“Be very still,” Sully York whispered.
Bryce and Travis took the seasoned adventurer’s advice, in part because, in spite of the noise, nothing appeared to move within the cocoons. The surfaces of them didn’t ripple or show any strain of imminent birth.
As the slithery noise gradually quieted, Bryce looked at Travis, whose features glowed with the flashlight beam reflected back from the glimmering sack. The boy’s face — his furrowed brow, his haunted eyes, his grimly set mouth — revealed his thoughts as clearly as an e-book reader presented a page on its screen. Sometimes insects spun cocoons around themselves and around the paralyzed but living food on which they would feed during their metamorphosis, and Travis wondered if the kitchen staff might be sealed inside these hideous bags, incapacitated but aware, his mother among them, in the embrace of some pale wriggling thing that had begun to feast.
Bryce shuddered and longed to be in an armchair, with a mug of spiked coffee and a book by Louis L’Amour or Elmer Kelton, in which the villains were nothing worse than hired gunmen or a sheriff gone bad, or stagecoach-robbing highwaymen.
When silence reigned once more, Sully York whispered, “Nice and easy … stay together … look around.”
Because the kitchen was at the back of the school, the overhead lights would not have been seen from the street. Sully didn’t propose turning them on, however, and Bryce supposed that might be because he feared that the residents of the cocoons would become agitated by the brightness. Or maybe he worried the shotgun blast that had taken out the door lock would have been heard by the wrong people — who were not really people — who would cruise around the building to have a look. In unspoken agreement, they kept the three flashlights low and away from the windows.
Throughout the big institutional kitchen were signs of violence. Overturned equipment, scattered pots and pans, broken crockery. The culinary staff evidently had put up a fight.
Near a double-wide bank of stacked ovens, Bryce’s flashlight revealed a severed hand. He almost turned the beam away from it in revulsion, but subconsciously he was aware that something about this chopped-off extremity was more shocking than the mere fact of its existence. He needed a moment to recognize that instead of a thumb, the hand was equipped with a big toe, not one that had been stapled to the hand by some psychotic jokester, but a toe that appeared to grow naturally where a thumb should have been.
Many hours earlier, this day had jumped off the rails of reality, and he no longer expected that two plus two would always equal four. Nevertheless, this severed hand marked a sharp turn into an even stranger realm than the one that he had been exploring ever since he had heard, in the hospital, faint distant screams of terror and pain rising from the basement to his bathroom through the heating-system ductwork.
And now he realized that the misplaced toe was not the only bizarre feature of the hand. In the meatiest part of the palm was a half-formed nose: the columella, the tip, a single nostril from which bristled a few hairs, and a small length of the bridge. The partial nose was so well detailed that he expected to see the hairs quiver in an exhalation.
He was too old for this. He was seventy-two. His wife, Renata, had died eighteen months earlier, and he was an immeasurably older man now than he had been then, ancient, exhausted. Life without her was in a way no less wearing than life without food; this was just a different kind of starvation. Finding this macabre hand, he wanted to return home, curl up in bed, lying on his side so that he could see the framed photograph of Rennie on his nightstand, go to sleep, and let the world plunge all the way to Hell if that’s where it was bound.
One thing prevented him from taking that course of action — or inaction: Travis Ahern. He believed that he saw in this boy someone like young Bryce Walker had been, back in the day. He wanted Travis to live to find his own Renata, to discover the work that he was born to do and to know the satisfaction of doing it well. He and Rennie never were able to have children, but now by a twist of fate he was responsible for one.
Bryce hesitated so long over the four-fingered mutation that both Travis and Sully saw it and stood with him to wonder about it. None of them commented on the hand, not because their whispers might agitate the residents of the cocoons, but because no words were adequate to the moment.
At the end of the kitchen farthest from the point at which they entered, a door led to what Travis, having been here often with his mother, identified as a spacious walk-in pantry. A tall, heavy steel cabinet, which had stood against the wall opposite the door, had toppled into the pantry entrance during whatever melee had occurred, acting as a large angled brace that prevented the door from being opened.
“We have to look,” Travis murmured. “We have to.”
Bryce and Sully set aside their shotguns and together muscled the cabinet upright, against the wall where it belonged. Its safety-latched doors didn’t come open, but Bryce could hear the broken contents clattering around inside.
When Travis reached for the lever-style door handle, Sully quietly cautioned the boy to wait until he had his shotgun in both hands.
Bryce held two flashlights as Travis, standing to one side and out of Sully’s line of fire, opened the door and pushed it aside. The two beams played across the back-wall shelves of the deep pantry and then down to the woman sitting on the floor.
Travis said, “Mom?”
She stared at them, astonished or uncomprehending, her eyes bright with fear.
Bryce didn’t know what the silvery bead was, gleaming liquidly like a drop of mercury on her left temple, but he thought it couldn’t be anything good.
Chapter 41
In the snow on the nearly flat roof of KBOW, Sammy Chakrabarty took up a position at the front of the building, behind the three-foot-high parapet. Between four-foot lengths of that roof-encircling wall were two-foot-wide crenellations from which a defender could, in relative safety, fire down upon attackers. He sat with his right side against the parapet, head craned forward to peer through one of the crenels, looking east toward the entry to the parking lot, where the bad guys would turn in from the street — if they came.
Sammy took some comfort in that if, even though he knew in his heart that they would come.
Sometimes a cold night in Rainbow Falls was a fine thing, the chill invigorating and the town pretty in the clear, crisp air, but this was the ugly side of cold, a mean little troll of a night that had sharp teeth and a bite sufficiently venomous to numb his nose. He sat on a plastic garbage bag to keep his bottom from getting wet. For the most part, he was warm, his clothes adequate to the conditions.
But he worried about his hands. He had worn a simple pair of knitted gloves to work, the kind that didn’t hamper driving, but that were not bitter-weather gear. If the replicants arrived in significant numbers, if there was a prolonged assault, Sammy feared that his hands would stiffen to an extent certain to affect his handling of the assault rifle and the shotgun. Consequently, instead of sitting with the rifle ready in his grip, he propped it against the parapet and kept his hands in the flannel-lined pockets of his jacket.
He anticipated that the replicants would have one of two strategies: either a fearless assault on the doors, with the intent of storming the place and killing everyone therein, or an attack on the broadcast tower immediately behind — and attached to — the station.
If they controlled the power company, as Deucalion insisted they did, they could black out this entire square block, but that would not put an end to Mason Morrell’s clarion call for strong resistance to the revolution. The station had emergency generators housed within the building, fed by a large gasoline tank buried under the parking lot, and they could remain on the air for at least twenty-four hours on their fuel supply, perhaps twice that long.
The open-girder steel tower was of strong construction, its four legs sunk in eighteen-foot-deep concrete pylons that anchored it to the earth and that were themselves anchored in bedrock. This design ensured the tower would ride through the
worst projected thousand-year earthquake that might rock the area related to a volcanic event at Yellowstone. The weakest point was the transmission cable that came out of the rear of the building in a conduit. The tower might be toppled with enough explosives, and the precious cable could be obliterated with a smaller charge. Sammy would be shooting down on any team that tried to approach the tower, and with the rapid-fire semiauto Bushmaster, he should be able to take them out long before they reached their objective, even if they were tough enough to take four or five mortal hits before succumbing.
From Ralph’s home bunker, or whatever it was, he had brought not only weapons but also additional equipment that might prove useful, including four Motorola Talkabouts, walkie-talkies about the size of cell phones but an inch and a half thick. These allowed Ralph, Burt, Mason, and Sammy to speak with one another in a crisis. Sammy kept his in a jacket pocket.
The Talkabout chirruped, and when he pulled it from his jacket, he heard Burt Cogborn say, “Sammy, are you there?”
Sammy held down the transmit button, said, “In place and ready for action,” and then released it.
From his post in the reception lounge below, Burt said, “If something happens to me and you take in Bobby, never ever give him any of those rawhide treats. He loves them but dogs can choke on them too easy. Over.”
Sammy replied, “No rawhide treats. Got it. Over.”
Before Sammy could return the Talkabout to his pocket, Burt said, “You’ll want to take him out to pee first thing in the morning, again around eleven, also after he eats at three-thirty, and a fourth time just before bed. Over.”
Sammy was about to respond when Burt transmitted again:
“Bobby pees four times a day, but he rarely ever poops four times. What he does is he poops usually three times a day, so if on one of his outings he doesn’t poop, don’t worry about it. That’s normal. Over.”
Sammy waited to be sure that Burt was finished, and then he transmitted: “Four pees, three poops. Got it. Over and out.”
Burt wasn’t finished. “Just to be sure you got it right, tell me which bunny is his favorite. Over.”
“Light-green, fully floppy bunny, not just floppy ears,” Sammy replied. “Over and out.”
Anyone on the channel whose Talkabout was switched on could hear their exchanges. The device chirruped before Sammy could pocket it, and Ralph Nettles said, “Good thing you aren’t obligated to take me in, Sammy. With this prostate, I have to pee like every half hour. Over and out.”
Sammy waited for a while before stuffing the walkie-talkie in his jacket pocket once more.
As if somebody opened a door in the sky, a breeze came down to chase off the stillness. The snow seemed to fall faster, which was probably an illusion. Instead of spiraling in a waltz with the air, the flakes hurried through the darkness, bright slanting skeins in the parking-lot lamps.
Instantly the air was colder than before, and Sammy fisted his lightly gloved hands in his pockets.
Chapter 42
Jocko was going to screw up. Didn’t know when. Didn’t know how. But Jocko would screw up because he was Jocko.
He sat on the floor. At the living-room coffee table. Wearing one of his fourteen funny hats with bells. Not his hacker hat. This was his please-don’t-let-me-screw-up hat. It had never worked before. But it had to work this time. It just had to.
With a book, Erika sat in a chair by the fireplace. She smiled at him.
Jocko didn’t smile. As a former tumor and a current monster, his smile was terrifying. He had learned the hard way how terrifying his smile could be.
Erika wasn’t terrified by it. Erika loved him. She was his mom, adopted. But his smile frightened everyone else. Then they screamed or stoned him, or beat him with sticks or buckets, or shoved him in an oven and tried to bake him to death, or shot at him, or tried to set him on fire, or tossed him into a pen with three big, hungry hogs, or literally threw him under a bus, or tried to strangle him with a prayer shawl.
Don’t smile. Don’t smile.
Kneeling on the floor, across the coffee table from him, was his new friend. Chrissy.
Because he was a few inches taller than the average dwarf, Jocko was shorter than almost everyone. He wasn’t shorter than Chrissy, who was five years old. He was the big kid here. Status. This was a first for Jocko. The big kid. The responsibility of his position weighed on Jocko. He was afraid he would start to sweat.
On the table were two cups and saucers. A little plate on which lay four plain-looking biscuits and six cubes of sugar. Two spoons. Two fancy linen napkins with embroidered pink roses that Jocko would have liked to make into a hat for Sundays. And a teapot.
Chrissy said, “How very nice of you to come visiting, Princess Josephine.”
Surprised, little bells jingling, Jocko looked around. For the princess. Royalty. He’d never met royalty before. He might need a different funny hat. He might need shoes. But no one new had come into the room.
When he cocked his head at Chrissy, perplexed, she said, “Now you’re supposed to say, ‘How very nice of you to invite me, Princess Chrissy.’ ”
Deeply impressed, Jocko said, “You’re a princess?”
“I’m the princess of Montana. My father is the king.”
“Whoa,” Jocko said. He began to sweat. Just a little. In his ears.
“And you,” said Princess Chrissy, “are Princess Josephine of a faraway kingdom.”
“I’m Jocko.”
“This is tea with princesses. Princess Jocko sounds dumb. You’ve gotta be Princess Josephine.”
Jocko smacked his mouth flaps, thinking about it. “You mean her stand-in because she couldn’t make it at the last minute?”
“Okay, sure.”
Jocko asked, “Why couldn’t the real Princess Josephine make it?”
Princess Chrissy shrugged. “Maybe she met a handsome prince and they’re gonna get married.”
“Or maybe,” Jocko said, “a sinister contagion has swept her father’s kingdom.”
Princess Chrissy frowned. “What’s a … that thing you said?”
“A sinister contagion. A plague. A horrible, disfiguring disease. Your nose can rot off, your ears, like leprosy. Your tongue can turn black and shrivel up. Thousands dead. Thousands more scarred and deranged and crippled for life. Bodies piled up in gutters. Mass graves. Catastrophe.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s the handsome prince. Now will you say it so we can go on?”
Because he wanted this teatime to be a great success, Jocko smacked his lip flaps and thought some more. To be sure he did just what she wanted. To be very sure. Then he said, “It so we can go on.”
Princess Chrissy cocked her head at him, the way he had earlier cocked his at her.
From her chair by the fireplace, Erika stage-whispered to Jocko: “How very nice of you to invite me, Princess Chrissy.”
Oh. He felt stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Less monster than tumor, less tumor than lowly cyst. Typical stupid Jocko. He tried to make a suave recovery. “How very nice of you to invite me, Princess Chrissy.”
“Would you like tea, Princess Josephine?”
“Yes. I would like tea.”
“Isn’t this a pretty teapot?”
“Yes. It is pretty. And a teapot.”
“Shall I pour a full cup?”
“Yes. You shall,” Jocko said.
He was getting the hang of this. It was easier than he thought it would be.
Princess Chrissy said, “Something’s dripping out of your ears.”
“Sweat. Just sweat.”
“I don’t sweat out of my ears.”
Jocko shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
“It’s icky.”
“A little icky,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t stink.”
As she poured the tea into the cups, Princess Chrissy said, “Princess Josephine, whose picture is on your dress? Is he a knight of your kingdom?”
Jocko wasn’t wearing a dress. He w
ore jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with his hero’s image on it.
“He’s the one, the only, Buster Steelhammer! He’s the face-smashing, butt-kicking, steroid-crazed, make-you-cry-mama best wrestler of all time!”
Princess Chrissy said she didn’t know what a wrestler was, they didn’t have wrestlers at the royal castle, and Princess Josephine, who was Jocko, was thrilled to explain. He wrestled himself around the floor. Got himself in a hammerlock. Which he could do because of the length of his arms. And the extra elbow joint. He stomped his right foot in his face, held his squished-up face to the floor. He didn’t have any hair to pull. Except the three hairs on his tongue. But he’d never seen any tongue-hair pulling in any show put on by World Wrestling Entertainment. He couldn’t pick himself up and body slam himself. He tried. But he couldn’t. However, he could do a lot of cool wrestler stuff. Which he did. And then returned to his place at the table.
Princess Chrissy giggled. “You’re silly.”
Her giggle made Jocko feel like a real prince. Or a princess. Whichever.
Princess Chrissy picked up her cup, blew on it, and said, “This is the only time I ever, ever had real tea to drink for teatime. Maid Erika brewed it for us.”
“What do you usually drink at teatime?”
“Air tea,” Princess Chrissy said.
Jocko drained the teacup in one swallow. “Yuch. Blech. Gaaaah. Gaaaah. Kack. Feh. Fah. Foo.” He stuck out his tongue and rubbed it vigorously with both hands. Grabbed up the fancy napkin. Wiped out the inside of his mouth. Blew his nose. Blotted the sweat from his ears. He said, “No offense meant.”
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