Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (53 page)

“I like fires.” Threading on another marshmallow, Chris held his stick
well above the flame’s reach. “Actually, I just like s’mores . . . hey,
you’re burning.”

“Way I love them.” Licking his fingers to avoid the scorch,
Peter pinched blackened, molten marshmallows onto squares of
Hershey’s chocolate atop a graham cracker, sandwiched this with
another cracker, and pressed until the white lava of marshmallows
overflowed. Peter crammed the treat into his mouth. “And faster,”
he said around gooey s’more. “You going to let me get sick all by
myself ?”

“No,” Chris said, but he brought his marshmallows no closer to
the fire. He tipped a look at the night sky, milky with stars. The eye
of the moon, whiter than a marshmallow, stared.

That’s not right.
Grimacing, he put a hand to a sudden ache in his
chest: a weird pressure.
I’m dreaming again.
“I’m not in any rush.” The flames pulsed. Chris’s breath fogged,
although neither he nor Peter wore jackets or even hiking boots, just
jeans, tees, sneakers. “I like it here.”
“Me, too,” Peter said, his voice gluey. His hair spilled around his
shoulders like spun gold. His eyes were blue diamonds. “One of my
favorite places on earth.”
“But we can’t
be
there, can we?” Chris thought they were on top of
a mountain, high above a valley. Yet there was only the fire crackling
on a table of flat rock and nothing beyond Peter but a dark blank.
Considering the stars, maybe this was outer space. Or heaven.
“No. The fire’s not allowed for real, but it’s my space, my rules.
My marshmallows.” Swallowing, Peter skimmed his tongue over a
molten dribble and groaned. “And chocolate. Oh my God, I forgot
how good that tastes.”
“So, we’re in your head?”
“Pretty much. More like a . . . daydream. My safe place. Kind of
where the last part of me hangs.” Peter speared marshmallows with
his stick. “Better get a move on with that s’more before they yank
you back.”
Yank me back?
“How long do we have? I miss talking.” This was not
what he’d wanted to say, but the truth was embarrassing. He winced
at another jab of pain. “What
is
that? Feels like someone’s banging
on my chest.”
“Because he is. Trying to save your ass.”
“What?” His brain caught up to what Peter had just said, and he
recalled Jess’s warning or, perhaps, her prophesy:
Someone will die.
Someone must.
“Saving my ass. You mean, I’m—”
“
This
close.” Peter pinched an inch of air between two fingers.
“Heart stopped, and you’re not breathing. I think Tom might’ve
cracked a rib. Guy from the Red Cross who did ACLS for the deputies
said it happens sometimes.”
“Tom.” He blinked. “
Alex’s
Tom?”
“Yeah, Al—” Peter seemed to catch himself. “Her,” he said, nibbling on a marshmallow. “You know these are good raw? I forgot that,
too. That’s the hell of this. I can come here, but I’ll forget you and
this. It’s the only way I can keep this all safe from
him.
It’s like I’m
behind this one-way mirror, only I can’t mike in and nobody outside
knows I’m here.”
This was so different from his previous experiences. Chris felt . .
. safer. “Why am I not seeing you in a nightmare? That’s all I’ve had
until now,” Chris said, thinking that he also hadn’t tried dying quite
so many times before either. He stared at his stick with its marshmallows that refused to brown—and what was up with that? On an
impulse, he thrust the marshmallows into the flames. Nothing happened. The marshmallows didn’t bubble or turn black. Withdrawing
the stick, he broke off the tip and tossed it into the fire and watched
as the flames refused to claim it. A log popped, releasing a swarm
of sparks, but the wood itself remained unchanged. Extending his
hand, he let his palm drift close and then into the flames. No heat.
No pain.
“Like I said, we’re in my special place. I guess all this”—Peter
plucked up a marshmallow and stared as if studying a lab specimen—
“probably can’t work for you.”
“Why?” Breaking a wedge of chocolate, Chris touched the dark
wafer to his tongue. For an instant, he thought of Meg Murry sitting
down to a meal that tasted of sand while her brother, lost and already
under IT’s control, ate quite happily. The chocolate had no smell and
less taste than air. “Why haven’t I been able to come here from the
very beginning?”
“Maybe because you were still figuring things out. Digging for the
truth, putting together the pieces.” Blowing out his blazing marshmallows, Peter gestured with the stick, chalking streamers of white
smoke. “Letting go enough to find a piece of the
real
me, I guess.”
Truth comes from blood and water.
“Letting go of the hammer.”
“Yeah, but we don’t need to get all biblical. This has way more
to do with biology and the brain. I’m talking temporal lobe, out-ofbody experiences. Isaac was right about that.”
“And you? Are you really dead, or have you Changed or . . .”
“I think, for me, they’re all related.” Peter let go of a heavy sigh.
“There is so much to tell you, and we don’t have time for it all. I’m
not sure we can even do this again.”
“How are we doing it at all?”
“Dunno. I built the space a couple weeks ago, when you told me
to.”
“Me? How could I—”
“We’re different. All Spared are. Some are really unique, like you
and the way your brain’s reacted to that drug Hannah gave you. Me
. . . I was Changing before the Change. The boat? Lying?” Peter
looked away. “Leaving that girl to drown.”
He’d thought a lot about this. “Peter, there was no time. You
couldn’t save them both.” He almost said,
Someone had to die
, but
didn’t. “Peter, she was your sister.”
“But then I made it worse. I said that girl was already dead.” Peter
pulled in a shuddering breath. “The good guys don’t lie. They don’t
choose. They save everybody.”
That only happens in books.
“Hannah said you tried.”
“Yeah.” Peter gave a bleak laugh. “For all the good
that
did. That
one choice ruined Simon’s life, probably Penny’s, too, and then I set
up the Zone, I
fed . . .
” Tossing his stick into the fire, his voice thickened with disgust. “Everything I build, everyone I love, I destroy.”
“
I’m
still here,” Chris said, quietly
.
He watched Peter’s marshmallows turn to ash. The throbbing ache in his chest had sharpened and
grown much stronger in the last few seconds. “We’re not in a nightmare. No one is here but us, and your eyes are blue, Peter.”
“That’s because you’re seeing the piece that’s”—he tapped the
back of his head—“tucked away and still, you know . . .
me
. The part
you were meant to reach.”
And the part I want to save, if I can.
The thought popped into his
head completely unbidden. “Maybe because you want to reach me,
too. You said you were afraid, but I’m here. I found this place, and
you. Let me help, Peter.”
“You said that once before. I think you saved me then, a little. You
told me to forgive myself.” Peter shook his head. “But I can’t. You
shouldn’t forgive me either.”
“But I do, Peter,” he said, then stiffened as his chest flared.
No,
please, not yet.
“You’re not lost, not while I can still find you.”
“But I’m almost gone. I can feel that, too. This space?” Peter cast
his eyes around their bubble of light holding off the dark. “I don’t
know how much longer I can hang on to it. Yeah, it’s a part he can’t
control. I’m not sure he even knows about it. But he’s getting stronger, and my space is shrinking. This fire, the marshmallows? They’re
all that’s left.”
“He?”
“Yes. F-F . . .” Peter’s head suddenly snapped back. An arrow of
pain shot across his face.
“Peter.” Alarmed, Chris reached for his friend. “Peter, what’s—”
“N-no!”
Peter cringed. “D-don’t touch me. M-my fault. To n-name
is to control, to ac-access . . .”
“Access? Control? What are you talking about?”
“H-him. He wants to kn-know, but I haven’t t-told . . .” Gasping,
Peter pressed the heel of a hand to either temple. “Can’t say names.
Goes both ways. N-naming him lets him in.”
“Who? How?”
“F-Finn . . . oh
God
, that hurts.” Arching against a fresh tide of
pain, Peter hissed, “Using a
d-drug
, not the same as what Hannah
g-gave you but cl-close . . .”
“On whom? You?”
“
Y-yes
, and . . .” Peter snatched a gasp. “And
Ch-Changed.
Too much
to ex-explain. No time. Ask T-Tom. He’s guessed part
. . . aahh!
”
“Peter!” It took all Chris’s willpower not to touch his friend. “Peter,
tell me what to
do
.”
“N-nothing you can do.” Another wave of pain shuddered through
Peter and shook loose a moan. “F-Finn is c-c
coming
.”
“Coming.” Fresh sweat glistened on Peter’s forehead and neck but
in the light of a fire not as bright as before. Chris tossed a glance at
the dimming flames just as that sharp pain grabbed his chest again.
No time.
Either Finn had found Peter, or
he
was being pulled away, or
maybe both. “Where? To Rule?”
Eyes still closed, Peter managed a nod. “He’s got wuh-weapons.
Men and
Changed . . .
”
“What—” A powerful talon of pain raked his chest. Chris couldn’t
hold back the groan. That familiar falling sensation was beginning,
his vision fading, but he had to know this, he had to hang on!
Don’t
call me back, just a few more seconds!
“Wh-what does he want?”
“K-kids. M-more experi
. . . aaahhhh!
” Rolling to his knees, Peter
clapped his hands to his head. “Get out, Chris. Pl-please. Before he
s-sees, before he really
nuh-knows
you. Let th-them take you b-back .
. . s-save yourself, save . . .”
“No.” Maybe it was because of his pain, or Peter’s terror and his
certainty that when and if they met again, things would be very different—or perhaps it was because Jess had sent him from Rule to find
his way—that now Chris chose a different path. Clasping the back of
Peter’s neck, he pulled his friend close and held him fast. “No, Peter,
I won’t.”
“Ch-Chris,
don’t
!” Peter’s eyes brimmed, and Chris saw their true
color beginning to bleed. Peter’s hands clung to Chris’s forearms.
“Don’t touch me. You have to—”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Chris heard his voice break, felt the
tears on his cheeks. “I’m going to save us, Peter. I’m going to save us
both.”
Then the black tide swept through and carried him away.

“Listen to me. I’ve seen this man. I’ve seen those Chuckies . . . the
Changed? The ones he’s altered. I know what they have and what they
can do.” Tom pointed to the Uzi as well as the contents of the pack
he’d spilled onto the table of the hospice conference room. “Finn’s
well armed, well supplied, and he’s got troops you don’t. I guarantee
you won’t last an hour, much less a day. He’ll wipe you out, then take
the kids and call it even.”

“So you’re saying we just give up, let him run over us, and go
down without a fight?” Scowling, Jarvis tossed a dark look at the two
men—equally old and just as skeptical—who sat to either side of
him. “What the hell kind of soldier are you?”

“Hey, hey,” Kincaid rapped from his place to Chris’s left. “Are you
deaf, Jarvis? This boy’s trying to help us
save
what we can.”
“It’s okay,” Tom said, but Chris saw the splash of angry red
seep over Tom’s jaw. “You’re scared, you’re starving, things have
fallen apart here. I get that. You don’t know me and you certainly
don’t trust me, especially when I show up with your Public Enemy
Number One.” Tom tilted his head toward Chris. “I get that, too. But
you won’t win this fight.”
“We have the right to defend ourselves,” Jarvis said.
“No one’s questioning that. But you have to decide what you’re
truly defending.”
“Hell’s that mean?”
“It means that we’re not talking about fighting for
Rule
,” Chris
rasped, and winced. After four hours, all he could manage was a
harsh whisper through a throat that felt as if he’d swallowed razor
blades. What freaked him out was when he’d glanced in a mirror. A
blood-encrusted, blue-black bruise circled his throat like a dog collar.
The whites of his eyes were awash in red hemorrhage from broken
capillaries, and nearly as bloodred as what he’d seen in his dream
of Peter. Breathing hurt, the muscles grabbing with every inhale,
and two cracked ribs complained, although Kincaid said busted ribs
would’ve hurt ten times worse:
You’re just damned lucky that boy knows
battlefield medicine.
Lucky for him, Tom was very strong, too. After
Chris’s heart started up and he was breathing again, Tom had simply scooped Chris up, hustled them all to the perimeter guards, and
promptly surrendered.
Although Jayden said there’d been a moment after they’d killed
the girl with the corn knife when Tom had . . . hesitated:
When I said
your name, you could see it in Tom’s face, how surprised he was to find out
who you were, and . . . it was so weird. Tom was
angry
. Like he already
knew something about you, and
hated
your guts. If Ellie hadn’t asked him
what was wrong . . .
Jayden hadn’t said the rest, but his meaning was clear. Which made
Chris wonder just what the hell Weller had said to Tom. He hadn’t
had the time to find out. For the moment at least, Tom seemed to
have swallowed his rage at Chris in favor of working together and
getting these old men to listen to reason.
“We’re talking about defending the kids.” At his tone, his black
shepherd, Jet, pushed his snout into Chris’s thigh and chuffed. Chris
had been so happy to see that dog, he’d nearly bawled. “That’s the
only fight left,” Chris said, scratching the big dog’s ruff.
“We know that,” Jarvis said. “Keep those bastards out of here.”
“No.” From his seat on Chris’s right, Jayden spoke up for the first
time. “That’s not what Tom is saying. You’re not listening. If Tom
is right, you might as well throw the bullets. No, better yet . . . lob
spitballs and shoot
yourselves
in the foot. Better use of the bullets.”
“I’m not asking for your opinion,” Jarvis began.
“You want to yell, yell at me,” Tom said patiently. “I know you
have no reason to trust me, but please
listen
. This all makes sense,
especially when you take into consideration what Weller’s motives
might’ve been, and that picture of him and Finn. Blowing the mine
ought to have sent the Changed your way because so many are from
Rule. They’re your grandchildren, and their friends. But they haven’t
showed.”
“That doesn’t mean they’ve been rounded up. A few
have
returned.”
Smoothing a hand over a rumpled gray checked shirt, Yeager pulled
himself a little straighter, but his chest had caved in; his sallow cheeks
were sunken; the canny, once bird-bright eyes were now dull and hollow. “After that business with Ben Stiemke, we discovered and killed
four more, but that’s all.”
“All that we found.” Thin, bloody fluid dribbled onto Jarvis’s chin
from ugly scores on either side of his mouth. Smearing the mess
away with the heel of a hand, he peeked and then ran his hand over
a pant leg. “But now there’s the two you shot, and that girl with the
corn knife and the . . .” He tapped his cheek. “I might’ve seen her
around town before.”
“Claire Krueger.” Once so bluff and round, Ernst looked like the
Michelin tire guy with all the air let out. “She wasn’t from Rule, but
in the same year of high school as Ben.”
“So who the hell knows how long they’ve been hunkered down
there?” Jarvis said. “We pulled at least five bodies from that crawl
space, and we’ve got about a dozen missing in the past couple weeks,
not counting the Landrys themselves. They disappeared day after
that . . .” Jarvis shot a sidelong glance at the Council, then quickly
looked away, the small muscles in his jaw clenching. “That
thing
with
Ben Stiemke. Honestly, we thought people were sneaking out. Can’t
blame them. Tell the truth, we haven’t been working real hard to
keep people who want to leave. So if that’s all that’s come out of the
mine collapse, it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
“But it’s
not
all,” Chris said in his husky, rough voice. He sounded
like a chain smoker. “That’s what Tom is
saying
.”
“There were a
lot
of kids in that mine, a couple hundred at least,
and more moving in and out,” Tom said. “What Weller didn’t know
was that Finn
needed
me to blow the mine to make it easier for his
people to hunt them down, like herding cattle or buffalo. If only a
couple have shown their faces here, I bet he’s rounded up quite a few,
and if he’s doing to
them
what I’ve seen in those altered Changed? You
don’t stand a chance, and neither do the children.”
“You saying he’d kill kids?” Jarvis asked. “Shoot ’em, or feed ’em
to his Changed?”
“No. The kids are valuable, but for different reasons.” Chris had
kept the details of his . . . dream? vision? out-of-body experience? . . .
to himself. “He’d experiment on them.”
Tom nodded. “I think that’s why Mellie was gathering kids. This
was never about raising an army to march on Rule. It was about finding guinea pigs, experimental subjects. Finn probably wants to see
what happens to normal kids, or those he can catch in the process
of Changing. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think Finn’s
camp was always relatively close by, too. It’s the only thing that explains
why Mellie fought so hard to keep us there
and
why the Changed
never attacked. Finn protected the camp. He probably deployed men
to guard our perimeter, especially once the mine was gone.”
“Okay. Let’s say you’re right. But . . . run?” Jarvis was shaking his
head. “We’re barely holding on now. There aren’t enough supplies to
go around for everybody.”
“Who said anything about everybody?” Chris said, hoarsely. His
words hung there, and Chris was content to let them. Of all the
assembled men, Chris thought that, from the sudden narrowing of
his eyes, only his grandfather had any inkling of what they were proposing.
“But . . .” Jarvis turned a blank stare around the room. “But if we
can’t fight and win . . .”
“He means the children.” Yeager’s gaze seemed to have regained
some of its peculiar clarity. “And
only
the children.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can leave Rule, or you can stay. But
we
take the kids, not you.
You can’t come with us,” Chris said. “You can’t follow or try to find
us either.”
“What?”
Jarvis spluttered. “That . . . that’s crazy! You’d leave us
here to
die
?”
“No. If most of you want to leave, go,” Chris said. “I think you
should get out of here.”
“Get out?” Blue veins swelled on Jarvis’s temples.
“Most?”
“Some
have
to stay behind,” Tom said, quietly. “If you don’t put
on a show, Finn will know you’ve been warned. You have to buy the
kids time to get out.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You just said we shouldn’t fight.”
“What I meant is it has to be the right fight for the right reason
and at the right time,” Tom said. “You’ve gathered children, some
by force and others not. You’ve told yourselves that it’s for their benefit. But a prison is not a home. Hanging on to these children serves
no other purpose now but yours. They have the right to their lives.
Please.” Tom looked at Jarvis and then the other men in turn. “Let
Jayden and Chris take them someplace safer.”
“No place is truly safe,” Yeager said.
“But it will be better than here,” Chris said. “We’re asking for
enough supplies and wagons to get the kids north, that’s all. Say, four
days, five.”
“That’ll clean us out,” Jarvis said. “All we’ll have will be a couple
sticks of Juicy Fruit.”
“If that’s true, then you’re already done,” Tom said. “You’ve got
too many mouths and not enough resources. If you can even find
seed to plant, it’ll be months before a harvest. Read some history.
This is the Starving Time in Jamestown. The only thing you haven’t
done yet is eat your dead.”
Jarvis was stony. “It would never come to that.”
“No one thought the world would end either,” Kincaid said.
“Jarvis, for God’s sake . . .”
“Kincaid, I can’t just
decide
. We got to put this to a vote. Get the
village together . . .”
“You can’t,” Tom said. “You don’t have that kind of time, and
people will discuss this to death. They’ll panic, and you don’t have the
manpower to control a mob scene. Once it’s done and comes down
to a very simple choice—leave or stay—you’ll have a much better
chance of keeping people calm and maybe saving a few more lives. If
I’m right, Finn is a half day behind me, but maybe a lot less. He’s got
the full moon working for him, too, which means he can move in and
be ready to storm this place by dawn.”
“Lenten Moon,” Yeager put in. “The last full moon of winter.
Appropriate, given our situation.”
The sun will be turned to darkness,
and the moon to blood
. He lifted his hands in apology. “Joel. Also apt,
considering the earthquake. The boy is right, Jarvis. You wanted a seat
on the Council? Well, you
are
the Council now. Make a decision and
beg for forgiveness later, but for our Lord’s sake, make the right one.”
“My God.” Jarvis stared down at the table for a long moment, then
nodded at something he saw there and looked up at Chris. “I heard
what you said about the adults, but take Kincaid.”
The doctor stirred. “Jarvis, I’m not asking for—”
“The kids will need him. He’s probably the only adult here you
can really trust.” Jarvis’s eyes shifted to Jayden. “He’s taken good care
of your sick before, and he’s damned stubborn when it counts.”
Privately, Chris had hoped they might convince Kincaid. Now he
and Jayden looked at each other, and then Jayden turned to Kincaid.
“Would you come?” Jayden asked. “We’d like that.”
“I—” Kincaid’s throat clicked in a dry swallow, and then he nodded. “Got to take care of a couple things, but . . . okay.”
“Then you need to get moving,” Tom said. “Pack up the children,
get your supplies together, and get out now. There’s barely enough
time as it is.”
“And what do we do once you’re gone?” Jarvis asked.
“I’m not leaving,” Tom said. “Not yet.”
“What?” Chris heard the word drop out of his mouth. Beside him,
Jayden said, “Tom, you can’t—”
“Yes, I can,” Tom said, still looking at Jarvis. “You have your kids,
and Finn’s got mine. I can’t leave, not while there’s still a chance I can
do something to help them.”
“Finn wouldn’t
bring
them,” Chris said.
“Not in the front lines. Chances are they’re in the rear, three, four
miles back. There won’t be another or better opportunity to get
them. Just have to keep Finn focused on Rule.”
“So how do we do that?” Jarvis asked. “Scream and run around
like chickens?”
“No. Finn’s coming from the south. You have to mount a defense
or put up a barricade . . . maybe an abatis . . .”
“What?”
“Trees. Cut them down so all the limbs face the enemy. Not only
will your people have cover, but it will be much harder for Finn’s men
to get through. They’ll have to go around. An obstacle like that will
also keep him looking at Rule, not his rear.”
Jarvis glanced at the other men, who nodded. “We can do that for
you,” Jarvis said.
“Good. Then pick your men, Jarvis, the ones you can count on
not to run at the first shot,” Tom said, “and buy me some time to get
my kids.”