The Shuddering (31 page)

Pulling on every last stitch of gear he had, he stepped into the kitchen. He looked like an abominable snowman, wearing
twenty pounds of clothing, his torch burning next to him, freshly lit by the fire in the living room. Jane opened her mouth to speak from where she sat on the floor, her arms around Sawyer, Sawyer fading in and out of consciousness, a bedsheet securing the Saran wrap they had wrapped around his torso; but she didn’t get a chance to speak. Ryan stepped through the kitchen to the door, unlocked it without a word of warning, and ducked into the snow. Moving back into view with Jane’s board sliding behind him, he stuck the burning end of the torch into the snow just beyond the door, extinguishing it, and stepped inside.

She watched him in silence as he crouched in the hallway, removing the board bindings with a multitool he had stashed in his backpack. Then he lashed both boards together with a menagerie of power cords the five of them had brought with them; cords for computers and iPods, cell phones and cameras. Perhaps their love of the digital age would save them in the end.

“You can start securing that basket to your board,” he told her, tossing her a cable. “Just make sure it’s tight. We can’t lose it.”

Jane caught the wicker basket by its handle and jabbed the end of the cord between the wicker weaving.

“What are we going to do?” she asked meekly. Her tone gave her away. She knew their chances were slim to none now, but Ryan wasn’t about to acknowledge her suspicion.

“What we were always going to do. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

Jane felt her face flush as she worked, clumsily tangling the cord around the front binding before triple knotting the end, trying not to cry.

“He could die,” Ryan said under his breath, hoping that that sobering reminder would snap her out of her fear. This was no longer about should they or shouldn’t they. This was now all down to a simple question of when, and when had to be now.

Ryan didn’t wait for her reaction. He climbed the stairs to the center landing and plucked a picture off the wall. Their mother had bought it on a whim in an antique shop in Durango when they were kids—an artist’s rendition of the teddy bears’ picnic, except the bears weren’t stuffed animals—they were real bears, some of them looking bizarrely vicious as they danced, hand in hand, around a campfire with their kin. There was something malign about that picture, like a serial killer painting clowns or twisting balloon animals at a kid’s birthday party. Bringing the painting down into the hall, Ryan lashed it on top of both boards.

He stood, examining their handiwork, and nodded in satisfaction.

“Let’s gather up the stuff,” he said, motioning for her to follow him into the living room. There, they picked up the two remaining table leg torches that had yet to be lit, the collection of knives, and the pool cues Sawyer had sharpened to a point. The ax was in Ryan’s backpack, ready to go.

“We’re going to need to walk Sawyer down into the garage,” he explained. “We’ll put him on this.” He motioned to the makeshift gurney he’d fashioned out of two boards and their mother’s weird art. He had no idea whether it would work, if the snow would even hold Sawyer’s weight or if they’d end up getting stuck, but it didn’t matter anymore.

“What about Oona?” Jane asked.

“She’ll have to ride with him.”

Jane looked startled by his answer. It was an insane plan.

“We’re out of options,” he told her. “I’ll get all this stuff down there. You dress him in everything we’ve got. Grab a spare blanket to wrap him in and then dress yourself.”

She nodded, trying to look brave, but her bottom lip quaked with emotion.

“Hey.” He caught her by the shoulders, giving her a steady look. “I need you, okay? I can’t do this alone.”

She nodded again, then turned to do what he’d asked of her, and Ryan was left staring at the teddy bears’ picnic, wondering whether the artist had been trying to say something through his sinister art, like the fact that there was something in the woods, something that should have been a fantasy but was dangerously real.

Jane swallowed against the lump in her throat. She had forgotten all about the pot of blood until Ryan grabbed it from the sink and walked it out into the garage.

“Are you sure this is absolutely necessary?” she asked, her voice echoing against the cold cinderblock walls, but it had been her idea in the first place—an idea that had worked.

“It’s absolutely necessary,” he told her, blocking Oona from scrambling back up the stairs. Sawyer sat against the wall, bundled up from head to toe, wrapped in the thick quilt Jane had found in the armoire upstairs. He looked terrible, but at least he was awake.

She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, steadying her nerves. “Fucking fuck,” she whispered, anticipating what was to come.

Peering into the pot at her feet, she reeled back at the smell. Her throat started to tighten—the sensation of inevitable sickness.

Ryan braced himself as he held on to Oona’s collar. “Just do it.”

She grabbed the handles of the pot, hefted it up to her waist, and tipped it over Oona’s clean black-and-white fur. As soon as the thick liquid hit her back, Oona let out a loud whine and curved her back downward, trying to get away from the stuff
that was slithering down her coat. Ryan gagged, but he held his hand steadfast beneath the stream of blood, ladling it onto her head, rubbing it into her snout. Oona sneezed once, twice, then wriggled out of Ryan’s grip. A second later she was shaking out, spraying the garage with a putrid red mist.

Jane turned away, sure she was about to puke. The stench was intense, permeating her nostrils, crawling to the back of her throat. She whimpered when Ryan pulled her back by the wrist. She sank to her knees and covered her face, her eyes watering from the stink. When she felt the liquid hit her shoulders, her stomach clenched. She tried to sit there as long as she could, but it only allotted Ryan a few seconds before she was up on her feet, vomiting onto the concrete floor.

Ryan braced himself when it was his turn. Had they been in any other situation she would have laughed at the intensity in his face. But she was too sick and too disgusted to even smile at his expression. She backed away from him when he shot up to his feet, and Ryan rubbed the foul-smelling stuff into his jacket and pants despite his obvious revulsion. They looked like a pair of serial killers fresh from a sloppy kill, and they smelled as good as they looked. Oona was having a sneezing fit, rubbing her face against the floor, desperately trying to get the stuff off her skin.

Ryan grabbed the half-empty pot of blood with bright red hands and walked it over to Sawyer. “Your turn, man,” he said.

“Oh,” Sawyer said weakly. “Fantastic.”

“Just pretend you’re Dracula.” Ryan tried for humor, but Sawyer only released a weak breath and covered his face with the quilt that was draped around his shoulders. He hardly made a peep when Ryan rubbed gore into his hair.

With the four of them drenched, he put the pot in their basket of gear. It was for later. They would remain covered in this stuff until they hit the highway, and then—
Oh god
, she thought,
imagine seeing three bloody hitchhikers walking down the road. Nobody will stop.
Nobody in their right mind would ever slow down.

Jane whimpered softly as she stood there, wet and sticky, not wanting to move, but there was no time for disgust.

“Hold her,” Ryan said, motioning for Janet to grab Oona. Picking up the gas can from the basket, he doused the ends of three torches in gasoline. “You have to keep an eye on this. You can’t let it go out. I burned one of them when Sawyer and I were out there and they freaked. They know it can hurt them.”

“What if it starts snowing again?” she asked. It was a distinct possibility. The clouds were still thick. “Or if the wind picks up and blows the fire out?”

Ryan thrust the torch into her gloved hand, giving her a look. She knew it was stupid to question it, knew it was a waste of time to think of all the things that could go wrong, because a million things could. If they operated on what-ifs, they’d never go through with it; they had to save Sawyer.

“They’re afraid of it,” he told her again. “If you see one come close, hold the fire out in front of you.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice fading to nothing.

Ryan looped an arm around Sawyer and helped him across the garage, and for a moment she was frozen in place, refusing to believe their situation was so dire, that the pain that flashed across Sawyer’s face was real. But she wasn’t given time to dwell on those emotions. Ryan looked over at her and she immediately fell into step, limping across the concrete floor to help get Sawyer situated on his makeshift gurney. She didn’t want to think about what they’d do if the wires they had used to tie the thing together came apart, or if Sawyer lost consciousness again and they couldn’t manage to keep him on that crude sled, or if Oona leaped off Sawyer’s lap and was buried chest-deep in the snow.
Wrapped in the quilt their mother had sewn when they were kids, Sawyer tried to give them both a courageous smile through his pain before coiling his arms around Oona, holding her in place.

Ryan paused as if thinking the whole thing over, then shook his head and tied the leash of the supply board around one of his belt loops. “You’re going to lead. We’ll keep Sawyer and Oona between us.”

“But—” She didn’t
want
to lead, but bringing up the rear seemed like an even more precarious position.

“Janey.” Ryan looked at her steadily. “This is how it’s got to be. Let’s go.”

Before she could say another word, Ryan rolled up the garage door and the cold swallowed them whole.

Jane’s eyes watered against the wind. She pulled her scarf over her mouth and nose, hiding from the gale, breathing through her mouth so that her breath warmed the yarn closest to her lips. Reaching the driveway that would take them down the slope and away from that cabin forever, Sawyer and Oona sat on their makeshift sled like blood-soaked royalty. Ryan motioned for Jane to move ahead of him, and despite her trepidation she did, torch held out ahead of her.

They trekked past Sawyer’s Jeep without incident. The trees were still, and no matter how hard she looked, Jane didn’t spot any shifting shadows behind the pines. But she knew they were there, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When Oona whined in Sawyer’s arms, Jane’s eyes went wide with panic. She shot a look behind her at Ryan, but Ryan didn’t see anything either. He shook his head at her, his expression anxious but mercifully put together. All it would take was for Ryan to lose his cool for the entire expedition to fall apart. Jane knew that if that
happened, her own resolve would crumble beneath the weight of her fear.

“Where?” she asked, shoving her scarf down to her chin. “I don’t see anything. Where are they? Do you see them?” She waved the torch to and fro, spinning around, knowing that facing one direction for too long would render her vulnerable to an attack.

As though having heard Jane’s question, one of them showed itself. It stood a few yards down the slope as if planning on boxing them in. The moment Jane spotted it every nerve in her body stood on end, crackling with terror. She veered around, staring wildly at her brother.

“Face forward!” he demanded. He grabbed the leash of the supply basket and jerked it up the slope toward himself, grabbing April’s hair spray out of their arsenal. Oona bared her teeth and snarled, but Sawyer held her tight. His expression was unnerving, almost blank, as though his brain refused to register any more fear, as though it had shut down all his senses, overwhelmed by physical pain.

“I thought they were scared,” Jane screeched. “You told me they were scared!”

“They
are
scared,” he told her, trying to sound calm. He took a few steps down the slope toward the thing, and the creature crouched down, everything about its posture setting Jane’s teeth on edge. What if it lunged? What if it got him? What did he expect her to do if she was left alone out here with Sawyer and Oona? She couldn’t possibly pull them on her own.

Lowering his torch, Ryan pointed the spray can in the creature’s direction and pressed down on the trigger. A blast of heat hit Jane’s face as the snow lit up in a dazzling display of glittering ice crystals, fire shooting toward the monster that had decided to try its hand at derailing their escape. Ryan was too far away for
the flame to reach the thing, but the explosion of fire had obtained the desired effect. The beast jumped back, startled, and ran away.

Jane found it almost disconcerting how easy it was to scare them. Was that all it took? A little fire and they were powerless? On one hand, she hoped to God that was all they needed to survive; on the other, it made her queasy to think that if it was that easy to make them scatter, all five of them could have been walking out of there instead of only three.

While Jane and Ryan slogged through the snow, Sawyer tried to stay alert. He felt strangely removed from the situation as he watched them struggle. Other than hanging on to Oona, there was nothing he could do. The pain that encompassed his back was indescribable—a kind of agony he’d never felt before. Jane had fed him a handful of Tylenol, but it hadn’t done anything to alleviate a sensation that teetered between hellfire and numbness. Sawyer was almost positive that the numbness wasn’t his back at all—it was him slithering in and out of responsiveness, balancing on the knife’s edge of consciousness and catatonia. The nausea that roiled in the pit of his stomach was unbearable, but the cold that whipped across his face helped ease the discomfort.

At least until a haunting wail echoed off the trees around them.

It sounded almost human, like a valley of people moaning before death. Sawyer connected with something in that mournful chorus. At that very moment, it became undeniably clear—whatever these creatures were, they were in pain, more than likely racked with starvation, forced into a slow and bitter end. Somehow, on some primal level, he could relate to their plight. He swallowed against the lump in his throat, every breath harder
than the last, his guilt over April subsiding enough to let a wave of calm drift over him. He had been so sure that he had lost her, but he’d been wrong.