“Jesus,” Mare said, the rumble of the animals’ panicked flight fading. Silence descending upon them again.
They sat on their bikes, side by side in a row, staring eastward down the interstate. None of them knew what to say. Only the idling motorcycles and the graceful sound of mechanized thunder over the grumbling river provided some meek attachment to reality. Random carcasses littered the roadway, tufts of fur jostling on the breeze to reveal the scorched flesh beneath. Spatters of black blood marred the asphalt, a hellish mockery of the white dashes between lanes.
Without a word, Adam raised his feet and started forward, slowly, weaving in and out of the maze of corpses. The others followed, more out of fear than curiosity. Each felt somehow dissociated from the world around them, advancing by a will other than their own. Adam reached the car first, a Saturn with its hood and roof buckled awkwardly, the front windshield a spider web of glass preparing to shatter onto the dashboard. Each gave it only a cursory glance, unnerved by the thin lines of blood draining through the metal folds and puddling in the dents, before turning to the side of the road and the opening in the forest from which all of the creatures had appeared.
The gravel shoulder had been widened to accommodate parking for a handful of vehicles, cordoned off from the nature preserve beyond by a split-rail fence. There was a gap in the barrier at the mouth of a trail. Fast food bags and aluminum cans, artifacts of a dead civilization, were scattered around an overturned Dumpster. Adam led them down the gentle decline to the edge of the fence, which upon closer inspection was capped with tufts of hair torn away from the fleeing animals. The path led away from the road before veering to the right around a stand of trees.
The dirt trail was muddy with blood. Clumps of fur dotted the passage.
“The Trail of Blood,” Phoenix said. “This is where we’re supposed to go.”
Chapter 5
I
The Trail of Blood
THEY RODE SINGLE FILE, THE HIGHWAY NOW A DISTANT MEMORY. PROGRESS was markedly slower, but they had all known better than to argue with Phoenix when he insisted that their destinies were down the bloody trail. Like everything else that had transpired since the end of the world as they knew it, the appearance of the path had defied coincidence, and they had all felt the undeniable pull of a force greater than themselves. It was easier to try not to think about it and acquiesce to what they had begun to think of as the inevitable. It may not have been the most comforting approach, but none could dispute that it had served them well enough so far.
The trail had led away from the highway to an overgrown dirt lane. It was wider than the former railroad line Missy had at first assumed it to be. Maybe it was some old wagon pass, something like the Oregon Trail. She wished she’d paid closer attention in history class. Perhaps then she’d have some idea where they were headed. There had been a sign on its face by the trailhead, but none of them had wanted to climb off their bikes to exhume it from the putrid mud. Not that it would have made much difference anyway, but at least she wouldn’t have to keep referring to it as the Trail of Blood in her mind.
Twin tracks of dirt remained to either side of a wide stretch of wild grasses that had to be more than waist-high, separated from the rest of their species by the nearly invisible tracks upon which they rode. Massive trees encroached upon their path, but only the occasional sapling rose from it. Their course followed the topography, bending around the hills. Though they could feel the pressure of their ascent in altitude, the road always seemed level enough, leading them through valleys where small streams wound like serpents through grassy meadows before giving way to steep, pine-laden slopes.
The trail was no longer paved with a continuous sheet of blood, but rather dotted with it here and there, crumpled mats of weeds crusted with it. They still encountered sporadic carcasses, the burns becoming increasingly severe with each body they passed. Some were merely unrecognizable charred skeletons that had somehow managed to remain animate for such a long journey. She could only imagine how much pain they must have been in. It physically hurt her to even ponder it.
Flurries of gray ash rained down upon them when the wind gusted. Her lungs already ached. The air grew warmer the higher they climbed, sweat forming on her belly, where Phoenix’s arms crossed. Smoke clung to the tops of the trees at the crest of the mountain ahead, though she couldn’t see any flames yet. Clouds of it drifted overhead in dark clumps, bringing with them the acrid scent that overwhelmed even the sweet fragrance of the purple flowers blooming from the thorny weeds peeking out of the tall golden grass. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the path climbed up into the wall of smoke, which hung over them like an avalanche poised to break free and crash down.
Missy tried to think of the fires as natural, perhaps started by an errant lightning strike, and without teams of firefighters to contain them, continued to burn unchecked. She knew better, however. Something—and she hesitated to speculate as to what—was setting the blazes intentionally and that something or somethings were working their way to the west even as they headed east, their paths soon to intersect.
She recalled Jill’s vision of shadows darting behind the cover of the smoke while flames surrounded them, and almost screamed. It was more than her mind could take.
Force it down, she thought. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything. Just watch the road. Don’t even look at the sky. But the ashes fluttering around her and the stench of scorched earth refused to allow it.
Phoenix must have felt her body tense. He leaned over her shoulder and spoke into her ear so she could hear him.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.” His breath on her ear had an immediate soothing effect.
She tilted her head to the side to feel his cheek against hers as long as she could before again focusing on the path. The layer of smoke above was now so low she thought if she reached up she would be able to touch it. Flickers of light appeared between the tightly packed trunks atop the mountain, a prelude to the blaze they would soon encounter, stimulating the overwhelming urge to steal her hand from the handlebars to cling to the shotgun hanging by the strap across her chest. What would she do if she had to use it? She hadn’t pulled a trigger in at least five years, since the last time her father had taken them out to shoot cans and bottles off the fence posts in the field by the dump. The prospect terrified her.
Every fiber of her being screamed for her to turn around and head back to Mormon Tears, maybe just keep on driving until they reached the Pacific. Running away was fine with her. They could just keep running for the rest of their lives as far as she was concerned. Commandeer a boat and spend some time in the Hawaiian Islands. See Japan. There was an enormous world out there, brimming with places they could hide.
The first genuine flames appeared at the edge of the tree line, racing out into the meadow.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh. My. God.
Phoenix adjusted his grip and she nearly shed her skin.
Adam must have seen the flames as well. He flashed his brake light, pulled off into the high weeds beside the path, and waited for them all to circle around him. He looked directly at Phoenix when he finally spoke.
“What now?”
Phoenix’s gaze shot up the hill to where another streak of fire spread out from the trees. A tuft of smoke swirled between them.
“We continue forward,” Phoenix said. They could now hear the crackle of burning timber. “Into the fire.”
A distant grumble that sounded like thunder echoed from the valley ahead.
II
THE BEAST CRASHED THROUGH THE UNDERBRUSH, SLASHING THROUGH burning branches, filling the air with a cloud of hot embers. Its wiry hairs had long since been singed back to its scorched leather hide, its wild mane now black nubs of flame. Body covered in a paste of soot, sweat, and blood, it carved through everything in its way, its black palms covered with weeping blisters, but it felt no pain. Only the paramount urge to quell an insatiable bloodlust that grew stronger by the
second. No longer were there scampering rodents or bounding deer as the westerly advance of The Pack had driven them all ahead, save the few that disregarded their instincts and burrowed into the ground, but there was no time to stop and dig them up. Its muscles were fueled by a will more powerful than its own, spurring them to flex and contract at a full sprint toward its ultimate prey.
It lunged forward, tearing parallel claw marks through the burning bark of a tree. The sap spilled out and started to boil. Landing on all fours, its back arched and its chest swelled before directing its face to the thick smoke above. It roared up into the fiery canopy, stark white teeth glowing against its ebon face, its mouth unhinging nearly back to its ears. The world around it came into momentary focus and its vision filled with shimmering silver outlines like everything was covered with a layer of mercury. It saw the malleable flames crackling all around it, the glistening outlines of tall tree trunks and burning shrubs, the slope of the ground before it. The beast committed it to memory and hurled itself forward, scampering alternately on two legs and four, leaping up onto boulders that served as launching pads to propel it into the air, soaring with the grace of a puma.
It heard the ruckus of its brethren crashing through the underbrush a quarter mile away to either side, pausing only long enough to erupt with so many roars to find their bearings, the rapid thumping of their heartbeats mirroring its own. One whooshing sound followed another, almost like the beating of helicopter blades, as the black thing trailing them launched geysers of molten fire into the sky to rain down upon the forest, firing streams of superheated death into the thicket in all directions, a ceaseless barrage of destruction.
The cloud of smoke was now so thick it was all the thing could smell or taste, clogging its lungs and making its chest ache mercilessly, yet it heedlessly scampered forward, oblivious to the blood pouring from the lacerations on its cheeks and flanks, to the sharp pangs of hunger, to the—
It skidded to a halt, tearing up lines of dirt and flaming detritus.
Were the beast able to register confusion, that would have been the expression that contorted its face. It lowered its snout to the ground, drawing a deep inhalation across the smoldering earth. After a moment of dissecting the mess of smells, it rose to its hind legs and cocked its head to the burning branches above. It inhaled again, peeling apart the sticky smell of pine needles from the bitter stench of fire-consumed bark, smoke from ash.
There was something else hiding under the now familiar scent of forest fire. It was faint, so weak that it could easily have missed it were it not for the cramping in its gut. The beast had never smelled its like before, but there was no mistaking it. Fresh meat. A variety it had never before encountered, but one that set its mouth to salivating and its stomach to rumbling.
The crashing around it ceased, the whooshing of flame following suit a moment later. The others had smelled it, too. They were close now. So close.
It reared back and roared, and the world again spread out in liquid silver sight. The rest of the pack answered with so many thunderous bellows, and it lunged forward with renewed vigor.
III
JILL COULD BARELY BREATHE. SHE WAS ON THE VERGE OF HYPERVENTILATING; not because of the smoke, which certainly served to exacerbate the problem, but because she knew they were on the cusp of walking right into her vision of the fire and the dark things lurking inside it. Her hands trembled on the handlebars and her grip became so sweaty she had to constantly swipe her palms on her pants to keep them dry enough to maneuver. They were already traveling so slowly that she could barely maintain her balance on the bike, especially with the weight of the supplies and the sloshing gas tank behind her. The headlight diffused into the swirling smoke, staining the world around her a dusty gray. She could barely see the taillight of the motorcycle ahead, which was nearly indistinguishable from the encroaching walls of flame up the forested slope to either side of the valley. A thin stream meandered through the weeds beside them, the only promise of salvation from the fire. If the blaze came too close, they could wade in and lie on their backs. Adam had mentioned something about finding hollow reeds they could breathe through like straws, but her mind had been elsewhere, reliving the vision about to come to pass.
The heat from the fires was intensifying by the second. Her clothes were already sapped to her skin, lines of sweat draining through the folds and creases, her hair wet against her cheeks and neck. A deep breath of smoke burned her lungs, forcing her to cough and retch until she was able to draw her damp shirt up over her mouth and nose, nipping it between her teeth to hold it in place. Her eyes burned, spilling tears that eroded through the black mask of soot. She didn’t know how much farther she could go. Eventually, they would have to pass through the leading edge of the fire and into the merely dead, scorched earth behind, wouldn’t they? Had there been any way around the inferno, they would have gladly taken it, but from the last meadow, which granted them a clear view of the mountains ahead, it had appeared as though the entire visible horizon had been on fire. Their only option had been to face it head on, with the stream by their side, as much they all detested it.
Jill coughed through her shirt, but managed to keep her teeth ground to hold it in place.
The smoke grew so dense it was as though she had closed her eyes. The images of her vision flooded in from all sides. She could see the burning pines, just as they were no more than twenty yards uphill from her now, the smoke smothering her exactly as it did now. They were close. And those things. Those black shadows darting in and out of the flames, the heart-pounding sound they made when they—
A loud roar interrupted her thoughts. It wasn’t the grumble of thunder they assumed they heard from lower in the valley, but sharper, more acute, more…bestial.
Dear Lord. It was the sound from her vision. There was no denying it.
We’re all going to die! a voice screamed from somewhere in her subconscious, but she forced it back down.
They weren’t going to die. They had come too far to die here in the smoke and flames. They were strong enough to—
Another roar answered the first and this time she screamed aloud.
The red glow of the brake light ahead grew brighter, piercing the smoke like a red laser. Then the one in front of it. They were now side-by-side, twin scarlet eyes staring at her. She slowed and came to a stop beside them.
“Did you hear that?” she cried, but the others were already talking about it.
“…sounded like it was right on top of us,” Mare said.
“I don’t think there’s any way of doubling back to find a way around—” Adam started, but was interrupted by another roar that shook the earth.
Closer still.
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Missy asked, startling Jill, who hadn’t heard the motorcycle pull up behind her.
“Maybe we should head back down to the last meadow we passed through,” Adam said. “At least we would have some sort of warning when whatever these things are attack. Here, we won’t be able to see them until they’re—”
“No,” Phoenix said. “We can’t turn back.”
“Just far enough to give us a better chance of defending ourselves. Right here we’re sitting ducks.”
“This is where it happens,” Jill said, so low that at first she worried they hadn’t heard. “This is where it happens.”
“You saw this in your vision?” Mare asked, pulling his own shirt down from beneath his eyes only long enough to ask.
Jill nodded. “Not here precisely, but right up there.” She pointed down the path to a stretch where the stream widened to accommodate what might have been the remainder of an old beaver dam and the hills to either side leveled off.
Another roar. Maybe a hundred yards away.
“There’s no outrunning them,” Phoenix said. “We’ll have to face them.”
“Then I suppose we should try to do it on our terms,” Adam said, climbing down off the bike.
He walked it ahead down the trail without looking back to see if they were following. He passed the crumbled array of sticks and guided the motorcycle through the weeds and into the water just far enough that the lower rims of the tires were underneath. It took him a moment to balance it on the kickstand. When he splashed back out of the stream, he held his rifle across his chest.
A roar rattled the heavens. Then another. They were moving so fast!
The others followed Adam’s example, parking their cycles just far enough into the creek that with any luck the fire wouldn’t ignite the gas tanks. They sloshed from the shallows and stood together on the path.
“Everyone stand back to back,” Adam said, his voice audibly trembling. “If it moves, shoot it.”
Jill jumped at the sound of another roar.
Adam slammed the bolt forward with a metallic snap, chambering the first bullet.
A roar.
Another.
Jill screamed when something large and black moved beyond the encroaching flames.
IV
MARE SHOVED JAKE BEHIND HIM AND RAISED THE SHOTGUN, RESTING THE butt against his shoulder. The smaller boy trembled against his back, but no more so than the weapon in his grasp. His left palm was damp with sweat, his fingers opening and closing, seeking the best possible grip on the wooden pump. His right hand shook so badly that it took several attempts to press the safety button and seat his index finger against the trigger. He shucked the first shell into the chamber and nervously licked his lips.
“Three shots,” he whispered. He could feel the weight of the shells in his pocket, but feared he wouldn’t have time to get at them to reload if he needed to.
His mouth went dry. The only sound he could focus on over the crackling flames was his thumping pulse in his head.
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