The Bones Beneath My Skin

by TJ Klune

  “I don’t—”

  “You saved me because you love me,” she shouted at him, voice breaking. “You love me like I love you. Like I love Nate. Like you love Nate. You love me because we belong together. You are my friend. And friends don’t leave each other behind. Not now. Not like this.” Uncertainty flickered across her face. “You do love me. Right?”

  “You stupid girl,” Alex said, hanging his head. “You stupid, stupid girl. Of course I love you. Of course I do. The both of you. How could I not?”

  Nate put a hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in. “She’s right. About everything. We’re in this together.”

  “Until the end,” Art said firmly. Her eyes suddenly sparkled. “One final ride, ain’t that right, hoss?”

  For a moment, Nate thought Alex would fight against it. That he’d shout at her to leave. To get the fuck out of his sight and never come back to this goddamn planet.

  Instead, he stood slowly. He looked at Nate, then back at Art. He scrubbed a hand over his face. He squared his shoulders.

  “One final ride,” he said.

  She grinned wildly. “Then saddle up, partners. It’s time to take back our valley.”

  It went like this:

  Nathaniel Cartwright was twenty-seven years old.

  His parents were dead.

  The only family he had left had forsaken him.

  He’d gone to a cabin in the middle of the woods to mourn the loss of everything he’d known.

  Instead, he’d had a gun pressed to the back of his head.

  Instead, he’d found a man and a little girl who was the strangest person he’d ever met.

  He’d been scared of them.

  Of who they were.

  And later, of what they were.

  But fear can be a funny thing. You can fear what you don’t understand, but in the end, you can still be brave. You can still stand up for what’s right.

  Nate hadn’t understood that before. Not really.

  He did now.

  “Stay behind me,” Artemis Darth Vader said, eyes alight. “No matter what, stay behind me. I promise you I’ll show you the way.”

  They followed her up the stairs, Alex gripping Nate’s hand so hard it felt like his bones were being ground to dust.

  Sparks were coming around the door, and a line of molten red appeared across the top.

  They were burning their way in.

  Art stopped in front of the door, cocking her head at it.

  A moment later, she reached out and knocked on the door.

  The sparks stopped.

  There was a beat of silence. Then from the other side of the door came a voice. “Hello?”

  “Hello,” Art said through the door. “Is this the water guy?”

  “What? What water guy?”

  “Randy.”

  A pause. Then, “No.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Is. He. Here.”

  “Not in the house” came the reply.

  “Huh,” Art said. “Thank you. If I asked you to leave, would you?”

  “Kid, we’ve got orders. Open the door or we’re going to break it down.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “No. We’re not leaving. Look, do you live here? We’re looking for—”

  She laughed. It sent chills down Nate’s spine. “Oh, I know who you’re looking for.”

  Muffled voices from the other side. “You do?”

  “Yes. The Seventh Sea, right?”

  “Yeah, we’re—”

  “You found her.”

  Silence. It stretched on for what felt like hours.

  Then, “Holy shit, run, run, run—”

  The air around the little girl in front of them seemed to bend, the walls and door warping. Nate felt a harsh pressure in his ears before the metal door was ripped off the wall with a heavy groan, jagged cracks splitting around them. It floated out in front of them, moving into the hallway of the farmhouse, scraping against the plaster of the walls.

  He heard men shouting, the sound of feet pounding the floors trying to get away.

  Art didn’t hesitate. She took the last step out of the basement, and there was a push that Nate felt down to his bones. The metal door hurtled down the hallway, gouging the walls around it, knocking down everyone who hadn’t made it toward the front of the house.

  “It’s time to go,” she said over her shoulder, her hair billowing around her head.

  She walked down the hall.

  They followed.

  A man in full tactical gear burst from a door on the right. Peter’s office. He swung his rifle in their direction, eyes wide behind the mask covering his nose and mouth. Art barely twitched, and the man was knocked into the ceiling with a loud crash, plaster raining down around him as he fell to the ground, landing on his stomach. He didn’t get back up.

  Alex reached down and picked up his rifle, snapping it free from the harness.

  Nate grabbed a dropped metal baton.

  “You know how to use that?” Alex asked.

  “It’s a stick,” Nate said. “You hit people with it.”

  Alex snorted but didn’t say anything more. They followed Art down the hallway.

  Soldiers lay sprawled on the ground where they’d been knocked down by the basement door, which had landed near the stairs. The front doorway to the farmhouse had been blown open, the wood around the frame charred. Two men ran down the stairs as they passed, but before Alex could swing the rifle in their direction, Nate stuck the baton between the posts, tripping the man in front. Both men tumbled the rest of the way down. They landed on the floor and immediately tried to get up. Art barely glanced in their direction before they were sent flying into the kitchen, slamming into the stove and oven. They didn’t get back up.

  “Do you want to trade?” Nate asked Alex, feeling oddly giddy. He was most likely about to die, but he couldn’t remember feeling so alive.

  “Bastard,” Alex said, but his answering grin was crazed and beautiful. He reached down and picked up a walkie-talkie from one of the fallen soldiers.

  They headed for the blown-out doorway.

  The front yard was filled with dozens of soldiers, black rifles pointed at them as soon as they stepped out onto the porch. There were armored vehicles and a helicopter above them. It was so close Nate could see the pilot inside, mouth moving soundlessly.

  The grass was flattened by the force of the spinning blades.

  Art cocked her head at them.

  He should be frightened. He knew he should be scared for his life. Chances were he was about to die there on the porch of a farmhouse belonging to a dead cult leader. He hadn’t done half the things with his life he’d wanted to do. He’d never hiked Machu Picchu. He hadn’t swum in the crystal-clear waters of the Maldives. He’d never been on a roller coaster. He’d always wanted to learn how to swing dance. He’d never tried calamari, though it was probably disgusting.

  And strangely, somehow he was okay with it.

  He was okay with all of it.

  He’d been lonely. He’d been sad.

  But he’d found a purpose.

  He’d found a reason. Two, in fact.

  If he died right here, right now, there was a very real possibility that he’d done something good. That his life had mattered. That he’d loved and been loved in return.

  And sure, there was fear with all those guns pointed at him, his human brain wondering if it would hurt in the end. But it was negligible. It was unimportant.

  He’d read about last stands before. Of a group of people, beaten and weary, rising against a much greater force. Outmanned. Outgunned.

  He knew what it meant.

  His hand tightened on the baton. It wouldn’t do much.

  A man pushed his way through the soldiers. He carried a bullhorn.

  He didn’t look like he had when he’d com
e to the house posing as an employee of public works. That man, the water guy, had been smiling a little too widely, full of aw shucks and golly gee. Even when they’d run into each other in the store (quite a coincidence, that, Nate thought dryly), he’d been oddly intimidating, but it still hadn’t meant much.

  It was different now.

  The water guy, Randy, wore black trousers with a UTG Tactical leg holster around his thigh. A black pistol with a silver handle was attached to it. He had a white shirt under a black leather jacket. On his face sat mirror shades, reflecting the bright early-morning sunlight.

  Nate looked up toward the sky.

  There, amongst the clouds and fading stars, was Markham-Tripp.

  It burned against the deep, deep blue.

  It was a good day to die.

  Nate looked down at the yard again when Randy brought the bullhorn to his lips and said, “It’s over. You have to see that.” His voice echoed across the yard, audible even against the thumpthumpthump of the Black Hawk.

  Art looked back at Alex. She held her hand out. For a moment, Nate thought she was asking for the rifle, but Alex handed her the walkie-talkie instead.

  She frowned at it as she turned forward again, fiddling with the knobs at the top. Once she’d gotten it where she wanted, she held it out in front of her, wiggling it at the water guy. With her free hand, she held up two fingers.

  The soldiers tracked her every movement.

  For a moment, Randy didn’t move.

  Then he looked over his shoulder and barked out something Nate couldn’t quite make out.

  One of the soldiers came forward, handing him another walkie-talkie.

  Randy twisted the dial across the top before nodding up at Art and holding it against his ear.

  “Can you hear me?” Art said into the walkie-talkie.

  “Yes,” he said through the bullhorn.

  “Good. There are people inside. They lived here. They’re dead.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  “No.”

  “Oren Schraeder?”

  “Dead.”

  Randy turned his head away from the bullhorn and said something to the soldier next to him. The soldier didn’t react. He came back to the bullhorn. “That’s unfortunate. He was… There’s never been anyone quite like him.”

  “He said you could never find him here.”

  Randy smiled almost ruefully. “Yeah. I bet he did. He was right, as much as it pains me to admit. We didn’t… We had no idea where he’d gone after he left the Mountain. He was supposed to remain under surveillance, but he managed to give us the slip. Never really believed he took his own life, but I couldn’t find a way to prove it. He was good. Better than he had any right to be. Makes me wonder if you had anything to do with that.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You expect me to believe that? I’ve seen what you’re capable of. What you can do to a mind. We’re lucky someone spotted your vehicle driving through the last town. Imagine our surprise when we found out who you’d come here to see.”

  “You’re going to let us go.”

  Randy laughed soundlessly. “You know I can’t do that. Look, this has been… fun. You’ve lasted a hell of a lot longer than anyone expected. We could have taken you back at the cabin at any time, but we let you stay. We let you live with Alex there. We understood that maybe a change was needed. To expand the parameters of the experiment. Change the variables, if you will. To see what we could see.” He glanced at Nate. “And then the variables changed even further with the introduction of Mr. Cartwright here. That… wasn’t expected. But we were curious to see what you would do. To see what you both would do. The end result was unexpected.”

  “He’s mine.”

  “Do you understand, Mr. Cartwright, what it is?” Randy asked. “What it’s capable of. It’s infected your mind. It has taken you over. It is controlling you. It’s how they do it. It’s how they work. They infect you until you can do nothing but obey. We are trying to stop that. We are trying to protect the world from things like them. Because they will come for us again. And we need to be ready. Look what happened to Oren. We found a way to remove it from him, but it was still able to find him even after all this time. We can’t let it do that to anyone else. It’s not a girl. It’s a thing. It belongs in a cage, locked away so we can find a way to stop it before it’s too late.”

  “Wow,” Nate said. “He’s pretty out there, huh?”

  “Enforcers usually are,” Alex muttered.

  Nate plucked the walkie-talkie from Art’s hand. He found the button on the side. There was a squeal of static as he brought it close to his face. “I think I’m good right here, thanks.”

  “What about your brother?” Randy asked. “Nate, what about Rick? Don’t you think he’d want you to come home? Don’t you think he wants to see you again? You call him Ricky, right? Nate, I know he wants to see you. Hell, he told me as much. I’ve talked to him, Nate. Personally. He’s a nice guy. He doesn’t understand why you won’t come home.”

  And that… that was smooth. Nate hadn’t expected that. He should have. “Rick?”

  Randy nodded. “Yes, Nate. Rick. He’s waiting for you, okay? All you have to do is come to me. Fight it, Nate. Fight whatever’s going on in your head. Whatever it’s making you do. I know you can do it. It’s… probably too late for Alex. But you? Nate, think of Rick. Think of your brother.”

  Art looked up at him, a sad smile on her face. “I understand,” she said. “Maybe I wouldn’t have before, when I first came here. But I do now. Family is important. It’s everything, Nate.”

  She was right, of course. Family was everything. Which is why he said, “I have my family right here.”

  Alex’s eyes were wide.

  Nate handed the walkie-talkie back to Art. She kissed the tips of his fingers after taking it from him. In his head, he felt her. Felt her reach. There were images of flowers blooming in fields. She was happy.

  “Nate sends his regards,” she said into the walkie-talkie. “You can still leave. All of you can.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Randy said, voice harder than it’d been before. “How do you see this ending? Surely you can’t stop all of us. I know what you can do. But you can’t be everywhere at once. I will kill Alex Weir right here, right now. I will take him from you unless you give yourself up. I will take both of them.”

  Even before he finished speaking, Nate flinched when a bright light flashed in his eyes. It was only a split second before it faded. He blinked against the afterimage. He looked down. Across his chest were red dots, wavering slightly.

  He swallowed thickly as he looked over at Alex. Alex had the same dots on him.

  He followed to where Alex was looking and saw a group of men lined up on the second floor of the barn, standing at the open windows, rifles pointed in their direction, laser sights grouped over their hearts.

  “Why?” Art asked.

  “Because I can,” Randy said simply. “Because I will do anything I have to in order to protect this country. This planet. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep my people safe.”

  “We mean no harm. We never have.”

  “I don’t believe you. Complacency means death.”

  “Shoot first, ask questions later.”

  “Yes.”

  “You learn you’re not alone,” Art said. She almost sounded like she was pleading with him. The images in Nate’s head were getting more vivid. “That there is more to this universe than just yourselves, and your first reaction isn’t to welcome it with open arms but to trap it. To study it. To hurt it. And when it doesn’t do what you tell it to, you threaten it with destruction. You threaten to take from it what it loves.”

  “You don’t know how to love,” Randy said coldly. He reached up and took his sunglasses off, fumbling with them before dropping them to the ground. “That is inherently human. Which you’re not. You aren’t capable of such a th
ing.”

  “Even after all this time, after everything you’ve done to me, after everything you’ve seen, you still know so little about me. About what I can do. You’re right. I’m not human. I’m not like you. But I know what it means to be loved. To have friends. To have people I would do anything for. And I know how it makes me feel when those people are threatened.” She looked up at the soldiers in the barn, then the helicopter, then back at Randy. “You really should let us go.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Art nodded. “So be it.”

  Nate could see the moment the words sunk in for Randy. His eyes narrowed. His mouth was a thin line. He lowered the bullhorn. The men around him tensed.

  And when Randy shouted, “Don’t hit the girl!” Nate knew that he’d mattered.

  In the end, he’d mattered.

  He closed his eyes against the sound of gunfire cracking over the farmyard. In his head, flashes of images: his mother in the kitchen, sashaying back and forth as she baked a cake for his twelfth birthday. His father putting a hand on his shoulder the day he graduated and squeezing it gently. He and Ricky under a fort made of pillows and blankets, using flashlights to read comic books late into the night.

  But there were other things too. Flashes that didn’t belong to him.

  He saw Alex walking hand in hand with a little boy with a quiet laugh.

  Alex standing in front of a man in a suit, nervous as he stared at a woman in front of him, a devilish smile on her face.

  Alex in front of a girl in a cage, seeing her for the very first time.

  Alex, his side feeling like it was on fire, watching through the window as a young man pulled up in an old truck in front of the cabin.

  Then they were merging, and there it was, right? That first kiss, awkward and sweet and oh so fucking devastating. He felt Alex’s nervousness, his fierce want. He’d been irritated at first, even had himself halfway convinced that Nate had come from the Mountain, had come to try and take Art away from him.

  But he’d learned, slowly but surely, that there was so much more to Nate. So much more to them both.

  And then there was Art, and Nate was seeing things he couldn’t understand. There were structures under triple suns that burned pink, structures that were so close to being familiar but off just enough that he couldn’t understand them, couldn’t quite make them out. And there were these beings, these beings made of iridescent white light, and they were swirling around, speaking in a way that Nate couldn’t comprehend. It wasn’t even words, but there was intent there, and one of these lights, one of these bright gaseous things was almost… familiar. It moved along a path made of some kind of shiny metal, and it was young, and it was sad, though it didn’t understand what sadness was precisely. But there was such a pervasive sense of loneliness coming from it that Nate felt like he was drowning in it.