The Children Who Time Lost (47 page)

“Go,” Manuel shouted. “Now.” He opened fire on the Shriniks grappling with Curtis, and many of them backed away. Michael, Doug and I dashed through the gap in the wall and ran outside. Dead bodies greeted us everywhere: north, south, east and west. Some were torn apart, while others were riddled with bullet holes.

“What the hell did this?” I said.

“Curtis,” Doug said. “He must have done most of this.” He shone his torch at the grass ahead of us and we saw more bodies, including the heads of some decapitated Shriniks. Just then we heard a female voice through our earpieces.

“Guys!” It was Mandy’s voice.

“Mandy,” I screamed. “Where are you?”

“I’m coming back now,” she said. “Go down the path. I’ll meet you by the main road.”

We’d started to run when the gunfire behind us suddenly ceased. Then Manuel ran out holding a bloodied Curtis, who had changed back to human form. We looked at them bewildered.

“Run!” Curtis screamed.

The horde of Shriniks ran outside, except this time some had changed back to human form and fired automatic weapons at us. We all bolted down the pathway and called out to Mandy once more. I could see the SUV’s headlights in the distance, but it was still too far. Doug and Michael now had hold of Curtis, both his arms around them. Manuel turned to return fire at the humans interspersed with the Shriniks. A stream of bullets exploded on the ground beside me, and I leaped to my right and almost fell to the ground. I felt Manuel’s strong arms holding me up. More bullets struck nearby trees.

The SUV continued coming, its light now shining in our faces. I squinted and leaped over another mangled body on the ground. Manuel let go of me to shoot at our pursuers, but then he wailed and dropped his M4. He had been hit. I wrapped his left arm over my shoulder, picked his gun up and assisted him. But we now trailed the other three.

“Just go,” Manuel said. “Leave me here.”

“No way.” I turned and fired a few rounds at our pursuers. “We all leave together.”

I grimaced as his bulk continued bearing down on me. More bullets struck the ground beside us. I stopped cold. Another step and I knew we’d be killed. I held Manuel up, my hands and feet juddering. I heard the footsteps behind us halt. I turned around, twisting Manuel with me. Only five Shriniks remained. The rest were human, at least thirty of them. A tall man with thin lips stepped forward. I’d never seen him before, in the future or here. He held an assault rifle and raised it toward my head.

“Call out to your friends,” he said.

I glanced back. Michael, Doug and Curtis were gone, but the SUV’s light was still in the same position, making it possible to see our attackers.

“I said call them,” the tall man said. A Shrinik beside him howled and walked forward, but the man raised his hand and halted it.

I was sure Michael and Doug would continue my fight even if I died. They would find and save Dylan. I shrugged. “You might as well kill me.”

The man laughed and looked at his comrades. They all joined him, as did the Shriniks. Their laugh was dirty and evil, like they were about to take us away and torture us. I looked back again. The SUV still wasn’t moving. “What’re you guys doing?” I whispered into the earpiece. “Just go.”

Nothing came back at first. Then I heard Michael say, “Duck.”

I twisted my head toward Manuel. He met my gaze. Then I leaped at him and we fell to the ground. The ground in front of us exploded, sending a multitude of men and Shriniks flying into the air. A gaping hole opened up in the ground, and an uprooted tree fell over.

What the hell was that?

Another explosion came, bigger this time. The dust that followed it blinded me for a moment. I heard coughing and moaning in the distance and felt the same green substance and blood all over my face and clothes. Scores of the writhing organisms that hung from the Shriniks’ bodies were scattered around us, some disintegrating.

The SUV’s horn was honked twice and Mandy spoke through the earpiece. “You two, hurry. More of them are coming.”

I rose and helped Manuel up, and we ran to the car. Assisting Manuel meant it was barely faster than walking. As I drew closer, I saw Doug holding a long red gun of sorts, except the muzzle was round. It was when I saw the rocket in his left hand that I realized what had caused the huge explosion, an RPG.

“Go,” Doug said. “I’ll cover you.”

I nodded and continued to the SUV. Michael and Mandy ran out and helped to get Manuel into the backseat. I saw Curtis with his head resting on the last set of seats, blood on his arms and some still on the side of his face. I heard another explosion from the RPG and spun around. Gunfire followed, lots of it: reinforcements.

“Doug,” I heard Michael shout. Nothing came back.

“Start the car,” Michael said to Mandy. “We’re right behind you.” He took Manuel’s M4 from me, ran forward and started firing.

Mandy started the car and spun it around. I didn’t know whether to jump in or at least try to help Doug and Michael. Moments later, I saw them both running toward me, waving and urging me into the car. The SUV came to a stop, now facing the opposite direction. I left the front passenger door open and jumped into the back. Michael reached us first and got in the front. After Doug jumped into the back beside Manuel and me, Mandy pushed down on the gas. But another gunshot came, this time ahead of us. The bullet cracked the windshield and the car rolled into a tree and stopped.

Mandy shuddered and jerked back and forth.

“Mandy,” Michael shouted. He held her head up. She spit blood and coughed a few times. Michael dragged her across to him and jumped into the driver’s seat. Another shot came, smashing more of the windshield. I ducked and screamed. I ran my hands over the blood that covered my body. None of it was mine.

At that moment, the car shook as if an earthquake were about to erupt. Then the front rose into the air like someone was lifting us from the ground. We all fell backward. Manuel dropped to the floor. I heard a roar and eventually saw a Shrinik through the windshield, its lizard snout scowling at us.

Michael pulled his Glock and fired a number of bullets into its head, drawing its green blood. But the car kept rising. I felt movement behind me. Curtis was up, and his eyes protruded from his head. A number of organisms also burst from his forehead. He leaped out of the back window, smashing it, and I lost sight of him. Then the car dropped back down. I heard growling outside and saw Curtis tangled with the other Shrinik on the ground. Bullets struck us from behind. More guards from the facility with automatics weapons.

“The M4,” Doug shouted to Michael.

Michael tossed him the assault rifle he had been using and started the car. Doug poked his head out the window and opened fire on the charging men and Shriniks, but they kept coming. Curtis and the other Shrinik rolled around on the grass beside us, smashing into trees and uprooting bushes. But the road ahead was now clear.

Michael poked his head out the window with his Glock. It looked like he was contemplating shooting at the two Shriniks fighting. But like me, he probably didn’t know which was Curtis. Then we heard a scream, and all noise ceased except the sound of Doug’s automatic. A Shrinik leaped onto the car’s hood, holding the decapitated head of another Shrinik. Then it tossed the head into the bushes and began to shrink. The bleeding frame of Curtis reemerged soon after, but he dropped to the ground after completing the metamorphosis. I ran out and picked him up. Manuel opened the door and helped me, grimacing in pain the whole time.

After we shut the door, Doug pulled his head back in and Michael gave the car some gas and peeled out.

We drove for a few minutes before hearing police sirens in the distance. Then we saw a stream of lights headed toward us.

“What’re we gonna do?” I said.

Michael didn’t answer.

“We keep going,” Doug said.

More and more flashing lights appeared. There must have been at least thirty police cars. We heard a gigantic explosion behind us. The ground shook from the shock wave, rocking our car from side to side.

“They’re destroying the evidence,” Manuel said.

The police cars shot past us, the wails from their sirens deafening. They continued coming for over a minute. When everything went silent again, I leaned forward and held Mandy’s head. She wasn’t moving but blinked a few times, her lips still twitching.

“She’ll live,” Michael said. “There’s an exit wound.” He opened the glove compartment and pulled a cell phone out. “I’ll get a doctor.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

W
e had been driving for almost an hour when we neared the exit for I-5 to L.A. and San Francisco. Michael headed toward Stockton instead and stopped for the second time, this time at the side of a deserted road. We were about four hours from L.A., according to the GPS. I looked at Doug and saw him with his head down. I wished there were something I could say or do to ease his pain, but it seemed like the best thing was to let him mourn for a while. I turned to Michael. He typed into his phone for a few seconds. Mandy grunted and tried sitting up, but she grimaced and lay back down. We had pulled into a gas station twenty minutes after fleeing the facility. We bought a first-aid kit and as many spare bandages as possible and took turns using the bathroom, where we washed the foulness from our bodies. I pretended that everyone in the station wasn’t looking at us suspiciously. For all we knew, they’d even called the police. Although we parked the car a few yards from any CCTV cameras, avoiding them seemed like the least of our problems. The Shriniks clearly wielded a huge amount of influence. I kept thinking a chopper would appear in the air, its lights flashing down on us. But nothing came, not even a sea of police officers. It still didn’t mean we were safe. After doing the best he could to patch Mandy up, Michael assured us she was in no immediate danger.

Curtis was up and lucid again, with most of his wound healed. We used some bandages on Manuel. The gunshot wound on his right arm was also superficial, and he was using it freely again. The rest went to Doug, Michael and me. I had a number of cuts and bruises on my arms and legs, but nothing too serious.

Apart from Mandy’s grunting in pain from time to time, the car remained silent. Cars drove by every few minutes, but after each one, nothing stirred, not even the crickets or the birds. We hadn’t spoken of what happened in Sacramento. I kept trying to make sense of it all. Carrie, Jarrod and the mayor of Barstow: all Shriniks and members of the Time Travel Committee. I didn’t know what was real anymore. The lies and deceit ate at me. I hadn’t known Carrie for as long as I’d known Jarrod—I’d actually only spoken with her for just over an hour—but the moment she shared with Dylan and me had meant so much. I thought about the gentle manner with which she spoke to me and the kind words that came from her mouth. But it was probably all pretense. Although she seemed to be trying to save us all from the rogue travelers, I couldn’t help but feel betrayed. And why wouldn’t I? The people from my time who kept popping up everywhere all wanted me dead. I didn’t even know what tangent I was in anymore. Our little escapades at the facility must have caused so many more time wrinkles that my path toward the future had probably skewed in a whole new direction. But the question that kept playing in my mind was what Jarrod’s real agenda was.

I glanced at Curtis. I now had no doubt that he was on our side. He was the reason any of us were still alive. But despair also found its way into my heart. How would I find Dylan now? I’d carried so much hope that he would be at the facility, but now I didn’t know what to think. The master site Sophie had spoken about could have been anywhere. To find it, we needed to find the Orchestrator, if he even existed. To find him, we needed a journal that was probably more heavily guarded than Fort Knox.

Michael turned the radio on and flipped through the news channels. All we heard was brief talk about the economy and a few reports on the devastation caused by the meteor. It was like the nation had already forgotten about all the lives lost and moved on, as if it had been a blip on the stock exchange. Michael suddenly stopped flipping. The words of the reporter drew all of us in.