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Kittridge had scouted out the parking garage the day of his arrival The Ferrari was parked near the southwest corner, a distance of approximately two hundred feet He probably should have moved it closer to the door, but it had taken him three days to locate Warren’s keys-who kept his car keys in a bathroom drawer?-by which time he’d already barricaded himself inside the penthouse
The fob had four buttons: two for the doors, one for the alarm, and one that, he hoped, was a remote starter He pressed this one first
Frole-noted bleep, followed by the throaty roar of the Ferrari’s engine Another mistake: the Ferrari was parked nose to the wall He should have thought of that Not only would this slow his escape; if the car had been facing the opposite way, its headlights would have given hie’s interior All he could h the stairwell door’s tiny as a distant, glowing region where the car awaited, a cat purring in the dark The rest of the garage was veiled in blackness The infected liked to hang fro with a tactile surface The tiniest fissure would suffice When they came, they came from above
The moment of decision was upon him Toss h the darkness, seeking cover? Throw open the door and run like hell?
Then, fro stairwell door He held his breath and listened There were two of them He stepped back from the door and craned his neck upward Ten stories above, a pair of red dots were dancing off the walls
He shoved the door open and ran like hell
He had made it halfway to the Ferrari when the first viral dropped behind hi The pain in his knee felt like a wick of flame, an ice pick buried to the bone Fro awareness of beings awakening, the garage co to life He threw open the door of the Ferrari, tossed the AK and rucksack onto the passenger seat, got in, and sla he felt like he was sitting on the ground The dashboard, full of lowed like a spacecraft’s So of ht of it The viral had bounded onto the hood, folding its body into a reptilian crouch For a frozenits prey It was nad except for a atch, a gleaht, for the e had walked him to the car Warren, old buddy, is that you? Because if it is, I wouldn’t ear
He discovered, then, with the tips of his fingers, a pair of levers positioned on the undersides of the steering wheel Paddle shifters He should have thought of that, too Up on the right, down on the left, like a motorcycle Reverse would be a button soenius That one
He pushed the button and hit the gas Too fast: with a squeal of s rubber, the Ferrari jolted backward and slae was hurled back into his seat, then tossed forward again, his head slass of the side ith an audible thud His brain chiht danced in his eyes There was so and beautiful, but another voice inside him said that to contemplate this vision, even for atu froht through the windshield
Two red dots appeared on the viral’s chest
With a birdlike quickness, the creature broke its gaze froh the stairwell door Kittridge swung the steering wheel and gripped the right paddle, engaging the transmission as he pressed the accelerator A lurch and then a leap of speed: he was thrust back into his seat as he heard a blast of autoht he’d lose control of the car again he found the straightaway, the walls of the garage streaht hie beheld, in the glow of his taillights, what appeared to be the detonation of a hu of parts The second soldier was nowhere visible, though if Kittridge had to bet, he’d say the man was surely dead already, torn to bloody hunks
He didn’t look back again
The ramp to the street was located two floors above, at the far end of the garage As Kittridge downshifted into the first corner, engine roaring, tires shrieking, two , into his path One fell under his wheels with a da Ferrari, striding it like a hurdler Kittridge felt a stab of wonder, even of admiration In school, he had learned that you couldn’t catch a fly with your hand because time was different to a fly: in a fly’s brain, a second was an hour, and an hour was a year That’s what the infected were like Like beings outside of ti fro themselves at the car like suicides, driven by the , theirwith the windshield before being hurled up and over, away Twoto the roof now Kittridge braked around the corner, fishtailing on the slick ce onto the hood A woown Gouging her fingers into the gap at the base of the windshield, she drew herself onto all fours Her mouth, a bear trap of blood-lined teeth, was open very wide; a tiny golden crucifix dangled at the base of her throat I’ht as he drew one of the pistols, steadied it over the steering wheel, and fired through the windshield
He blasted around the final corner; ahead, a shaft of golden daylight showed the way Kittridge hit the ra The exit was sealed by a er, no obstacle at all Kittridge took aied the pedal to the floor, and ducked
A furious crash; for two full seconds, an eternity in miniature, the Ferrari went airborne It rocketed into the sunshine, concussing the pave froe Freedo to stop hi to careen into the lobby of the bank across the street As Kittridge bounced across thefor the i rubber, the tires bit and held, and the next thing Kittridge kneas flying down the avenue, into the spring
He had to admit it What had Warren’s exact words been? You should feel the way she handles
It was true Kittridge had never driven anything like it in his life
Chapter 5
For a ti time, which was no time at all, the man known as Lawrence Grey-foristered sex offender of the Texas Department of Public Safety; civilian employee of Project NOAH and the Division of Special Weapons; Grey the Source, the Unleasher of Night, Familiar of the One Called Zero-was nowhere at all He was nothing and no place, a being annihilated, possessing neither memory nor history, his consciousness dispersed across a shoreless sea of no di his na to him as he floated alone, one with the darkness, adrift in an ocean of forever; and all above, the stars
But not just the stars For now had coht that swelled above his face Blades of shadow ht a sound: aortal, heartlike, a thru Grey watched it, this wonderful, gyring light; and the thought crept into his consciousness that what he beheld was God The light was God in his heaven above,the face of the world like the he his creation The knowledge blossomed inside Grey in a burst of sweetness Such joy! Such understanding and forgiveness! The light was God and God was love; Grey had only to enter it, to go into the light, to feel that love forever And a voice said:
It’s ti, lifted up He rose and as he rose the sky spread its wings, receiving hiht, which was al and obliterating, like the sound of a screa Grey, reborn