Shadows (19 page)
Authors: Ilsa J. Bick
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Horror, #Young Adult, #Adventure, #Fantasy
Oh my God.
She gasped as the lightbulb flashed in her brain.
He already
is
. This was never about
choice
because it’s the Browning. It’s Nathan’s rifle, and that very first day, when Spider pulled the trigger, it wouldn’t
—
“Ray!” she screamed. “Ray,
no,
the rifle doesn’t—”
Ray squeezed the trigger.
As soon as they slipped beneath the ice, Tom felt the old man begin to fight, but the stranglehold around Tom’s throat didn’t let up. Even with the added weight, his lungs held air and air gave him buoyancy. He would bob like a cork until he drowned.
So Tom tucked and dove, straight down, pulling hard with his arms. It went against all logic. His mind screamed at him to stop, stop! Air was above. Below was death. That was precisely why he did it.
The old man let go.
In an instant, Tom was twisting back, coming around, trying to remember which way was up—because, in all that terrible blackness, he had no idea. He could feel the old man thrashing not far away. Hands grabbed for him out of the dark; fingers bunched in his shirt. Cocking his elbow, Tom pistoned his right fist. He felt the impact, then heard the man’s scream, muted by water. Something shuddered past his face: bubbles, boiling for the surface. Kicking away, he followed them and left the old man behind in the dark.
Almost almost almost almost
. . . The word had weight and substance; it was in the pounding of his heart and the bright burn in his chest. He had to be almost there; he had to be
almost almost almost
. . .
Then he heard something new, frantic and rhythmic. Raleigh. Raleigh, on the surface,
barking
. He followed the sound. With the last of his strength, he surged up, fingers splayed—
And hit a sheet of solid ice.
Nonononono!
The burn in Tom’s lungs was so bad and his need for air so huge, a great ball of panic tried blasting past his lips in a scream. He pounded a fist into the ice. Pressing right up to the shelf, he kicked and strained, tried to bully his way through to air.
Air air air come on comeoncomeoncomeon—
The dog barked again. Where? From his right? He didn’t know. The water was cold enough to burn and black as oil; he was blind and more terrified than ever before—and that brought an awful clarity as well. Think, or he was dead.
Follow the sound, follow the dog; Raleigh, bark again, come on, boy, come on, please . . .
Another bark, and this time, he grabbed onto the sound of the dog like a lifeline. With the very last of his strength, he kicked away from the suck and grab of the darkness and walked his hands along the underside of the ice, his gloved fingers futilely scratching, biting, searching for any chink, the tiniest break.
And then, he
was
done: breakpoint. It was over, and he knew it. He couldn’t hold his breath another second. He just couldn’t. He was finished, and before he could think about it, his throat convulsed and then he was flailing as the spent air rushed from his lungs in a
scream
—
His right hand shot out of the water and into nothing. Into
air.
He surged up, his head shattering into empty space and blessed air, and then he was coughing and spluttering, drawing in one shrieking breath after another. Chunks of ice bobbed and smacked against his chest and arms as he thrashed. His lungs wouldn’t work well. He couldn’t get enough air; he didn’t even have the breath to scream.
Got to get out, get out get out get out!
Terror bolted into his throat and stayed there. Drowning was his nightmare. More than being shot or bleeding out or getting himself blown to teeny tiny bits— drowning was right up there with burning to death, and he was going to drown; he was going to die. The cold was a giant palm that cupped his body and drew away heat. He was getting weak and so tired. Let up on kicking for even a few seconds and he started to sink again. He heard his arms slap water, but the sound was receding, thinning as panic swamped his brain.
Slow down, slow down, slow down.
He was gasping. His head began to whirl. He would pass out if he couldn’t stop hyperventilating, but he just couldn’t get a handle on the rat-panic scrambling around in his head.
You’ve still got time, come on, come on, slow down, slow—
Raleigh whimpered.
“R-R-Raleigh.” His lips were numb and he was shivering hard enough to bite his tongue. To his horror, the pain was only a distant pinprick. If there was blood, he couldn’t taste it. “Come h-here, b-b-boy.” The dog whined, and he thought it must be dead ahead.
Not too far away
. “R-Raleigh, come on.”
The dog responded with a small
huff
. Was the dog closer? He couldn’t tell. He put out a gloved hand, slapped more water, and then headed for the place in the dark where he thought the dog must be. He breasted the surface, half-swimming but mostly treading water and slapping until his fingers brushed something hard that did not bob away. The edge of the break. He thrust a hand out even further, patting the darkness and then, layered over the ice, a denser mélange of compacted snow. No dog. So it was still far away and he was running out of time.
Reaching out with both hands, he pushed aside snow until he got to the ice, then flattened his palms and dug in. The gloves curled only grudgingly, and he realized the fabric had frozen to the ice. Could he use that? Maybe keep himself from drowning by letting his arms freeze to the ice?
No good. I’ll still die of hypothermia. Have to get out of the water.
He scissored his legs as hard as he could. His body popped up, lurched forward like an ungainly seal. Not far. Even without his parka, he was sodden, his clothes waterlogged and very heavy. He didn’t have the strength. But his chest was on the surface now, beginning to freeze to the ice, and that was a start.
He sensed movement. The dog. Moving away? He was so weak he could only whisper the dog’s name. Nothing. Then, the black closed down, and Raleigh snuffled at his ear.
“Oh God.” Tom sobbed out a breath. Slipping one cautious hand from a glove, he reached up until he felt the dog’s ruff. The dog responded by licking his fingers. The urge to grab onto the animal was so great he had to force himself to go slowly. No fast moves, nothing sudden . . . easy, easy . . . and then Tom’s fingers slid up and under the dog’s collar.
The dog didn’t shy away. Tom pulled a little harder and then tensed his right arm. At the sudden tug, the dog began to back away, which was fine, exactly what he needed as he kicked and swam his way through snow.
And then he was out, completely, flopping like a hooked trout onto the ice. Water streamed from his body. He lay on his back, spread-eagled, sucking air as the dog licked water from his face.
Get up,
he thought.
Get up or you’ll freeze to the ice. Come on, get up, get off the ice, get warm.
Oh, but the dog’s tongue
was
warm, and so was its breath, and he was so tired. Numb, actually. No feeling in his feet or hands, and so cold he wasn’t even shivering. He just had to rest a few seconds was all.
Don’t pass out.
He thought his eyes were open, but it was so dark. The dog nosed his neck and then he felt its paw on his chest.
Come on, get up, don’t pass out, you can’t pass out—
He was still thinking that when he did.
Ray pulled the trigger. The Browning’s action clicked and snapped— And that was all.
Clearly waiting for the boom, Ray held his stance for a fraction of a second, then blinked and stared, stupidly, at the useless weapon.
“No.” He tossed away the Browning with a fast, quick flick as if the metal had suddenly flared red-hot. Gulping, he stumbled back a step, hands up, palms out. “N-no, no!”
Leopard moved. His right hand flashed, and then the Glock’s muzzle, wicked and black, dug into the nude space just above Ray’s nose.
“Don’t!”
Alex and Daniel cried at the same moment. “Stop!”
Daniel shouted. “Don’t do this!”
“Rubeee?” Ray’s eyes, wild with terror, rolled in their sockets, trying to find his wife, but she had fainted in a bright, bloodred lake.
“Ru—”
There was a sudden tongue of muzzle flash, and the Glock bucked.
The shot echoed and dissolved, shredded by snow and wind. The air became leaden with the reek of burned hair and cooked brain and fresh death—and the Changed, always the fume and choke of the Changed. Sharon still had Ruby’s wrist in a death grip. Blood splashed the big woman from the neck down. Ruby was limp and still.
Stepping away from Ray’s body, Leopard slid his Glock into his waistband as Acne helped Beretta to his feet. Spider still hovered over Jack, whose face was white as milky glass. Only the boy’s eyes showed any sign of life, and they ticked from the ruin of Ray’s head to his brother. Daniel was the color of ash and still as a statue in a swirl of snow, like the dead air at a hurricane’s heart.
Of all people, Sharon broke the silence. “There, you got what you wanted. The choice was made. Doesn’t matter if the boy did it or not.”
Oh, yes, it did. Alex understood why the Changed had offered only that particular weapon. She also realized something else.
Nathan’s rifle had not misfired or jammed after all. If that were true, the barrel would’ve blown apart.
She thought back to Nathan’s reluctance and Jess’s insistence. Piece of cake, really. Remove the bolt action, slip out the firing pin or fatigue the spring, replace the bolt—and no one would be the wiser. She could see Nathan playacting, because she was certain Jess would’ve anticipated that, all things being equal, Alex would try to fight back when the Changed attacked and might even get off a shot.
So the Browning was never meant to fire. The old woman wouldn’t want to risk Alex turning the tables and killing her grandson.
Which means that she knew
.
Wolf was out there, waiting. Jess
knew. Alex had been right about something else, too. This was a test. The Changed must’ve inspected the rifle and known it was useless. They’d only wanted to see what Daniel would do. Why, she didn’t know, but the final outcome—what would happen next—was never in doubt.
“Don’t do this,” she said. Heads swiveled; the eyes of all the Changed locked. “You have the other kids. You have
us.
How much more do you need? You have enough to last you a good long time. You don’t
need
to do this.”
“What?” She saw the slow dawn of horror on Daniel’s face as he finally understood. “No.” He looked around, wildly. “Please, let him go,
please.
”
“Daniel?” Jack’s voice rose, and then the little boy’s head craned around to Spider, who was planting her feet: all the better to keep her balance. Her wound dripped crocodile tears of bloody pus. “Daniel?” Jack said.
“Daniel?”
“No!”
Alex screamed it, and so did Daniel. She sprang for Spider, but then Leopard’s crew converged. They slammed her, bucking and kicking, to the snow. “He’s just a boy!” she cried. “He’s just a little
boy
!”
Across the circle, she saw Daniel suddenly churning through the snow, his face contorted in a spasm of love and fury and despair.
“No, please, God, no!”
he shrieked.
“Nononononono!”
It took five of them to hold Daniel down. It took Spider only a minute.
“Come on!” Sharon bawled. She hunched over an unconscious Ruby, now sprawled on a braided rug before the guesthouse fireplace. A strong woman and big, not even Sharon could stop the thin, fitful blood-geysers pumping from Ruby’s severed wrist. The rug was slowly turning a deep rust color as Ruby’s arteries emptied. “Come on, come on, come on!”
“Just a sec, just a sec!” Fumbling, Alex stripped the lace from her boot and then crowded in beside Sharon. She lashed the lace around Ruby’s forearm a few inches down from the old woman’s bloodstained elbow—once, twice. For a moment, she worried the polypropylene would saw right through Ruby’s skin, which was frail and paper-thin.
Well, screw that.
She put some muscle into it, cinched down hard. “Okay, ease up.”
The big woman’s fingers cautiously relaxed. The steady crimson pump dribbled to an ooze.
“Christ.” Sharon was panting. Her sweat-drenched face was matted with hanks of her bullet-gray hair. Drying blood fanned her chest and neck. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Hang on.” When they’d staggered back to the guesthouse with Ruby, Acne and Slash had followed, dumping six of the camo packs in after them. Now, Alex snatched up one and pawed through the contents: food, clothes. She tried not to pay attention to the smells of trail mix and MREs, the spike of a packet of peppermint gum. Or the clothes either: floral soap, talcum warmed by a child’s skin. No ammunition, and the Changed’s muscle had pulled anything remotely resembling a weapon. So, no knives or scissors either.
Come on, come on, these kids were prepared; there’s got to be something.
She tumbled out another pack, gave the contents a quick going-over, her eyes brushing over a pair of boy’s pajamas: SpiderMan. She grabbed up a third pack.
“What are you looking for?” Sharon asked. Her voice was limp as a spent balloon. Ruby’s blood shellacked both arms to her elbows.
“Medical supplies.” Alex upended the pack in a shower of pink and purple that smelled of vanilla and little girl. “These kids were ready to be on the road for a while.”
Fourth try: pay dirt. She sifted through tubes of antibiotic ointment, bandages, antiseptic wipes, alcohol, gauze, tape, Kerlix. And pills, lots of pills: over-the-counter packets of cold tablets, Tylenol, ibuprofen, cough drops. But there was a clutch of more potent stuff: prescription painkillers like Percocet and Vicodin, a handful of tiny green Valiums, and—the mother lode—antibiotics: big pink horse-pills of long-acting erythromycin and chalky-white amoxicillin.
Okay, almost in business, but there was still one hell of a problem. The second she took off that tourniquet, the bleeding would start right up. During the few amputations she’d done with Kincaid, he’d talked about isolating nerve from muscle to minimize phantom limb pain and how to clamp off blood vessels; what suture to use now that were was no power for electrocautery . . .
Cautery.
She gasped.
That’s it.
“What?” Sharon asked as Alex pushed to her feet.
Tom
. She raced to the kitchen, started yanking open cupboards and pulling drawers. Tom had told her what to do; he’d talked her through it. She’d
done
this once before.
Come on, come on, I smelled it before, I know I did, I know it’s here.
“What are you doing?” Sharon asked.
“Metal holds heat.” She ripped open another cupboard. Dust mice and crumbs. The Changed had been smart enough to remove the obvious: knives, forks, anything that jumped out as a potential weapon. But not everything. There
was
something. All she had to do was follow her nose . . .
“So?”
“
So
, if I can find something metal and get it hot enough, I can use that to stop the bleeding.” As soon as she levered open the oven door, she smelled cooked sulfur, ancient grease.
Gotcha
. The skillet was upside down on the rack: cast-iron, very small, speckled with rust, a little sticky from stale Crisco. Good enough. Grabbing a cooking mitt and the pan, she scuttled back. When they’d first arrived, she’d built up the fire to burn hot and fast through that first load of wood, mainly to warm the chimney and create the airflow to keep the fire going. The fire had dwindled to red-hot embers. Slipping on the mitt, she reached in with a long split of oak.
“Get me more logs,” she said. She used an oak split to shove aside spent wood. “There, in the firebox.”
Laying the wood in a grid, she knelt, blew on the embers, and was rewarded with a flower of flame. She jockeyed the skillet into a nest of red-orange coals.
“You sure this will work?” Sharon said.
“No, but it’s better than nothing.” She waited until the smell of scorched iron filled the guesthouse and then levered the skillet from the fire. The heat rolled off the iron, leaked through the mitt where the gray, fire-resistant covering had flaked away.
“Hold her down,” she said to Sharon. Ruby was still out, but Alex didn’t think that would last more than a nanosecond. “No matter what, don’t let up until I tell you to.”
“I’m on it.” Sharon straddled Ruby, pushing her knees into the little woman’s shoulders. She grabbed Ruby’s left arm in both hands. “Go.”
Has to work.
Gritting her teeth, she jammed the hot skillet onto Ruby’s raw stump.
There was a pop and then a sizzle. Ruby flopped. Her legs pistoned straight out. Her head jerked and then her eyes were wide and so was her mouth and she was bucking and thrashing and screaming, screaming,
screaming
. . .
“Hold her, hold her!” Alex shouted. The smell was coming on, thick and heavy: the unmistakable aroma of fried meat and molten fat. Alex heard the fizz of boiling blood. Saliva suddenly flooded her mouth, spilled over her tongue, as her brain registered that this was meat, it was
meat
, this was the aroma of
food
. Hamburgers on the grill. Juicy steaks.
Come on, don’t lose it; it doesn’t mean anything.
Her body didn’t care. A huge hunger-rat clawed at her belly. To her horror, her stomach let out a long, very loud growl
.
But then, for once, it happened the way things are supposed to in make-believe: Ruby passed out.
“Thank Christ,” Sharon breathed.
Alex had one precious second when she really thought everything would be all right; that she could chalk up her hunger for Ruby’s meat to some ghost of an ancient past when cavemen hunkered over roast saber-toothed tiger.
But then her mind shifted. Again. The sensation was almost like a sound: a dry rustle as the monster flexed its muscles. Out of nowhere, that swimmy feeling washed over and through her mind, spiking the hairs on her neck. A whir bloomed in her brain—black sound—and then her mouth filled with the wet, mushy funk of warm iron and something so slick it tasted like boiled snot.
“No!” she gasped. Her gorge, sour and hot, pushed up through her chest, and then she was spinning up and away. The skillet thudded to the hardwood with a dull clang, and Sharon was shouting:
What, what, what?
She didn’t care. Alex bolted for the door at a dead run, and then she was out in the storm, the snow swirling in a white rush, the wind clawing her hair. No guard at the door. None was needed because of the storm.
Through the snow, across the clearing, the Changed were feasting. The party was just getting started. She had no idea where they’d taken Daniel, but she saw what they’d done to Jack.
Against the jump of orange flames, the spit turned like something out of a grade-B movie: the carcass threaded onto forked wood lashed together with, of all things, extension cords. The stench of scorched rubber competed with the aroma of broiled meat and crisped fat.
Spider was right there, in the thick of it, cheeks bulging, her skin ruddy with firelight and excitement. She was pressing a fistful of something to Leopard’s mouth—
And Alex felt the edge of his teeth ghosting over her own fingers.
God.
An icy knife of horror cut her chest.
No.
She watched as Leopard pulled Spider closer—
And it was
her
skin that crawled as Leopard’s tongue dragged over Spider’s neck.
Oh my God.
It was happening again, her mind slewing sideways, stepping away—and into
Spider
.
No!
A surge of bile roared from her mouth to splatter to the snow.
She isn’t me; I’m not her. I’m not one of them, I’m not!
“Hey!” Sharon called. “Get your ass back here!”
God, what’s happening to me?
Alex’s muscles were shuddery and weak. Sagging against the door, she pressed her sweaty face to icy wood.
I’m not Spider. I’m Alex and I’m here, I’m here, I’m right here.
But then she thought she heard just the faintest whisper sighing up from a deep, dark crevice of her mind. Or maybe she didn’t really hear anything, and it was a hallucination conjured from her addled, sick brain. Whatever. It was there, sardonic and small.
Maybe
, it—the monster—said.
But so am I. So am I.