“The bridge is closed,” Ed said from the couch.
“We’ll see about that,” Oona said.
“It was Dobbs that figured out they were sensitive to the sound,” Laura said.
“Way to go, Dobbs!” Annie shouted through the ladder opening in the roof.
“He’s got the headphones on, he can’t hear,” Sam said. “Tell me why they’re after you, specifically.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Hey, how long has he been doing that?” Ed asked. “With the screaming noise.”
“I dunno,” Laura said. “A little while.”
“He should stop.”
“What’s wrong, Ed?” Annie asked.
“This is an intelligent force. If you give them too much exposure for too long, they’ll figure out a patch, and then it won’t work any more. Which is a problem when you’re surrounded by zombies.”
“You have a point, government,” Oona said over her shoulder. “But we’re getting out of town. Soon as we’re in Mount Hermon, we’ll do just that.”
“I told you, the bridge is closed.”
“Unless the bridge is gone, I’m driving over it. I don’t care who’s in my way.”
“She won’t be able to,” Ed said to Laura. “The ship won’t let anyone leave. You have to explain that to her.”
Just then, they all heard something that sounded like thunder. Given it was audible over the high-pitched screech coming out of the equipment on the roof, they were suitably impressed. Also, it probably wasn’t thunder.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Oona said.
“Hey, hey did anyone else see that?” Dobbs shouted from the roof.
“What was it?” Annie asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” Oona said.
Dobbs’ head appeared in the roof opening. “I think they bombed us,” he said.
“They who?” Annie asked, although she knew the answer.
“The military. Just guessing.”
“The whole sky lit up,” Oona said. “But, in a, like a dome, like we were on the inside of a snow globe. Hey, Mr. government. There’s something keeping us in, huh?”
“It comes down to about halfway across the bridge. Annie and I saw it happen earlier. You’ll just bounce off if you can even get to it.”
“It’s true,” she confirmed.
“Well that’s fantastic,” Oona said. “It’s Edgar, isn’t it?”
“Ed. Yes.”
“Edgar, if everything you two are saying is true… we can’t get out of Sorrow Falls, nobody can get in, the sonic attack is gonna stop working any second, and we’re riding around with what all the zombies are looking for, in a camper carrying less than a quarter tank of gas. Is that right?”
“Wait, what do the zombies want?” Dobbs asked.
“Later,” Sam said.
“Yes,” Ed said. “All of that’s correct.”
“Then we’re gonna have to shoot everyone in town to survive this.”
“Not necessarily. Do you have a map?”
A FEW MINUTES LATER, Ed was in the passenger seat of the camper looking at a map of Sorrow Falls, and Annie was sitting in the back. She was feeling a little light-headed, a lot exhausted, and a tiny bit hungry. She also had to fight the urge to start crying, which really pissed her off. As much as she was aware that this was her body’s normal post-stress reaction, and as much as nobody was going to hold it against the sixteen-year old zombie catnip for freaking out a little, she didn’t want to be that kind of sixteen-year old. She wanted to be the kind that people thought was older than sixteen, who everyone knew, who was never out of her element. Annie spent a pretty long time cultivating the girl who was always going to be okay, and she didn’t want a little thing like the world ending to screw with that image.
She also really, really wanted to call her mom. It probably wasn’t a huge secret that something had gone awry in Sorrow Falls. Someone had to tell Carol her daughter was okay. The worry would just make her condition worse.
At the same time, she was glad her mother was in Boston. The thought of her cancer-riddled mom wandering around town in her slippers and bathrobe, trailing multicolored fabric wraps in her wake was both comic and horrifying.
But Annie couldn’t call anyone because of the ship, and since the ship closed off the town specifically to look for Annie, if the stress ended up killing Carol, that would end up being Annie’s fault too.
The whole thing made her want to curl up in the loveseat in the back of the camper and sleep until it all went away.
She couldn’t do that, though, because Sam wouldn’t let her.
“What do you mean, you touched the ship?” he asked. Laura was there too, expressing more or less the same sentiment, but without the tone of betrayal. “When did you do this?”
“Sam…”
“Did you sneak past the guards or something? I know the back of the fence was vulnerable.”
“It was three years ago, the night it landed.”
He looked surprised, but a different kind now. “How could you not tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t even tell Ed until earlier tonight, and only after I found out half his gig was to figure out who touched Shippie.”
“Shippie?” Laura asked.
“The… yeah, the spaceship, it’s what I call it sometimes. Look, I just want a nap.”
“You can’t sleep. In fact, here.” He handed her a small tablet. “It’s a caffeine pill. We talked about it, and decided we can’t risk sleeping until this is all over.”
“Yeah that makes sense.”
She took the pill and gulped it down.
“Never had one of these before.”
“They’re fine,” Sam said. “I’ve had three. So why would they be after you for touching the ship?
“I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on, which is the problem. The ship was cold and smooth, and that’s all, have a nice day.”
There was a thump, and a bump, and the sound of tree branches brushing up against the side of the camper. They were going off-road.
Dobbs came down from the roof. They’d been running silent since leaving Main Street, which was working out okay so far as Annie could tell from the back. According to Sam everyone in the hills had been heading down toward Main and the river all evening. It would take them a while to relocate Annie and follow.
“Looks like we’re going to hide in the forest, or something,” Dobbs said, heading back. “I’ve never seen this part of town.”
“Does he think that’ll make a difference?” Sam asked Annie.
“I don’t know, I guess. He has a plan. I’m too tired to care.”
She did peek out the window, though. She saw nothing but dense woods, and began to wonder for herself what Ed was up to.
Then she thought maybe she recognized where they were.
“Ed, where are we?” she called.
“Come on up here.”
She got up with Sam’s help, partly because the loveseat was particularly cushiony, partly because he was a gentleman.
Getting from end-to-end in a camper bouncing madly due to an unpaved road was a real treat, especially since this particular cabin was a museum of practical post-apocalyptic junk.
She got to the front in time to see Violet’s house just as it was coming into view.
“You sure this is the place, champ?” Oona asked. “It ain’t even on that map.”
“Positive,” Ed said.
Annie was ashamed to realize she’d hardly even thought about her best friend through the entire ordeal. Somehow she imagined Violet and her family would be okay, because it seemed like nothing that happened in the rest of the world had an impact on them.
Ed was perhaps thinking the same way, but for entirely different reasons.