Horizon

by Sophie Littlefield

  “How could you let her take a chance like that?” Smoke’s voice was choked with fury and he did not take Dor’s offered hand. “All she had was a blade, she—”

  “You’ve been gone for a while,” Dor said tightly, and slowly lowered his hand. “She’s tougher than you think. She’s done what she had to do.”

  Done what she had to do. There was no mistaking the implication in his voice, and Cass shot him a furious look. So he wanted their affair out in the open. Well, it was just as well; someone would tell Smoke soon enough. After the scene with Valerie at the water’s edge, it was common knowledge.

  Smoke looked from one of them to the other, his eyes narrowing. “I know she’s tough, MacFall. I lived with her, remember?”

  “Hey.” Red stepped between the two men. “Now is not the time. We can catch up later, my friends. Everyone’s fine, that’s what matters.”

  “What the hell, Cass?” Smoke turned to face her, his face twisted in fury and pain. “What were you thinking?”

  “I had to, they were about to attack—”

  “Dor had it handled.”

  “He couldn’t have held them off by himself.”

  “Then you should have let someone else.”

  “No one else would!” Tears of frustration stung Cass’s eyes. The aftereffects of the adrenaline surge had left her shaking and trembling and she felt dizzy.

  “You can’t take risks like that, you can’t—”

  “You don’t get it, Smoke, this isn’t like the Box! These people, they’re soft, they’re afraid, they don’t—”

  “Ruthie needs you.” Smoke took her hand and pulled her toward him, turning his back on everyone else. “I need you,” he added, more quietly.

  Dor made a sound of disgust and strode away, back toward the front of the crowd. Cass did not allow herself to watch him go. She stared into Smoke’s eyes, the pallor of his winter-skin reddened by exertion, and knew that he did not mean that he needed her in order to become whole again or to finish healing. It was his spirit he was speaking of, but he couldn’t know how far she’d fallen, how little of what was good in her remained.

  Maybe he’d forgive what she’d done with Dor, but it wasn’t just that. She was weak now, a drinker, a shirker of duties. If she hadn’t given herself away to Dor, it would have been someone else, some other path to release. Cass was weak, she was barely able to take care of Ruthie, and there was not enough left even for her to care for her own damaged self. How could she reconstruct enough of her shattered soul to be anywhere close to what he needed?

  She shook her head. “Zihna,” she said, turning away. “I think I need to sit down. Just for a minute.”

  And Zihna, who made a specialty of knowing what people needed, pushed aside the blankets to make a place for her, and put Ruthie in her arms and when the crowd started moving again, a few moments later, it was Red who pulled the trailer and Smoke who pushed the empty stroller, using it like a walker, his face set in such grim determination that Cass didn’t doubt he’d walk to the end of the earth before he gave up.

  Chapter 25

  THEY’D GONE LESS than a mile before they heard the cries start up again.

  More Beaters.

  “Goddamn it,” Red said. “Who would have thought the fuckers would have it in them? They always go back to their nests at night. Always.”

  Cass jumped off the trailer, carrying Ruthie; there would be no time for resting now. She craned her neck to try to see but they were in the back of the crowd and all she could see was the others, bodies with their burdens, and in the front the remaining vehicles. She searched for Dor, found him through the crowd, walking near the front, having abandoned the downed motorcycle.

  “Red,” Zihna muttered urgently. “We need to get everyone to the center.”

  Smoke was already reaching for Ruthie. “I can get this,” he said, settling her into the stroller.

  “You know I have to go,” Cass said.

  His jaw tightened, but he said nothing as he fastened Ruthie’s buckle.

  “They need me. There aren’t enough who can fight.”

  Finally, he looked at her, and she saw the grim determination written on his face. “It should be me, protecting you,” he said.

  “It will be, soon, I promise.”

  “Get me a gun, a blade, anything—”

  Cass looked away. “Yes. Fine. I’ll see what I can do. But meanwhile, please, please take care of Ruthie, okay?”

  “Yes, of course.” Smoke closed his eyes for half a second, took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry about—with Dor. I know I overreacted, I know I had no right, I just want, I need…”

  “Your place is here for now, Smoke,” Zihna said firmly, stepping in between them.

  Cass turned away from him so he couldn’t see her face, caressing Ruthie’s cheek, kissing her silky hair.

  “Go,” Zihna urged her, adamantly. “You too, Red. Cass, we’ll be fine.”

  “Zihna!” Sammi burst through the press of bodies, dragging Sage. “You have to talk to her, she won’t stay in the car—oh my God, Smoke, it’s really you, I can’t believe it—”

  Ahead, another of the Beaters’ frantic cries, and another. Gunshots and human screams mixed in with the other sounds in the field ahead. The sun breached the horizon, momentarily blinding all with the first rays of the day. People jostled each other in an effort to see or to flee. Several ran backward, dropping their suitcases, headed back toward the island.

  “That sounds like more’n a handful of ’em,” Red said grimly. “God be with you, Cassie girl.”

  Cass threw one last look at them—Zihna and Red, the girls, Smoke and Ruthie—and then she ran.

  She caught up with Dor and they dodged scattered and abandoned belongings. The cars had pulled bumper to bumper, making a barrier, and the drivers were out of the cars, yelling to each other.

  “What now?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Dor shot back, frustration in his voice. “There’s no coordination, nothing—”

  He stopped abruptly as they came around the side of the cars. There, lying in a thatch of kaysev, were three dead Beaters. A man stood a few paces away, holding his arm and trembling.

  “He’s bit! He’s bit!” a woman was wailing.

  A dozen paces away, there was a commotion surrounding more dead Beaters lying on the ground. One of the creatures remained on his feet, lurching toward a wiry man, maybe Nathan, Cass couldn’t tell. The man dodged close and jabbed and even from far away Cass could see the spray of blood from its neck. It walked, stiff-legged, in a semicircle before falling to the ground, the blood petering out while it twitched.

  That was the last of them that Cass could see; all the Beaters lay dead or dying. There were shouts from the crowd, triumphant cheers. People began pouring around the cars now that it was safe.

  The woman who had been wailing latched onto Dor. “He tried, he tried to kill them but that one, it bit him.”

  “You’re sure?” Dor said. He seized her hand and dragged her away from the man.

  “I saw, I saw it, on the arm, the arm,” the woman babbled, and Cass saw the bleeding puncture down near his wrist bone. He was still staring at his wound, at the blood dripping onto the ground, his expression a mixture of disbelief and horror.

  Dor shot him.

  He moved so quickly that Cass didn’t even see him reach for his gun and certainly didn’t see him aim. The man stumbled back and a hole appeared in his forehead so neat and round it looked as though it had been made by a giant paper punch. The woman’s screams turned incoherent and she pounded at Dor with her fists, but he pushed her gently away and others came forward, and led her away from the body.

  “What are you armed with?” Dor demanded.r />
  “My blade,” Cass said. “And I have a spare. There are guns on the trailer, Red didn’t think—”

  “Red is not in charge,” Dor said angrily. “You got that, Cass? You don’t follow Red.”

  “I don’t follow anyone,” Cass snapped, staring into Dor’s flashing ebony eyes. But it wasn’t exactly what she meant to say—she’d followed Dor into the canoe, hadn’t she, with barely a thought; they found their rhythm immediately, the canoe rock-steady as he rowed and she fired, and again at the bridge.

  “You’ll follow me now,” Dor growled. He put a hand behind her neck and pulled her closer, making her falter so she had to grab his arm for balance. “This isn’t about you and me right now. We can sort that out later. This is about there being too damn few people who know what they’re doing and too many sitting ducks who are going to die if we don’t do this right. Now, I’ve got Nathan and Steve and Brandt covering the other end. You and I will take this end. We’ll get Glynnis out in the front and everyone else will drop back. You got that?”

  Cass nodded. It made sense, better than anything she could come up with, at least while his hand was heavy on her neck, his face inches away, his eyes reflecting the battleground behind her.

  “Now take these,” he demanded, releasing her only after he put a gun and extra rounds in her hands.

  Up ahead the others were silhouetted against the rising sun, leading the Edenites across the field.

  But then she looked again. It was wrong, all wrong. They were coming closer, not moving away. Their gait was ragged, jerking.

  At least two dozen of the beasts, and behind them Cass could see more, stumbling toward them in groups that split and re-formed as they heaved against each other and thrashed their arms and howled.

  Gasps quickly turned to screams as the rest of the crowd saw them too. Dor stepped out in front, and fired into the sky.

  “Everyone! Listen to me. If you are armed and you know how to use your weapon, come to the front. Keep the children, the old folks, to the back. Stay put. No one goes back to the island. It’s not safe there anymore.”

  For a moment there was panic and then, incredibly, the crowd began to follow his orders. Cass spotted Zihna and Red on either side of the trailer, pushing it to the back, and Smoke, standing in front of the stroller, protecting Ruthie with his body. He had a gun in his hand, one of Red’s, no doubt.

  “Deal with the ones who come to you,” Dor shouted to her. “Don’t worry about the rest. I’ve got it.”

  Cass readied herself, crouching down, weighing the gun in her hands, getting used to the broad grip. The extra magazines, jammed under her belt, were high-capacity—at least a dozen rounds each. That gave her thirty shots, give or take, assuming she survived to reload, assuming she was steady enough. She wished she hadn’t allowed herself to become complacent with the rest of them. All those mornings when Dor went out alone on North Island, doing his target practice and running sprints, working with the set of barbells he kept under a tarp—she should have been there too. She’d heard the way people made fun of him, calling him Rambo, but they talked in whispers about her too, and it meant nothing, less than nothing.

  She had allowed their judgment to matter. It was the mistake she seemed doomed to make over and over, and once she let their criticism in it became way too easy to go the rest of the distance, to become the thing they accused her of.

  But it wasn’t who she really was. It wasn’t. Here on this field of death, Cass seized on the lesson she’d forgotten in the past few months: she was who she made of herself, and no other. She breathed deep and forced herself to exhale slowly, feeling the steel warm to her touch, and vowed to survive.

  Dor fired and a gangly, thin Beater who’d sprinted ahead of the others suddenly jerked and staggered backward, right into the path of another, who fell sideways, screaming.

  A trio of them ran straight toward her. The crowd had dropped back, scattering in confusion, and she was alone in the open field, the target of their focus and their desperation. She crouched lower, putting one knee to the ground, waiting. Fire too soon and she’d waste a valuable bullet and risk scattering them. The moment they split up they became ten times more dangerous.

  She counted in her mind, mouthing the syllables silently. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three…

  Down the line shots were fired, screams and yelps erupting from the Beaters who were hit. But Cass did not dare take her eyes off her targets.

  Closer, closer, and Cass could see the bare swinging breast that hung out of the open shirt one of them wore. It had no hair left on its scarred, filthy scalp. Its mouth yawed in a lipless leer and one of its eyes had been ruined, the socket red and pulped, bone protruding from the edges.

  Cass shot that one first.

  She hit its shoulder and cursed as it fell to the ground screaming and immediately started trying to crawl. A poor shot, nonfatal, but at least one of the others tripped over it, and Cass was able to get a clean shot at its dropping head, which opened like a rose.

  The final one crowed, waving its arms wildly, and Cass waited until it was only a few yards away. She pulled the trigger and the gun jerked in her hand but did not shoot.

  Oh God oh God it had misfired—who knew where Dor had found this gun, if this had been the Box it would have been cleaned and maintained but no This was New Eden land of peace and prosperity and complacency and the Beater was coming closer. Cass fired again and this time the gun responded and the bullet went a little bit wide but it took a good chunk out of the thing’s skull.

  It wobbled on its feet, close enough that had it still been human Cass could have had a conversation with it. Spinning, grinning, lipless mouth opening in a slow-mo scream; reaching for Cass as if it wanted to make a point, caress her cheek, fix a button. Cass wavered and wondered if the next second would bring its fetid teeth closing on her skin.

  No no no

  She’d beaten them before, somehow. She had to beat them again. Rage uncoiled inside her and she clenched her teeth and adjusted her position, distributing her weight better. She didn’t trust this gun, didn’t know how many bullets remained. And at this range she couldn’t miss again. She switched the gun to her left hand and grabbed for her blade. That, at least, was as comfortable as it had ever been; Cass kept it sharpened because she used it for all kinds of tasks in the garden. Now she held it tightly and when the Beater was only a few feet away, she dodged around it, reached out for its neck from behind, and cut straight and deep across its throat.

  She had killed them this way before, not often. A human throat was surprisingly tough to cut through, cartilage and muscle and arteries knotted densely. And a Beater had been human once. It might chew its skin off, it might lose digits and eyes and chunks of flesh but underneath its gory exterior it was still wrought of the same innards, and she threw herself into the motion and did not hold back, and the Beater’s last cry was severed along with its windpipe as it landed face-first on the ground.

  The first one that had fallen was crawling toward her, its useless arm bleeding from the shoulder wound. It was making gasping, panting sounds and these, too, ended abruptly when Cass stepped on its shoulders and repeated the swipe of the blade, this time leaving the side of its neck half-severed. It gurgled and jerked as it died and Cass left it and went looking for Dor.

  He’d left his own trail of dead behind him, two of them mounded together as though they were embracing, others splayed awkwardly alone. He was standing in the brilliant glow of the rising sun, arms loose at his side, and for a moment Cass thought he was praying—but when he lifted his gun and jammed a fresh magazine onto it, she knew she was mistaken.

  There must be more.

  She covered her eyes with her hand and squinted. Something sprinted into view, and Dor took a shot but missed, and the thing ran between them. It was heading
into the crowd, yammering as it ran, hands flapping.

  Why hadn’t it attacked them? Beaters always went for the closest prey. It was gospel that the people in front were most likely to die, so raiding parties always put their weakest members in the back. But this Beater had ignored them to go after the others. Had it figured out that Cass and Dor were its greatest threat? That the weakest, most vulnerable targets were the people in the midst of the crowd?

  Where Ruthie was, where Smoke was

  “Up ahead! Cass! There’s more ahead!”

  But Cass plunged through the crowd after the rogue Beater instead. She could not let it reach Ruthie, could not take that risk. People screamed and knocked each other over trying to get out of the way, but by the time she caught up with it, it had seized the pink sleeve of a puffy coat, wasn’t that Mrs. Prince—there was her dull gray hair that she’d valiantly tried to pin-curl for so long until she finally gave up one day and had Tildy cut it all off in a pixie that suited her surprisingly well, but the Beater knocked her over as easily as if she’d been a bowling pin and fell upon her and when Cass grabbed its hair, because it still had a greasy topknot of the stuff, studded with chaff and greasy in her hand, she saw that its mouth was sodden with Mrs. Prince’s blood and the poor woman was gasping through a hole torn from her throat.

  Cass stabbed at the Beater with her blade, slicing through the soft skin under its jaw, bringing her arm down again and again until its head nearly came away in her hand, and only then did she finally stagger away from the scene of carnage.

  The Edenites continued to retreat in every direction—the worst thing they could do, inciting the Beaters to ever-greater excitement. She didn’t see Red or Zihna, Smoke, any of them, and she couldn’t waste time searching. She ran back toward the abandoned cars, the Beaters streaming past the paltry barrier they made. There were so many. Where had they all come from, where had they been hiding? A couple dozen more at least, and more dead on the ground. To the right, she saw Brandt being set on by a clot of the things, saw the gun fall from his hand as they slammed his body to the earth in their favorite technique and then each seizing a limb, an arm or a leg, and then dragging him away, back the way they’d come. Ordinarily they went back to their nests, but there were no buildings here, only open fields dotted with shrubs and clumps of trees. There was a leaning ranch house far in the distance to the east, but the Beaters did not head that way. Maybe they meant only to get their prey out of sight, to hide in the tall grass to feast. No matter what, Brandt was lost, his screams fading as they dragged him away.