I went back to her and gave her some water. Breathing hard, she sipped and sipped again. Then she lowered the bottle.
“You came for me,” she said.
“I did.”
I reached into the backpack, pulled out the black cowboy hat, and put it on. It made me feel closer to my brother. I felt like it might give me some of his strength, too.
Alex studied me, the hat. “Patrick,” she said. “Is he…?”
I realized she was taken before we’d returned from the hospital. “He’s okay. We got the oxygen tanks. He’s waiting for you.”
She tilted her head to the tree trunk and pointed her face at the sky, her eyes closed. “Thank God. And thank God for you.” When she opened her eyes, the relief was gone. “Chance, they were gonna implant me. Use my body as a shell.”
I’d never seen her look so young and lost, not even after her mom up and moved away.
“Why are they doing it?” she asked.
The sun worked through the pine needles, making the back of my neck tingle. I pictured those space suits that sealed up the Queen and the Drones from head to toe. Not an inch of exposed flesh.
“Maybe they can’t breathe on Earth or handle the environment here,” I said. “So they need to birth a new generation that can.”
She gave a faint nod, her eyes glazed. “Like there were two generations of Hosts. First the ones like Hank McCafferty who infected everyone else. Then the Mappers and Chasers.”
“Their plan keeps evolving step by step.”
“And they used our parents—my dad—to help. The people who are supposed to take care of us.” Her voice trembled. “They’re trying to live through us. Turn us into something else.” Anger burned in her green eyes. “Turn us into them.”
“Your dad,” I said. “Alex, listen—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, standing up brusquely.
Even though she was limping, she kept pace by my side as we headed down the pass. It was gonna be a long, hard way to the bottom. After a while we fell into a trance. We came around a bulge of granite, and I heard footsteps crunching fallen leaves up ahead. I stopped and pulled Alex behind a tree trunk. My chest pressed into her shoulders, her head drawn back so our cheeks touched. She started to protest, but I put a hand gently over her mouth. We waited.
A moment later a Mapper emerged from the brush and headed right for us. Alex’s body tensed against mine, but I held her firmly, willing her not to move. I was watching the angle of the Mapper’s eyeholes, a trick I’d picked up in the cemetery, and they were pointed a foot to the side of us. Sure enough, he passed by, his shoulder brushing against the bark inches from Alex’s face.
Once he’d disappeared into the foliage, I released her. When she turned to me, her look held something different in it, though I couldn’t say what.
“We should find somewhere to hide until night,” I said. “Traveling in daylight’s too risky.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I think we’ve pushed our luck enough today.” She raised her arm, pointed past my cheek. “How ’bout there?”
I turned, seeing nothing at first. Then it came into view. A cabin a half mile away, obstructed by trees.
We headed for it. As we neared, it emerged from the forest. Aside from a small barn a stone’s throw away and a generator shed covered with solar panels, there was nothing man-made in sight.
We circled the cabin once, peering through the windows, and paused at the front door. Alex raised her hockey stick, and I firmed my grip on the handles of the baling hooks.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Ready,” I said.
She busted in, and we turned, back to back, scanning the place.
No Hosts.
Truth be told, it was sort of cozy. Queen-size bed with a quilt, potbellied stove, kitchenette. A gun cabinet against the wall showed off a hunting rifle and several boxes of rounds. A framed photograph on the side table captured a couple in their sixties sitting at a poolside table somewhere, his arm around her shoulder. Behind them a tropical sun glowed through scattered clouds.
Alex sagged to the bed.
I dumped the backpack from my shoulder and dug through it, tossing her an energy bar. She caught it in front of her face.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m starving.”
Shoving a browning apple into my mouth, I moved over to the gun cabinet and tugged open the glass door. I pulled out the rifle. It was a basic Ruger M77 Hawkeye .308. In my hands it felt like home. It was too big to carry back with us, but I loaded it and leaned it into its slot. Even if we were only staying until sundown, I liked knowing that it was there.
When I glanced at Alex, she was turning the bar over in her hands, looking at it but not peeling the wrapper.
She spoke slowly. “You saw that solar-powered generator outside, right?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I said around the apple.
She rose and crossed to the refrigerator. When she opened the freezer door, cool air wafted out. Inside, frozen cuts of venison and elk.
“Maybe we can live like humans again,” she said. “At least for a few hours.”
She lifted a finger and swiped it across my cheek, her print coming away dark with grime. “Shower off. You’re filthy.”
“But—”
“I have a hockey stick, a revolver, a hunting rifle, and I just shot my own dad through the head. So I think I’ll be able to protect us for a few minutes while you clean up.”
I nodded dumbly.
She rooted around in a bureau, found some clean clothes roughly my size, and tossed them at me.
Dropping the Stetson on the bed, I went into the bathroom. The shower stall was tiny, but the hot water felt amazing. Dirt ran down my legs, pooling around the drain. It was hard to believe how much muck came off me—I must’ve looked like a wild animal.
I scrubbed until I was clean, then scrubbed some more. After I toweled off and dressed, I spent a little more time in the mirror than was necessary. Through the tiny window, I saw dusk coming on strong, the mountain air turning grainy.
A delicious scent reached me—cooked meat. After so long eating stale sandwiches and energy bars, I’d almost forgotten what real food smelled like.
When I walked out, the front room was dark. Alex had drawn all the curtains and lit candles on the kitchen table—a smart move to avoid giving us away. As I stepped closer, I saw that she’d put together a full meal with plates and settings and everything. She was already seated, waiting for me.
It was like a romantic dinner.
Except, of course, it wasn’t.
She pointed to the chair opposite. “Sit.”
“Gladly.”
We dug in. Elk in a pepper sauce, rice with cilantro, water with actual ice cubes—I couldn’t remember ever tasting anything so delicious. For a while there was only the peaceful sound of flatware clinking against plates. I sat back and wiped my mouth.
“Nicely done, Blanton,” I said.
She looked around. “It’s a shame we have to get moving soon. But we’re still high on the pass and we got a long way back to town.”
“That’s right. The good news? ‘Rain only goes one direction—’”
“‘Down,’” we said together, and laughed.
She set her fork next to her plate. Her expression shifted, and I could tell she was thinking of her father.
“He had a thing with your mom in high school, you know,” she said. “They were sweethearts.”
It took a moment for me to process that one. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
I tried to picture Sheriff Blanton with my mom when they were younger, but my brain wouldn’t compute the image. “There’s no way.”
“Oh, yeah. They were gonna get married, have kids, the whole thing. Then Dad broke up with her after graduation. I don’t know what it was. Cold feet, fear, whatever. But he never forgave himself for it. Or her.”
My face burned with indignation. “H
e never forgave her? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“The heart doesn’t make any sense, Chance. Its job is to not make sense.”
I looked across at Patrick’s black cowboy hat where I’d dropped it on the bed and kept my mouth shut.
She stood. “I’m gonna indulge in a shower before we go.”
She searched through the bureau some more but only came up with a man’s undershirt and a pair of boxers. She shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get and put my dirty clothes on over it again.”
When she disappeared into the bathroom, I poked around the cabin, trying to process what she’d just told me about my mom and her dad. That explained why Sheriff Blanton had disliked me and Patrick all these years. Why he’d hated our family name so much.
I found myself drawn back to that photograph of the older couple. How content they looked sitting there, umbrella drinks in hand. What was it like to grow old with someone that way? To know the other person was by your side. Not just for the big romantic moments but the day-to-day stuff, too. My mom and dad had it like that. Uncle Jim and Sue-Anne, too.
It didn’t seem like something I’d ever have.
I set down the framed picture, then went to do the dishes. It seemed important somehow, a gesture of respect for the folks who’d owned the place, who’d once taken a trip to enjoy each other’s company in the sun.
Alex came out, dirty clothes over clean, toweling her hair.
She paused by the bed, leaning a hip against the mattress, still looking a bit weak from her ordeal. “You cleaned up the kitchen? Why?”
I finished wiping down the counter. “I don’t know,” I said.
It seemed too hard to explain. But she nodded as if she understood anyways. She didn’t move from her spot by the bed.
“What did you go through?” she asked. “To get to me.”
I looked down at my boots.
“Tell me, Chance,” she said quietly.
So I did. I gave an abbreviated version of the empty church, of Chet’s attack and how Zeus died. The cemetery and the barricade, the climb up the pass and how I’d waited for dusk to come on, the terrible sounds of the assembly line carrying to my perch in the hills above the cannery.
She didn’t say a word, not even after I finished. Her lips were pursed, her eyes glimmering. It looked like she might be about to cry, but I wasn’t sure why. We stood in the silence a moment.
Then I remembered. I dug in my pocket. Came up with her jigsaw pendant.
“Patrick told me to bring this to you,” I said.
She seemed to realize she was still holding the towel, and she dropped it on the quilt next to the cowboy hat.
She reached back and took up her wet hair, exposing her slender neck. The whole time her eyes held mine. “Will you put it on for me?”
Blood rushed to my face. I looked down at the silver piece in my hand. That chain pooled in my palm, the tiny, delicate links. I willed my legs to move, but they wouldn’t listen.
“C’mere, Little Rain,” she said.
Keeping my eyes lowered, I walked over to her, my boots creaking the floorboards. I was standing right in front of her. We were about the same height, and I wondered when that had happened—she’d always been a few inches taller. Her neck was right there before me, an arc of wet hair floating just off the skin. I was looking at her jawline, her mouth. I didn’t dare lift my eyes to meet her gaze for fear of what they might reveal.
I reached up, the pendant dangling between my hands. My fingers grazed her neck. Her skin, so smooth. Her hair, cool against my knuckles as I fumbled with the clasp.
At last I got it.
She leaned forward.
And kissed me.
My heart stopped.
Her lips were as plush and soft as I’d ever imagined.
She pulled back, plucked the cowboy hat off the quilt, and seated it on my head. The room felt hazy to me, my thoughts and emotions swimming. Words drifted out of reach.
She gave me a sideways smile and brushed past me toward the door. “Let’s get going.”
Yanking on the backpack, I stumbled out after her, still unable to speak.
Alex’s limp was more pronounced. Though we’d just had a rest, her shoulders sagged with exhaustion. I wondered how we’d make it all the way down the pass. We headed off the porch, passing the little barn, forging into the trees.
That’s when we heard it.
Something moving inside the barn.
Something very big.
I paused, and we looked at each other. I knew she was thinking what I was thinking, that she held the same hope for what it might be.
But there was a risk, too. If I rolled back that barn door, a swarm of Hosts could spill out.
Alex staggered weakly to the side, setting her weight on her strong leg. I thought about how tired she was and how rough the terrain before us was.
It was worth the risk.
Reversing course, I moved back toward the barn, and she did nothing to stop me.
My fingers curled around the metal handle. Something shifted inside again, the wood creaking. I hesitated, staring at the flaking wooden door.
Then I slid it open.
ENTRY 38
A shiny black Andalusian stallion loomed in the single stall. Seeing us, he threw back his head, exposing a white star on the left side of his chest. I pushed back the stall door, and he pranced out. With massive hindquarters and powerful hocks, he must have been seventeen hands.
At my back Alex leaned against the tack wall, the reins clanking behind her.
“It’s like he’s not real,” she said.
I put my hand on the stallion’s flank, felt the muscle and heat. Stacks of hay remained in his stall, a nearly empty bucket of oats, and a trough half filled with water. Though he’d been nourished, he was agitated from being pent up. He was ready to run.
That was fine by me.
* * *
I tapped my heels into the stallion’s ribs, pushing him from a two-beat trot to a lope. We rode bareback straight down the asphalt strip of Ponderosa Pass, his hooves like thunder against the tarmac. I leaned forward, gripping the reins, Alex’s arm looped around my waist. Her other hand swung free, gripping the hockey stick. Just in case.
Sure enough, a Chaser darted from the tree line ahead of us. I yanked the harness to the right, and Alex nearly lopped off the eyeless head as we cantered past.
The road gleamed with night dew, a black river leading us down to the barricade. We floated above the world, high enough to be safe, fast enough to soar. Alex’s body felt warm and tight against mine. She leaned into me, resting her cheek against my back when she got tired.
We made great time, the ride way easier than the brutal off-road hike we would have had to make. The rhythm of the horse beneath us was hypnotic, the crisp night air intoxicating. We encountered few Hosts on our descent. Two of them Alex dispatched with her hockey stick, and a third I trampled right over.
At last the eighteen-wheeler came into view where it had plowed off the road, crashing into the forest and starting the cascade of trees. We reached the rear of the barricade and slid off, Alex’s legs wobbly beneath her. I propped her up. The stallion was in full lather, breathing hard, and he looked regal, even godlike. His shiny black coat made him nearly invisible in the darkness, save for the white star.
I stroked his muzzle and thanked him. Uninterested, he turned and trotted off.
Once the mist folded around him, it was as though he had never existed.
As I helped Alex up and over the fallen trees, I realized that she was even weaker than I’d thought. Though she was toughing it out, it was clear that the past two days had taken a serious toll.
We peered over the top of the barricade to check for Hosts, then picked our way down the logs. I set my hand on an upthrust branch, and it felt soft, wrapped in fabric of some sort. When I looked closer, a cartoon of an old king with a scepter and crown became visible. It was Nick’s Stark Peak High Monarchs
hoodie, snared there where I’d dropped it after he’d been snatched away by the horde.
I kept moving.
When we landed on the roof of the station wagon, Alex took note of the corpses splayed around the vehicle. She glanced over at me. “You did this?”
I nodded.
Again she gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. I hopped down, then eased her off the roof. She landed gingerly, trying not to put all her weight on her sore leg.
We rushed off the highway in the direction of the Silverado, our feet squelching in the marshy reeds. It seemed wetter down here; there must’ve been a good rain on this side of the pass last night.
A few steps farther, when I started to sink to my calves, I sensed we might be in trouble. Once we reached the truck, I pulled up short, dismayed.
It was sunk to the bumper in the boggy reeds, the tires lost from view.
No way I’d be able to drive it out of here, not until the land dried.
The nearest vehicles were fifteen miles away at the gas station. On foot across the open plain of the valley, Alex and I would be picked off easily. I doubted she could make it fifteen more steps, let alone miles.
For the first time since I’d left the school, despair settled through me.
To have come all this way to be defeated by a simple rain.
How stupid of me to park the Silverado out here on soft ground.
As wetness crept through my socks, I leaned against the truck. Then my temper snapped. I banged the hood with my fist, then tried to kick the side panel, though I could barely yank my boot free to do it.
“Chance,” Alex said.
I felt her hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t care,” I fumed. “I don’t care if they hear me.”
Part of me wanted the Hosts to come so I could take out my rage on them.
I tried to kick the truck again, a poor effort.
“Are you done?” Alex asked calmly.
I turned, hooks dangling around my wrists. “I think so.”
“There is another car we could use.”
“What are you talking about?”
But already she’d started sloshing back to the highway, her feet making sucking sounds as they pulled from the earth. Alert for Hosts—maybe I didn’t really want them to show up—I followed.
The Rains Page 25
