Monsters (Ashes Trilogy #3)
Page 77The water was so cold it was fire. Chris sank, the water like chains, drawing him down. Below was the feeble bob of Peter’s light and a sinking, gutted husk of a boat. Most of the aft deck was gone; the pilothouse was a ruin; the hole the fire made gaped like a wound. No choice now. He was committed. His lungs strained, the pressure building inside and out. The water was so oily, he was afraid to look away from Peter and the boat. As he neared, he saw Peter’s light angle up. By some miracle, the deck aft of the engine room was intact. Using a metal ladder as a guide, Peter wormed through a square hatch.
Chris followed. Inside the wreck, the churning water was even blacker, curling with what looked like smoke. As he broke through into a very slim wedge of air and screams, he realized that what he was looking at—swimming through—was blood.
“Calm down, you have to calm down!” Peter was shouting. Both girls had their hands hooked around a pipe. Chris had no trouble recognizing Penny; the shrieking girl had Peter’s jaw and eyes. The other girl, who looked much older, was no less frightened. Blood pumped from a large gash in her scalp. “Just follow me, Penny,” Peter said. “We’ll all get out, I promise.”
“I can’t!” Penny’s lips pulled apart in a terrified grimace. “I can’t hold my breath that long! I’ll drown, I’ll die!”
“Penny.” Peter was trying to pry his sister’s hands free. “Let go—”
“I can’t!” Thrashing, Penny lost it. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to—”
“Help me.” The other girl was pale as marble, her blood almost black in Peter’s light. Water slopped over her chin. “I don’t know how to swim, I can’t—”
“We can’t take them both at the same time.” Peter’s eyes shone with panic and tears. “It’ll take two of us to handle Penny, and we can’t—”
“N-no.” One hand slipped, and the girl flailed. The air pocket had squeezed to a slim six inches. “No, don’t leave me alone, d-don’t—”
“Hang on.” Lunging, Chris slapped her hands back onto the pipe. The air pocket was shrinking very fast, and he was freezing, getting tired out. He was horribly aware that the longer they stayed, the deeper the boat sank. As it was, he’d barely made it. “Can’t you swim at all?”
“Nuh-no,” the girl moaned. “Nuh . . .”
“We have to go.” Peter had managed to loosen one of Penny’s hands, but the other clung so fiercely to the pipe, he couldn’t both hold her and work her free. “Help me.”
“No,” the girl cried. “Wait!”
But Chris was already wrapping both hands around Penny’s wrist, pulling with all his might, fighting her terror, and then her hands were free and he was shouting, “Peter! Go now, go now!”
“Penny!” Peter grabbed the still-screaming girl’s face. “Penny, hold your breath, stop screaming, hold your—”
“Come on!” Peter bellowed, and then they were under the water, kicking out of the engine room, the three of them stroking their way through the hatch. Penny was still thrashing; Peter had one arm and Chris the other. Peter’s light stabbed up, but Chris was no longer sure if that truly was the way. He could hear Penny: the boil of her breath and a thin mmm-mmm-mmm!
Stop screaming, stop screaming! Slapping his hand over her nose and mouth, Chris kicked hard. Too far above, the faint glimmer of a distant sky spread itself over the water, but his air was nearly gone; his lungs was blazing. I was wrong. I’m going to die down here in the dark; I’m going to drown in Peter’s nightmare . . .
“No,” Peter said—and because this was a dream, they were, suddenly, in the bobbing raft again, side by side. No Penny. No Jess. No wrecked boat, of course; that was lost to the dark, and the girl with it. “You can’t stay here, Chris.” Peter stared out over endless inky water. “I won’t let you.”
“A-are you d-dead?” He was shuddering so hard, his mouth balked.
“Partly.”
“Wh-what does th-that mean?”
“I’m not sure myself.” Face still averted, Peter shook his head. “I think part of me died right here. You really should go, Chris. I don’t know how long it’s safe for you to stay.”
“I’m n-not leaving you, Peter. Let me h-help you.”
“I don’t think you can.” And then Peter turned. His eyes were no longer blue but as red as that drowned girl’s blood might’ve been in light. “Still love me, Chris?” Peter said. Then: “Easy. Watch out you don’t shoot—”
“Hunh!” Chris started awake, his hand stretching for his rifle even before he was fully upright. “Whoa, watch it!” Ellie jumped, and as her armload of wood clattered to the ground, Jayden bolted to a sit, simultaneously trying to struggle out of a sleeping bag and free his gun hand.
“What?” Jayden said, wildly. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, feeling the sudden tension drain. When they made the decision to stop a few hours ago, the eastern horizon had been only a silver smudge. Now bright sun stabbed through trees. He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Sorry. I was having a bad dream and—”
“You have a lot of bad dreams,” Ellie said, curtly. She gave the dog a hip-butt and began picking up scattered branches and twigs. “I thought we could have tea before we leave.”
“Here.” Chris made a move to get up. “Let me help.”
“Okay. Sure.” When Ellie didn’t reply, he looked over at Jayden. “Sorry about that.”
“She’s right. You do have a lot of bad dreams.” Yawning, Jayden kicked out of his bag, stood, then grabbed his back. “Man, I knew there was a reason God invented the bed . . . Nope, sorry.” He held up a hand. “I didn’t say that. Don’t tell me you didn’t ask me to come—”
“Well, I didn’t,” Chris said.
“Because I’ll tell you where to shove it,” Jayden said.
“Where the sun doesn’t shine,” Ellie said, still not smiling, although Mina grinned.
“Right.” Turning, Jayden stumbled off into the woods. “Be back.”
Chris watched as Ellie first broke large twigs into smaller kindling and then pulled out her knife and began carefully fuzzing bark. “You’re good at that.”
“Alex taught me,” Ellie said, eyes fixed to her task. Ever since they’d left, the little girl spoke to him only when necessary. He hadn’t pressed. He was stunned enough she and Jayden had insisted on coming, although Jayden’s rationale he half-understood and even agreed with: It’s not just you. I knew Lena before you did, and I don’t know if I can stay with Hannah now, anyway. Ellie, on the other hand, had simply refused to budge: It’s my choice. No other explanation. At that, Hannah had been ready to spit nails. But what could she—or Chris— say? “How many more days until Rule?” Ellie asked.
“If we keep pushing? Two. No more than three, especially if the weather holds.”
“Are you going to kill her?”
He knew who she meant. “If we see her. That was the idea behind leaving.”
“I don’t know if you should. Shoot Lena, I mean. She still feels . . . different.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I was really close, twice, and got a good look at her face. You know how the people-eaters get that hungry stare? Like they’re totally starving and you’re a hot dog? She wasn’t all the way like that. Her eyes also seemed . . .” He watched her think of the right word. “Sorry. Like my dad when he went back to Iraq? It was his job. He had no choice. I think Lena’s the same way. She’s stuck.”
But what is Peter?
“What if she can?” Ellie said. “Stop herself ?”
“That’s an experiment we can’t run, Ellie.”
“Okay.” The little girl’s face closed. Reaching into a parka pocket, Ellie pulled out a small plastic container and unscrewed the cap. The contents, gooey and thick, reeked of turpentine.
This was the most she’d spoken to him in days. Hoping to get her going again, Chris asked, “Did Alex teach you that, too?”
“Yeah. I found a good tree not too far away.” She used a stick to scoop out a nickel-sized dollop of pine resin. “Don’t try to make nice. I’m not talking to you.”
“Okay.” Standing, he worked cramps from his legs. “How long did you sleep?”
“Enough.” She scraped a flint over a tangle of cedar fuzz and pine needles. A shower of sparks jumped. Cupping the tinder, Ellie blew until a yellow flower blossomed, then slid the bundle beneath loosely laid twigs. “Is Peter, like, a best friend or something?”
“Yes.” There was something hypnotic about watching a fire spread. “Best friend I ever had.”
“You know him a long time?”
“No, but it feels like it.”
“Are you worried that he’s dead?”
It was a strange question. “How come you’re asking?”
Still not looking at him, she moved a single shoulder. “Because I don’t think you’re sure. You asked him just now, in your sleep.”