But what if Curt didn’t make it in one piece? What if he made it across but spilled, broke both legs? Would they really have to watch each other die?
“I dunno…” Dana said, shaking her head. And Holden knew that she was thinking the same thing. She hated Curt risking this, but she also knew it might be their only chance at escape. Even now back there in the forest, things would be coming for them.
“Okay,” Curt said, skidding to a stop beside them and eyeing the ravine.
“Curt, are you sure about this?” Dana asked.
“I’ve done bigger jumps than this.”
“You’ve got a smooth run,” Holden said. “A slight rise here, and maybe a five foot differential on the other side, which is good. But you gotta give it everything.” “You know it.”
“Curt…” Dana said. He came down off his adrenaline kick for a moment and looked at her. He’s already lost so much, Holden thought, and he wondered how a guy like Curt could still function having seen his girlfriend’s head kicked around by a zombie. But it was precisely a guy like Curt who would continue to function after such a terror. Functioning—doing something—helped him forget, at least for a time.
Sitting by, doing nothing… that would eat him up.
“When I’m across and gone, you guys stay in the Rambler,” he said. “If they come, just keep driving away from ’em. I’ll get help. If I wipe out I’ll fuckin’ limp for help, but I’m coming back with cops and choppers and large fucking guns and those things are gonna pay.” He glanced aside. “For Jules.”
Dana leaned across and kissed him on the cheek.
Curt gunned the bike.
“Don’t hold back,” Holden said.
“Never do.” Curt grinned at them and ran the bike back along the road a little, standing in the saddle and leaning to curve around to the right. He didn’t wait and rev up, but let go instantly, knowing that even that small bit of momentum could give him the added speed he needed when he hit the drop-off.
Go on, Holden thought, go on, you’re the jock, the good-looking guy every girl wants to go out with and every guy wants to be. It’s only right that you’ll be the one to save us. And as Curt powered past them on the dirt-bike Holden knew definitely, absolutely, that he would succeed. He hit the slightly raised lip of the drop-off with the front wheel high, speed good, and Holden punched the air and yelled, “Yeah!” because the jump could not have been performed any better, it was perfect, when they got back to the world Curt would be able to make a profession as a stunt—
The bike struck something and exploded in mid-air.
“Noooo!” Dana screamed.
The fire and burning fragments spread far and wide as if he’d struck something solid, and beyond the extremes of the flames, sparking blue lines flicked into and out of existence. Straight lines, perfectly vertical and horizontal like a grid.
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck—?
Curt didn’t make a sound, and Holden hoped that he was already dead as he fell. Because he was on fire. His clothing was splashed with fuel, his hair singed away, his face aflame, and he twisted slowly as he plummeted into the ravine like a living flare, lighting the cliff walls all the way down. And all the way, those severe blue lines flickered in and faded out all around him.
“Oh God, oh God…” Dana chanted, and when Holden grabbed her arm her muscles were hard as steel, fists clenches so tight that he felt a dribble of blood issue from beneath her fingers.
“He hit something!” Holden gasped. “There’s nothing! What’d he hit!”
The flames had fallen away now, going down with the remnants of the bike and his dead, still-burning friend. But between them and the other side of the ravine, something stood guard. Curt, he thought, and his face crumpled as he thought of his friend’s ready smile and friendly manner. He took a couple of steps and saw a faint glow somewhere far below. But then he stopped, because he didn’t want to see what gave that glow.
“Puppeteers…” Dana said softly. He’d never heard her sounding like this before. Tender, yes, and shy, and scared and terrified. But her voice now was tinged with defeat.
“Did you see it?” Holden asked. “What’d he hit?”
But she was looking at something far more distant than either of them could see.
“Marty was right. God.”
“Get in the van!” Holden said urgently. There was just the two of them now, and if those zombies could run—
“Marty was right…”
“Dana, get in the fucking Rambler! We can talk about this later, but right now we have to get away from here. They’ll be attracted by the…” Explosion, he thought. Our shouting. The impossible explosion, and our useless shouting, because whichever way they turned—
But he would not be defeated. Curt would have snorted even at the thought of defeat. He had died trying to save them all, and Holden would run and fight and do every single thing he could to honor his friend’s sacrifice.
He grabbed Dana’s hand and pulled her toward the van. She was slow—he was almost dragging her—and he wanted to shout and rage at her to not give up, never give up. But when they reached the Rambler she let go and opened the door, holding it open for him to jump in first. And though distracted, he could also see something new appearing in her eyes: anger.
Holden jumped into the driver’s seat and Dana sat beside him. She was deliberate, almost calm. All the fear had dropped from her face. And she’d been talking about… puppeteers?
He gunned the engine and swung the Rambler around, away from the tunnel and back the way they’d come. Perhaps he’d pick out one of those fucking zombies in the headlamps and be able to run the thing over. Then reverse. Then run it over again.
“You’re going back,” she said.
“I’m going through,” he said. “We’ll just drive. There’s gotta be another road, another way out of here.” “It won’t work,” she said. “Something will happen. A bridge will collapse, a road will wash away. We’ll fall into a sinkhole.”
“Then we’ll leave the roads altogether!” he said, unreasonably angry at her sudden sense of defeat. “Dana, we’ll drive as far as we can into the forest, go on foot from there—”
Dana shook her head.
“You’re missing the point.”
“I am?” He hated her fatalism; he was trying to help them here. And he had never seen that in her before. I thought I was getting to know her, he thought, glancing at her sidelong. “Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”
She looked. She even smiled a little, but it was one of the saddest smiles he’d ever seen. “This isn’t your fault,” he said.
She laughed softly but it did nothing to lift the sadness.
“I know. It’s the puppeteers.”
“Please don’t go nuts on me, Dana,” Holden said. Puppeteers? What the…? “You’re all I got.”
She continued staring at him. He glanced at the road, back at her, and her relaxed, sad expression did not change. She looks as far from mad as I’ve seen her since this began.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Good. ’Cause I need you calm.” He took a tight bend, fighting with the wheel, unused to the big vehicle and almost letting the rear end swing out from behind them. He’d have to go slow—if he wrecked or rolled the van that’d be it for them. The thought of being trapped inside while those zombie bastards bashed and hacked their way in… “No matter what happens, we gotta stay calm.”