Nightfall (14 page)

Jenna put a hand on Angela's forearm. “She's probably just—”

“I shouldn't have been drinking. I try to unwind a little and then this happens!”

“Nothing happened,” Mason said too loudly. “She's fine. Let's get her back to sleep.”

Not that sleep was likely.

Angela wiped her nose and swished tears from her cheeks. Her freckled skin had flushed pink from crying, and her red hair was disheveled. She knelt on the ground in front of Tru. “Penny, honey? Come to Mama. We'll go back to bed, 'kay? You can sleep with me.”

She took hold of Penny's upper arms, but the girl flinched and dug deeper into her burrow. Through it all, Tru's face stayed frozen with that same dumbfounded look.

“Penny, c'mon now, baby.” Ange gave another tug, but the girl wasn't going anywhere. “Time to come to bed.”

Mason pulled her up again, this time with less force. The woman was obviously hurting, with her only child acting in a way they couldn't understand. But just because he understood didn't mean he knew how to fix it. Which made the whole concept of empathy useless. And frustrating.

Jenna rescued him from the crying woman. She looped an arm around Angela and hugged her while sitting on the bunk. Apparently sharing a drink meant they were best friends.

“Maybe we should just leave her where she feels comfortable,” Jenna said, her tone conciliatory. “She's had such a tough time of it. If she feels safe with Tru ...”

The kid squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh
God
—”

“Zip it,” Mason said to him.

“But she's
mine
,” Ange said. “I'm the one who's been there for her, her whole life. I love her. Why won't she—”

Penny moved, removing her finger from her mouth.

“What was that?” Tru asked quietly.

Mason watched as the girl cupped a hand to the kid's ear. Tru listened with impressive gravity.

Ange leaned in. “What did she say? Tru, please.”

Mason watched too. The hairs on his forearms twitched and stood, goose bumps peppering him all over. He shivered, knowing it wasn't pain making him jittery. The air hummed with electricity, the push of a storm over the land. Behind his eyes, he caught something new. Another vision.

A triangle of light spread across the horizon and ripped it in two. Colors burst to life, raining ash over the charred landscape. It had something to do with these two, something they needed to do. Not now, certainly. They were just kids.

But someday.

The picture faded, and his body jerked. A migraine drilled his temples as he sunk to the floor. Though his eyes were open, he saw nothing but black.

Only when Jenna touched him did his vision begin to clear. “Mason, you all right?”

“Did you see it too? What was that?”

She stilled, both hands clutching the caps of his shoulders.

“I don't know,” she whispered, eyes wide. “Like the sky was splitting open.”

Before the others could question, he asked Tru, “Did she talk to you?”

The kid's expression remained intent and oddly humble. “Yeah.”

“What did she say?” Ange demanded.

“Um, it doesn't make any sense.” Tru shrugged. “She wants to know if we'll have Christmas now.”

Mason frowned. So did Jenna and Angela, trading their confusion like bread recipes.

I've never baked in my life
, came Jenna's voice in his head.

That interference was back, her brainwaves scrambling with his. A bad radio signal, two songs overlapping. The room felt like a cell, and he was locked in with the lunatics. Or them with him.

“Penny.” Angela knelt wearing her patient-mom face. “It's not Christmas yet, baby. Not yet.”

Just that blank stare. It was the oddest thing Mason had ever seen, as if the only voice she could hear belonged to a black-haired, blueeyed boy with a bad attitude.

“Tru,” Jenna said softly. “Talk to her. Please.”

The kid swallowed his obvious discomfort. Again. “Hey, Pen.” He brushed the hair from her face and offered a smile. Not a sham. Just friendliness. “We got some time left until Christmas, so that means we have to be good, okay?”

She whispered in his ear.

Tru frowned. “You think so? We'll have to check. You and me, huh, Pen? We'll go check.”

The intercom buzzed. Angela yelped. Jenna muttered a curse under her breath.

“Hey, where is everyone?” Welsh called. “You should get up here and see this.”

“Hold on,” Mason answered, looking at the kid. He just knew these two things were related—whatever the scientist wanted them to see and what Penny had whispered. “Tru?”

“She thinks it's Christmas because of the snow. Asked if we can make snowmen.”

“Snow?” Mason repeated.

“That's why I rang,” Welsh said. “Come and see. It's gorgeous.”

Jenna was standing at the window when Tru came up beside her. In another life, they'd be out there making snow angels with the kids, but they couldn't spare the energy for play. And the woods were alive with monsters.

At the next set of panes, Penny watched with her mother. They'd all come upstairs to see the first sign of winter blanketing the earth. Everything was white and still, dark boughs spattered with ice, all spangled with crystal. Jenna could almost forget Bob's hellish death when they'd reached this sanctuary, almost forget what the pristine whiteness hid.

Almost.

Although she wouldn't mind eating some aspirin, she felt better for her indulgence. Nothing besides sex helped her relax more than drinking, and Mason's prickly demeanor meant a casual fling was off the menu. Sleep wouldn't hurt. She had no idea what time it was, but her stomach grumbled.

“She had a bad dream,” Tru said.

“That was why she screamed?”

The kid nodded. “She wouldn't tell me how she got into our room, though. I guess maybe Mason and me were just sleeping deeper than we realized.”

“It was a hell of a day.”

“Sure was.”

“You like it?” She gestured at the icy flakes.

“‘ The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain,'” Tru murmured. “‘ It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls ...'”

She glanced at him, her eyebrows raised. “Did you write that?”

“No.” His tone said she was an idiot for asking. “Conrad Aiken.
The House of Dust.
No? Jesus, the guy only won a Pulitzer. He had a seriously fucked-up home life too. His dad killed his mom, shot himself, then left him to find the bodies. Eleven years old.”

Well, that explained Tru's interest, a macabre at-least-I'm-better-off-than-that kind of therapy. But she wouldn't let herself be baited. She turned back toward the snow. With a huff of disgust, the kid took off to talk to Chris.

Mason came up on her other side. He radiated heat that she detected on a radar that didn't apply to anyone else. She might recognize Ange by her tread or Penny by her odd quietness, but Mason was the only one she could ID based on how her skin prickled to life.

“We made it,” he said. “We just have to hunker down until spring. And maybe we'll have a real shot at this.”

“How does this help us?”

“Like I said, demon dogs don't like the cold. They should turn their attention to survival, not us.”

Maybe that explained his quiet sense of contentment. “So we'll have some time to rest and recover before the battle begins again.” She glanced at the bulge of bandages beneath his shirt. “Some of us need it more than others.”

“Funny.”

An odd surety came over her as she watched his profile for a minute longer. “You're ... surprised, aren't you? You didn't think we'd last this long.”

His voice rumbled in that delicious bass, so distracting that she found it hard to focus on his words. “Honestly? No. Especially not after we picked up the dead weight. I thought taking in these strays would be the death of us both.”

“We lost a couple.” Maybe he could be casual about it, but she refused.

“There was no saving the woman,” he said, his voice hard. “And Bob was too tired.”

She managed an ironic smile. “Culling the herd. Isn't that what they call it?”

“Something like that.”

Because he looked so weary and worn, she couldn't work up enough indignation to argue. Maybe he believed what he said, all the way to the bone. Sharp words from her would just waste her energy, and nothing would change his mind.

“Is anyone hungry?” Jenna asked the room.

To her surprise, Penny gave her a long look and a very brief nod. It wasn't speech, but it was communication. That had to be a good thing. Ange responded with a smile, stroking her daughter's hair.

“So, Chris, where's what passes for the kitchen in this place?”

“There's the break area.” He beckoned her toward the door and led her down the top-floor hallway. Chris had long legs, and she worked to keep up with his efficient strides. He waved a hand at two conference rooms. “We used these for presenting our findings and slideshows from time in the field.”

“You had the whole station. Why hunker down in the basement?”

“Didn't like all the windows.”

Jenna shuddered. She could imagine all too easily one of those monsters taking a running start and launching itself through the glass.

Chris pushed open the swinging galley-style door and flicked on the light. He nudged up his wire-rimmed specs and leaned against the doorframe, but even that casual pose wasn't casual. More like how he thought grown men acted relaxed. Despite their differences, in some ways he reminded her of Mason—only barely fitting in with real people.

“This is it,” he said. “Where I used to zap all my ramen noodles.”

Shit. No stove. No oven. Just a useless microwave, a fridge, and a coffeemaker surrounded by vinyl chairs and scarred lounge tables. As far as cooking was concerned, she could have done better in the cabin. She tried not to think about all the fresh bread she could have made.

“Here,” Chris said, pointing to the kitchenette's far corner. “I juryrigged this propane grill so that it vents out through the roof. Just use as little fuel as you can. And it can get hot in here if you let it run too long.”

“Nothing fancy, then.”

“Afraid not.”

“Where are the supplies?”

“Some in here, but the rest is downstairs in the main storage closet.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We stocked up on canned goods every fall, in case we'd get snowed in. Um, do you need any help?”

“No, I'm fine.”

“Great,” he said, his relief obvious.

She nodded and backtracked to the stairs leading to the bunker—the bunker with the broken door. They seriously needed to do something about that. She wanted more metal between her and those things, a secure fallback position.

Damn, she was starting to think like Mason.

In the storage closet, she found potted meat, cases of canned peas and potatoes, and endless boxes of macaroni and cheese—enough to make a meal.

Making the casserole, however, took some ingenuity. She cooked the pasta on the propane grill, combined it in a big plastic bowl, and dumped in the peas. She flash-grilled the meat until it was slightly brown on the outside, then tossed it in with the pasta.

All she found was plastic tableware and reusable plastic picnic plates, but that would work as well as any. With a sigh, she took in the less-than-inviting picture the meal presented on the round break table.

Well, whatever kept the body together.

“Food's on!” she called. “You guys probably don't want to eat this when it's cold.”

“That doesn't smell bad,” Tru said as he slunk in.

She flashed him a smile and wasn't surprised when Mason was the last to arrive. “I hope nobody's a vegetarian.”

“You'd think I would be,” Chris said, seating himself. “But no. I like the way meat tastes.”

Ange watched him for an extra heartbeat than was necessary, her expression almost wistful. She shook free and helped Penny into her chair. “Me too. I went through a vegetarian phase, fueled by animalrights activism, and then I'd get this mondo craving for a cheeseburger.” She shook her head. “I'm such a hypocrite.”

“It's natural.” Chris smiled. “We have canine teeth for a reason.”

Ange took up her fork, shaking her head. “Don't mention teeth.”

“Here you go,” Jenna said, handing the bowl to her right. “Penny needs to eat.”

“Thanks.” The other woman nodded as she scooped some of the casserole. Penny looked none too convinced of its merits, an expression just short of emotion. It was progress. “You like mac and cheese, right, honey? This is good stuff.”

That's a stretch
,
but it'll suffice.

Tru grabbed his share next and stared at his plate, his expression hard to read. When he caught Jenna studying him, he grinned. “You're not gonna make me say grace while we're doing this family thing?”

“Nah,” she said, carefully casual.

She figured him out then, his shy aggression and confusion. Only at the end of the world did somebody cook for him. And she ached a little over it, even as she puzzled at the insight. These days, she knew too much without understanding why. Hopefully, she'd have a chance to examine her ability to communicate with Mason, and the odd, almost prophetic vision they'd shared.