The Waking Dark

by Robin Wasserman

  “And I wanted to say, I’m sorry about Nick.”

  He stopped cold. “What?”

  She stopped beside him, and let the others continue ahead, disappearing into the overgrowth, and didn’t speak until they were alone. “I didn’t know you two were… friends,” she said. “But I guess I figured that you…”

  He couldn’t breathe.

  “Anyway. I’m glad you had him. And… I’m sorry you don’t anymore.”

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded ragged, unfamiliar even to him.

  She chewed at her lip, then mouthed a silent swear. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No. It’s okay,” he said, his face hot, his throat burning. “Thanks, I guess.”

  “Hey, West?”

  “What?”

  Instead of answering, she slipped her hand into his and held tight, and that was all she had to say.

  They walked together through the woods, and held on to each other, and didn’t let go until they reached the tree Jule had described and the swampy lake, and discovered they weren’t the first to arrive.

  The Watchdogs were waiting.

  “Where is she?”

  Jule froze at the sound of the quarterback’s voice. Noises echoed strangely out here. He might still be some distance away – but not a safe distance. There was no such thing. Daniel had already pulled Milo down behind one of the trees. Jule dropped down to join them. The marsh grass waved in the breeze. It was nearly as tall as Milo in this patch, and she wished she could lose herself in it, lie down and let herself be claimed by the swampy earth.

  “You think I don’t know she’s with you? Think I don’t know where Prevettes go? Rats always go back to the nest.”

  She couldn’t think about the fact that she’d steered everyone right into the waiting arms of the Watchdogs. She definitely wouldn’t think about the fact that Baz knew this place, not just as a deserted swamp in which to park and drink and smoke and fuck, but as her place. Had he hidden in these woods as she was doing now, watching? How much of her had he seen?

  “We have to get closer,” Jule said.

  Daniel looked at Milo.

  She sighed. He was right. She wasn’t used to having someone to take care of; her brain just didn’t work that way. She pointed behind him, where the swamp shaded into dense forest, windblown and wild, its storm-damaged trees jutting at crazy angles. “There’s a path about twenty yards that way – it winds around a bit, but it’ll get you to the edge of the highway. I told West we’d catch up with them there if… things went wrong.” She’d insisted on a backup plan, and no one had suggested she was being overcautious. The only thing that seemed unlikely at this point was anything going right.

  “I can’t just leave you here.” Daniel said it like he knew he could.

  “I’ll find you there. I’ll make sure we all do.”

  “But —”

  “Trust me,” she said.

  It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway. “Yes.”

  “Then go.”

  Daniel sighed. “Come on,” he told Milo. “And be really quiet, okay? Like the silent game.”

  “It’s not a game,” Milo said. Then, without warning, he wrapped Jule’s legs in a tight hug. “I’m not stupid.”

  “No, you’re not.” She didn’t want him to let go, but Daniel pried him away.

  “Be careful,” he told her.

  “I’m not stupid, either.”

  But maybe that wasn’t true, because as soon as the brothers were out of sight, she crept as close as she dared to where the Watchdogs had the others surrounded, pointed her gun at the sky, and fired.

  It was all the distraction West needed, just a split second of split attention that let him tackle Baz and wrestle the gun from his hands. The linebackers rushed to defend their quarterback – allowing Cass, Ellie, and the doctor to slip away, running at full speed into the brush. Baz yelled at his lackeys to forget about him and chase the fugitive, as surely it should be evident to them that he could whip West’s ass all on his own.

  “You wanted my ass, all you had to do was ask for it,” West said, and drove Baz’s face into the dirt. Baz cursed and bucked hard enough to shrug him off. West stumbled backward and Baz lunged. His fist connected with West’s black eye. Mistake. West bared his teeth, unleashed a beastly growl, hunched down, and made a hard tackle. The quarterback went down. They rolled and grunted in the mud, like wrestlers, like animals.

  Jule could have run away, like the others. West was bigger and West was desperate. He could take care of himself.

  Or she could have given in to the siren song of the knife she still carried, and plunged it into Baz’s exposed back.

  She compromised, waiting until Baz was on top, his eyes on the ground, his back exposed and defenseless. The gun made a satisfying thump as it cracked against Baz’s skull. His body made another one as West dumped it to the ground.

  They ran.

  Sirens screamed in the distance, but not far enough so. It looked like Baz had already summoned the cavalry. West headed east, while Jule peeled off north, thinking they’d make less of a target if they split up. After she’d reached the trees and the swamp was out of sight, she crouched in the weeds, trying to clear her mind enough to settle on a strategy. She could hear the others clomping around the woods, and the hoots of the Watchdogs as they gave chase. Her limited range of options: hide or run or – fight.

  Jule hadn’t spent much time hunting, but she knew that once a hunting dog scented its prey, it was unlikely to give up until it tasted blood. She ran, and Baz’s dogs followed, crashing through branches and stomping leaves and shouting about what they would do when they caught up and how they would make it hurt. These woods were a second home to her, but everything was different in the wake of the storm: Familiar trees cracked in half, stripped of their bark. Paths blocked by torn branches, scorched trunks ripped from the ground. A smell of damp and earth and rot. All the comforting landmarks gone. These could have been any storm-ruined trees, anyone’s safe haven – but no longer hers. They were getting closer, and Jule’s legs were going wobbly, her lungs giving up. She’d cut too many gym classes and smoked too many cigarettes for a marathon. You want to live, you keep going, she informed her whining body, but she’d never been good at following orders.

  A hand closed around her arm and yanked her into the bushes. She nearly screamed. But it was only Cass and, from the sound of the crashing branches, it was just in time.

  They were coming. They were close.

  “In here,” Cass whispered, pulling her down a shallow incline. At its base, an enormous gnarled root had curled in on itself to form a natural crawl space just big enough for two. Jule nestled in beside her – and then the footsteps were upon them.

  “How much longer we have to keep this up?” a husky voice asked, nearly on top of them.

  Jule held her breath. Her head lay against Cass’s chest. She could hear the girl’s heart thumping. Or maybe it was her own.

  “We keep it up until we find them,” Baz said.

  I should have shot him, Jule thought. I should have let the knife have its way.

  The knife wanted her to show herself, so that she could slit his throat.

  The knife promised her that if she did, it would protect her; she would be okay, and he would be dead.

  Cass squeezed her fingers. Jule stayed put.

  “Stick with me, and I’ll let you have some fun with her before I take her out,” Baz said. She hadn’t hit him hard enough. She hadn’t followed Scott’s advice and done what she had to do.

  “You promised the chief that you wouldn’t touch her.”

  “Not the baby killer. The Prevette bitch.”

  What if he knew she was there? What if he was playing with her, cat-and-mouse-style, standing with one foot propped on the root she lay beneath, waiting? Making her promises – hoping to paralyze her with fear, so that when he finally struck, she would have nothing le
ft in her to fight back.

  “I’m going to tear her open,” Baz said.

  “Like a Thanksgiving turkey. Slice it up, get some of that stuffing, all them juices leaking out.”

  “You’re twisted, man,” Baz said. “I like it.”

  The other one laughed and laughed.

  Jule listened to Baz describe what he would do if he found her, how he would tie her up and make her hurt, make her cry, make her bleed. And Jule remembered the way her teeth had ground against his flesh, and how good it had felt to hear him scream. She remembered that and tried to forget how it felt to be trapped, to lie beneath an immovable weight, to slip past fear and into inevitability. She tried to remember and tried to forget and tried not to breathe, and forced herself to wait.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  “You take the west quadrant,” Baz said.

  “Which way’s west?”

  There was a thump, and then a grunt of pain, and then Baz said, “Stupid hurts, doesn’t it?”

  That was the last of them. The footsteps departed. But when Cass shifted her weight like she was about to show herself, Jule squeezed her hand.

  Wait.

  After all, stupid hurt.

  Long minutes passed. Shouts echoed in the distance, but in their dark hollow, there was nothing but the birds, the wind, and their slow, soft breathing. The day was darkening, shadows deepening. They couldn’t hide forever.

  Jule climbed out first, her legs cramping.

  “Do you think they gave up?” Cass whispered as she emerged.

  “Definitely not,” Baz said, jack-in-the-boxing up from the weeds. He punched Cass in the side of the head. She dropped to the ground, hard, and he kicked her in the face, harder. Then twice in the stomach, for good measure.

  “How about you?” he asked Jule. “You give up?”

  Jule pulled the gun on him, and aimed it with a steady hand.

  “You better shoot me,” he said, and took a step toward her. “You better shoot me right now.”

  “Walk away, Baz.”

  He took another step. “Go ahead, I dare you.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Two steps this time. “What’s the matter? Scared?”

  She pulled the trigger.

  There was an empty click. By then he was close enough to reach out and take the gun from her hands. He swung it at her, stopping just short of slamming it into her head. “Too easy,” he chuckled. “Too fast.”

  He grabbed her left arm; her right arm went for the knife. “It won’t be easy,” she said, and lunged at him. “Or fast.”

  He jerked out of the way, not quickly enough. The knife sliced his bicep, just grazing the skin. He punched her in the stomach, and Jule doubled over, struggling to breathe. She took the knife with her and missed his groin but got his thigh, a good, deep cut. A dark stain blossomed across his jeans. He howled and grabbed her hair, yanking her backward, hard. Pain radiated from the roots, and she bit back a scream. It was like he’d taken a razor blade to her scalp. “You should do something about your pants,” she gasped. Pain could be endured, she told herself, involuntary tears streaming down her face, her hair ripping from its roots, her hand on the knife, searching blindly for a limb, a chest, a neck to sink it into. “People will think you had an accident.”

  “People will think I took care of business.”

  His hand was over hers, prying her fingers from the hilt. He was stupid, he was an animal, but he was stronger. It seemed ludicrous that in the end that would be all that mattered. But in the end, she was on the ground beside Cass, who was breathing shallowly, her eyes open but glazed over, who was useless.

  He was stronger, so she was on the ground, and he was on his feet.

  He had her knife.

  “You can’t do this,” she told him.

  The blade drew a line of fire across her cheek. The blood tickled as it dripped down her face, and tasted of iron. She would not scream.

  “Looks like I can.”

  It didn’t feel surreal; it didn’t feel like it was happening to someone else or that she was watching from a distance. It felt real. This was happening, and there was no way out. She was going to die here, alone in the woods. Gutted like a deer, her blood draining into the dirt. He’d do what he wanted, and when he was done, he’d leave her for the animals. She thought of the catfish, nibbling at the parasite’s corpse, tearing off bits of skin and muscle until there was nothing left but bone.

  “What about football?” It hurt to talk. It hurt. “What about your whole life? You’re not this crazy.”

  “Everything has changed,” he said in a faraway voice. “The red is here forever now. Everything is red. I am the red.”

  He was exactly that crazy.

  “I’m going to slice you open. First with this.” He tapped the blade of the knife against the crotch of his jeans. “And then…” He traced the blade of the knife lightly over her chest, up her neck, and across her bloody cheek, stopping at the corner of her lip with just enough pressure to draw a bead of blood. Gravel and twigs bit into her back, and she could feel something writhing against her neck. Worms and maggots, she thought, getting a head start.

  “Don’t worry,” a familiar voice said from behind them. “He probably won’t be able to get it up.”

  Jule wondered if adrenaline could make you hallucinate, because surely Ellie King hadn’t just appeared out of nowhere to taunt Baz about an impotence problem. Baz looked like he was thinking the same thing. But Ellie’s feet were real enough to make noise as they crunched against the leaves, her voice strong and unwavering. So not a wishful hallucination at all. For the second time that day: a savior.

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about,” Ellie said. “Just a little problem – a very little problem. And just because it happened almost every time we —”

  “Shut up,” Baz snapped.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t like to remember those days?” Ellie taunted in a voice utterly unlike her own. It was like she’d been possessed. “It was so sweet, the way you had to call me a whore, just so you could get yourself in the mood.”

  “I said shut up.”

  “And when it didn’t work – which was often – he cried. Did he tell you about that?”

  Baz let go of Jule and turned away from her. Toward Ellie. She was smiling fiercely, radiating a white-hot fury.

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “Or you’ll shut it for me?” Ellie laughed. “Still think you’re the star of your own little S & M porn?”

  Ellie wasn’t armed, and was possibly the only person less equipped to take on a football player than Jule – taller, maybe, but so thin and reedy she’d blow over in a tough wind. Jule scrambled to her feet. “Don’t,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I think I do,” Ellie said. “I think I should have a long time ago.” Baz was coming toward her now, the knife dangling at his side, his grip deceptively loose. Jule considered leaping on him. Two against one – they weren’t the worst odds. But it was two against one plus one knife.

  “The Lord told me where to find you,” Ellie said. “He told me to warn you about what you’re going to find after this life. Salvation isn’t for everyone.”

  “Stop talking, you crazy bitch.” But he didn’t do anything to make her stop. He seemed almost mesmerized, or maybe it was the shock of encountering a lunacy deep as his own.

  “I used to wonder why you never told anyone about us,” Ellie said. “But now I get it. You knew if you told anyone about me, I’d tell everyone about you. And the things you made me do. How you couldn’t make it work unless I let you pretend to rape —”

  “I said stop,” Baz shouted, and laid his hands on her.

  “Take Cassandra,” Ellie told Jule, sounding unafraid. “Get her out of here.” Then she started screaming. “The baby killer is here! Come and get her!”

  Baz shook her, rag-doll hard. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  “Baby killer! Baby killer
!”

  There was a series of answering cries, and then the crash of Watchdogs heeding her call.

  “Get her out of here,” Ellie said. “They’ll get here before he can do anything to me.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” Baz punched her in the stomach. Ellie screamed and screamed and screamed.

  They were coming. They were coming, and they were probably as crazy as Baz. There was no reason to think they’d stop Baz from doing whatever he wanted to do. But they were coming, and Cass was on the ground, and the pyre still stood at the center of town, and Jule told herself she was doing the right thing. She roused Cass from her stupor, slapping the girl once, then again, for good measure, dragging her to her feet, stumbling away into the brush. As the Watchdogs barked and Ellie screamed, she told herself this had everything to do with saving Cass and nothing to do with saving herself.