Monsters (Ashes Trilogy #3)

“Come on,” he said, turning, his gaze sweeping past the church, “let’s—” Suddenly, he froze.

Pru let a beat slide by. “Greg?”

He didn’t reply. He could feel his eyebrows bunching together in a sudden frown. Out of the corner of his eye, he could’ve sworn there’d been a light? No, a flash. But that was probably the headache . . .

“Greg?”

“I don’t know,” he said to Pru. “But I thought I heard something.”

45

From what Sarah could see, Cutter wasn’t quite done dying yet. His fingers fluttered and flapped like dying starfish. The close air in this back storage room was saturated, almost fogged with the heady stink of wet pennies. Hunched over the body, both hands full of Cutter’s meat, the Changed was feeding with a single-minded ferocity that reminded Sarah of a film they’d seen in science about wolves: how a pack brought down a full-grown moose. Once the animal was on the snow, the wolves ripped open the abdomen and literally ate the moose to death.

Starving. Horrified, Sarah watched the boy’s Adam’s apple bob in a swallow as he simultaneously crammed in another mouthful. The boy had one of the worst cases of acne she’d ever seen. His face looked broken and bruised. With all that blood smeared over pitted skin and bulging sacs of yellow pus, the Changed looked diseased, something out of The Walking Dead.

She had to get out of here. Clawing to her feet, she lurched in a stumble-stagger that sent her crashing into the door. At the sound, the Changed twisted, seemed to see her for the first time, and began to surge up from the floor. Turning, she blundered down the narrow alley of the kitchen, banging like an errant pinball between counters. With no flashlight, she was blind, driving forward on memory and fear. As she crashed through the dark, she felt a sudden, slight change in temperature, a puff of even colder air from the common room. Wheeling drunkenly to the right, she groped, found the corner, and then she was half falling, half sprinting up the stairs.

Her ears caught a thump behind and below. A steady, fast clump of boots. Coming for her. Not much time. Even starving, the Changed boy was faster. Sarah tore a screaming breath from the air and then another. Above, she could see the slight gray-green glow of the vestibule. Once she made it up and then out of there and into the breezeway, if she could just make it to the doors, lock him out of the school . . .

My keys. A moan fell out of her mouth. Her keys were behind her, on the floor. She doubted she was fast enough to outdistance this boy anyway. Even if she could, there might be more. Cutter was dead. There was no reason for anyone to check on them until the guards switched off. And what if someone did notice that the side door was open and came in to investigate? What if that someone was Pru or Greg? This Changed would be on them in a second.

Flinging herself up the last step, she staggered into the vestibule. From below, she could hear the boy’s grunts, a stumble as he misjudged the distance between one stair and another. Can’t lead him back into the school. Darting right toward the bell tower door, she fumbled for the handle. Please don’t be locked. Mashing down on the icy iron thumb plate, she cocked her elbows, jerked back hard. The door was oak and as solid as any other in the church, but it moved, swinging open with a rusty squall. Cold air spilled and she saw a shimmery curlicue of narrow stone steps. Bell tower must open at the top. That’s why it’s colder and there’s light.

A sudden gush of air sucked at her back and stoppered her ears. Someone was pushing through from the breezeway into the vestibule, following a cone of orange light that splashed her shadow onto stone. For a crazy moment, she thought the Changed had her flashlight, but he was coming from the wrong direction. Then she heard Tori call, “Sarah? Where are you going? What’s hap—”

No. Darting a glance left, Sarah saw the boy storming up the last few steps. “Tori, run!” Sarah spun on her heel and waved the other girl back. “Run, ru—”

Surging from the dark like a demon summoned from hell, the Changed threw himself into the vestibule. Cringing, Tori raised both arms to ward him off. Her flashlight tumbled from her right hand as she unlimbered her shotgun, racked the pump, socked the butt to her shoulder—

And in that small span of time, Sarah finally remembered. The gun. Sweating, Sarah fumbled for her pistol just as the boy ducked his shoulder, dropped below Tori’s line of fire, and sprinted across the vestibule at a dead-on run. Tori let out an explosive oomph as the boy smacked into her middle and bore them both crashing to the stone. Somehow, Tori still had the shotgun clutched in her right hand and was trying to bring it around when the boy balled his right fist, still smeary with Cutter’s blood, and smashed Tori across the jaw. A yelp jerked from her mouth, her hold on the shotgun loosened, and in one swift, practiced motion, the Changed boy swept up the weapon and jammed the muzzle under her chin.

“N-no.” Tori’s bloody lips were purple in the yellow glow of the flashlight. “Pl—”

“Stop!” Sarah poked the Sig out in both hands, but the gun wavered and she was shaking so badly her knees wobbled. The Changed went rigid, and she thought, Now, shoot him, shoot! Gritting her teeth, Sarah squeezed the trigger—and nothing happened. The trigger didn’t budge.

“The safety!” Tori shrieked. “Sarah, release the—”

Too late.

“Heard what?” asked Pru.

“I don’t know. A . . .” Greg groped for the word. A thump, but so muffled it was more like the sound of a heavy cardboard box on a wood floor. “Sort of a thud. I’m not sure I really heard it.” Maybe migraines made you hallucinate sounds, too? He didn’t remember Kincaid mentioning that.

“I didn’t hear anything.” Pru turned to look down at the others clustered at the bottom of the village steps. “You guys?”

In reply, Jarvis cut Pru a curt shake of his head, while Henry and Lucian only looked blank. “Man, I can barely hear you,” Aidan said from the depths of his snorkel. “Can we, like, go? I’m freezing my ass off.”

“Just a sec.” Maybe this is all the headache’s doing, but . . . Puzzled, Greg peered through the gathering twilight at the hunkered edifice of the church, the bony finger of its bell tower stabbing a sky beginning to turn cobalt. From this vantage point, he couldn’t see the attached school or the rectory. He stared a long second, saw nothing, then tossed a look opposite, at the far end of the square toward a brooding row of shuttered shops and a defunct Christian combination coffeehouse and bookstore. The storefronts were dark, the black windows empty as sockets. In the center of the square, the snowy mushroom of an octagonal gazebo, probably once used for summer band concerts, huddled beneath a trio of towering oaks. “Thought I saw something, too. This flash.”

“What? Where?” Pru twisted a look right and left and then behind, across the square. “I don’t see anything.”

“Me neither,” the snorkel put in.

“You getting another headache?” Pru asked. “Didn’t Kincaid say that might make you see flashes of light and stuff ?”

“Yeah.” Greg realized his hand had snuck up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “But I could’ve sworn—” Behind, Greg heard the scrape of a door and then a guard call: “Everything okay out here?”

“He thought he saw something,” Pru said to the guard.

“I heard something, too,” Greg said.

“Yeah? I didn’t see anything.” The guard craned a look at his companion, who shook his head, and then back. He chinned the sacks. “Whatcha got?”

“Loot,” the snorkel said, “which I would really, really like to put away now, please.”

“Sure. Okay,” Greg said. His headache felt like it was sprouting claws and digging at the back of his left eye. “You’re right. It was probably nothing.”

The shotgun blast was enormous, a BOOM Sarah felt and heard crash and bang against the vestibule’s stone walls. A tongue of muzzle flash, bright as lightning, spurted from the weapon’s throat, sheeting the stone gray where it wasn’t purpled with Tori’s blood and bits of her brain and skull.

Without pause, the boy simultaneously worked the pump and pivoted as Sarah shrieked and leapt again for the bell tower steps. Hooking the wrought iron latch with her left hand, she dragged the door partly shut just in time. Another flash, a gigantic BOOM. Something slapped her right calf, and she stumbled as more buckshot punched through the wood, exploding in splinters that nipped her back and blew past her cheeks. She careered up the slippery steps as her calf bawled, the blood streaming in runnels down her pant leg and sock.

Shot, I’m shot. She gimped up steps before her leg suddenly gave. Pitching forward, she sprawled against stone. Her heart was yammering, not only in fear but pain. With all these gunshots, someone would hear, wouldn’t they? She didn’t know. All this heavy, thick stone and wood . . . Maybe no one could.

He was down there, waiting, deciding. She could feel him. Have to save myself. She still had the Sig. Is there a round ready? She didn’t remember or know how to check. Any sound would give her away. The Changed had already seen her with the weapon. The longer he assumed she didn’t know what to do—not such a stretch—the better off she might be.

Then, the glimmer of an idea . . . Find the safety. Her fingers walked the weapon. This time, she found the lever and thumbed it off. Grimacing, she eased onto her back, reached down, and skimmed an oozy handful of warm blood to smear her cheeks and neck. Scooping another palmful, she slathered her chest. There, that ought to sell it. One look at me and he’ll think I’m dying.

Shuddering, she scrubbed her hand on her jeans, then pulled herself into as tight a crouch as she could manage, hissing at the pain in her calf. No expert on guns, but she knew geometry. They were in a tight tube, a circular space with narrow, essentially triangular steps that tapered to a point around the stone newel. He was a boy and much bigger, and had the long gun besides, which meant he had no choice but to hug the outer wall. But she was above him, and small. Clutching the Sig, she steadied her hands on her knees, aiming for what she thought would be the most logical spot.