I nod and clench to stop my teeth from chattering. My eyes skitter around for threats while they line the mud under the tires with whatever they can find for traction. Once that’s done, they place their hands on the hood and lower their heads with the effort of pushing, while I lower my foot to the accelerator and pray. The wheels spin in the muddy ditch until Adrian raises a hand for me to stop. His face pales and he elbows Marcus.
I spin in my seat to find that the first few have rounded the bend. We were quiet, but the sound of spinning wheels carries in the forest. Or maybe they were following the van to begin with. It doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters is that they’re making a beeline for us. Adrian and Marcus fall in the side door and close it with a soft click. The Lexers are moving quickly, more quickly than they do if they don’t have a destination.
“Down,” Adrian says, just before the first Lexer hits.
There’s a thump and a hiss. I crawl to sit in the aisle next to Adrian, under the cover of the seats. I want to close my eyes, like a little kid who thinks no one can see him if he can’t see them. The Lexers might lose interest if we’re quiet and hidden from sight, and then we can wait it out until help arrives. Someone from the farm will be here before night; they know we’re coming.
Adrian covers where my hand grips the denim of his jeans. He tries to keep his hands steady, but I can feel the tremble. You have to be scared, though. If you’re not scared, then you’re stupid. It’s not a bad thing.
But this is a bad thing. Because they know we’re in here. They must, by the way they hammer on the windows. A streak of black liquid runs down the glass and a forehead leaves a smear along a side window. There are more dragging footsteps, more groans, and then the sound of denting metal on the road side of the van grows more insistent. One of the windows cracks with a sound like a gunshot, but it holds for now.
Marcus clamps a hand over his mouth when we slide farther sideways into the ditch. The van will end up on its side if they push hard enough, and then they’ll be in here. I imagine their arms reaching through broken windows and the way they’ll slither through and land on us, and I bite my tongue so hard that the metallic taste of blood floods my mouth.
“Run?” Marcus asks in a low voice.
Out the door on the forest side may be our only chance. The slope is steep enough that they haven’t come around yet. I nod when Adrian looks to me and then fumble for my cleaver and check my knife and gun.
Marcus raises himself eye level to the window and comes down with a face whiter than before. “They’re in the woods.”
Adrian points up the road. There aren’t that many on the road ahead, and three miles to the farm. I’ve run farther with Ana, and although I’ve hated every minute of it, I could run a marathon if it meant getting home.
The van shifts again. Marcus grabs the door handle, takes a breath and throws it open. I glance at the woods and my breath disappears, not that there was much of it to begin with. Scattered Lexers stumble through the trees, coming for us. We’re in the middle of the largest pod we’ve seen this year.
We stop at the hood of the van when Lexers flood out of the woods on the left side of the road. They’ve cut off our escape. Normally, I can find my calm inner space in the center of the storm, but right now there’s nothing but the certainty that this is how I’m going to die. Marcus points to a path through the trees, where the Lexers are spaced out. We scramble down the incline just as the van lands on its side with a thud and a shattering of glass.
I swing my cleaver at everything that comes our way. I stop for an eye socket when its fingers fasten around Marcus’s coat and a neck when one stands in front of us with its arms out. It’s happening so fast. I can’t look in every direction, so I run alongside Adrian and stare straight ahead. If we barrel through them fast enough, they won’t have time to get a handhold.
Marcus’s foot hits the heel of my boot, and I stumble into a Lexer. The moss that moves up its arm and under the tattered sleeve of its shirt hasn’t affected its strength thus far. I scream when it sinks its teeth into the leather sleeve of my jacket. They couldn’t have gone through, but I drop my cleaver from the pain. I can’t reach my knife with my left hand, and the tips of my fingers have just grazed my pistol when my left arm is yanked from behind. Another Lexer pulls me in the opposite direction like I’m the rope in a game of tug of war.
Adrian tries to come to my aid, but he’s stopped by three Lexers that surround him. He yells something over his shoulder, and the twisted faces of the Lexers snarl, but I can’t hear anything but my grunts and the pounding of my heart. I push them away whenever they get close, my arms growing more exhausted with every shove.
This is how I’m going to die.
The calm hits just before I’ve reached full-scale panic mode. I need to be mad and scared, not frozen in terror. I need to take them one at a time. That’s how John says to do it—one at a time. I let the first one’s mouth come for me and headbutt him in his chest. There’s a crack when my head sinks into his sternum, and a rush of fluid soaks my scalp. I’m probably more stunned than he is by the blow, but he stumbles back from the force and loses his grip. My right hand free, I pull my knife from my holster to bury it in the eye of the other.
Adrian’s machete goes under the chin and out through the top of the first one’s skull. I snatch my cleaver off the ground and we run. Marcus pulls ahead and disappears into where the ground forms a natural bowl, and seconds later a high-pitched wail echoes and cuts off. We skid to a stop at the edge of the bowl. Marcus lies on the ground, covered with Lexers like flies on a corpse, and the ones not eating begin their approach.
They’re coming from the road, from ahead of us, from the left and right. Adrian glances at the hundreds of bodies circling in with an expression that’s almost vacant. He takes my gloved hand, and I notice his hands are bare; he’d taken his gloves off to make that list and had never put them on again.
He squeezes my hand twice, and then he says, “Run.”
I start in a sprint toward a grouping of trees that might offer some cover. His hand slips from mine, and I spin, terrified I’ll find him on the ground like Marcus. But he’s running in the other direction.
“Adrian!” I scream.
A Lexer with long hair grabs me from behind. I spin to stab my cleaver in her forehead, and by the time I turn to follow he’s too far gone, moving east from the farm. The Lexers are giving him chase now. I press my back against a tree, the adrenaline that had been spurring me on replaced by an icy tingling that has me frozen to the spot.
“Cassie, run!” Adrian calls. “Run! I’ll meet you there!”
He yells it again and again, making noise to attract them, to pull them away. And it’s working; the Lexers are passing me by. But I don’t want to run. I won’t leave him here. Adrian fires his pistol and steps backward through the trees. His jacket has gone missing, and his white t-shirt is bright against the pale, colorless clothes of the Lexers. They’re closing in on him, hundreds of Lexers I could never fight off myself.
I scream his name. He can fight his way back. We can run together. I want to tell him that, but all that comes out is another scream. Something in my throat gives, and the next is nothing but an exhalation of air. I scurry out of reach of a straggler I’ve alerted to my presence and duck behind another tree. A group of five Lexers lumbers toward me with interest. Adrian’s pulled most of them his way, but there are still too many. They’re bound to notice me, no matter how still I am. I have no choice if I want to live. I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive myself, but I run.
25
I slap at branches and stumble through a thicket to avoid another small group. They’re moving in the direction of the gunshots that reverberate through the trees. Those shots mean Adrian’s still alive. He’ll circle around and meet me at the farm, like he promised. I hold onto that hope while I try to figure out where the farm is. I don’t know these woods, but I’m sure I started in the right direction.
Dan throws the door wide and steadies my shoulders while he looks me over. “We heard the shots. What’s happening? Are you okay?”
“Adrian,” I rasp. It hurts to talk. I point down the road. “Marcus.”
He bustles me into the back and takes off after I tell him where to go. Toby and Ben stare at me with wide eyes. “What happened?” Ben asks.
I want to tell Dan to go faster, but a look at the speedometer tells me he’s going faster than I’d dare.
“The van’s in a ditch,” I whisper. “We had to leave it. Marcus—” I shake my head, very glad that Caleb isn’t in here.
Toby raises a hand to his forehead. “Fuck!”
“Adrian’s in the woods. He ran the other way.”
The underside of the van comes into view. Lexers still stand beside it, but most have left for the woods. For Adrian. I haven’t heard a gunshot in a while. I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything; he’d had no reason to make noise once I was gone. He could focus on saving himself.
The Lexers wander over to the truck. Dan rolls thirty feet past and lowers the window. “Adrian!” he calls. “Adrian!”
The Lexers follow, and he reverses, paying no mind to the thumps when he collides with them. He calls again, but there’s no answer.
“He ran southeast,” I say. “Maybe he came out on the other road.”
Dan puts the truck into drive. “Wait!” I say.
I search for a white shirt and exhale when I see only the browns of the forest and the Lexers’ clothes. I catch Dan’s eye in the rearview and nod for him to go.
The roads are empty. We might have missed him. He could be moving through the forest. Maybe he’s at the farm already. I press my knees together to stop the tremors that run through me in waves. At the gate, I promise the universe that I’ll do anything, anything at all, if only Adrian is on the other side. Caleb slides the gate open, looking so much like Marcus that for a moment I’m bewildered, then hopeful, then crushed again. Adrian isn’t here. Caleb thrusts his head through the window and scans our faces. He stops at me and his mouth gapes.
“Where’s my brother?” he finally asks.
I don’t want to tell him from inside the truck, although his trembling chin tells me he already suspects. I open the door and face him on wobbly legs. “We went into a ditch and had to run. They caught—he couldn’t get away.”
He runs his knuckles up his cheek. “Is he dead? Tell me he’s not one of them.”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“Fuck!” he screams. He kicks the side of the truck hard enough to leave a dent. Then he kicks it again. “Fuck!”
We watch while Caleb beats the shit out of the pickup, until the side is full of tiny dents from his steel-toe boot. Finally, he crosses his arms over his face and howls. We stand helplessly, unwilling spectators to his private moment of anguish, until they trail off into silence.
“Where’s Adrian?” It’s muffled, but I can make out his words.
“I don’t know. He went the other way.”
“Probably dead,” Caleb says.
Those two words slam me back against the truck. He’s right. Adrian’s probably dead. I might never know for sure.
Caleb drops his arms and digs his fingers into my shoulder. “I meant Marcus! Cass, I meant my brother.”
I hold my hand to my mouth and stare at him. He may have meant Marcus, but it doesn’t matter. Adrian’s dead, I can feel it. He might be walking through the woods right now, but he isn’t alive.
26
“Please,” Penny says, “will you come and clean up?”
I stare at the gate. The day has become dusk, and I’ve been in this chair since we returned. I’m not leaving until I know for sure. He’ll come here, or I’ll go out looking for him. Either way, I’m going to find out. I won’t have another loose end.
“You look—”
I know how I must look. My forehead and cheek crackle with dried blood whenever I speak, which hasn’t been often, since my throat feels as though someone’s taken a sander to it. I don’t care that the blood in my hair is infected. If it finds a point of entry, so be it.
“Bits wants to see you.” Penny twists her hands together. “She’s scared. And she’ll be even more afraid.”
My hands tighten on the arms of the chair. She’s afraid I’m going to lose it, but she’s managed to say the one thing that could make me get up.
“I’ll get you,” Caleb says from the chair next to mine.
“Promise?” I don’t trust anyone else will. They’ll want to protect me, but Caleb understands.
“Promise.”
Penny trails me to the second floor of the farmhouse, where I falter to a stop outside my bedroom door. I don’t want to go in and see our stuff how we left it this morning, sure that we’d be back soon.
“I’ll get clothes,” Penny says softly. “Do you want anything else?”
I shake my head and shut myself in the bathroom. My buns are cemented with Lexer blood, so I step into the warm water and let it work its way through. It takes three lathers before what runs down the drain is clear. Penny’s laid out my clothes, and I emerge from the bathroom to find her slumped over the banister. She brushes my shoulder as I pass her down the stairs. “He could be okay.”
I want to scream at her to shut up, but then I will lose it. Right now I’m in a holding pattern. Something bad is coming, but I can’t think of anything except what I’ll have to do when I see him. I should do it; it’s only right. We’re supposed to take care of our own. I walk out the door and back to my chair.
27
The others arrive in the dark and make their way to me. At my request, Ben radioed them to stay at Whitefield until morning, when it would be safer to travel, but I wouldn’t have listened either. I fall out of John’s rough embrace and into my chair before I dissolve into tears. I won’t cry until I know for sure.
Nelly crouches and takes my hand. “What happened?”
“The van went into a ditch. We had to run. He ran the other way and called them so I could escape.”
The tone of my voice is eerily similar to Christine’s. We should have run together. And if we were going to die, die together. He knew I never would’ve agreed to split up, which is why he didn’t even say goodbye.
“Maybe—” Ana begins.
“No,” I say. It’s loud in the quiet.
Ana looks away. I’m relieved when her eyes stay dry. She drops her bag, pulls a chair over on my other side and sits. Nelly lowers himself to the dirt, clutching my hand in his.
“Bits is with Penny,” I say to Peter. I’ve sent Penny and Bits to bed. All Bits knows is that Adrian’s in the woods—which upset her enough.
He’s been waiting behind the others, and now he bends over me. “I’m sure she’s okay. I’ll stay.”
I look up when I hear the thickness in his voice. He presses his lips to my forehead before he moves to Ana’s other side. He takes up her hand, and we wait.
Dan brought a tent for me and Caleb, but every noise snaps us out of sleep. Every radio call makes us jump. I know he’ll come, and not because I think he’ll come back to me or something similarly idiotic. We’re plowing the fields and the noise draws them from the surrounding woods. That pod has been making its way here, and it’s only a matter of time.
Nights are quieter, since the farm is quiet. On the second night I lie in the tent next to Caleb, who unzips his sleeping bag and
wraps his fingers around my wrist. “Cassie?”
He sounds so young, and I remember that he’s only nineteen. Or he’s twenty now—we were coming back for his birthday. I squeeze his hand as he continues. “What will you do when…”
“I don’t know.” My voice is back to normal. “You?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Someone will. Don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
We lie in silence until his hand relaxes in my grip, but I don’t let go until I drift into sleep at dawn.
28
I’m walking back from the bathroom when I hear Caleb yell from the east fence. My hands grow cold, and I stumble over the gravel path. I thought I’d run when I heard, but it’s a struggle to make myself move toward the noise. The rattle of the fence is punctuated by more shouts. Nelly emerges from the trees that stand between the restaurant’s rear lot and the east fence. He directs people back into the building and speaks into Jeff’s ear. Jeff nods and plants his feet apart, arms crossed like a sentry.
Nelly’s blotchy face and rounded shoulders tell me all I need to know. He closes the distance between us, but I back away when he tries to touch me. “Don’t,” he says. “You don’t want to see.”
It takes every bit of determination I have to take the next step. I shake off Nelly’s hand, ignore his pleading and put the other foot forward. I do it again and again, forcing myself not to think about where I’m heading. I have to know. I’ve always needed to see the wound, inspect the stitches, pick at the scab. Sometimes imagining is worse than reality. Most of the time, actually. So I keep walking.
It comes to me in flashes, each one forcing the air from my lungs until it feels as though they’ve collapsed. His shredded white t-shirt, now a dried-blood brown and covered with the mulch that lines the forest floor. His filthy, gray fingers threaded through the links of the fence. The flesh that’s been torn out of his arms.
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 55