TORMENT (31 page)

Collins reached them, sucking hard, clutching his chest. But there was no time to ask him if he felt okay. She pointed at the path and said, “Follow that to Garbarino.”

As Collins ran, Mia looked back up the hill. Austin ran toward her, a wall of fire spread out in the forest behind him. She wasn’t sure how Austin had done it, but the fire seemed to have stopped the murderous crowd.

That’s when the first body ran through the flames and ignited. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.
Didn’t really matter.
The fire didn’t stop it.
Or the next fiery person to emerge.
Or the next.
A flaming army followed, glowing as they ran, screaming in pain, and in sorrow.

Mia didn’t wait for Austin. She followed the path. The tall grass clung to her legs, slowing her steps. Her arms burned from holding Liz. Her legs ached. She slowed, suddenly weary.

She put Liz down on her feet.

“Auntie Mia?”

“Run,” Mia said. “Go!”

Elizabeth shook her head quickly and raised her arms up to her.

“I can’t,” Mia said, bending over to catch her breath. “Run!”

A crashing in the grass spun her around, raising her gun.

A hand reached out, took hold of the weapon and pushed it aside. Austin moved in a blur. He had Elizabeth over his shoulder one second and a tight grip on Mia’s arm the next, dragging her forward. She looked back and saw bodies that should be dead, burning bright, running through the grass behind them and setting the whole field ablaze. The dead trees at the bottom of the hill snapped and fell away, crushing several killers.

A fiery Henry Masters emerged.

Mia found her feet and ran hard without Austin’s help.

They reached the end of the field and hit sand. The loose earth beneath them sunk. All three fell.

Austin was up first, pulling Mia and Liz to their feet.

“Over here!” Garbarino shouted.

They turned to find him standing knee deep in water, a canoe beside him. Collins was already inside, sitting on the floor of the boat. They rushed to the boat. Austin put Liz in first. Mia went in next, sitting behind Liz.

“Get in the front,” Austin said to Garbarino.

Garbarino slid deeper into the water. “Lean the other way,” he said, “so my weight doesn’t tip us.”

Collins and Mia understood and leaned away from Garbarino.

“Fuck!” Garbarino shouted as he leaped up. He lost his grip on the side of the boat and fell forward, striking his head on the side. But something had him spooked and frantic and he scrambled inside the canoe.

“What happened?” Mia asked.

“Something grabbed my foot,” he said, pulling himself into the seat and keeping an eye on the water.

A roar pitched them all forward in the canoe.

Masters charged out of the blazing field, his body burning.

“Go!” Austin said, pushing the canoe deeper and leaping into the back. He and Garbarino picked up the paddles and stabbed them into the dark water. The old white canoe was dirty and held a disconcerting number of patches, but it cut through the placid water with ease.

They were twenty feet from shore when Masters reached the water. He rushed in, steam hissing off his burning body as flame met water. If the water had been shallow, he would have reached them, but the lake deepened quickly and the water rose to his chest ten feet from shore. He pounded his fists at the water in frustration. The burning horde entered the water behind them, a cloud of steam rising as the flames were extinguished. They watched in silence until a single shouting voice said, “Go! Run!”

It was Chang.

Unlike the other voices that shouted apologies and urges to run, Chang’s sounded genuine. She remembered who they were and honestly wanted them to escape, not just from her, but from the horrors of this new world.

Mia stood in the boat and met Chang’s eyes. She watched as the charred flesh around Chang’s eyes flaked off and fell away, replaced by new skin.

“Go!” Chang said.

Masters must have heard the slight difference in Chang’s tone because he roared again, picked her up and tossed her into the air like a football. Her now limp body sailed over the water, toward the canoe, but landed twenty feet short. The small wave created by Chang’s body hit the canoe’s side and the sudden motion knocked Mia off balance.

Garbarino’s hands locked on to her hips from behind, holding her steady. “Sit down,” he urged.

Mia turned her eyes down, but instead of watching where she sat, she caught a glimpse of something in the water. She froze, looking over the side of the boat. Something white shifted beneath them.

Austin saw her attention on the water. “What is it?”

“I’m not su—” Heat lightning ripped across the sky above, lighting the lake in dazzling orange light. The bright burst cut through the water and revealed the faces below. Dozens of pale, swollen faces with white eyes and open mouths stared back at her.

Mia dropped into the canoe, clutching Liz close, more for her comfort than the girl’s. “Paddle,” she said, looking up into Austin’s eyes.
“Paddle!”

The boat shuddered as something thudded against the hull.

Mia’s eyes grew wide and wet. They were too late.

37

“What’s down there?” Garbarino asked. “What is it?”A second bump against the hull answered his question. He put his paddle down and drew his weapon. Before he could ask again, the sounds of splashing reached them.

A man rose to the surface, floating face down.
Dead.
The gases of decomposition had finally made his body buoyant and returned him to the surface. His skin was wrinkly and pasty white.

A second body emerged, bobbing to the surface like a buoy that had been cut loose. This was a woman, her slight body hanging on the surface, her long black hair flowing like stringy seaweed.

“Are they dead?” Collins asked.

A third body bobbed to the surface. Austin reached out with his paddle and pushed it away.
“Dead.”

Mia shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?” Collins asked, motioning to the three bodies. “Look at them.”

She shook her head again and held Elizabeth close, doing her best to cover the girl’s eyes. She didn’t want to look. Not again. The lifeless faces she saw would haunt her for the rest of her life, not because they were dead, but because she somehow knew they weren’t. Not really.

A fourth body came up.
Then a fifth, this one far away.

A sudden splashing and gasp for breath startled all of them. The first man to rise thrashed in the water. He coughed and sputtered. Water poured from his mouth. He breathed in loudly, twice, and then shouted.
“Help!”

The group froze. His request was simple. Save him. But he had been dead and the sight of the now revived man shocked them so much that all they could do was watch him struggle.

More bodies rose up.
Hundreds.
They filled the center of the lake. And one by one, they returned to the world, panicked and desperate.

The man who awakened first grappled with a woman next to him, each trying to hold onto the other. “Help me!” the man cried.

But there would be no help for him. As more bodies returned to life and began their own struggle in the water, the mass of hands reaching, grabbing, scratching and pulling became overwhelming. The man went under. His hand reached up and caught the woman’s hair, pulling her down, while he returned for a breath. But others were waiting for him, hoping to keep
themselves
above the water and they pushed him down again. Still sucking in air as he went under, water rushed into his lungs. He fought for the surface, but was pushed deeper. His body twitched and then sank, lifeless once more.

“Oh God,” Collins said.
“God no.”

A heavy thud on the side of the canoe tore them away from the sea of struggling bodies. White hands clung to the side of the canoe. A woman with wide open, milky white eyes pulled herself up. “Help me,” she
whispered,
her voice shaky and wet.

Everyone stared at her, the living dead, and not one of them moved to help. She wasn’t violent or trying to kill them, but she wasn’t one of them, one of the living, anymore. Not really. The sight of her repulsed them.

A second set of hands rose up behind the woman and latched onto her face. A man pulled himself up, desperate for air.
For rescue.
His eyes went wide when he saw the boat. He reached for the side, but the woman, who he was pushing down, fought against him. Their combined weight and struggle tipped the boat, dunking both of their heads underwater. They both let go and fought to reach the surface again, pushing and pulling at each other.

The boat tipped the other direction. More hands reached up.

“A boat!” someone shouted.

“Help!” shouted another.

A mass of writhing bodies struggled toward them, some pushing others down, sliding over the drowning bodies of men and women who had just reached the surface. More hands reached out.

“We’re going to tip!” Collins shouted, hugging his still unfired shotgun like a life preserver.

A gunshot ripped through the air.

Mia flinched and Elizabeth screamed.

A second shot.
Then a third, each coming faster than the last and from two directions.
Austin and Garbarino quickly shot everyone clinging to the canoe and then worked their way out to those still en route. After reloading and firing several more shots, they stopped.

All around the lake, the recently revived were drowning again, either pulled down by other victims or too tired to hold
themselves
above water. But the group around the canoe hadn’t drowned. They’d been shot. A large red plume of blood encircled the canoe.

Austin and Garbarino searched the red water, looking for anyone else who might try to latch onto their small lifeboat. But no one emerged. The lake had gone silent again.

Mia looked up. The water, placid once again, smelled like copper. She looked in both directions, searching for white
bodies,
sure that one would rise up and try to snatch Elizabeth from her arms.
If one of them had fallen in...
She pushed the thought from her mind as it threatened to start her down a spiral of anxiety.

Motion on the distant shore, perhaps a mile away, caught her attention.
Movement.
She looked back to the shoreline they had launched from. The burning church glowed like a massive lighthouse on the hill above the lake. The forest beneath it and the field beyond burned brightly. But the shore, where Henry Masters and the crowd of killers had nearly caught them, was now empty.

She looked back at the distant shore. Between dead trees and brush she saw people.
Running.
And at the front, an unmistakable hulking man. She looked to the other far shore and saw more of them there.

“They’re circling in both directions,” she said.

“What?” Austin asked as he set his paddle to the water and said, “Let’s go,” to Garbarino.

With both men paddling again, they moved quickly over the water, but Mia wasn’t sure it would be fast enough.
“Masters,” she said, “and the others.
They’re circling around the lake!”