by Chuck Wendig
A moment of panic stuns Miriam—
Then she remembers:
I’m in a bird, motherfucker.
Every heat signature, every vibration, it calls to the bird. Bird of Doom can hear the dull heartbeat and ragged breath of Harriet Adams, and it swoops to the far side of the cabin. The woman is there, stalking toward the back of the building with her machete in hand.
Miriam pulls herself back to her body and finds the discussion between Louis and Wren has turned heated. They’re arguing about what to do, where to go, how to get help for Samantha.
But Miriam can’t care about any of that.
Harriet will be here soon.
Thirty seconds. Maybe less.
Harriet wants Miriam. That is the bet Miriam is going to take. It has to be true. That monster wouldn’t come all this way for second prize. Louis, Wren, Samantha: they’re all incidental. Once upon a time, Harriet might have used those people against Miriam. But this is a changed Harriet. The Harriet from before was cold and calculating. This one is too, but with the singular mind of a starving animal—it sees meat, it goes for the meat.
And I’m the meat.
“Stay here,” Miriam hisses. To Wren: “You still have the gun? The .22?”
Hesitantly, Wren nods. “It’s across the room. In my jacket.”
“Good. Keep it close. I’m going out.”
Louis catches her arm. “Like hell you are.”
“Stay here. Watch them. Keep them safe.”
“Miriam,” Wren says. Panic is electric in her eyes. “There’s something I have to tell you—”
“Not now. Later.”
“It’s important.”
“Later, I said.”
And with that, Miriam is up. She spies the Remington rifle on the floor, by the chair where Samantha caught a bullet. She hooks the strap with a toe, tugs it toward her, scooping it up before springing to the back door.
It starts to open just as she reaches it—
Miriam crashes through it like a train. Harriet staggers backward, legs pedaling even as she keeps her footing. The machete is in her hand, blade hissing as it cuts the open air.
For a second, Miriam sees Harriet’s face. Her eyes are bold and white. Her arm is unbroken. Her leg, unbent. Fear is thrust through Miriam in a saline rush: this is worse than Ashley Gaynes. Ashley had the ability to always know what attack was coming. Harriet doesn’t need to know. Because Harriet can’t be killed. She returned to life. Her eyes grew back. The bone jutting from her arm is gone, and that arm is good as new.
“Miriam,” Harriet growls, saying the name like an insult. She comes on hard, the machete coming right toward Miriam.
Miriam holds up the rifle, and the blade clangs against the scope. She returns the attack, whipping the butt of the stock right toward Harriet’s mean, bulldog mug.
But the woman easily ducks it, leaning back as the gun butt catches only empty air. This is where Miriam knows—she can’t do this here. This fight, it can’t happen at the cabin. The others will come. They’ll try to help.
And they’ll die.
So, the plan is the plan, it is what it is—
Miriam shoves Harriet.
Then she runs.
FORTY-NINE
THE FOREST OF THE DEAD
Miriam ducks her head, charging fast into the trees, trying not to slip on the snow and ice, the fallen leaves and pine needles.
Bullets carve through the air. Branches pop off around her. Harriet has another gun. Shit.
Miriam has her own gun—the rifle in her hand. But she’s not proficient with it. And it’s not made for running and gunning.
Harriet is hunting her. But Miriam needs it to be the other way around. She needs to be luring her into a trap. As a bullet thwacks into the trunk of a tree ahead, casting up pale splinters, Miriam takes a hard right. She leaps over a fallen log, moves past the flat rock where she sometimes sits to clean Bird of Doom’s kill—a rock red with frozen blood. She slides over it, then zigzags north again.
She knows there’s a dead creek bed ahead. Hasn’t been water flowing there for a long time, according to Gordy. It’s not deep, but it’s overgrown with a snarl of dead briar—and she finds as narrow a gap as she can and darts through it, the thorns ripping into her as she does. She drops down as soon as she’s into the creek bed, bringing the rifle up and urging the barrel through the briar.
Miriam squints through the scope. It’s fogged up and she can’t see a damn thing. She has to quick-pull her sleeve up over her thumb and give it a swipe.
Once more, she peers through it.
Looking through a scope is nothing like it is in the movies. There’s no clear image, no perfect circle with the target pinched in the crux of the crosshairs. It’s blurry. The circle moves through a sea of blackness. It’s hard to get your bearings and even figure out what you’re looking at. Worse, every little twitch you make, every breath you take, the image goes wifty again.
She sees nothing. No one.
She turns her ear to the forest: the sounds that greet her are ones all around, like the creak of old trees swaying in the wind, the faint rustle of brush, the distant settling of the ground in winter. But nothing that sounds like a footstep. Nothing that sounds like her pursuer: no gunshots, no labored breathing, not a damn thing.
Seconds pass. They gather into minutes. Miriam shivers. She tries desperately not to move the rifle, because every time she does, the dry thorn-scrub is disturbed—and when disturbed, it crackles.
Just the same, she has to look, has to keep trying to find her hunter.
Bird of Doom pings her radar—the owl is up there in the trees. Above her by thirty feet. She thinks to use the owl’s senses, but she’s afraid to leave her own behind—
There.
Miriam moves the scope gently right, and as soon as she does, she sees Harriet fifty yards away—and the woman is doing the same thing she’s doing. Crouching down, in her case by the trunk of a paper birch tree. There’s a glint of moonlight in a blue-steel barrel—
Harriet is pointing a pistol right at her.
Shit.
Miriam pulls the trigger.
So does Harriet.
The rifle kicks in Miriam’s hands, the butt of it giving her a hard punch to the shoulder. It rocks her back and as she goes, she feels something chew a furrow along her ribcage, just under her left armpit—it feels like a searing line of lava and she cries out, tumbling onto her ass, her head crashing into a pillow of tangled thornbush. It grabs her hair, and she has to wrench away from it.
Gasping, she works to army-crawl her way out the other side, but her left arm isn’t working so good now. Pain lights up her left side, and that arm is starting to go numb.
Move, you fucking asshole, move. She whimpers and grits her teeth, pulling herself free of the briar and back out into the forest proper. The brush cracks and crackles as she uses the rifle as leverage to help herself stand. The air stinks of eggy, expended powder. Her side is wet. Already, the pain in her side is succumbing to the numbness in her arm. Shit, shit, shit.
Footsteps come hard-charging through the forest.
Harriet.
Miriam wheels with the rifle, but she’s slow and clumsy—Harriet’s on her like a cloud of flies. The woman’s hand comes up underneath the rifle, grabbing the stock and pushing up hard. The scope smashes into Miriam’s nose. Blood erupts and her eyes water. She lets go of the gun, stumbling backward. Harriet shoves the rifle aside. The machete is up and out in her one hand, the pistol in the other. Both shine in the moonlight.
The ground is slick. Miriam steps on a patch of icy leaves—
The machete cuts through the air where she was. Because now she’s falling, her heel skidding out, her tailbone cracking hard against the earth.
And still she can barely see. She tastes blood. Her face feels like it’s full of concrete. Her side and arm feel like they don’t even belong to her anymore.
Harriet advances. Through her watery gaze, Miriam sees n
ow that the other woman is bleeding. A gore-rimmed ditch has been dug out of her collarbone, like someone used an ice cream scoop on her. She hit me with her shot, and I hit her with mine. Only problem is: Harriet doesn’t care. Miriam’s not even sure she feels the pain.
I’m dead.
Above, the air current moves as Harriet advances and a black shadow swoops down fast. Claws out. Wings wide. Bird of Doom is here to save the day. Miriam feels a swell of pride, because she’s not there—she’s not inside the animal’s mind, she’s not controlling her. The owl is doing this on her own.
But Harriet must sense the stirred wind, and she moves fast—faster than is reasonable. The woman holds up her forearm to protect her face. The owl’s talons dig in, and the small pistol drops from Harriet’s hand. But the machete in the other swings in a tight arc like a windshield wiper.
It cuts the bird down in a rain of feathers and a spray of blood.
Bird of Doom hits the ground with a thud. Pain and terror bloom together in Miriam’s mind, a white nuclear flash as she feels what the bird feels.
Run. You’ve already lost. Go, go, go!
Miriam scrambles on the ground, finding the rifle in front of her. She clumsily catches the strap, hugging the rifle to her, and bolts into the trees.
INTERLUDE
MIRIAM, THERE’S SOMETHING I HAVE TO TELL YOU
The .22 revolver feels cold in Wren’s grip.
Miriam left them behind and now she feels naked, alone, and scared. Louis is there, hunched over Samantha behind the propped-up mattress.
The mercury shine slides along his margins. Sometimes, it looks dull enough Wren can forget that he’s one of them, that he’s a killer or will be one soon—but now it’s got the dark gleam of black ice.
Above her head, a plume of smoke blows.
Miriam clucks her tongue, leaning against the wall. “See what I see?”
Wren doesn’t answer. She doesn’t want Louis or anyone to hear her talking to a phantom, to a ghost, to whatever this thing is. Instead she says, in willful denial of its presence, “Is she okay?”
Louis looks over to her, his face ashen. “She’s alive. The bleeding isn’t stopped but it’s slowed. I dunno.”
“We could drive her out of here.”
“We could.” But he stays there. He doesn’t get up.
The silver lining around him shimmers like a living thing.
“Fine,” Not-Miriam says. “Ignore me.” She puffs on the cigarette, which only makes Wren want one. Not-Miriam drums her fingers on the wall. “But he’s killing her right now. And if he doesn’t kill her here, he’ll kill her somewhere. That’s her fate. To die by his hand. He believes her to be a betrayer and so he’ll kill her. And you’re killing her too.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
“I won’t shut up,” Not-Miriam says. “You ever know me to be the shut-up type of gal? Yeah, me neither. What’s the saying? Well-behaved women rarely make history? That means something here, little girl. You want to watch her die, then sit here on your hands, doing nothing. But you want to save her, well.” The gun in Wren’s hand seems to tingle. Like a little electric charge has gone through it. “You want it bad enough, you can do it.”
Miriam, please come back. . . .
I don’t know how long I can hold out.
FIFTY
DEAD ENDS
She runs and runs, until she can run no more.
Miriam staggers into a clearing. Flurries begin to fall anew. An idle thought crosses her mind: It’s almost Christmas. She nearly laughs.
Behind her, the dot-dot-dot of blood. Her fingers find the injury under her arm. She’s had worse, but the bullet did more than just graze her. Even with her skinny-ass bony-ass body, there’s a hank of flesh under the armpit leading to the shoulder blade, and the bullet punched through that. And the hit to her face isn’t much help, either. Everything in her sinuses feels gummed up and crusted, as if someone shoved a pack of cotton balls and pebbles up there. She keeps wanting to sneeze, but her body—blessedly—won’t let her.
She staggers forward.
And stops.
She can’t do it. Can’t go on. She’s gone on so long now—it’s not just tonight, not just running from Harriet. It’s all the running she’s done. A life forever in flight. Everything has been the escape. Jesus fuck, she’s tired.
Behind her, Harriet’s words echo across the clearing. “No more running?”
“I guess not.”
Miriam slowly, miserably turns. The rifle is in her right hand, tucked up under her arm, the barrel pointed to the ground. Her left arm is shit. Her fingers feel fat, like blood sausages waggling.
There stands Harriet a hundred feet away. Her chest is streaked with her own blood. She never reclaimed her pistol. All she has is the machete. She holds it up and points it toward Miriam. Snowflakes land on it and melt.
“You are like a blister under my tongue,” Harriet says.
“One of my many gifts,” Miriam slurs.
“I can’t stop feeling for it. Can’t stop poking and picking at it. It’s always there. You’re always there. I close my eyes, and there you are. I would like to say that it’s nothing personal, but this is all very, very personal.”
“Get in line. Everyone’s got a picture of me in their locket.”
Harriet smiles. Miriam isn’t sure she’s ever seen the woman do that before. It’s somehow even more terrifying.
“I’m going to come for you now,” Harriet says. “And then I’m going to eat your precious heart. One animal eating the power of another.”
“You can try.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I can try.”
Harriet gives the machete a twirl. And then she stalks forward, that vicious grin leading the way. Ninety feet. Eighty. Seventy. Miriam struggles with the rifle, hauling it up with one hand and wincing as she points the barrel in Harriet’s direction and—
Bang.
Behind Harriet, the crackle of brush as the bullet goes wide. Miriam nearly drops the gun, the kick is so bad, and she’s got nothing stabilizing it.
Harriet keeps coming. Halfway now.
Miriam backpedals, lifting her meatsack left arm and using it as a blunt shelf on which to prop the rifle. She clumsily works her right hand, snapping back the bolt and launching another round into the chamber. Her finger fumbles to find the trigger—
Forty feet.
Thirty.
Bang.
The demon’s stink of the discharged bullet fills her nose even as Harriet takes the round clean through the left thigh. It hits her with a palpable sound, the rough thwap of an arrow going through a side of beef.
She keeps coming. Unfazed. Unfaltering.
Miriam mewls in fear, trying to hold on to the rifle and swing it up onto her arm—hand slipping on the bolt, nearly tripping over her own feet, bolt back, then forward, the bullet in the chamber, Harriet marching closer and closer, twenty feet, ten, almost on her—
An awareness hits her. A presence.
A living thing. An owl.
Bird of Doom.
Not dead. Out there on the ground. An image hits her, a gift from the strange creature in the form of a memory:
A gang of crows harassing Bird of Doom. Gathering on branches, mobbing the bird from every direction. The owl can sense them from above and from the sides, but has a hard time tracking the too-fast birds coming up from underneath. And the crows figure that out. They take shots at the owl one by one, flying down and then back up again, hitting the owl in the chest and knocking it off its precious balance, one after the other, coming from below—
Below.
I’m not a predator. I’m a scavenger.
Harriet lunges—
Miriam drops hard—
Her finger tugs the trigger—
Boom. A cannon’s roar.
Harriet’s head jerks upward. A blooming flower of blood erupts from the top of her skull. Her head shakes and judders.
The machete tumbles into the snow. Kfft.
Harriet tumbles on top of it. Heels kicking out. Just like the last time. Just like when Miriam put a bullet through the side of her head.
For a time, Miriam chooses to remain there. Sitting in the snow. Her ears ringing from the gunfire. She tries to find Bird of Doom, but there’s nothing there. No presence. No light, no life.
“Sorry,” Miriam mumbles into the snow, which has started to come down harder. Not a blizzard. Just a still and steady snowfall. Cold, but warm in its way, too.
She groans as she stands.
And that’s when Harriet groans, too.
The woman’s back arches suddenly. Her hands splay out, clutching the ground beneath the snow. “Nnnnggh,” she says, teeth clenched even as blood bubbles between them. Her eyes go big as moons as she starts to stand, words coming out of her mouth in an infernal growl: “Can’t kill me. Always come back. Can’t kill me! Always come back!”
For a moment, Miriam watches. She hopes and prays it’s just a spasm—one last gasp before death. Lots of people get it before they kick off. They die once, then gasp, or lurch, or babble—
(Carpet noodle, Miriam thinks.)
And then they die again.
But Harriet is half-sitting up like an infant just learning to support itself, the blood streaking her stone-colored face, pouring down over her chin even as she gargles words past the crimson gush. “Can’t . . . kill me. Always come back!”
It’s clear that Harriet is right.
She’s going to keep coming back again and again.
But then Miriam remembers what Harriet said.
And that’s when she knows how to finish it.
INTERLUDE
HARRIET
Harriet comes in and out of darkness. She remembers her blade cutting across the void. She remembers Miriam dropping down, the gun barrel pointed skyward. She remembers feeling her teeth smash into one another, biting through her tongue, her brain and all her thoughts ejecting out the top of her head into the air even as snow began to fall harder.
She knows she’s not dead.
She knows she can’t die.