“Why would I fight it?” I say, my voice raspy. I sound as if my vocal cords have been rubbed raw with sandpaper.
“This isn’t who you are,” he pleads, taking a slow step to his right. “The Annie I love is still in there somewhere.”
He’s trying to distract me while he makes a dash for the path back to the boat. I can’t let that happen.
“This is who we are now, Jack.” My voice is barely above a whisper, my vocal cords are so damaged. But I’ll take care of that soon enough. I pull the gun from the back of my jeans and aim for his head. “And that halite won’t protect you.”
And before he can move, I squeeze the trigger.
His body drops to the ground before the echo dies away.
FORTY-TWO
OPEN YOUR EYES.
I’m huddled on the ground, my arms wrapped tightly around my head with my fingers laced behind my neck. My face is slick with perspiration and my heart thunders in my chest as if I’ve just run a marathon and collapsed in a heap at the finish line.
Flynn sighs. “That’s the worst of it.”
That’s the best of it.
“When it’s someone you know.”
The feeding is that much sweeter.
I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. I don’t want to believe him, and yet the memories . . .
. . . are real.
I squeeze my eyes closed, forcing the thoughts from my mind. “How?” I pant. “How did I not know?”
You didn’t want to.
Deputy Flynn crouches down close to me. “It takes a while for it to acclimate to your body, for the symbiotic relationship to be established. Until then, it’s a wrestling match. Sometimes you’re in control, sometimes not. It’s very weak when it first transfers into you, and it takes some time to regain its strength.”
It. “Anamet.”
Some call us that.
“The Wintu used that name, but we’ve been around for much longer than there have been names for us.”
Us? My head snaps up. “You’re one of them.”
“Them?” He throws his head back and laughs, hearty and full, with his hands planted on his hips. “As if we’re different. As if you’re not exactly like me.”
I’m not like him. I’m stronger.
I press my hands against my ears, desperate to silence the voice in my head.
“It was in my wife for many years, God rest her soul.” He crosses himself. “But when she got sick and couldn’t get healthy, it had to leave her. Then it’s been nothing but a steady stream of men. Until you.” Flynn lays his hand on mine, stroking it lightly with his thumb. I want to pull my hand away, to slap him across the face, but I can’t. Instead, a sickening thrill ripples through me. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you, Annie.”
A long time . . . “Malcolm Hockler.”
Flynn plops down on the ground beside me. “No one’s called me that in years. I’ve gotten used to ‘Flynn.’ But Malcolm Hockler—yes, I’d like to hear you call me that.”
“That’s impossible. You’d be like a hundred and ten years old.”
“One hundred and twenty-three, to be exact.” He winks. “But I don’t think I look a day over twenty-five. The Anamet keeps us young, keeps us strong.”
“By turning you into a monster. A cannibal.” I try to be disgusted, but I can feel the saliva building in my mouth at the mere thought of tasting blood.
“I prefer to think of it as recycling organic matter. The trick is not to fight it. Cooper, Romero, and the others, they resisted, which was their downfall. Once the Anamet senses that its host is no longer strong or compliant, it will look for a new one.” His lopsided smile is back. “And you’ve seen how that turns out.”
I picture the mummified body of Benjamin Cooper, drained of every last ounce of moisture, and shudder.
“Exactly,” Flynn says. “Cooper went to Slaughterhouse Island that day, trying to find the boat he’d left there thirty years before. Weller had him trapped in the mine for almost a decade, and the creature was weak when he finally emerged, allowing Cooper more control. I managed to get it out of Cooper and back to the mine before it was too late.”
“Right,” I say, recalling what he said in Jack’s kitchen. “They can’t survive outside the mine without another host.” I bite my lip, eyes fixed on the gun lying nearby as a plan begins to form in my mind.
“And then we just had to wait for someone to stumble into the mine,” Flynn continues. His fingers trail up my bare arm. “Or in your case, eight of you. I was hoping it would pick you, ever since I saw you on the beach. The brunette is attractive, but I love a ginger.”
Before he can say another word, I dive for the gun. “You picked the wrong girl, asshole.” The creature inside me doesn’t have time to react before I point the barrel at Flynn and fire.
Flynn doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound. His eyes are wide in disbelief as a dark spot appears on his khaki shirt, quickly expanding to the size of a dinner plate. It makes me smile. He thought I’d given in to the beast inside me, acquiesced to the hunger, and would take immortality in exchange for my soul.
You are stronger than I thought.
Flynn drops to his knees, his hands pressed into the wound near his heart. “What have you done?” He leans forward on one hand, limping toward me. The confusion is gone, and so is his cocky smile, replaced by an ugly snarl of his upper lip. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I’ve saved countless lives,” I say.
Have you?
“You bitch!” Flynn lunges at me and I fire again and again, this time catching him in the throat. He opens his mouth, but instead of a bloodcurdling scream issuing forth, there’s just blood. It gurgles from his throat like water from a fountain, and he chokes on it as he falls forward onto the rocks, his body jerking and twitching like a man drowning. He manages to raise his head toward me, and in that instant, his body goes rigid. Then, with his eyes locked onto mine, I watch in horror as something begins to emerge from his open mouth.
Even in the blackness of the night, the creature that draws itself out of Deputy Flynn is darker still, wispy tendrils of smoke and shadow. They emerge from his nostrils, and from the corners of his eyes. The ghostly coils of the Anamet thicken, coalescing into an enormous mass before him. Larger than a man, I’ve seen this imposing shadow before, stalking me in the depths of the mine, and I realize, with a sickening sensation in my stomach, that one of these things is inside of me as well.
One with you. We cannot be separated.
As if to prove its point, Flynn’s body begins to vibrate, and I watch as the final strands of the Anamet emerge from his body, draining what’s left of the life from him. His eyes roll back into his head, leaving dark holes in the sockets, and his skin withers like old shoe leather left to bake in the hot sun. Flynn’s torso lifts off the ground and a hissing emerges from his rapidly constricting throat, like the air being let out of a balloon, slowly at first then faster and faster, until with a mighty rush, the rubber shell is sucked clean. With a final heave, the last of the black smoke emerges from Flynn’s orifices, and his skin deflates, sticking to the skeletal structure beneath as if his entire body has been vacuum sealed. He falls limply to the ground, an empty shell, and is still.
The Anamet that inhabited his body for a hundred years hovers above Flynn’s mummified corpse. Does it feel any sadness? Any remorse? Any sense of kinship or brotherhood toward its longtime host?
Sometimes.
With a jerk, the Anamet seems to recall its present predicament. Even though it doesn’t have a face, I can feel its attention turn toward me, glaring, menacing, a cold sensation of concentrated hatred prickling the skin on my arms. It darts at me, so fast I can barely see the movement before it’s inches from my face. The mass pulsates as if its breathing is labored, the beat erratic.
“You can’t have her,” I hear myself say. “There isn’t room for two.” It’s my voice producing the sounds, my lips and tongue moving to create the word
s, but I feel as if someone else has taken control of my body, a puppet master pulling the strings, and I realize that it is the creature inside me speaking to its brethren. “Go back to the mine. I will bring you a host.”
The shadow hesitates for a moment, then it retreats, drifting quickly over the rocky ground toward the entrance to the mine, where its darkness is swallowed.
FORTY-THREE
I CROUCH ON THE GROUND, PROPPED UP ON MY LEFT ARM with my dad’s Baby Desert Eagle still tightly grasped in my hand. There’s no way in hell I’ll let that thing find a new host. I’d rather be alone up here until the end of time.
You’ll never be alone.
I sit up, trying to figure out what to do. The creature doesn’t have complete control of me yet.
Yet.
I was able to fire the gun repeatedly at Flynn, whereas earlier, the Anamet stopped me. Why? I’d hesitated before, gave the creature time to react. When I killed Flynn, it was an action I took in the heat of the moment, without forethought. Is that the secret?
There is no secret.
A siren in the distance, breaking the silence of the night. First one, then another. It’s the Lake Patrol. They’ve found Sonya’s minivan, traced me back to the mine.
“They’ve come for me,” I say out loud to the voice in my head. “My father won’t be able to protect me. They’ll kill me if they have to.”
Us.
“Me!”
There’s no more “you.” Only “us.”
Fine. “They won’t stop until they find us.”
I know.
The sirens are louder now. Directly below us on the rocky shores. I can hear shouts as deputies jump from the boats, splashing in the shallow water. They’ll be here any minute. I just need to keep the Anamet from getting back into the mine until they arrive, then I’ll point my gun at them. Death by cop. It’s the only way.
Never.
Without wanting to, I push myself to my feet and shuffle toward the mine. I’m not in control of my body.
I force myself to resist, digging my heels into the dirt, and for a moment, I can feel my hands and feet again. I tumble forward, sprawling on the rocky ground, and try to claw myself away from the entrance to the mine. I make it a few feet before my body flips over, as if an invisible hand has scooped me up, lifting me to my knees. I fight back with every ounce of strength remaining, but slowly, painfully, the Anamet crawls toward the mouth of the cave.
“You won’t escape,” I say. “They’ll follow us inside.”
I can feel its cockiness swell inside. I’m counting on it.
Counting on it? Oh, dear God. The other Anamet needs a new host. The posse will swarm the mine, searching for me. They’ll get separated, panic as the rocks come alive and a shadowy creature stalks them, just out of sight. Any one of them could find the Anamet first.
Not any one of them.
Something in the creature’s attitude sets my heart pounding. I grunt, concentrating on my limbs, and manage to regain control, freezing halfway to the mine entrance. “Not any one of them,” I repeat. That means the Anamet has a target in mind.
I catch my breath. “Dad.”
Father and daughter. He’ll do anything to protect you.
“No!”
I lurch backward, away from the mine. I won’t let them trap my dad, won’t let them turn him into a monster like me. He tried to protect me, even while knowing what I’d become. I had to do the same for him. For my mom’s sake. Flynn said that Cooper and Romero had fought against the creature. Now it was my turn.
My eyes lock on the glinting metal of the gun, and a sickening thought fills my mind. I’ll kill myself. That’s the only way.
But I wait too long. The creature can read my thoughts, giving it a chance to stop me. I sense its panic and it fights back, trying to regain control of my body before I can reach the gun. It feels as if I’m running through quicksand, my legs pumping but getting nowhere.
“I won’t let you take him.” I claw my way across the ground. I’m inches away from the gun when I have the sensation of being kicked in the side. I roll over onto my back and fight the urge to stand up. I manage to flop back onto my stomach, arm outstretched. I can feel the cool metal of the gun beneath my palm.
Without waiting to think, I close my fingers around it and flex my bicep, trying to bring the muzzle to my temple. I’d rather die than let them turn my father into a monster. But before I can put a bullet in my brain, my arm is ripped away, pointing the gun into the emptiness of the night, and I can feel my finger pulling the trigger.
Two bullets explode against the silence, followed by a gentle clicking. My heart sinks. The gun is empty.
“Up here!” a voice yells. A familiar voice. My dad. “Annie? Annie, are you here?”
“No,” I groan, tears streaming down my face. “Please, no.”
It is too late.
In the moment of lapsed concentration, the creature takes control once more. “I’m here, Dad!” I say. “In the mine. Help me!”
“Annie!”
I stand up and hurry toward the mine, passing Flynn. His withered corpse looks like a sack of old clothes strewn across the rocks. Beyond him are the mangled remains of Jack, messenger bag still by his side.
A messenger bag full of dynamite.
I can’t think, can’t give the creature a moment to counteract my intentions. Garnering all of my strength, I stumble as we pass Jack’s body, falling to one knee. It’s not much, but enough. I reach out with my hand and loop my fingers through the strap.
I feel the Anamet’s control over me waver, wondering why I did that. Just the moment I need.
I push myself to my feet and sprint toward the mine entrance, my right hand fumbling around inside Jack’s bag.
Why are you running toward the mine?
The Anamet is confused: I’m taking it exactly where it wants to go.
We enter the shaft as my fingers deftly find the ends of two wires and wrap them tightly around the blasting cap. The cool, damp air hits me as it rushes forward from the depths of Bull Valley, which, instead of sending a shiver down my spine, feels more like I’ve been enveloped in a loving embrace the instant I cross the threshold. Calmness. Peacefulness. As if the world is finally right after years of being wrong.
“Home,” I say.
Yes.
Tears well up in my eyes. I could stay here forever. Live here in peace and joy and never know pain again. I could be one with the rocks, one with the earth, just as I have always been.
This is where we were born.
It would be so easy to give in.
Yes.
“Annie?” My dad is just outside the mine.
NO!
Inside the bag, my fingers finally close on a lighter. I flick the flame to life, igniting the fuse on the blasting cap, and hug the bag to my chest.
“This is where we were born, and this is where we will die.”
My head pounds. A deep throbbing, as if my brain is attempting to hammer its way out of my skull. The pulsation is rhythmic, a regular tattoo, like the ticking of a clock or the pounding of my heart.
Our heart.
My eyes fly open. I’m laying facedown in the soft silt. I know because I can feel it swirling around my nose and mouth, clogging my nostrils and coating my tongue. But I can’t see it. Can’t see anything.
Not that it matters. I know where I am. The Anamet managed to throw the bag of dynamite toward the mine entrance and get far enough from the blast so that my body survived.
Does this make you happy or sad?
I cough and push myself upright, spitting the dirt from my mouth. It tastes like ashes.
The mine is pitch-black. The blast must have brought down a ton of rock between us and the outside world, sealing off the entrance for the foreseeable future. “Looks like we’re stuck here.”
I feel a warmth spread through me. We.
I drag myself to my feet, unsure which of us is controlling the motor functi
ons of my body. Not that it matters. Between the halite and the mine collapse, we won’t be going anywhere for a while.
The mine will preserve us until we are released.
“We’ll see about that.” I have no intention of releasing this thing back into the world, using my body to commit its ghastly crimes.
You will come to understand me. And I you. We shall make a wonderful team.
“I’ll die first.” Death would be better than giving in to the monster inside me.
Maybe.
Or maybe not. Either way, we have a lifetime to figure it out, here beneath the mountain where one eats oneself.
THE END.
MAYBE.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sometimes, a book’s journey to publication is a wild ride. That’s exactly what happened with Relic, so I want to offer a huge thank-you to the following people who made this novel possible:
To Ginger Clark, who went above and beyond on this one.
To Jordan Hamessley and all the people at Egmont who championed the book to the bloody end.
To Kristin Daly Rens, Alessandra Balzer, Donna Bray, and the amazing folks at Epic Reads Impulse who saved this novel from an untimely death.
To the folks at Curtis Brown who always work so tirelessly on my behalf: Holly Frederick, Nicholas J. L. Beudert, Jonathan Lyons, Sarah Perillo, and Tess Callero.
To the team at HarperCollins and Epic Reads who brought this book together, including Sarah Kaufman in design and Kathryn Silsand in managing editorial.
To the Wolfpack, without whose input and encouragement I wouldn’t have been able to finish: Jennifer Bosworth, Michelle Gagnon, B. T. Gottfred, Nadine Nettmann, and James Raney.
To Mark Uhlemann and Francisco Calvo, who went on a camping trip to Round Valley Reservoir in New Jersey and inadvertently inspired this story.
And to my amazingly supportive and patient husband, John, who is the best part of every single day.
EXCERPT FROM I’M NOT YOUR MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL
Read on for an excerpt of Gretchen McNeil’s next book:
I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Relic Page 21