“Run!” Ethan grabbed Amy’s hand and pulled her off the road. Others had heard the sound too, and their flashlights whirled as they scattered, spots of brightness and blurs of color. The heavy pack bounced on his shoulders, and talons of fire clutched his knee as they sprinted up the entrance to the complex.
Humvees ripped around a bend in the road, their mounted spotlights turning night to day. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker, the words lost in screams and the roar of engines. Ethan didn’t waste any time trying to listen, just made for the cover of the model home, Amy half a step behind. His heart thumped his ribs as they pounded up the gravel drive and slid into shadow against the wall.
Violet had woken and was crying, and Amy’s face was pinched as she murmured, “Shh, no, not now, please, shh.”
Now what?
Peering around the edge of the building, he could see that the Humvees had split up, one holding the base of the road, two others swinging out to corral the refugees. The swiveling spotlights were blinding, and people froze in their beams.
“Do not run. We will fire. Get down on your knees and put your hands on your head.”
Would they really shoot? He didn’t know. If the government actually believed they might be terrorists, or infected with something . . . it was possible.
On the road, people were complying, setting down packs and blankets, kneeling on the blacktop. As the spotlights swung back and forth, they framed the huddled figures in light, throwing twisted shadows.
“Dr. Ethan Park. A drone has identified you on this road.”
His mouth fell open, and icy panic drenched his body. His hands tingled and itched.
A drone?!
Why in the name of everything holy would a drone be looking for him? Why would anyone?
“Put your hands on your head and walk slowly toward the vehicles, Dr. Park.”
“What?” Amy’s eyes were white with reflected light. “Why do they want us?”
He flashed back to the DAR agents who had come to see him, Bobby Quinn and Valerie West. The two of them asking about his research. That can’t be. It’s silly. “I really don’t know.”
“Should we turn ourselves in?”
He peered back around the edge of the house. Soldiers had dismounted the trucks, transforming the cheerful column into a huddle of terrified prey.
Near the middle, one man was still standing. It was the one they’d seen before, wearing flannels and carrying a rifle. His son knelt on one side of him, his wife on the other, her hands tugging his pant leg. Instead, he reached down and pulled her to her feet.
“Put your hands on your head, Dr. Park.”
“I’m not him,” the man yelled back. “We’re not him.”
“Get down on your knees.”
“I’m an American citizen. And I am not going back to Cleveland.” He started forward, ignoring his wife pulling at him.
“Sir! Get down on your knees, now!”
“We’re not who you’re looking for.”
“Drop the weapon and get down on your goddamn knees!”
“I have rights,” the man shouted. “I’m not a terrorist. You can’t do this.”
“Stop, you idiot,” Ethan whispered. “Get down.”
The man took one step, and then another.
A short series of detonations, flashes of brilliant light and booms that ricocheted through Ethan’s stomach like fireworks, only that couldn’t be, fireworks were in the sky, not on the road, and then the hunter’s back exploded.
For a second, the only sound was the echo of the gun blasts reverberating through the trees. Then the screaming started.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Amy said, “ohmygod.”
People were standing now, starting to run. The loudspeaker boomed again, told everyone to stop, but hysteria had replaced fear. Ethan had a terrible image of the guns opening fire, strafing the crowd, but it was the spotlights instead, the soldiers hopping off the trucks and yelling.
Ethan grabbed Amy’s arm, squeezed hard. The woods were—
A sudden tapping sound made him jump. His first thought was that he’d been shot, but there was no pain, and the sound was too quiet.
It was the window of the model home, the one they were hiding behind. A woman held a flashlight in one hand as she opened the window with the other. “Quick,” she said, with a come here gesture.
He looked at her, a stranger in a tank top, her face twisted with urgency. Ethan grabbed Violet, pressed her into the woman’s arms, and then half boosted, half shoved Amy through the window. He gripped the edge of the windowsill and pulled himself up and over, the backpack making it awkward.
More gunfire sounded on the road.
The woman turned out to be named Margaret, and she was the wife of the guy Ethan had seen on the front porch, who now put out his hand. “Jeremy.”
The five of them were in the basement of the model home, a finished space designed to be a family room, though at the moment it held just a couple of folding chairs and a conference table. Outside, the loudspeakers boomed commands. He could imagine the scene, people being rounded up and zip-tied, loaded onto trucks. The soldiers would be ID’ing each of them, looking for him.
But why?
He didn’t know. Maybe it was the DAR; maybe it was whoever kidnapped Abe; maybe it was a mistake. Regardless, it seemed best not to be the name read over the loudspeakers. Hoping his wife would pick up on what he was doing, Ethan said, “I’m Will.” His middle name. “My wife Amy. And this is Violet.”
Amy didn’t miss a beat as she said, “Thank you for letting us in.”
“Of course, sweetheart.” Margaret shook her head. “I don’t know what those boys were up to, shooting at people, but I couldn’t let you stay out there. Not with the little one.” She cooed down at Violet, now back in Amy’s arms. “My lord, she’s precious.”
“You think the soldiers will search the house?”
Jeremy shook his head. “Wouldn’t think so. The doors and windows are locked, so no reason for them to think people are here.”
“We’re sort of caretakers,” Margaret said. “Watch over the place, make sure kids don’t come out to party, that kind of thing.”
Ethan said, “We won’t stay long. Just until they leave.”
“Nonsense. We’ve got plenty of room. It’s too late at night to be wandering around, especially with those soldiers all wound up.”
“You know the guy they were looking for?” Jeremy asked.
“No. We didn’t know any of those people. Just trying to get out of town, go stay with Amy’s mom in Chicago.”
Jeremy swiveled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. They seemed to have run out of things to say, and in the silence, a Humvee engine revved. They all listened, heads cocked, as the sound grew fainter.
“We’ve got some food,” Ethan said. “It’s not much, but are you guys hungry?”
It was the strangest Thanksgiving he could remember, although there was something wonderful about it, too. Margaret and Amy worked together over the camp stove, heating cans, while he and Jeremy set the table. Paper plates and plasticware, a Coleman lantern in the center of the table. The man wasn’t much of a talker, but Ethan learned that they had two kids upstairs—“boys’d sleep through Judgment Day”—and that Jeremy also worked as an electrician, wiring the housing development.
Dinner was an odd mix: Campbell’s soup, black beans, jerky, peanut butter sandwiches. They all held hands as Jeremy said grace, and then everyone tucked in. Margaret kept up a steady stream of talk, all of it pleasantly inane. The food tasted better than it had a right to, and there were moments when Ethan forgot that they were huddled in a basement on the outskirts of a paralyzed city under terrorist attack and hunted by drones.