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The screen flickered to life

ARM? Y N

She pressed Y

TIME?

For a moment she paused Then she typed 5

5:00 CONFIRM? Y N

She pressed Y once an to run

4:59

4:58

4:57

She sealed the panel and rose

"Quickly," she had said to the two of theet out of here now"

Then she’d locked them out

Lacey, please! I don’t knohat to do! Tell me what to do!

You will, Amy, when the moment comes You will knohat is inside you then You will kno to set thee

Now she was alone Her as nearly done When she was certain Peter and Aone, she freed the bolts and opened the door wide

Co in the doorway, she breathed deeply, co out her mind Come to the place where you were made

Lacey waited Five , because it really was

Daas breaking over thetoward the shots They crested a ridge; below them, Michael saw a house, the horses outside Sara and Alicia aving to them from the door

The creatures were behind them now, in the trees They tore down the embankment and dashed inside Greer and Hollis appeared fro a tall chest of drawers

"They’re right behind us," Michael said

They wedged the bureau against the door A hopeless gesture, thought Michael, but it ht buy them a second or two

"What about these s?" Alicia was saying "Anything we can use?"

They tried to et it," Alicia said She drew a pistol from her waistband and pressed it into Michael’s hands "Greer, you and Hollis take thein the bedroom Everyone else stays here Two on the door, one on each , front and back Circuit, you watch the chio for the horses first"

Everyone took their positions

Fro rong, Lacey thought They should have been here by now She could feel theer, their hunger and the question

Who am I?

Who am I?

Who am I?

She stepped into the tunnel

Come to me, she answered Coth; she could ated dawn of the ht of sunrise would hit the off the far side of the valley, its fields of snow and ice

She reached the tunnel’s mouth and stepped out She could see, below her, the tracks and debris of the virals’ ascent up the icy slope A thousand thousand strong, and ripped her Where are you, she thought, and then she said it, hearing the fury in her voice as it echoed over the valley: "Where are you?" But there was silence from heaven

Then, from the stillness, she heard it

I am here

The virals hit the doors and s at once, a furious crash of breaking glass and splintering wood Peter, bracing the bureau with his shoulder, was blown backward, into A from the bedroo

"Fall back!" Alicia was yelling "The door’s collapsing!"

Peter grabbed Amy by the arm and pulled her into the bedrooround beside the bed, bleeding frolass!" he yelled over the report of Hollis’s weapon "It’s just glass!"

Alicia: "Hollis, stay on that !" She dropped her empty clip and slammed a new one into place and pulled the bolt Here they would et ready!"

They heard the front door give way Alicia, closest to the bedrooot her wasn’t the first, or the second, or even the third It was the fourth By then her gun was drained Later, Peter would recall the scene as a sequence of discrete details The sound of her last shell casings ricocheting on the floor The swirl of gunpowder smoke in the air and the descent of Alicia’s empty clip as she reached to pull a new one froh the tattered curtain, the pitiless smoothness of its face and the flash of its eyes and open jaws; the barrel of her useless gun lifting, and the dart of her hand to draw her blade, too late; thebackward to the floor, the viral’s burrowing jaws finding the curve of her neck

It was Hollis who took the shot, stepping forward as the viral lifted its face and spearing the barrel of his rifle into its ainst the wall of the bedroorabbed Alicia under the ar freely fro her vest So her naainst the wall, he hugged Alicia to his chest, holding her upright between his legs, reflexively putting his hands over the wound to try to stop the bleeding Aainst the wall Another creature cah the curtain and Peter lifted his pistol and fired, his last two rounds The first onestrangely, all hiccups and gasps There was blood, so ainst him

• • •

Lacey turned; Babcock was perched above her, at the top of the tunnel’sas God had ever nificent workings of God That He should n, fit to devour a world And as she gazed upon hiht, like the light of angels-Lacey’s heart swelled with the knowledge that she had not been wrong, that the long night of her vigil would end as she’d forseen A vigil begun sowhen she had opened the door of the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Meht, do you see that I was right? All is forgiven; all that has been lost can be found again Jonas, I a to tell you I am practically with you now