Edgar moaned and tried to sit up. He rolled onto his hands and knees and began to retch.
“Shit,” Charlie said. “Don’t have any choice now.” He ripped Edgar’s mask off. Vomit spilled out it, dripping off Edgar’s nose and chin. He sucked in a ragged breath and vomited again.
Purcell jerked his legs out of the manhole and Axel helped slide the cover back into place. It settled with a loud thunk.
Edgar sat back and spat. “Dizzy,” he said.
“You’ve probably got a concussion,” Sandy said.
“Can you walk?” Purcell asked. “We gotta get back to the truck.”
Sandy helped Edgar to stand. He looked a little unsteady, but gave them a thumbs-up.
“We’ll take it slow, but we need to get moving,” Purcell said.
They started back up Fifth Street. Sandy said, “Let’s cut down Franklin. I don’t want to get any closer to that damn corn than we need to.”
Purcell was about to say something when he suddenly stopped short and aimed his shotgun at one of the cars parked along the street. He squatted, sweeping the light back and forth under the car. “Huh. Thought I heard something.”
Then they all heard it. The scraping of bare feet and hands over pavement. The sounds came from all around them, creeping through the shadows, slithering through dark yards, crawling through bushes, squirming under vehicles.
Sandy spun, and they found themselves forming a tight circle in the middle of the street, shoulder to shoulder, trying to watch everywhere at once.
They were surrounded.
Charlie had two flares left. He stuck them in his back pocket, then shrugged off his backpack and gave it to Axel. “I’m going for the truck.” He racked the bolt back on his AA-12, making sure there was a shell in the breech. “Get him,” he pointed at Edgar, standing but still swaying, “someplace where you can hole up for a bit.”
Purcell reached out and patted Charlie’s shoulder. Father and son shared a look for a moment. Charlie said, “You’re gonna hear some shooting. Don’t sweat it.” He sparked one of the flares and took off running, raising the flare over his head with his left and holding the shotgun by the pistol grip with his right.
A dozen tendrils rippled across the street and followed. More of them, maybe a hundred, seethed out of the darkness and came at them. Purcell and Axel opened up, blasting a hole in the mass of creatures. They pulled Edgar along, struggling to run, heading south on Fifth Street.
Sandy had a flash. “There!” She pointed at a hulking shape that rose above the houses, silhouetted against the stars. “The water tower! These things, they can’t climb. We’ll get up there and wait for Charlie.”
“I don’t know,” Purcell draped Edgar’s arm over his shoulders and they shuffled along. “We get up there, we’re trapped.”
“Better than down here,” Sandy said, slamming her shotgun into her shoulder and squeezing off two quick shots at a couple of tendrils crawling into the street between two cars.
“Can’t argue with that,” Purcell said.
Axel emptied his clip into the horde that crept across the street. He dropped it and fumbled for a new one.
Sandy heard distant gunfire.
They ran along the gym and passed a row of school buses. Sandy noticed that tendrils of all sizes were tracking them. Most were large, moving along on human limbs. Some were smaller, lower to the ground, using dog, cat, and possum legs. They flowed over each other as if oblivious to the other tentacles. The effect was like a mass of giant, wriggling centipedes, all scurrying to reach the food first.
“Over there,” Sandy said, panting. “At the edge of center field. Near the trees.” They ran onto the baseball diamond. The tendrils followed, and their scrabbling across the dry grass raised a cloud of dust and line chalk. Axel hung back and sprayed the closest fungus tentacles with another twenty rounds. The tendrils kept coming.
And more were rushing out of the darkness of the trees to meet them.
Sandy fired at those, trying to open up a path to the base of the water tower. She kept squeezing the trigger until the shotgun was empty, no way to reload now. They reached the waist-high chain-link fence and threw themselves over. She hoped the fence would slow the tendrils behind them, at least for a minute.
But it was low enough that the first few rows of arms on each tendril were able to pull the long line of limbs over and create enough momentum to keep flowing over.
Sandy’s steps faltered and she almost gave up when she saw how many tendrils were swarming out from the darkness of the trees. Dozens upon dozens, maybe hundreds. Moving through the grass, they made no sound. In some ways this silence unnerved Sandy the most. There was no warning, nothing until they were crawling up your legs. A dog will growl or bark to let you know they are scared or angry, a pissed-off cat will hiss at you, hell, even a goddamn rattlesnake will shake its tail to warn you off, but these things came after you in total silence. You blinked and they were suddenly upon you.
Axel managed to reload and blew the closest tendrils into a fine gray mist. Then the water tower loomed overhead. They pushed Edgar up the ladder first. Purcell was next, sticking close to Edgar in case he fell. Axel continued to fire, sweeping the shotgun back and forth in wild, frantic movements.
Sandy turned and put one foot on the flat piece of steel that jutted from the northwest leg of the water tower. She went to push herself off the ground, and heard a cry, a sound that struck the very core of her soul. She froze. The cry came again.
“Mom!”
It was Kevin.
CHAPTER 25
Sandy jumped off the water tower and whipped her flashlight around.
The tendrils crept closer, closer.
“In the tree!” Kevin yelled.
She raised the Maglite, flashing it into the branches. And twenty yards away, across a heaving mass of tendrils, she saw her son, standing in the crook of an old oak, fifteen feet off the ground. Puffing Bill carefully straddled the branch next to him.
She started toward him, lowering her shotgun and jerking the trigger. Nothing happened. Axel grabbed her. “You’re empty! Get up there!” He shoved her at the ladder.
She knew he was right. She called out to Kevin, “Stay put! I’ll get you. Just stay there!”
She put her foot on the ladder and started climbing. A fresh wave of emotion burst inside her mind, leaving her dazed. Sweet relief and raw fear ricocheted through her body and she had to stop for a second to collect her thoughts. Axel slapped her ass. She started moving, realizing that falling off the water tower wouldn’t help Kevin.
Down below, the tendrils wrapped around the spindly legs of the tower, and even though some of the arms grabbed listlessly at the ladder rungs, they could not climb.
She yelled, “Stay there!” in case he hadn’t heard her the first time. “We’ll get you. Just as soon as I can.” Her promise sounded hollow and desperate. She kept going, hand over hand, until she reached the catwalk.
Axel was right behind her. They crawled out onto the narrow ledge that ran around the top of the water tower. Purcell had pulled Edgar over to make room, and now Edgar sat with his feet dangling over the edge, clutching the railing.
Sandy sidled along the other direction until she was facing Kevin. “Are you okay?” she called.
“Yeah, Mom. We’re good.”
She almost wept as joy swept through her. “Just stay put until we figure something, all right? Just stay put.”