“Anton,” Alec said. “Listen to me. Is there anyone else we can talk to? And how can we find out about the friends we’re looking for? The girl, two women.”
The man coughed; then a little more life sprang into his voice. “Those people I work with have started to lose their minds. Do you understand? They’re … not … right. They’ll be down there for hours, planning and scheming. They’re going to Asheville, and they’ll gather an army along the way if they have to. Oh, there’s talk of an antidote there, but that’s a bunch of hooey. In the end, my people will make sure that others don’t get what’s been taken from them: life. And you know what they’ll do after that. You know, don’t you?”
“What?” Mark and Alec said at the same time.
Anton got up onto one elbow. The angle of light from the workpad caused one half of his face to be in shadow from the cot, the other in that pale blue glow. The eye on the lighted side looked as if a spark had been lit inside the pupil.
“They’ll go to Alaska through that Flat Trans in Asheville,” the man said. “They’ll go to where the governments have gathered and make sure the world ends, even though that’s not their intent. They’ll carry on about finding an antidote and taking down the makeshift government. But all they’ll really do is spread the virus once and for all. Make sure they finish what the sun flares started. Fools, every last one of them.”
Anton collapsed back into a heap on the cot, and a few seconds later the sounds of his snores filled the room.
CHAPTER 34
Mark and Alec sat in silence for a long time, listening to the wheezes and hitched breathing of Anton as he slept.
“I’m not sure we can trust much of what came out of this guy’s mouth,” Alec said after a while. “But I’m troubled, to say the least.”
“Yeah,” Mark responded flatly. His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so tired. But they had to get up, get out of that room, find Trina and the others.
He didn’t move.
“Boy, you look like a zombie,” Alec said after twisting to face him. “And I feel like one.”
“Yeah,” Mark said again.
“You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but there’ll be no argument.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. Even that seemed to take all the energy he had. “And what’s that?”
“We need to sleep.”
“But … Trina … Lana …” He suddenly couldn’t remember the little girl’s name. Impossible. His head ached like a storm had erupted inside his skull.
Alec stood up. “We’re not going to do our friends a bit of good if we can’t function because we’re too tired. We’ll just catch a few winks. Maybe an hour each while the other keeps an eye out. Anton said his coworkers would be in some meeting for hours.” He got up from the bed and walked quickly over to the door to the room, closed it, locked it. “Just to be safe.”
Mark slumped to his side, then slowly drew his legs up onto the cot. He folded his arms under his head. He wanted to protest but nothing came out.
Alec started talking again. “I’ll take first watch, so …”
But Mark fell asleep before he heard any more.
The dreams came. The memories. More vivid than ever before. As if the depth of his exhaustion had created the perfect canvas for them.
CHAPTER 35
There’s that short moment that seems to last a lifetime when Mark sees the wall of water rushing down the steps of the subtrans station, like a stampede of white, frothy horses. He wonders a thousand things. How he got there. What’s happened above them in the city. Is his family dead. What does the future hold. What’s it like to drown.
All these thoughts storm through his mind in the one second it takes for the water to reach the bottom of the steps. Then someone is grabbing his arm, pulling him in the opposite direction, forcing his head to turn away from the oncoming disaster. He sees Trina, yanking on him as pure terror brightens her eyes in a sick way that snaps him into motion.
He breaks into an all-out run, this time grabbing her arm, making sure they stay together. Alec and Lana are right ahead of them, moving quickly, passing the thugs who accosted them, a thing that now seems so silly and outrageous it angers Mark all over again. The moment passes; he keeps running down the tunnel, Trina by his side. He shoots a quick glance backward, sees Baxter, Darnell, the Toad, Misty, all keeping up, their eyes painted with the same fear as Trina’s, the same fear that Mark feels himself.
There’s a great rushing sound in the air that takes Mark back to his family’s visit to Niagara Falls. People are screaming and things are breaking, glass shattering. Alec looks nothing like an old man as he sprints past the far edge of the station landing and slips back into the darkness of the train-sized tunnel. They can’t have much time, and Mark realizes with a jolt of horror that he’s entrusted his entire life to the two people in front of him. That this is it. That he’ll be alive or dead within minutes.
Someone cries out behind him; then he’s hit hard in the shoulder, and he stumbles. He rights himself, letting go of Trina, who can’t stop her momentum and keeps rushing forward. Mark looks back and sees two things: Misty has fallen to the ground, and a surging pool of water is funneling down the tracks of the subtrans from the station. The deluge of water from the streets above is washing over the landing and spilling into the wide groove of the tunnel, and it’s just a few dozen feet away.