by Ike Hamill
On the seat, Eve began to moan a little.
“Hold on, Eve,” Sandy mumbled. She came back over the seat and Brad saw the bag in her hand. It was stained on the bottom—something must have broken inside at some point. Brad cursed himself for not checking it regularly. Sandy set the bag aside. Now that Eve appeared to be waking up, it wasn’t her top priority any more. Brad reached between the seats, trying to get it so he could try to find the gel himself. It had certainly expired decades before, but that didn’t mean it had gone bad. Back when he and Robby were doing their radio installations, he used to forget to eat all the time. Robby could go for days without food, but Brad would get lightheaded and forgetful when his blood sugar got too low. The packets of sweet gel had been made for runners and athletes, but they had worked pretty well at restoring Brad to sanity when he went too long between meals.
“Are you with us, Eve?” Sandy was asked.
Brad’s fingers found the strap of the green bag and he began to pull it between the seats.
Eve was moaning something unintelligible. Brad figured it was a good sign that she was coming back to consciousness on her own.
“That’s good, Eve. Squeeze my fingers if you understand. Do you know where you are? Good,” Sandy was saying.
Brad turned around and pulled the bag into his lap. A while back, Ty had put together their official first aid kits and implored everyone to carry them around. Ty and Rita had given brief lectures on first aid, so that everyone could keep themselves alive while they were out in the world. That’s when Brad had retired his old green emergency bag, but retirement meant that he kept lugging it around from vehicle to vehicle and never opened it.
He pushed aside the bandages and old bottles of ibuprofen and aspirin. At the bottom, he found a number of the gel packs that he remembered. They all had “Energy” or “Power” as part of the name printed on their little foil packets. He tore the corner of one flavored “Orange Burst” and squeezed a little of the gel onto his finger.
“Okay, Eve. Good. You can let go now,” Sandy said in back.
“Brad, don’t be ridiculous,” Romie said, glancing over. “That stuff has to be thirty years old. We’re not giving that poor woman your rancid stuff.”
He sniffed it and then touched it to his tongue.
“I think it’s fine. It didn’t taste like…”
“Eve,” Sandy said. Her voice rising above Brad’s. “You can let go now.”
Eve’s moan turned into a strange growl, like she was choking on saliva. Brad was in the process of turning to look when Romie tugged the wheel to the side and slammed on the brakes. A million things ran through Brad’s mind as he put together what was happening. Romie must have seen it in the rearview mirror—Sandy pulling back as Eve rose with bared, bloody teeth. Behind them, through the back glass, he saw the hood of Luther’s car dip as he reacted to Romie. Mostly, Brad was thinking about the roof of the school. He was thinking about the way that emotions had moved through him like a foul wind. They were uncontrollable and seemed to be connected to a time and place.
Sandy was bigger and taller than Eve. She was holding the woman at arm’s length as the vehicle slowed to a stop.
Hulk barked twice and then put his ears back. Sandy warned him off with a glance.
“No!” Brad shouted to Romie. “Don’t stop. Go! Go!”
“Don’t be crazy,” Romie said.
Brad shot her a look and her eyes widened. Somehow, she got the message and stepped on the accelerator.
“You have to…” Sandy said, struggling, “help me with her.”
Brad tried to maneuver himself so he could reach over the seat. Sandy was doing fine. Even with her arms shaking from the exertion, she was controlling Eve well enough to keep her snarling, biting mouth away.
“Hold on, Eve,” Brad said. “This is going to pass. Can you hear me?”
It appeared that some of the fight was leaving the woman. Her growling diminished and Sandy was able to push her down. Eve wasn’t exactly subdued, but she didn’t fight as hard. From his position, Brad was only able to grab ahold of one of Eve’s wrists. That let Sandy move her hand to Eve’s shoulder. With that pressure, Eve was completely on her back, looking straight up. The panic and anger faded from Eve’s eyes.
They had another problem. Romie was speeding up, but Luther was trying to pull alongside. He was honking and flashing his lights, trying to get them to stop.
“How is she?”
“Go farther, please,” Brad said.
Eve bucked a couple more times. Sandy was panting now—her strength was nearly spent. Sandy’s sweat rolled down her forehead to her nose and then dripped on Eve.
“Can you hear us, Eve? Can you get control?” Brad asked. He held her wrist with one hand and stroked her hand with the other.
She looked at him.
Blinking away confusion, Eve’s face cleared and she made eye contact with Brad.
“Where are we? Where are the kids?”
“You can stop now,” Brad said to Romie. “She’s going to be okay.”
Sandy began to relax a little as Romie slowed down. The honking from Luther stopped as well. To Brad, it felt like the whole world took a deep breath and let it out. He hoped that he was right—that everything was going to be okay. Everything was based on a hunch that was based on a half-assed deduction. And all that was based on an observation that was made under extreme duress.
“You sure?” Romie asked.
“Of course,” Brad said.
To demonstrate his trust in Eve’s control, he let go and turned around in his seat. The vehicle stopped.
Luther screeched to a stop beside them. He threw his driver’s door open so hard that it bounced back and he slammed it away again.
“What are you doing to her?” Luther demanded.
Brad got out. “It’s okay—she’s okay. She had a seizure or something. We had to restrain her.”
Luther pulled open the rear door of Brad’s SUV. Sandy shrank back as he invaded the space, hovering over Eve.
“What happened, Eve? You okay?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
Sandy reached for Hulk and got an arm around his neck.
“What happened?” Luther asked again.
“I don’t know. I think… I remember they were coming for the kids,” she said.
She sat up so fast that Brad tensed immediately. She looked ready to attack again.
“Where are the kids?” she asked.
Everyone turned toward the other vehicle. Derek and Booker practically had their faces pressed to the glass.
“They’re fine,” Luther said. “They’re staying put for once. I think they’re too scared to get out.”
“Who can blame them,” Eve said. Luther helped her spin around so she could sit upright in the seat.
“Come on back to the car,” Luther said. “Ride with me.”
“Please,” Brad said. He put his hand on Luther’s shoulder and felt the man wanting to pull away from the touch. Luther stayed put though, and listened to what Brad had to say. “I promise you that she will be better off with us. Sandy will be right there to help her if she has trouble again.”
Luther’s hard eyes weren’t accepting a word of it.
It was Eve who had to change his mind.
“He’s right. Drive the kids. Stay close. We’ll be okay.”
Luther considered this while he looked into Eve’s eyes.
Finally, he turned to Brad. “I’ll follow, but you turn on your radio. You’re supposed to be on channel nineteen. We talked about this.”
“Got it,” Brad said. It made perfect sense, he just hadn’t thought about it. The others must have discussed it before they left.
Luther made sure Eve was comfortable and then they shut the doors again.
Eve’s eyes were closed as they started to move again. Brad turned in his seat so he could see her. When Romie got back up to speed, Brad said, “Eve, tell us what you remember.”
&n
bsp; The radio chirped and then Luther’s voice came over the speaker.
“How is she?”
Brad clicked the button on the unit and glanced back.
“We’re fine, Luther,” Eve said.
“Good.”
Brad looked back to her again. She had been collecting herself for a minute or two. Now, it didn’t seem like she was going to start talking without more prompting.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Eve said.
“She was unconscious,” Sandy said. “A lot of times…”
Brad put up his hand to stop Sandy from making more excuses for Eve. When she first woke up, he had seen something in her eyes. There was a memory there and it had to be recovered fast, like a dream, or it would fade away. Brad could almost remember his own memories. He hadn’t been as deep in it as she had been though.
“Go ahead, Eve. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense,” Brad said.
She nodded.
“I was driving. I saw you guys behind us and I was glad. I didn’t like being the last in line. We felt… I guess I felt exposed. Then Sandy was back there, and then you guys behind her. It was almost like when we were back in the basement, you know? There was safety in the group somehow.”
Brad looked away and let his eyes drift over the passing terrain. The feeling she described was right at the edge of his memory. It was something that he had felt on the roof of the school.
“But then the kids started arguing about the snacks. They both wanted the same carrot. It was such a stupid argument. It distracted me just enough that I lost sight of the vehicle ahead. I started to speed up. Luther clicked the radio.”
“Yes,” Sandy said. “I heard his call.”
“There was almost a… It was like there was a vibration in the air when he was transmitting. I picked it up in my fingertips and in my scalp. It was almost hot. The vibration got so uncomfortable that I had to slow down. I remember putting on the brakes so I could close my eyes. Luther was yelling.”
She looked so weary that Brad wanted to tell her to take a break. He remembered the gel. They had never given it to her. Before handing it back, he squeezed a little on his finger and tasted it again, just to be sure it wasn’t rancid. Eve’s eyes lit up when she saw the foil pouch that he handed back.
“I used to love this stuff. Is it still good?”
Brad shrugged. “Can’t say for sure.”
Eve took it anyway. She smacked her tongue as she ate the sugary stuff. Her smile lit up her face.
“So I closed my eyes and I could hear Luther yelling, but it didn’t matter much to me. All I cared about was keeping out the vibrations. They had started with the radio, came into me through my skin, and then it was like a million ants crawling inside my skull. They were picking and clawing their way into my brain. I know it was just a hallucination, or whatever, but the sensation was so vivid.”
He handed another gel pack back to her. She took it, but only held it in her hands.
“They won. The ants won and took over for a bit. I was chased way deep inside myself. The part of me that considers itself me was, like, down in my chest or something. It was the strangest sensation.”
Brad saw Romie’s head turn and hoped that she wouldn’t share the thought behind the look. He wanted Eve to continue remembering. He reached over and put his fingertips on Romie’s elbow. They were quickly shrugged away.
“That was it for a long time,” she said. At the time, it felt like hours and then days. Honestly, it wouldn’t have surprised me to find out that I had been in a coma for a month. At the same time, when I finally started to come back, I knew it had only been minutes. Sandy was holding me down, right? We were in the back seat and Sandy…”
“Eve, go back,” Brad said. “Your consciousness was down in your torso and the ants had taken over.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. Her eyelids dropped a little—she was descending back into the memory.
“Yes. I was down in my own heart, looking up. The ants worked as one, but also as many independent things. They were trying to set up everything so that their vibration would be matched by my vibration. No, that’s not right…”
She bit her lip and closed her eyes. Pain flashed across her face.
“They were clearing away the wrong vibrations so that the correct vibrations wouldn’t be encumbered anymore.”
“Vibrations?” Romie whispered.
“And how were they doing that?” Brad asked.
“They weren’t physical ants. I mean, they weren’t real in a physical sense. And the vibrations weren’t actual either. It was metaphorical ants clearing away metaphorical vibrations that didn’t match what they wanted. I guess that if I had to put a name to the act, they were eating the mismatched vibrations.”
“And if you had to put a different label on the vibrations, what were they a metaphor for?”
“For me,” Eve said. Her eyes popped open. She was both surprised and delighted by her own answer. “Maybe they were my brainwaves. Maybe they were the normal firings of my synapses. Whatever it was, the ants had to clear away everything that defined me so that I could be a shell for them. At the same time, the thing that’s really me was hidden away. I don’t know what that suggests. Maybe my brain was taken over by the ants but my soul was safe?”
“The soul doesn’t control the brain?” Sandy asked.
Eve didn’t have an answer. She could only turn up her hands at the question.
“How did you stop them?” Brad asked.
“I couldn’t,” she said. “I was aware of them, and I felt like I could almost slow them down, but it didn’t feel like I could stop them.”
“I don’t get it,” Romie said. “What happened to the ants?”
Before Eve could answer, the radio interrupted again.
“How are you doing, Eve?” Luther’s voice asked.
Brad turned to look at her. Eve had her eyes closed. When she opened them, she appeared to know his question before he asked it.
“I don’t feel the vibration from the radio anymore,” she said.
“Eve?” Luther asked again.
Brad clicked the button on the radio so she could answer.
Chapter 90: Corinna
Corinna took the first part of the road fast. She wanted to make the hill before whatever was out there could reach the blind spot. Behind her, Red moaned when the truck slammed over a bad patch of road.
“Leave me,” Red groaned.
“You’re going to be okay,” Beth said to him.
“No,” he said.
Corinna had an idea what he was thinking.
“It wouldn’t work,” she said over her shoulder.
“What wouldn’t?” Beth asked.
“He thinks that if we leave him by the side of the road, he will attract whatever is out there. I don’t think you’re right, Red. It’s going to go after whatever is biggest and moving fastest,” Corinna said. She was giving Red the benefit of the doubt. It was just as likely that he wanted to get out because he had the same dread of the hill that she had. There was something moving beyond that rise of earth. It had come down from the tree line and it was moving, out of sight, to reach an ambush point on the other side of the hill. Their only hope was to pass through before it could attack.
“What are you two talking about?” Beth asked. “Why are you so convinced that there’s something out there?”
“You don’t feel it?” Corinna asked. Since moving to Donnelly, Corinna had tried several times to become proficient at hunting. It never worked. Corinna never had any idea where to find the animals or track them. Even when someone else did that work, she never had a sense when they were coming. The whole party would quiet down and focus their attention and then, magically, a deer would start across the clearing. Everyone else had an innate sense that Corinna lacked. Out here, driving across the bumpy road between fallow fields, she had an idea of what the rest of them always sensed. There was a presence out there. It wasn’t prey, a
nd it wasn’t the kind of thing that one might go out to hunt. It was itself a hunter and it certainly knew just as much about them as she did about it.
“I don’t feel anything except certainty that you’re going to kill us if you drive any faster. Don’t forget that your motorcycle is right in the middle of the road on the other side of that hill.”
Corinna had forgotten.
“Good point,” she said. The motorcycle was on the other side because the Death Line was on the other side. They didn’t have to outrun the predator forever—they only had to beat it to the Death Line.
“Hang on,” Corinna said. She eased off the gas a little and glanced in her mirror. Beth and Red had braced themselves and they were strapped in. Just before they reached the hill, Corinna pulled the wheel to the right, jumping the truck up out of the ruts of the dirt road.
The truck jostled and shook as they bounced over the field. Grass whipped at the hood and lashed the underside. In the bed, their bags of supplies toppled.
Red moaned. Beth was pressing her hands to his side.
“What exactly are you trying to accomplish?” Beth shouted over the rumble of the truck.
The engine roared when the truck launched over the hill. Corinna pushed herself back in the seat and then bent her arms, anticipating the impact with the ground. A wordless shout came out of her mouth when she saw the dirt road to their left. She had been correct—the thing had come for them and it would have taken them if they had stayed on the road. The dark shape was amassed between the dirt ruts.
The steering wheel jerked as the vehicle bucked underneath them. It was all Corinna could do to keep their heading. The Death Line was up ahead and she wanted to cross it before coming back to the road, but if she veered too much to the right they would head straight for the ditch.
The dark shape was gaining speed. Red’s moan transformed into a scream. Glancing at the mirror, Corinna saw that Beth’s head was down as she tried to hold Red in his seat.
A flash of white made Corinna jog the truck a little to the right. There was a cache of bones, stripped of muscle and skin, bleaching in the sun. The wheels of the truck caught one and it flew up, smashing into the side mirror.