He had levered a round into the chamber of his rifle when, behind him, in the house, a voice cried out his name.

"Hold up a second," Hollis said.

An Army truck was tipped on its side in the roadway; one of its back wheels was still spinning with a creaking sound.

Sara quickly dismounted. "Somebody might be hurt."

Hollis followed her to the truck. The cab was empty.

"Maybe they walked out of here," Hollis said.

"No, this just happened." She looked down the road then pointed. "There."

The soldier was lying on his back. He was breathing in quick bursts, eyes open, staring at the sky. Sara dropped to her knees beside him. "Soldier, look at me. Can you speak?" He was acting like a man who was badly injured, yet there was no blood, no obvious sign of anything broken. The sleeves of his uniform bore the two stripes of a corporal. He rolled his face toward her, exposing a small wound, bright with blood, at the base of his throat.

"Run," he croaked.

Caleb burst into the house. Pim was holding Theo, backing away from the door to Dory's room; Bug and Elle were clustered at her legs.

Kate's voice: "Caleb, come quick!"

Dory was thrashing on the bed, spittle spewing from her lips. With a sound like a sneeze, her teeth flew from her mouth. Kate was standing by the bed, holding the revolver.

"Shoot her!" Caleb yelled.

Kate seemed not to hear him. With a sickening crunch, Dory's fingers elongated, gleaming claws extending from their tips. Her body had begun to glow. Her jaw unlocked; her mouth opened wide, revealing the picketed teeth.

"Shoot her now!"

Kate was frozen in place. As Caleb raised the rifle, Dory jolted upright, rolled into a crouch, and sprang toward the two of them. A confusion of bodies, Dory crashing into Kate, Kate crashing into Caleb; the rifle spat from his hand and skittered across the floor. On his hands and knees, Caleb scrambled toward it. He was yelling for Pim to run, though of course the woman couldn't hear him. His hand found the weapon, and he rolled onto his back. Kate was was pushing herself backward toward the opposite wall; Dory stood above her, jaws flexing, fingers extended, strumming the air. Caleb lifted his back off the floor, widened his knees, and leveled the rifle at her with both hands.

"Dory Tatum!"

At the sound of her name, she stiffened, as if struck by a curious thought.

"You're Dory Tatum! Phil is your husband! Look at me!"

She turned toward him, exposing her upper body. One shot, thought Caleb, taking the center of her chest into his sights, and then he squeezed the trigger.

The soldier began to shake. The motion began at his fingers, which bent into clawlike shapes, like the talons of a hawk. A groan poured from deep in his throat. The shaking hardened into a whole-body convulsion, his spine arcing, spittle boiling to his lips. Sara was on her feet and backing away. She knew what she was seeing. It seemed impossible, and yet it was happening before her eyes. She sensed movement above her, yet she could not tear her eyes away from the soldier, whose transformation was occurring with unheard-of speed.

"Sara, come on! We have to get out of here!"

One of the horses whinnied and tore past her. It made it all of fifty feet down the road before a glowing shape swooped down and knocked it off his feet. Jaws tore into the horse's neck with a ripping sound.

Sara's mind snapped back into a wider awareness. Hollis was pulling her by the wrist. The river! he yelled. We have to get to the river! With a hard yank, he hauled her into the cover of the trees; they began to run. Shapes bounded above them, limb to limb. Branches whipped her face and arms. Where was the river, their salvation? Sara could hear it but could not locate it in the dark.

"Jump!"

In midair, she realized what was happening. They had leapt from a cliff. As she hit the surface, a new, deeper darkness, the darkness of water, enveloped her. It seemed she would never stop descending, but at last her feet touched the bottom. She pushed off and shot to the surface.

"Hollis!" She twisted in the water, blindly searching. "Hollis, where are you?"

"Over here. Keep your voice down."

She was spinning frantically, trying to locate the source of the voice. "I can't find you."

"Stay where you are."

Hollis appeared, treading water beside her. "Are you hurt?"

Was she? She took stock of her body. She didn't think she was.

"What's happening? Where did they come from?"

"I don't know."

"Don't leave me."

"Breathe, Sara."

She fought to calm herself. In, out, in, out.

"It looks like there are pockets at the base of the cliff," Hollis said. "We're going to swim there. Can you do it?"

She nodded. The water was freezing; her teeth had begun to chatter.

"Stay close."

With a smooth breaststroke he glided away, Sara following. The cliff took form above her. It wasn't as tall as she'd thought, perhaps twenty feet, and irregularly shaped, with blocky protrusions of pale limestone cantilevered over the pool. The water became shallower; Sara realized she could stand. Hollis guided her beneath an outcrop. A flat-topped boulder rose above the surface of the water. Hollis helped her up.

"We should be safe here for the night," he said.

Shivering, Sara leaned against him; Hollis put his arm around her and drew her close. She thought of her children, out there in the dark. She buried her face in Hollis's chest and began to cry.

Dory melted to the ground like a puppet cut from its strings. Caleb stepped over the body. Kate was still propped against the wall, her body inert, numbed by shock and fear.

"There's more out there," Caleb said. "We have to get to the shelter."

She looked at him with an unfocused gaze.

"Kate, snap out of it."

He couldn't wait. He grabbed her by the wrist and shoved her out the door. Pim was huddled by the hearth with the children. She hadn't heard the shot, but he knew she had felt it, shuddering through the frame of the house.

Caleb signed a single word: Go.

He dropped the rifle and scooped Elle and Bug into his arms, balancing them on the points of his hips; Pim was carrying Theo. They raced out the back door into the yard. Pim was ahead of him, Kate behind. The darkness was coming alive. The crowns of the trees tossed as if by the wind of an approaching storm. Pim and Theo reached the shelter first. Caleb dropped the girls to their feet and hauled the door of the hardbox open. Pim scrambled down the ladder and raised her arms to take Theo and then the girls, Caleb following.

At the top of the ladder, he stopped. Kate was standing thirty feet away.

"Kate, come on!"

She drew her collar aside. At the base of her throat, a wound had bloomed with blood. Caleb's stomach dropped; all sensation left him.

"Shut the door," she said.

She was holding the revolver. He couldn't move.

"Caleb, please!" She collapsed to her knees. A deep tremor shook her body. She was cradling the gun in her lap, attempting to lift it. She rocked her head skyward as a second jolt moved through her. "I'm begging you!" she sobbed. "If you love me, shut the door!"

His windpipe clamped; he could barely breathe. Behind her, shapes were dropping from the trees. Caleb reached above his head, taking the handle in his grip.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

He drew down the door, sealing them in blackness, and shoved the crossbars into place. The children were crying. He felt for the lantern, took a box of matches from his pocket. His hands were trembling as he lit the wick. Pim was huddled with the children against the wall.

Her eyes grew very wide. Where's Kate?

From outside, a shot.

VII.

The Awakening.

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities.

Of souls.

-JOHN DONNE, HOLY SONNETS.

55.

Peter awoke to a clattering of branches dragging against the side of the Humvee. He shook off his sluggishness and sat up.

"Where are we?"

"Houston," Greer said. Michael was asleep in the passenger seat. "Not long now."

A few minutes later, Greer brought the vehicle to a halt. To the east, the darkness had begun to soften.

"Let's be quick now," Greer said.

Peter and Michael unloaded their gear. They were at the edge of the lagoon; to the east, skyscrapers of incredible height cut black rectangles against the diminishing stars. Greer dragged a rowboat into the shallows. Michael sat in the bow, Peter the stern; Greer climbed into the middle, facing backward. The boat sank nearly to the gunwale but remained afloat.

"I was a little worried about that," Greer confessed.

With broad strokes he propelled them across the lagoon. Peter watched the city's core harden into its full dimensions. The Mariner soared into view, its great wide stern riding high above the water. Inside One Allen Center they tied off, gathered their supplies, and began to climb.

From a window on the tenth floor, they dropped to the deck. Dawn was a few minutes away. Greer had refurbished a small crane of a type once used to lower cargo over the side of the ship. He spread the net beneath it, tightened the spring on the spinner joint, and attached it to the rope that ran through the block at the end of the boom. A second rope would be used to swing the boom over the water. Greer would manage the first rope, Michael the second. Peter's job was to act as bait-Greer's theory being that Peter was the person Amy was least likely to kill.

Greer handed him the wrench. "Remember, she's not the Amy we know."

They took up their positions. Peter fit the tip of the wrench around the first bolt.

"They're here," said Amy.

Carter was sitting across the table from her. "Feel it, too."

Her heart was racing; she felt a little dizzy. It always came on like this, with a sensation of physical acceleration that culminated in an abrupt expulsion from one world to the next, as if she were a rock hurled from a sling.

"I wish you were coming with me," she said.

"Long as I'm here, they're safe. You know that."

She did. If Carter died, the dopeys, his Many, would die with him. Without them, Amy and Carter stood no chance.

She looked around the garden one last time, saying goodbye. She closed her eyes.

Two bolts to go, one on each side. Peter loosened the first, leaving it in place. As he fit the head of the wrench around the second bolt, a massive force, like a giant fist, struck the hatch from the opposite side. The deck beneath his knees shuddered from the impact.

"Amy, it's me! It's Peter!"

Another wang; the loosened bolt popped from the hole and bounced across the deck. He had seconds to spare. With a final yank, he freed the last bolt and began to run.

The hatch blew skyward.

Amy alighted on the deck, compressing to a reptilian crouch. Her body was glossy and compact, annealed with hard muscle beneath the crystalline sheath of skin. Peter was standing just beyond the net. For a moment she seemed puzzled by her surroundings; then her head slanted with a darting motion, taking him into her sights. She scuttled forward. Peter saw no recognition in her eyes.

"Amy." He lifted a hand toward her and spread his fingers. "It's me."

She halted, inches from the net.

"It's Peter."

Rising, Amy stepped forward. Greer pulled the rope; the net engulfed her and shot upward, her weight freeing the spinner from its brake. The net began to twirl, faster and faster. Amy was screaming and thrashing in its grasp. Michael yanked the second rope, swinging the boom over the side of the ship.