Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy

by Ilsa J. Bick

  Chris went first. His cloth sack was heavier, and more than enough for each of them. Holding his fist over the water, Chris said, “I’m not sure what’s the right thing to say. It’s weird that I lived in Rule, but I don’t know the Bible much. Maybe because we were always reading the wrong parts, I don’t know. But I keep having this dream about …” Pausing, Chris cleared his throat. When he started up again, his voice quavered and Ellie saw the first tears rolling down his cheeks. “I keep dreaming about this mountain and a valley, and it’s beautiful, the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. But I think it’s beautiful in my dream only because you’re there, Peter. You did a lot … a lot that was wrong, really wrong, but I think you … you did it out of love. That doesn’t make it right … but I understand, a little better, about … about love. Because you did save me. You c-cared what happened to m-me. Nobody … nobody ever d-did that before. So I wish I could’ve s-saved you. Because I n-never got a ch-chance to tell you, I never s-said it …” Chris stopped again and used his arm to wipe his eyes. “I love you, Peter,” he said, lips trembling and the tears still coming—and his weren’t the only ones. “And I forgive you … and I hope you let me find you again, because I miss you … I m-miss …”

  And then Chris couldn’t talk anymore. He was crying that hard. His fist relaxed and he let part of Peter go in a rain of gray dust and ashes that the breeze snatched and whirled and spun down to golden water. Then they all released Peter to the wind and the lake until he was gone.

  For a little while, maybe just a few moments, Chris stood alone, with only an empty sack. It was Alex who went to Chris first, and all of a sudden, he was crying into her shoulder. For a second, it was just the two of them, swaying together, until Alex looked to her and Tom. Alex’s face was wet. In the sunset, her hair was red as the rocks. When Alex held out her hand, Ellie’s heart flopped in her chest.

  This is good. She clung to Tom’s neck as he carried her over, limping a bit because his leg was still on the mend. The dogs bounced after, not only because they didn’t want to be left out, but whenever Alex went, they followed unless you made them mind. When they were close, Alex pulled Tom and her into the hug, too.

  And this—Ellie slipped an arm around Chris’s neck, so she held them all—is better. This is Meg Murry, in the garden.

  They stood in that embrace for a long time. No one pulled back until Chris was ready. So it took a while and that was fine. What was the rush? Even crying with Chris, Ellie never felt so warm, not even with a really good parka. Eventually, though, she did have to take her turn. Her sack wasn’t half so large, but that was all right. There was still plenty for everyone.

  A week ago, the same night she asked Tom about Grandpa Jack, Ellie had said, “I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t have to be about God or anything, does it?”

  “It can be whatever you want. You don’t have to say anything, honey, if you don’t want to.” Crouching, Tom chaffed her arms with his hands as if trying to help her get warm. Which was when she noticed she was shivering, and what was with that? “There are no rules. If there are words, say them. If not, if your heart’s too full, that’s okay, too.”

  Now, with her right fist suspended over the water, and Tom’s hand in her left, she stood on her own two feet. Alex was to her right, very close, and she felt Chris move behind her, which was the perfect spot.

  You can do this. This is for Eli and Roc, too. This is for everybody.

  “I didn’t want you.” Her teeth snuck out to grab her lower lip, which had started to quake, but she couldn’t both chew her lip and talk, so she let go. Her eyes were blurry again, and she figured, crap, she was going to cry through this whole thing. “You weren’t my idea … and I … I was really m-mean to you for a l-long t-time. I was m-mean to ev-everybody, es-especially Grandpa J-Jack.” Her voice thinned and went squeaky high, and she kept having to snuffle. Behind, she heard Ghost whine and then felt his nose bump her butt. “And I’m really s-sorry about that. You turned out to be the b-best friend I ever … I ever h-had … and he was a good grandpa and you pro-protected me and made me feel better. M-mostly …”

  She stopped. Her throat was all clogged up and she could barely see. It was like she was underwater. Oh boy, she just knew this was going to happen.

  Just say it, Ellie. It was the closet-voice, the one that helped her save Chris; the one that might be made up of every person she had ever loved, and wasn’t it good that some of those people were still here? Say it fast, honey, and let this go.

  “Ellie?” It was Tom, his voice very low, so gentle, and he said the exact right thing. Not you don’t have to go on, like she was a stupid little kid, but, “Whatever you say and however you say it will be the right thing.”

  Listen to Tom, the closet-voice said. Smart guy.

  She sucked in a fast breath. “Mostly, I was mad at my daddy.” Ellie said it quick, pushed it right out, and all of a sudden she wasn’t crying anymore. For a split second, it felt the same as emerging from the trail to this space of open sky and gold lava-water: like she’d stepped out of her own way to find the right path to what was true. “He went back when I didn’t want him to, and then he was dead, and I thought that meant he must not love me very much. But you were his, and you loved me. So that must mean he did, too.”

  She was crying again. “Good-bye, Mina,” Ellie said, and let her dog go. “I love you, girl. Good-bye, Grandpa Jack.” And then she managed the rest: “I l-love you, Daddy.”

  She tried to watch Mina go, see exactly where her dog ended up, but couldn’t tell. Everything was wavery from the water below and in her eyes, and there were so many colors that it seemed Mina and her daddy and Grandpa Jack could be anywhere.

  But that was, maybe, because heaven was, too.

  “This is it.” Stirring hot water into a enameled camp mug, Tom watched the dark granules dissolve, then sprinkled a white snow of creamer. “Enjoy every last drop.”

  “Believe me, I will.” Accepting a mug of decaf, Alex sipped and sighed. “That tastes so good, I don’t even care that it doesn’t have bullets. Seriously, there’s no more?”

  “Last packet until we get to Houghton. Unless we get lucky at some Kwik-Mart that hasn’t been picked over. Any Starbucks got hit a long time ago.” Cupping his own mug in his left hand, Tom propped himself against a large boulder. Laying an arm across her shoulders—but gently, mindful of her still-tender ribs—he pulled her a little closer. “If they even had Starbucks up here.”

  “They did.” She let her head rest against his chest. “But I think only Marquette and … Mackinac Island? Yeah, I remember because a ton of the hotels on the island weren’t air-conditioned, and it was so hot when we went this one time, but there’s my dad chugging a venti with sweat pouring down his face.”

  “My kind of guy. Had his priorities straight.” The fire had burnt down to hot orange coals. Directly across, chin on paws, Buck was in a half-doze, eyes slitted against the glow. This was the time of day Tom liked best: sitting and talking for hours, or sometimes the two of them only staring into the guttering flames as she nestled and he stroked her hair. Leaving her out here, with only Buck for company, wasn’t a highlight. Every night he hoped she would say, Hang on a sec. I’ll come with you.

  “Chris said Hannah mentioned a coffee place not far from the university where all the college kids hung.” Blowing on his mug, he sucked back a steaming mouthful. A finger of heat drew a line down his chest to expand in his stomach, a warmth that matched the pulse of the fire against his face. “We might get lucky. I’d suck a used filter if I thought it would help.”

  She gave a small laugh. “How far?”

  “Once we’re out of the Waucamaw? About eighty, ninety miles as the crow flies.”

  “Long walk.”

  He couldn’t quite decipher her tone. Maybe because, for him, long walk meant something very specific and so different. “Probably a good week.” He sipped coffee. “Not like we haven’t walked before. We’ve already ma
pped it out with Jayden. If something changes, we’ve worked out places along the way and easy landmarks where Jayden could leave messages. Like, in Houghton, the coffee place? And once you’re across the bridge, Jayden said there’s this old brownstone synagogue that—”

  “It might be better,” she said, quietly, “if I didn’t.”

  For a second, he couldn’t match the words to their meaning, and then he felt the coffee curdle in the pit of his gut. No, come on, God, not when we’re so close. He set his mug down with the kind of concentration and care he might give a breaching charge. “What are you saying?”

  Another pause. She straightened until they were no longer touching and said, into the fire, “I’ve thought about this, I really have.”

  Her voice had gone a little dead, a tone he knew well from her story of Daniel’s slow slide into the Change and, at the last, his suicide. Tom’s blood slushed. “You’re staying. Here. In the Waucamaw, by yourself.” Take a breath, Tom. Go easy, don’t push. Count to ten. He made it to three. “Alex, what the hell are you thinking?”

  Even in firelight, her eyes were too dark. “I’m thinking it’s dangerous for you. Wolf’s already found me once before. He can find me again.”

  “If he’s still alive.”

  “I think he might be. I can’t tell for sure, but this thing in my head … I’ve got control, but it’s … lonely, too. You know? I feel it, sometimes, searching.”

  “I thought you said you were getting better at keeping it under wraps.” He heard the sharpness that was nearly an accusation. But he couldn’t help it. A spike of panic darted up his spine. No, she can’t do this, she can’t; I won’t let her. He said, more deliberately, “Even if it is, you haven’t smelled any Changed. Neither have the dogs.”

  “Yet. Once we leave the Waucamaw, start to head to where the people were and maybe still are … I probably will.”

  “So what? The Changed are a fact of life. They’re the enemy. Big deal.”

  “It’s different for you. You don’t have something living in your head.”

  “Oh bullshit. What the hell do you think a flashback is?” TOM … Folding his knees made that left leg yammer. For once, that nip of pain was good, because it crammed the rest back down his throat. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and huffed out that quick jump of anger. Out with the bad. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. I know it’s not the same.”

  “It’s okay. Maybe it is the same, in a way. I think what I’m saying is that, yes, I smell the Changed. Yes, the monster’s pretty well-behaved … for a monster.”

  “Don’t make a joke out of this.” Now he threw her a sharp look. “Don’t make a joke of how I feel.”

  “I’m not.” Her eyes shimmered, but her voice was steady. “I’m trying to make you understand. Sometimes, I have dreams, and those are new. What I did with Finn … I think that opened up some kind of door in my head.”

  “You dream about the Changed?” He felt his anger giving way to a blast of shock. “You see them?”

  “Sometimes.” Her throat moved in a swallow. “I think it’s because I’m seeing through someone, like I did in Rule, at the end. I’m not sure who or what it is. But it’s when I’m asleep, Tom. I can’t control that. I can’t do anything about my dreams.”

  “Alex.” He sat up straighter. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now. Tom, back in Rule, if you hadn’t tackled me on the landing, I’m not sure I wouldn’t still be in that”—she made a vague gesture with her cupped hand near her head—“frenzy. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time. I know that sounds crazy. But I understand what Peter must’ve felt, that rush, how powerful it is, when nothing else matters but killing. So I know I can get lost.”

  “All the more reason why you should stay with us, stay anchored. Let us help.” Let me.

  “But, Tom, think. If I can see through them, what are the chances that, eventually, it might go the other way? What if I draw or lead Changed to us? Nobody will be safe.”

  “Those are a lot of ifs … no, be quiet. Let me finish,” he said when she opened her mouth. “In the last month, nothing’s happened. There have been no Changed. No one has followed us. We stayed with Isaac for weeks, near where Changed had been, and saw none. You’re right; I’m not you. But I do know a little about scary dreams and how they take over. I also don’t buy that your dreams are the only reason that you don’t want to come. Because so what if the monsters come, Alex?” He wanted to touch her, grab her arms, pull her close. In all this time and during these many weeks, he’d never rushed her, hadn’t kissed her, done nothing but try to help her come back. If she thought he was going to let her go without a fight … “Let them come, Alex. Let the monsters try to take you. They’ll have to get through me, and that will never happen.”

  “That’s not a promise you can make, Tom.”

  “I will kill them,” he said, very distinctly. “No one is taking you from me. That’s all there is to it.”

  “And if you die because of me?”

  “That will be my choice, Alex, but it won’t come to that.”

  “Are you going to choose for Ellie, too? For Chris and Kincaid? For Jayden? For all the other children?”

  Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back and spoke to the night sky. “I … will not … leave you here.” He lowered his gaze to hers. “I refuse. If you won’t come, I’m staying, too. I’m not leaving you, Alex, never again.”

  “No.” The shock rippled across her face. “No, Tom, I won’t let you do that.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he repeated. “You’re not the only one who gets to choose. Now, you either walk out of here with us, tomorrow, or we wave good-bye to Ellie and Chris. Period.”

  Her mouth turned into a thin gash over her chin. “Tom, why are you doing this? Why are you making this harder for me?”

  “You don’t think this is hard on me?”

  “Of course, I know it is. But don’t you see I’m trying to protect you?”

  “And don’t you see that I love you?” he shouted. To hell with this. He gathered her in his arms. If she pulled away, he would let her go. You couldn’t hang on to someone bound and determined to get away. But she didn’t, although she was crying, wide-eyed and silent, her tears streaming over cheeks that looked pale even in firelight.

  “Alex.” And then he did what he’d ached to do for weeks: skimmed hair from her face, the better to see and touch and memorize every inch, each feature, from the curve of her brow to the bow of her lips and the angle of that stubborn jaw. “Alex, I don’t care that you have cancer. I don’t care if all or part of that cancer is a monster. I care about you, and I have walked, alone, for a very long time. I did it in Afghanistan, and I did it in the Waucamaw. I might have walked until I couldn’t anymore if we hadn’t found each other. But we did, and I am so tired of walking alone. Please, Alex, please walk with me. Be brave enough to walk out of here with me. Leave this place. Only ghosts live here. Come with us. Come with me.”

  “Tom.” She raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “I was dying when I got here.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “Just in a different way.”

  “But what if I’m really still dying and don’t know it? What if it gets stronger, and I get sick again? It’s already bad enough to have a monster. What if the cancer’s not all monster? What if it’s also cancer? I don’t know how much time we’ll have.”

  “Join the rest of the human race,” he said, which made her give a watery laugh—and that loosened a terrible knot in his chest. Yes, God, yes, please do this for me. Just this once, please. “All I know, the only thing about which I am absolutely certain, is that I love you. Walk with me, Alex. Walk with me today”—he kissed one cheek and then the other, tasting her skin and wet salt—“and tomorrow”—and then he brushed her lips with his and felt them part and her sigh in his mouth.

  “Walk with me, Alex,” he whispered. “Walk with me for as long
as we have.”

  What happened next was for them, and them alone.

  The monster tugged her awake.

  For a second, she wondered if it had been a dream: a nice dream but still … wishful thinking. Then she inhaled musk and sweet smoke and spice and Tom—Tom, warm and solid and real—and heard his deep sleep-breathing. She eased her head until she could make him out in the dim light suffusing the tent. A hand on her stomach, he lay on his side, an arrow of light silvering his hair.

  Her eyes drifted over his face. There’d been this science fiction show her dad loved, pretty old, not Star Trek but something about a space station, and there was a number in the title … six? No, five. Anyway, there were these funky aliens with their funky rituals. One was to watch a beloved as he slept, because that was when all the masks fell away and you saw a person for what he was. Sounded pretty silly. And yet … Tom, in sleep and maybe for once dreaming well, was as he always had been: steady and sure, brave and stubborn. Someone to walk with. Someone to love, and that was wonder enough. There was no difference, although—

  Wait a second.

  She resisted the urge to bolt upright. She closed her eyes, opened them. Nothing changed. There was Tom, sleeping, and there was—

  You watch. Easing a hand from her sleeping bag, she extended a single finger. It’s a crazy hallucination or something. I’m not really seeing this.

  Heart pounding, she watched as the tip of her finger rolled out of the grainy darkness—and became visible. Jumped out from shadow to cross into that sliver of light seeping through a thin seam of a tent flap to glitter over Tom’s hair.

  Oh my God. She pulled her hand back, gave it a good hard stare as if expecting a smudge of luminous paint to show itself. Of course, there was none. Still careful not to wake him—no sense being a ninny, especially if she was wrong—she tipped her head all the way back until she could see through that seam. The thing was, though, she couldn’t see through to the other side.

  Because the glow through the seam was that bright.

  She heard her breath leave in a sudden rush, taking a small oh with it. She lay still a moment longer, thinking it over before carefully oozing from the bag, feeling Tom’s hand slip from her skin. Thank God, she had the side with the zip. It took her another few seconds to work into her parka. Grimacing at the touch of cold nylon against her feet, she minced her way to the tent flaps, holding her breath against the slight sss as she worked the zipper. Then she ducked out of the tent—and stopped dead.