Melissa closed her eyes. “Not hardly. We have to run, girls.” She pointed toward the tracks. “There’s tons more fireworks waiting for us that way.”

“Just give me a minute,” Rex said. His torso was bruised all over, his ankle aching, his vision and hearing swarming with echoes of the explosion. His lungs felt scorched, as if he’d inhaled too much bonfire smoke.

He didn’t hear Melissa’s words at first.

“Rex?” Her hand pulled at his jacket.

“Just a second.”

“We have to go now.”

“I can barely stand.”

“Look.” She reached up and bare fingers brushed his neck, her mind entering him in a wild rush. He saw what was coming….

“Oh, crap.” Rex shuddered. He’d been a fool, all his plans empty gestures. “I never knew.”

Melissa took her hand away and lifted his weight onto her shoulder, pulling him forward. “We can help Jenks, anyway.”

They set off through the trees, Rex’s battered body responding once more to the commands of his will. He didn’t bother to look back, but the jittering of the branches ahead showed that the girls were following, their flares casting wild shadows through the forest. The tracks were only a few minutes away, but it all seemed futile….

Rex shut his eyes and ran, ignoring the pain, trying to erase the image that Melissa had given him. A flood of darklings, a wave that darkened the sky, a vast horde beyond anything in the lore. Their fireworks would present nothing but a trivial detour to the onslaught.

Jessica Day was their only hope.

31

12:00 A.M.—

LONG MIDNIGHT

LIGHTNING

They bounded down the railroad tracks, following the rip. It stretched out before them, a red arrow pointed at the heart of Bixby.

“Can we make it in time?”

Jonathan nodded. “It’s clearing the way for us, knocking down the frozen rain as it goes. But watch out when we get ahead of it. Water sucks.”

“Jonathan!”

A man stood on the tracks ahead of them, dressed in a bathrobe and wearing an expression of disbelief. They took an extra-high jump so as not to hit him, and his pale face lifted to watch them pass overhead.

“Okay, that was weird,” Jessica said.

“There are more of them. The rip is getting crowded. And not just with humans.”

As they neared Bixby, houses became more frequent. They saw more people wandering around, first alone or in twos and threes, then in crowds gathered on the street. Some of them stared up in wonder at Jessica and Jonathan, but many didn’t even noticed as they soared overhead, too dazzled by the blue-red world around them.

“You think Rex is right?” she said. “Can we really stop this?”

“If he isn’t, most of these people are in big trouble. They’re just standing here, right in the middle of the rip.”

“At least the darklings aren’t here yet.”

He pointed ahead. “Some of them are.”

Before them was another of the creatures made of wispy, grasping tendrils. It hovered over a small group gathered in the backyard of a house, what must have been a Halloween party going late. Everyone was in costume—knights and devils and cowboys and even a white-sheeted ghost all standing almost motionless. The darkling thing had a tendril wrapped around each of them, and Jessica saw that their hands were shaking, as if each was trapped in their own silent, private horrors.