Buck's finger stabbed down before the word "BUTTON" had finished scrolling. It only got as far as "BUTT," and Christopher wanted to make a joke, but Buck moved too fast. His finger rammed the button. The AED hummed. The hunter's body grew taught. Then slack.
The AED chirped. A heart rate? Christopher didn't know. He didn't know anything. Hadn't known shit since this whole thing started. Only that he was alone for hours. Alone and – if he were to be honest with himself – terrified.
Then not alone. Still terrified. But somehow the terror was easier. A better kind of fear. Fear for others as well as himself, and that made it easier to bear.
The chirping stopped. Buck goosed the green butt again. Mo's body flexed.
The bowstring quivered. Buck was sweating even though the air was cool.
Mo sat up with a gasp, a low-pitched scream.
He swung a huge fist. Buck ducked.
The fist caught Christopher in the nose.
25
Pain. Pain that was so harsh and hot it had color.
It was blue.
"Are you kidding me?"
Blood was already pooling in his cupped hand. His brain flitted spastically, moving from the fact that this would mark the third time – THIRD TIME – that he'd had his nose broken since all this began to the fact that his hundred dollar shirt was forever ruined to the fact that that ship had sailed long ago and besides fashion was a low priority in a world where zombies ruled…
… to the fact that Ken had been the one who broke his nose the other two times.
That sobered him. He would have given a lot for Ken to break his nose again. But Ken was dead on the side of an irrigation canal.
Buck was pushing on Mo's chest. "Lay down."
Mo, incredibly, shook him off and reached for Christopher. "I am so sorry, my friend," he said. "I do not know what came over me."
"You died," said Buck. "So lay down."
Like the presence of a snow leopard – and apparently everything else – the man took his own death in stride. "Ah," he said. The sound conveyed a wealth of understanding. Christopher figured it was probably similar to the sound Jesus made when he strolled out of the tomb after the three days and cracked his back before tooling off to Heaven.
Mo let Buck press him down, and his eyes were fluttering again. But he noticed the teen. "Amulek," he said. "Put that down." His words slid into one another, unconsciousness rising to claim him again. But he still sounded strong. More than that. He sounded….
It took a moment for Christopher to figure it out. Then it was obvious.
He sounded good. He was a good person. Which Christopher had figured was the case, but for some reason this one instant convinced him utterly of that fact. Mo could be believed, trusted, loved.
He was going to be one of them.
A sense of fate suddenly lit through Christopher's brain. A feeling that they were here, like this, because they had to be.
Then it was gone. He wondered if it was real. If it had ever happened.
Maybe I'm going insane.
(the axe through her head my baby's head her head that wasn't a head anymore it was a saw a killing thing)
I am going mad.
Mo was laying down. His eyes shut. Then they snapped open. He stared at Buck. "The boy does not speak. But he is a good boy." He turned to the teen – Amulek, which Christopher was pretty sure was another Mormon name.
So he's family with ol' Mo.
"Amulek, take care of them," said Mo. Then he turned to Maggie. Searched her out particularly, carefully. "And you, whaea, please watch after him."
Mo relaxed. His eyes closed. He seemed to be asleep.
Christopher remembered this moment. One of the schools he'd been shipped off to was a Catholic boarding school. Religious convocations and classes had been required, and in one of them he heard this same story: Jesus hanging on the cross, looking at Mary and saying, "Behold your son," and at his best friend and saying, "Behold your mother."
It wasn't that he was remembering scripture – in spite of the classes five times a day, Christopher mostly thought God was good for Christmas presents and pleading that Jodi Robbins would let him touch her boobs when they were both fourteen (He had granted that wish).
So no, it wasn't that Christopher was a "Capital B" Believer, or even just a believer.
That feeling hit him again.
Something was going on. Something was binding them together. Something more than mere survival, than mere happenstance.
Fate?
Destiny?
Or maybe I'm just going nuts.
26
Something touched Christopher's hip. He didn't move, too busy trying in vain to catch what seemed like every drop of his blood as it waterfalled out of his nose. The touch turned into a nudge, then a prod.
Christopher turned to face the annoyance. It was Hope, holding out a wad of paper towels she'd founds somewhere. He smiled – dumb move, another spear of blue pain jabbed its way through his head –then took the towels.
And before he could put them to his face, something else started jabbing him. In the shoulder this time. He swung to it.
It was Amulek. The boy had his bow slung around his back. His arrow wasn't in a quiver, it was just rammed through his leather belt, hanging there like he was a kid playing swords.
He held something white. Gauze pads. Unsmiling, but he flicked them toward Christopher's nose and the message was clear enough: "Here. For your injury."
Either that or he was deriding Christopher for bleeding all over the nice clean floor.
Christopher took the gauze. Shoved a wad up each nostril and then held some below his nose.
The kid moved to Mo. Moved Buck gently aside. He took something out of one of the wall cabinets. Went to his – what, grandfather? Uncle? Whatever Mo was to him, the kid rolled the big man over and looked at his wounded back. The teen's shoulders started bouncing.
Christopher thought he was having a seizure.
Or maybe Changing.
He fell back a step. So did Buck.
Then a strange sound bounced through the room. Maggie. She was laughing. And in that instant Christopher realized that the kid was doing the same thing. Laughing silently, the only thing coming from his mouth blasts of air as he wheezed out quiet approval of the ridiculousness of the situation.
He pointed at Mo's back. Then at Maggie.
She shook her head. "It wasn't me," she managed. The words were broken, separated by hitching breaths and tears that ran freely down her face. Maggie pointed at Christopher. "It was him."
The teen pointed as well. His shoulders bounced even higher. Christopher finally realized what was so funny: the kid was laughing about the tampons.
Christopher began to laugh, too.
Buck snorted. Then chuckled. He didn't just laugh; huge guffaws rattled their way through and then out of his huge frame.
It was a fine moment, even given the where and the when of it all.
Something's happening.
We're changing. Not into the zombies, maybe. But into something.
And Mo and the kid… they're part of it now.
Christopher saw Hope. She wasn't laughing. She was looking up. Not doing that in-out-in breathing thing that she did sometimes.
But not participating in the moment. Looking up.
Like she was searching for something in the ceiling.
Or beyond.
His laughter died.
27
A grunt drew Christopher's attention away from Hope's questing expression.
It was Mo. Still asleep, but pain drew his features tight even in his unconscious state. Amulek was drawing needle and thread through the wound in his back one-handed, holding the big man sideways with the other. Buck moved to hold Mo for Amulek, and now the kid's fingers were sewing not just the surface wounds, but reaching inside the hunter, peeling back layers of torn flesh, drawing the needle through what lay beneath.
The bleeding had started again, Christoph
er realized. Once Mo's heart was jumpstarted, the pump started pushing liquid everywhere – even through the faulty lines. But now the leaks were being mended rapidly, competently. The blood petered out. Didn't stop, but now it seeped where before it had streamed.
"Where'd you learn that, kid?" said Buck.
"He won't talk, Clucky," said Hope. She stood closer, looking at the operation with a mixture of childlike fascination, childlike revulsion, and… something else.
We're going to have to deal with what's going on with them sooner or later.
"Well, I talk," said Buck. He sounded irritable. Not a surprise, given everything that had been going on.
"I know," said Hope. She put an arm around his hip and leaned into him. "I know," she repeated. And this motion didn't seem childlike at all. It was grown-up. Weary, wise in a way no child should ever be. But Christopher couldn't tell if that was because of what was happening to the girl, or just a side effect of the world falling into a deep crevasse in an ugly part of Hell.
Amulek put out a hand, and for some reason Maggie was waiting with gauze and medical tape. She handed it to him, and Christopher wondered how she had found the gauze and tape – and how she knew the kid wanted it now.
The survivors had always moved well together. It was how they had remained survivors. But had they always moved this well?
We're changing, too.
And on the heels of that thought, the screams began.
27
Several things happened very quickly.
Christopher tried to locate the source of the sound.
He failed.
He clapped his hands over his ears.
He thought that it must be the contours of the pipe, that someone must be screaming from somewhere else. Amulek had been hiding somewhere – were there others? The rounded edges must be bouncing the scream around so much that he couldn't pinpoint the source.
Then he realized that no matter how tightly his hands went over his ears, he still heard the screams.
They're in my head in my head in MY HEAD!
He had been invaded like this before. The zombies had some weird power in their grunts and growls, something that punched through his eardrums and into his brain. It made him want to just give up, just sit down and forget about running, about fighting, about living.
Still, this was different. It was more than a subtle sense, a malaise that infected him as he fled. This was agony and panic and rage all wrapped up in a ball of barbed wire that had been jammed into the space right behind his eyes.
"Hope, stop!"
He dragged his gaze over to the sound. Aware he had heard the words in his mind as well. Not as powerfully – so weak it was possible he had imagined them. But he didn't think so. He thought they had joined his overcrowded mind.
What…?
He saw Maggie, yanking Hope's arm. Hope had that aged look on her face. Nothing new about the skin, about the lines. But something in the eyes… she seemed old. Wise, but in a way that was so wrong. Not wisdom that came with good choices and life lived, but the wisdom of a conqueror that has plundered and destroyed. The wisdom of one who knows ash and char like she knows her own body.
Hope was holding Lizzy's arm. So tightly that even through the baby fat, Christopher could see veins swelling to the surface of Lizzy's hand and forearm.
It was Lizzy who was screaming.
Hope made no sound. Hope was silent.
Hope was, quite suddenly, dangerous.
Maggie yanked the girls apart. Lizzy cried out again, and as she did another sound joined the din. A low rattle that was even more frightening than the sound in Christopher's mind.
Sally.
The snow leopard jumped in front of Lizzy. He moved like liquid, flowing between the girls. At the same time, he slammed into Maggie, shoving her away from her daughters. She screamed wordlessly as she fell back into one of the other cots in the room.
Hope backed away. But she didn't panic. She was slow. Moving carefully. Like Sally wasn't the only predator. Or even the most dangerous one.
And then another form got between the girls, this one inserting himself between Sally and Hope.
Buck.
"Help me, Clucky," said Hope. But her voice still had that… old sound. Devoid of fun, empty of innocence. The shell of childhood being worn by something eldritch, ancient and cool and cunning.
Her voice sounded in Christopher's brain, too. Help me, Clucky.
Buck started growling. His arms crossed as though he was going to pray, then raised to cover most of his face. He stooped. It looked like a strange position until Christopher realized it would provide the big man the best protection from Sally's teeth and claws. He was offering only his extremities, hiding face and gut from devastation.
Buck was preparing to kill or be killed.
28
Something shattered. A crash of glass that was probably the only sound that could have slashed its way through the rumbling animals – Buck and Sally – that had faced off.
Christopher whipped his head toward the sound. Glass had bounced off the wall. The only one who could have thrown it – the only one not involved in the tableau, or unconscious, or Christopher himself – was Amulek. The silent Māori kid trying to distract away whatever was happening.
It didn't work.
Buck crouched further. So did Sally. In the next moment there would be a pair of animals locked in death-combat.
"Kill him, Clucky," said Hope. Barely a whisper, but it slammed through Christopher's brain.
Buck jumped. Not waiting for the cat to make its first move. Neutralizing a threat by becoming a greater one. His feet left earth and he went nearly horizontal, one arm still covering most of his face, the other one extending, hand clenched into a powerful fist that slammed down.
It met only air. Sally was liquid. Sally was smoke. Sally flowed.
For some reason, Christopher focused on the snow leopard's tail. It dropped between its hind legs, almost wrapped around them as though to provide aerodynamic perfection down to the last nanosecond. But it twitched ever so slightly as Sally darted to the side, avoiding the fist that pounded down into nothing.
Sally's right foreleg swiped at Buck. The big man danced back –
("Kill him, Clucky," said Hope.
Kill him Clucky, the words echoed in Christopher's head.)
– but not fast enough. Three thin furrows appeared in his shirt. A once-white button-up stained gray, and now with streaks of red.
Lizzy laughed. Christopher remembered her voice, so long ago it seemed an eternity, but also just –
(has it been so little time so little time since this all fell apart all fell down and fell apart)
– a few days ago. "You are not family. You are renegades." So old, so at odds with what she should have been. Just like Hope's voice was.
And again, here and now, the toddler's laugh didn't sound right. High-pitched, the breathy whistle of someone who hadn't completely aged into belly laughs. But wrong. New, youthful… but at the same time old and withered. Like it was living two lives in two different places. Two versions of the same thing, but in different presents, different nows.
Buck didn't make a sound when Sally drew first blood. He crouched even lower. His lips drew back. Grew thin and disappeared. He looked just as much an animal as the snow leopard. He leaped again, and this time he didn't bother with fists. He abandoned his defensive crouch, arms open wide, legs cast in opposite directions. He made a net of himself and fell on the cat.
Sally screamed. A growl that, like everything else, was familiar and alien at once.
Buck slammed the cat's head with a huge fist. Sally reeled, but couldn't escape. Held in place by the big man's bulk.
Sally's mouth opened. Snout writhed free. He was going to tear Buck's throat away.
Buck's right hand turned into a huge hook. Slashed through the air toward Sally's throat. Ready to yank the leopard's life blood free.
Who would win? Or would
they both die together?
Hope laughed. Clapped tiny hands in too-ancient delight. "Kill hi –"
"NO!"
The blood flow from Christopher's thrice-broken nose had been slowing. Now it burst forth again with such force that the gauze wads he had crammed into his nostrils shot out like soggy bullets. Blood gouted. He felt dizzy.
Who shouted?
It hadn't been him, but the word sounded in his skull just as loud –
(louder louder LOUDER SHUT UP TOO LOUD)
– as if he had been the origin of the scream.
Hope and Liz both fell over at the word. Sally immediately lowered himself to his belly and began preening himself. Buck shook himself and looked around, unsure eyes staring at an unfamiliar world.
Maggie blinked. She had shrieked the word that stopped what seemed an inevitable clash, but she didn't seem to know where she was for a moment, let alone what had just happened. She looked at the girls and fright yanked her eyebrows up, pulled her features taut.
"What's going on?" she whispered. Then whisper became scream: "What's happening?"
Again her words pounded through Christopher's brain. Pounded the blood right out of his head.
He thought he heard something pop inside his skull. Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe not.
He fell over. Not all the way, though. He toppled forward and his hands flung out to save him. The instinctive move to rescue the head, the heart. The parts that matter most.
His outstretched hand touched Liz. And as it did he fell the rest of the way to the floor. Into dark.
But he wasn't alone. Something was there in the blackness with him. Something young, but somehow old as well. It writhed up and down a ladder, trickled on legs that phased in and out of reality, appendages that Christopher couldn't quite see because they existed in so many different places – not just spots in this world, but spots in many worlds – at once. Like the faces of girls that were both young and ancient, this was a thing that was all and nothing, many and few. It was Legion, trapped in a single body.
Buried.2015.03.04 Page 6
