowers to help us.”
“They look barricaded in,” Hunter said. “What if they’re full, and they don’t open the doors when we get there?”
“If we get there,” Mandy muttered from the back.
The area around the school was thick with harvesters. Sully hoped Holliday’s wasn’t, because Holliday’s should be empty.
They reached Fifth Avenue. The street was deserted, at least of people. A Seafoam Green harvester was pressed against the wall of an apartment building, its tentacles inside an apartment three stories up. Its back twitched and fluttered as it pushed deeper inside, going after someone. Another was chasing a woman on a motorcycle.
“Get low,” Dom said as Holliday’s appeared on their right. Dom jerked the wheel, accelerated right for the building.
Sully ducked into the seat beside Hunter, as low as the seat belt would allow, and squeezed his eyes shut.
The car hit the curb. An instant later, it crashed through whatever glass and steel was still intact in Holliday’s big front window.
When Sully opened his eyes, the Volvo was idling on the showroom floor. He immediately heard the muffled wails that meant a harvester fat with victims was nearby. From the number of screaming voices it sounded like more than one harvester, but he couldn’t tell how many.
“Harvesters.” He turned to Hunter. “You hear that?”
Hunter nodded.
“Here, take this.” Mandy pushed the ax at him.
Sully grabbed it, leaped out, scanned the floor for the Midnight Blues.
They were nowhere in sight.
“Where did you drop them?” Hunter asked.
Sully pointed. “Right there.” He’d been at the back of the crowd watching what was going on outside. He remembered looking down at the Midnight Blues and realizing he didn’t need them, so he’d tossed them to the floor.
A thunk echoed from deeper inside the building.
Another.
A harvester, slamming into steel.
“Where could they be?” Dom asked.
Sully had trouble imagining anyone bothering to pick up used spheres with everything that was happening.
Anyone, that is, except someone who recognized how important they were. “Holliday.”
The thunk came again.
“Harvester.” Dom pointed.
It was slithering down the wall from the second level, heading toward them.
Sully followed Hunter to a door marked STAIRS and rushed inside. Dom came last, pulling the door closed behind him. They’d left Mandy lying in the back of the Volvo with a broken leg, or hip, or something. God, Sully hoped she’d be all right.
As they climbed the stairs, Sully pictured the space outside Holliday’s office. It was wide open, with high glass ceilings. More than big enough for harvesters.
Even with the Chocolates and Creams Sully had burned, he was gasping for air by the time they reached the tenth floor. They huddled around the door as Dom cracked it open.
The lobby was packed with harvesters. They were climbing all over each other: Army Green and Mint, Violet and Peach; it looked as if every color was there. A Cranberry slammed into the door to Holliday’s office. The door was partially caved in, its top hinge snapped. There was a three- or four-inch breach through which Sully could see the ceiling inside Holliday’s office.
The stairwell door slammed closed with a tremendous bang, throwing Dom backward. A harvester had slammed into it.
The full weight of their situation hit Sully. They were trapped in the stairwell, with harvesters waiting at both ends. They didn’t know for sure that Holliday had the Midnight Blues, and even if he did, they had no way to get to them.
His friends looked as hopeless as he felt. Dom was staring, dead-eyed, down the stairwell.
A harvester hammered the door again. Sully heard one slam into Holliday’s door as if in answer.
Sully pushed the door open a few inches and shouted, “Holliday!”
“Sullivan?” Alex Holliday shouted back.
“Do you have the Midnight Blues? We think we know how to stop them.”
Holliday gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, really? Sure, I’ve got them. Come on over, I’d be happy to let you have them.”
The door slammed shut as another harvester hit it. Sully opened it again.
Gunshots rang out. Sully flinched, sure that Holliday or one of his men was shooting at him, but the shots were aimed at a Forest Green harvester. It moved away, seemingly unharmed. Sully wondered if Holliday even cared that there were people inside some of these things.
“We have to figure this out!” Sully called. “We’re talking about a billion lives.”
“One of those lives happens to be mine, and I’m quite fond of it!” Holliday shouted back. “I’ll tell you what, though.” His face appeared in the breach in the door, and was quickly replaced by his hand, clutching a Midnight Blue sphere.
He flung the Midnight Blue through the gap. It bounced once, rolled halfway to Sully.
The other followed, rolling to a stop a little farther, maybe thirty feet away.
“I hope you burned some Seafoams,” Holliday said.
Sully felt a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get them.” It was Dom.
Sully shook his head. “I’ll do it. Just help Hunter stay safe.”
The door slammed shut again. There was a distinct crunch this time as a crease formed toward the top.
“What if we find some rope and rig a line with some kind of rake on the end to drag the spheres to us?” Hunter said.
That sounded great to Sully. Only, where could they find rope? Sully looked down the stairwell for a box with a fire hose folded up in it. The walls were bare as far down as he could see. Somewhere in the store they must have had ribbon for gift wrapping, though.
On the other side of the door, there was a bang, and the screech of twisting metal. Holliday shouted in alarm. Gunshots rang out.
“Sullivan!” Holliday screamed. “David!”
Sully opened the door and peered out. The center hinge on the door to Holliday’s office had torn free; the door itself was partially folded and stuffed through the doorway. A Copper harvester hit it. It shuddered, bent a few inches farther.
“Come on, David. Get the Midnight Blues.”
“You get them!” Dom shouted. “Come on, you’re safer over here anyway.”
A Cranberry harvester surged into the breach in Holliday’s door. Gunshots rang out as it wedged itself into the space. The back half of it thrashed, straining to push through the gap. If it remained stuck, Holliday was in luck—it would block the rest of the harvesters from reaching him.
The Cranberry harvester jerked forward a few feet before getting stuck again.
Then it broke free, disappearing inside Holliday’s office.
“Sullivan!” More gunshots.
Then silence.
A harvester hit the stairwell door; the crease in the center grew deeper and more ragged. This door wasn’t nearly as strong as the one to Holliday’s office.
Another harvester hit the door almost immediately. A sliver of daylight appeared between the door and the molding. The harvesters didn’t have Holliday to distract them any longer; they were all focused on Sully and his friends.
“I gotta go now,” Dom said, pulling Sully away from the door. “Close it behind me, but be ready to open it when I yell so I don’t have to slow down.”
Another harvester hit the door.
“You warned me not to mess with the Midnight Blues,” Hunter said. “It makes no sense for you to go. I’ll go.”
“I’ll go,” Sully said. “We need to keep Hunter safe.”
Dom grabbed Sully by the collar and shoved him, hard. “Just be ready to let me back in, goddammit.” He opened the door a foot, looked around, and took off.
Half the harvesters in sight turned and surged toward Dom as he sprinted for the Midnight Blues.
“Oh, God. Dom,” Hunter said as Dom bent and scooped up the closer one, then scrambled to the other, sliding on one knee and sweeping the sphere up.
As he turned toward the door, a harvester snared him around the neck. Dom reached up, tried to tear the barbed appendage off. Two more tentacles snared him, around the waist and one calf.
As he was dragged toward the harvester’s mouth, Dom underhanded the Midnight Blues toward the door.
Sully burst out and scrambled for the Midnight Blues, with Hunter right behind him. He grabbed one and shoved it at Hunter, who already had the other. Then he raced toward Dom, ax in hand, as the last of Dom—his booted foot—disappeared inside the harvester.
“No.” Sully swung the ax; it sank into the harvester to the hilt, spraying a clear, oily liquid. Wrenching the ax free, Sully swung again and hit the harvester in the same spot.
He felt the sting of a harvester’s tentacle as it whipped around his knee and yanked. Sully dropped the ax as he hit the floor. He dug at the tiles, trying to pull away as the harvester dragged him toward its waiting mouth.
Burning Midnight Page 23
