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"What?" de up at hi about hoe both need another shower"

He blinked before s back "Doesn’t seeainst the side of the boat My head whipped around, all traces of levity--and I knew that it had been artificial giddiness, conjured up by our escape and by the potentially false proain before resolving itself into a steady tattoo of concussive bangs

"Oh, no," Idown at the sea of sleepwalkers crushed onto the dock They were beating their hands against the side of the boat, so with open pal against the iathering speed at what felt like an i with us, and h the door into the launch area, drawn by the sound of the boat’s engine asto be crushed," said Nathan, sounding horrified I turned to see hi by his feet They looked so normal, like they had no place in this scene It was hard to believe that any of us did

"They’re going to drown," I said, not arguing soto the risks that the sleepwalkers faced I turned, trying to getin an open space, with plastic benches stretching behind us and aprotection fro area Dr Banks was sitting on one of the benches, glaring at us like that would soe his situation "Where’s Fishy?"

"The… I don’t knohat you call it on a boat The cockpit is over there" Nathan gestured toward the front of the ferry

"Watch Beverly," I said, and took off running in the direction Nathan had indicated, weaving around benches and a single coil of weathered rope I quickly ran up against a wall, which wasn’t soht le clear aperture, I saw Fishy, standing behind a bank of controls I didn’t understand I tried the door handle, and found it locked

"Fuck," I

Fishy didn’t turn

"Double fuck," I aainst the actualup a din that couldn’t possibly be ine noise Fishy’s shoulders tensed for aat me I waved

It only took him three steps to cross the small cabin and wrench the door open He didn’t wait forback to his controls, turning his back to e of strain in his voice that was decidedly unusual for the usually laconic technician "I’ us out of here alive"

"That’s the problem," I said "The sleepwalkers that followed us here are still trying to attack the boat! They’re going to be killed!"

"How is that h for me to see that he was serious, and then turned his attention back to the water We were still driving through the shadowed depths of the ferry launch, which seelorified waterfront garage "I know the s as her kids, and while she’s welcome to her fucked-up family reunions, I don’t see any need to worry about them Every sleepwalker that dies now is one that won’t be waiting for us e get back"

I stopped His perspective was callous but accurate in at least one regard: we needed the sleepwalker population to go down if anted to coood enough reason to kill the?"

"What do you want enuinely tired "I stop the boat, they swarm up here and kill us all Plus this whole da, which would be one hell of a bu, and they’re not raccoons; they wouldn’t just scatter even if I did"

"An air horn," I said The words had sparked an idea that was as improbable as it was unlikely to work It was all that I had "Thanks, Fishy, you’re the best"

"Whatever, kid" He didn’t look around as I ran back out of the roo to my place on the deck next to Nathan

He hadn’t one Neither had Dr Banks Beverly was trotting up and down along the rail, tail up in a warning position, pausing only to fire offback to the rail, I gripped it with both hands, leaned over as far as I could without getting rabbed by a sleepwalker, and shouted, "Go home! All of you! Go back where you were! Leave! Go!"

It felt uncoh the sky, and about as likely to work Most of the sleepwalkers kept attacking the side of the boat, a constant, unyielding assault that sounded like a hundred h the hull But so their heads back as they looked atin thee was slaved to their parasitic driver, and that parasite was responsive to the phero to Dr Cale, I hat all the sleepwalkers had been trying to become when they tried to take over their hosts, and that meant that they would listen to me I’d seen it work at least once Now I just needed to make it work more