"You're supposed to be finding out," Murphy yelled. He had a good voice for a man two months short of being a hundred. He liked to show it off. Then Sal thought he saw an odd fluttery movement down the block. "I'll report in a few minutes," he said, and then he edged along next to the angled wall. A disturbed stream of plaster whispered down and ran off his shoulder. Near the corner, he stopped. "Max," he said. He whispered it several times. "Max ... that you, Max?" He moved nearer to the blob on the concrete. Heat waves radiated up around it and it seemed to quiver and dance. He dropped the walkie-talkie. There wasn't even enough left of Max to take back in or put under the ground. He heard the metallic clank and the manhole cover moved and then he saw them coming up over the edge. He ran and behind him he could hear their screams and cries and their feet striking hard over the blisters, cracks, and dried out holes in the dead town's skin. He dodged into rubble and fell and got up and kept on running. The pain was like something squeezing in his belly, and he kept on running because he wanted to live and because he had to tell the others that the Children were indeed inside the post defenses. He knew now how they had come in. Through the sewers, under the defenses. He began to feel and hear them crawling, digging, moving all over beneath the ruins, waiting to come out in a filthy screaming stream. * * * * * Sal was still resting in the corner of the old warehouse by the river. A lantern hung on a beam and the dank floor was covered with deep moving shadows. Captain Murphy was pacing in a circle, looking like something sewn quickly together by a nervous seamstress. Doctor Cartley sat on a canvas chair, elbows on knees, chin in his hands. He kept looking at the floor. He was in his early eighties and sometimes seemed like a young man to Sal. His ideas maybe. He thought differently about the Children and where things were going. "We're going to get out tonight," Captain Murphy said again. "We'll get that barge loaded and we'll get out." Sal sat up. The pills had made his heart settle down a bit, and his hands were comparatively calm. "Is the barge almost loaded now? It better be," Sal said. "They'll attack any minute now. I know that much." "Another hour's all we need. If they attack before then we can hold them off long enough to get that barge into the river. Once we get into the river with it, we'll be safe. We can float her down and into the sea. Somewhere along the coast we'll land and wherever it is will be fine for us. We'll have licked the Children. They know we've found the only eatable food stores in God knows how many thousands of miles in this goddamned wasteland. They can't live another month without this stuff, and we're taking it all down the river. That's right isn't it, Doc?"