Vacation

35. 6:07 A.M.

Morning. Jack tried to force himself to stop pacing.

Christie led the kids out in their PJs, Simon’s with the Avengers battling a bad guy, Kate in a purple T with matching pajama bottoms.

He wanted to tell them before they got dressed. Give it a few minutes to sink in.

Get dressed, because we have something to do.

Simon flipped the pages of one of his comics while he sat down by his sister.

“Why are we up so early?” Kate said. “Some vacation.”

Christie didn’t say anything but sat down beside her daughter.

Jack would give every dime he had for the mindless sound of a TV in the living room, blaring cartoons, news, infomercials—any goddamn thing.

And as he waited, walking from the living room to the bedroom for absolutely nothing, he checked the windows.

The guards had gone.

That was good.

No daytime guards watching over all the Paterville campers.

Things getting back to normal.

He turned to Simon, then Kate. Their faces finally registering that something was wrong with their father.

“We have to leave—”

“Leave?” Simon said. “But I like—”

Jack crouched down close to Simon, giving Kate a look as well.

“We have to leave, Si. There are bad people here. We have to go.”

Neither of the kids said anything.

Then Kate, in a small voice, said. “Bad people. You mean…”

He shot a glance at Christie, who gave Kate’s hand a squeeze. Then amazingly, miraculously, Kate understood. Don’t ask that question. Not with Simon sitting so close. The squeeze signaling, Be strong if you can be.

Outside, the sky had lightened some more.

It was time to go.

Instead, they all heard a knock on their door.

There was time for just one more look at Christie before he went to answer it.

Shana stood there.

“Morning, Jack.”

Christie had come up behind him. He saw Shana keep her smile as she looked from Jack to his wife lurking just behind him.

“Um… morning. Really early. Anything wrong?”

Her eyes went wide. “Wrong? Don’t think so. Ed just asked me if I could hustle down here first thing and see if you had a minute to chat with him.” Another big smile. “I just do what the big boss says.”

Jack gestured back at the interior of the cabin. “I was about to take my daughter to the game room.”

“How nice. Dad and daughter.”

He wanted to say no. No way was he going up to the lodge.

But would that be normal? Kate was not ready yet. The request seemed innocuous. He turned to Christie to see what she might say.

“If it’s only a minute.”

As if that decided it, Shana turned, and started to lead the way.

Jack said quietly, “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.”

He followed Shana.

“You okay, Jack? Seem a little tense…”

Shana walked close, almost sliding into him as they walked to the lodge.

Why this escort? he wondered. Another opportunity for Shana to play with him?

“How come he didn’t come down to see me?”

“Ed? I imagine he had something that you needed to see. I don’t know. State troopers coming soon. Another sideways glance. “You seem a little tense, Jack. A little tight.”

“Yeah. Well, I didn’t bargain on dealing with a Can Head attack when I came here.”

“Oh, that was rare. Trust me. Never happens. Ne-ver. Almost like it was something special.”

She stopped at the bottom of the steps to the lodge.

“Just for you…”

“What?”

Special?

Just for you?

“Gotta run. Lot of repairs we’re doing today. And we’re down a few people.”

She started away.

Jack walked up the steps.

“Have a seat, Jack.”

“I’m good. Look—”

“I know. You want to get back to your family. I get that. But listen.”

Lowe stood up and walked close to Jack. His gut strained against his pants and his plaid shirt.

The closeness of Lowe, the size of the room, all made Jack feel dizzy.

“Have you thought more about what we talked about? Last night?”

“No.”

A big Ed Lowe smile. “Wish you would, my friend. You could be great here. Your family. Plenty to eat.”

“We do okay.”

“And tell me, do you really want them to be outside, those gorgeous kids of yours?”

Small bodies behind Sharon Blair, swinging on meat hooks.

Gorgeous kids.

“I take care of them.”

“But you think this is all over? That it will all end soon? More and more Can Heads every day, Jack. Every damn day! They’re winning. And soon, places like Paterville will be the only refuge. A last stand. And trust me, Jack. We are ready.”

A last stand? Can Heads on the outside, and Can Heads inside. Except here, they can smile, talk. As if they had made a choice what side they were on.

“You forget. My job is stopping them.”

A bigger smile from Lowe.

“Jack, do you know what did this? What changed the world?”

“The drought. That, or all the strange playing with DNA, the weird genetics.”

“Pick a theory, Jack. What’s your favorite? ’Cause, you see, it doesn’t much matter. It is whatever the hell it is. This is the world. I’m afraid if people like you don’t get that, then you can join the dinosaurs.”

“We done here?”

“Stay, Jack. Your wife can enjoy the lake. Kids, the clean air. We’re just beginning our little experiment here.”

Experiment? Lowe didn’t even bother to use the word “camp.”

Did Lowe know something? The air grew thicker as if filled with an unbreathable dust.

He had to fight the urge to say anything.

Lowe laughed. “Your final answer, Jack? No?”

“You got it. Just want to enjoy the rest of my vacation…”

Did the lie pass?

“… then go back to the real world.”

Lowe’s smile faded. “This is the real world, Jack.”

“Right.”

Jack turned, and gasping for air, left Lowe’s office, hurrying down the hallway filled with offices, all with closed doors, to the reception area of the lodge.

Was everyone looking at him?

Or did he just feel like everyone was?

Jack walked into his cabin and Shana stood there, waiting for them.

He stopped and looked around, finally calling out. “Christie, kids?”

“They’re not here.”

He went up to Shana and wrapped a hand around her upper arm, squeezing. “Where the hell are they? Where’d they go?”

“Oh, now you want to get physical?”

He squeezed harder.

“Starting to pinch, Jack.”

“Where the fuck is my family?”

“Not here, obviously. Wish you had accepted Ed’s offer. You could have such a good time here with us. Life, as they say, can be good.”

Jack’s other hand went to her throat. “I will ask you one more time, bitch—where is my family?”

Her eyes moved slightly to the side. Jack sensed movement, then realized that she wasn’t alone in the room.

A stupid mistake on his part.

He released her arm, ready to grab the gun from his ankle holster, when a needle jabbed into the back of his neck.

“What?”

He spun around. A guard backing away, lowering his gun.

But already the syringe started to work.

Jack’s hand went to the back of his head, feeling the needle still sticking in there like a dart.

Looking forward, Shana turned blurry. No longer smiling. Her mouth open.

No, he thought. Christ, no.

His last thought as he fell to the floor, and everything went black.

36. 4:47 P.M.

Voices.

“Fuck it. We can eat, then come back and get to him. If Lowe lets us.”

Jack remembered the smell. He knew where he was. The charnel house, the cookery.

He wanted to open his eyes, but then those voices around him would know that he was conscious.

So he kept his head down, locked in the same position, his brain throbbing from whatever cocktail they had stuck into him.

One voice—the cook’s.

“C’mon, just leave that shit for now.”

Another voice, closer. “Think we can do it when we get back? Lowe won’t—”

Dunphy laughed. “Best not fucking guess what Lowe will or won’t do. Best you just shut up and cut when I say cut. Capiche?”

“Yeah. I… er… whatever you say.”

Another booming laugh from the cook.

Two of them. Leaving from the sound of it.

Jack tried to get a sense of what his situation was without any discernible movement.

On a hard back chair.

Hands tied tightly to the back. Another rope wrapped tightly around his chest. His feet pulled tight, each one tied to a chair leg.

Tied up, trussed, and ready to go.

He knew that the freezer was nearby.

He thought of Christie. The kids.

No, he begged.

No. They can’t be in there.

If they were… if they were—he’d slaughter every person, every human animal that lived here.

They have to be alive.

Otherwise, he’d be dead already.

They want me to stay here, to help them.

Lowe wouldn’t kill his only bargaining chip.

That’s what he told himself. The logic of it clear. But then other thoughts, a voice that said, does logic work here? Does logic and reason and empathy—does any of that human shit work in this hell?

“C’mon, asshole,” Dunphy barked one last time.

The sound of a door. A bit of air, then the air cut off. The door closing.

Jack sat there, head down. And waited.

Counting. To one thousand, so he would force himself not to rush. 998… 999… 1000.

Slowly, Jack opened his eyes, keeping his head in the same position.

The cookery came into view, his eyelids a slowly raising curtain.

Seeing it made the smells seem more intense.

Now to raise his head.

He did that slowly as well.

Until he had his head up and could look around at the place, turn his head and see the tables, now with fresh carcasses on them.

Please, he begged. Please.

The angle bad. But one table had a larger body, an adult. The other, someone smaller.

Almost crying with the pitiful thought now. Please.

He kept staring at the inert, partially dismembered bodies.

The adult. A woman. The shape round. Someone not too big, someone round.

Not Christie.

He thanked whatever had granted him his pleading wish.

Only then did he look over to the other table. A small body. Impossible to tell anything more than that.

Impossible from this chair.

I have to get out of this chair.

For the next few seconds, his entire being focused on that one task, one that he refused to admit was impossible.

The chair stood near the table that had been his hiding place the night before.

A time that seemed weeks, months, a lifetime away.

He faced out, toward the main area of the cookery, facing the freezer.

He couldn’t turn and see behind him.

But he remembered crouching near here, and seeing the butcher’s knife on the floor.

Somehow a knife had slipped off the table and no one had seen it. Not in their alcohol haze, not with so many blades and saws arrayed on the walls of the room.

What’s one knife on the floor?

Would it still be there? No way to tell. Impossible for him to see.

He tried to think if he had other possibilities.

He had been tugging and wrenching at the ropes around his wrists. But they were tight; whoever had tied him up was competent. And the same went for the lashing of his feet to the chair legs.

Some kind of strong elastic band went around his midsection, knotted behind him.

How long would Dunphy be gone to the lodge, to check on the food being served, grab a plate himself?

Something nice and meaty tonight.

How fucking long?

He came back to the only possibility. That knife, if it was still there. That was the chance. No other possibility at all.

Jack started rocking his body back and forth.

The chair would rise a bit at the front, steady, then lift up from the back. Jack had no control other than to make his body move, to get enough momentum so that the chair would tip and eventually fall to the ground.

But how would it tip? Could it leave him pinned in a weird way, unable to move, a pointless maneuver?

My only chance, he thought, ignoring all the mental pictures that had him trapped, an upside-down horseshoe crab, waiting for the fat cook to return, and maybe start to work on him right there.

Back and forth, the movements so small. But he found a rhythm; he could build some momentum. The lifts of the front, then the back legs. Higher each time.

Until he knew he was close.

More rocking, using the scant movement all the ropes and lashings gave him.

And then he felt it.

The chair starting to fall over, not to the front or the back, but a strange sideways slip. All he could do was let it happen as the chair banged against the table, his head smacking hard against the edge, then slipping down to the cookery’s floor.

He looked left. Fresh blood spatters. He realized after a moment that they were his own.

The chair had landed on its side. Jack looked around to the right, trying to see a side wall of the building.

Please be there, he thought.

Straining as much as possible, he saw it. The beautiful shining silver of the blade, the dull black of the handle.

His right leg on the floor, his weight on it.

The foot was nearly immobilized, but there was some room for movement in the leg. Again, only inches.

He heard voices.

Outside.

Dunphy back?

But the voices moved on.

He couldn’t have much time.

The leg kicked. More pathetic miniscule movements.

Kick. Kick. Kick

Over and over. Gaining mere inches. But he kept doing it, barely aware that this was his fucked-up leg. Barely aware of anything but this need to contract, relax, using this pathetic kicking movement to move the chair inches closer to the knife, the chair that seemed to weigh a ton.

He paid no attention to the progress he made. As though the only thing in the universe that could bring him pleasure was each small kick, giddy with ecstasy every time he came closer to the knife.

His sole obsession: to kick, to move.

He saw the blade near his head. That made him only kick more. He had to get past the blade, yes… get it closer to his hands.

Taking so long. Too long. No way he’d make it.

Fuck that idea, he thought.

I’ll make it.

He couldn’t get his head in position to see if he was close enough. It would be a guess, an estimate of how far he had come.

He might have only one chance.

He stopped.

Was the knife close in line with his tied hands?

Because, he thought, while my wrists are lashed tight to the chair… my fingers, my palm—they are goddamned free.

He looked around and saw the other end of the table nearby, a foot away.

An estimate.

He guessed he was close to the knife.

Now, more rocking, leaning left and right, needing to get the chair’s back to edge closer to where he thought the knife was. Then, more inaccurate kicking, using his weight, his legs.

Fingers scratched desperately against the floor, feeling nothing.

Again, more rocking, more crazy grasping with his fingers.

Then, a different sensation. Metal.

Another kick, and his right hand briefly grasped the blade, felt the sharp metal dig into the soft skin of his fingertips.

No matter; he was close.

One hand would have to hold the knife. By the handle or by the blade—it didn’t matter—then slowly saw the rope. Ignoring the metal if it slid past the rope and bit into his hand, his wrist.

Another crazed grasp and his right hand locked around the knife, partly around the handle, partly around the blade.

Now his fingers had to perform a weird fumbling, knowing that the knife could simply slip away. More guesses as he positioned it, hoping he had the knife tip resting against rope.

His palm and fingers could make the blade go back and forth with only the smallest movements.

His new obsession now, and he thought of nothing else but this movement.

Once he felt the tip of the blade dip, burying itself in skin.

If I hit a vein, this will all be for nothing.

He slowed a bit, taking more care with his strange sawing at such a difficult angle.

He felt the rope actually loosen.

Loose, and that meant he could make bigger slicing movements, now almost a mad butcher himself.

Looser still.

His tied wrists now had some space.

He forced himself not to rush. One wrong move here could fuck it up.

Slowly, slowly, as that beautiful distance between the two wrists opened even more. He felt he could slide a hand out, maybe both. But he kept at it.

The need to be absolutely sure that important.

Then… as if they had never been tied at all… his wrists were free.

His hands, free.

Now, with a mad speed, he cut the band around his chest. Not bothering to sit up, he sliced the ropes at his legs and ankles.

He was untied. Still on the floor, still in the same odd position that he had landed in.

Then, a creak. The cookery door opening. Early evening air from outside.

Dunphy’s voice.

“Willy, want another hit? You want—”

The voice stopped.

Jack didn’t move.

He realized…

They think I’m gone.

37. 6:01 P.M.

Jack heard a clanking noise, the sound of metal. Dunphy and his helper had stopped talking.

The sound of them grabbing blades. The clang of metal.

Jack still held the knife that had freed him. But then he heard a sound like a lawn mower. The smoky smell of gas.

There was no time to wait anymore.

Jack crawled to the far end of the table, deeper into the building. There was no point in escaping with these two alive.

He stood up, and clocked the position of the two of them. Dunphy holding some kind of gas-powered saw, something for chewing through bones, cutting up carcasses.

The cook’s helper held a cleaver in one hand and a long curved blade in the other.

“Just stop right there, buddy,” the cook said, “and nobody has to get fucking hurt.” Dunphy grinned, his bowling-ball face one leering smile. “After all, if we had wanted to hurt you, that would have happened hours ago, right?”

The helper had taken a few tentative steps closer to Jack.

Jack acted as though he didn’t notice.

There was no point talking to these two.

More steps from the helper.

Now the cook began to walk away from the far wall, the saw spitting out smoke, the chained blades grunting as they cut through the air. Dunphy’s massive arms held the saw with ease.

Obviously given it a lot of use.

Could Jack depend on his leg?

The two men had moved so each was at the limit of Jack’s peripheral vision.

Jack started to lower his knife.

Sharp enough to cut through rope, but how would it do with skin and bone?

He was about to find out.

Lower still.

The cook’s smile broadened even as he moved toward Jack, the saw held at chest height, blade pointing forward like the barrel of a bizarre gun.

Then Jack moved.

He turned to the helper. Smaller, he was probably faster. He looked scared, while the cook didn’t.

The smaller man immediately stuck out his two blades, a classic and bad move by someone who wasn’t used to fighting with a knife.

Jack held his blade close, maximizing his ability to send it jutting out and back.

Sticking it out… that just wasted seconds.

Jack took painful steps toward the man and when close enough, he did just that—jabbing his right hand with the blade out. He nailed the man’s arm holding the cleaver. The man screamed as he released it and it fell to the floor.

From the sound of the saw, Dunphy had started moving toward Jack.

Only seconds.

The helper now slashed wildly from left and right with the thin blade, a mini-sword ending in a fine pointy tip.

Jack tilted to the left, dodging one wild swing, then another dodge as it came swinging back. He held back on his second strike until that wild arc had been completed.

And when that had happened, the man’s midsection lay wide open to an attack.

Another jab, this one straight at the man’s guts, then a violent pull up. The whirr of the gas-powered saw right behind Jack.

He left the blade buried.

Saving a precious second or two.

He spun around, the move agony now. Dunphy marched toward him like a human tank, stepping on and over his partner.

Dunphy kept jabbing with the saw. A stupid grin still filled his face. He wasn’t scared. He was fucking enjoying this.

Blades all over the room, but Jack was cut off from them.

But the saw was heavy despite the strength in the cook’s meaty arms.

“Come on, you dumb bastard!” the cook yelled. His mouth a dark hole.

As much a Can Head as any Can Head Jack had ever faced.

Nothing human about this monster at all.

Close, and Jack was forced against the wall.

But there was a table right in front of him, covered in blood, bone, skin.

Jack did a diving roll onto the table, spinning around on the bone and flesh that had been left there. The smell of decay covering him.

The roll worked. Dunphy spun around, marching around to the other side, his saw sputtering. The smile had vanished.

But, Jack thought, I’m not going anywhere yet.

He backed against another table. A massive pot sat on it. Jack glanced into it. Filled with milky water and dotted with whitish chunks on the top.

Bones, boiled down.

He grabbed an edge of the pot with his right hand, ignoring the burn, and pushed it forward, sending the bones and the slimy water crashing to the floor. The slimy soup hit the spot where the cook took his next step.

He moved forward, oblivious.

That was a mistake. Because the fat cook wobbled, and the saw flew up as he struggled for balance.

Dunphy even looked wide-eyed at the saw as if it might angle around and bite into him.

Jack—now close to a wall of knives and cleavers and saws.

But he saw something on the table that looked like a gun. A butcher’s tool, with a barrel. Sitting right there.

He picked it up just as Dunphy regained his footing.

Jack came close to the cook now, and before the man even knew what was happening, Jack pressed the bolt gun against Dunphy’s side and pulled the trigger.

It made a dull thudding sound. No bullet inside. But the fat barrel had shot something out.

When Jack pulled away, he could see the smooth hole in the cook’s chest. What the hell was it—something to kill people before Dunphy started to work on them? A quick shot to the brain, and it would be all over?

Like steer in the slaughterhouse back in the old days.

This was a human slaughterhouse.

But Jack needed the cook alive.

Jack fired another, now at Dunphy’s throat. Another smooth hole opened. Blood gushed forth. The chain saw fell from his hands, and Jack had to step back to dodge it, coughing from the smoke, the chain spinning, still running.

Dunphy fell backward. A beached whale, shooting blood out of the blow hole in his throat.

Jack went to him, crouched down.

“Where are they?”

The cook shook his head. He grabbed at his throat as if he could close the hole.

“Where the hell is my family?”

He pressed the bolt gun against the cook’s head.

Dunphy shook his head again.

But he was spraying blood like a geyser. No way he could stay alive for long.

“Tell me. Tell me, you fat fuck, or I’ll fill your head with holes.”

The cook’s mouth opened. More blood dribbled out. There was no way he could talk, Jack could see.

But the lips moved.

Once, then repeating the same word, unintelligible.

Dunphy now had two hands around his neck, attempting to stem the flow. Jack pressed the bolt gun against his head, right behind the left eye, and pulled the trigger. A dull thud.

Dunphy’s hands fell away from his throat.

Jack let the bolt gun fall from his hands.

He stood up, covered in blood from the butchering tables and cook, and—

Saw the freezer.

Dread building in him with each step, his hand shaking when he finally reached out to unlatch, and then open the freezer.

He knew what he saw there the night before.

He thought of the blood that covered him. The great boiling pan of bones.

No, he begged.

The door popped open. The frost snaked out. That made it hard to see for a moment, but then it cleared as Jack walked in.

His superheated body, sweaty, steaming from the fight, created more fog.

Now he walked down the length of the freezer.

He looked at the first body. One of the Blair kids. Then, another, a man he had never seen.

More bodies behind him.

None he recognized.

The joy—immense.

My family isn’t here.

My family is somewhere else, alive.

He turned and started out of the deep freeze.

He had to get the hell out of here. Maybe no one would come looking for a while.

Couldn’t be a place people like to come.

It’s not dark yet. I just… I just have to get the hell out of here and find my family.

Over and over. The same thought.

He moved as fast as he could to the back doors of this slaughterhouse.

38. 7:50 P.M.

Christie walked over to her two children, sitting so quietly on the bed of this small room.

She stood there, and then paced. Simon had fallen asleep as if some protective mechanism had kicked in during the day. And Kate, sweet Kate, had even put her arm around her younger brother.

Her daughter hadn’t slept, but lay in the bed, near catatonic.

The fear of the first hours had changed into this terrible expanse of waiting.

Christie would sit. But only for a few minutes before she’d have to get up.

A guard with a gun outside made sure they didn’t go anywhere.

Ed Lowe had explained it like it was some glitch that had to be fixed.

“You see, Mrs. Murphy, kids…”

Christie loathed that this man would even talk to her kids.

She imagined doing things to him… things that she had never imagined before.

“You’ll see,” Lowe had said. “Your husband will come around. Sure. You and your kids can be safe. We can use your husband. And he’ll see Paterville can be a good place for you as well.”

Christie had said nothing.

Jack would never agree to live with these people.

Were they any better than the Can Heads? Were they a new strain of monster that could pretend to be human?

Lowe had food brought to them. No one ate any.

With darkness coming, her worry grew. Where was Jack? He’d never agree to be part of this.

And when Ed Lowe figured that out, what would happen to them?

She started walking back and forth again.

Jack sat curled in bushes, waiting for darkness. No alarms. Maybe no one had been in the kitchen yet.

The dark took forever to come.

Each little bit of deepening gloom arriving torturously slow.

But while he sat there like a wounded animal, he had time to think and plan, looking at all the possibilities.

None of them good.

But one had to be selected.

He looked up at the sky, the last bit of light fading.

Now, night fallen, Jack made his way through the brambles, ignoring scratching thorn bushes and jagged branches.

He had expected someone to be at his car, guarding it.

But no.

They must have had confidence in Dunphy and how tied up Jack had been.

He crawled down to the car. This time when he opened up the back, he’d have to kill the interior light as quickly as possible. A switch on the roof. Still, it would glow for seconds. Someone could see.

He looked around, but in the gloom he couldn’t tell if anyone was watching.

Nothing to do but take a breath and open the door.

He unlocked a back door and as fast as possible he slid in and reached up to the ceiling switch. Bright light filled the Explorer’s cabin. And then it went dark.

A moment, waiting.

He shut the door quietly and moved to the back. He opened the rear door. Lifted the rug of the luggage area. Fiddled to get the key into the hole. Opened it. So practiced with that move by now.

No light, so he had to feel, pulling out his other guns—a .44, a Glock. His rifle was gone. Nothing he could do about that. He filled his pockets with shells, making them bulge.

No holster, so he stuck the .44 under the front of his belt, the Glock under his belt at the back.

Then—one other item. One of the explosive devices. A timed C4 charge, a doorbuster. He slipped one in his back pocket.

He shut the tailgate door and started making his way around the camp, through the woods.

A few times, he passed close to a guard. But he’d stop, let them move on, then continue on his way.

There was a narrow point where he’d have to walk out, exposed.

An open area leading from the woods on one side of the property near the lake to the woods behind the cabins.

Best just to stand up and walk.

People still here, maybe even some ordinary guests—like the Blairs were, or Jack’s family.

If Lowe felt confident he had things in hand, scaring Jack in the kitchen, all trussed up, then maybe Jack had time.

He stood up and walked from one piece of woods to another, stepping across a bit of camp road. Until he got close to the other wooded section, and then he moved into it.

Just taking a leak…

And kept walking, deeper into the woods, until he stopped, crouched, waited.

No sign of having been discovered.

Crouching made the gun muzzles dig into him. Despite the pain, so good to know they were there.

He started circling around, to the open field, and farther… to Shana’s cabin with its split sections of wood laying outside.

Jack waited, watching the cabin as he saw Shana moving around. At one point, she came out and he thought she might leave.

But she simply stood in the open doorway, smoking, and then went back inside.

He moved from his secluded cover. Again, he’d have to cross an open stretch of ground. And the clock had to be ticking. Sooner or later, someone had to come to the kitchen and find the dead cooks.

At the end of the woods, he stood up, then ran up to her cabin as best he could. He pulled out the Glock, and threw open the door.

He didn’t see Shana. And then she came out of a back room. With luck, what she was smoking wasn’t just tobacco.

She looked up, confused.

“Stop right there,” Jack said.

She stopped moving.

“Thought you had… another engagement. All tied up.”

A laugh. She was stoned.

“Sit the fuck down.”

But even stoned, Shana turned and grabbed an arm weight off a back table and threw it awkwardly at Jack. He dodged it but she immediately leaped at him like an animal springing.

Her weight sent them both falling back. And too quickly she had landed on top and was able to grab her ax leaning near the front door.

Her right knee had pinned Jack’s arm holding the gun. She quickly smashed the butt of the ax into Jack’s jaw, once, then whipped it the other way for another hard smack.

Stoned or not, she had gotten the advantage quickly.

Who the hell trained her? She’d mentioned the army, but he’d never met a soldier who could be this efficient half-baked.

“Want to play, Jack? Too bad it’s this—there are better games.”

She rammed the ax into his midsection. Knocking all the wind out, and then she changed the angle.

She’s going to use that ax on me.

And I know how good she is with an ax.

The gun useless. But Jack could slide his other arm free. Shana brought the ax back, her glassy eyes trained on him, perhaps picturing how she was about to split him like a tree trunk.

His right hand shot up and wrestled for control of the ax handle against her strong two-handed grasp.

He locked his arm, forcing her to twist the ax left and right in an attempt to free it.

Forgetting the important job her right leg did in holding down his left arm.

She had allowed enough room for that arm to slide free, and with it, the gun. He didn’t want to fire. A shot would end all his chances.

But the muzzle made a nice piece of metal to jab into her side.

Which he did, ramming it hard into her midsection.

The ax slipped backward, still held by her but now being pushed away by his arm.

He could sit up, and as he did that, he wrestled the ax away from her.

He twisted the ax around and before she could recover her wind and mobility, he brought the end of the handle flying across her face.

Just as she had done to him. Once, then again, and again, enjoying the blood, the stupefied look, and knowing that he could easily keep doing this until she was dead.

But when she had almost become immobile, a beaten thing on the floor of the cabin, he pointed the gun at her, and lowered the ax.

“Where is my family?”

He knocked her chin, a hard tap with the blunt end of the head of the ax.

She spit out some blood.

“I don’t know… where the hell… your family is.”

Another knock to the head with the ax, not to draw blood but letting the heavy metal smack her head back, hard against the floor.

He did it a few times. Because he had no time.

He needed an answer.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know. Lowe didn’t tell me. Just that they were under guard.” Another great cough of spit and blood.

Could be true, Jack thought. Could be fucking true.

Which meant that there was only one person who could tell him where they were.

“Okay. Listen. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. And if it doesn’t happen exactly the way I tell you, then I will, in my own amateur way, cut your fucking head off your fucking body. Understand?”

The smallest of nods.

“Sit up.”

“Ed, can you come down here? I need to talk. Something private.”

Jack listened as she talked to Lowe.

“No. Ed. Best we talk where no one can see.”

He waited. Would Lowe tell her to come up and see him, security be damned?

Did he like to play with Shana? Was that one of the perks?

That might influence his decision.

“Good. I’ll see you.”

She put down the camp phone.

“He’s coming.”

“Good.”

Lowe walked into the cabin.

Jack smashed the handle end of the ax into one knee, and Lowe collapsed into a crouch. Then his other knee, and Lowe was praying on the floor.

Jack had Shana stand near the back of the cabin.

“What the—”

Now a smack right across the face, and Lowe’s lips bloodied.

“Sit in that chair. Go on, get the hell up.”

Lowe could see the gun now and knew that getting beaten by the ax might be the least of his troubles.

He struggled to get to his feet, and stumbled over to the chair.

“Tie him up. Tight as you can. And I know tight, so don’t fuck around.”

Shana tied Lowe exactly as Jack had been tied. Had she been the one who trussed him up in the kitchen?

In seconds, Lowe was firmly strapped to the chair.

“Back away,” he said to Shana.

He walked over to Lowe, stood in front of him.

Jack used the flat head of the ax now like a pendulum, and smacking one knee, then the other. Lowe howled.

“Next one hits your face, Lowe. Nice and hard.”

“You’re dead.”

“Okay.”

Jack used the ax like a baseball bat, tilting the sharp edge away, and smashed it into Lowe’s face. The blow hard enough to make the chair rock back.

“Where is my family, you sick fuck?”

Lowe opened his mouth as if about to challenge Jack again. Jack saw his eyes look back to Shana, but Jack’s gun in his other hand kept her pinned to the wall.

“No answer?”

He brought the ax back again.

“All right, all right! I’ll tell you. They’re fine. They’re okay.”

“Where are they?”

He brought the ax head close to Lowe’s face.

“A cabin up near the service camp.” He looked right at Jack. “You’ve been up there.”

“Lot of cabins. Which one?”

“Toward the back. Away from the center. All by itself. Has a number out front, Cabin 12.”

“Are they guarded?”

Lowe nodded.

“How many.”

“Just one guy. They’re okay.”

“You said that already.”

“You could stay with us Jack. You still could—”

“As if.”

Lowe deserved another metal smack on the face.

Was he telling the truth? No way to know until Jack got to that cabin.

“Let me tell you something”—a look at Shana—“and you, too. If they aren’t there, you are both going to feel so much pain, you’ll wish this place was crawling with Can Heads. You’ll wish they were ripping you apart.”

“They’re there,” Lowe said quietly.

Jack realized that he just told them both that they’d be allowed to live.

Insurance, to be sure. With them alive, his threat might actually mean something.

He turned to Shana. Be quicker to kill her. Make her kneel and chop into her, kill the animal that she had become.

But then, would he be any different than them?

There were lines in his job—to cross, to not cross. Decisions, judgment calls. Ethics.

Some guys on the job just let it go.

“Kneel down, facing the wall,” he said to Shana.

When she had done so, he put the gun and ax by his side.

“Move, and your brains will be on the wall in front of you.”

He tied her up, half expecting her to try something. But he guessed that she, too, wanted to live.

He rushed; but in minutes, she was also tied up tight.

He left the cabin, thinking…

I’m close. I’m going to do this.

Over and over.

And wishing that he really believed it.

39. Cabin 12

He saw the cabin. Had to be. Larger than the other cabins. More rooms, and off by itself, exactly where Lowe said it would be.

Jack couldn’t be sure unless he could see the number in the front. But no way that could happen. He’d have to find a way in through a window. He spotted a side door off one end.

There was that way in, and the front, or maybe a window, and, and—

All of them sucked. All of them so exposed.

He spent a few minutes watching the area past the cabin, studying the workers, the people who lived here, these “civilized” people who ate humans and pretended to be different from the Can Heads.

He turned away from the cabin.

Too much activity all around it, people coming out, enjoying the summer night, socializing.

Hey, neighbor, how are you tonight, and my—wasn’t that a good dinner?

He had one shot at this.

I can’t just run in there.

He turned back to the woods and started making his way to the great fence that circled the property.

Jack saw the shining mesh of the double fence, and blackness beyond it.

But he also saw a metal box with shelled tubes and wires snaking in and out. Something to control the electricity that ran through the outer fence, keeping Paterville safe from the hordes outside.

Not anymore, he thought.

He pulled out the small explosive. Smaller than a grenade, it didn’t have a lot of kick. Kick a door in, clear a room—that was about it.

But Jack imagined that it could also do damage to that electrical transformer. Did it need a direct hit? Would it do enough damage?

Only one way to find out.

The digital timer gave off a slight glow, not so much to attract attention, but enough for him to set it.

How much time. A minute, perhaps? Enough time for him to get away.

He had set it for sixty-eight seconds. Then he slid a latch to the right, exposing a single button. One punch and the countdown began.

He pressed the button and then, eyes locked on the transformer, lobbed it. The small explosive landed short of the transformer. A few good feet.

Fuck, Jack thought.

Was it close enough?

The seconds melted away. He could go for it, or start running.

Still frozen, looking.

“God damn it,” he said and he scurried toward the fence. Probably all on camera.

He scooped up the explosive and pressed the button. He had blown his protective cover. He quickly added more time to the explosive, which had dwindled to twenty-three seconds.

Then he placed the device right at the base of the fence, right under the transformer, and pressed the button again, turned and ran.

Surely on camera.

Being watched by the guards, who were already calling Ed Lowe, who somehow wouldn’t answer.

Maybe waking up other guards.

The whole night going wrong.

Running through the woods, fast as he could.

Then—the explosion.

Seconds later, the alarm sound, the horns blaring from everywhere and nowhere, filling the camp.

Back to Cabin 12.

Everyone running like ants when their underground home had been exposed. People ran all over. Jack joined them with no one noticing anything.

Good. That part fucking worked.

That alarm meant only one thing: Can Heads could be breaking in.

Would they? Jack wondered. Were they always lurking out there, waiting to stream into the camp whenever something went wrong with the fence?

I sure as hell hope so.

No hesitation now. Straight up the steps of the cabin. Into the living room. A guard spinning around.

Not recognizing Jack. Confused by the alarm. Maybe scared. All alone.

“What happened?”

Doesn’t even know who the hell I am, Jack thought.

Then, a flash of recognition on the guard’s face, perhaps seeing Jack covered with blood, his body and clothes becoming a map of this night.

“Wait a fuck—” the guard said, his rifle muzzle lowering toward Jack.

Jack shot him. A clean shot to the head. He heard screams from a room in the cabin.

Jack grabbed the guard’s rifle, then grabbed a tablecloth from the dining room and threw it over the body.

Then he turned to the screams, to the room, unlocking it with the key in the door.

Opening the door. To see them. God, to see them, screaming, crying, but alive.

40. The Plan

Christie ran to Jack, ignoring everything that covered him. Kate went around to his side, saying over and over, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

Simon silently hugged him as tight as he could. Shivering with fear, locked on his father as though there was nothing else left in the world.

But then Jack pulled them away, and looked just at Christie.

“Listen,” he said to her. “We have to leave.”

She nodded. Of course they had to leave.

“Let’s go. C’mon kids—” she started.

He grabbed her arms and held them fast, the strength of his grip nearly pinching.

“No. Before we go…”

She saw him look down, aware that the two terrified kids still stood there, looking up.

Jack turned around and picked up the two .44s. He gave one to Christie, whose hand seemed to close over it reluctantly.

His wife let the gun rest in her lap.

Then he took Kate’s hand and closed it over the other gun.

He had taken her to the range one day. She had shot a gun before. “This is the safety. You leave it on until we leave here. And you hold it pointed down. Unless… unless you have to—”

“Shoot something,” she said.

Her eyes glistened as she fought back the fear and tears. He smiled. A nod.

Then, heartbreaking, unexpected…

“Dad.” He turned back to Simon. “Dad, do I get a gun, too?”

He leaned close and gave Simon a hug. Both Christie and Kate looking at Jack, seeing that his eyes had turned watery. He blinked, the cabin living room suddenly blurry.

“Simon. Son. You have to do something really important, you hear me?”

He felt the boy nod. “You hold your mom’s free hand tight. Got that? Tight as you can. Don’t let her go. And the other one, you hold your sister’s hand. You hold onto them, Simon. Can you do that for me?”

Another nod.

Then, as if it was the hardest thing he ever did, Jack finally pulled away.

They walked out. He leaned close to Christie.

“I have a plan.”

She watched him force a smile.

His eyes, still glistening, told her something more than his words.

There was no time for him to explain things to her privately, what would happen, what they would do.

She’d have to hear his words even as the kids followed and they, too, listened. And she’d have to somehow understand what he was really saying.

“Okay,” she said, letting him know that she understood.

His eyes wet, tearing up with gratitude that she understood things.

She couldn’t imagine what he had been through.

Her heart felt like it could explode at the thoughts of the agony, the madness that he’d had to face. That he still had yet to face.

He told her what would happen, pulling the kids alongside him through the brush even as the branches tried to trip them and rip at their bare arms.

The camp filled with the sound of alarms and gunfire.

“Did you—did you do that?”

“Yeah. Keeps them busy.”

His pace relentless, even though his one good leg was doing the work of two he marched them through the woods.

Telling her the details of the plan, all said within earshot of the kids.

So they heard, too.

But did they understand?

God, did they understand?

Jack stopped them.

A quick finger to his lips, barely visible in the dark.

Something moved through the woods ahead. Jack trying to see what was there. Some movement. Maybe this was a bad way to go.

Then a scream from behind. He wheeled around just in time to see a Can Head grab Christie and yank her away from the two kids. Then another Can Head picked up Simon, like a sack of food, tucking the boy under his arm and turning away.

Like a feral creature racing away with its prize.

Not even seconds to think about what to do, no time to weigh options.

Jack had already raised his gun, but a shot could go wrong so easily. And there was movement to the left, where Kate was, coming from behind her even as his terrified girl raised her gun, wobbling.

Such a stupid idea, that she could shoot, could protect herself.

No time to think.

Jack leaped forward as fast as he could, giant steps, his free hand reaching out, grasping—

Closing on the Can Head’s maggoty hair. Tightening, and yanking the thing back like a caught fish.

Pulling the head close to his other hand, the gun barrel pressed right against the head. One clear blast, and the thing dropped Simon, screaming.

Not able to tell the boy he needed to be quiet. The noise would only bring more.

Turning, Kate being dragged away as she kicked at the thing holding her, its blood-smeared face and teeth inches away from hers.

No other option here, and he raised his gun and fired at the thing.

For a stunned second, the Can Head froze as if not sure what was wrong.

There was no way to prevent the blood from dripping onto his beautiful daughter.

But in that second of blood-spattered madness, he saw her raise her gun, turning left and right. She was ready now.

Another Can Head leaped out of the bushes, right at Kate.

Kate held her gun steady.

He had trained her. Took her to the range. God, had he trained her enough?

All Jack could do was watch as she fired.

The thing fell at her feet.

Jack, thinking: good girl, such a—

Then—to Christie.

She had fired a shot. Wounding the thing holding her. And again, with so much kicking and movement, Jack didn’t have a shot.

But he was the last one. Christie fighting against the Can Head had slowed down its attempt to pull her away.

Jack went to it and whipped the gun at its head just as it was about to bite down on Christie’s shoulder.

Then again, and again.

Then a hard smack to the elbow of the thing, a crack at just the right spot, and the arm holding Christie became useless.

Until the creature’s head was far enough away from Christie so Jack could come behind it, close its neck in an arm lock, cutting off air.

’Cause the goddamn things still had to breathe.

Christie, herself nearly choked, staggered away, immediately looking to the kids.

She raised her gun to the Can Head. Jack held tight.

And with Jack not even believing what he was seeing…

She fired. Right at its skull.

And when it fell away—

—when it slipped down from Jack’s hold—

—when it was quiet and there were no more gunshots, no more here at least—

—he stood in the woods and saw his family looking at him.

As if seeing him, really seeing him for the first time.

He saw Simon take Christie’s hand, then Kate’s.

My boy….

“C’mon,” he said.

Jack and his family started moving again.

Racing, running now… so much that both Simon and Kate took turns tripping, rolling on the brambles.

But so beautiful, my beautiful children, he thought. They didn’t give out even a yelp.

No matter what stuck them, what pricked them in the thick brush, they were silent.

It took all of his willpower to not cry.

Then—they were there—the parking lot. A sea of cars, far removed from the gunfire, the racing guards, the panic behind them.

Jack didn’t stop as they left the shadows and went down to that sea.

41. The Gate

Jack turned around and looked at the brown blanket that now covered the backseat. Someone looking could see that there was something hidden back there.

If they got close.

Something back there.

The cab light had not gone on, the ceiling switch still thrown.

Now that no one could see him, he reached down under the steering column and felt for the switch. The double-switch he had installed so long ago.

He felt its shape. He could reach it in an instant.

Back to the key in the ignition. A twist, and the Explorer started.

Jack had feared they might have ripped the guts out of the SUV, but the engine sounded fine.

He kept the headlights off, and then, aware that he could be seen, he backed up and eased the Explorer slowly around to the road that led to the center of the camp.

Even with the windows down, he could hear the sporadic sound of distant gunfire. The alarms blaring. Good, they were still dealing with the Can Heads.

Or perhaps what this really was: Can Heads fighting Can Heads.

Let them fucking eat each other.

As he came to the small rise from the lot, the road that veered near the lodge, he saw a group of people—Paterville residents and guards, those the Can Heads from outside hadn’t gotten.

Standing in a cluster, guns ready, bunched up and looking all around, scared.

A few looked at Jack as he drove past them.

They had guns. They could shoot.

But they simply watched him sail past, one lanky man’s face having a what-the-fuck look, wondering where the hell this guy could be going.

If someone looked in the back, all they would see was the shape, the blanket.

Would word be passed? A different kind of alarm?

Jack picked up speed as he passed the cabin area, and started down the road past the lake and on the way to the main gate.

He wondered if he had made a mistake.

If he could get out this easy, had he made a fucking mistake? His plan all wrong?

He felt like stopping. Going back. Was there time to change his mind?

Instead, he kept driving. The plan. This was the plan, the way to get his family out.

He pressed harder on the accelerator, passing the fifteen-mile speed limit posted along the road. Twenty, twenty-five… thirty.

And more, until the heavy-duty wheels of the SUV began kicking up a steady stream of pebbles and dirt behind it.

A curve, another straight section, then—if his memory was correct—one more curve.

He noticed something. The alarms had ended.

Was the power still out?

Could they have fixed the power to the fence in such a short amount of time?

Another curve, and now a clear straight run to the main gate.

Bright lights ahead, two high beams on the turret at the side of the gate, one at road level.

The turret lights pointed out into the woods, probably hunting for any signs of Can Heads.

Faster. Thinking he was so close.

The two lights on the top of the turret swung around. Almost as if it had been planned.

The guards hadn’t been looking for stray Can Heads at all.

The lights swung around and pointed down at the roadway, at the SUV, at Jack racing to the gate.

A bunch of guards on the road, waiting for Jack.

With Ed Lowe at their head.

He didn’t brake.

So, they see me. They’ll shoot. The Explorer can take some hits.

But then, despite the blinding glare of the giant lights, he could see above them, the gate… so close.

Faster—and then the group parted.

And Jack saw the trap.

A massive felled tree lay right across the road. The SUV slammed into it.

And backlit, the people waiting there. Guns sticking out like pins in black pincushions, the crowd all shadows.

They waited for him while the front of the car crumpled against the tree, tires exploding, windows shattering.

Jack’s head hit the steering wheel. He immediately tasted blood from the gash.

Then, as the shadows moved closer, Jack, blinking—blood in his eyes, too—he saw the struggling figure of Ed Lowe, laboring to walk, but walking.

His camp. His place.

Behind him, a bloodied Shana.

Someone had found them, freed them.

Lowe knew that there was an even worse danger to Paterville than the Can Heads outside.

Exposure.

Exposure would destroy the camp.

Jack looked at the seat next to him.

My gun.

He reached to the side but felt nothing.

The crowd only steps away. Some moving ahead of Lowe now, eager, perhaps forgetting that he ran the place. Maybe Lowe had had his day.

As they suddenly started racing toward the vehicle, Shana raised her ax. Other women were there too, rocks in their hands.

Everyone invited.

He heard Lowe’s voice as if coming from miles away.

“Jack! Jack, it’s over. We got you, got your family!”

As the crowd gathered close, Jack could only shoot one quick glance at the back.

Lowe stuck his head through a shattered opening in the driver’s-side window, his jowly neck catching some of the cracked glass.

“We’re going to rip you all into pieces!”

Jack turned. His hand again reached to the seat beside him.

The gun. Fallen to the floor?

He popped open the glove compartment.

A knife there. Used to be there.

His hand closed on it.

A jagged knife for fishing. Probably rusty.

Jack spoke as loud as he could.

“You’re right! It is over!”

He jabbed the blade into Lowe’s neck and twisted it left and right before leaving it buried in Lowe’s gullet.

But the action only seemed to embolden the others, now reaching in through the smashed windshield, the side windows, into the back.

No way forward, no way out.

More glass being smashed, pried away. Like opening a can. To get at what was inside.

Jack sat there.

He could see the clock on the dash. The digital clock. The time.

“Now,” he whispered.

Jesus, now…

A rock smashed into the front window, then another, until, on all sides, the windows took hits.

The car tilted forward, wheels flat, engine dead, the SUV now rendered completely immobile.

Until one crazed person kept banging at a rear passenger window with a big rock broke through.

Then, like a feeding frenzy, that small opening triggered the horde to clamber on top of the vehicle, banging, shooting, smashing. A few with flashlights, shooting light into the car to see what treasure waited for them.

Jack leaned down, flailed around, feeling the car floor. The gun had to have fallen down here.

Had to be there.

Then he had it.

He started shooting through the jagged openings in the glass as they tried to get at the door latches, some trying to crawl through impossibly small holes in the windows.

Just Can Heads, he thought. That’s all you are.

Shot after shot.

And then hands reaching in from the side to grab at the blanket, and what lay beneath it.

Jack ran out of bullets. He let the pistol fall. Ammo somewhere… but why bother?

The Explorer was covered with Can Heads.

All around the sides, on top, reaching into every hole. Ed Lowe, his throat gushing, still battered at Jack’s side window, the bloody spittle flying out.

The SUV like a bit of candy dropped in the summer dirt and soon coated with ants as though it was a living thing.

He reached down to the switch.

Not a slow movement. Perhaps he had waited too long already. He thought he heard something inside the car, on top of the blanket.

Jack threw the first safety switch.

The car had enough explosives to make a crater twice the size of the vehicle.

And blow the dozens of monsters on it to pieces.

He threw the second, now-active switch.

He heard a click.

42. Five Minutes Earlier

Christie sat up in Tom Blair’s car.

She looked back at the kids.

“Okay. Just stay down.”

Nothing.

“You hear me?” she said.

Kate answered first, her body pressed down as close to the floor as she could. “Yes, Mom.”

Then Simon, following his sister’s model: “Yes.”

She turned the key, hands shaking with the thought that the car wouldn’t start, even though Jack had tested it.

He had been so clear in his instructions; so precise in his plans.

To watch the time. Because when it was the right time she had to pull out of the lot.

If they were expecting them to leave, it would be the front gate. They’d look for the Explorer.

But maybe, he had said, they’ll have their hands full.

She had tried pleading, the kids able to hear.

They had to stay together. They were a family.

She had to watch her words with the kids so close… her eyes were wet, trying to hide that from them. Until she didn’t care, as she wiped at them.

I’ll get through, he said. Somehow. Let them spot me first.

With the camp under siege, they could get on the roads and get out.

But if they were watching, he had to make them think that this was how they’d escape. Together.

He had put a hand up to her cheek.

I’ll get away.

He gave her a kiss. He hugged the kids.

Then another kiss.

And words meant for her ears alone.

If you hear something…

He held her tight.

You’ll know.

She couldn’t let him go. Couldn’t let him go.

But he pulled free.

And then he backed away, moving to the Explorer. She did as he instructed. Getting the kids down. Then she crouched down, even though she couldn’t see him anymore, couldn’t get a look at him inside the car, pulling away.

Only when their car was gone did she get the kids inside the station wagon, with its ordinary glass, its ordinary wheels.

If they were escaping, they’d expect them all to be in the Explorer.

She started the station wagon. Then pulled around to the back of the parking area, and onto the service road.

She remembered his last instructions.

As fast as you can…

Despite the rutted dirt road, she pressed the accelerator to the floor.

Christie didn’t bother looking at what was all around her. People ran around, their fear sending them in all directions.

At one point, someone ran madly across the road that weaved through this upper camp, and rolled right onto the front of the car, then back, over the windshield, onto the roof.

Random Can Heads roamed around. The sound of bullets closer as people tried to spot them running through the upper camp.

That meant—

Might mean that the fence was still open, the electricity still down.

She tried to see where the winding road led to—a way out? A road to the other gate?

She drove over a huge rock.

The jolt made Simon yell.

“Mommeee…”

“Sorry, baby.”

Then she kept repeating, saying it.

Sorry, baby, sorry, so sorry…

She saw the road curve right, out of this upper camp, the car swerving as she took it fast.

She heard a noise like a hammer hitting the side of the car.

A bullet. Someone shooting.

“Stay down. Kate, Simon, you gotta—”

Another bullet, this one farther back.

No, she thought. Over and over.

No, no, no.

Not my babies…

The car careened crazily down the dirt road, bumping up and down, jostling left and right, feeling like it might fall apart into a jumble of pieces.

She saw lights. A turret. A gate.

As soon as she saw the gate, a bullet cracked the windshield, and now she could only see the whole scene through a fun-house quilt of shattered glass. But the windshield held together.

She had to ram the gate.

And if the electricity was back on?

All she knew was that she had to keep her foot on the accelerator, pressed hard, hands gripping the steering wheel.

Jack didn’t need to tell her what the gun beside her might have to be used for.

If she had to stop.

If they stopped her.

Then the gate, meters away. One guard there.

He raised his rifle to fire right at her.

From behind, two Can Heads jumped on him, dragging him to the ground.

She cried. Yes, she thought, yes!

In those last seconds before the car hit the gate, before it rammed into the metal barrier with enough force to send it flying, she heard it.

The explosion.

Massive. A tremendous boom that she felt in her stomach. So loud, and the bowl shape of the lake and the mountains magnified the explosion into a giant peal of thunder.

Except it wasn’t thunder.

The car plowed through the gate.

She thought: No.

She begged: No.

Metal pieces of gate and fence went flying to either side of the car. Her kids screamed nonstop behind her.

Christie blinked repeatedly to get her damn eyes to clear, to get them to stop crying so she could see the dark road.

I have to able to see, she thought.

I’m out. I got the kids out.

Safe.

Up to me now, she told herself. That’s right. Up to me now to keep them that way.

She turned on the headlights.

The kids sobbed in the back.

It wouldn’t be long before she would answer their questions and tell them what had really happened.

For now, all she could do was drive.