Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (67 page)

Listen to Tom,
the closet-voice said.
Smart guy.
She sucked in a fast breath. “Mostly, I was mad at my daddy.” Ellie
said it quick, pushed it right out, and all of a sudden she wasn’t crying
anymore. For a split second, it felt the same as emerging from the
trail to this space of open sky and gold lava-water: like she’d stepped
out of her own way to find the right path to what was true. “He went
back when I didn’t want him to, and then he was dead, and I thought
that meant he must not love me very much. But you were his, and
you
loved me. So that must mean he did, too.”
She was crying again. “Good-bye, Mina,” Ellie said, and let her
dog go. “I love you, girl. Good-bye, Grandpa Jack.” And then she
managed the rest: “I l-love you, Daddy.”
She tried to watch Mina go, see exactly where her dog ended up,
but couldn’t tell. Everything was wavery from the water below and in
her eyes, and there were so many colors that it seemed Mina and her
daddy and Grandpa Jack could be anywhere.
But that was, maybe, because heaven was, too.

“This is it.” Stirring hot water into a enameled camp mug, Tom
watched the dark granules dissolve, then sprinkled a white snow of
creamer. “Enjoy every last drop.”

“Believe me, I will.” Accepting a mug of decaf, Alex sipped and
sighed. “That tastes so good, I don’t even care that it doesn’t have
bullets. Seriously, there’s no more?”

“Last packet until we get to Houghton. Unless we get lucky at
some Kwik-Mart that hasn’t been picked over. Any Starbucks got
hit a long time ago.” Cupping his own mug in his left hand, Tom
propped himself against a large boulder. Laying an arm across her
shoulders—but gently, mindful of her still-tender ribs—he pulled her
a little closer. “If they even
had
Starbucks up here.”

“They did.” She let her head rest against his chest. “But I think
only Marquette and . . . Mackinac Island? Yeah, I remember because
a ton of the hotels on the island weren’t air-conditioned, and it was
so
hot when we went this one time, but there’s my dad chugging a venti
with sweat pouring down his face.”

“My kind of guy. Had his priorities straight.” The fire had burnt
down to hot orange coals. Directly across, chin on paws, Buck was
in a half-doze, eyes slitted against the glow. This was the time of day
Tom liked best: sitting and talking for hours, or sometimes the two
of them only staring into the guttering flames as she nestled and he
stroked her hair. Leaving her out here, with only Buck for company,
wasn’t a highlight. Every night he hoped she would say,
Hang on a sec.
I’ll come with you.

“Chris said Hannah mentioned a coffee place not far from the
university where all the college kids hung.” Blowing on his mug, he
sucked back a steaming mouthful. A finger of heat drew a line down
his chest to expand in his stomach, a warmth that matched the pulse
of the fire against his face. “We might get lucky. I’d suck a used filter
if I thought it would help.”

“Once we’re out of the Waucamaw? About eighty, ninety miles as
the crow flies.”
“Long walk.”
He couldn’t quite decipher her tone. Maybe because, for him,
long walk
meant something very specific and so different. “Probably
a good week.” He sipped coffee. “Not like we haven’t walked before.
We’ve already mapped it out with Jayden. If something changes,
we’ve worked out places along the way and easy landmarks where
Jayden could leave messages. Like, in Houghton, the coffee place?
And once you’re across the bridge, Jayden said there’s this old brownstone synagogue that—”
“It might be better,” she said, quietly, “if I didn’t.”
For a second, he couldn’t match the words to their meaning, and
then he felt the coffee curdle in the pit of his gut.
No, come on, God,
not when we’re so close.
He set his mug down with the kind of concentration and care he might give a breaching charge. “What are you
saying?”
Another pause. She straightened until they were no longer touching and said, into the fire, “I’ve thought about this, I really have.”
Her voice had gone a little dead, a tone he knew well from her
story of Daniel’s slow slide into the Change and, at the last, his suicide. Tom’s blood slushed. “You’re staying.
Here
. In the Waucamaw,
by yourself.”
Take a breath, Tom. Go easy, don’t push. Count to ten.
He
made it to three. “Alex, what the hell are you thinking?”
Even in firelight, her eyes were too dark. “I’m thinking it’s dangerous for you. Wolf ’s already found me once before. He can find me
again.”
“If he’s still alive.”
“I think he might be. I can’t tell for sure, but this thing in my head
. . . I’ve got control, but it’s . . . lonely, too. You know? I feel it, sometimes,
searching
.”
“I thought you said you were getting better at keeping it under
wraps.” He heard the sharpness that was nearly an accusation. But he
couldn’t help it. A spike of panic darted up his spine.
No, she can’t do
this, she can’t; I won’t let her.
He said, more deliberately, “Even if it is,
you haven’t smelled any Changed. Neither have the dogs.”
“Yet. Once we leave the Waucamaw, start to head to where the
people
were
and maybe still are . . . I probably will.”
“So what? The Changed are a fact of life. They’re the enemy. Big
deal.”
“It’s different for you. You don’t have something living in your
head.”
“Oh bullshit. What the hell do you think a flashback is?”
TOM . . .
Folding his knees made that left leg yammer. For once, that nip of pain
was good, because it crammed the rest back down his throat. Closing
his eyes, he bowed his head and huffed out that quick jump of anger.
Out with the bad.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. I know it’s not the same.”
“It’s okay. Maybe it is the same, in a way. I think what I’m saying is
that, yes, I smell the Changed. Yes, the monster’s pretty well-behaved
. . . for a monster.”
“Don’t make a joke out of this.” Now he threw her a sharp look.
“Don’t make a joke of how I feel.”
“I’m not.” Her eyes shimmered, but her voice was steady. “I’m
trying to make you understand. Sometimes, I have dreams, and those
are new. What I did with Finn . . . I think that opened up some kind
of door in my head.”
“You
dream
about the Changed?” He felt his anger giving way to a
blast of shock. “You
see
them?”
“Sometimes.” Her throat moved in a swallow. “I think it’s because
I’m seeing
through
someone, like I did in Rule, at the end. I’m not sure
who or what it is. But it’s when I’m asleep, Tom. I can’t control that.
I can’t do anything about my dreams.”
“Alex.” He sat up straighter. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why
didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now. Tom, back in Rule, if you hadn’t tackled me
on the landing, I’m not sure I wouldn’t still be in that”—she made a
vague gesture with her cupped hand near her head—“
frenzy
. It was
terrible
and wonderful at the same time. I know that sounds crazy.
But I understand what Peter must’ve felt, that
rush
, how powerful it
is, when nothing else matters but killing
.
So I know I can get lost.”
“All the more reason why you should stay with us, stay anchored.
Let us help.”
Let me.
“But, Tom,
think.
If I can see through them, what are the chances
that, eventually, it might go the other way? What if I draw or lead
Changed
to
us? Nobody will be safe.”
“Those are a lot of ifs . . . no, be quiet. Let me finish,” he said
when she opened her mouth. “In the last month, nothing’s happened.
There have been no Changed. No one has followed us. We stayed
with Isaac for weeks, near where Changed had been, and saw none.
You’re right; I’m not you. But I do know a little about scary dreams
and how they take over. I also don’t buy that your dreams are the only
reason that you don’t want to come. Because so what if the monsters
come, Alex?” He wanted to touch her, grab her arms, pull her close.
In all this time and during these many weeks, he’d never rushed her,
hadn’t kissed her, done
nothing
but try to help her come back. If she
thought he was going to let her go without a fight . . . “Let them
come, Alex. Let the monsters try to take you. They’ll have to get
through me, and that will never happen.”
“That’s not a promise you can make, Tom.”
“I will kill them,” he said, very distinctly. “No one is taking you
from me. That’s all there is to it.”
“And if you die because of me?”
“That will be my choice, Alex, but it won’t come to that.”
“Are you going to choose for Ellie, too? For Chris and Kincaid? For
Jayden? For all the other children?”
Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back and spoke to the night
sky. “I . . . will
not
. . . leave you here.” He lowered his gaze to hers.
“I refuse. If you won’t come, I’m staying, too. I’m not leaving you,
Alex, never again.”
“No.” The shock rippled across her face. “No, Tom, I won’t let
you do that.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he repeated. “You’re not the only one who
gets to choose. Now, you either walk out of here with us, tomorrow,
or we wave good-bye to Ellie and Chris. Period.”
Her mouth turned into a thin gash over her chin. “Tom,
why
are
you doing this? Why are you making this harder for me?”
“You don’t think this is hard on me?”
“Of course, I know it is. But don’t you see I’m trying to protect
you?”
“And don’t you see that I
love
you?” he shouted.
To hell with this.
He
gathered her in his arms. If she pulled away, he would let her go. You
couldn’t hang on to someone bound and determined to get away. But
she didn’t, although she was crying, wide-eyed and silent, her tears
streaming over cheeks that looked pale even in firelight.
“Alex.” And then he did what he’d ached to do for weeks: skimmed
hair from her face, the better to see and touch and memorize every
inch, each feature, from the curve of her brow to the bow of her lips
and the angle of that stubborn jaw. “Alex, I don’t care that you have
cancer. I don’t care if all or part of that cancer is a monster. I care
about
you
, and I have walked, alone, for a very long time. I did it in
Afghanistan, and I did it in the Waucamaw. I might have walked until
I couldn’t anymore if we hadn’t found each other. But we did, and I
am so tired of walking alone. Please, Alex, please walk with me. Be
brave enough to walk out of here
with
me. Leave this place. Only
ghosts live here. Come with us. Come with
me
.”
“Tom.” She raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “I was dying
when I got here.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Just in a different way.”
“But what if I’m really still dying and don’t know it? What if it
gets stronger, and I get sick again? It’s already bad enough to have a
monster. What if the cancer’s not
all
monster? What if it’s also
cancer
?
I don’t know how much time we’ll have.”
“Join the rest of the human race,” he said, which made her give
a watery laugh−and that loosened a terrible knot in his chest.
Yes,
God, yes, please do this for me. Just this once, please.
“All I know, the only
thing about which I am absolutely certain, is that I love you. Walk
with me, Alex. Walk with me today”—he kissed one cheek and then
the other, tasting her skin and wet salt—“and tomorrow”—and then
he brushed her lips with his and felt them part and her sigh in his
mouth.
“Walk with me, Alex,” he whispered. “Walk with me for as long
as we have.”

For a second, she wondered if it had been a dream: a
nice
dream
but still . . . wishful thinking. Then she inhaled musk and sweet smoke
and spice and
Tom
—Tom, warm and solid and real—and heard his
deep sleep-breathing. She eased her head until she could make him
out in the dim light suffusing the tent. A hand on her stomach, he lay
on his side, an arrow of light silvering his hair.

Her eyes drifted over his face. There’d been this science fiction
show her dad loved, pretty old, not
Star Trek
but something about
a space station, and there was a number in the title . . . six? No, five.
Anyway, there were these funky aliens with their funky rituals. One
was to watch a beloved as he slept, because that was when all the
masks fell away and you saw a person for what he was. Sounded
pretty silly. And yet . . . Tom, in sleep and maybe for once dreaming
well, was as he always had been: steady and sure, brave and stubborn. Someone to walk with. Someone to love, and that was wonder
enough. There was no difference, although—

She resisted the urge to bolt upright. She closed her eyes, opened
them. Nothing changed. There was Tom, sleeping, and there was—
You watch.
Easing a hand from her sleeping bag, she extended a
single finger.
It’s a crazy hallucination or something. I’m not really seeing
this.
Heart pounding, she watched as the tip of her finger rolled out of
the grainy darkness—and became visible. Jumped out from shadow
to cross into that sliver of light seeping through a thin seam of a tent
flap to glitter over Tom’s hair.
Oh my God.
She pulled her hand back, gave it a good hard stare as
if expecting a smudge of luminous paint to show itself. Of course,
there was none. Still careful not to wake him—no sense being a
ninny, especially if she was wrong—she tipped her head all the way
back until she could see through that seam. The thing was, though,
she
couldn’t
see through to the other side.
Because the glow through the seam was
that
bright.
She heard her breath leave in a sudden rush, taking a small
oh
with it. She lay still a moment longer, thinking it over before carefully
oozing from the bag, feeling Tom’s hand slip from her skin. Thank
God, she had the side with the zip. It took her another few seconds
to work into her parka. Grimacing at the touch of cold nylon against
her feet, she minced her way to the tent flaps, holding her breath
against the slight
sss
as she worked the zipper. Then she ducked out
of the tent—and stopped dead.
Ahead, not fifty feet away, the forest was awash in shimmering
silver-blue shafts, bright enough to cut tall, inky shadows. She could
make out the tree limbs on beds of needles; the individual stones
around her banked fire, the coals dozing under a blanket of ashes;
even the gleam of individual grommets on her tent. From his place
close to the fire ring, Buck’s head raised and cocked a question at her
sudden appearance in the middle of the night, especially since she’d
kicked him out of the tent.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, and watched in a kind of awe as her
breath smoked not sickly green-gray . . . but blue. She’d set her boots
outside the tent, and now she fumbled them up, her fingers suddenly clumsy, mouth dry.
I should wake up Tom. He’ll want to see this.
We should get the others.
Yes, but she wanted to be certain first. She
jammed her bare feet into her boots. Too late, she realized that in
her rush, she’d forgotten to shake them out. To her relief, her toes
discovered that no one had dropped in for a visit.
She’d made camp within a sheltering stand of hemlock and sugar
maple, but there was a clearing to her left. Now, pushing to her feet,
she darted that way with Buck galumphing after. In only a few seconds, she splashed into a pool of light so intense that what she first
saw, to her right, was only the long fingerling of her shadow as it
ran away. She could see Buck’s shadow, too, and the double gleam in
his eyes as he stared, wondering what in
hell
had her so worked up.
Turning on her heels, she looked left and up through a break in the
canopy . . .
And into a night sky where the thick web of clouds had, finally,
pulled apart. Only the brightest stars showed. That was because the
moon was high and full—and white.
“Oh my God.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “You’re there, you’re
really there, you’re back, you’re the
moon
, you’re—”
At that moment, Buck grumbled a low warning. She heard a soft
shush
of a foot over earth.
Then, to her left, the smell rolled from the deep black of the forest.