Page 215
“You know who that is,” Amy said impassively.
It was a whale. They were balanced like a pea atop its immense, horrible head. Higher and higher it lifted them into the air. One flick of its monstrous tail and it would send them soaring; it would crash down upon them and smash their boat to pieces. A hopeless terror, that of fate, took her in its grasp. From the stern, Amy issued a bored sigh.
“I’m so…tired of him,” she said.
Alicia tried to scream, but the sound stopped in her throat. They were rising, the sea was falling away, the whale was looming up…
She awoke with a slam. She blinked her eyes and tried to focus. It was night. She was in the back of the truck, and the truck was bouncing hard. Sara’s face floated into view.
“Lish? What is it?”
Her lips moved slowly around the words: “They’re…coming.”
From the rear of the convoy, the sound of guns.
—
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Michael took the stairs from the pilothouse three at a time; he raced across the deck, his feet barely touching steel, and down the hatch. He was yelling into his radio, “Rand, get down here right now!”
He hit the engineering catwalk at a sprint, grabbed the poles of the ladder, and slid the rest of the way. The engines were quiet, everything stopped. Rand appeared above him.
“What happened?”
“Something tripped the main!”
Lore, on the radio: “Michael, we’re hearing shots up here.”
“Say again?”
“Gunshots, Michael. I’m looking down the isthmus now. We’ve got lights coming this way from the mainland.”
“Headlights or virals?”
“I’m not sure.”
He needed current to trace the problem. At the electrical panel, he switched diagnostics over to the auxiliary generator. The meters jumped to life.
“Rand!” Michael bellowed. “What are you seeing?”
Rand was positioned at the engine-control array on the far side of the room, checking dials. “Looks like its something in the water jacket pumps.”
“That wouldn’t trip the main! Look farther up the line!”
A brief silence; then Rand said, “Got it.” He tapped a dial. “Pressure’s flatlined on the starboard-side charger. Must have shut down the system.”
Lore again: “Michael, what’s going on down there?”
He was strapping on his tool belt. “Here,” he said, tossing Rand the radio, “you talk to her.”
Rand looked lost. “What should I say?”
“Tell her to get ready to engage the props straight from the pilothouse.”
“Shouldn’t she wait for the system to repressurize? We could blow a header.”
“Just get on the electrical panel. When I tell you, switch the system back over to the main bus.”
“Michael, talk to me,” Lore said. “Things are looking very fucking serious up here.”
“Go,” Michael told Rand.
He raced aft, plugged in his lantern, dropped to his back, and wedged himself under the charger.
This goddamn leak, he thought. It’s going to be the death of me.
—
The convoy hit the isthmus doing sixty miles an hour. Buses were bounding; buses were going airborne. The tanker, last in the line, had failed to keep up. The virals were close behind and massing. The barrier of razor wire appeared in the headlights.
Peter yelled into the radio, “Everyone keep going! Don’t stop!”
They careened straight through the barrier. Chase stamped the brakes and pulled to the side as the convoy roared past with inches to spare, pushing a wall of wind that buffeted the vehicle like a howling gale. Peter, Chase, and Amy leapt from the cab.
Where was the tanker?
It lumbered into view at the base of the causeway—lamps blazing, engine roaring, traveling toward them like a well-lit rocket in slow motion. Past the turn it began to accelerate. Two virals were crouched on the roof of the cab. Chase raised his rifle and squinted through the scope.
“Ford, don’t,” Peter warned. “You hit that tank, it could blow.”
“Quiet. I can do this.”
A bullet split the air. One of the virals tumbled away. Ford was taking aim at the second when it dropped to the hood: no shot.
“Shit!”
From the cab, a pair of shotgun blasts came in rapid succession; the windshield shattered outward into the moonlight. There was a hissing groan of brakes. The viral flopped backward into the conical glare of the truck’s headlights and disappeared beneath the front wheels with a wet burst.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215 (Reading here)
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268
- Page 269
- Page 270
- Page 271
- Page 272
- Page 273
- Page 274
- Page 275
- Page 276
- Page 277
- Page 278
- Page 279
- Page 280
- Page 281
- Page 282
- Page 283
- Page 284
- Page 285
- Page 286