Free Genesis by Michaelbrent Collings Page B

wrong.
     
    He realized that Dorcas was holding up her hand, motioning for him to stop.  He skidded to a halt, instinctively drawing as close to the nearest wall as he could.  It was an ice cream shop.  Baskin Robbins.  The neon sign that usually bragged about its “Thirty- OneDerful Flavors” was dark.
     
    Come to think of it, Ken realized that the lights had been off in the accounting office where Dorcas had taken refuge.
     
    Were lights on anywhere in Boise?
     
    In Idaho?
     
    How far did this go?
     
    Dorcas spun around.  “Go!” she whisper-shouted.  “Go, go, go gogogogogo !”
     
    She looked terrified.  Ken would have bet she could play a game of high-stakes poker against a room full of Bond villains.  He had no wish to see what had scared her.
     
    So he ran.
     

27
     
     
     
     
    Ken thought they were going to end up back in the office of Brooke Gale, CPA, but before he’d taken more than a few steps Dorcas grabbed him and propelled him sideways.  He thought she had gone crazy; was going to ram him into one of the cars whose alarms was screeching away.  But at the last second she swung him and instead he found himself shoved through the open door of the passenger side.
     
    A moment later, Dorcas was slinging herself in after him, jabbing at him with her elbows and screaming, “Get over, get over!”
     
    He heard something clang.  Her monster-sized lug wrench.  He wondered why she had dropped it, then realized she’d done so to make room, to make it easier to close the car door.
     
    As soon as Dorcas had clearance, she slammed the door shut.  Ken heard a meaty thud as it closed and Dorcas grunted.  She must have closed it against her foot or hip.  She didn’t seem to care, though.  Nor did she appear to mind the loss of her formidable weapon.
     
    She just hunkered down in her seat and motioned for Ken to do the same.
     
    Ken was still half-straddling the gear selector, so he lurched over until he was fully in the driver’s seat, then he slunk down as well.
     
    The car alarm was deafening inside the vehicle.  Even so, he thought he could hear a strange sound.  A low, vibrating drone.
     
    “What is that?” he whispered.
     
    Dorcas looked like she was about to respond, but instead of answering she said, “The vents!” in that whisper/shout that Ken was starting to associate with the new normality of his existence.  She batted out her hands, seeming to punch at the dashboard.  A moment later Ken realized she was slamming the air conditioning vents into their closed positions.  He did the same for the ones on the driver’s side, still unsure what was going on but trusting in Dorcas ’ sense of what should be done.
     
    The sound grew louder.  And with it, screams.
     
    A moment later, Ken saw.  He understood why Dorcas had done what she had done.
     
    And hoped it would be enough.
     

28
     
     
     
     
    Ken thought at first that he was seeing a sentient cloud.  That a piece of the smoke that had engulfed much of Boise must have broken away, gained intelligence – at least on a rudimentary level – and begun prowling the streets.
     
    It was an insane thought.  But the world had very recently gone insane, so he didn’t think he was too out of line having things like that in his mind.
     
    Then he realized that what came into view – what he glimpsed over the edge of the car door and the dashboard – wasn’t a cloud of smoke.  It was black and constantly shifting.  Composed of millions of bits of what looked like particulate matter.
     
    But it wasn’t smoke.
     
    It was a swarm.
     
    The low humming he had heard when Dorcas pushed him into the car: the buzz of millions of wings.
     
    And the screams were coming from deep within the cloud.  Shrieks that sounded like someone being burned alive.  Worse.
     
    The swarm paused in the middle of the street, as though having a committee meeting about which direction to move next.  Ken realized he was holding his