A Plague of Zombies: An Outlander Novella
Page 11
This wasn’t quite like it had been, when they’d all walked into the rocks on Ocracoke. One minute, he’d been in his father’s arms and the next minute it was like he was scattered everywhere in little wiggly pieces like the spilled quicksilver in Grannie’s surgery. Then he was back together again and Da was still holding him tight enough to squeeze his breath out, and he could hear Da sobbing and that scared him and he had a funny taste in his mouth and little pieces of him were still wiggling around trying to get away but they were trapped inside his skin.…
Yeah. That was what was making his skin jump now, and he breathed easier, knowing what it was. That was OK, then, he was OK, it would stop.
It was stopping already, the twitchy feeling going away. He still felt a little shaky, but he stood up. Careful, because he didn’t know where it was.
Wait … he did know. He knew exactly.
“That’s weird,” he said out loud without really noticing, because he wasn’t scared by the dark anymore, it wasn’t important.
He couldn’t really see it, not with his eyes, not exactly. He squinted, trying to think how he was seeing it, but there wasn’t a word for what he was doing. Kind of like hearing or smelling or touching, but not really any of those.
But he knew where it was. It was right there, a kind of … shiver … in the air, and when he stared at it, he had a feeling in the back of his mind like really pretty sparkly things, like sun on the sea and the way a candle flame looked when it shone through a ruby, but he knew he wasn’t really seeing anything like that.
It went all the way across the tunnel, and up to the high roof, too, he could tell. But it wasn’t thick at all, it was thin as air.
He guessed that was why it hadn’t swallowed him like the thing in the rocks on Ocracoke had. At least … he thought it hadn’t, and for an instant, worried that maybe he’d gone sometime else. But he didn’t think so. The tunnel felt just the same, and so did he, now his skin had stopped jumping. When they’d done it, on Ocracoke, he’d known right away it was different.
He stood there for a minute, just looking and thinking, and then shook his head and turned around, feeling with his foot for the track. He wasn’t going back through that, no matter what. He’d just have to hope the door wasn’t locked.
Also by Diana Gabaldon
THE OUTLANDER SERIES
and coming soon …
WRITTEN IN MY OWN
HEART’S BLOOD
Book 8 in the Outlander Series
THE COMPANION VOLUME
THE OUTLANDER GRAPHIC NOVEL
THE RANDOM HOUSE PUBLISHING GROUP
www.DianaGabaldon.com
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