by Ilsa J. Bick
Don’t do it, Penny. A stupid thought. Illogical. Watching his sister’s face rearrange itself—raw animal hunger replacing fear and suspicion—hurt so much Peter would’ve taken a brain bomb instead.
“Whoa, easy now,” Finn chuckled as Penny’s hand darted to grab a meaty fistful. “Wouldn’t want you to choke, sweetheart. How many months is she, Peter?”
“Seven, more or less.” More, probably.
“Oh.” Finn’s bushy white eyebrows arched as he ticked off the months on his fingers and then mugged fake astonishment. “Well, we did wait until the last second, didn’t we?”
Penny had. He still remembered his shock when she told him: I thought I was late. He’d had to bite back the scream: You thought you were late for three months? But she was only sixteen. Too late, he discovered she’d already confided in a girlfriend and things had mushroomed from there, the rumor spreading through town. Which is probably how Finn found out in the first place. Weller, maybe, or Lang. Or given the depth of Finn’s hatred for Rule, the old man might’ve had a spy there all along.
“How did you get her to the lake house?” Finn asked, proffering the plate again. Penny’s cheeks were round as a chipmunk’s, but she still grabbed a double handful. “Must’ve been difficult.”
He tried to shake his head, but the collar brought him up short. “I took her on Friday, the day before … you know.”
“Ah, the day before the world went away. You were going to come back?”
“Sunday night.” The lake house was never meant as anything other than a place for Penny to hang for a single weekend while he scraped together the money and set up the appointment in Illinois. Messing up Penny’s life more by forcing her to go through with the pregnancy would do no one any good. Beg forgiveness later. “Didn’t quite make that.”
“When did you go back?”
“Thursday night.” It had taken that long to track down Simon and ride like hell.
“And she was still there? Poor girl must’ve been starving.”
“Not really.” When Finn leveled a look, he continued in a dead monotone, “She was with a … friend. Of mine.” He paused. “From college.”
“The father? That’s interesting. Does put a new spin on the female praying mantis.” Finn gestured at Simon, who hadn’t made a move for the food. “I’d have thought he—”
“Never in a million years. Not Simon. We’re family.”
“Why do you think she stayed at the house?”
“Beats me.” In part, he suspected that his having procured … well, just call them supplies … helped. There were a lot of very fresh corpses lying around in those early days. Really, he tried to think of it as taking clothes from owners who were past caring. Yes, it was crazy. But she was his sister. Whoever said that once you cross a line, it gets easier to do it again and again … they had something there. It was lucky he’d thought to bring food, too, because his college buddy was, literally, a gnawed pile of bones by then. But he also had the notion that the idea had been lodged in her brain from the very beginning. Safe because it was remote, the lake house was also familiar territory, too.
“What about Simon?”
He explained about the tranquilizer dart. Carting Simon to Penny was the only way Peter could think of to keep his friend alive and also get the message across: Take care of her. Not so complicated. Even dogs understood simple commands. From the looks of the lake house and that stuff sack with its stockpile of goodies, that message had obviously stuck, although he knew Simon had wandered far. In all the time since the world died, Peter had caught only a few glimpses of Simon and his pack near Rule—always at a distance, and well upwind—but never Penny.
That feeding ground was ghastly but fascinating with its array of wolf carcasses and that skull pyramid. Peter couldn’t begin to guess why Simon chose to wear a wolf skin either. Peter was interested in wolves. They’d been going to Isle Royale when the accident happened. So, for Simon, did the wolves represent a link to him? Possible, but Peter always sensed he was missing something.
“Well, you are the resourceful one, aren’t you, boy-o?” Finn leveled a look at Simon. “What about you? Aren’t you hungry, son?”
The only change in Simon was his eyes, which hardened to diamonds. This was something Peter never had seen in any Changed, not even Davey. Hunger was one thing. But hate was personal. So this was also interesting.
“Well,” Finn said again, although his tone carried a measure of bemusement and … irritation? “You really are different. What I wouldn’t give to get inside your head.”
“That wasn’t the deal. You promised not to hurt them,” Peter said, thinking how empty that sounded. Look at him. Finn had carved Lang into kebabs.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Finn said, his voice stony, the avuncular grandpa gone. When Penny tried another snatch, Finn pulled the plate out of reach. “That’s enough for now. You thirsty, Penny?” He tugged a water bottle from his hip. “Want something to wash that down?”
The drug. Peter’s heart lurched. “Finn!” He tried a lunge, but the collar noosed down. Choking, he strained, throwing his head from side to side. “P-Penny … d-don’t drink …”
“Relax, boy-o.” Finn tossed the bottle through the bars. “You think I want to risk this baby? Not on your life. I am very interested in that little monster.”
“Why?” Peter’s throat felt as if he’d swallowed a blowtorch.
“For one thing, I’m curious to see if she eats her young. I’m completely serious about that. For another, that fetus was exposed. Interesting to see what pops out and what it becomes.” Folding his arms, Finn nodded at the girl, who was guzzling water. “Look at that. Do you realize that she hasn’t once offered anything to Simon? It’s almost as if he’s not there.”
Peter had noticed. It was so strange, too, given how close they’d all been before. It’s like Penny’s been erased. His eyes shifted to Simon, and he was startled to find Simon’s eyes on him. No hatred there, but Peter read plenty of hurt and confusion. Betrayal.
He saw Simon suddenly tense, then wedge himself between Penny and the bars. A moment later, a tent flap rustled as Davey, in his camo-whites, appeared with a guard who seemed to be mostly an ornament.
“Davey.” Finn tossed a chunk. Snagging the meat with an expert, one-handed grab, Davey crammed the food into his mouth. His alert eyes never left Finn. “Good boy.” Finn patted his leg the way an owner called an attentive puppy. “Let’s talk to Peter, all right?”
“What more do you want to talk about?” But he knew. The red winged thing was shifting, needle claws pricking, digging in. Getting ready for … well, whatever round this was. “I told you about Penny and Simon—”
“Ah.” Finn lifted a finger like a medical receptionist on an important call. “But not the girl.”
“I don’t know her,” Peter said, wondering why he was working so hard at this. Perhaps this was something to hold on to, a little like dignity. But he also had a deeper reason. Finn was pissed he hadn’t captured her. Peter liked that someone had actually beaten the asshole at his own game. Or, perhaps, never played to begin with. “Why do you care who she was?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Finn snapped Davey another hunk of meat in a backhanded Frisbee throw. “Whoever she is, she is not a Chucky. I saw that girl speak. She called to Penny, she was talking to Simon, and then she tore out of there, killed one of my best shooters … no, no, Davey.” Finn held the plate out of reach as the boy made a grab. “Wait now, that’s a good boy.”
“Even if I knew who she was, which I don’t, why is a name so important?”
“And you call yourself a good Christian? In the beginning was the Name, Peter.” Finn’s eyes were as colorless as a dead snake’s. “What did Adam do soon as he opened those baby blues? He named everything. Put the world under his thumb. Then he got lonely, God made woman; Adam got to name her, assert his dominion, and everything was downhill from there. To name is to recognize. It is to gain access and c
ontrol. Things are much scarier in the dark, where they are formless, than in broad daylight. I just want to bring her into the light, that’s all.”
Access? It was like Finn was talking about hacking a computer’s hard drive. Not such a stretch, maybe. Say carrot, and the image, the taste, maybe the smell, popped into your head. So did memories. So a name would be like … a password? Into the brain?
This was begging for a brain bomb, but he couldn’t resist. “You scared of her, Finn?”
“I’m interested.”
Yeah, I’ll bet you are. The way dogs reacted to her always bothered him. Now Peter wondered if she had been Changing into something very odd all along. Perhaps Chris made the same choice Peter and the Council had for all the other kids: chased her out before she could be killed. Or she might’ve only run. But what finally helped him understand just how unique she was came when he saw what Finn had: she talked … and Simon had listened. At some level, Simon understood; Peter saw it in his posture. Then, Simon touched her face—and she let it happen. She gave Simon that moment. So there was something there, all right. They were working together, helping each other. There was a bond, and what the hell was that about? Because, God, did this mean that Simon might come back? Or was Simon what Finn said he was: very different, a one-in-a-million fluke, a Changed with a foot in both worlds?
And she hid, somehow. There was no way she could’ve killed the hunter and still run fast enough to get away. She was nearby and Finn still couldn’t get his fingernails under her. Davey couldn’t track her. So how did she do it?
“Sorry,” he said, although his throat was balky. “Can’t help you. Don’t know her.”
“Mmm-hmm. Thought you might say that.” Placing the dish of meat on the camp table, Finn reached into a breast pocket. “I keep forgetting that you are a much more effective weapon against yourself than I or anyone could ever be,” Finn said, carefully cleaning blood from each finger with a linen kerchief. “Remember: I can give and take, Peter.” Folding the kerchief into thirds, Finn tucked the cloth back into his pocket. “Give”—Finn’s eyes slid from Peter—“and …”
“No!” Peter flailed, struggling against the collar. “No, Finn, leave him alone, don’t—”
But Simon was already screaming.
89
Fading back from wherever she’d been, with her mind dark and eyes closed and body as motionless as a pillar of salt, and into the silence of those woods and bluing shadows was like reentering the world after a long, dreamless sleep. The wolfdog was still by her side. The only smells drifting through the woods were charred timber, scorched stone, crisped bone. Broiled wolf, and melted nylon. But no Changed, no Finn. No Wolf or Penny. No men.
Her bare feet were white and so cold tears sprang when she tried worming her toes into socks and then her boots before tottering to a stand. Using the hunter’s .30-06 Springfield as a crutch, she’d picked her way from the screen of brambles, hobbling like an old woman.
The hunter’s body lay where it had fallen. Only his radio was gone. Interesting. The body could be Finn’s way of saying just how deeply he didn’t care. Perhaps Finn would return to see if other Changed took the bait, but that felt wrong.
Which left a third possibility. The man in black had set out the equivalent of kibbles for a hungry stray: Here, kitty, kitty. Don’t be afraid. If true, that would suggest he thought she was Changed. So, had Finn been bluffing with all his talk, just tossing out lines? Maybe.
All Finn could know for sure: Changed or not, she was the one that got away.
* * *
Picking over the hunter’s body wasn’t her favorite activity, but this guy was loaded for bear. Besides the ammo in his fancy camo, the hunter had a brick of 165-grain super shock tip bullets in his cargo pants and a small headlamp, as well as a flint and striker, an Altoids tin of char, an emergency blanket, a small wad of jute, and a plastic bag of Vaseline-smeared cotton balls. A seven-inch sheathed Buck knife was looped through his belt. She crammed everything into her medic’s pack. Feeling more like a grave robber than ever, she unwound his scarf and peeled his watch cap. They smelled like old dead guy, but she needed the clothes.
The house was a smoldering ruin in a crater of rubble and melted snow already on its way to refreezing. Of the wolf totems, only the one hanging beside the stuff sack remained. The fire had burned hot and long enough to barbecue the corpse and partially melt the stuff sack. The body parts it once contained—a rack of ribs, an entire pelvis from waist to just above the thighs, one leg—were now in a heap on the snow. The charred wolf smelled like old cooked tires. The people parts smelled of overdone pork tenderloin. All the bodies, Changed and not, were crumbling, crisped stick figures with impossibly white teeth bared in the lipless grins of blackened skulls.
Skirting the crater, she went around to the porch side. No Wolf or Penny, but plenty of prints. No blood. They didn’t hurt Wolf; they took him alive. The blast of relief made her knees wobble. That she was relieved … she didn’t want to look at that just yet.
“But Finn must’ve come because of the baby,” she said to the wolfdog. “He’s experimented on the Changed already. I think he’s tried the same thing with poor Peter.” So, should she do anything about that?
No, better question: Did she need to do anything at all?
She could act, if she wanted. She had an advantage, a bit of knowledge Finn didn’t.
She’d first thought the whole wolf shtick was some weird religion, and it still might be. But Wolf was an exception. It was a leap, but she thought she was right. Somehow, Wolf figured it out, too.
The Changed couldn’t smell wolves.
What she’d taken to be mystical mumbo jumbo, a way of marking territory, was wrong. Wolf had used wolf skins and carcasses to hide the feeding grounds outside Rule and his kills from other Changed. This was probably the same reason why Wolf had hung totems here, to shield the house and protect their food supply. She remembered that brief leap behind the eyes of the Changed who’d been chasing Wolf, Marley, and Ernie. The Changed had no trouble tracking the last two boys. But they couldn’t quite get a fix on Wolf. He’d been a blank, camouflaged and invisible.
“That’s why Darth didn’t see you,” she said to the wolfdog. “He couldn’t smell you, so he never knew you were there.” How would that work? Dogs were related to wolves. They always smelled each other’s bums, and she bet wolves did, too. Come to think of it, whenever her aunt’s cat got spooked, that little stinker let go of some really nasty-smelling goo from its butt. So maybe it wasn’t such a stretch to imagine that the same secretions that might lure one species would either repel or not register with another.
The wolfdog was the key. So long as it stayed close, the Changed couldn’t smell her. Sure, if they spotted her, she was cooked. But otherwise?
She was invisible.
“A week ago, I chowed down on ants, and now I catch two rabbits in one day. Wouldn’t you know I’d hit the jackpot now? Here.” Peeling skin from front paws and head, Alex tossed the carcass to the waiting wolfdog. “Make it last,” she said, as the animal began bolting rabbit.
Wherever you came from and for whatever reason you picked me, I’m sure glad you showed up when you did. Picking up the second rabbit, she grabbed a back leg, punched through the thin skin with a thumb, and then began peeling the rabbit out of its skin, working fascia away from red muscle and finishing off by tugging the skin over the carcass’s head like an inside-out bodysuit. This one, she’d gut and roast. No need for raw heart this time around.
She and the wolfdog spent the night in Peter’s boathouse. The weird thing: she couldn’t get comfortable. It had been months since she’d slept on a mattress and with a pillow, and she was uncomfortable, anxious. After a few hours of tossing, she gave up, wrapped herself in a blanket, strapped on the headlamp, and spread the atlases from Peter’s bookshelf on the floor.
Once she hiked out to a main road and got her bearings, she could go anywhere. Her earlier ideas about w
arning Chris seemed naïve now, so much wasted energy. If Peter was with Finn, Rule was in much bigger trouble than she’d realized. She also had no way of tracking Tom. So, if she stayed in Michigan, only two destinations made sense: Rule or Oren. The dead boy from Oren had her whistle, which meant Ellie had been there. While she still might be, the chances of stumbling on one little girl were ten trillion to one.
Which left Rule, a place that felt radioactive.
But Finn has Wolf. He has Penny and Peter. I can’t just let that go.
“Oh, don’t be crazy, Alex. You’re not Batman.” On the floor, snugged against her left leg, the wolfdog’s ears pricked. “Seriously?” she asked the animal. “Rescue them so they starve, or I have to shoot them to protect myself or, say, Ellie? Tom? Chris? If it came down to a choice between Wolf and Tom, I’d pick Tom. I’m not saying it would be easy, and it feels wrong because Wolf is … in-between, just like me,” she finished in a whisper, definitely not understanding why her eyes stung.
Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself. She rested a cheek on her knees. Yet Wolf was different now. In the beginning, she’d been only food; he’d chowed down on a slice of her shoulder, for God’s sake. But then Wolf saved her from Spider, kept her off-menu; rescued her from the mine and then Acne. They’d worked together to fight Finn’s men before he’d made her leave him behind and save herself. Wolf cared about her. It was in what he did, and his scent.
“And I care what happens to him,” she said, feeling the ooze of a tear and a weird hollowness in her chest. So, fine, all right, she was evil and maybe brainwashed, and this definitely wasn’t love … was it? No, of course not, but she cared, okay? Shoot her.
But Wolf still has to eat. It wasn’t as if Wolf was suddenly going to go vegan. Yes, he cared for her and she was pretty sure he would never hurt her now. That kind of amnesty might also extend to the people she cared about. For Wolf to live, though, he had to eat.
