Snow(66)

“I do!” Charlie boomed.

“I do,” Cody echoed, less enthusiastic.

Brendan stood, forcing a goofy grin. “Then let’s go, gang. Train’s pulling out of the station. All aboard!”

Charlie hopped up and Cody climbed down off the cot. Still grinning, Brendan opened the door and saluted Charlie, who giggled and saluted him back.

“Brendan,” Todd said, and handed him the pistol.

Brendan nodded almost imperceptibly, stuffing the pistol into his waistband at the small of his back. Then he barked at the kids: “Let’s go, soldiers! Left! Right! Left! Right! Forward—march!”

A smile beginning to overtake Cody’s delicate face, Brendan led the kids out into the hallway. Their footsteps receded into the darkness.

Bruce grunted his approval. Rubbing a hand along his bald pate, he took some more tequila from the bottle before handing it over to Todd. “I want to hear about this computer you mentioned,” Bruce said.

Todd chugged a mouthful of tequila, winced, and handed the bottle to Kate. “I had a laptop with me when we came into town,” Todd said. “If I’m right about what’s going on—about why my phone works while everything else in this town is going haywire—then my laptop should boot up and work fine, too. If you can hook it up to that modem of yours, Bruce, we can get online, maybe even make a phone call out.”

“Theoretically,” Bruce said.

Kate took a swallow of the tequila. It burned all the way down her throat before exploding in her stomach.

“Wait a minute,” Molly said. “Are you saying we’ve got a working computer?”

Still want to kick us out? Kate thought, smiling wryly to herself.

“Sort of,” said Bruce. Turning back to Todd, he said, “Where is it, exactly?”

Todd took the bottle back from Kate. He looked instantly miserable. “I think,” he said, drawing out his words, “I think it’s back at the town square.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



A look of total resignation overcame Bruce’s face. His whole body appeared to deflate. On her cot, Molly’s eyes darted back and forth between Bruce and Todd.

“The square?” Molly said. Defeated, she slumped back against the wall.

“We’ll just have to go back and get it,” Todd said.

“But Tully said—” Molly began, before Bruce spoke over her.

“The square is like ground zero, Todd. That’s where they’ve all been congregating. Not to mention, I caught sight of that electrical eye in the clouds while we were out front, burying the bodies. That eye is seated directly over the square right now.”

Kate frowned. “So what does that mean?”

“It seems to attract them, gives them strength,” Bruce said.

“Just like last night, back at the church,” Todd said. Too clearly, he could recall last night’s escape from the church, and how one of those things had gotten inside Chris while, unbeknownst to the rest of them, another had gotten inside poor Meg. And once they’d exited the church, there had been all those townspeople—what Tully had succinctly dubbed “skin-suits”—standing there as if awaiting instruction.

Instruction from that glowing eye in the sky, Todd thought now.

“Where exactly in the square is this computer of yours?” Bruce asked.

“If it’s still where I left it, it’s inside the Pack-N-Go.”

“If the Pack-N-Go is still there, too,” Kate added, attracting an impatient glare from Molly.

Bruce sighed. The halogen lamps gleamed off his scalp. “Well, then, I guess we don’t have much of a choice.”

“We can make torches,” Kate suggested. “They kept away from the torches last night. And when one of those snow-things rose up out of the ground, I think I burned it.”

Bruce was shaking his head. “A torch might scare one off, or even injure it if you really nail ’em, but chances are it’ll get away and will only come back with friends. When they’re in groups, they swoop down over you and generate enough wind to extinguish any small flames.”

“We’ve learned that the hard way,” Molly added.

“So what do we do?” Kate said.

“We travel as incognito as possible,” Bruce said. “Same way Tully got you both here, I’m sure. Far as I can tell, they don’t have any extraordinary senses. No amplified sense of sight or smell—not like a dog or a wolf or anything—so it’s our best bet just to lay low.”

“All those guns out there against the wall,” Todd said. “I assume you’ve got more than enough ammo?”

“Yes. And Tully had another flamethrower. It’s upstairs in one of the offices. We can take that, too.”

“We should probably go sooner rather than later,” Kate said. “No sense waiting around till nightfall.”

“Kate,” Bruce said. “We’re gonna need you to stay here.”

“No. I can help.”

“You can help here.”

“No.”

“Kate.” Todd put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s right. Someone needs to stay here with Molly and the kids.”

“Brendan can stay.”