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“Here it comes, baby,” he said to Lois, who hissed with joy.
When the second explosion hit, nobody ignored it. The whole brick front of the Pine Deep Fire Company seemed to leap up into the air just as the Grand Marshal’s limo was passing it, and then everything inside the station exploded outward in a massive fireball that seemed to lunge at the crowd. Costumes instantly ignited, windows on the other side of the street blew apart, and glass daggers slashed through the crowd. The paper flowers on the floats caught fire. All of this within the space of a second.
Ruger raised his left hand, fingers splayed, and every one of his people stopped amid the terror and panic to watch him. Ruger looked at his watch and then snapped his fingers. As if commanded by that snap the three bridges that connected Pine Deep to the surrounding towns exploded. And Ruger’s army attacked.
2
When the Bone Man left Frank Ferro at the farm, he flowed like wind back to the hospital, resuming his perch on the roof, flanked on either side by a line of crows. From there he saw the first of the explosions, long before the fall of night, and he understood now the subtlety of Griswold’s plan. There was no way to stop the Red Wave.
“No way in hell,” he told the crows.
3
A few minutes before…
“Hey…kid?” Newton said, touching Mike lightly on the arm. “You said that you can sense evil? I mean, are we talking some kind of supernatural spider-sense here?”
Val shot him a look.
“No, I’m not being flip. If something’s coming, if Griswold and all these vampires are about to attack the town, can Mike give us some kind of early warning alert? I mean…do we have time to try and sound an alert, or evacuate the town?”
“I don’t know how it works,” Mike said. “I don’t know how to turn it on and off. I mean…I feel it all the time, it feels like ants crawling all over me and I know, in some weird way that I can’t explain, that that means that there’s evil around. ”
“So you do have a spider-sense. ”
“Newt,” Val warned.
“I don’t know how to…” Mike waved his hands around, “to filter it. It seems to be coming from everywhere. It started after I, y’know, came back. I wanted to ask the Bone Man what to do, but he was gone. ”
“Mike,” Weinstock said, “you told us that you think you died out there, that you were gone for at least half a day. You do know that this is impossible, right? You’d be brain damaged in minutes. You’d have cell breakdown and—”
Mike shrugged. “I was dead. I was out of my body. When I came back to my body I was ice cold and I couldn’t move. I actually think I was in whatchacallit? Rigor mortis. ”
“And, what? You just got better?”
“Yeah, I think that’s what happened. ” When no one said anything, Mike added, “Okay, I know that sounds ridiculous because this is such a normal world where nothing weird ever happens. It’s not like we have ghosts and vampires and werewolves here in sunny Pine Deep. ”
“Kid’s got a point,” Newton said to Weinstock.
“Well, if that’s the case, then what does that make you? A zombie? I mean…human beings don’t just shrug off rigor mortis. I thought you were supposed to have a degenerative bone disorder as a dhampyr. ”
“You sound like you’re pissed off that I’m alive, Doc. ” Mike almost looked amused.
“Oh hell, it’s not that. Believe me, kiddo, I’m happy as hell to see you wa
lking and talking, but I just want to understand it. ”
“Get in line,” Mike said. He gave his face a vigorous rub with both hands. “God!” he shouted, “how do you think I feel about this? Yesterday I found out my mother was a vampire! A vampire! Then I find out my father is not only a vampire but also a werewolf and the worst mass murderer in history. He’s personally killed thousands of people. Not by sending an army like Hitler—he turned into a monster and killed them himself. Then I find out that I’m not even exactly human and that if I make it through the next couple of days then I’m going to die in just a few years. But wait—it gets worse. Yesterday I freaking well died. I lay down and stopped breathing. Do you think I’d make something like that up? Do you think it makes me feel special? I’m a freak. Look at my eyes, for God’s sake! Do you think that’s normal? You’re adults, you’re all smart…why don’t you try and understand that?” He kicked the guest chair halfway across the room, then stomped over to glare out the window, his face a match for the furious storm clouds.
As if in agreement thunder rumbled overhead so loud and sudden that it shook the hospital, rattling the windows.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said in a softer voice. “It’s already too late. ”
Val took a step toward him. “What do you mean?”
Mike turned from the window and the fiery rings around his eyes were as bright as a welder’s arc. “Mr. Newton…you asked me if I could sense what was going on so we could prepare. That kind of just got flushed down the toilet. ”
Another shockingly loud boom rattled the windows.
