line under this operation. Enough of his people would stay for the final act, which was all that mattered.
Luke and his friend Tim were going down, there was no question in his mind about that. Either it would be good enough for the lisping man on the other end of the Zero Phone or it wouldn’t. That was out of Stackhouse’s hands, and it was a relief. He supposed he had carried this streak of fatalism like a dormant virus since his days in Iraq and Afghanistan, and just hadn’t recognized it for what it was until now. He would do what he could, which was all any man or woman could do. The dogs barked and the caravan moved on.
There was a tap at the door and Rosalind looked in. She had done something with her hair, which was an improvement. He was less sure about the shoulder holster she was now wearing. It was a bit surreal, like a dog wearing a party hat.
“Gladys is here, Mr. Stackhouse.”
“Send her in.”
Gladys entered. There was an air mask dangling below her chin. Her eyes were red. Stackhouse doubted if she had been crying, so the irritation was probably from whatever bad medicine she’d been mixing up. “It’s ready. All I need to do is add the toilet bowl cleaner. You say the word, Mr. Stackhouse, and we’ll gas them.” She gave her head a quick, hard shake. “That hum is driving me crazy.”
From the look of you, you don’t have far to go, Stackhouse thought, but she was right about the hum. The thing was, you couldn’t get used to it. Just when you thought you might, it would rise in volume—not in your ears, exactly, but inside your head. Then, all at once, it would drop back to its former and slightly more bearable level.
“I was talking to Felicia,” Gladys said. “Dr. Richardson, I mean. She’s been watching them on her monitor. She says the hum gets stronger when they link up and drops when they let go of each other.”
Stackhouse had already figured that out for himself. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist, as the saying went.
“Will it be soon, sir?”
He looked at his watch. “I think about three hours, give or take. The HVAC units are on the roof, correct?”
“Yes.”
“I may be able to call you when it’s time, Gladys, but I may not. Things will probably happen fast. If you hear shooting from the front of the admin building, start the chlorine gas whether you hear from me or not. Then come. Don’t go back inside, just run along the roof to the East Wing of Front Half. Understand?”
“Yes, sir!” She gave him a brilliant smile. It was the one all the kids hated.
12
Twelve-thirty.
Kalisha was watching the Ward A kids and thinking about the Ohio State Marching Band. Her dad loved Buckeyes football, and she had always watched with him—for the closeness—but the only part she really cared about was halftime show, when the band (“The Priiide of the Buckeyes!” the announcer always proclaimed) would take the field, simultaneously playing their instruments and making shapes that were only discernible from above—everything from the S on Superman’s chest to a fantastic Jurassic Park dinosaur that walked around nodding its saurian head.
The Ward A kids had no musical instruments, and all they made when they joined hands was the same circle—irregular, because the access tunnel was narrow—but they had the same . . . there was a word for it . . .
“Synchronicity,” Nicky said.
She looked around, startled. He smiled at her, brushing his hair back to give her a better look at eyes that were, let’s face it, sort of fascinating.
“That’s a big word even for a white boy.”
“I got it from Luke.”
“You hear him? You’re in touch with him?”
“Sort of. Off and on. It’s hard to tell what’s my thinking and what’s his. It helped that I was asleep. Awake, my thoughts get in the way.”
“Like interference?”
He shrugged. “I guess. But if you open your mind, I’m pretty sure you can hear him, too. He comes through even clearer when they make one of their circles.” He nodded to the Ward A kids, who had resumed their aimless wandering. Jimmy and Donna were walking together, swinging their linked hands. “Want to try?”
Kalisha tried to stop thinking. It was surprisingly hard at first, but when she listened to the hum, it got easier. The hum was sort of like mouthwash, only for the brain.