There were no Drones or Hatchlings among them, searching for us. That was good. And though the Hosts were coming for us, it seemed they were falling apart, their decomposing flesh drawing flies. Their eye membranes had rotted out, which meant they likely couldn’t transmit. But still, we couldn’t let them get close just in case one of them scanned our image and sent it back to the Harvesters.
Alex, Patrick, and I were still there, rooted to the ground, stunned by the sight before us. The Hosts kept on, their flesh moldering away, their limbs held together by the rags of their clothes. The hand of the man in front was little more than a spade of bone, his forearm dangling from ligaments, twisting in the breeze. But some of the others still looked sturdy, firm-muscled Hosts running onto the roof. The humming pepper cloud of flies swayed in the air, heaving back and forth like a single living thing.
The man in front tumbled over the roof and fell to the sidewalk. His legs splintered wetly, his torso smacking concrete. His head rotated up, his arms clawing him forward.
Until a hefty second Host smashed down on top of him.
They poured over the brink like lemmings, slopping onto the ground. For a moment it seemed they’d all disintegrate by their own doing. But something awful was happening. That muck of body parts was building itself up.
Like a ramp.
At last Alex and Patrick unfroze themselves.
They turned to run, but I yelled at them. “Wait! We’ll never make it! The Chasers’ll get us.”
The Chasers—the women—looked fast and fierce.
Patrick and Alex stared at me like I was crazy. The flies swirled around me now, pelting the nape of my neck. It was impossible to separate the flies from the panic I felt churning the air around us and inside me.
The Chasers would catch up to us. And it would be awful.
“There’s no cover in the square!” I shouted.
One of the Hosts leapt off the roof, hit the ramp halfway down, and tumbled. Even from this distance, I could hear the snap of breaking bones. Part of me wanted to fall to the ground, cover my eyes, and give up. But another part of me rose up, stitching together the final threads of an idea that might just save us.
“What do you propose?” Patrick asked.
Ahead, two Chasers ran smoothly right off the edge of the roof onto the mound of bodies. They kept their feet down the ramp.
There was no time to explain.
“Follow me!” I screamed. “I have a plan!”
I sprinted into the current of flies, right for the oncoming Hosts. I prayed that Patrick and Alex would trust me. I could hardly see through all the flies.
The first Chaser neared, and a blast took off her head from the nose up.
Patrick, running beside me, shucked the shotgun.
As if I’d needed to worry.
I squinted into the onslaught of flies, saw Alex sprint up on my other side. A Chaser came at her, and I impaled her temple with the tip of my baling hook, then wrenched the metal free.
Alex caught the next one beneath the chin with her hockey stick, the head flopping back and nearly off. Through the hatched-open neck, I caught a glint of dull white building blocks—the vertebrae topping the spinal cord.
I thought Alex was yelling in horror and revulsion but realized it was me.
Flies beat at my eyes, my lips.
Ten more Hosts swept down the ramp. Too many.
“Chance,” Alex said, shielding her mouth with an arm. “Might be a good time to tell us what the hell you’re thinking!”
I swallowed a mouthful of panic bile, cut left hard, and bolted for Bob n’ Bit Hardware. Behind me the shotgun roared and roared, Patrick cutting a wake.
I shoulder-smashed through the front door, spilling into the dark aisles. Alex flew through next, knocking into me. We dominoed over into Shower and Sink Fixtures, knocking items from the shelves. Patrick turned in the doorway, facing outside—shuck-shuck boom, shuck-shuck boom.
“I can’t hold ’em off!” he shouted.
“Let them in!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet.
The forge in the back workshop threw off a dangerous orange glow, casting licks of light around the walls and onto the waist-high mounds of bullets. Over by the anvil, a few rifles lay twisted and useless. Beside them a crate held shackles that the gunmetal had been turned into. A few old-fashioned weather vanes leaned against the wall, linked by a glistening spiderweb.
Bob Bitley was still kneeling on the floor where I’d left him, his head bowed, a pair of tongs protruding from his eyeholes. Fluid puddled the floor beneath his knees. His skin oozed around him, his face sitting off-kilter like a too-big mask. Flies circled his head, a buzzing cloud. They’d gotten in through the rolled-open rear door.
I gave him wide berth, scrambling over the heaps of rounds that glittered and jingled like treasure. As I beelined for the forge, a series of loud crashes shook the store. I shot a glance back. Patrick had tilted over a tall display of gardening tools, trying to block the Hosts. They climbed over the wreckage, blank-faced and eyeless, their hands straining in the air.
I positioned myself behind the forge and kicked it as hard as I could. It didn’t yield a bit. It was fastened to the floor. I kicked again, jabbing my heel into the metal side, releasing a fairy dust of sparks. It gave slightly.
Alex finally got what I was doing and sprinted over to help. Her knee brushed Bob Bitley, and he crumbled, keeling over and collapsing, the tongs ringing against the concrete.
We synchronized our blows so we hit the forge at the same time. It tilted up a bit this time, the giant bolts rattling in their holes.
The Hosts kept pouring into the hardware store, driving Patrick back to the doorway of the workshop. The Winchester spoke and then spoke again.
“Guys!” Patrick shouted over his shoulder. “We’re running out of room here!”
Alex’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes lit with the flame. “On three,” she said. “One, two, three.”
We hammered our heels into the forge as hard as we could. It groaned upward. When the bolts snapped, they sounded like gunshots. The whole thing toppled, spilling the glowing contents across the mounds of ammunition.
“Run!” I screamed at Patrick.
He fired one last time. As he stepped back into the workshop, Hosts poured across the threshold after him.
We sprinted out the rear door into the back alley. Alex was already outside, rolling it shut. As Patrick flew through, the edge of the door clipped his shoulder and sent him tumbling. A Host arm shot through the gap. Smashing shut, the door took it clean off. Bodies thudded against the other side, fingernails scraping.
As Alex leaned her weight into the handle to keep the door closed, Patrick jammed a shovel beneath the gap, kicking it until it was wedged into place.
The door shuddered, more and more Hosts packing into the workshop. The wood splintered. A leg smashed through, exposed bone and muscle dripping crimson. A hand burst out next, knocking Alex’s hair so it fluffed up beside her head. She reeled back. The whole panel started to give way.
I pictured the orange spill of the forge melting into those bullets and wheeled around.
The general store loomed next to us at the alley’s end, its back tucked into the hillside. We couldn’t see up on the roof, but the moonlight threw stretched-out shadows down onto the alley. Judging from those shadows, the Hosts had thinned out. There were only a few dark silhouettes now, the last stragglers spilling from the woods onto the tar-and-gravel roof above.
We wouldn’t have time to wait for them to clear out.
We took off down the alley toward the general store just as the explosions started.
At first there were a few bangs, followed by moist smacks. They intensified, popcorn getting up a head of steam on the stovetop. Patrick and Alex followed me through the rear exit of the general store. As we hurdled the back counter and barreled up the aisles, the explosions quickened. A few rounds penetrated the wall, zinging overhead.
We careened outside as the detonations reached a drumroll pitch, the ammo snowballing until it sounded like one continuous roar. Most of the Hosts had followed our trail into the Bob n’ Bit, but those that remained outside lunged for us.
We didn’t slow down. We couldn’t. My baling hooks were a blur before my face. Alex’s hockey stick whirred by. We cleared a path to the ramp of squirming bodies.
Then we waded up it.
Our legs sank in to the ankles. We had to fight our way through the last of the Hosts even as we bulled our way up the putrefying flesh. Flies typhooned around us.
Patrick’s shotgun choke was set wide, so we let him lead. He cleared two Hosts with a spray of pellets. I felt a cheek cave beneath my boot, a guppying mouth locking around my heel.
As we charged up the last hard-fought yards of squirming ramp, fireworks erupted behind us, sending shrapnel flying. At last we pulled free of the wriggling slope onto the solid roof.
There were only a few Hosts left when the explosions behind us surged into a massive ka-boom that knocked us off our feet. I flew sprawling over one shoulder, my cheek scraping gravel. As I fell, I caught a crazy sideways glimpse of the general store’s walls and roof flying apart.
A wave of heat ripped across us, the flies dropping dead, hammering the roof all around us like hail. My ears rang. I rolled over to face the threat, but the Hosts who’d stood between us and the woods had collapsed into heaps. The explosion had disintegrated their failing bodies.
Patrick stood over me, his black cowboy hat blotting out the moon. He offered me a hand. We grasped around the wrists, and he yanked me to my feet. I staggered a little, and Alex caught me.
“Nice shortcut, boys,” she said.
Together we limped off the roof and up the slope, at last losing ourselves among the trees.