Whatever was holding him might not be Otto anymore, might not be human, but if Javier had learned anything from his encounters with Them, he knew that although they were stronger than normal, quicker than normal, they could still die.
Javier felt his hands, pinned against Otto’s body. Their circulation was failing, but he could still feel them, and, tentatively, he moved him. Yes. Just there, he could feel a softness behind the denim. With his remaining consciousness, Javier dug his fingers into the softness of Otto’s groin and squeezed. He felt the denim crush beneath him and under that something soft gave, and then resisted, and then a popping sound. Otto immediately let go of the boy and doubled over into himself.
“Why did you do that, my man?” Otto grunted from his doubled-over position. He looked up, hands clasping his balls. “Why?” Now he was laughing. “Why? Why? Why? Why?” he laughed. “Why?”
Shaking, Javier drew in long, painful breaths, the air singing his windpipe. Already Otto was standing up again.
It was just a game to Them, just a sick fucking game. Well, Javier could play games, too, couldn’t he?
Behind him, he was momentarily distracted by the roar of an engine as a rusted-out old truck sped down the street. In the back, he saw an overweight man with a little girl on his lap. For a second, their eyes met, but Javier quickly tore his away and returned to the task at hand, studying the clean, white spot of Otto’s forehead.
Javier brought the ax down in one fluid swing, neatly splitting Otto’s face in two. For seconds it continued to laugh. Javier went to it and stomped his boot on it. Again and again. For his sister. For his mother. For himself. Finally, the laughter stopped.
He did not allow himself to waste any time looking at the body, thinking about what he’d done. Instead, he moved onward, toward the church.
He’d hoped to arrive at the building for a final showdown and then to die while he fought. Instead, when he arrived, he found the church silent and still, its doors flung open, one swinging on its hinges, the nightmares of its bowels voided, the creatures fled.
No matter. They were somewhere. He had only to follow the bodies. They lay everywhere along the street; Javier began to walk among Them. He didn’t have to walk far.
Ahead of him, he saw the shape of a girl run past. She had short black hair and seemed to be in a panic, although as far as he could tell no one was chasing her.
She looked, from all appearances, normal. But he knew that They were tricky. He knew that They could look just like everyone else when They wanted to.
The girl hardly seemed to see him as she raced through the streets, her feet catching in the ridiculous high heels she was wearing.
They liked to play dress-up, too. He’d learned that from Mabel.
Javier readied the ax, and turned toward the girl.
3
Star walked through Them without harm. There was no explanation for it. They were all around her, those people like her father, but not one of them bothered her. It was as if she were invisible. Once, she thought she saw a woman walking beside her, a woman in a white dress who looked a little like her mother, but when Star turned there was no one there.
She wouldn’t have cared if there was. Whatever calm she’d found in the prayer was gone. Or maybe not gone, but changed. Star finally understood that, for better or worse, it was over. There wasn’t a purpose to it anymore. There was no point to staying alive. She’d left her father, who was now, she had no doubt, dead. Her mother was dead. Her friend was no more—the fact that her earthly body still walked didn’t matter. And as for Star? She was nothing. Less than nothing. At any moment, she could become one of those things feeding on one another that she’d seen back in the church. She could become like her father, like Mabel. Better, then, just to die.
Star walked on. Cavus was a familiar town to her. Although her family lived a few miles outside of it, beyond the new factory, they often came here to visit Mabel and her family or just to take a drive into the town where her father worked. She could have gone to school here, but her father’d wanted her to go somewhere bigger; he’d had such dreams for her. Thinking of her father as he’d been before pushed a sliver of feeling back into Star, and she trained her thoughts elsewhere.
The town. Cavus. It was a pretty town; even now, in its madness, it was still pretty. The evening’s summer sun shot through the trees lining Main Street, trees that weren’t native but that made the town look like something out of an East Coast picture book instead of a place in the middle of the northern plains. The houses, each of them well kept and modestly painted in blues, whites, and grays, stood as they’d always stood, on either side of the road. To her right was an older house, a plastic red tricycle sitting in its grass. Yes, all was peaceful, only the Festival tents changed the town from its usual appearance, but even these were familiar, out every year, as they had been since the summer of 1941. All the same. The sky overhead, soaking up the sun’s arms of orange, wrapping them in its blue silk. All the same.
Except, of course, for the people. As far as Star could tell, the once mostly homogenous group of townspeople had separated themselves very neatly into two groups. The ones killing and the ones being killed. To her left, Star saw the familiar shape of the mayor, the bald old fat-ass that she and Mabel had liked to make fun of at the high school football games they’d sometimes attended together.
The mayor, the brown suit that he’d worn to the Service now a torn mess, ran with his head thrown back to the sky, his glasses knocked askew and hanging on by one flimsy wire earpiece. Half of his tie was missing, torn off, and he loped along at an alarmingly fast pace. In front of him a woman ran. She still wore her Sunday-best polka-dot dress for the Feast, but she no longer wore any shoes. She was running, and she was screaming. She didn’t have a chance.
Star watched dispassionately as the mayor, a man who’d hired her father and who’d once shared a dinner at Star’s kitchen table, who’d even brought a tray of brownies, took the woman down and began to feed. Around Star, in the streets, similar scenes played themselves out. The world, in this pretty setting of Cavus, Montana, had gone mad.
Yet it was all around her and not of her. Although she walked through it, they paid her no attention. Why? What else could she do? It was like they couldn’t see her or something. All she wanted was to die. To change. To anything. She just didn’t want to be Star anymore. She couldn’t take so much pain, so much loss.
Run, Star Bear. Her father’s voice, a weak enjoinder to flee.
“Sorry, Daddy. Not this time.”
There would be no more running. No more anything. She was just too tired.
Why had she even bothered to escape from the church? She should have just let them come then. Let them take her. Now it was harder than she might have thought.
Star stepped next to the mayor, his head buried in the now silent woman’s belly. Kneeling, Star gently tapped his shoulder and prepared herself. He turned almost immediately, and stared at her.
He looked exactly as he always had, same eyes, same face, same lack of hair, blood smeared around his mouth, yes, but otherwise…the same. Except not. Not quite. Those eyes. Something behind the eyes that would not focus, something entirely and completely evil.
Star stood and waited.
The mayor stared at her, stood, and then a blank look of confusion fell across his face. His eyes wavered, looking from side to side, glancing over Star, glancing beside her, around her, but not seeing her. If Star could have seen through the mayor’s eyes, she would have seen not herself, but only a shadow, a shimmering shadow that glowed a barely perceptible silver-white.
The mayor raised his head to the sky and let out a long, low howl. It wasn’t the kind of howl Star had heard in the horror movies she’d made her mom watch with her, not one of those cheesy wolf howls. No. It was an actual form of communication, this howl. It was also completely and totally human. Human but soulless. It said both I am here and I come.
The mayor lowered his head,
tried once again to look at Star, and failed. Then he ran down the dirty street, dodging between the other Feeders.
In desperation, Star turned the other way and began to walk again. Soon, someone had to see her. They had to. It was only a matter of time until this would all end.
Star marked a new figure, in the distance, advancing. It was a boy. He wore a black jacket, a white T-shirt under it. The shirt was splattered with blood, as was his face.
In his hand was an ax, and when he looked up his eyes, firmly and finally, met hers.
Thank you, Lord, Star prayed. Thank you, thank you.
The boy stopped and then walked toward her, hefting the ax. There was no question that he saw her.
4
Javier ran his hand along the ax’s handle. Maybe he wasn’t ready to die just yet. He thought he’d like to kill a few more of the bastards.
Ahead of him, he saw the girl coming toward him.
When she saw him, she smiled, and Javier gripped the ax tighter. He would not be fooled again.
Around him, the light streamed from the setting sun, shifting from orange to red, and lighting up the boy and girl on the now empty street like two figures in a silhouette.
She was pretty, he saw. Very pretty. Which didn’t mean a damn thing. Mabel’d been pretty, too. Javier walked forward and when he was a few feet from her, he raised the ax. Behind her, he saw the rusted truck with the man, girl, and older woman in its back pull into a driveway.
The girl did not move. All he had to do was bring the ax down. Just bring it down. Why was he waiting? She was only another one of Them, dammit! Just do it. His muscles flinched.
“Kill me,” she said.
He froze.
“What?”
“Kill me.”
The sun sank lower, and for an instant, the red of it lit up her face, and he saw not a stranger, but his sister, as she would have looked if she’d been able to grow up. The ax fell from his hand and clattered to the street.
He sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t! Ah, fuck, I can’t. Mi hermana. Mi amor. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” The words stuttered forth from his bruised throat and he could not stop them any more than he could stop that vise from clenching around his chest each time he allowed his sister’s name to creep unbidden into his head.
He waited for the girl to kill him, but instead she sank down beside him. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Everything will be okay.”
Chapter 19
1
“We can’t let them in. What if they’re one of those…things?”
The group stood huddled behind the door of Bunny’s house, arguing amongst themselves. On the doorstep stood a boy and girl. The boy shouted, “Please! I saw your truck. I know you’re here. Please let us in. I saw the man and the little girl. Sir? Are you in there?”
Patrick Riley hardly heard the boy. He was busy telling himself a story. He told himself the story over and over again. One minute Sharon had been beside him and Izzy, and then she’d been underneath the two men. He’d turned back toward her, had thought to grab for his pistol, but then Izzy was in the middle of it.
“Riley!” Erma was shaking him. He turned to her. “What is it?”
“Did you see them? The boy said he saw a man with a little girl. Did you see him? Should we let him in?”
“I…” Could he have helped her? Could he have saved Sharon, or did he do all that he could? If he had have pulled the gun out, maybe, but it had all happened so fast.
“Riley!”
He looked at Erma, at all of them huddled there, Izzy standing beside him, her thumb in her mouth, a habit he’d thought they’d broken her of but which she’d obviously reverted to in this time of stress.
Izzy saw him looking and removed the thumb. “Daddy, don’t let ’em hurt me. Pwease, Daddy?” The words came in a lisp around her sweet baby teeth, the teeth he’d missed seeing come in because Sharon had stolen her away from him.
Riley’s face hardened. It didn’t matter what had happened with Sharon. All that mattered now was Izzy. He had to keep her safe. Which meant he couldn’t take any chances. He thought of the boy he’d seen in the streets, the boy hefting his ax to kill one of the Feeders. He’d recognized him immediately, though Javier Martinez obviously hadn’t recognized Riley out of uniform. “No,” he said. “I didn’t see him. I didn’t see anybody.”
“There!” said Bunny. “See! They’re Feeders. They’re trying to trick us.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Erma. “I’m letting them in. If they’re Feeders then we’ll…we’ll kill them if we have to.”
“You can’t tell,” said Pill. “Not until they’re dead or have been one for a long time. Feeders can look and act just like us at first.”
But Erma was already moving toward the door. “They’re just kids, dammit!”
Riley watched as Bunny stepped between Erma and the door. “Don’t you dare. I’m not letting you put us at risk just because you have some misguided idea of being a savior, or—”
John took a step toward Bunny. “Let her by,” he said. Maxie followed him, and it was the dog that drove Bunny from the door. She jumped away, defeated, as it approached.
“Do something, Patrick,” she said, turning toward her nephew. “Do you want your daughter to get killed?”
“No!” Izzy squealed. “No, Daddy! I don’t want to be killeded! No!”
Riley scooped his daughter up and drew his gun from his holster. He saw that the old man was doing the same, his gun pointed toward the door.
The girl’s hair fell in lank, sweat-dampened tendrils across her face. She raised an arm to wipe it away, and on its underside Riley saw a bear.
“It’s her,” he said, turning to find Erma. “It’s Star Williams, Erma!”
Riley felt ashamed of himself. What if that had been Izzy on the other side?
Erma yanked open the door, and the boy and girl fell through, leaning against each other.
“Thank you,” Javier said. “I didn’t know where else to go. We saw your truck and—”
“Star!” Erma said, moving toward the girl. Star took a step back, looking at the woman as if she were crazy, and Erma’s hands fell to her sides.
“You okay?” Riley asked.
Star nodded.
He had found her, after all, Riley thought. And though it wasn’t the way he’d intended, he was glad she was safe. A small victory in the midst of a nightmare.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Riley said. “What happened? Where’s your dad?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Pill interrupted. “If you saw us come in here, then They probably did, too. Which means that we don’t have a lot of time.”
“What do you want us to do?” Erma asked. She gathered herself up in a straight line and faced Pill, leaving Star to hide behind Javier.
“I’ve already tried calling the station,” said Riley, pulling the two-way he kept on him at all times out of his pocket. “There wasn’t any answer on the walkie, and my cell’s not getting reception.”
“Mine either,” said Erma.
“That can’t be,” said Bunny. She walked briskly across the kitchen to the landline phone. “Obviously there has to be some of them working. We have to call for help—you can’t shut an entire town down.” She picked up the phone, and it was evident from her face that there wasn’t any dial tone. “Not an entire town,” she repeated. “It’s just crazy.”
“It isn’t crazy, it’s true,” said Pill. “It’s the first thing they did the last time it happened. Only they didn’t have to do as much then because there weren’t any computers or cell phones or all that nonsense. But Cavus is just as cut off now from the rest of the world as it’s ever been.”
“What do you mean ‘the last time’?” asked Erma.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” said Pill. “My wife, she wrote it all down. She was here for it. She survived.”
“He’s lying!”
Bunny yelled, and Riley saw that his aunt was near tears. “There wasn’t any last time. This is just a sickness. People are sick, and we need to get help. That’s all.”
At the sight of her weeping, John turned and exploded on her. “Jesus, woman, will you shut the fuck up!”
Riley felt his dislike for the man rise. “You want to watch yourself, mister,” he said. “That’s my aunt.”
“I’m sorry,” John said. “It’s just—”
“It’s okay,” said Erma. “We’re all a little rattled, is all.”
Riley felt a tug on his shirt, and he looked down to see Izzy smiling at him. “I’m hugwy, Daddy. Can you take me out? We can get a Happy Meal?”
“Soon, Izzy. I promise. Hang in there.” He needed to focus. To start thinking like a cop, for God’s sake. What was the first thing he’d do if this were a normal case, just another fucked-up druggie loose or a normal human on a killing spree? He shut his eyes and wrinkled his forehead. Think. What would he do on a regular case?
Information. He’d get information.
“You say you know what’s going on?” Riley asked, shifting Izzy from one hip to another. She was much too big to be held, but he wasn’t planning on setting her down anytime soon.
Pill nodded. “As much as anyone does.”
“Then I vote we hear him out. There isn’t much else we can do, is there? Unless anyone else has another idea?”
The room remained silent. Outside, there was the sound of breaking glass and a scream.
“Then let’s get to it, old man,” said Riley.
“First let’s find as many supplies as we can,” Pill said, and Riley kicked himself for not thinking of that. Information and supplies. Of course.
“You got any guns?” he asked Bunny.
“My husband keeps one,” she said. “In our bedroom. I don’t know if it’s still there, though. He might have taken it with him.”
“Taken it where?” Riley asked. “Jesus, Aunt Bunny. Where is Uncle Bob? In all this mess I’d completely forgotten about him.”
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