I stared at the perfectly smooth protective suit, shaped like a human. It seemed to be airtight. No gaps between gloves and sleeves. No break at the neckline below the helmet. Just one flexible cover adhering to the shape as if poured on, unbroken from torso to waist to boots.
Was there a human beneath it? An eyeless Host? Or was this another creature altogether, shaped like one of us? Her movements inside the suit were oddly fluid and robotic at the same time. Like the eye membranes, the suit seemed to be formed from some sort of biological technology.
The next kid lurched into place before her, strapped to the belt, bared sacrificially. It was Andre Swisher, the track star we’d seen snatched by Chasers in the town square. Even from where I was, I could hear Andre’s weeping. The black sheet of the helmet’s face guard reflected back his terrified expression.
The figure smacked a sleek glove to Andre’s chest, pinning him in place.
Thump.
And she lifted the other arm.
Which didn’t look like an arm at all.
It looked like a giant stinger, tapering to a point rather than a hand. The end had numerous small bumps on it, and it squirmed around like a tentacle. Its sharp tip had a hole in it, like an enormous, living needle.
The stinger shot down as if of its own accord, burying itself in Andre’s belly and rooting around.
Squelch.
I watched Andre’s eyes go white. He rattled on the assembly belt, but the straps kept him from moving much. It looked like he was having a seizure.
Then he stilled.
Several Hosts released the straps from Andre’s body and tossed them into a big crate brimming with them. Another Host carried the crate back into the building to the beginning of the assembly belt so the straps could be recycled, used on a fresh lot of kids.
For a moment Andre lay atop the edge of the assembly belt.
The figure removed the stinger from his belly, the end squirming again, those sensory bumps wiggling.
Then something even more impossible happened.
The figure pulled over a rectangle of sheet metal to the edge of the assembly belt.
But it wasn’t connected to anything. It floated in the air like a blow-up raft in a swimming pool. With a faint touch, the figure guided it across, lining it up so it served as an extension of the belt. When the belt lurched forward again, the tread rolled Andre onto the floating slab of sheet metal, clearing the way for the next bound child to slide into place beneath the writhing stinger.
With her gloved hand, the figure gently pushed the slab away, and it glided across toward the far side of the foundation. I followed it into the last sheets of morning mist, and what I saw there made me cover my mouth so I wouldn’t gasp.
Andre’s slab joined an army of others arranged in neat rows. Hundreds of kids lying motionless on their backs, hovering above the ground on their slabs.
Most of them showed bulges in their stomachs. The closest ones looked bloated. But as I peered into the far reaches of the concrete plain, I saw that the farther away the kids were, the more pronounced the bulges were. At the far edge, the boys and girls showed humps protruding almost a foot, filling the space between their waists and their chests. I noticed now that these kids and the others strapped to the assembly line all looked older—at least twelve years old. Where were the younger kids? Being fed at some other center, aged up like cattle?
Making the rounds through this perverted harvest were several more figures wearing seamless space suits like the high priestess, but they were shorter and more muscle-bound. Males? Parading around on autopilot, bent to a single task, they reminded me of drone insects. Their suits were black as well, though less shiny than the female’s armor.
I had to remind myself to breathe. I was confronting odds so impossible I couldn’t even imagine a version of success. Even if Alex weren’t already lost and even if I could spot her, it would be impossible to sneak into the compound, dodge the Hosts and Drones, free her, and get out.
Thump. Squelch.
The sound made me wince. My cheeks were wet; I hadn’t even realized that my eyes were watering from the sight.
I forced myself to exhale. And then draw another breath.
Thump. Squelch.
The figure, she was impregnating them.
Using the children of Earth as pods to incubate … something. Probably her offspring, which would hatch up out of the kids.
The cannery resembled nothing so much as a beehive.
And the sleek, suited figure was the queen bee.
Or a queen bee.
Remembering all those asteroids raking through the night sky a week ago, I wondered how many scenes just like this one were being played out around the planet right now.
Again I told my mouth to draw air, forced my lungs to inhale.
A scream drew my attention back to the cannery. As Afa dragged the next girl from the cage, she thrashed and fought, a shimmer of blond hair flying up over her face. She twisted free and ran, but only got two steps before colliding with Sheriff Blanton’s chest. He seized her thin wrists, torquing them painfully, guiding her back into Afa’s arms.
Together they strapped her to the assembly belt’s starting point, bending over her, their broad flexed backs blocking her from view.
Thump. Squelch.
As the next victim drifted off across the foundation, the belt lurched forward, bringing the girl into view.
It was Alex.
ENTRY 36
The bulldozer hurtled down the graded hillside toward the cannery, blade raised, motoring through boulders, snapping tree trunks, bouncing violently as it reached even ground. It skipped over the curb, took out a length of chain-link fence, dragging it along, and plowed into the corner of the factory.
Chunks of the walls collapsed around it, rubble raining down.
Though the assembly belt kept lurching along, the Hosts flew from their positions toward the crash site. Others swarmed the grounds, the previously perfect mechanics of the operation turned to chaos. It was as though I’d poked a stick into an anthill.
They dug at the sharp rubble to unearth the bulldozer cab, their hands bloodying with the effort. As they worked, the assembly belt kept on, moving the strapped-down kids along toward the Queen.
Thump. Squelch.
One of the Drones had moved over to her side to help with the straps. The show would go on.
The Hosts closed in on the bulldozer, then climbed on top of it, coyotes hungry for the kill. They pried at the rubble, unearthing the machine. At last the final chunk of concrete tumbled away to reveal the cab.
It was empty.
I wasn’t in it.
I’d taken advantage of the distraction to sneak down to the factory from a different direction, using stacks of sheet metal and rolls of fencing for cover. In a half crouch, I’d run across the brief open stretch of the parking lot and dived inside the factory floor.
With the Hosts busy at the bulldozer, I’d crawled beneath the assembly belt. It was lifted off the floor by spaced brackets, the cramped crawl space providing access to the belt’s underbelly for repairs or adjustments.
On my hands and knees, I scurried beneath it now, the path steering me all around the factory floor as if I were a rat in a maze. When my head or shoulders lifted too high, the belt sanded my skin painfully. Fortunately, I’d stashed the cowboy hat on the hillside with the backpack.
I couldn’t see where Alex was, but I knew she was somewhere above me. I could have passed her already. One turn took me toward the far wall, and a chorus of voices erupted beside me.
Turning my head, I saw countless faces peering at me through bars—kids trapped in their cages at the base of the giant stacked wall.
“Hey, kid—please help me!”
“Over here! Over here!”
A young girl was curled up in a ball, weeping.
It was horrible, and yet I had to keep moving.
I couldn’t save them all.
I couldn�
��t.
Tearing my eyes away from them, I risked sticking my head out and peering down the assembly line. Nothing. I looked the other way, behind me. There Alex was, twenty yards up. I’d passed her, all right. She’d been the last kid strapped to the belt before the bulldozer diversion. I could see the soles of her shoes lurching away from me.
Relentlessly, the sounds carried in from outside.
Thump. Squelch.
I reversed course, scrambling beneath the belt back toward Alex. When I peeked out to gauge my position, I saw one of the plier clips pinning her down up ahead. The Hosts had moved off the bulldozer now, resuming their duties, their legs sweeping past me in both directions. Raspy breaths filled the air all around me. Despite the pauses in the belt’s movement, I was having trouble catching up to Alex. It was hard to move through the narrow space, and the hard floor hurt my hands and knees.
Thump. Squelch.
Ignoring the pain, I hurtled forward.
I was making headway. Closer, closer—
Then I collided with the wall. I’d been so focused on rushing that I’d forgotten to look up at where I was heading.
I’d reached the point where the belt continued through the wall to the foundation outside. I watched helplessly as Alex lurched out of reach. The plier clips binding her to the belt passed through the hatch over my head.
Thump. Squelch.
The lip of the wall beneath the rough-cut hole left little room under the assembly line, squeezing the crawl space even more. Thrusting my arms through the narrow space like a diver, I launched with my legs. The belt bit into my back and shoulders, scraping them. As it jolted ahead, it shoved me backward until the edge of the wall cut into my gut. Then the belt paused.
I was stuck.
Thump. Squelch.
The next movement was going to rip me apart.
I had a moment of blind panic.
I closed my eyes. Heard Patrick’s voice.
You can. You always could.
I thought of Alex up there, three kids from the end of the line. And I thought about what the Queen was about to do to her.
I blew my breath out all the way, shrinking my chest, and pulled my stomach taut.
The belt juddered backward again, tugging me the wrong way. With everything I had, I shoved against it. The wall ground across my ribs and stomach, the belt moving in the opposite direction above, threatening to skin me. For a second I thought my hips would catch and the bones simply snap.
But then I shot through.
I landed under the belt outside, pain screaming through my body.
Thump. Squelch.
Alex was two kids away from the Queen.
Pulling the folding knife from my pocket, I jerked it open and bit down on the blade, clenching it between my teeth like a pirate. Then I shot toward Alex and the end of the line. The Queen’s slender sheathed legs came into view alongside the thick calves of her Drone.
I didn’t have time to be afraid.
The boy ahead of Alex lunged into position beneath the Queen.
Thump.
I could hear the stinger uncoil wetly. Then the conveyer belt shuddered under the impact, dust raining over me.
Squelch.
Alex was next.
I was directly beneath her. I could hear her crying above me. A drop slid off the side of the belt, tapping the ground beside me.
A tear.
The next movement of the belt would bring her into position.
Rolling onto my back, I rammed the knife up through the bottom of the belt, wedging it between two of the powerful metal rollers.
The belt went to lurch again.
The machinery groaned above me. It seemed it would just power through the blade.
But then the conveyer snapped somewhere farther back on the line, the belt rippling like a sheet of paper jammed in a printer. Heavy rubber folds fell around me.
A moment of silence as dust swirled in the air.
Then the Drone trotted off to check on the trouble, his legs vanishing from view. The seamless, bootlike feet of the Queen’s suit remained right there by my face. I could have reached out and rapped her toes with my knuckles.
I waited, holding my breath.
Finally one boot pivoted away. Her knee bent slightly.
A moment passed. Another.
Then her feet moved off, heading toward the building.
I didn’t wait long. I couldn’t. I wormed my torso out, slid my aching hips through, and crouched beside Alex.
Her green eyes, wet with tears, turned to me disbelievingly.
“Chance,” she said.
It was just my name, but it was all the payment in the world.
I didn’t answer; I just undid the plier clips from the ridges, the straps springing free. We were mostly alone out here. The other Drones patrolled the floating slabs way across the foundation, and the Hosts and Queen were inside the cannery trying to figure out what had gone wrong. More Hosts scoured the hillside, examining the bulldozer’s path, searching for whoever had loosed it. The metal slabs of the kids who’d just been implanted glided away across the vast foundation to join the others.
The slab designated for Alex hovered right off the end of the assembly line.
“Slide up onto this,” I said.
She scooted herself onto it.
When I crawled beneath the floating slab, I felt an intense energy in my joints and bones that made it hard to breathe. It wasn’t completely unpleasant, but it forced me to fight for focus. When I touched the underside of the slab, it responded easily, sliding like a puck across ice. I scuttled under the slab, using it for cover, guiding us to the edge of the foundation nearest the tree line.
For now Alex looked like another fertilized kid drifting to join the others, but soon it would be evident that we were off course. From my squashed position, I watched the legs and feet in the distance. Hosts and Drones everywhere.
And then the Queen’s slender boots exited the cannery, rounding the corner to head back to her spot.
Alex and I reached the edge of the foundation. When I rolled out from beneath the slab, the heavy pull on my joints lifted away. I grabbed Alex’s arm. “Let’s go,” I whispered, and she slid off next to me.
I tapped the slab, sending it back toward the others. It reentered the stream heading to the far side of the foundation.
I could hear the clamor of the kids inside. One girl’s keening rose above the din. I felt emotion welling up beneath my face. “I have to…” My voice cracked. “I have to go back for them.”
“Those things in armor,” Alex whispered. “There are hundreds of them. We’ve only got our fists.” She looked frail, her face white and bloodless. “I doubt we’d even make it to the kids, but I’m willing to die trying if you are.”
Her legs were trembling, and not from fear. She was spent. I’d never seen her so fragile.
I remembered the unspoken promise I’d made to Patrick. Had I come all this way just to get Alex killed in a pointless charge to the death?
I tried to drown out the chorus of cries from the cannery. Alex was looking at me, doing her best to keep her feet, waiting on an answer.
I shook my head.
No point in killing ourselves today.
We broke for the woods. A bunch of the Hosts were north of us, crawling all over the trail of wreckage from the bulldozer.
Alex moved weakly, though from fear or exhaustion, I couldn’t tell. She seemed to be favoring her left leg. We reached the massive hollow tree where I’d stashed the backpack. The inside was deep and dark, stretching back several yards. We fell to our knees before it.
That’s when I heard the crunch of a pinecone behind me.
I barely had time to turn before Sheriff Blanton lifted me off my feet.
ENTRY 37
Sheriff Blanton had me by the shoulders in a vise lock. It felt as though he might pulverize my bones, turn them to dust. I kicked and twisted uselessly. Then I slammed my head back into hi
s face. I heard his nose break, but his grip didn’t falter.
I’d lost sight of Alex, and for an instant I thought she’d deserted me.
Then I heard a click.
Sheriff Blanton must have heard it, too, because he turned, still holding me up before him.
Alex stood in a shooting stance just outside the tree hollow. She’d crawled in and fished her dad’s revolver from the backpack. One hip was cocked, her bangs sweeping down across an eye. From my perspective it looked like she was aiming the gun right between my eyes. I could find no air to breathe. She flicked her hair from her face and steadied her aim.
“I love you, Daddy,” she said, and pulled the trigger.
I felt the heat of the bullet—it couldn’t have passed more than an inch from my cheek—and then there was a wet smack. Sheriff Blanton’s head snapped back. The lock on my shoulders released, and I tumbled to the earth.
He toppled back and lay still.
Smoke drifted up from the revolver. Alex hadn’t moved, not since pulling the trigger.
I shot a quick glance down the hill. Through the branches the compound was visible below—the tilelike slabs hovering above the foundation, the Hosts repairing the damage, the Queen waiting in position at the assembly line’s end for her duties to resume. A few Drone helmets were raised, scanning the hillside.
“Alex,” I said. “Alex. We have to go. The noise of the gunshot. Alex.”
At last she snapped into motion, sticking the revolver in her waistband. I grabbed my baling hooks. When I pulled the backpack on, she whipped her hockey stick free and twirled it expertly in her hands, the familiar little move bringing me relief I hadn’t expected and didn’t fully understand.
We ran.
I can’t tell you how long or how far, but eventually we heard no footsteps or crackling branches behind us. By the time we slowed, we were miles away, past the fork in the road and heading down the steep terrain of Ponderosa Pass.
Alex leaned against a tree and then slid to the ground, clutching her left leg. “I’m sorry. I need to rest. I was in that cage for two days.…”
The Rains Page 24