“They’re looking for us,” said Gus. “Haven’t spotted us yet, I don’t think.”
Nora kept one eye on the light and the other on the road. They passed a sign for the highway and realized they had drifted back near the interstate. Not good.
The helicopter circled toward them. “I’m cutting the headlights,” she said, which also meant slowing way down.
They drifted down the dark road, watching the helicopter come around, approaching near. The light grew brighter as it began to descend, maybe a few hundred yards north of them.
“Hold up, hold up,” said Gus. “It’s landing.”
She saw the light setting down. “That must be the highway.”
Gus said, “I don’t think they saw us at all.”
She continued to roll down the road, judging its margins by the black treetop branches framed against the less-black sky. Trying to decide what to do.
“Should we take off?” she said. “Risk it?”
Gus was trying to see through the windshield up to the highway. “You know what?” he said. “I don’t think they were looking for us after all.”
Nora kept her eyes on the road. “What is it, then?”
“You got me. Question is—do we dare to find out?”
Nora had spent enough time with Gus to know that this was not actually a question. “No,” she said quickly. “We need to go. To keep going.”
“It could be something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Why we have to look. I haven’t seen any roadside bloodsuckers for a few miles anyway. I think we’re good for a quick look.”
“A quick look,” said Nora, as though she could hold him to that.
“Come on,” he said. “You’re curious too. Besides—they were using their light, right? That means humans.”
She pulled over to the left side of the road and turned off the engine. They got out of the car, forgetting that the interior lights came on once the doors were opened. They closed them quickly without slamming them and stood and listened.
The rotors were still spinning but slowing down. The engine had just been turned off. Gus held his machine gun away from himself as he scrambled up the weedy, rocky embankment, with Nora just behind and to the left of him.
They slowed at the top, their faces rising beneath the guardrail. The chopper was another one hundred yards or so down the highway. There were no cars in sight. The rotors stopped rotating, though the helicopter light remained illuminated, shining off to the opposite side of the road. Nora made out four silhouettes, one of them shorter than the others. And she could not be sure, but she believed that the pilot—probably a human, judging by the light—was still inside the cockpit, waiting. For what? Taking off again soon?
They ducked back down. “A rendezvous?” said Nora.
“Something like that. You don’t think it’s the Master, do you?”
“Can’t tell,” she said.
“One of them was small. Looked like a kid.”
“Yeah,” said Nora, nodding … and then she stopped nodding. Her head shot up again, and this time she looked over the top of the guardrail. Gus pulled her back down by her belt, but not before she had convinced herself of the identity of the ragged-haired boy. “Oh my God.”
“What?” said Gus. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”
She drew her sword. “We have to get over there.”
“Well, sure, now you’re talking. But what’s the—”
“Shoot the adults but not the kid. Just don’t let them get away.”