by Ilsa J. Bick
The picture window imploded in an enormous, glassy splash. Darth’s head was there one instant and red mist the next. Gasping, Alex ducked as fléchettes of razor glass whizzed overhead. An instant later, someone let out a choking screech. She jerked her head around and saw Bert’s hands flying for his face. A splinter of glass, as long as her pinky, juddered from the ruin of his right socket. Another jagged dagger had driven into the soft underbelly of his jaw.
“Bert!” Horrified, she was pushing Wolf aside even as her last snippet of common sense clamored: Get down, stay down! She started for the boy. “Bert, Bert, don’t touch it, don’t—”
Bert let go of another blubbering shriek—and his shotgun.
She saw the disaster unfold in slo-mo: the jets of Bert’s blood dividing into individual drops, the flash and shiver of glass, even the shotgun spiraling in a strange arabesque. Then time sped up; the eye of the barrel was looking at her, and her brain was shrieking, Down, get down!
A fraction of a second too late.
The shotgun hit just as something crashed into her and knocked her flat. Wolf covered her up as the shotgun roared a thunderous ba-ROOM! The slug brrred over Wolf’s head, trailing hot brass and burnt powder before smashing into drywall with a heavy thunk. More shots jetted through the shattered window. Craning past Wolf’s shoulder, she saw Bert’s body jitter in a spastic little dance, then drop, face-first. Even with the cottony buzz in her ears, she heard the crunch as the glass dagger punched bone and then brain. Bert’s arms and legs shot straight out, like those of a little kid yelling surprise, then went limp.
At the window, Marley was springing up and down, firing wild over the sill. From the pock-pock of return fire and spangs as bullets ricocheted off the cast-iron woodstove, she didn’t think he hit much. Got to hope those sparks don’t ignite all that pine. Fire’s the last thing we need. Ernie was a waxen doll in a blood lake. In the kitchen, Penny was screaming.
“You have to get her out.” She was still pinned under Wolf, their faces only inches apart, his wolf skin so close she smelled the musty tang of the animal that had once worn it. She read his panic, smelled the sizzle of fear on his skin. If she could only get across her meaning! For a moment, she thought, Alex, relax; let the monster out; let it help you. She roped back the impulse. That would be insane. Instead, she put her hands on Wolf’s shoulders and grabbed his eyes with her own. “Give me a gun, Wolf. Let me help—”
There was another huge ka-BANG, a flash of orange light as something exploded outside. A second later, a cyclone of pulverized earth and superheated air blasted through the ruined window, knocking Marley off his feet. The room was suddenly so hot, scorching, Alex felt the burn in her throat and lungs. Above her, Wolf’s body went rigid, his face tightening in a pained grimace. The air inside and out dripped with sounds and smells and sensations: the peppery sting of spent explosives, an isolated scream from beyond the window, the mucky rain of smoking globs of quivering flesh, the stutter of weapons fire.
Then there was a silence, as if time had decided to take a very deep breath … and that was when Alex remembered what she had forgotten, because, now, she felt the sudden flare in the center of her brain: Go-go. Push-push.
The red storm—that strange mind—was here.
72
For three seconds, all Chris knew was he was facedown, on the floor, hacking and trying to breathe through a throat that felt as if a boot had planted itself on his windpipe and ground it to pulp. Blood from the rip on his forehead was dripping into his eyes and coursing down his cheeks. His mouth was coppery from where he’d bitten himself, and his right hand was slick, too, the fingers beginning to burn. Over the thin, airy shrieks whistling in and out of his throat, he could hear a guttural awww, awww. Not coming from him, though. Blinking against blood, he managed to turn his head—and felt his heart try to fail.
Propped against a far wall was a boy, glittery-eyed, shaggy. A giant. Chris was tall, just an inch shy of six feet, but this kid had him beat by at least four. The kid was big as a barrel, and most of that was muscle. Someone or something had gotten to the kid, though. Huge gashes scored most of the Changed’s face and oozed pus. His lower lip was ripped in two, the flaps drooping to expose dusky blue gums and stained teeth.
The boy’s hands were clapped to his right thigh. A triangle of smeary glass glimmered weakly in the thinning light, and blood was dripping to the floor. As Chris watched, the boy opened his ruined mouth and bawled again: “Awwww.”
Got to move. Chest shuddering with every tortured breath, he struggled out of his ruined flannel, then tugged off the thermal. He’d cut his right hand on that glass dagger, but the fingers worked. Staggering to his feet, he tried a step, slipped, clutched the table for balance. Over the drum of his heart, he heard the stomp of a boot as the boy pushed from the wall.
Oh God. Chris turned, his hands convulsing as he swayed. If not for the table propping him up, his knees might have given way again. For a split second, Chris’s mind blanked. He forgot that he wanted to fight. He was trapped, weaponless, already hurt. Less than a minute ago, he’d been as close to death as when Hannah’s poison oiled over his brain. Everything he might be able to use as a weapon—pots, pans, those knives—was behind him, miles away. So he could only watch the boy, this monster, totter toward him. This was the nightmare from his memory and fever dreams of Peter and Lena, and a lifetime spent awakening to find a father reeking of booze and staring down at Chris with hate. Of reading what was behind his father’s red-rimmed eyes: I’ll be safe only when you’re dead.
Fight. Groping, Chris’s hand closed over a plate. He whipped it, fast, in a Frisbee throw. The boy saw it coming and batted the dish away, but Chris had already scraped up a glass, another dish, a saucer, tossing everything he could get his hands on, listening to the crash, hearing the crunch, trying to work his way around the table. The Changed just kept coming, as inexorable as fate. Despite the boy’s obvious pain, Chris also thought the kid was actually enjoying this. Maybe the kid was looking forward to some payback. Tear out a chunk with his teeth, hurt Chris pretty bad, but then set him loose: Go on, little Chris. Run. Bleed. See how far you get.
As if finally tiring of the game—maybe he was fed up with swatting away dishes, and that thigh had to hurt—the Changed boy grabbed the tablecloth and yanked. With a yelp of surprise, Chris danced out of the way as dishes and cutlery slithered to the floor in a splintery smash. The lamp’s green glass fuel base burst, releasing a gagging stink of kerosene that made Chris’s battered throat double-clutch. Sweeping up a chair, the boy hurled it the way a basketball player pops that fast bullet of a pass. The kid’s aim was perfect, the chair growing huge in his face. Startled, Chris had no time to duck. The boy’s chair whacked his chest. Stunned, Chris stumbled and then came down on his back in a puddle of kerosene.
Get up, get up! Retching against fumes, he kicked free of the chair. Twisting, he tried to roll, get his feet under him, scramble out of the way. From the corner of his eye, he saw the boy’s knee cock and then the kick coming. Dropping flat, Chris heard the boot whiz over his head. As he rolled to his right to get under the table, Chris felt the boy clamp onto his left ankle. Frantic, Chris wrapped his hands around the butcher block’s heavy center pedestal for leverage, then kicked back with his right. His boot connected with a satisfying thunk, followed a second later by a heavy grunt. As the boy’s grip slackened, Chris scrambled under the rest of the way, set his feet, and squirted out the opposite side. The woodstove was in front of him and now just to his right—and he spotted the weapon he needed. If he only had time …
Whirling, Chris got his hands under the heavy table, pulled straight up, and then pushed as hard as he could. The table toppled with a gigantic bang. The Changed only dodged to his right, but that was all Chris wanted: just to slow the kid down for another few seconds. As the boy barreled around the table, Chris’s hands shot for the woodstove and the handle of that steaming saucepan. He let out a harsh bawl of pain as hot
metal scorched his palms, but he willed himself not to let go; this was the only play he had. Still screaming, Chris loosed the pot in a savage backhand.
Both a gush of water just the near side of boiling and the heavy pan hit the Changed in the face. There was a hollow chunk as iron bounced against bone. A starburst of blood erupted on the boy’s forehead. For a half second, the Changed boy went absolutely rigid—and then instead of a guttural awww, he let go of a long, high, girlish screech. Lurching backward in a clumsy wobble, the boy wallowed in a swirl of blue tablecloth and slick kerosene.
Bellowing, his hands shrieking with pain, Chris charged—not for the butcher block and its temptation of fine-edged steel, but for the hanging rack. Seizing a skillet, he wrenched it from its hook. Two feet away, the Changed was kneeling, fingers quaking over flesh that blazed a hot, boiled purple where it wasn’t red with blood. Skillet in hand, Chris drove forward, already certain what needed doing, knowing nothing on earth would stop him. At the last second the Changed lifted his head, and Chris saw the left eye had gone as milky as boiled egg white.
From far away, another planet, came a shout, the clap of a door.
His name: “Chris! Chris, wait!”
73
“Get up, come on!” Shouldering Wolf aside, Alex squirmed out from under. A hooshing hum reverberated in her ears. The stink of cooking meat and burning hair was so heavy it was like sucking the char from a barbecue grill. Gobs of singed meat clung to Wolf’s back and her hair.
Marley had been flattened. His nose, eyelids, and lips were gone. Fire had chewed his dreads to the scalp; his parka was melted to his chest. Where his face wasn’t parboiled, the skin was black as briquettes. His teeth, insanely white, showed in a ghastly rictus.
“Easy!” A shout, muffled by the hoosh in her ears: the voice older, angry. Male. “You want to kill everyone in—”
Men? Were they the red storm, or working with it? And what is that? She felt her mind shuttle, the monster unsure what to do. Even the monster doesn’t know what this is. At the same time, she could feel the pull, the temptation to let go and get lost in that thrumming surge that seemed to pulse with every beat of her heart: push-push-push go-go-go.
Dropping to a crouch, she scuttled toward the front of the house and risked a quick peep through the blasted rectangle of the ruined window. What had been a snow-mantled hill before was now a smoking crater: a sore of blackened earth and smoking remains. Used some kind of grenade or bomb. It was hard to tell how many bodies, because everything was in pieces: the stub of what looked like an elbow; a foot, minus four toes and half the sole; three-quarters of a blasted head teetering on the lip of the crater like a smashed Halloween pumpkin. Another Changed—lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view—sprawled in a twisted tangle and a halo of blood spray.
What the hell? Whatever was going on here—and especially in light of the fact that there were men out here—this fight was over a whole lot more than who had dibs on what. Her eyes caught a flicker to the extreme left, the same direction from which Wolf and these dead Changed had come only five minutes before. Something white was darting through deep green cedar and hemlock. She saw the oval of a face, but there was something wrong with it, and the smell …
Weird. They were Changed, no doubt about it, but beneath the characteristic boiled sewage reek was another odor: harshly chemical, completely artificial. It reminded her of the metallic odor of the chemo the doctors had used on the monster, especially cisplatin, a drug that had made her puke her guts out. But why would any Changed smell that way?
Behind these weird Changed and in the trees, she spotted other figures hanging back, got a snootful of fusty old people and horses. Men … with the Changed? How can that be—
Her monster suddenly quivered, straight-arming her mind with that strange shove—go-go-go push-push-push—as either it, or what was out there, tried snagging hold. Oh no, you don’t. Reeling back, she snatched up a splinter of glass. Not understanding, Wolf reached for her wrist, but she whirled away. “No, let me just—” Grimacing, she jabbed the glass into her thigh, a quick in-out. She let out a yelp of pain, but there was an abrupt snap in the dark center of her brain as the monster recoiled. Good enough. Her mind cleared and she looked up into Wolf’s eyes, which were wide with shock.
“Come on, Wolf,” she panted, tossing aside the bloodied glass, “before we all die.” Scooping up Bert’s fallen shotgun and Ernie’s rifle, Alex bounded into the kitchen, wheeling right to drop behind the granite counter. Racking the pump, she thought about shucking rounds to count how many shots she had left and decided against it. The last thing she needed was to crawl after fumbled slugs. Figure one already gone, four left. The bolt-action should have five, maybe six, depending on if Ernie had gotten off a couple rounds.
None of this makes sense. What do they want? First, one group chases down Wolf and his gang because they’ve stolen food. Then those guys get slammed by these weird Changed. Now they’re storming the place, but why? Can’t be just over food.
To her right, she saw Penny’s terrified eyes over the lip of the refrigerator. All of a sudden, a lightbulb went off, illuminating a nasty thought she couldn’t ignore. My God. “Don’t tell me this is about you,” she said to the girl.
There was a gigantic bang from the great room, followed by a squeal of stressed wood against metal as something hit the front door. The heavy oak shuddered but held. Given the sound, she thought whoever was out there had a sledgehammer or log.
The air again erupted with gunfire, but this time it was close, coming from inside. Wheeling back, she saw Wolf, still in the great room but behind the overturned leather sofa. Springing up, Wolf popped off another shot, then dropped as bullets whined in. Another boom at the door; beyond the blown-out window, she saw those weird Changed dart past. Dancing from cover, Wolf sidestepped left, trying to get a shot at whoever was breaking down the door, then threw himself flat as the air rattled with another burring round of gunfire. Bullets clanked the woodstove’s flue. Miniature geysers of stone and white dust erupted from the walls and hearth as the bullets came, very fast and in bursts.
Automatic weapons? Wolf was still on the floor, facedown, and for a fraction of a second, her heart seized. “Wolf!” She saw the white flicker of his face as he looked her way. “Wolf, come on, you can’t do—” Another stutter of gunfire at the same instant the door let out a huge CRACK. The wood blistered inward, like a boil about to rupture, and she was so busy looking at that, she only half-registered something moving into view at the broken picture window. Looking back, she saw Wolf, still on the floor, and a pair of gloved hands hooked over the ruined sill.
Trying to get inside. “Wolf!” Coming out from cover, Alex sprang past the counter, the shotgun already coming up. “Stay down, stay down!” She fired once, muzzle flash sheeting, the slug too high, but she saw those hands let go. More bullets came ripping through to clank the woodstove. One drilled into the hearth just over her head, sending a jet of stone splinters pecking at her hair and neck. Dropping, she scrambled forward on hands and knees over jags and debris, feeling the bite of glass and tear of stone and the wash of heat from the woodstove less than twenty feet away, the icy waterfall of air spilling over the blasted sill.
She swarmed over to Wolf. “Either upstairs or out the back,” she said, “but we can’t stay here.” Neither option was great. If they blew out the kitchen window for an escape, they might as well take out an ad. So that left going upstairs: get to the bathroom, put Penny in the tub, and then she and Wolf could pick off whoever tried coming up.
We’ll run out of ammunition first. She jumped her eyes from the stairs to the kitchen, skimming past the counter cluttered with the loot she’d found in the basement: camp stove, the lantern, propane. Still, higher’s bet—
“Wait a minute.” Her gaze zeroed in again on the camp stove. The propane. “Fire,” she said out loud. Yes, it really might work. There was all this fresh pine. The chimney was heavy with char and c
reosote. This close to the hearth, the air tasted like a lump of coal. Yes, but it’s also crazy; we’ll be barbecued. But it was the only thing she could think of. Scurrying back to the counter, she shoveled the three propane canisters into her arms and darted back to dump them into the hearth along with the sticky pine Penny and Bert had brought in less than half an hour before.
Behind and from the kitchen came another glassy explosion, followed by a girl’s shriek. “Penny!” Barreling into the kitchen, Alex waded over a river of broken glass from the shattered window above the sink. Bits of glass glinted from the girl’s hair; blood dribbled from her scalp and down her cheeks. “Come on,” Alex said, trying to tug the panicked girl to her feet. “Penny, come on, don’t fight me, we’re going—”
There was the whipcrack of a rifle shot, the drone of a slug over her head, followed by a loud, sharp scream. Gasping, she looked up, saw the business end of Wolf’s rifle pointing her way, then jerked around just in time to see an old man in a hunter’s winter camouflage clap a hand to his spurting face and tumble back from the window.
Storming the place back and front. A moment later, the air tingled with that resin pop and then Penny stopped struggling and broke from behind the refrigerator as Wolf dashed up from the great room to meet her. Clattering out of the kitchen, Alex pointed at the stairs: “Bathroom, bathroom!” Behind, she heard the squall of hinges and fatiguing wood and thought they had maybe ten seconds left.
