"There's a Reaper in there", Valentine said.
"Good guess", the Quisling said.
Valentine didn't guess. He knew.
"Look at the weird burns on the back of this one. What did they do to you?"
Three Quislings were fiddling with their harnesses while others covered them from an economy hatchback with a machine gun mounted on the hood.
Mona began to cry. "Why can't I see a doctor?"
"Again, don't beat on each other", Hunting Cap said. "When the tape falls you're off to the races".
"No fair, they've got shoes", Colin said.
"No fair, they've got shoes", one of the Quisling soldiers mimicked in a school-yard voice.
"Get the rest of your stuff off. Shoes too".
They complied; what else could they do? Valentine put his arm around Mona, shared body warmth. "I hear it's not so bad. They hypnotize you, like a snake does a bird".
The tape fell and Valentine felt a sharp blow to the side of his knee. Colin had lashed out, and even now was running, the tape whipping free of his thighs as he headed across the overgrown parking lot.
Valentine felt a shove in the back, and he and Mona sprawled on the other side of the wall. Valentine came up to a crouch. The Quislings began to close the gate.
"I might be pregnant. You don't want to lose the baby!" Mona said, clinging to the bars.
A rifle butt came through and struck her in the stomach. She jack-knifed, gasping.
Valentine helped her to her feet. "Let's go".
He looked back at the wall. A pair of heads watched them from the other side.
Valentine picked up a rock and sent it whizzing at the heads, but missed.
"Your buddy's already a quarter of the way to them lights!" someone shouted helpfully.
Valentine pulled Mona down the path. It opened up on what he guessed was another parking lot. The grasses and brush had been cleared here, and Valentine saw buildings on the other side.
"Oh my God", Mona said flatly.
Four figures in a line greeted them, like odd, plasticized mannequins with their skin removed, feet fixed in concrete. Elaborate layers of muscle made their faces a hideous salmon-colored patchwork. Valentine stepped up to one, realized it was a real corpse, covered in some kind of thick, clear plastic. The first one pointed, Uncle Sam-style.
don't be choosy, read a sign cradled in his arm.
The next one was scratching her head. Her sign was on a sandwich board.
PICK A WAY.
GUESS WRONGLY, said the third, its hands on its hips like an exasperated parent.
The fourth pointed to a little empty cement platform next to the others, right here you'll stay.
The parking lot trailed away to a path to the left. In the middle were the buildings, and to the right was another path heading at a ninety-degree angle away from the twin lights, paralleling the wall.
The left path or the buildings both led more directly to the goalposts.
The buildings would be the most dangerous, but there might be something he could use as a weapon there. Valentine tried to sense the Reaper or Reapers, but he was cold and his knee hurt and Mona was pulling him back toward the gate. "I don't like this game. I'm going to throw rocks at them till they shoot me".