Contagious

Mister Jenkins and Mommy, come here.

Seconds later they ran through the door and shut it behind them to keep out the cold. They were both s.h.i.+vering.

“Whoa,” Mommy said. “They’re bigger already.”

“The dollies are growing fast,” Chelsea said. “Pretty soon they will start building the gate. Are you getting enough stuff?”

Mr. Jenkins nodded. “There’s a lot of wood in this building. I spent the whole night dragging in sticks and bushes, stuff like that.”

“And I found a lot of trash,” Mommy said. “Mister Burkle is out collecting as well.”

Chelsea smiled. Mommy and Mr. Jenkins sounded like they knew what to do.

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Chelsea said. “I want McDonald’s.”

“I don’t know if there’s one around here,” Mommy said. “Besides, it’s dark out.”

“But I want McDonald’s!”

Mommy took a step back. She was scared. She should be scared—Daddy was gone, but Chelsea could make Mr. Jenkins use the spanky-spoon just as well as Daddy had.

Mr. Jenkins pulled out a cell phone. “Give me a second, Chelsea. I’ll Google it and see if I can find one, okay?”

Chelsea nodded. “And I want ice cream bars. Lots of them.”

“I saw a party store not too far from here,” Mommy said. “I could go grab food there.”

“Found one,” Mr. Jenkins said, looking up from his phone. “It’s a couple miles from here.”

“Go get me McDonald’s, Mommy. I want McDonald’s.”

“Your mother shouldn’t go,” Mr. Jenkins said. “This is a bad neighborhood. It’s nighttime. A woman on her own out there... won’t do well.

I’ll walk, but it’s two miles away, so might take me an hour and a half.”

“Can you take Mister Korves’s motorcycle?” Chelsea asked.

Mr. Jenkins shook his head. “No, I don’t know how to ride.”

“Then walk,” Chelsea said. “And make it fast.”

Mr. Jenkins nodded rapidly.

“Do you have enough money?” Mommy asked.

“I’ll find an ATM,” he said. “I’ll stock up. We’re going to be here for a few more days.”

“Two more,” Chelsea said. “Two more days, and then the angels come. Now get going, and don’t you dare forget the ice cream.”

Mr. Jenkins ran off, his fat shaking with every step. Mommy ran out behind him before the Winnebago door could even close. They did what Chelsea said, and that was as it should be.

They all did what she said—all but one.

Chelsea closed her eyes and spread her mind, reaching out. Where

She found him, but she couldn’t connect. Something was blocking her. Chauncey.

What are you doing, Chauncey? Are you stopping me from scaring the boogeyman?

I told you not to connect to him.

And I told you you’re not the boss of me.

Chelsea, the destroyer is not a toy.

He has stopped the angels four times.

If he finds you, he will kill you.

When you connect to him, you risk everything.

Chelsea felt angry. Not just at the boogeyman but at Chauncey.

No one can tell me what to do. Not anymore.

Chelsea waited for him to reply. He didn’t. Instead, hundreds of images smashed into her brain like rapid-fire visual lightning. Images of the boogeyman burning hosts, strangling them, hitting them, killing them.

Chauncey, stop it.

She started to shake, yet the images kept coming, images of soldiers shooting dollies, stabbing them, stomping them. Pretty dolly bodies smas.h.i.+ng, purple stuff squis.h.i.+ng out in long, gloopy jets.

Chauncey, no!

She couldn’t breathe, yet still the images came. Images of gates, beautiful gates, exploding, disintegrating, breaking into tiny pieces and the pieces rotting to blackness. She felt that pressure in her bladder again...

Okay, I won’t contact him. I promise!

The images stopped.

Chelsea took a deep breath. The boogeyman, he wasn’t a game at all. He was death. For-real death, not movie death.

Now you understand. If you connect with him, you bring death upon your people.

She ran her hand down to where her bathing suit went. The front of her pants was a little damp. Chauncey had caused that, but it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t the one who killed, who burned, who destroyed. He wasn’t the one who had made her pee her pants a second time.

It was the boogeyman’s fault.

And sooner or later, she would make him pay.

NO MEANS NO

Another dark night at the ruins of Clan Jewell. Cold as s.h.i.+t. Again. Dew hated the cold. He, Margaret and Perry stood in what had once been the Jewells’ kitchen. A bright half-moon lit up the snow in a silvery light. Barely an inch of fluff already covered most of the blackened remains, a layer of white sitting on top of cindered chunks of wood and warped appliances.

They stood there, out there in the cold, because Perry still refused to go inside the trailer. He wouldn’t go near the hatchlings.

“Perry, they’re locked in individual cages,” Margaret said. “They can’t get to you.”

She had changed; Dew could hear it in her voice. So much anger in her now, so different from the Margaret Montoya he’d met months ago. She’d been devastated after Amos’s death, but now? Now an unhealthy dose of rage brewed in her little chest.

“There’s no way they can get out of those cages,” she said.

“It’s not... not that,” Perry said. His words sounded strained, broken, as if he had to work to complete a sentence. He stood still, but his upper body bobbed slightly back and forth.

“Perry,” Dew said, “you got to sack up.”

Perry shook his head. Shook it violently. Made him look like a r.e.t.a.r.ded dog.

“Look,” Dew said. “Something is blocking you, but if you’re close to the triangles, you can hear?”