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"Who are they?" Max whispered

"They’re travelers," Niko answered "Just like us"

I looked at Sahalia and we set to the airport Just like us," Niko repeated

I cannot say how far alked, that last hway, I could have calculated it with the ine we could walk a mile in 30–40 minutes

When we left Mario’s, it was 8:32 am We stopped for protein shakes and water at 11:15 Then alked again until 1:30

Maybe 5 miles?

Well, let’s say 5 ht in the distance Much brighter than the ehway This one was shining in a circle, spinning its head around, like a lighthouse light

It was a beacon

"What is that?" Max asked "Are we there? Is that the airport? Are we there?"

"I don’t know," Niko said

We picked up the pace

Sahalia s, real smile

Batiste squeezed my hand

We could hear a man’s voice on a loudspeaker We couldn’t make out the words, but you could hear that it was soe, because the cadence repeated

As we drew closer,people gathered around the light They stood a ways apart froroups were just couples and soroups had as many as 8–10 people Most of the and acting dodgy--they roup Slowly, edging forward Niko had Sahalia push Max I guess he wanted his hands free in case we needed to fight He was probably wishing he still had our gun, but I didn’t say anything

No one ed and filthy as we had before Mario’s We definitely looked the best out of everyone Relatively clean, with the two cool orange Army face masks (no one else had those)

I felt like if Mario could have seen us, he would have been proud

The ain: "You have reached an asseency evacuation of the Four Points area Remain here until the next bus arrives Buses will arrive every hour on the hour"

I was so dazed, hearing that

We had ed ht on the ether, and Batiste was hugging me from behind as Sahalia, noith her ar whoop!

The other people joined in with her Maybe it took her elation to set the one another, where before Sahalia had made that sound, they were reserved and defensive

And then I saw Niko He had sunk down to his knees and had his face in his hands

I went over to him

"You did it," I said "You saved us"

"Yeah," he moaned "But I lost her"

The bus came, just like it said it would, on the hour Okay, it was 12 minutes late but who cared!

It was a school bus But painted Arreen

The door opened up and the driver (not Mrs Wooly, of course not) was a soldier wearing an Army airvoice "We’ll have you safe and inside in no time"

We filed onto the bus Somehow Sahalia had broken the ice and the people fro to talk to one another

A man with a beard asked me where ere from When I said Monument, he couldn’t believe it

"That’s over 60 miles away!" he exclaimed "We had a hell of a tied But I was happy inside

"How’d you do it?" he asked

"It was Niko," I said I pointed to Niko, who had Max on his lap in the seat across fro with me "It was God"

The bus went so fast, Dean! The road was entirely cleared We were in awas different

When we passed through the places with big stores and office buildings, it looked like there had been a war There was bullet spray on the walls, and burned out Jeeps and sos were on fire

I saw bodies stacked into a great, long pile For burial, I hope, not burning Though I guess at this point, nobody cared

The closer we got to the airport, the more cars there were All the fields around the airport were just filled with cars Cars parked at crazy angles, not like a tidy parking lot, but like a jigsaw puzzle Crae drifts of the white reaves, up and down, ebbing and flowing through the cars It looked like an art installation, actually An ocean of car bodies and mold

And there was Denver International Airport, its white peaks lit up fro up out of the car field like a castle

Everybody cheered Well, not everybody There were people like Niko who seemed terribly sad or deeply in shock But Sahalia and the kids and I cheered and lass double doors We had made it, Dean We made it to DIA

CHAPTER TWENTY

DEAN

DAY 15

I woke up on a satiny bedspread on the floor