by Ilsa J. Bick
“I don’t give a fuck. Don’t make me come back there, kid,” Lucian warned.
The other kids’ eyes were saucers; a bunch of boys started in with the elbow-jabs: Whoa, F-bomb. Oh, why had Tom put her in this wagon? She should’ve hopped right out and run over to Jayden’s. “But I know what I’m doing,” she said as one of the boys on horseback eased to their wagon, ducking beneath branches as he did so.
“Problem here?” The boy, about Jayden’s age, had dark curly hair, kind of like Tom’s, which was wavy and thick. Ellie thought he even looked a bit like Tom, and then saw why in this boy’s eyes, which were smudged with purple and … sad. Like Tom’s, even when he said he was happy to see her. Ellie knew why, too: Tom hurt, all the time, because of Alex. Ellie only wished she knew how to make that better. Maybe if I love him enough, hug him enough …
“We’re fine, Greg,” Lucian said, his tone like a boy with one eye on the playground monitor and the other on the kid whose butt he wanted to kick.
“Yeah, I guess that’s why the wagon’s stopped,” Greg said in an unimpressed uh-huh way that made Ellie bite her cheek to keep back the snicker. He cut the girl a look. “Sarah?”
“I said we got this.” Heaving to his feet, Lucian stepped onto the flatbed, brushing past feathery branches to wade through dogs and kids. Towering over Ellie like a giant-killer, Lucian jabbed a finger into Greg’s chest. “This is my wagon. This kid’s got a gun, I want it, and you’re not in charge here, Greg-guh.”
“Calm down, Lucian.” Sarah looked like a whipped puppy. “Guys, look, let’s just settle this and get going, okay?”
“But it’s safetied, right? So what’s the harm?” Greg said.
“Yeah,” Ellie said. This Greg kid was okay. “If we get into trouble, we’ll need every gun we’ve got.”
“Oh, bullshit.” Lucian snorted. “We get into trouble, ain’t no little girl .22 gonna save our butts.”
“Fine,” Ellie shot back. “So if I’m not going to save your butt, you mind if I save mine?” That got everyone nudging elbows and whispering again. I don’t care; you’re not my friends. She glowered up at Lucian. “What’s your problem?”
“A very good question,” Greg said.
“Greg,” Lucian growled. “Don’t push me, man.”
“Or what? You going to kill me now? You had your shot,” Greg said.
“She should give it,” the white-haired girl suddenly piped in that lisping singsong every kid knew: Okay, but don’t blame me. She had to be, what, six? The girl clutched a Lalaloopsy doll with a spray of fuchsia curls. “My mommy said guns kill people.”
About half the kids gave solemn nods, but a trio of boys shrugged and one elfish, older kid with big ears said, “I don’t see what’s the big deal. I wish I had a gun.”
“Greg,” Sarah said, still with that nervous, whipped-puppy look. “This isn’t going to change what’s happened.”
“You weren’t locked in a cell, Sarah,” Greg said, but he was looking at Lucian. “You weren’t spit on and punched. You didn’t clean chunks of dead kid from a church floor, or shovel horse shit with your bare hands.”
Whoa. No wonder Chris left Rule. The way Greg and Lucian were eyeing each other, she had a terrible feeling that neither needed much of an excuse.
Her closet-voice: Don’t make trouble, Ellie.
“Fine. Look, I’m giving it.” Fuming, she watched Lucian shuck the round in the chamber, then work the bolt and empty the Savage’s magazine.
“There you go.” Lucian had this big nasty smirk all over his stupid face. Slipping her bullets into a pocket, he handed back the rifle. “We get where we’re going, you can have the bullets back. And Greg?” Lucian stomped for the driver’s box. “Thanks for your concern, man. Now fuck off.”
“Lucian,” Sarah said.
We are so not living on the same farm. Probably wouldn’t give back her bullets either. Turning, she reached out to touch Greg’s leg. “He’s kind of a jerk, huh?”
“Fucking heard that,” Lucian said.
“Yeah. Like … seriously,” Greg said, with a perfectly straight face.
She almost cracked up. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“You didn’t. Don’t worry about it,” Greg said, but didn’t smile. As Sarah snapped the reins and their wagon started up, he let them pull ahead. “See you later.”
Okay, so Greg seemed all right. But I still wish Tom was here, and Chris. I want to go home. Dragging an arm across her eyes, she slouched into her parka, digging her chin under the zipper until the collar was up around her nose, and glared down at her boots. I want my daddy and Grandpa Jack and Tom and Alex. The dogs had settled down, although Mina kept dropping her chin on Ellie’s lap. “Quit it,” she said, shoving the animal away. “I’m fine.”
“It’s really safer,” the white-haired girl said. “My mommy—”
“Yeah, well, your mom’s dead, and so is mine, so shut up.” As soon as the words dropped out, she cringed, and her closet-voice shouted, ELLIE!
“That wasn’t nice,” said the elfish boy.
“I know.” Pulling in a deep breath, she turned to the little girl. “Sorry. That was really mean.”
“Mmm-hmm.” The girl’s eyes were moist blue pools. Her lips, delicate as rose petals, quivered as she dropped her face into her doll’s crazy, silly hair.
Would she ever learn to keep her big mouth shut? Laying down the Savage, Ellie put an arm around the little kid’s heaving shoulders. To her astonishment, the tears she’d held back streamed over her cheeks, too. “Don’t cry. I just get mad sometimes.”
“I get mad all the time,” the elfish boy said.
“I miss my mommy.” The white-haired girl used her doll’s hair to wipe her eyes. “I keep waiting for things to get better, only they never do.”
“They will,” Ellie said, trying to jam in a whole bunch of oh-wow she really didn’t feel. Grandpa Jack always said to look on the bright side, only everywhere Ellie turned, it was still dark, even in the middle of the day. Engage brain before tongue, her dad always said. “Remember how awful it was in the beginning, when everything went crazy?”
“It’s still bad now,” said one of the elbow-jab boys. His buddies nodded.
“Not where we’re going. We have cows and sheep, and there are lakes. Hannah knows about plants, and I catch lots of fish.”
“You fish?” The elfish boy looked impressed. “Can I come?”
Too late, she remembered Eli and Roc, still down there somewhere. Never fishing there again. But she said, “Sure.” All the kids were looking now, and smiling, like she’d brought in this great show-and-tell. She gave the little girl a squeeze. “Really, things will be great—”
From somewhere far behind came two thundery rumbles. Every hair rose on Ellie’s arms. Gasping, she sat straight up and turned to look the way they’d come, as did all the children and the dogs, too. The wagons stopped rolling; the horses ceased clopping. While the forest was still gloomy with dissolving shadows, slashes of bright light showed through the trees to the east. Due south, Ellie caught brief, bright pillows of pulsing orange light.
“Oh.” Sarah’s hand was over her mouth. Beside her, Lucian had gone so pale his stubble looked like dirt. “Oh God,” Sarah said.
The dogs began to bark. All around, kids were jabbering: “Wow.” “What was that?” “Did you see that?” “Is it a fire?” At her elbow, the white-haired girl had her hands clapped to her ears and squeaked over and over again, “What was that? What was that? What was that?”
“Explosions!” The elfish boy’s voice rose above the general gabble. “Like bombs.”
Tom does bombs. She was trembling. So much fear and dread coiled through her body that when Mina suddenly let out a frenzied, furious volley of barks, she almost sprang out of the wagon. “Mina, stop!” Twisting, she buried her face in the dog’s neck, not really registering right away that the dog was wildly trying to pull away. Please, God, please, not Tom, not Tom, not
—
“Hey. Hey, look.” It was the white-haired girl, her voice now a wavering whisper no more substantial than a faint breeze and so soft Ellie was the only one who heard. “Everybody.”
I don’t want to look anymore. She kept her head down. It never gets better. Everyone dies. When Mina suddenly growled, Ellie looked up and said, “No, Mi—”
And stopped.
Everyone else—everyone, that is, except for the now growling dogs and the white-haired girl—still stared back the way they’d come, and they were all talking at once. Many kids had begun to cry, although above the din, she thought she heard the old doctor’s voice drifting back from Jayden’s wagon: “What is it, Daisy? Where? Jayden, son, I think we got trouble. I think—”
Oh boy, I think he’s right. Their dogs and the little girl were riveted to the trees on their left. The little girl was so terrified she’d stopped crying. Barely daring to breathe, Ellie inched her eyes west, away from a new day—
And saw stark silhouettes slip from behind tree trunks that, in such bad light, you might mistake for fence posts. Or dead trees.
Except posts didn’t move. Trees didn’t have arms or legs.
Or teeth.
112
In the instant after Tom’s warning shout, the world hiccupped. Something kicked Chris in the back. There was a brief sensation of hurtling through air. Then, there was nothing: no impact, no dreams this time around, or nightmares either, quite possibly because he was living one. But time lurched, like a really old movie missing the middle reel, the story dropping out.
The next thing he knew, he was facedown, hands clawing for purchase, blindly worming his way over a still-hissing debris field of splintered wood, twisted metal, molten glass. In the distance, he heard the dong-bong of the church bell, sounding the alarm. When had that started up? The air boiled with screams and wails. Someone was bellowing, “What what what what!” Much closer, someone was moaning. After another second, he understood the moans were his. He tasted blood at the back of his throat. His stinging face was wet with melted ice and snow, but his hand came away red, and he thought, I can see this; I can see color.
Because there was light.
Time, time … how much had passed, how much? The world was both bright and murky. Intermittent black clouds smoked over sky that was denim overhead and a lighter turquoise to the east from the first spokes of sunlight. The air stank of spent fuel, burning wood, scorched metal, and overdone Sunday roast. Those clouds … smoke … The sparse pines on this plateau were torches. Behind and off to his right came the crackle and sputter of another, larger fire.
Got to get out of here. Rolling, he looked toward the tower a hundred feet away. All that remained was a gnarled ruin of skeletal struts and one remaining flight of steps leading nowhere. One horse, Jarvis’s, was down, its belly a ragged blast crater of mangled entrails. Night, his blood bay, was still on his feet. Tom’s dun mare was in the trees. One hand pressed to his head, the other clutched around a rifle, a man tottered and screamed, “What what what …”
“Jarvis?” Staggering to his feet, Chris coughed, moaned again as his cracked ribs sent knifing jabs through his chest. “Jarvis, where’s Tom, wh—”
“Here.” To his right, a tangle of wire mesh moved. Chris saw first the bore of the Bravo, still in its scabbard, and then Tom, on hands and knees, struggling against a pile of debris.
Uh-oh. Wobbling over, Chris dragged away mesh and smashed wood. His heart turned over when he saw the spike of metal sticking out of a star of blood and ripped cloth from a spot high on Tom’s left thigh, just beneath his hip. “How bad?” Chris dropped to his knees. He reached a hand, then snatched it back, afraid he’d make something worse.
“Dunno. Don’t think it’s that deep. Doesn’t feel broken, and it’s not pumping. Help me up.” Tom suppressed a groan as Chris got a shoulder under and boosted him up. “Hurts like hell,” Tom said, his face screwed against pain.
“Can you walk? Can you ride?”
“Yeah.” Hissing, Tom took a limping experimental step and then another. “I’ll make it. We’re both lucky we’re not dead from the pressure—” Tom stopped, sniffed, then said, “Oh shit.”
“What?” Chris said, but Tom was already lurching for the edge of the basalt plateau. Smoke jetted, like the exhalations of a subterranean dragon, from somewhere just below. Wincing with every jarring step, Chris caught up and squinted down. In science, they’d studied Mt. St. Helen’s, and Chris remembered the way the blast flattened all those trees. This wasn’t quite as bad, but it was close. The blazing abatis looked as if it had been smashed by a giant’s boot. Nearby trees had toppled. He could see where snow had either been vaporized instantly by the heat or melted.
Four men, two RPGs. Chris’s eyes roamed the wreckage. The legs were easy to identify, as were the half-torsos and … and … “H-heads.” He hadn’t meant to say anything. It just came out. The heads were very distinct. A few looked like eight balls, without the white: no skin, no hair. Others had cracked open like walnuts to release red and pink sludge. “Tom, I see—”
“Yeah. Come on.” Turning, Tom started in a fast hobble for the trees. “We’ve lost a lot of time. Going to be full daylight soon. We need to get to town before the Changed get here. Jarvis!” Tom called to the old man, still turning his circles. “Come on! We have to—”
“What?” Jarvis whirled so fast a foamy line of spit flew. His eyes, crimson with broken capillaries, started from their sockets. Blood trickled from his nose, and one ear. He shot the bolt of his rifle. “Stay away from me, stay away!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Tom held up both hands. “Jarvis, calm down, man. We got to go, the Changed—”
“Who? What?” Jarvis screamed. “What what—”
“What’s wrong with him?” Chris asked.
“Probably the pressure wave. Scrambles some people up. Jarvis,” Tom tried again, “listen to me, man. It’s okay, but we have to go, we have to—” Suddenly, Tom stiffened and turned back toward the plateau and the smoking tower.
“What?” Chris asked. “What do you—” Then, over the crackle of flames, Chris heard it, too: the sharp snap of brush, the stomp of boots on rock.
Deep in the smoke, something moved. Something … dark blue. For a disorienting moment, Chris thought the smoke was pulling together, changing color, becoming parkas and then jeans—and then he realized that what he saw were Changed, a lot of them, surging up the rise only a hundred feet away, materializing like invaders teleported from a distant planet.
“Chris.” Tom clamped a hand on his arm and tugged. “Come on. Don’t look, just go.”
Oh my God. Chris was paralyzed, rooted to the spot. Jarvis was screaming again—“What what what”—and Chris was thinking, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t …
“Chris!” Tom snapped him around so quickly Chris had to clutch Tom’s arms to keep his feet. “I said, don’t look at them. Get on your horse, Chris! Get on your horse, now!”
“O-okay,” Chris gasped. He took off in a stumbling run, Tom crowding behind, urging him on. Snatching his bay’s reins, Chris tried to boost to his saddle, but his feet wouldn’t work. “Come on,” he heard himself plead, “come on, come on, come—”
He heard them: boots stirring debris, kicking wood, crunching glass. Getting louder. His back prickled. Coming closer, don’t look, don’t look, don’t! But then, he did snatch a glance—stupid—and a nail of terror jabbed his heart. The Changed, so many, too many, were fanning out, spilling over the plateau, charging right for them.
“Chris, no!” Tom was already whipping his horse around. “Don’t look! Come on! You’ve got time, just don’t panic!”
Too late. Socking his boot in a stirrup, he grabbed leather and swam to an awkward half-sit on his saddle. Tried not to look. Couldn’t help it. The Changed, these children of Rule, were less than fifty feet away. In the coming day he could see their mouths open in silent snarls and their eyes, their eyes, so wide, so wild. N
o weapons, only teeth and clawed fingers and—
Don’t look, Chris. No voice but his own, one that wanted him to live. Move, or you’re dead.
But it was fascinating, appalling, awful: every nightmare come to life and why deer froze in headlights and people died at train crossings and Moses covered his eyes. No one can help but stare at the monster, because horror is a cousin to awe.
“Chris, no, what are you doing? Chris!” Tom shouted as the same moment that Jarvis bellowed, “Whaaaat! Whaaat whaaa—”
Braying, Night finally shied, Chris’s panic communicating itself to a shocked animal that understood death was a hair’s breadth away. The bay reared. Not yet fully seated, Chris let out a strangled cry as the slide started. He felt himself peeling backward; he was falling, he was going to fall into the Changed and their arms, and they would get him, they were there, they were—
“Ho!” Bullying his prancing mare alongside, Tom snatched at Night’s bridle. “Chris, set your damn knees, grab his mane or withers, and get on, get on!”
Sobbing out a breath, Chris scrambled for a handhold. Night’s terrified eyes rolled; his head snapped back and slammed Chris’s face. The blow was terrific, so hard that Chris’s vision blacked. Stunned, he lost his grip, began to slump …
And then there were hands, everywhere: skittering over his left leg and thigh, fingers clutching to pull him off—and he thought, I’m done.
An enormous bang came from someplace over his head. The questing hands suddenly fell away. Another bang. To Chris’s left, a Changed boy slapped both hands to the crater where his nose had been, and tumbled back. Still dazed, Chris felt Tom’s fingers claw his shoulder.
“Don’t lose it, man!” Tom shouted, manhandling Chris onto the saddle. “You can’t lose it, Chris, come on!” Despite his injury, keeping to his mare with only his knees, Tom had a big black Glock in one hand and Chris’s shoulder in the other. Another girl with very long, filthy hair made a lunging grab. Cursing, Tom swung down, stuck the pistol in the girl’s face. The Changed was so intent on him she never saw Tom, much less the gun, and—bang! Her head shattered, skull and scalp and brains and blood and wild hair flaring in a wet spray.