Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (39 page)

But Chris didn’t stop to look, didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop,
couldn’t stop, wouldn’t. Roaring, he brought the skillet around like
a batter, so hard and with so much force he felt his shoulders try to
pop from their sockets. The Changed boy was still gawping up at
Chris when the skillet connected—and the sound, already so deep in
Chris’s memory and his nightmares, became real again: a solid slam,
the
clunk
of an ax biting into a tree trunk. Of a hammer cratering
bone and brain. Of the flat of a cast-iron skillet smashing skull.

The boy’s head whipped to the side. Over the clamor in his head,
Chris heard the sharp crackle as the neck snapped.
Panting, blood painting his cheeks, Chris stood over the body as a
voice boomed:
Go on, boy, hit him again, hit him, go on . . .
“Go on,” he
said in a voice not his own. “Go on, boy, hit him bloody, make him
pay, you know you w-want . . . you kn-know . . .”
Then his knees buckled as the ground opened and Chris swooned
into the dark and—

“Nooo.”
He was on the snow again, under the tiger-trap, in a pool
of blood, and slowly dying, freezing to death. Everything hurt. He
tried turning from the voice, but a hand hooked his chin. “I can’t,” he
said. “It’s too hard; it hurts too much to see.”

“Stop this,” the voice said. “Open your eyes.”
“Why?” he asked, even as his lids creaked open. Of course, it was
Jess, with her Medusa hair and black-mirror eyes: Chris in the right,
Chris in the left. Or Simon and Simon, depending on how you looked
at it. “Why is this up to me? What do you want? What good does it do
me to see anything? I can’t
change
what’s already happened. I couldn’t
help Alex. I didn’t help Lena. Peter wouldn’t let me because he never
told me.”
“You refused to see.”
“Fine.”
Another bolt of pain grabbed his throat. “Leave me alone,”
he wheezed, thinly. “Please, Jess, why can’t you let me alone? Why
won’t you let me die?”
“Someone will die. Someone must. Without blood, there is no
forgiveness.”
“
You’re
dead. This is the Land of the Dead, and I’m having a dream,
but I don’t understand. I want to know what this means.”
“Tell me your dream, and I will tell you the truth.”
“And what is
that
?” A weak laugh dribbled out of his mouth with
a trickle of blood. “What’s truth?”
“What lives here”—she drew her fingers, cool and dry, over his
forehead—“is not the same as what resides here.” She placed a hand
over his heart, and he cried out because her touch was electric, bright
and awful. “Let go of the hammer, Chris. Forgive yourself. Forgive
Peter.”
“Why does that matter?” He licked blood from his lips. “I already
said I understand.”
“And that is why”—another electric finger to his chest, prodding
a scream—“this hurts so much. The truth of the heart is the more
fearsome to bear, because from love springs grief. Truth is in your
mouth, on your tongue, in your blood. Let go of your anger, Chris.
Let Peter, as you remember him, speak to you.”
“He can’t,” Chris said. “He’s dead.”
“Call him back.” Jess pressed a palm over his eyes, and now he was
truly in the dark again. “Quickly, Chris. In your blindness and from
grief, call in love and do it now before it’s too late, before Peter is lost,
before the light goes—”

“—out?”
“No, I think he’s coming around. Chris?” A tap on his cheek.
“Chris, wake up.”
Chris faded back, aware first of the sharp nibs of broken plates
under his legs, and then the wall against his back, and finally a hand
cupping the back of his head.
“Chris.” Jayden patted his cheek again. “Are you all right? Is this
the only one? Where’s everyone else? Where’s—”
“Hannah.”
His eyes snapped open. Everything rushed back, like
water into an empty glass. “Isaac,” he wheezed again, clutching
Jayden’s arm.
“Barn.”
“What?” Jayden shot a glance at Connor, who was also crouched
alongside. “What are you talking about? What about the barn?”
“Guns.”
Shots carried, especially now that there was nothing—no
cars, no planes, no machinery—to mask them. How long had he
been out? “Didn’t you
hear
?”
“We heard gunfire,” Connor said. “But we were north. We
couldn’t tell where it was coming from. As we got closer, I actually
thought it was coming from the east.”
East.
There was something important about that. “No. Hannah
and Isaac are in the barn, and there were Changed headed that way
.”
“What?” Connor was genuinely skeptical. “They can’t find us.
They’ve never found us.”
“No? Then what do you call
that
?” Chris said, jerking his head
toward the dead giant with the misshapen skull lying in a puddle
of kerosene and water dyed purple with blood. Gripping Jayden’s
forearms for balance, he struggled to his feet. “I counted ten. I broke
out the window in my room. I know Isaac heard me and saw them.
But we have to go. I heard shots, but if there aren’t any
now
. . .”
“All right.” Jayden’s skin was glassy with dread, but his mouth set
as he ripped off his parka. “Take this. I’m smaller than you, but . . .”
“This works.” The cuffs of Jayden’s parka ended well above his
wrists, and his shoulders felt like he’d slipped on a straitjacket. He
jockeyed the zipper and managed to yank it halfway. “This is fine.”
“Okay.” Jayden looked doubtful. “You’re pretty messed up. Can
you fight?”
“Yes.” Swiping up a cloth napkin, Chris smeared blood from his
forehead, then wrapped his bleeding palm. “But I need a gun.” When
Jayden hesitated, Chris snapped, “Damn it, Jayden, let me help.”
“All right, all right. Outside, in my scabbard, I’ve got a spare rifle.”
Jayden jerked his head toward the door. “Come on.”
“How do you want to do this?” Chris asked as they banged out of
the kitchen and down the back steps. Three horses, one loaded with
four bulky game bags, had been hastily tethered to the wrought iron
railing. The kitchen faced east, and the sun was well behind them
now. Overhead, thin clouds scudded across blue sky on a northerly
breeze. To his right, all Chris saw of the farm’s southern end was the
mica gleam of the frozen pond. There was also a strange whooshing,
like wind gushing through a tunnel, but he couldn’t tell from which
direction the sound came.
“I’m open to suggestion. It’s not like we’ve had to fight these things
the way you have.” Jayden yanked a well-used, scoped Remington
798 from its scabbard. “Loaded. Didn’t fire it once today. Here.” He
dipped a hand into a saddlebag and came out with a handful of bullets. “No one’s shooting now, but—”
“Shh.” Frowning, Chris cocked his head, then darted a look
around. The whooshing was still there, but he could’ve sworn there
was a tinkling sound that reminded him of the fight with the Changed
boy.
Glass
. “Did you hear that? It sounded like something—”
“Breaking.” Jayden nodded. “Yeah. I did.” He craned to look back
at the house. “Are you
sure
no one else is—”
“Hey. Jayden?” Connor had drifted to the house’s southeast corner. “I think you . . . I think you guys better come here.”
Jayden shot Chris a look, and then they were both running toward
the younger boy. “What is it?” Jayden’s voice was so tight, it cracked.
“Is Han—”
Now that Chris was closer, he could see what he hadn’t before,
both because of his angle and the wind. If they’d gone out the front,
or Jayden and Connor had returned even a little more to the west,
they’d all have seen—and smelled it—right away. The mystery of
why they’d both heard shattering glass was obvious, too.
The barn was on fire.

There was a very loud
kerack
, followed by an intensely bright burst
of red muzzle flash, a pillow of acrid gray smoke as the flare streaked
out of the pistol. The fusee smashed into the pile of pine and propane
canisters with a
kebang
.

And nothing really amazing happened. No explosions or fireballs.
An orange-yellow rose blossomed. But that was it, for a split second,
enough time for Alex to think,
Shi—

Then there was a pop, a gasping
hoosh
as if some giant had just
been sucker punched. The propane ignited with a roar. The blast, an
intense neon orange, ballooned; pine logs exploded in a shower of
yellow sparks. Below, the three Changed and the four men stopped
dead, then turned as if mesmerized by the fire, the flames washing
their features of definition, their shadows like dancing spiders on the
opposite wall. Alex heard a high howl, felt the sudden rush of cold air
being sucked into the now-surging fire, and thought,
Oh jeez—

“Go!”
she screamed, just as a massive gout of orange flame jetted
from the mouth of the hearth. The sound of the bathroom window
breaking was lost in a massive explosion, like the concussion of a
cannon. The chimney ruptured. A streaming pillar of fire blew out,
instantly igniting the three Changed in white and the old men into
shrieking, writhing human torches. There was a stuttering sparkle of
bullets as their weapons and ammunition exploded. Chunks of stone
and masonry flew in a shower of shrapnel. The air churned hot and
bright. Flares swam up the walls and spilled over the floor. A blast of
hot wind whipped her hair and she thought she might be screaming.
She felt Wolf seize her by the scruff of the neck, and then he was
hauling her down the hall and into the bathroom.

One end of a flimsy plastic shower curtain was tied to the shower
head, while the tongue fluttered from the gaping window over which
he’d draped his parka. Already out, Penny was braced on her hands,
feet planted wide, inching over the shingles like a pregnant fiddler
crab.

“I’m okay,” Alex said, breathlessly. Her eardrums felt broken. “You
go. Help her down. I’m right behind you.” Now that she was up here,
she wasn’t sure, all of a sudden, whether this was such a hot idea.
The ground still looked really far away, and this northwest patch of
the porch was glittery with ice crystals.
Slip and I’ll break my neck.
Standing in the tub, she watched Wolf spider down to Penny, then
coax her to the edge of the porch. At her back, she could feel the heat
build; heard a high, eerie howl over the locomotive churn of the fire.
Above the sink, a mirrored medicine chest suddenly gave way with
a watery
kersplash
into the porcelain basin. Beneath her feet, the tub
shifted and shivered, and she realized then that the house was coming
down
.

Get out, get out of the house!
Hooking the medic pack onto both
shoulders, she grabbed onto the shower curtain and levered herself
over the sill. Glass teeth bit her rump through Wolf ’s parka, but then
she was out, right hand still fisted around the shower curtain, the heel
of the left jammed onto shingles. Now that she was on the porch, she
could feel the jitter and sway. Something was bellowing, roaring like a
blast furnace. Craning over her left shoulder, she caught a glimpse of
an orange-yellow sword of flame knifing from the chimney into the
sky. To her right, flames curled through the shattered picture window
to lick at the roof. For a horrible second, she was frozen in place, hypnotized by the dance and sputter. Any moment now, the house would
collapse and she’d still be here, clinging to the shower curtain only to
be yanked back like a yo-yo and buried under a fiery avalanche.

Another tinkling smash.
Let go of the curtain.
An orange geyser
spumed from a bedroom window.
Alex, let go.
On the porch, she saw
Wolf and Penny nearly at the edge, but jouncing as the house shook.
Let go, Alex. Move!
Her mind knew what to do, but her body was
locked, paralyzed.
Come on, go, let go, let—

There was another belching eruption, a guttering
ker-POW
. She
saw Penny suddenly bounce, Wolf ’s hand flash for a grab. Something
very big, a chunk of blackened cast iron, cannoned from the side of
the house to shoot straight into the trees. An evergreen disintegrated
into splinters. Beneath her, the house was tilting, the walls beginning to collapse, the porch crumbling. A second later, an enormous
shock wave gushed up the stairs. A gigantic fist of heat smacked her
shoulders and blew her out of the window. The torn shower curtain
fluttering in her fist, she flew in a dizzying tumble, banging over the
shingles, pinballing out of control. Screaming, she caught a glimpse
of bright sky, black shingles, orange flames, and then lost all that as
she smashed into Wolf—

Chris, Jayden, and Connor raced over the snow. Belching like a coalfired train, the barn exhaled great chuffs of gray and black smoke. As
they neared, Chris heard the bellows of cows and shrieks of horses.
The sheep were bawling, high and shrill, over the pop and crackle
of the fire. All the snow piled on the roof and layered on the sills
had melted, and he could hear the fire complain in hissing sizzles as
orange tongues licked from shattered windows on the barn’s north
face. The hex signs were blistering, the colorful paint flaring bloodred with firelight.

“Which end are the lambing pens?” he shouted at Jayden.
“W-west!” Jayden panted. “Why?”
“Look at the windows!” Chris sucked air, then shouted, punching

“East!” Connor’s face glistened with sweat. “The cows . . . and
horses . . .”
But Hannah and Isaac were with the lambs.
Which was exactly where
the fire must’ve started. All he knew about fire was what they’d practiced in school: get down where the good air was, keep your eyes on
the kid in front of you, and crawl like hell. Fighting a fire was a whole
other problem. This wouldn’t spread because of the snow and cold,
but it might be a while before the fire ran out of fuel.
“Look!” Jayden shouted, and pointed. But this time, he sounded
joyous. “Look,
look
!”
The east door popped open, releasing a roiling pillar of black
smoke. A second later, cows surged through, with a clot of bawling
sheep on their heels. Two figures lurched out next, one broader, mansized: Isaac, one hand wrapped around Hannah’s upper arm. Hannah
had something clutched in her arms, and as Chris dodged around
milling animals, he saw that it was a still-glistening, newborn lamb,
its skin streaked with soot and ash.
“You have to get the lambs, we need to get the lambs!” She was
trying to shout, but her voice was a strangled croak. Her face was
smudgy, and there was soot around her mouth.
“Are they still in the pens?” Jayden asked. A horse’s braying shriek
cut the air. “Where’s Rob?”
“With the horses. They’re still . . .”
“I’m on it.” Having unwound his scarf, Connor balled the wool
and dunked the garment into the cattle trough. “There are only three
to get out.”
“You have to get to the lambs,” Hannah insisted.
“Do the best I can.” Connor said, but Chris read the look he gave
Jayden. Connor knotted his dripping scarf over his nose and mouth.
“Give me your scarf, Hannah. I can use it for a horse.”
“Yes.” Dazed, Hannah tugged sooty wool from her neck. “But the
lambs—”
“What about the Changed?” Chris asked.
She turned him a distracted look. “Dead. They came in so fast.”
She dragged a quivering hand over her streaming eyes. “If you hadn’t
warned us . . . I still don’t understand how they found—” Her eyes
flicked past Jayden and Chris, and widened. “Isaac . . . Isaac!”
Chris whirled just in time to see Isaac, who’d staggered to the far
end of the corral, begin to sag. “I’m all right,” the old man gasped
as Chris and Jayden sprinted to his side. Isaac’s lips were purple. He
pressed a hand to his chest. “Just need to . . .” Isaac hacked out a
foamy gobbet of thick mucus and black spit. “Have to get the . . . the
horses . . . the
lambs
. . .”
“We’ll take care of that. What we have to do is get you out of the
cold and the smoke,” Hannah said. Still cradling the lamb, she nevertheless looked calmer, as if taking care of Isaac gave her something
else to focus on.
“The . . . the
lambs . . .
,” Isaac spat again as Jayden and Chris got
him to his feet. “Should go . . . go in the house until . . . until we can
. . .”
There was another shriek that could have been a faraway scream
of a hawk but sounded much more like a horse, in trouble. But the
direction was all wrong, not coming from the barn.
“You hear that?” Jayden asked.
“Yeah.” Frowning, Chris scanned the farm. From this angle, he
couldn’t see Jayden and Connor’s horses behind the house. Over his
shoulder, he saw Rob appear with two horses. A few seconds later,
Connor melted from the smoke with the third. “Jayden, you said you
thought you heard shots coming from the east.”
“But only after we heard a larger cluster from the north,” Jayden
said. “Two sets of shots.”
“Me, too. That’s what I—” Chris broke off at a series of short,
sharp claps of sound. Not shots, though.
“Dogs?” Hannah asked.
“Yeah. Coming from the east. The lake.” Chris looked at Jayden.
“Ellie.”
The ground rushed for her face. Twisting, Alex thudded in an awkward heap on her right side, a blow that drove the air from her lungs
in a sickening grunt. She lay there a second, stunned, right shoulder
a bellow of pain, the heavy medic pack like an anvil on her back. The
air was alive with the crackle of flames and that chugging roar, a
sound like the thunder of a runaway train. Rolling onto her left, she
thrashed to hands and knees. The snow here was already melting to
pools of icy slush. A short distance away, Wolf was on his stomach,
pushing himself out of the water, coughing and spitting. Still gasping for breath, she swept her eyes right. A dazed Penny was there,
her hair falling down around her face.
But it was what Alex saw down the hill that set a hook of new fear
in her chest.
They’d landed next to the house, on the hill, but far enough out
that she had a view of the lake and, especially, that dead-end road.
Wolf and the others had come in from the west and so had their
pursuers. She’d spotted horses before, ones that must belong to the
men they’d just crisped. Those animals were still there, churning in
a restless knot, struggling to snap their tethers and escape the fire.
Yet what stilled her heart was what was even now emerging from
the trees: more men on horses. There were two kids as well. One was
younger than the other, but both wore the same camo-whites and
were wreathed in that weird chemotherapy stink. Of the two, the
smell coming from the younger kid—a boy—was stronger.
Last of all, another old man slipped out of the woods. In contrast to the others, he wore black instead of hunter’s winter camo,
and rode a glossy jet-black gelding. As soon as he appeared, that red
storm—
push-push go-go—
intensified.
She flattened, tried to think. They had to get moving.
Make a run
for the trees. If we can get far enough back before they see us . . .
Where was
Wolf ’s rifle? Her gaze strafed the snow, saw nothing, and she knew
there was no time to search. Running probably wouldn’t help. All
their pursuers had to do was follow their tracks, but she was damned
if she’d wait to be taken.
She could see the men making their way down the road. A few
had dismounted, including the younger kid. The older kid was moving very awkwardly, though, and as she watched one of the men
reach to steady the kid’s horse, she saw why: the Changed’s hands
were tied. Also, unlike the smaller boy, this Changed’s head was bare.
His hair, golden as the sun, fell past his shoulders. Something familiar
about him, too.
But what really rocked her back was the moment that golden
Changed looked their way and let out a shout: “Penny! Simon! Don’t
run, don’t
run
!”
Oh God.
She felt the ice leak into her veins.
Peter.
“Stop it,
stop it
!” Ellie screamed a split second before her horse
shrieked. The far shore was bright with late afternoon sun. So she
had no trouble seeing the jet of blood jump from Bella’s flank. The
mare reared, pedaling air with her front hooves. “Leave Bella alone!”
“Ellie, no!” Still clutching the auger with one hand, Eli yanked her
back. Both dogs were barking, and as Roc gathered himself to bolt for
shore, Eli let go of her to make a snatching grab for his dog’s collar.
“They’re trying to get us to come to them . . . Roc, no,
sit
!”
“But they’re hurting Bella!” Her mare’s screams were drilling into
her brain. The horses were easy pickings: tethered to the trees and
unable to do much but kick whenever the people-eaters got too close.
As bad as it was that the people-eaters had showed up altogether, Ellie
thought they’d leave the animals alone. Waste of energy when you
could be going after nice juicy little girls and boys. But then, after she
and Eli retreated even farther from shore, the people-eaters started in
on the horses, hitting them with clubs and now
this.
. . . She watched
in horror as her mare suddenly crashed to the snow. One people-eater
cocked his arm again. Whatever they were using—a machete, she
thought—flashed down in a gleaming blur. This time, Bella’s screech
turned suddenly watery. “We have to
do
something!”
“We can’t.” Eli swabbed sweat from his forehead. The boy’s face
was the color of a boiled beet. “We have to keep going.”
“But they’re going to
kill
her.” Ellie couldn’t stop the tears
streaming over her cheeks: grief for her stupid, stubborn Bella. And
terror, for them.
“There’s nothing we can do. They’ll probably go for my horse
next.” Eli’s voice choked with rage. “Come on, Ellie. This was your
idea. Hurry!”
“Okay, okay.” Ellie brought her hand ax down in another fast,
hard, two-fisted chop. The edge bit slush ice in a dull
chuck
. The snow
beneath her feet turned gray as water welled up through the seam.
“I’m almost done here. What about you?”
“Going fast as I can.” The auger was a red blur, the blades spinning, Eli cranking furiously. He was sweating so much, steam curled
from his hair. “Soon as I finish this one . . .”
Then we break the ice and hope like heck Hannah gets here soon.
She
chopped again, heard the splintery crack of ice shearing apart. Across
the snow, from the too-distant shore, she heard Bella give another
bawling shriek that sent her heart cramming up behind her teeth.
She tossed another grim look. Bella was kicking but more feebly. The
people-eaters milled around, maybe trying to decide what to do now
that she and Eli
hadn’t
come dashing to the rescue.
Hate you.
She whacked the ice again. There were nine people-eaters—ten, if you counted the girl she’d seen at the death house. The
people-eaters didn’t have guns, a plus. On the other hand, Eli only
had two shots left in his rifle, and her Savage was in its saddle scabbard. At first she thought a people-eater might grab it, but the rifle
wasn’t scoped. Or they might not know how to work it. Or maybe
shooting at her and Eli didn’t seem to be nearly as much people-eater
doo-dah fun as killing a poor defenseless horse. She was furious and
scared right down to her bones and thought, really, if she didn’t end
up getting eaten today, it would be a miracle.
Behind her, the whir of the auger changed to a gurgle of steel
churning water. The steeply curved line of fresh holes were spaced so
close they looked like a string of black pearls. She’d told Eli to bunch
the holes on purpose so the water would bleed between the gaps. All
it would take for her to break through completely was one or two
good hard chops.
“Got it.” Eli straightened, breathing hard, then cast a nervous
glance at the jigsaw of float ice and the larger, wider crescent of black
water beyond the end of the ice shelf. “That’s five. Think that’s—”
His voice faded as he looked back toward shore. “Ellie.”
She knew before she turned. Evidently tired of waiting, the people-eaters were spilling onto the ice. “Come on.” Dipping into her
pail, she fished out a stringer, looped the steel chain around her waist,
and snapped the keeper to a clip. “Okay, hang onto me. I’ll chop us
away.”
“Is this going to hold if you fall in?”
“Sure,” she lied, giving Eli a strained, teary smile that she knew
was all teeth. “I was going to try for walleye, and they’re real big. But
maybe we don’t want to find out?”
“Yeah.” Putting aside the auger, Eli spread his legs, bent his knees,
looped the chain twice around his gloved fists, then nodded. “Go.”
Leaning over the break, Ellie swung. This time, instead of a
sploosh
, there was a
crack
. She felt the difference immediately as the ice
bobbed. “I got it, here we go, hang on!” Ellie sang.
Then she planted her foot against the far edge and shoved.