He hadn’t slept that night.
Expecting to be exhausted the following day, Aiden had been surprised when he had felt as spry as ever. Still, knowing that it would eventually catch up to him, he tried to sleep the following night, but again he dreamed of death. Only this time, it wasn’t his death. It was someone else’s: a slight woman who shrieked as BBQ sauce-stained knuckles caved her head in.
And thus, sleep had evaded him for a second straight night. And yet, when the sun rose, Aiden didn’t feel the icy grip of fatigue, the slow thudding of his heart in his chest, reminiscent of his days in Iraq when he had gone close to 72 hours without resting, then hopped up on a mixture of coffee grains and chewing tobacco. But he just felt… strangely normal.
And yet, despite this revelation, the third night after his death, Aiden Kinkaid had once again attempted to sleep.
This time had been different.
There had been death—there was always death when he closed his eyes, even when he was still alive—but it wasn’t a specific person’s death that he witnessed. Instead, Aiden experienced an odd brooding sensation, like thunder that originated inside his chest, which was quickly followed by a blast of icy coldness.
Then there was the voice, the one that ordered him to cooooome to the Marrow, to give himself up to its liquid shores. It was a disembodied voice, ethereal, seeming without identity, without context, as if it were uttered not only over a long distance, but time as well.
The idea was foreign to him, and he was beginning to think that not all his thoughts were his anymore. That somehow when he had died, he had gained access to something more.
Something bigger.
That voice…
Aiiiiden, you need to coooome. You need to give yourself to the Marrow. Aiiiiideeeeen… Aaiiiiiiiiiideennnnnnn… cooooooome.
He had tried to wake then, which shouldn’t have been that difficult considering that he wasn’t sleeping, not really, but to his horror, he had found that his eyelids were glued together.
Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiidennnnnnnnn.
Like an airy whisper skipping over an impossibly large body of water, his name fluttered to him.
When he finally managed to tear his eyes open, he realized that several hours had passed.
That was the last time Aiden Kinkaid had tried to sleep.
His friends, however…
He watched as Cal moved toward the lapping waves with a staggering, almost robotic gait.
What the hell is he up to?
Something else had changed after the Orphanage, after the demon known as the Goat had managed to haul itself out of its own personal hell and into this world.
Cal glowed brighter now.
Since his death, Aiden found himself able to see people’s quiddity exuding from their flesh, and also buried deep inside, like a heat signature reminiscent of the night vision goggles he used to wear in the field. It had helped him back at the Orphanage—helped him easily pick out the dead with their weak signals from having one foot in the Marrow, from the bright lights that were Cal, Robert, Shelly, and his one-time employer Sean.
It was an odd thing to stare at, something that took getting used to, but like his inability to sleep, Aiden adapted.
And ever since Robert had fallen into a deep slumber, Cal’s quiddity had started to glow brighter and brighter.
Now, ankle deep in water, Aiden had a difficult time staring directly at his friend. Cal’s form, arms outstretched, glowed a brilliant yellow-orange and pixelated color seemed to drift from the tips of his fingers, like dust being blown off a tabletop by a sharp breeze.
He has a larger role to play in this.
The thought materialized in Aiden’s mind out of nowhere, as if conjured by the ethos itself.
Or from the Marrow. Maybe it came from the Marrow.
He’s more important than he knows… and I need to protect him.
Aiden slipped the rifle off his back, and brought the sight to his eye.
As Cal bent and stared into the water, transfixed, Aiden followed his gaze. At first, he saw nothing but the reflection of the man’s quiddity which sent brilliant, colorful streaks radiating outward across the calm water.
And then he saw something else.
Aiden blinked hard, trying to make out the details.
Was it… seaweed?
It almost looked like tiny stalks of seaweed breaching the surface of the water around Cal’s ankles.
But it couldn’t be seaweed, because it appeared to be moving in the opposite direction of the current.
Aiden swallowed hard and nestled the butt of the gun against his right shoulder, squinting into the eyepiece.
It wasn’t seaweed, he realized in horror, but fingers.
As he watched, dozens of fingertips first broke the surface, followed by hands. Grabbing, grasping hands all trying to seize Cal’s puckered skin and yank him under.
Aiden’s finger slipped from the trigger guard to the actual trigger, but Cal’s body suddenly straightened and as he did, the hands receded back beneath the waves. And then Cal started back toward shore.
Aiden lowered the rifle.
When Cal made it all the way back to his spot on the beach and lowered his body into the groove in the sand, he moved the gun to his lap.
Aiden sighed, closed his eyes in a slow blink, and as expected, he heard the voice again.
Aiiiiiiiiiiiiidennnnnnnn… cooooooome…
Only this time it wasn’t like before; this time, the sound seemed to have a direction.
Aiden’s eyes snapped open and he flicked his head to the right.
He didn’t immediately notice anything out of the ordinary, but when he brought the scope back to his face, he made out several figures moving toward them, staying close to the rock face, hugging the shadows.
It was a woman and at least half a dozen children.
Chloe had told them that Leland wouldn’t chase them here, that they already had what they needed—that all they wanted was Shelly and her baby.
But someone was coming—someone had sent Bella and the guardian orphans after them.
Aiden got to his feet and walked briskly toward the small fire on the beach that was on the verge of burning out.
They had to get moving again, and fast.
The dead were coming for them.
Chapter 22
“Did you feel that?” Allan Knox asked, turning his eyes skyward.
Ed the Nose followed his gaze.
The sky had started to go dark, which was surprising, given the fact that ever since they had arrived in this strange place—the Marrow, if the stories Ed had been told were to be believed—the sky had been bright, balmy, impossibly perfect.
Now, however, he realized that Allan was right: a hint of clouds had started to roll in from the south… or what he thought was the south, anyway. Not dark clouds, but the white fluffy kind. Ed wasn’t sure what this meant, but he was fairly certain that it wasn’t a good omen.
Not here, anyway.
“Yeah, I feel it,” Ed answered. And he did feel it, he felt a certain pressure in his chest, as if he were coming down with something. Like a cold, maybe.
The thought almost made him laugh out loud.
The dead getting the flu.
He swallowed dryly and the humor passed.
“I feel it, and it ain’t good.”
They had been walking along the beach for several hours now, looking for anything, anything at all, that might offer them relief from the monotony. There was the island, of course, a dark green swash amidst the calm blue of the sea, but there was no way that Ed was going back into the water again. Not after last time, after he was nearly overcome with the desire to lay back and spread his arms as he fell into it.
He knew what it meant, or at least he thought it did; the Marrow wanted him.
But Allan was right; there was more for them to do. Like the pressure in his chest, the notion that they weren’t quite done yet was a tangible sensation.
&nbs
p; And the island was the key.
The problem was, of course, that there was no way to get to it.
“Hey, you see that?” Allan asked softly.
Ed lowered his eyes from the island on the horizon, and followed the boy’s finger.
There, on the beach ahead of them, was something that Ed could only describe as a shimmer, like droplets of oil dancing across a mirror. It was a strange illusion, one that made his stomach flip. He swallowed and looked away, focusing on the sand to clear his head before looking back.
The shimmer was gone, but in its place was a worn, wooden canoe, not fifty paces from where they were presently standing.
Ed blinked twice, confirmed as best he could that it wasn’t a mirage, then turned to Allan.
“You, uh, you see that?”
Allan nodded subtly, his chin barely moving. He pulled his thick glasses from his nose, cleaned them quickly on the hem of his shirt, and then put them back on.
“A canoe,” he confirmed. “But where did it come from?”
Ed glanced around, his eyes drifting from the canoe to the clouds above, to the island in the distance.
Then he remembered something that Robert told him, or maybe it was one of the others, the strange person in the black hood, perhaps, or Cal or Shelly.
The walls are weakening, the divide between our world and the Marrow is becoming thinner.
Is that what’s happening here? Ed wondered as his eyes drifted back to the canoe. Is this object from our world? Was it—
But Ed didn’t finish the thought. As he stared, a hunched man dressed in dark rags not so much stood as unfurled his body, revealing himself from behind the canoe.
Ed, so surprised by the man’s appearance, reached for Allan, only to find that the boy was doing the same. They clumsily clutched each other’s forearms, and Allan gasped audibly.
The man in rags shook his entire body like a puppy emerging from his first swim, then leveled the palest blue eyes that Ed had ever seen at them.
“I’m thinking that y’all need a ride, am I right?” the man said. Then he grinned, revealing teeth so caked with filth that it looked like he had a mouth full of dirt.
Chapter 23
“They’re gaining on us,” Chloe rasped. “They’ll catch us before nightfall.”
Cal grunted as he adjusted his grip on the travois handles. His palms were shredded, and so many blisters had formed and popped that he thought his fingers had pruned.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he grumbled. Cal turned to look down at Robert, who was lying on his back, eyes closed, arms crossed over his chest like a man in a casket.
He really was moving as quickly as possible, except he was compelled to stop every few minutes to make sure that his friend was still breathing, still alive.
“It’s not fast enough,” Chloe repeated, peering back along the beach that they had come.
“Well, sorry I’m not Ben fucking John—”
Chloe hushed him by raising a finger, and Cal’s brow furrowed.
“What? What is it?” he whispered. “What do you see?”
Chloe closed her good eye and remained completely still. The only sound aside from the slow waves lapping at the shore was the whistle that her breathing made as air pushed through her mangled nose.
For a moment, Cal feared that she had fallen into the same deep sleep or coma that Robert had succumbed to, and that he would be alone with their two motionless bodies on this fucked up beach.
And then he would just give up. He would walk into the water and just keep on walking until the cold liquid filled his—
Chloe’s eye snapped open and focused on him.
“We need to hurry.”
Cal frowned.
“You said that already, and I told you, I’m hurrying, for fuck’s sake. That’s what—”
A sound, a splash of sorts, drew Cal’s attention.
What he saw immediately caused him to drop the travois. Robert, a mere afterthought now, flopped to one side and nearly slid off the side.
“Oh my God,” Cal whispered.
Three heads broke the surface of the water—three small, round heads, hair and grime clinging to their scalps in thin clumps. Two of the three were young girls judging by their long, dark hair, but the rest of their features were nearly indistinguishable irrespective of gender.
Horribly indistinguishable.
What was left of the flesh covering their skulls was sallow, hanging from their cheeks and chins in tendrils like congealed milk. Where their eyes used to be there were only gaping holes, deep, dark caverns reminiscent of the dead eyes of the animated corpses from the crematorium.
The reason for this soon became obvious: these three kids, children, no more than seven, maybe eight years of age, were also dead.
Long dead.
Cal felt his heart fall into the pit of his stomach, making friends with the perpetual knot nestled within.
These were three of the children from the orphanage.
And they were coming for them.
Cal turned to Chloe, who was staring at the corpses with a sort of strange reverence.
Do something! Fucking do something! Cal’s mind screamed, but despite his mental command, he too felt unable to move.
The children started to move forward, walking as if on land, unencumbered by the water that hugged first their chins, then their necks, and before Cal could fully comprehend what was going on, their shoulders.
Cal glanced down at Robert for support next, but his friend simply lay on one side of the travois, motionless.
Wake the fuck up, Robert! We need you, now! Wakey-wakey, eggs and fucking rotten bakey!
But Robert didn’t wake up.
He didn’t do anything.
“Chloe—” Cal finally managed to gasp. The word felt thick on his tongue, as if he had been stung by a bee, but before he could add anything else a sonic thhhwap, tore by his ear, causing an uncomfortable pressure change that momentarily set him off balance.
The head of the only boy in the group not so much exploded as it vaporized. Bits of gray flesh and bone and whatever else filled the rotting head sprayed backward in a mist that rippled the water like pebbles tossed into a pond. For one, horrifying second, the headless body kept moving, kept walking, keeping stride with the other two guardian children, before slowly collapsing forward.
And then a scream, more of a growl, really, a deep rumbling growl, filled the air.
Chapter 24
Aiden pumped the spent shell from the chamber and was in the process of taking aim again when he heard someone scream.
His first shot had been a direct hit, obliterating the head of the child as he shambled toward Chloe and Cal. So when he heard the shout, his first thought was that it had been one of the other dead, but when he scanned the mouths of the two who remained standing, he saw only teeth pressed together to form lipless grins.
They hadn’t screamed; he didn’t think that they had the faculties, the anatomy to create such a sound.
Aiden pushed the thoughts from his mind, and set about focusing on his next shot, all the while keeping his periphery clear in case Bella made an appearance.
He had watched as the children had first waded out into the water, much like Cal had done hours before, but when they didn’t turn back, when they just kept on going, he chalked them up as good as gone, wherever lost quiddity go—to the Marrow, all quiddity goes to the Marrow. Don’t you feel it, Aiden? Don’t you feel it? Tugging at you? At your very essence?—but in the process, he had lost sight of Bella.
But now he had to focus, he had to take out the two other guardian children before they got to Cal and Chloe.
Aiden lined the reticle up with the head of the second child, one with thin, black hair and a gaping wound in one gray cheek. His finger tensed on the trigger, but before he could squeeze off the shot, something suddenly jumped into his field of view.
Aiden pulled the scope away from his eye.
“Don’
t shoot!” A shout filtered up to him from the beach, “Aiden, don’t shoot!”
What the fuck is this?
Chloe had stepped directly between him and the target, her quiddity flaring brightly before his eyes.
What the hell is she doing?
The woman waved her arms above her head, signaling to him as if he were miles away instead of just a couple hundred meters.
“Don’t shoot!” she shouted again in her raspy voice.
Cal started to move then, stepping toward Chloe, all the while yelling at her to get out of the way.
The children paid none of this any heed.
They just kept coming.
For a second, Aiden considered firing a round anyway. He squeezed the rifle barrel tightly between his fingers as he contemplated this option. It felt heavier in his hand than it had back on his perch outside the orphanage, something that set off alarm bells in the back of his head.
At the orphanage, his aim had been true, and he had struck down every dead corpse that he had taken aim at. But he had taken a single extra shot. He had fired a single shot at Bella and the bullet had passed right through her; she didn’t even seem to notice.
But now was different.
Chloe was different.
And so was he. Ever since Sean Sommers’s mummified body had been torn to shreds and the demon that was Leland Black emerged, Aiden felt different. More whole, maybe.
And the persistent tug from the Marrow, the one that teased at the back of his mind like an ever-present nagging, asking him to make a choice, to give himself to the Marrow, that had faded a little.
It was still there, but it was no longer as powerful as it had been.
The walls between our world and the Marrow are thinning…
Aiden eased off the trigger and slung the rifle over his shoulder.
Shores of the Marrow Page 9
