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Cloud A dark, gray cloud

He keptat that crazy cloud up in the sky

He stepped onto Astrid’s street Froe strewn out over trees and yards and draped over fences

Then the house That stopped hione

And there stood Astrid, right up on top, right out in the open because the walls were all gone, and there was her ’tard brother, only he was kind of, like, floating in the air above a bed

Orc gaped up at Astrid, but she didn’t notice hi up at the sky, up at the cloud Her hands were at her side In one hand she held a huge-looking pistol

A brilliant flash lit everything up

A tree not ten feet away blew apart

CRRR-ACK!

BOOOOM!

Lightning Thunder

Splinters and leaves from the tree came down in a shower all around Orc

And suddenly the cloud seemed to drop from the sky, only it wasn’t the cloud itself, it was rain Gray strea into a cold shower The rain fell on Orc’s , upturned face It pooled in his eyes, it ran in streah his quarry of a body

Astrid cried out, words irrelevant Orc heard the despair, the fear She was soaked through, standing there with her big gun, screa

Orc opened his mouth and water flowed in Clean, fresh, as cold as ice water

Chapter Twenty-Four

9 HOURS, 6 MINUTES

BRITTNEY SAW THE huge, blue-eyed bugs She saw the cave And she understood none of it

Then she saw Ja The blood that soaked theun

The bugs skittered ht, nine, ten times their own size Like busy ants But ants the size of wolves or Shetland ponies