“Sorry,” he breathed to the passengers in the back as they flew past the gate that separated the explosive side streets from the mine-free main roads, careened by the Busted Knuckle Garage, BEST PLACE IN TOWN TO TAKE A LEAK! And Michael did feel terrible, he felt ashamed, but he was also looking back because of Bobbie. How much longer before she changed?
Bobbie moaned, then slouched, unconscious, against the chest-bar of her seat harness.
And for the first time since the insane drive from the Magic Lantern began, someone noticed that Bobbie looked unwell.
Holly, sitting across from her, said, “Miss Bobbie, what’s the matter?”
Beyond her, through the portholes on the rear doors, Michael could see mobs of Bellows; dozens more were out front, too. Many were eyeless, but by now the last slice of sun had slipped beneath the horizon. Even the Bellows who had not learned to destroy their sight were emerging from the city’s hidden darknesses, from doorways and manholes and Dumpsters. What’re we gonna do if the captain isn’t up top shooting? Omigod, what’re we gonna—
“Throw ’er out the back!” shouted Captain Jopek.
They’re going to throw Bobbie out!
Hank, slimed with sweat, stood from his seat and threw open the double doors.
But he did not reach for Bobbie; he did not seem even to have noticed her new unconsciousness. Instead, Hank reached for the gurney in the back. He grabbed the sheet off the gurney, pulling it upward like a matador; the wind sucked it out the open rear door.
The gurney was loaded with grenades, which were stuck to the mattress pad and the bars with duct tape.
“When?” Hank called.
“Wait till we get ’round the corner to cut it! We got a ten-second delay on those frags. I want to clear those assholes on the bridge. I wanna watch them try to swim.” Jopek’s face was smiling, his voice was so, so calm. Like it was all a game.
They swung around the corner, the last one.
Hank loosed the chocks from the gurney’s wheels, then yanked upward on the silver line that had been strung among the grenades: all the grenade pins flicked up at once, like bright popcorn. He thrust the gurney out the rear, where its wheels met the road, squealing smoke. A rope-tether, tied on one end to the gurney and on the other to a pole on the inner wall of the Hummer, unspurled rapidly then tugged, taut.
“Henry, my good man: cut it!”
Hank’s face was hard and determined, but his eyes were also shiny with joy.
He nodded and reached for his pocket. And that was when, with slow dreamy terror, his smile transformed to a frown.
“Dropped it,” he breathed to himself, disbelieving. “Captain, I dropped my knife in the theater—THE GRENADES’RE TOO CLOSE THEY’RE GONNA BLOW US U—”
“Aw, hush,” the captain said.
Did the captain ever flinch? No. He took the handgun from Michael’s lap—the same one Michael had stolen from his ankle—and turned in his seat and, only half-looking, single-shot the thick nylon rope that tethered the deadly gurney to the back of their speeding car. The severed rope zipped through the back and out to the screaming street, and a moment later the crowd of Bellows swallowed the homemade mass-extermination device whole. The explosion was huge, scorching, a great radius of blast that burst Bellows away from earth and their own limbs. The sun had set now, but for that moment the captain resurrected the day, and his light still had the power to hurt all the Bellows, blind or not, as much as he pleased. Holly put her hand to her chest like she was trying to push down her pounding heart. Hank reached out for Holly’s hand, which she took. So everyone was looking out the back, at the captain’s fire, when Bobbie opened her eyes and raised her face to Patrick, and turned into a Bellow.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Michael knew that he should move. He should dive into the backseat and grab his brother.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t help thinking of Halloween.
The expression on Patrick’s face had been the same, then . . .
. . . as Michael opens the door on the side of the garage, telling Patrick about The Game. Now there is the night with its smell of leaves and its feeling like freedom, and of course Patrick is afraid of the dark; but, of course, he pretends not to be. “This is so cool, huh?” he only whispers, and clasps his hands tighter on Michael’s chest.