The Geiger was clicking so fast now it sounded like one steady clicking roll. “One-fifty and climbing, man…shit.” Sweat running down my face, I looked out the window and there they were. The kids. The fucking Children. Just standing out there on the sidewalk like they were waiting for Susie or Jimmy to come out and play with them. “They’re here. Get ready to bust.” Out on the walk, the Children waited, just standing there. There were six of them. If you squinted your eyes real tight, you might mistake them for real kids, but they weren’t. Just wraithlike things that looked like they’d been blown from a tomb, clothes hanging in rags, faces gray and corrugated, eyes burning a hot noxious yellow like seething reactor cores. We had to move now, take them out. There could be no hesitation. They were walking atomic waste, kicking out deadly roentgens in a hot rain of fallout. Using the butt of the Savage, I broke the window, shattering it from its frame.
