thirty miles out, oughtta be here by tonight,” Jopek nodded. “Told ’em take their time: me and my troops will make sure the roads they need to get into town don’t have any mines on ’em.”
Was the captain joking? Lying?
And then, arcing like a flare: No! Telling the truth! Real unit, coming!
“I know we had our differences, buddy. Yesterday, I was pissed at you, I won’t lie. But I’d sure be glad to have you come out to town with me today. I mean, just think,” Jopek said sincerely, “your mama’s gonna be so happy to see you.”
And somehow, Jopek’s attempted emotional manipulation gave Michael a gift of focus; a power-up, he thought. Calm washed over him again.
Here are two warriors, playing a game, and both are lying. I don’t know why you’re lying, Captain, but I know that you are. And actually, know what? I think I do know why. You know that I’m lying about the soldiers, don’t you? Maybe you’ve always known. You want to make me feel safe, want to make me feel like help is coming, so I’ll trust you . . . and then you’ll make an excuse. “Oh, the soldiers changed their minds, sorry.” “Oh, let’s keep camp here, like I was sayin’. Those monsters and those Rapture ain’t nothin’ that ol’ Jopek can’t handle.”
“Sir? I couldn’t find—” someone said.
Jopek swiveled toward the door. Holly had been entering hurriedly when she stopped short. Her eyebrows flicked up, surprised to see Michael.
“Well, here he is. And good timin’. This storm’s really kickin’ things up. If we’re gonna get goin’ . . .”
Jopek shrugged: then we better.
Captain Jopek was leaving the room, already drawing his key ring from his belt. Finally, Holly looked at Michael, and though it was dangerous, because it was dangerous, before Jopek even sailed out the doorway, Michael reached into his own pocket, grabbed the keys he’d stuffed there, and held them up for Holly to see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
But she didn’t smile.
She wouldn’t even look at him. Not when they corralled Patrick at the rotunda, not when Jopek asked Hank to stay behind and be watchman in case the Rapture returned, not when Hank looked outright depressed that Jopek was taking Michael along instead of him.
Not even when they went outside to the rear Capitol steps, and everything got so weird.
“What the!” Patrick said—shouted, actually. He had to, it was so loud out here.
Past the Abraham Lincoln statue and the deflated balloon tethered to it, two hundred eyeless Bellows roared in the falling snow and pushed en masse against the security fences that ran on both sides of the Hummer. Last night, Jopek had relocked the fence systems on the bridge after the Rapture’s invasion; Michael had seen only a couple dozen Bellows on Government Plaza afterward. But somehow the monsters had found a way across the downtown bridge, and they penetrated every layer of the security barriers, except for one final double layer of chain link. He saw, with whooshing relief, that the Hummer’s escape path through the fence system was still intact. But the final layer of fencing was bulging dangerously with the force of the Bellows, and Michael could hear more Bellows on Government Plaza around the corner of the Capitol—“more” as in “freaking hundreds.”
“Them tricky bastards started comin’ in from the river last night!” Jopek said. He looked almost excited, like this was a fun, new challenge.
Michael looked at the enormous Kanawha River, past the Hummer and the fence. The river had seemed like peace itself last night. Now Bellows were churning past in the current, sinking and then surfacing downstream, screaming white jets of water into the air. And by luck or something worse, some Bellows were ending up on the shore, were shuffling toward the fences, as if trying to gain the Capitol.
Michael pictured the fences popping like over-tight wire. We have to get out of here. Like now.
Jopek, whistling, strolled down the marble steps toward the Hummer, walking needlessly close to the rotting hands shooting through the fences. A Bellow with a LeBron James–caliber reach swiped at him, smearing green goo on the captain’s right shoulder. “Open wide, honey,” he said, and—without looking—unstrapped his ankle pistol and shot off the Bellow’s jaw.
Michael called to Jopek, “Captain, why can’t the soldiers clear the roads themselves?”
Jopek put the pistol in his belt, cocked a hand behind his ear, grinned, “What’s that? Couldn’t hear ya.”
“Is it really safe, Michael?” Patrick said over the din. “It’s really how to