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77
THE BIG RAVAGER POINTED HIS shotgun at Gutsy and pulled the trigger.
There was a blast so loud it seemed to tear the world apart, but the buckshot missed her. Every single pellet tore into the ceiling as the ravager suddenly pitched backward, bellowing in surprise. A shape appeared out of the shadows behind him, and there was a whirl of brown hardwood as Spider spun his bo and brought the end down on the monster’s skull.
“Gutsy!” he yelled, and leaped over the body, but something pushed past him, a gray streak that flew straight for Gutsy.
“Sombra!”
And the coydog was all over her, licking her, pushing himself into her, against her, seeming to be everywhere at once. Then he stopped and began barking at her, scolding her for locking him up. Gutsy hugged him but looked at Spider.
“Alice is hurt,” she blurted, then in a few fast sentences told him what happened. They went into the kitchen, and Spider dropped to his knees to examine Alice’s legs. He knew a lot about first aid, maybe more than Gutsy did, and she watched his face, seeing his immediate and deep concern.
Alice was half asleep, faint and weak from blood loss. Spider felt for her pulse, then rose and pulled Gutsy aside. “We need to get her to the hospital. I think she needs blood.”
“To the hospital?” gasped Gutsy. “How? It sounds like a war out there.”
Spider winced and nodded. “It is a war. They’re inside the walls. Not many, but enough. I think maybe there was another tunnel after all. I don’t think the walls are going to hold. The hospital is the only rally point left. We need to get Alice there, get her treated, and then get out through the tunnel while there’s still time.”
Dull thumps kept coming from the bedroom, and although Alice was out of it, she flinched each time, nightmares connected to the truth.
“She can’t walk,” said Gutsy. “We need a cart or a wheelbarrow.”
“Okay, wait here,” Spider said, and was off like a shot. He was back in less than two minutes with the Carnovskys, a couple who lived a few doors from the Chungs. They were greengrocers and hurried up with a red wheelbarrow spattered with vegetable stains.
“We were about to head to the rally point,” said Mr. Carnovsky. He looked around. “Where’s her mom?”
“Turned,” said Gutsy. It was a simple but deeply ugly word. Mr. Carnovsky murmured a brief prayer.
Mrs. Carnovsky rushed over to examine Alice while Spider, Gutsy, and Mr. Carnovsky cleared a path for the wheelbarrow. There was another of those deep groans of metal. Sombra began barking furiously. Gutsy and Spider went outside and stopped dead in their tracks. Behind the house, on the platform of the tower crane, two teens and three ravagers were pulling at cables.
“Wait… are they… are those two kids working with the ravagers?”
It was impossible, but that’s what it seemed to be. Instead of raising another car, they had hooked the cables to cars already on the wall. And the teens no longer wore their hats. Instead, Gutsy saw bald, tattooed heads. Suddenly she understood. These weren’t refugees. They were the strange killers Benny and Nix had talked about, who’d attacked the towns in Central California. It seemed impossible that they could be out here, but here they were. Gutsy simultaneously understood what happened with the truck. It hadn’t slipped from the crane; it had been dropped deliberately. An attack. Which explained why the teens hadn’t come down to see what happened to the house it had fallen on.
And she also realized what those reapers and their ravager all
ies were attempting to do. The hooks, the cables…
“They’re going to tear down the wall!” The words exploded from her, and suddenly Gutsy was running, charging the crane. Spider and Sombra were at her heels, and then off to her left she saw another figure charging the scaffolding, too.
Benny.
He had his sword in his hand and was bellowing at the reapers. Cursing them. Daring them to come down and fight.
Gutsy changed direction and ran into the house. “Can you take Alice to the hospital? I have to go. Something bad’s happening, and—”
“Go,” shouted Mrs. Carnovsky. “We’ll look after her.”
Gutsy grabbed her weapon and ran.
Far above, the reaper boy leaned over and looked down at the teenagers and dog approaching. He said something to the girl, and they both laughed. The ravagers laughed too. They were fifty feet above the ground, and the hooks were already in place. If they could exert enough leverage, then the whole section of wall would collapse into the town, opening a clear path for invasion and slaughter.
The reapers and ravagers hauled on the cables and heaved on the pulleys, throwing all their weight against the big boom. The wall creaked; metal screeched. A single car at the very top canted over and fell, crashing down to explode in a storm of jagged metal, plastic, and glass.
Gutsy and the others dodged and ducked and came up running. They leaped over debris and jumped for the pipe bars of the scaffolding. Gutsy briefly thought about doing something to destabilize the scaffolding, but there simply wasn’t time. And it probably would be suicidal anyway. No, what she had to do was stop them. So she sheathed her machete and climbed.
Benny circled around, looking for the easiest place to climb where he wouldn’t be seen.
