Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (42 page)

Above, the churning water was murky with billowing curls of
blood stirred by pedaling legs and paws. It was like being caught at
the very bottom of a giant washing machine. Kicking, lungs imploding with the burn, she grabbed water and swept her arms in a mighty
heave.

Shattering the surface, she gulped air so cold it torched her throat.
Eli was nowhere in sight. Neither were the dogs.
No. They were just
here.
“M-Mina?” she coughed. “Eli?”

To her right, Mina’s head suddenly popped up like a float freed
from the monster of a fish that had swallowed the hook. Chuffing,
Mina turned frantic circles, looking for a place to go.

The raft.
Furiously treading water, Ellie twisted, trying to get a fix
on where she was.
Got to find the raft, something to hang onto, and Eli,
where’s—

To her left came a watery crash and then the sound of someone
hacking and spitting. A surge of relief:
Eli.
He’d know what to do. He
was stronger than her.
But he’s hurt, he’s hurt, he was bleeding . . .
No,
Eli was fine, he couldn’t die, he’d be okay; they’d get out of this and
she’d never, ever make fun of him again! “Eli!” Gasping, she croaked,
“Eli, are you—”

A punch of panic stole her breath. Instead of Eli, it was the peopleeater, hair streaming, face going white with cold, and only feet away.
No!
Stifling a scream, she stroked awkwardly, laying down distance,
hoping that not even a hungry people-eater would be crazy enough
to go after her now. For the moment, he only seemed confused and
in shock like her, and that might give her time. Directly ahead, she
spotted the ice raft rocking in the turbulence. To her dismay, the floe
was moving away, dragged by the current, propelled by the chop and
churn.

Maybe the ice shelf ?
No, no good. The people-eaters were there.
So what was her choice? To tread water and hope help would come?
How long would it take her to freeze to death, or drown?
I’m small, I
don’t weigh very much.
Maybe not long at all then. Ellie turned a wild
half-circle, looking for something to grab, keep herself afloat.
And
where’s Roc, where’s Eli?
They must be trapped under the ice; Eli might
be drowning right now!
No, no!
She squeezed her eyes tight against
the image of poor Eli, pounding ice with his fist, big shivery bubbles
boiling from his mouth. Or worse yet, Eli, too weak to swim, sinking
as blood smoked from his belly, with Roc, locked in his arms.
I should
get them, I should dive, I should try!
He would do it for her.

She knew how to swim okay—dead man’s float, sidestroke, a floppy
kind of crawl where she always got water up her nose—but she wasn’t
great in the water. The cold blasted her face, leeched away what little
warmth she had left. Her arms and legs were so heavy. Her boots had
instantly filled with water, and her parka was bloated. Treading water
now was like trying to run in concrete.
Eli, Eli, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Turning again, she spotted the ice shelf, a jagged white margin
that seemed very far away. She’d expected to see the girl in the green
scarf, but Lena was gone. She had to try. If she could battle her way
to the stable shelf, she might be able to hold on and help her dog, too.
For how long she could do either, she didn’t know, but anything was
better than just drowning.

She flopped in an awkward, spastic splash that only sucked more
energy and got her no closer to safety. The lake’s fingers, inky and
long, wrapped around her ankles and tugged, trying to pull her
under, kill her. Everything hurt. Her hands, her feet, her face were
throbbing. The cold hacked her skin, and she was shuddering all over.
Without meaning to or even an awareness that it was happening, her
head simply slid below the surface.

For a long, long second, she kept on sinking. Her body didn’t seem
to understand she was underwater. Then, it was as if something deep
inside, what was left of her, woke up. Frantic, she clawed to the surface, spluttered, coughed out more water, looked for her dog.

Mina was gone.
No.
Not even a brain yelp, though. No energy. And where was the
people-eater? Everything was starting to get black . . . “N-nuh. Muhmuh . . .” Her mouth wasn’t working. She dog-paddled, her head
cranked so far back she stared at blue sky blushing orange and red,
the end coming on. There was a small
huh
as Mina resurfaced, but
barely, only her snout showing and two terrified eyes.
A slap of water swamped her chin. A wave broke around her head
and rolled past. Another hard splash, closer.
Behind.
Twisting, she saw
the people-eater crashing across the lake, heading for her.
“N-n-nuh.” Dredging up a last burst of strength, she swept with
both arms, pulling for open water, her thoughts as tiny and shivery as
soap bubbles:
What’s he doing, is he crazy?
The people-eater’s splashing
was closer, harder, wilder. Risking a peek, she let out a gaspy, gargly
scream. Puffing like a bull, mad with hunger, the boy was gaining.
A sudden, horrible thought blasted her brain: he would drown her.
Drown her, tow her body back, and then
eat
—
“N-n-noooo!”
she shrieked as he covered the last five feet in a giant
surge. His hands battened on her head. She flailed, but it was like
trying to fight an octopus. She went completely under. A glubby,
strangled cry tried to boil past her lips, and she clamped hard, gulping
it back.
Can’t hold it, can’t hold it, can’t
—and then she really couldn’t
hang on any longer. Air bolted from her mouth, and with it, the last
of her voice in a despairing wail.
Above, the boy gave a great, spastic jolt. His grip broke. With
no thought other than getting her face into air, Ellie plowed to the
surface. Snatching one precious breath, she saw the boy rearing, his
hands shooting for her once more. Thought,
He’s got me.
“Ellie!” She was so disoriented, she thought the people-eater had
spoken.
No, from the left.
Her eyes jerked toward the ice shelf.
There, a figure stood, starkly silhouetted against blue sky. And he
had a rifle.
“Ellie!” Chris shouted. “Don’t move!”

The needle punctured the globe of the hunter’s left eye with a small
but audible
pop
. Alex had so much momentum going, she couldn’t
put on the brakes. They fell, locked together, the hunter toppling,
Alex still clutching that dart and riding him all the way down. When
they hit, Alex felt the needle scrape and then punch through the
delicate bone at the back of the socket. If her left ear hadn’t been
screeching, she might have heard the
pffft
as the tranquilizer, under
pressure, flooded the hunter’s brain.

The hunter went instantly rigid. His remaining eye, filmy with
age, bulged. His mouth jammed open.
No screams, no screams!
Letting
go of the syringe, Alex clapped both hands over the old man’s lips. His
cheeks puffed in and out. Balls of muted sound pushed against her
palms. The hunter’s good eye pinned her with a disbelieving glare.
How much he really saw, she didn’t know, and she hoped this was all
reflex. His body was starting to quiver and jitter; his hands flapped;
the dart, with its merry red tail, danced; his boots drummed snow.

To her left, she felt the wolfdog hovering nearby and craned a look.
Its ears were up, the tail nearly horizontal, and its snout wrinkled to
show teeth. What she got from the smell was only
threat
. If it had
wanted her, she’d be bleeding by now.
You, big boy,
are
a nut.

Under her hands, the hunter’s frantic puffing had ceased. The lone
eye glared a glassy accusation. A moment later, through her good ear,
she heard clicks from the dead man’s radio.

Got to get out of here.
Staggering back to the spruce, she got into
her parka and pawed out her boots. Shadowing her, its alarm a red
foam in her nose, the wolf dog took two soundless dancing steps, its
meaning clear:
Let’s go
.

“Don’t I know it.” But go where? In several more yards, she’d be in
virgin snow, her trail obvious, and they had weapons. Her eyes fell on
the dead hunter—and that Springfield. There was one shot left, but
she smelled more bullets in the left front pocket of that camo-jacket.
Yeah, but take the rifle, and they know you’re armed.
They might call
for reinforcements, and then she was cooked. She might be cooked
either way unless she killed that Changed boy. For that matter, they
might not need the boy. That
push-push go-go
would wear her down,
eventually. If the monster jumped again or, worse, the red storm got
behind her eyes . . .

Oh, screw it.
She snatched up the rifle. Her left temple throbbed
from where the bullet had grazed her scalp, and her hair was already
tacky with drying blood.
Not going down without a fight.

But it might not come to that. If she could hide . . . But how?
How
do you hide from the Changed?
From the minute the hunter first shot
at the tree house to now, she thought five minutes had passed. The
chemotherapy tang was closer, not charging but swooping in, making a beeline for that last shot. Keep up that clicking on the radio, and
they’d find the body even faster.

What scared her more—now that she was paying attention—was
the steadily increasing drumbeat of the
push-push go-go
. Maybe that
was what the red storm wanted. If she lost control, she might be
easier
to
control, or at least find. Every logical scrap of her shouted
that she had to run. Yet the lizard part of her brain, everything that
was instinct, yammered that hiding was better. Sometimes bunnies
had the right idea. Be small, don’t move, don’t attract attention.

Don’t attract attention.
She looked at the wolfdog watching her.
Darth didn’t see you. Maybe he didn’t notice you. Or maybe couldn’t? No
time to figure this out.
The metal stink of cisplatin frothed through the
trees. The red storm was a throb in the middle of her forehead, like a
hidden third eye struggling to open.
Decide.

Instead of shoving on her boots, she laced them together before
draping them around her neck. Her feet were passing from burn to
numb, but footprints weren’t as noticeable as boots. Hooking the
Springfield’s carry strap across her shoulders like a samurai sword,
she crouched over the body. The only blood was a gooey, meandering trickle from the ruined left eye.
Can’t leave the syringe. That makes
me both dangerous and a curiosity.
Gritting her teeth, she wrapped her
hand around the plastic tube and pulled. She felt the scrape of bone
again, and when she’d gotten the needle out, the socket puddled red.
Shuddering, she recapped the needle with shaking fingers before
sliding the syringe back into a cargo pocket. Then, working fast, she
stripped the hunter of his fancy, 3-D camo-jacket.

“Come on,” she whispered to the wolfdog, wincing at the throb
of the red storm, that continual
push-push
. Her lip squirmed under a
slow, snaky dribble. Cupping a hand to her bleeding nose, she scurried for a screen of dense brambles maybe fifty yards back, cringing
at every crackle under her increasingly clumsy feet. She heard the
wolfdog’s breaths as it followed. Good. The animal’s prints would
erase hers.

The woods here were wild, crowded with nearly impenetrable
briars and underbrush. Diving into the snow, she shucked in the rifle,
then swam through a narrow gap between two ragged, brambly
clumps growing so close together their branches twined. She grimaced as briars forked her hair, tugged her wounded scalp—and,
oh
hell,
the medic pack was still under the spruce.
No time, no time.
When
she judged she was far enough, she wormed around on her stomach,
figuring she’d have to coax the animal, but the wolfdog was already
squirting in.
Smart boy.
It
knew
something wicked was coming this
way.

Casting one anxious glance back, she saw no bright red gumdrop
trail of blood marking the way.
Okay, this has to do, because, honey, we
are out of time.
Heaping snow into the gap, she put an arm around
the animal’s neck, tucked her feet under her bottom, and hunkered
down. The wiry growth was so thick, she thought they might be
invisible—if they stayed absolutely still. This really could work.
Hunters sat in blinds all the time; they perched in trees for hours.
And fifty yards was half a football field. A lot of distance in which
to get herself lost. Many people overlooked the obvious and what
lay in plain sight every day. Smell . . . she couldn’t do anything about
that. There was no real wind here, not even a breeze. But she kept
thinking of Darth, and then the wolf totems hanging next to that
stuff sack. Something important there . . .

There was a heavy thud, and then another. A snap then crack of
branches and brush, the crunch of snow. Not being very subtle, but
maybe they thought they didn’t need to be. The chemotherapy fug
of that Changed boy was everywhere now. Yet the scent from that
man in black, the eye in that red storm, was distinctive, too. Her
nose balked, tripping over his odor: definitely old, that same fustiness of wet wool socks, but also saturated with a stench of polluted
gray-green water reeking of burned urine and foamy detergent that
was the stink of the Chicago River after a storm.

As much information as her nose gave her, she couldn’t see more
than a foot or two beyond her sheltering bramble canopy. Somehow
that made it all the more frightening, because she couldn’t assign a
face to that dreadful odor, knock it down to size, make it human.
It was like groping in the dark of a haunted house where what you
imagined was always so much worse than what was real.
Stop, stop.
Clenching her jaws, she bore down, trying to force back the fear
threatening to swamp her mind. She was shuddering, every muscle
trying to get free of her body and run run run.
Calm down, you have
to try to stay in control. It wants you to bolt, show yourself.