by Ilsa J. Bick
Page 37
The stink that ballooned out—feces, old urine, and stale flesh— was bad enough to make even Steiner’s eyes water. They crowded in: Steiner on his right, the second guard on his left. They were met by two more guards, both of whom wore handguns and expandable batons in a slide sidebreak scabbard. Judging from the dings, those batons saw a lot of use.
The space inside was much larger than he’d expected. The design wasn’t all that different from every other jail he’d ever visited. To the left, a plain wooden desk and two chairs for the duty-guards squatted behind floor-to-ceiling iron bars. A fire crackled in a deep hearth behind a wrought-iron screen.
To the right were cells: five to a side, ten total. The cells were simple, barred cages, each with a drain that must lead to a septic tank. No one had taken a hose to that concrete in a long time, though. Piles of shit—some very new and some so old they’d desiccated to stone—were everywhere.
The Changed were crouched there, too. He recognized the kids from the infirmary. Davey was the only Changed with clothes: a grimy T-shirt, a dingy pair of tighty-whiteys. He wore a collar around his neck, too: black leather, with shiny D-rings right and left, and a small padlock. As they entered, Davey’s head swiveled. A moment later, the other Changed turned and lifted their heads, the better to sample the air. As one, they unfolded from their squats in a silent, eerie synchrony that made the hairs rise on Peter’s neck and arms.
Nine Changed. Ten cells.
And bones. Lots of little bones. Fingers. Toes. Vertebrae. Some teeth.
“N-no. ” Fear bolted up his throat. He was already drenched with sweat, but now a new wet oozed and trickled over his ribs. He tried to fight. Even with panic to lend him strength, he was no match for all those guards.
“Stop,” one said. The muzzle of an M4 dug into the back of Peter’s head. “We won’t kill you, but we’ll mess you up. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. ”
No, mess me up, Peter thought, crazily. Pull the trigger. Please, kill me now. But his body wouldn’t listen, and he froze. He just couldn’t move. He understood what a very small rabbit must feel when a fox is near.
“Pl-please. ” He was shaking so badly he heard the hard tick of his teeth. His eyes rolled and fixed on Steiner. “N-n-n-no. ”
“I’m sorry, boy,” Steiner said, not unkindly. “But really, I’d save my strength if I was you. ”
51
Four days after Jed’s house went up in flames and two days shy of the Michigan border, Tom found bones.
He’d stayed to the woods and avoided roads. The few long abandoned homes and farmsteads he gave a very wide berth. So he knew these people hadn’t just wandered out for a stroll. Judging from the size of the skulls, some were very young, only children as well as a few babies. Many had been dead a good long while, the bones like ivory against the snow. But a surprising number still had meat, frozen hard as rock, and that wasn’t right. A brutal winter meant plenty of hungry animals. Gnaw long enough, and there was dinner. Apparently, scavengers wouldn’t eat a Chucky’s leavings either.
What really bothered him: the bones shouldn’t be visible. He was chasing the storm, and the snow was fresh but also trampled by prints so new he made out treads and the make of the boots.
They must be coming back to the same spots to feed. At the realization, he felt the air leave his lungs. The Chuckies were like animals returning to a den or dogs that hid bones beneath a particular tree—and they were in the woods, with him.
Well, Tom thought, no help for it. Just be careful.
That awful night on Odd Lake, the dog had saved his life, nudging and pawing him back to consciousness. It took him a while, but he’d finally rolled over and slithered on his belly, snaking over the ice, using his knife as a pick, every crack and creak sending his heart crowding against his teeth. By the time he made it back to the wind sled, his clothes were boards, and the dog’s fur was chunked with ice. He changed right there, stripping out of his frozen jeans and socks and shirt and thermals, even his underwear. His parka was in the water, at the bottom of the lake with that old bounty hunter. After dragging on an extra set of thermals and doubling up with just about every scrap of clothing he owned, he’d shaken out a black contractor’s bag and carefully slit the thick, tough plastic to make an opening large enough for his head. Throw in a shopping cart, and he’d look ready to hunker down around a trash barrel fire under an overpass with the rest of the homeless, which was pretty close to the truth.
He and the dog spent the night huddled together in his bivy at the bottom of a snow pit in the woods and out of the wind. He didn’t want to risk a fire or the stove, but he made hot chocolate from MREs, using meltwater for the heater pack, and gave the dog warm water to drink. They even slept.
The hunter came at first light, as Tom knew he would. It’s what he would’ve done. Rounding the jink on foot, the hunter stood there a good long time, scanning the far shore through binoculars, twisting slowly back and forth. Tom and the dog were well back, swathed in the sleeping bag and hunkered down in the trees. On the ice, Tom spotted the cigar-shape of the wind sled lying where he’d left it and, beyond, the darker gap that was the break in the ice. If he was lucky, the hunter would think he’d gone through, too.
Eventually, the bounty hunter moved off. Tom waited another hour according to Jed’s Timex. He heard nothing but the susurration of the wind and saw even less. Finally, he decided he would just have to chance it.
First, he hid the wind sled, dragging the craft off the ice and then through the woods for a long, long way until he came to a tumble of boulders at the base of an esker. The stones butted up to form a cave. Flipping the Spitfire onto its side, he shoved the boat through the wedge-shaped opening, remembering—too late—that this was black bear country. But nothing came out to eat him. A good omen, maybe.
If the hunter came back—and he would; that sled was worth something—one look and he’d know Tom was still alive. A gamble, but one Tom had to take. No telling if or when that sled would come in handy, but he wanted it safe, where he could find it again, just in case.
There was also no way he was leaving Jed for scavengers or, worse, the Chuckies if they wandered through. Maybe it was stupid and a waste of time when he should be running, but he covered Jed’s head, shouldered the Bravo, and dragged his friend all the way back up the hill.
The cabin was a ruin: a skeleton of scorched timber and charred debris floating on a gray moat of refrozen snow and ash. Stepping carefully, he started from the fireplace and worked his way in a rough diagonal until he found the bodies. There were three: blackened limbs tucked and crimped, like babies in a womb, as the tendons cooked, fleshless lips revealing too-white teeth in eyeless skulls. Despite that, Grace was easy to identify because she was small and the only body with the charry remains of an apron and a gold diamond wedding band.
He laid the two of them together at a pretty spot overlooking the lake—and then paused, staring at Jed as Raleigh nosed the body and whined. Tom had no parka; Jed still did. Just thinking it over made him guilty and ashamed, but he did need the jacket and Jed was past caring. Hell, the old man would probably insist.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Getting the zipper down through all that iced gore took some time. Tugging it off Jed’s stiff, frozen body was worse. Tom had to roll him like a log from side to side to work the parka free. The jacket was too big and smelled of Jed and blood, but it would do. Then, using bricks and stone from the fireplaces, he fashioned a low cairn. He worried the stones might not be deep enough, but he did the best he could.
Jed once explained why a Marine sniper called his weapon a Kate. The name had nothing to do with a girl. Kate meant “Kill All The Enemy. ”
Tom spread his hand over the tomb’s cold stone.
“I can do that,” he said.
* * *
Their patient, standard bred mare stood in the woods next to the garage tha
t Jed had transformed into a makeshift stable. Left alone, Dixie would starve to death. The other, Grace’s Shetland, had panicked and leapt from the cliff to shatter on the rocks below. Although that pony had to be dead, he shouldered the Bravo and climbed all the way down to make sure. No way he’d leave her to suffer.
Thankfully, Jed stored the horses’ feed and Raleigh’s food in the stable and not the cabin’s cellar. He scooped hay pellets and oats into saddlebags, dumped dog kibble into a canvas carryall. Wisconsin was a four- or five-day walk in good weather, a week or more in bad. A horse would be faster, but follow the main roads and he’d be asking for trouble. Where there was one hunter, there would be others. He was bounty, and worth killing for. So he’d have to stick to the woods, and that meant more time and added distance. No straight shots.
Despite what Jed said, he’d had no intention of seeking out a soul. Look where helping him had gotten Jed and Grace. He didn’t want to be responsible for any more death. But now he had to factor in the animals. While his supplies would last two weeks, the animals would run out of food well before then. Hell, another storm and even he’d be in big trouble.
In the stable, he drew out Jed’s list and the maps as Raleigh nosed in to be fussed over. There were three names, evenly spaced, like pearls, between here and the border, and a fourth in Michigan. By then, he might not have a choice but to stop. Sighing, he folded the list and slid it into one of the parka’s inside pockets. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
Moaning, the dog laid its chin in his lap. “Yeah, I know, boy. It’ll be okay. Come on. ” He ruffled the dog’s ears. “Let’s go see about a girl. ”
Now, after four days on the road, he was still in Wisconsin, traveling beneath the bilious glow of a crescent moon.
Too slow. He ripped open an MRE of Mexican mac and cheese. With the possibility of Chuckies in the woods, a fire was out. Slopping water into the heater pouch, he slid in the MRE, then tucked both back into the cardboard container. Almost out of feed for the horse. He set the box up so the chemicals could work their magic. She might eat bark, but—