I hardly notice when he leads us into a house nestled in the woods. By that point, I feel like a walking zombie. We crunch over broken glass and some animal scurries away, disappearing into the shadows. He finds a bedroom. He pulls off my pack and gently shoves me onto the bed.
The world fades out the instant my head touches the pillow.
I dream that I’m fighting again by the laundry barrels. We’re soaked in laundry suds. My hair is dripping and my clothes cling, as wet T-shirts will do. Anita is pulling my hair and screeching.
The crowd is too close, hardly giving us room to fight. Their faces are contorted, showing too much teeth and too much white around their eyes. They yell things like “Rip off her shirt!” or “Tear off her bra!” One guy keeps yelling frantically, “Kiss her! Kiss her!”
We roll into a laundry barrel and it comes crashing down. Instead of dirty laundry water, foaming blood splashes everywhere. It is warm and crimson as it soaks me. We all stop and stare at the blood pouring out of the barrel. An impossible amount of it flows out like an endless river.
Laundry floats by. Shirts and pants soaked in blood, empty and crumpled, lost and soulless without their wearers.
Scorpions the size of sewer rats ride the islands of crimson clothing. They have enormous stingers with a drop of blood at the tip. When they see us, they curl their tails and spread their wings with menace. I’m pretty sure scorpions are not supposed to have wings, but I don’t have time to think about that because someone screams and points to the sky.
Along the horizon, the sky darkens. A dark, boiling cloud blots out the setting sun. A low buzz like the beating of a million insect wings fills the air.
The wind picks up and quickly grows to hurricane force as the churning cloud and its shadow race toward us. People run in panic, their faces suddenly lost and innocent like frightened children.
The scorpions take to the air. They congregate and pluck someone out of the crowd. Someone small with withered legs. She screams, “Penryn!”
“Paige!” I jump up and run after them. I sprint blindly through the blood which is now ankle high and rising.
But no matter how hard I run, I can’t get any closer to her as the monsters haul my little sister into the oncoming darkness.
CHAPTER 24
When I open my eyes, dappled sunlight streams through the window. I am alone in what was once a lovely bedroom with high ceilings and arched windows. My first thought is that Raffe has left me again. Panic flutters in my stomach. But it’s daylight, and I can handle myself in daylight, can’t I? And I know to head for San Francisco, if Raffe is to be believed. I give it a fifty-fifty chance.
I pad out of the room, down the hall and into the living room. With each step, I shed the remnants of my nightmare, leaving it behind in the dark where it belongs.
Raffe sits on the floor repacking my pack. The morning sun caresses his hair, highlighting strands of mahogany and honey hidden among the black. My shoulder muscles relax, their tension seeping out at the sight of him. He looks up at me, his eyes bluer than ever in the soft light.
For a moment, we look at each other without saying anything. I wonder what he sees as he watches me standing in the stream of golden light filtering through the windows.
I look away first. My eyes roam the room in an effort to find something else to look at and settle on a row of photos sitting on the fireplace mantel. I wander over there to give myself something to do other than stand awkwardly under his gaze.
There’s a family photo complete with mom, dad, and three kids. They are on a ski slope, all bundled up and looking happy. Another photo shows a sports field with the older boy in a football uniform doing a high-five with dad. I pick up one that shows the girl in a prom dress smiling at the camera with a cute guy in a tux.
The last photo is a close-up of the little kid hanging upside down on a tree branch. His hair spikes out below him and his mischievous smile shows two missing teeth.
The perfect family in a perfect house. I look around at what must have been a beautiful home. One of the windows is broken and rain has stained the hardwood floor in a big semi-circle in front of it. We are not the first visitors here, as evidenced by scattered candy wrappers in one of the corners.
My eyes drift back to Raffe. He is still watching me with those unfathomable eyes.
I put the photo back into its place. “What time is it?”
“Mid-morning.” He goes back to rummaging through my pack.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of things we don’t need. Obidiah was right, we should have packed better.” He tosses a pot onto the hardwood floor. It clunks a couple of times before settling down.
“The place is cleaned out of food, every last scrap has been licked away,” he says. “But there’s still running water.” He lifts two filled water bottles. He’s found a green daypack for himself, and he puts one bottle in it, the other in mine.
“Want some breakfast?” He shakes the bag of cat food that I had carried in my pack.
I grab a handful of the dried kibbles on my way to the bathroom. I’m dying for a shower but there’s something too vulnerable about stripping down and soaping up right now, so I settle for an unsatisfactory wipedown, toweling around my clothes. I at least manage to wash my face and brush my teeth. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and prop a dark cap on it.
It’s going to be another long day and this time, we’ll be out in the sun. My feet are already sore and tired, and I wish I could have slept with my boots off. But I can see why Raffe didn’t bother to take them off, and I’m grateful for it. I wouldn’t have gotten far without my boots if I’d had to run into the forest.
By the time I come out of the bathroom, Raffe is ready to go. His hair is wet and dripping onto his shoulder, and his face is clean of blood. I doubt he took a shower any more than I did, but he looks fresh, much fresher than I feel.
There are no visible scars or wounds anywhere on him. He has changed from the bloodied jeans of yesterday into a pair of cargo pants that fit the curve of his body surprisingly well. He’s also found a long-sleeved T that echoes the deep blue of his eyes. It’s a little tight around his broad shoulders and a little loose around his torso, but he manages to make it look good.
I wish I could take the time to check out the wardrobe this house has to offer but I don’t want to waste the time. Even if Obi and his men aren’t out looking for us, Paige needs rescuing as soon as possible.
As we head out of the house, I wonder how my mother is doing. A part of me worries about her, a part of me is glad to be free of her, and all of me feels guilty for not taking better care of her. She’s like a wounded feral cat. No one can truly take care of her without locking her in a cage. She would hate that, and so would I. I hope she’s managed to stay far away from people. Both for her sake and theirs.
Raffe immediately turns right as soon as we get out of the house. I resume following him and hope he knows where we’re going. Unlike me, he seems to have no stiffness or limping. I think he’s adjusting to being on his feet. I don’t say anything about it because I don’t want to remind him why he’s walking instead of flying.
My pack feels much lighter. We won’t have anything we need should we need to camp outside, but I do feel better knowing I can run faster. I also feel better having a new pocketknife attached to my belt. Raffe found it somewhere and gave it to me as we headed out. I also found some steak knives and stuck a couple into my boots. Whoever lived here liked their steaks. These are high-quality, all-metal German knives. After holding these, I never want to go back to serrated tin with wooden handles.
It’s a beautiful day. The sky is a vivid blue above the redwoods and the air is cool but comfortable.
The sense of ease doesn’t last, though. My mind soon fills with worries of what might lurk in the forest, and about whether Obi’s men are hunting us. As we walk along the hillside, I catch glimpses of the gap in the forest where the road must be to our left.
Raffe stops in front of me. I follow his lead and hold my breath. Then I hear it.
Someone is crying. It’s not the brokenhearted wail of someone who’s just lost a family member. I’ve heard plenty of those in the last few weeks to know what they sound like. There is no shock or denial in the sound, just pure grief and the pain of accepting it as a lifelong companion.
Raffe and I exchange glances. Which is safer? Go up to the road to avoid the griever? Or stay in the forest and risk an encounter with him? Probably the latter. Raffe must think so too, because he turns and continues in the forest.
It’s not long before we see the little girls.
They hang from a tree. Not by their necks, but by ropes tied under their arms and around their chests.
One girl looks to be about Paige’s age and the other a couple of years older. That would make them seven and nine. The older girl’s hand still grips the younger girl’s dress like she had tried to hold the little girl up out of harm’s way.
They wear what look like matching striped dresses. It’s hard to tell now that the print is stained in blood. Most of the material has been ripped and shredded. Whatever gnawed on their legs and torso got full before it reached their chests. Or it was too low to the ground to reach them.
The worst by far are their tortured expressions. They were alive when they were eaten.
I double over and throw up kibble bits until I dry-heave.
All the while, a middle-aged man wearing thick glasses cries beneath the girls. He’s a scrawny guy, with the kind of look and presence that must have had him sitting alone in the cafeteria through his high school years. His entire body trembles with his sobs. A woman with red-rimmed eyes wraps her arms around him.
“It was an accident,” says the woman, soothing her hand over the man’s back.
“This was no accident,” says the man.
“We didn’t mean to.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“Of course it’s not okay,” she says. “But we’ll get through this. All of us.”
“Who’s worse? Him or us?”
“It’s not his fault,” she says. “He can’t help it. He’s the victim, not the monster.”
“We need to put him down,” he says. Another sob escapes him.
“You’d give up on him just like that?” Her expression turns fierce. She steps back from him.
He looks even more forlorn now that he’s unable to lean on her. But anger stiffens his spine. He flings his arm toward the hanging girls. “We fed him little girls!”
“He’s just sick, that’s all,” she says. “We just need to make him better.”
“How?” He hunches to look intensely into her face. “What are we going to do, take him to the hospital?”