by Heidi Lang
The only thing Rae liked about her new attire was the long, straight knife strapped to her left leg inside a faux-leather sheath, which made her feel like an action hero.
On her back she wore a slim plastic case like a pack. It connected to a nozzle that was fastened over her chest. Vivienne wore an identical version. It was the first time Rae had ever seen her friend without her giant backpack, not counting cross-country practices. “You were going to tell us about these,” Rae called up to Patrick, tapping the nozzle.
“Oh, those are flamethrowers.”
“Really?” Vivienne asked, all excited.
“No. I wanted to give you flamethrowers for this, but Doctor Nguyen vetoed that idea,” Patrick said. “And what’s the point of having a right-hand woman if you don’t take her advice?”
Rae couldn’t tell if he were joking or not. A flamethrower probably would have worked on the bugs—she remembered the corpse they’d found in Gary the Goatman’s old clearing, all burnt to a crisp—but it also probably would have killed them, too.
“Luckily, Green On! has been working on a new high-powered bug spray for the town. Nontoxic, naturally. As are all our products.” He flashed a wide grin, as if he were performing an infomercial on live television. “We haven’t had a chance to test it on these particular bugs yet, but I feel confident that it will work.”
“I notice you’re not coming down here with us,” Rae said.
Vivienne elbowed her.
“What? It’s true.”
“Only because I have even more confidence in your abilities, Ms. Carter.”
“It’s just, I haven’t had the best of luck with bug spray lately. Not with these things.” Rae thought of her marathon cleaning session with Ava. All those bugs had seemed oddly resistant.
“Oh, but this is a special kind. Try it.”
“Do I have a choice?”
Patrick gave her a wide smile. “That’s the right attitude.”
“Are you sure I shouldn’t go too?” Nate asked. He stood above the tunnel next to Patrick, looking miserable.
Rae’s heart surged with a rush of gratitude. She knew how much Nate did not want to go. The fact that he was willing to offer meant a lot.
“Unfortunately, we only have two of these suits ready. No, Mr. Cliff, I have another important task for you. Something more befitting your unique talents.”
“Is that a nice way of saying I’m too much of a coward?” Nate asked.
“Not at all,” Patrick said, but Nate’s shoulders had slumped, his face red and mouth grim.
“Hey, Nate?” Vivienne called.
“Yeah?”
“Ergo.”
“Ergo,” Rae agreed.
Nate blinked. And then he laughed. “Ergo.” His laugh hitched a little, and he added, “Be safe, okay?”
“We’ll try,” Rae said.
“You’d better get going,” Patrick said. “You won’t want to be in there when night falls.”
“You’ll help if we need it, though, right?” Rae asked, suddenly terrified that he might just leave them there.
“Oh, of course, of course. Don’t worry, Ms. Carter. You’re in good hands.”
Rae was beginning to seriously doubt that, but she took a deep breath and stepped into the mouth of the tunnel anyhow.
She and Vivienne hadn’t walked long before the light from above faded away behind them, leaving them trapped in darkness. Only their twin beams lit the path ahead, reflecting off yellowed bones wedged into the walls and ceiling and floor. A thigh bone here, a hand there. The occasional super-creepy skull.
The tunnel slowly slanted downward, the temperature dropping. Rae’s nostrils filled with the smell of damp soil and the sickly sweet scent of decay. She was very conscious of the sound of her own breathing, and of Vivienne right behind her, their footsteps crunching softly, the gentle trickle of dirt disturbed by their passing.
At least she didn’t have to worry about her headlamp burning out this time. Green On! would have taken care of that detail.
“Did you notice that all the dead animals were removed?” Vivienne asked.
Rae frowned. “I didn’t, but you’re right. Did Green On! do that?”
“I don’t know. I hope it was them.”
“I do too.” Rae lapsed into silence, trying not to think about that giant bug exoskeleton, or the speed and ferocity of the centipede that had burst out of the goat. She kept hearing Nate’s voice in her mind: This, what they have us doing, is not normal. Why, oh why, had she been willing to come down here herself? Ava would kill her if she knew.
After the whole incident in the cabin with the Unseeing, Rae had promised herself she would stop diving headfirst into things, and here she was anyhow. But if Patrick really knew where her dad was, then all of this would be worth it.
“Oh, actually, there’s an animal,” Vivienne said.
Rae spotted the large furry shape up ahead. It looked like a rat, but as they got closer, Rae noticed the bushy tail. “Is that a squirrel? It’s huge! Like, the size of a skunk.”
“I told you the squirrels around here are no joke.” Vivienne grinned, the light from Rae’s headlamp gleaming in her wide, excited eyes. And Rae was suddenly reminded of a time she went hiking with her dad back in California. They had miscalculated how long a loop would take and had ended up finishing after sunset. As they booked it to their car, they caught a glimpse of cat eyes staring down at them from the rocks overhead, intense and predatory, and Rae had suddenly realized how small and vulnerable she was.
She and her dad had never hiked so late in the day again.
And now she was trapped in a tunnel with someone who gave her that same uneasy feeling. It made her wonder how well she really knew Vivienne. She kept her hands at her sides, willing them not to shake. She didn’t want to be afraid of her best friend. “Vivi, can I ask you something? About… about Emmett, and what really happened to him?”
Vivienne’s smile fell away. “Did Caden tell you?”
“What?” Rae said. “No… should he have?”
Vivienne shook her head. “He promised he wouldn’t. I just… I wasn’t sure if he’d keep that promise.”
“Caden?” Rae blinked. “Of course he’d keep it.” She took a deep breath. “And if you don’t want to tell me anything, I won’t push. But, you know, I saw you drinking blood. And I’ve got to be honest, it’s kind of freaking me out that you’re pretending that was a normal thing and we’re not talking about it.”
Vivienne sighed. “Yeah, it’s really not normal.” She looked down at the mangled squirrel. “Let’s walk, and I’ll tell you everything, okay?”
* * *
“And Patrick was giving me an elixir that helped, until that day we were touring the lab and there was the false alarm,” Vivienne said. “And after that, nothing. I’ve been dealing with all the symptoms on my own.”
“Wow.” Rae swept her beam along the walls and across the floor as they walked. “That’s pretty messed up.”
“Which part?”
Rae thought about Vivienne’s story. Cursed columns and bloodthirsty urges and Patrick’s elixir. “All of it, really,” she decided. “But especially Patrick. He just stopped helping you ’cause he was mad at your mom?”
“I’m not sure if that’s it,” Vivienne mumbled. “He said he wanted to make something better.”
“Maybe he just wanted to see what would happen.” Rae glanced at Vivienne. A girl who she now knew had superhuman speed and strength… and a taste for blood.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Vivienne said quietly.
“Why? Because it made me more critical of Patrick?”
“No. Because now you’re afraid of me.”
Rae was silent. She knew Vivienne was right, and it made her feel terrible. Was she really scared of Vivienne? Friendly, brave, funny Vivienne? Did knowing this secret about her really change anything?
She had her own secret too. It had cost her a friendship. Actually,
all of her friendships. Even though she was still the same person, everyone at her last school had viewed her differently after word got out.
“I get it,” Vivienne said. “I’d be freaked out about me too. After we get rid of these bugs, if you’d prefer not to hang out, then—”
“It’s not like that,” Rae said quickly. “Vivi, I’m… well, I’m a little scared. But not of you. Not really. I’m scared for you.” She stopped walking, careful this time not to shine her light in Vivienne’s eyes. “I’m sorry that happened. But you’re my friend, and I trust you. This doesn’t change that.”
“It should. I ate a rabbit. Who knows what I’ll eat next time.” She swallowed. “Or w-who.”
Rae suddenly felt a little too hot in her suit. “Do you, um, feel any bitey urges right now?”
“Bitey urges?” Vivienne managed a weak grin. “No.”
“Okay, good. Just warn me if you do.” Rae smiled and squeezed Vivienne’s shoulder. “My dad was abducted by the government, by the way. If we’re sharing secrets.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he found an alien.”
They resumed walking in the dark, and Rae told her the story. It felt… good, finally sharing this part of her life. And when she was finished, Vivienne didn’t look weirded out.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said.
Rae shrugged, already feeling lighter. Her dad might still be missing, but she had a lead, and she wasn’t alone. She had Ava, and Caden, and now Vivienne. “I guess we’re best friends for real now.” Then she felt awkward. What if Vivienne didn’t see it that way?
But Vivienne grinned. “I guess we are.”
And even though they were heading down a dark tunnel to destroy giant alien centipede monsters with untested equipment, Rae was feeling pretty good about everything. Until she heard the noises.
Scraaaaaape. Click. Click. Click. Scrape.
Rae froze, her hand convulsing around the nozzle of her spray gun.
“I heard it too,” Vivienne whispered, stopping next to her. “See the way the tunnel bends up ahead? I think it’s just past that.”
Of course it would be around a bend. Rae figured she should just be thankful that she didn’t have to go through a crawl space to get to the nest.
Vivienne unhitched the nozzle to her bug spray. She looked a little like a Ghostbuster clutching it, and if Rae hadn’t been so terrified, she might have laughed.
“Go around the corner shooting?” Vivienne asked.
“I think we should see what we’re up against first,” Rae said, thinking of Blake. She really hoped he’d just run off again and was hanging out with his uncle in a new yurt somewhere. But just in case…
“Go around the corner slowly and methodically and then start shooting?” Vivienne suggested.
Rae nodded. “Let’s do it.”
They eased around the corner.
The tunnel opened up into a large cavern. Stalactites dripped down from the ceiling, some so long their points almost brushed the ground, while towering stalagmites thrust up to meet them like giant broken teeth. And in between, the bones and half-decayed bodies of at least a dozen animals littered the floor.
It smelled awful—rotting flesh and damp earth and, underneath that, a strange acrid scent like fermented gasoline. Rae tried breathing shallowly as she stepped into the cavern, carefully avoiding a carcass. She swept her beam around.
It caught on something hanging from the ceiling. A large, yellowy something, throbbing and pulsing like an infected wound. A giant egg sac, Rae realized, tangled around a lanky boy, his eyes half closed, his red hair gleaming in her headlamp.
Blake. Alive, but already part of the nest.
Rae stared at him for so long that at first she didn’t notice all the giant centipedes crawling down from the ceiling and along the walls, moving rapidly toward her.
38. CADEN
Caden could feel every single one of the Unseeing’s victims as if he were them. For brief seconds, he was Jeremy Bentley kissing Alyssa Lockett, his hand in her silky ponytail. And he was Brandi Jenson sitting on the floor of her room, watching her pet ferret run through a tube. And he was Jake Green kicking a soccer ball with his sister. And all the others, the images blurring and folding together until Caden didn’t know where they ended and he began.
It was terrible, his mind unraveling out, becoming all these other kids. And the whole time he could sense their knowledge of what had happened to them, could feel their horror in those last few seconds.
It was like the echo of a scream, going on forever. They weren’t really there anymore, but they weren’t really gone, either. They were caught in between. And they were cold, and frightened, and everything was dark, so very, very dark, and they didn’t want to be alone anymore. They clutched at Caden, pulling him to them, holding him tightly.
He didn’t want to hurt them, didn’t want to leave them behind. But he couldn’t save them. He didn’t even know if they could be saved. They might have been nothing but ghostly imprints left behind when Ivan devoured their souls. Nothing more than a memory.
But Caden didn’t completely believe that, either. They felt too real. Too alive. Was it possible their souls weren’t gone but trapped in another dimension like the Other Place?
I’ll come back for you, he promised, although he didn’t know how. But he wouldn’t forget them. Somehow, he would find a way to help them. He owed it to them for his part in setting the Unseeing free.
Don’t leave us! they howled. It hurts! She hurts us.
But Caden had no choice. He built up a barrier in his mind, enclosing himself and blocking them out.
“Mom was right about you,” Aiden whispered.
Caden twisted around. He didn’t see anything but the golden white walls of his bubble.
“You really need to expand your repertoire. This little trick? It’s gotten predictable. And predictable is dangerous in our line of work.”
Caden felt the walls of his bubble crumpling, as if they were made of paper and Aiden had them in his fist. Pain lanced through Caden’s mind as the light surrounding him vanished, and he cried out, wrapping his hands over his head.
“I did try to leave you out of this. But Mom wouldn’t help me. So you were my only option. I won’t hurt you, though.”
Caden opened his eyes, and the world wavered around him. For a second he could see the Other Place, the landscape barren and alien and stretching endlessly in all directions. Overhead loomed a giant sphere the yellow-green color of an old bruise. It beat down relentlessly like a diseased sun, filling the air with a moist, dirty heat. Something with long, hungry tentacles slithered toward him.
Caden blinked, and he was in the cabin again, with the neat little rows of candles, the kids with their gaping eye sockets. In front of him, Ava lay on her back in the center of Aiden’s pentagram, palms turned upward, eyes open and unseeing.
Caden’s heart lurched.
He tore his gaze from her, meeting Aiden’s eyes. “What have you done?”
“What I had to do.”
“You didn’t have to do any of this!”
“Oh, but I did. She was devouring my soul, Caden. And she would have gone on feeding until I fulfilled my end of the deal and helped set her freedom in motion.”
“We could have helped you.”
“No, you couldn’t have. There is no escape from her.” Aiden shivered. “You’ll understand that soon enough.”
Everything shifted again, becoming now the Other Place, and then the cabin, flickering rapidly like a candle in a high wind. Caden felt like he was standing with one foot in each world, the anchor point for both, the only real thing in either. Both places tugged at him, the pressure building in his head, pulling at his thoughts. It was getting harder to focus. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep this up before he was ripped in half.
He didn’t know how to end it.
Cool hands touched his face, and he became aware of Aiden kneeling in front of h
im. “Nine outside to break the lock,” Aiden whispered. “Seven within to create the key.”
“What?” Caden tried to concentrate. “What does that mean?”
“She has three already. Four more are on their way.”
Three? Four? It didn’t make any sense. Caden clutched at his brother. “I don’t understand.”
“I know. But you will.” Aiden smiled, a real smile. It had been so long since Caden had seen anything like it on his brother’s face. It made him think of their last conversation.
What happened to us? We used to be close. It was us against the rest of the world…
And Caden remembered his brother teaching him how to shoot baskets behind the house. How he didn’t like reading until Aiden made it his mission to find the right book, the one that would get him hooked. The time he had come home crying from school, when everyone decided he was too freaky to play with, and Aiden had dried his tears and told him he didn’t need any of them. You’ve got me. You don’t need anyone else.
But you have so many friends, Caden had said.
And Aiden had smiled and ruffled his hair. None of them matter to me. Only you. Brothers till the end.
Caden blinked, the memories over in a flash. And despite everything, despite the horror and the blood, the guilt and the fear, he realized that he still loved his older brother.
“I’m sorry.” Aiden said it like he meant it. A real apology to go with his real smile. He put his hand on Caden’s forehead, and pressed.
Pain seared Caden like a brand, fire coursing through his nerves, filling his muscles, his vision turning red. He tasted blood, his world nothing but agony that went on and on until, abruptly, it was over.
39. RAE
Rae!” Vivienne shrieked. “Look out!”
Rae blinked, tearing her gaze away from Blake’s pale, agonized face.
The walls of the cavern were moving. Everywhere she looked, it all shifted and oozed and scuttled as dozens of centipedes poured toward her. They ranged in size from as long as her hand to as long as her leg, all of them gleaming that hard, oily color in the light of her headlamp.