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Standing in the window, her arms reaching toward him. She was so pale, so beautiful. Like a ghost in a dream. Her dark eyes were wide with terror, her mouth shaped words that were lost in all the noise. He knew what those words were, though. Just one word really, said over and over again.
“Go!”
Tom ran. He felt like a coward.
Tom Imura, the police cadet. Tough, top of his class. Tom, the martial artist, with black belts and trophies and certificates. Tom, the fighter.
Tom, the coward.
Running.
“I’m sorry!” he yelled, but he was sure Mom didn’t hear him.
And then he saw the other figure. Paler, larger, infinitely stranger, coming out of the shadows of the bedroom, reaching as Mom had reached, but not reaching for Tom and Benny. Those pale hands reached for her. For Mom. Reached for her, and dragged her back into darkness.
With all of the sirens and gunfire and the pounding of his own heart, Tom could not have heard her screams. He could not have.
And yet they echoed in his head. In his arms, Benny kept screaming.
Tom screamed, too.
Pale shapes lurched toward him from the shadows. Some of them were victims—bleeding, eyes wide with shock and incomprehension. Others were them. The things. The monsters. Whatever they were.
Tom had weapons in his car. His pistol—which he wasn’t even allowed to carry yet because he didn’t graduate from the police academy until tomorrow—and his stuff from the dojo. His sword, some fighting sticks.
Should he risk it? Could he risk it?
The car was at the end of the block. He had the keys, but the streets were clogged with emergency vehicles. Even if he got his gear, could he find a way to drive out?
No. Buildings were on fire. Fire trucks and crashed cars were like a wall.
But the weapons.
The weapons.
Benny screamed. The monsters shambled after him.
“Go!” his mother had said. “Take Benny … keep him safe. Go!”
Just … go.
He ran to the parked car. Benny was struggling in his arms, hitting him, fighting to try and get free.
Tom held him with one arm—an arm that already ached from carrying his brother—and fished in his pocket for the keys. Found them. Found the lock. Opened the door, popped the trunk.
Gun in the glove compartment. Ammunition in the trunk. Sword in the trunk.
Shapes moved toward him. He could hear their moans.
He turned a wild eye toward one as it reached for the child Tom carried.
Tom shouted in terror. He lashed out with a kick, driving the thing back, splintering its leg. It fell, but it was not hurt. Not in any real sense of being hurt. As soon as it crashed down it began to crawl toward him.
It was unreal. Tom understood that this thing was dead. It was Mr. Harrison from three doors down and it was also a dead thing. A monster.
Benny kept screaming.
Tom lifted the trunk hood and shoved Benny inside. Then he grabbed his sword. There was no time to remove the trigger lock on the gun. They were coming. They were here.
