Pop-Tart, grimacing a little at the taste. They’d been old even when they’d found them in Ron’s cabin, and being in the car had not done much in the way of making them less gaaaah.
Patrick nodded, eating his Pop-Tart with both hands. He shivered pleasantly, like he would waiting for a surprise party. There wasn’t anything that Bub looked forward to more than hearing their Instructions. Nor anything that Michael looked forward to more, either—even though, with the way The Game worked, neither he nor Patrick had ever actually seen the Game Master.
The Game Master’s Instructions were delivered in the total silence of night.
And here was how. You stop in the woods, or in a stranger’s emptied house, or in the car along a frost-starred road. You wait for Patrick to go to sleep. And after he is snoring, if you are quiet (very), the Game Master materializes from out of the dark and speaks. You have to really listen: the Game Master’s arrival, when it happens, is no louder than the knock of your heart. His whisper is more silent still. But ahhh man, his Instructions about how to play The Game, his directives about how to get closer to the Safe Zone and to winning: what a relief and wonder to receive.
If all of that sounded like some kind of magic—a Master fashioning the apocalypse around a Game he’d made, instructing you precisely about where you should go next in order to stay safe—well . . . it kinda felt magic. It was a power that would have seemed impossible to Michael before Halloween.
So add that to the “impossible stuff” list, thought Michael now.
He cleared his throat, beginning his imitation of the Game Master’s voice: smooth and richly deep, an utterly grown-man’s voice.
“You’re getting closer to the Safe Zone. You performed well last night, Michael and Patrick. You encountered the first Bellows that seemed to move in a group. ‘Why?’ is a question which may be of importance. So ponder it. But not at the expense of my new Instructions.
“You will set out upon a new town. Although it is not certain, the possibility remains that soldiers—who can escort you to the Safe Zone—may be near.
“I have left, scattered for you in this town, metallic parts for Patrick’s new weapon.
“Because your stores of food and ammunition have been thinned, seek to replenish them. Before you travel from this town, you must earn one hundred points.
“Stay alert. Stay sharp.
“I will be watching. I will be waiting. And I will be, as ever, your Game Master.”
Patrick did a fist-pound, said, “Booyah.”
Michael and Patrick crunched down the street through the ankle-high snow with their pants cuffs duct-taped to their boots to keep out the cold. Their duffel bag was strapped across Michael’s chest, the .22-caliber rifle slung over his shoulder like a fishing pole; with his other hand, he pulled the rusty Radio Flyer sled they’d found at a garbage dump last week.
In the center of town, next to the tiny fountain with the no-face statue, Michael cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting, “Hello!” to the streets. Sun glittered on the snow. Patrick switched his wool hat for Michael’s huge gas station aviator shades.
As a couple Bellows’ replies and his snow-muffled Hello! voice echoed to him—but no human calls—Michael’s brain clicked over everything around him. Standard stuff. Squat mounds of snow-buried cars; soggy Safe Zone flyers (mapless, alas); charred sheriff’s cruiser; gas station with an explosion-crater where the pumps should have been.
“So where ya wanna start?” Michael asked Patrick.
Patrick pointed to the snow-covered downhill street behind him.
Zoom.
They sledded down the series of hills from the square, bobbing through the abandoned cars and trucks, Michael’s arms wrapped around Patrick’s waist, Bub chuckling at fake-danger every time they narrowly avoided clipping the cars.
The Coalmount grocery store was called—seriously— Food’N’Such.
The storefront’s shattered windows had been boarded. Through the open door, streams of daylight filtered in, making the inside dusky.
No Bellow replied.
“All right, Sticky Fingers, let’s clean out the joint,” Michael said. He stepped in over the bits of glass that had been busted from the door. But he noticed Patrick hadn’t followed: he was still at the threshold. Bub tried a grin, but his eyes were afraid, and he was doing that hum of his. Michael felt a tug of sympathy for him—and annoyance with himself.
“Right. Sorry, buddy. The Lightball.”
Michael unzipped the duffel bag and pulled out the weapon he’d made last week: a ball of duct tape, almost the size of a