Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (52 page)

Unless it’s Lena,
a small inner voice whispered.
This is what you
wanted, right? For her to follow? So what if she got here first?
No way
, he thought right back.
Lena knows Jess, not the Landrys. She
has no reason to be in
this
house.
Unless she’s running an end around,
the voice said.
You drop north, so
she circles, tracks you by scent, and meets you head-on.
Yes, but accomplishing what? He was overthinking this. Lena
hadn’t shown herself at all in the last four days. He wondered now if
she’d followed. Maybe he and Jayden weren’t enough of a draw.
Can’t worry about Lena now.
He just hoped that whatever was up
there wasn’t armed. Socking his rifle against his shoulder, he followed
his weapon in a slow creep up the stairs, keeping to the right, away
from any squeaky centers. The hall above opened right and left, and
he jumped his eyes to the right corner and then the left, bringing his
rifle around, clearing each slice of the pie. To his relief, he had wall to
his back the whole way.
Make it to the corner, clear left, then pivot, move to
the right, clear that corner, then get the hell out of the stairway.
What they
did next depended on how many doors were open—
Something vaulted from a side table snugged against the far wall.
Jerking right, he brought his rifle around, but he was off-balance.
The cat barreled into his chest, dug in with its claws, spat, and then
launched itself, using him as a springboard, to catapult itself the rest
of the way down the steps. With a yelp, he jerked off a wild shot, then
staggered as his heel snagged. He fell backward, his head cracking a
step hard enough to bring on a shower of shooting stars, and then
he was watching his boots whip past as he turned a somersault and
caromed down the steps.
“Are you okay?” Jayden’s face, chalky with alarm, swam into view.
“You could’ve broken your neck. Cat scared the hell out of me.”
“Uh,” Chris croaked. He could only lie a moment, listening to the
bawl of his battered head. His right shoulder hurt where he’d collided
with hardwood, but he thought it could’ve been worse. Propping
himself up on his elbows, he gulped back against a swirl of vertigo,
then made a face, worked his jaws, and spat out a gob of red foam.
“Bit myself. Stupid cat.”
“Just be glad that’s all it was.” Propping his own gun against the
wall, Jayden helped him to his feet. “Can we get out of here? This
place gives me the creeps, and it stinks. That cat’s probably dragged in
all sorts of crap. It’s probably
crapping
all over the place.”
“Sure.” Shaking his head clear, he looked around and found his
rifle, which had jumped from his hands to slide a few feet from the
understairs closet. With a groan, he bent. “We should anyway,” he
said, flicking the safety. “Even though we’re inside, someone might’ve
heard the shot and come to check—”
At his back, the door to the understairs closet slammed open with
a loud bang, and then Jayden was screaming, “Chris! Look out look
out
look—
”

“This is dumb,” Ellie muttered, darkly, one hand hooked under Mina’s
collar and the other clutching her Savage. Huddled by her side, Mina
only shuffled but didn’t break her stance. Any sound she might have
made—and she
wouldn’t
, no matter what Chris said, because Mina was
trained
to be quiet—was stifled by the loop of a leash cinched down
around her snout. Ellie crept forward, aimed a peek around the corner
of the woodpile three yards over, but saw only the garage nestled in the
woods and the far corner of the house into which Jayden and Chris had
gone what seemed
hours
ago.

Pulling back, she gnawed her lower lip, tried to think of what to
do, how long to wait. She could feel the dog vibrating under her
hand. Mina wanted to go, get in the fight . . . if there was one. Ellie
still wasn’t sure. Oh, she wasn’t stupid. That gunshot had been very
muffled, a tiny pop at this distance but distinct enough that she understood what it was. Yet there was only the one: no return fire at all. No
shouts or screams either, which, even with
miles
between her and the
house, she’d probably hear because it was so creepy-quiet.

Anyway, it wasn’t as if she would go
running
to see what happened.
Only little kids did that. But she should do something, because, right
now, she figured one of two things was happening: either Chris or
Jayden was picking himself off the floor because one of them had
tripped, or they’d both been jumped and were now being torn up by
a swarm of people-eaters—in which case, what were she and Mina
doing sitting on their
butts
?

She snicked the safety of her Savage, on, off, on, off. On. Off.
Made a decision.
“I’m going to count to ten,” she said to Mina. “Then we’re going.”
Which route to take? She ought to stay under cover, out of sight.
Scooching forward, she gave Mina a little tug to move her out of the
way, then hitched around for a better view of that yard
waaay
out
there. Honestly, she needed binoculars. Her eyes roamed over gray
trees and clean white snow blushing here and there with shafts of
the setting sun; settled on the garage set well back in the woods. A
straight shot from here, and then she could—
A twinkle of light. A second later, the garage door cracked open.
A hand appeared, and then an arm, following by the hump of a
shoulder . . . and Ellie watched as the girl, a spidery, slinky thing,
emerged—with a
big
honking knife.
Oh!
Ellie’s heart jumped a jig. She crowded herself and Mina back
fast.
Don’t see me, don’t see me!
In the brief glimpse she’d had of the
girl—and oh boy, she was a people-eater, all right—Ellie registered
only long hair clotted with dirt and something wrong with the girl’s
face. Like another people-eater had taken a big chunk? Ellie wasn’t
sure. She waited, her heart
boing-a-boing-a-boinging
in her chest, ears
alert for the
shush
of snow or crack of a branch. Nothing came, and
Mina didn’t budge.
Okay, so the people-eater doesn’t know I’m here.
Lucked out. But now
Ellie really had to do something. Maybe that shot she’d heard was a
signal:
Come and get it; we got juicy boys.
Easing just far enough to clear the woodpile, Ellie saw the girl,
low to the ground, scuttling like a tarantula. Blocky and square, that
knife looked more like a cleaver.
Ellie’s hand squeezed her rifle, but who was she kidding? If she
sent Mina after the people-eater, her dog might get chopped. Fire
off a warning shot, though, that might help Jayden and Chris, but
that people-eater would find her pretty quick, too.
But I have to do
something . . .
From deep in the house came a wild but very muffled shout, a
sound swaddled in cotton, and then a soft
bam
. Something breaking,
or a door slamming?
At the same moment the girl reached the corner, wormed her
way beneath a long, whippy piece of metal where the house met the
ground, and went
under
the house.
That did it. There was something inside with Chris and Jayden,
something very bad, and now this equally awful people-eater was
coming at them from behind.
“Go, Mina!” Jumping to her feet, Ellie whipped the leash off
Mina’s muzzle. The dog took off like a rocket, and Ellie was right
behind, screaming, “Go, Mina, go, Mina, go, go, go!”

Chris only had time to register Jayden’s shout and the crash of the
door. In the next second, something launched itself into his back,
spinning him completely around. He got a brief glimpse of the
kitchen before the Changed—girl or boy, he didn’t know—bowled
him over, slamming him face-first to the floor. His forehead connected with wood, and he felt the tender skin, which was only just
knitting up from the fight with that Changed in Hannah’s kitchen,
tear as he bounced. Face roaring with pain, blinking away a sudden
wash of warm blood, he got one knee under him and tried bucking
the Changed from his back. Behind him, near the stairs, Jayden was
still screaming, and then he heard, dimly, what sounded like heavy
boots clumping down steps. Another yelp from Jayden, this time one
of panic, quickly choked off, and Chris realized that there
had
been
something besides a cat upstairs after all.

Chris heard a whickering over his head; felt something slip around
his neck. An instant later, he had no air. Dropping his useless rifle,
he clawed, trying to work his fingers under the rope as the Changed
put a knee in the middle of his back and pushed at the same time
that it pulled. Chris felt his nails score his skin; his pulse thundered;
black spiders scurried over his vision. His chest felt as if someone
had dropped a huge weight, caving in ribs, smashing his lungs. He
reached back to swat at his attacker with both hands but managed
only increasingly feeble slaps. He felt the Changed grope then fist
his hair, crank his head to expose his neck as the rope crushed his
throat. Chris was losing control of his body now, beginning to jitter.
The pain in his chest was ferocious, a hard boil that would blow him
apart. Everything was going black, inside and out. He couldn’t fight
anymore. His legs were juddering uncontrollably now, and so were
his hands. He only just registered the slap of wood, the drum of his
boots.

All at once, his strength evaporated. He felt himself go limp, the
rope saw through the tender flesh of his neck. What should have
been a surge of bright pain was only the tiniest blister of a faraway
firecracker, sputtering fast. His mind slipped, his hold on consciousness slewing as it had when Hannah’s poison streamed through his
veins. An insidious blackness oozed over his vision as the edges of
his world collapsed.

Just before he lost his sight completely, he saw something—someone?—suddenly rear, seeming to emerge from the guts of the earth.
A voice, very distant, as wispy as smoke: “Over
here
!”

But then, that was it. All at once, Chris was falling, all thought
disintegrating, and where there should have been a floor or the
ground or the earth to hold him, there was nothing except Jess pulling together in a swarm of shadows. He thought she might be saying
something, but he was moving so fast, he shot past and never—

Rolling, Tom surged through the gap. The nearest Chucky, a beefy
kid in stained jeans and a too-large camo-jacket, had a knee in the
dark-eyed boy’s back and a rope in one hand. Tom could tell the darkeyed boy was nearly gone; the kid’s body quivered, his face was black,
and his eyes rolled to show the whites going crimson with hemorrhage. Beyond them, Tom glimpsed the smaller boy thrashing and
kicking at another Chucky, a very large girl raining punches.

“Over
here
!” he shouted. Flinching, the beefy Chucky relaxed his
hold on the boy, who collapsed in a heap and didn’t move. Tom fired,
a quick three-shot burst, a soft
pfft-pfft-pfft
. The Chucky’s chest ruptured in a crimson starburst, and he was falling back even as Tom was
clambering out of the crawl space and advancing, moving fast. The
girl was still whaling away on the smaller boy, but now seemed to
realize the danger, and she was rearing back, beginning to turn.

“Stay down!”
Tom roared at the smaller boy. The girl flung herself
to one side as Tom squeezed off another burst, stitching shots in the
front and storm doors. Jags of glass splashed to the floor, and then the
smaller boy was singing, “Gun, gun, she’s got my gun!” Tom saw it
at the same moment as the girl pivoted; heard the bolt being thrown
as the barrel of a long gun swung around. Dropping to one knee, he
ducked under her line of fire and aimed up. One second, the girl’s
head was there, and the next—

“Who . . .” The second boy was panting, trying to roll, get to his
feet. Blood streaked his face. Tom couldn’t tell if it was all his, but at
least this kid was breathing. “Who are . . .”

Tom didn’t reply. Turning, he raced back to the dark-eyed boy.
The kid—seventeen, eighteen, he thought—was still down, not moving at all, sightless eyes staring, tongue purple and bulging, blood on
his throat, that rope cinched tight.
God, no.
Tom dropped to his knees,
stripped away the rope, then drew a hissing breath through his teeth
at how deeply the kid’s neck was cut.

“No.” It was the smaller kid, his voice breaking. He knelt by the
body. “No, no, he can’t be dead, he can’t—”
“Quiet.” Turning his head, Tom listened for a breath. Nothing. No
whisper of air against his cheek.
Kid, come on.
Closing his eyes, he put
his head on the boy’s chest. Silence.
Don’t do this, kid, don’t . . .
Beyond Tom, from the kitchen, came the enormous
bang
of a door
smashing drywall. Startled, still on his knees, he jerked up. Hurtling
out of the pantry, swarming up from the gap in the floor through
which he’d slithered only moments before, was a girl: a silent, deadly
horror with a monstrous rip in one cheek through which he could see
teeth and pink gums and tongue. In her hand was the largest, sharpest corn knife Tom had ever seen.
“Get back!” Sweeping the smaller boy aside with his right hand,
Tom lunged for his Uzi with his left. She was so fast, all he had time
for was a one-handed snatch, his left fist closing around the barrel
of his Uzi, and then he was swinging up, aiming for her knife hand.
She saw it coming and dropped in a lunge, like a fencer coming in
under a blade, as the Uzi whizzed past. Pulled off-balance by his own
momentum, Tom caught the glint, heard the corn knife whistling in
a fast, sidelong chop for his exposed left flank, and thought that might
just be the last mistake he ever made.
A brown blur rocketed into the girl from behind. There was a
clash of teeth, and then the Chucky was screeching, surging to her
feet as the dog clamped down on her left arm and dug in. Spinning
free, the corn knife whirred past Tom’s chest, missing by a fraction of
an inch, to bury itself in the opposite wall. Out of the corner of his
left eye, he saw the smaller boy scrambling for his rifle. Not three feet
away, the Chucky whirled like a dervish, and the dog, jaws snapped
tight, sailed round and round like a shot put.
And when he saw the dog, Tom thought,
Wait . . .
To his right, the kitchen door suddenly crashed wide open.
Flipping the Uzi to the ready, Tom jammed the stock into his shoulder
and whipped his weapon around just as a corn-tassel blonde—much
too young to be a Chucky; Tom still had the presence of mind to see
that—bolted through the door.
“Mina!” the girl screamed, socking a Savage to her shoulder.
“Release!”
At that, Tom felt his heart burst with a shock of disbelief and a
swift, sweet, stunning joy. For him, and only for a split second, the
world simply stopped, fell away, and there was nothing he wanted
more than to sweep her up, hold her close, but then he was breaking
his stance, pivoting back for the Chucky, trigger finger taking up the
slack.
“Shoot her!” the brown-haired boy screamed as he charged to
Tom’s side. “Shoot her, Ellie, shoot her!”
They all fired, together, his Uzi still quiet but the boy’s rifle roaring
and even the Savage making a very large noise for such a puny gun.
Then, still on his knees—because, all of a sudden, he couldn’t
find his feet; he would fall for sure—Tom was shouting, throwing his
arms wide. “Ellie! Honey! Ellie,
Ellie!
”
She’d been so focused on the dog and the Chucky, he doubted
she’d registered anything else. At the sound of his voice, she turned,
her eyes going huge and incredulous and so very blue, and then she
was flying across the room as Mina,
wuffing
hysterically, darted for
him, too.
“Tom!”
she shrieked. “Tom! Tom! Tom!”
She’d have bowled him over; he was sure of it, because she was
running so fast and his heart was so full; but he could take that, he
wanted that—and she might have, too.
If not for Mina, beside herself with joy, who got there first.