Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy

by Ilsa J. Bick

  In charge, my ass. For about the billionth time, he wondered what the hell Yeager was smoking. Greg wasn’t Peter or Chris. He’d only just turned fifteen. He was having a hard enough time being him—whoever that was.

  “No, no, I’m telling the truth! It was me, it was just me—Aaahhhh!” Dale shrieked as Aidan’s antenna razored meat right down to bone. “Jesus Jesus Je—”

  And that was when Greg felt the earth move.

  7

  As one wall of the tunnel cracked apart and the rock gave way, Alex screamed. Her right shoulder was a fireball of red, liquid pain, the tendons and muscles stretching until she thought her skin would rip, the arm simply pop from its socket. Clutching Wolf’s forearm in a death grip, she could feel his muscles quivering from the effort. She had visions of the rope to which Wolf clung, fraying, unraveling, breaking, and the two of them being swept away. She had no idea if the Changed above were trying to pull them up. They probably couldn’t, because of the current. She was barely holding on, and the pain was building, her shoulder trying to come apart. If only the drag would let up!

  Unless it doesn’t. The water had dropped to just below her knees but no further. Must be filling almost as fast from somewhere else. The rope had swayed left, and there it stayed, drawn to the doomed course that the water charted, their weight fixed to the end of a gigantic pendulum. If the rope snapped, or Wolf couldn’t hang on—

  I should let go. An insane thought, but one that, under the circumstances, had all the bald certainty of an irrefutable logic. I’m too much for him. I’ll get us both killed.

  A jolt. She felt the quiver down her arm and into her teeth. Above, she saw Wolf’s head jerk and then his left foot slide up the rock wall. Another jolt, and now she could see, quite distinctly, that crude harness tighten as he managed another half step, jamming his right boot against a lip of protruding rock that she could’ve sworn had been a good four inches above him only a second before. She looked down at her legs. Was it her imagination, or had the water fallen, just a little? They’re trying to pull him up. But if this was the best they could do, it wouldn’t be nearly enough. Could she move her legs, drag one out? Anything would help. Come on, come on. Her thighs tensed, battling the clutch of all that water. As if sensing what she meant to do, Wolf tightened his grip around her wrist and pulled, working to lift her just a little higher—

  The earth suddenly heaved. She could feel the pressure of it. In the next moment, there was a crack and then a BOOM, like thunder. Debris skittered over the rocks; to her right, jagged seams suddenly splayed. Someone screamed, and then a boy, arms and legs spread in a star, hurtled past in a sudden hail of stone. He hit the water not twenty feet away, although she couldn’t hear the splash over the roar. The boy bobbed to the surface, and then one hand appeared to claw at air. His jaw unhinged, maybe to scream, but whatever sound might have emerged was lost as a gush of water flooded down the boy’s throat. The claw-hand tightened to an agonized fist. His bulging eyes rolled back to the whites. A moment later, the boy was jerked under and away.

  There was a sudden lurch. The tension in her screaming shoulder eased a smidge, and she thought, Oh hell. She looked back up, then gasped. Wolf’s face was a mask of blood. Must’ve been hit by a rock. She saw him give his head a groggy shake. His arms were shuddering now, uncontrollably, his muscles nearing their breaking point.

  He’s going to lose it. Instead of the panic she expected, the realization brought a certain calm. Monster or not, he was risking his neck to save her. So the math was simple, the equation neat. If she wanted to live, there really was only one way.

  Help him. Do something.

  Grimly, she put everything she had into getting her boots out of the water. Her knees bunched; she felt the cramp and quiver of her thighs … and her feet inched up. Not much. A little, but enough.

  Yes. “Come on, come on,” she chanted. Her teeth clamped together; she felt her belly tighten, her neck muscles cord with the effort. You really didn’t appreciate how thick, how powerful water was until you had to fight it. To Alex, it felt like gigantic hands were cupping each heavy heel, but either she was winning or the water level was dropping. Same diff. “Come on, come—”

  Both boots popped free so quickly her burning thighs tried to relax, send her legs pistoning down. Gasping, aware that she was truly swaying now and free of the water, she caught herself just in time. For a moment, she simply dangled, her shoulder coming apart in Wolf’s grasp, the water surging only inches away and ready to grab her again, take her down for good.

  Then Wolf tensed, his fingers so tight it felt as if her wristbones were being ground to dust. She began to move by minute degrees, see-sawing back and forth: first a few inches and then a few more as he tried swinging her closer to the rock wall so she could make a grab. The arc of her travel lengthened, her body nothing more than a sodden little yo-yo depending from a very short string. Toward the juddering wall, then back, then closer—those crags first ten and then only five feet away, but still too far for even a very determined, very desperate person to have a hope in hell—then back, and now one more time …

  Now! her brain screamed. Do it now, do it now, do it now now now!

  Her left hand made a grab. Rock chewed her fingers. She clawed, wildly, but then physics—that bitch—took over. Her swing’s momentum reversed, carrying her away.

  “Shit! Shit, god—” A lurch and the words dried up on her tongue as Wolf’s fingers slipped, his muscles shivered, and that greedy water drew closer—so close. No, no, don’t lose it, Wolf! Don’t lose it now, just a few more seconds … And then she was sailing back, and she could tell from the frantic twist of Wolf’s fingers—slick with blood and water and sweat—that he wouldn’t be able to hold on for another go. This was it. She felt the air whisking through her hair, whiffling past her ears. The rock wall suddenly loomed, but she’d picked her spot: at her ten o’clock, a slight curve of shadow, an inverted grin of stone. At the last second, just before she butted the wall, her hand shot out, fingers hooked. She grabbed that stone lip, felt a ridge of rock slot beneath her knuckles—

  Wolf must’ve felt the moment she connected, because his elbow suddenly kinked and then he was leaning in, shifting his weight, trying not to let go or pull her off. Anyone looking would’ve sworn she and Wolf were engaged in a weird variation of arm wrestling. Yet, at that moment, on the rock, they were a single unit, a team bent to one purpose. Jamming her knees against sharp stone, Alex clung to the rock with both legs and her left hand like a three-legged fly.

  “Get them to pull us up, Wolf,” she croaked, not knowing if he would understand speech, and beyond caring. The earth was groaning, fatiguing fast in a swoon that might still take them all down, and she knew: they weren’t close to being safe yet. “Hurry.”

  8

  What? Startled, Greg aimed a look at the rough brick floor. He could’ve sworn the bricks moved. Unless I’m going crazy. The stable was so cold their breaths plumed, but Greg still felt sudden anxious sweat on his upper lip. Another flashing stab of light skewered his eyes as his sledgehammer of a headache pounded. Please, God, please. I can’t be losing it. Not now.

  What convinced him that he was still semi-sane was when he saw Daisy, his golden retriever, scramble to her feet and give a sharp yap of alarm. So, he knew she’d felt it. There was also something else—a sound, something that was not Mick Jagger or a bluesy guitar or Dale’s dribbling sobs: a faint, faraway, hollow whump.

  That was real. I heard that. What the—Greg tossed a glance up to Pru, who stood at his right elbow, a wrinkle of worry between his eyebrows. At seventeen, Pru was two years older and one of the biggest kids Greg had ever seen: six foot six, square-jawed, and broad, the kind of bullnecked hulk a high school football coach would sell his grandmother’s soul for. Pru was also the only boy Greg considered close to a friend these days, now that Peter and Chris were gone. Pru heard that, too. Could it be thunder? Greg shot a quick glance out the stable windows. No lightn
ing; only the diffuse, muddy green glow of the setting moon. Unless it was snowing near Lake Superior; that might explain it. Thundersnow happened around the Great Lakes all the time. But the lake’s more than a hundred miles away. Even if it’s thundering up there, we shouldn’t be able to hear it.

  The floor shivered again in a bizarre undulation, the grimy, blood-spattered brick heaving as if a gigantic underground monster had rolled over in its sleep. The vibration, much stronger than before, went straight up Greg’s calves and into his thighs.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “Did you guys feel that?”

  9

  They were ten feet from the edge, then five. At the lip, still clutching Wolf’s left wrist, she managed a last stumbling lurch, felt the rock beneath her boots skate and shift. A red rocket of pain raced into her right ankle. Pushing through it, she planted her boots and heaved herself away from the ledge—

  And into a nightmare.

  The world was coming apart at the seams. The roar of the earth was huge, a grating bellow counterpointed with the sharp pops and squeals of overstressed rock. Jagged fissures scored the snow; a clutch of trees to her left weren’t swaying but jolting back and forth. The crowns of several trees had snapped, leaving trunks that were little more than ruined splinters. There’d been fresh snow the night before, but the brutal cold had solidified the layers beneath. With every shudder of the earth, this more rigid, hard-packed ice layer was cracking and shifting into unstable slabs.

  God, isn’t this how avalanches start? She watched a jagged chunk, this one as large as a kiddie sled, jitter down the rise. Got to get off the hill before it collapses.

  A brief, sweeping glance. The moon was going down, the light no longer neon green but murky and so bad that the others—six Changed in all, including Wolf—were only slate-gray, boy-shaped silhouettes: parka hoods cinched down tight, their faces ghostly ovals. The five who’d pulled them up were jittering like cold butter hissing on a hot skillet. Their fear was a red fizz in her nose. Wolf was having as hard a time keeping to his feet as she, and he’d dropped her wrist to fumble with the rope harness. The other boys were staggering, working at the hopeless task of gathering up rope, trying to corral their gear. One Changed, though, snagged her attention because he smelled … familiar. Who was that? She lifted her nose, pulled in air. There, floundering toward them from the end of the conga line that had hauled her and Wolf to safety: a tall, slope-shouldered kid, his features now pulling together out of the gloom.

  And she thought, No, no, it can’t be.

  She’d waffled over this all the way up the tunnel: whether to make a break for it if she managed to reach the top, or stay. Her ankle was messed up, but she was managing. From Kincaid and all her hiking experience, she knew how to splint it, if needed. But the fact that she was soaking wet was a much bigger problem. Her sodden pants were already stiffening, and she was trembling, getting hypothermic. What she needed was to get warm, which meant a fire, a change of clothes, something hot to drink. Wet, with no supplies and nothing to keep her alive except Leopard’s knife and the Glock 19, she might as well have let go of that rope and saved Wolf the trouble of rescuing her from the tunnel. She would probably die if she ran now.

  On the other hand, Wolf had come back. He wanted her. Or maybe … needed her? So, go with him? Bide her time? God, it would be Rule all over again, and probably just as stupid, but she’d nearly talked herself into it.

  Until now, this moment, because heading toward them was a boy she recognized by sight and scent: Ben Stiemke.

  Acne. He’d been part of Wolf’s original gang, before Spider and Leopard took over. The fact that Acne was here, on the surface, actually frightened her just as much as this nightmare. But there was no mistake. Acne had made it out of the mine. Had he left before the attack, the explosions? Maybe slipped out when everyone else was in the chow line because he’d smelled Wolf earlier in the day, just as she and Spider and Leopard had? She would never know. The important thing was that Acne was with Wolf now. That meant some of the others—Spider, Slash—might have gotten out, too.

  That decided her. She was not going through this again.

  Her eyes clicked to the quivering snow. To her left, maybe fifty feet away, she spotted a scatter of cross-country skis and poles—and rifles. One, lying near a pair of skis staked in the snow, caught her eye: scoped, a bolt-action with a carry strap. She darted left, digging in with her aching right ankle and launching herself toward the weapon. She saw Wolf start; saw the others trying to get at her; spotted a kid with very long dreads, the tallest of the six, suddenly reaching for her; felt his fingers whisk her hair.…

  “No!” she gasped, twisting, dancing out of the way. The sudden twist sent a spike of red pain from her ankle to her kneecap, bad enough that tears started. She clamped back on the shriek that tried bubbling past her teeth. Keep going, come on, it’s not that far. Snowy slabs slipped and rocked beneath her boots like dinner plates on ice; a sudden skid to the right and she nearly lost her footing, her right boot kicking free. Her left jammed down hard, driving into snow that grabbed at her calf, but then she was hopping free, nearly there, thirty feet, twenty-five … shuck a round into the chamber … no more than fifteen feet now … throw the bolt, swing up on an arc, because they’re moving, they’re behind you. This was something she’d practiced with her dad, hitting a moving target with the Glock: Lead, honey, and mount the gun. Don’t duck down.

  The earth shivered. She could see the skis waggling back and forth. The rifle began to scoot and skip. But she was close now; it was almost over; she could do this. The rifle was to her left, two feet away. And if Wolf got to a weapon or pulled a pistol? Could she shoot him? After all this? It would be like sticking a gun into Chris’s face. She didn’t want to have to make that decision.

  She slid the last foot—and then felt the snow tremble. There was a monstrous jolt, a stunning whack as something very big—another cave, maybe—collapsed underground. The sensation was nearly indescribable, but it was as if she were a glass on a white tablecloth that a magician had tried to snatch away, only he’d muffed the trick. The impact cut her legs out from under; she felt her knees buckle and her feet leave the snow. With a yelp, she came down hard on her butt. A white sunburst of pain lit up her spine. For a second, her consciousness dropped out in a stunned blank. She couldn’t move. Her chest wouldn’t work. Electric shocks danced over her skin, tingled down to her toes and fingers. Gagging, she finally managed a gulp of air and then another. Rolling to her stomach, she dragged in air, shook the spots from her vision.

  All the boys were down. Most were crabbed on their stomachs, digging in, hanging on, riding the earth like rodeo cowboys on bucking broncos. That kid with the dreads was lower than the rest, his fall taking him closer to the edge of the rise and far away from her. A lucky break. She watched him trying to clamber his way straight up. For her? That was stupid, a mistake. He should move out of the fall line and then up before the snow collapsed.

  But that was when it dawned on her: the kid with the dreads wasn’t coming for her. Wrong angle. Her eyes swept up again—and then she saw where he was going.

  Wolf was maybe fifty feet away, close to where they’d popped out of the mine, and to her right. He was still flat on his back—but not moving. God, was he unconscious? He’d lost a lot of blood. Maybe it wasn’t the fall. Maybe he’d fainted. She almost shouted to him but snatched that back before it could spring off her tongue. Doesn’t matter. Let old Bob Marley there worry. And, grimly: At least this way, I don’t have to decide whether to shoot him.

  But she couldn’t set her feet. The earth was heaving, trying to shake her off its skin. Panting, she pulled her left knee to her stomach, got her hands planted, pushed up. The skis had toppled to the snow, and the rifle—where was it? Her gaze snagged on a gray-green glint of moonlight, just beyond a ski pole, reflected from the rifle’s scope. Yes. On hands and knees, she spidered for the weapon, fighting the quaking earth, working her way around th
e skis. Stretching for the rifle, she felt her fingertips brush the cold black steel of the barrel …

  From somewhere behind her came a loud, lowing moan.

  Her first thought: Wolf? No, this wasn’t a natural sound at all. It was too deep, as if something that lived only in the center of the earth were coming awake. The sound was big.

  That was the ground. That was rock, breaking open. She was afraid to look back. The rifle was right in front of her. Another inch, she’d have it and make a run for it, just keep going: traverse the hill, get out of the fall line and out of danger, but get away.

  But Wolf’s unconscious. The whole rise is collapsing.

  And so what? It was her here-and-now brain, a voice firmly planted in a world where there were blacks and whites, rights and wrongs. Are you insane? Forget him. He’s a monster, for God’s sake. Grab the rifle and get out, get out now!

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. As far as she was concerned, the world to which that voice belonged had vanished after the Zap. Nothing was black-and-white anymore. So she risked a look back—and felt a scream gather in her throat.

  Whatever it had been, the opening through which they’d popped only minutes before wasn’t simply a hole anymore. The gap was widening by the second as the guts of the rise—and the entire mine—fell away. What lay behind her was a sore, a black and insidious blight. It was the mouth of a monster eating the earth, chewing its way to Wolf.

  “Wake up! Wolf!” Twisting back toward the rifle, her hand shot out—and grabbed a ski instead. Turning, she lunged back toward the crater. “Wolf, wake up, wake up!”

  She swam for him, eeling over the snow, panic giving her strength as she fought the trembling earth. Beyond Wolf, maybe thirty feet away, the hill was dissolving, the snow buckling and folding. The air was misty with pulverized rock and ice that pecked her cheeks.