Dan squeezes his lips together. He had hoped she would say something which could alleviate his guilt just a little. He knows logically that Jennie’s death wasn’t his fault, and yet he still feels like it was.
They sit for a while in silence. His grandma brings him a big bowl of porridge, and when Dan smells the food, he suddenly becomes extremely hungry and wolfs down the entire serving.
Afterwards, with his stomach full, he feels a little better. He wants to say something else to his mom, but decides not to. It won’t do any good as long as she’s like this. Instead, he gets up and goes to the living room. He’s about to throw himself on the couch, when he notices what’s happening on the television.
It’s a news report—live, apparently—and they’re sending from somewhere in this town. Dan recognizes the hospital where he passed by himself just a few hours ago. Now, police cars are parked all over the place, and officers with dogs and guns dressed in riot gear are running into the building. The picture moves as the cameraman steps closer, and Dan catches a glimpse of something through the glass doors which makes his stomach clench up.
Inside the entrance hall, a chaotic scene is playing out. A lot of people seem to be fighting with the police, and wounded persons are lying everywhere on the floor. A figure staggers by, glancing out through the glass for a brief second, and Dan recognizes her.
“Selina!” he breathes, his mouth opening wide.
They go back to the studio where a reporter with a very grave expression is talking under the headlines: Breaking! Bloody riots at local hospital!
“How … how can it …? I don’t get it … she killed him … she said she killed him …”
“What’s that, Dan?” his grandma asks from someplace very far away.
The pieces fall into place with dull, heavy thuds in Dan’s mind.
Jonas wasn’t properly dead. That’s the only explanation. Or maybe … maybe Selina got a scratch she hadn’t noticed.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the catastrophe Dan was sure they had successfully avoided, is now unfolding in front of his eyes.
The reporter touches his ear like someone is talking in his earpiece. Dan looks around for the remote, finds it and unmutes.
“… that no more than a few hours ago, a similar attack went down just miles outside the same town. Our intel is still sparse, but apparently, the target was a school bus, and an elderly couple is said to have been involved. We’re trying as we speak to find out more …”
“Elderly couple,” Dan whispers. “Outside town …”
More pieces clamber into place. Something from his dream. Something about a cat.
The cat! … Holy hell, it was the cat! It stepped in the blood and then it scratched the lady … She got infected, just like Thomas did from the broken glass …
And suddenly, the picture is completed, and Dan sees everything clearly. How the disaster is not averted, how, in fact, it’s been growing while he slept, expanding into catastrophic proportions, and now it’s probably too late to stop. Unless the police are quick and effective. But do they even know what they’re fighting? And do they have the resources?
“What’s this now?” His grandma is standing next to him. “My goodness! That’s not here in town, is it?”
The picture has changed back to the scene by the hospital.
“Listen, Grandma,” Dan says, turning to face her. “We need to leave town, right now. It’s not over. What happened to Jennie is happening to many others. It’s only a matter of time before the entire town …”
“Easy, Dan, calm down.”
“… will be taken over! It’s not safe to be here. We need to …”
“Take a deep breath, Dan. You’re not making sense.”
Dan turns and runs to the kitchen. “Mom!”
His mom looks at him sleepily. “What?”
“You need to listen to me. We’re in danger here. We need to leave, right now.”
An expression of mild irritation passes over his mom’s face, but she doesn’t reply, simply turns her head to stare out into the garden again.
“Mom!” Dan shouts and grabs her shoulders. “Will you listen to me, please!”
His mom shrugs him off with a grumpy groan. She looks like she’s about to say something, but then her face crumbles up and she starts to cry.
Dan steps back. “I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t mean to …”
His grandma places a hand on his shoulder. “Leave your mom be, Dan. She’s already struggling.”
Dan’s ears pick up a sound which he at first takes to come from the television: the sound of sirens. But the sound intensifies, and Dan runs to the kitchen window facing the driveway.
An ambulance comes into sight, stopping by the curb. Two paramedics wearing yellow vests jump out and run into number 18.
FIFTEEN
“What the heck is taking them so long?”
Lone is pacing back and forth across the kitchen as she keeps darting glances out the windows.
“Take a seat,” Finn mutters. “Or at least stop moving about. They’ll be here as soon as they can.”
He’s sitting on a chair in the kitchen, keeping an eye on the Arab, who’s lying on the couch in the living room. The injured hand is resting on his chest, wrapped in a fairly decent bandage which Finn was able to make thanks to the first aid kit still open on the coffee table. Next to it is a glass of water which Finn attempted—unsuccessfully—to get the guy to drink. He just thrusted his head back and forth and kept mumbling deliriously.
“At least he settled down now,” Lone says, an unmistakable tone of relief in her voice. “I guess that’s a good sign, right?”
“I would think so,” Finn says, emptying the third can of beer before getting to his feet.
“What are you doing?” Lone asks at once.
“I’m just going to check on him.” Finn walks into the living room. As soon as he gets close to the couch,
