by Ilsa J. Bick
“R-Rima?” Tania’s voice trembled. She pointed, using the rifle she still clutched in her right hand. “It … it’s re-repairing itself. It’s m-making itself all over again.” She stared at the rifle. “I bet I could shoot it a hundred t-times and it would … it would … God, how do you k-kill something like that?”
“I don’t know.” She cut her eyes away from the mess and toward her friend, then started back in alarm. “Tania! At the window! Look out!”
Too late. The glass on Tania’s side exploded in a hail of gummy fragments. Two arms—long, lean, impossibly strong—thrust into the cabin. Both unfurled hooked claws. One latched onto the rifle, yanking it from Tania’s hand; the other lashed out.
“OHHH!” Tania shrieked. Bright red blood jetted from her right shoulder. She tried twisting away, but that clawed hand only dug in, slashing deeper, and gave her another mighty yank, tearing her halfway from her seat.
“No!” Rima lunged. Snatching double fistfuls of Tania’s parka, she braced herself, planting one boot against Tania’s seat, the other against the transmission box, and heaved. “I’ve got you, Tania! Pull, Tania, pull!”
“I c-can’t—aahhh!” Jammed against the shattered window, unable to pull free, Tania screamed again. Her shoulder harness had snapped. The only thing saving her from going through altogether was that the window was just a touch too small. “I can’t, Rima! It’s too strong, it’s too—”
Going to lose her, going to lose her! Or whatever had her would tear Tania apart a piece at a time. Frantic, Rima tried to think of what to do, something she could use. The rifle was gone. There was the dropped hammer, but she would have to loosen her grip on Tania to find it, and patting around the foot well would take precious time she didn’t think they had. So what else was there? More tools in the equipment lockers in the passenger cab? Maybe, but there was no time, no time!
So she let go of Tania and did the only thing left.
3
EVERY STEP BROUGHT a blast of fresh agony, but after the first five steps, the pain wasn’t worse, just constant. The important thing was Casey was on his feet, and he’d found the shotgun. Ahead, he saw the things swarming over the snowcat; heard the explosion as the glass let go and then a scream. Why weren’t they moving? He was still too far away to do any good with the gun, and he couldn’t afford to waste shells, especially since he didn’t know how many he had left. Tania took two shots, maybe three, in the church. He was pretty sure there was a round in the chamber; he’d racked the pump, but he didn’t know all that much about guns. God, he didn’t even know how to check. How many shells did a shotgun hold? What if there was no shell in there at all?
Just got to hope there is, and that I’ll have time to get close enough for one good shot. To do that, he’d have to get right on top of them, because he was pretty sure that shotguns weren’t as good as rifles, didn’t have the range, and he didn’t much trust his aim anyway. If he could just get there in time.
Then, he heard the snowcat’s engine grind, and felt a burst of elation. Yes, yes, come on, Rima; get it going, get it—
The cat turned over once, twice, coughed, and then revved to a howl.
“Yes!” Casey cried, ignoring the fresh lancets of pain that stabbed at his chest. He pumped his fist. “Hit the gas, Rima, hit the gas! Go! GO!”
4
WITH THE CAT still in neutral, Rima stamped on the accelerator. The engine responded with an earsplitting clatter, followed by a bark that ground and gathered itself in a whooping crescendo shriek—and then she slapped the transmission lever with all her might. The cat dropped into drive and surged forward, its treads ripping snow with a great, shuddering roar.
Through the shattered window, above the clatter and squeal of the cat’s treads, there came another, new note: a high, shrieking wail as the thing that had Tania lost its balance on the running board. Too late, Rima thought, Oh God, don’t foul the treads! She held her breath as the cat lurched, that side bumping up and then crashing down—
5
ON THE SNOW, now no more than seventy yards away, Casey watched as the cat swung round; saw clearly—and heard—the moment when the man-thing was reeled, squealing, beneath the cat’s treads. Its shriek abruptly cut out as if hacked by an ax.
Yes, yes! But where were the other two? Shaken off? Run away? No, they wouldn’t leave; he knew that. So where? His eyes raked the snow and then sharpened on the cat once more.
“Rima!” God, could she hear him over the engine roar? He was running as fast as he could, but he was still managing nothing more than a staggering stumble that was slow, much too slow! “Rima, the roof! There’s one on the—”
6
GOT YOU. EASING back on the gas, Rima felt the growling cat grind to a halt. She was shaking all over. I got you.
Tania moaned, and when Rima got a good look, that fleeting sparrow of triumph fled. The other girl’s parka was scarlet. More blood was spurting from Tania’s right shoulder, the entire arm only just hanging on by a thread of torn flesh and splintered bone.
“Rima.” Tania’s voice was less than a whisper, and so weak there was barely any sound at all. Already whiter than salt, her face was going translucent and glassy, the color bleaching away. “R-Rima?”
“Oh God.” Rima started to unwind Tony’s scarf, still knotted around her neck. If she could slow down that bleeding, get them to someone who could help. In the school, the nurse’s office, there’s got to be—
There was an enormous, splintery crash, followed by the instantaneous hoosh of cold air. Rima’s eyes jerked front, expecting to see a fist pistoning for her face. But the windshield was intact. Oh shit. Heart thudding, Rima inched round to look over her shoulder and back toward the passenger cab. In the next instant, a thin, strangled, squeaky sound midway between a moan and a scream dribbled from her mouth: “Ohhh!”
This second man-thing was much taller and beefier, with a dense, furry ruff sprouting from its neck and glistening skin as slick as a black grub’s. When it saw Rima look, the creature’s yellow eyes lit with a feverish, feral gleam. Its lips skinned back from a bristle of teeth and a tongue as ropy and muscular as a black snake.
Time seemed to hesitate for a span no longer than the pause between two heartbeats. In that moment, Rima heard the splash of Tania’s blood and her faltering breath growing weaker and weaker; she could smell the man-thing, wild and animal and utterly alien, and taste it, too, rank and raw in her mouth. She even had time to wonder about Casey, who must be dead by now, torn apart, because where there was one thing and then two, there were probably a lot more.
And she had time to know this: she could run or she could fight, simple as that.
Without taking her eyes from the thing, she squatted, reached down—and felt her fingers close around the hammer.
Fight.
BODE
Whatever This Place Makes Next
“WHAT IS THIS stuff?” The billowing fog surrounding the Dodge sponged up all sound, so that Chad’s voice came out flat and, Bode thought, a little dead. “Can’t see for shit. You ever seen anything like this, Bode?”
“Nope, never, not me, not even after they drop smoke, you know?” As soon as the fog swallowed them, Bode had taken his foot off the accelerator, but the Dodge still thrummed, the engine having settled down to a steady rattle. He took a sniff and grimaced. “Smells weird. Not like phosphorus or how napalm stinks when it’s cooking off. Like burnt diesel.”
“Naw. This smells like”—Chad’s blade of a nose wrinkled—“like, you know, blood. And I don’t mean cooked neither, like from an explosion, but fresh. Man, I don’t know what this shit is.”
“Do you?” Shifting his gaze to his rearview mirror, Bode saw two faces: Eric’s, pinched with strain but intent, and the blasted ruin no one else could see that was Sergeant Battle. He said to Battle, “You know what’s going on, Sarge?”
Got some ideas. Battle’s face twisted, but given that half the sergeant’s head was blown apart, his left
eye dragged on his cheek, and his brains slopped over his neck in a wormy pink goo, Bode couldn’t be sure if Battle was frowning—or cracking a grin. None of ’em you’re going to care for.
“Yeah?” Bode eyed the white world beyond the Dodge. He really couldn’t tell whether they were still on the snow, on a road, or hanging in midair. The truck was nowhere—and nowhere was deep within the fog, which boiled and curdled and rushed by in dense clots. He understood the Dodge wasn’t going anywhere and only the fog was moving, but the optical illusion was disorienting, like sitting by a train’s window as another train the next track over pulled from the station. “Well, I don’t much know if I care for what’s going on now. You want to give me the straight dope?”
Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
“Try me,” Bode said.
You’re not ready to hear it yet. The mortar had chunked a blast crater just above the sergeant’s left ear, so that when Battle shook his head, Bode saw straight through to the fog. The view reminded him of peering out the murky window of a Huey flying low and NOE, nap-of-the-earth, through the tangles of a jungle’s early morning mist. Same way you didn’t listen outside that honky-tonk. Told you to let it go, but no … you just had to pull that trigger.
“Let it go? Let it go? Oh, that would’ve turned out really great.” Bode snorted. “Sorry, Sarge, but a court-martial wasn’t in my plans.”
If they catch you, son, it’s the firing squad for sure. You’re supposed to kill the enemy, not your LT.
Yeah, yeah. The problem was, Sarge couldn’t know what it was like to be Bode. The man was dead, after all, and what did ghosts know about being haunted? Bode could mute Battle’s voice with drugs. In ’Nam, there’d been pot and hash and Binoctal and booze, but opium was best, Bode’s consciousness floating away and Battle’s face pulling apart on a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. Stateside, opium dens were scarce, but you could score all kinds of drugs if you had the dough and knew where to look and who to ask. Things got dicey, though, when your prick of a lieutenant followed you into a bar and threatened to turn you in.
From the backseat, Eric said to Bode, “Well, we can’t just sit here. As crazy as this sounds, we got to get moving. The others are still out here.”
“Where you want to go, huh?” Chad flapped a hand toward the windscreen. “How? Inquiring minds want to know.”
“Maybe we could check how far ahead we can really see,” Eric said.
“Yeah, you go right ahead, be my guest.” Chad was pick-pick-picking at his mouth sore again. “I ain’t going out in that. I say we sit tight, wait it out. Shit’s got to go away sometime. Just gotta, you know, wait for the sun to burn it off.”
“Forgetting for the moment that less than a half hour ago, it was night,” Eric said, “I don’t think that’s too likely, Chad. This isn’t any kind of regular fog. You saw how it came after us. It ran us down.”
“Yeah, thanks, I was there. So what are you saying?” Chad twisted his head around to scowl at Eric. “You saying it’s alive? Like it ate us for food or something?”
In the rearview, Bode saw Eric glance askance, as if searching for the right words. “No.” And when Eric looked back, Bode read the dread. “But it wants us for something.” Eric’s darkly blue eyes searched out Bode’s. “You feel it, right?”
“No,” Bode said, uneasy. For a kid he’d only just met, Bode still trusted this devil dog; felt as if they shared something in common besides uniforms. “What do you feel?”
“You’re listening to this guy?” Chad demanded.
“This”—Eric bunched a fist over his chest—“pull. Like something’s digging in, trying to hang on or get a hold. I’m not really sure.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. You,” Chad said, “are so frigging stunned, man. Got yourself into some el Diablo, you ask me.”
“What?”
Listen to the devil dog, Battle said to Bode. You know he’s right.
Bode frowned. “But Sarge, Chad’s also right. I don’t feel anything like what Eric’s saying.”
That’s because he’s got more of a connection. He’s not set the way you are.
“Set?” What did that mean? “Connection? Sarge, connection to what?”
Not what. Battle raised the charcoal smudge of his remaining eyebrow. Who.
“All I’m saying is, I think we need to get moving.” Eric licked his lips. “And we need to do it now, before the fog decides for us.”
Chad opened his mouth to object, but Bode said, “Yeah, it’s not a bad idea. I hate just sitting on my ass, waiting for something to happen. Here.” Bode reached across Chad, pawed open the glove compartment, and pulled out a flashlight. “You take that, Eric, see how far you—” He broke off as the Dodge’s engine suddenly revved.
“Man, what are you doing?” Chad said.
“Nothing, I’m not doing anything. My foot’s not even on the gas.” Bode stamped the brake. “We’re just—”
“Starting to move,” Eric said.
He was right. The Dodge hitched and staggered, the wheels seeming to spin on ice—or thin air, Bode thought—and then the tires found and caught on something, as if a road had suddenly materialized, making itself out of the fog. The Dodge started to roll, the tires beginning to hum, and the hum rising to a steady high note.
“Well, do something, man!” Chad braced himself as the Dodge picked up speed. “Try the emergency brake, try—”
You can’t stop this, Battle said. It’s using you, gathering you together. It’s forcing her to try and pull you through onto the same White Space.
“What? Who?” Bode asked Battle. “Try what? What the hell’s White Space?”
“You can’t fight it.” Eric’s hand closed over Bode’s shoulder. “The fog won’t let us stop. We’re being pulled toward something for a reason. I feel it, this …”
“Tug,” Bode said, because he felt it now, an insistent finger hooked in the meat of his brain. “In my head.”
“You guys serious?” Chad looked from Bode to Eric and back again. “You’re serious. I don’t feel anything, except like I might take a dump in my pants, man.”
Eric ignored him. “Bode, please, give me a weapon. The shotgun, the rifle, I don’t care, but give me something and do it now.”
“What?” Bode asked. “Why?”
“So I can fight.” Eric’s skin was so dead white he seemed a creature spun of fog. “So I can kill whatever this place makes next.”
CASEY AND RIMA
Look at Her Face
1
HANG ON. TOO far away to help when he’d spotted the man-thing breaking into the snowcat’s passenger cabin, Casey was closer now, running as fast as he could, grimacing at the grab and tear in his chest, trying to look everywhere at once, the pain stinging his veins. Thirty more yards, twenty, ten …
A howl blasted from the passenger cabin, followed by a shriek. No, God, please. “Rima!” Hooking one bloodstained hand on the jamb, he wheeled round and onto the steps, and then he was bursting through, bringing the shotgun to bear. “Rima! Get—”
The thing barreled into him. Crashing to the metal floor, Casey screamed as a swoop of pain churned through his chest. He made an instinctive move to cover up, protect himself, raise the shotgun, but the thing swatted the weapon away. Before he could do anything to save himself, the thing clamped its powerful hands around his throat and dug in.
No! Panicked, pulse galloping, fingers scrabbling for purchase over furry knuckles, Casey surged, tried bucking the man-thing off, but it was too heavy, and he was only sixteen, not very tall, and already hurt. The thing was shaking him hard enough that the back of his head thunked and clunked and bounced on metal. Losing it … His arms were going as limp as overdone noodles. Wavering blood-spiders unfurled in front of his eyes, his vision going blotchy before suddenly squeezing down to a pinprick: red spangles going to black, diminishing to a single bright speck, like the end of a very long tunnel. The world muted, flattened, and he thought, stupidly, of tha
t deadening fog. And then even that was slipping away, and Casey saw nothing, couldn’t hear anything other than the feeble thump of his heart, and that was dying, too.
But then … something happened. He felt the thing jerk, but the sensation was very far away, a whisper that his brain didn’t seem to have the will or energy to hang on to. Another jerk, a faraway flop, the way a fish struggled to free itself from a hook.
All of a sudden, the pressure around his neck was gone.
He wasn’t thinking anymore, didn’t know what was going on. What happened next was instinct, reflex. He heard, very dimly, a tortured, wheezy caw, the rasping cry of a bird fighting the jaws of a cat with the last of its strength. A razor of cold air sliced his throat. In the next instant, his chest exploded a bright hot burn as his tortured lungs struggled to inflate. Casey’s eyes snapped open, unseeing, his vision still blinkered, patchy, and molten, and he began to retch. Gawping, he managed another stinging, croaking bird’s caw of a breath, and another—and then, above the thunder of blood in his ears, he made out a very strange sound: a hollow, dull thuck!
Running over pumpkins. The thought was hazy, hard to hang on to, like trying to cup a fine mist. Running over pumpkins on Halloween.
2
“AH!” RIMA SWUNG again, with both hands, bringing the hammer whizzing down. Its black claw whickered, cleaving air. She’d gotten it between the shoulders the first time and was aiming for the head now, but even hurt and surprised, the thing was fast. At the last second, it flinched away, and she missed, the claw whizzing past, pulling her off-balance. She stumbled, her right knee banging into an equipment locker. Gasping against a starburst of pain, she caught herself on her hands, the hammer gripped in her right hitting the lid with a dull clank. To her left, the man-thing let out a huge bellow that she felt, blasting over her back and humming through metal.
