Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy

by Ilsa J. Bick

  Tori has the shotgun. I’ve got the pistol. But she wasn’t good with guns, didn’t like them. Fine, don’t fight the boogeyman. Lock the doors, open a window, and scream. If anyone heard them. It was late afternoon, slipping into early evening. Not a lot of people moved around these days if they could help it. Very little food meant very little energy—

  The sound came again, and it was harsher this time, not merely a pop and crack but a scuff like a heavy boot.

  That was when she knew. There wasn’t something lurking in the storage room. There was something behind her, spiriting out of the black well of the common room.

  Coming right for her.

  42

  “Don’t.” Greg wedged his boot between the door and jamb. “Don’t make this tougher than it has to be.”

  “But you’ve made a mistake.” From what Greg could see through the crack—one glittery bat’s eye far back in the cave of her socket—Verna Landry looked as if she’d have to stand twice to throw a shadow. “I don’t know who told you—”

  “Well, we can talk about that,” he said, trying to inject notes of both sympathy and steel. A cat. I’m harassing this poor woman over a cat. It was always a toss-up, trying to decide how many guys to take, and whether they should be really, really ancient or just normal old. This time he’d opted for six, with four Spared—him, Pru, Aidan, and Lucian—and two geezers: a really ancient denture-sucker with a bugle of a voice named Henry, and Jarvis, who was just plain old and knew the woman’s husband, Chester. “I really need you to open the door, Mrs. Landry.”

  “This is my house. You have no right to come here making accusations.” That single gimlet eye clicked right. “Jarvis, you took all our food seven weeks ago.”

  “Well, Verna, see, that’s the problem.” A pallid geezer, Jarvis had the kind of knobby neck Greg always associated with a turkey, but he was one tough old bird. “Chester kept going on about how he got the runs eating cat food—”

  “It was a ration.”

  “No one’s giving out cat food to people.” Lucian skimmed that serpent’s tongue over his lips. His silver stud winked. “Cats, maybe,” Lucian drawled, “but not cat food.” Beside him, Aidan sniggered and blocked off a nostril with his thumb, let out a juicy honk, did a quick peek, then wiped his hand on his jeans.

  “That all goes to the dogs,” Greg said, unsure if he only wanted to kick Lucian in the teeth or never touch anything Aidan got near again. Maybe both. “So where’d Chester get it?”

  “Fine.” Verna’s voice ratcheted up a notch. “Fine, yes, we had a cat. It was Lisa’s, but it ran away once she …” Verna petered out, then revved up again: “We still had the food.”

  “Then you should’ve turned that in last time we did a door-to-door.” Pru moved a little closer and said, “Council gave orders right after the ambush.”

  “All right, we made a mistake. But did you find a cat then? No. And why pick on cats? Why not dogs and horses?”

  This was why Greg had left Daisy with Tori and Sarah. All they needed was a pissed-off villager taking a potshot. “Please, ma’am, this’ll go a lot easier if you just open the door.”

  “Not until Chester gets home. You’ll just have to come back when he—”

  “Do it.” Greg was suddenly just so sick of the whole thing. Let them just get in, get out, get this over with, so he could go back to Tori.

  “Playing our song,” Aidan said. Moving in a swift sidestep around Greg, he and Lucian pistoned quick cop-style kicks. The old woman saw them coming, let out an abortive squawk, but didn’t move fast enough. There was a splintering scream as both the lock plate and chain popped free of the jamb. Greg heard a sickening thuck and an ugh as the old woman’s head first connected with wood, then snapped on the spindle of her neck. Lurching back, a hand clapped to her streaming nose, she began a stuffy screech: “Mah noth, mah noth!”

  “Lucky it’s still attached,” Aidan said.

  “Fucking A,” Lucian said, though whether he was agreeing or commenting on his friend’s prowess at breaking an old woman’s nose, Greg didn’t know and didn’t care.

  “Henry, make sure she doesn’t go anywhere,” Greg said, stepping over the blubbering old woman as Henry doddered up and piped on an improbably high note: “Now, Verna, I coulda tole you …”

  Man, I hate this. Striding past an understairs closet, Greg moved down the hall, darkened now with late afternoon gloom, and toward the kitchen with Pru and Jarvis on his heels. For no particular reason, his scalp suddenly tingled, and a maddening itch dug at the back of his neck. Whoa, something wrong here. He had this very weird sense that the house was both empty and yet occupied. He shot a glance over his shoulder. Aidan and Lucian were sauntering, their eyes roaming over walls of photographs, tables cluttered with bric-a-brac, ready to liberate anything they took a fancy to the second Greg or Pru or Jarvis might not be looking. He watched Aidan open that under-stairs closet, peek, then move on.

  Nothing really untoward. He frowned. So why am I so spooked? Something wrong …

  “Bingo. Food dish.” Pru chinned a cheery yellow placemat tucked into a corner of the kitchen, behind a farmhouse table and chairs. A round ceramic bowl decorated with fish skeletons and the words Meow and Yum Yum squatted next to an aluminum water bowl, which was half full. The food dish held a single kibble. “I don’t see a litter box.”

  “Maybe they let it out,” Aidan said. “Might still be out unless the old geezer run off.”

  “Hey,” Greg said, uncomfortably aware of Jarvis, who fit the definition of both old and geezer. Aidan really needed to watch his mouth. “Just keep it zipped, okay?”

  “What?” Aidan managed to look confused. “What’d I say?”

  “Nothing, kid,” Jarvis said, laying it on thick, then looked at Greg. “Chester wouldn’t run. And that fuss Verna put up? Ten to one, that cat’s still here.”

  “Maybe they shoved it into a closet or something.” Spying a corner pantry, Greg pulled the door. The pantry was completely enclosed and pitch black. Pulling out his flashlight, Greg sprayed orange light over the pine floor. “Got a bag of dry, couple cans of wet …”

  “What?” Aidan and Lucian both asked when Greg trailed off.

  “Hang on.” The wood floors of the old house were none too clean, but with so little traffic here, the pine was much lighter, and he spotted one board that looked scuffed, its seams wider than the rest. Like it’s been replaced or popped. When he pushed, the board rocked. Oh boy. He was afraid to hope, but his heart drummed just a little faster. We might have something here, we might really … Flicking open his pocketknife, he worked the tip into a seam. The blade passed through easily.

  “Hey,” he called. As the others crowded in the doorway, he pointed. “This board’s been pried. I can’t get enough leverage to pop it, though.”

  “Here.” Lucian pulled a black, carbon steel machete that probably could carve a buffalo from his waist sheath. “Try this.”

  Working the blade, Greg eased it a good eight inches through the gap before the steel ticked. Metal? “Got something.”

  “Sure you don’t got just a joist?” Pru asked.

  “It’s not wood. I can feel a draft. I think this is a crawl space under the house.” Another five seconds and Greg popped the board, stared, then said, “Oh, holy shit.”

  In the cone of orange light thrown by his flashlight into this hidey-hole, the jars sparkled like a hoard of rare gems: small, beveled glass jars of strawberry jelly, deep orange marmalade, blueberry jelly; larger pint and glittering quart mason jars packed full of pickled carrots, asparagus spears, mushrooms, potatoes, and other vegetables, as well as fruits.

  “Whoa,” Lucian said, and Aidan added, “Oh, fuck me.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Jarvis said it like a prayer. Crowding in, he reached past Greg and withdrew a quart of tightly packed fruit swimming in clear syrup. In the light, the peaches looked like golden half-moons. “They’ve got all this food. They’ve got food.”

&
nbsp; Gooseberries, Greg read on another jar, the word done in delicate, precise letters, along with a date. He’d never tasted gooseberries, but they sounded deliriously good. His stomach was moaning, and there was so much saliva pooling under his tongue, he was afraid he’d start drooling. Apricots. Cherries. To distract himself, he counted jars. “Thirty-six. Not huge, but …”

  “Hell with huge.” Jarvis had folded that quart of peaches to his chest the way Reverend Yeager sometimes clutched his Bible during a sermon. “I should’ve thought of this. I’ve known Verna since we were kids, going on sixty years now. Her mom canned like crazy all summer and fall. We searched here six weeks ago. Bare as a bone, and I thought how strange that was. Not like Verna at all, but it’d been months since everything went to hell and I thought, okay, they ate it all.” Jarvis’s face suddenly darkened. “And they’ve still been taking rations.”

  “Assholes,” Aidan said.

  “Yeah, that isn’t right; it’s not, you know, fair,” Lucian put in.

  “But I don’t get it.” Pru was examining a jar of bright purple eggs pickled in beet juice. Greg bet if anyone had suggested eating something like that to Pru five months ago, he’d have told you to get real. “Why does that old lady look like she’s starving?” Pru asked.

  “Maybe this is their emergency stash,” Lucian suggested.

  “Or they’ve been eating only a little bit here and there.” Aidan hefted a jar of pickled brussels sprouts. “Man, I used to hate this shit, but now? No problem. We got to tear up the rest of the house. We oughta tear up all the houses, X ’em off.”

  “Wait, wait, not so fast.” Greg was getting dizzy. The urge to crack the seal of that jar of cherries was nearly overwhelming. “This is cool, but we came for the cat.” What am I saying?

  “Screw the cat.” Lucian fished out a mason jar swimming with ruby-red plums. “Man, we could—”

  “Don’t even think about it.” Greg replaced the cherries, although letting go took effort. “Come on, hand them over.”

  “Hold on.” Lucian cocked his elbow, holding his jar out of reach, leaving Greg with air. “Don’t we get a say?”

  “No.” Greg’s stomach fluttered. From the knot of frustration on Pru’s face, he wasn’t sure this wouldn’t end up being four against one. Maybe even five, if you counted doddering old Henry. “Listen, I understand, but we can’t. It’s not fair to everyone else.”

  “Fuck fair.” In the gloom, Aidan’s tats looked like bugs that had chewed their way out of his cheeks. “Dude, I’m hungry. We keep quiet, no one has to know.”

  “Old woman’ll know,” Lucian rumbled.

  “We can do something about that,” Aidan said.

  “No,” Greg repeated. “The only thing we’re doing is turning this stuff in.”

  “What if I don’t?” Aidan said. “You can’t make me.”

  The words were so like a five-year-old’s, Greg had to bite his cheek. Just get one of them to hand over a jar. “We can’t go there. Come on, guys.” He held out his hands to Pru, who, he thought, would relent first. “Hand it over.”

  After what seemed a very long second, Pru pushed the jar into Greg’s hands. “Here,” Pru said. “Take the damn thing before I accidentally break it on purpose.”

  Slotting the jar back, Greg tilted his head toward Aidan and Lucian. “You, too. You know the rules. We share food. That’s the way it has to be.”

  Aidan’s head swiveled to Lucian, whose shark eyes ticked to Pru and then back, weighing the options. A moment later, Lucian shrugged and silently passed over his jar.

  “Fuck.” Aidan tossed his brussels sprouts in an underhand pitch that Greg fumbled and nearly dropped. “Asshole. Hope you fucking choke.”

  “Jarvis?” Heart banging, Greg looked up at the old man. “Come on.”

  “It’s a jar of peaches.” Jarvis’s tongue flickered over his lips. “No one has to know.”

  “I’m with you, brother,” Aidan put in.

  “I’m seventy-fucking-five years old,” Jarvis said, and then his face knotted. “Council cares more about you. Spared eat better. You’ll get it all.”

  “Hey, fuck that, Jarvis,” Lucian said. “I’m scraping empty.”

  “Yeah,” Pru chimed in. “We Spared are doing so great.”

  “All I’m asking for is a lousy jar of peaches, for God’s sake,” Jarvis said.

  “Jarvis.” Greg swallowed around the stone in his throat. “We’re all hungry. But you know the rules.”

  “Rules.” Jarvis’s eyes narrowed. “Real easy for you when the rules break your way. Guess that’s what comes with being the Council’s private pets.”

  “Whoa, who you calling a pet?” Aidan said. “We gave up our food, too, you know.”

  “Yeah, but why?” Jarvis rifled a glare at Greg. “Because the Council gives you the authority? Here we’ve supported them for years. We gave up on our grandkids. We let them get rounded up and shot without ever being given the chance to get better, come back to us—and now we’re supposed to starve, too, to save you? Kids that aren’t our blood, not our family? Hell with that.”

  “Okay, wait.” Pru put his hands up, palms out. “Let’s all just cool off, okay?”

  “What if I don’t want to cool off?” Jarvis’s eyes hadn’t left Greg. “What if I’m done taking orders from the Council? From punks?”

  “Hey.” Lucian’s forehead furrowed so deeply the scabs on the dome of his skull bunched. “Watch the punk shit.”

  The pantry was, suddenly, very cramped, and much too dark, and he’d left his rifle in the kitchen. So had Jarvis, but he also carried a pistol in a paddle holster. Greg flicked a glance to the old man’s waist, then wished he hadn’t given himself away like that.

  Jarvis read the move. “Afraid I’m going to take a shot?”

  Before Greg could think of the right answer—was there one?—Pru said, “Seeing as how I’m right behind you, Jarvis, that would be a real bad idea.”

  “You got a Ruger, kid.” Jarvis cracked a laugh. His Adam’s apple wobbled in his turkey neck. “Punch right through. Blast me, you blast him.”

  There was the sound of metal sliding over plastic, and then Greg saw Jarvis’s back stiffen. “Yeah, but this don’t have bullets,” Aidan said, and he must’ve pressed the tip of his knife just a touch more into Jarvis’s neck, because the old man gasped. “I did this once in bio, to this big honking bullfrog.”

  “I remember that lab,” Lucian said. “Kind of a rush, the way the frog spazzed?”

  “No one’s pithing frogs, and no one’s blasting anyone. Now I’m just picking up Lucian’s knife here, okay? Everyone be cool.” Slowly unfolding himself from the floor, Greg raised his right palm out while he held the machete’s blade in his left and prayed Lucian didn’t grab it so quickly he lost a few fingers in the bargain. Beyond, he could see Pru, his Ruger Mini-14 holding steady on the back of Jarvis’s head, and Aidan, whose lips were drawn into a predatory grin Greg knew all too well. Lucian only looked thoughtful, like all the gears were clicking away in there, all the angles being considered. That was somehow even scarier.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do.” His jaw was so tight, Greg could barely get the words past his teeth. “Screw the cat, okay? We pack up this stuff and then we all leave, together. We take everything to the food stores and then we don’t have to worry about it anymore, all right?”

  “Out of sight, out of mind?” Jarvis gave a bitter cackle, like the snap of bad ice. Didn’t sound—or look—much like a gobble-gobble now. “You think it’s that easy?”

  “Hey.” Aidan’s teeth showed in a snarl. “You threatening us poor little punks?”

  “Aidan, put the knife away.” Greg’s eyes slid to Pru. “You, too.” After a long second, Pru’s elbows broke, and Greg heard the click of the Ruger’s safety. “Aidan,” Greg said again.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Aidan said, but from the way Jarvis’s cheek twitched, Greg thought the little rat-creep still managed a cut.

  �
��Okay,” Greg said. “We need something to carry this stuff. Pru, you and Jarvis go look for some pillowcases.”

  “How do we know you won’t slip a jar into your pocket or saddlebags while we’re gone?” Jarvis said. “Why should we trust you?”

  “Because you can. Jarvis, really, we’re on the same side,” Greg said.

  “Yeah?” Jarvis said. “Which side is that?”

  43

  Move! The fine down on Sarah’s neck bristled with an electric surge of terror. Something coming, move, move!

  “No!” Gasping, she bolted like a spooked rabbit, springing for the storage room door, keys tinkling to the Formica, but no time to search for them, just enough to get away! The door crashed open with an enormous bang. As Sarah bulleted through, she felt fingers whisking through her hair. With a wild yelp, she spun on her heel and lunged for the door to clap it shut. Her flashlight jittered crazily, ripping wide gashes, cutting shelves out of the dark before she lost her grip. The light clattered to the floor, the orange spray winking out. Blind now, she swam through the dark, made a wild grab, felt the bite of wood, and then she was muscling the door home with a solid clap.

  Safe, she was safe. Chest heaving, she leaned back, bracing the door with her body, expecting to feel the thud. But nothing happened. No bang. No battering of a fist. No kicks.

  Barricade the door. Without the keys, she couldn’t lock it, and this might be her only chance. She knew the storage area well enough to navigate in the dark: freestanding, largely barren metal shelves right and left. The only shelves with any food at all were on her left. So grab a shelf off to her right, haul it in front of the door. Unless she’d imagined the whole thing. She pulled in a screaming breath, held it, listened over the clamor of her heart. The air smelled, very faintly, of peanut butter, but she heard nothing. So, nerves? No, she’d felt something grab for her hair. Unless that had been a phantom terror, too.