Abby looked back as they returned to the truck. She couldn't help wondering whether they would be the last people ever to see the woman alive.

They were six miles away from the prison when a sign was caught in the truck's headlights: YOU ARE ENTERING OAK GROVE-A PLEASANT PLACE TO LIVE!

They crossed the town's outskirts a few minutes later. Ahead Roz could see the side of a building flickering orange, but otherwise the town was in almost complete darkness.

She slowed the truck to a crawl. "Abby? Better wake Lance and Thunder."

Sitting between them, the boys had fallen asleep and Lance's head ended up resting on Thunder's shoulder. Thunder pushed Lance away. "Get off! You're drooling all over me!"

"What are you complaining about?" Lance said, yawning. "Your costume's waterproof."

"Guys," Roz said. "The prison's on the other side of town a few miles out, but I think we might have trouble before we get there."

Ahead, the square at the center of the small town was blocked by a group of people, silhouetted against the light of a burning car. Roz couldn't be sure at this distance, but it looked like most of them were holding crude weapons-baseball bats, bicycle chains, hunting knives-as well as flashlights.

"We don't have time for this," Thunder said. "Is there any other way through the town?"

"Not unless we turn back and take the freeway. That's going to take even longer. I say we keep going, take it slow and easy."

At least a hundred people, almost all boys in their late teenage years, formed a line three deep across the town square, all staring at the truck as though daring it to keep coming. Four of them were sitting on large motorbikes.

Roz hit the brakes and the truck squealed to a stop. "Now what?"

After a moment, one of the bikers peeled away from the others and rode toward the truck. He was short and thin, wearing faded denims and an off-white T-shirt with a red fist crudely painted on the front. His hair was cropped so close he looked almost bald. He had a wooden baseball bat tucked into a loop on his belt.

As he reached the driver's side of the truck, Roz could see the look in his eyes that told her he was very much enjoying himself.

"Outta the truck," the skinhead said. He revved the bike's engine for emphasis.

"No."

"Don't think you get what's goin' on here, girl. The world's endin' or somethin'. Everyone over nineteen or twenty is sick. World belongs to the young now." He grinned. "We take what we want and no one is ever gonna tell us what to do again!"

A cheer rang out from the other teenagers.

"There's no law but what we make, and we say you get outta the truck!"

"Let's see how tough he talks after this," Lance whispered. He leaned past Roz and pushed his head out of the window. "You guys have worked out a system for the burials, right?"

A frown appeared on the biker's face. "What?"

"The burials. When the adults die, you have to bury them. And go deep-at least ten feet. Otherwise the plague will hang around and when you guys get old enough, bam, you're dead too. Oh, and you have to bury them no more than twenty-four hours after they die. Any longer than that, and they'll start to decay. The bacteria eat the infected flesh, the maggots eat the bacteria and turn into flies. They'll spread the virus even further. You know how it goes: Birds eat the infected insects, the birds die and infect the soil, the plants start to die. In a few years the whole planet is a plague-ridden wasteland. Now, you're going to want to stock up on canned food, dry cereals, anything that doesn't easily perish. As much as you can get. And you'll need bottled water too. The virus can't be killed by boiling the water. Don't bother with frozen stuff, 'cos with the electricity gone it won't last more than a couple of days. You'll need to round up portable generators and all the batteries you can find. Do any of your people have any medical training?"

The skinhead numbly stared at him.

"No? That's not good. All right. . . . You can't help the plague victims, of course, but eventually some of you will be injured, or get sick. Now, the people in the last town we passed through back there . . . they're using the high school as a fortress. They're already boarding up the windows and filling the place up with supplies. They're planning to barricade the roads. And they're armed with more than just baseball bats, so don't get any ideas about raiding them. They've got half a dozen generators already wired up to spotlights and you wouldn't get near the place. From what we saw, they outnumber you by about three to one. For you guys, that's a bad thing in two ways. . . . First, if they come here and you're not ready, they will absolutely slaughter you. And second, because there's so many of them they're going to run out of supplies pretty soon."

Under his breath, Thunder muttered, "How the heck do you come up with stuff like that?"

The skinhead chewed on his lower lip for a moment. "All right. What you said could be true. If it is, we're gonna need everythin' we can get our hands on. We're takin' the truck and whatever you got in it. An' you guys are part of the team now." He grinned. "I mean, you guys know all this useful stuff, so it don't make sense to let you go tellin' everyone else." He slapped the bat against his palm. "Get outta the truck. Now."

Roz said to Lance, "Well, you got them scared all right. Well done."

"You have to the count of five to get outta the truck. Or we're gonna take you out."

"Back in a minute," Roz said to the others. She opened the passenger-side door and jumped out. She walked around the front of the truck and up to the skinhead. "You are going to let us through."

He laughed. "Or what?"

Roz stared at him, and concentrated. She didn't know exactly how her telekinesis worked, but at times she visualized it as an invisible, flexible tentacle that she could use to lift or move objects.

Now she slammed it into the skinhead's stomach. His body jerked and he toppled sideways off the motorbike-it crashed down with him, pinning his leg to the ground.

The mob started toward her. "Come on, then," Roz said. She bent down and picked up the baseball bat. "Who's next for a set of broken ribs and ruptured intestines?"

The nearest teenagers stopped abruptly, and the ones at the back collided with them.

"I can take you all on. One at a time or in a bunch. I'm a superhuman, and so are my friends in the truck." To prove this, Roz let go of the bat; it remained floating in midair. "So if you people want to avoid the slow, agonizing death of the plague and instead have a quick, agonizing death right here and now, then we're happy to oblige. Otherwise, you'll get out of our way."

They didn't move any closer, and it took Roz a moment to realize that they weren't looking at her anymore. They were looking past her.

She spun around in time to see a dark-red human figure streak out of the sky and crash into the side of the truck.

She darted forward, but something impossibly bright flared on each side of the truck's cab, blinding her. Roz automatically covered her eyes and thought she heard one of the others-Abby, maybe, or Lance-scream, then she felt a small, hard fist slam into her jaw.

Still dazed, Roz staggered backward. She felt hands close around her neck, almost tight enough to choke her, then the sickening lurch of movement that told her she was being lifted into the air.

She grabbed for her assailant's arms, but the grip was too strong; the muscles were like concrete, the tendons like steel cables.

And she heard Slaughter's voice whisper, "No more games. You're all going to die."

CHAPTER 22.

At first Lance thought the truck had been hit by a missile. There had been an earsplitting bang and the whole cab rocked.

For a second he saw Slaughter caught in the truck's headlights as she rocketed toward Roz, then the night turned to day as a sharp, agonizing glare burned through the cab's doors. Lance screamed-it felt like his eyes were on fire.

He felt Abby shift beside him, heard her kicking out at the windshield, then her hand grabbed his collar and suddenly he was moving up and forward. His knees smashed against the dashboard, then for a moment there was only the sensation of movement-until his left shoulder slammed into the ground. He collapsed onto his back and felt the particles of glass crunch under him.

Without waiting for the pain to subside he rolled onto his hands and knees. Then he heard Thunder shouting, "Lance! Get out of here!"

He scrambled to his feet and staggered forward, hands stretched out before him, unsure whether he was heading toward the truck or away from it. All he could see was a shifting green and red blur, a thousand times stronger than the afterimage of a camera flash.

There was a crash behind him, and Abby shouted, "Thunder, get down!"

Another crash-metal on metal-and a man roared in pain. Lance hoped it wasn't Thunder.

Lance's right foot hit the curb and he almost toppled over. Which way am I going? He jumped as someone or something brushed past him, but whatever it was didn't stop. Then his hands touched cool glass-a store window. Moving away from the sound of the battle, he felt the window's wooden frame, then a corner and a recessed doorway.

He stepped into the doorway, feeling for the door, but the recess seemed to go on for too long. It took him a moment to realize that the door was already open and he'd walked into the store. Over the sound of the battle, he heard something scrape along the floor ahead of him. "Who's there?"

A frightened voice-"Stay away!"-followed by more scuffling.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Lance said. "I . . . I can't see. Where are you?"

"Don't come any closer!" It was a girl's voice, or perhaps a very young boy.

Lance stopped moving. "Just tell me where I am. Please. The flash of light blinded me-I can't see anything."

A pause, then, "Bookshop."

The window behind him shattered and the voice screamed. Lance dropped flat to the ground, his left elbow colliding painfully with the edge of a wooden display stand.

Lance slithered forward, hoping that he was going in the right direction. "What can you see outside?" His fingers brushed aside fallen paperbacks and shards of broken glass.

There was no reply.

He worked his way around another display stand. "Come on! What can you see?"

"Fighting. . . . There's a girl with a sword. A man in shiny armor."

Paragon! Lance thought. No, can't be him. He was too sick-he couldn't have recovered yet.

"Two men now . . . No, lots of them."

"The girl with the sword . . . is there a tall boy with her? He's wearing a costume-"

"There's a man on fire!" the voice said, high-pitched with panic. "He's burning but he's not hurt!"

"All right. Don't look out there anymore. Look at me instead. What's your name?"

"Dylan."

"How old are you, Dylan?"

"Seven."

"OK. Dylan, I'm one of the good guys, I promise you. I'll help you get away, but I can't see so you have to help me. Deal?" His right hand touched a sneaker, which was instantly pulled away.

"I'm scared."

"I know. Take my hand."

After a moment Lance felt a small trembling hand settle into his. "That's good. Dylan, where's your mom and dad?"

"At home. They're sick. I came out to get help. Then I saw the big boys and I got scared so I came in here."

I can't just leave him. "Dylan, is there a back way out?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't open the door."

Lance got to his feet. "Show me."

He felt the boy stand up and lead him through the shop. "You have to tell me if I'm going to bump into anything, OK?"

"OK," Dylan said.

Lance's knees clipped the seat of a chair. "Ouch! Like that chair."

"Sorry. It's back here."

He felt his left shoulder brush a doorjamb. "Is this a storeroom or something?"

"Yeah." Dylan pulled Lance's hand to the left. "Mind the boxes. The door is here. In front of you."

"I'm going to let go, but you stay next to me, all right?" Lance reached out carefully with both hands, and felt the varnished surface of a wooden door. He groped around for the handle, gave it an experimental tug. "Locked. Dylan, can you see any keys?"

"No. I already looked."

"Of course you did. Sorry. But is there a window?"

"Yeah, but it's too high. It's right up at the ceiling and it's very small."

"OK, forget that." If I had my tools I might be able to pick the lock. His fingers probed the handle and the surface of the lock. Feels like a Solidsecure two-twenty. "Dylan, I need some stiff metal wire. Can you see any paper clips or-"

From the main store came the sound of heavy footsteps crunching on the broken glass.

The boy gasped and ducked behind Lance.

Lance crouched down next to him and whispered, "What can you see?"

"Men. They have guns."

"Oh great. . . . OK, just stick close to me and play along with whatever I say, all right?" They could be the army, or they could be working with Slaughter.

Then Lance heard a voice from the far side of the room. "Who are you?"

"Jason Myers," Lance replied. "And this is Dylan. Who are you? What's going on?"

Another voice quietly said, "Not one of Dalton's crew."