Dean Koontz - Lost Souls

The kids came through first, running for their parents’ trucks and SUVs, and Van thought and prayed they hadn’t lost a single child.

They had lost four or five adults, however, and he didn’t know who, other than Tank Tankredo and Jenny Vinnerling. They didn’t have time to take a census as people exited, so Van shouted to Turner and Doogie to get their families packed up and out, and leave him to give a ride to anybody who needed one. Van was a single man, and his big Suburban could carry a crowd.

As it turned out, Tom Vinnerling had died trying to save Jenny, so the three Vinnerling children were the only people Van needed to accommodate. Cubbie was eight, Janene ten, and Nick fourteen.

The younger kids were in tears, but Nick’s jaw was tight with anger and his mind dead-set against crying. He wanted to drive his brother and sister away in his parents’ Mountaineer.

As the tires of departing vehicles squealed across the blacktop, Van Colpert kept one eye on the front door when he said, “I know you could drive if you had to, Nick, I suspect you could do anything you had to, but there’s nobody home now for you and Cubbie and Janene. We don’t know what’s happening, what’s next, this is something big, so you guys are going to stay with me. We’re it now, we’re together from here on out. It’s the only right way.”

The boy was in shock, in grief, but he had never been a bad kid, strong-willed but never willful. He relented at once and helped his siblings into the backseat of the Suburban. He sat in the front with Van.

As they drove onto the highway, close behind the last of the departing vehicles, Nick showed Van a 9mm Beretta that he had snatched off the floor in the roadhouse. “I’m keeping it.”

“You know how to use it?” Van asked.

“I’ve been target shooting since I was twelve.”

“Target’s different than shooting for real.”

“It would have to be,” Nick said, which was just the right answer, as far as Van was concerned.

In the backseat, the two children were sobbing.

The sound of them tore at Van, the sound of them and the awful truth that he could do nothing to restore their lives to them. All he could hope to do was help them find new ones.

“What were those things?” Nick asked.

“Something no one’s ever seen before.”

“We’re going to see them again, aren’t we?”

“I’d bet on it.” Van passed his cell phone to the boy. “Call the police, 911.”

He wasn’t all that surprised when Nick tried to place the call and then said, “There’s no 911 service.”

With a first-time-ever lack of respect for speed limits, Dolly Samples drove while she, her husband, Hank, and her sons, Whit and Farley, worked out who would do what when they arrived home.

Loreen Rudolph, her husband, Nelson, and their kids would be moving in with the Samples family for the duration because their house had some land around it and on first assessment seemed to be generally more defensible than the Rudolph place. Loreen and Nelson would be bringing a lot of canned food and bagged staples, tools, ammunition, and other goods that would be necessary to fortify and defend the Samples home.

“We lost dear friends tonight,” Dolly said, “and we have to hold fast to their memories. There’s going to be some hard times ahead, too, you better believe it.”

“Well, we always knew something was coming in our lifetimes,” said Hank. “We just figured it would be the Chinese or the Russians or some plague. We never thought outer-space aliens, but if that’s what it’s to be, so be it.”

“I wish I’d have thought to grab my dish from the buffet before we got out of there,” Dolly said.

“It’s just a dish,” Hank said.

“Well, it’s not just a dish. It was my grandmother’s dish, and it’s a favorite of mine. I figured to pass it along to my first daughter-in-law whenever Whit or Farley got married.”

“I’m sorry I diminished it,” Hank said sincerely. “I forgot what dish it was you took tonight. If we get through this with all of our fingers and toes, I’ll go back and retrieve it for you one day.”

“You’re a thoughtful man, Hank Samples.”

“And you did right getting all those kids gathered together in all that turmoil. You’re a good woman, Doll.”

“We sure love you, Mom,” Farley said from the backseat, and Whit echoed that sentiment.

“Love is what’ll get us through this,” Dolly said. “Love and the Good Lord and the backbone to protect our own. And pumpkin pie. I was planning to bake a couple tomorrow, but now, Lord willing, I’m going to bake them tonight.”

In their room at the Falls Inn, Carson and Michael unpacked the big suitcases that contained their Urban Sniper pistol-grip shotguns, which fired only slugs, not buckshot. These weapons were essential at the end in New Orleans and would probably again make the difference between dying and surviving. The kick was the maximum Carson could handle; however, she didn’t shoot this gun with the stock high, but instead from a forward-side position, so she didn’t have to worry about dislocating her shoulder. They loaded the Snipers and put them on the bed with boxes of spare shells.

Five-year-old Chrissy Benedetto sat in an armchair that dwarfed her, drinking a grape soda that Michael had bought from the motel vending machine. She hadn’t seen Carson kill the not-mommy, and in spite of her nasty teddy-bear experience, she seemed only mildly unsettled by recent events.

“When will my real mommy come to get me?” she asked as Carson and Michael prepared the guns.

“Soon,” Carson said, because she had no idea how to tell a girl this young that her mother was gone forever. The prospect of doing so made her throat tight and seemed to constrict her lungs so she could not draw deep breaths.

The girl said, “She’s going to be very mad at the stupid pretend mommy.”

“Yes, she will,” Michael said. “And she should be.”

“Where’d that stupid pretend mommy come from?” Chrissy asked.

“We’re going to find out,” Michael said, “and we’re going to send her back there and lock her away so she can never come here again.”

“That’s good,” Chrissy said. “This is good grape.”

“I made it myself,” Michael said.

“Oh, you did not.”

“Show me the bottle.”

The girl held the bottle so he could see the label.

“You’re right,” he said. “ Carson here made that one. It’s one of your bottles of grape, Carson.”

Carson said nothing because she was afraid her voice would break. She couldn’t stop thinking about Denise Benedetto with the silver disc on her temple, blood oozing from it and from her nose. Me isn’t me. Tell my baby.

“Who’re you people?” Chrissy asked.

“We’re friends of your mommy’s. She sent us to get you.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in the city, buying you new teddy bears.”

“What city?”

“The big city,” Michael said. “The biggest big city, where they have the most teddy bears to choose from.”

“Wow,” said Chrissy. “I wish she was here.”

“She will be soon,” Michael said.

Carson said, “I have to get some fresh air. Just a minute.”

She left the room, walked a few steps along the promenade, put her back to the motel wall, and wept quietly.

After a minute or two, someone squeezed her shoulder, and she thought Michael had come to comfort her, but it was Deucalion.