Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (13 page)

So I need to take him.
Ellie chewed the inside of her cheek. She
realized that her eyes had fixed on his chest, noting every struggling
breath, holding her own until the burlap rose again. She knew she
expected every breath to be his last, like in the movies. A final dramatic gasp and then bye-bye.
Got to get him onto my horse somehow.
But
Chris was too heavy to lift. Her eyes roamed the deepening shadows
of the bare rafters. Even if she could find a rope and tie it around his
chest or something
and
figure out a way of slinging the rope over a
beam, she wasn’t strong enough to hoist him two inches. Could she
drag him? That might work. Just roll him off the pallets, watch that
his head didn’t go
bump-thump
on the stone, then drag him the way
you hauled a little kid up the hill on a sled. Chris would be much
heavier, of course, but she’d only have to manage twenty, thirty feet.
She was much stronger now than back in October when all the bad
stuff started. She rode horses, she walked for miles, she hauled augers
and tackle, and she handled her Savage without too much trouble.
So she could do this. But getting him onto her horse was a different
problem.

And what about the birds?
Will they let him leave?
Cocking her
head, she listened and then picked up their mechanical chatter. Still
out there. They hadn’t bothered her, but maybe that was as far as this
went. The birds might be—she didn’t know—a sign or something,
like the way Alex once said you could tell if a storm was coming
when the animals got really quiet.

“I can’t do nothing,” she said to Mina, who leaned against her leg.
Her chilled fingers buried themselves in the fur behind the dog’s ears.
“I have to keep him warm
and
get him out.”

What if she stayed? The others would come looking, and probably soon. They would know where to go. Bella was tethered at the
fork. So she could stay put, keep Chris warm. But she might also be
waiting a long time. No one would worry for another hour, maybe
even an hour and a half. She could hear Eli now:
Oh, you know how
Ellie is once she gets fishing; she can sit out there forever.

Beneath the burlap, Chris let out another long moan. She was
across the room in an instant, dropping to her knees to study his face.
Through the crescent moons of his lids, she could see his eyes roaming. Chris was dreaming, and pretty badly, too. Deep, dark lines of
fear and pain cut alongside his nose and across his forehead. Maybe a
nightmare. Or maybe he was dreaming about being dead, which was
probably just as bad.

She stood and patted the pallet. “Mina, come.” The dog obediently
jumped up, careful not to step on Chris. Mina turned an expectant
look, but Ellie shook her head, placed a hand on the dog’s neck, and
maneuvered the animal as close to Chris as she could manage. “Just
you,” she said, applying a bit of pressure to get her meaning across.
“Down, girl, lie down. I need you to keep him warm.”
And protect
him until I get back.
Mina wasn’t as big as a shepherd, but lying at full
length her body heat ought to help. “Stay,” Ellie said, and put her
hand up like a traffic cop. With a soft whine, Mina stretched her neck
and nosed Ellie’s fingers.

“Love you, too, girl,” Ellie said, and planted a big kiss between
Mina’s ears. She turned to go, then hesitated. Reeling out a length
of leather cord, she ran a finger over the lines of that upside-down
peace sign.
For protection,
Hannah said. Kneeling, Ellie gently slipped
the cord over Chris’s head. He was a boy, almost a man, and his neck
was bigger, so the cord was snugger, the charm only reaching to the
pulsing hollow of his throat.

And then—don’t ask her why—she kissed him, too. Just a touch
of her lips to his forehead, the way her daddy used to:
Love you, kiddo
.
“For luck,” she said.

Dumb luck, that’s what it was. With the
tick
of that rock, Tom’s training snapped into place, his reaction as instinctual as breathing: a quick
shift of his weight, a backhanded swipe with his left as he spun, the
Glock slashing up and around on a steep trajectory because he was
aiming for a chin, a cheek.

He missed. Hell, he couldn’t even see what he was trying to hit.
The Chucky had put itself in a direct line with the setting sun and
was coming for him at his blind spot to boot. All Tom made out was
a gray-white blur and two dark coins as the Chucky read his move
and dropped below the arc of his swing. Tom went into a staggering
spin, his momentum pulling him off-balance as the Glock whirred
through empty air. In the next second, the Chucky drove in low and
hard, plowing into Tom’s back, wrapping him up, pushing him into a
blundering swan dive.

“Ugh!” Tom felt the air gun out of his throat. His arms shot out
to break his fall, and he thought,
Roll; plant your fist and roll, get on
your side!
If he hit face-first, it would be over, fast. He could see his
end: the Chucky straddling his back, riding him, grinding his face
into the deadening snow, holding him there until he suffocated. Or
maybe the Chucky planned to simply dump him on his ass. One
good slam of a fist to stun him and then Tom would spend his last
thirty seconds on earth with his hands wrapped around the spurting
rip in his throat as his blood pulsed hot and wet, and the Chucky
watched and waited for Tom’s veins to run dry.
Roll, go to roll, ro—

He tried; he really did. But two things happened in quick succession, like a one-two punch. The first was the jolt of his right boot
on a hidden rock. Tom stumbled, his right leg crimping at the knee.
The Chucky had him so low around the waist that the little stutter
should’ve been enough for it to set its feet and drive Tom’s chest the
rest of the way down. But Tom
was
trying to roll, and while this
Chucky was good—and it was
very
good; it knew how to anticipate,
how to fight—Tom still clutched the Glock in his left hand.

The gun,
her
gun, saved his life, not because he could shoot or use
it as a club but because his hand was fisted in a death grip, and a rigid
fist is stronger than an open, empty hand.

Tom’s left arm speared the snow. His fist held; his elbow didn’t
crumple and his wrist didn’t break. It hurt like hell; electric jags of
pain jittered through bone. Grunting, Tom willed his arms to remain
ramrod straight, rigid as pipes. For one split second, Tom was holding
both himself and the Chucky on his shuddering arms, his heaving
chest hanging a foot from the snow.

Then the moment slipped past and Tom was gathering himself,
thinking,
I’ve got one shot.
Jackknifing his left knee to his chest, he twisted, cranked his left
hip, then drove his leg back as hard and fast as he could, putting all
his strength into a single, vicious kick. He felt when his boot made
contact, the jar of it in his hip; understood from the give that he’d
struck the Chucky’s left thigh, high above the knee.
It was a perfect, incredibly lucky shot. Howling, the Chucky
crumpled left. Shifting his weight, Tom squirted right, pushing off
with his stronger, left leg, fighting against the suck of deep snow as
he spun free.
And he still had the Glock. In another time and place, he might
have pitched it. The weapon was useless as anything other than a
club, while fingers could clutch and claw and gouge eyes. But if the

gun got away from him—say, the Chucky made a grab—with enough
pressure on that frozen trigger, the weapon might just fire. Tom
couldn’t take the chance. On the other hand, if he threw it away, the
Chucky might go after it. In a way, letting the Chucky try would be
smart, a way of diverting its attention so Tom had time to strike with
his KA-BAR. After all, a knife didn’t run out of bullets.

But he couldn’t do it, couldn’t make himself let go of the Glock.
That gun had just saved his life. It was an omen, a sign, as if Alex was
fighting by his side. He could feel her in the tang of adrenaline on his
tongue, the blood that roared through his veins. So he hung on to
that weapon—and her—as he tugged his knife from its sheath.

All right, come on.
His gaze strafed the rubble-choked flat. For a
disorienting moment, he thought the Chucky was gone. It was possible. A peroneal strike, one that caught the nerve above the knee,
could incapacitate an enemy anywhere from half a minute to five.
Maybe it knew it didn’t stand a chance, or spooked easily. But God,
if it
was
gone and got help, brought friends—worse, if that Chucky’s
buddies were already
here
—he might as well slit his own throat and
save them the trouble. He probably could take two or three, but without a decent weapon . . .

Wait, the Bravo.
But it was behind him, by his pack and that ski
pole, and he just didn’t want to risk a peek. Besides, he simply didn’t
believe the Chucky could’ve moved
that
fast.
So where is it?
Frantic,
the panic starting to climb his spine, he jumped his gaze west, toward
the woods. There was still a good hour before it was full dark and
plenty of ruby light left, but long shadows now blued the snow. Still
. . . at the edge of those cantilevered trees, he was certain something
moved.
Someone else out there?

A shushing sound, to his right, and then a small squeal, the sound
of icy snow squeezed by pressure. As he wheeled around, he realized
just how lucky he was to still be alive.

The Chucky had been there on the snow, recovering, silently
gathering itself, all along. Now it was clawing to its feet, but in his fear
and disorientation, it looked to Tom as if the snow itself had assumed
human form. The Chucky’s camo over-whites were the best he’d ever
seen. Even the boots were sheathed in white. Somewhere along the
way, though, the Chucky had lost its white balaclava. So instead of
only the dark coins of its eyes—which were
strange
—he saw its lips
skin back in a snarl, and that brown snake of a braid.

Because
it
was a
she
: about the same age as Alex, but much taller
and more muscular. He still outweighed this girl, but his height
advantage was gone, and she was fast, a good fighter.

Well, the crows didn’t come at her. Instead, they oiled out of Ellie’s
way as they had before. Once she was out and down the ramp, she
waded through birds, walking alongside the ramp all the way back to
where it joined up with the death house's front wall and sliders. She
knew nothing about geometry, but the point where the ramp was
married to the entrance was over her head. At her last physical, the
pediatrician said she was of average height:
Four feet, plenty of room to
grow into your shoes.
Whatever
that
meant. But she thought that what
she had in mind really might work.

Running all the way back to her horse cut fifteen minutes down to
five, although it gave her a stitch in her side. Even with the exercise,
she was also very cold, shivering as the sweat between her shoulder
blades and over her face immediately began to wick away.

“Oh-k-kay,” she said to the mare. Her fingers were shaking as
she wrapped up its reins. Her face was so frigid her lips was numb.
“C-come on, girl.” But Bella was having none of it. Balking, the
horse huffed an enormous snort and dug in its hooves.
“Please,”
Ellie
panted. Hooking the bridle, she tried dropping her weight. Skinning
its lips from yellow peg-teeth, the animal twisted, trying to angle for
a bite while pivoting and aiming a back hoof for a swift, decisive kick.
Gasping, Ellie snatched her hand back as the horse’s teeth clacked
on air and dodged a hoof that whizzed past her head to plow into
her primer pail with a solid
chuck.
The pail went airborne, sailing for
the trees and spilling a trail of tip-ups in its wake. The heavier auger
whipped around in a complete circle, like one of those spinners on a
game board.

“Easy, easy,” she said. Screwing up her courage, she darted forward and grabbed the auger’s handle, dragging it back before Bella
could slice a leg. “Calm down. I’m sorry, okay?”

This was bad. Without Bella, she would have to either wait or
walk, and both were out.
Too long; we’re wasting time.
Fuming, impatience spiking her skin so badly she wanted to peel right out of it,
she forced herself to wait while Bella stomped and blew. She had to
fix this. Her teeth sawed at her cheek. How did you calm down a
horse?
Reins are brakes. You stop a runaway by taking away the head.
But
she had to be
on
the horse for that, and besides, the mare wasn’t running anywhere. Her problem was that the silly thing didn’t want to
go
anywhere
. Must be a way to take its head, though.
She thought back over
what she knew about spooked horses. Precious little. But there was
a book . . .
Flicka
? No,
Black Beauty
. The fire.
James ties a scarf around
Black Beauty’s eyes.

Her hand crept to her neck. Chris had her coat, but she’d kept her
fleece and wool scarf. Carefully, slowly, she unwrapped the loops of
wool, then bunched the scarf into a fleece pocket.

“Okay, girl,” she said, moving much more slowly than she wanted.
The mare was quivering; she could see its hide twitching. When her
hand found Bella’s bridle again, Ellie resisted the urge to pull or do
anything but stroke the animal’s neck. “Easy,” she said as the horse
tossed and blew a loud and long horsey raspberry. Ellie kept stroking,
telling the horse,
It’s fine, that’s good, it’s okay
. When the horse was
only breathing and no longer stamping, Ellie inched out the scarf,
thought for just a second—
you watch; this only works in books
—then
reached up and draped the scarf over Bella’s eyes.