Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 9 of 54

Jake pressed his eye to a gap in the boarded window. The lot was open ground. No cars close to the store. No walls. No cover. The truck sat forty yards out, and forty yards of creatures stood between. "We can't just run it," he said. "They'd swarm us before we crossed half of it." Marcus set down his wrench. "So we need them looking somewhere else." His voice was flat and sure, the voice of a man who fixed engines by finding the one broken part. Since he'd admitted his pistol was empty, Jake had stopped watching his hands. Now he watched his eyes instead. Jake turned to Marisol. She was already tearing wire from a shelf display, doing something with her hands, the way she always did when a plan was forming. "I was in the military," he told her. "I can build a bomb from what's in here. Propane, nails, a fuel can. But I need it to blow when we choose, not when we're standing on it. Can you make a timer?" Marisol looked up. Her fingers didn't stop moving. "Give me a phone alarm, a battery, and something that sparks. I can make it count down." She said it plainly, no boast. He believed her. Sofia had been quiet by the duffel bags. Now she stepped forward. "There's another way off the coast." The room turned to her. "My dad owns a boat. Down at the marina. There's a camping island, eighty miles out. Tons of cabins. It's closed for the season. Nobody's there." Her hands shook, but her chin stayed up. "If we reach the boat, we sail to it. Safe." Jake felt the plan snap together. "Then the bomb isn't for us. It's the bait." He pointed across the store toward the far end of the lot. "We plant it, set the timer, and get by the door. When it blows on the far side, every one of those things runs at the noise. That clears the ground. We cross while they chase the smoke. We take the truck, we drive to the marina." Marcus nodded slow. "Draw them off the open ground. Then it isn't open anymore." They worked fast. Jake wired the propane can to a wad of nails and a fuel jug. Marisol rigged a cracked phone to a battery and two stripped wires. She held it up. The screen glowed. "Set the alarm, it sparks. Two minutes on the clock." Jake weighed the device in his hands. It was ugly and it was real. The obstacle that had trapped them was solved. The empty lot would empty itself. He looked at the three of them. "New plan. We blow a hole in the herd, take the truck, and run for Sofia's boat." He tucked the bomb under his arm. "Now we just have to get it out there without dying."