by Ilsa J. Bick
Beyond Tom, from the kitchen, came the enormous bang of a door smashing drywall. Startled, still on his knees, he jerked up. Hurtling out of the pantry, swarming up from the gap in the floor through which he’d slithered only moments before, was a girl: a silent, deadly horror with a monstrous rip in one cheek through which he could see teeth and pink gums and tongue. In her hand was the largest, sharpest corn knife Tom had ever seen.
“Get back!” Sweeping the smaller boy aside with his right hand, Tom lunged for his Uzi with his left. She was so fast, all he had time for was a one-handed snatch, his left fist closing around the barrel of his Uzi, and then he was swinging up, aiming for her knife hand. She saw it coming and dropped in a lunge, like a fencer coming in under a blade, as the Uzi whizzed past. Pulled off-balance by his own momentum, Tom caught the glint, heard the corn knife whistling in a fast, sidelong chop for his exposed left flank, and thought that might just be the last mistake he ever made.
A brown blur rocketed into the girl from behind. There was a clash of teeth, and then the Chucky was screeching, surging to her feet as the dog clamped down on her left arm and dug in. Spinning free, the corn knife whirred past Tom’s chest, missing by a fraction of an inch, to bury itself in the opposite wall. Out of the corner of his left eye, he saw the smaller boy scrambling for his rifle. Not three feet away, the Chucky whirled like a dervish, and the dog, jaws snapped tight, sailed round and round like a shot put.
And when he saw the dog, Tom thought, Wait …
To his right, the kitchen door suddenly crashed wide open. Flipping the Uzi to the ready, Tom jammed the stock into his shoulder and whipped his weapon around just as a corn-tassel blonde—much too young to be a Chucky; Tom still had the presence of mind to see that—bolted through the door.
“Mina!” the girl screamed, socking a Savage to her shoulder. “Release!”
At that, Tom felt his heart burst with a shock of disbelief and a swift, sweet, stunning joy. For him, and only for a split second, the world simply stopped, fell away, and there was nothing he wanted more than to sweep her up, hold her close, but then he was breaking his stance, pivoting back for the Chucky, trigger finger taking up the slack.
“Shoot her!” the brown-haired boy screamed as he charged to Tom’s side. “Shoot her, Ellie, shoot her!”
They all fired, together, his Uzi still quiet but the boy’s rifle roaring and even the Savage making a very large noise for such a puny gun.
Then, still on his knees—because, all of a sudden, he couldn’t find his feet; he would fall for sure—Tom was shouting, throwing his arms wide. “Ellie! Honey! Ellie, Ellie!”
She’d been so focused on the dog and the Chucky, he doubted she’d registered anything else. At the sound of his voice, she turned, her eyes going huge and incredulous and so very blue, and then she was flying across the room as Mina, wuffing hysterically, darted for him, too.
“Tom!” she shrieked. “Tom! Tom! Tom!”
She’d have bowled him over; he was sure of it, because she was running so fast and his heart was so full; but he could take that, he wanted that—and she might have, too.
If not for Mina, beside herself with joy, who got there first.
103
“I like fires.” Threading on another marshmallow, Chris held his stick well above the flame’s reach. “Actually, I just like s’mores … hey, you’re burning.”
“Way I love them.” Licking his fingers to avoid the scorch, Peter pinched blackened, molten marshmallows onto squares of Hershey’s chocolate atop a graham cracker, sandwiched this with another cracker, and pressed until the white lava of marshmallows overflowed. Peter crammed the treat into his mouth. “And faster,” he said around gooey s’more. “You going to let me get sick all by myself?”
“No,” Chris said, but he brought his marshmallows no closer to the fire. He tipped a look at the night sky, milky with stars. The eye of the moon, whiter than a marshmallow, stared.
That’s not right. Grimacing, he put a hand to a sudden ache in his chest: a weird pressure. I’m dreaming again.
“I’m not in any rush.” The flames pulsed. Chris’s breath fogged, although neither he nor Peter wore jackets or even hiking boots, just jeans, tees, sneakers. “I like it here.”
“Me, too,” Peter said, his voice gluey. His hair spilled around his shoulders like spun gold. His eyes were blue diamonds. “One of my favorite places on earth.”
“But we can’t be there, can we?” Chris thought they were on top of a mountain, high above a valley. Yet there was only the fire crackling on a table of flat rock and nothing beyond Peter but a dark blank. Considering the stars, maybe this was outer space. Or heaven.
“No. The fire’s not allowed for real, but it’s my space, my rules. My marshmallows.” Swallowing, Peter skimmed his tongue over a molten dribble and groaned. “And chocolate. Oh my God, I forgot how good that tastes.”
“So, we’re in your head?”
“Pretty much. More like a … daydream. My safe place. Kind of where the last part of me hangs.” Peter speared marshmallows with his stick. “Better get a move on with that s’more before they yank you back.”
Yank me back? “How long do we have? I miss talking.” This was not what he’d wanted to say, but the truth was embarrassing. He winced at another jab of pain. “What is that? Feels like someone’s banging on my chest.”
“Because he is. Trying to save your ass.”
“What?” His brain caught up to what Peter had just said, and he recalled Jess’s warning or, perhaps, her prophesy: Someone will die. Someone must. “Saving my ass. You mean, I’m—”
“This close.” Peter pinched an inch of air between two fingers. “Heart stopped, and you’re not breathing. I think Tom might’ve cracked a rib. Guy from the Red Cross who did ACLS for the deputies said it happens sometimes.”
“Tom.” He blinked. “Alex’s Tom?”
“Yeah, Al—” Peter seemed to catch himself. “Her,” he said, nibbling on a marshmallow. “You know these are good raw? I forgot that, too. That’s the hell of this. I can come here, but I’ll forget you and this. It’s the only way I can keep this all safe from him. It’s like I’m behind this one-way mirror, only I can’t mike in and nobody outside knows I’m here.”
This was so different from his previous experiences. Chris felt … safer. “Why am I not seeing you in a nightmare? That’s all I’ve had until now,” Chris said, thinking that he also hadn’t tried dying quite so many times before either. He stared at his stick with its marshmallows that refused to brown—and what was up with that? On an impulse, he thrust the marshmallows into the flames. Nothing happened. The marshmallows didn’t bubble or turn black. Withdrawing the stick, he broke off the tip and tossed it into the fire and watched as the flames refused to claim it. A log popped, releasing a swarm of sparks, but the wood itself remained unchanged. Extending his hand, he let his palm drift close and then into the flames. No heat. No pain.
“Like I said, we’re in my special place. I guess all this”—Peter plucked up a marshmallow and stared as if studying a lab specimen—“probably can’t work for you.”
“Why?” Breaking a wedge of chocolate, Chris touched the dark wafer to his tongue. For an instant, he thought of Meg Murry sitting down to a meal that tasted of sand while her brother, lost and already under IT’s control, ate quite happily. The chocolate had no smell and less taste than air. “Why haven’t I been able to come here from the very beginning?”
“Maybe because you were still figuring things out. Digging for the truth, putting together the pieces.” Blowing out his blazing marshmallows, Peter gestured with the stick, chalking streamers of white smoke. “Letting go enough to find a piece of the real me, I guess.”
Truth comes from blood and water. “Letting go of the hammer.”
“Yeah, but we don’t need to get all biblical. This has way more to do with biology and the brain. I’m talking temporal lobe, out-of-body experiences. Isaac was right about that.”
“And you? Are you really dead, or have you Changed or …”
“I think, for me, they’re all related.” Peter let go of a heavy sigh. “There is so much to tell you, and we don’t have time for it all. I’m not sure we can even do this again.”
“How are we doing it at all?”
“Dunno. I built the space a couple weeks ago, when you told me to.”
“Me? How could I—”
“We’re different. All Spared are. Some are really unique, like you and the way your brain’s reacted to that drug Hannah gave you. Me … I was Changing before the Change. The boat? Lying?” Peter looked away. “Leaving that girl to drown.”
He’d thought a lot about this. “Peter, there was no time. You couldn’t save them both.” He almost said, Someone had to die, but didn’t. “Peter, she was your sister.”
“But then I made it worse. I said that girl was already dead.” Peter pulled in a shuddering breath. “The good guys don’t lie. They don’t choose. They save everybody.”
That only happens in books. “Hannah said you tried.”
“Yeah.” Peter gave a bleak laugh. “For all the good that did. That one choice ruined Simon’s life, probably Penny’s, too, and then I set up the Zone, I fed …” Tossing his stick into the fire, his voice thickened with disgust. “Everything I build, everyone I love, I destroy.”
“I’m still here,” Chris said, quietly. He watched Peter’s marshmallows turn to ash. The throbbing ache in his chest had sharpened and grown much stronger in the last few seconds. “We’re not in a nightmare. No one is here but us, and your eyes are blue, Peter.”
“That’s because you’re seeing the piece that’s”—he tapped the back of his head—“tucked away and still, you know … me. The part you were meant to reach.”
And the part I want to save, if I can. The thought popped into his head completely unbidden. “Maybe because you want to reach me, too. You said you were afraid, but I’m here. I found this place, and you. Let me help, Peter.”
“You said that once before. I think you saved me then, a little. You told me to forgive myself.” Peter shook his head. “But I can’t. You shouldn’t forgive me either.”
“But I do, Peter,” he said, then stiffened as his chest flared. No, please, not yet. “You’re not lost, not while I can still find you.”
“But I’m almost gone. I can feel that, too. This space?” Peter cast his eyes around their bubble of light holding off the dark. “I don’t know how much longer I can hang on to it. Yeah, it’s a part he can’t control. I’m not sure he even knows about it. But he’s getting stronger, and my space is shrinking. This fire, the marshmallows? They’re all that’s left.”
“He?”
“Yes. F-F …” Peter’s head suddenly snapped back. An arrow of pain shot across his face.
“Peter.” Alarmed, Chris reached for his friend. “Peter, what’s—”
“N-no!” Peter cringed. “D-don’t touch me. M-my fault. To n-name is to control, to ac-access …”
“Access? Control? What are you talking about?”
“H-him. He wants to kn-know, but I haven’t t-told …” Gasping, Peter pressed the heel of a hand to either temple. “Can’t say names. Goes both ways. N-naming him lets him in.”
“Who? How?”
“F-Finn … oh God, that hurts.” Arching against a fresh tide of pain, Peter hissed, “Using a d-drug, not the same as what Hannah g-gave you but cl-close …”
“On whom? You?”
“Y-yes, and …” Peter snatched a gasp. “And Ch-Changed. Too much to ex-explain. No time. Ask T-Tom. He’s guessed part … aahh!”
“Peter!” It took all Chris’s willpower not to touch his friend. “Peter, tell me what to do.”
“N-nothing you can do.” Another wave of pain shuddered through Peter and shook loose a moan. “F-Finn is c-c-coming.”
“Coming.” Fresh sweat glistened on Peter’s forehead and neck but in the light of a fire not as bright as before. Chris tossed a glance at the dimming flames just as that sharp pain grabbed his chest again. No time. Either Finn had found Peter, or he was being pulled away, or maybe both. “Where? To Rule?”
Eyes still closed, Peter managed a nod. “He’s got wuh-weapons. Men and Changed …”
“What—” A powerful talon of pain raked his chest. Chris couldn’t hold back the groan. That familiar falling sensation was beginning, his vision fading, but he had to know this, he had to hang on! Don’t call me back, just a few more seconds! “Wh-what does he want?”
“K-kids. M-more experi … aaahhhh!” Rolling to his knees, Peter clapped his hands to his head. “Get out, Chris. Pl-please. Before he s-sees, before he really nuh-knows you. Let th-them take you b-back … s-save yourself, save …”
“No.” Maybe it was because of his pain, or Peter’s terror and his certainty that when and if they met again, things would be very different—or perhaps it was because Jess had sent him from Rule to find his way—that now Chris chose a different path. Clasping the back of Peter’s neck, he pulled his friend close and held him fast. “No, Peter, I won’t.”
“Ch-Chris, don’t!” Peter’s eyes brimmed, and Chris saw their true color beginning to bleed. Peter’s hands clung to Chris’s forearms. “Don’t touch me. You have to—”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Chris heard his voice break, felt the tears on his cheeks. “I’m going to save us, Peter. I’m going to save us both.”
Then the black tide swept through and carried him away.
104
“Listen to me. I’ve seen this man. I’ve seen those Chuckies … the Changed? The ones he’s altered. I know what they have and what they can do.” Tom pointed to the Uzi as well as the contents of the pack he’d spilled onto the table of the hospice conference room. “Finn’s well armed, well supplied, and he’s got troops you don’t. I guarantee you won’t last an hour, much less a day. He’ll wipe you out, then take the kids and call it even.”
“So you’re saying we just give up, let him run over us, and go down without a fight?” Scowling, Jarvis tossed a dark look at the two men—equally old and just as skeptical—who sat to either side of him. “What the hell kind of soldier are you?”
“Hey, hey,” Kincaid rapped from his place to Chris’s left. “Are you deaf, Jarvis? This boy’s trying to help us save what we can.”
“It’s okay,” Tom said, but Chris saw the splash of angry red seep over Tom’s jaw. “You’re scared, you’re starving, things have fallen apart here. I get that. You don’t know me and you certainly don’t trust me, especially when I show up with your Public Enemy Number One.” Tom tilted his head toward Chris. “I get that, too. But you won’t win this fight.”
“We have the right to defend ourselves,” Jarvis said.
“No one’s questioning that. But you have to decide what you’re truly defending.”
“Hell’s that mean?”
“It means that we’re not talking about fighting for Rule,” Chris rasped, and winced. After four hours, all he could manage was a harsh whisper through a throat that felt as if he’d swallowed razor blades. What freaked him out was when he’d glanced in a mirror. A blood-encrusted, blue-black bruise circled his throat like a dog collar. The whites of his eyes were awash in red hemorrhage from broken capillaries, and nearly as bloodred as what he’d seen in his dream of Peter. Breathing hurt, the muscles grabbing with every inhale, and two cracked ribs complained, although Kincaid said busted ribs would’ve hurt ten times worse: You’re just damned lucky that boy knows battlefield medicine. Lucky for him, Tom was very strong, too. After Chris’s heart started up and he was breathing again, Tom had simply scooped Chris up, hustled them all to the perimeter guards, and promptly surrendered.
Although Jayden said there’d been a moment after they’d killed the girl with the corn knife when Tom had … hesitated: When I said your name, you could see it in Tom’s face, how surprised he was to find out who you were, and … it was so weird. Tom was angry
. Like he already knew something about you, and hated your guts. If Ellie hadn’t asked him what was wrong …
Jayden hadn’t said the rest, but his meaning was clear. Which made Chris wonder just what the hell Weller had said to Tom. He hadn’t had the time to find out. For the moment at least, Tom seemed to have swallowed his rage at Chris in favor of working together and getting these old men to listen to reason.
“We’re talking about defending the kids.” At his tone, his black shepherd, Jet, pushed his snout into Chris’s thigh and chuffed. Chris had been so happy to see that dog, he’d nearly bawled. “That’s the only fight left,” Chris said, scratching the big dog’s ruff.
“We know that,” Jarvis said. “Keep those bastards out of here.”
“No.” From his seat on Chris’s right, Jayden spoke up for the first time. “That’s not what Tom is saying. You’re not listening. If Tom is right, you might as well throw the bullets. No, better yet … lob spitballs and shoot yourselves in the foot. Better use of the bullets.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Jarvis said.
“You want to yell, yell at me,” Tom said patiently. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but please listen. This all makes sense, especially when you take into consideration what Weller’s motives might’ve been, and that picture of him and Finn. Blowing the mine ought to have sent the Changed your way because so many are from Rule. They’re your grandchildren, and their friends. But they haven’t showed.”
“That doesn’t mean they’ve been rounded up. A few have returned.” Smoothing a hand over a rumpled gray checked shirt, Yeager pulled himself a little straighter, but his chest had caved in; his sallow cheeks were sunken; the canny, once bird-bright eyes were now dull and hollow. “After that business with Ben Stiemke, we discovered and killed four more, but that’s all.”
“All that we found.” Thin, bloody fluid dribbled onto Jarvis’s chin from ugly scores on either side of his mouth. Smearing the mess away with the heel of a hand, he peeked and then ran his hand over a pant leg. “But now there’s the two you shot, and that girl with the corn knife and the …” He tapped his cheek. “I might’ve seen her around town before.”