Devil’s Wake by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due Page B

was dreaming— willed herself to be dreaming—but Mom had pulled her out of bed, yanking her arm and pulling her to her feet. Kendra had cried the whole way to the basement. I’m bit, Kendra. You can’t trust me anymore. Don’t open this door until you hear the danger word.
    “Mom stayed outside the basement door for ten minutes, maybe. Not long. She said she”—Kendra swallowed hard, forcing the words out—“she was so sleepy she could barely… stand up. She was scared to be near me, so she went away. Four or five hours. Then I heard her voice again, and she was knocking on the door. I was so… relieved.” Kendra sobbed, trying to catch her breath.
    “But it wasn’t her?” Grandpa Joe said gently.
    Kendra’s eyes went to Grandpa Joe’s bleeding wound again, and her limbs shook as if she wore no clothes. Her damp jeans felt frozen. “She said, ‘Where’s your math homework? You were supposed to do your homework.’ ”
    “That’s how you knew,” Grandpa Joe said, whispering again.
    Kendra nodded. “There was no more school.” Her nostrils leaked, but she didn’t move to wipe her nose. “I didn’t open the door.”
    Grandpa Joe nodded, considering the story. Struggling with it.
    His hand came toward her knee, but the sudden movement made her flinch. Even after she relaxed, reminding herself it was too soon, her hand rested near the door latch. With a heartbroken smile Grandpa Joe pulled his hand back.
    “Good girl, Kendra.” Grandpa Joe’s voice wavered. “Good girl.”
    All this time, Joe had thought it was his imagination.
    A gaggle of the freaks had been waiting for him in Cass’s frontyard. He’d plowed most of them down with the truck so he could get to the door. That was the easy part. As soon as he got out, the ones still standing had surged. There’d been ten of them at least; an old man, a couple of teenage boys, the rest of them women, moving quick. He’d been squeezing off rounds at anything that moved. Daddy?
    Had he heard her voice before he’d fired? In the time since, he’d decided the voice was his imagination, because how could she have talked to him, said his name? He’d decided God had created her voice in his mind, a last chance to hear it to make up for the horror his Glock had made of the back of her head. Daddy? It had been Cass, but it hadn’t been. Her blouse and mouth had been a mess, and he’d seen stringy bits of nastiness caught in her teeth, just like the other freaks. It hadn’t been Cass. It hadn’t been.
    People said freaks could make noises. Walked and looked like us. The newer ones didn’t have the red stuff showing beneath their skin, and they didn’t start to lose their motor skills for a couple of days, so the new ones could run fast. He’d known that. Everybody knew that. But if freaks could talk, could recognize you…
    Then we can’t win. The thought was quiet in Joe’s mind, from a place that was already accepting it.
    Cass had only lasted ten minutes, Little Soldier had said. Half of them already gone, maybe more than half. Joe tried to bear down harder on the gas, and his leg felt like a wooden stump. Still, the speedometer climbed to ninety before the truck began to shiver. He had to get Little Soldier as far as he could from Mike’s boys. He had to get Little Soldier away…
    Joe’s mouth was so dry it ached.
    “We’re in trouble, Kendra,” Joe said. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, even though he wanted to so much he was nearly blinded by tears. “You know we’re in trouble.”
    “Yes,” the girl said.
    “Don’t go back to the cabin,” Joe said, deciding that part. “It’s notsafe.”
    “But Mom might…” This time, Joe did gaze over at Kendra. The girl was sitting as far from him as she could, against the door. He’d gotten so used to Kendra waiting for her parents to come that he’d sometimes felt himself waiting too.
    “That was a story I told you,” Joe said, cursing himself for the lie. “You