A convoy of military and fire rescue vehicles had passed him some time back headed for the disaster in Columbus. They hadn’t stopped for this inferno. They sped to a bigger emergency, no doubt.
Wind lashed against the side of Aaron’s face. He instinctively slammed the brakes. Holding the passenger door open, Moni didn’t hesitate. She leapt out of the jeep with it going at least 35 miles per hour.
“Shit! Where are you going?”
Ramona whined from the backseat and lifted her weary head. She blinked heavily at the radiant sunbeams.
“Everything’s okay. No problema,” Aaron told the girl.
Aaron stopped, threw the jeep into reverse and pulled onto the shoulder even with Moni. Showing no ill effects from her jump, she stood on the side of the road staring at the smoke column. The morning light illuminated the layer of dried purple blood splashed across her body like a human abstract art exhibit.
“Wait here, chica,” Aaron told Ramona as he got out.
Moni didn’t look at him as he approached, or when he stood beside her.
“What is it?”
She kept staring, not so much at the smoke, but at anything in the direction away from him.
“What happened to that town wasn’t your fault. It’s them. They’re doing this. I don’t care what color your blood is, you’re not one of them.”
She raised her palm before her face, studying her rough skin and the iron nails with her enemy’s flesh still wedged beneath them. Moni dismissed her hand in disgust.
“Stop trying to change me. This is what I am,” she beamed into his head.
“But Moni, I can do it. I’ll take your blood to the lab and…”
“Don’t bother. I can’t go back. Holding onto the human side of me is what makes me weak. If I want to destroy them, I have to leave every human part of me behind. Everything and everyone.”
Moni glanced at him, her brow furrowed like a lioness on the hunt and her braids clumped together with sticky purple blood. Sunlight gleamed off her sharp, iron teeth, framed by dark violet gums.
Aaron shook his head and fought the tide of tears surging in his eyes and stinging his nose. He had known from the moment she crawled out of the infected lagoon that changing her back was a long shot, nearly impossible for the greatest minds on Earth. Even if he couldn’t restore her to the way she was, he had vowed to stick by her until the end. They still had a chance, no matter how remote, no matter what she became.
Did she not love him enough to try?
“Whatever you’re doing Moni, I’ll help you. Just let me get Ramona to safety and we’ll take them on together.”
Moni refocused her gaze on the smoke column. It grew thicker, like a jetliner had plowed into the desert and burned uncontrollably.
“Both of you should run. Get away from here. Tell them to evacuate El Paso, Las Cruces, everywhere around here. Don’t come back for me. If you do, they’ll find you.”
Aaron drew an exasperated breath. His empty stomach shriveled, forcing him to double over with his hands on his knees. He grimaced and stood up, scooting closer to her.
“What am I supposed to do without you?”
Moni turned her head slightly, almost peering into his eyes and sending a shiver through him. Instead, she wiped her face with her hand.
“Just know that as long as you’re alive, part of me will be happy.”
“And what about the rest of you?”
“The rest of me…” She took a few steps toward the smoke, now the object of her full attention. “Will face this army they’re raising. And I won’t be alone. I’ll build my own army, an army of flesh and iron the likes of which this world has never seen.” Moni looked him in the eyes. “This is no place for you.”
As she dashed into the desert, Aaron fell to his knees in the dirt.
64
The baby wouldn’t stop crying, almost as loud as the whirring helicopter blades that carried them into the soft light of the dawn sky. All Nina wanted was a few quiet minutes after surviving that house of terror. When she stroked the baby’s head and stared into the young one’s startled eyes, she realized that the mutants had frightened part of her just as much.
Her hands involuntarily jerked, pulling an imaginary trigger over and over. The monsters had come in droves, and exploded in toxic purple ooze. The bathroom door to her back sheltered the children. She had held the deformed horde off long enough for the military to swoop in and airlift them to safety.
The six children were strapped in across from her, including the oldest girl holding the cranky baby. Several of the kids were softly sobbing. They mumbled Patty’s name. They asked about Iña. Nina shook her head while avoiding eye contact. No matter what had happened to the town, she could always say she hadn’t abandoned the helpless.
Nina could feel the heat radiating from Carter seated beside her. He locked onto the side of her face with a livid glare. The contusion on his forehead swelled black and blue. The only medical attention he had accepted was an ice bag and some pain meds.
“I should have never taken you with me,” Carter said. “That was some stupid shit back there. You left me for dead.”
“You think I regret saving them?” Nina pointed at the children. “That’s what people who wear this badge do.”
“You and your small-town blinders. You don’t see the big picture.” He narrowed his eyes like a shark ready for feeding. “Our mission was to apprehend Moni. If you don’t protect me and the aliens turn me into another purple-eyed zombie, then everything is lost. You let those stupid kids derail our mission.”
By the dejected look Nina saw on the oldest boy’s face, he knew some English. She understood Carter’s point. She didn’t agree, but she needed him to trust her, otherwise he’d send her home without getting another crack at Moni.
“I won’t let them hurt you again,” Nina said, barely able to look him in the eyes. “No matter what I have to sacrifice, I promise.”
A grin crossed his lips at her submission.
“And next time you get a free shot at Moni, you better not miss,” he added.
Her fingers twitched. On the rooftop, Nina had a wide-open shot at Moni. The infected woman had somehow dodged away, like she had known before Nina fired. Nina could have reminded Carter that he also had his gun trained on her and failed to deliver.
“When she uses her mind games, she’s hard to hit.” Nina’s critical eyes swept him up and down. “You know exactly what I mean.”
That brought a grimace out of him. He gulped down half a bottle of water as if washing a putrid taste out of his mouth.
Nina stared out the helicopter window as the last stars faded from the retreating night sky. “Here’s what I don’t understand. Moni could have murdered both of us, just like she slaughtered the cops in Florida, but she left us. And the kids – she rescued the girl who Aaron brought but she didn’t think twice about leaving the other six for vulture meat.”
Nina kept thinking back to the moment Moni touched her. That brief encounter of flesh on flesh had revealed so much. She had caught a glimpse of another world, one of fierce struggle. Nina had felt Moni’s resilience and, most of all, her sorrow. She regretted what she’d done, or at least that’s what she had wanted Nina to believe.
Regret wouldn’t bring her friends back.
“Tell you one thing for certain. Aaron really wanted that vial of infected blood back,” Nina said.
“Yeah, enough for that asshole to blindside me.” Carter massaged his bruised noggin. “I should have shot him when I had the chance. I won’t hesitate next time. Next time, just push him headfirst into the snakes.”
Once again, he had a point. Yet, Aaron’s survival presented them with another opportunity.
“If Aaron wants to experiment on Moni’s blood, I have a good idea where he’ll go,” Nina said.
“You want a second shot at him?” Carter asked. “You better get in line.”
“Actually, I have something else in mind.”
>
The youngest boy was pointing out the window behind her. A massive column of black smoke billowed against the pale glow of the horizon. Carter leaned forward in his seat for a look.
“We might have bigger problems.”
65
With every step she took, Moni couldn’t escape the smell of burning earth. Black shards of ash fluttered from the sky. They twirled through the wind and settled on the desert floor. Moni caught one on her finger and tasted its bitterness, a flavor forged in an alien furnace.
Balanced on a cliff atop the barren mountain, she gazed toward the massive outburst of smoke rising from the middle of nowhere. It spouted flakes of ash high into the atmosphere. The expansive desert sky didn’t appear so large anymore.
With her enhanced eyesight working from high elevation, she could see the edges of El Paso and Las Cruces. The cities must have been over 15 miles away. The wind could carry the smoke across that distance quickly.
She knew what would roll in with it.
Moni closed her eyes and searched for a free mind. So many of the desert’s creatures had been corrupted into the alien’s minions that she had few to choose from. She found a bird flying high above, flustered by the smoke yet independent as it steered clear. She told it that descending would save it from the frightening black clouds. It listened.
Opening her eyes, Moni spotted the hawk perched on a tall cactus. It stood 22 inches tall, with black feathers, a reddish tail and a cream-colored chest. The bird eyed her suspiciously while she approached, as well it should have.
“Stay here. I’ll protect you from the storm. You’ll be safe with me like in your mother’s nest.”
The hawk allowed her to come close. Its brown-rimmed eyes focused on her as she dipped her finger into her mouth, wetting it with her acidic saliva. Moving faster than a blink, Moni pressed her finger right between its eyes. The bird’s high-pitched scream pieced her ears as the acid burned into its skin, delivering an infection straight into its brain.
Moni grabbed the hawk’s head between both hands and pressed its beak to her forehead. She felt the animal’s panic, its pain, its desperate fight against the invaders within.
“You’re mine. Not theirs. I created you. I own you. You are my army.”
She maintained that focus as the bird’s former mind faded and the infection took over. The alien voice tried interfering and making it serve them, but she spoke louder. Before, Moni had tried reversing the infection, stopping it with only her mind. Instead, she bent the newly possessed to her will.
For so long, she’d suspected she had this capability and held back. It was just so inhuman.
That no longer concerned her.
The hawk soared into the sky on her command as she followed below. Soon the bird hovered, showing Moni the entrance to the cave she sought. The opening resembled a cat’s eye punched into the side of the mountain with a rocky overhang protruding from above. A cold draft of air blew from the cavern across Moni’s brow. She had the hawk wait on a rock outside as she climbed over the boulders littering the entrance.
In the dusty cave, she closed her eyes once more. Looking at these disgusting creatures would only make her task harder.
Hundreds of bats. They covered the cavern’s ceiling and clung to its walls. Hanging upside down, the bats watched her curiously, yet without fear. They’d been hunted by large birds of prey outside, but rarely in their shelter. Moni snatched a winged rodent from above. It flapped and clawed as she squeezed mangy fur. It felt like an old hairy dish sponge soaked in hot water.
As the winged mammal shrieked, she brought the bat’s face close and licked its cold, snotty nose. Moni recoiled. She scraped her tongue against the roof of her mouth to lose the putrid taste. At that moment, the struggling bat fought an affliction even more foul.
“You belong to me. You and your family are mine. Follow me and together we’ll feast on those who once hunted us.”
A purple spark grew in the bat’s eyes until their beams illuminated the cave wall. When she released it, the bat swooped at its brethren with teeth snapping. The chain of infection began.
Moni entered the cave alone. She left with over 400 impressionable minds. Her hawk greeted her and her skin-winged flock with a nod of its beak. Unable to use sonar as the infection had destroyed their vocal boxes, the bats swarmed circles around Moni, trusting her mental connection to guide them, and without the ability to navigate by themselves if she’d lost control. They had become helpless without her. Flying in precise formation rarely seen in bats, they were her tools.
They just weren’t sharp enough.
As Moni raced through the desert, a possessed hawk scouted her way and a torrent of bats swirled around her like bees defending their hive. She wondered what Aaron would make of this sight, the woman of his dreams stalking the land, the living embodiment of a plague of pestilence.
Moni could never go near Aaron like this, but she’d be damn sure they wouldn’t have him.
She led them to her old haunt, the cave where she had her acid bath and then guarded Ramona. Moni removed the seal over the tub. Not enough juice for such a large party. She poured in more water and gasoline, followed by the rest of the iron ore. Finally, she sliced her arm open with her nail and let the potent acid and bacteria of her bloodstream contaminate the mixture. It bubbled and boiled.
“I will build you. Get in the forge and arise, my soldiers.”
Blake’s description of her as a skin walker had never been so fitting. Moni stood before a cauldron of bats packed wing to boney wing in the toxic broth. She smelled their hair frying. Two and three bats fused into one, combining their muscle mass and lengthening their wingspans, leaving hollow bones from the old bodies. For the larger bats, Moni tossed scraps of iron into the mix. The iron seeped through their malleable flesh and imbued with their teeth and bones. The fangs and claws of these super-sized bats gleamed metallic.
After her entire flock had been armored, save for the hawk that was so graceful she couldn’t dare deform it, Moni stood at the lip of her cave on the shadowy side of where the darkness met the light. The stench of something rancid burning in the desert had intensified. The ashes kept falling. They dotted the ground like black snowflakes from a young, yet building, flurry. A light shower began.
The rocks smoldered with drops of acid rain. A droplet penetrated a tall cactus, instantly withering it. A black and purple vine sprouted from its ashes.
She needed more.
Leaving her bats in the cave so she didn’t attract too much attention, Moni and her hawk raced off in search of more iron and another legion to mold. She bounded up a black-topped mountain. On the way down she froze. Moni didn’t think anything in this world could stun her, until now.
The reptilian footprints were larger than her body, with long toes and sharp nails. Along with it, a massive scaly belly, big enough to engulf an SUV, had been dragged along the sand. The tracks led in the direction of the smokestack.
Moni recalled the rumbling she had felt on the mountain last night while fleeing from the soldiers. All of them had died. She hadn’t dared turn around.
Moni crossed the gigantic tracks and carried on. She needed more eyes watching out for her, from above and below.
66
Aaron had known it was coming. That didn’t make it hurt any less.
Nothing could fill the hole left inside him when she ripped out his heart and ran off with it into the desert.
He watched in a daze as the cars roared by on the road paralleling the interstate while he slumped behind the wheel. The stolen jeep idled in the parking lot of a fast food joint. Ramona had fallen asleep two spoonfuls into her ice cream cup. Aaron hadn’t touched his sausage biscuit or his coffee.
He had been so naïve falling in love with Moni. He had invested everything in her, uprooting his life, running afoul of the law, putting others in danger. He knew deep down it would always end this way.
He should have saved himself all this pain and let her
run away from Florida alone.
But then he’d never have those moments. Those heartwarming tales of her growing up while they drove through Texas, cheering at the horse races, the sparks at their slightest touch.
It had felt like they built a future together. No. They had been relishing their final days, maybe the world’s final days.
From the shadow of a decorative tower of stucco and stone, the trickle of cars increased into a steady flow as the morning rush started in El Paso. People headed to work and school like any other day. It wouldn’t be, not after what Aaron had seen in the desert. The alien’s army would inevitably target the largest local source of water, and human organic material. He could still listen to Moni and run. Take Ramona far away and find someone fit to care for her. Don’t dare come back. Sit in Florida and wait for the aliens to spread across the country and slip into his shower water.
Moni couldn’t accept a cure now, even if Aaron had one, because she needed her alien powers to fight the possessed army. That’s why she kept such distance between them, not her feelings for him.
He patted his pocket holding the container of Moni’s blood over his heart. That’s all he had left of her, the most deadly substance on Earth.
It also held their best hope.
Aaron couldn’t run. He never could. Not from her, and not from these people passing by on the highway, the busload of kids, the truck of construction workers ready to bust their asses all day, the old woman in her baggy blue jumpsuit on a motorcycle. How could he drive away and let these people lose everything they love?
That old woman looked familiar. That wasn’t a jumpsuit. She wore blue pajamas like the innkeeper in Columbus.
Her motorcycle wheeled around and darted between two lanes of oncoming traffic, back in his direction. The purple gleam from her eyes reflected off the bike’s wind visor.
Silence the Living (Mute Book 2) Page 33