She studied Ethan, as if trying to process exactly how bad a piece of news she’d just received.

“So those things . . .” she said. “The aberrations . . .”

“They can walk right into town now. And they’re coming. I heard them at the fence.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Even a small group would be catastrophic.”

Kate glanced back at the crowd.

The conversations were dying out, people edging closer to hear the news.

“Some of us have weapons,” she said. “A few have machetes.”

“That’s not going to cut it.”

“Can’t you reason with Pilcher? Call him back? Change his mind?”

“We’re past that point.”

“Then we get everyone back inside the opera house,” she said. “There are no windows. Just one exit on either side of the stage. Double doors leading in. We’ll barricade ourselves inside.”

“What if we’re under siege for days? No food. No heat. No water. And there’s no amount of barricading that will keep the abbies out indefinitely.”

“Then what, Ethan?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t just send people back to their homes.”

“Some have already gone.”

“I told you to keep everyone here.”

“I tried.”

“How many went home?”

“Fifty, sixty.”

“Jesus.”

Ethan spotted Theresa and Ben—his precious family—moving toward him through the crowd.

He said, “If I can get into the superstructure, if I can show Pilcher’s inner circle who the man they serve really is, then we might have a chance.”

“So go. Right now.”

“I’m not leaving my family. Not like this. Not without a real plan.”

Theresa reached him. She’d pulled her long blonde hair into a ponytail, and both she and Ben were dressed in dark clothing.

Ethan kissed her, then ruffled Ben’s hair. Ethan could already see the man his twelve-year-old boy might become shining through his eyes. Maturity threatening.

“What did you find?” Theresa asked him.

“Nothing good.”

“I’ve got it,” Kate said. “We need to be somewhere safe while you break into the superstructure.”

“Right.”

“Somewhere protected. Defendable. Already stockpiled with provisions.”

“Exactly.”

She smiled. “I might actually know of a place like that.”

Ethan said, “The Wanderers’ cavern.”

“Yeah.”

“That might work. I have guns at the sheriff’s station.”

“Go get them. Take Brad Fisher with you.” She pointed to the sidewalk. “He’s right over there.”

“How are we going to get this many people up the cliff?”

“I’ll separate everyone into groups of a hundred,” Kate said, “with each group led by someone who knows the way.”

“What do we do about the ones who went home?” Theresa asked.

She was answered with a single, distant scream.

The crowd had been murmuring.

Now everyone went silent.

The sound had come from south of town—a fragile, malignant moan.

Nothing that could be explained or described, because you didn’t just hear it.

You felt its meaning.

And its meaning was this: hell is coming.