Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (15 page)

Or drop the Glock and go for the Bravo.
He flung the Glock aside. Didn’t follow its arc. Either he’d find it
later, or he’d be dead. Fisting her parka, he yanked her as close as a
lover, then put some muscle behind it and drove his knife into her as
fast as he could, as far as it would go.
She screeched again. Her own knives flashed, and he ducked, turtling his head and neck. One knife missed. The second didn’t. First,
the parka and then the flesh of his left forearm parted in a fiery red
shriek. Roaring with pain, he pushed up, still holding her close, his
KA-BAR so deep she could’ve been a chunk of beef skewered for a
kabob. He could smell their blood mingling now, the rank iron stink
of it. His stomach was slick; his chest and left arm were dripping.
Before she could slash up, he gave her a mighty shove. She flew a
good ten feet to collapse in a loose-limbed bundle. Her own knives
fell from her hands to glimmer darkly against snow that was beginning to pink and then grow bright red as a bloody puddle overflowed
the cup of her belly and spilled down her sides.
For anyone or anything else, that would’ve been the end. The
bad guy pulling a knife out of his stomach to use against you? Only
happened in movies. In real life, that little trick never went well, and
not just because it hurt like a bitch. Extracting a knife or any stabbing weapon was, in fact, an excellent way to hasten death. A knife
might slice into an artery, but it might also be a cork. Pull it out, and
stand back as the blood flowed. When the knife was serrated, like his
KA-BAR, it was worse. Those barbs hooked. That was the point. So
in addition to bleeding like stink, which was its own special kind of
agony when it came to abdominal wounds, you might also pull out
a sausage string of guts at the same time. His squad medic once told
him to imagine someone peeling your face from your skull, and then
multiply that by about a billion. Clawing out your eyes would hurt
less than ripping out your own intestines. Pain like that, you wished
it
could
kill you.
But this . . .
thing
? It didn’t seem to feel pain, not for long. Look
how fast it had recovered from that kick. Now, dumbstruck, he
watched as she wrapped her hands around the KA-BAR’s grip. Even
that tiny jostle of the blade hurt; he could see it in the flare of her
blood-soaked nostrils, the tight grimace, the strain in her neck, the
arch of her back.
My God.
What was this thing? This couldn’t be a feral Chucky,
unless there was a difference between new Chuckies, ones turning
now versus those who had turned right away. Ferals weren’t organized; they were crazy, they couldn’t plan. Not even Jim, his friend,
had been anything other than a rabid animal. So this girl was something new and different: nearly immune to pain, crazy-fearless. Smart.
A killing machine.
And I’ve seen this before, too—but where?
She pulled—
And then, to Tom’s horror . . . the KA-BAR
moved
.

Ellie couldn’t move. Her insides jellied, and her knees began to quiver.
When she swallowed, she could hear the sharp click in her throat.
My
rifle, where is it?
She didn’t dare take her eyes from the girl to look, but
she didn’t think she’d remembered to take the Savage when she went
for Bella.
That means it’s behind me, still in the death house.

The girl only watched, which was good because that gave Ellie a
little breathing room.
Unless there are others and they’re circling around.
Mina’s growl had swelled to an open-mouth snarl, and Ellie risked
slipping her eyes down for a quick peek. Mina’s attention was fixed
on the girl. So either there was only this one people-eater, or many
others far enough back that Mina couldn’t smell or see them. She also
saw Bella’s nostrils flare and that quick flick of the mare’s head as the
horse got wind of the people-eater.
No, no, no, please don’t bolt, you
stupid horse; just wait, wait.

The
girl
was sure waiting for something. Ellie felt the truth of
that without understanding why. Her gaze ran over the grimy snarl
of the girl’s hair, which was frozen solid where it dangled below a
watch cap that was once cream-colored but now a filthy gray. Ellie
couldn’t tell what color that grubby parka might have been, but the
snake of a scarf dragged from the people-eater’s neck in a limp, limegreen coil.

That scarf . . . Ellie thought back to the moment on the lake
when all the crows had left.
That snow, the cedar swaying, and a flash
of lime green that I thought was just pine . . .
The girl had been there?
Watching all along and following, and keeping downwind so Mina
couldn’t smell her?
Smart.
But why show up now? Why not wait a
little longer?

Maybe because she knows she won’t get another chance.
The girl’s
narrow face was all angles and shadows, the cheeks hollowed into
valleys, the eyes far back in their sockets.
She’s starving, so hungry she
just couldn’t wait one more second.

But the girl wasn’t acting right. People-eaters came at you with
guns and knives, bare teeth, hands. Claws. They did it all: set up
ambushes, stormed out of the woods. Maybe they’d show themselves after they surrounded you—that had happened to Eli and his
sister—but this girl was alone and only
watching.

On the snow, by her feet, Chris moaned.
I have to get out of here. What am I standing around for?
She was panting, part of her brain going in a swirly-whirly scream:
Run run run
to the death house, shut the door so she can’t get in!
She could do that,
grab Mina—
what about Bella, what about Bella, will she be all right?—
get
inside, get to her gun, and then wait wait wait, like a bunny in its
hole, for Eli and Jayden to find her. But Chris, what about Chris?
She’ll
kill him, she’ll eat him and . . .
You can’t let that happen.
It was the little closet-voice.
Think, Ellie,
think think think. She’s watching, she’s not moving.
“Because she’s waiting for the others.” Her voice was squeezywheezy small, riding the up-coaster to hysteria. Once she hit the top,
there’d be no stopping the zoom into crazy-scared. Across the clearing, the girl’s head perked, cocking a little at the sound of her voice
the way Mina did when she was puzzled. “She knows she can’t get
past Mina alone.”
Stop breathing so fast. Listen to what you said. If that’s true, you still
have time.
“And what if it’s not?”
Mina will protect you
. The closet-voice was very patient, like
Grandpa Jack when he said, yes, life wasn’t fair, but no, being hateful
wouldn’t help.
She’s got teeth, you know.
“Is that a joke?” she squeaked, then thought,
Oh, is that dumb or
what?
But the closet-voice did have a point. Should she get the gun?
Don’t leave Chris.
She wasn’t sure who that was, the closet-voice or
her, but knew that was right. Just had to keep her head, stay calm like
Alex and Tom. It took every scrap of self-control to turn her back, but
she couldn’t both roll Chris onto his tummy and then pull him onto
the saddle
and
watch the girl. “Don’t let her get me, Mina,” she said
in that squeaky-scared voice. Bending, Ellie planted her hands against
Chris’s side and pushed, a pitiful little shove as her strength tried to
flee with her voice. Chris was
big
, and she was such a runt.
Come on,
don’t be such a girl.
But she had to try twice more before Chris flopped
onto his tummy. The burlap bags slid, revealing white thigh and part
of his bottom.
“Ohhh-kaaay,” she sang, thinking she’d never seen so much of a
boy
this way
. She tucked the bags back into place as best she could.
“Oh Alex, oh Alex, oh T-Tom . . .” Planting her boots, she fisted burlap and jerked Chris all the way to the ramp’s edge, so close that his
hands dangled. Jumping down, bracing herself for the
shush-shushshush
of snow as the girl charged, she swung onto Bella. Then she
hooked her left foot into the stirrup but dug her right heel into the
ramp. Grumbling, the horse tried to sidestep away.
“No, no, no, come on.” Ellie hauled on the right rein to turn the
mare’s head. Then she reached over, grabbed Chris’s arms above the
elbows, and
heaved
. “Daddy, help,” she said, as Chris’s head cleared
the saddle. “Oh, Daddy Daddy Daddy.” She kept pulling, using her
boot to steady the horse as she yanked Chris onto the saddle, awkwardly walking her hands up Chris’s sides until he folded at his waist
to drape over Bella’s withers and shoulders like a too-long blanket.
This would have to do. For a brief moment, she considered the
Savage, still inside the death house, and wondered if she should close
the slider. Hannah would be really pissed if this girl and any friends
went inside to snack.
Heck with that. I’m getting Chris out of here.
Pulling
in a big breath, she coaxed Bella into a turn. On the saddle, Chris’s
body shifted but didn’t slide. The girl was exactly where she’d been,
too: no closer, no further.
“Mina, get ready, girl.” Ellie’s fingers trembled as she untied but
didn’t remove Bella’s scarf. Bunching the reins in her left hand, Ellie
leaned over and across Chris, planting her elbows against his right
side to bracket his body and hold him in place. Then, with a fast flick
of her wrist, she snapped off the scarf.
“Mina!” At the same instant, she gave the horse, already starting
to rear, a sharp giddyap kick. “Mina, off !
Release!
”
Snarling, the dog surged down the ramp at the same instant that
Bella came down with a spine-jarring crash, and bolted. Ellie’s breath
jammed out of her throat, and she landed in her saddle with a thump.
Chris’s body jounced and he started to slide.
No no no!
She dug her
elbows in hard enough to feel the birdcage of his ribs.
Hang on hang
on hang on!
Ahead, she could see the girl’s face suddenly snap up, the glaze of
hunger quickly shading to astonishment and then fear. The girl leapt
aside in a swirl of dirty hair and lime-green scarf as Bella flashed past,
and then they were speeding away, Bella kicking snow, Mina racing
after, the trees slipping into a blur as they crashed down the trail.
Craning, Ellie snatched only a single glance back. The people-eater
wasn’t running after them or charging onto the trail with her pals.
Instead, she only stood there, and to Ellie, she didn’t look remotely
dangerous. All Ellie saw was a forlorn, lonely, tattered scarecrow of a
girl in a green scarf, and for an instant, Ellie wondered if, maybe, this
girl was somehow different. But then Bella swerved right and the girl
was gone.
Safe, we’re safe.
That was when it hit Ellie, like the full heat of
the sun suddenly blasting through clouds.
I did it. Me and Mina and
Bella, we really did it
. And all by themselves, too—no Eli, no Jayden,
no nobody but her and Mina and her horse—and she wanted to tell
her daddy and Grandpa Jack all about it. She wanted to tell Alex and
Tom. She wanted that so bad she could taste the story in her mouth,
every word, each syllable.
I miss you guys.
Her eyes stung, and a second later, she felt the dash
of a tear. Or maybe it was only the blade of that icy wind. Whatever.
For once, it was all right. This was a good cry.
Yeah,
the closet-voice said,
just as long as you don’t fall off
.
“Oh, be quiet.” Her laugh was shaky and a little watery, too, as she
hugged Chris even closer. “Hang on, Chris. It’ll be okay, I’ve got you.”
And then Ellie began to chant, her heart leaping with every surge of
Bella’s hooves: “I got you, Chris. I got you, I got you, I got you.”

She’s going to get me.
Tom’s horror solidified into grim certainty as the
girl tugged and his knife, smeary with the Chucky’s blood, appeared
inch by gory inch.
She’ll have that out in five seconds.

He had to get to the Bravo, the last weapon he had, the only one
that might work. If she got close again, he didn’t think he could stop
her. Rocking back onto his right foot, he turned and churned in an
awkward stagger through snow and debris. His pack seemed impossibly far away, the Bravo another mile beyond that, receding as if by
some tricky camerawork. He thought he was moving fast, but his
vision was starting to go fuzzy with every step, his head beginning to
balloon. He was still losing too much blood. His chest was smeary
and wet. Cooling gore slicked his thighs.
Keep moving, don’t pass out,
don’t faint.

Ahead, the boulders that marked the foot of the boy Chucky’s
tomb loomed, filling his sight. Staggering to the rocks, he nearly fell
but braced himself with his right hand. Swaying, he could see his
pack now and, beyond that, the Bravo. As he lurched past the open
trench, his boot banged that rock-hatchet he’d used to smash that
frozen Chucky to bits, and he stumbled. Now, wildly off-balance, he
actually turned in a half circle, struggling to keep to his feet. But he
didn’t, couldn’t, and knew he was going down.

And there she was, coming for him, blistering over the snow, hurling herself in a tackle. The blow was a sledgehammer to his sternum,
a vicious blast he felt straight through to his spine. His breath jolted
from his mouth. He was aware that he was falling straight back, poleaxed, his lungs on fire and the electric shock working into his brain.
Out of the gray fog that passed for his vision, he saw the girl loom;
felt the drip of her blood on his cheeks and the hard pressure of her
knees as she tacked his shoulders. The ruin he’d made of that dead
Chucky was to his left, and he saw her head flick that way as the Eagle
glinted in the setting sun.

For a crazy second, he wanted to scream,
Pick up the Eagle, pick
it up, pick it up, take a shot, take it!
It was a suicidal thought, it was
insane, but she was on top of him, and he was desperate, out of
options. The Eagle shouldn’t work; it ought to come apart in her
hands. Not kill her—that only happened in movies, too—but if she
did
try it and the weapon gave out in a burst of shrapnel and bullets,
that might buy him just a little more time. Because he had nothing
else: no air, no weapons, very little strength, no options.