Chapter 18: The Rail Yard

Robin's POV

The boy told me at breakfast.

He was the twelve-year-old from the rail yard, and he had not said a word to anyone since Saturday.

He stood at the end of the kitchen table with his wristband in his fist.

"My mom's still in there," he said. "They locked the gate on all of us. I got out through a drain."

The mechanic put down his fork.

"How many?" I asked.

"Forty," the mechanic said. "About that. Calder shut them in for the next train. It never came."

"They've been in there four days with no water?"

"They had a tap."

I looked at Nolan across the table.

He was already standing.

"The farm road," he said. "It's the only way out."

"Then we both go."

"The lane's still full. You can't leave by the front."

"I know that. I'll drive." I took my keys off the hook. "Chelsea, watch the warehouse. Don't let Mom near the radio."

"Robin," Chelsea said. "Be careful."

"I will."

We took my pickup out the back gate and onto the farm road.

By noon we were on the east side of Columbus, and the rail yard was a long grey fence at the end of an empty street.

Nobody was on the street.

The Bloomed were. They stood along the fence in rows, a hundred of them, pressed against the chain link.

They were facing inward.

Behind the wire, in the shadow of a boxcar, a crowd of people huddled shoulder to shoulder.

A big man in a grey coat walked back and forth in front of them with a tablet under one arm.

I had seen him before. He had tapped four times on his screen, once for each of my silos.

"The heavy one from the van," I said.

"Second-in-command of the retrieval team," Nolan said. "He's all that's left here."