“Unit Two to dispatch, do you copy?”

The response was immediate. “Unit Two, identify.”

She recognized the voice. The state police lieutenant, William Henry Hardy.

“Lieutenant Hardy, this is Officer Fox.”

There was considerable static, but Dez got every word. “Officer Fox, please state your location and status.”

“My unit is wrecked at the corner of Doll Factory Road and Mason Street. Turk’s Getty. Requesting immediate backup. We have officers down. I repeat, we have multiple officers down. Estimate thirty plus. County and troopers. We have civilian casualties. Estimate fifty plus.”

“Say again.”

Dez repeated it. The enormity of it was like a fist against her head.

“Backup is already rolling,” said Hardy. “What is the nature of the emergency?”

“I … don’t know.”

There was a moment of crackle.

“Officer, please repeat. What is the nature of the—”

“People are going crazy down here, Lieutenant. Everyone’s attacking everyone. People are fucking eating people. Cops, too.”

“Officer Fox, did you make contact with Chief Goss?”

She took a breath. “Chief Goss is dead.” Tears boiled out of her eyes and fell down her cheeks. “Christ … they’re all dead.” A sob hitched inside her chest and suddenly she was crying. She leaned against the side of the cruiser and slid down to the ground, the sobs wracking her, the pain in her soul doubling her over. She buried her face against her knees and banged the microphone against her head. Over and over again.

“They’re coming!” JT yelled and she jerked her head up to see him rising to lay the shotgun atop the mailbox.

“Christ,” Dez said, and realized that she was still holding the radio send button. “Lieutenant … with the storm the emergency evacuation center is the elementary school. There’s going to be hundreds of kids in there. Old folks, too. It’s only a couple of miles from here. Please … get some people over there. You can’t let any of the infected in there … those kids…”

With sudden horror Dez realized that she was yelling into a dead mike. She clicked the button, jiggled the handset, and this time she could not even raise a whisper of static.

“Shit!”

Her mind was filled with a terrible image of all those kids crouched in the cavernous old school as the storm pounded on the walls and the hungry dead clawed at the doors to get in.

She threw the microphone down and pulled her piece. She had eight bullets left and one extra magazine. JT had the loaded shotgun, nine extra shells, and two full magazines—one in his Glock, the other on his belt. Dez used her bloody sleeve to wipe away the tears.

She was not going to let the infection reach the school. No way. If she had to kill every one of those monsters … if she had to break their necks with her bare hands, she was not going to abandon those kids. Not the little ones. Dez knew what it was like to feel abandoned. To feel like the people who were supposed to be there just left you in the dark. With the boogeyman. With the monsters.

Despite what Billy had said on the phone, Dez knew the shape of her own damage. It wasn’t particularly obscure, and she even understood how it warped her. Big deal. She could see it right there every time she looked in the mirror. That was a couple of grand saved on therapy, and it didn’t provide a magic pill any more than it gave her a road map to a brighter future. To hell with that Dr. Phil shit.

The simple truth was that parents let down their kids. It was a fact of life. It happened all the damn time. But there was no way that she would become another statistic in that drama. She was going to get to those kids. End of story.

Dez Fox was not a religious woman. She lost a chunk of it in second grade when her father was killed by friendly fire in the first Gulf War and the rest when her mother died of cancer a few weeks later. She believed in God, but hated Him for His cruel indifference. However, as she racked the slide on her Glock, she murmured a small and almost silent prayer.

“God help us,” she whispered.

She kept listening, hoping to hear sirens, but all she heard on the breeze was the faint moans of the dead and the splats as the first fat raindrops fell from the leaden sky.

“God help us all.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

HARTNUP’S TRANSITION ESTATE

Everything should have looked familiar. The Grove, the wide green lawn, and tall trees were the same. The main funeral house and the mortuary work building, all the same. But nothing was familiar. Cars and emergency vehicles were parked haphazardly on the roads and the lawn. The grass around the mortuary was splashed with wild swatches of red and puddles of black in which larvae squirmed and writhed.

And everywhere were the Hollow Men.

Dozens of them. In uniforms, in ordinary clothes, in farm clothes, and work clothes. Several of them had cameras hung around their necks and plastic press credentials clipped to their jackets. Two of them were twins, girls of about seventeen, unique now because of the individuality of their wounds. This wasn’t like the crowds who gathered for funerals. There were no tears, no suppressed laughter, no broken sobs, no whispered conversation. Their shoes whispered across the soft, wet grass.

The hollow ones milled, bumping into one another or against the fenders of cars. One of them tripped over something and Hartnup saw that it was the fat body of Marty Goss. The chief lay sprawled and silent, a big black hole punched through his forehead. His white fingers did not twitch, he did not try to get up. He looked … dead.

Dead.

Hartnup felt suddenly and irrationally jealous of the dead man. How could a fat putz like Marty Goss deserve an actual death when Hartnup had to go on and on, floating like a dust mote inside a stolen body? It was wretchedly unfair.

How did Goss die? A lot of the creatures here had gunshot wounds. What was different about Marty?

Hartnup’s body kept shuffling forward. Hartnup screamed for it to stop. He wanted to examine the body, determine the answer to this mystery. From the blood smears on Goss’s face it was clear that he had reanimated and become what Hartnup still was. So … how had that curse been broken for the chief?

His body moved on and on, shambling toward the road, just as some of the others were turning that way. There was a sound coming from around the bend. A car was coming.

More flesh for this feast.

God, no!

As his body moved toward the noise, it passed another body that lay unmoving in the mud. The whole top of its head was missing. Blown away by a shotgun blast.

And then Lee Hartnup understood. It was the brain.

Yes … yes … yes … yes … yes … whispered his own inner voice.

It did not answer the questions of why and what, but it gave Hartnup a shred of insight. The brain. The motor cortex and the nerve conduction of the spinal cord. Even a stolen body needed that much. Maybe only that much. Rudimentary control and nerve signals. To stand, to walk. To grab and bite. To chew.

Destroy the brain and you stop the monster.

That would be perfect. Not merely hollow … but empty.

God, he pleaded, let someone shoot me! Please, God, let someone blow my head off and kill me!

It was the strangest thought that had ever flown through his brain, but also the sanest. And it was his truest prayer.

Unless.

Unless …

What if destroying the body did not turn off all of his own lights? What if he remained, lost in the darkness of a dead and decaying body?

Would that be worse?

No, he told himself. If my body is dead I can’t hurt anyone else.

The car rounded the bend. State troopers.

The crowd of things moaned almost as one, their cries rising in intensity now, louder than the downpour. The cruiser slewed sideways as the driver kicked down on the brakes; gravel and mud showered the dead things that staggered toward it. None of them fell, none of them stopped.

The doors opened and two troopers stepped out, guns in their hands, their faces almost as blank as the things that approached them.

Hartnup heard one of them yell. “What the Christ—”

And then the creatures were upon them.

The troopers yelled warnings. Over and over again. They leveled their weapons. Hartnup waited for the shots, needing to see the bullets punch through skull and brain, needing to see one of the monsters fall. His own body moved forward on stiff legs, hands reaching for the distant flesh; hunger swelling like a scream inside his body.

Then the troopers were gone beneath a mountain of white limbs and red mouths.

Please … no! Hartnup pleaded. Please, for the love of God, no!

You haven’t killed me yet.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

GREEN GATES 55-PLUS COMMUNITY

“Wait,” said Trout as he leapt to his feet. “What? Homer Gibbon is alive?”

Tears rolled down Dr. Volker’s face as he nodded. He pulled a handkerchief and pressed it against his eyes. His body trembled with quiet sobs.

Goat sat in open-mouthed shock.

“No, no, no, goddamn it,” Trout shouted as he strode over to the doctor, looming above him with balled fists. “You fucking tell me what you mean? How the hell did Homer Gibbon speak to you on the goddamn phone? He’s dead! I saw him die. I saw you pump that shit into his veins and I saw the machines flatline. I watched you execute him, for Christ’s sake.”

When Volker only shook his head, Trout snarled, “You gave him that stuff, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Volker’s voice was tiny.

Goat whispered, “Oh … holy mother of shit…”

“Are you saying that Gibbon is free?” Trout demanded.

“Free?” echoed Volker. “No…”

Trout started to relax, but then the doctor added, “It’s much, much worse than his being free.”

With a snarl, Trout grabbed Volker, hauled him halfway out of the chair and did a fast pat-down to find the pistol he knew Volker carried. It was a heavy nine millimeter, and he tore the pocket open to retrieve it and flung the doctor back down. Volker made a swipe for the pistol, but Trout slapped his hand away and retreated a step. He stared down at Volker with contempt.