Last Things

by Jacqueline West

  That would be messed up enough. But we’re also moving so fast, faster than any car I’ve ever been in, and we’re weaving through thick, pitch-dark woods, and I have to keep closing my eyes so I won’t completely freak out, and it all seems like one huge, horrible, ridiculous dream.

  With my eyes closed, I feel everything even more clearly. Branches whish over my head. Damp leaves scrape my skin. Clearest of all is the feeling of the girl in my arms. Not that she’s in my arms, not in any normal way. But I can feel her, soft and solid at the same time. I have to hold on tight. I’ve got no choice.

  “We could have taken my car,” I say again, over the roar of the air.

  “Not through the woods,” Thea answers. “And I can’t drive a car this fast, anyway.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Is—is this bike magical or something? Or is it just . . . you?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  Her hair whips around my face. It brushes my cheek, slides into my collar.

  It doesn’t have a scent. Not like Frankie’s. Not flowers or spice. It just smells clean.

  “Where are we going?” I ask her.

  “To the gap.”

  At least that’s what I think she says. For a second I picture a store at the mall, racks of sweaters and slacks. Then I realize this isn’t what she means. It almost makes me want to laugh. But the question of what could be happening to Frankie and Jezz and Patrick—the question I’m trying so hard not to ask, not even to myself—rears up in my brain, and I have to swallow a wave of bile instead.

  We roll up and down a ridge of earth. I close my eyes tight again.

  “You think this is where Jezz and Patrick have taken Frankie?” I ask her, when I can talk again.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She doesn’t go on. I open my eyes to see that we’re starting down a steep, wooded hill. Thea leans lower over the handlebars, and I lean with her, my arms still clenched around her shoulders. My face presses against her back. Her shirt is soft and warm.

  She veers right, then left, zigzagging sharply around trunks and rocks and roots. When the ground finally levels again, I pull myself backward. My knees ache from holding this pose. My hands and arms are freezing.

  “You said no?” I push. “This isn’t where Jezz and Patrick took her?”

  “It’s where the darkness will take them all,” she says softly. “A crack. Where the world is thin.”

  We hit a bump, and for a second we’re airborne. I brace for the landing. We strike the ground, still flying forward. Thea’s body barely jolts.

  “We’re getting close,” she says.

  “How do you know?”

  “I feel it.”

  I try to feel it, too. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. The air is cold and black and nothing feels real.

  The bike tilts down another slope.

  “Hold on,” says Thea.

  So I do.

  We plunge downward. The tick of the wheels is one continuous hiss, mixing with the shush of air in my ears. I clench my eyes and teeth and hands. Thea’s hair whips around me. I’m holding her tighter, even though I’m not sure I should. But I can’t force myself to loosen my arms.

  And then, at last, the bike slows down.

  The ground flattens. Thea sits upright, pushing me upright, too.

  I look around.

  We’re in some part of the woods that I don’t recognize. It’s old growth, though. Huge, thick trunks with huge, thick branches spear upward into the canopy. Just a little moonlight slips through. There’s a riverbed ahead of us. It’s dry, but deep, with jagged, jutting edges that make it look like a crack in stone.

  It’s dark. Really dark. But I can still see that we’re the only ones here.

  Thea has stopped the bike. She’s waiting with one foot braced on the ground.

  “Why are we stopping here?” I drop down off the pegs. My legs are stiff, and now that I’m away from the steady warmth of Thea, I realize just how cold the night has gotten. “I don’t see anything.”

  “You don’t?”

  Thea climbs off the bike. She props it against the trunk of a big oak and scans the branches above us. Then, suddenly, she freezes. Her body doesn’t stiffen, but it goes perfectly still. Only her eyes keep flickering in the dark.

  “What is it?” I’m whispering and I don’t know why.

  “I think we’re too late,” she says.

  “Why?” Now I’m scanning the branches above us, too, desperate, but I can’t see anything. Nothing but swaying branches and rustling leaves. “What is it?” I turn back to her. She’s still staring up, and all at once I’m terrified. My whole body vibrates with it. “What?” I scream.

  Thea finally looks down. Her eyes meet mine. She looks at me for a long, steady second.

  “Do you want to see how I see?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say, without even thinking. Because I need to know, and I have no idea what she’s going to say or do anyway, and everything is just a black, murky, horrible blank.

  She steps toward me, fast. She puts her hands over my face.

  “Close your eyes,” she says.

  So I do. Her thumbs rest lightly on my eyelids.

  And then everything explodes.

  Actually, it’s just everything inside my head, but because my eyes are closed, it’s like everything has been seared apart by a blast of light.

  I stagger backward. Even with my eyes open again, for a second I can’t see anything. The flash strobes in my vision. There’s only light.

  Fragments come back slowly, gray and red. Trees around me, the riverbed, a tendril of Thea’s hair.

  The fragments solidify, and I can see in a way I’ve never seen before.

  Every tree pulses softly with a cloud of light. The moss on the ground is a sort of luminous fog. I look down at myself. I’m glowing, too. The light burns through my shirt, like a bulb inside a lampshade. I move my fingers in front of my face. Streaks of light.

  Thea’s voice comes from over my shoulder. “Look up.”

  I stare up into the canopy.

  Dangling above us, slowly twisting on thick black boughs, are five bodies. Their limbs are limp. Their heads are slumped. The thick branches that hold them also half hide them, and I can only see them now because of the glow that nests inside them all. Some glow more dimly than the others, but the one in the middle, the smallest one, seems to be the brightest.

  The branches creak. The bodies sway limply, pushed by the wind. The face of the small one shifts into view.

  It’s Frankie.

  And the others. Jezz. Patrick. Mom and Dad, slightly higher, to one side. Mom is wearing her pink sweater and the gray pearl necklace she puts on for special occasions. I can see the scuffed toes of Patrick’s work boots.

  All hanging there.

  Their eyes are closed.

  I can’t tell if they’re alive. Or if they’re—

  Jesus. A wave crashes through me. I’m sick and frozen and I think I’m screaming, but I can’t hear anything, just a low, thumping hum that fills my entire mind.

  I’m about to grab Thea, to start climbing tree trunks, to do something, anything, when I see what else is hanging above me in the trees.

  Darkness. Not shadows, but living, solid darkness. They fill the trees: twisted shapes with long limbs and big, staring, milky eyes. I can hear them, or what I think is them; a deep, gurgling, clicking sound.

  They crouch in the branches. They hide behind the trunks. They’re everywhere. Everywhere.

  “Oh my God.” I’m not sure if I say this out loud.

  “Hold on,” Thea says softly. “They’ll come for me first. Just hold on.”

  But I don’t know what I can do against a mass of animate darkness. Demons. Monsters. Whatever they are. I don’t know if this is real, even now, when I’m staring straight at it. I don’t know anything.

  “What do we—” I say, turning toward Thea.

  And she’s only a flare of light.

/>   It’s so bright I stagger back. I shield my face with my hands, and still I can see her, searing and golden, like the center of a fire multiplied by a thousand.

  She is light. Solid light. So bright it makes me want to fall to my knees. If the dark things are demons, if they’re pure, hungry evil, then she is their opposite.

  The afterimage burns in my eyes. The outline of a girl made of light.

  “They’ll still trying to claim you.” Her voice comes to me through the glowing blur. “They’ll use tricks. They’ll use everything they have. Just don’t—”

  Something dives out of a tree a few steps ahead of us. Something with long, clawlike feet and a bent, bony back and a bald black head full of teeth. It opens its mouth—too, too wide—and hisses.

  Then it lunges.

  So does Thea.

  She’s faster. She strikes the creature in midair, and even though it’s far, far bigger than she is, she sends it streaking backward. The course of her motion slashes across my vision like the tail of a comet. The two of them land on the wet ground, near the riverbed, many feet away. The dark thing disintegrates into wisps, like floating ash, and then into nothing.

  But more are already coming.

  They’re falling from the trees all around her. They hit the ground without any noise. The silence is eerie. Thea whirls around, burning hair, burning face, burning eyes. She’s a blur smashing into a knot of crawling shadows.

  The creatures fall backward. Their bodies collapse. But this time I see them pulling themselves together again. Black scraps knitting with other black scraps. They crouch and slither back toward the light.

  And I’m just standing here like an idiot.

  My body makes a jerky move to the right, like it’s actually going to do something. Be part of this. But what am I going to do? Pick up a rock? Swing a big stick? This is so much larger and stranger than anything I expected, back when I silently agreed to let this girl protect me. And now here I am, watching her take on an entire throng.

  The creatures must know I’m no threat. They’re only focused on her. For all the attention they’ve given me, I might as well not be here at all. I don’t have time to think about why before Thea charges forward. Her palms are open, her arms straight out in front. They smash through a knot of creatures like a battering ram.

  But the things keep coming back, more and more of them. They scuttle out of the trees. They crawl up out of the muddy riverbed.

  I glance up into the trees again. Mom and Dad, Jezz and Patrick and Frankie are all still dangling there, the glow coming from them faint, but steady. I have to do something. I lurch toward a nearby tree. Maybe I can climb high enough. But before I can even touch the trunk, a black silhouette drops in front of me. Its cold, slick hair brushes my skin. I shudder, leaping back. But the thing doesn’t even glance at me. It springs toward Thea instead, joining the swarm.

  They’re closing in. Their bodies writhe between me and Thea’s blinding light. There are too many of them.

  She’s fast, but soon they’ve got her surrounded. She can’t gain enough ground to pick up speed. I see one of them reach up and grab her throat. A dark limb lashes out from somewhere in the crowd and reaches down into her gasping mouth. The light raging from inside of her dims.

  My heart stutters.

  Then Thea whips around, and for a split second, the grasping demons fly back. Thea throws a look at me. I think she does, anyway. Her face is only a blazing blur. I can’t tell if she’s speaking. I can’t see her expression. If she’s desperate. Furious. Smiling. Her hand flashes out.

  Then she lowers her head. She bursts through the ring of darkness. The creatures regroup in an instant, but Thea is already streaking away into the woods. The dark things shriek and hiss. They scramble after her.

  And I’m left alone.

  On the ground, in the clutter of dead leaves a few feet away, something glimmers.

  I stumble closer.

  It’s a pocketknife. Thea didn’t just raise her hand toward me. She was throwing something.

  I pick it up. The handle is red enamel. The blade, when I unfold it, looks sharp and clean.

  I glance back up into the trees, at the bodies slowly turning. If I can reach them, if I can just get out to those smaller branches, maybe I can cut them free.

  There’s a sturdy pine with plenty of branches just to my right. I shove the knife into my pocket and rush toward it. Maybe I can climb high enough. Maybe I can creep out onto just the right limbs.

  I have to.

  Of course, if I cut them loose, there’s a drop of two or three dozen feet, all the way down to the hard forest floor. But I’ll think about that when I get up there.

  My hands are shaking so hard they seem electrified. I grab the jagged bark of the trunk, but I can’t even feel it. I don’t have nerves anymore. There’s nothing in me but fear and fury and flickering light.

  I’ve just pulled myself onto the first branch when someone steps out from behind the tree.

  “Anders,” says a voice.

  I know that voice. Warm. Calm.

  Flynn.

  I’m so startled I almost fall off the branch. I jump back to the ground a few feet below and stumble backward. “Flynn?” I choke out. “What are—”

  “Anders.” Flynn moves farther into the clearing. A guitar case swings from his hand. With the dark things gone, just enough light falls through the canopy for me to see him perfectly. There’s no glow or flare or shadow coming from him. He’s just Flynn. Thank God. “So glad I found you,” he says.

  “We—” I make a jerky motion toward the canopy. The swinging bodies. “Flynn. You’ve got to help me.”

  “I know,” says Flynn. “That’s why I’m here.”

  Everything I felt about Flynn, all the confusion and distrust, melts away before his words even sink in. It’s Flynn. My mentor, my idol, my almost-family for half my life. I could practically throw myself into his arms.

  “Okay.” I speak fast. “I’ll climb up there and cut or break the branches. If you can—maybe—catch them when they fall, or—”

  “That’s not going to work.” Flynn shakes his head. He’s as cool as ever. Like he could be leaning back on his folding chair in the middle of the studio. “They’re too high.”

  “Then—what?” I’m hanging on to the tree again, because until there’s another plan in place, I need to get up there. “Should we call for help? Do you have a phone?”

  “Anders.” Flynn lets out a breath. “You’re too late. It’s too late for all of this.”

  He steps closer to me. Dim light from the sky coats the guitar case. I recognize it now. I know every tiny scratch on its hard silver surface. It’s Yvonne.

  Wait. How did he get her? Has he been in my house?

  The questions fly away when Flynn speaks again.

  “You’ve only got one chance now,” he says.

  “What?” My heart is screaming. I’ll do anything. “What?”

  “You have to give in to them,” he says very clearly. “Anders. It’s over. You have to let them in.”

  It’s like he’s punched me in the gut.

  I told myself that Flynn kicking me out of the studio was my own stupid fault. That it was one more loss meant to punish me.

  But maybe it was something else.

  I stare at him. This close, I can make out a flickering darkness around his edges, like a knot of shadows that’s stuck to his skin.

  It must’ve always been there. I just couldn’t see.

  For a second I can’t breathe.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out the knife. It’s solid in my fist. I don’t know how I’ll use it, and it’s so small and childish looking, I might as well be fighting a monster with a toothbrush. But holding it makes me the tiniest bit stronger.

  Maybe this is why Thea threw it to me. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to saw off branches with a pocketknife. Maybe I was supposed to fight.

  “Really, kid?” Flynn glances at the knife, then
gives me a half grin. I can’t tell if he’s laughing at the knife or at me. “They’re stronger than you are. They’re faster. There are more of them. Besides, the things they can give you . . .” He sets Yvonne’s case on the ground. The silver lid shines. “You know what they can do, kid. Just accept it. Like you should have done forever ago. Then you wouldn’t have had to risk losing everything first.”

  “Why?” I burst out. “Why are they doing this to me?”

  “Doing this to you?” Flynn frown-smiles, shaking his head. “They chose you, Anders. You’re special. You’re exactly what they want. You’re going to be a rock star, adored by millions. What’s more powerful than that?”

  For a second the words rock star, the image of myself onstage in front of a massive, screaming crowd, actually makes my heart lift. Then I hate myself for it.

  “I don’t care about that,” I say. Lie. “But if—if I give in—” I look up. Frankie sways from the bony black twigs. Mom’s unconscious face tilts toward me. “Will they be all right?”

  Flynn gives a little shrug. “Sure. Of course.” He gestures down at Yvonne, lying on the dirt. “Plus, the songs will come back. The ones you were writing. You’ll be able to play again. As well as you did before, maybe even better.” He meets my eyes. “Don’t tell me you haven’t missed that.”

  He knows me too well.

  The branches creak above me. When I listen, I can’t hear anything else. No crackling steps racing through the woods. Thea isn’t coming back. I’m alone.

  “That’s how this started,” Flynn goes on, in his calm, cool way. He might as well be telling me about the history of Fender guitars. “You wanted this. You asked for it. You got it. Now you’ve got to give something in return.”

  I’m gulping air, but I feel like I’m drowning. “How do you know all this?”

  Flynn holds up both hands in an innocent shrug. Then he wiggles the fingers of his strumming hand. The finger that’s just a stump. “You take something from them,” he says, “you’ve got to give something up.”

  My mouth fills with sourness. I can hear my heartbeat.

  I’ve got all the answers now, loud and clear.