Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy

by Ilsa J. Bick

  Meanwhile, that voice, the one that lived in the black-and-white world, was babbling: What are you doing, are you crazy, are you nuts? Let his guys worry about him. Get off the rise, grab the gun, get off, get off, get off!

  “Wolf!” This time, she thought she saw his head move. She was ten feet away now, no more. Far enough. Still on her stomach, she jammed the toes of her boots into the snow and thrust the ski toward him, stretching as far as she could. If she could get Wolf up, get him to grab the ski, the principle ought to be the same as pulling someone off thin ice. All she had to do was back up, pull him away from the hole, give him a fighting chance.

  And then I’m done; we’re even. “Wolf, come on!” she shouted over the clatter of rock and the boom of the earth. “Get up, wake up!”

  What she got was a rumble—not in front of her but behind, where she’d been. What? She shot a quick glance over her shoulder just in time to see the snow beneath the rifle shudder. In the next instant, the weapon skated away, riding the swell before sailing over the lip of the rise to disappear. If she’d been there, she’d have gone with it. She still might anyway.

  She felt the ski jerk and looked back. Wolf was awake, on his belly, and clinging to the ski. So strange, but she didn’t know how she truly felt about the fact that she was trying to save his life—only that this was what she had to do. It was illogical, but it was also right. “Come on, Wolf, damn it! Move your ass!”

  He began crabbing away from the hole, scuttling toward her, using the ski as a guide and an anchor as she slithered back five feet, then ten. Just a few more feet, enough to give you a chance. The entire rise was quaking now; she felt the snow slipping and sliding in front of her, the earth bucking against her stomach. Then I let go, and I’m done, I’m—

  In the next instant, the skin of the earth rose in an enormous inhale. She felt it happen and thought, Oh shit. Against all reason, she looked down the length of the ski, toward Wolf, this boy with Chris’s face who had brought her to one hell, saved her from another. Their gazes locked, and she saw her terror mirrored in his eyes, reflected in his blood-caked face. “Wolf—” she began.

  The earth suddenly collapsed. The giant exhaled, and she hurtled down. The force, so hard and fast, was a fist that punched a gasping scream from her chest. The snow just broke apart, shattering into shards like thick, white glass. A second later, she felt herself beginning to slide sideways as the icy slab on which she sprawled followed the lie of the land.

  She began to move and pick up speed, the layer of snow to which she clung shearing away. She lost the ski and then she was whirling, the slab spinning like a top. A scream ripped from her mouth as the slab hurtled for the edge of the rise. The snowfield was now only a dim blur; behind, above, the hill was breaking up. She had no idea where the others were, what had happened to Wolf; she just had time to think, No!

  The side of the rise fell away with a thunderous roar, in a shuddering avalanche of snow and ice and rock.

  And she went with it.

  10

  “That’s twice.” It was Kincaid from his place along a far wall between two mumbly denture-suckers who served as the prison house guards. The old doctor turned his seamed face first left and then right, searching the dark corners of the old stable, lifting his chin like a bloodhound straining to catch a scent. “I felt it,” he said, looking back at the two old guards. “What about you?”

  Neither answered. Now, if Greg or Pru or Aidan and his minions hadn’t been around, they might have said something. But maybe not. Having decided that a doctor was too valuable to Ban or execute, the Council had made Kincaid into a ghost, an untouchable to be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

  “Shut up, you old douche bag,” Lucian said, the silver fob of a tongue stud ticking against his teeth. Scabs beetled Lucian’s patchy, moth-eaten scalp. Greg wondered if maybe one of these days, the kid’s hand would slip while he shaved his head and instead slice open a carotid or jugular and do them all a favor. “I didn’t feel anything,” Lucian said. “I didn’t hear anything neither. Probably just this guy bouncing around, or the music.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Kincaid transferred his eyes to Greg. Well … eye. The left. The right was gone. A bit of Aidan’s handiwork. Greg thought Kincaid didn’t wear a patch on purpose. Like he was daring Greg to take a nice, long look at what they’d done. The worst had been the first week or so after, when the socket was raw and wept blood. “Sound came from the south.” The baby-pink flesh of Kincaid’s socket twitched. “Might want to check with—”

  “You deaf, old man? We’re busy, and you’re not here. Unless”—Aidan favored Kincaid with a snaky grin—“there’s something wrong with that other eye? Want me to scoop it out, too, take a look?”

  “Well now,” Kincaid said, mildly, “you do that and then get yourself shot, Aidan, I just might have to operate by feel. I wouldn’t lay odds on that turning out so go—”

  A fast whicker, something cutting air. A snap that made Greg jump and Pru straighten out of his slouch as Kincaid doubled over, grunting with pain and surprise, as the too-red lips of a slash opened beneath his remaining eye.

  “Duuuude!” Sam crowed as Lucian cracked up. The two mumbly guards jostled out of the way like startled sheep, putting distance between them and a man they’d probably once called a friend.

  “Aidan, are you nuts?” Pushing aside the ache in his head, Greg started forward but stopped when Pru clapped a huge paw around his wrist, tipped his head toward Aidan, and gave a warning shake of his head. His meaning was clear enough, but Aidan slicing and dicing their only doctor into ribbons did no one any good. Greg pulled free of Pru’s grip. “Doc, you okay?”

  “Of course he’s okay.” Aidan’s lips skinned from a ruin of yellowing teeth. Whatever else Aidan had cared about before the world went bust, good oral hygiene hadn’t been at the top of his list. “If I’d wanted it any other way, I’d have done worse.”

  “Yeah. Old asshole’s lucky I ain’t clipped off his tongue with a wire cutter and fed it to the dogs,” Sam drawled.

  “I don’t know.” Uncoiling his own very long, very pink muscular rope, Lucian flicked his tongue at Kincaid like a serpent tasting the air. His stud gleamed. “My dad used to boil up this big old cow’s tongue every winter, eat it with this sauce of raisins and wine and shit? Some Jew thing, but it was pretty good.”

  “Yeah, but you need a cow first,” Sam said.

  “Or a Jew,” Aidan said, and the three boys sniggered.

  Greg ignored them. “Doc?”

  “I-I’m all right, Greg. Th-thank you, son.” Fumbling open his bag, Kincaid ripped open a gauze pack with shaking hands. Whimpering, Daisy left her corner to nuzzle Kincaid’s elbow. “Yes, girl, thank you, it’s okay,” Kincaid said, gently shoving the dog back as it tried licking the blood sheeting over his fingers. “Greg, she’s all upset. You want to call her off, please?”

  “Daisy, down,” Greg snapped, ashamed, the heat crawling up his neck. He should go to Kincaid. “Go on, now, sit.”

  “Leave the old bastard,” Aidan said. “He’s fine.”

  “No, he’s not,” Greg shot back. “You do that again—”

  “And what?” Aidan tossed the blood-smeared aerial aside. The thin whip ticked to the grimy brick and then rolled into a purple puddle of Dale’s blood. Aidan unzipped his parka, revealing a baggy, red-checked flannel and white thermals so grimy the collar was the color of ash. “You want to fight, Greg? You want to take a shot? Go on.” Squaring his bony shoulders, he slipped to his falsetto again. “Or is poor widdle Greggie-weggie too scaaared?”

  Aidan’s minions howled. “Hey, hey, knock it off, A,” Pru said, his eyes pinging from the Three Musketeers to Greg and back again. “Greg, man, let it go.”

  “Screw that.” Heat crawled up Greg’s neck, and before he stopped to think, he was shucking his parka. “Stay out of this, Pru.”

  “Greg, listen to him. Don’t do it.” Kincaid struggled to his feet. His h
and was still clapped to his cheek, the gauze pad going crimson and drippy. “I’m fine. Just calm down.”

  “Stay out of this, Doc!” Greg roared, thinking, I don’t want to calm down. I haven’t been calm in months. Why start now? His heart was drumming so hard he could feel the knocking all the way in his teeth. His brain was bleeding, the migraine stabbing like knives. No one was supposed to get on top of him, no one! He was in charge and Peter was dead and Chris had run away; he’d run and left Greg to pick up the pieces, and goddamn Chris, what kind of friend did that? And Aidan was there, grinning, and probably had a shiv for sure or just a good sharp knife, or one of his crew did, and they’d stick Greg in the gut or the heart and say it was self-defense and get off, scot-free, because the Spared were Spared and special and got away with murder; and there was Mick Jagger, wailing, Please, Doctor, I’m damaged.

  “All of you, back off!” A hot, rose-red bloom of rage expanded in Greg’s chest. “Just back off, back off!”

  “No, Greg!” Kincaid and Pru shouted at the same moment—but it was, of all people, poor Dale Privet who probably saved Greg’s life.

  “My God,” Dale said, with a touch of wonder in his wheezy old man’s voice, “what is wrong with you people? What are you boys doing to each other?”

  11

  Alex had no idea what she should do or how to save herself. A tumble down a regular vanilla mountain, no sweat: roll onto your stomach, dig in, protect your head, do a self-arrest. Oh, and don’t panic.

  But one thing her dad never taught her was what the hell to do in an avalanche.

  The snow was her world. It was like being carried in the crush of an enormous wave, only instead of riding it like a surfer, the snow had scooped her up and swallowed her whole in its mad, churning thunder. She was tumbling, somersaulting, slamming sideways, then crashing onto her back. The snow was a boot planted between her shoulder blades, and it ground down, as inexorable and unforgiving as gravity. She’d lost the night, wasn’t even sure which way was up. She kept trying to dig in with her boots and hands, attempting to stop her slide the way she might if she’d stumbled into a chute. But the snow kept pillowing over her head, cresting then curling and breaking. Snow jammed into her mouth and up her nose. Spluttering, she coughed it out, started sweeping her arms in front of her face, desperately shoveling away the white, punching out an air pocket.

  Snow is like water. The snow was still screaming down the rise and she knew she must be going very fast. She kept swimming, aiming for what she hoped was up, scooping away snow, pushing for space—for air. If I can just get to the surface …

  Something whacked her left hip. Maybe a tree or a rock; she didn’t know. A blaze of pain raced across her pelvis, and she opened her mouth to scream. A fist of snow instantly jammed into her mouth, forcing its way down her throat—and now she was choking, flailing, no air at all. Another wham! The impact slammed her shoulder blades. The plug of snow in her throat popped onto her tongue and then she was spitting, scraping her hands in the white space before her mouth and nose, dragging in a lungful of air and then another—

  She was slowing down. The drag of the snow was decreasing, no longer rushing past in a roar. Getting near the bottom. She kept clawing snow from her face, pulling in what air she could. The rise can’t be that high. Has to stop—

  All at once, the snow and she stopped moving. It was as if someone had thrown the switch, killing the power. Stunned, she could only lie there a moment. Where there had been a roaring, there was now nothing but a profound, dead silence. It was completely dark. She knew her eyes were open, but there was nothing to see. At all.

  I’m under the snow. Horror erupted in her chest. Got to dig myself out. I’ll run out of air, I’ll suffocate, I’ve got to … Her left arm was bent at the elbow, close to her face. Her right had worked its way over her head, and was starting to hurt. She needed both hands to dig her way out, and something rigid: Leopard’s knife or even the butt of the Glock, except … no hard knuckle of plastic in her spine. Lost the Glock; must’ve gotten ripped out. But the knife was secured to a leg sheath, and she thought it was still there. Hard to tell with all this snow, but if she could get at it … She felt her right biceps flex.

  But her arm wouldn’t budge. For a crazy, wild, terrible moment, she thought, I broke my back. I’m paralyzed, that’s what it is. Then she sent a silent command to her toes, felt them wiggle in her boots. After three more seconds, however, she discovered her legs wouldn’t move at all, no matter how much muscle she put into it. She felt the fingers of her left hand feather her cheek, but that arm wouldn’t move either.

  Then she knew the truth. She wasn’t paralyzed. Oh, she could move, but only a little because of all that snow, compressed around her body, molded to her like concrete. The snow had her and wasn’t about to let go.

  She was buried alive.

  12

  “Shut up!” Quick as a snake, before the thought streaked from a glimmer to a certainty, Greg whipped Dale a fast one across the jaw. The blow was hard, a crack like the shout of a walnut bursting under pressure. The punch jerked a gasp from Dale at the same moment that it exploded in Greg’s hand, a bright ball that mushroomed to a burn he felt all the way to his elbow. “Shut the fuck up!” he screamed.

  “Attaboy!” Aidan crowed as Lucian and Sam whooped their approval. But Pru only groaned, “Greg, man, what are you doing?”

  Kincaid—his friend, a nice man, someone Greg really liked—held out his hands. They were saturated with blood. “Greg,” he said, that one eye shining and so bright it hurt to look. “Stop, son. You’re better than this. Don’t you see what’s happening? Peter and Chris would never—”

  “BUT THEY’RE! NOT! HERE!” Greg bellowed. He could feel the cords knotting in his neck. One more second, and the top of his head would blow like a grenade. “They’re gone, and it’s all on me, and you’re a fucking ghost, you’re nothing!”

  But he thought of his mom and dad at the same moment: how ashamed they would be. His mom never cursed, and the one time his dad really let go, he’d smashed his thumb with a hammer, so that was understandable. Neither ever raised a hand to him or his jerky older brother, never.

  Yeah, yeah, but you guys aren’t here either. Things aren’t so easy anymore, so give me a break.

  “And you,” he said to Dale Privet, “you’re one to talk about us. You’re a thief. You came to steal. You’re no better than the rest of us.”

  “But you don’t understand. I was just so hungry,” Dale whispered, tears leaking from his eyes to trickle down his temples. The purple imprint of Greg’s fist was stenciled on the old man’s cheek, and there was a smear of fresh blood on Dale’s chin. The rest of his face was the color of salt. “You don’t know what it’s like, now that there’s nothing coming in. Peter and your boys used to bring food, but now we got nothing. No deer either, no raccoons—all the game’s run off or dead. There’s nothing out there anymore, and I got no ammo to speak of even if there was. What am I supposed to do, eat bark? Eat dirt? And my granddaughter, she’s just a baby, she—” Dale’s mouth suddenly clamped shut.

  “Granddaughter?” Greg was breathing hard, and God, his head hurt from the thump of that migraine, a molten throbbing that pushed behind his eyes and might just dribble out of his ears. But his heart—he felt that clench and go hard as stone. “You said you were alone.”

  “I—” Dale’s eyes were so huge with terror and dread, the irises were nothing but pinpricks. “Please. They haven’t done anything. It was me. You have the power to save them. Do whatever you want with me, but—”

  At that moment, Greg’s radio, which was clipped to his hip, let out a rapid series of clicks: break-break-break.

  “Well, look at that, Dale,” Greg said, with absolutely no humor. “Saved by the goddamned bell.”

  Backing away, Greg acknowledged by keying the unit with a quick double-click. One of a half dozen World War II relics Rule had scrounged and then doled out to key personnel, the radio was
always kept to a single dedicated channel. To save on batteries and boost transmission distance, no one used anything but coded clicks and Morse. Greg listened to the comeback, responded, then seated the radio on his hip again. “Come on,” he said to Pru. “Lookout says something’s up.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.” Kincaid finished taping gauze to his cheek. His blood was already drying to a rusty bib on his parka. He favored them all with his one-eyed stare. “I felt it, and this isn’t earthquake country. It’s the beginning of something else, something … bad.”

  “Uh-huh.” Aidan snorted. “Next thing you know, he’ll be spouting Bible shit like Jess.”

  “Leave him alone, A.” Although Greg had to admit, what was going on with Jess was strange. Kincaid kept her apart from everyone else, fed her strange potions, even slept in her room at the hospice. The rumors were she was bat-shit crazy, spouting gibberish half the time or completely in la-la land and totally zoned. Greg was so curious that when he’d delivered a prisoner to the hospice, he’d waited until Kincaid was busy, then sidled to her room for a peek. Except for a rumpled cot and night table filled with books, the room was nothing special. But then, of course, there was Jess.

  She doesn’t even look real. Like plastic. Jess was like a body laid out for a viewing, only propped on her left side with a pillow wedged against her back to keep her from rolling and another tucked under her right arm. Her mane of steel-gray hair was scraped back into a long, neat braid from skin as white as the bandage over half her forehead. Her face was off-kilter, the dome of her forehead sunken over her left eyebrow from where the shotgun’s butt had cratered bone.

  But then he noticed Jess’s eyes roaming their sockets beneath her closed lids. Dreaming? He hadn’t expected that. The effect was bizarre and more than a little creepy because the rest of her was so disturbingly slack. Then, all of a sudden, her lips twitched as she pulled in a gasping inhale and breathed, “Leavethemboytheyareblind …”