CHAPTER 58

“Thomas.”

The boy groaned and rolled over.

“Thomas, come on, son. Wake up.”

The boy groaned.

Aaron gave his son a hard shake.

“Thomas,” he hissed. “Wake up. Come on, we gotta move.”

The boy’s eyes fluttered open. He looked up at Aaron as though he hoped all this was a dream, like they were still back in Jackson, Mississippi, living a normal life. But the look faded, and Aaron could almost see the light bleed away from his face.

“We don’t have much time, okay? We gotta move.”

Thomas nodded. There was no fear in him. No emotion of any kind. Not really. His expression was dead. He got up from his cot and grabbed his small duffel bag and stood in the middle of his small room, waiting patiently for instructions.

“Your mother’s waiting on us,” Aaron said. “Did you wear your long johns like I asked you to?”

Thomas nodded.

“How about a gun?”

Thomas nodded.

“Okay. Might as well get it out. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble, but just in case.”

They walked to the living room where Kate stood waiting. Husband and wife traded looks. Then Kate’s gaze shifted to Thomas coming out of his room, stuffing the pistol into his belt, and she gasped.

“So this is it,” she said. “This is where it ends.”

Aaron nodded. He held out both hands and his wife took one and Thomas took the other and they formed a circle.

They each bowed their heads and quietly Aaron prayed for their safe deliverance.

Aaron had planned their escape in haste, but he thought his plan was a good one. During one of his many forays into the deserted towns that surrounded the Grasslands compound, Barnes and his men had brought two trailer loads of chemicals into the camp. Those chemicals were now hidden down near the west fence, just south of the auxiliary-vehicle storage lot. The barrels were placed into two separate piles, so that they didn’t accidentally mix before Jasper was ready for them to, and then each pile was covered with several layers of heavy-duty tarp. Snowdrifts had covered the piles during the previous night, and the twin mounds created a perfect break for his family to hide behind while Aaron cut the fence. From there, they’d have to cross a few hundred yards of open, snow-covered grassland, dodging the infected as best they could, before coming to the old county road. Aaron had used his ability to move in and out of the gates to leave a fully gassed Chevy pickup about a quarter mile up the road beyond that. With any luck, they’d reach it in less than forty-five minutes.

The moon was nearly full, but the sky was full of heavy gray clouds and falling snow. Aaron put his family into the hollow behind the mounds and went to work on the fence with a pair of wire cutters, hoping that the bad weather would offer them a little extra cover from the roving patrols and the zombies.

“Dad,” Thomas said, his voice barely a whisper.

Aaron turned around, his eyes scanning the village for movement.

“Dad, what is this stuff?”

Aaron saw where Thomas had cleared some of the snow away with his hand and lifted the tarp, exposing several barrels of Bonide.

“A sulfur spray,” Aaron said. “They use it as an insecticide.” He nodded at the other mound. “That one over there is muriatic acid. The muriatic acid is used to clean pools.”

“We don’t have any pools here, Dad,” Thomas said.

“No, we don’t. But if you mix the two together, you get a noxious gas. Makes you pass out.”

“And then?”

“And then,” Aaron said, “the heart stops.”

“You mean it kills you.”

Aaron nodded. He clipped the last of the fence and started peeling it out of the way.

“But there’s enough here to kill everyone in the village,” Thomas said.

“Leave it be, son,” Aaron said. “We have to go.”

“Dad, you knew about this?”

Reluctantly, Aaron nodded. “Come on now. We need to go.”

The boy’s eyes went wide.

“Thomas?”

The boy stiffened. He shook his head and Aaron’s stomach dropped. He turned slowly, and saw Michael Barnes standing behind him, two of his security guards flanking him with rifles at the ready.

“Evening, folks,” Barnes said. He scanned their faces, smiling.

Aaron hung his head. Above and all around him, the prairie wind howled. A moment later, rifle fire split the night.

At the sound of the shots, heads popped up from the snow outside the fence. Michael Barnes watched the infected moving toward the hole Aaron had made in the fence, the volume of their moans building. They were going to be a problem, but not a big one.

To his patrols Barnes said, “Keep this secure. Hold it as long as you can, but when you hear the call to come up, you come running. Understand? It won’t matter if they get in at that point.”

The two men nodded. Barnes took a last look at the dead bodies of Aaron and his wife and son, shook his head, and then headed back to the pavilion.