Shadows (13 page)
Authors: Ilsa J. Bick
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Horror, #Young Adult, #Adventure, #Fantasy
“Well, you lost all that blood. Strong or not,
young
or not, you’d have died if Mather hadn’t found a donor.”
What had the old man said?
Lucky for you, it’s not contagious.
Oh God.
“You . . .” The words wanted to wedge in his throat and stay there. “You gave me
blood
f-from . . .”
“Yes, I did, and here you woke up still you.” Finn drew his hand over his brow. “Whew. Talk about a nail-biter.”
The words tripped over his teeth. “How m-much?”
“Every last drop. Bled that little Chucky dry. Even that animal knew he was going. You could see it in his eyes. I got right up in his face. Little prick tried taking off my nose, but old habits die hard. I cut off his eyelids so I could watch the whole thing. It was very
gratifying.
”
He was as close to screaming as he’d ever been in his life. “You’re militia, right? But who are you people? What the hell do you
want
?”
Finn’s expression darkened. “We’re what’s left, and you will show the proper respect, or so help me God, I will carve you into kibbles and feed you to the Chuckies a piece at a time. I’ll save the eyes for last. Eyes, they really like. Something about that little
pop.
”
The tent’s flaps parted. Through the gap, Peter saw the slant of snow. Mather ducked in, followed a moment later by a man.
Oh my God.
“Where would you like it, sir?” Lang—
his
man,
his
runner— snapped a crisp salute. Lang’s snow-salted uniform was identical to Mather’s, and he carried an automatic rifle. He spared Peter not a single glance.
“Right here.” Finn patted an empty gurney, then slipped Peter a wink. “Don’t take it too hard now, boy-o. Lang served under my command in ’Nam.” Finn said it as if the country were a sweet potato. “Imagine how pleased I was when he reported how much you respected his combat skills.”
Lang was Finn’s man. A sweep of dread blackened his brain as he remembered something else. Lang and Weller had served in Vietnam
together.
But that doesn’t prove anything. Weller tried to save my life
. But wait. Something Weller had said suddenly marched before his inner eye like that electronic ticker tape at Times Square:
You remember when your time comes, it was
me
did this.
Oh Jesus.
A deep and darkling sickness crept through his veins like a contagion born on a plague wind. Weller hadn’t saved his life. Weller was under
orders
to keep him alive. But why?
“Busy putting two and two together?” Finn lifted an eyebrow. “They said you were a smart boy.”
They.
So, only Lang and Weller? Or were there more? How many men had Peter thought loyal but who were really working against Rule?
And it’s personal for Weller. This is a grudge, something to do with me, but what?
“What do you want?” he rasped.
“God moves in a mysterious way, Peter, His wonders to perform. He rides upon the storm and deep in unfathomable mines.” Finn’s eyes sparkled. “Why, I believe you
know
all about mines, don’t you?”
Mines.
All the breath left his lungs, and the words struck him dumb. How did Finn know that? No one outside the Council did, not even Chris.
Especially
not Chris.
Finn turned as Lang held back the flap and two more people bullied in on a frigid cloud of fresh snow. Finn’s man, bald and bucktoothed, had his hands firmly clamped around a long metal rod Peter recognized at once as an animal control pole, the type with a swivel head. That was important, because no matter how much a wild dog might fight, it could not strangle itself on that nylon noose. A good thing, too, because this animal was putting up quite a fight.
Only . . . it wasn’t a dog.
The boy was no older than Tyler, completely naked and so scrawny the birdcage of his ribs showed. His skin was scored with healing cuts and scrapes, angry sores, and frozen mud, and from the smell, shit caked his feet. He made no sound at all, but then again the noose was tight, the fat worms of his veins bulging as he thrashed.
“Come on, ya little bastard.” Bucktooth’s lips peeled back as he gave the cable a vicious tug. Gagging, the boy’s knees hinged.
“Barnes!” Finn snapped. There was a stinging
crack
as Finn’s open palms connected with Barnes’s ears. Barnes didn’t even manage a scream, and went down in a heap. Finn grabbed up the pole, then loosened the noose until the boy sucked in a long, thin, shrieking breath. Cursing, Finn aimed a kick at the felled Barnes, but the old guy was already unconscious.
“Sir,” Mather said to Finn. “I think this might not be the best—”
“Shut up.” In a flash, Finn had his revolver out. The silvered muzzle hung an inch from Mather’s nose. “Not another word, Doctor.”
“Yes, sir,” Mather said.
“That’s two,” Finn said.
The sound of the shot was enormous. Mather’s skull blew out the back in a red mist. She dropped like a tree.
Finn turned to Lang, who was white-faced and absolutely still. “Get someone in here to clean up the mess. And tell Doctor Grier he’s just been promoted.”
Lang ducked his head once, then scuttled out. Peter lay still as death. He watched Finn turn back to the boy, who was on his knees now. The boy’s filthy hands were still clamped down around the noose, but he was breathing normally. A froth of red spit foamed his lips.
“There now, Davey,” Finn crooned as gently as one might try to calm a feral dog. “That’s better, isn’t it? Are you hungry, boy? Want something to eat?” He looked up as Lang returned with two other men. “Lang, grab hold of Davey here,” he said, handing over the control pole. “You two, hold up with Barnes and Mather a minute. They’re not going anywhere. Help Lang put Davey in restraints.” He patted the empty gurney beside Peter’s. “Right here, next to his new roomie.”
As the guards hurried to comply, Finn turned his attention to the late Mather’s instrument tray. Humming, he finger-walked the instruments, then selected a hefty, thick scalpel. The metal winked a hard, bright yellow as Finn stooped over Mather’s body. The old woman’s eyes were still jammed open. Her mouth gawped in a slack, surprised O. Finn reached in, reeled out Mather’s tongue, and began to saw.
He’s crazy.
Peter’s throat convulsed, and then he was rolling his head to one side and vomiting the water he’d just drunk along with a thick gob of sour phlegm and mucus. He gulped air as the room spun.
He’s nuts, he’s insane.
“There we go,” Finn said. Peter opened his eyes to find Finn standing over the gurney to his right. The boy was firmly tethered in leather restraints. The boy’s chest heaved. His glittery crow’s eyes were fixed on Finn’s glistening, gore-soaked hands. “Care for a bite, Davey?”
The boy gasped as the first thick, ruby teardrop splashed to his lips. A mad hunger chased over the boy’s face as he tongued the blood then opened wider, craning his neck so the blood could drip directly into his mouth. To Peter, he looked like a baby bird waiting for its mother to cram a worm down its throat. Peter thought of how
he
must have looked to Finn as the old man offered him water. There was, in fact, no difference.
Then, viper-quick, the boy’s head darted. Finn jerked back just as Davey’s teeth clashed and bit air where Finn’s pinky had been.
“Bad boy.” Finn gave the boy’s cheek a quick, hard flick. “No, Davey, no biting.”
Snarling, the Changed boy surged again. Finn backhanded him with a punch this time, right below the boy’s eye, and then waited as the guards strapped a wide band of leather across the boy’s forehead.
“All right, let’s try again.” Finn sliced off another chunk of Mather’s tongue with the scalpel. It took three more tries and as many punches before Davey let Finn drop the drippy meat into his mouth without snapping at the old man’s fingers. Peter watched as the boy held the morsel in his mouth then worked the meat from cheek to cheek.
“Go on.” Finn sounded just like a kindly old grandpa slipping his favorite grandson a Hershey’s Kiss, sure to spoil his appetite, on the sly. Without looking around, he added, “It’s quite interesting, actually. I’ve studied a number of them now. You
do
realize that the . . . what do you call it? The Change? From my observations, it’s not over yet, boy-o, not by a long shot.”
Something turned over in his chest. The Change wasn’t
over
? The thinking part of his brain had known this was a possibility, but no one in Rule had seen that happen to a Spared.
No one’s safe?
Peter felt his mind cringing away.
No, he’s wrong. I’m Spared. It’s not going to happen to me, or Chris, or any of the other Spared. It’s been too long; it’s been
months.
That can’t be right.
“Do you know what I wonder?” Finn’s face turned a little dreamy. “I
wonder
what it would be like.”
“What?” Peter managed. He slicked his lips. “You mean . . . to Change?”
“Yes. Self-awareness is a blessing and a curse, Peter. You know when you’re coming down with a cold. There are signs and symptoms. So what is the Change like? Do you sense it? Would you even know? You must. The dying have this sixth sense when the end is near. Even the insane know when their hold on reality slips. They may lie to themselves, of course, but . . . they know.”
“I . . . I d-don’t . . .” He was shaking. His teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. “I don’t c-care. I don’t w-want t-to know. It d-doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, but it does, and you
should
care. To understand your enemy—beat him at his own game—you must allow yourself to inhabit his brain, see with his eyes. Now, this is not to say ‘seen one Chucky, seen them all.’ Oh no. For example, take what happens to a Chucky once he’s completely turned, like our Davey here,” Finn waved a hand at the boy. “A fresh Chucky is an animal. Some stay wild. Others evolve, and some appear to be smarter than others. It’s the bell curve in action, boy-o. Why, I bet there’s a Chucky rocket scientist in the mix, somewhere. Oh, I’d so love to catch a normal kid a good
long
time before he goes native so I can measure the rate at which he reacquires function. I’m
especially
interested in the ones turning now. Their course must be so different from the first wave, don’t you agree? And how do they communicate? We know some work together, travel in bands and packs and gangs and tribes and so forth, while others are loners. So are we talking telepathy? Subaudible vocalizations? Scent? Body language? Alone? In combination?”
“What are you talking about?” Peter whispered. He was now thoroughly and deeply afraid for the first time since the world went dark. “You want to see if I’m going to Change? I’m not. It’s been too long. You want to know about Rule? You can torture me, but I won’t tell you.” When Finn didn’t reply, Peter said, “For God’s sake, what do you
want
?”
“You mean a smart boy like you can’t figure it out?” Dropping to one knee, Finn used a thumb to pull down Mather’s lower eyelid, then slid the scalpel into the pink tissue tethering Mather’s right eyeball to its socket. He worked the blade, scraping bone. “You disappoint me, Peter. Despite what the movies say, not all Vietnam vets are crazy. Some of us even get to be senators. Me, I’m a student of the natural world. Like Darwin, come to think of it. Evolution, natural selection, survival of the fittest—all unfolding before our eyes. We are the authors of the new origin of species, boy-o.”
“What—” Peter was sick with horror. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Finn said. Mather’s eye dangled from his fingers by a bloody stalk of nerve. “Experiment.”
Eight days gone.
Alex had kept track, scratching a hash mark into the toe of her right boot with the metal prong of her watchband. Over the past eight days, she figured they’d covered anywhere from fifty to sixty miles. Getting her bearings was a challenge. The days were overcast, the nights starless, and their group kept to the deep woods. But she thought they were moving on a kind of circuit, going first west but looping north. They stopped at regular intervals, too, during which time the Changed hunted, chowed down, caught a little shut-eye.
The good news, all things considered, was that she wasn’t dead yet.
The bad news: she might draw that short straw, and soon.
It all came down to the math.
Eight days ago, on that first Saturday morning, the Changed had six Happy Meals to choose from, counting Alex. After all the ruckus, she’d assumed she was next on the menu. Yet it seemed that the Changed—well, Wolf anyway—had different ideas. Although conscious, Spider was still groggy, so Wolf had wandered up and down, eyeing the herd, that gory corn knife in hand. Twice, he lingered over Alex, now trussed between the old lady, Ruby, and the sickly guy whose name, she would discover, was Brian. Wolf ’s eyes touched on her, then flitted away before jumping back. Playing with her? She wasn’t sure. Maybe he was as puzzled as she. Were their experiences similar? Did he feel what she had, that odd sidestep into
her
consciousness? Could he
read
her? No, she didn’t think so. During the fight on the snow, she’d surprised Spider— and then she remembered how Wolf had been
startled
when she let that gob of spit fly.
So maybe it doesn’t go both ways.
She’d given Wolf a narrow look as he moved down the line, studying each captive.
Maybe I can use that somehow.
In the end, Wolf had chosen a small woman, tiny and brown as a wren, for that Saturday’s main course. What puzzled and then appalled her was how the woman didn’t struggle or protest. None of the others did either. Instead, they watched, impassively, as Acne and Beretta took the woman out of the line and led her, stumbling, across the snow a short ten yards to where Wolf waited. When they released her, the woman tottered but didn’t fall. She stood, swaying, head down, shoulders slumped. Having replaced his cowl so his face was visible only from the nose down, Wolf waited a long beat, then knotted his fist in the woman’s hair. The little woman let out a small cry as Wolf gave her head a vicious wrench that exposed her throat and made her back arch like a bow.
That’s when it hit her. Wolf was going to kill her right there, in front of them. Her stomach tried to crawl into her chest.
I can’t watch this.
Repulsed, still furious, she looked away.
I won’t give them the satisfac—
The blow was stunning, a ferocious, open-palmed
smack
that sent Alex’s head whipping to the right. There was a sharp stab of pain as her teeth clamped her tongue. Her mind hitched, and she tottered, her balance already precarious because her ankles were still hobbled together, and she nearly went down. She was saved only because the sickly guy, Brian, had enough bulk to steady her.
“Please.” Brian actually tried pulling away, as if worried that he might give the appearance of being helpful. “Just do what they want.”
“Like hell.” Her face felt like a bomb had gone off in her cheek. It was a wonder her jaw wasn’t broken. Panting, she pushed away and looked to see which of the Changed had blindsided her. To her complete lack of surprise, Slash was there and, judging from the loose set of her shoulders, more than happy to let go with another sucker punch.
“Listen to Brian,
please
.” It was the old lady, Ruby, at her other elbow. “Don’t fight them. Just do what they want.”
“No.” Head ringing, a warm brackish taste filling her mouth, Alex spat blood. “How can you just
stand
there?”
“Because it’s better than getting beat up.” To her left, a surlylooking woman with the hard edge of an ex-biker queen snorted. “If you’re smart, you’ll just be thankful they gave you a pass and shut the hell up.”
“Sharon’s right.” Ruby’s eyes were wild. “Just go along. You—” Whatever else Ruby had been about to say ended in an
ulp
as Slash slid her hand around the old woman’s twig of a neck and squeezed.
“What are you
doing
?” Alex cried. Ruby’s eyes bugged; her scrawny limbs thrashed in a spastic herky-jerky dance as her mouth flew open, but there was no sound, not even a squawk. “Stop!”
“Sweet Jesus.” It was a barrel-chested man, near the end of the line, whom she would later learn was Ruby’s husband, Ray. His face was ashen with horror. “For God’s sake, just cooperate and she’ll let her go!”
“All right.” When Slash only bared her teeth in a ferocious grin, Alex screamed, “All right, all right, you bitch, you
win
! I’ll look, okay? Just let her go!”
Still grinning, Slash held onto Ruby’s neck for another fraction of a second, then spread her fingers.
“Gunh!”
Gagging, her face the color of a fresh bruise, Ruby tumbled to the snow, nearly pulling Alex down as well. Alex halfturned, moving on instinct to help the retching old woman to her feet, before she caught movement and looked up to see Slash closing in again.
“I’m not.” Straightening, Alex raised her bound wrists in a hasty surrender. “I’m not helping. Okay? See? I’m watching.”
“Atta girl,” the ex-biker queen muttered. Her name was Sharon, but Alex wouldn’t know that until an hour after Wolf gouged the little woman’s eyes from their sockets, sucking each from a finger like the soft chewy center of a naked Tootsie Pop.
“You’re learning,” Sharon said as Wolf closed in. “Go along to get along.”
But Wolf liked his teeth.
And then they were five.
After breakfast, the Changed crammed the little woman’s drippy remains into those nylon duffels. Then they all moved out. Another few hours on the trail put them in at a rustic, though roomy, hunting cabin. Judging from the condition of the snow, Wolf ’s gang had been back and forth a few times. A quartet of car batteries, connected in a series by wires, nestled on the snowy porch and probably once provided enough juice to run lights. Either the batteries were drained, however, or the Changed didn’t care for or need light. Instead, Acne and Beretta carried in armloads of splits from a tarpaulin-covered woodpile wedged against a dilapidated shed. Soon two columns of gray wood smoke chugged from both a chimney and stove flue. The Changed bunked in the cabin while Alex and the others roomed in the old shed, a drafty place that reeked of ancient engine oil and dead mice. For warmth, they had a squat propane camp heater, and one another, although their ropes were removed, leaving them free to roam around the shed under Acne’s watchful eye.
They’d returned the backpack Jess had given her. Ruby said this was standard: “We always come with something, and whatever we have, we share.” There was something odd about the way Ruby said that, as if it was just assumed that anyone captured would have supplies. That actually didn’t make sense. People could be snatched at random, but Ruth had said
always.
But Alex’s arm was screaming by then, and she didn’t have the energy to ask any more questions.
She caught some luck. Inside the pack, Jess had squirreled a battered first-aid kit that looked as if it hadn’t seen daylight since the early Mesozoic era. The alcohol swabs were long dry. The gauze packs were still intact, however, and several foils of antiseptic goo were squishy enough that she thought they’d do the trick. No antibiotics to swallow, but maybe she wouldn’t need them. While the others squabbled over energy bars and MREs, she melted snow in an empty can and let the water boil then cool to where she wouldn’t scald herself.
The pain was ferocious, like something with talons and teeth gnawing her flesh to the bone. It was so bad her stomach somersaulted and then rolled on a tidal heave of nausea. She stopped what she was doing to hang her head between her knees.
God.
Her face and neck were filmed in a fine, greasy sweat. She gulped air, working not to pant. How had Tom
not
passed out? She was having a hard time with only hot water and gauze. Tom had withstood a superheated
knife.
Oh, Tom.
Her throat knotted. A wave of shame and grief swept through her. She managed to stopper the moan, but she felt the tears leaking down her cheeks. She thought of how hard she’d struggled to hang onto him: his face, his scent, the way he looked at her. How he made her feel.
But I gave up. I should have fought harder, found a way out, but it was easier just to go along.
She wasn’t an idiot. She knew she was being illogical. Someone— something—had gotten to him. Tom was dead, and that was not her fault. She’d done the best she could. So why did she feel this crush of guilt, like she was the one to blame? Tom wouldn’t want that. The one sensible thing Jess had ever said was that Tom’s sacrifice—all he’d done and suffered through to keep her and Ellie alive—shouldn’t be for nothing. Tom would want her to go on with her life, not beat up on herself.
Tom, I’m trying, but what am I fighting
for
? Staying alive just to stay alive isn’t enough.
She felt a sudden, irrational urge to laugh. God, she was worrying about the meaning of life when she was probably going to wind up minced into sushi
.
“Hey.” She looked up to find Sharon, the ex-biker queen, eyeing her. The woman clutched an MRE meal pack in one hand and was busy forking in cheesy noodles. “You all right?” Sharon asked, through a gluey mouthful of half-chewed pasta.
Sharon didn’t sound all that concerned, really.
Probably hoping I keel over and then it’s just that much more food for her.
That snotyellow goo on Sharon’s chin wasn’t doing wonders for Alex’s stomach either. The others were similarly stuffing their faces, and the listless, vacant looks they turned on her were incurious at best.
“Yeah.” Smearing away the wet with the backs of her hands, she pulled in a tremulous breath. She’d be damned if she cried in front of these people. Not one had offered to help her. No, all they were interested in was filling their bellies. “The shoulder just hurts, that’s all.”
“Hunh. Well, you know the old saying.” Sharon chewed, swallowed, used the heel of one hand to swab her chin.
“Which one?” Sharon seemed to be a font of meaningless homilies, and Alex really wasn’t interested.
God, how can they eat after what they’ve seen? Maybe I’ll end up the same way—if I live long enough, that is. It’s like being afraid. How long can horror really last before you just numb out?
“No pain, no gain? It’s always darkest before the dawn?”
“Naw.” Sharon sucked her hand clean. “No matter how bad you think things are now?” She forked up another mouthful of wormy noodles. “They can always get worse.”
They stayed put overnight that first Saturday, a delay she later learned was unusual. By twilight, the Changed normally moved on. Privately, Alex suspected that beating the crap out of Spider had something to do with the layover.
On Sunday, at dusk, they all set out again. The dense cloud cover choking the sky that afternoon hadn’t broken, and the night was black as pitch. With no stars, she could only guess at a bearing but thought they were still heading north or northwest.
Another thing: the Changed often used flashlights and lanterns, but only intermittently. While Alex and the others struggled and stumbled, the Changed were shadows, moving with relative ease through the forest. Like panthers, she thought, or wolves. She knew from high school bio that the eyes of nocturnal animals were different, though she couldn’t recall exactly how. This ability begged another question, too: were the Changed done Changing?
All told—going by Ellie’s Mickey Mouse watch—they walked until three Monday morning and managed maybe six miles before putting in at another campsite. No shelter this time around. Acne and Slash lashed them to each other and then a trio of stout oaks before heading out to hunt. Again clad in his wolf skin, Wolf led the pack. Only Spider stayed behind, huddled over a fire, while they burrowed into the snow and waited.
When the Changed returned at first light, they brought fresh faces: a doughy woman and a bluff man shaped like a fireplug who said, later, that his name was Otis. The woman was Claire, but it was Otis who told them her name. Not five minutes after the Changed returned, Wolf went to work with his teeth and then Claire was way past caring about little niceties like an introduction.
By then, Spider had recovered enough to do the honors. Prowling through their number, she favored Alex with a good long stare. Spider’s hatred was so palpable you didn’t need spideysense to see it. Where the others withered at the slightest eye contact, however, Alex wouldn’t let herself waver. In fact, she rather enjoyed the view. Spider’s face was a mess. No perky little nose now, and all that good orthodontia gone to hell. Spider’s bruises were turning a sickly greenish-black. Her left cheek was so badly swollen that her eye was only a silver slit.
When they cut me loose, go for it.
Alex tensed, rehearsing the moves in her mind.
Run
at
her, get in under the knife, and . . .
In the next instant, that nip of resin stung her nose, and she thought,
Uh oh
. Her eyes inched left, and then her pulse skipped.
Wolf ’s face was a studied blank, though she saw the small muscles of his jaw twitch and that scar dance. The space around and above her head seemed to fizzle and spark. The air took on a scorched stink, like the lingering of ozone after an electrical storm. Spider’s back stiffened as the other Changed’s heads swiveled from her to Wolf and then back again.
Fighting about which one was going to have her, she thought.
One way or the other, I’m done.
The tang of desperation left her mouth puckery and parched. Having seen what Wolf could do— what he enjoyed—she didn’t see how she could get out of this. It was one thing to head-butt Spider and grab a knife. But those clashing jaws . . .