The Prey (35 page)

“Go.”

“No.” She grips my hand tighter.

Ashley June saunters toward us, her shoulder blades jutting out her back with each stride. Her form is relaxed, like a zoo cheetah lazily pacing inside its cage on a hot summer night. Yet her eyes are raw and intense with desire. A small pouch bag is strapped tightly against her back.

Thirty meters away, she hisses; her hind legs bunch, and she is suddenly all coiled muscle and charged energy. Her arms shoot out as she bounds forward, grabbing the ground under her, thrusting her long sleek body upward and forward. Her eyes spear into mine with as much obsession as desperation.

“It’s me!” I shout. “It’s me!”

Not a flicker of recognition. Not a hint of a slowdown. She races toward me, her lips now snarling to reveal the bottom of her fangs.

Sissy reaches down instinctively for a dagger on her belt. But it is too late for that.

Ashley June comes, her legs and arms a blur under her loping body. Ten more bounding strides, and she will be at my throat.

“Ashley June!” I shout.

A flicker of recognition in her eyes. She snaps her head violently. Her eyes meet mine again, but there is a sliver of confliction now. She slows to a stop. Saliva dangles from each corner of her mouth, ropy and gelatinous, almost touching the cobblestone. Her head half cocks to the side. She frowns.

“It’s me, it’s Gene,” I say.

She examines my face as if trying to place me. Something flits across her eyes, softens their gaze. Her lips tremble. She’s beginning to recall.

“Ashley June.” Despite my fear, I speak with tenderness. And with guilt.

A low growl rumbles from her throat. Her feet kick at the ground but she does not close the distance between us. Light suddenly blazes in her eyes, jolting her. She remembers me. Suddenly self-conscious, she wipes at the drools of saliva.

“Gene?” she whispers. The sound flutters out, girlish and shy.

I flinch back. The clash between her savage body and the gentle utterance of my name is almost too much. I turn my eyes away. Now she stands, rising off her arms and hands until she is upright on two legs. As if trying to reclaim her humanity. Yet a battle rages; every fiber in her wants to pounce me cheetah-like. I can see it in the saliva dripping off her still-exposed fangs, in her quivering thigh muscles. She wipes at her mouth again. And then her eyes latch onto something.

My hand. Holding Sissy’s hand. Ashley June’s eyes snake up the length of Sissy’s arm and when her eyes lock onto Sissy’s, it is as if she has noticed her for the first time.

Ashley June suddenly drops down to all fours again. A hardness coarsens her body, marbles her eyes. She shakes her head, sending ropes of saliva looping around her head, splattering in her hair. She crouches down, quivering with building energy, caving in to animalistic urges. Then explodes toward Sissy.

She is a blur, a dart flung with force. Thin, tight muscles bulge out of her arms, waves of muscle ripple across her thighs. And then she is springing herself.

At Sissy.

She rips Sissy away, flinging then pouncing on her fallen body. I’m knocked to the ground. By the time I’ve picked myself up, Ashley June is pinning Sissy down, her mouth clamped around Sissy’s neck. Her teeth, her fangs, sunk deep, only her red-stained gums showing. Her eyes gaze languidly at me as she sucks and sucks and sucks.

Sissy is trying to squirm out but her arms are pinned. Her legs kick uselessly, strength draining out. She writhes futilely underneath. Ashley June’s flaming red hair is splayed all across Sissy’s prostrate body, like fingers spread wide, possessing and claiming her.

“NOOO!” I shout, and charge at Ashley June, throwing myself with all the force I can muster.

She smacks me away. I feel nails gash the side of my head but no pain. The pain will come later. I go flying, over ground that spins wildly beneath me. The impact smacks the air out of my lungs. I rise unsteadily, fall down. Start crawling toward Sissy.

Ashley June’s eyes flick past me, over my shoulder.

Another dusker has emerged out of the dark shadows of a cottage. Its eyes are rapt with desire as it places me in its crosshairs. It crouches low and scuttles forward, crab-like, its legs and arms stabbing the ground like pincers.

Ashley June lifts her head from Sissy’s neck, blood dripping down her chin. She growls at the other dusker.

In a split second, the dusker goes from crab-shuffle to puma-sprint. At me.

As it leaps past the unconscious Sissy, Ashley June snaps her hand out and grabs its long flowing hair. I hear the tear of hair roots ripped out of scalp skin. The dusker’s legs fling out and it flips over, crashes to the ground. Ashley June is upon it before it can regain its footing. Crouched atop the dusker’s body, she lowers her face until her nose is almost touching the dusker’s. She snarls, her jaw widening to expose the long sabres of her razor-sharp teeth. The dusker snarls back, its eyebrows pulled together in fury. But also fear. It snaps at Ashley June.

Ashley June pulls her head back to avoid the clash of teeth. Then, in one fluid, powerful motion, she flings the dusker across the square. The dusker spins ungracefully through the air. Its upper torso smashes through a cottage window, its legs smacking into the siding. It hangs draped and twitching, half in, half out the window.

Ashley June turns to me. Her chest is heaving in and out. Her emerald eyes, clear and fierce, yet somehow also softened, contain a questioning, yearning glimmer. The pouch bag strapped on her back is ripped half open now; the cover of a book pokes out.

I take a step backward.

She is suddenly pummeled from behind by the other dusker, shards of glass sticking out of it. They fall away in a tangled ball of fangs and claws, hissing and attacking one another.

I use the precious few seconds to run to Sissy. Her eyes are closed; she’s murmuring incomprehensibly. I pick her up in my arms, start sprinting. I ignore the sound of Ashley June fighting with the other dusker behind. I ignore the tiredness in my legs as I race across the meadows on the other side of the village, ignore even the sight of the train beginning to pull out of the station. Ignore the thunderous stampede I know is closing in on me, the horde from Krugman’s office catching up with me. And most of all, ignore the heat humming off Sissy, the sweat pouring down her face, the ashen paleness in her face. Ignore the fact that she’s begun turning. Right in my arms, she’s turning.

I cry out sounds that have grown hidden and unseen in me for years, for my whole life, gurgled, strangled sounds of anguish. They pour out of me like a tide of fury, and they are more than the tears gushing down my face, more than the lactic acid rocking my legs.

The ground softens and undulates beneath my feet, and I can’t locate solidity, can’t find traction. And then I am collapsing because I have no strength left, because I cannot go on for one more stride, because the running and constant fleeing has wrung out the last drop of strength. I fall on the grass. Enough. Enough. I cradle Sissy’s fevered head on my chest, gaze at the stars above. Feel the ground shaking under me. I hear their approach, so close now. Pounding of feet, hollers, high-pitched, hysterical voices.

Then hands grabbing at me, my legs, arms, pulling me apart.

No, not apart. Pulling me
up,
hands in my armpits, hoisting.

“Gene! Get up! Get up!”

Above me loom the faces of David and Jacob. They’re already picking up Sissy, dragging her away. More footsteps approaching. It’s Epap, and he pulls my arm over his shoulder. “Gene, you’ve got to help me. I can’t carry you all by myself. Run, damn it! The train’s pulling out!”

I do. As fast as I can, but I’m exhausted. I reach the platform, can barely climb the stairs. The train is halfway down the platform, pulling away. I see David and Jacob climb into the nearest train car, lower Sissy to the floor. The train is already picking up speed. Epap and I are going to have to run for it. From behind us, a cry of anger. I steal a quick look back. There’re about a dozen duskers way ahead of the pack. They’ll be on us in less than ten seconds.

Jacob jumps out of the last car, sprints back to Epap and me. He pulls my arm over his shoulder, drags me. “C’mon Gene, come on, help us.”

“Drop me,” I say. “There’s no time.” I’m right, and they know it. We’ll never make it to the train, not with me weighing them down; the duskers will get to us before then.

Jacob suddenly lets go of me, starts sprinting ahead. “Keep going, don’t stop, get into the train!” he yells. And he bends over, picks up a hose from the platform. As we push past him, he flicks the ON button of the generator. It hums to life. Water shoots out, a strong propulsive force.

The duskers bound up the steps onto the platform. As they do, Jacob turns the hose on them. The jet of water smashes into their misshapen bodies. Their flesh—partially melted and made pliable by earlier exposure to the sun—is hosed off their bones in seconds, splattering off in a wet explosion of chunks. Not even their skeletal structure is spared. The jet of water obliterates their bones, sending fragments and chips flying into the air. The duskers disappear in a mist of bone and flesh. Jacob drops the hose, races to catch up with us.

And then he trips over another hose. Goes sprawling onto the platform floor.

A trio of duskers leap up the stairs. In seconds, they are upon him.

“NO!” Epap shouts. He drops me to the platform floor. Even as he vaults over a large container and picks up a nearby hose, the three duskers are already hunched over Jacob’s body, fangs sunk into his neck and thigh, eyelids fluttering with rapture. Epap turns on the hose. In seconds, the duskers are obliterated. He runs to Jacob, picks him up, slings him over his shoulder. Doesn’t look to see the damage he knows has been inflicted.

I’ve gathered strength in the meantime, enough to scramble to my feet and kick aside hoses on the platform that might trip the approaching Epap. He draws even with me, and together we run for the train.

I can feel the heat pouring off Jacob in droves. Even without looking down, I know he’s turning, and rapidly. Bitten and infected by
three
duskers, his turning will be exponentially swift.

“Faster! The train’s pulling away!” David shouts, hanging out of the last train car.

Fear injects both Epap and me with adrenaline. We explode forward in a burst of speed. As we draw even with the train, David sticks his arm out of the still-open door. He pulls in Epap and Jacob, then me, and we go crashing onto the train floor. Sissy is lying next to us, still unconscious, surrounded by a group of kneeling village girls. The girl with freckles looks at me, then casts a panicky look back at the duskers giving chase.

“No, no, no!” Jacob says. He’s beginning to shiver, sweat beads pouring out. I see his punctured neck, not just two tidy holes, but a slew of fang marks polka-dotting his neck. He’s turning with exponentially accelerated speed.

He knows it, too. He looks at Epap with frightened eyes.

“You’re going to be all right, Jacob!” Epap says, stroking back Jacob’s hair. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”

Outside, we hear the manic cries of the duskers as they charge toward the train. It’s gradually picking up speed but the doors are still open.

“Where’s Ben?” David screams, looking back.

Jacob spasms, a film of sweat glimmering over his cold body.

“How much more speed?” I shout to the girl with freckles. “Before the doors close?”

“Soon!” she answers. “I think we’ve almost hit the critical speed.”

And then, sure enough, there’s a mechanical click, and the door begins to slide shut.

At the sound, Jacob turns to see. A haunted, terrible expression crosses his ashen face. “I’m turning,” he says. He stares at the closing door. And he realizes what none of us have yet to fully grasp. If the door locks shut and he turns inside, everyone in this train car is dead.

Jacob springs to his feet. A second later, I realize what he’s about to do. My hand shoots out to stop him, to tackle him to the floor. But I freeze. And in that hesitation, he takes three strides and is leaping through the closing gap. And then he is gone. The door clicks shut.

“NO!” David cries out, and he is already at the door, trying to pull it open. But it is locked and will be, until we reach the destination. “JACOB!” he shouts, “Jacob, Jacob!”

And Jacob has picked himself up, his face shuddering with fear and shock. He is out there in the world all alone for the first and only time in his life. It is more than he can stand, and he runs alongside us, if only to tenuously be with us a few seconds longer. David stretches out his arm between the bars, and for a moment, Jacob is able to sprint fast enough to catch up and hold his hand. His hair is flopping up and down, his cheeks are bouncing, his eyes are full of tears, this boy who dreamed of carousels full of galloping horses and leaping frogs and flying dolphins. He looks so small out there. He is alone and there is nothing we can do about it now.

The train picks up speed and Jacob can no longer keep up. Their hands begin to separate.

“Jacob!”

Their hands part.

And still he sprints as fast as he can, his arms swinging wildly, his legs a blur beneath him. He doesn’t want to be alone, he doesn’t want to fall away into the night, he doesn’t want to lose sight of the only family he has known. But he is losing ground, the train now accelerating.

And then he trips and falls. I can barely look. He is a pale pebble on a beach of darkness. A tide comes from behind, swallowing him up.

*   *   *

The metal bars of the car start to vibrate. Not vigorously, more like a hum thrumming up and down the bars. But it increases, until the bars are shaking in my hands as if they’re coming to life. And then it’s not just the bars; the whole train starts pitching side to side.

A hard drumming noise fills the night, the sound of a thousand horses galloping. But these are no horses outside, gaining on us. Horses do not emit a pale fleshly gleam off their skin, do not hiss and spit and drool, do not howl and wail, do not emerge from darkness with the whites of their eyes glowing like demented moons.