Monsters

“Hell if I know, and I’m not going to figure it out tonight.” Her head ached, and she needed sleep. Clicking off the headlamp, she settled down next to the wolfdog, which groaned and put its chin on her belly. “I like you, too. If we ever see my dog again, you can’t eat him, okay?” She stroked the animal’s ears. “Should give you a name.”



A name. She thought about that. Finn wanted my name. He asked twice. Why?



“Something important about a name . . .” She scrubbed the wolfdog’s chin. “So how do you feel about Buck? Great book, and you fit. Me, too. We’re both halfwild now, aren’t we, boy?” That made her think of Peter’s paperbacks. She should take a few. Long walk ahead, but that was all right. She needed time to think about what to do.



Still fidgety, she rolled onto her side and heard the crinkle of that Almond Joy wrapper in the pocket where she’d stowed the candy. So tempting to eat the other half. But she should hold off, maybe wait for a real celebration.



She let go of a very long sigh. “Because, sometimes,” she said to Buck, “you just feel like a nut.”



PART FIVE:



MONSTERS



90



“Tom!” Weller, far behind on his grullo and barely audible over the thunder of hooves. “Wait, Tom, wait up!” No, he couldn’t wait, wouldn’t stop, not just yet, maybe not ever. Go go go. His head was the size of the sky, the panic in his chest a claw. Get out, get out, cut the wire, go! Tom kicked his horse again. Felt the mare dig even deeper. The world streamed: snow and choking red funnel clouds from rotor wash; evergreens and the thump-thumpthump of helos; fingers of oaks scratching blue sky; body parts falling to earth in a ghastly rain; and that dead dog, careful, careful, they put bombs in everything, in dogs, in trash, in dead kids, and go go go.



If he’d stayed one more second, he might’ve put a bullet through Mellie’s head. That he imagined what her head would look and sound like if he did frightened him even more.



Can’t let it get me. He swept past a stack of burning tires; bloated dogs bobbing in sewage; a pile of rubbish, and that bottle that might not hold water at all; rubble where, five seconds ago, there’d been a house with children and laundry snapping on a line. Can’t let it take over. Past a phalanx of screeching, wailing women, shut up, shut up, shut up—and Jim: Jim, in the Waucamaw; Jim, bellowing, charging . . .



“Tom!” Weller bawled. “Hold up before you lame or kill that poor horse, goddamn it!”



Of course, Weller was right. This was a bad move, stupid. A single, powerful jab through the diminished hard pack into a tangle of branches or rocks would cripple the mare. He’d have to put it down—shoot it like Jim—over something he could’ve prevented.



“Ho, girl, ease down, ease down.” Hearing his own voice helped. He pulled left, enough to turn the mare’s head and break that gallop. Beneath him, he felt the horse’s chest strain for breath. Gobs of thick foam lathered its face to the poll. “Sorry, girl,” he said, patting the animal’s shuddering neck, feeling the thrum of blood under his own, still-healing flesh. He was panting, too, and couldn’t tell if that was only sweat on his cheeks. To his right, a Humvee wallowed at a near-ninety-degree angle, the driver’s arm only just visible in yellow canal water because body armor was that heavy. He looked away. “Ease up, girl. We’ll be okay.”



But only if you get control of yourself. Turning the mare, he watched as Weller slowed his own horse to a trot. Get it together, Tom, or you won’t be able to help anyone.



“Jesus.” Reining in his blowing animal, Weller armed his forehead, then shrugged his bum right shoulder. “I won’t ask what the hell you think you’re doing.”



There was brown blood caked on Weller’s neck below the jaw he didn’t have anymore, and Tom could see the useless worm of a blue tongue. Not real. Averting his eyes, Tom pulled in a breath that reeked of diesel fuel and burning oil. “I had to get out. I couldn’t think . . .” He gathered himself. Come on, Tom; look at him; Weller is fine; the rest is a damned flashback. He forced his eyes back and thought, to his immense relief, that Weller could use a shave. “What Mellie wants makes no sense. You have to know that.”



“I do.” Weller threw him an irritated look. “But there are better ways to get your point across than challenging her in front of the kids. Only puts her back up.”



“I know. I left because I didn’t want to completely lose it in front of them.”



“Oh no, it was so much better for the kids to see you tear out of camp like a crazy person.” Screwing up his mouth, Weller spat, sighed, then prodded his silvery-white gelding north. “Come on, might as well walk the horses the rest of the way to the church and pick up Cindi and Chad. We can talk this out. You and me, Tom, we’ll figure a way.”



“How? Mellie won’t listen. She thinks you’re better off without me. Maybe she’s right.”



“Don’t be stupid, Tom. Those kids need you, and I think you need them just as much.”



“Then we have to stop her.” After five seconds, he realized that the smell of fuel and oil had vanished, and he no longer heard the ululating wails of women. “She’ll push those kids until there’s an accident, Weller, or worse. Mellie will keep going until those kids are dead.”



“Tom, take a breath.” Mellie’s tone was that of a playground monitor heading off an eight-year-old’s tantrum at being forced off the jungle gym. “I hear you, but aren’t you supposed to be heading for the church? We’ll talk when you come back, all right? Now is not the time for this discussion.”



“No, Mellie, you don’t hear me and this is the time.” Tom tossed a glance at a clutch of some two dozen kids. Only Luke stood apart, throwing worried looks, clearly wanting Tom to put on the brakes. The rest excitedly milled around the concrete cap of a cistern behind an all-metal equipment shed where Tom had set up shop several weeks before.



He’d been afraid this would happen. Kids loved a ka-boom. It was why he hadn’t allowed anyone to watch him put together the penetrators they’d used in the mine. Gathering what was left—the det cord, the C4, caps, detonators, everything—he’d divvied it up, stashing most where no one would think to look. He only wished he’d remembered the aluminum powder and magnesium ribbon. And that bottle of glycerin. Stupid.



“Yes, it’s great that Jasper’s motivated. I agree he’s smart. But Mellie . . . seriously? A ten-year-old monkeying around with thermite? Trying to slow the reaction?”



“Are you saying it can’t be done? It was your idea, wasn’t it?” “Yes, for the time delays at the mine, when I thought we might need it.” Thermite was a great primary incendiary. The problem was the reaction was very fast. He’d hit on the goofy idea of using fire retardants to stretch the reaction time, and it had worked. The last time he tried, he got nearly ten minutes, but the ratios had to be just right and he was still uncomfortable with an unpredictable incendiary whose temp topped over three thousand degrees. “Unless you’re planning to rob a bank, I can’t think why you need something that can melt steel. Mellie, these are children. I know what I’m doing.”



“You do? Have you taken a good look in the mirror?” She flipped a dismissive hand at the Uzi, on a retention strap so his hand was on the pistol grip at all times. Jed’s Bravo was slotted in a back scabbard. The Glock 19 rode in a cross-draw on his left hip, and he carried two knives: the KA-BAR in its leg sheath and a boot knife as a last resort. “Armed to the teeth. Riding out to the church every day as an escort? You look ready for Armageddon.”



“I . . . what I do is . . .” Was what? Only common sense? That was a lie. Never far away to begin with, all the old horrors—flashbacks, nightmares, that awful crushing panic—had roared back after the fight on the snow to fuel the black monster growing in his chest. Whenever he walked into the farmhouse or barn now, he immediately scanned all the exits, tried to work out the fastest way to egress. Get out, move, go, evade. Two days ago, when a group of kids got between him and the door, a flood of adrenaline drowned his mind and then he was in a cold sweat, heart pounding, thinking, Thirty-two rounds in the Uzi, nineteen in the Glock, five in the Bravo, as he methodically devised an escape route, which children to shoot and in what order he should kill them. That scared him so badly he’d bolted, shoving Luke aside and banging out into the snow where he’d run, fast, air ripping his lungs until the razor panic dulled.



To Mellie, he said, “Don’t twist this around to be about me, all right?”



“But this is about you. You want us to move. You want us to find a more secure location. You hide our det cord, our C4, everything, and all of a sudden, you have decided we don’t need to go to Rule. These are not your decisions, Tom. I’m in charge, not you.”



“Last time I looked, I was in charge, too.” Weller had been so quiet, Tom forgot he was there. “Tom’s right. Maybe there are better things we should be teaching those kids.”



“Oh, how perfect.” The frost in Mellie’s tone was unmistakable. “A convert.”



“Those things were out there,” Tom said. “I fought one. I saw more. We need to move.”



“That was two weeks ago, Tom, and where are these monsters? Don’t you think that if there were something to be worried about we’d have seen it by now? Now, I’m sorry about the mine. I’m sorry about Alex. But you need to get over that already.”



“Mellie,” Weller said sharply.



“If I had a nickel every time someone suggested I should just get over Afghanistan already, I’d be a millionaire five times over,” Tom said. How could you get past a splinter that had worked into your eye and scratched deeper every time you blinked? “Hear me out, all right? Let’s leave”—his throat tried to knot—“let’s leave Alex out of it. Let’s talk reality. Luke is fourteen, Cindi is twelve, Chad’s thirteen. That leaves, what . . . three other twelve-year-olds?”