the top of his head. The other four arrived unscathed, crossed the wires clutched in their cold, pale hands, and set off simultaneous explosions, shredding both their bodies and the armory's door and outer wall. Before the smoke had even cleared, Ob's forces poured into the building through the fiery, twisted hole. There were gunshots and screams-and then silence.
'That didn't take long,' the zombie lieutenant mused.
Ob quipped, 'In a New York minute.'
When it was over, the zombie army grew by six more bodies and hundreds of weapons.
Still watching through the binoculars, Ob smiled.
TEN
Jim sighed in contentment, drained a bottle of cold spring water, popped his neck, and watched as Danny sprawled on the floor and played with his action figures. The boy was making sound effects and doing the dialogue.
'Take that, you! Ka-pow. Ka-pow.'
Jim stifled a laugh, not wanting to make Danny feel self-conscious. It had been far too long since he'd watched Danny play, and the sight was joyous. He marveled at his son's resilience. Despite all that had happened to them, it appeared that he was adjusting fine to this new situation.
'So which superheroes are those?' Jim asked.
'The red guy is Daredevil,' Danny said. 'The one with the skeleton head and flames coming out of it is Ghost Rider. They're both from Marvel.'
'I thought Ghost Rider was a good guy. Why is he fighting Daredevil?'
'He's good, but I'm pretending that he's bad, like the monster-people outside. They got into his body and made him bad.'
'Oh.'
Jim propped his feet up on the couch. The bathrobe felt soft against his skin. Clothes had been hung in the room's closet for both of them, not exactly form fitting or new, but clean and comfortable enough. Jim wondered who they belonged to before, and who had been responsible for assigning them to him and Danny.
'Daddy?'
'What, squirt?'
'Do you think it was Mr. Ramsey that left these toys for me?' He echoed his father's thoughts.
'I don't know. It could have been, I guess, though I'm inclined to think it was probably Smokey.'
Danny thought about this, and then said, 'He seems nice.'
'Smokey? Yeah, he does. Nice old guy. I think he's sort of the welcome wagon around here. At least, that's the impression I got.'
Guided by Danny's hands, Daredevil kicked Ghost Rider in the face. Ghost Rider fell over, complete with Danny's sound effects.
'I wonder if Mr. Ramsey is nice, too.'
'I don't know, buddy. I guess so. He's helping all these people.'
'Mommy used to watch him on TV.'
'Did she?'
'Yeah. She liked him, but Dad-I mean Rick-said he was a pompous jerk.'
Jim grimaced, trying not to react to his son's referral of his stepfather as Dad.
'Well, Rick was right, as far as I'm concerned. Guess Rick and I agreed on that.'
'What does pompous mean, Daddy?'
'Pompous is when somebody thinks they are better than you. When they act stuck up.'
'Kind of like Grandma used to act to you?'
Jim choked down the laughter that Danny's assessment of his ex-mother-in-law had inspired. Then he noticed that his son was grinning too.
'Yeah. I guess that's not a bad definition.'
Jim snorted more laughter through his nose, and Danny followed suit. Within seconds, they were both laughing out loud.
'God, I missed you, squirt.'
'I missed you too, Daddy.'
Jim slid off the couch, crawled across the carpet to his son, and gave Danny a big hug. It lasted a full thirty seconds, but felt to Jim like it was over too soon. Then the two of them began to play Daredevil versus Ghost Rider. Daredevil, controlled by Danny, won every battle, but Jim didn't mind.
After a while, they stopped. A frown creased Danny's brow.
'What's wrong, squirt?'
'I'm thinking about Mommy.'
