the dark as to where we were and what was going on around them. Ezra looked up at me, both relieved and eager to hear an update.
“Are you guys okay?” asked Quentin. “We keep hearing gunshots.”
“We’re fine,” I said. “Maggie took a hit, but it’s mostly cosmetic.”
“And you?” asked Ezra.
“Tip-top,” I said with a smile.
“Are you seeing other robots?” he asked.
“A few. Nothing to worry about.” I looked at Quentin. “Can I borrow you for a moment?”
Quentin got out of the car and we stepped to the side.
“What is it?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“We ran into a barricade a little ways back. There was no way around it. We had to backtrack a little to get out of the neighborhood, but it’s clear there’s only one way out to FM 2222 and on out to the Hill Country.”
“You think they’re going to be waiting for us.”
“I’m almost certain of it.”
“What do you think we should do?” he asked.
“I think we should keep on keeping on, but if I bang three times on the car, you grab the kids, you get out of the car, and you run for the nearest cover.”
“I can do that.”
“You don’t look back,” I said. “You run. I don’t know how much resistance to expect, how well-armed they are, or how well-organized they’ll even be. All I know is that they’ve got one thing on their mind, and it’s killing all of you.”
“I understand,” he said, swallowing hard. “Good luck.”
“You too.”
He got back in the car, and Maggie and I once more mounted our spot on the back.
“You ready for this?” I asked her.
“I am now,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever actually be okay ever again.”
“I don’t know that any of us ever will be.”
I started the car and we headed back toward the attempted roadblock. As we drove, I scanned other windows and hidey-holes for additional snipers, but saw no movement at all. But there, in the window I’d initially spotted movement, was a yellow Caregiver unit, its body slumped over the windowsill, half in, half out of the building, the back of its head blown open by a rifle round. A few sparks dribbled out of its damage every few seconds, signs that, though not dead, it was certainly dying.
Maggie eyed it as we passed, completely expressionless. If she was eulogizing or cursing the bot’s end, she did so silently.
I ran through the maps, trying to find any sort of route that wasn’t driving us toward the one exit, but there was nothing. No side streets or back alleys that we might sneak out. There was only one way out of this, and we were headed right for it.
As we approached, I suddenly became very thankful that we’d covered all the windows.
We’d found the missing bodies.
As we turned a corner onto the main street out of the suburb, the one that would carry us toward the highway and into the Hill Country, we found the large billowing oak trees lining it festooned with bodies hanging from ropes. A strong wind blew through the trees, swaying the boughs, causing all the bodies to lurch and dance like the horses of a merry-go-round.
Farther in the distance, on both sides of the road, were two piles of corpses, each some twenty feet high. There must have been a thousand bodies here, all in various states of decay and completeness.
Otherwise, the road was open and entirely unobstructed.
Had it been blocked, I wouldn’t have been quite as worried. The fact that it was open meant this 100 percent had to be a trap. Someone was here, waiting, ready to kill us all. But who? And how many of them?
I slowed the car to a stop and scanned the area.
The only movement was the bodies swaying in the breeze.
Maggie unslung her new rifle from her shoulder and peered through the scope, sweeping across a number of spots, looking for targets.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think we’re about to have company,” I replied.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I think we should scout ahead. I’ll take the right side of the street; you take the left. But fall back behind me on that side, maybe about fifty feet or so, so you can snipe anyone who tries to catch me from behind.”
“Sounds good. But what if someone tries to sneak up behind me?”
“Turn up the volume on your ears and make sure you take the shotgun.”
“I meant like who is watching out for me?”
I smiled.