Nightfall (7 page)

Old words came to her.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
She remembered them from what Mitch had written. Right then, she wanted to read the letter over again. Maybe it contained more information she could use. But that would wait until they sorted out this mess.

Jenna leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at the group. She could imagine Mason as a wolf or a leopard, maybe a lion. But according to that verse, there should be eight of them. And not everyone would survive. She knew that. In Old Testament terms, fatlings and lambs were often sacrificed.

“You were smart, all of you,” Mason said, cutting into her thoughts. “I'm amazed you made it all the way out here without gear or training.”

Without turning his back on their uninvited guests, he crossed to the hearth and knelt in front of Penny. She regarded him with big unblinking eyes.

“So you're their leader, huh? I should do business with you?” To Jenna's surprise, his tone remained patient and gentle. The girl peered up at him, thumb in her mouth. The idea of her being in charge of
anything
was strangely endearing, but Jenna couldn't imagine following her through a monster-infested wood. “How'd you know we were here?”

No reply. Just that big-eyed stare.

Breaking the fraught silence, Bob asked, “Hey, does that radio still work?”

Mason shrugged. He walked to a nearby coffee table and clicked on the analog radio, then fiddled with the dial. Static hissed through one channel after another. Nothing at all on FM. The eeriness of
nothing
was hard to overcome. Jenna shivered once, then popped the casserole into the stove. Mason switched to AM and scanned slowly, his fierce concentration making her want to touch the twin lines between his brows.

The thought shocked her. No, she didn't want
that
. Jenna shook her head reflexively. She wanted to hear another human voice. That was all. She'd just been cooped up with him for too long.

By the time Mason hit 1500 on AM, she'd almost lost hope.

“... if anyone hears this, I'm at the nature outpost and research station. Those things are all over the area. Everyone else is dead. I'm broadcasting on all emergency frequencies. I repeat, if anyone hears this ...” The man sounded weary. “Ah, what the fuck's the point?”

Prescience skittered through Jenna like cold wind on her skin.
There's our number eight.

Mason enforced rationing after their first meal.

Beside him at the kitchen counter, Jenna put a pan of water on the stove to boil while he opened yet another round of tuna, peas, and condensed soup. She wouldn't meet his eyes and had yet to speak about what was on her mind—not their guests. Something deeper. Her body radiated unease, burrowing beneath his own skin.

Strange, the idea that he could gauge her thoughts. But he trusted his instincts. This new awareness of her was instinctual. When they'd first been in the cabin together, Mason had fought unexpected sexual impulses. Those impulses remained—an uncanny awareness of her as a woman. Now the hair on the backs of his arms stood on end too.

“There won't be enough food for the whole winter.”

He looked down into green eyes that seemed to have aged in only a few days. “No.”

Jenna inhaled deeply and pushed the air out of her mouth. “I don't regret it.”

Her unexpected allure, insufficient resources, and the stink of fearful bodies didn't wear on his nerves like their two biggest problems.

Edna. And Dr. Chris Welsh at the nature station.

Mason had known about the place, of course. He had spent weeks mapping everything in these woods, but he hadn't imagined anybody there would survive the change.

“Hey, radio fans.” The stranger's voice crackled out of the little transistor. “Next, we have sports. Those bloody Dogs mopped up again! They're on a hot streak, eh?”

Tru sighed. “This guy is lame. He deserves to be eaten.”

“Watch it,” Robert said, glancing at Edna.

“What'll you make me do, eh, Bob? Run laps? Or maybe you'd like a little alone time with me in the locker room.” Tru stuck two fingers in his mouth and sucked with gusto.

Bob's face darkened to a shade just short of furious. He had a temper under that nice-guy exterior. “Do that any better,
Midnight
, and folks'll think you have experience.”

“Only 'cause you forced me, perv.”

Mason watched the interplay with a sense of detachment he didn't want to lose. To care about these people would be a wasted effort. They'd be dead before he learned their birthdays.

But dissent in the ranks couldn't be ignored. If they fought each other, they'd be willing to challenge Mason too. For his sake and Jenna's, he couldn't allow that.

“Weather report,” Welsh went on. “Couldn't tell you, frankly. Haven't been out of the basement in, well ... days. Let's say seven. So still late fall. Okay, weatherman Chris says ass cold for the foreseeable future. Here's hoping I see spring.”

They'd listened to him like Roosevelt's fireside chats, forty-eight hours on from first hearing his transmission. His voice revealed a lot. First up, he was a native of western Canada. Second, he was alone and losing his grip. Sometimes his words slurred as if he'd been drinking or suffering insomnia. Mason wouldn't blame him for either.

Among the babble he admitted was to preserve his own sanity, Welsh provided clues about his background. He'd studied cougars in the Rockies, and he'd hot-wired the ham radio he used for his broadcasts. That had Mason thinking zoological knowledge and technical know-how. Maybe even cold-weather survival skills to complement his own.

Welsh also had a stockpile of food. About four hours into the show, he'd narrated a list of provisions at the station. They would need every scrap of those supplies to survive the winter.

Edna moaned, the wounded animal in the corner. Her skin had taken on a gray sheen, almost silver with the way she sweated. Not much longer now.

Mason stalked from the tiny kitchen to switch off the radio. Fatigued eyes looked up at him from where they'd scattered around the fireplace.

“Enough,” he said. “It's time for the hard news.”

The ever-present sneer on Tru's face seemed designed to rankle anyone old enough to vote. “You get off on ordering people around?”

“And you get off on carving up your arms. We all have our ways of coping.”

Tru paled. A good guess, but Mason regretted the hasty slam. Shithead or not, he was still just a kid. With the whole world in chaos, the adults in the cabin were all he had left to rebel against.

“I have something to show all of you,” he went on, returning to the kitchen.

Jenna watched him with impassive eyes and said nothing as he opened every cabinet—the full extent of their supplies laid bare.

He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “I equipped this cabin with provisions enough to sustain two people through the winter.”

“Cozy,” Tru muttered.

“Two people, kid—not seven.”

One by one, the adults and even Tru glanced to where Edna rested half-conscious on the floor. Okay, six people.

“When the snow comes, we'll be trapped here,” Mason said. “There won't be any game to hunt because all the animals have fled.”

“That's true.” Angela glanced to where her daughter lay curled with her teddy bear, always checking to see if her daughter would be scared by harsh facts. But Penny seemed more interested in the world behind her deep blue eyes.

“I noticed it too.” Jenna moved next to him, spreading an unfamiliar tingle along his skin.

“So no fresh game,” Mason said. “We can't sustain our numbers here.”

“We could chew on beefy boy.” Tru hooked a thumb at Robert.

Mason ignored him. “I'd hoped the snow would be here by now, because the demon dogs don't do well in the cold. But at this point, it's to our advantage that the weather's held.”

Bob stood up and stretched. “How do you know about the dogs?”

“I just do.”

“Show him. All of them.” Jenna touched between his shoulder blades and sent a shiver down his backbone. “That's how you got these, right?”

An image flashed in his mind. A lamb. And fangs lunging for its neck.

Jenna flinched and yanked her hand away. For long moments, they stared at each other. Pupils dilated, her unblinking scrutiny dug into his bone marrow. Her nostrils flared like a predator catching the scent of its next meal. And Mason wanted to kiss her. Nothing to do with romance or even desire. No, the kiss his body needed was deep and primal, the kind that led straight to sex.

She shook her head, looking as dazed as he felt. “Take off your shirt, Mason.”

That wasn't going to help, but he obeyed her quiet command. With one quick jerk of cotton, his T-shirt lay on the ground. He stood facing Jenna and the kitchen, his back to the others. He heard their gasps, distant somehow, as Jenna's gaze moved over his bare chest like a touch. He couldn't move or speak or breathe. She traced every inch of skin, her expression predatory.

If she didn't stop looking at him like that, he was going to make unconventional use of the kitchen counter, no matter who watched. Need and power hammered in his blood.

“What the hell
is
this?” he asked her.

His low, private whisper broke the hold. She looked away, and Mason faced the odd congregation.

“Let's just say I've been fighting these things for some time,” he said. “They used to be people. I saw them up and down the East Coast, moving inland by degrees, devouring everything and spreading their evil.”

“I heard about that,” Angela whispered. “But it just sounded too ridiculous. It would've been on the news, people turning into creatures. The New Media Coalition said—”

“Forget what they told you.” Mason retrieved his shirt and pulled it back on. “Eastern Europe went silent first, yeah? It's been years since anyone heard reliable news from across the pond. It's our turn now. The change has been transforming the world for a long time, but it's moved on to producing those monsters. They're unpredictable, and smarter than they look. One advantage we have is that they don't like the snow. But no matter who they used to be, they're our enemies now. Never forget that.”

Silence greeted his statement. He could only hope they were strong enough to steel themselves and ditch the lives they'd known before. That hard break was the only way to deal with the new reality.

Jenna broke the tension. “How's Edna doing?”

“I'm awake,” the woman answered as Bob knelt to check on her. “If you know about those creatures, then you know what's happening to me.”

Aw, shit.
She was so damn lucid. Preternaturally so. No incoherence despite a sky-high fever, which meant she was that
other
kind of doomed. This wouldn't be pretty.

He crouched on the hearth of the cold fireplace, a few feet from her pallet below the built-in bookshelves. “You have probably two days. No more than four.”

Edna nodded.

“This is ridiculous,” Bob said. “She's got a bite, that's all. She'll be fine.”

Mason studied her. “What do you think, Edna? What's it feel like to you?”

Her eyes looked cataract-covered, glazed with thick white mucus. A fine trembling claimed her entire body. “My skin itches—not the bite, but all over,” she said through chattering teeth. “Worse than the flu.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“And ...” She shook her head and looked to the ceiling.

“Edna?” Bob put a hand on hers, but Mason noticed how he hesitated before touching her. “What is it?”

“I keep dreaming of spiders.”

“And you guys think
I'm
messed up,” Tru said bitterly.

Edna didn't seem to hear him. “I
was
a spider. Isn't that strange? I worried about the cold because it was my time to die, but I kept working to make sure the eggs were all right.”

A shiver chased across Mason's scalp.

“
Charlotte's Web
,” Angela said, hushed.

“Yes, like Charlotte. I
was
Charlotte.”

“Edna,” Mason said. “You have to listen to me. Soon, your body will try to ... shift. And it'll most likely fail. It's not a pretty death. But I can end it for you. If you want me to.”

Robert's face twisted, horror stricken. “You're kidding, right? This is sick!”

“Is she a danger to the rest of us?” Angela's eyes gained a keen, hard look.

“I don't think so,” Mason said wearily.

“So you're thinking of killing her?” Bob scrambled to his feet and stood like a linebacker. “I won't let you. She's a
guidance counselor
, for Christ's sake!”

“Robert, let him talk,” Edna said softly. “I can barely even see. What choice do I have?”

“You can choose to die now.” Mason stood, his words calm but his posture a silent counter to Robert's threatening stance. “Or you can help us.”

“Help us get creeped the fuck out,” Tru mumbled. “Mission accomplished.”

Her milky gaze found Mason's. “How?”

“We need to get to that nature station, or we'll starve. It's about three miles from here in a secluded patch of woods. I'll need two days of short daylight patrols to figure out the most direct route by foot. And I'll train everyone on the firearms—crash course. Then we'll go.”