“Why don’t you come back? It’s not safe here,” Ell said.

  “Eh…it’s complicated.”

  “Because you did kill some people. I knew it!” Stone said. He smirked, letting Ramsey know he was joking. Half-joking, at least.

  “No, my hands are clean. I ain’t never killed no one that didn’t deserve it, but I am guilty of breakin’ a heart.”

  Mia scooted closer to the table, saying “Oooh—” She forgot to take into account the girth of her protruding belly, and when belly and table collided, the Oooh evolved into an Oops, and the table almost flipped. It rocked to one side, causing a plate and a few empty boxes and wrappers to hit the carpet and scatter along the floor.

  Stone and I shifted the table back into place while Ell and Ramsey picked up what fell. Mia uttered an apology before she continued on with her thoughts.

  “Broken hearts? Now this is gettin’ juicy. I like, I like very much.” She folded her hands, rested her chin atop her fingers, and peered at Ramsey. “So that’s why you won’t go back?”

  Ramsey gave no answer.

  “Spill the beans,” Mia said, frowning.

  Ramsey hefted a heavy sigh, and then he gnawed on his bottom lip, deep in thought. “Fine. I got stationed over here right at the beginnin’, like I said. Government wasted no time sendin’ the military in. Mostly ‘cause shit hit the fan so fast.”

  I caught a glint of tears in his eyes before he slickly swiped them away. No one else noticed.

  “I’m a Southern boy through and through, so comin’ up here wasn’t too long a trip. My honey came with me. Lizzy’s her name, and we was sweet on each other since high school. Got hitched about a year after, and she stuck with me through it all. Even when they told me I had to move to Germany for a couple years. I gave Lizzy the news and she packed her bags and hopped the plane without a moment’s hesitation. I love her to death.” Taking in our somber faces, Ramsey shook his head. “Nah, it ain’t like that. She didn’t die or nothin’, although I think I’m pretty much dead to her. And for good reason.”

  Mia twirled her fingers. Get on with it.

  “Yeah, yeah, well, here’s the why. It don’t make me look good. It actually makes me look like a righteous prick, but I’ll tell y’all the truth. Doing that, it’s good for me, I think, and my momma raised an honest boy, God bless her soul. So I got sent out on a supply run about a month in with the Scavs—short for Scavengers, which the name pretty much sums up their purpose—and we was only headin’ to a place a few miles from the City. About a three-hour trip. But then things went south like they always do, and me and my company, we was stuck for nearly a fortnight. Those things, those shadows, they tortured us. The things I seen, man, that shit about drove me insane. Half a dozen ended up dead, and I was pretty sure I was next.”

  “I don’t get it,” Mia said. “Just skip to the good part, Ramsey. You’re losing my interest.”

  Ramsey chuckled. “Right. Well, there was this pretty little thing in the group. Her name was Brittney. The boys—not me—gave her a hard time, but she didn’t take shit from no one. Momma taught me to respect women like she taught me to tell the truth. Brittney, she took a liking to me. Always flirtin’ and telling me things a man in a committed relationship shouldn’t hear. Then one night, it got colder than ever, and she huddled up next to me, asked me if I’d keep her warm. I obliged, but I promise y’all I had no bad intentions. Problem is, a fella at the end of his rope’ll do things he wouldn’t do otherwise. And well, I, uh…kept Brittney warm that night and a few nights after. Minus the clothes, I mean.”

  Stone just about jumped from his chair. He thrust his hand up and toward Ramsey. “That’s what I’m talking about! Whoa! You said you didn’t give her a hard time, but man, it sounds like you did!”

  “Stone!” Ell shouted.

  “What?” He faced Ell and I, nodded in my direction. “Grady knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, dude?” His other hand prepared for a high-five.

  I shook my head, feeling Ell’s burning glare on the side of my face. “No, man. Sorry.”

  He deflated. His arms fell to his side, and his shoulders slumped.

  “You’re a pig, Stone,” Ell said.

  “Hey now, it’s not like I’m the one who banged her.”

  “Ignore him,” I whispered.

  Stone laughed. “I know you guys love me, don’t worry.”

  “Guys,” Mia said, “Ramsey just bared his soul to us, and you’re makin’ a joke about it.”

  “I deserve much worse,” Ramsey said. “Anyway, as y’all can see, I didn’t die. I made it back when the clouds cleared. Brittney did too. I told her it was a mistake, that I shoulda never done that, but Brittney, she didn’t understand that I wanted to stay with my wife. And the first thing she did when we got back was let Liz in on what I thought was gonna stay a secret.”

  “Damn. So instead of having two slam pieces, you ended up with none,” Stone said.

  “‘Slam pieces’? Really?” Ell mumbled under her breath.

  “Correct,” Ramsey said. “Not for lack of trying, believe you me. But Liz wasn’t having it. Then the shit went down with the escaped shadow, and Brittney was one of the ones to go.”

  “Whew, dodged a bullet there,” Stone said.

  This time, Ell lunged across the table and slapped him on the arm hard enough for him to wince.

  “Anyone got a muzzle?” Mia asked. “No? Damn.” Chewy whimpered. She bent to the side and scooped the dog from the floor, ruffling the fur atop his head. “Not for you, silly. For the other dog over there.”

  Rubbing his shoulder, Stone grinned.

  I knew he could sometimes be insensitive, he could sometimes be a prick, and he sometimes didn’t know when he had taken a joke too far, but he was my best friend—and, I’ll be honest, I was just glad he was in better spirits.

  “But no muzzle, no problem,” Mia said. “Unlike Ell, I won’t pull my punches. So zip it, and let Ramsey finish his story.”

  “Yeah, probably wise not to mess with a pregnant woman,” I warned.

  Stone’s grin faded, and he mumbled yet another apology. I really should’ve been keeping track. I think more sorries left his mouth that night than in all the years prior.

  Sagging in his chair, Ramsey cleared his throat and continued. “So I lit out because Liz didn’t want me around no more, and because I no longer trusted the leadership there. Any sense of order went to hell when the blizzards moved in, and got even worse when the shadows attacked. My leavin’, it was kinda…whatchamacallit…penance. But I found this little place, fixed it up a bit, and here I am.” He lowered his voice, as if imparting a great secret. “You know, if I’m bein’ totally honest, I’d be surprised if the City bigwigs let y’all in.”

  His words knocked the breath from my lungs. Not let us in? After we had come all this way?

  No fucking chance.

  “They’ll at least accept Mia, right? She’s nine months pregnant, for crying out loud,” I said.

  Ramsey shrugged and readjusted himself in his seat. “I can’t say they’d accept Mia for sure or not. The whole massacre thing shook ‘em up. Understandable. Depends on who’s in charge that day. Berretti equals bad. Rider equals good. Even then, ain’t nothin’ guaranteed.”

  His words brought on a flare of anger within me. I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “Well, if they won’t accept us, we’ll make them. We haven’t come all this way to get turned back now.”

  “I dig that attitude too, brother,” Ramsey said, “but even if they do let you in, there’s a price you gotta pay.”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it,” I said.

  “Don’t tell me that—tell them.” Ramsey rolled his left sleeve up and glanced at his watch. It was digital, and in military time, which I was only somewhat familiar with. Squinting, he relaxed. Why? I didn’t know, but I figured it was common knowledge for people living through this to disregard time. When noon looked like midnight, there were no rules. I nearly asked Ramsey why he had done that, but refrained. He wasn’t evil, not in the sense that Bob was, but he was a little…odd.

  A lull fell over the conversation, and we picked at what remained on our plates. The quiet, for lack of a better word, sucked, so I decided I’d keep the conversation going by asking Ramsey a different question that weighed heavily on my mind.

  “What about the Thumbprint People?”

  Soon as he started talking, I wished I hadn’t.

  “What about ‘em?”

  “What the hell are they?” Mia said.

  Ramsey sucked on his teeth, his eyes bouncing around our faces. Finally, he shook his head. “Nah. I draw the line at the Thumbprint People.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but a gentle hand settled on my forearm. Eleanor offered me a look that said drop it.

  Unfortunately, Stone and Mia either ignored or were oblivious to this look.

  “Oh, c’mon,” Stone said. “I was just starting to like you. Don’t make me get the gun again.”

  “It’s loaded now,” Mia added.

  “Guys,” Ell said. “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t have to. I think we’ve pried into his personal business enough, don’t you?”

  “Nope,” Stone said. “Not nearly enough. I need to know everything, especially if I’m gonna be sleeping under the same roof as him.”

  Ramsey fetched another sigh. “Y’all are relentless.”

  “Ramsey,” Ell said, “you don’t have to say anything.”

  “Yeah, man,” I agreed. “It’s cool.”

  “Nah, it’s all right. Stone’s right, I might as well tell y’all.” Ramsey checked his watch again.

  Seeing him do that produced an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if cold hands had clenched around some of my more vital organs, and were squeezing tighter and tighter.

  “When I was a kid, I saw this article in a magazine about this little girl who’d stolen her dad’s truck and drove it halfway across the country to California so she could meet Barney the Purple Dinosaur—or a Teletubby or something like that. I dunno, I don’t remember. She damn near made it too, but got pulled over in Oklahoma. They had a picture of her in the magazine. A cop was on his knees in front of the open driver’s side door, givin’ her a stern talkin’ to, I think. But since the girl was only about seven years old, the magazine had to blur her face. So they put this like, I dunno, filter over her face that made her head look like it was a pressed-in chunk of wax. Sounds dumb, don’t it? Well, that little picture cost me about a year’s worth of sleep. I had nightmares every night from the ages of eight to nine because of that. All my friends and family stalked me in these dreams. Their eyes and noses and mouths were one smushed skin-colored blob. They called my name and tried to catch and make me look like them, always speaking in mumbling voices. Hell, when I think about it now, as a man in his early thirties, I still get the heebie-jeebies.” He shivered. “The shadows have latched onto the images in my head, and now I see Thumbprint People all the damn time.”

  “But we have normal faces,” Ell said. “Couldn’t you see that when you were shooting?”

  “Eleanor, I can’t see a damn thing when the snow’s comin’ down the way it is. That darkness ain’t much help either,” Ramsey replied. “But I am sorry, and I’m even more glad I didn’t kill none of y’all.” He pointed at Mia’s stomach. “Especially with what you got goin’ on over there.”

  I nodded as he checked his watch a third time. A soft alarm chirped for a second or two until he pressed a button and turned it off.

  “What’s that?” Ell asked. “That alarm?”

  “It’s tellin’ me it’s 2100.” Ramsey nodded to the door at my back. “Mind double-checkin’ that lock for me, Grady.”

  I pushed out of my chair on shaky legs. “Why?”

  “Well, y’all probably don’t really wanna know.”

  “Uh, yeah, we do,” Stone said.

  Ell and Mia exchanged worrisome looks, then Ell mouthed It’s okay.

  Was it?

  I didn’t think so…because I knew what happened at 2100. I think we all did. Only none of us wanted a definitive answer.

  But I asked anyway.

  “Seriously, Ramsey, what happens at 2100?”

  “Well, Grady, it means them shadows got an appointment with us.”

  Before anyone could speak, a high voice shrieked outside, louder than the wind.

  “We’re heeeeeeeeereeeeeee!”

  “Don’t look out the windows,” Ramsey warned, nodding to the four covered panes of glass along the right and left walls. “Best to just ignore ‘em.”

  “Ignore them?” Stone scurried from his chair, snagged his crutch, and took a shuffling step away toward the nearest window. I may have been imagining it, but he appeared to be moving easier. Maybe all that time trudging through the snow had built up the muscles in his leg. “That’s your plan? Ignore them?”

  Ramsey gave Stone a curt nod. “Yeah, ain’t much else we can do.”

  “It’s what we do when we’re by ourselves,” Ell said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Sure,” Stone replied, “but we usually have a lot better protection than a gun and some weak-ass lights on the walls.”

  “Hey now,” Ramsey warned, “you ain’t gotta bring my craftsmanship into this. Trust me, fella, I’ve survived 2100 every night for the past who knows how long. You ignore ‘em, they go away. It’s that easy.”

  Stone glared at me. “I said it earlier, but here’s a reminder, Grady. When we die, it’s on you.”

  “Yep, got it,” I said. “But we’re not gonna die.”

  The monsters outside moaned our names. Every so often, the chains around the front doors we’d come in through rattled and banged. Ell shifted her chair closer until she practically sat on my cushion with me. I slid an arm around her and said it was going to be all right.

  “I hear Mikey,” she whispered.

  “I do too.”

  “Make it stop.” Ell sniffled and dragged her sleeve down her face, wiping away the tears. “Just make it stop.”

  “Elllllleanorrrrrr! Ellllllllieeeeeee!”

  “It’s not him,” Mia said. “Just remember. It’s not him.”

  “Oh yeah?” a different voice hollered from below, gruff and louder than the wind. “If we aren’t who we say we are, Mia, then tell me why there’s a bullet hole in my gut.”

  I had never seen Mia’s face pale so fast before. Her lips tightened and she closed her eyes, rocking back and forth in her chair.

  “That’s my baby in your belly, Mia! MINE! I’m comin’ for it! I’m comin’ to take it back!”

  A third voice joined the fray, this one a woman’s with a heavy Canadian accent. “Give it to him, Mia! Goddamn it! You’ll just fuck that poor kid’s life up. You weren’t ever responsible, you know that, you dumb bitch! Remember when I got you a hamster for your ninth birthday? You named him Omelet. And what happened to Omelet?”

  “No,” Mia muttered. “Shut up… Shut up! SHUT UP!”

  “You let the poor creature out of his cage and he crawled up on the kitchen counter and into the drain, didn’t he? Remember how we found out? Do you, Mia? Do you?”

  Mia’s eyes watered. A tear fell down her cheek and splashed the tabletop. “Stop it. Please—”

  “I turned on the garbage disposal and your dumb little hamster ended up all over the walls. Took me hours to scrub all that blood off the linoleum. You know what I think? The bastard deserved it! Ohhh, I can still hear how he screamed. I bet you can too…”

  Mia hunched over, clutched her belly. “I’m gonna be sick. Oh God, I’m gonna—”

  I bolted from the table and grabbed the nearest thing she could puke in. It was one of the empty boxes. Mia ripped it from my grasp, dropped it, buried her head inside, and let rip.

  As the wet sounds of her sick splattered the cardboard, the outside rang with laughter.

  After a minute or two—I don’t know, it felt much longer—Mia came up for air, saying, “I’m sorry. I can’t—” Then promptly continued vomiting.

  Eleanor hovered behind her, reached and held Mia’s hair out of her face with one hand while rubbing her back with the other. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay. Let it out.”

  Ramsey’s usually calm expression wavered. A spark of anger burned in his eyes. “Okay, that’s it. Didn’t wanna do this yet, but I see I ain’t got no choice. Sounds like there’s more than usual.”

  “Well, that’s great,” I said.

  “Fuckin’ A,” Stone added.

  Ramsey bolted across the room. When he arrived at the door leading into the short hall connecting to the lobby, he kicked it open.

  The door slammed against the wall with a loud clang, and a puff of plaster dust billowed from the fresh dent.

  “Whoa, slow down,” I said. It dawned on me then that I had forgotten the rifle beneath the table. If Ramsey tried something, I was pretty much screwed. I was a little taller than him, but what he lacked in height he more than made up for in muscle and combat experience. Fighting wraiths was one thing; fighting a soldier was another thing entirely.

  I hesitated to believe he would try something…but I had been surprised before.

  I rushed along the hall, trailing behind. “Hey man, what are you doing?”

  “Gettin’ the big guns.” Ramsey went past the lobby entrance and down the opposite corridor housing the other auditoriums. He halted in front of an exit. The cold wind leaked through the cracks in this door.

  I stopped a few feet short of him just as he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. In the dim light emanating from the lobby, he squinted, studying each of the dozen or so slivers of metal. When he found the right one, he stuck it into the padlock latched on the chain looped through the handles.

  I reached for him and snagged the back of his coat. “You can’t go outside! Are you crazy?”

  Ramsey shrugged out of my grip, whirled around. “Yeah, I’m a little crazy, so what? But I ain’t goin’ outside.”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Just stand back, Grady, you’ll see. I got a trick or two up my—”

 

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