Part 15 (1/2)

Karen's eyebrows went up. ”I beg your pardon?”

He looked ahead. ”Yeah. According to her we all have superpowers. That's how we fight the monsters. I'm supposed to be super-strong.”

It occurred to him he was spewing out a new level of madness, so her response caught him off guard.

”Are you?”

”Sorry?”

She looked at his arms. ”Do you have superhuman strength? You said she has been correct about many things.”

Something twinged again. ”Maybe? Why, do you?”

Karen Quilt straightened her back and looked at the sidewalk ahead of them. ”From a very young age, my father trained me to be capable and independent. Circ.u.mstances required that he was absent from my life for many years, but I continued training on my own.”

”What's that supposed to mean?”

She turned to him. ”I saw the look on your face back at the hotel, George. You know who my father is.”

His lips twisted before he could stop them. He pushed them flat again. ”Yeah.”

”With that in mind, what do you think he would consider 'capable'?”

”Jesus,” he said, ”you really are a superhero.”

”If I decided to follow such a path, I could be, yes.”

George decided not to dwell on what other paths her father might have been training her for. He took in a deep breath. ”I think I lifted a dumpster the other day,” he said. The words made his head flare with pain, but it felt good to say them.

Karen looked at him. He couldn't read her expression. ”You think you lifted it?”

”I was having a migraine,” he said, ”and I think I may have been seeing things.”

”Things such as dead people who continue to walk?”

”Yeah.”

”How high did you lift the dumpster?”

”I ... I couldn't get under it,” he said. ”Somebody saw me. I got it to here.” He held his hands out a few feet above the sidewalk and mimed lifting something.

”Was it difficult?”

He shook his head and cleared away some of the pain. ”Not really. I lifted a couch the other day, too. One with a hideaway bed built into it.”

”Impressive.”

”Did you really come down the side of the building to catch me?”

”I did. It is a Parkour technique.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the tall hotel and the columns of balconies. ”Wow.”

Karen tilted her head, then reached up and touched her nose. Her fingers came back spotted with red. ”Pardon me,” she said. ”I seem to be having a mild headache of my own which is causing a nosebleed.”

Across the street, just behind Karen, a trio of men headed for them. One wore a suit, the other two had dull jackets. The paparazzi had spotted them. Their conversation was over.

Then George saw the pale skin and chalky eyes. One of the men raised an arm that ended just past the elbow. Another wobbled on a leg that had two round, ragged holes near the knee. They stumbled off the far sidewalk and into the street.

In the blink of an eye, the world changed. Dust covered the cars on the street, and spiderwebs of cracks blossomed across several of their winds.h.i.+elds. Leaves spread across the pavement in drifts. Weeds had forced their way up between the sidewalk slabs.

He glanced over his shoulder. Four more monsters staggered on the sidewalk behind them. The two in the rear of the quartet looked a lot like the older couple he and Karen had pa.s.sed a few minutes earlier.

”We should speak more with Madelyn Sorensen,” said Karen. She dabbed at her nose again, then wiped her fingers twice against the cuff of her sweats.h.i.+rt. ”If she does remember more of this alternate world, she may have information she does not realize is relevant.”

George glanced at her. ”So you believe me?”

”It would seem I have little choice.”

”How so?”

She pointed down the street ahead of them. ”There are three people walking toward us who all appear to be dead.”

The blonde in the lead had frizzy hair. A large clump of it had been torn out to show a patch of bald bone on the dead woman's forehead. Gla.s.ses hung from one ear of the next corpse. The last one's face had been burned or sc.r.a.ped down until there was nothing left but teeth and eye sockets. George wasn't sure if it had been a man or a woman.

”Ahhh,” he said. ”So you can see them, too?”

”Yes. Three in front, three to the side, four behind us.”

”Good,” he said. ”I was thinking there was still a chance I might be crazy.”

Karen's feet s.h.i.+fted on the pavement. ”Do they have any notable strengths or weaknesses?”

”They're kind of slow,” he said. ”They like to bite. Head and neck injuries seem to put them down pretty fast. Don't worry, this has happened to me a few times now and I can ...”

His voice trailed off as she grabbed his arm. For a brief moment he pictured Karen half swooning against him like the love interest in some old movie poster. It made him feel a bit heroic.

Then her other hand grabbed the top of his shoulder and pushed down hard.

She swung up and over him like a gymnast vaulting off a horse. Her boot lashed out at the trio in front of them and caught the blonde in the jaw with a solid crack of bone. Karen twisted her body, brought her other foot around, and slammed the heel into the dead man's head. The gla.s.ses shattered. She landed in a crouch, spun, and swept the legs out from under all three monsters.

George turned to the side and found the dead thing with the severed arm was a yard away. He stepped forward and slammed his palm into the corpse's chest to shove it away. He barely felt the impact, but the creature flew back as if gravity had s.h.i.+fted and dropped it down the street. One of its flailing arms struck another shambler and spun it around. George threw a punch and another dead thing's chest collapsed.

Karen grabbed George's shoulder again with both hands and vaulted up, over, and behind him. She drove her heels into the two creatures there and rode their skulls down to the ground. Her open hands batted away the withered fingers that grabbed for her, then knifed out efficient strikes to the jaw, throat, and spine. Two more dead things collapsed and gave her room to snap another neck with a spin kick.

In the moment he spent watching her, one of the last monsters, an emaciated woman, sank its teeth into his hand. He felt it clamp down with its jaw, heard the teeth grind against the bones of his palm. He yanked his hand away and drove his fist into the dead woman's face. The head snapped free and bounced down the street.

”Are you injured?” asked Karen. Her hood had fallen back to expose her face. She looked at his hand with wide eyes. Not scared, but very focused.

George held up his palm. ”Not even scratched.”