by Dan Wells
“Why else are we even here?” demanded Brooke.
“I’m staying,” I said. “But Brooke is … Listen. I have been alone my entire life.” I don’t know why I was telling him this, but it just came spilling out. “Even when I had people looking out for me, caring for me, doing everything they could to help me, I was alone because I thought I was alone. I acted like I was alone. I hated my life and myself and everything else, but now … somewhere…” I couldn’t say it in front Brooke—that somewhere inside of her was the only person I’d ever loved. That I was saving Brooke because of Marci. “Listen,” I said again. “When I’m with her I’m myself, for the first time in my entire life. She makes me, me. And I’m not going to lose her again.” I looked Mills right in the eyes. “Not to some lunatic town full of human booby traps just waiting to go off and kill someone. We can’t predict how it’s going to happen, or where, or by whom, so we get her out, we get her safe, and then I find this Withered and I make it stop.”
“Do you have a plan?” asked Brooke. Her voice was thin, but determined.
“I’ll make one when you’re safe,” I said firmly.
Mills shook his head, biting his upper lip as he looked around. “The cavalry are coming,” he said. “I just talked to DC—everything Davis said is true and it’s already in motion. This town is about to become the safest place on the whole frigging continent.”
“Are you not listening to me?” I asked. “You’re going to bring a bunch of men with guns to a place where people are randomly turning into murderbots? And you think that’s safe?”
“We can’t prove that’s what’s actually happening,” said Mills.
“You want to risk another Fort Bruce on me being wrong?” I asked.
Mills shook his head again. “Nuke it from orbit,” he muttered. “That’s the only way to be sure.”
“I was in that movie,” said Brooke.
Mills looked at her, blinking, then back at me. “Do you need to get anything first?”
“Her clothes,” I said. “And Boy Dog.”
His eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Does he make you, you, too?”
“I will kill you with my bare hands,” I said. “I don’t hurt animals or allow them to be hurt by inaction. I have rules that keep me controlled and you safe. Get my dog out of this town, or I cannot describe to you the cataclysmic ways I will make you regret it.”
Mills stared at me, then shook his head and walked toward the door. “Come on, then. And next time you see Nobody, tell her I put the cuffs on the wrong psychopath.”
We gave him directions to Ingrid’s house, and he drove in silence, presumably second-guessing this entire plan. Was he really going to just let me go? Could he possibly explain it to his superiors? Or was he going to go back on the whole thing at the last minute?
“You have to stay with her the entire time,” I said. I was in the front seat, Brooke was alone in the back. “Leave her alone for two seconds and that might be the two seconds a different personality takes over.”
“I’ll keep her safe,” said Mills. “And you have my rock solid guarantee on that because I know it’s the only way I’m getting you back again.”
“He’ll hold me hostage for your return,” said Brooke softly.
She sounded betrayed, but worse, she sounded resigned. Something horrible had happened, and she didn’t have the will to fight it. I didn’t how to respond to her, so I turned back to Mills. “Keep her away from anything that can be used as a weapon. She tried to slit her wrists with a screw from a table leg once.”
“I don’t want you to leave me,” said Brooke.
“I won’t,” I said. “I’m not. This is just like the shower at the truck stop, okay? You do one thing while I do another.”
She smiled wistfully. “I knew we missed our chance back there.”
“We’ll get another,” I said, feeling a wave of heat pass through my body. I wondered if I was blushing and what Mills was thinking, but I pushed that away and focused on Brooke. “I’m the one who walks into hell, remember? They can’t take you anywhere I won’t come to find you. I will always protect you, no matter what.”
At that moment, something massive hit the car, blocking out the light in my side window, and before I could see what it was the car was spinning out of control, swerving to the side. Mills yelled something incoherent, scrambling at the wheel, and then we slammed into something else and the airbags exploded, punching me in the face and knocking all the air from my lungs.
I blinked, stunned and deafened and trying to remember where I was. My seat moved, jostled by something, and then my window went dark again. The air was full of powder from the airbags, drifting and swirling in front me. Sounds returned slowly. A scream. A metallic rip. Another scream.
Brooke.
I tried to turn around to see her, but my seatbelt had locked itself tight. I swatted at the deflating airbags, trying to reach the buckle. When I finally released it I twisted in my seat, looking behind me. Brooke’s legs were leaving the car, almost as if she were flying. Or being pulled. Something huge was still blocking my window, I couldn’t tell what it was. I fumbled with the door handle and lock, desperate to get outside, screaming Brooke’s name. The door opened suddenly and I spilled out onto the road. I looked up.
A massive beast towered over the car, Brooke held tight in its powerful claws. It wasn’t hairy or scaly, but it had thick, rough skin, like a rhinoceros or a … a dried lake bed. I couldn’t even tell if it was flesh or mud. It roared when it saw me, clutched Brooke close to its chest, and ran.
And disappeared.
23
We were wrong.
I looked around the street; our car had hit a tree just a block from Ingrid’s house, and the street was full of people and other cars, all on their way home from the town meeting, all of them frozen in shock. I jogged a few steps in the direction the monster had gone, still reeling from the accident, and saw that people in that direction were still screaming and shying away from something I couldn’t see. The monster was still there, it was just … invisible, somehow, to people who were too far away from it. I sprinted after it as fast as I could, desperate to catch up, but the town was small, and I reached the end of it in just a few blocks. The monster was gone. With no people left to see it, I had no way to track it.
And I had no idea how to find it because everything I’d thought I knew about it was wrong.
Jessica’s death had seemed so different from the others, and I’d been certain that Officer Glassman was lying about the “bigfoot,” and yet here it was. There was no supernatural gas leak, there was an actual monster with actual claws. Glassman’s apparent lie was in fact the only useful testimony we’d gotten the entire time. And now he was dead.
I turned and walked slowly back into the center of town, my mind racing through the facts, trying madly to reorganize them into something I could use. Why had it taken Brooke? Why had it run from me? Did it think she was still Nobody and want to talk? Did it know I was hunting it and want to get away? But why not just kill me? Unless it really couldn’t. That had been our first theory with Jessica and Glassman—that the monster had come for him and killed her as collateral damage when he fought back. Maybe his death two days later was the work of the same monster coming back to finish the job—and maybe that’s why it had used poison, since the physical attack had failed the first time. But who would want to kill Glassman? If the stories about him were true, there might be plenty of people in town who wanted to kill him … but why would a Withered want to kill him? What did it gain? Especially since most of the rumors about him were apparently just rumors. He visited his sister all the time, and no one had ever tried to kill him before. What had changed?
The answer was obvious: Jessica had changed. Six years ago she’d been eight, now she was a pubescent fourteen. And while she wasn’t the only fourteen-year-old in Dillon, she was the only one he’d leered at. The only one he’d confronted directly. The only one with an older sister
who swore to kill him.
Brielle had a motive for both attacks and had threatened to carry them out. Was it her? If she’d attacked Glassman and ended up killing her own sister accidentally, it would make her even more likely to come after him a second time, and screw the collateral damage like Glassman’s innocent sister. It made sense. Brielle’s boyfriend, Paul, was the only one of the group who hadn’t been killed, so that strengthened the theory a little more. She’d had an alibi for yesterday’s attack, but if she was a Withered who could change shape and turn invisible, who knew what else she could do? She was my best lead, and I had to follow it.
I was still a few blocks from Mills’s car. A group of people were gathered around it, but at that distance I could barely even count them, let alone see what they were doing. Was he dead? Injured? Had they called an ambulance? I turned sharply to the side, taking another street. This would be easier without him looking over my shoulder. I could do it my way. I stopped the first person I passed on the sidewalk, a middle-aged woman who was clutching her hands to her chest as she walked quickly toward her home, her eyes wide and darting around for danger.
“Excuse me,” I said. I kept my voice calm and nonthreatening. “Do you know where the Butler family lives?” Brielle wouldn’t be there if she was the monster, but her family would, and I had to find out what they knew if I had any chance of killing this Withered.
“They’re 30, um, 32 Willow.”
“Thank you.”
She kept walking, and I hurried on my path. We only had about thirty minutes left before Officer Davis started his lockdown. If I was going to do anything with the information I hoped to collect, I had to work fast. Willow Street was just a few blocks over, on the far side of Main, and I found number 32 just a couple of blocks later. It was a single-story home with a narrow front but stretching back into a long yard. The street was empty, the doors were closed, and the curtains were drawn. No one would see what I was about to do.
I needed to get information fast if I was going to save Brooke’s life. I didn’t have time for finesse or subterfuge or a drawn-out investigation. The monster holding Brooke might kill her at any moment. If the Butler family had any clues that might help me, I was going to get it out of them as quickly and efficiently as I could. It was not going to be pretty.
The cops had taken my knife when they’d taken Brooke to the hospital, so I walked down the road a bit, looking in the windows of trucks. Sure enough, the second one had a gun rack with a pair of hunting rifles. God bless these rednecks. I tried the door, but it was locked; I walked around to the passenger side, hoping I wouldn’t have to break a window, and sighed in relief when the handle turned. I unsnapped the straps on the nearest rifle, a long hunting model like the one Derek had held. I pulled a pack of ammo from the glove compartment and loaded it quietly as I walked to the door of the house. I hated guns. They were messy and loud and impersonal. But they were scary as hell.
Ding-dong.
I listened for footsteps and rang again.
Ding-dong.
I heard a voice and hid the rifle just out of view behind the door jamb. A man opened the door partway, stopped after a few short inches by a metal chain.
“What do you want?”
“Hi, sir, my name’s David, and I’m a friend of Brielle’s. Is she home?”
“We’re not interested in visitors right now.”
“I know, sir, and I know Officer Davis told everyone not to let people in their homes, but the lockdown hasn’t started yet and this will only take a minute. I know you’ve gone through a lot lately, and I know it’s hit Brielle really hard, so I brought her a little something to cheer her up. It’ll only take a minute.”
Mr. Butler stared at me moment before speaking. “You’re that new guy just passing through town, right? With the girl?”
“That’s right, sir. I met Brielle at church.” Thank you, Marci, for insisting we go to church.
“Yeah,” said Butler, “I remember. You had that great dog. Basset hound?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“I love those dogs. And I do remember Brielle saying she liked you. Where’s your girlfriend?”
“She’s with Ingrid.”
“All right then,” he said. “I guess if it’ll only take a minute.” Apparently he thought Brielle was home, which fit with my theory that she could fake her own alibis—an invisible Withered could slip in and out with no problems. Or maybe she really was home, and the Withered that had Brooke was someone else, and I was terrorizing this family for nothing. No, I thought, not for nothing. For information. He closed the door, and I picked up my rifle, and when he opened it again without the chain I smashed him in the face with the butt of it, breaking his nose and pushing him back inside. He cried out, clutching at his face, and I hit him again, in the knee this time, knocking him to the floor. I closed the door.
“What the—?” He writhed in pain, trying to get up, and I leveled the rifle at his face.
“Quiet.”
He shut up instantly.
“Call your wife,” I said. “Keep your voice as calm and easy as possible or I will shoot you in the face and get her myself. Do you understand me?”
“Are you going to kill us?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m going to bind you, and possibly torture you. No pun intended.”
“Pun? What’s wrong with you?”
I paused, thinking. What was wrong with me? I never acted like this. Or at least I hadn’t since …
… since I’d been with Brooke. She kept me sane, and she was gone. I’d snapped more quickly and completely than I’d thought possible.
And I’d do a lot more before I was done.
“I promised a friend I’d walk through hell to get her back,” I said. “Don’t make me bring you with me.”
He nodded. I prompted him with the rifle, and he called out in the calmest voice he could muster: “Honey? Can you come into the living room for a minute?”
We waited in silence, and when Mrs. Butler walked into the room she yelped in shock.
“Stay quiet,” I said. “Do exactly what I say or I will kill him. Do you understand me?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Answer my question or I will demonstrate my seriousness.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I understand you.”
“Who else is in the house?”
“Just the kids,” she said. “All three—” she broke down, sobbing. “Both of them.”
“Call your son,” I said. “Don’t let him think that anything is wrong.”
She hesitated a moment, then said, “Noah!” Her voice quavered, and I raised the rifle—just a millimeter, to get her attention—and she called out again. “Noah, honey, can you come into the living room?”
This is where it got tricky. If Brielle was home, and if she was a Withered, she could walk in at any moment and kill me. I had a gun, but that was all posturing; I was a horrible shot. Glassman had fought off the demon, but I didn’t have the physical or combat training he did. I had to work quickly and hope I could learn something valuable before the Withered came back.
A short kid, maybe eleven years old, ran into the room, freezing when he saw his bloody father, and me with the rifle. “What?”
“Don’t shout, talk, or do anything stupid,” I said to the boy. “Get down on the floor, face down, and put your hands behind your head. Mrs. Butler, tie him up.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked Mr. Butler.
“Because I need information,” I said, “and I don’t have time to deal with you trying to fight back while I get it. Ma’am, tie him up. Use your husband’s dress shirt—those tear into strips really well.”
“You want me to take my clothes off?” he growled.
I pushed the rifle toward his face, and he stopped talking. “I want you to tie each other up before I just get fed up with how slow you are and shoot you instead.”
“Okay, okay,” said Mrs. Butler, walkin
g quickly toward her husband. “I’ll do it, just don’t shoot anyone.” She pulled off Mr. Butler’s shirt and started tearing it into strips. Noah was crying on the floor.
What was I doing? This isn’t who I am. This isn’t who I wanted to be. I was doing this to help them, to kill a Withered who was murdering this town faster than we could even process the evidence. Derek Stamper wasn’t even in the ground yet, and already the morgue was overflowing. What I was doing was right and good, but … was this really the only way? Was it even the best way? That boy on the floor would remember this for the rest of his life. He’d have counseling and flashbacks and who knew what other trauma symptoms. Childhood victims of violent assault showed a tendency toward violence themselves—not all of them, but enough for me to wonder: was stopping one monster really worth it, if all I did was make another?
It’s not the same, I told myself. I can’t think like that. Giving one kid some bad nightmares and a short temper was nothing compared to the horror that was stalking this town. That was holding my best friend, my only friend, my only hope of ever finding the rest of the Withered and stopping them once and for all. Surely her life, in those terms, was worth at least three others. Surely it was worth far more. Was there an exact number somewhere? How many people would I bind or torture or kill before it became too many, and I had to let Brooke die? I was stymied, as always, by the math of morality. I couldn’t murder my way to peace.
“Done,” she said.
“Now tie up your husband,” I told her. “And make the knots tight. Killing you would break my heart, but it’s not like I’m using it for anything.”
She tied up her husband, binding his ankles, then tying his hands tightly behind his back, before propping him in a corner with their son. I used the last few strips of cloth to tie her hands and ankles as well, and then stepped into the kitchen to look for a knife. They always felt better than guns. There was a knife block on the counter. I pulled out a large, broad-bladed chopping knife and tested the edge. They kept their knives sharp. I took it back into the living room and held it up. “It’s a cleaver,” I said. “You don’t know why that’s funny, but trust me.”