Two figures trotted out next. The first to pull together was Luke, weighted down with rifles. “Luke!” Cindi started forward, relief singing in her veins. She’d had visions of Luke with his throat torn out and blood splashed over his chest. “What’s—” She skidded to a stop as a second person came into view: an older girl, in a queer camo getup, with an Uzi in her hands and a bolt-action rifle over her shoulder.

Hey, haven’t I seen her somewhere before? “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name’s Alex,” the girl said. “Who are you guys? How come you’re with Finn?”

At that, all four of them—Cindi, Luke, Jasper, and Chad—looked at one another before turning to the girl. Cindi opened her mouth, but Luke beat her to it. “Alex?” Luke said. “Tom’s Alex?”

The girl halted in mid-stride, astonishment leaking over her face. “You . . . you know Tom?” One hand went to her throat. “You’ve seen Tom? You’ve seen him?”

“Sure, we all did,” Jasper said, and Cindi could have strangled the stupid kid. “Tom was our friend. He helped us.”

“Did?” Alex paled. Her green eyes went suddenly glittery and wet. “Was?”

“Yes.” Luke tossed Cindi an unhappy glance before turning back. She knew just how he felt.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Luke said, helplessly. “But Tom’s dead.”

108

“I don’t see them,” Tom said. He and Chris had taken it fast, urging their horses down the shimmering cut of a trail that wound through a dense grill of hardwood and evergreen to the lookout that perched southeast on a broad basalt plateau a hundred yards up from the hastily erected abatis. Now, standing in the lookout’s cab some seventy-five feet aboveground, he lowered his binoculars. Overhead, the brightest stars shone from deep, dark cobalt, but to the east, a smear of silver smudged the horizon. To his right, clouds smoked over a light green basketball of a moon balanced on the rim of trees. With the diminished snowpack and large swatches of bare ground, they no longer had the advantage of reflected moonlight. Shadows wavered over this southern approach. Bad luck for them, good for Finn.

“Gonna be daylight soon. It’s the damn clouds. Glass it south and wait for it,” Jarvis said. “They’re already over the rise. Can’t make out if they got weapons. . . . There. Dead ahead. You see them?”

“Yeah.” The shadows rolled aside as if someone had peeled away a blanket, and then, through his binoculars, Tom saw something that reminded him of columns of black ants swarming over a checked tablecloth. With the fitful light, it was impossible to tell just how many they were talking about here, but he guessed there must be at least a couple hundred Changed. The sizes seemed right. These were kids, moving nimbly and swiftly in a relentless tide, coming on fast, spilling down the hill. At that pace, they’d be here in less than thirty minutes, just in time for the first glimmerings of sun.

Smart. His men will be able to see what they’re shooting at . The light would work to Tom’s advantage later, however. The trick would be keeping Finn’s men in the square just long enough. Ten, fifteen minutes, that’s all.

“Hey,” Chris said, standing at Tom’s right elbow. “Top of the hill? See those horses?”

“I see them.” Impossible to miss, the horses were just moving

over the crest. He’d known some would ride: Mellie, Finn, a few of

Finn’s men. What he had not expected was the gleam of over-whites.

“That’s them. The altered Changed I told you about.”

“The ones in white? On horseback?” Jarvis sounded startled. “I

know horses don’t react quite as bad, but . . . my God . . . there have

to be at least twenty or thirty of them.”

“If they’re so good at fighting, why aren’t they leading the charge?”

Chris asked. “Wouldn’t you want your best guys on point?” “Well, not if you want them to stay your best guys. This is like the

Mongol hordes.” Tom could see men now, too, to the extreme right

and left, broader in the chest and clad in what looked like soft gray

and white winter camouflage. From the occasional wink of metal, he

knew the men were armed, and some, he thought, might be carrying

bulkier munitions; he just couldn’t tell what yet. “Let the grunts take

the bullets.”

“Our grandkids as cannon fodder.” Jarvis was silent a moment.

“Spooky, the way they move, how quiet they are.” Another brief

silence. “How’s he controlling them?”

“Don’t have a clue,” Tom said, still straining to pick up Finn and

failing. Until sunrise or the riders were closer, Finn—probably all in

black on that gelding—would be virtually invisible. Instead, he trained

his binoculars beyond, sweeping the distant knolls and flatlands. “Maybe he gets into their heads.” Chris’s ragged voice was hushed.

“You said he has to be giving them something because of their eyes.

What if they can hear his thoughts?”

“I can sort of buy that with the altered ones.” Tom slowly panned

right to left. The night was starting to unravel and gray, and he shifted

his gaze slightly off-center the way he might if trying to glimpse a

distant galaxy. God, please, make them be there. “But that doesn’t explain

the others . . .” He stopped as he spied an orange flicker in the middle

distance. “Got ’em. West, near the tree line. There’s a stream there,

still iced up in parts, but flowing pretty good now. That’s where I

would put my camp.” He looked over at Chris. “Good a time as any

to send Pru and your guys. They can be there pretty fast.” Nodding, Chris tugged out his radio just as Jarvis said, “Tom, you

see those guys breaking off from the main body?”

“Yeah, I do.” Four men on horseback were storming past the

advance line of Changed. Still too dim for him to make out well, but

he was getting a very bad vibe.

“What,” Jarvis asked, “are they doing?”

109

Over the past few minutes, that push-push go-go had surged back with a vengeance, knocking the breath from Alex’s lungs. From its deep cave, the monster seethed the way a worm eeled under the thin skin of a too-ripe fruit.

Running out of time. Her aunt always said that time healed. Yet time had only brought her more people to care about, and lose. The sobs she kept swallowing back tried climbing her throat. All she wanted was to howl, break something. Maybe shoot someone. Stop, Alex. You are no different from these kids. Focus. There’s still Wolf and Peter. Chris might be in Rule, too. You have to help them. Tom wouldn’t want to see you like this. Be strong for him.

“Take this.” Leaning down from the saddle, Alex handed the Springfield to Luke. Without a rifle scabbard, the more compact Uzi would be easier to handle. Tucking the guard’s pistol, a blued Colt Gold Cup .45, into the small of her back, she slotted an extra magazine for both weapons into her cargo pants. She felt a mild ping of unease that she didn’t have time to search for a Glock, then pushed that aside. The Colt would do just as much damage. Just remember to flip the safety. Still, not having a Glock felt like a bad omen. “Between this and what’s in the wagons, you have plenty of food and firepower.”

“For a fight?” Luke said, his voice tight. “If it comes down to that.” The day was coming on fast. In the first wash of silver spreading over the eastern horizon, there was enough light to see how pinched and white Luke’s face was. “It doesn’t have to. Take the tents, a couple wagons, and get out of here.”

“Alex, there are thirty of us. We’ll be easy to follow, easy to catch again.”

There was no sugarcoating this. “You’d rather wait for Finn?”

“But why can’t you stay?” Cindi’s glasses blazed with reflected firelight. “They’re Chuckies. What do you care? We’re normal. We need you more. Tom would never leave. We’re supposed to believe that there are good Chuckies? And Peter, so he’s only half a Chucky—so what? Why are you taking his side?”

“Whoa,” Luke said. “Cindi, calm down.”

“What if I don’t want to be calm? This is like helping terrorists! Just because Wolf didn’t kill you, Alex, doesn’t mean he’s good. It’s like you’ve been brainwashed or something.”

“And you might be right,” Alex said. “But Peter is a friend. I have other friends in Rule. Wolf saved my life when he didn’t have to. That counts for something, and I have to deal with it right now. I have to go to Rule and try to do something, anything, or a lot more people are going to die, including kids like you. If I can take Finn by surprise, if I can stop or kill him”—and where was that coming from?—“then he won’t come after you again. Everyone wins.” She paused. “Pretty much.”

“And what about all those other Chuckies?” Cindi asked.

“They’re at least four miles away. Most are on foot. Plenty of time.”

“Well, the white Chuckies have horses,” Jasper said, and then, as if in afterthought: “Of course, if you kill Finn, the network kind of falls apart and they might not work so well. The signal intensity will degrade for sure.”

“What? What do you—,” Alex began, but then Cindi interrupted, “So we keep running is what you’re saying.” The younger girl’s lips were quivering now. “You’re just leaving us.”

mo ns ters Alex felt a twang of impatience. “Oh, for God’s sake, yes, you run. You’re not three years old. Step up to take care of yourselves, because, right now, there’s no one else. Even if I stayed, I am one person. I’m not that much older than you and I’ve got . . .” She bit back the possible words—cancer, a monster—before any could jump out of her mouth. God, Alex, calm down; she’s just a kid. Closing her eyes, she took a steadying breath, then looked down at the teary-eyed girl. “I’m sorry, Cindi. Maybe Tom would stay. That doesn’t make him right and me wrong. It makes us different. I wish . . .” She pushed back the sudden choke. “I wish he was alive so we could argue about it. But don’t think this is easy, or that I’m not scared to death.”