Burn

by Patrick Ness

  The man must have just arrived; he didn’t even have a fire going. Yes, there they were, his footprints through the snow, fresh. He had come to hunt the deer she had done exceptionally well in eating or chasing away.

  Poor man. She almost felt sorry for him. He would find only surprising quarry here.

  She moved closer to the front door, unsure of her motives, but then she reached out the four-fingered claw and, amusing herself deeply, she simply knocked.

  The man burst out the door shouting, holding a rifle, screaming at her as he aimed it. She ate him in one gulp, the rifle going off in her throat, though it felt like little more than the scratch of an under-chewed potato chip.

  She flapped her great wings, filled her great lungs, and blew fire hotter than lava onto the lodge. It didn’t so much burn as disintegrate, blasting in blazing pieces into the forest behind it, catching a few trees but mostly doused by the snow.

  I have just eaten a man, she thought to herself, finding no way of putting it that didn’t sound filthy. She laughed again, almost light-headed. Still the energy coursed in her. This learning of herself, this leaping of taboos—sure, she had killed before, but she had never consumed—was dizzying.

  Why didn’t dragons rule the earth she had come from? Why had they put up with their exile to the Wastes for generation upon generation? How could they live day by day with this, this power, and not use it?

  Because men and dragons had made an accommodation. A wicked one that made her angry even now.

  She turned in the field and looked in the direction where she had smelled the distant town.

  A child saw her coming. A child who should have been asleep, but who had grown bored of the long, cold nights that were only just starting to shorten. A child with a father who was pretty strict about bedtimes for eight-year-olds, but who wasn’t so strict if she wanted to sneak a book under the covers by the old army flashlight he’d given her from his days back in the war.

  She was reading Little House in the Big Woods. “You should feel right at home with it,” her father had said, ruffling her hair as she opened it at Christmas. It was the first in a boxed set of books, and by now—early February—she’d already read the whole thing through, including the ones at the end that got stranger and angrier and less good. Her favorite was called The Long Winter, which made the winters here in this mountain town seem even more disappointing because no one ever got trapped inside anywhere. There was always Mr. Bagshot with his plow to get you out before snow even reached your windows.

  But for now, she was back to the beginning, having finished These Happy Golden Years just last weekend. Her father had turned out her light promptly at 8:30 (which was late, she knew from her friends in the third grade, so she tried very hard not to moan about it), and she had promptly turned on his flashlight at 8:31. She opened the cover, found her name written there in her father’s hand—her father had told her her mother was on a long trip visiting family in Florida; she’d heard the real story from Mr. Bagshot’s daughter Janet, who no one really liked—and turned to the first chapter.

  She hadn’t even read the first sentence when a movement at the window, up the white of the mountain—it was never truly dark with this much snow around—caught her eye. The clouds were low. She shouldn’t have seen a bird flying, not this late, not in winter, and if it was a plane, it must be in trouble—

  It wasn’t a plane. Some kind of bat? She got out of bed, still holding her book, and went over to the window. They lived outside the center of Pinedale; her father having built this little house himself as a gift to her mother for having a job that took him away so often. It didn’t work. Now it was just her and her father, who didn’t go away all that often anymore.

  She could see whatever it was skimming over treetops that bent in the rush of wind as it passed. It was big, and it just kept coming, fast and huge. She probably should have called for her dad, but a cold ball of fear held her in place. She hadn’t felt like this since her mom had driven off with the electrician, waving out the back window as they disappeared into the forest. They had yet to return.

  It had to be a bat. The wings were the wrong shape for a bird. Or there was an Air Force base on the other side of the mountains; she knew that, her dad went there sometimes. Maybe it was—

  A geyser of flame shot from the thing less than a mile from her house, lighting up the huge ranger tower that stood there, at first as a silhouette in the night but only for a moment before it exploded.

  “Daddy?” she said, quietly.

  The thing was still coming, so much faster now it seemed. Would it explode their house, too?

  “Daddy?” she said again, a little more loudly. He was doing work in the living room, she knew, but it was just that little bit too far away to hear her.

  It got closer, closer, then whoosh it was over the house and gone. She ran out of her bedroom, down the hall, and burst into the living room. Her father looked up from his papers, eyebrows raised.

  “Grace?”

  She ran right for the front door, flinging it open and barreling out onto the porch, which overlooked the town. She barely realized she was still carrying her book.

  “Grace, what are you doing?” her father said, stepping out behind her. “It’s bedtime.”

  “There’s a monster,” she said.

  Her father looked out to where she was facing. “My God,” he whispered. He put a protective hand on her chest, as if to guide her behind him, but his eyes stayed on the town.

  Whatever it was, the giant bird or airplane or whatever, it was lighting up the night like fireworks, moving from house to house over the few rows of streets where people lived in Pinedale. One by one they all exploded. People were running outside now and, even at this distance, Grace could hear them screaming.

  The thing went after them, sometimes blasting them into nothing with the fire from its mouth, sometimes picking them up with that same mouth and swallowing them whole. It chased the people into the center of town and breathed its fire on the general store and Mary’s Diner, destroying both, barely leaving enough behind to burn.

  “Go to the bunker,” her father said.

  “But Daddy—”

  “There’s blankets in there. You’ll be warm.”

  “What about you?”

  He turned to her at that. “I’ll be there in a minute, but it’s not safe out here for you.”

  “What is that?”

  Her father looked back out into the town. The huge thing was flying high up in the air now, then coming back down with a fast plummet to knock the steeple off the little Presbyterian church that served pretty much all the faiths of Pinedale.

  “Go to the bunker,” he said, not yelling, but firmly enough to make her feet move.

  She ran out the back, her bare feet gasping against the cold. He’d shown her plenty of times how to work the bunker door, and she was inside in a moment, though not quick enough to stop her teeth from chattering.

  Her father had built it when the Russians first started testing what her ears heard as “the bom.” She didn’t know exactly what one was, but it was enough for her father to dig out a hollow under their house, line it with concrete, and stock it with food and blankets. Blankets she was grateful for as she buried herself under them, only just now noticing that Little House in the Big Woods was still in her hand.

  How they ran. How they screamed. It was almost medieval, like in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” where Chaucer described a dragon attack as the travelers reached an inn. That dragon had been talked out of the air, though, and into providing food for the group.

  She would not.

  The houses smoldered and popped. The shops at the center of town, too. Even the church had fallen before her. All that was left was a gas station, which she was saving until last. She flew above it, inhaled to blast fire onto two large underground tanks of gasoline that would blow the surrounding area into the sky—

  She smelled something . . .

  Somethin
g terribly, terribly familiar.

  She took another circle of the town. There were outlying survivors and a few outbuildings that weren’t worth her bother. What was the point of an attack like this if there weren’t at least a few survivors to report what had happened? The war on this world had to begin sometime, and it might as well be tonight.

  But that smell. That something in the air. She breathed in deep—

  And it was gone. Strong and present, then vanished.

  She racked her dragon mind for what it might be, something so familiar yet elusive. She came up with no explanation, and honestly, felt as if one wasn’t needed. So what if something smelled like her old world? She wasn’t in her old world. She was someone new in a new place altogether. She laughed to herself and circled back to town.

  The gas station went up like an atom bomb.

  “Grace?” her father said, shutting the airtight door to the shelter. She had felt distant booms rumbling through the ground as the monster continued its wave of destruction.

  “I’m here, Daddy,” she said.

  He climbed down the short steps and hugged her to himself. “Is it the bom?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so, sweetie,” he said, keeping his voice light for her, “but whatever it is, we’re safe here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He knelt down in front of her and smiled. “I wouldn’t have built it for you if I wasn’t sure.” He rubbed her hair. “Lie down, baby, try to get some sleep. Daddy has to make a phone call.”

  She crawled onto one of the two cots her father had put in the shelter, pulling the blanket around her. There was another rumble, a huge one that shook a few cans of food off the shelves. Her father calmly picked them up and she heard him say to himself, “Gas station.”

  He put the cans back, then picked up the government-issue phone he’d had installed in there. It wouldn’t work long in a nuclear war, just long enough for him to make the important calls he needed “if we’re the first strike,” he’d said. He tapped the button a few times, waited to be connected. She heard him curse under his breath, then he sat up straight as someone finally came on.

  “Get me General Kraft,” he said. “This is Agent Paul Dernovich. Tell him I’m reporting Scenario 8.”

  Nineteen

  SHERIFF KELBY DIDN’T wait. He went straight in with the baton, hitting Darlene Dewhurst on the back of her knees, knocking her to the floor. The room stood as one in uproar. Hisao even pointed his shotgun at the sheriff.

  Who just sneered. “And what do you plan on doing with that, Hisao?”

  Hisao didn’t lower the gun even an inch. “My name is Mr. Inagawa.”

  “It’s a crime to point a gun at a law enforcement official,” the sheriff said. “I’ll be hauling you in for that, but not before I get some answers. Who is this girl really?” He looked at Malcolm and Kazimir. “And what seems to be a vagabond and a fruit?”

  “I don’t like that word,” Malcolm said, calmly, meeting the sheriff’s eye. “Fruit.”

  “I wasn’t talking about you,” the sheriff said, seemingly delighted, “but golly, if the shoe fits.”

  The sheriff kept coming, sneering at the upraised shotgun. He stopped; then his hand shot out like lightning and the baton struck the barrel of the gun, knocking it to one side. Mr. Inagawa didn’t drop it, but the lurch was enough for the sheriff to deliver another blow of the baton to Hisao’s face. His nose broke with a crunch, and this time he did drop the gun.

  “Dad!” Jason said, leaping to his father. Sheriff Kelby caught him on the elbow with the baton. The blow was so clearly painful that Jason fell all the way to the wooden floor, not too far from where Darlene still half-sat, half-lay.

  “That’s everyone I know,” the sheriff said, looking at the three who remained. “So how ’bout one of you starts talking.”

  “She told you,” Sarah said. “I’m her niece. These are friends of mine.”

  “Visiting the same night I and every other peaceful citizen of Frome, Washington, see a giant something or other flying straight from your farm?”

  “You think I built a flying machine, Sheriff?” Darlene said.

  He whipped around to face her. “You laughing at me, Darlene? Because that is something I would not recommend.” He spun the baton lightly in the air, then he turned back to Sarah with the ugliest smile in the world. He moved on her, baton rising.

  “No,” Malcolm said, calmly.

  In two steps, he caught the sheriff, taking hold of his back and the wrist that held the baton. He made the simplest shift in his body weight, and the sheriff fell, the baton tumbling from his hand, his arm bending back painfully. Malcolm kept the sheriff’s wrist in place until the sheriff’s own momentum caused it to break with an even louder snap than the bleeding man’s nose.

  The sheriff hit the floor in clear astonishment. “You broke my wrist,” he said.

  That’s all Malcolm gave him time to say. He kicked the sheriff in the throat, hard enough to silence him, and in two more steps had one knee on the sheriff’s unbroken arm and the other on his chest. Malcolm moved his arms to release the blades, and in a silky motion, had both tips pressed against either side of the sheriff’s neck.

  “Don’t!” Sarah yelled.

  “I wasn’t going to,” Malcolm said, and only realized it was true as he said it. “I want no more death on my hands.”

  “I’ll do it!” Jason Inagawa grunted, still gripping his elbow.

  “No, you won’t,” the girl said, fiercely. “Not again.”

  “Again?” the boy said.

  “Again?” said the sheriff.

  “I wouldn’t speak if I were you,” Malcolm said, pressing both blades slightly, drawing two parallel drops of blood on the sheriff’s neck.

  “If this is another universe—” the girl started.

  “It is,” Kazimir said, watching Malcolm with an impressed look.

  “If it is,” said Sarah, “then we don’t have to do the same things we did back there. They don’t have to have the same outcomes. We could be different.” She looked at her mother. “We could be better.”

  “You have no need to be better, Sarah,” Kazimir said, still staring at Malcolm. “You were perfectly fine.”

  “That’s a real vote of confidence,” Sarah said, flatly, “thank you.”

  “I told you,” Malcolm said again, still calm. “I was never going to kill him.” He looked down into the sheriff’s eyes, staring hard.

  “What are you doing?” Sheriff Kelby asked.

  “I told you not to speak,” Malcolm said.

  “What are you doing, young man?” Mr. Inagawa said, holding a napkin Darlene had handed him to his nose.

  “Some men are dragon underneath,” Malcolm said. “If you just scratch the surface.”

  Deep, deep, deep in the eyes of the sheriff, Malcolm saw cowardice, and he saw greed. He saw a fire that burned but stung, a fire like a rash on this man’s soul. This man was a dragon, in all his fiery yearning, but he would never know. Because he would never know, and because his heart was so clearly a twisted knot of hate and injustice, he would never have a satisfied moment for as long as he lived.

  “You’re corrupted,” Malcolm said to the sheriff. “Right at your heart.”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “You know what, boy?” he said, growling a little at what must have been tremendous pain in his wrist. Malcolm could at least admire the strength, even if it was directed in such warped ways. “You’d better kill me.” The sheriff licked sweat off his lip. “Because if you don’t, I will be after you. I know how to do a lot of things to wreck every last breath you will take on this earth.”

  “See?” Jason said. “We have to kill him.”

  “You hush that talk right now,” Darlene said, as Jason’s father said very much the same thing.

  “You think he’s just going to let us go?” Jason asked.

  Malcolm saw the looks pass around the room, saw real fear there. Kazimir was still l
ooking wonderingly at Malcolm, but it was Sarah who was firm and clear. “Absolutely not,” she said. “I’ve been here before, and I will not do it again.”

  “Nor I,” Malcolm said, “as I’ve said a number of times.”

  “Then you’re screwed,” Sheriff Kelby said, smirking again. “You are well and truly fucked, boy.”

  “My name isn’t boy,” Malcolm said. “My name . . .” he found himself unable to suppress a smile “ . . . is Agent Woolf.”

  Sheriff Kelby gave him a surprised look.

  “Do you honestly think an actual teenage boy could have disarmed you so easily? That these blades at your throat are standard issue in your public schools?”

  Malcolm glanced up. Darlene, Hisao, and Jason were staring at him again. So were Sarah and Kazimir, but in a different way. The lie was so brazen he was amazed it wasn’t written all over his face, but when he looked back down at the sheriff, he saw eyes starting to believe.

  “I and my associates”—he nodded at Sarah and Kazimir—“are here under deep cover in relation to what you think you saw flying from this farm.”

  “I don’t believe you—”

  In a swift, practiced motion, Malcolm repositioned his knees so that one now rested just below the broken wrist. The sheriff cried out. “I can increase the pain,” Malcolm said, doing so with a press from his knee, “or I can decrease it.” He did this as well. “Does this, to you, seem like the abilities of a boy, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff turned his face to the rest of the room, as if making an appeal, but even he had to know how little purchase he would find there. He turned back to Malcolm. “No,” he said, grudgingly.

  “Your deeply misguided actions here, Sheriff,” Malcolm continued, “have imperiled our mission. We normally like to work with local law enforcement . . .” He stumbled a bit as his mind filled with the image of the Mountie falling, bloody, to the frozen ground. “But we can just as easily make your lives very, very difficult. Is that what you want?”

  Sheriff Kelby didn’t reply. Malcolm applied more pressure to his wrist. Sheriff Kelby screamed and said, “No! No.”