Shadows (Page 56)

The guards dragged him left and down a semi-cleared path hemmed on either side by dense evergreen forest. They trudged through snow for what felt like a long time. The generator thump faded almost completely. Ahead, the path flared. A dark wood cabin, the sturdy kind made of Lincoln logs, hunched in a clearing. The cabin was a perfect but very long rectangle with two stone chimneys trickling gray smoke. The windows were shuttered. A black lattice of iron bars had been fixed to the apron of each with a thick layer of cement. Two guards manned the door. Each had an assault rifle: M4s and illegal as hell when laws had mattered. He had a feeling Finn had been making his own rules for a long time.

Steiner nodded at one of the guards, who turned, rapped on the front door, and waited. A second later, an eye-level window set in the door brightened. Peter saw the quick white flash of a face. There was the rattle of hardware as whoever was inside threw back a bolt.

The stink that ballooned out—feces, old urine, and stale flesh— was bad enough to make even Steiner’s eyes water. They crowded in: Steiner on his right, the second guard on his left. They were met by two more guards, both of whom wore handguns and expandable batons in a slide sidebreak scabbard. Judging from the dings, those batons saw a lot of use.

The space inside was much larger than he’d expected. The design wasn’t all that different from every other jail he’d ever visited. To the left, a plain wooden desk and two chairs for the duty-guards squatted behind floor-to-ceiling iron bars. A fire crackled in a deep hearth behind a wrought-iron screen.

To the right were cells: five to a side, ten total. The cells were simple, barred cages, each with a drain that must lead to a septic tank. No one had taken a hose to that concrete in a long time, though. Piles of shit—some very new and some so old they’d desiccated to stone—were everywhere.

The Changed were crouched there, too. He recognized the kids from the infirmary. Davey was the only Changed with clothes: a grimy T-shirt, a dingy pair of tighty-whiteys. He wore a collar around his neck, too: black leather, with shiny D-rings right and left, and a small padlock. As they entered, Davey’s head swiveled. A moment later, the other Changed turned and lifted their heads, the better to sample the air. As one, they unfolded from their squats in a silent, eerie synchrony that made the hairs rise on Peter’s neck and arms.

Nine Changed. Ten cells.

And bones. Lots of little bones. Fingers. Toes. Vertebrae. Some teeth.

“N-no.” Fear bolted up his throat. He was already drenched with sweat, but now a new wet oozed and trickled over his ribs. He tried to fight. Even with panic to lend him strength, he was no match for all those guards.

“Stop,” one said. The muzzle of an M4 dug into the back of Peter’s head. “We won’t kill you, but we’ll mess you up. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

No, mess me up, Peter thought, crazily. Pull the trigger. Please, kill me now. But his body wouldn’t listen, and he froze. He just couldn’t move. He understood what a very small rabbit must feel when a fox is near.

“Pl-please.” He was shaking so badly he heard the hard tick of his teeth. His eyes rolled and fixed on Steiner. “N-n-n-no.”

“I’m sorry, boy,” Steiner said, not unkindly. “But really, I’d save my strength if I was you.”

51

Four days after Jed’s house went up in flames and two days shy of the Michigan border, Tom found bones.

He’d stayed to the woods and avoided roads. The few long abandoned homes and farmsteads he gave a very wide berth. So he knew these people hadn’t just wandered out for a stroll. Judging from the size of the skulls, some were very young, only children as well as a few babies. Many had been dead a good long while, the bones like ivory against the snow. But a surprising number still had meat, frozen hard as rock, and that wasn’t right. A brutal winter meant plenty of hungry animals. Gnaw long enough, and there was dinner. Apparently, scavengers wouldn’t eat a Chucky’s leavings either.

What really bothered him: the bones shouldn’t be visible. He was chasing the storm, and the snow was fresh but also trampled by prints so new he made out treads and the make of the boots.

They must be coming back to the same spots to feed. At the realization, he felt the air leave his lungs. The Chuckies were like animals returning to a den or dogs that hid bones beneath a particular tree—and they were in the woods, with him.

Well, Tom thought, no help for it. Just be careful.

That awful night on Odd Lake, the dog had saved his life, nudging and pawing him back to consciousness. It took him a while, but he’d finally rolled over and slithered on his belly, snaking over the ice, using his knife as a pick, every crack and creak sending his heart crowding against his teeth. By the time he made it back to the wind sled, his clothes were boards, and the dog’s fur was chunked with ice. He changed right there, stripping out of his frozen jeans and socks and shirt and thermals, even his underwear. His parka was in the water, at the bottom of the lake with that old bounty hunter. After dragging on an extra set of thermals and doubling up with just about every scrap of clothing he owned, he’d shaken out a black contractor’s bag and carefully slit the thick, tough plastic to make an opening large enough for his head. Throw in a shopping cart, and he’d look ready to hunker down around a trash barrel fire under an overpass with the rest of the homeless, which was pretty close to the truth.

He and the dog spent the night huddled together in his bivy at the bottom of a snow pit in the woods and out of the wind. He didn’t want to risk a fire or the stove, but he made hot chocolate from MREs, using meltwater for the heater pack, and gave the dog warm water to drink. They even slept.

The hunter came at first light, as Tom knew he would. It’s what he would’ve done. Rounding the jink on foot, the hunter stood there a good long time, scanning the far shore through binoculars, twisting slowly back and forth. Tom and the dog were well back, swathed in the sleeping bag and hunkered down in the trees. On the ice, Tom spotted the cigar-shape of the wind sled lying where he’d left it and, beyond, the darker gap that was the break in the ice. If he was lucky, the hunter would think he’d gone through, too.

Eventually, the bounty hunter moved off. Tom waited another hour according to Jed’s Timex. He heard nothing but the susurration of the wind and saw even less. Finally, he decided he would just have to chance it.

First, he hid the wind sled, dragging the craft off the ice and then through the woods for a long, long way until he came to a tumble of boulders at the base of an esker. The stones butted up to form a cave. Flipping the Spitfire onto its side, he shoved the boat through the wedge-shaped opening, remembering—too late—that this was black bear country. But nothing came out to eat him. A good omen, maybe.