Strangelets (17 page)

“At the minute, hell has my vote,” she grumbled. “It’s hot enough. And you two are driving me nuts.”

Nico barked a laugh. “You call it Indian summer, right?”

“We’re not even sure it’s September,” Declan pointed out. “Could be July. Hell, it could be January. Or it could be …”

“Please, could you both just be quiet?” Sophie pleaded. She had a pounding headache, and this debate was making it worse. All she wanted was a functioning telephone to try and get in touch with her family. They were probably worried sick about her. She was certainly worried about them. All that stuff in the journal, about vanishing people and monsters … part of her wanted to dismiss it outright. After all, they knew nothing about the woman who recorded those entries. She might have been the local schizo, some crazy person who believed in alien
mind control and government conspiracies. Maybe Ryan and the little girl didn’t even exist—it could all have been a product of her imagination.

But based on what they’d seen so far, Long Island was deserted, save for some birds and a bear. That was harder to explain away. And something had definitely been trying to get into the house yesterday. Whether or not it was a monster with claws was up for debate. Sophie didn’t want to think about it anymore. The simple act of placing one foot in front of the other still required the bulk of her concentration. And she’d already nearly finished all her water. She should have been better about rationing it, but it was so hot, and she was unbelievably thirsty. Maybe months of IV fluids had acclimated her body to more water than normal.

Declan pulled out his phone and squinted at it.

She swatted at a mosquito. “Any luck?”

“Nothing yet,” he said. “Should be far enough from the blocking towers by now, yeah?”

“Yes,” Nico acknowledged. “I don’t know why they’re not working.”

“Well, my battery is almost dead,” Declan said, powering off. “Best save it.”

They walked another hundred feet in silence, coming up on yet another broken down car.

“What about that one?” Sophie asked wearily.

“I’ll check.” Declan trotted over to the driver’s side and peered in. The ancient sedan’s tires were flat and it was coated in rust, but unlike every other car they’d seen so far, all four tires were on the road.

“No keys, but that’s not a problem,” Declan said. “I can get her started.”

He slid into the driver’s seat and dug around under the
ignition, all while maintaining a running monologue. “Easy, with the older ones like this. No alarm, no auto shutdown. Not that an alarm would bring anyone running …”

Sophie leaned against the bumper and put her head in both hands, massaging her temples with her fingers. That morning, she’d helped herself to the contents of the old woman’s medicine cabinet and bandaged her feet. They still throbbed, but the soft pair of socks she’d also borrowed, along with shoes that were only a size too large, had made a huge difference. For a change, she wasn’t wincing in pain with every step.

“You all right?” Nico asked.

Sophie looked up. He stood in front of her, blocking the sun. “Thirsty, mostly.”

He handed her his water bottle. It was still half full.

“I shouldn’t, that’s yours—”

“Drink,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

Sophie took a few slugs, then handed it back reluctantly. She was parched enough to have drained the entire thing. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” He smiled at her. “How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad,” she admitted. “Tired, though. Didn’t sleep that well last night.”

“Me either,” he said.

“Really? I could’ve sworn I heard you snoring,” she teased.

“The Swiss never snore,” he intoned with great dignity. “You must be mistaking me for that foul Irishman.”

Sophie laughed. “Really? And why don’t the Swiss snore?”

“Haven’t you heard? We’re perfect, just like everything we build.”

“I only really know about your watches and pocketknives.”

“Well,” he said, bending lower, “I could tell you all about—”

The car engine roared to life. “If you two are done flirting,”
Declan called in an oddly stony voice, “I believe we have somewhere to be.”

Nico held out a hand to help her off the bumper. “You should take the backseat so you can stretch out.”

“Thanks.” Sophie limped around the car and eased in behind Declan.

Even though the leather was cracked and worn, she was so tired the seat felt like a feather bed. Sophie sighed and settled back. She caught Declan scowling at her in the rearview mirror.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself.”

“We were just talking,” Sophie said, wondering why she suddenly felt defensive.

Nico climbed into the front passenger seat and slammed the door. “Let’s go.”

“Of course. At your service,” Declan snapped. “Please note the emergency exits to the front and rear, and know that in the event of a water landing, your seat won’t be a damn bit of use to you. Oh, and if you feel the need to pray, make sure it’s to science, and not God, because apparently he doesn’t give a whit about you.”

“Enough already,” Nico groaned.

“Fasten your seatbelts, trays in the upright position, and thanks for flying Murphy air!”

Declan shifted into first gear and the car slowly rolled forward. As they gained speed, Sophie leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, feeling the breeze on her face. There was a hint of autumn in it, an undercurrent of things rotting. The scent triggered a memory of the last family trip they’d taken. Her parents had grown up in Rhode Island, and they’d flown there for a family reunion a few weeks
before her diagnosis. She’d dozed during the ride from the airport, occasionally blinking her eyes open to see a succession of farm stands, corn fields, and beach parking lots. The air smelled the same then—had it been August or September? August probably, because she didn’t remember missing school. Her mother and sister were playing a dumb road trip game, license plate bingo or something like that. She’d declared herself too old and cool to participate, although in truth she’d felt too exhausted to focus on plates.

Tears pressed against her eyelids. Sophie squeezed them shut tight. She wasn’t going to cry over this. Unlike everyone else, she’d already said her goodbyes. Any time spent with her family now would be a bonus.

“What the hell is that?” Declan whispered. As the car slowed, Sophie opened her eyes. Declan and Nico were leaning forward, peering at something hanging down from the trees above. It looked like an art installation, or elaborate wind chimes. There were dozens of them dangling from the trees for a few hundred yards or so, all pale and slender; some were at least six feet long, others half that size.

They were almost directly beneath the first one when she suddenly realized what they were. Sophie sucked in a deep breath.

“Jaysus,” Declan gasped. “Are those—”

“They’re skeletons,” Nico said in a flat voice.

Anat didn’t dare look
back anymore. Not that she needed to, out of her peripheral vision she could see the foliage on either side of the car swaying wildly.

The voices were everywhere now. She’d never heard anything like it, a mix of high-pitched keening and screeching howls that overlapped on each other. It sounded like
dozens of creatures were tearing after them through the undergrowth.

For all she knew, maybe there were.

Anat forced herself to focus on the road. She was going forty kilometers an hour. She didn’t dare drive faster—she’d already nearly plunged the car into a giant pothole, and twice they’d clipped cars that hadn’t been shoved far enough off the road. The car was whining under the strain, the steering wheel shuddering against her fingers as the metal tire rims scraped shrilly against the pavement.

She shot a quick glance in the rearview mirror. The deadness in Yosh’s eyes was chilling. And the things she’d been saying, as if she’d expected this … No, Anat told herself,
that couldn’t be true
. Maybe Yosh had been crazy to begin with, or the events of the past two days had driven her over the edge. Anat half-expected to feel something sharp pierce the back of her neck.

Another giant rock, the size of a large melon, abruptly sailed out of the air. It bounced off the hood of the car, leaving a huge dent.

Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. It would take a lot of strength to throw something so heavy that far. Suddenly her sharpened stick seemed pathetic, useless. She prayed there was enough gas in the tank to get somewhere safe. Forget the other three; they’d have to fend for themselves. They might already be dead. Waiting for them constituted too great a risk. She’d skip the gun store and head straight for the shoreline. These things couldn’t possibly chase them forever, at some point they had to tire. She’d get away.
And eventually, the others would find them
, Anat reasoned. Really, they should have agreed to reconnoiter at the naval base in the first place.

“Watch out,” Yosh said calmly.

The car slid into a skid as Anat spun the wheel left, narrowly avoiding another gaping pothole. They nearly flew off the road, ending up on a collision course with a pickup truck parked across the right lane. Anat cursed as she tried to avoid the vehicle.

Something slammed onto the trunk.

Anat checked the rearview mirror, expecting to see an enormous dent from another rock. Yosh still sat primly in the middle of the passenger seat, expressionless. Visible through the rear window behind her was an impossibly long pair of legs, covered in greenish-brown fur, and too tapered to belong to any bear.

IT
was on the car.

Anat jammed the gas pedal to the floor. A higher screech this time, then a thump. She glanced back again: the legs were gone, and something lay in the middle of the road behind them. Her mind flashed back to her grandfather’s stories about giant men made out of clay, silent assassins who came after bad little girls and boys. Golems. But whatever this thing was, it wasn’t made of clay—it was hairy, the head long and thin, ending in what looked like a snout.

Just as the woman had described it in her journal.

As she watched, it got back up. A second later, it was running directly along the center divider, gaining on them fast.

Anat gritted her teeth and kept the pedal pressed flat. “Watch out for potholes,” she ordered. “And let me know if it starts catching up.”

Yosh glanced back, then muttered something in a foreign language.

“What?” she snapped. “Speak English.”

“It might’ve gotten hurt, falling off the car like that.”

“Gotten hurt?” Anat shouted.

“It doesn’t mean us harm.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Anat spat.

She glanced back again. The creature was closing the distance. It was only a hundred meters behind them now. Their speedometer read sixty kilometers per hour, so the creature had to be going eighty, or maybe even a hundred. Nothing on earth could move that fast.

“We’re not going to make it,” she muttered. “We need to find somewhere to make a stand.”

“That would be a waste of time,” Yosh said.

As if on cue, they flashed past an ornate sign that proclaimed, “Welcome to Middle Island, population 516.”

“It’s moving well,” Yosh said. “You must not have injured it badly.”

Anat could have sworn Yosh sounded pleased about that. She gritted her teeth and kept her focus on the road. What she wouldn’t do for a few of her squad members. With well-trained backup and a Tavor assault rifle, she’d have been able to confront this threat head on. Running away like this felt cowardly, but she didn’t have a choice.

“How close is it?” she asked, not daring to look back.

“Close,” Yosh said brightly. “Nearly on top of us again.”

“All right.” Anat scanned both sides of the road. “Keep your eyes peeled for the gun store.”

“But there’s no time. Even if we find it, we need to get inside somehow.”

“You’re right,” Anat muttered. “We’ll try this instead.”

She gunned the engine and swerved hard right, straight into a chain-link fence.

“Not much to it
, is there?” Declan muttered.

The Yaphank Garage was just as shoddy as the facility, its
parking lot equally torn up. Old fashioned gas pumps tilted at odd angles to each other, like bowling pins poised to fall.

Still, it was the largest standing structure they’d seen so far. As they’d approached town, houses cropped up, the distance between them closing as they drove along Main Street. They’d passed a forlorn-looking shopping complex—a deli, pizza place, and beauty salon—then an old wooden house with weathered shingles that announced itself as the “Yaphank Community Center.” The American version of a Galway suburb.

“Is there anything else here?” Sophie asked.

Nico shrugged, looking embarrassed. “It’s a shit town,” he said defensively. “Nothing like Geneva. My father only lives here because it’s close to the lab.”

“Not sure you’d even know if everyone suddenly went missing,” Declan joked. Nico’s scowl deepened, and Declan sighed. The lad had no sense of humor whatsoever.

“I hear Geneva is beautiful,” Sophie said diplomatically. “How much farther to your dad’s house?”

“Another few kilometers. He’s at the far end of town, by Gordon Heights.” Nico pointed north.

“I’m thinking we’d best switch to a different car,” Declan said, shoving aside his annoyance with Nico and with Sophie for suddenly being so kindly toward him. The tire rims on their sedan had flexed into odd positions, so that the battered wheels almost formed squares. Even though he’d kept the odometer at thirty kilometers per hour, they’d taken a beating.

“Let’s see what’s inside the garage,” Sophie suggested. “Maybe there’s a car in better shape.”

“Sounds grand,” Declan agreed, trying to quell the irritation he felt every time he looked at her now. He could still
feel the press of her lips last night, their unexpected warmth against his. He’d wanted to kiss her back, more than anything. But he wasn’t like the eejits he’d grown up with. He’d never even felt tempted to cheat on Katie before.