The Dead-Tossed Waves (27 page)

He moves so fast that it’s a blur. He grabs her, presses his fingers into her cheeks and pulls her around until she faces me. I stumble back and tighten my grip on the knife. My heart thrums, pounding hard in my head, and it’s difficult to catch my breath. Even though these Mudo aren’t supposed to infect I don’t trust it.

I don’t trust Elias.

The Mudo girl’s moans sweep through the air around us, her anguish something I can almost touch. “This is who we all really are,” he tells me. “This is all we’ll ever be. Shells. Meat. Existing.”

I stare at the girl. I think about my own blond hair, so similar to hers. I think of how plain I always felt it made me look. Of all the ways I tried to dress it up for Catcher. I wrap my arms over my chest and cup my sharp elbows. “I’m nothing like her,” I whisper.

I wait for him to tell me I’m right. That he could never think of me the way he thinks of the Mudo. But he says nothing, just draws the blade sharp and deep across the Mudo’s
throat, severing the spine. He lays her gently on the ground and kneels next to her.

The night goes back to what it was before and I glance over my shoulder across the bridge, wondering where Catcher is. Wondering if we’ve made the right decision to come this way. The trees on the other side of the river shiver and groan and I have to bite my lips to keep my teeth from chattering with fear.

Seeing Elias like that, everything about the past few moments, makes me anxious. I thought I was beginning to understand this boy. “You don’t really believe in all that Souler stuff, do you?” I ask him evenly. I want him to tell me no. I
need
him to tell me no.

He looks at me from the corner of his eye and sighs, sitting back on his heels. “I don’t know what to believe,” he says. His voice is so heavy, so sad, that I take a step closer to him.

“They’re dead,” I whisper. “They’re monsters. They only want to kill us and eat us and infect us.”

He shakes his head, reaches out a hand to touch the Mudo’s face but then pulls back. I cringe, horrified at anyone wanting to touch one of them, even one that’s dead. “Then what happens to who they were?” he asks.

“It’s gone. They’re just like anyone else who dies,” I tell him. I don’t want to think about the Mudo being anything but monsters. What would that mean? That there’s something left of who they are trapped in a body that wants only to consume us? That every time we kill a Mudo we’re killing a soul? I refuse to believe it.

“How can you know?” he asks simply.

“Because that’s the way it is,” I say, louder than I mean to. My shoulders tense. I don’t want to hear his argument, don’t want to think that there’s any way I could be wrong. If there’s
anything in this world that’s clear—that is black-and-white—it’s that the Mudo are dead. There’s nothing left of who they used to be.

Elias stands and walks over to me. “I just don’t know if it can be that easy,” he says.

Frustration blooms and spreads like a rash up my chest and neck. “They’re dead,” I say more firmly. “They get infected, they die and something causes them to stumble around. Something causes them to chase us. But it’s not them. When they die everything that used to be them is gone. It just …” I search for the right word. “It just disappears.”

“What about the Breakers?” he asks. “Why are they different just because there aren’t other Unconsecrated around when they turn? How do they know?”

“I don’t know—it’s just what happens,” I say, aggravated by his ability to twist my words. Around us the night hushes, holding its breath, and I purse my lips. I’m tired of this conversation, tired of Elias making me second-guess something I’ve known my entire life in the same way I’ve known that the tides would never fail.

“It’s the way it’s always been,” I tell him. “They die. That means they stop being who they were.”

“But what about people who die and come back to life who aren’t infected?” he asks. “People who drown and their heart stops and then it starts again. It happens—they die and come back. But they’re still the same person. They don’t lose anything from having died.”

I tug on my braid with exasperation, not understanding why he won’t let the discussion go. “That’s different. Those people who drown aren’t infected. If they were they’d come back Mudo. Probably Breakers if they turn underwater.”

“You really think it’s that simple?” he asks.

“Yes, it is,” I tell him, trying to squelch my own hesitation. “Infection leads to death. Death leads to Mudo. Mudo leads to hunger. It’s been that way since the Return and it’s the way it always will be.”

I turn to walk away from him, to go check on Cira, hoping he understands that I’m done talking to him. But I still hear his next question.

“Then what about Catcher?”

I stop, my back ramrod straight and my hand clutching my knife. I let my head fall back on my shoulders as I stare up at the night sky.

He walks closer to me, until I can almost feel him in the darkness. “He’s infected,” he says softly. “Are you saying he’s not the same person?”

My heart pounds in my chest, my mind circling over and over our conversation. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that nothing’s changed with Catcher. I want to be furious with Elias for twisting my words but I can’t. Because there’s no logic to the Return, to the Mudo. There’s never been a way to understand it.

“I hate you,” I tell him simply. Because right now that’s the only way to describe the way I’m being eaten inside, the pain that rips through me.

Elias reacts as if I’ve slapped him. I know I should take it back. I know I’ve gone too far and I’m just opening my mouth to apologize when another voice cuts in. Catcher steps off the edge of the bridge toward Cira and I wonder how long he’s been there. How much he’s seen and heard.

“I’ve found the path,” he says, his chest rising and falling as he struggles to catch his breath. “It’s not too far but we’re
going to have to run as fast as we can.” He kneels in front of Cira and pulls her into his arms.

I’m just walking over to him to help when I hear a new noise. This one is a deeper hum than the moan of the Mudo woman earlier. It takes me a moment to realize what it is: the braying of a dog. And then a man’s shout laces through it. It’s behind us, coming from the path that leads down to Vista. Through the trees I see a spark or two of light and I know they’re after us.

C
atcher doesn’t hesitate but jumps to his feet with Cira in his arms.

I can hear the rustling of leaves, of the men on the path closer and closer. I grip my knife tighter and stare across the bridge at the Forest. In my mind I know it’s our best hope but my body won’t move. It’s against everything I’ve ever been taught, everything I’ve ever known.

“She has fresh blood all over her. It won’t take long for the Unconsecrated to track us,” Elias says, nodding toward Catcher and Cira.

Catcher doesn’t stop, just walks across the bridge, the glow of the water underneath him highlighting his bare arms that grip his sister. “We’ll make it,” he says, and I wish I felt his confidence.

I look back over my shoulder. Maybe we could go downriver a bit, climb down the edge of the falls and cut back to the beach by the estuary. Maybe there’s another way we can hide
from the Militia and Recruiters. And that’s when the first dog bolts from the path, running toward us with teeth bared, and I know we’re out of choices.

The simmer of panic explodes. “Go!” I shout. “Run!” The old bridge sways under our weight and pounding feet as we sprint across it. In the gaps between the wooden planks the waterfall churns and roars, racing into the black emptiness below. I can almost feel the flames of the torches behind us as we reach the other side of the bridge, as Elias slams against the gate and struggles with the latch.

The old boards beneath us buck as more feet pound on it. Their shouts for us to stop sear up my spine and finally Elias shoves through the gate, swinging it open until it snaps wide against the fence. We pile through, slamming it shut behind us, and then we’re in the Forest.

We don’t stop. Catcher holds Cira tight as he races through the trees and brush. Elias and I follow, tripping over roots and fallen limbs. I glance back over my shoulder and see the men pausing at the fence. I see their mouths moving but I can’t hear their shouts.

Because all I can hear now are the moans. The Mudo have scented us. They know we’re here. And they’re coming for us. Closing in slowly around us, stumbling from the darkness.

At first I’m convinced we won’t make it. That we’ve just made the biggest mistake possible. Anything—being sent to the Recruiters, facing execution, being jailed—all of it would be better than this.

Anything would be better than being ripped apart by Mudo.

I hold my knife tight. At every leaf that turns in the blackness, at every twig that pops, I swing. Cold terror seeps
through my bones, tightens my muscles. In my head I’m just screaming pure panic, trying to swallow it back and focus on what needs doing. Trying to put one foot in front of the other. Not lose sight of Catcher since he’s the only one who knows where the path is.

As the ground rises sharply beneath me I stumble and trip, my hands skidding out in front of me. Elias calls out my name. Then he’s there by my side, hauling me to my feet. He pulls me behind him, twisting us through trees and brush. Thorns and vines tug at my face and hair and scratch my skin as I push forward.

Ahead of us Catcher is like a dim ghost, a figure barely perceptible in the darkness. I’m terrified to take my eyes off him again. Terrified I’ll lose sight of him and our only hope. I feel the Mudo around me, feel their moans against my ears. So far we’ve been able to outrun them but we can only sprint for so long.

The Mudo will catch up eventually. They always do.

And then something wrenches me back, causes my skirt to tangle and tighten around my legs. I go down hard, pivoting as I fall so that my hip slams the ground. Undead fingers pull at my hem. A Mudo without legs tries to haul himself closer. I kick at him. My heel rams into his arms and head again and again.

His fingers crumple but still hold tight to the folds of my skirt. I drag myself across the ground, trying to get away. Elias runs toward me and doesn’t even hesitate before driving his foot into the Mudo’s skull with a sickening crunch. At last the fingers relax. Elias hauls me to my feet. More arms and fingers grab for me in the darkness as I hold what’s left of the skirt close to my body.

Catcher shifts Cira in his arms and slows. I worry that maybe he’s gotten turned around, that maybe he’s lost and we’ll run in circles in this dark Forest until we can’t run anymore. Elias grips my arm and I pant as we stumble behind Catcher.

And then I see it: the gate hulking in the darkness, the bare edge of it gleaming in the rising moon. Hope shivers inside me but I’m afraid to reach for it, afraid that by hoping I’ll lose focus. Stretching away from the gate are fences bordering a narrow path. Vines twine through the links, absurd flowers blooming in the night.

Catcher tugs, the gate swings open and we race inside. The first Mudo hits the fence just as Catcher throws the latch behind us. I stumble backward from the force of the Mudo, from the sound of it wrenching itself against the metal. More and more join the first, tugging and pulling.

I turn in a circle, afraid that we might have just trapped ourselves in an even worse position. I stagger down the path a bit, holding my torn skirt close to my side so that I’m nowhere near the fences that line the trail. The grass is high and thick here but I see no signs of Mudo inside the path.

Outside, though, they twist and writhe against the old chain links. I make my way back to where Catcher and Elias stare through the gate, back the way we came. We all gasp for air.

“Will it hold?” I whisper.

No one answers me. We just stand there staring at the Mudo slowly piling against the other side of the thin metal, which groans and shifts under their weight.

Catcher sets Cira on her feet and she sways but is able to stand while sagging against him. He presses his palm to her cheek and she leans in to him.

“You’re alive,” she says, her pale lips bright in the moonlight. “I thought you were dead.”

He smiles and presses a kiss to her forehead. I have to turn away from it, the burning joy of seeing them finally together. I can’t stand that I’m the one who told Cira her brother was lost and the reason she almost died.

“I’m alive,” he murmurs. “Everything’s going to be okay now. I promise.”

My throat tightens as if he’s talking to me. As if he’s promising me that we’ll be okay. I want to believe it. I want to hold on to his words but they dissipate in the darkness.

Elias is the one to break the moment. “We should keep going,” he says. He glances at the fence straining under the onslaught of the Mudo and I know what he’s thinking: that even though we’re on the fenced-in path we’re still at risk. That as long as we’re in the Forest we’re always at risk.

Back the way we came I can still hear shouts. I close my eyes, begging that just this once we’ll have some luck and they won’t choose to come after us. That we’re not worth the risk.

Catcher hands Cira a canteen and she drinks hungrily. “Where are we going?” she asks between gulps.