Horizon (03) (9 page)

It seized Parker and sank its teeth into his neck. Parker screamed and fought, but the bleeding creature held tight.

Glynnis shot Parker first. A neat hole appeared in his forehead and he went still. When she fired again, the Beater stopped flailing, but it never let go, and the pair sank below the water locked in their deadly embrace.

There was a shocked silence. Only Glynnis’s voice never stopped as she yelled at John to turn around.

“This is a goddamn train wreck,” Dor muttered. “Cass, we’ve got to take out the boat. I’ll row, you shoot.”

“I can’t,” Cass said, horrified. “I have Ruthie.”

“Leave her with the others. It won’t be for long. It’s already getting dark.”

“Dor…” Panic sparked pain behind her eyes. How could she tell him, how they all hated her, how no one trusted her? Who would be willing to help her now?

But as he looked deeply into her eyes, whatever he was about to say died on his lips. Somehow, he understood—not the specifics, but the shape of her fear.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Then leave her with Sammi. Tell her I said she should watch Ruthie until we get back. She’s just inside the hall. I’ll go grab my gun and meet you right back here in a few minutes.”

“But—someone else, can’t you get someone else?”

“Cass!” His voice exploded, so loud and desperate that people turned to stare at him. “There
isn’t
anyone else. I don’t know who can handle a boat and I’m not willing to take chances right now. If we don’t act fast, those things might get bold and try to swarm… And…who else is going to shoot with me?”

Dor was a rogue, a renegade, and he knew it, knew how he had squandered the others’ trust to pursue his own hell-bent pastimes. In that moment Cass finally understood how ill suited he was to New Eden, how much he must hate the collaborative government, the council with its endless deliberations, the constant hedging and search for concordance—it must have been torture for Dor to try to find his place here. No wonder he left the islands when he could, no wonder he took the brute-force jobs that left his mind free to stew and boil.

Dana, Harris, Neal—none of them liked Dor, none of them had ever asked him to serve on a committee or take part in a planning session. They were content for him to do the menial labor that kept him occupied and uninvolved.

It was true. None of them would shoot with Dor—because none of them would take direction from him.

“Go,” Dor said, and then he bent in close and brushed his lips against hers—once, and then a second time. He lingered, and it was not so much a kiss as a demand, a promise, an acknowledging of the need they never spoke of, and his mouth on hers was hot and hard and bruising.

Cass broke away and rushed toward the hall, pushing the stroller in front of her. It jounced over a root and Ruthie woke and began to wail, and Cass pulled her from the stroller, abandoning the thing in the middle of the yard, and ran the rest of the way.

She was putting her daughter in danger once again, trusting her to someone else’s care once again. What kind of mother set her child aside to go on a suicide mission? Cass—Cass was that kind of mother. She’d risked Ruthie for the bottle, she’d risked her for a moment’s pleasure in the sun, for stolen moments of desperate passion, and now she was risking her to plunge headlong into a mission that was bound to get her and Dor killed, a mission no one was asking her to undertake, on behalf of a community of people who hated her. If by some miracle she saved anyone, they would never thank her.

But she had no choice. Because if she did nothing, again, then she didn’t deserve to be anyone’s mother, anyone’s guardian. Not in these times. Not in what the world had become.

Chapter 15

INSIDE THE HALL she blinked and paused, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior. There—near the window, all of them, clustered on the long couches. The boys in the front, the girls huddled behind them.

“Sammi!”

Cass called her name, already running toward her. When the girl turned Cass saw not the hatred she expected, not the bitterness and rejection—but pure terror. It was written on all of their young faces, and Cass knew that they had seen: the swimming, and the upending of the canoe, Parker going down and the Beater and Glynnis’s two killing shots.

“Please, I need you to take care of Ruthie,” she said, out of breath. “Just for a little while. Your dad and me, we have to help.” She kissed Ruthie—both cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids.

“Mama,” Ruthie whimpered.

“Mama needs to go help Dor. You stay with Sammi and be a good girl, hear? And I’ll be right back, I promise. I promise.”

“Should we come?” one of the boys said—Kalyan, the reckless one. “Do they need us?”

“Right now they need you to stay here,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Someone will come. Soon. To tell you what’s going on.”

Sammi held her hands out for Ruthie, who snuggled into her arms as Cass turned away and ran.

She passed the stroller in the yard, pitched sideways with one wheel lodged in a divot in the earth. She’s fine,
she’s fine she’s fine she’s fine,
she told herself. Sammi would keep her safe. Sammi might hate Cass, but no one could hate Ruthie, no one could hate her beautiful baby girl. Ruthie was innocent, Ruthie had never hurt anyone, it was just her terrible bad luck to be born into this world, this time. And no matter if Sammi told everyone in the world that Cass had suffered the fever and somehow gotten better, she knew now that the girl would never reveal that Ruthie had, too.

The crowd near the shore had grown—it looked like every Edenite was there. Cass scanned the crowd and found Dor near the front. He held the Glock against his leg, and in his other hand was a gun Cass didn’t recognize, a small steel semiauto.

She hadn’t fired a gun since coming to the Delta. The last time had been during their escape from the Rebuilders, and her last kill had been a citizen, not a Beater, something only Dor and Sammi and the girls they’d rescued from Colima knew, something she had hoped to put behind her and never, ever let Ruthie find out.

But already her fingertips thrummed and twitched to touch the cold steel, her palm was ready to wrap around the grip.
I am a killer,
Cass thought, and the thought made her neither happy nor sad. Only ready.

Dor was standing near the edge, talking to Neal, who had made it back to the shore. Someone had given him a blanket and he was standing wrapped in it and shivering, his lips blue. The overturned canoe hadn’t traveled far downstream, and Cass saw the reason for this small stroke of luck—it had snagged on a tree that had fallen on the opposite bank, but the current tugged at it and there was no telling how long it would hold.

There were other boats—half a dozen skiffs and aluminum rowboats, all stored on the other side of the island. In typical New Eden fashion, they were secured and cleaned and well maintained and hardly ever used. Everyone used the one-lane bridge—well tended and even better guarded—if they wanted to get to the mainland. Besides, there was little sport to be had from floating downstream or fighting the current on the way back.

Glynnis and John preferred the canoes to the other craft for their maneuverability, and the two of them had been able to handle the mostly unnecessary duty of shore patrol by themselves. When they weren’t working, the canoes were simply stored on the grassy banks. Having two had seemed like a great backup plan, but the second had never been needed until now.

A woman took Neal’s arm and led him away, talking to him softly.

“I need someone to swim out and get the canoe,” Dor said, his deep voice carrying over the crowd. “We’ll need both of them.”

Everyone stared at him, making way for Cass to pass, and she joined him at his side. She began strapping on the hip holster he’d brought.

There was murmuring, and then voices—angry voices—began to be heard.

“Why don’t
you
swim out?”

“Someone’s gone for the rowboats.”

“How’d you get those weapons?”

“I said,
I need someone to swim out.
Whoever goes will be too cold and exhausted to also paddle effectively after,” Dor yelled, silencing them. “Before we lose more people—look out there. Do you see? They’re
still coming.
”

Cass turned, along with the crowd—it was true. The Beaters had to number close to a hundred now, their milling and jostling making it hard to count. The sun had sunk nearly to the horizon, illuminating them from behind, outlining their ghastly silhouettes. Glynnis and John were upstream, picking off a clump that had ventured ankle-deep into the water. All along the shoreline now, dead Beaters bobbed, gently bumping up against the bank. In several places the mud was red with blood.

Directly across from them, a Beater had gone down, but was not yet dead. Glynnis must have missed the spinal shot, and it twitched and spasmed. Two of its closest companions grabbed its hands and legs and dragged it up onto the bank, up the incline, depositing it on dry land, while others looked on. For a moment Cass thought she was seeing some sort of new ritual, honoring the fallen, but then several of them bent over the dying thing and began to bite it, tearing off shreds of skin and crowing the way they always did when they ate. Blood poured from the downed body and it twitched harder.

They were usually unenthusiastic about feeding on each other once finally dead, but something about the death throes apparently made the prospect more appealing, and it was not uncommon to see them devouring their wounded.

“Oh, God,” someone said nearby.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

“This is ridiculous. They can’t keep this up forever.”

Cass didn’t know if the speaker meant the Edenites or the Beaters, but she knew that Dor was losing them. They wouldn’t listen to him. They held him in contempt. And things were only getting worse here.

“Please!” she yelled. “Please, someone, get the canoe. I’d do it, but Dor needs me to shoot.”

“Getting in that water’ll kill you,” a woman said. “It’s got to be forty degrees. Do you know how long—”

“I know!” Cass turned on her, furious. “I know it. It’s a risk. But do you just want to stand here and wait for them to come get us? Look, Neal made it. He didn’t have to go as far, it’s true, and we need a strong swimmer.”

“
You
go,” an angry female voice said. “I’ll shoot. I’ll go with Dor.”

Everyone turned to see who spoke.

It was Valerie. Incredibly, since the voice sounded nothing like hers. She stood off to the side of the crowd, her face knotted in fury, her hair released from its band, tumbling around her shoulders. She’d forsaken her Pendleton jacket and skirt for a pair of tight black pants and a man’s coat, and her hands were bare, clenched into fists.

“Do you even know how to shoot?” someone demanded.

“How hard can it be?” she screamed. Her eyes drilled into Cass, glinting with fury, and Cass noticed for the first time that Valerie was actually quite beautiful, with her dark features and pale skin, her arched brows and long neck. “If
she
can do it, I can.”

“This is not the time,” Dor said, his voice hard. He had lowered his tone but in the hush of the shocked assembly, it carried just fine.

“Roger. You go.” Dor turned his back on Valerie, and Cass, who’d been watching the other woman, saw her deflate, saw the fight leave her when she realized her desperate gamble had failed. Valerie had been willing to sacrifice everything—her life, his, the lives of everyone in New Eden—just to force him to acknowledge her, to claim her and love her.

But there was no more time for that.

Roger Taugher was staring at the canoe, trying to gauge whether he could make it. He was in his twenties, strong, a former soccer player who often led pickup games in the yard and entertained the little kids with tricks with the ball. Ruthie adored him.

He started to tug off his jacket and kicked off his boots.

“You’ll freeze!” the young woman next to him protested.

“Clothes’ll just slow him down,” Dor said. “Everyone else, give him room. The minute he gets back with the canoe, you all take him to get warm—Cass and I will head out.”

“I’m almost out of ammo!” Glynnis called, as they paddled toward a group that was splashing farther downriver.

“Dana. Go to the storehouse, bring back the box of 12-gauge shells. Glynnis uses the Browning, but she’s good with a handgun too so bring one. Don’t forget extra ammo for that. Take someone with you—Hank, you go.”

Hank nodded, but Dana hesitated, staring at Dor with a mixture of contempt and anger. “Look, Dor, we need to consider—you can’t just—”

“What the
fuck
do you think I’m doing, Dana? If I let you all take charge you’ll still be deliberating while the rest of us are being dragged off. Now, are you going to go or do I need to take the keys off you myself?”

For a moment it seemed like Dana was going to refuse. But he looked around the assembled crowd, and seemed to sense what Cass did, what the rest of them did—a turning of the tide of sympathies. She knew that few people liked either of them, herself or Dor, especially after Sammi’s revelation and Valerie’s outburst.

But they also knew that Dor could lead them.

Roger was down to his long underwear, and he threw himself into the river and came up already stroking powerfully toward the canoe. This was the easy part, since the current was in his favor. A gasp went up from the crowd, which turned to watch him.

“Get the shit, Dana,” Earl said. “I’d go myself but I’m too slow.”

Hank clapped a hand on Dana’s shoulder, and they took off at a brisk jog toward the sheds.

“Earl, can you coordinate getting the other boats?” Dor ticked off on his hand. “Get the Bronco from the shed, hook it up to the trailer. Sharon, Elsa, can you give him a hand?”

The two women who ran the auto shop nodded.

“Drive right across the yard, don’t bother to take the road. Don’t forget oars. When Dana and Hank get back—” Dor searched the crowd, his gaze falling on Harris, the quietest member of the council. “Harris. You need to take charge of arming people. Okay? You can do that? Good candidates would be Terrence, Shel, Fat Mike. Do
not
give a weapon to anyone without experience. Do you hear me? That’s important. It’s worse to have them in the wrong hands than to leave them unarmed.”

Harris nodded. “I got it.”

“Good. I doubt you’ll be able to get all that coordinated by dusk, and with any luck they’ll be gone by then. But this isn’t wasted, because we’re going to be ready in the morning. And I have a feeling we’ll need to be.”

Roger reached the canoe, and was struggling with the branch. Sharon and Elsa ran in the direction of the auto garage. Harris moved among the crowd, assembling his shooters.

Everyone else focused on Roger. He got the canoe unhooked with little trouble, but as soon as he started dragging it back toward shore, it was clear that he was in trouble. He sidestroked with only one hand free, kicking hard against the current. But the canoe dragged in the water and slowed him down.

“Go, Roger,” a man said near Cass. Another man repeated it, and then they were all saying it, quietly.

Though the struggling man could not possibly hear them, Cass felt their energy, their frantic hope. The sun slipped a little lower in the sky and orange brilliance shone along the horizon, the last gasp of the day. In an hour the sky would be velvety dark blue, and the Beaters would not be able to see. Their tiny pupils, altered by the fever so that they were no longer able to expand, would not let in enough light for them to make out rough shapes, much less details. If they could hold off this wave until then…

Roger paused, his hand on the lip of the canoe, and treaded water for a moment. Cass saw him gasping for breath. For a moment he went still, and was it her imagination or was he sinking down, down, under the water—

“Damn it,” his girlfriend exclaimed. “Do something, don’t you see he can’t make it, someone do something, save him!”

Cass wasn’t the only one to turn to Dor. He was deliberating, his jaw pulsing the way it always did when he focused on a problem.

“You could send someone else in for him.”

“And lose two men?” Dor answered quietly; their conversation was not meant for anyone else to hear. Valerie was as good as forgotten in the moment, and Cass saw that she knew it, her face blanched the shade of parchment. Defeat contorted her fine, frail beauty, and she turned away.

“Roger’s our best swimmer,” Dor continued, reaching for Cass’s hand. She didn’t think he was even aware of touching her, and in that moment she understood she was his mooring, the source of his steady courage. “No one else could have gotten as far as he has.”

No one else could bring him back in—that’s what he was saying. Around him the voices had turned imploring—
Roger, go, you can do it
—but when his girlfriend screamed his name again, he finally shook the water from his eyes and resumed his weak strokes.