Only inches from his wife and Buck. From his daughters.
He stood. It was an effort. His body had been through a wringer: cuts up and down the length of his frame, sprains and twisted tendons, torqued bones, two fingers he had cut off himself when they had been crushed and caught and doing so was the only way to escape a horde, and the whole thing ravaged by infection.
He had even been bitten by one of the zombies.
Bitten, but not turned.
Not Changed.
How did that happen? Or not happen?
No time to think about it. He was still standing. Still pulling his sore body upward, when the floor section fell away.
He saw what was beneath.
And screamed.
10
It was one of the children. One of the things that had followed them through the storm drain tunnel, a thing that had once been an infant and was now so much more and so much less.
Ken got only a quick look at it as a four-foot-long section of the floor of the bus fell away. The steel plate – disconnected from the rest of the floor in a rough rectangle – hit the street below with a clang and a bouquet of sparks before disappearing behind the vehicle.
The thing that had done this disappeared as well. But not because it had fallen. It was clinging to the bottom of the bus, holding on with that impossible grip that Ken had seen time after time. There was nothing to hold onto below the bus, at least not the way the baby-thing was holding. The thing had its hands – the things that once could have been called hands – pressed against the bottom of the bus. Clinging tightly to metal stained and slicked with dirt and oil.
Its body was half-flayed. The things that had followed the survivors into the tunnel had done so by forcing themselves through holes and burrows in a debris field, most of which were too small for them. They had peeled themselves bare of skin and muscle to do so. And did not seem to notice in the least.
The things felt pain, Ken had seen them react with rage when hurt or attacked. But apparently they cared less about the agony than they did about the possible escape of prey.
He glanced at Hope and Liz. His daughters, comatose and limp. Buck and Maggie had both pushed against the outer walls of the bus, shrinking as far from the hole as they could. Each held a child like a treasure in their arms. A prize that was worth more than anything, even their own lives.
Sally hunched at the edge of the hole. Strangely silent, waiting.
Glass shattered, and Buck shouted in agony.
11
Ken moved before being fully aware what he was doing, or what it was he was reacting to. He only heard pain, only knew he had to help.
Buck was family, as much as Maggie, as much as the girls.
There was no room in this world for people that did not love one another. There were no enemies among humans. There were only family and the others, the Changed.
Buck had backed away, pushed his bulk into the space between two seat backs, his backside and legs up on one of the seats, one hand holding the seatback in front of him, the other holding Hope. The hand that held the seat was what saved him.
Two zombies had climbed up the side of the bus. They were holding – impossibly holding, their hands adhering to sheer glass and metal – to the side of the bus, and it was easy to see they had broken the window by Buck’s head. Buck must have jerked forward, out of range of their biting mouths, but they had grabbed his hair.
They were pulling him. He wouldn’t let go of Hope, wouldn’t let go of the seatback. But he was being jerked back a bit at a time. Ken heard something like tearing cloth. Blood dripped down the big man’s forehead and he realized that Buck was being scalped by the sheer muscle power of the things outside.
One of them coughed. Black acid drooled out of its mouth. It didn’t vomit on Buck, but the side of the bus started to melt away. They were making a door. Making a way in.
12
Ken got to the hole that the infant-monster had somehow created, then stopped. He didn’t want to jump over it. Not just because he might fall, but because he was worried about what might snatch him out of midair.
If the things could pull apart solid plates of steel, what else could they do?
He stood there, standing across from Sally, who still waited for something to appear so that he could bat it out of existence with a huge clawed paw.
Nothing came into view. Ken could hear skittering, chittering. But nothing came.
He had waited too long. Buck was screaming, and he finally let go of the seat in front of him. It was a purely instinctive move, Ken was sure. Hurt someone badly enough and they will forget about survival in favor of stopping pain. Die to quench agony.
Buck had reached that point, with the skin peeling off him right above his eyebrows, raw red glistening through to the porous yellow of bone. Screaming, shrieking, calling for God and Jesus and his dead mother.
He did not let go of Hope. Held her tight, held her safe.
The things leaned in through the widened gap they had created.
Pulled Buck toward them.