trapping us inside.
'Who's the girl?' demanded a stunned-looking sentry.
'Sandoval said I could bring someone,' Cowper said. 'Open the damn gate!'
'Girls are supposed to be quarantined.'
'That's only if they might turn. She has a medical condition that stops her from maturing. Look at her-does she look seventeen?'
'She's seventeen?' All the guards nearly jumped out of their skins, as if I were liable to snatch their guts out.
Impatiently, Cowper replied, 'You morons, if she was gonna, she already woulda. Don't you get it? Where's Reynolds?' As he spoke, I saw a ghastly figure appear out of the hazy twilight, racing along the outside of the fence toward us. We were pinned in place; it could grab us right through the bars.
'Let us in!' I screamed.
'I guess it's Bring Your Daughter to Work Day,' said the man Reynolds from above. 'All right, go ahead,' he ordered. 'Let 'em in.' The gate swung open, and we were jerked through, half-deaf from the fusillade around our ears. I had never heard shooting before. It wasn't like the movies. Something squishy slammed against the bars just as we jumped clear. I didn't want to look. I could've cried to be among people again, and tried to thank them, but any man I approached reared like a spooked horse.
'They're a little traumatized,' Cowper observed, taking me aside. 'Send 'em a thank-you note.'
Reynolds announced, 'Hold your fire! That thing's got more holes than the goddamn Albert Hall.' At his command, a man swaggered past us wearing a tank on his back like an exterminator. Using a sparking device, he ignited a pale blue pilot light at the end of his weapon and pointed it at the writhing pulp outside. Liquid fire sprayed through the gate. Its oily yellow glow cast all the men's unshaven faces in gold, making them look like combatants in some Hollywood spectacle.
'Cowper!' called Reynolds from above. In the waning torchlight, he, too, looked heroic up on his crowded platform, like Napoleon reviewing the troops, but he was obviously extremely annoyed about us traipsing through the scene. 'Get that girl out of here before somebody shoots her by accident. They'll fill you in at Building Nineteen.'
'I have to go to the Front Office,' Cowper said.
'The Front Office is restricted to company executives and NavSea.'
'Since when?'
'Since you'll find out. Now go.'
'I want to talk to Sandoval.'
The other man's laugh was mirthless and distracted. 'Sandoval's a little scarce these days, along with the rest of the suits in upper management. Talk to Ed Albemarle.'
'Ed Albemarle? From Finishing?'
'He's in charge of you people. Better hurry-it's after curfew.'
I had no idea what they were talking about, but Cowper was plainly troubled by it, and that was enough to disturb me. 'What's wrong?' I asked.
'I retired here after twenty years,' he groused, nodding to himself. 'That was after serving twenty in the Navy, and you're gonna tell me that son of a bitch won't talk to me? He'll talk to that asshole Coombs, but he won't talk to me? Bullshit. I served with Rickover, for Christ sake! I got more experience than both of them assholes put together. We'll see about this…'
He started leading me away, but just then the man with the flamethrower was sent outside the fence, and we were caught up in the sudden, expectant lull. 'Why is he doing that?' I asked, appalled.
A hyper young guard standing nearby said, 'That's Griggs; he's hard-core. 'Have Flamethrower, Will Travel.' First time I saw it I was like, 'Whoa!' It's his job to make sure nothing's left wiggling on the doorstep that might creep in your bunk later on. Somebody's gotta do it!'
In spite of his heavy fuel tank, Griggs moved lightly, a black silhouette against the settling dusk, pilot flame darting back and forth. Every few seconds he would let loose a dripping gust of fire down the concrete hedgerows, as if trying to flush game. Just before he reached the last row, I saw movement. Something large, pale, more crablike than human, had been hiding in the smoldering wreck of the car. Now it rose at him from the murk.
He was ready for it, unleashing a billowing yellow plume that met the thing and swallowed it whole. But in that gorgeous light, Griggs must have seen what we all saw, captured in midair like a camera flash: four garish monstrosities, jittery-fast in the sepia light as creatures in a bizarro silent movie, coming at him from either side. In that split second, Griggs knew he was dead. I knew the feeling, too, and perhaps because I had been wrong, I expected something to intervene, to save him, but when the nearest one-a feral harpy wearing a coat of greasy flame-caught Griggs up in her blazing rapture and bellowed into his face with a mouthful of fire, lips peeling back like bacon, black teeth gnashing, hair a crackling torch, then covered his mouth with her own as the others piled on, I could only whimper, 'No, no, no…'
Shocked cries and gunfire rose from the men around us, then were drowned out by the double explosion of the car and Griggs's tank. A fireball like an immense Japanese lantern rose into the sky, radiating debris and baking heat. It enveloped the watchtower, sending men ballooning upward and dropping them like charred scarecrows. Reynolds was caught completely off guard. I saw him up there just before the fire-cloud hit, and he seemed to be looking off into the distance. Perhaps he didn't much care that the air was suddenly sucked from his lungs, or that the chill evening had become a blast furnace. Perhaps, like Griggs, he already knew he was dead, having seen in that baleful light the hordes of Xombies emerging from the trees and scrambling across the grassy divide toward the fence.
'Time to skedaddle,' said Cowper, dragging me away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Somewhat reluctantly, I let Cowper lead me from the zone of frantic activity at the fence to the relative peace just beyond. The road continued, deserted, through tracts of no-man's-land and widely spaced industrial buildings. Cries of unseen gulls echoed in the dark.
Much as I trusted Fred, I wasn't sure I liked leaving the realm of the living so quickly. With crisp volleys of gunfire ringing behind us, I asked, 'Is it safe to be out in the open like this?'
'Long as that fence holds,' he said, short of breath. 'You can't see it from here, but this whole compound sticks out in the bay. That gate is the only way onto the premises-that's why they've held out so long. Plus it's set way back behind a bunch of posted government property-not many people know it's here. It ain't even on the map.'
'It's a Navy base?'
'During the war it used to be a training field for the Naval Air Station, but now it belongs to a big defense contractor. They've been keeping it running on an emergency basis as a matter of national security, offering safe shelter to families of employees if they stay on the job. I guess they were pretty hard up, because they came and tried to talk me outta retirement. Fat chance. I couldn't see sleeping on no concrete floor at my age. I said to them, 'I hope you fellas ain't trying to turn that place into some kind of refugee center, because there's no potable water and nowhere to run if things get hot. Oughta be a toxic-waste dump from all the lead and cadmium that's leached into the soil over the years.'
'They say to me, 'Fred, that's just it-we got all the water and power we could ever use, plus we got the whole Atlantic Ocean to escape to. We're authorized to use any and all facilities at our disposal to safeguard sensitive technology. That includes moving it offshore. You can even bring a friend.'
''What are you saying?' I asked. 'You gotta be kidding me.'
'They get all spooky, and say, 'Just consider it, Fred. You think things are bad out there now? This ain't even a wet fart compared to the shit that's coming down the pipe. Sandoval knows-that's why he thought of you. The company needs you, Fred. You're part of the family.'
'I thought they were crazier than bedbugs and sent 'em packing, but I remember Beau looking me in the eye as he left, and saying, 'This is privileged information, Fred, but Sandoval gives you his personal guarantee that if
