We Are Ash

by Samara Stone

  There are squishies upon squishies upon squishies here. We had to stop running long ago for there was such a dense stream of the bipeds hurrying, but never running, this way and that, seemingly without purpose. They remind us of a tight school of fish, so we look for a shark.

  We have our hand over our mouth now, and then as with a school of fish swerving all in one fluid motion, we see that the squishies seem to sense the death-rot smell even if they cannot name what it is that's bothering them. We grow to be the size of the Dolores so we can peer over the masses of bipedal bodies. Across a path for exoskeletons, right in the middle of the elevated gray paths for walking squishies, we suddenly see the pale, almost lavender, gray gleam of glowing eyes. It does not see us, and we shrink back down to more average squishiness.

  We watch its animal movements. It flicks its hands out here and there, with long—too long—fingers. It grazes the bare flesh of squishies who don’t even notice it brushing by. We see one biped after another swipe at their newly blood-juice-leaking snouts. The Other's face would probably be classified as mate-worthy if the many images of attractive squishies the humans paste on every surface are any indication. It has a sharp jawline and high cheekbones. It is well muscled and tall, though bizarrely it has opted not to have udders, despite how nice and visually pleasing udders are. It's head pelt is longish with silky curls and so black it is almost blue. Both varieties of its eye-hair, the small ones designed to filter dust and the expressive patches higher up, are dark and thick, accenting the strange, unnatural gray. Gray like a hurricane. Gray that hides lightning and floods and devastation.

  We spent too long assessing it, and now its eyes snap to ours and we are unshielded, briefly exposed across the wide path. All the exoskeletons seem to have halted and its terrifying, incandescent gray eyes lock onto ours. A wide grin splits its face, showing bright, white teeth. Even though it is nice looking, the squishies skitter away from it because they can sense that it is not-nice. Very not-nice.

  Without warning, the air fills with a sound like the tornados of the high plains make and we wish desperately—pointlessly—to warn all the many bipeds here. It gives us one more smirk and throws its head back as innumerable tendrils of the dead multitudes rocket out of its mouth like black, grimy spiderwebs. They stink like nothing we have ever smelled, even the horrific smell at the place of our birth.

  Each tentacle finds the mouth and nostrils of an unsuspecting squishy and each begins to writhe, easily breathing into twenty or thirty of them at once. They swat at their faces and their hands flow through the dead multitudes, coming away covered in an angry, purplish rash. The crowd begins to panic as more and more bipeds make horrible gurgling, choking sounds and we are jostled and knocked around.

  The Other is looking at us again now, coils of dark lavender-gray death swirling out into so many squishies. We finally become brave, but as we push through the throng to try anything to stop the Other, it makes a noise that we suspect is its laugh. Our skin prickles up into sharp, cold goosebumps; we feel our eyes leak the sad-juice, but now we know it is fear-juice, too. Then there is a great sucking roar of wind and we feel the tentacles withdraw back into its stinking maw. Its glowing gray eyes are filled with pleasure at having made us watch the most Not Allowed thing we can imagine.

  As we reach its side of the path, it gives us one last look, laughs its horrible, groaning laugh, and shatters into millions of dark, sharp pieces. We close our nostrils and mouth just in time, though all around us, there are squishies coughing, vomiting, hacking, spewing blood-juice and lung bits all over each other, the path, and the exoskeletons that have crashed into one another. There is so much noise and we cover our ears now that the Other’s filthy multitudes are gone, but it is too loud and we cannot help ourselves as we let out a cry that is uniquely Ash. We have lost it again, though we managed to keep our Dolores safe.

  As the bipeds who are not ill begin to turn to us, we collapse into our multitudes and seek in our mind for the Dolores. It will know what to do.

  36 The Quest Begins

  Dolores, Danny, and Brook drove back into town in silence. It wasn’t until they’d reached Danny’s house that anyone said anything. Unsurprisingly, it was Brook.

  “We just follow the bodies, right? We follow the bodies, we speak to the survivors, and if they're like Danny, they may have some sense of what Ash learned. Then we follow that. But we need to go now—I checked the Fargo paper and another one of the victims died last night. She's playing for keeps, so—”

  “Stop saying it's fucking Ash!” Dolores interrupted. “I really don't think it's Ash.”

  Danny held up his hands. “Dolores, you weren't here, you didn't see the way her face was all contorted while she was touching that moose—it was like she was inside it somehow. It was terrifying. You can't let your feelings get in the way here.”

  “Danny, are you in? Dolores and I have already agreed we can make up our work or semester or whatever later, but what about you? What about your job?”

  “My job is about to be gone anyway. They're talking another gigantic round of layoffs to try to cover the cost of whatever cleanup they're supposed to be doing out at that place.”

  “Had you been out there before?” Dolores asked. “How much of that is Ash or whatever and how much of that is your company's damage? You said that whole area's been closed since the summer when something happened, right? Some kind of botched experiment for a new extraction technique?”

  “Yeah, they closed that and miles around after something happened. It was July, maybe? But it was all hush-hush. We were all simply told that there were OSHA issues and we wouldn't be starting extraction from that area for a long time yet. They even had armed guards on the place for a while, which seemed like overkill, but even they kept getting sick. So they expanded the perimeter and said it would be a felony if anyone was caught trespassing.”

  “And yet you went out there to go poaching. Good life choices, brother of mine.”

  “Look,” Brook said. “we can argue on the road, but shouldn't we get going? We shouldn’t let the trail go cold.”

  Danny and Dolores grumbled their agreement and within half an hour they were all in Brook's car headed to Fargo. As frustrated as Dolores had been, she was glad Danny was coming with them. It broke Dolores’s heart to think of her brother living all alone in such a desolate place.

  It took them a while to convince Danny not to tell the Department of Homeland Security or the CDC about their findings just yet, though. Despite any potential ulterior motives, Dolores appreciated that Brook seemed genuinely concerned about Ash's wellbeing—not just as some kind of alien to be probed for information, but as a fellow sentient creature. And as Dolores's friend.

  Dolores mostly stared out the window, thinking if she just concentrated hard enough, she would feel Ash, wherever she was. She was so zoned out that when her phone buzzed, she jumped as if she had been shocked. She glanced at the screen, filled with ridiculous hope that Ash had somehow texted her. Instead it was Colt letting her know he was thinking about coming over to Bozeman for spring break the following week.

  “Who’s that?” Brook asked.

  “Oh, just my friend Colt. He was thinking of coming through Bozeman next week.”

  “Ooo-la-la,” Danny crooned. “Is Colt looking for a spring break piece?”

  “Ohhhh is that that kind of friend he is? Guess we better wrap this up in a hurry. We gotta get Lorri here back to her long-haired lover.”

  “Uh, no, we don't need to rush because it's not like that. He's a friend.” Still, Dolores thought that Brook looked a little jealous as well as a little relieved that she wouldn’t likely be back for spring break with Colt.

  “So, suppose we track her down, what then?” Brook asked. “Are you just going to try to talk her down, Lorri?”

  She felt her stomach flutter the same way it did whenever Colt called her Lorri. Uh oh. “Yeah, I guess so. Like you said, it's not like we can trap her until we figure out
how she manages to dissolve or whatever it is she does.”

  Brook's brows drew together. “Could we maybe, I dunno, vacuum her up or something?”

  “Well, I can also assure you that shooting it doesn’t do anything,” Danny sighed.

  “Uh, yeah, except hurt her and force her to dissolve so she can remake herself.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “What if we could rig up some kind of vacuum-pack thing like in Ghostbusters?” Dolores asked to chuckles from both Danny and Brook. “Well I don't see either of you assholes coming up with any better ideas.”

  “The bigger issue is finding her,” Danny said. “She can be anything, look like anything. If she's attacking people, she's probably going to do it looking like someone else, right? She's weird, super weird, but I don't think she's dumb.”

  “But she might not feel the need to hide, because by this point she knows how powerless we are compared to her,” Brook said. “I mean, the way she can just clump in and out of existence with seemingly no effort is crazy. Can you even imagine? I don't know how fast she can move like that, but it's practically teleportation! And the doppelganger stuff she did with Danny—just crazy. And we still have no idea if she just floats around to wherever she feels like stopping, or if she can plan it. I just wish she hadn't fled so I could've talked to her more. Can you imagine if we could replicate some of her capabilities? Can you even imagine?”

  Dolores did not like the way Brook's eyes lit up talking about Ash. The way his breathing got fast and shallow. She wasn't sure whether his sexual interest or experimental interest made Dolores more upset.

  “You're gross, man,” Danny said for her. “You've got a beautiful woman, who's actually a real flesh and blood woman, right beside you, and you're fantasizing about fucking a pile of dust that gives people lung-ebola? Just gross.”

  “The guy pimping his little sister thinks I'm gross?”

  Danny lurched forward and Dolores thought for a moment he was going to punch Brook. “No, you should just watch yourself with Ash. You really have no idea what it's capable of—no idea at all. I do. I've been to the brink of death and back because of it. So how about you just focus on driving?”

  “I thought you wanted me to focus on Lorri. Which is it?”

  Dolores rolled her eyes. “You guys want to just pull over and I'll close my eyes so you can measure your dicks? Or could we maybe get to Fargo first.”

  Both men were silent for a moment before laughing uneasily. They made it the rest of the way to Fargo in only a couple hours and stopped to grab some food. They mostly ate in silence while Brook made a call to the hospital where the majority of the surviving frat boys were. He said he was a field agent with the CDC and that he'd been sent to interview as many of the patients as could speak. He got their room numbers and wrote it all in a small notebook he pulled from his back pocket. When he got off the phone he pulled out his wallet and flashed them a card. It was his CDC identification card from his internship. “Our ticket into those rooms.”

  “I think you mean your ticket. They aren't going to let us in.” Dolores gestured to how scruffily she and Danny were dressed—ragged jeans and ratty t-shirts.

  “Yeah, we better make a side trip and get you some more professional attire. I'll say you're interns learning the ropes, and that you don't get your own ID's until you pass some qualifying exam or something. It's not like they're going to question us that closely, right?”

  “Probably not, but I have no idea, I've never tried to visit someone in the hospital that wasn't an immediate relative.”

  Dolores knew as soon as they walked into the hospital that there would be no talking to any of the patients. The CDC wasn't there but some other government agency was, although they couldn't be sure which. Men trying and failing to blend in as civilians were “casually” strolling around the ward. Brook noticed too and muttered, “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  Danny on the other hand began to head for the nurses station. Dolores wanted to grab him, but she didn't want to risk drawing attention either.

  “Oops, Danny, we'll have to come back later. Mom just texted that Dad's asleep. Let's go get a bite to eat.”

  Danny turned to her as she widened her eyes dramatically and darted them toward one of the plainclothes officers. He still didn't seem to get it so she just took his arm and walked back to the elevator. Once the elevator doors closed they explained what they'd seen.

  “Jeez, I guess I'm pretty oblivious. I didn't notice even after you were being all weird. What now?”

  Brook's face was pensive. “I mean, we could head to Sioux Falls. Maybe some part of the building is open so maybe we could at least sneak to the scene of the crime if not the victims.” The elevator lurched to a halt and they all walked out of the hospital in silence, waiting for the warmth and privacy of Brook's car to continue.

  “I wonder which agency it is. Maybe they do think it's some kind of terrorist group. Dolores, have you been checking headlines? Any new attacks?”

  “I checked a while ago and there was nothing. Nothing on CNN, no Times or Post coverage. Let’s get lunch and I'll check again.”

  Brook nodded and quickly found the nearest fast food. As they munched in the car, Dolores scrolled on her phone. Then she shouted, her mouth full of fries, “Screw Sioux Falls. Head east. Straight east. We're going to Chicago. Thirty-seven people in the financial district. National coverage—hey, what the fuck—it just disappeared. The article I was reading just disappeared.”

  Dolores frantically tapped at her phone and Danny in the back seat was on his too. “It's gone,” she said. “What the hell does that even mean? There have to have been witnesses, right? Do you think they'll try to shut up that many people—”

  Suddenly Danny began to emit a noise like someone very heavy was stepping on his chest. “Stop it, man, you're freaking me out,” Brook said before his eyes went wide too. “What the fuck is that? What the actual fuck is that feeling? Do you feel that?”

  Dolores did, but she wasn't scared. It was a feeling she had grown accustomed to, and rather than afraid, Dolores felt safe for the first time since seeing that minefield of dead animals. The car began to fill with a slowly swirling cloud that gradually coalesced and colored into Ash, naked next to Danny in the back seat and with an expression of terror on her face.

  Both men screamed an octave higher than Dolores would've thought possible. Ash mimicked their scream in their voices, layered one on top of the other.

  “Shut up!” Dolores shouted over them.

  Danny was trying to clamber over Dolores into the front seat and she shoved him down into the back and before she could say any more,

  “We found it, Dolores,” Ash whispered. “We found the Other, and we do not know if we can keep the Dolores safe much longer.”

  37 Trusting Ash

  Brook tried to keep the car from spinning out of control as he slammed on the brakes, grateful beyond belief that this was a lonely stretch of I-94. He spun in his seat, still unable to believe his eyes that yet again this ethereal looking, beautiful woman had spun herself out of the air like cotton candy.

  “What did you say?” Brook asked.

  Ash narrowed her eyes at him and turned slowly back to Dolores.

  “I believe you now, Ash,” Dolores said. “I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I saw the animals. It was terrible.”

  Ash nodded and began to weep as she explained. “We found it in the moose. We found it and we knew that we would have to find it to prove to the Dolores that we did not do the breathing into squishies once it was Not Allowed. But the Other, the Other will not care, it does not care about the Not Allowed. It does not care about anything. We don't know what to do. Does the Dolores know what to do?”

  Dolores reached out and took Ash's hands and whispered, “I don't know what to do, but I'm here. We're together, Ash and Dolores. Tell me what happened, tell me everything.”

  Ash dropped her head, looking utterly defeated, “We put the Dolores in
the most hidden part of our mind. We hid the Dolores away, in case it breathed into us. But it didn't. It didn't. It can breathe into many, many squishies all at once, and it is not for learning, it is not like when we did it. No. No. It takes and takes and takes from the squishies and the animals. It even killed its multitudes. It smells like death and sickness. It is just beginning. We think, we cannot know, because we were too slow and too scared and of course, because the Dolores made it Not Allowed, but we did not breathe into the Other. We are not sure we can breathe into the Other. We think that we might never be able to remake ourselves after that breath, because the Other is filled with death. And once we learn everything about death, we will die.”

  Brook and Danny gaped at the gush of information, but Dolores remained calm. Her eyes were wet, but she was glad to at least have Ash here.

  “I'm sorry, Ash. I'm sorry I didn't listen. Are you okay? Did it hurt you?” Dolores reached out to touch Ash’s hands.

  Ash prickled and took her hands away. “Perhaps it did hurt the You, we do not know. Is that all the Dolores ever cares about?”

  Then Dolores laughed and the tension in the invaded car dissipated a little. Danny was still pressed tight against the door as far from Ash as possible, however, and actively scanning the area for possible escape routes.

  “It's lying, Lorri,” Danny hissed. “I don't know that I understood some of that nonsense. But I saw it kill that moose.”

  Ash looked wearily at Danny and then to Dolores and Brook. “We did not kill the moose, we went into the moose to find out what did kill the moose. We were not killing. We were learning, the last learning the moose could give. We don't expect the Danny to understand. It is still mad at us for us making it have the blood-juice-cough even though we didn't know it was a squishy that the Dolores cares about.”