As if in answer to his question, he passed an Oldsmobile parked on the side of the road. Nearly every shard of glass had been busted out, the exterior covered in dents and scratches. Someone had tried to flee to the outskirts of town, only to have a group of abbies find them.

At the Sharp Curve Ahead sign, he veered off the road into the forest.

Kept his speed up in the trees.

The boulders appeared in the distance.

He had a pocketful of shotgun shells and no shotgun.

A devastating pistol with no rounds left.

Not exactly the ideal setup for what he was about to do.

The large outcropping that masked the entrance to the superstructure loomed a hundred yards ahead.

Ethan shifted into second, tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Fifty yards.

He had the pedal down against the floorboard, the heat of the overworked engine coming through the vents.

At twenty-five yards, he braced himself.

The speedometer holding steady.

He was driving at forty miles per hour into a wall of rock.

THERESA BURKE

THERESA BURKE

She was in Seattle, their old home in Queen Anne—her family in the backyard on one of those perfect summer evenings when you could see everything. Rainier. The Puget Sound and the Olympics across the water. Lake Union and the skyline. Everything cool and green and the water shimmering as the sun fell. All that suffering through the chill, gray days of endless drizzle was rewarded with nights like this. The city almost too beautiful to take.

Ethan stood by the grill, cooking salmon filets on planks of wine-soaked cedar. Ben strummed an acoustic guitar in a hammock. She was there. Everything so vibrant, the dream verging toward lucidity. She even questioned the reality as she moved to her husband and placed her hands on his shoulders, but she could smell the fish cooking, could actually feel the sunlight hit her eyes, and the good bourbon she was drinking was a pleasant lethargy in her legs.

She said, “I think those look ready,” and then the world began to shake and even though her eyes were already open, she somehow opened them again to find Ben shaking her awake.

She sat up from the cold rock floor of the cavern, her bearings lost. For a moment, she had no idea where she was. People were running past her toward a heavy log door that now stood wide open.

The dream was fading fast, the real world rushing back in like a pounding hangover. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d dreamed of her life before, and the timing now seemed especially cruel.

She looked at Ben and said, “Why is the door open?”

“We have to leave, Mom.”

“Why?”

“The abbies are coming back. One of the watchers saw a swarm of them scaling the cliffs.”

That jerked her back into full consciousness.

“How many?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”