Another wave of pain shot through Jimmy’s head. The world swirled like a flushing toilet for an instant. Blood ran from both nostrils, and he wiped it on his sleeve.
The kid was strong. Amazingly strong. Jimmy had tracked the sensation of the boy all the way to the CanAm gates, then followed the sound of the infected’s assault on the building after that. He couldn’t read the boy, though. It was like feeling the heat from the sun in the sky and still being unable to look straight at it.
Worse, he could not read and manipulate the others in the building. The boy had dropped some sort of psychic curtain. Jimmy couldn’t even tell how many there were. That ability, that raw strength the boy wielded, just whet Jimmy’s appetite for him. He’d hoped for control over the infected after eating the boy. Now he was sure he’d have that, as well as untold other powers.
“Good news for you,” Jimmy announced from near the frame-shop van’s nose. “I’m ready to let you all walk out of there alive.”
Melanie peered through the crack in the wall.
Dear old mom was one of the survivors. That was going to add a bit more incentive for the boy to hold out. That wasn’t good. And killing her would give the boy a bit more incentive to put up a fight, a fight that might get him killed before Jimmy could do it in his own leisurely way.
“I don’t believe you,” Melanie shouted.
“All that gunfire you heard,” Jimmy said, “that was the sound of me saving your lives. You ought to see the swarm we put down out here. If I’d wanted you all dead, I would have kept shooting until you were.”
Another ice pick of pain lanced Jimmy’s skull. He grabbed the sides of his head and moaned. He tasted blood as it ran down the back of his throat. This goddamn kid was really starting to piss him off.
“Well, if that’s so,” Melanie said, “you and your men leave, then we’ll leave, and you’ve kept us alive.”
“Not that simple, Melanie, and you know it. Your son is special. He’s reacted to the infection differently. The rest die, but he’s improved, isn’t he?”
Silence. He’d hit pay dirt.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
Jimmy blanked out the hearing of the two men with him. “Because he and I are the same. I got infected and I improved. Your son’s destiny and mine are intertwined.”
“My son’s destiny is to cure the world.”
Jimmy stepped halfway down the length of the van. His head reeled as he moved closer to the boy’s location. A drop of blood seeped from a tear duct.
“A cure? The world doesn’t need, doesn’t deserve, a cure. Your son and I are the next stage of the evolutionary process. Would you eradicate Homo sapiens to preserve Neanderthals? When he joins with me, a new, superior species walks the Earth. One who controls the viral and the nonviral, and turns Q Island into paradise.”
“I’m not liking the paradise you’ve made so far.”
She wasn’t going to see reason. He’d expected as much. He switched his men’s hearing back on. He mentally ordered them to opposite sides of the building. The effort felt like it tied his brain in a knot. The two moved off, rifles at the ready.
Jimmy moved to the crack in the wall. The boy’s psychic force repelled him like a hurricane’s wind. He reached his left hand into the crack to pull the torn steel back for a wider view.
“Think it through, Melanie. Your son—”
A shaft of white-hot pain pierced his hand. He screamed and pulled it back. A broken kitchen-knife blade stuck out from the middle. He gripped it between his teeth, yanked it free and spat it on the ground.
“You goddamn bitch!” he shouted.
He cradled his left hand in his right. So be it. Whether those in the building were dead after he consumed the boy or before, the choice they made really didn’t matter. One way or another, in a few minutes, he’d be master of all that surrounded him.
“That’s sending a message,” Eddie said.
Melanie tossed her end of the broken kitchen knife on the ground and scooped up the tire iron.
“Ain’t no dealing with him,” Eddie continued. “We need to go down swinging and take that bastard out there down with us.”
“I know.” Melanie had seen the two men with Jimmy move off in opposite directions. Here they were, an invalid with a pistol and a woman with a tire iron. They didn’t stand a chance. Her son still stood beside the drone, staring down at it. He hadn’t flinched through the entire assault. She went to his side.
“Aiden honey, you need to get down. It’s about to get…”
The inside of the drone was six feet of empty space, a cylindrical coffin, complete with lid.
“You got one hope,” Eddie said. “And he’s looking at it. The cleaning solvents go in there. The nozzles spray them in the pipeline, the brushes scrub the tube. So it’s airtight to keep from leaking.”
Eddie crawled over to a panel under the drone. He flicked a switch. A needle on a gauge bounced upward. “The internal battery’s got three-quarters charge.”
“What are you thinking?”
“We send Aiden to Connecticut. He’ll only get what air’s in there. But I can send it in return mode instead of scrub mode, to get there faster.”
Jimmy’s voice wafted in from outside. “I’m going to give you one more chance to do this the reasonable way. I’m ready to come in there if I have to.”
“He’ll die if he stays here,” Eddie said. “I’m sure of it.”
Melanie envisioned Aiden in Jimmy’s hands. “Okay, we send him.”
“You’ll both need to go.”
“Are you crazy? There might not be enough air.”
“Mellie, I’ve known him for months now. He’s afraid of the dark, afraid of closed spaces. He won’t get in there without you.”
Melanie thought of all the times she had trouble even getting him into the car.
“And then,” Eddie continued, “what do you think will happen if he pops up over there and climbs out all alone and infected? Will he be able to explain what’s happened? Would anyone listen? Those people over there are the same people who gunned down the Port Jeff ferry survivors. If they even suspect he’s come from Q Island they’ll kill him, burn him and ask questions later. Forget about it, with his red eyes and black veins. You need to be there.”
He was right. She couldn’t send him off like Moses in a basket and hope someone enlightened found him down river. She needed to hand him to trusted medical authorities. “But what about you?”
Eddie tapped his splint with the barrel of his gun. “I ain’t going nowhere with this. And someone needs to launch the drone. I’ll hold ’em off ’til you get safely under the Sound. Once it’s on its way, there ain’t no calling it back.”
Aiden stared into the drone. He rubbed his palms up and down against the sides of his pants. She knew he understood what they were planning. She saw the fear in his eyes. He wouldn’t get in there alone. But would getting in there with her, where close contact would be guaranteed, be any more palatable?
“We’re out of time, Mellie,” Eddie said.
Melanie shook her head in wonder. “How many times are you going to save our lives, Eddie?”
“I’m guessing this will be the last.”
She bent down and kissed his stubbled cheek.
“Tell my daughter what happened,” he whispered.
“I’ll tell the whole world.”
Melanie climbed into the drone. The cold metal chilled her back. She slid to the side in a futile attempt to make more room. A single bed had more space. Aiden looked down on her. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His lower lip trembled.
“C’mon, honey. I won’t let anything happen to you. It will be a short trip, and then we’ll be safe.”
“Time’s up,” Jimmy shouted from outside. “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in.”
Aiden climbed in. He stifled a cry of panic. He tried to plaster himself to the far side, but there was no escaping contact. His chest pushed against Melanie’s. His racing heart pounded against her breast. His warm, panting breath blew across her neck. She’d felt neither since he was a baby.
Eddie flicked a switch on the console. The cover lowered into place. The last sliver of light winked out. The latch sealed with a click.
A rising wail slipped through Aiden’s clenched teeth. He clamped Melanie’s waist. She slid her hands around the side of the tube to touch him. She gathered him closer. The scent of his hair brought back memories of those first amazing months of motherhood, when the future was equal parts wonder and terror and the emotion of love had finally revealed its full, glorious maternal self.
She kissed her son’s ear and whispered, “Everything will be all right.”
Then she began to sing, so low and soft she could barely hear it herself, “Angels in heaven, look down on the child, perfect and lovely, tender and mild…”
Outside the tube, something clicked. A motor whirred.
They launched.