weeds, leaving the rest of the crumbs untouched.
Still on his knees, the young guard frowned, puzzled. He glanced behind him and saw nothing. It made no sense.
But then again, he couldn’t hear what was bearing down on him.
Not until it was too late.
Elsewhere, Caleb had reached the broken sign that said WELCOME TO PRIN .
The center of town itself still lay a half mile or so in the distance; he should be there within minutes. The main street appeared to be dotted with buildings, none more than a few stories high.
Caleb realized that the first thing he had to do was get water. He had nothing to trade with, but he was strong and handy; he knew he could work for what he needed.
Then he heard it.
Caleb braked and balanced stock-still, one foot on the ground, straining to identify the sound. As he did, he felt a familiar twisting sensation in his gut and a tingling in his hands and along the back of his neck.
Far away, someone was screaming.
For an instant, Caleb reeled. It was as if he was falling, tumbling backward into an abyss, a sucking vortex from which there was no escape. He gripped his handlebars so tightly his knuckles turned white, and the hot pavement beneath him started to bloom into an obliterating brightness.
Then he heard something else, a thin thread of noise that brought him back to himself. It was the sound of others shouting. Even though he couldn’t make out the words, the voices seemed mocking and jubilant.
They sounded like mutants.
Could he be sure? He might be imagining things. He knew he’d been seeing them for weeks now, maybe even months. Since he first left home, he sensed them everywhere, from the corner of his eye, behind him, just around an abandoned car or bend in the road, their obscene, deformed faces silently watching him, jeering, before vanishing into nothingness. Sometimes they appeared in his dreams and when they did, he awoke in a sweat, crying out.
Several weeks ago, he had confronted mutants in the flesh, an unsuspecting group he had happened upon while they were hunting. He didn’t hesitate to launch an ambush that left them unconscious and bleeding.
Now he made up his mind. Getting back on his bike, he swerved off the main road and onto a smaller street on his left.
It did not take him long to track the source of the noise. Although the screaming stopped, the other voices grew louder, providing him a rough guide to follow. He rode down one street, which led to a dead end; doubling back, he was able to find a parallel road, which led to another main thoroughfare. By now, he was so close, he was able to hear distinct voices.
“Pretty girl,” said someone. This was followed by the sound of others laughing.
With his backpack on, Caleb leaped off his bike and tossed it down in an abandoned yard, its front wheel still spinning. This was evidently once a residential block, with the remains of large two- and three-story houses on both sides nearly hidden by weeds and tall grass. Caleb cut diagonally across the last property and around to its backyard.
The yard led to an overgrown field, which bordered on the cracked parking lot of an abandoned supermarket. Caleb decided to head away from the voices. Realizing he was only one against at least three or four possible enemies, he calculated he would have to use surprise as an additional advantage. He skirted the open expanse and stuck to the perimeter, defined by an immense and straggling hedge.
As Caleb ran, his ears constantly adjusted to the thread of voices, trying to pinpoint their exact location. When he judged he was no more than fifteen feet away, he stopped. Only then did he work his way through the dense foliage, taking care not to disturb the branches around him. He noticed a small gap in the hedge. Through it, he was finally able to make out what was happening.
What he saw astonished and then repulsed him.
Five mutants stood in a loose circle looking up at a streetlamp. A boy hung from it, tilting forward at
Gerbrand Bakker
Shadonna Richards
Martin Kee
Diane Adams
Sarah Waters
Edward Lee
Tim Junkin
Sidney Sheldon
David Downing
Anthony Destefano