The Capture by Tom Isbell Page A

quiet nod of thanks. “Come on,” she says to Book. “Let’s get back here before the sun comes up.”
    They take an anxious peek toward the east and head out.
    Despite the crumbling houses and buckled roads, there is something oddly pleasing about it all. Thegeometry of streets. The precision of intersections. Hope finds it nearly impossible to imagine what it must have been like in pre-Omega days—people strolling down sidewalks, riding bicycles, watering lawns—but it makes her think of her mother and father.
    She shakes away the sentiment; no time for that now.
    Live today, tears tomorrow.
    Glances into the houses tell her they were ransacked years ago. Empty shelves. Cupboard doors dangling from broken hinges. No food here. No water either. They hug the shadows and move on. The eastern sky is graying.
    Houses give way to shops. Then bigger shops after that. Before they know it, they’re behind a brick building on what must be the main street. There are noises here: raucous laughter, whooping and hollering, the crackle of bonfires.
    They come to the building’s edge and peek around the corner. It’s a street full of Crazies—hundreds of them—huddled around trash-can fires, cooking foul-smelling chunks of meat. The men sport long, ungainly beards and the women’s hair is tangled and matted, their faces smudged with dirt. Large gaping holes in their mouths mark the absence of teeth. Even from this distance, Hope can smell their rancid stench. It’s all she can do to keep from gagging.
    She and Book stand pressed against the shadows,mesmerized by chaos: Crazies gorging and drinking and belching and farting and roaring with laughter. Every so often a fight breaks out and two of them tumble to the street, trading punches. There’s a sickening sound of fist on flesh.
    A man who appears to be some kind of town leader steps forward toward the latest fight. He is short and compact and wears an oversize cowboy hat, and though his beard is full, it appears less greasy than those of his counterparts. Groups part as he strides forward.
    â€œThat’s enough now,” he says. “Break it up.”
    The two Crazies stand, blood streaming down their chins. They grunt and heave for breath like beasts.
    â€œLet’s find some water and get out of here,” Book whispers.
    Hope gives a nod as though released from a spell. They edge backward through an alley.
    One street over is a pickup truck, splotched with rust. Jutting from its bed is an enormous plastic tank, cylindrical in shape, with a small spigot at one end. Above it, scrawled in black paint, is the formula H 2 O .
    They unsling the canteens from their shoulders, and Book begins to fill them. Hope keeps a lookout. Argos sits on his hindquarters beneath the faucet, licking stray drops straight from the asphalt.
    Book has just finished filling the third canteen when they hear a thundering rumble. Book freezes, and waterspills over the canteen. A growl catches in the back of Argos’s throat. Hope gives them both a confused look.
    â€œWhat is it?” she asks.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” he says, and starts to move away.
    â€œBut we haven’t finished—”
    â€œNo time.” He screws the lid on the canteen, grabs Hope’s hand, and pulls her down the street.
    Hope doesn’t understand his sudden hurry—they have five more canteens to fill—and she’s about to ask again what’s going on when the drone of engines grows suddenly louder. The sidewalk trembles beneath their feet. They stop and push themselves against a building . . . and watch as ATVs go rumbling past.
    Hunters. She remembers them from the Brown Forest.
    Of course, that was just two dozen. This is an army , vehicle after vehicle, the Hunters straddling their souped-up four-wheelers. Hope has difficulty catching her breath.
    The Crazies seem just as freaked. Like cockroaches caught in the light,