Shadows (31 page)

“Stop,” he said. There was a warning thrum to his tone. “Lena.
Please
.”

“Stop. Lena. Please,” she mimicked, and then in her new and cruel voice: “She’s dead, Chris, and if you want to think about something, think about this: she didn’t love you. She used you and then she ran
away.
”

“No,” he said, sharply. “She wasn’t you, and I’m not Peter.”

That hurt, but she was glad. Anything was better than this bone-deep fear. “Oh, you got that right,” she said. “Peter wasn’t a scared little
boy
.”

“I’m not scared—”

“Oh, bullshit.”

“What’s going on? Why are we fighting each other? Why are you
doing
this?” he asked. She didn’t hear anger there, only a species of betrayal and wonderment, as if from a puppy that couldn’t believe its owner had just kicked it. “What do you
want
from me?”

I want you to make me real.
It was the first and most urgent thought.
I want nothing else to matter but right now, right here, on this goddamned floor, in this awful place.

But what she said was, “I want to be safe.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt her fury dissipating, like a storm finally blowing itself out. “I w-want someone to tell me everything’s going to be all right. I just . . .” A sob boiled into her throat. “I w-want the world to c-come back. I kn-know it won’t, but that doesn’t mean . . .” She was hitching now, her shoulders shuddering. “That doesn’t m-mean I d-don’t want—”

This time, when she felt his arms hug her to his chest, she did nothing but weep as if there would be no tomorrow. The chances there would be weren’t very good anyway. And this time, nothing happened between them, but that was all right. That was just fine.

Later:

He wanted her to sleep. “Things always look better in daylight.” Oh, she doubted that. But she stretched out again and let him run the zipper. When he was done, he lingered, then laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think it was him, Lena.” “Him?”

“The boy from Oren?” He paused, maybe expecting her to say something. When she didn’t, he prompted, “The one Greg brought back the morning Alex ran away?”

“Oh.” Her memories were gauzy and a little unreal, as if her life’s story were penned in an old book belonging to an extinct race from another planet. “Yes. I remember that.”

She could tell that wasn’t the answer he’d expected, but he continued, “The kid was eight, maybe nine. But your brother’s thirteen, right?” She took so long to answer that he said, “Lena?”

“Yes, that’s right,” she parroted back. “He’s thirteen.”

“That’s what I thought. So . . . I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him, Lena. That means we might find him once we get back up toward Oren.”

“Okay. Thanks, Chris.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Me, too. But it’ll be okay, Lena. Everything will work itself out. Just get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, a little surprised that the tears stayed put this time. As he rose, she added, “Watch out for that tea.”

“What?”

“The tea.” She pointed. “The cup’s by your left foot, next to the stool.”

“It is?” There was a tiny
snick
, a spray of light. The cup seemed to leap into being from the darkness. “Wow. Thanks. I didn’t see that.”

“No problem.” The bright yellow wink bouncing off the aluminum dazzled her eyes. Wincing, she rolled away and onto her side. A second later, she heard the click as Chris switched off the flashlight, followed by the shush of fabric, the slight squall of cold metal, a small sigh as he settled on his stool.

Pulling the sleeping bag up to her chin, she stared into the darkness, first at the fuzzy blue ghost images of that aluminum cup and then, as they dissipated, at the blocky silhouettes of lab tables and stools. Her gaze panned over gas spigots and chromed faucets, a glassy heap of broken beakers, a tumble of textbooks, a fan of torn pages from a lab book. The white face of a clock, its hands frozen at twenty-one minutes past nine, floated above the classroom door.

It’s dark. I shouldn’t be able to see this, but I do.
Her eyes burned, but she had no more tears.
Something’s happening to me, and I don’t know what, and I want it to stop; I just want things to be okay.
Yet this she understood: things would never be
okay
for her again. Whatever memories of a brother she’d possessed were gone. She knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she must
have
a brother. The feeling was right. But there was an . . . an
emptiness
inside, the way there was when you chunked out the pit of an avocado then scooped out all the soft innards, leaving only skin. Where there had been
brother
, now there was a blank, a kind of grayed-out mental afterimage with no face, no name, and not a flicker of memory.

There was, instead, nothing.

Nothing at all.

They came three hours before dawn.

Chris hadn’t woken Nathan to take a shift. After what had happened with Lena, he couldn’t have slept anyway. Instead, he waited, alternately guilty and hollow-eyed with dread.

He’d been so
stupid.
He did like Lena, just not
that
way. Did he? No. He had to protect her. Lena was sick and scared, as confused as he was. She wasn’t thinking straight. No matter what she said, she was in love with Peter; he knew that. He couldn’t shake Alex either, and didn’t really want to, not just yet. Maybe hope was a terrible thing, but he held on to it anyway, despite what he’d said to Lena. So, better to let this whole thing just go and concentrate on what he had to do next. One step at a time.

He flicked a glance at the dim huddle beside his stool. Her breathing was even. Sleeping. No more dreams either that he could tell. He returned his gaze to the snow. God, he hoped he wasn’t right, but he just couldn’t get past the idea that the Changed boy had
chosen
to come out of hiding when he hadn’t needed to—and he had gone for Lena.

She was unraveling before his eyes. Before they’d kissed—stupid, stupid, stupid—what was all that other stuff ? It
had
sounded like a confession. Yet when they were talking about her brother, he’d sensed her sudden uncertainty. Could be dehydration, maybe. Factor in no real sleep for days and she was apt to be a touch confused.

Wait. He raked his teeth over his chapped lower lip, considering. Could she be dying? Oh, boy, he’d never thought about that. And if she was dying, they all were. He was just as exhausted, and Nathan was so much thinner—one stiff breeze and he’d blow away.

But she’s sick to her stomach.
He chewed off a strip of dead skin.
Mornings are worst. So maybe
—

Movement. On the snow. His gaze snagged on a dark slink. Even without the binoculars, he knew this was no wolf or coyote. He thought it was another boy, but one kid in a bulky parka looked pretty much the same as any other.

He watched as the kid made a beeline for the bodies. When Chris had come up with the idea of piling a goodly number of the dead out there on the snow, he’d simply told Nathan that he didn’t want to risk any Changed trying to get into the school. That had enough truth that the old man hadn’t questioned him. They thought ten bodies ought to be enough for the night, but Nathan hadn’t understood why Chris decided that two piles of bodies were better than one.

Now, he held his breath as the dark, distant figure crept toward the first pile, which Chris had deliberately positioned closer to the woods. The shadowy figure lingered there for a long moment— and then kept going.

Shit.
His stomach iced even as his brain argued,
Relax, you don’t know what this means; it might not be anything more than he’s checking them both out.
He watched as the kid knelt over the second tumble of bodies.
If more of them come and most head to the second pile, then it counts.

Within minutes, more slinks did appear, the Changed making their way across the open field, trickling over the snow like black ants homing in on spilled sugar. In total, he thought there were about thirty. Only a few stayed with that first pile. Mostly, they clustered around the second. From what he could see through binoculars, these Changed were pretty primitive, too: baseball bats, golf clubs. He spotted one with a human femur. Another had an ax. No guns, though, and no throwing weapons. Knives would be tough to see in the bad light, but he thought they mainly used their teeth and their hands, gnawing flesh from joints, snapping and twisting off arms and legs the way you tore apart a turkey’s carcass at Thanksgiving. A wing here, a drumstick there. Skulls weren’t like hips or knees, where you really had to work to get past thick protective ligaments. A head was like a bowling ball balanced, precariously, atop a flimsy tower of vertebrae, held in place only by cords of thick shoulder muscle and sinew that were easily chewed through.

He turned away from two kids playing tug-of-war with a tangle of intestines and looked down at Lena, now deeply asleep.
Please,
he pleaded silently,
please, Lena, keep sleeping. Don’t wake up. You shouldn’t see this.

Mercifully, she didn’t, but he saw plenty. The Changed remained for what was left of that night, squabbling over the bodies, with no real cooperation that he could see. They were more like a flock of vultures. Not once did they look at the school.

The worst moment was when one Changed—he was almost positive it was a boy—reeled out something long and ropy from the pile of bodies, then looped his prize around his neck: once, twice.
Oh boy.
Chris felt his stomach plummet. He squinted through the binoculars but couldn’t be sure. Might be guts. From a distance, you might almost think the kid was double-looping old-fashioned linked sausages. That would be weird; he’d never run into any Changed who actually wore body parts. But this kid might be doing nothing more complicated than carting off a mid-morning snack.

Or . . . it could be way more complicated. He wouldn’t know until first light.

A half hour before dawn, the Changed oiled their way across the snow and into the darkling woods, vanishing like smoke. The night drained away. The moon had long since set, so he had to wait until a smear of thin morning light appeared. That second pile of corpses reminded him of the wreckage of a platter of chips and dip. Not a whole hell of a lot left, only leavings strewn over trammeled snow and ruined clothes. He looked hard but didn’t see it. That wasn’t necessarily bad. He lowered the binoculars. His arms were lead pipes and his eyes raw and gritty with fatigue. They had a long day ahead and he should rest, but he had to be certain, which meant he had to go out there, alone, right now,
before
Lena and Nathan woke.

Lena stirred only once as he slid from his stool. His heart scrambled into his throat, and he froze, the hackles along the back of his neck spiking with alarm.
No, no, no! Not now, not now!
After a moment, Lena sighed and let out a thick, incoherent mumble before falling still once more.

It was the longest walk of his life, like marching to a scaffold. Outside, the air was deeply cold but dry, and his eyeballs seemed to shrivel. Breathing hurt. The hard crunch of his boots over icy snow was so loud that he winced. There was a pressure at his back, like someone watching, but every time he glanced back, only the school stared. With every step, he half-expected hands to slip around his throat from behind or look up and find faces staring from the thick gloom of those woods. He had never felt more alone. What would he do with what he found—or didn’t find? What then? He could turn back. He was probably wrong. If he found nothing, that didn’t prove anything. Even the Changed got cold.

But, God, I hope I find it
, he thought.
I really, really do.

But he didn’t.

Two hours later, they led the horses from the gym. The sun was out; the snow glittered, diamond-bright. Chris’s eyes, already raw, began to water.

“Chris,” Lena said. They hadn’t said much to each other all morning, but now her eyes brushed over his with a look he couldn’t decipher. “I’m sorry. I’ve looked everywhere, but I can’t find it. Are you
sure
you don’t know where my scarf is?”

Slipping on his sunglasses, he hid his eyes and lied a second time. “Nope,” he said. “Can’t say I do.”

“You should leave the dog,” Mellie said as Tom hefted Raleigh onto the swayback’s saddle. Catching the dog’s scent, Mellie’s horse, a mild tobiano paint, nickered. Mellie gave its poll a reassuring scratch. “An extra horse only slows us down.”

“I don’t care,” Tom said, briefly. Turning aside, he began laboriously tying off the ropes securing the bulky blue tarp with its sad bundle. His right hand complained, but he forced the muscles to obey. Dixie’s wound had healed enough that he felt comfortable riding her, but he worried that Raleigh’s body would upset her, so he’d settled on the Kings’ horse. As he worked, a solitary crow perched on the flagpole let out a mournful cry that sounded like a person hurt bad:
Oh. Oh.
Or maybe it only sounded that way to him.

“But the ground’s frozen.” Weller was astride a big, very muscular blood bay. “You won’t be able to bury him.”

“Then I’ll burn him. Or I’ll pile rocks. That dog saved my life. He belonged to people I care about, and I am not leaving him here to rot.” Tom gave the last rope a grim tug. Even with the bandage and salve, his hand bawled. Be a while until it healed. “What about the other animals?”

Weller looked impatient. “I told you. I know a farm we can stop at on the way. Three old guys. Brothers. They’ll care for them.”

“You sure they’ll come if there are hunters on the way?”

“As sure as we can be,” Mellie said. “Tom, we can only do our best.”

“But the animals didn’t hurt anyone,” Tom said, stubbornly. “They don’t deserve to die for this.”

“And they won’t,” Weller said. “But we have to leave now. You want to save that girl? You make the bombs and we blow that mine, and then we march in there and you get Alex out of that prison house.”