"Go! Go! Drive!"
The driver tapped the pay slot in the partition between the front and back seats. "You pay, I go."
Four of them now. Roger stared, stupefied, as a familiar-looking man wearing a ripped shirt knocked the others aside to get to the taxi first. It was Franco, their gardener. He looked through the passenger-door window at Roger, his staring eyes pale in the center but red around the rims, like a corona of bloodred crazy. He opened his mouth as though to roar at Roger-and then this thing came out, punched the window with a solid whack, right at Roger's face, then retracted.
Roger stared. What the hell did I just see?
It happened again. Roger understood-on a pebble level, deep beneath many mattresses of fear, panic, mania-that Franco, or this thing that was Franco, didn't know or had forgotten or misjudged the properties of glass. He appeared confused by the transparency of this solid.
"Drive!" screamed Roger. "Drive!"
Two of them stood close, in front of the taxi now. A man and a woman, headlights brightening their waists. There were seven or eight in total, all around them, others coming out of the neighbors' houses.
The driver yelled something in his own language, leaning on the horn.
"Drive!" screamed Roger.
The driver reached for something on the floor instead. He pulled up a small bag the size of a toiletry case and ran back the zipper, spilling out a few Zagnut bars before getting his hand on a tiny silver revolver. He waved the weapon at the windshield and hollered in fear.
Franco's tongue was exploring the window glass. Except that the tongue wasn't a tongue at all.
The driver kicked open his door. Roger yelled, "No!" through the partition glass, but the driver was already outside. He fired the handgun from behind the door, shooting it with a flick of his wrist, as though throwing bullets from it. He fired again and again, the pair in front of the car doubling up, struck by small-caliber rounds, but not dropping.
The driver kicked off two more wild shots and one of them struck the man in the head. His scalp flew backward and he stumbled to the ground.
Then another grabbed the driver from behind. It was Hal Chatfield, Roger's neighbor, his blue bathrobe hanging off his shoulders.
"No!" Roger shouted, but too late.
Hal spun the driver to the road. The thing came out of his mouth and pierced the driver's neck. Roger watched the howling driver through his window.
Another one rose up into the headlights. No, not another one-the same man who had been shot in the head. His wound was leaking white, running down the side of his face. He used the car to hold himself up, but he was still coming.
Roger wanted to run, but he was trapped. To the right, past Franco the gardener, Roger saw a man in UPS brown shirt and shorts come out of the garage next door with the head of a shovel on his shoulder, like the baseball bat of an on-deck hitter.
The head-wound man pulled himself around the driver's open door and climbed into the front seat. He looked through the plastic partition at Roger, the front-right lobe of his head raised like a forelock of flesh. White ooze glazed his cheek and jaw.
Roger turned just in time to see the UPS guy swing the shovel. It clanged off the rear window, leaving a long scrape in the reinforced glass, light from the streetlamps glinting in the spiderweb cracks.
Roger heard the scrape on the partition. The head-wound man's tongue came out, and he was trying to slip it through the ashtray-style pay slot. The fleshy tip poked through, straining, almost sniffing at the air as it tried to get at Roger.
With a scream, Roger kicked at the slot in a frenzy, slamming it shut. The man in front let out an ungodly squeal, and the severed tip of his...whatever it was, fell directly into Roger's lap. Roger swatted it away as, on the other side of the partition, the man spurted white all over, gone wild either in pain or in pure castration hysteria.
Whamm! Another swing of the shovel crashed against the back window behind Roger's head, the antishatter glass cracking and bending but still refusing to break.
Pown-pown-pown. Footsteps leaving craters on the roof now.
Four of them on the curb, three on the street side, and more coming from the front. Roger looked back, saw the deranged UPS man rear back to swing the shovel at the broken window again. Now or never.
Roger reached for the handle and kicked the street-side door open with all his might. The shovel came down and the back window was smashed away, raining chips of glass. The blade just missed Roger's head as he slid out into the street. Someone-it was Hal Chatfield, his eyes glowing red-grabbed his arm, spinning him around, but Roger shed his suit jacket like a snake wriggling out of its skin and kept on going, racing up the street, not looking back until he reached the corner.
Some came in a hobbling jog, others moved faster and with more coordination. Some were old, and three of them were grinning children. His neighbors and friends. Faces he recognized from the train station, from birthday parties, from church.
All coming after him.
Flatbush, Brooklyn
EPH PRESSED THE DOORBELL at the Barbour residence. The street was quiet, though there was life in the other homes, television lights, bags of trash at the curb. He stood there with a Luma lamp in his hand and a Setrakian-converted nail gun hanging on a strap from his shoulder.
Nora stood behind him, at the foot of the brick steps, holding her own Luma. Setrakian brought up the rear, his staff in hand, its silver head glowing in the moonlight.
Two rings, no answer. Not unexpected. Eph tried the doorknob before looking for another entrance, and it turned.
The door opened.
Eph went in first, flicking on a light. The living room looked normal, slipcovered furniture and throw pillows set just so.
He called out, "Hello," as the two others filed in behind him. Strange, letting himself into the house. Eph trod softly on the rug, like a burglar or an assassin. He wanted to believe he was still a healer, but that was becoming more difficult to believe by the hour.
Nora started up the stairs. Setrakian followed Eph into the kitchen. Eph said, "What do you think we will learn here? You said the survivors were distractions-"
"I said that was the purpose they served. As to the Master's intent-I don't know. Perhaps there is some special attachment to the Master. In any event, we must start somewhere. These survivors are our only leads."
A bowl and spoon sat in the sink. A family Bible lay open on the table, stuffed with mass cards and photographs, turned to the final chapter. A passage was underlined in red ink with a shaky hand, Revelations 11:7-8:
...the beast that ascends from the bottomless pit will make war upon them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which is allegorically called Sodom...