"What's Stinger going to make? Do you know?" Rhodes asked her. She shook her head. Death and destruction crowded into her brain; she saw this lifepod called Inferno ablaze and crushed-if not by Stinger, then by the House of Fists. She glimpsed a fragment of the force field, glowing through the clouds of smoke, then her view was obscured again. She knew that many innocents were about to die, and too many had already perished because of her. The old rage seethed inside her. She saw the towers of her city crack and fall, saw mangled bodies spinning in the debris. The same brutality was about to happen here. "I must exit this world," Daufin said. "I've got to get home."

"There's no way!" Rhodes countered. "We told you: Earth doesn't have interstellar vehicles!"

"You're incorrect." Daufin's voice was quiet, and she continued to stare to the southwest, in the direction of Mack Cade's autoyard.

"Do you know something I don't?"

"There is an interstellar vehicle on Earth." Her eyes shone as if brilliant with fever. "Stinger's ship."

"What good will that do you?"

"I'm going to take Stinger's ship," she answered. "That's how I'm going to get home."

As the voice of a warrior came from a little girl's throat, Cody guided the motorcycle to the curb where Rick directed him. Sonny Crowfield lived alone in a gray clapboard shack on the edge of Cade's autoyard, and Cody drove up onto a trash-strewn yard and stopped with the headlight aimed at the closed front door. The house's porch sagged, the windows were broken out, and the place appeared deserted-but then again, so did the other houses on Third Street. Cody cut the engine but left the headlight burning. Rick got off, withdrew the.38, and walked to the bottom of the porch's three cinder-block steps before he realized Cody wasn't with him.

"I said I'd come with you," Cody told him. "I didn't say I'd go in."

"Muchas gracias." Rick snapped the pistol's safety off and started up the steps. He rapped on the door with the barrel. "Hey, Crowfield! It's Rick Jurado!"

No one came to the door. Cody shifted uneasily in his seat and glanced around. The pyramid stood to his right; he could see its vague, violet-washed outline through the murk.

"Answer up, Sonny!" Rick called. He knocked with his fist-and suddenly the door fell in with a scream of splintered wood and hung by one hinge. Rick jumped back, and Cody's hand leapt to the baseball bat.

"I don't think he's home," Cody said.

Rick peered inside, could see nothing. "You got a light?"

"Forget it, man! Crowfield's gone!"

"You got a light or not?" Rick asked, and waited. Cody snorted and dug his Zippo lighter out of his pocket. He flipped it to Rick, and the other boy caught it. Rick popped the flame up and started to cross the threshold.

"Watch your step!" Cody warned. "I don't want to be pullin' you up on a rope!"

"Front room's got a floor," Rick said, and he went in.

The house had a cemetery smell. The lighter's flame told Rick why: skeletons hung on the cracked walls. The bones had belonged to vultures, armadillos, coyotes, and snakes, and they were all over the place. He followed the flame through the front room into a hallway where bat and owl skeletons dangled on wires. He'd heard about Crowfield's "collection" from Pequin, but he'd never been here before and he was glad he hadn't. He came to another room off the corridor and thrust the lighter into the doorway.

"s.h.i.t," he whispered. Most of the room's floor had collapsed into darkness. He walked carefully to the edge of the broken floorboards and looked down. He couldn't see a bottom, but the light glinted off something lying a few feet to his left, up against the wall's baseboard. He reached for it, and found a copper-jacketed bullet in his hand. And there were more of them: nine or ten bullets, lying on the other side of the hole. If Crowfield had bullets, there must be a gun around here, Rick thought. There was a closet within reach, and he opened it.

The lighter was beginning to scorch his hand, but the flame revealed another of Crowfield's collections: inside the closet, amid half-a.s.sembled skeletons and plastic bags full of a.s.sorted bones, were two rifles, four boxes of ammunition, a rusty.45 pistol, a case of empty c.o.ke bottles, and two red tin cans. Rick caught the reek of gasoline. Sonofab.i.t.c.h had an a.r.s.enal, he realized. There were other items too: a bayonet, a couple of hunting knives, some of those morningstar blades that karate fighters threw, and a camouflage tarpaulin. Rick moved the tarp aside, and underneath was a small wooden box. He bent down. In faded red letters on the box was written; DANGER! HIGH EXPLOSIVES! PROPERTY OF PRESTON COPPER MINING COMPANY.

He lifted the lid-and instantly pulled the lighter's flame back. Nestled in waxed paper inside were five mustard-yellow sticks, each about nine inches long. The dynamite sticks had fuses of varying lengths, the longest maybe twelve inches and the shortest four inches. A couple of the sticks were scorched like hot dogs that had cooked too long on a grill, and Rick figured they were duds that had failed to ignite the first time around. How they'd ended up here he didn't know, but it was obvious that Sonny Crowfield had been getting ready to wage war-maybe on the Renegades, or maybe to take over the Rattlesnakes. He looked again at the c.o.ke bottles and the gasoline tins. Easy to make a firebomb that way, he thought. Easy to set fire to a house or two and let the 'Gades take the blame, try to stir up a war so all this firepower could be useful.

"Sonofab.i.t.c.h," Rick said. He let the lid drop back and stood up. A little plastic bag fell open, and rat bones spilled out.

Outside, Cody felt the hairs on the back of his neck p.r.i.c.kle-and just that quick he knew someone was behind him. He looked over his shoulder.

Sonny Crowfield was standing at the curb, eyes like dead black stones, mouth a thin gray gash, and the face damp and pallid. "I know you." The voice sounded like a warped, slowed-down recording of the real Crowfield. "You gave me some pain, man." The figure took a step forward. Its grin widened, and now Cody could see the rows of needle teeth. "I want to show you somethin' real pretty. You'll like it." The metal-nailed hand reached out.

Cody stomped down on the kickstarter. The engine rattled, backfired, but wouldn't catch. The hand glided toward him. "Come on, man. Let me show you what I've made."

Another stomp, with all of Cody's strength behind it. The engine coughed and fired, and as the fingers started to clench into his shoulder Cody twisted the throttle and shot the motorcycle up the cinder-block steps and through the doorway into Crowfield's house.

The headlamp splayed onto Rick, who was just coming out of the corridor. He threw himself against a wall and a coyote skeleton fell off its hooks and crumpled to the floor. He shouted, "What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" as Cody stopped the cycle just short of a collision.

"Get on!" Cody shouted right back. "Hurry!"

"Get on! Why?" He thought Cody had tumbled into the Great Fried Empty-and then a figure with long black hair filled up the doorway.

"Time's up," Stinger said, in its manufactured Sonny Crowfield voice. Rick lifted the.38 and fired twice, the gunshots deafening. Both bullets. .h.i.t the creature's chest, and it grunted and stumbled back a step, then righted itself and stormed across the threshold again.

"Get on! " Cody demanded, and Rick planted himself on the pa.s.senger seat. Cody guided the cycle into the corridor and powered up. Skeletons of flying things swung on wires over their heads. The Honda emerged from the corridor into a boxy kitchen, and Cody skidded it to a stop over the dirty yellow linoleum. He twisted the handlebars, seeking a way out with the headlight. "Where's the back door?" he yelled, but both of them saw that there was none, and the kitchen's single window was boarded up.

"Time's up! They didn't do what I told 'em!" Stinger raged, in the darkness between the kitchen and the house's only door. "Gonna smash some bugs!" There was the noise of combat boots clumping through the corridor. "I'll show you what I've made! It's gonna be here real soon!"

Cody switched off the headlight, and now the darkness was complete.

"Are you crazy? Keep the light on!" Rick protested, but Cody was already turning the motorcycle in a tight circle so that they were aimed into the corridor.

"Hang on," Cody told him. He revved the engine, and it responded with a throaty roar. "I want to be on him before the b.a.s.t.a.r.d knows what's. .h.i.t him. If you fall off, you're dead meat. Got it?"

"Got it." Rick clamped one arm around Cody's waist and kept his finger on the.38's trigger. The clump of boots was about halfway along the corridor. There were little rattling sounds: the thing's head and shoulders brushing skeletons.

Three more steps, Cody thought. Got to hit that thing and keep on going. His palms were wet, and his heart was slamming like a Beastie Boys drumbeat. One more step. It came. The monster was almost in the kitchen. Cody revved the engine until it shrieked and released the brakes.

The rear tire spun on the linoleum, and there was the smell of scorched plastic. But in the next instant the motorcycle reared up and shot forward on its back tire. Rick hung on, and Cody hit the headlight switch.

Stinger was right there, framed in the corridor. The wet gray face convulsed as the light fell upon it, and both Rick and Cody saw the eyeb.a.l.l.s smoke and retreat into their sockets. There was a roar of pain that shook the walls, and Stinger's hands rose up to shield the eyes; its body was already starting to curl up, the spinal cord bulging with the pressure of the spiked tail beneath it. The front tire hit the thing's face and the machine kept going over Stinger's body as if trying to claw its way out. Stinger went down to the floor. The motorcycle shuddered, careened to the side, and ricocheted off the wall, and the headlight's bulb blew out. Rick was lifted off his seat and almost lost hold of Cody, and something that no longer had a human shape was flailing wildly underneath the motorcycle. But then they had broken clear of it and Cody powered the Honda through the doorway and down the porch steps. They went across the yard in a spray of sand as Cody fought to turn the machine-and in front of them they saw the pavement of Third Street at the edge of Cade's autoyard start to crack apart and buckle upward. A shape was struggling up from the street. Cody got the cycle under control and skidded to a stop about ten feet from the emerging creation.

"Here it comes!" a hunchbacked thing with a weaving tail rasped as it slithered down the steps of Crowfield's house. "Gonna smash alllll the little bugs!"

"Go! " Rick shouted. Cody didn't have to be told twice. He couldn't tell what was digging itself out of the ground, but he didn't care for a closer look. He laid on the throttle and the motorcycle arrowed east. Behind them, Third Street broke open and Stinger's new creation began to crawl free.

48 Nasty's Hero

Walking east on Celeste Street, Ray saw his shadow thrown before him by a single headlight, and he turned to wave down a ride. It was Tank's one-eyed truck, and it slowed to a stop in front of him. Tank was at the wheel, his face daubed green by the instrument panel, and Ray could make out Nasty sitting on the pa.s.senger side. Tank leaned his helmeted head through the window. "You goin' up to the fort?"

"No. Home."

"Your folks are at the fort. So's most everybody else. Your sister too."

"Stevie? They found her?"

"Not exactly Stevie," Nasty told him. "Come on, we're headed up there." She opened the door for him, and he slid in beside her. Tank put the gearshift into first and started forward, turning left onto Travis Street. The tires bounced roughly over fissures in the pavement. Tank stared grimly ahead, trying to see through the smoke by the remaining light. He and Nasty had gone to his parents' house on Circle Back Street and found the place leaning on its foundations, a hole in the den floor big enough to drive a tractor through. Of his mother and father there was no sign, but some kind of slimy stuff was streaked on the walls and carpet.

"They're probably all right," Nasty repeated for the third or fourth time. "They probably went to a neighbor's house."

Tank grunted. They'd checked the other four houses on Circle Back Street; there'd been no answer at three of them, and at the fourth old man Shipley had come to the door with a shotgun. "Maybe they did," he said, but he didn't believe they'd gotten out of the house alive. Ray shifted his position. The warmth of Nasty's thigh was burning into his leg. This would be one h.e.l.l of a time to get a hard-on, and of course as soon as he thought about it the miraculous, unstoppable process began. Nasty looked at him, her face just a few inches away, and he thought, She can read my mind. Maybe it was because they were touching, and if he pulled away, she wouldn't know what he was thinking, but there was no room to maneuver in the cramped, greasy-smelling truck cab.

"You look different without your gla.s.ses," she decided.

He shrugged. Couldn't help but notice how her b.r.e.a.s.t.s thrust against the thin cotton of her sweat-damp T-shirt. He could see the nipples, which didn't help his condition any. "Not so different," he said.

"Yeah you do. Older."

"Maybe I just feel older."

"h.e.l.l, we all do," Tank said. "I feel like I'm ninety f.u.c.kin' years ol-" He felt the truck shudder. The wheel trembled in his hands. He leaned forward, had seen something out in the haze, wasn't sure what it had been but his heart was jammed in his throat.

"What is it?" Nasty asked him, her voice rising with alarm. He shook his head and started to plant his foot on the brake pedal. And that was when he saw the concrete of Travis Street buckle upward about fifteen feet in front of the pickup truck and rise like a gray wave. Something huge was moving just under the surface, as if swimming through Texas earth, and its motion lifted Tank's truck on the crest of the land wave, raised it amid chunks of broken and grinding pavement.

Nasty screamed and gripped the dashboard, and Ray had his fingers on the door handle. As the truck angled sharply downward and slid off the concrete swell toward a sea of cracks, something rose up from a fissure and into the headlight's beam: a snaky coil as wide as the truck, covered with mottled greenish-gray scales.

Then the coil went down as the creature dove deeper, spewing up a spray of red dirt and sand like the spume of a whale. The pickup truck turned sideways, and the wheel spun out of Tank's grip. The concrete was still in motion under the tires, splitting and separating, and as Tank threw his door open and started to jump the truck hit a jagged edge of pavement, heeled to the left, and crashed down on top of him. He made no sound of pain, but Ray heard the crack of his helmet breaking. The truck's weight continued to slide forward as the pavement settled, smearing Tank's body beneath it. And then the hood slid into a fissure that slammed down on it like a shark's jaws. Metal groaned and crumpled, sparks shot off the edges, and flames began to lick around the hood.

It had only taken five or six seconds. Ray blinked, smelled burning oil and paint, and heard Nasty's wounded moaning. She was lying underneath him, half on and half off the seat. The earth was still trembling in the wake of the monster's pa.s.sage, and metal shrieked as the truck sank deeper into the chasm. Something popped in the engine-a surprisingly gentle sound-and red tendrils of flame gnawed toward the shattered windshield. He felt the fearsome heat on his face, and he knew then that if they sat there much longer they were going to be fried. The truck sank down another three or four inches. He pulled himself up toward the pa.s.senger door and forced it open with the strength of the doomed, then he hung to the doorframe and reached down to Nasty. "Take my hand! Come on!"

She looked up at him, and he could see the blood crawling out of her nostrils. He figured she must have banged her head against the dashboard when the truck had turned over. She was embracing the steering wheel with both arms. The truck lurched and slid down another couple of inches, and now the heat was getting savage. Ray shouted, "Grab my hand!"

Nasty unhooked the fingers of her right hand from the wheel, wiped her nose, and stared at the blood. She made a half giggle, half moan, and Ray strained down and grasped her wrist. He tugged mightily at her. "We've got to get out!"

It took her a few precious seconds to register that fire was coming through the windshield and that Ray was trying to help her. She released her hold on the wheel and pushed herself up, pain thrumming through her skull from the knock she'd taken to her forehead. Ray pulled her out of the pickup's battered cab, and they fell together to the broken concrete. Her body went limp, but Ray got to his feet and started hauling her up. "Come on!" he said. "We can't stay here!"

"Tank," she said, her voice slow and slurred. "Where's Tank? He was right here just a minute ago."

"Tank's gone. Come on! Up!" He got her to her feet, and though she was several inches taller, she leaned against his shoulder. He looked around, his eyes stinging from the smoke, and saw that Travis Street-at least the small section he could see of it-had become a ridged and gullied battlefield. Whatever that thing was, it had folded the concrete back and split it to pieces like a bone-dry riverbed. Flames bellowed around the truck. Ray didn't like the idea of staying so close to it; the thing might blow up or whatever had pa.s.sed under the street might be drawn to the light. In any case, he craved some shelter. He pulled Nasty with him across the street, mindful of the cracks around them, the largest about three or four feet wide. "Where'd Tank go?" she asked. "He was drivin', wasn't he?"

"Yeah. He went on ahead," was all he could think to say. The outline of a house came out of the murk, and Ray guided Nasty toward it. How far they were from the fort he didn't know, but he wasn't sure they'd pa.s.sed the intersection of Sombra and Travis, and that was a good hundred yards from the apartment building's parking lot. Just short of the house's porch steps, Ray felt the earth tremble: the creature pa.s.sing somewhere close by. From the next street over came the splintering crash of a house being lifted off its foundations.

They went up the steps. The front door was locked, but the nearest window was gla.s.sless and Ray reached into it, snapped the jamb's lock off, and pushed the window up. He slid in first, then helped Nasty through. She stumbled, her strength used up, pitched forward, and they both fell to the hardwood floor.

Her mouth was right up against his ear, and she was breathing hard. Any other time this would have been a fantasy come true, he thought-but his mind couldn't focus on s.e.x at the moment, though her body was molded into his and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against his chest. G.o.d had a mighty wicked sense of humor, he decided.

The house creaked at the joints. Under them the floor rolled like a slow wave, and cracks shot up the walls. Along Travis Street the houses moaned as the creature tunneled beneath them, and Ray heard the scream of timbers caving in as a structure collapsed two or three houses away. Nasty, tough as nails and swigger of tobacco spit, was shivering. Ray put his arms around her.

"You're going to be all right," he said. His voice didn't quaver too much, which surprised him. "I'll protect you."

She lifted her head, looked at him face-to-face, and her eyes were scared and dazed but there was a grim hint of a smile on her mouth. "My hero," she said, and then she let her head rest on his shoulder and they lay there in the dark as Inferno ripped apart at the seams.

Across the bridge, Cody skidded the cycle to a stop in front of the Catholic church, and Rick jumped off. He looked back along First Street, couldn't see anything through the haze. But that thing would be out of the ground by now, and probably heading this way. Zarra, Pequin, and Diego Montana had been waiting at the door for Rick's return, and now they came down the steps. Cody got off the Honda, looked at the church, and knew those people jammed in there wouldn't have a rat's a.s.s of a chance. If electric light hurt Stinger-and the way the monster in Crowfield's house had reacted showed that Daufin was right-then there was only one safe place he could think of.

"We've gotta move these people out before that thing gets here!" Cody said to Rick. "We're not gonna have much time!"

"Move them! Where? "

"Across the bridge. To the fort." All of them gaped at him as if he'd gone totally off his bird. "Forget that gang s.h.i.t!" he said, and felt as if the words split an old skin that had been shriveling tighter and tighter around him. He saw there were a lot of cars and pickups parked around the church, on both sides of the street, and most of them were broken-down heaps, but they could each carry five or six people. The pickup trucks could carry more. "We get 'em loaded and out as fast as we can!" he said. "The fort's the only place Stinger won't try to dig into, because of the lights!"

Rick wasn't sure he believed that, but the apartment building was a lot st.u.r.dier than the church. He made his decision fast. "Diego, where's your car?" The boy pointed to a rusted brown Impala across the way. "I want you to drive it up the street about fifty yards." He motioned west. "Pequin, you go with him. Keep your lights on, and if you see anything or anybody coming, you haul a.s.s back."

Diego sprinted to the car, and Pequin started to protest, but he obeyed the order like a good soldier.

"Zarra, you get the Rattlers together. Tell them where we're going, and that we'll need all the cars we can find. I want every Rattler car loaded. Go!"

Zarra ran up the steps into the church. Rick turned to Cody. "I want you to..." He hesitated, realizing he was talking to the enemy just like he would a Rattler. "I'll find Father LaPrado and start getting everybody out," he amended. "I could use another scout."

Cody nodded. "I reckon so. I could use that gun on your hip too."

Rick gave it to him, handle first, and Cody slid it into his waistband. "Four bullets left," Rick said.

"Don't pull a John Wayne if you see it coming. Just get back here in one piece."

"Man, you like givin' orders, don't you?" Cody stomped down on the kickstarter and the hot engine fired. He offered a sly smile. "You just take care of your little sister. I'll be back." He turned the Honda around in a tight circle and sped west on First Street, and Rick ran up the steps into the sanctuary. Diego Montana's car was just creeping along, and Cody flashed by it about forty yards away from the church; he veered into the center of the headlights' beam but had to cut his speed to a glide as the Impala stopped and he outran the lights. The violet-tinged gloom closed around him, and he pulled to the curb to wait for his night vision to sharpen.

At the church, Rick had convinced Father LaPrado that they had just a short time to evacuate almost three hundred people. The problem was how to do it without creating a panic, but there was no time to deliberate; Father LaPrado stood up before the congregation and explained in a voice as tough as brine-dipped leather that they had to leave quickly and everything they'd brought-pillows, clothes, food, possessions-would have to remain behind. They would clear the aisles first, then leave row by row starting from the rear. Everyone who had a car or truck should go to it and wait for it to be filled before driving off. They were heading across the bridge, he told them, to take shelter in the apartment building at the end of Travis Street.

The evacuation started, and cars carrying Bordertown residents began crossing the Snake River Bridge.

A hundred yards west, Cody wheeled the motorcycle into a dirt alley and drove through it onto Second Street. He cut the engine and coasted, listening. Could hear the noise of cars hightailing toward Inferno. Dark houses stood in the smoke, not a candle showing anywhere. Over toward Third Street a couple of dogs were howling. He guided the Honda over the curb and in between two houses, and there he stopped to listen again. His heartbeat drummed in his ears. He walked the motorcycle ahead, came out from between the houses-and froze when he saw a formless thing standing about ten feet in front of him. It didn't move, either. Cody was afraid to draw a breath. Slowly he pulled the.38 out and his thumb found the safety catch. Clicked it off. He lifted the gun, steadied his hand. The thing still didn't budge. He took a step closer, his finger lodged on the trigger, and that was when he realized he was aiming at a discarded washing machine standing in somebody's backyard.

He almost laughed. Some John Wayne! He was glad none of the 'Gades were around to see this, or his reputation would be lower than ant pee.

He was about to put the.38 away when he heard a slow, sc.r.a.ping noise. He tensed, stood rigid and stock-still. The sound repeated-metal across concrete, he thought it was-but where it was coming from he wasn't sure. Was it ahead, on Third Street, or behind him on Second? He bellied down in the dust and crawled back into the s.p.a.ce between the houses, and he lay there trying to pinpoint the sound's direction. The haze was playing tricks with him. The sc.r.a.ping noise was first ahead, then behind him. Was it moving toward him, or away: he couldn't be sure, and not knowing made his guts twist. Whatever it was, it sounded like something that was just learning how to walk and dragging its feet-or claws. The good part was that it was moving slowly and clumsily; the bad part was that it sounded heavy.

He caught movement through the murk: a shape on Second Street, lumbering past Cody's hiding place. No d.a.m.ned washing machine this time. The sonofab.i.t.c.h was big and alive and it pa.s.sed with a noise like razor blades sc.r.a.ping a chalkboard. The haze swirled around it and spun in its wake, and then whatever it was had gone on, striding inexorably toward the church. Cody gave it about ten more seconds, and then he scrambled up, got on the motorcycle, and started the engine; it roared like h.e.l.lfire in the narrow s.p.a.ce, and Cody gunned it toward Third Street, saw clothes flagging from a line, and ducked just in time to keep his head. He turned left on Third with a shriek of tires and rocketed east all the way to Republica Road. Then straight to the intersection of First Street again, where cars were turning toward the bridge. He took another left, deftly dodged a pickup truck full of people, and wound his way through the refugees to the steps of the church. Inside, Mendoza was helping Paloma Jurado along the aisle. Over a hundred people had already gone, and the cars had been leaving as fast as they could get packed. But only two cars and Mendoza's pickup truck were left, and it was clear a lot of people were going to have to make it on foot.

"Take my grandmother with you," Rick told him. He looked around, saw twenty more elderly people who couldn't make it over without a ride. His Camaro was still parked in front of his house on Second Street, and there wasn't time to go after it. "You go with them," he said to Miranda, and motioned toward Mendoza.

She'd already grasped the situation. "There's not enough room left for me."

"You can make room! Go!"

"What about you?"

"I'll find a way. Go on, take care of Paloma!"

She was about to follow Mendoza and her grandmother to the door when Cody Lockett came along the aisle. He glanced quickly at her, his face gray with dust except for the area around his eyes where the goggles had rested, then directed his attention to Rick. She saw that his swagger and c.o.c.kiness had dissolved. "It's headed this way," he said. "I saw it on Second Street. I couldn't tell much about it, but the thing's huge."

Rick saw Mendoza guiding Paloma out the door, with a few other old people in tow. It wouldn't take but a couple of minutes for Mendoza's truck to fill up. "I said go! " he snapped at Miranda.

"I'm staying with you," she said.

"The h.e.l.l you are! Come on!" He grasped her arm, and she just as stubbornly pulled away.

"There you go, spoutin' out orders again," Cody said.