by Simon Holt
“A well-deserved nap,” said Aaron.
Reggie looked away as Machen stuck the needle in her arm. She felt the surge of medicine as it entered her bloodstream, and within minutes her eyelids became heavy. The last thing she saw were the three of them standing around her, concern laced in their eyes. They were willing to sacrifice everything for her. Her heroes, all of them.
21
The medicine worked as Machen had said it would. Reggie slept for almost a full twelve hours without dreaming a single thing, and when she opened her eyes again, she barely realized she was awake. Aaron made her drink several cups of water and fed her some chicken soup, and after she made a groggy trip to the bathroom, the boys helped her back to the couch.
“You all are sssso great,” Reggie mumbled, slurring her words. Aaron wrapped the tourniquet around her arm again and took out one of the syringes. Reggie only half-understood what was going on, and their voices sounded very far away.
“I hate this,” he said.
“Do you want me to do it?” Quinn asked.
“No, I got it.”
He plunged the needle into Reggie’s vein, and she drifted off again.
The routine continued, morning and evening, for the next few days. Reggie only vaguely remembered the brief periods when she was awake, and other than that all was blessed blackness. She had long ago lost track of the date, but one morning, as she was falling back into unconsciousness, she heard Aaron whisper in her ear.
“Almost there, sweetie. We’re almost there. You’re doing great.”
The words were a comfort, and she smiled.
She didn’t know why, but the next time she came out of the dark, it seemed like less time had passed. The bronze light of the setting sun dazzled her eyes, and it took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t in Eben’s apartment. She was in a car, speeding along past the fields outside Cutter’s Wedge. She tried to turn her head, but it wouldn’t move, nor could she speak. The medicine must still be wearing off, she thought, but she wasn’t particularly concerned. It was kind of nice, looking at the scenery in the sunset. The golden light sparked off the icy rime that covered the dead fields, looking almost like flame.
The car slowed to a stop at a four-way intersection, and something in the field caught Reggie’s eye. A huge cross rose up out of the ground, and something was strapped to it. She peered at it, trying to see what it was, and her breath caught in her throat. Arms, legs, a torso, a head. It was a body, and it was crying out, pleading with someone unseen.
“Pa, please. Not tonight. Any night but tonight!”
She’d heard those words before. Who had spoken them?
“Can you see it? The shadow…”
The sun hit the very edge of the horizon, and its red light glinted off the brown fields like a match striking flint. Suddenly the earth was ablaze with angry flames, and it licked the edges of the cross. Black smoke billowed up into the sky, and all Reggie could hear were the shrieks coming from the body as the smoke and fire engulfed it.
The fear blossomed in Reggie like the inferno before her. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced: pure, hateful, manic fear that twinged every nerve in her body, fear that almost blinded her for its power. Her mind couldn’t handle the pressure, and she thought it might burst. But then, in the background, a familiar tune played out to the beat of her pounding pulse:
“Your body’s here but not your soul.”
And then, all of a sudden, it was gone. The fear, the dread, the worry—gone, as was the fire and the smoke and the screaming. The “body” on the cross was only a scarecrow, left to hang there long after the crops had been harvested. Of course, thought Reggie, it’s the same scarecrow I saw from my room at Quinn’s. Now she felt very stupid for having overreacted so.
As this understanding set in, she realized that she felt different. It was like her eyes had been opened for the first time, and everything was crystal clear. She was invincible, unable to be countered or conquered, and anyone who stood in her way would crumble before the terrible visage that was she.
But when she turned her head, she felt a pang of alarm. Mitch Kassner was in the driver’s seat.
Reggie wanted to scream, but her lips were unresponsive. So was the rest of her body. She tried to move her arms, to hit him, to grab the steering wheel, to open her own door and jump out of the moving car—anything—but it was like she was paralyzed. Maybe he’d given her some kind of drug.
What had happened? The Tracers must have found them at Eben’s and taken her. And if that was the case…
Oh, God, thought Reggie. Aaron, Quinn, Machen. They could all three be dead right now. But why wasn’t she? Why hadn’t Mitch killed her? If he was taking her someplace, it was probably because the Tracers wanted to interrogate her, and they would use any method to get her to cooperate.
Reggie turned her head involuntarily, and she suddenly realized that her thoughts were turned outside the moving car. Like hatching spiderlings escaping their web, they flew out in many directions, seeking something, but she didn’t know what, nor could she control them. They drifted out over town, some of them landing on people having dinner, or watching television, or reading to their children. But most of them soared past Cutter’s Wedge to the surrounding areas, so many thoughts, so many webs, Reggie couldn’t keep track of them all. They pulled at her consciousness, making her dizzy and confused. But still, something drove them forth, something she couldn’t identify.
But Reggie began to sense motivation behind all these threads of thought and, what was more, malice. They were searching, searching desperately for something, driven by a singleness of purpose and an overwhelming hate. Reggie felt a bitterness enter her headspace like black bile. She wanted to pull them all back, but they were too far gone.
And then one of them blipped—it was the only way Reggie could describe it—one of the thoughts had found its mark, and it was as though it sent up a flare to the others. Immediately the rest surged toward the one, yanking Reggie’s consciousness far, far away. She was no longer seeing the car or the road or Mitch; she was soaring over the land, past housing developments and farms, until she was swerving among the dilapidated buildings of a town she didn’t recognize. She entered a broken top-floor window in one of these and zoomed downward, passing straight through floor after floor until she got to the basement, and only here did she finally slow down. It was dark, but she could see without difficulty.
The basement seemed to be a collection of cells. A guard patrolled the entrance, but he was of little interest to the thousands of thoughts converging on this spot. They all entered one particular cell, and Reggie was astonished to see Dr. Unger, asleep on a cot.
This was a Tracer hideout, the place where they were keeping Unger, and maybe where Mitch was taking her right now. But Reggie had barely had time to note this before, like parasites, her thoughts attacked Unger. They swarmed over his body, pricking his skin, and flooded into his nostrils, his mouth, his ears, and even under his closed eyelids to get to his brain. Unger woke with a start and began to scream as the thoughts probed his mind.
Reggie didn’t understand what was happening. She was seeing into his inner psyche like she had before, viewing his deepest fears, but this was all wrong. Unger was feeling physical pain from the mental invasion. His body jerked about as though he were being electrocuted. Then Reggie felt the strain as Unger’s fears were pushed to the front of his mind, but she was not doing the pushing. He screamed as his fears came to life before his eyes, his victims cutting into him, sawing off his limbs one by one, splaying open his abdomen and removing his guts.
They were the same images Reggie had witnessed when she’d gone into the doctor’s mind in his office, but something about them was different. They were pulpier, somehow more real, as if they had depth and form and weren’t just hallucinations. Unger was seeing the lacerations appear on his skin; he saw the cuts deepen until the bone showed through. All the while, Reggie’s thoughts pounded away at U
nger’s mind, but she was not controlling them. The visions expanded in his head until the blood vessels in his eyes burst, and blood and brain matter began dripping out of his ears and down his nostrils. He screamed in agony and terror, having lost control entirely of his seizing body.
And then his brain popped. The frontal cortex simply split apart like a runny yoke, his eyes rolled back, and he was dead.
Reggie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. What had just happened? What had she done? She had killed this man with her mind, she was sure of it, but she hadn’t wanted to. It was as though her thoughts were being controlled by someone else.
Unger lay still on the bed, his limbs jutting out at odd angles, his face a mess of blood and sweat and tissue. She heard the Tracer guards throwing open the door to Unger’s cell and shouting in confusion at the sight before them. She could feel the fear growing in them as they wondered what could have done such a thing.
But then she was being pulled back again, back out of the building, up and over the hills and fields, past rows of homes, down the highway, and into the front seat of Mitch’s car. Once again she was gazing out the car window at the frozen fields, though it was darker now and harder to see.
What had just happened? What had she done?
Mitch! she wanted to say. Mitch, something terrible is going on! But her lips wouldn’t move, and her voice wouldn’t work. Instead, her head lifted and her eyes turned upward. The sun visor was down, and she saw her reflection in its mirror. Staring back at her was the wrinkly, pale, and sunken face of Macie Canfield.
22
“NO!” Reggie screamed, sitting bolt upright on Eben’s couch. She almost smacked heads with Aaron, who had been trying to shake her awake.
“Reggie, what is it? Are you okay?”
Reggie was panting hard, and her eyes darted about the room. Aaron took her face in his hands.
“Look at me. Reggie, look at me. It’s Aaron. You’re in Eben’s apartment. You’re safe.”
Reggie touched Aaron’s hands with her own.
“You’re real?” she whispered.
“I’m real. This is all real.”
“It was a nightmare, then?” she pleaded.
Aaron frowned.
“I don’t know. You’re not supposed to have nightmares.”
Reggie took a few deep breaths, trying to control her heartbeat. She still felt discombobulated.
“It must have been a dream,” she murmured. “Because it was impossible. But it was so vivid….” She paused. “What day is it?”
“It’s the solstice.” Quinn walked into the room, carrying a tray laden with a glass of water and a bowl of soup. “Sorry Night. Less than an hour to—”
Suddenly, in the middle of his sentence, Quinn dropped the tray and fell to the ground. The dishes crashed everywhere, and he began convulsing. Reggie and Aaron were caught so off guard that it took them a few seconds to respond.
“Grab his legs! Hold him down!” Reggie yelled at Aaron as she tried to pin Quinn’s shoulders to the ground. “Quinn! Quinn, can you hear me?”
“What’s going on?” Aaron asked, but a moment later he, too, toppled over and started to seize. Reggie looked with horror from one to the other of them as they thrashed on the ground.
“No, God, no no no. Why is this happening?”
Reggie raced from the room in search of Machen’s supplies. She found them in the kitchen, including the syringes filled with the sedative. She grabbed two and returned to the living room; both Aaron and Quinn were still shaking uncontrollably, and saliva foamed at their lips.
She looked fretfully at the syringes; she had no idea if the drugs would stop the seizures, but it was all she could think of. She was about to plunge one of the needles into Aaron’s arm when there was a sharp knock at the door. Reggie looked up. The knock came again, louder this time, and Aaron and Quinn suddenly lay still.
Reggie stood and faced the door.
“Reggie, I know you’re in there,” said a scratchy voice. She had heard it before. “Let me in, Regina, or I’ll fry your friends like I did the good doctor.”
Reggie hesitated for just a moment, then strode to the door, unbolted it, and opened it. The woman looked scrawny and thin, still clad in hospital scrubs, her white hair falling down past her shoulders. But there was undeniable malevolence in those eyes that had not been there before.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in, dear?” she asked.
“You’re not a vampire. I assume that if you want to come in, I can’t stop you.”
“True, but there are such things as manners, you know.” Macie’s arm shot out and pushed Reggie out of the way. Her strength was remarkable for how frail she appeared. Reggie stumbled back into the kitchen, and Macie entered the apartment.
“So you… you’re a Vour?” Reggie asked.
“Not just any Vour,” Macie retorted.
“What happened to Dr. Unger—that was real? You did that?”
Macie nodded her head once, smiling smugly.
“But why? How?” Reggie stammered.
“Because I could. I had to try out my abilities, didn’t I? He seemed as good a test case as any. And it seems to be one of the by-products of becoming a hybridized human, that I can seek out people at will, discover their fears, and incite such fright that it kills them. Isn’t that marvelous?”
“In the car—it was you. How did I see all that?”
“I sent you the vision so you could see my handiwork personally. Yes, it was me in the car. Fate is a funny thing, you know. That Tracer found Macie and kidnapped her, never imagining that Macie would wake to see—or think she was seeing—the thing that frightened her most. On Sorry Night, no less!”
“She thought she saw Jeremiah on the cross.”
Macie nodded.
“Leaving the door wide open for me.”
“But Macie’s chemistry stopped changing,” said Reggie. “She was a failure.”
“That dolt Unger just gave up on her,” Macie snapped. “True, you appear to be the stronger specimen. And that is, of course, why I had to come and see you.”
“You’re going to kill me?”
“Oh, heavens no, dear. Sorry Night is nearly over, and I don’t want to wait a full year to see what kind of amazing fiend you’d be. I’m going to turn you into one of us, of course.”
“No, you’re really not.” Aaron strode into the room holding one of Machen’s nitrogen pistols and pointed it at Macie’s chest. Quinn was right behind him. “There’s enough serum in one of these darts to freeze you from the inside out, super-Vour or not.”
Macie’s blackened lips stretched out in a wicked grin, thin wisps of dark smoke threading out between her decaying teeth. Her wild eyes darted from Aaron to Reggie to Quinn.
“Shoot her!” Reggie yelled.
But Aaron hesitated. The old woman didn’t look so old anymore—in fact, her skin began to smooth out, her hair darkened, and her eyes grew into large, brown orbs. She looked just like Reggie. And the girl he could have sworn was Reggie was old and decrepit now, a withered woman with yellowed teeth and skin. He turned the gun on this new Macie.
“No!” Quinn jumped in front of Reggie, shielding her from the nitrogen pistol.
The gun shook in Aaron’s hand as he saw black lines begin to crawl across Quinn’s skin, and his anxious expression seemed to morph into a sneer that Aaron knew all too well. He leveled the weapon at Quinn.
“Yes, he’s the one you really want to hurt,” said Macie. “He says he’s human now, but you know differently. There will always be evil inside him. It’s just a question of when it shows itself again. He’ll steal her away from you, and then he’ll destroy her.”
“Aaron, don’t listen to her—whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real!” Reggie tried to push Quinn out of the way, but he held her back and stayed between her and Aaron.
Aaron blinked several times, unsure whether to trust his eyes. But it was so real….
“That’s r
ight,” Macie taunted. “You have to kill him to protect her.”
Reggie whirled on Macie. “Stop this! I’m the one you want!”
“But I can have three for the price of one,” the monster replied. “You fear more for them than for yourself. It’s delicious.”
Aaron’s thumb touched the safety and unlocked it with a cold click.
“No!” Reggie cried.
Suddenly Quinn dropped to his knees in front of her, holding his deformed right hand by the wrist with his left hand. He stared at it in horror and started screaming. Black splotches spidered out across his hand and along his forearm, the marks of a Vour. Quinn was under attack now, too, enslaved by some fear-induced hallucination.
But this time, Reggie could see it, too. She backed away, staring at him in horror.
“You see it, don’t you, Reggie?” Aaron asked. “He’s still a Vour—look at him!”
“No! It’s some new power she has, because of what she is—she’s putting these things in our heads!”
“Ha!” Macie laughed derisively. “That’s nothing. See what else I can do.”
Suddenly, the wooden floor beneath them turned to a solid sheet of ice. The walls around them fell away, revealing the winter night sky, and a dark, spiky silhouette of pine trees sprouted up all around them. The temperature plummeted, and their breath steamed. The gun in Aaron’s hand stretched and morphed into a tire iron. He looked at it, terrified.
They were back on Cutter’s Lake, the scene the same as it had been a year ago, down to the two bodies that lay comatose beside a hole in the ice.
Henry’s limp and nearly naked form was crossed with black marks, and Reggie’s lay next to him, her hand clutching his.
Aaron rushed toward Reggie, sliding across the ice and landing on his knees by her side.
“It’s okay, Reg. I won’t let anything hurt you,” he whispered, running his hand across her ice-cold forehead.
“I’m right here, Aaron,” Reggie called. “This already happened. You protected me, remember?”