The City of Mirrors (The Passage 3)

Caleb was sitting on the front stoop, watching the night come on.

That afternoon, he’d inspected the hardbox, which he hadn’t looked at in months. He’d built it only to please his father; it had seemed silly at the time. Tornadoes happened, yes, some people had even been killed, but what were the chances? Caleb had cleared the hatch of leaves and other debris and descended the ladder. The interior was cool and dark. A kerosene lantern and jugs of fuel stood along one wall; the hatch sealed from the inside with a pair of steel crossbars. When Caleb had shown the shelter to Pim, their second night at the farm, he’d felt a little embarrassed by the thing, which seemed like an expensive and unwarranted indulgence, completely out of step with the optimism of their enterprise. But Pim had taken it in stride. Your father knows a thing or two, she signed. Stop apologizing. I’m glad you took the time.

Now, looking west, Caleb took measure of the sun. Its bottom edge was just kissing the top of the ridgeline. In its final moments, it appeared to accelerate, as it always did.

Going, going, gone.

He felt the air change. Everything around him seemed to stop. But in the next instant, something caught his eye—a rustling, high in a pecan tree at the edge of the woods. What was he seeing? Not birds; the motion was too heavy. He got to his feet. A second tree shuddered, then a third.

He recalled a phrase from the past. When they come, they come from above.

He had levered a round into the chamber of his rifle when, behind him, in the house, a voice cried out his name.

—

“Hold up a second,” Hollis said.

An Army truck was tipped on its side in the roadway; one of its back wheels was still spinning with a creaking sound.

Sara quickly dismounted. “Somebody might be hurt.”

Hollis followed her to the truck. The cab was empty.

“Maybe they walked out of here,” Hollis said.

“No, this just happened.” She looked down the road then pointed. “There.”

The soldier was lying on his back. He was breathing in quick bursts, eyes open, staring at the sky. Sara dropped to her knees beside him. “Soldier, look at me. Can you speak?” He was acting like a man who was badly injured, yet there was no blood, no obvious sign of anything broken. The sleeves of his uniform bore the two stripes of a corporal. He rolled his face toward her, exposing a small wound, bright with blood, at the base of his throat.

“Run,” he croaked.

—

Caleb burst into the house. Pim was holding Theo, backing away from the door to Dory’s room; Bug and Elle were clustered at her legs.

Kate’s voice: “Caleb, come quick!”

Dory was thrashing on the bed, spittle spewing from her lips. With a sound like a sneeze, her teeth flew from her mouth. Kate was standing by the bed, holding the revolver.

“Shoot her!” Caleb yelled.

Kate seemed not to hear him. With a sickening crunch, Dory’s fingers elongated, gleaming claws extending from their tips. Her body had begun to glow. Her jaw unlocked; her mouth opened wide, revealing the picketed teeth.

“Shoot her now!”

Kate was frozen in place. As Caleb raised the rifle, Dory jolted upright, rolled into a crouch, and sprang toward the two of them. A confusion of bodies, Dory crashing into Kate, Kate crashing into Caleb; the rifle spat from his hand and skittered across the floor. On his hands and knees, Caleb scrambled toward it. He was yelling for Pim to run, though of course the woman couldn’t hear him. His hand found the weapon, and he rolled onto his back. Kate was pushing herself backward toward the opposite wall; Dory stood above her, jaws flexing, fingers extended, strumming the air. Caleb lifted his back off the floor, widened his knees, and leveled the rifle at her with both hands.

“Dory Tatum!”

At the sound of her name, she stiffened, as if struck by a curious thought.

“You’re Dory Tatum! Phil is your husband! Look at me!”

She turned toward him, exposing her upper body. One shot, thought Caleb, taking the center of her chest into his sights, and then he squeezed the trigger.

—

The soldier began to shake. The motion began at his fingers, which bent into clawlike shapes, like the talons of a hawk. A groan poured from deep in his throat. The shaking hardened into a whole-body convulsion, his spine arcing, spittle boiling to his lips. Sara was on her feet and backing away. She knew what she was seeing. It seemed impossible, and yet it was happening before her eyes. She sensed movement above her, yet she could not tear her eyes away from the soldier, whose transformation was occurring with unheard-of speed.

“Sara, come on! We have to get out of here!”