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88
AS GUTSY AND SPIDER RAN, they could hear the howls. First outside the walls, then high up on them, and within moments, inside the town. Far away, outside the gates, there was a burst of heavy-caliber gunfire punctuated by screams so twisted that it was impossible to tell if they were from dying wild men or the small group with Sunny-Day Ray and the vehicles. Of Sergeant Holly there was no sign.
Sombra ranged ahead and twice stopped short, the hairs on his back bristling. Each time Gutsy and Spider faded sideways and hid in shadows as packs of wild men went running past. They were a mixed bag now, some of them clearly from the base and others looking much older and more weathered—converted shamblers. There were a few converted ravagers, too, though now they carried their guns like clubs instead of ready to fire.
Gutsy kept pulling Sombra close, trying to become invisible in the dark. The coydog trembled in her arms.
Then, when the last howls vanished down a side street, the three of them ran on.
“They’re not heading to the hospital,” whispered Spider.
“So far,” Gutsy said, and was immediately sorry she said it. Those words seemed to offer up a challenge to the spirits of bad luck.
As they passed a store, Gutsy slowed to a stop. The sign outside read:
NOTIONS & NOVELTIES
“What is it?” Spider asked.
Instead of answering, Gutsy ran inside. Most of the stock were handmade toys, scavenged stuff like old board games, party supplies for the town’s many small festivals, and the one thing she hoped to find. Something no one fleeing this catastrophe would ever think to pack. She picked up a box and showed it to Spider.
“Fireworks?” he asked, confused, but immediately a smile blossomed on his face. “Yes!”
Without having to say a word to each other, they gathered armfuls of the fireworks, some of which were decades old. They piled a lot of them in the middle of the floor and then dumped other stuff on top. Paper and anything that would burn. They worked fast as Sombra looked on with canine interest. While they worked, Gutsy set some items aside, and they began stuffing their pockets with smaller things like M-80s and TNT Poppers, items neither of them would normally go anywhere near. Not since Jillie Cooper blew off three of her fingers playing with them five years ago.
Gutsy searched her undamaged pockets, produced an old metal lighter, and lit the longest of the fuses. They grabbed a few additional fireworks and fled. They were half a block away when the night of the apocalypse turned into a New Year’s Day celebration. There were loud bangs and pops and rattle-tattle-tattles and whistles and whooshes.
A large pack of wild men came running at the sound, shrieking at the noise as if challenging it, the way one barking dog will try to outbark another. Another pack ran to join them, and another.
The shadows behind them seemed to disintegrate into an ocean of sparks, and then the whole of the storefront leaped outward and upward in a massive explosion. Individually the fireworks were dangerous, but together they were deadly. The blast plucked fifty of the killers off their feet, tore them to rags, and flung them like burning embers in all directions.
Gutsy and Spider, keeping to the shadows as they ran, saw a dozen more small packs of wild men tearing along toward the noise and light.
Running away from the hospital.
Gutsy set up several more fireworks—a kind called 16-shot cakes—in curbside flowerbeds and propped them at an angle to fire back the way they’d come. Spider took the lighter and ignited the fuses. Then they continued running. By the time the fuses hit the powder, they were a block away. Each cake began firing shot after shot into the air, bursting in party colors above the town. Drawing the ears and eyes of the wild men with each loud pop and stunning light.
89
BENNY, CHONG, AND THE SCIENTISTS reached the storeroom that hid the entrance to the tunnel, but they had to fight their way through crowds to do it. The hospital corridors were choked with people, some carrying bundles, others empty-handed and barely dressed. If it wasn’t for the steel spikes bristling from Grimm’s armor, no one would have let them pass. As it was, the refugees flattened themselves against the walls, sometimes three deep. The dog walked ahead, growling at everyone, followed by Chong pushing the cart, Flores supporting Morton, and Benny walking with his katana unsheathed.
When they reached the entrance to the tunnel, Benny drafted four strong-looking men to help carry the laden cart down the short flight of stairs, ordered Grimm to stay with Chong, and then ran ahead.
It took what seemed hours to reach the far end of the corridor, but when he got there, he was gratified to see that the Chess Players were there. They were grouping the refugees together, making sure each group had a copy of the map and knew where to go.
Benny ran along, catching up to several groups.
“Everyone be quiet out there,” he said. “Take only what you can carry, and if you have to run, drop everything except your weapons. Everyone who can fight watches the people directly in front. Don’t look back. Just keep going. No one goes east, because that’s where the shamblers are coming from. No one goes west, because that’s where the wild men are. Follow the map north-by-northeast to Site B. There’s enough moonlight to guide you. Sunny-Day Ray and the convoy will try and keep the attack at the gates, to make it look like we’re doing a last stand. Then they’ll take off due south to try and lead the reapers and zoms that way.”
“Wait,” cried one of the storekeepers, “they’re leaving us?”
“No,” Benny assured him. “My guess is they’ll go south until they’re completely out of sight of anyone chasing them, then split up and circle around to meet us on the road to Site B. That’s the smartest play. Don’t worry; they’ll come for us.”
In the distance Benny could heard the roar of the Bushmaster and other machine guns. The fact that the convoy was still fighting was a good sign.
What he didn’t immediately understand, though, was the fact that there was a pretty impressive fireworks display erupting over the town.
“Has to be Gutsy,” he said aloud, and knew it to be true. Somehow it seemed like something that clever girl would do. It made him like her even more.
