The ladder the thing crawled on was familiar. Unlike any ladder he had ever used, craggy and bulging and angular in all the wrong ways. But he had seen this structure before. Not in the fine architecture of the Capitol building or in the gilded halls of the many mansions he'd passed through in another life. This was a stairway in a different building.
It was a human spine. Small. Still forming.
The spine of a child. A toddler.
The thing writhed up and down, in and out. Dancing through the Small now. Small, but growing. Growing.
It looked at him. Saw him somehow, there in the darkness where neither of them existed, and Christopher wanted to scream but didn't because if he did he knew the thing would not only see him but own him and he would never escape it, would never leave this Darkplace of the soul. He stifled the breathless scream, and tried to close his eyes, but could not. There were no eyes to close. At least, none he could control.
Like the thing's legs, the insectile creature's eyes were there-not-there, here-not-here. But though they only held part of this reality in their sight, they were still too much. The thing curled through the articulated length of the thing, playing on the spinal cord like a child on a hideous swing. It swayed to an unheard rhythm –
(in-out-in-out-give-up-give-in-give-up-give-in)
– and then turned toward Christopher and for a moment he saw it. Not in its fullness – he thought that would kill him – but more than he had. More and too much.
Far, far too much.
Now Christopher screamed. His body was still silent, insensate, but his mind shrieked. Cried out in a way that would last forever.
And then, finally on the wings of that scream, he completed his fall. Not simply into darkness, but into void. Into a place that had no place, because it was simply nothing. Blessed oblivion.
Thank God.
29
His mother kept shaking him.
Only that was ridiculous. She never woke him up. So it must be Cheryl. Dumpy old Cheryl who was so crabby and outright mean sometimes and whom he adored because she was the only one who seemed to care what he did.
"Get up," she whispered.
Then she was gone. Now there was something else. Something in the dark, something he couldn't see. Not just because it was dark – he thought he might not be able to see it even in the brightest light, the sun of a hot summer day.
"Come," it said. It was a young voice. Dim, weak, frightened. "Come see, come serve, come save."
The voice was familiar. He had heard it before, but he couldn't remember the where or the when.
Then the voice was swallowed in a darker one. A voice so loud and large that it was the size of the world. And it wasn't weak or frightened. It was awesome. It was terrible.
It reminded Christopher of the eyes he had seen before oblivion. The eyes that were old and young together, those eyes that guided a thing up and down the twisted architecture of a changing spine, and thirsted for his doom.
"DIE. DIE AND BE REBORN AND LIVE FOREVER IN ME."
The voice tumbled through the black, and suddenly Christopher was aware that he had no shape, no form. He was the darkness. And he was being taken.
"DIE AND BE REBORN AND LIVE FOREVER IN ME."
He almost gave up. Nearly gave in right there. But the small voice forced its way back.
"Come see, come serve, come save," it said. Not Cheryl, not his mother. Something both more and less than either. The voice of a dead child.
Ken's child.
The boy who had turned not just to a zombie but to something like a king. "Come see, come serve, come save," the dead boy whispered. "Come see, come serve…."
"Come," said another voice, and the shaking continued. And Christopher finally opened his eyes and saw, and seeing he also screamed.
30
A demon loomed, a black shape that hung over him in a dark room, and for a moment Christopher was back in his childhood bedroom. Six years old, afraid of the open door to the closet, the strange shapes that coats and toys took when the lights went out. Afraid and already knowing that calling to Mommy and Daddy – no, Mother and Father as they preferred he address them – wasn't a good idea. They had to be fresh for the next day, for a day of photos and hand-shaking and meeting Important People, and waking them always ended badly.
Nothing ever came out of the darkness in the closet. Until now. And this thing was huge. Big, strong. A hand clapped over his mouth.
"Shhh, e kare. Quiet, my friend. It is only me."
Christopher opened his mouth. Felt something strange as he did.
Skin. Just skin. No dirt or blood or tears. Someone washed me.
I'm clean.
And the answer to how it had happened stood over him. Mo and Amulek, looking down and smiling and near-glaring, respectively.
"Where… what?"
He remembered Hope. Remembered her grabbing Lizzy.
What was she going to do?
Was she going to hurt her sister?
Kill her?
He thought…
… he didn't know what he thought. Or perhaps he did. But his mind shied away, because that just wasn't possible. Even in a world as mad as this, it couldn't be.
"You fell asleep, e kare."
"How long?"
"More than a day.
Christopher shook his head. He felt something throbbing in his center. No new injury for once: he had to pee. Badly.
Either Mo had experience being down for a day, or he recognized the look on Christopher's face. "Come," he said. "You can make your toilet and I will explain."
31
Christopher barely made it to the hub of the shelter – and one of the two toilets it held – before letting loose with what felt like the longest pee in history.
Is there any history? When the monsters own us, who will write our lives?
No answer for that.
He didn't bother drawing the curtain behind him. He figured Mo and Amulek probably knew what he was doing, and could hear it, and wouldn't do anything weird while his back was turned. They had cleaned him somehow – probably some kind of a sponge bath – and it felt like they'd been pretty thorough about it, so it wasn't like he had a lot to hide at this point.
Besides, after all that had already happened a family of creepy pervs who got off on people peeing was way down on the list of things to worry about.
Hell, hillbilly cannibals who rape your eyeholes and then eat your junk are way down on that list at this point.
"Where is everyone?" Christopher said. Still peeing. Peeing forever. Maybe he'd pee himself away to nothing, just disappear into whatever septic tank the toilet emptied into.
Maybe that'd be a good thing. Dissolving into piss. Better than dying in a world that had gone to crap.
"My grandson told me what happened," said Mo.
Christopher finally finished and stepped out of the curtained-off area, zipping his fly. "How'd he – I thought he didn't talk."
Amulek made a writing motion, fingers of his right hand scribbling against his open left palm. He also favored Christopher with a withering stare. "You're an idiot," he said with his eyes, which were tremendously expressive – at least for this sentiment.
"He told me," said Mo again. "And he said each of you fell down at once when the mama screamed. Even the kitty cat and she herself fell. He thought it best to separate you all as much as possible." He pointed at the hatch doors. All sealed. "Mama and baby and kitty are in the sleeping room." He swiveled to the hatch directly across from it. "Big sister and your large friend are in the kitchen. Amulek thought it best to keep the little girls far from each other." Another slight turn. "We left you in our hospital."
Christopher thought back. Buck and Sally facing off. Hope whispering death to Lizzy. Maggie screaming. He nodded: the separation had fallen across the correct lines.
Christopher looked back at his hosts. "Do you know what's going on?" he said.
Mo shook his head. "I do not, e kar
e. And I regret that I cannot accompany you. But now is the time to go."
A chill ran up Christopher's spine –
(like a thing with eyes-not-eyes, a thing that sees-not-sees)
– and he felt terror reaching for him, even though he didn't fully understand Mo's words. All that penetrated was a single word. A word that meant a flight from safety. From this respite that already seemed too short.
"Go?" he said. "Where are we going?"
32
"Where you wished," said Mo. "You go to your friend."
For a second the words didn't compute. Whatever hamster that spun the wheel of Christopher's brain had either fallen asleep or just plain had a stroke and keeled over dead. He couldn't blame it.
"What…?" he began. Then he knew. And the hamster that had been asleep now started running again. Fleeing.
Zombie hamster!
"Now? Now? Shouldn't we –?"
But he was shaking his head, even as Mo and Amulek shook theirs. "If you wish to reclaim him, now is the time. He is going to begin to smell soon. He will attract the animals and," said Mo with a sigh, "perhaps other things much worse."
That was a sobering thought. Would the zombies eat Ken's body? Christopher hadn't seen them eating much. In fact, the only place he had seen them eating – not just biting, but chowing down – was in the web-strewn offices where they found Maggie, the girls, Derek, Buck, and Buck's mother.
Why only there?
He thought the answer to that question might be important. Mostly because he had no idea what it might be, so of course it would be a critical item. The only things that mattered were things he didn't understand. That was life. Life before, life now.
"What do I do when I find him?" he said. "Not like I packed a shov –"
Amulek held something out. Christopher couldn't tell if the teen had been holding it for the entirety of their conversation or if he had simply conjured it from nowhere using some aboriginal magic. Either way, he suddenly had a collapsible spade in his hands. It was green, folded on a hinge just above the blade. Military-looking, probably meant to be bound to some drab backpack and hauled into enemy territory.
Just where I'm going.
"Aaron's going to be out there."
"Is this the name of the man who shot me?" said Mo. Christopher nodded. Mo shook his head in reply. "I doubt it. This Aaron has been outside for more than a day in a strange world. He is either fled or dead. Besides, I myself can barely move. And I am Māori." He said this last quietly but with conviction: no boast, simply an observation that carried with it the weight of fact.
Only one problem: "Aaron isn't what you think," said Christopher. "He's more. He's worse. He's alive. He's still looking for us."
For the girls.
He still couldn't believe that. Couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea that Aaron – the "rodeo clown" who was so much more, the man who had saved the survivors time and again – had so swiftly decided the girls were a threat.
Did he, though? He said he wasn't sure. He tried to stop Elijah and Theresa from killing them. Kept saying we had to be sure.
Christopher didn't know what to think of Aaron. He was a deadly enemy, that was certain. But was he an enemy to Christopher, or just the girls? Was he even an enemy to them?
And if so, did that make him a bad person?
Christopher didn't know. He didn't understand anything. He had thought Aaron was a friend. And he still thought maybe the cowboy was just that. A friend, a good person. But one who was willing to kill for the greater good.
And that was the most terrifying thought of all.
Mo snapped Christopher out of his reverie. "Perhaps he is alive. If so, he would be a toa of much strength, much cunning. He would be a man to be feared."
"Yes," said Christopher.
Mo nodded, seemed to think about this. He looked at Amulek. Neither spoke – Christopher didn't know if the boy could – but something passed between them.
"My grandson will go with you. He is young, but he also is toa. He will keep you safe."
Ken looked at the boy. A good-sized kid, but no match for Aaron.
He almost said the first words that came to mind. Which were both derogatory and an instruction that was technically impossible, given that they involved sexual relations with Mo's ancestors.
Then he thought of Ken.
Thought of him leading them to safety.
Thought of the man, serving as the linchpin that had held them together.
Thought of his face as he lost his boy to flame and death and something worse.
Christopher thought of his friend. His first friend in a long time and, save perhaps Buck, his only friend in this new and lonely world.
He took the shovel from Amulek. Small. Short handle. It would break his back to bury his friend.
"Let's go."
33
At first Christopher couldn't tell if it was dawn or dusk. Twilight came as a trickster, a thing that played games with his eyes and his mind. He finally had to look at the brightest part of the sky to determine where the sun was, then do a rough calculation. The train he had ridden – no passenger, but hostage – had run roughly east. And then they had traveled north. So the sun…
Setting. It was twilight. Of course it was. He was going to be running into a zombie-infested world to dig a grave in the dark.
He sighed. It was a joke, but one that was entirely unfunny. He looked skyward. "What did I do to piss you off?" he said.
Something poked his back. A finger that might as well have been a rod of stone. Amulek urged him out of the shelter, through the camouflaged hatch that marked the difference between safety and menace, between sanity and madness.
Christopher took a breath, then left the tunnel. He felt naked. Utterly vulnerable. His neck swiveled back and forth as he looked for zombies. For Aaron. For killer caterpillars, deadly attack gnats – everything and anything could have changed. Nothing else made sense, so why should he assume that the world was anything but one huge deathtrap?
Haven't seen any of the bugs recently, actually.
When this had all started the bugs had swarmed – sometimes killing people with millions of stings and bites, other times just coming in numberless swarms to strange places and dying of nothing at all.
Where are they now?
Another mystery. Another dangerous question unanswered.
Amulek stood beside him. A moment later there was a dull thud as the shelter hatch shut. Once more looking like nothing more than a piece of the field, a flat stone that hid all the treasures Christopher could still call his own: safety, friends… family.
He took a few steps, then walked over a row of asparagus. Headed back toward the canal that had almost claimed them all. Toward Ken's body.
A few steps.
And he realized that Amulek was not following.
34
For a moment he was certain the kid was dead. Three steps into this new world and he had lost his traveling companion, his protector.
Christopher spun on his heel, the shovel raised, ready to slam it into the head of whoever – whatever – had claimed Amulek.
Not that it would help. The zombies just got angrier when you bashed them, shot them, or otherwise messed up their noodles. No, head injuries were bad news.
He swung low. And would have eviscerated his enemy if there had actually been one. Instead, the folded shovel just whistled through empty air while Amulek looked at him with a vaguely amused expression, then unlimbered his bow and nocked an arrow. He had four arrows in the hand that drew the bow. No quiver, but Christopher realized that if the kid could swing up the arrows one at a time and fire, he'd be a very fast shot.
And Amulek looked very fast. Very fast indeed.
I meet the weirdest people at the end of the world.
Amulek knelt behind a row of asparagus. Then gestured for Christopher to keep going.
"What…?" Then understanding dawned. "You're going to cover me?"
Christopher laughed. Quietly. "Are you nuts, Legolas? I've got to get to the canal. You going to cover me all the way there?"
Amulek didn't hesitate. He nodded.
Christopher was taken aback.
He stared at Amulek for a second. The kid stared back.
Christopher turned and began the long, lonely walk toward the body of a friend.
35
He had felt naked before. Now, walking into a twilight that steadily deepened to night, alone but for his own thoughts and the soft tromp of his feet in the dirt, Christopher felt as though the skin had been stripped from his body. Raw, his nerves on fire. He twitched at every distant sound.
He listened with his ears, his nose, his skin.
His mind.
Hoping not to hear the zombies' growl, hoping even more not to hear the call to succumb that came into his mind whenever they were near.
He barely thought of Aaron now. What was mere mortal danger when you might lose your very self, your soul?
He arrived at the canal faster than he thought he would. It wasn't bloated with rain anymore, but it still rushed along, a loud whisper that in other times had been comforting. Normal. The sound of places known and loved.
Christopher turned, looking for his friend. Seeing nothing. He suddenly hoped he wouldn't find Ken's body. It would be easier. Safer. Just go back to the shelter and –
What?
That was a good question. And he didn't know the answer. So he kept moving forward. Because sometimes momentum is the only substitute for confidence.
He found it a moment later. A mound that was his friend and yet wasn't. Face up on the ground, hands and arms half-buried in dried mud. Eyes closed, thank goodness.
Ken's mouth was open. Christopher looked away as soon as he saw that. It was too much like that weird breathing thing the zombies had all done. Like they were tuned in to some master key that had them doing everything – even breathing – in sync. He couldn't handle his friend looking like that.
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