The building shuddered as if it was being pummeled by giants.
And then it was over except for the fading echo of a dragon’s roar that rolled away from them into the night.
Th
e space around the school seemed empty, devoid of air, as if they were suddenly on the surface of the moon. Then with a banshee shriek winds whipped out of the east and west with ferocity, attacking the vacuum left by the wave of heat. The winds brought with them the rains. The winds blew long and long and black.
Trout lay on the floor and Dez knelt over him, both of them gasping like runners, their eyes wide with terror, their faces flushed with residual heat.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” whispered Dez, “what was that?”
But they both knew.
In the distance the fireball still curled upward into the night. Silent now, but all the more frightening for its persistent reality.
CHAPTER SIXTY
ROUTE 653
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
Patrick Freivald’s mind was going into shock but he felt his body respond to a primal survival drive. Adrenaline slammed into his system and with a growl he wrestled his bike around, pointing the front wheel toward the verge. He gunned the engine and drove off the road. The verge slanted down and he sloshed through muddy water so deep it nearly stalled the engine, but Patrick kept it going, doing it right, steering well, keeping control.
He picked up speed, kicking up a fantail of mud forty feet high as he plowed through the rainy field, looping away from the madness and toward the line of cars that had been behind him. He was aware of other vehicles racing through the field, too, and they were all going so fast that he knew the drivers were in full-bore panic mode. That made them dangerous. A motorcycle in the rain was no match for even the smallest compact.
So he was forced to steer away from the road and deeper into the field, but it was ink-dark out there. His headlight couldn’t compete with the storm and rain. Far ahead, at the absolute outside range of his vision, he saw a small side road. A farm road. It was empty.
He thanked God and gunned the engine, racing to reach it and get the hell out of there.
Patrick never saw the big black Escalade that came bucketing across the field, headlights off, the driver pale and grinning; the passenger paler still, his mouth open in a silent scream. Patrick didn’t see any of that.
He did, however, feel it.
But only for a moment.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
ROUTE 653
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
There was a grinding crunch and suddenly the Escalade slewed sideways, fishtailing in the mud as Homer fought for control. Goat had a fleeting afterimage of a man and a motorcycle flying through the rain, but the SUV kept turning until it spun in a complete circle. As it came out of the turn, Homer gave it enough gas to reclaim the steering, and the machine lurched and bucked, but finally smoothed out. It shot forward across the field.
“Fucking fender’s all for shit, goddamn it,” complained Homer.
“We hit … we hit…” Goat tried to say, but couldn’t finish the sentence.
“No, boy, we didn’t hit shit. Asshole on the bike hit us. Fuck him.”
Goat was trembling so bad that his teeth chattered. Homer cut him a quick look and then laughed.
They drove on.
Homer kept his speed under forty, and often a lot lower, even when he found a farm road and pulled onto it. The road was lined with huge oaks and elms. Homer lowered his window and squinted up through the falling rain.
“Good,” he said. “That’s real good.”
Goat understood what Homer meant. The helicopters were firing on the cars and on the people fighting between them and fleeing from the road. The infection was out and they were trying to keep it contained. But a black SUV driving slowly under the eaves of the trees was invisible in the storm, and with every minute they left the sounds of destruction farther behind. Homer kept driving with great care for nearly ten miles, long past the point where Goat, twisting around in his seat to look, could see the fireballs. All he could hear now was the rain and the wind.