Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy

by Ilsa J. Bick

  Unfortunately, a gun either wasn’t her style or the end for him that she had in mind. Snarling, she jammed her left hand under his chin. His neck muscles instinctively tightened, fighting the relentless pressure. He tried bucking her off, but despite the rocks, the deep snow gave him no leverage. He’d sunk down so far that his hips and legs were above him. He was fighting for his life from the equivalent of a bathtub. Hoist someone by his ankles, and he has no way of keeping his head above water. Hold him long enough, he drowns. So she had a choice: push him far down into the snow and wait for him to suffocate, or take out his throat. He couldn’t fight her forever, and she was riding him, her center of gravity directly over his chest, and if he let go …

  If I let go. Not exactly a thought. More like a last gasp. All at once, he stopped pushing and let his shoulders sag, his neck stretch. He felt her knees stutter as she began to slide, her center of gravity shifting. Off-balance, she rocked forward.

  “AAHH!!” He shrieked it, unaware that the scream was even in his mouth until it wasn’t, and then he was surging up, his right arm suddenly free, the hand hooking into her parka. He yanked her down as quickly and viciously as he could. At the same time, he whipped his head up. There was a loud kunk as the dense bone of his forehead smashed into the delicate ridge just above her left eye. He knew the hit was good the instant he felt her socket cave, the second her whole body unlimbered from the shock.

  The Chucky didn’t wail or scream. She had no time, or breath, for it. Stunned, she pitched right, and he went with her, using her weight as a fulcrum. Even then—bloody, a wound in her belly, blind in one eye, and probably in ferocious pain—she sensed what he meant to do. Somehow, she got her hands up, fingers clawed, and flailed, wildly, trying to snag something: his parka, an arm, anything. Yet, to his relief, she had no knife, and the advantage was his now.

  They spooned, her back against his chest. In a novel, he’d have broken her neck. A quick snap, the crackle, done deal. But that kind of move, what they showed on TV or in a movie like it was no big deal … it’s make-believe. The neck is much stronger than you think.

  Instead, he hooked his right arm under her chin. Ramming his left hand against the back of her head, he grabbed his left arm with his right hand, the better to hang on to the blood choke—

  And felt something that did not belong.

  In a classic figure-four choke hold, eight to ten seconds of pressure on the carotids—thirteen at the max—and an opponent, even that burly, double-wide guy with the neck of an ox, slides into unconscious.

  Unless that guy is smart enough to protect his neck somehow.

  Which, apparently, this Chucky was—because what circled her neck was a leather collar with a metal D-ring. Jesus, a dog collar? Frantic, Tom tried shifting his grip, working his arm higher to hook directly under her ears, but they were wallowing in snow and he was already tiring, his grip starting to weaken. Then his arm slipped.

  Her reaction was instantaneous. Bucking, she threw her left arm up and back, her fingers aiming for his eyes. He jerked his head right, a reflex he knew, too late, was a mistake and exactly what she was counting on. Cocking her right elbow, she thrust back, fast, jamming the bony point into his ribs. Pain sheeted his vision and he gagged. Dimly, he felt her twisting, knew he no longer had the advantage. Get up, get out from under, get to the Bravo! Going for the weapon was another mistake, because it meant turning his back on her, but he simply didn’t see any other option. She was strong, and he couldn’t hang on forever. That she’d even thought to wear something to protect her neck was a whole other level of crazy, and he couldn’t wait and hope she might bleed to death, because a gut wound takes time, more than he had. Shoving her to the left, he let go, rolled right, spun onto his hands and knees.

  That was as far as he got. She kicked him, high, at the small of his back. A red tidal wave of agony roared up his spine, and he let out a choking UNGH! The next thing he knew, he was on his belly, writhing, coughing against the snow, trying to worm away. Every nerve sputtered; his muscles sizzled. He felt as boneless as a jellyfish from the spinal shock. Blinking through sudden tears of pain, he made out his pack, the Bravo, but it was so far away! Then he spied something else, much closer, less than twelve inches from his nose …

  There was a crunch of snow, the chatter of rock. The sun was behind him and he saw her shadow, black and inky, leaking over the snow, seeping onto his flesh as she came for him.

  With a wild cry, he lunged, got his hand around the ski pole only a foot away, and then he was whipping onto his back, the pole whistling through the air; and now she wasn’t a black shadow but a white and red missile launching itself—

  Just in time, he got his arms tucked. She saw what he was doing, tried twisting in midair, but she wasn’t a cat, just a crazy-ass and very smart Chucky, and she failed.

  Shrieking, she slammed down, the metal tip of the ski pole punching through just beneath her breastbone. The force was so great his arms nearly buckled. By some miracle, the fiberglass pole didn’t snap in two but held as her arms and legs splayed in a weird star.

  Yes! Still hanging on, he shoved, knocking her to one side, but he wouldn’t let go. This was one weapon he would not lose. How he got to his feet, he didn’t know, but then he was crouched, his thighs bunching, and she was still skewered, feet planted, her own hands wrapped around the pole to brace herself, as if they’d decided to play a strange game of tug-of-war. They stayed like that for a second that seemed a century.

  In that moment, he finally saw what was wrong, how very strange her eyes were: not only fevered with a killing frenzy but jittery, the pupils so wide the irises were reduced to thin dark rims.

  And there were no whites. At all. The whites of her eyes weren’t bloodshot; they were crimson, as if her eyeballs had been cored with a grapefruit spoon to leave mucky, blood-filled sockets.

  My God. The sight chilled him to the bone. Where did you come from? What are you?

  As if in answer, her lips skinned back in an orange grin.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Just die.” Heaving with all his might, he flipped her to the snow the way a fisherman might jam a speared fish into sand, and then dropped his weight in a single, killing thrust.

  And then it was done.

  Almost.

  Spent, the adrenaline that had fueled him for just long enough now seeping out with his blood, Tom could feel his joints trying to buckle. Trembling, he staggered back until he felt a knob of stone at his back. He was going cold, all over, in an insidious black creep as fatigue and blood loss stole his strength. Propping his hands on his thighs, he struggled to stay upright and sucked air, trying to clear away the cobwebs, waiting for his mind to firm.

  Got to get out of here, back to camp. He didn’t have a med kit, and it would be dark soon. With his blood perfuming the air, who knew when the next Chuckies would show? Strip out of as much of my stuff as I can and take hers. Those over-whites have her blood on them. So maybe they won’t smell me. But I have to be careful. Can’t lead Chuckies back to camp; got to protect the kids.

  This was all so strange. A ton of dead people up at the lake, plenty to eat, but absolutely no Chuckies snacking on anyone. Lots of juicy kids at camp—an abandoned farmstead, out in the open, plenty of pasture—and no Chuckies there either, as if the camp existed under a dome, an invisible force field. Which he had always wondered about.

  He stared down at the dead girl. He’d seen plenty of corpses. There was dead, something you knew just by looking, because death steals, especially from the eyes. Something evaporates. The eyes of the dead are the empty windows in a deserted house. But then there was battlefield juju, those few moments when a prickly spider walked the back of your neck; when the dread ate its way into your throat, crowding out fear. At those moments, you just couldn’t believe that the dead wouldn’t rise.

  This Chucky was like that. Even in death, the Chucky’s vermillion stare, still so crazy and manic, was what stayed with you after a nightmare.r />
  And I’ve seen your kind before. But where? What are you? A violent shiver made him gasp. Grabbing his arms, he hugged himself tight, now truly afraid. Where did you come from?

  Then, jumping to the front of his mind in an involuntary tic: Who made you?

  “You’re losing it, Tom.” His voice sounded strange but felt good. He needed to hear himself. “That’s crazy. Who could make Chuckies worse than they are? Why would anyone do that?” That made him laugh, a hacking sound harsh and far back in his throat, like the distant saw of those crows. “Jesus, listen to yourself. You were in the Army. Who doesn’t want a better killing machine, a soldier who doesn’t even know how to quit?”

  And who, he wondered, wouldn’t train it?

  The woods. That black blur. That glint. He dragged his binoculars from his parka, thankful that he hadn’t hung them around his neck. Good way to end up strangled.

  “You don’t have time for this,” he said, glassing the trees. “You got ten seconds, Tom, and then you really need to get—”

  But it didn’t take him ten seconds, or even seven.

  All it took were three.

  35

  This was so bad. Cindi had known Tom was up to no good. Her gut talking is what her mom would’ve said: this really queasy sense that Tom would try something dumb.

  Since that second day after the mine, Cindi went to see Tom early mornings before hoofing to her lookout post. (Which had been borrring before it turned terrible. Nothing to look at now but a gouged-out hill and that big blue-white eye of the lake for the longest time until the crows showed up, and then … well … she was twelve, but she wasn’t stupid.) Sometimes, Luke came with, but he was fourteen, the next oldest after Tom, and didn’t have tons of time. So, mostly, she went alone and brought food because Tom wasn’t eating enough to keep a tick alive. His eyes had dropped so far back into his skull it was like staring into deep, dark caves. You could get lost down there. She never pushed him and they didn’t talk much, but she wasn’t sure that was even important. Just be with him. That’s what her mom would’ve said. Remind him you’re still there, waiting for him to come back.

  On the fourth day, tired of let’s give Tom space—Mellie’s go-to for the whole awful mess—Mellie decided, Hey, mind if I tag along? What could Cindi say? No, butt out, you old witch? Boy, if it was freezing in that tower before, the temperature went waaay below zero the second Tom’s eyes clicked to Mellie corkscrewing through that trapdoor. Everything human in Tom shriveled until there was only a husk that just happened to wear Tom’s face.

  To Mellie’s credit, she did try. She did nice; she tried you can tell me; she touched on a tough buck up, soldier (but only Weller was any good at that). In desperation, Mellie even trotted out a whiny but we need you.

  To which Tom said about four syllables, all of them chipped from ice: Leave me alone.

  Twenty minutes later, Mellie clumped back down the way she’d come. But when Tom turned Cindi a look, she could tell: for the first time in days, the veil was gone, and he was seeing her, recognizing who she was.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” she said. “She invited herself.”

  “I know that.” Tom paused. “You don’t have to go, Cindi. I’d like it if you didn’t.”

  “Sure.” A lump pushed into her throat. Tom hadn’t smiled. There wasn’t this choir of angels or anything. There was only Tom and his monster, the black fist around his heart that, sometimes, she worried might squeeze so hard it would crush him altogether. But hearing him say that he’d like her to stay, that was a beginning. It was a place to start.

  But now … this.

  “And you’re absolutely sure he never mentioned going to the mine?” Mellie gave her and then Luke, seated beside Cindi at a rough-hewn kitchen table, the stink-eye. They’d made their camp in a long-abandoned farmstead: a motley collection that included an old two-story farmhouse, hog barn, cow barn, silo, and a clutch of tumbledown outbuildings hemmed on all sides by wide pastures and distant knolls where they mounted a few lookouts. Only Weller and Mellie slept in the house, along with anyone who was ill or hurt. At the moment—bad news, bad, bad, bad—that was Tom, tucked in Weller’s first-floor back bedroom. “No warning at all?”

  “No,” Cindi fibbed, her right leg jumping and jiggling and making the table rock, a really bad habit that used to drive her mom crazy: Cindi, you make coffee nervous. Considering that her mom had been a child psychiatrist, that was saying something. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine and … please.” Mellie laid a hand on Cindi’s wrist. The other was wrapped around a steaming mug. “Coffee’s not so easy to come by these days that I want to waste a drop.”

  “Sorry.” Cindi clamped her hands between her thighs. “There was a whole lot of blood. He was pretty cut up.”

  “Not all the blood’s Tom’s. It probably looks worse than it is.”

  “Well, I hope so.” Luke was so pale his eyes looked smudged on with blue finger paint. “Because any worse and he should be dead. Did Tom say how many he saw? Are we going after them? Or maybe we ought to, you know, move?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, all right?” Mellie was very good at sliding around questions. “I think the most important thing we can do now to help Tom is—” She looked around at the sound of heavy footsteps. “Well?”

  “We’re doing okay,” Weller said, but his tone was brusque, preoccupied. Always a little grumpy, the thick grizzle of gray stubble over Weller’s cheeks and chin only made him look meaner, like an old bear with a toothache. Cindi thought Weller would be a lot nicer once the mine was gone, but the longer Tom hung out in the tower, the blacker Weller looked. On the other hand, considering the rusty-looking bandage plastered over the right side of Weller’s neck and that shoulder … well, she’d be an übergrouch, too, if some Chucky snacked on her.

  “Okay, as in …?” Mellie prompted.

  “As in we’ll see.” Heading for a counter where a Coleman hissed, Weller rooted through a cardboard box. “You kids, go back to your racks. Best thing for Tom is we let him rest.”

  From the look on his face, Cindi thought Luke would argue, but he only nodded and scraped back his chair. “Just tell him we were here, okay?” he said to Weller.

  “Can we come tomorrow morning?” Cindi asked.

  “Let’s see what tomorrow looks like,” Mellie said, and gave Cindi’s arm a little pat-pat the way you’d pet a puppy to encourage it to make wee-wee. “All right?”

  “Does that feel all right to you?” Cindi glanced at Luke, but his expression was lost in the dark. She turned her attention back to following the yellow cone of their flashlight as they crunched over snow. The moon wouldn’t rise for hours yet, which suited her just fine. Every time she looked, she couldn’t help but think of some bug-eyed green cyclops and the night sky as an eyelid taking a whole month to slowly open and close.

  “No,” Luke said. “But I can’t figure what freaks me out more—that there are Chuckies close by and they haven’t found us yet, or Tom almost got killed.”

  “And why we aren’t doing something about them.”

  “Beyond posting a couple more kids who can’t hold rifles as guards? Yeah. It’s almost like …”

  Cindi waited, then said, “Like Mellie’s not worried enough.”

  “Uh-huh.” Pause. “Maybe she doesn’t want us to panic. My dad was like that. He always worried we couldn’t hack it, so he’d say things were fine, or think of something to distract us stupid little kids.”

  “Is that the only thing bothering you?”

  “No,” Luke said, and sighed. “They’re not saying it, but Tom just got lucky. He really should be dead.”

  A screw of fear. “But he’s not. He made it back.”

  “Believe me, Cindi, I’m just as happy about that. I don’t think I could stand it if … But if Tom got killed, then what? It’d be just you and me and Chad, with thirty other kids, all of them younger.”

  “We
ller would still be here. So would Mellie.” She wasn’t thrilled with either, but they were better than nothing.

  “Come on. Weller joined up with us when Tom did. Before the mine went, Mellie would disappear.”

  “To get other kids. She was never gone for long.”

  “But long enough.” He stopped walking and looked down at her. “You may not have wondered what would happen if she didn’t show up again, but I did. I worried the whole time. Like, what would we eat? Where would we go? And this whole Rule thing? It’s crazy to think that we’re going to go marching anywhere. I mean, think about it. There’s me and Tom, Weller and Mellie, about two, three other guys I can think of who are decent enough shots, but that’s all we got. Tom never came right out with it, but I could tell he thought us going against Rule was a bad idea. The only reason he helped us at all was because of her. Because of Alex.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.” Her teeth made a grab for her lower lip in time to stifle the sob. She gave her stinging eyes an impatient scrub with a fist. Only babies cried. “Are you saying he won’t help us now?”

  “No. If he comes back to stay, he will. He’ll put the brakes on kids like Jasper. Like, what Jasper did to that bucket the other day? I mean, yeah, there are manuals and that old chemistry book we dug up—which, you know, I only sort of understand—but there really wasn’t anything in what we read that said thermite might make plastic catch on fire.”

  “Thermite?” Jasper was a spazzy, twitchy-smart ten-year-old, and a complete pyro with a fixation on pipe bombs, water impulse charges, and anything that made a bang.

  “Take a while to explain.” Luke blew out in a white plume. “The thing is, Mellie’s encouraging Jasper to just go on ahead. She’s got other kids experimenting with napalm and Molotov cocktails.”

  “But won’t we need to learn how to do that anyway? To protect ourselves?”

  “Do we? Don’t you think there’s something just a little crazy about us maybe blowing our heads off? That stuff Mellie’s so hot for … it’s dangerous. That’s why Tom never let us watch him work, much less taught us what to do. Mellie doesn’t seem to care.”