Last Chance--A Novel Page 24

  I had no baling hooks, no gun, no real plan. But I had one advantage over the Drones—I wouldn’t disintegrate if my armor got punctured.

  I went to free the back gate, but the driver yanked the truck to the side, almost hitting me. I slowed down, cut across the back, and rode up along the passenger side. The Drone was just opening the door, his boot inching out toward the runner.

  I made a fist with the armored glove and swung it into the door as hard as I could without toppling the bike.

  The door slammed shut where his ankle would be. A blast of black smoke shot through the fractured suit down at the asphalt zipping by beneath us. The Drone blasted across the bench seat, flying over the Drone next to him and smashing into the driver. Both of them hammered through the driver’s door, taking it right off the hinges.

  The remaining Drone sat there in the middle, bolt upright and apparently stunned, as the truck barreled forward. Then he seemed to come to his senses. He slid across to take the wheel.

  I eased over, figuring he was going to swerve into me.

  The other truck was right there in the next lane, catching me by surprise.

  I jerked the handlebars back, barely dodging the grille as it swept past.

  I was in the tight space between both trucks.

  There was nowhere to go.

  I hit the brakes, hoping to let them fly ahead of me, but both of the drivers steered sharply in at me. There wouldn’t be time.

  I watched the walls close in.

  There was no doubt about it. I was gonna get pancaked.

  The sides of the trucks hit the outsides of the Ninja’s grips, pinning the motorcycle in place.

  I let go of the handlebars and hopped up onto the seat. The ground flew by below. One slip and I’d be spread across the highway. I tried to grab the trucks’ slats, but there were no handholds. Through the metal bars, kids’ faces appeared, cheering me on.

  I reached for the top of the slats, but they were too high.

  The handlebars bent and gave way. The bike started to crumple beneath me, dragged forward. The sides of the trucks crushed in on my shoulders. I bladed my body, riding the disintegrating bike like a skateboard.

  The Drones kept steering into each other, smashing me between the walls.

  I had one foot on the seat. One of the bike’s wheels broke free and whipped away as if sucked into a black hole.

  The trucks were side to side, zooming forward, closing even more.

  The slats clinked against my helmet on either side, crushing in on it.

  Blue electricity fizzled across my face mask.

  I felt the helmet bulge around my head.

  It was going to pop. And then my head would, too.

  I knew that the Drone helmet was strong. I didn’t want to bet my brain on how strong.

  What was left of the Ninja dragged forward beneath me, a sled forging through a fountain of sparks. I was on the tiptoes of one foot, trying to keep some weight off my helmet, which was still held in a vise grip between the sides of the two trucks.

  I was pretty much flying along the freeway suspended by my head.

  The helmet cracked under the pressure, a fissure opening up around my neck. I could feel air rushing through the seam.

  The helmet bulged even more, distorting my view through the face mask.

  This was it.

  I heard a boom.

  My head blowing up?

  Another boom.

  The trucks didn’t veer apart, but they started to decelerate. The asphalt treadmill beneath me slowed, slowed, and finally stopped.

  The motorcycle gave a metal groan and collapsed.

  For an instant I swung from my head.

  “Hello?” I said, my voice strained and wheezy. “Anyone wanna help me out?”

  The weight of my body tugged my head from the helmet with an audible pop, and I collapsed on top of the jagged, smoking Kawasaki.

  I reached up and worked the helmet loose. Then, turning my body sideways, I squeezed my way up the narrow gap between the trucks. At last I squirmed out the front.

  Through the cracked windshields, I saw black smoke and pieces of armor. A Drone stood on top of one of the cabs, shotgun in his hands, pointed down.

  Patrick.

  He had fired through the roof of the cab.

  Then he’d jumped across to the neighboring cab and done the same.

  A commandeered Ford F-150 pickup coasted into view from around the side of the wrecked vehicles, another Drone at the wheel. Alex yanked off the helmet and shook out her spiky hair. She must’ve driven up alongside the first cattle truck so Patrick could jump up onto it. She had one elbow out the rolled-down window and looked like something from a beer commercial.

  She smiled that wide smile. “Whoa there, Little Rain. Next time wait for the cavalry.”

  I grinned.

  Already the kids were streaming out of the cattle holds, running around us, whooping and clapping.

  We threw high fives, bumped knuckles, and wished one another well. They took off quickly, heading every which way.

  Every which way—except toward Stark Peak.

  We were the only ones stupid enough for that.

  ENTRY 49

  JoJo and Rocky crouched in the cramped crawl space by the heating vent, their faces striped with slits of light from the vent’s grille. They peered out onto the gym floor, watching Ben and Mikey dig through the wreckage of the supply station.

  Leaving Mr. Tomasi’s room had been easy enough, scaling the bookcase and vanishing into the drop ceiling. But crawling down the English and history hall had been tricky, since they had to balance their hands and knees on the metal grid that supported the panels. One wrong move and they’d go crashing through the ceiling. Moving above the cafeteria was easy, since there was an atticlike space reinforced with wood. When they’d crept down the intersecting hall leading to the gym, they’d heard Ben and Mikey walking beneath them. Through the pencil-hole perforations in the acoustic tiles, they’d watched the boys making their way cautiously along the corridor below them.

  Shadowing the older boys from a few feet above them had been slow, scary going.

  Now JoJo and Rocky pressed their faces close to the heating vent, staring through the slivers between the thin slats. They were straddling a row of ceiling panels, their knees riding the metal grid on either side. A few feet to their left, an external vent looked out across the school’s front lawn. A lazy breeze drifted through, stirring dust around them.

  Mikey emerged from the supply station first with a fistful of energy bars. He righted an overturned cot, sat on it, and started cramming them into his mouth, one after another. Ben kept digging for a few more minutes and then finally waded out.

  He said, “When I find who took my gun, I’m gonna take it from him and shove it up his—”

  “Who do you think took it?” Mikey said.

  He glared at him. “Who do you think?”

  He walked over and snatched one of the energy bars from the mattress. He gnawed off a big bite and gazed across the gym.

  His eyes snagged on something at the bleachers. His spine straightened.

  “What’s he looking at?” Rocky whispered.

  JoJo pressed her finger across her lips. Even way up here, she was too scared to make the shhh sound.

  Ben walked over to the bleachers. They were strewn with ripped clothes and sleeping bags and pillow feathers. On the bottom bench, the TV lay on its side, facing outward, static snowing the cracked screen.

  Ben put a boot up on the bench next to the TV and hunched over to tie his laces.

  JoJo pressed Bunny’s head against her mouth. Her calves were starting to cramp.

  An image wavered on the screen, catching Ben’s attention. He rested a forearm across his knee and stared down.

  Again the image undulated in the fuzz, a figure lost in a snowstorm. Ben righted the TV, turned up the volume to a white-noise roar, and fiddled with the rabbit ears.

  Up i
n the crawl space, JoJo prayed the picture wouldn’t clarify.

  It didn’t, but a snatch of a sentence emerged through the static: “—haven here on the northeast edge of Stark Peak—”

  And then it went to full black-and-white specks.

  Ben tugged at the antennae but couldn’t retrieve the reception.

  “Holy hell,” Mikey said. “Someone else is alive out there.” He stood up, wrappers falling from his lap.

  “Those losers,” Ben said. “They went to Stark Peak.”

  Too late JoJo sensed a vibration in the hall below. She stared down through the perforated tiles as movement swept by directly below her.

  Shiny black.

  Salamander orange.

  The familiar stench rose through the holes in the panels.

  Rocky’s upper lip glistened with sweat. “Oh,” he whispered. “Oh, no.”

  They felt the tremor of the gym’s double doors flinging open.

  Ben and Mikey turned to face what was coming. Mikey dropped the bar he was eating. Ben stepped away, his legs banging into a cot. He stumbled back, sat down abruptly on the thin mattress, and then stood up again.

  JoJo and Rocky watched the forms ease into view below them.

  Three Drones. Two Hatchlings.

  They fanned out around Ben and Mikey.

  Ben held up his hand. “Listen—”

  The Hatchlings pounced on Mikey and tore him in half at the stomach. He didn’t even have time to scream. Each Hatchling dragged its bloody chunk a few feet away and fell on it. Hunkered possessively over their meals, they glared at each other with their pupil-filled eyes even as they devoured their spoils. The terrible smacking noises made JoJo’s insides lurch up. She wanted to scream and hide and throw up all at the same time.

  Ben’s knees buckled. He tilted forward on his feet as if he were going to fall flat on his face, but then he caught himself. The Hatchlings rose from their feast and shook like wet dogs, whipping the excess blood off their faces and necks. They snapped at each other and then focused on Ben, circling him like sharks.

  He spun around to keep them in sight. “Wait … okay? Wait … listen. Just … listen. Take me to your leader. I have something he’ll want to know.”

  The Hatchlings rotated faster around him. Ben whirled on his heels.

  The Hatchlings coiled. And then they lunged.

  “Chance and Patrick Rain!” Ben screamed.

  One of the Drones held up a hand.

  The Hatchlings froze, their dripping fangs inches from Ben’s face.

  Ben’s eyes were closed, his arms up, caging his head. “I know where they are. Or at least where they’re headed. And I’m willing to trade. The information you want for my life. Okay?”

  He opened his eyes.

  The Hatchlings cocked their heads, their jaws gnashing as if of their own accord. They did not back off.

  Ben closed his eyes again. “Okay?”

  The Drone flattened his hand, a command for the Hatchlings: Stand down.

  The Hatchlings backed away until they were stooped over their respective meals. They tore back into the pieces of Mikey.

  One of the Drones marched out of the gym.

  Up in the crawl space, JoJo swallowed hard. Then she crept over Rocky, who was still frozen with terror, and made her way through the crawl space to the exterior vent.

  After a minute she watched the Drone emerge. He stepped out onto the front lawn. He tilted his helmet back to the heavens, a blue glow illuminating his face mask.

  Sending a signal.

  A chill tightened JoJo’s skin when she realized what that meant.

  More Harvesters were on the way.

  ENTRY 50

  We drove into Stark Peak as if it were an ordinary day trip.

  Except for the alien space suits we were wearing, of course.

  Patrick was at the wheel of the big pickup. As we neared the city, other vehicles started to appear. At first we couldn’t help glancing out at all the other Drones zipping past. They drove mostly big rigs—tanker trucks, livestock cars, moving vans—but there were plenty in normal cars as well. Many of the vehicles transported Hatchlings and children. The Drones drove without regard for lanes or signs, but somehow the confusion of angles all worked out. It reminded me of watching schools of fish on television, how they always seemed to know when to turn this way or that without ever bumping into one another.

  Alex and I kept staring out the windows in disbelief until some of the Drones started staring back.

  “Stop looking,” Patrick said, his voice tinny through the helmet.

  We wound into thickening traffic until we were surrounded by enemies, too far in to back out. We were masquerading as Harvesters inside the beehive itself.

  If they ever found out we were here, there’d be nowhere to run.

  For a time we joined the flow of cars on the freeway. If I ignored the thudding of my heart amplified inside the echo chamber of the suit, it almost felt safe.

  Buildings started to spring up along the sides of the road. A cattle pen was packed with children, the kids mixed right in with cows and pigs. All those small bodies pressed between the livestock. They looked gaunt and miserable, sunk to the ankles in manure. Drones prodded them toward feeding troughs.

  A line of Hatchlings stretched out of the slaughterhouse on the far side. They looked uncharacteristically calm, even patient.

  It dawned on me what they were waiting for, the realization a wrecking ball to my chest. “They’re waiting in line,” I said. “Like at a restaurant.”

  Mercifully, the feeding zone passed from view.

  The skyline loomed ever larger. The domino-tile slabs of apartment buildings at the edge of town. The formidable tower of Stark Peak Bank & Trust. And rising above it all, the upthrust spire of City Hall.

  We exited the freeway. At the stoplight Patrick released the wheel and flexed his fingers. I could see indentations on the metal of the steering wheel where he’d gripped too tight with his armored hands.

  Around us Drones paraded the streets in clusters and columns, bent to some greater purpose.

  Patrick signaled to turn right, but Alex reached over and clicked it off.

  “Aliens don’t signal,” she said.

  Patrick waited for an opening and turned.

  We goggled at the city. It had been transformed into an alien landscape. Hatchlings strolling the sidewalks and tearing through cabinets in the shops. Drones training in Newbury Park, enacting series of movements that looked like tai chi. The giant bank building had been split open as if by an explosion, the exposed interior lined with transparent organic screens showing feeds from all around the world. Floor after floor of Drones were plugged into the screens by umbilical cord–like wires attached to the sides of their helmets. Were they monitoring the footage? Patrick slowed as we coasted past the sight, and I spotted a Queen on each floor. I imagined hives like this dotting every city in the world.

  On the sidewalks Hatchlings bickered and brawled. One skirmish turned violent, four Hatchlings going after a smaller one. They each seized a limb with fangs and nails, and an instant later he was quartered.

  We rolled up on the giant courtyard before City Hall. A wave of Hatchlings swept by us on the broad steps, shoving and hissing. One slashed another, gouging his cheek, and then a fight broke out. More Hatchlings piled on, turning the riot into a mini-stampede. Several Hatchlings got trampled, leaving orange smears on the pavement. The others smashed through the window of a movie theater and tumbled out of sight.

  Patrick kept driving. Just a few more blocks and we’d be through the heart of downtown, making our way to the cliffs that rimmed the northeast section of the city. Stark Peak University was perched on those cliffs.

  As was—we hoped—our salvation.

  As we coasted up to the next intersection, Alex gasped.

  A female Hatchling stepped off the sidewalk onto the crosswalk. As she passed in front of us, we watched her with shock.

 
She was pregnant.

  It was hard to tell at first, given that the females were rotund to begin with. But as she crossed before our windshield, we saw that the swelling around her midsection was pronounced enough to stretch the skin so tight it was translucent—just as with the Husks. Through the orange flesh, tiny forms were visible, swimming around like baby sharks.

  “Now they’ve really got no use for us anymore,” Alex said.

  Even after the Hatchling passed by, we sat there, stunned.

  All at once we were banged forward in our seats. A truck, ramming us from behind.

  Patrick accelerated off the line. A few more turns as we drifted through the outskirts of the city. Even here we marveled at all the industry. Buildings hollowed out, the interiors plastered with virtual screens. Hatchlings crouching on bus shelters, roofs, parked cars. In a few places, Drones were digging up the streets, churning through the concrete with bulldozers and excavators. They pulverized buildings, remaking the landscape into enormous molehills. The population thinned out here in the construction zones. The few Hatchlings and Drones seemed too preoccupied with their tasks to focus on us.

  Patrick steered around fallen high-rises, mounds of glass and concrete, broken fire hydrants spouting water. Most of the streets threading to the northeast part of the city were blocked. We couldn’t take the normal route around the cliffs to come at the university from the rear. And we couldn’t risk reversing our way through the city center again.

  Our only shot was to run the intact streets to the base of the cliffs and figure it out from there.

  At last we reached the outskirts of the city. The freeway on-ramp had collapsed into a spill of rubble. There’d be no moving forward. Not in the truck at least. Patrick parked in an alley splitting a housing project, and we climbed out and crept to the end.

  Across the freeway was the bottom terminal for an aerial tram that forged up the steep hills to the cliffs beyond. Thick steel cables connected the intermediate supporting towers. Cut into the cliff face in the distance were steep switchbacks.

  Way up at the top, we could see a few flat buildings—the fringe of campus.

  They looked peaceful. Undisturbed.