Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy

by Ilsa J. Bick

  He sucked, the first precious drops slithering over his tongue to course down his tortured throat. The sweetness of the water was balanced against a yeasty aroma that reminded him of fresh-baked bread. He let slip a low moan.

  “Take it easy,” he heard her say, and realized that his eyes had slid shut. The water was so good, so good. “There’s no rush,” she said. “I won’t leave you. They won’t do anything else until I say it’s okay.”

  He felt his body relax against her, and for a few blissful seconds, he did nothing but drink. As the water trailed a warm finger down the middle of his chest and into his stomach, his fear vanished. He forgot to be embarrassed about the fact that a strange girl was holding him as close as a baby. With every swallow, he felt his heart, racing before with fear and pain, begin to slow.

  After another minute, she touched his cheek. “That’s enough for now,” she said. He opened his eyes to find her gray ones intent on his face. She had very high cheekbones, but her face was square, her mouth wide, her nose a little too big. “Wouldn’t want you to bring that back up. Let’s wait a little, see how it goes.”

  “Thank you.” The rustiness in his voice was gone. He skimmed a lazy tongue over his lips. “Sweet.”

  “That’s the honey.” Her tone was very calm yet somehow familiar, like the tune of a favorite song he only half-remembered. “We keep our own hives. Let me …” She slid back, carefully withdrawing her arm. “Chris, what were you doing out here? Where are you from?”

  “Trying …” He was feeling better, almost peaceful. “Trying to … to get to O-Oren. F-find …” He licked his lips again. “Settlement.”

  “A settlement in Oren.” Her tone betrayed nothing. “Why?”

  “Mmm.” A strange but not unwelcome sensation of drowsiness swept through him. He could feel his muscles beginning to relax. “C-came from R-Rule …”

  “Rule.” The word sounded flat and hard. “Why? And why come this way? It’s not the fastest, or even a straight shot.”

  “R-running.”

  “You were running away?” When he nodded, she continued, “Were you followed?”

  “D-don’t think so. Been on the trail … long time.”

  “I see.” She offered him the mouthpiece again. “Drink.”

  The water, still so wonderfully wet, was nevertheless a touch off this time. Just beneath the honey and that yeasty tang, he detected something weird, a brackish aftertaste.

  “Have you been to Oren before?” she asked.

  “Mmm.” He had to work at breathing, timing his words so he had enough air. His chest was heavy again. “T-took kids.”

  “Yes, everyone knows Rule does that.”

  “N-not what you think,” he said. “Sick kids.”

  A pause. “That was you? You’re that boy?” He registered the note of surprise in her voice. Another pause. “Tell me how you found them.”

  Was this a test? “The … the designs, on the barns.” His lips tingled as if he’d eaten too many jalapeño poppers. “That’s how … that’s how …” He fumbled for the thought, lost it.

  “Yes, that’s right,” she said, as if confirming something to herself. “What are you doing here, Chris? You’ve never come this way before.”

  “Running. Came to f-find …” Who? Maybe it was the light, but her face was going out of focus. Tired. How strange that time felt as if it was unwinding like a spring at the end of its useful life. The tick of his heart was slowing. His lids kept wanting to slip shut. I want to sleep. “Hunter.”

  The corners of her mouth tightened. “Why do you want to see Isaac?”

  Isaac. “You … you know him?”

  “Why do you want to see him?” she repeated.

  “N-need …” His thoughts were beginning to fuzz. He couldn’t remember what he was there to do. He was growing cold again, the sunny feeling in his chest beginning to dissipate even as the trembling that had seized him earlier was nearly gone. “Need him to …”

  “Need Isaac for what?” She tapped his cheek. “Chris?”

  He barely registered her fingers. He had the feeling her gray eyes were watching, very closely, but his own gaze was wavering, his grip on consciousness beginning to slip. His mind was drifting again, the string tying the tiny, bobbing balloon of his mind to the here and now loosening. He couldn’t think, didn’t remember. In his chest, there was a blackness, a blight, that was first a fist and now a slow and insidious palm with sinuous fingers unfurling, worming their way through his lungs, following the course of his blood: a cold, dark hand reaching into his brain, cupping his mind and smothering his thoughts, who he was and where.

  Ellie. A tiny spark flickered in his mind. Ellie had been upset, and then she’d been hustled away. When Hannah asked for the bottle of—

  And then he understood.

  They weren’t saving him.

  They were killing him.

  17

  “Wuh?” Chris didn’t know if he meant what or why, and it really didn’t matter. His eyes skidded, as slippery as oiled ball bearings in his sockets. If he could just hold on … Dark, so dark, like my chest … not right. “Ha … uhh,” he grunted. Had she left him? Was she gone? Why was it so dark? “What—”

  But whatever he meant to say next simply fizzed to nothing on his tongue as he realized: it was dark because he was completely blind.

  Can’t see … and he was drifting now, the world dissolving, his mind—that buoyant balloon—sailing into air that was too thin … can’t breathe, can’t—

  “Hannah.” He felt a surge of sudden strength born of panic. “Hannah, b-blind …”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Her voice, as transparent and fragile as a soap bubble: “Let go, Chris. Stop fighting it. Let it go.”

  “N-no.” The cold was a boot on his back, a fist on his chest, a hand draped over his eyes. Can’t see, can’t move, can’t … “Wuh … why …”

  “Shh,” she said. “I’m sorry, Chris, but there’s nothing we can do for you. You’re hurt too badly. This is better, Chris. Trust me. It’ll go easier if you stop fighting.”

  But what if he wanted to fight? I don’t want to die, I’m not ready, I’m not … “Nooo,” he moaned. “Don’t.”

  “Shh,” she said again, but now her voice was no more than a sliver, a waning crescent of sound. “Don’t fight it, Chris. Accept this and let go. I’ll stay with you until the end. You won’t be alone.”

  No. But he couldn’t stop this. His mind was drifting away, higher and higher, the margins of his world closing down like an iris. No … don’t let go, Chris … don’t … let …

  18

  She woke in agony.

  Gasping—no, not gasping; croaking, straining for air, the sound a ragged awk-awk, an invisible fist crushing her throat. She swam up from the dark of nothing and into the blackness that was her now. The pain in her lungs was awful, more than a burn; every breath was like sucking down broken glass. Her brain was pulsing so hard it felt like her heart had crawled into her skull. Or maybe that was the monster, straining to get out, beating its fists against bone.

  From just above her left eye came a dim, sulfurous glow. White light? Was this how it was supposed to go? First, the light as her brain, starved for oxygen, gave up the ghost, and then that tunnel, and at the end …

  No, not a glow. Tiny pinpricks. Not breaks in the snow either. She worked at bringing the light into focus and understood: Ellie’s Mickey Mouse watch. She hadn’t taken it off since the night before that terrible morning that Harlan shot Tom and took Ellie. Mickey said it was—she forced her vision to firm—five after seven.

  Past dawn. Been here for … She couldn’t do the math. The glow from Ellie’s watch was fading, the lights winking out and pulling apart even as her mind shimmied and seemed to swell beyond the limits of her skull. For a brief moment, she actually thought she was standing above, on the snow, as her gaze swept over splintered trees, rocks fractured to rubble, and … a ski pole? She couldn’t tell, had no time to par
se it out. The vision faded and what was left was something blinding and too white, like the eye of a full moon before the world died.

  This must be that last tunnel. There was the light. That was where she had to go, because Tom had been there, high above and unreachable, and if only she could float far enough, fast enough … Tom … wait … wait for me …

  All of a sudden, her mind shifted with a hard, panicky clench, a flutter, the sudden bunch and twist of the monster sensing that she really was on her way out. That this was it, end of the line—and it was fighting like hell to work its way free.

  Despite everything, she wanted to laugh. Might have, if she’d had the air. The monster had become something more, the way Kincaid thought it would, but it was still trapped inside her head, and she was buried alive.

  Got you … I g-got you … Her thoughts were slurring. Hurts, this hurts. So hard to focus. Words slipping through her fingers, dropping out of her mind. Everything going away, except for the pain. Hurts. No air. Chest … hurt, hurt. Dark. No … air … n-no, can’t let go.

  She fought to suck in one more breath.

  Can’t … l-let …

  19

  Outside the torture house, the horses were restless, nickering and tossing their heads. Matching him step for step, Greg’s golden retriever, Daisy, alternated between anxious pants and high whimpers.

  “Man, you see that?” Pru asked in a low voice.

  “Yeah. All the animals are spooked.” He looked up at the older boy. “You felt it, too. I know you did.”

  “Felt what?” With his fun nixed, Aidan had attached himself to Greg and Pru. For Aidan, an alert over the radio? Excellent. Go where the trouble was, because you just never knew when the next opportunity for a little mayhem might present itself. “I didn’t feel nothing.”

  “Well, I did. Ground shook, just like Kincaid said. Like a … a rumble, something vibrating. You know? When a semi goes by? Or a big lightning strike, real close?” Pru lifted his nose and sniffed.

  “What are you doing?” Aidan said.

  “Sniffing for the ozone,” Pru said. “You know. The way air smells after lightning.”

  “Shut up.” Aidan snorted. “Lightning’s electricity. It ain’t got a smell.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Greg said. “Like car exhaust in summer.”

  “Ozone,” Pru repeated, then shook his head. “I don’t smell anything but the snow.”

  “Well, I can’t smell because it’s so damn cold,” Aidan said. “My nose froze five minutes ago. You guys are just being pussies, letting Kincaid psych you out.”

  “Oh yeah?” Pru pointed to the left of the stable’s slider. “Look at the snow, A.”

  Greg saw what Pru meant at once. They’d had fresh snow the night before, but instead of only a new layer icing the hard pack piled atop the entry ramp, there were discrete hummocks, like miniature mountains of sifted confectioners’ sugar. Digging out his flashlight, Greg scrutinized the roof. The stable had no gutters, so whatever melt there’d been showed in a glittering bristle of long icicles, as sharp and pointed as bloodied fangs. Several had snapped, however, and now protruded, like silver stilettos, from the hard pack.

  “So?” Flipping up his snorkel hood, Aidan jammed his gloved hands into his parka pockets and hunched his shoulders against a sudden snatch of wind. “Snow slid off,” he said, his voice so muffled and far back it reminded Greg of second grade: tin cans on string.

  “Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.” Pru said. “But why’d the snow slip? It hasn’t been warm enough for a melt, and the snow’s not soft. Those icicles are snapped clean.”

  “Slabs got shaken so much they slid right off.” Greg skimmed the light over the roof and saw naked shingles where snow had caromed down the incline. “Same as an avalanche.”

  “Come on.” But Aidan sounded uncertain now. “What could do that? Like … an earthquake? That’s crazy. This is Michigan. Stuff like that doesn’t happen here.”

  “Until now,” Greg said.

  PART TWO:

  WHERE THE BODIES ARE

  20

  It was another foot this time—the left, and a guy’s. Those tufts of hair sprouting from the toes? Dead giveaway. The owner was a pig. Terminal case of corns, two huge bunions, calluses so rough you could use them for sandpaper, and toe rot. Since the person had been old—they were all old—the skin was mottled, papery, wormy with bulging blue veins. The crumbling nails were so long they actually curled into snot-colored talons. Peter couldn’t imagine how the old geezer had walked.

  “You’ve got to kill the guards,” Simon hissed.

  “I know,” Peter said, over the bong-bong-bonging. Damn bells had started up eight days ago, right after the Rule mine blew, and just wouldn’t quit. Naked as a jay, he sat cross-legged on the chilled concrete of his corner cell, trying very hard not to look around for Simon. No point. That little bugger—

  —hallucination—

  was fast. And Peter certainly didn’t want to linger over the others, who watched from the remaining nine cells: glittery-eyed Changed, their faces pressed to the bars like monkeys in a zoo. The only thing they didn’t do was hoot. Peter thought there had to be at least sixty kids. Knowing Finn, there were probably a lot more Changed stashed in other cages throughout the camp.

  The thing that got to Peter? Well, besides Simon and the bong-bong-bong of the bells and being naked and stewing in his own shit? Some of these Changed had names. He knew these kids, and that freaked Peter out, big-time. For example, in the cage directly opposite, that honking big kid with the Neanderthal brow? Lee Travers: Forest Road, third house on the right. His squirrelly grandma spent all day whacking furrows with this wicked-sharp Warren hoe, whether that garden needed to be dug up or not.

  And what about this very pretty, doe-eyed brunette in the cell to his left? That girl who made him hungry in ways he couldn’t hide well without clothes? He was pretty sure that was Kate Landry: sixteen, liked cats, and oh my God, those lips, those breasts. Peter got these flashes, the two of them, naked, thrashing in the snow …

  Stop it. Peter’s breathing had sped up, his mouth gone dry with desire. Get control. Think. Why is Finn snapping up these particular kids? Their friends?

  “You know, instead of thinking about sex,” Simon said, “you should be figuring a way out.”

  “I understand that, Simon,” Peter muttered, averting his eyes from the very luscious Kate, those lips, her breasts. At times, another idea floated into his brain, something right out of Rise of the Planet of the Apes: kill the guards, open the cages, and they’d surge out to conquer the world. Or The Wizard of Oz: Fly, my pretties! Fly, fly! But first: sex. Lots and lots of sex, in the snow, on concrete, anywhere; take Kate, bend her back, and take her and take her and take—

  “Don’t you wish,” Simon said. “Be lucky she doesn’t bite it off for a snack.”

  “Jesus, Simon, shut the hell up.” Christ, he couldn’t have even a good fantasy in peace.

  “Make me. You’ve got way more important things to worry about, like me and Penny, not to mention Finn and why he’s rounding up Changed, kids from Rule, the mine, and all you can think about is hooking up with some girl? We need you!”

  “Yes, I know. Stop, Simon, please.” Moaning, he rolled onto his belly, away from Kate’s eyes, her hunger, his thoughts. Simon was a spike in Peter’s right ear, like those needles they used on frogs back in … God … junior bio.

  And look who’s the frog now.

  Stunning but true.

  The Rule mine had blown eight days ago, and when Peter wasn’t screaming or raving like a crazy person because of the bells, those damn bells in his head, those bong-bong-BONGs … when he wasn’t doing that, Peter was either awake and dreaming awful nightmares that clung like burrs—water and a dark fan of sea grass and the boat and eyes in stone—or he was awake and not dreaming but thinking, hard, the thoughts bubbling in the pressure cooker of his skull: Get out of here, Peter, get out, get out, got to get out! If he didn�
��t find a way out, his mind would go ka-BOOM. Nothing left but a drippy red socket.

  Because there was something in there.

  Yeah. For real. In his skull. This red … scuttling behind his eyeballs, spidering over the soft pink cheese of his brain. He thought maybe it had crawled in through an ear. Or boogered up his nose. He wasn’t sure. But he felt it all right. Sucker was growing.

  He tried getting rid of it. Once, he used his shirt. He remembered only snatches: slowly strangling from his own weight; the raw pain of it; that wild, frantic moment when his vision blacked as he ran out of air and his lungs imploded; the knot so taut the noose sawed his skin like a length of fine piano wire. Another ten, fifteen seconds, he’d have cut through his carotids.

  So, they took his clothes. Nowadays, he wallowed, naked as a baby, in his own filth, because they took his crap bucket, too. His fault, but taking the shot was worth it. The raw, primal satisfaction of drenching Lang—that traitor—with rank piss and runny shit … Oh Jesus, that was good.

  But those bells were killing him. They were so damned loud. When he could think about it, Peter suspected the water. Good delivery system. When those first few muted clangs started up, Peter tried rationing himself. Just a swallow here and there, until his tongue was so thick it clung to the roof of his mouth and breathing got too hard. Eventually, Peter drank because he had to, and then the bells just bellowed. Shrieking at Finn—JESUS, GOD, WOULD YOU TURN THESE DAMN THINGS OFF?—only earned him cryptic mumbo jumbo: Don’t you find it fascinating, boy-o, that the people who call on God the most believe in God the least?

  In quieter, more rational moments, Peter understood how tempting it was to see Finn as a crazy, broken-down old Vietnam vet turned militia leader: a creepily intelligent and sadistic son of a bitch with a bug up his ass about Rule; a guy who’d arranged an ambush seven weeks ago so he could take out his frustrations on Peter first. If that were the only truth, then Finn’s conclusions, his methods and experiments, would be much easier to dismiss.