A little farther on, two men—perhaps a father and son—stood at the end of their property and watched the fire truck approaching. The headlights caught the neighborly concern on their faces as they craned their necks, looking off into the night, though they could not have seen the wreckage of the train from here.
Alfie didn’t slow down, but Elias opened the fire truck’spassenger door. Damn the speed, he couldn’t stop himself. He opened his lips, and a shriek like a falcon came from his throat as he dove at the older man. The thing that Root had sent ahead descended on the man’s son. The fire truck’s brakes hissed. Root leaped down from the roof before the truck came to a stop.
“We cannot do this,” Root said. “Master your hunger!”
But the instinct was too strong. Elias drank from the man, cutting off his screams, then dug into his chest.
A loud roar interrupted them, and they all looked up to see a second fire truck coming down the rise ahead. The driver saw them and tried to stop. This other fire truck turned, attempting to avoid a collision, and flipped. The scream of metal against the road blistered Elias’s eardrums. Sparks flew.
Almost instantly, injured firemen began to drag themselves out of the overturned vehicle, and this time, even Root could not overcome instinct. It ran toward the wounded, with Elias and the other of their kind.
When the screaming began, it sounded so much like music that Elias wanted to sing.
26
Malcolm checked the rearview mirror, but in the dark, he couldn’t see how close the monsters were. Violet had both hands on the dashboard as if she were worried about crashing, though they all knew the real threat was behind them, not ahead.
“Faster!” Jennie barked from the back seat. “This thing’s not old enough to be this slow!”
“They didn’t build it to go faster,” Malcolm said, flooring the gas as the minibus rumbled up a long hill, recent ranch homes and split-levels on either side.
The rain had stopped, at least for now. There were lights on in some of the homes. A few people had come out into the driveway, and two cars had already pulled out and started in the other direction. People stared as they passed, but their curious faces flashed by and were forgotten.
“We should warn them,” Violet said, her face pale. “Root and the rest… Elias… they’re coming.”
She started to crank down her window.
Jennie reached over the seat and touched her shoulder. “Don’t.”
“Those people are in danger,” Violet argued as they approached a spot where two families seemed to have emerged from their homes and congregated around their mailboxes. “I don’t want to slow down, but at least—”
“No,” Malcolm said. “Jennie’s right.”
“But they killed everyone back there, at the train,” Violet saidas Malcolm drove right past the mailbox crowd. “They’re after us, but they took the time to murder everyone, almost like—”
“Like once they started, they couldn’t help themselves,” Jennie said. “I think that may be true.”
Malcolm felt vile. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the minibus crested the hill. The town they’d seen before came back into view now—a few intersecting streets, a church on a triangular green, a brick town hall, with shops and a butcher’s and other businesses, all of them closed. But closed didn’t mean there were no people. Some of the shops had apartments above them, and people had come down to the street and begun to gather.
A police car flashed by, lights and siren going, headed the opposite direction. The car didn’t even slow down, focused on the trouble ahead, not the Volkswagen minibus.
Violet had been staring at him. Malcolm felt it, ignored it. Until she spoke.
“You think they can’t stop now that they’ve started,” she said, voice a horrified whisper. “You think they’re going to murder everyone in their path—”
“I don’t know how it works,” Jennie said. “I only know what I’ve been taught. If you get in their way, or if you’re vulnerable or wounded, or if they’re very hungry or angry and they see easy prey, they’ll take it.”
Malcolm stared at his sister in the rearview mirror. He had a question, but Violet asked it for him.
“Who taught you that?”
Jennie’s laugh was laced with grief. “Who do you think? Dear old Mom.”
No piano notes came from the rear of the minibus, but Malcolm felt Maggie’s presence back there in the crate just the same. He glanced in the mirror again.
“Malcolm!” Jennie shouted.
He slammed on the brakes. The minibus juddered to a halt. Outlined in the headlights were half a dozen people, all of themtensed for impact. An elderly couple were at the center, both with their palms up to stop them from passing through.
