Dead Of Winter (The Rift Book II) (43 page)

“Percy? Who is Percy?”

“The beast.”

The image of himself standing in the middle of a child’s bedroom, covered with the innards of some monstrosity he couldn’t find the words to describe, entered Billy’s head. “I see,” he whispered. “Can he get in here?”

“I don’t think so. Like I said, this is supposed to be a safe place.”

“You keep saying that.” He squatted and held his head in his hands.
I do not even know what I am supposed to be doing
, he thought.
Am I to simply stay here? Are we to wait it out? That does not seem proactive enough, not with the urgency Bella imparted to me.

An idea popped into his head and he glanced up, excited.

“You said this is a safe place, correct?” he asked.

Marcy’s mouth dropped into a frown.
“Yeah, why?”

“How do you
know
it is safe? It does not look that way to me.”

“Well…because…just because.”

He stood up and pointed behind her. “If it is so safe, then how did
that
get in here?”

Marcy’s eyes bulged and she wheeled around. The four walls surrounding them bulged inward and then outward, as if they were part of a giant lung. She whipped her head way this way and that. The distortion of the walls grew more frantic. Billy rushed to her and held her tight.

“Calm yourself, Marcy. There is nothing here.”

“Then why…” she panted as tears streamed down her face. “How…could you do that? You scared the
shit
outta me!”

Billy cupped her chin in his palm. “I know. I apologize. I have been thinking of this too logically when logic does not apply. So I had to…think outside of the box.”

“And?”

“This place is safe because you
believe
it is safe. And yet I appeared here, which means that you
allowed
me to be here. So if you can wish me to be by your side you can wish us both out. We can find another safe place, one without such…limitations.”

“But where can we go?” she asked, wiping the last of the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Anywhere you like, I assume.”

“Okay,” she whispered. She squinted for a few seconds and then looked around. “Nothing changed.”

Another idea entered Billy’s head. “Hold on a minute. I am supposed to help you. That is what she said.”

“That’s what
who
said?”

“No one important.
Listen, come to me.” Marcy did as she was asked. Billy pressed his forehead to hers. “Now close your eyes. Concentrate on me, on how my flesh feels against yours. Do not think of anything else.”

Billy squeezed his eyes shut. A shiver ran up his spine, down his legs, and across his arms. His body felt as if it had lost its consistency and all thoughts left him except for the texture of Marcy’s hands and the allure of her body nestled against his. The world shimmered in darkness and then solidified. He opened his eyes.

“There. That is much better.”

They were in the abandoned fairgrounds where he’d first met Bella. It was in the same state of disarray it had been the last time he saw it, but now there was something added – poppies bloomed in the field on which the discarded tents lay, making them look like rafts floating in a yellow sea.

Marcy whistled. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “I love poppies.”

“As do I,” he replied. “They are quite beautiful.”

She screwed her mouth and glanced at him. “You know, you talk…funny.”

He laughed. “You are not the first to tell me that. I have a young friend back in the real world
who
is fond of saying the very same thing.”

“Huh. So, why is that?”

He shrugged. “Words are supposed to be spoken in a certain way, and I have always held myself to saying them correctly.”

“That’s a bit anal, don’t you think?”

“There are worse traits to possess.”

She snorted. “Well, you’re right about that. So where are we, anyway?”

“The
Pennsylvania
State
Fair…or I should say my own version of it. I had a vision of this place a while back. Someone met me here. She was the one who told me to find you.”

“Oh. So…what do we do now?”

He turned. The path was still behind him, as it had been before. “We go that way,” he said, and started walking. Marcy stuck close, brushing against him every so often as if to make sure he was still real. She was so close he could smell her.

The only stink that came off her now was the scent of jasmine.

*
 
 
*
 
 
*

Christopher awoke to the sound of moaning – only
this
sound didn’t come from outside the hotel walls. He shot up, his elbow thwacking the hardwood floor in the process. Pain spiked all the way to his shoulder. Whimpering, he leaned back and rubbed the sore spot.

The moan came again. Christopher darted his eyes around the room. He didn’t know what time it was and darkness surrounded him. He bent down and let his fingers dance across the floor in search of the tablet that’d held the candles. When he felt the coldness of the metal plate he picked up the pack of matches, tore one out, lit a candle, and turned to gaze at Mr. Mathis and the lady.

Upon seeing them he wanted to scream but couldn’t. All he could do was watch as the two bodies writhed on their blankets. Sweat poured off them and they inched toward each other like blind worms. Every so often they seemed to fade, to become
lesser
, right before his eyes. He tried to slap Mr. Mathis awake but the man didn’t respond. His eyes were sealed shut.

Finally the girl opened her mouth. A long groan escaped her throat, followed by smoke –
actual
smoke, as if fire raged in her lungs.

At the sight of it Christopher bolted out of the room in search of Dr. Terry, Forrest, anybody.

*
 
 
*
 
 
*

Marcy felt woozy. She leaned against one of the many trees that lined the path they walked. Her lungs burned. She tried to take a deep breath but when she inhaled a violent cough overtook her. She doubled over, hacking phlegm and blood all over the dirt.

“What happened?” asked Billy. His hand fell to her back.

“I don’t know. I was fine, and then…it felt like something pushed into my chest. It hurts…”

“Hold on,” her hero replied. “It is only a few steps more. I have a feeling I understand what is causing it.”

“What’s that?” she asked. It was still so hard to breathe.

“It is hard to explain. I feel it would work best if I simply showed you.”

She plodded on using him for support every time her knees buckled. She was so thankful for his help, and the care he obviously felt for her. In no way did she
understand
why he cared so much – truthfully there was very little she understood about
any
of this – but she put it in the category of gift horses and mouths and forced the thought from her mind.

Up ahead the path forked. Mercifully, Billy let her sit down on a stump. Her every muscle ached. It was like her body had given up.

Billy stood beside her and gazed down the path to right. It was very dark and covered by a canopy of dead trees, unlike the one on the left, which was alive and full of sunshine. A frightening-looking birch tree, its trunk split down the middle, stood in the center of the darkened path. It looked to her that the light simply died when it came within a few feet of the tree’s dead limbs. She shuddered all over at the sight of it.

Billy turned to face her. His expression developed a quizzical quality. His eyes narrowed, he seemed to lose focus, and then he meandered away, mumbling to himself. Marcy couldn’t hear what he said. She tried to rise and follow him but her limbs wouldn’t behave. She told her legs to stand and they flattened out. She told her arms to hold steady and they shook uncontrollably. She began to fear she’d be stuck there, leaning against that stump, forever.

Billy returned to her only a few moments later. His eyes had regained their attentiveness. He bent over, draped her arms around his neck, lifted her by the waist, and pointed down the darkening, haunted path.

“We go down there. You will be better once we do,” he said.

“Why?” she asked, more out of habit than anything. With the amount of pain she felt she would’ve trusted him if he’d said that murdering a basket full of puppies would make it all go away.

He began walking down the path with her propped against him. “There is an intruder here,” he said. His voice was far away, contemplative. “It wants to harm you. You are getting closer to the source. And it has soldiers…”

The air grew thick. Whereas Marcy had difficulty breathing before, it was nearly impossible now. Her face pressed against something wet though there was nothing in front of her. Her hair plastered to her forehead. Lights danced in her vision, flashes of purple, red, and yellow. The world started fading away.

It was Billy who brought her back. He pulled her in close and whispered, “Stay with me, the sensation will pass.” She focused on making her burning lungs expand and contract. Eventually her surroundings came back into focus.

She wished it would’ve gone away again.

The forest came to life. Every dead tree, every burnt vine, every thatch of spoiled vegetation swayed of its own accord. The ground shifted as roots snaked this way and that. The trees bent toward the road, their branches reaching for her with their sharpened, spear-like ends.

Billy yanked her forward. When she saw what waited ahead of them air suddenly rushed into her lungs and she shrieked.

The birch tree was no longer a tree. Its hide looked like wet leather covered with scales. It bulged, ready to burst. Halfway up, in the nook where the trunk separated into two looping appendages, sat the face of death – a huge skull, not quite human, with eyes of yellow flame that seemed to grow larger by the second. A high-pitched droning filled her ears. It sounded like the skull laughed at them.

The torso of the massive tree-beast split, becoming a voracious mouth lined with sharp, blackened teeth. Billy gripped her tighter. He was leading her right to the disgusting thing. Her adrenaline flowed and she tried to break away from her supposed protector.

“What are you
DOING?
” she screeched.

“Please, trust me,” he replied in little more than a whisper.

The living forest rushed at them. Branches clouted them on all sides. A vine wrapped around Marcy’s leg. She slipped from Billy’s grasp and was dragged across the trail. More of the living vegetation lashed out, enveloping her, squeezing her tight, all the while pulling her in the direction of the tree’s hungry mouth.

She glanced behind her. Billy just stood there, brow lowered, fists clenched, shaking all over. She tried to call out to him but another vine bound her windpipe, choking her. The pressure in her head intensified. It felt like she might pop.

Billy’s head snapped up. He hunched his back, bent at the knees, bared his teeth, and growled. Marcy gawked at him. So, it seemed, did the animated foliage holding her captive. Their grip loosened enough for her to tear off the vines around her neck. She never took her eyes off of Billy as she did so, however. The sight of him was simply too strange to turn away from.