“We do what we have to.”
Genevieve and Krista wrap my mind in memories of them both. I see their faces so clearly, but not the smiling faces I long for. The dead faces. The one’s with the bullet holes in their skulls. The cold faces. Frozen. “I shot my family because I thought the same thing once.”
Meredith’s fingers pause, but only for the briefest of seconds.
“Right in the head.” I make my hand into a gun, my thumb the hammer, and click it twice. “To save them from this horror.”
“You did.”
I snort. “I murdered them.”
“That too.”
“But was it right?”
She doesn’t answer, the question dangling over me, waiting to pounce like the Jo-Bran outside.
“Was I?”
“We do what we have to do.”
And she leaves it at that, tending to my wounds as I drift to sleep, too weak and tired to fight anymore.
Chapter Sixteen
There is so much white that I can’t see anything. It blinds, burns, purifies. Screams echo all around me, filling my ears until the sound overflows into my mouth and I can taste the charred echoes of pain.
Then everything goes quiet.
Still.
Perfect.
Chapter Seventeen
Sunlight filters through the small porthole on the door, hitting me right in the face. I stir, shielding my eyes from the light. Meredith sits nearby on one of the desks and stares at me. Her eyes have returned to normal, the piercing aqua, but they no longer glow. The stare doesn’t disturb me as much as before.
“Are they gone?” I hope.
She nods to the door.
It’s silent. No pounding. Nothing but sunshine coming through.
I stand, trying to keep my back as straight as possible, to keep it from shifting, splitting my wounds and allowing them to bleed. Every movement feels like I’m inside an iron maiden. The slightest twitch and I’m in pain. Doing my best to ignore it, I stumble to the door and peer through.
Outside the Spire are balls of fur, curled up and hiding from the sunlight. They’re camping out, waiting for us to emerge.
“You pissed them off pretty good, didn’t you?” I squint, wanting to know how far they spread out over the horizon. “Is there a better view anywhere?”
* * *
After climbing a long winding staircase, we emerge into the sun. We’re scraping the sky. I feel like I’d be able to reach into it and my hand would come back blue.
I step to the edge of the balcony and make a small circle around the Spire’s apex. The ground is covered in multi-colored spots, balls of teeth and claws and fur. There are thousands upon thousands of the Jo-Bran, one after another after another.
“We’re fucked.”
* * *
It’s amazing what the difference a simple action of knowing that you’re going to die makes. It’s no longer a matter of when, but how. And the world doesn’t seem to matter anymore, flexing its muscles in front of you to show you who’s boss, but you can ignore them, for the sky behind, the sky within.
Chapter Eighteen
“We should try and get out while they’re sleeping,” Meredith says, the lights of the computers and dials flashing off her face, reds and yellows and greens. Almost Christmas, I think.
“You can’t be serious.”
She nods.
“And if they wake up?”
She shrugs. Her eyes say that it beats waiting around here for them to wake anyway and start their attack once again.
She starts bundling things back up. There are a few cans and dehydrated packets of food that she’s found somewhere in the Spire. She packs most of them, probably thinking what I am: If I stay, it won’t be for long.
I stop myself from asking her where she’ll go. It’s not like it matters—or ever has. We’ve just had to walk and run and fight and survive. Nothing else matters.
Her aqua eyes turn on me once she’s finished. They’re indifferent. I can’t make out any sympathy or care as to what I choose. She doesn’t care if I’m along or not. And I can’t blame her. You do what you have to do.
And maybe it’s the echo of her words in my mind, or maybe it’s because she doesn’t care whether or not I stay that I make my decision. “I’ll go.”
She nods and waits for me to bundle up and pack the few remaining necessities.
My coat smells terrible, and I hate to put it back on. It’s even worse when I do, the extra weight pressing down on my wounds. The stinging bites, but I fight back, trying to think of what I’m about to do, how stupid of an idea it is.
Meredith goes to the small porthole and surveys the area. The circle of light has almost made its journey from one side of the room to the other. We don’t have much time. And both of us know it. I doubt we’d last the night to try again in the morning. She must be thinking the same, already opening the door, even though I’m not fully repacked. I stuff the last few items inside, ease my backpack on, and follow her out the door.
The air is already half-froze, even though the sun is still bright and full, my body already grown accustomed to the warmth of the Spire. Meredith stands by the open doorframe, the door itself battered and broken on the floor. She gestures me forward and I take a place opposite her, staring out into the blinding snow, the lumps of Jo-Bran popped up like sores across the earth. The light is too bright, and my mind flashes back to dreams and warmth and screams.
“Wait,” I say.
Her brows knuckle, but I don’t explain; I head back into the other room. My eyes take an extra moment to adjust, the light darkness hanging about like the blackest of nights. The faint glow from all the buttons and readouts allows me to go about my business.
I read each label, trying to find the correct one. Meredith waits by the door, glancing from me to the outside with her mouth turned down and matching eyebrows. I finally find what I’m looking for: Ignite.
I’d hoped for a “self-destruct” button somewhere, but I figure that those are only in movies and books. This should work almost as good though. The government had cleared out the population a good ten miles from everywhere the Spires had been erected, but I figure a mile or so out should be a safe enough distance to get away from the blast. Even if we don’t make it far enough, we’re already backed into a corner, and as with all cornered animals, there is only one thing left to do: take a stand and bring down as many of the other fuckers as you can.
The button itself is sealed in a small glass bubble, extending over the top and clearing the button by an inch or two. There is a lock just below, but a quick glance around and a sinking feeling in my stomach tells me that the keys are long gone, lost, probably eaten with the owner. All I can do is break the case and hope it will still activate.
I do so with a nearby phone, the bubble bursting into a handful of shards after the third strike. I clear away the fragments and put my mittened hand over the button. For once, I’m the true instigator of my own demise. I know that if we don’t get far enough away, I will be the one to blame for my own lost life. It was my idea. You do what you have to do.
I press.
At first nothing happens and I think that it’s a dud, that I needed the key, that something isn’t working, that there’s a fuel leak. But then I hear a loud click, a giant tooth dropping to the next gear and the whole place starts a low hum. Numbers appear on a giant screen above the control panel, flashing down an hour of time. An hour to get to safety—or burn. Of course, an hour would’ve been plenty of time back before the Shift, when the world still had roads, when cars could still be used. They didn’t have so much snow. They didn’t have to worry about waking a herd of murderous beasts.
Meredith still waits by the door, and I can tell from the deepened creases on her forehead that she’s even more annoyed with me. I gesture for her to lead on, ready to get out of there as fast as possible.
Even with the Spire set in motion, I still pause at the door, thinking that there
never should be a reason to wander around outside in the midst of the Jo-Bran, within arm’s reach. I take a deep breath and focus all my attention on Meredith as she steps around the first of the beasts. Letting the air fall from my lungs, I step out, into the soon-to-be dwindling light.
Chapter Nineteen
We thread through the clumps of fur and teeth and claw, trying to stay as thin as possible, quieter than the frozen mountains. Every step crackles, sounding like a burst of black cats. I pause after each long stride, surveying the nearby sleepers, hoping they haven’t been disturbed.
The Spire is a few hundred feet away by now, but the sun is already dwindling in the east, ducking down to wake up another part of the world. I don’t know how much time has passed, but it feels like we’ve been walking for an eternity and that the Spire has just forgotten to explode.
I take a backward glance to mark our progress, and it throws me off balance. My foot shoots out on instinct, falling to the ground. My heartbeat doubles, and I look to see where it’s landed. Maybe an inch, probably less, separates my toe from a Jo-Bran. The creature grunts, and my heart stops. Meredith’s eyes are already glowing, her fingers curled, waiting, ready. The beast shifts but doesn’t wake. My heart starts to beat once again. My breath soon follows.
We press on.
The sun and Spire fall away.
Then the ground starts to rumble.
And the Jo-Bran move.
Meredith breaks into a run, not caring about where she steps or how softly her feet fall. She jumps and steps on and over the Jo-Bran, pressing forward faster than I’ve ever seen her move. I follow as best I can, trying to keep up, trying to ignore the rising mounds. We don’t have far to go until the sleeping creatures stop and there is nothing but a snow covered hill.
Some of them are already gaining their bearings and focus on the two of us as we try to break free from the surrounding monsters. One takes a swipe at Meredith, missing, then switching the gaze to me. I reach for the shotgun that isn’t there, then change course, avoiding the charging beast. I barely slip by as it stumbles over another Jo-Bran and slams into the snow.
More and more rise as the ground continues to shake. We’re in the shadow of the hill, and I can feel and see the darkness closing up around us as the sun continues to disappear. Meredith has already broken from the circle and is feet from the hill itself. I’m almost there, the last few Jo-Bran slowly rising.
Then one catches me in the arm.
I spin, watching my blood spray across the snow. But I catch myself and keep going.
The Jo-Bran’s roars fill the air, hanging in the darkness like an even darker cloud. They say one thing. Loud. Unmistakable. Death.
I stumble to the base of the hill and start my own ascent, hoping and praying that it will slow the Jo-Bran down faster than myself. Nothing seems to slow Meredith, her feet barely landing on the surface before springing up once again. I feel like calling out to her, telling her to wait, thinking it should be her instead of me at the rear.
Huffs and grunts drum my ears. They are close. And closer. And closer.
Meredith crests a steep incline and disappears over the backside. I keep moving forward. Step, step, step. I start to climb, ignoring the burning pain in my arm, my back. All I can think about is making it to the top, over the other side to safety. It seems so close. I can feel the ice through my gloves, the displaced snow drifting down my back, the pressing Jo-Bran. A voice cuts through the night, followed by an ear-piercing siren. It’s an automated voice coming from the Spire, “Warning, warning, warning.”
The ground strengthens its rumble. I lose my handhold and swing back, dangling on the cliff’s edge. I can feel my fingers slipping. The Jo-Bran dig into the wall, using their claws to gain ground. Something grabs my wrist and pulls me up, just out of reach of a swiping beast.
“Warning, warning, warning.”
Meredith looks me in the eye, but there is something there that I’ve never seen before, something darker in those aqua eyes. Something black and hollow.
“You keep saving me,” I say, trying to push forward, the back of my mind already screaming at me to move and wondering why we haven’t already.
She grabs me by both arms, her hand pressing into my wound. Half of me recoils from the pain, the other half thinks she might pull me in and kiss me. She doesn’t though. I don’t feel her lips on mine. I don’t feel her warm embrace. I don’t even feel the ground. She’s picked me up, my feet dangling a few inches from the ground.
I’m about to ask her what she’s doing. If she’s lost her mind, but I freeze as the answer hits me like a Jo-Bran’s paw.
She winds back.
Throws.
I sail through the air, the wind whistling in my ears, combining with the Spire’s voice to birth a sound like nails on a blackboard, shrieking out words instead of squeals. It feels like I’m falling forever, through the darkness, into space, away from the world and the waiting Jo-Bran. I watch Meredith fade away, her eyes the only points of reference to where we were, where she still is, thinking that I never should’ve trusted anyone covered in Jo-Bran’s blood, but even her light disappears as she jumps down the other side of the hill.
I’m hoping the fall will kill me. I’m hoping that I won’t feel a thing. I’m hoping I’ll believe my lies before my own end.
I hit.
I live.
I crash.
Thousands of needles prick through my flesh as if my veins are sprouting thorns. And the Jo-Bran quickly surround me. One of them scoops me up in its grip, the claws digging into and through my flesh.
Thinking of Meredith sliding down the other side of the hill, I scream out a stream of laughter. The ground quakes, cracking as the Spire kicks into motion. Fire and light and emptiness.
The Jo-Bran drops me, all of them finally sensing the danger. They turn and run, but it’s too late.
I’m in the midst of an earthquake, the whole area rocking and shaking, tiny explosions shooting from the Spire, the ground. Fireworks.
I think about the last fourth of the July before the Shift. Genevieve and I spread out on a blanket, watching Krista as she writes her name in the darkness with a sparkler, the trails etched into the backs of my eyes. The explosions pop overhead, spreading out across the sky, fingers of light that burn and fade and leave nothing but the perfect darkness after a sharp burst.
I hear the siren, looped into a constant, “Warning. Warning. Warning.”
And I smile, looking into the stars, envisioning everyone else out there in the cold, fighting, surviving.
The world shaking.
Crumbling.
Popping.
Gone.
Dawn of the Yeti Page 7
