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under water, I said.  Next time you try that part and we ll stand here and complain.
Doakes just glared at me and grunted. Then he knelt beside Deborah and said,  You hurt?
 Collarbone, she said.  It s broken. The shock was wearing off rapidly and she was fighting the pain
by biting her lip and taking ragged breaths. I hoped the paramedics had something a little more
effective for her.
Doakes said nothing; he just lifted his glare up to me. Deborah reached out with her good arm and
grabbed his arm.  Doakes, she said, and he looked back at her.  Find him, she said. He just watched
her as she gritted her teeth and gasped through another wave of pain.
 Coming through here, one of the paramedics said. He was a wiry young guy with a spiky haircut,
and he and his older, thicker partner had maneuvered their gurney through the chain-link fence where
Deb s car had torn a gap. Doakes tried to stand to let them get to Deborah, but she pulled on his arm
with surprising strength.
 Find him, she said again. Doakes just nodded, but it was enough for her. Deborah let go of his arm
and he stood up to give the paramedics room. They swooped in and gave Debs a once-over, and they
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moved her onto their gurney, raised it up, and began to wheel her toward the waiting ambulance. I
watched her go, wondering what had happened to our dear friend in the white van. He had a flat
tire how far could he get? It seemed likely that he would try to switch to a different vehicle, rather
than stop and call AAA to help him change the tire. So somewhere nearby, we would be very likely to
find the abandoned van and a missing car.
Out of an impulse that seemed extremely generous, considering his attitude toward me, I moved over
to tell Doakes my thoughts. But I only made it a step and a half in his direction when I heard a
commotion coming our way. I turned to look.
Running at us up the middle of the street was a chunky middle-aged guy in a pair of boxer shorts and
nothing else. His belly hung over the band of his shorts and wobbled wildly as he came and it was clear
that he had not had much practice at running, and he made it harder on himself by waving his arms
around over his head and shouting,  Hey! Hey! Hey! as he ran. By the time he crossed the ramp from
I-95 and got to us he was breathless, gasping too hard to say anything coherent, but I had a pretty
good idea what he wanted to say.
 De bang, he gasped out, and I realized that his breathlessness and his Cuban accent had combined,
and he was trying to say,  The van.
 A white van? With a flat tire? And your car is gone, I said, and Doakes looked at me.
But the gasping man was shaking his head.  White van, sure. I hear I thought it s a dog inside, maybe
hurt, he said, and paused to breath deeply so he could properly convey the full horror of what he had
seen.  And then 
But he was wasting his precious breath. Doakes and I were already sprinting up the street in the
direction he had come from.
CHAPTER 21
S ERGEANT DOAKES APPARENTLY FORGOT HE WAS SUPPOSED to be following me,
because he beat me to the van by a good twenty yards. Of course he had the very large advantage of
having both shoes, but still, he moved quite well. The van was run up on the sidewalk in front of a pale
orange house surrounded by a coral-rock wall. The front bumper had thumped a rock corner post and
toppled it, and the rear of the vehicle was skewed around to face the street so we could see the bright
yellow of the Choose Life license plate.
By the time I caught up with Doakes he already had the rear door open and I heard the mewling noise
coming from inside. It really didn t sound quite so much like a dog this time, or maybe I was just
getting used to it. It was a slightly higher pitch than before, and a little bit choppier, more of a shrill
gurgle than a yodel, but still recognizable as the call of one of the living dead.
It was strapped to a backless car seat that had been turned sideways, so it ran the length of the interior.
The eyes in their lidless sockets were rolling wildly back and forth, up and down, and the lipless,
toothless mouth was frozen into a round O and it was squirming the way a baby squirms, but without
arms and legs it couldn t manage any significant movement.
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Doakes was crouched over it, looking down at the remainder of its face with an intense lack of
expression.  Frank, he said, and the thing rolled its eyes to him. The yowling paused for just a
moment, and then resumed on a higher note, keening with a new agony that seemed to be begging for
something.
 You recognize this one? I asked.
Doakes nodded.  Frank Aubrey, he said.
 How can you tell? I asked. Because really, you would think that all former humans in this condition
would be awfully hard to tell apart. The only distinguishing mark I could see was forehead wrinkles.
Doakes kept looking at it, but he grunted once and nodded at the side of the neck.  Tattoo. It s
Frank. He grunted again, leaning forward and flicking a small piece of notepaper taped to the bench. I
leaned in for a look: in the same spidery hand I had seen before Dr. Danco had written HONOR.
 Get the paramedics, Doakes said.
I hurried over to where they were just closing the back doors of the ambulance.  Do you have room
for one more? I asked.  He won t take up a lot of space, but he ll need heavy sedation.
 What kind of condition is he in? the spike-haired one asked me.
It was a very good question for someone in his profession to ask, but the only answers that occurred to
me seemed a little flippant, so I just said,  I think you may want heavy sedation, too.
They looked at me like they thought I was kidding and didn t really appreciate the seriousness of the
situation. Then they looked at each other and shrugged.  Okay, pal, the older one said.  We ll
squeeze him in. The spike-haired paramedic shook his head, but he turned and opened the back door
of the ambulance again and began pulling out the gurney.
As they wheeled down the block to Danco s crashed van I climbed in the back of the ambulance to see
how Debs was doing. Her eyes were closed and she was very pale, but she seemed to be breathing
easier. She opened one eye and looked up at me.  We re not moving, she said.
 Dr. Danco crashed his van.
She tensed and tried to sit up, both eyes wide open.  You got him?
 No, Debs. Just his passenger. I think he was about to deliver it, because it s all done.
I had thought she was pale before, but she almost vanished now.  Kyle, she said.
 No, I told her.  Doakes says it s someone named Frank.
 Are you sure?
 Apparently positive. There s a tattoo on his neck. It s not Kyle, Sis.
Deborah closed her eyes and drifted back down onto the cot as if she was a deflating balloon.  Thank
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God, she said.
 I hope you don t mind sharing your cab with Frank, I said.
She shook her head.  I don t mind, she said, and then her eyes opened again.  Dexter. No fucking
around with Doakes. Help him find Kyle. Please?
It must have been the drugs working on her, because I could count on one finger the number of times I
had heard her ask anything so plaintively.  All right, Debs. I ll do my best, I said, and her eyes
fluttered closed again.
 Thanks, she said.
I got back to Danco s van just in time to see the older paramedic straighten up from where he had
obviously been vomiting, and turn to talk to his partner, who was sitting on the curb mumbling to
himself over the sounds that Frank was still making inside.  Come on, Michael, the older guy said.
 Come on, buddy.
Michael didn t seem interested in moving, except for rocking back and forth as he repeated,  Oh God.
Oh Jesus. Oh God. I decided he probably didn t need my encouragement, and went around to the
driver s door of the van. It was sprung open and I peeked in. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]