Page 19 of The Fall of Crazy House (Crazy House 2)

I looked up. “Go get Ms. Strepp.”

30

BECCA

IN THE BRIGHT HARSH LIGHT of early afternoon, we left the high grass and came across another road. I looked at Nate.

“Road, with no tracks and no cover, or grass with tracks and cover?”

“Oh, now you want my opinion?” he asked coolly.

Oh, brother. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

My fingers flattened out, the better to bitch-slap his handsome face. Resisting the urge to mention the words “Provost’s son,” instead I just repeated, “yes.”

He looked up and down the road, then up in the sky.

“If they use drones or helicopters, they’ll see us either way,” he said, and I tried not to look startled. I’d forgotten about drones or anything from above.

I nodded, like, of course. “Yeah. So I’m thinking road. We can always dive into the grass if we hear anything.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Walking on the edge of the road, heading east, I could tell it hadn’t been used in a long time. It was cracked and unrepaired, with weeds growing up through the cracks. Tall grass and other plants, shrubs, and small trees were creeping onto it from both sides. It was being taken back by nature.

“Becca?” said Levi after a couple of hours.

“Yeah, Levi?”

“Jolie says there’s no birds and no little animals,” he said.

I turned and Jolie nodded, making a zero with her thumb and index finger.

We stopped to listen and look.

“It’s true,” I said, frowning. “I don’t hear a single bird. And it’s almost dusk—that’s when they all go apeshit.”

“Have you thought about becoming a poet?” Nate asked mildly. I gave him a sour look, then motioned for everyone to keep going.

For an hour into the evening, we didn’t see any living creature except ourselves. It was unbearably unnerving—the animals clearly knew something we didn’t. We came across three abandoned cars, rusted and silent with open doors, missing windows. None of us recognized their makes. They were bigger than cell cars, with more complicated dashboards and seats like sofas. For some reason they made my skin crawl.

“Something really bad happened here,” Mills said.

“Yeah,” said Bunny, looking hyper alert and wary. “This whole place feels dead.”

“Bunny!” Levi cried.

“What?” she said, spinning.

“No, bunny,” Levi repeated, pointing.

Down the road, a small, shadowy creature hopped across the road and disappeared into the scrub.

“That’s a good sign,” said Mills.

A moment later we got another sign of life: the long, low howling of wolves as they bayed at the rising moon.