The Gypsy Morph

  A hint of movement spied from the corner of her eye caught her attention and brought her about, the Parkhan Spray leveled. She already had the safety off, her fingers working smoothly and quickly, anticipating that she would need to fire without pausing. She stood peering into the murk, listening and watching. She held herself rigid. She stopped breathing. Nothing moved. No sounds broke the silence. She waited as long as she could, and then she waited some more.

  Off in the distance, she heard cries, sharp and riddled with terror. Cries that turned to screams and begged for release. She wanted to block out the sounds, but couldn’t. Their raw edges tore at her defenses and turned them to water.

  Mama, she said to herself, a terrified whisper in her mind.

  She began walking once more, keeping the Spray ready, the safety off, the clip lock released. She had gone cold inside, her blood turned to ice. She had heard such screams before, and they always meant the same thing. Someone was dying. But it wouldn’t be anyone she knew, she told herself. It wouldn’t be people she cared about.

  It wouldn’t be the Ghosts.

  She heard her mother’s voice, singing to her.

  Hush little baby, don’t say a word.

  Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

  If that mockingbird don’t sing.

  Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

  She repeated the words to herself, mouthing them silently. She didn’t stop to think about her training or being cautious or anything else. All she could think about was putting one foot in front of the other. She just wanted to open as much distance as she could between herself and the sound of the screams. She just wanted to make the screams go away.

  Then suddenly they did, and she was alone again with the silence. She kept walking, moving steadily, deliberately across the empty, gloomy terrain. The chill inside lessened. The fear subsided. She was okay, she told herself. She was all right. Her mother’s ghost was with her, and her mother would never let anything happen to her.

  All around her, the world was a vast cauldron of darkness and roiling haze, a thick impenetrable soup. But this would end, too. Come morning, the light would brighten, the mist would dissipate, and the world would return. She just needed to be patient. Just needed to stay strong.

  Then sudden movement broke the slow swirl of the murk off to one side, and she felt her strength drain away.

  HAWK STOOD staring off into the mist the other Ghosts had disappeared into, wondering what he should do. He wasn’t even sure which way anyone had gone, save Panther and Cat, so he started walking after them. He could still hear sounds of pursuit behind and off to his right, but they were faint and scattered, and he thought that the militia might have given up, discouraged by the lack of visibility. Nevertheless, he kept alert for any indication that they were renewing their efforts, moving as quietly as he could. He caught glimpses of AV tracks in patches of soft earth and followed them into the gloom. Somewhere ahead, the Ghosts would be stopping to wait for him. He wasn’t worried so much about those in the AV as he was about those afoot. Bear, in particular, because it was likely the big kid was still somewhere behind him.

  A pair of huge lantern eyes appeared, gleaming wickedly, and his throat constricted in shock. Then the eyes blinked, and Cheney materialized, huge bristly head swinging from side to side, tongue lolling. The big dog ambled up to him as if everything were just as it should be, looking unconcerned and aloof.

  Hawk exhaled. “Where’s Panther?” he whispered to the dog, kneeling in front of him. “Where’s Bear?”

  He couldn’t tell if Cheney understood him—probably he didn’t—but it made him feel better to think he might. Cheney looked at him as he spoke, intelligence reflected in his bright smoky eyes, and to Hawk’s surprise he started off at once, moving back the way the boy had come but angling off to the left. It was the wrong direction, but Hawk hesitated only a moment before following. He had learned to trust Cheney. He would not stop doing so now.

  His faith was quickly rewarded. They came on Bear almost immediately, the boy lumbering out of the mist carrying the big Tyson Flechette, looking remarkably calm. He saw Hawk and waved, and Hawk hurried over to him.

  “Guess I got lost,” Bear admitted sheepishly.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Hawk told him. “You’re still lost. You just have company now. Have you seen anything of the others? Panther or Catalya?”

  The other boy shook his head. “All I’ve seen is a whole bunch of nothing. Heard a lot of things, though. But not for a while. I think they gave up the chase, but I can’t be sure. This stuff is awful.” He gestured at the mist, shrugged. Then he glanced at Cheney. “Maybe Cheney knows where we should go.”

  Hawk nodded. “Maybe.” He knelt in front of the dog for the second time. “Where’s Panther, Cheney? Can you find him?”

  Cheney turned away and started off. Hawk and Bear followed wordlessly, moving across the rough terrain, wading through the haze. Hawk found himself somewhat reassured now that he had found Bear, a reasonable start to his efforts to get everyone back together again. With luck, Cheney would lead them to Panther and Catalya, and from there they would eventually catch up to the Lightning and the others. If the militia actually had given up pursuit, they might manage to reach the camp with the children and Helen Rice without further trouble.

  He smirked at his own optimism. Unwarranted, unjustified, and totally unrealistic. Life did not work out like that in his world.

  They walked for a long time—or what seemed to him a long time—before Bear spoke.

  “Do you think you can really do it?” the big kid said quietly.

  Hawk didn’t need to ask what he meant. He knew. “What do you think? Do you think I can?”

  Bear shrugged. “I don’t know. You can do a lot of things no one thought you could. I think you can probably do some more. We all think that. But this? I don’t know.”

  Hawk nodded. Fair enough. He found himself tired all of a sudden, as if the long journey from the walls of Safeco compound to the gardens of the King of the Silver River to the banks of the Columbia and finally to here had sapped him of his energy. He really didn’t know the answer to Bear’s question. He didn’t know if he could do it. How could he? He didn’t know where he was going or how far it actually was to the haven promised by the old man, the place where the coming destruction of everything could not touch them. He wondered if it even existed. He hated himself for thinking this way, but he couldn’t help it. He wondered how there could be anywhere safe in a world that was coming apart all around them. How could anyone survive such a thing?

  Nevertheless, he knew he had to believe they could. He had to believe that his child would have a chance at life and not end up like so many others. His child and Tessa’s—he had to believe. He had to believe for the Ghosts, too. And for the children in the camp, waiting for him to lead them to safety. And for the others who would be joining them along the way. And maybe for the world’s future, as well. He had to believe.

  But it was hard when there was so little reason to do so.

  “When I was younger,” Bear said suddenly, “still living on the farm with my family, no one believed in much of anything. That was the problem. They only believed in what they could see. They believed in the present, but not the future. They were just hanging on, living day to day.”

  “That’s what most do,” Hawk said.

  “Not us. Not the Ghosts. We have something more. We have a future we believe in. That’s what’s different about us. We’re not just hanging on. We’re going toward something. Even if we can’t see it and don’t know exactly what it is. It doesn’t matter. Your vision feels real to me.”

  He paused, head lowered. “So I guess maybe I do think you can do it.” Hawk looked over at him, and he shrugged. “You’re not like the rest of us. Even before I knew about this gypsy morph thing, I knew that. That’s why we all follow you.”

  “Maybe my vision isn’t going to work out,” Hawk said.

  Bear
shook his head. “You don’t believe that.”

  “No, I don’t guess I do. I think it’s real. I just wish I knew more about it than I do.”

  “Maybe you know all you need to know.”

  Hawk smiled despite himself. Such faith. “Maybe I do,” he agreed.

  Ahead several paces, Cheney suddenly gave a low growl, and the thick hair on the back of his neck bristled. He stopped moving, freezing in place. Hawk stopped, too, listening. He heard Bear release the safety on the Tyson Flechette. Then nothing. He waited a moment. Cheney growled again and started forward. Hawk and Bear reluctantly followed. Neither liked it that they could see so little. Neither liked the idea of encountering a danger they couldn’t measure in advance. But there was nothing they could do about it; they had to keep moving and find out what was waiting. Better to find it than to let it find them.

  They walked in silence, eyes and ears trained on the dark and mist, searching for some indication of what Cheney had sensed. The big dog walked point, head lowered and swinging side to side. He had stopped growling, but Hawk couldn’t be sure if that meant the danger had passed or if Cheney was just masking his presence. The silence was unnerving, but he held himself steady and waited it out.

  When the screams started, not long after that, they drew up short instantly. Cheney cast about, eyes narrowed and teeth bared. Bear’s stoic face turned pale and then empty of expression. Hawk listened to the screams rise and fall and then disappear. He could not be sure where they had come from. He couldn’t tell who had uttered them. The haze distorted both vision and sound and lent a feeling of disorientation to everything. Hawk tried to sort out what he was hearing and couldn’t.

  When the screams stopped, they stood where they were for a long moment, waiting for more. When nothing happened, Bear said, “Should we take a look?”

  Hawk shook his head. “Not in that direction.” He took a deep breath, reached down to touch the tire tracks of the AV in the loose soil, and said, “Cheney, track.”

  They set off a second time, decidedly uneasy now, less certain of themselves. Hawk, carrying only a prod, reached into his pocket and extracted a viper-prick. If something was going to happen, he thought, it was going to happen soon. He glanced skyward and wished for what must have been the hundredth time that the mist and clouds would clear. But he knew his wish was futile, that there would be no clearing before dawn and perhaps not even then. Finding their way would depend on luck and Cheney’s instincts. Finding the others might depend on more than that.

  The minutes dragged on. The silence and the night deepened. Cheney kept moving at a steady pace. Nothing appeared. Hawk had almost decided that nothing would when Cheney gave a deeper, more threatening growl.

  Ahead, masked by the haze, something moved.

  A BRIGHT PAIR OF EYES appeared from out of nowhere as Sparrow swung the barrel of the Parkhan Spray about, her finger tightening on the trigger. The safety was already off, the clip locked and loaded, and the weapon ready for firing. She almost went the whole way, so startled by the movement that she was ready to shoot anything. She held up just in time, even though the glint of those big eyes caused everything inside to tighten from her throat to her knees. Something about those eyes, some small detail, made her pause, and a second later Cheney’s grizzled head swung into view, clearing the curtain of the mist.

  The big dog moved toward her, and a second later Hawk and Bear appeared right behind him.

  “Hawk!” she called, lowering her weapon and rushing over to him. “Jeez, am I glad to see you!”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “Sparrow, what are you doing out here? I thought you were in the AV. What happened to the others?”

  She hugged him impulsively. “I don’t know,” she said into his shoulder, refusing to let go. Clinging to him as if he were a lifeline. Very unlike Sparrow.

  As if sensing what he was thinking, she stepped back and abruptly released him. “I was thrown off the roof of the Lightning after we got separated, and they didn’t know I was gone. I’ve been wandering . . .” She gestured toward the wall of mist. “All over.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Hawk, I think there’s something out there, tracking me.”

  “There’s something out there, all right,” he agreed. “But I don’t know that it’s tracking you. I think it’s just mist and night and some militia people running into each other. Look, we have to get moving, follow the tire tracks of the AV until we find them. It’s not safe to stay here.”

  Bear ambled over. “You look spooked, Sparrow,” he said quietly.

  She glared at him. “You think? Didn’t you hear those screams?”

  He nodded slowly. “I heard.”

  “Didn’t they spook you?”

  He nodded uncertainly. “Sure.”

  “Then shut up.” She turned back to Hawk, her eyes dark and angry. “Can we go now?”

  He was about to say yes when the Klee stepped out of the fog.

  EIGHTEEN

  F OR A FEW ENDLESS MOMENTS, no one moved. Not even Cheney, who must have sensed the danger instinctively. None of them had ever seen anything like the Klee—had not even imagined such a thing could exist. They stared at it as people always stare at things so foreign and so unlikely, they seem a trick of the mind. They stared at it, as well, with the cold realization that they had come up against something much more terrifying than anything they had encountered before.

  The Klee stared back at them, immobile against the screen of the dark and the mist.

  No, not at them, Hawk corrected, catching the glint of its tiny eyes beneath the heavy brow. Not at them.

  It was looking right at him.

  Perhaps the others didn’t know this, but he was certain of it. He didn’t know why he had been singled out, but he knew he had. Perhaps something about him had caught its attention. Perhaps it had been looking for him all along. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he was the one it was focused on, the one it wanted.

  “What is it?” he heard Sparrow whisper.

  He had no idea. It was of monstrous size and appearance for something that walked upright and was vaguely human. It stood well over eight feet, its massive body coated with a mix of scales and tufts of long hair and clots of debris that seemed to have grown into its leathery hide. Huge, bowed legs supported its tree-trunk body; its overlong arms hung loose from its shoulders, ridged with muscle. Wicked green eyes peered out from beneath a brow formed of bone grown thick with scars, and there was an intent in those eyes that left Hawk chilled all the way through.

  Cheney growled deep in his throat and took a cautious step forward, muzzle drawn back, teeth gleaming.

  “No, Cheney,” Hawk said at once.

  He reached down and touched the dog’s thick ruff to reinforce his command, and he felt Cheney shiver in response.

  “What do we do?” Bear asked.

  “Back away,” Hawk ordered.

  He took one step and then another. Sparrow and Bear went with him, their movements slow and cautious. Both leveled the barrels of their weapons and pointed them at the monster. Hawk took a third step, and his companions did the same.

  Cheney had not moved.

  “Cheney,” Hawk whispered. “Back.”

  Still the dog did not move. He remained frozen in place, his eyes fixed on the monstrosity confronting them, head lowered, ruff bristling, muscles gathered. The mist drifted in curtains across the barren terrain, ceaselessly changing the look of things, conspiring with the darkness to trick and deceive, to cause the eyes to question.

  “Back, Cheney,” Hawk repeated, a sinking feeling blooming in the pit of his stomach.

  Then the mist swept in out of the night, a suffocating blanket that enveloped everything, and the creature facing them was gone.

  For a second, no one moved, staring into the hazy darkness, waiting for it to clear and for the monster to reappear. But when the dissipation finally took place, the monster was nowhere to be seen.

  Cheney remained in his defensive cro
uch.

  “Can we go now?” Sparrow asked in a small voice.

  Hawk nodded without answering.

  They set out anew, moving away from the place where the monster had appeared and then vanished, following the tracks of the AV, still trying to make their way toward their destination. They walked in a tight cluster, Bear and Sparrow with their weapons held ready, Hawk with his eyes on the darkness, and Cheney, who was again on the move in front of them, leading the way. Cheney didn’t seem entirely satisfied with the decision not to stand their ground, a reluctant participant in their efforts to get away. He slouched guardedly some half a dozen paces ahead, muzzle lowered, head swinging, the hair ridging his spine bristling like spikes.

  No one said anything.

  The minutes passed, a slow progression that measured their efforts at putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the creature, efforts that did nothing to reassure them. There was something about the encounter that left Hawk wondering if what they had seen was even real. It felt as if what they had witnessed was the emergence of an apparition, a specter not subject to natural laws. Nothing about it felt right. Its abrupt appearance and disappearance suggested that their encounter had been with a ghost come out of the ether rather than a creature of flesh and blood.

  And yet he could not shake the feeling that there was substance to it, that the weight of it, should it be felt, would be crushing.

  Like the weight of its gaze as it stared at him, he thought. Immense, implacable, and overpowering.

  More time passed, and they kept moving, passing in and out of chambers formed of mist and darkness. Distance lost meaning, the terrain unchanging beneath their feet, a swampy combination of sucking mud, sand, and withered scrub. The horizon was a low, jagged line fading into the night’s gray emptiness. There was no sound and no movement. They might have been alone in the world, the last of its creatures.