“What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”
The title was a reference from an attack by two unknown assailants on a newsman. Dan Rather. Someone Tom’s father used to watch. Someone his older brother, Sam, used to know. They kept whal
ing on Rather and demanding, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?”
Only Sherrie’s message was simpler.
“What is it?”
Tom didn’t have a word for it.
“Infection” was too shallow, and this ran a lot deeper.
“Pandemic” was a TV word. It seemed clinical despite its implications. A word like that was too big and didn’t seem to belong to this world. Not the world of the police academy; not here in sleepy little Sunset Hollow.
“What is it, Tom?”
The guy on Fox News called it the end of days. Like he was a biblical prophet. Called it that and then walked off to leave dead air.
End of days.
Tom couldn’t tell Sherrie that this was the end of days. It was the end of today. And maybe it was the end of a lot of things.
But the end? The actual end?
Even now Tom didn’t want to go all the way there.
He moved on, walking faster in hopes that she’d stop following him. She didn’t. Sherrie walked with legs that chopped along like scissors. “What is it, Tom?”
She seemed to be settling into that now. Using his name. Latching onto him. Maybe because she thought that he knew where he was going.
He said, “I don’t know.”
But it was clear Sherrie didn’t hear him. Or maybe couldn’t.
Benny kept squirming, and Tom felt heat against his hip. Wet heat. Leaky diaper.
Damn.
Only pee, but still.
How do you change a diaper during the end of the world? What’s the procedure there?
“What is it, Tom?”
He wheeled around, wanting to scream at her. To tell her to shut up. To hit her, to knock those stupid words out of her mouth. To break that lipstick structure so it couldn’t hold the words anymore.
She recoiled from him, eyes suddenly huge. In a small and plaintive voice she asked, “What is it, Tom?”
Then the bushes trembled and parted.
There were more of them.
Them.
“Sherrie,” Tom said quickly, “go to my car. It’s right over there. It’s unlocked.”
“What is it?”