Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (27 page)

“Holy shit, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Pru said, his rifle still
trained on the dying boy. “I thought all the kids from Rule were dead.”
“Oh Lord,” Kincaid groaned in an undertone. His face was ashen.
“You sons of bitches, you did it. You really did it.”
“Did what?” Greg asked as Sarah staggered toward them through
the crowd. Her right pant leg was sodden, and tears had eaten tracks
through the blood caked on her cheeks. “Doc, what are you talking
about?”
Before Kincaid could respond, Henry said, in his clear bugle, “Yup,
that’s Ben, all right. Known him since he was a little guy, oh . . . yay
high.” Henry patted the air down around his knees. “Recognize him
anywhere on account of that bad case of the acne.” Henry looked
down the aisle toward the Council members, who’d worked their
way through the swell of people crowding into the sanctuary. None
of the Council wore their robes, and while Yeager was in the lead,
only Ernst, broad-chested and very tall, with a still-substantial gut
in spite of rationing, retained even a vestige of authority. Stiemke, a
withered little man, blind in one eye, only cringed alongside Ernst.
Greg couldn’t decide if Stiemke was in shock or trying to hide.
“Mr. Stiemke?” Henry called. “This is your grandson, isn’t it?”
Yeager spoke for the quailing Stiemke. “Yes, that’s Ben.” Yeager’s
tone was even enough, but his skin was bleached so white his bald
head looked like a cue ball. Without his robes, Yeager looked like
a homeless person in mismatched socks, sagging trousers, and that
red-checked flannel. Yeager’s eyes, usually so bird-bright with calculation, only looked furtive and a little frightened, like those of a mouse
that can’t decide if running will only make the cat spring faster.
“Obviously, Ben got away, a fact of which we were unaware.”
“Obviously? Got away?
Unaware?
” Rifle held high, Jarvis shouldered
his way past the others to stand in the center aisle. Any resemblance
to a turkey was gone. Jarvis looked more like a buzzard. “You run this
place for decades, make all the decisions. You tell
us
, grown
men
, to
follow orders from
kids
”—Jarvis jerked his head down at Greg—“but
we do it because we are loyal and God-fearing, and now you say you
didn’t
know
this boy had gotten
away
?”
Peter.
The realization broke over Greg in a kind of icy wash.
He
said they rounded up all the Changed and shot them; that no one got away.
Greg’s eyes drifted to the dying boy.
So Peter would’ve
known
Ben
wasn’t dead.
“Where I was from, before Rule? Those kids always came back,”
someone in the crowd said. Murmurs of assent rippled through the
rest of the men, and now Greg saw more than a few women had
filtered in, too, armed with baseball bats, shotguns, like a village
mob from an old black-and-white monster movie
.
He spotted one
woman—Travers?—her hair a gray fury, clutching a Warren hoe, its
blade tapering to a wicked point. “Lot of ’em hunted in packs. It was
one of the reasons you said we’d be safer here, ’cause all your kids
were dead.”
“So how that little monster’s alive in the first place is what I want
to know.” It was Travers, the stormy woman with the hoe, which she
now shook at Stiemke. “What’d you do, only kill kids like my Lee?
Because we’re not important enough? Did you
spare
this monster
because he’s
yours
?”
“Hell with that,” someone else rumbled. “How many others like
that one are there? Because if one kid got away—”
“Or they
let
him get away!” another person shouted.
“There got to be others.” Travers brandished her hoe like a spear.
“So where are they?”
“Where the hell do you think?” Jarvis aimed a look of black thunder at Stiemke. “They’ve been out there all this time, maybe even
close by. But why? You said you were doing God’s work, taking our
grandkids, ending their torment. What did you do, you and that son
of a bitch, Peter, and
Chris
. . .”
“My grandson knew nothing about this,” Yeager said, and Greg
thought from his tone that this was the truth. Yet Ernst remained
silent, not a flicker of emotion on his bullish features.
But Peter knew.
Greg saw Sarah study Ernst’s face, then drop her
eyes as the first fingers of scarlet crept up her neck. A tear splashed
onto a cheek, which she knuckled away. Greg gave her free hand a
small squeeze, but she didn’t look up or acknowledge him in any way.
Sarah knows it now, too
.
Peter was in on it all along. Letting some of the
Changed get away might even have been his idea.
Peter was the one who’d
told each patrol where to go, and when. Because he
knew
where the
Changed were most likely to be at any given time?
And Jarvis had said
maybe even close by . . .
Changed, in the Zone?
Of course.
Now that someone had finally said it, this made perfect
sense.
“So did Chris find out?” Travers, the woman with the hoe, shouted.
“Is that why you got rid of him, said he organized an ambush when
he didn’t?”
“Chris
ran
.” Yeager said the words like a curse. “He betrayed us.”
“Like you betrayed us?” Until the words hung in the air, Greg
hadn’t known they were on his tongue. He tottered to his feet. “You
didn’t give Chris a choice. He denied it, but you’d already decided. No
matter what he said, you’d have sent him to the prison house.”
“Because he
defied
me.” Yeager seemed to be getting some of his
old fire back. His coal-black eyes shifted to Jarvis. “You owe
Rule
your
life. Don’t dare to judge—”
“Shut up. Let’s judge
you
for a change.” Jarvis jabbed a finger into
Yeager’s chest, hard enough to rock the old man back a stumbling
step. “You lied. I don’t know how many of our grandkids you let go,
but that
abomination
on the altar is a councilman’s grandson. You had
to know. Does that mean
our
grandchildren are still alive?
Why
would
you do that?”
“So what are we going to do about it
now
?” Travers’s wrinkled
face was the color of a prune. She jabbed the point of her hoe at Ben.
“What are we going to do with
that
?”
Uh-oh.
Greg rifled a warning look to Pru. The other boy gave a
small nod and took a step back from Ben Stiemke, who had gone still
and watchful, his lips frothy with blood bubbles.
“Leave him be,” Stiemke wheezed. His face was contorted, his
blind left eye as milky as a white marble. His remaining eye, with its
faded gray iris, was runny, the lower lid sagging like melted candle
wax to reveal pale pink flesh. “Let the poor boy die in peace.”
“Peace?” The way Travers’s hands were wrapped around the hoe’s
wooden handle reminded Greg of the fighting sticks Naruto used
in
Ultimate Ninja Storm.
“
Boy
? It’s an
abomination
!” she shrieked, and
darted at Stiemke. With a sudden, violent thrust, she whipped around
the blunt handle of the hoe like a bat. There was a muted
thuck.
Stiemke’s head snapped back so quickly it was a wonder his neck
didn’t break. A fan of blood unfurled as Stiemke let out a gargled
ugh
and dropped to the stone floor.
“No!” Yeager squawked, at the same moment that Kincaid bawled,
“My God, what are you
doing
?”
“Doc, no!” Greg grabbed Kincaid’s arm as the doctor started forward.
“Don’t.”
“Listen to the kid. Stay out of this, Kincaid,” Jarvis warned.
“
Peace
? I’ll showing you fucking
peace
!” Travers aimed a kick at
Stiemke, who was on his belly, moaning, trying to eel away. This time,
the
crunch
and
crack
as Stiemke’s nose shattered and his neck kinked
too far to the right weren’t muted. Blood burst over Stiemke’s mouth
and chin, but his neck did not roll back. It stayed exactly where it
was, the ear neatly cupped over the hump of Stiemke’s left shoulder.
Stiemke’s body went as limp and flaccid as a drowned worm.
For a moment, there was that kind of stunned, surprised, soundless hiccup Greg knew well from years of school lunches and dropped
cafeteria trays, when everyone was craning a look, getting ready to
burst into laughter and shouts of
duuude!
She killed him.
Greg couldn’t tear his gaze from the buggy white
marble of Stiemke’s dead eye. He felt his legs try to turn to water.
She
broke his neck, she—
Pulling away from Greg’s suddenly boneless fingers, Kincaid
squatted alongside Stiemke. He put a finger under Stiemke’s ear, then
raised his stricken face to the woman. “Do you realize what you’ve
done? What you’re
doing
? You think
this
will make things right? Killing
each other isn’t the way to solve this!”
“Yeah? Well, it’s a goddamned good start.” Travers hawked out a
rope of spit. Half splashed Kincaid’s hand; the rest splatted Stiemke’s
glassy cheek to slither in a snot-trail onto the old man’s lips.
That seemed to trigger something, as if the crowd was a coiled
spring under more pressure than it could bear. In the next instant,
what seemed like a solid shock wave of screaming people surged
forward, some stampeding for the altar, others moving to surround
Yeager and the rest of the Council. Greg felt hands plant themselves
on his chest as Jarvis gave a mighty shove. “Out of my way, boy, outta
my
way
!” Jarvis bellowed as Greg staggered back. “I’m
done
! You hear
me? From now on, you’re taking orders from me, boy, from
me
!”
Greg couldn’t have answered if he wanted to. Dazed, he saw
Travers and that fury of gray hair lead the charge to the altar as Pru
darted left and out of the way. Mouth dropping wide in alarm, Henry
crossed his hands in a warding-off gesture. “Wait, wait! I didn’t do
nothing, I’m on
your
side,” he piped. “I’m—”
The charging mob simply plowed the little man under. On the
carpet, in front of the blasted altar, Ben Stiemke managed to raise
an arm so awash with blood that it seemed to be drizzling red paint.
With a screech that was also a growl, a rising note feral and terrible
in its rage, Travers heaved the hoe in a huge, sweeping arc. The blade
whickered.
Ben wailed a single piercing shriek as the blade cut three of his fingers away, cleaving them from his hand like sausages. The hoe’s point
buried itself in his chest with a loud and hollow sound like an ax biting wood. Somehow, Ben managed to grab the handle before Travers
could yank it free, and hung on, grimly, acne-pitted face contorted in
fresh pain and new fear. Blood sheeted from his ruined hand.
“Son of a—” Unable to retrieve her hoe, Travers let out another of
her monstrous ululating howls. Darting forward, Jarvis raised his rifle
and pistoned his arms. The butt slammed into Ben’s abdomen and
then Jarvis put his weight into it, grinding down. A fountain of blood
gurgled from the boy’s mouth in a soundless scream. His hands went
slack while Travers planted her boot and pulled the hoe free with a
brisk snap of bone.
The crowd closed ranks. Gargling, choking to death on his own
blood, Ben Stiemke was lost under a heaving, thrashing sea of backs
and legs, rifles and fists, those bats, a rake, that hoe. In the cavernous
stone church, the clamor built and fed on itself, mushrooming into
an explosion of inarticulate shouts and grunts and snarls. It was like
watching ants boil out of a mound to swarm a tiny, wounded animal.
Somehow it did not surprise Greg at all to see Aidan and Lucian and
Sam in the thick of it. Fresh ruby tears mingled with those of blue
ink spilling down Aidan’s cheeks. Not to be outdone, Lucian dragged
that long and obscenely pink tongue over Aidan’s face, licking away
the blood. Laughing, the two high-fived.
At that moment, Greg understood that this was like the morning
his
world broke apart: when his parents sat him down to say they
were divorcing, and he’d spat something awful before bolting away
from his father, who called after him,
Son, son, wait, please. You know
I’ll always love you.
And what he’d said in return, something so hateful
it hurt to even think it:
Fuck you, fuck love!
After, still fuming, he’d
glanced through his bedroom window—just in time to see his dad
suddenly slump and their ancient riding mower mutter on, narrowly
missing his mother. Not that this mattered, because she was already
stone-dead. The old mower kept on, eating its way over the lawn and
plowing under a bed of late mums before cratering their shed.
This was like that: a disaster in progress, unstoppable, perhaps
inevitable.
There was a wild triumphant roar. On the altar platform, a tidal
surge of hands and arms hoisted Ben Stiemke into the air. The boy’s
blood rained onto the stone steps. Ben’s right socket was a blast crater
of crimson eye jelly. Greg and the others cringed back as the mob
rampaged down the center aisle, pausing only to scoop up Stiemke’s
body, too.
When the crowd was gone, the sudden silence was a sound all its
own. On the altar, a huge crimson lake was overflowing down the
stone steps, spreading in a blood tongue down the center aisle. Bits
and pieces of Ben were scattered here and there, too; Greg spotted a
thumb and a chunk of something raw and liverish.
“What are they going to do?” Sarah asked in a small voice.
“We’re not sticking around to find out,” Kincaid said. “Let’s get
you three to the hospice. Safer there. Got to work on that leg anyway,
Sarah. Come on, I’ll carry you.”
“No,” Sarah said, grimacing as she hobbled a step. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, just shut up.” Pru scooped her into his arms so easily, Sarah
nearly went flying over his shoulder. The big boy nodded toward the
side aisle. “Greg, your boots. One of them’s pretty messed up from .
. . you know.”
“Blood washes off,” Greg said. The left boot was soupy and
flecked with spongy pink flesh. Lung, maybe, or brain. No use ruining his socks. Wriggling his left foot home, he felt his face screw into a
pucker as his toes squelched. “Horses are tethered by the village hall.
Unless we want to go on foot, we’ll have to cross the square.”