Sure, even if you don’t know where the monsters came from or why or what caused the Crisis and the Cough, then at least you know why Toothpick was so interested in D.J.’s house.
Red didn’t have any idea how long it would take for an alarm to be raised, but she had to assume that Pretty Quickly was the answer.
The men were all stupidly heavy to move—even Toothpick, and he’d had most of his insides blasted out of him by the Thing That Should Not Be.
Despite the chill in the air Red was sweating and out of breath by the time she’d pushed all the men into the ditch. She’d mostly kicked the last one, because it was exhausting to hunch over and try to roll the bodies.
Sam sat on the lawn of the brick house, her arms wrapped around her knees. Red fell to the ground next to her, legs splayed out. She knew they should move, but she was tired down in her soul. The adrenaline surge and all the physical activity left her head nodding.
“What about the monster?” Sam asked
The thing’s head had finally stopped whirring, but Red didn’t feel confident that it was no longer a threat just because it seemed to be dead.
“Maybe I better just leave it where it is,” Red said. “What if I pick it up and an egg gets implanted in me or something?”
Sam wrinkled her nose. “How is that even possible?”
Red shrugged. “I don’t know. It looks like an alien, doesn’t it? It seems like the sort of thing that would implant an egg just when you think you’re safe.”
It wasn’t an alien, though, not if Sirois was to be believed. This thing had been created in a lab with government funding. But why? Biological terrorism? It didn’t seem like an awesome idea to make something that would terrorize friend and foe alike. This creature didn’t appear to pick and choose its hosts with any discrimination.
“So you’re just going to leave it there?” Sam asked.
“Yup,” Red said. “Maybe when the next patrol comes along it will confuse them.”
Actually, if they were lucky there would be more of these monsters and they would wreck the whole militia. That would be ideal.
“Um, Red,” Sam said. “There’s someone coming.”
She pointed down the road in the direction of D.J.’s house. There was “someone” coming—there were many someones. A whole line of trucks and jeeps that looked far more official than any militia. They were driving very fast.
“Shit,” Red said. “Can’t I sit down and rest for a damned minute?”
She struggled to stand again, but her body was worn to pieces and wouldn’t cooperate. Not even the fear of getting caught by the military was enough to force her legs to stand and run. The cavalcade would be upon them in a minute. She and Sam had certainly been spotted by now, so even if they did hide in the house the soldiers would just come and drag them out.
Well, there was nothing for it. Red would have to brazen it out. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done it before. But she couldn’t stand up anymore. Her body was done, at least for the moment.
The head jeep pulled to a halt a short distance from where Red and Sam sat on the lawn, and through some kind of magic all the vehicles behind it managed not to run into one another’s bumpers.
Sam huddled close to Red’s shoulder. Red expected to be surrounded by barking men with rifles, but only the two men in the jeep got out and walked toward them. One of them was very tall—the tallest person Red had ever seen.
“Sirois,” Red said as he and his companion stopped by Red’s feet.
“That’s Lieutenant Sirois to you,” he said, surveying the scene.
“Got a promotion, did you?” Red said, and gestured at the two pieces of the Thing That Should Not Be in the middle of the road. “Found one of your ‘tapeworms.’”
He looked at the corpses in the ditch, then at the axe in her hand. “And something else, I see. Does your grandma live around here?”
“Nope,” Red said. “I’m still on my way there.”
“Not traveling alone any longer, either,” Sirois said, smiling at Sam. He turned to the man who hovered at his elbow and gave him a muttered order. The other man dashed away.
“Are you going to tell me what that alien thing is all about now that I’ve sliced one of them in half?” Red asked.
“It’s still classified,” Sirois said. “We’ve had reports that there’s another homegrown militia here, one that’s been kidnapping women and children. Do you know anything about that, or where they’re located?”
Red considered. It went against the grain to help the military, but Sirois had ensured that she escaped that besieged town safely. And if Sirois’s group cleared out the Kidnapping Militia, then so much the better. It meant that Red and Sam and Riley could cross through the region without worrying about getting snatched up.
“Deus ex machina again, huh? You’re going to sweep in and save the day?” Red said.
“Just like in a movie,” Sirois said.
“I’ll show you where we think they are if you’ll bring a map,” Red said. “I’d be happy as hell to have you wipe them off the face of the earth.”
Sirois looked from Red to Sam to the corpses and it seemed like he finally jigsawed all the pieces together. He went to the jeep to get the map.
In the meantime, a select group of soldiers had approached the remains of the monster. They all wore gloves and face masks made of thin wire mesh, almost like the kind fencers wore. One of them carried a black box with a hinged top.
Two of the men had their rifles trained on the head. Nobody seemed to care much about the rest of the body.
Sirois returned with the map and handed it to Red. She took it without looking, her eyes fixed on the play before her.
The man with the black box set it carefully on the ground close to the monster’s head. He flipped the hinged lid open and Red heard something sloshing inside the box.
Two other men approached the head. They held long sticks that had metal grippers on the end, almost like the kind of thing used to pick up trash. One of them carefully closed the gripper around the back of the monster’s head.
As soon as the metal touched it the teeth began to whirr again. Red was very glad that her natural sense of caution had kept her from moving the corpse. Apparently these things were dangerous even when you thought they were dead.
The soldier hurriedly dropped the head into the box. Red heard a splash and then the first man snapped the lid into place.
Red gave Sirois some side-eye. “Classified?”
“Definitely classified,” Sirois said firmly.
Red showed him the route she’d plotted on the map based on their observations about the patrols.
“We assume they’re in this area somewhere. Although you may not have to go looking for them,” Red said. “It’s been a while now since I . . . disabled this patrol. I figured that someone would be along any minute now to find them.”
“Probably a safe assumption,” Sirois said, looking at the places she marked on the map.
He went back to the second man in the jeep. They conferred for a few minutes while Red thought about standing up. A little bit of sun was fighting through the cloud cover and she turned her face up toward it.
She thought about all the days that had passed since the Crisis first started—about the girl she had been and the girl she was now. Red had thought she’d known everything at the start. She thought that knowledge, that preparation would keep her and her family safe. It hadn’t. No amount of caution or knowledge or perfectly packed supplies could eliminate danger. That danger had taken her family from her.