by Z Brewer
As I shoved the supplies inside my pouch, Caleb cocked his head to the side. “Do you hear that? It sounds like . . . kids singing.”
“Kids singing? What are you—” My chest tightened in fear. “Caleb, wait.”
Before I could stop him, he disappeared around the corner. I darted after him. He hadn’t gone too far. He was standing at an open classroom door, staring inside with a look of wonder on his face. As he crouched down, he spoke to the empty room. “Kally? You’re okay? What are you doing here?”
I double-checked, but the room was empty. Bits of trash covered the floor, and several rusty, rotting desks lay all around, but no one was inside. He was either going crazy, or—“Who are you talking to, Caleb?”
Ignoring me, or maybe just not hearing me, he furrowed his brow in concern and continued to speak to whoever or whatever he was convinced he saw. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe. Where are Mom and Dad?”
Grabbing him by the shoulders, I pulled him to standing and made him face me, my words curt. “Listen to me. That room is empty. There’s nobody there.”
He turned his head back to the room with a doubtful glint in his eye and gestured to the space with a jab of his chin. “What are you talking about? My sister’s standing right here! And there are kids playing in there. Just look.”
I kept my voice even and calm, even though I was anything but. “Tell me what you see and hear right now.”
Caleb sighed. “There are six kids, all under the age of five, all dressed in white. Two of them are playing a board game. Three are drawing on the floor with chalk. Kally is right here . . . and I hear a music box.”
He was having a conversation with his dead sister. And it all seemed so normal to him. That could mean only one thing. Shit. “No, you don’t. Because it doesn’t exist. None of it exists. Think about it. We’re in a school that’s been abandoned long enough for the lockers to rust. This isn’t real, Caleb. What you’re experiencing in that room—Kally, the kids, the music—none of it’s real. But it is dangerous.”
He swept his arm toward his hallucination. “How could this be dangerous?”
Part of me hated to tell him the truth, hated to rip that hope away from him, rip his sister from him a second time. But I had to. Reality—even harsh reality—was better than a lie. It may not be pleasant, but at least it was real. “Because it means that Coe is aware of us. He’s playing with your mind. Don’t believe it.”
“Quinn?”
I knew that voice. It took everything in me to turn my eyes to see something that looked very much like my brother standing in the hall next to me. My heart shot into my throat, almost choking me. In a near whisper, I spoke to myself. “It’s not real. None of it is real.”
“I’m real.” He was standing so close that I could feel his breath on my skin. But it wasn’t Kai. It couldn’t be. Kai was dead. The thing that looked like Kai tilted its head, a soft smile on its lips. “So are Mom and Dad. It’s your fault they’re gone, you know. It’s all your fault.”
“That’s not Kai. It’s just Coe fucking with me.” I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn’t my dead brother. This was just some twisted vision conjured up by Coe. If I started to believe in the things that I saw here, I’d lose my mind . . . just like Lia’s mom.
“What’s the matter, Quinn? Didn’t you miss me? Come here. Give your brother a hug.” The Kai-thing stretched out its arms. It was about to wrap them around me when brown spots began appearing all over its skin, as if it were decaying. The spots sunk in as its flesh rotted away, falling to the floor in chunks. Slime slid down its skeleton frame. I watched in silent horror as its bones collapsed to the floor in a pile of dust.
My bottom lip shook. Fuck you, Coe, I thought. Fuck you.
Caleb’s eyes were locked on the room with the invisible children. His face turned white. His lips trembled. I wondered what horrors he was being subjected to but didn’t ask. Some nightmares—most nightmares—were private.
I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Maybe we should get out of here, Caleb.”
As if waking from a bad dream, he looked from the room back to me. His eyes shimmered with tears that didn’t fall. “Yeah. Maybe we should.”
After snagging from the locker all the supplies that we could carry and retrieving Caleb’s weapon, we navigated back through the halls, listening carefully for sounds of the Ripper we’d trapped. But the thing must have lost interest or energy or a combination of both, because the school was silent as we made our exit. It bothered me that we were leaving without Lia, but I couldn’t stay in the school while Coe tortured me . . . or Caleb. Besides, it was possible that she had come and gone. If I didn’t see her on our way to a safe place to rest, I’d look for her first thing in the morning. And I’d find her. I always did.
Caleb dropped from the window to the ground below with ease. Once I’d landed beside him, he looked at me with lost, frightened eyes. “Where should we go?”
I threw a glance back at the school and hoped that, wherever Lia was, she was safe. But all I could do now was to ensure that we were. “We need shelter. Let’s head south. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
The walk was quiet—a bit too quiet for my taste. I’d expected to hear a Ripper or two. I hadn’t expected the eerie silence. Four blocks down, I spied the old coffee shop where I’d crashed one night a few months before. The sign that read Common Grounds was hanging half off the front of the building, swaying back and forth with the light breeze. Most of the bulbs that had lit up the patio years before had broken. Claw marks lined the closed front door—a curve of four lines scratched into the metal, each at least three feet long. A Ripper had been here, but the marks were old. I wondered what . . . who . . . it had been hunting. There was a reason not many animals were present in Brume. Tasty snacks for the Rippers, even if the Rippers preferred humans. That was the thing about Rippers—they chewed on your meat, but they fed on your fear.
Caleb said, “What do you think? Is it safe?”
Only a few of the windows were broken, and the place looked like it hadn’t been used for any identifiable purpose in quite some time—maybe since I’d been here last. With a scrutinizing glance at the area surrounding the building, I said, “I think this’ll work.”
It took both of us to get the door open intact, but we managed to do so without attracting the attention of anything nasty lurking in the night—gang members included. With the door closed behind us and barricaded with one of the tables inside, we made our way to the back and settled in the walk-in, where we wouldn’t have to worry about windows. I snapped a glow stick and shook it, illuminating the space with a soft green light. I was pretty sure we were safe. Safe enough to relax for a while—maybe even safe enough to use the place for a few nights.
After I’d burned some of the sage I’d grabbed near the school to clear the area of our scent, I cleaned the gash in my arm with water from my canteen. I dabbed it dry, applied the ointment we’d found, and wrapped it in a clean bandage. Popping two aspirin in my mouth, I swallowed, hoping that would keep the fever under control. Maybe it was the adrenaline left over from our excursion into the school, but I was feeling much better than I had been. Not well enough to face a Ripper head-on, but not terrible.
We scraped together a dinner of beef jerky from my pouch and washed it down with swigs of water. As we ate, I voiced a question that had been rolling around in my brain ever since Caleb had caught me, stopping my fall back at the school. “Hey, Caleb. When we were in the school, how long were you and I separated before you found me? Before we heard the Ripper in the kitchen, I mean.”
He thought it over for a moment before shrugging. “Maybe a minute or two. Not long. I’d just started heading upstairs when I thought about how stupid it was to split up, so I came back down to find you passing out or something.”
“Huh.” My fever was making me question everything. Even this beef jerky—the taste was strange, like tobacco or something, and it was reminding me of someth
ing I couldn’t place . . . but I liked it. The sensation passed, but I took a drink of water to wash it away regardless. “Do you ever get a feeling like maybe you’ve known a person before? Like . . . like in a different life or something? In different ways?”
“You mean déjà vu? Totally. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that I have this weird feeling, this impression like maybe I’ve met you before. It’s strange.”
Caleb didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. Finally, he shifted to a more comfortable sitting position, gestured to my bandaged arm, and said, “So why were those guys chasing you before, anyway?”
It was a fair question, and a nice distraction from my thoughts. “There are several gangs around Brume. Most of them won’t call themselves that, but a gang is a gang. They steal and hoard food and supplies, each operating like its own little society.”
Caleb raised his left shoulder in a half shrug. “Sounds . . . I dunno . . . kinda comforting. I mean, people are safer in groups, right? It must be nice to know somebody has your back.”
“People are sheep. They huddle together in fear, thinking it makes them stronger, but it doesn’t. That goes for the gangs. That goes for just about everybody. People in general fall into two categories: sheep and shepherds. That’s not comforting, Caleb. It’s suffocating.” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice at all. Hearing it took us both aback. It was enough to shake the bitterness from my tone. “The biggest gang is led by this guy Lloyd. For months, he’s been after me to join, and I guess he’s fed up with my repeated refusals. He wants to be king of the mountain at any cost, and damn anyone who refuses to bow before him. He likes to surround himself with survivors. I guess that makes me valuable to him, but I keep saying no. And that pisses him off.
“To be honest, part of the reason I don’t join,” I added with a smirk on my lips, “is because he’s a total dick.”
We both burst into laughter. Once it died down, Caleb gathered the canteens and his weapon and headed for the door. “We passed a well just down the block on our way here. Do you know if it has any water left in it?”
I nodded.
“Great. Then I’m going to go refill these.”
I shook my head. “Wait until morning.”
Caleb shrugged. “That jerky made me really thirsty. I’ll be right back. Don’t worry.”
Truth be told, I almost let him go. Not because it might endanger his life and remove him from the picture, but to help him. How else would he learn how to take care of himself in Brume? He was a big boy. He could probably cross the street by himself. Mulling this over, I shook my head and said, “That’s the thing. I’m worried enough about Lia. I’d rather not have to worry about you too. Tomorrow you only have to worry about Screamers and the Unseen Hands. We can only be careful about running into them. There’s no defense against them. But Rippers? You’re not ready to face one of those alone.”
He paused by the door, weighing his options, and finally nodded, dropping the canteens to the floor before sitting down again.
Sealing the bag of jerky, I rolled it up and tucked it inside my leg pouch. The room looked eerie, lit up green from the glow stick, but it felt like a safe spot to rest. Settling back against the wall, I let myself relax a bit and tried not to think about what might have happened to Lia for long enough to get some much-needed sleep.
A piercing growl cut through the air, through the walls. It was loud, and it was close. I didn’t remember having dozed off, but I jolted fully awake the moment I heard the sound. I glanced around, but Caleb was gone. I stood and threw open the door. I didn’t realize I’d grabbed my bat until I’d stepped out of the coffee shop and into the coolness of evening. But once I was outside, I saw the worst possible scenario unfolding before me. Caleb was standing across the street, his limbs frozen in fear, his weapon nowhere to be found.
A Ripper stood between Caleb and me, its eyes locked on him. When it exhaled out of its long, thin snout, its breath became smoke in the night air. I wondered if it could be the same one we’d encountered in the school. If it had tracked us here. The trail of scent we’d left while walking here had likely depleted quickly, and even if it had tracked us here, it would’ve lost our scent due to the sage I’d burned, then moved on. But it was here. Which meant that we were in trouble.
A low, guttural growl rose from the depths of its core, the sound of it draining all color from Caleb’s face. He was dead, and he knew it. The Ripper had locked its hunter’s gaze on Caleb and marked him for death.
I wasn’t all that certain that I could change its mind.
The creature lashed forward, snapping its jaws at Caleb. A thin strand of drool flung from its mouth and stuck to Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb yelped and jumped back, throwing his hands in front of him. The canteens flew into the air. One bounced off the top of the Ripper’s snout and the beast snapped at the other as it fell. I couldn’t be certain if Caleb was thinking quick or just reacting in a moment of panic, but he ducked and ran behind a dumpster to his right. Maybe he thought he could hide. He was underestimating the killing machine.
The hulking beast sniffed the air, moving its head back and forth, as if scanning for Caleb in the darkness.
Slipping the knife from inside my boot, I pulled back my arm and flung the blade through the air. It stuck deep in the Ripper’s shoulder, and the creature howled and snarled, whipping its head around to face me. White foam bubbled from the corner of its grotesque mouth. The drool stretched toward its shoulder. But it didn’t care about me or my feeble attack. It had its sights set on Caleb, and Caleb only . . . for the moment.
I moved as fast as I could. If I could just get between the Ripper and Caleb, I could maybe save him. I could maybe stop another horrible thing from happening in this town, this reality, this life of mine.
I was scared shitless of the Ripper, but my hands weren’t shaking. After Kai died, I didn’t let fear stand in my way of survival. After Kai died, I’d changed. I’d had to. It was the only way to ensure that I would keep on living.
Sprinting up beside the Ripper, I took a hard swing and tagged the beast across its bottom jaw with my bat. Hitting it was like hitting a tree. It was solid; its surface had hardly any give. I swung my bat up and over, bringing it down on the Ripper’s head. It dazed the thing for a moment, but only just. It gnashed its teeth and snapped at me. I jumped back, but the gravel under my feet was looser than I’d thought. My feet slid forward and I almost fell. It would have been my death sentence. As I recovered, the beast snapped again, this time catching part of my hoodie in its teeth. It tore the fabric away in a mouthful of victory. When it realized it was eating fabric and not flesh, it hulked its shoulders and dropped its head, moving toward me. Its snorted breaths came out in eager gray puffs. Forget Caleb. I’d pissed it off. And from its stance and the look in its strange, dead eyes, I was going to be dinner.
Bite by bite. Chunk by chunk.
Good evening, Quinn. You’re going to die today.
Something small flew over the Ripper’s shoulder, almost tagging me in the chest. It wasn’t until a second one followed, bouncing off the Ripper’s back, that I realized what was happening. Caleb was standing behind the beast, whipping rocks at it as hard as he could. His efforts were admirable, but I knew from the way my bat had felt when I hit the creature that rocks weren’t going to stop it. If there was any hope of killing it, it was going to take beating, stabbing, ripping, or stomping through its skull. And the only person who had easy access to its head was me.
Digging the balls of my feet into the gravel, I pushed off and aimed straight for the monster. It lunged, but I brought my bat down hard on its skull with an audible crack, stunning it. To my surprise, Caleb ran around the thing, retrieving my blade from its shoulder with a tug. Rich crimson poured from the wound, and the beast howled in pain. As Caleb lifted the knife and plunged it into the Ripper’s eye, I felt a surge of pride. There he was, covered in blood and sweat, and standing tall. Caleb had never looked co
oler to me.
The Ripper howled and swiped at Caleb with its right front claw, knocking him to the ground. As he fell, Caleb gripped the knife, dragging it back through the flesh on the beast’s head. He hit the ground, and the thing pounced. It was going to kill him. It was going to kill us both.
Time seemed to slow as I brought my bat up and moved closer. Everything sounded far away. I swung my weapon into the Ripper’s skull, cracking it and cracking it, again and again. The monster growled and squealed, but I didn’t stop. It was us or this thing. It was this thing . . . or death.
The Ripper staggered, barely able to stand. Both eyes had been damaged beyond sight—one stabbed out by Caleb, the other swollen from my blows. It snarled, and I offered a nod of respect to Caleb, who’d come to stand beside me.
Caleb slapped the knife into my palm, staring the Ripper down as it shuffled toward us.
For a moment, I looked down at myself, at the blood and spittle all over my clothes. I glanced back at Caleb, his face no longer white. I looked at him, really looked, and realized in that moment, against my will, that I was no longer in a friendship of two . . . but of three.
Grabbing one of the Ripper’s ears, I pressed the knife hard against its throat and slit it open. Blood poured out on the ground, filling the air with a metallic smell. The beast stumbled, then fell. Its last breaths were released in a gurgling sound. Standing over its corpse, I should have felt triumphant. I should have felt relieved. I should have felt glad. But I didn’t feel any of those things. Instead, a surprising sadness washed over me.
The Ripper had been alive, and I’d, for whatever reason, extinguished that life. It had just been doing what a Ripper does—hunting so it might feed. So what did that say about me? Had I been doing what I must do—kill living things? My chest ached. Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them away. I felt Caleb’s hand on my shoulder, but shook it away and picked up the canteens. “Come on. We’d better get going. They hunt in twos. One attacks, and if the attacker dies, the other is ready to go in for the kill on the weakened prey.”
