Tackett paused, took aim, and put a round through the right eye of the one in the lead, blowing out the back of his skull. He went down, tripping up a couple of the others.
“Back off!" the sheriff commanded.
They did not listen. But at least they slowed down a bit, perhaps wary of his marksmanship. Jack fired a few times at them as well, and one of the bullets connected.
He heard the Jeep's engine rumble to life and looked up, legs pumping beneath him. Molly was behind the wheel, and Bill was standing outside it. Both passenger side doors were open. Jack ran faster, Tackett rasping, trying to catch his breath as he did his best to keep up.
Bill had Molly's shotgun now, and he waited until Jack and Tackett were nearly to the Jeep before he pumped and fired twice in succession. Jack dove into the backseat. The sheriff climbed into the front, as Bill leaped in back.
The doors slammed.
Molly floored it in reverse and the tires squealed on the pavement. With a loud crumple of metal, she rammed one of the Prowlers. The others leaped on top of the Jeep as Molly shifted into Drive and accelerated again. Several of the beasts fell off.
One of them tried to hang on to the hood, but rolled off when Molly took a corner. But there was one on the roof, and another used the roof rack as a hand hold as he smashed the rear window with one huge, hairy fist.
“We've got to get them off!" Jack roared.
Jack slid down in the seat and shot two rounds through the roof of his Jeep. There was a wail of agony, and the beast up there tumbled off the side of the vehicle. Even as he sat up, he saw the sheriff take aim out the back window. He shot the Prowler back there twice, and would have done so a third time had the clip not run out of bullets.
They were free.
They had won.
Yet it did not feel as though it were a victory. Lemoine was still back at the police station. We survived, that's all. Jack tried to come to terms with that, for he knew that, for the moment, it would have to be enough.
Buckton was curiously silent as they rode toward the downtown area. Inside the Jeep, no one said a word.
Jack stared out the window at the street lamps casting their eerie glow upon the road, at the forest beyond, and the buildings that grew more numerous as they approached the Post Road. When he glanced up front again, he saw another car coming toward them. Its headlights reminded him of the sickly yellow illumination from the street lamps.
It passed them by going the other direction.
Phil Garraty's postal van.
Garraty's ghost glared sadly at him from behind the wheel as the spectral vehicle slid past in the night. One among many lost souls who were relying on him to destroy this Pack, not merely for vengeance, but to make sure they never killed again.
“Jesus," Jack whispered.
He closed his eyes, thinking about how many Prowlers were behind them - far more than he and Molly would have guessed. How many were still alive? They had killed maybe eight. Even if they could count on there being twelve or fifteen others back there, there was no way to know if they had even seen them all.
“Jack?" Molly asked, voice soft and anxious.
He opened his eyes.
“Are you all right?" she ventured.
They were passing through the main area of town now. The buildings looked almost abandoned. Dead. Ghosts themselves. There were a couple of people on the street, in front of the Empire Theatre. And along the sidewalks, he could see the ghost victims lining the road.
The ghosts stared at the Jeep as it rolled past, on its way out of town. The spirits of the dead knew that he was going. Leaving them unavenged.
“Damn it," Jack snapped.
He felt Tackett staring at him. In the passenger seat up front, Bill turned around. He was human again, and Jack had not even noticed him changing.
“What is it?" Bill asked him.
Jack swallowed hard. “You got those grenades?"
Bill touched the small bag that was still strapped around his shoulder. In the rearview mirror, Jack could see the reflection of Molly's eyes studying him. Worry lines crinkled the skin around her eyes, and he thought how wrong it was that she should have lines at the age of eighteen.
Then he crawled over the backseat and pulled the top off the crate back there. He withdrew boxes of ammunition for the nine millimeters, and a carton of shells for the shotgun. He tossed them over onto his seat, then he pulled out the assault rifle.
When he slid back into his seat, the sheriff was staring at him wide-eyed.
“What the hell are you doing, Jack?" Tackett demanded.
Jack held up the assault rifle. “You ever fired one of these?"
“Maybe not that one exactly," the sheriff replied carefully. “But I was a marine."
“That'll do," Jack said. He handed the weapon to the sheriff, then started loading his own guns again. “Bill," he said, “hand back that shotgun."
Molly's eyes still watched him in the mirror. “Jack?"
“Turn it around, Molly. We have to go back."
“You're out of your mind!" the sheriff told him. “Now's not the time, kid - "
Jack rounded on him. “You can't see what I see, Tackett! You can't see the dead lining the streets. We can't just leave. How do we know what they'll do in the meantime? How do we know they'll even still be here? But right now they're all back there waiting, probably pissing all over your office, your duty to this town.
We have to go back."
Tackett looked as though he'd been struck in the face. After a moment
