Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (59 page)

time before a people-eater wrested away the Savage or another got
in under a swing.
Slow down, slow down; pick a target; you’ll get tired
and then they’ll get you.
She forced herself to wait, let the dogs protect
her. Jet and Ghost, the largest, stood hip to hip, snapping whenever a
people-eater got close. Crowding to the front, Mina was pressing her
rump against Ellie to herd her back, except the little white-haired girl
was cowering behind Ellie’s legs. Caught in a sandwich of dog and
little girl, Ellie felt her balance start to go.
No, no!
If she fell, she might
not be able to get back up in time.

“Mina,
hold
!” She could barely hear herself over the din: screaming kids and barking dogs and braying horses. Shots spackled and
popped as the very few kids with guns fired. But they had no room to
maneuver, and their aim was wild.

In Jayden’s wagon, a people-eater, bat in hand, vaulted onto the
driver’s box. Jayden ducked as the bat whizzed. Long gun socked to his
shoulder, the doctor with the eye patch bellowed something—maybe
stay down
or
don’t move
—and then a spume of bright yellow muzzle
flash leapt. The people-eater’s arms shot out in a surprised way, like
Wile E. Coyote, and tumbled off. At the rear, two more people-eaters,
all arms and legs and clubs, scrambled onto the flatbed. One launched
itself into shrieking children like a diver from a high platform. As the
golden retriever, Daisy, and three other dogs converged, kids spilled
over the sides of the wagon: their only move, and a terrible one, like
buffalo being driven from a cliff.

Where are the guys on the horses, Aidan and Sam, where are they?
A scream, far back. Ellie whipped around. Greg’s horse was trying
to spin free from the four people-eaters grabbing at Greg’s legs and
the reins. Three more swarmed onto the driver’s box of the third
wagon. The driver, a girl with a long brown braid down to her waist,
shrieked again as a lanky boy, with a duster like Neo’s in
The Matrix
,
whipped the braid around the girl’s neck. Bucking, eyes buggy, the
girl heaved and flopped like a fish slowly suffocating in the bottom of
a boat. Balling a fist, the Neo Kid smashed the girl’s face as a second
people-eater, a ratty boy in fire-engine-red snow pants, leapt onto the
thrashing girl. His head darted for her neck like a scorpion stabbing
its stinger. Blood spewed; Rat Boy came up with a chunk of meat in
his mouth. Bawling, the wagon’s horse reared in a clash of hooves
and spurted forward.
The wagon did Greg a favor, and them none. As the wagon hurtled
on, the people-eaters clinging to Greg’s horse scattered; one scrawny
kid slipped with a shriek that cut out as a wheel sliced his gut. Greg’s
horse danced away onto a narrow ribbon of road along the tree line.
Hunkered low on the animal’s withers, Greg ducked as low-lying
branches whirred over his head. Still on the driver’s box, Neo Kid and
Rat Boy staggered, then turned as the distance between them and
Ellie’s wagon dwindled.
Watching the horse charge and the wagon swell, Ellie had six seconds: one to be paralyzed; two to understand that a collision was
inevitable and that either the horse would stampede its way onto
their flatbed or come to a sudden screeching stop, catapulting Neo
Kid and Rat Boy into their wagon, where the two would find not only
dogs to fight but lots of new things to eat. In the last three seconds,
Ellie knew she’d better do something, or she was a goner.
“Mina,
release
! Out of the wagon!” Snatching the white-haired
girl’s hand, Ellie took the width of the flatbed in two huge strides.
“Get out get out
get out
!”

The village square was completely empty. Racing past the gazebo,
Tom and Chris pulled up at the northwest corner between the village
hall and church. Dismounting before the dun mare had come to a
complete stop, Tom snatched Night’s reins before Chris could swing
down.

“No.” Tom’s face was pinched. Clutching his wounded, still-oozing thigh just above the protruding bit of metal, he said, hoarsely,
“Not you.”

“What? No, I’m fine now.” From the open doors of the church
came the rise and fall of a hymn, but the bell was silent. “You shouldn’t
climb with that leg. I’ll take the bell tower, you do the jail, and—”

“No.” Tom backhanded sweat from a glassy upper lip. “You can’t
be part of this.”
“What?” Despite Tom’s admonition, Chris dismounted. “Tom,
what are you doing?”
“Someone has to stay behind,” Tom said. “We both know that.”
“No, I don’t
know
that.” He grabbed Tom’s shoulders. “Are you
crazy
? They’ll
be
here. The bombs are on
timers
, for God’s sake. So
why
?”
“Because if something goes wrong, I’m the only one who knows
what to do.”
“
Tom
. If you stay, you’ll die. They’ll catch you.”
“They won’t. I’ll stay out of sight. Babysit those honeys until the
last second.” Tom laid a hand over one of his. “Chris, please, there’s
no time. Don’t make this harder for both of us. If the bombs don’t
blow, all this will be wasted. Those people in that church will die for
nothing.”
“They’ll die anyway.” His eyes were starting to sting. “They made
their choice.”
“And this is mine. Chris, I
have
to. This way, I buy you time. We
stop Finn’s Changed. We stop Finn. Then the children, yours and
mine, will be safe.”
“We don’t know if we got yours yet. If we didn’t—”
“Then we tried. If you can, you find them. Look, we both know
the threat doesn’t end here. There are way more Changed than us.
But this way, you guys have a chance.”
“Please, Tom.” His eyes brimmed. “You saved my life,
twice
.
Please,
please
, don’t stay here. Set the bombs and come with me.”
“I can’t, Chris.” Tom cupped the back of Chris’s neck. “Come on,
man, please. This is hard enough. Believe me, I don’t want to die.
There’s Ellie, and Alex is still out there, I feel it; I should never have
lost faith, because she’s strong; she won’t quit. But I
have
to do this
for my people—”
From the north, and not far away at all, in fact, there came the
faint but unmistakable sputter and spackle of gunfire.
“Oh God.” Chris felt his heart seize. “Tom, that’s got to be the
wagons.”
“
More
Changed? But how?” Tom’s skin was whiter than bone.
“Finn’s south.”
“I don’t know, but we got to go. Come on!” When Tom didn’t
move, Chris clutched his arm. “Tom, they
need
us!”
“Chris, I . . . I can’t. Damn it, I . . .” Shrugging off the Uzi’s carry
strap, Tom threw the bolt, then clicked the safety and thrust out the
weapon. “Selector switch,” Tom said, pointing. “One- or three-shot
bursts. For God’s sake, don’t go full auto or you’ll be dry in four
seconds.”
“Tom, no, I can’t—”
“Yes, Chris, you can. You have to, just like I have to stay. There’s no
other way. You can do this.” Tom was slapping two spare mags into
Chris’s hands. “Keep count, pick your shots, be careful, don’t lose
your head. You got forty rounds in each clip and there are thirty-one
left in the mag you got, one in the chamber already. You have plenty
of firepower, and you’re silenced. Huge advantage. They won’t know
you’re there until you’re on top of them. The kids are close, Chris.
You can be there in minutes if you move fast, but you have to leave
right now.”
“But Tom, the kids, they need help—”
“Don’t you think I
know
that?” Tom grabbed Chris and shook him.
His strange and smoky blue eyes blazed with fury and frustration.
The cords, taut as steel, stood in his neck. “Don’t you know this is
killing
me?
Ellie
is out there, but Finn is going to
be
here, and there is
no choice and we are out of
time
! Now, stop arguing and
go
before it’s
too
late
!”
He knew he had to do it. “Goddamn you,” Chris said. Instead of
batting Tom’s hand away, he pulled Tom into a fast and ferocious
hug. Then, without another word, he broke away and charged for
Night, flinging himself up onto the saddle. He cut one last look: not
at Rule but Tom, so strong and ready to sacrifice it all because, when
there was no other way, that’s what you did to keep your people safe.
“Go, Chris,” Tom said.
Kicking Night to a gallop, Chris spun his horse and thundered
away.

The charging wagon was three seconds away . . . and now the peopleeaters milling around theirs saw the danger, broke, fell back . . . and
then there were two seconds and the animals were spilling out . . .

Not pausing to see if anyone followed, Ellie planted her right boot,
then flung herself and the white-haired girl in a high and long arc.
The little girl was shrieking, the sound sharp as a nail. Ellie landed
with a solid thump. The little girl barreled into her a second later,
driving Ellie’s chin into the ground. Her mouth fired with a dart of
red pain.

There was a huge, splintering crash as the out-of-control horse
slammed into the back end of their flatbed. Gasping, blood on her
tongue, Ellie craned back. Braying, the horse clattered sideways,
trying to work its way around the stalled wagon. Shrieking children
foamed over the sides. Something shifted in the supply wagon, or
perhaps an axle snagged, because all of a sudden the wagon tipped,
dragging down the thrashing horse. Cardboard boxes and packs
tumbled out. Many burst, and then people-eaters, who’d scattered
just before the collision, closed ranks. As Mina bolted to her side,
Jet, Ghost, and four other dogs boiled around the other kids, snarling and snapping, trying to keep the people-eaters at bay. Only Sarah
remained on the now-empty wagon, still clinging to the driver’s box,
a curtain of hair over her face, empty pistol in one hand.

“Sarah!” Sweeping up her Savage, Ellie scrambled to her feet.
“Sarah, get off the wagon, come
on
!”
Dazed, the older girl pulled her head around as if swimming
through a sticky dream and then half jumped, half fell from the driver’s box. A gangly, bucktoothed people-eater swooped in from the left
and closed fast. Sarah saw it coming and froze.
“No, Sarah, don’t stop! Keep running!” Ellie screamed. “Keep—”
From her right came the crack of a shot. A scarlet blossom flowered over Bucktooth’s back. The people-eater crashed to the road in
a spectacular belly flop a foot shy of where Sarah still cringed. Greg
dashed from the trees, on foot, three kids in tow: “Sarah, grab the
kids, grab the kids! Get behind the dogs!”
Part of Ellie wanted to go back to the older kids, to Greg and
Jayden. But right now, she and the white-haired girl hadn’t been
noticed, and that would change. Even with Mina, they were too
exposed. But she remembered how quickly Lucian had been lost
from sight.
Get far enough, fast enough, and hide until Tom and Chris
get here.
The wagons hadn’t made great time, and that meant they
weren’t
that
far from Rule. So Tom would hear the shots, and he’d
come
really
fast. She wouldn’t have to hide for very long.
“Come on,” she said to the white-haired girl, still sprawled on the
ground.
“But my dolly!” The little white-haired girl was bawling. From the
ruby smear on her lower lip, she must’ve bitten her tongue, too. “My
dolly, I lost my doll!”
“Forget the stupid doll! Mina!” Slinging the Savage’s carry strap
on her shoulder, Ellie wheeled and tugged the little girl along in a
stumbling run through spare snow. There was no clear path; she
was bushwhacking through dense undergrowth that snagged and
grabbed at her legs. The little girl was stumbling and gasping, “Wait,
wait, wait,” but Ellie didn’t slow down, didn’t reply, just kept on

going. Spiky branches whipped her cheeks and stung her forehead,
snarled in her hair. Mina had pulled ahead by several paces, and Ellie
followed her dog, thrashing through briary brush still crinkly with
ice. She didn’t like that she was making so much noise. If they could
get somewhere safe and hide . . . Behind were shouts and gunshots
and braying horses, but the sounds were fast diminishing, as noise
always died in dense forest. She would have to be careful not to lose
the road entirely, because Tom and Chris would eventually come. If
they could. If those explosions didn’t mean that they—

Stop it, Ellie, stop it.
Putting up one arm to protect her eyes, Ellie
put her head down and plowed through, forcing a way where none
existed.
Tom will come. So will Chris. Jayden is already here, and so is Greg.
All you have to do is hide.

“Ah!” The little girl let out a pained cry. “Stop,
stop
! I’m stuck, I’m
stuck
!”
“Quiet!” Ellie hissed.
Only
people
talk, you dummy; you want someone to hear?
Impatient and scared out of her wits, Ellie saw that the
twisted fingers of thorny brambles clutched the little girl’s hair at the
crown in a dense tangle. “Okay, hang on,” Ellie muttered, unlimbering the Savage. “Just hold still.”
“Owow
ow
!” the white-haired girl complained as Ellie fussed with
the snarl. Squinting, the girl bared her teeth. “That
hurts
!”
“Well, it’s really
tangled
,” Ellie said, so beside herself with fear,
she thought about just
going
already. Wincing against the sting of
thorns, she fumbled over the ratty tangle. She glanced at her dog.
Ears perked, mouth closed, nostrils flared—but no real alert. That
was good. But this stupid tangle just wouldn’t
come.
Tugging her
Leek from her pocket, she snicked the silver-gray serrated blade in
place with her thumb.
The little girl’s eyes were saucers. “What are you
doing
?”
“I’m cutting it.”
“Why?
No.
”
Ellie opened her mouth to yell, then said, “I’m Ellie. What’s your
name?”
“Debbie?” The girl’s chin was quivering again. “My daddy called
me Dee.”
“Dee, I can’t get your hair untangled.” Another crackle of brush
from somewhere behind, but the sound was fleeting and she was
focused on Dee, besides. “I have to cut it, or we rip it. Ripping will
hurt. Cutting won’t.”
“Nooo,”
Dee said, blue eyes pooling again. “It’s my
hair
.”
Just do it.
Slipping the Leek’s serrated edge under a gnarled clot of
the girl’s hair, she sawed. “It’ll grow back.”
“But, but . . .” Dee kept squirming. “Can’t you just chop the
branches?”
“
No
, I can’t.” She was going to stab this kid if she didn’t quit it.
“Stop moving. Just this last little—” Ellie’s insides went as still as she’d
wanted Dee to be as Mina went . . .
huff.
Oh boy.
Mina wasn’t looking the way they’d come either, but the
way
ahead
, where they wanted to go. Behind her. At her back.
“What?” Dee said when Ellie froze. “What is—”
“Shh!” Nerves clanging, Ellie bent, got her Savage, and slowly
straightened. When she shifted, a spiky pine bough broke with a
crispy crinkle. Mina’s ears only twitched. Her dog didn’t break stance
to look at her at all.
“Oh.” It was Dee, and Ellie recognized the tone from when the
girl had warned them in the wagon:
Hey. Hey. Everybody.
Ellie turned—and what wove through the trees turned her guts to
shivery Jell-O.
There was only one, but gosh, that was enough. The girl had
a dinged-up, rusty-looking aluminum bat, which meant she’d had
practice.
And the girl also had something else quite distinctive. As soon as
Ellie saw it, she understood, instantly, how all these people-eaters had
found them to begin with.