Alec sighed. “We don’t know any monsters. Just… look, just move aside and let us in. We don’t have time.”
He stepped forward, muscles tensed, ready to use force if necessary, but she scrambled away, almost tripping onto the dead weeds of her yard. Mark looked at her sadly-he’d assumed the monsters were the infected people down the street, but now he realized he was wrong. This woman wasn’t any more right in the head than the last guy they’d found, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she really did think monsters were living under the beds.
Mark left the woman in the front yard and followed Alec inside only to be stunned by what he saw. The interior looked more like a back alley from one of the worst parts of New York City than a suburban home. Pictures had been drawn-with what looked like black crayon and chalk-all over the walls. Dark, terrifying pictures. Of monsters. Things with claws and sharp teeth and vicious eyes. They were messy, as if they’d been done in a hurry, but some had vivid details. Enough to make the hair on Mark’s arms stand up.
He gave Alec a grim look and followed the older man past them, to the stairs to the basement, and went down, weapons held at the ready.
They found more children below-at least fifteen, maybe more. And they were living in filth. Most of them were huddled together in groups, cowering as if they expected some horrible punishment from the new arrivals. They were all dirty and poorly clothed and, by the looks of it, starving. Mark hardly registered the fact that the people he was looking for were nowhere to be seen.
“We… we can’t leave them here,” Mark said. He’d let go of his weapon, and it hung from the strap on his shoulder. He was dumbfounded. “There’s no way we can leave them here.”
Alec seemed to sense he wouldn’t be able to make Mark budge on this. The soldier stepped in front of him and spoke gravely.
“I understand what you’re saying, son. Where you’re coming from. But listen to me. What can we do for these children? Everyone in this godforsaken place is sick, and we don’t have the manpower to get them out. At least they’re… I don’t even know what to say.”
“Surviving,” Mark said quietly. “I thought surviving was all that mattered, but I was wrong. We can’t leave these kids here.”
Alec sighed. “Look at me.” When Mark didn’t, Alec snapped his fingers and yelled, “Look at me!”
Mark did.
“Let’s go find our friends. After that we can come back. But if we take them now, we’ll have no chance. You hear me? Absolutely zero.”
Mark nodded. He knew the old man was right. But something had torn in his heart at the sight of these kids, and it physically hurt. He didn’t think it would ever mend.
He turned around to gather his thoughts. All he could do was focus on Trina. He had to save Trina. And Deedee.
“Okay,” he finally said. “Let’s go.”
Mark and Alec moved from house to house, searching them from top to bottom.
It all became a big, hazy blur to Mark. The more he saw, the more numb he grew to the strangeness of the new world. This sickness that had been spread on purpose. In each house, on each block, he saw things that kept topping what he’d thought untoppable. He saw a woman jump off a roof and land, broken, on her front steps. He saw three men drawing circles in the dirt and jumping in and out of them, like kids playing a game. Except something was making them more and more upset and they finally erupted into a crazed brawl. There was a room in one of the homes where twenty or thirty people were lying in a heap in complete silence. Definitely alive, but not moving.
A woman eating a cat. A man chewing on a rug in the corner of his living room. Two kids throwing rocks at each other as hard as they could, bloodied and bruised from head to toe. Laughing all the while. People standing still in their yards, staring at the sky. Others lying facedown in the dirt, talking to themselves. Mark saw a man bull- rushing a tree, slamming himself into the trunk over and over, as if he thought eventually he’d win some battle and knock the thing down.
But on they went, quickly searching each and every home as they got closer to what Alec had called the party. The strangest thing, though, was that so far no one had attacked them. Most people actually seemed scared to death of them.
They were approaching their next house when a scream suddenly tore through the air, somehow louder than all the other sounds combined. It was piercing and raw, ripping its way along the street like a living thing.
Alec pulled up short, as did Mark, and they both looked in the direction of the noise.
About five houses down, two men were dragging a woman with black hair by her feet through the front door. Her head smacked the concrete of each step as they descended to the yard.
“Holy Mother of…,” Alec whispered. “It’s Lana.”
CHAPTER 55
Alec didn’t wait for Mark’s response.
He burst into an all-out sprint, booking into the street, his feet pounding the pavement as he headed for Lana and the strangers now dragging her across the rock-filled yard of the house. He’d reacted so quickly that Mark was far behind. He tried his best to catch up, his backpack bouncing against his shoulders and his weapon threatening to slip out of his sweaty hands.
Alec was screaming at the men to stop what they were doing. He held up his Transvice, but the thugs didn’t understand the threat, or didn’t care. They continued pulling Lana across the yard until they reached the sidewalk, where they threw her legs down violently. She’d ceased her screaming and Mark wondered if she was still conscious. Still alive.
Alec stopped a dozen feet from where Lana lay unmoving. He was aiming his weapon, yelling at them all to freeze, when Mark caught up to him. It took him a moment to catch his breath before he could aim his own Transvice.
There were three men total, and they stood in a circle around Lana’s body, all of them looking down at her. They seemed completely oblivious that people had weapons aimed at them.
“Step away from her!” Alec shouted.
Now that they were closer, Mark finally got a good look at their friend. It made his stomach turn. She was battered and bloody and covered in bruises. Much of her hair had been ripped out, and her bloody scalp shown through where it was missing. The last thing Mark noticed was that one of her ears looked like someone had tried to tear it off. The horror of it struck Mark like an anvil to his chest, and the rage he’d grown all too familiar with came boiling back up. These people were monsters, and if they’d done the same things to Trina…
He stepped toward them, but Alec reached a hand out and stopped him.
“Just a second,” he said, then returned his attention to Lana’s captors. “I’m not going to repeat myself. Step away from her or I start shooting.”
But instead of responding, the three men knelt to the ground, their knees touching Lana’s body as they surrounded her. Frantically, she looked back and forth between them.
“Just do it,” Mark said. “What’re you waiting for?”
“I don’t have a clear shot!” Alec barked back. “I don’t want to vaporize her!”
Alec’s words just made Mark angrier. He wasn’t going to stand there and do nothing for one more second.
“I’ve had enough of this crap,” he muttered, and started walking forward, slapping away Alec’s hand when he tried once again to stop him.
The men didn’t so much as glance at him as he approached. They were all digging deep in their pockets for something, their bodies turned in a way that blocked most of Mark’s view.
“Hey!” he shouted, his weapon held out before him. “Get away from her or I’m going to shoot. You won’t know what hit you, believe me!”
They didn’t hear him, or pretended not to. The next thing that happened was so quick and shocking that it made him stumble, almost fall down. In a blur of motion, one of the men pulled out a switchblade and stabbed
