Monsters

The woods here were wild, crowded with nearly impenetrable briars and underbrush. Diving into the snow, she shucked in the rifle, then swam through a narrow gap between two ragged, brambly clumps growing so close together their branches twined. She grimaced as briars forked her hair, tugged her wounded scalp—and, oh hell, the medic pack was still under the spruce. No time, no time. When she judged she was far enough, she wormed around on her stomach, figuring she’d have to coax the animal, but the wolfdog was already squirting in. Smart boy. It knew something wicked was coming this way.



Casting one anxious glance back, she saw no bright red gumdrop trail of blood marking the way. Okay, this has to do, because, honey, we are out of time. Heaping snow into the gap, she put an arm around the animal’s neck, tucked her feet under her bottom, and hunkered down. The wiry growth was so thick, she thought they might be invisible—if they stayed absolutely still. This really could work. Hunters sat in blinds all the time; they perched in trees for hours. And fifty yards was half a football field. A lot of distance in which to get herself lost. Many people overlooked the obvious and what lay in plain sight every day. Smell . . . she couldn’t do anything about that. There was no real wind here, not even a breeze. But she kept thinking of Darth, and then the wolf totems hanging next to that stuff sack. Something important there . . .



There was a heavy thud, and then another. A snap then crack of branches and brush, the crunch of snow. Not being very subtle, but maybe they thought they didn’t need to be. The chemotherapy fug of that Changed boy was everywhere now. Yet the scent from that man in black, the eye in that red storm, was distinctive, too. Her nose balked, tripping over his odor: definitely old, that same fustiness of wet wool socks, but also saturated with a stench of polluted gray-green water reeking of burned urine and foamy detergent that was the stink of the Chicago River after a storm.



As much information as her nose gave her, she couldn’t see more than a foot or two beyond her sheltering bramble canopy. Somehow that made it all the more frightening, because she couldn’t assign a face to that dreadful odor, knock it down to size, make it human. It was like groping in the dark of a haunted house where what you imagined was always so much worse than what was real. Stop, stop. Clenching her jaws, she bore down, trying to force back the fear threatening to swamp her mind. She was shuddering, every muscle trying to get free of her body and run run run. Calm down, you have to try to stay in control. It wants you to bolt, show yourself.



She closed her eyes. On the screen of her lids, the go-go push-push was like blood pounding through arteries: the red storm working fingers through her eyes, in her mind, down her throat, and then into her heart, fisting the muscle, forcing it to a different beat: push-push push-push go-go go—



“Where are you?” The sound was so sudden she nearly vaulted out of her skin. She pressed her lips together so tightly they tingled. Under her arm, the wolfdog was still as death. Don’t move, don’t freak out. Wondering which of them she was coaching, she hugged the animal a little closer. Her teeth were chattering clickity-clickity-click. Ramming her tongue between her jaw, she bit down to stop the noise and focus. Don’t bolt, little bunny; that’s when the hunters get you, when they see the flash of your little white cotton tail.



“I know you’re close. I can just feel your edges.” Even shouting across half a football field’s worth of woods, the voice carried a certain mellow, authoritative reassurance that made her think of that actor who played Lucius Fox in the Batman movies. “My name’s Finn. What’s yours?”



That answered a question. This wasn’t read-your-mind telepathy, which would’ve been just too voodoo for her anyway. However he’s doing this, he can’t find me, doesn’t see me. Wait, that wasn’t quite right. She remembered those bizarre shifts in perspective, that sense of distance collapsing—and that had happened to her before, hadn’t it? When she was on Blackrocks, about to jump: an out-of-body experience the doctors said was a temporal lobe hiccup provoked by fear and fueled, maybe, by her baby chick of a monster.



So . . . Finn was an epileptic? Or took medicine? She thought so. That polluted smell was very strong but artificial, like those Changed with their chemo stink. Maybe taking the same drug—because it had to be a drug. She just knew. So how did this work for him?



The important thing: the voice was no closer, and the red storm couldn’t get a fix. Which meant he was only guessing, calculating the probabilities.



Just as important: that chemotherapy, cisplatin fug wasn’t getting stronger. So that altered, engineered Changed couldn’t smell her either. Could be a couple different reasons for that.



Or maybe only you. She hugged the wolfdog tighter. The animal’s ears swiveled like a bat’s, but that was the only movement it showed at all. Or it’s the two of us, together.



“Why are you still alive?” Finn’s push-push amped up. “There’s something different about you, isn’t there? And about that boy . . . Simon? Maybe I’ll pick him apart and find out.”



If that polluted red storm thought she was going to go all girly, Finn had another thing coming. But how to fight him? Cancer, she knew. One thing the shrinks tried to teach you was how to wall off the monster, put it in a box, lock the door.



“Come on,” the red storm said. “I know you’re there.” Oh bullshit. Then you’d stop talking and your bloodhound boy would’ve already found me. The thought was angry, a kind of mental shove—



And then she caught herself. What had he said? I feel your edges.



Okay, there was something in that. The only way you could feel an edge was when you hit something solid. It’s like closing your eyes and trying to find your way around a wall. You only know where it ends when your fingers hit thin air. Maybe the red storm found her by the obstacles she threw up to protect herself.



“What’s your name?” Another strong red push-push, like the sweep of radar, trying to get a fix. “Come on, I can help you.” Push-push. “We have a lot in common, can’t you see that?”



She didn’t see it, and now she couldn’t let him see her. Don’t give him an edge. When he pushes, don’t push back. The idea of doing nothing scared the living daylights out of her. It would mean letting this wash through her without leaving a stain. She remembered Peter’s bookshelf, and Dune: that mantra about fear and mind-killers.



Walk away. Let it go through me, over me. She knew how to walk away. She’d done that the day she’d left for the Waucamaw and a fight she knew she couldn’t win. So walk away from this. Don’t give the red storm edges to feel.



But would that work? Wouldn’t the monster, deep in the lockbox of her mind, get out? Even if it didn’t, the lockbox was like a drop of black ink on white paper. If the red storm saw it, she was done.



Unless I go just as dark. Closing her eyes again, she stilled her mind just as the wolfdog had frozen to a statue by her side. There’s only night, and no stars.



Go dark.



Don’t move.



86



“Take the shot,” Jayden chanted. “Come on, Chris, take the shot!” “One more second,” Chris said. “If she surfaces too close . . .”



He and Jayden were standing a good thirty feet from the edge, worried that the jagged shelf was too unstable and might crumble. In the



water, at least fifty feet further out, the Changed boy was still there,



but Ellie was not. His first shot was meant to startle. Ellie had been



too close, and he’d been afraid to try for a kill shot. So he’d fired high;



saw the boy flinch away at the rifle’s whipcrack and his hold on the



little girl break.



Wait until she clears, wait until you see her. He took up as much slack



on the trigger as he dared. Ellie, Ellie, come on, you were just there, you



were just . . .



“There!” Jayden cried as the little girl’s head ruptured through the



surface not six feet from the Changed. “Take it, Chris, take it!” “Ellie!” Chris shouted, hoping she heard and understood. “Don’t



move!”



The crack of the shot. The kick against his shoulder. A sudden red



mist ballooned above the Changed’s shoulders, and then the headless



body listed left and floated, buoyed by a bubble of air trapped under



the dead kid’s parka.



“Ellie!” Jayden was clutching a coil of rope he’d knotted to his



packhorse’s saddle. “Swim this way! Can you swim?”



“I don’t think she can do it,” Chris said. At the sound of her name, Ellie had turned an almost listless circle. She wore the shocked expression of the lone survivor of a car crash. Ten feet beyond her was Mina, who looked just as spent. She won’t make it. Stripping out of Jayden’s parka, he sucked air against a slap of cold on his bare chest, then dropped to the ice and began working the laces of his



boots. “I’m going after her.”



“Are you crazy?” Jayden clutched his shoulder. “You’ll drown, too.” “No, I won’t,” he said, stripping off his boots. But people his age



did die; he’d read about a fifteen-year-old kid who’d fallen through



ice and had a heart attack from the shock. “Even in freezing water, it



takes a little while, and I won’t be in that long. You’ve got the rope,



you’ve got the horse.” Peeling off his socks, he scooped up the rope



and threw in a quick bowline knot. Ellie would be too frightened and



probably too weak to hold on, but if he could get the rope under her



arms . . . He stood, screwing up his face against the sting on his bare



feet. “All I have to do is get to her. Then you pull her in.” He would



try to grab the dog, too, or at least coax it to follow.



“All right.” Jayden’s jaw set. “Go. Hurry, Chris. Go go go!” Blowing out two quick breaths, Chris inhaled deep and long, then



plunged off the ice. The cold was much worse than he’d expected,