to blast into existence just beyond his handlebars— dangerous, ah, and thank you very much for that. Michael jabbed the handlebars, surging between the trees like a missile.
The four-wheeler entered the woods, its headlight whipping side to side as it copied Michael’s path.
Up ahead came what Michael had hoped for: a thick collection of trees, their trunks so tight they’d be impossible to steer through—
—except for him.
He wove straight through, so close he felt the bark brush his sleeves, and an instant later the four-wheeler tried to follow and an instant after that, the four-wheeler crashed.
“Newb!” Michael crowed.
Go.
Go.
This is mine.
I can bike every mile of moonlit snow in the world.
Chase me, ’cause me and my brother?
We. Can. Run. Forever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Michael shot out of the trees, into the clear lane between the two sides of forest, and it began to occur to him that, despite the three motorcycle-riding crazies still coming down the snow-covered mountain for him, he was really going to make it. He was going to be safe. He would find the Others that Rulon had mentioned, and sometime—maybe soon—he was going to make it to the Safe Zone and The End. No more secrets, he thought. No more lying all the time. I won’t have to do this anymore. He was going to find Mom, and everything since Halloween and after it—all the time away, all the battles with Bellows—would be worth it.
He was thinking those things when he gasped, because he saw something wonderful ahead that blazed through him like light.
Charleston, he thought breathlessly. That is Charleston.
Down the mountain, in the valley a mile below, Michael saw a golden dome, tiny from here, lit up like a Christmas tree. Spotlights beside the Capitol building traced into the sky, blotting out the starlight.
“Patrick! Bub, it’s the Safe Zone!” Michael said.
Patrick gaped over his shoulder, going, “Whoa-ho-ho!” in amazement.
“We’re going to win—” Michael began.
He saw the coming threat at the last, last second. A buck, a deer, hugely antlered and explosively fast, had cut in front of him. Michael yanked the handlebars, and felt his bike tipping with a slow, gummy, nightmare awareness.
The bike collided with the ground, hurling snow, its leftover speed carrying them forward. Patrick cried out; Michael felt him slip away.
Get the bike! Michael thought even as he barrel-rolled violently through the snow. Keep going! He sat up, his eyes stinging with snow. “It’s okay, Bub!” he said. Half blinded, he was patting the ground, looking for the bike. . . .
The ground vanished beneath his hand.
Cliff.
Michael felt a screaming vertigo and paddled backward.
“Michael!” Patrick called, a few steps behind him . . . which Michael could see because of the light of the motorcycles, which had stopped maybe fifty feet back.
The Bellows were coming from the tree line, too, behind Patrick. Many of them glistened and crackled, their limbs lined with ice.
We’re trapped.
The men on the motorcycles stepped off their bikes, stamping toward them through the snow.
Michael ran to Patrick, held onto Patrick, his heart thudding, and he felt his blood, and—
And, he didn’t move.
He didn’t run.
“Help us, Michael,” Patrick said. “Please.”
Standing between the coming killers and the edge of the world, with no place to flee, something happened. Michael felt his own breath course down his raw throat, his blood rushing through his terror-stoked heart . . . and a feeling he couldn’t name enveloped him.
It’s fine, said the strange feeling.
It was deafening, inside.
But it was, too, amazingly, purely calm.
And strong: so strong that it didn’t seem to come from him, as yes-yes did, but through him. It was a voice so immense and not him that the instructions could have originated in the stars. And the voice was telling Michael what to do.
Wait, it said. Just wait.
What? his mind protested. Why?!
“Michael, what are you doing?” Patrick said.
Wait.
“Michael—” Patrick cried, “Michael, what is that?!”
Michael turned, expecting to see the city. But something had taken the city away.
Awe and dread overpowered him.
Oh my God.
Over the cliff, something was rising: an orb, like the dark twin of the true moon.
“What is that?” Patrick breathed. “Is that real?”
“It’s real, Bub. It’s . . .”
The orb ignited.
“A hot-air balloon,” said Michael.
And it was.
CHAPTER NINE
They stood there while the shadow eclipsed them.
Why the balloon had arrived or where it came from: mysteries.
But, a fact: the balloon was a jack-o’-lantern.
Up from the cliff’s edge came twin black-hole eyes, a great triangle nose, a huge, magic, maniac, Cheshire-cat smile. The rising aircraft smelled of fire. Snow fell onto the canvas and