“I’m trying!” There were three now, coming out of the shadows toward the ladder’s base; Peter took a step to his right, clamping the stock hard against his shoulder. Aim it like a cross. He had very little chance of hitting them, but maybe he could scare them off. He squeezed the trigger and they jumped away, rolling across the yard and skittering into the dark. He’d bought a few seconds at most.

“Shut up and climb!” he yelled.

“I will if you stop shooting at me!”

Then she was at the top. He found her hand and pulled hard, vaulting her onto the concrete surface of the roof. Caleb was waving to them from the mouth of the hatch.

“Behind you!”

As Alicia clambered down the hatch, Peter turned; a single viral was standing on the edge of the roof. Peter raised his gun and fired, but too late. The place where the creature had stood was empty.

“Forget the smokes!” Alicia yelled from below. “Come on!”

He dropped straight through the opening, tumbling into Caleb, who folded under him with a grunt. A sharp pain sliced his ankle as he hit the platform; the rifle clattered away. Alicia stepped over the two of them and reached up to seal the hatch. But something was pressing down on the other side. Alicia’s face clenched with exertion; her feet scrabbled at the ladder, fighting for leverage.

“I … can’t … close it!”

Peter and Caleb leapt to their feet and pushed. But the force on the far side was too great. Peter had done something to his ankle when he’d fallen, but the pain was vague now, unimportant. He scanned the platform below for his rifle and found it, lying at the top of the stairs.

“Let go,” he said. “Drop the hatch. It’s the only way.”

“Are you crazy?” But then he saw, in Alicia’s eyes, that she understood his intentions. “Good, do it.” She turned to Caleb, who nodded. “Ready?”

“One … two … ”

“Three!”

They released the hatch. Peter dropped to the platform, the pain exploding in his ankle as he made impact; he lunged for the rifle and swung around, thrusting the muzzle upward through the opening. There was no time to aim, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to.

He didn’t. The end of the barrel went straight into the viral’s open mouth. The barrel speared him like an arrow, sliding past the rows of glossy teeth, coming to rest where it pressed against the bony ridge at the top of his throat, and Peter looked him in the eyes and thought, Be still, giving the rifle one hard shove to drive it home before he shot Zander Phillips through the brain.

Chapter Twenty-One

TWENTY-ONE

There was one great difference between the world as it was now and the world of the Time Before, Michael Fisher thought, and it wasn’t the virals. The difference was electricity.