Cat bent over his detector. "Not yet," he replied.
"Okay, then," Jack announced. "We can afford to wait a bit to see if she's really..."
She wasn't. The second wailing was even worse than the first. And her scrambling headlong charge for the gunman was even quicker. Felix's startled third shot was from the hip. It struck her in the left thigh and she cartwheeled forward onto her shoulder...
Then leapt back to her feet and came at him again, right at him, shrieking that shriek, and bounding on that shattered left thigh.
Their eyes had met before Felix managed to shoot her again, this time in the exact center of her pulsing throat.
She slammed backward into the dust, writhing and flinging that mad baby's cry all around her.
Jack made a quick decision. He stepped over in front of Felix and raised the crossbow.
"That tears it," he barked gruffly. "We're taking this one."
And they did. When next she rose, Jack's crossbow almost folded her in half.
But it held and the cable held and a few seconds later they were watching her burn just as all the rest had.
No one moved after the fire was out. They just stood there.
"She knew you," cat said at last, looking at Felix. "She knew you were the one who'd hurt her."
Felix took a long puff on his cigarette, nodded.
"Yes," added Adam. "They are definitely waking up."
"Let 'em," snarled Jack Crow. He fixed the Team with a frosty stare. "It's too late for 'em. We just stay a little tighter, work a little faster, be a little more careful. We still got 'em."
They were right. From then on, every ghoul Felix had previously shot would scream that insane wail and rush him as soon as they saw him. There was no doubt they recognized him. No doubt they hated him.
But Jack Crow was also right. It was too late. The system worked. It worked on zombies or vampires or any combination of the two. Felix's shooting was too quick. Jack's crossbow was too accurate.
The only trouble spot came toward the end. They were getting tired, with some four hours at it by then, and due for a mistake. The mistake was Felix's, and it was a beauty he dropped his gun during a charge.
First he slipped, in that awfully gooey stuff the monsters used for blood. It was a clear, viscous, odorless mucus that had been pouring from the wounds onto the cement and Felix made the mistake of stepping in it as he spun to shoot the third of the trio, which had rushed screaming out of the flare's light toward them. When he went down, Felix's right hand went out instinctively to catch himself and it went into another puddle of the junk and the pistol squirted out of his grip like a bar of soap.
Jack had already made his shot, the vampire already wriggling on the huge arrow, when it happened. He frantically fished for the pistol on his belt. Cat did the same and had actually managed to draw his pistol before Adam, calm and cool, stepped forward and fired his crossbow through the last monster's chest. It dropped like meat on a spit.
Seconds later they were out watching another fire while Carl toweled the clinging mess from Felix's hand and gun and everyone else exchanged proud grins with the young priest. It had been his only chance for action in hours and he had been flawless.
They felt good.
Nothing else even slowed them down. And only one thing actually frightened them again: going down into the basement.
The detectors said there were no more inside. Jack Crow believed them. They had already killed twenty-four and that was something like the third highest number Jack had ever seen in one place.
But they were still going to have to go down there and see for themselves.
And while they were sitting there trying to figure out the best way of going about it an old man wearing a faded pastor's collar started across the street toward them. They had noticed him before and ignored him. Just another one of the local biggies come to oversee.
But as he got closer, they could tell this was no bigshot. The knees to his slacks were worn through. The lining of his jacket was hanging loose on one side. And he looked like he hadn't shaved that white beard in a week.
He began to walk faster and faster as be approached them. He was carrying a piece of pipe in