From behind came a low, menacing growl. Lena’s throat closed down on a sudden scream. The small hairs along her neck and arms stiffened in alarm, and she had to force herself to move slowly, so carefully. Her eyes inched to the right.
The dog was not far away at all. In her panic, she couldn’t gauge the distance, and that really didn’t matter. With its black mask and those ears, the animal was like a small German shepherd, but the rest of its fur was a reddish-brown, like a chestnut mare’s. Its lips had peeled back from its very white teeth in a snarl.
Her throat convulsed. Her mouth was open, and she thought she was trying to say something, but the only sound that came was a strangled moan. It seemed as if two giant fists had clamped around her chest and squeezed. She eased back a half step, then stopped when the dog’s deep rumble grew louder.
It’s going to kill me. “Puh-puh-puhleeez,” she wheezed. She saw the dog’s ears twitch, and that growl hitched and dropped a note. To her eyes, the dog actually looked confused. “Please, juh-just let m-me g—”
“Meeenaaah.” Not a singsong, although the distant voice was young. “Meeenaaah, where are you, girl?”
Meeenaaah, or Mina, or whatever the dog’s name was, faltered then. She watched as the dog threw a glance over its shoulder, and then she was moving back a quick step and then another. Whirling around, the dog tensed, and for a second, she thought it was going to come for her after all, but then the dog was pivoting on its hind legs and sprinting away, barking as it followed the girl’s voice.
Go. Turning on her heel, she darted off the trail and into the woods. Branches whipped at her skin and tore her face, snagging her hair. Go, go, he said to go, run . . .
The woods still were the color of lead, but the snow was not as deep in the trees and her footing was better. Behind, she heard the moment the dogs’ voices changed—heard that call again—and knew they’d found him. They might not follow her now. She might be safe.
Run. Then: Lena, I’m Lena. He’s Chris and he said to run, Lena, run.
The cold air was crushed glass in her throat, but she blundered on, churning and crashing through the woods. She had no idea where she was going, or what she should do now, but she was alone. No one would see.
I’m a coward. If I had any guts, I would’ve shot myself or told him the truth and asked him to do it. He would have.
But she was as afraid of dying as she had become of sleeping. Because what would she be when she woke up?
You’re still you. She spotted a bright smear, a break in the trees, and felt a tug in her chest, like the set of a hook. She changed direction. Why? Maybe a road. Was that what she thought? Of course she did. Who was thinking in her head but her? Her feet pounded and pushed against snow. There would be a road and she would be able to run even further. You’re still you and you can stop this.
Liar. She dodged through a tangle of whippy alders, let them slap her face. You can’t because you won’t. You’re scared of dying because then there’s nothing—no more anything and no God either.
She vaulted toward the break, that glimmer of yellow-white which was the sun trying to struggle above the horizon, coming fast and very soon. Maybe that would kill her, like in a movie or book. Poof ! Nothing left but ash and a scorched shadow, just like Hiroshima and that nameless Japanese person: painted black on a stretch of ruined concrete in a skeletal cityscape of twisted iron, pulverized stone, and naked steel. God, how could she remember that and have trouble with her own name?
I’m Lena, I am Lena, you can’t take that. She bulleted through the snow, tearing her way through brambles and scruff. I won’t let you, I won’t—
She pulled up with a sudden, hard gasp and came to a dead stop.
In the nacreous and feeble light of the coming day, she saw only four clearly, but she sensed many more to the right and left. They faced her as the first fingers of pale light leaked into slate sky, so that they were, each and every one, crowned with glimmering halos, like dark angels fallen from grace.
Even the boy with her green scarf twined around his neck.
Her heart thrashed in her chest, and she was trembling both from fear and her mad flight. It came to her then—what that arch and symbol painted on the deadfall represented. They formed a Devil’s door. A trick. The arch was an illusion, the star symbol cut in half not by a wood sash but deliberately painted to give the appearance of something whole cut in two. There was no door, and the Devil would only bang his head if he tried to enter.
Unless the Devil was clever and very, very patient and found another way.
“No. P-please,” she choked as the Changed began to move, their shadows eeling over the snow, reaching for her in black fingers. “I’m me, I’m Lena. I’m n-not—”
They closed in.
The chirping ceased. Most had buzzed by too quickly for him to decipher through his fog of exhaustion and starvation, but Peter got some of it.
Rule. Finn and his people would march on Rule, and there was nothing he could do for them, or himself.
He sprawled in his cell, back to the iron bars. His clothes were in tatters, no more than dirty rags held together with bits of string. His body wasn’t much better: a patchwork of half-healed wounds, open sores, new bites; a bag of bones in a sack of torn skin.
But he was the only one left. These last few days, Finn seemed content with simple attrition. No Changed to the right. No Changed to the left. Empty cells with just the stink as a reminder, a smell seeped into stone like blood. Only time erased that.
No Davey either, although Peter hadn’t killed him. Davey had grown quick and very sure. A fast learner. Finn took Davey away . . . day before yesterday? He thought that was right. Days meant virtually nothing now. There was only living through the next fight for that half cup of water, a mouthful of bread.
Saving Davey for the end, like the cherry from a sundae.
Could he fight? He cradled his left arm, his right palm clamped to the place where the girl had bitten and ripped clean through to the bone. He didn’t remember much—it had all gone so fast— but she was one of the feral Changed: all teeth and mad eyes and weird energy. Quick on her feet, too. Probably because she’d just eaten. She nearly had him.
But he could also learn. His eyes rolled to the body. The lake of blood pooling out of the crater he’d torn from her neck was so high the overflow wormed to cold concrete. All that time with the Changed paid off after all; he’d taken his cue from them and ripped her throat out. And, God, that blood was so tantalizing. It was liquid. It was wet.
Thirsty. So thirsty.
The next time they opened that cell door and Davey came through? It would be the very last. Oh, he would try, but unless he was extremely lucky, Davey would kill him, and slowly, too. Davey seemed to favor strangulation. Finn let the Changed boy practice on other Changed. Five, ten, fifteen minutes sometimes before Davey got tired and finally squeezed hard and long enough to end it. The very first time, Davey had kept poking the dead kid’s eyes. Like he couldn’t understand why the kid he’d just murdered wouldn’t get up and play.
God, just make it quick. He felt the sob trying to work its way up his throat but swallowed it back. Maybe this is punishment, but I only did what I thought was right, what I had to do.
“R-Rule.” His mouth was thick and sticky with gore. “Whwhat . . . are you g-going to d-do?”
“In Rule?” Finn clipped the radio onto his belt. “Oh, a little shock, a little awe. You know, the all-American stuff we’re so good at.”
“Why?” Peter swallowed, grimaced against the taste of dead girl. He worked up enough saliva to spit, but he had no strength and the foamy gobbet drooled onto his chin. “What have th-they done?”
“Peter.” Finn did him the favor of not smiling. “Of all people, you really have to ask? But don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind. You’re coming with us, boy-o. I want your people to take a good, hard look. First, though, let’s get that nasty bite taken care of. Clean you up, get you fed, put some meat on those bones. Make you right as rain. New day, new dawn, new Earth.” Looping his hand through the carry handle of a knapsack, Finn dug around in a cargo trouser pocket and withdrew a set of jingling keys. He socked one into the lock. “I have a lot of respect for you. You’ve been through quite a trial, a journey to the dark center of the soul.”
Okay, yes, this guy was nuts. Peter tensed as the cell door opened on a scream of metal hinges. Mincing around the blood, the old man squatted on his haunches until they were eye to eye and just a few feet apart.
“They say every man has his breaking point. But I haven’t found yours, Peter—not yet,” Finn said. “You’re like the Ever-Ready Bunny that way. You just won’t quit. That’s admirable, boy-o. But maybe there’s a difference between what you do to yourself versus what is done to you. Maybe my hypothesis has been all wrong.”
“What . . .” Peter had to work up enough moisture to keep going. “What the hell are you t-talking about?”
“Well, I was thinking,” Finn said. His hand dipped into his knapsack and came up with a clear plastic bottle filled with water. The bottle must’ve been put in the snow to keep cold, because beads of condensation shuddered and then obeyed gravity, rolling down the plastic to drip over Finn’s fingers. “There is pressure from without—torture and environment and so on—and then there is the pressure that comes from within.”
Peter barely heard. His gaze was riveted on those drops, Finn’s fingers, that small core of ice bobbing in all that cool water. The need for water was so great it took all his willpower not to grab Finn’s hand and lick the moisture from the old man’s flesh.
“I think I made a serious miscalculation in my initial hypothesis,” Finn said as his fingers worked the cap. “The will to survive exerts its own pressure. Right now, I’ve given you walls to push against, obstacles to overcome, someone to hate. What I neglected to consider was what might happen if those walls suddenly vanished.” Finn proffered the open bottle. “If there was no one left to hate except the self.”