“How did you get out? How did you wake up?”
“When it started … eating you, I freaked. Just went over the edge. Guess the shock was enough to wake me up.”
I feel a winter breeze coming in the window, licking at my bare feet. Feels good. Too good.
“Why doesn’t it finish us off?” I ask. “I mean, there’s nothing we can do to stop it. But it keeps toying with us. These nightmares are like wet dreams for this thing. It gets off on them. Why not just kill us and get it over with?”
Since that first nightmare, the autopsy, it’s like the beast has been dissecting our minds. Finding where it hurts, feeding on our fear.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Howie says. “With Ray and the other missing kids, there was a couple weeks between when they got bit and when they disappeared. Maybe whatever that beast infected us with takes time to work. You know, to change us.”
Now that Howie’s talking science, he’s sounding calmer.
“Change us into what? Human ice cubes?”
“Don’t know. I’m still working on that. Whatever’s going on inside us, I don’t think we’re ready yet.”
Ready for what?
“But there’s more,” Howie says. “I was in its head for a while before it started hunting you. And when I was looking through its eyes, I think I saw where it goes.”
“What do you mean, where it goes?”
“Where it’s holed up in the daytime,” he says. “And through the summers, I guess. Where it hides. I can find the place. We can find it.”
“Huh? And do what?”
He’s sounding very un-Howie-like. He jumps when the phone rings. Now he wants to find this killing machine?
“What’re we supposed to do?” he asks. “Just wait? Ray waited, and look what happened to him.”
I can only shake my head. If Howie’s calculations are right, then I’ve got maybe four days left. And this infection seems to be working even faster on Howie.
“Gotta do something,” he says, almost pleading. “We can find it.”
I open my mouth to tell him he’s crazy. But he’s right, we can’t just wait. His idea is beyond nuts, but it’s all we’ve got. So I heave a heavy sigh and ask: “Where?”
TWENTY-FOUR
“What the hell is that?” I ask, getting in the backseat with Ash.
Pike’s behind the wheel of his junker, with some kind of futuristic spy gear strapped on his head. It has two short cylinders poking out like binoculars over his eyes.
“Night-vision goggles,” Pike says. “We’re going hunting, aren’t we?”
“You bust those, Dad’s gonna kill you,” Howie tells him, riding shotgun.
“You worry too much, bro.” Pike fools with the controls on the side of the headgear. “I can see everything with these babies. See body heat, see through clothes. Damn, Ash, don’t you ever wear a bra?”
“You want to lose some teeth?” She leans forward.
“They can’t see through clothes,” Howie says. “If you set them on infrared, they track body heat signatures. But you can also set them to pick up on ambient light.”
“You’re going to have to dumb that down a bit,” I say.
“Okay. They catch even the faintest existing light, like from stars or light pollution off cloud cover, and amplify it a thousand times brighter. Makes even a moonless night look like daytime, but on a green planet.”
Pike keeps playing with his new toy. “What do you say I try driving with these on?”
“You got a death wish,” Ash says. “Save it for yourself. Let’s get moving.”
Pike pushes the goggles up onto his forehead and we pull out from the marina lot.
Me and Howie had to give up our secret about the shared nightmares. It was the only way to explain how we knew where to find the beast. I was scared we might lose Ash and Pike with this new symptom. But Pike was easy, saying: “Great. Let’s track it down.”
Ash held back judgment. “I don’t know. Weirder and weirder.”
But she’s here. Not going to miss a fight.
“What did you bring that for?” Pike glances back at the small rifle in my lap. “That wouldn’t stop a squirrel.”
I snuck it out from the rack in the marina house. I feel better just holding it, even if it wouldn’t make a dent in the beast.
“Now, this will do some serious damage,” Pike says, holding up a double-barreled shotgun he’s got stowed between the front seats.
“You got the safety on?” Ash asks.
“Of course. I may be a gun nut, but the Captain taught me to respect my firearms.”
Ash brought along a .32-caliber rifle she uses when she goes deer hunting with her father.
It’s weird, I never even touched a real gun till I got stuck out here in the Big Empty where everybody’s got some kind of firearm. Now I know where all those buckshot holes in the WELCOME TO HARVEST COVE sign come from.
While other people are home drinking eggnog, roasting chestnuts and watching Charlie Brown pick out his sadass Christmas tree, we’re out hunting a demon.
We follow the dirt road along the shore till the hulking skeleton of the ice factory comes into view.
Its black bones are just visible in the moonlight. I can see easy in the dark now. Last night, I got up to take a leak and was walking back from the bathroom before realizing I hadn’t even turned the light on. Usually I have to fumble to find the switch. But now I almost see better, the lower the light. Photosensitivity, Howie calls it. Freaky, I call it.
“You sure you can find the place?” I ask Howie.
“I can find it.” His voice is quiet. Shaky.
We bump over frozen muck as we drive up to the factory. Pike stops and kills the engine. For a minute, there’s no sound but us breathing, and the creaking of the rotting structure. Seems like one stiff wind could topple the whole thing.
“Well.” Ash speaks up. “If we’re gonna do it, let’s do it.”
Pike nods, looking ridiculous in his goggles. “Okay, boys and girls. Lock and load.”
I open the door and step out. The wind off the lake feels like nothing to me, but Ash zips her jacket up to her chin.
She sweeps her flashlight beam around in the murk. I’m seeing okay, but she must be near-blind without the light. Her and Pike check their guns one more time, so I make like I’m doing the same. But I barely know how to shoot the thing.
“Stay close, bro,” Pike tells Howie. “Which way?”
Howie points over to where the bluffs rise in dark humps past the factory. With Pike leading and Howie right behind him, we crunch through the shallow snow.
After almost falling on his face a couple times, Pike pushes his goggles up on his forehead. “They don’t read the ground too good.”
We come to the first of the bluffs. It stands about four stories high, jutting out on the lake.
“Over to the right,” Howie says. “Should be a way through.”
We find a cleft, a deep cut in the rocks as if a huge hatchet had chopped down on it. We climb through to a little clearing between two tall bluffs.
“Dead end.” Ash pans her light up the rough rock faces.
“No,” Howie whispers. “This is it. Turn off the light.”
Ash kills it, and we all look around in the dark.
The two bluffs shelter this hollow like rocky hands cupped around it. At the far end, the clearing opens onto the lake. Behind us, the walls join again. A nice little hideaway.
“Nothing here but rocks, Howie,” Ash says. “Maybe your dream was just a dream.”
He stands there searching the surrounding walls. Right about now I’m hoping he’s wrong. This thing wants to stay hidden? Let it.
Howie shudders. “We better hide!”
We scan the dark for any moving shadows.
“Now!” he whispers.
I feel an electric prickle along the back of my neck. “Do what he says!”
Pike finds a boulder by the rear of the clearing,
big enough to give us some cover. We crouch down and wait.
Pike lowers his night-vision gear into place.
For a minute there’s nothing but the sound of the wind.
“There!” Pike whispers.
Shadows are shifting over by the left rock wall. I strain to see what’s moving. Then a pale figure squeezes itself out of the stone and stretches up to its full height.
My breath freezes in my lungs. Ash stiffens. Howie leans against me, shaking. The beast moves away from the wall and tilts its head to look at the sky.
Howie gasps—only a hush of breath, but loud in the still silence.
The beast’s attention snaps away from the sky.
It turns to scan the clearing, studying the bare trees and brush, the rough walls of the bluffs.
We crouch lower behind the boulder. The only thing saving us is we’re downwind of the beast, with the gusts coming off the lake.
Those eyes, shining in the starlight, slowly pass over our hiding place.
That stare lingers on our boulder too long. A shiver of icicle fingers runs along my scalp. My leg muscles tense up, and the crazy urge hits me to stand up and be seen. My calves cramp with the struggle to keep from rising. Fear twists my gut. The walls feel like they’re closing in on us. This whole place is a trap.
Then the beast’s stare moves on.
I almost collapse with the release of the pressure, clinging onto a crag in the boulder to keep still. Howie sags against me, and I put my free hand on his back to hold him up.
The beast turns away from us and starts moving on all fours. It picks up speed, passing out of the hollow onto the ice and disappearing in the night.
I let go of the breath I’ve been holding, leaning on the boulder. There’s dead silence for a minute.
“That was … extreme,” Ash mumbles.
Pike pushes his goggles up and stands. “That’s one giant, butt-ugly killing machine.”
We all rise. My legs are so shaky. Howie braces himself on the rock to stay vertical. More disturbing than seeing that thing again was the urge I felt to stand and show myself. I’m starting to understand why all those missing kids walked off into the night.
“Where did that thing come out from?” Pike asks.
He starts walking, holding his shotgun with one hand on the barrel and the other cradling the trigger guard, ready if the beast returns.
We follow. My attention is split between the bluff and the gap leading to the lake. Pike stops in front of a deep shadow cut in the rock. A cave. About seven feet high and five wide. Big enough for us, but a tight squeeze for the beast.
“What do you think?” Pike asks, probing the blackness with his goggles. “Let’s take a look.”
Nobody rushes to agree with him.
“Come on,” he says. “We’re armed and dangerous, right?”
“I’ll go in with you,” Howie says, surprising everybody, maybe even himself. “I need to see,” he says. “To know what we’re dealing with.”
“What if it comes back when you’re in there?” Ash asks.
Howie shakes his head. “It won’t be back for a while.”
“How do you know?” she says.
“I just do,” Howie mutters. “It wants to run tonight.”
There’s a long silence, all eyes on Howie. He led us right to the beast’s front door, so maybe he’s getting some kind of insight into its head as it sinks its claws deeper into his. But I don’t like how he’s acting. Like that thing has got a spell on him, making him forget he’s a born coward.
“I’ll take point,” Ash says. “I’ve got the light.”
“Stay real close to me,” Pike tells Howie.
I take up position right behind Ash.
We step into the mouth of the cave. In the history of bad ideas, this has got to make the top ten. But I’m feeling the pull of the place, just like Howie. The need to know.
It’s not a cave but a tunnel, slanting down.
The ceiling’s high enough so we don’t have to crouch. Ash’s light shines on a skin of ice covering the walls. Our footfalls echo loudly in the hush.
Minutes go by and we’re still descending. How deep does this hole go? The floor turns slippery, coated in an inch of ice, and I have to brace myself on the walls. The rocks are smoothed out and the floor is pretty even, as if this tunnel was dug on purpose. Like it’s been here a while.
“Do you see that?” Ash’s voice bounces off the walls.
“See what?” I ask, my heart seizing up on me. I bump into her when she stops.
“There’s a bend in the tunnel,” she says. “And a blue light farther on.”
I see it now, a dim glow leaking from around the corner ahead.
“Let me go first.” Pike squeezes past her. He goes around the corner, looking surreal with the shotgun held ready and the lenses of his goggles flashing blue. Pike thinks he’s in a movie. He’s loving this.
I can’t tell how far down we’ve gone. We could be deep beneath the bluffs, or under the floor of the lake, even.
The rest of us move toward the bend. Before we reach it, Pike calls: “Clear!”
Taking the turn, all I see is the blue glow. It shines off the ice of the tunnel and reflects back.
Then I see the cave.
It’s about the size of a basketball court, with a ceiling that stretches up fifteen feet maybe. The walls glow blue. A thick mist clings to the floor, swallowing my feet.
“What is this place?” I say, then cringe at the echoes: isthisplace isthisplace.
The others are wading through the mist, exploring.
Howie reaches out and touches the far wall, then checks his fingers to see if any of the glow rubbed off.
“Why’s it shine like that?” Ash whispers, trying to avoid the echoes.
Howie turns to us, his face dyed pale blue. “Could be some kind of phosphorescent mineral deposit. Beautiful, don’t you think?”
“Maybe it’s radioactive,” Pike says, wandering away from us. “Don’t be taking any samples for your collection.”
“It’s creepy.” Ash pokes it. “And freezing. This whole place is way below zero.”
“When you go this deep,” Howie says, “this far north it’s always freezing. Summer can’t reach down here.”
His voice is almost dreamy. No shaking. No panic. I don’t like it.
“Hey, guys,” Pike calls. Echoes thunder off the ceiling, multiplying into a whole crowd of voices.
He waves us over, deeper into the cave.
“Keep it down,” Ash hushes him.
Pike’s standing by a low rise in the floor. The mist drifts in lazy swirls above it.
“Find something?” Howie whispers.
Pike nods, his shotgun cradled in the crook of his arm, one foot resting on the rise. He looks alien in the eerie glow, with the goggles resting against his forehead and his Mohawk dyed electric blue.
“Take a look, bro.” Pike bends over the mound and sweeps his hand through the mist, clearing it away.
I see what the mound is made of.
Bones!
I blink, stunned.
So many of them. Heaped four feet deep in places. The rise stretches all the way to the cave wall.
Human bones!
I’m guessing the smaller ones are from fingers and toes, the bigger ones from arms and legs. Some rib cages, pelvic bones. Skeleton hands reach out here and there. But what tells me these are all human are the skulls.
Some with missing teeth, some missing lower jaws. All with their tops cracked open, like something hammered through the bone. Or chewed through.
Pike climbs up onto the mound.
I watch him, speechless.
“Get off there!” Ash says.
The mass shifts under his feet with a clacking of bone on bone.
Pike looks out over the mound. “There’s a hollowed-out part in the middle. Like a nest or something.”
“Not a nest,” Howie says, gazing at the waves of mist swirling
over the bones as if hypnotized. “I think it sleeps there,” he whispers.
A bed of bones.
I finally find my voice. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Yeah,” Ash says. “Let’s go!”
Pike climbs back down, scattering a few bones.
“Okay.” He moves up beside Howie. “Time to retreat.”
Howie gives him a reluctant nod, like he wants to keep poking around down here.
We turn, leaving the mist to cover the dead.
Halfway to the tunnel entrance, Pike shouts. “Look out!”
His voice ricochets off the walls. We spin around.
At the other end of the cave, a huge pale figure crouches in the mist, watching us. Pike lifts his shotgun.
“Wait!” Howie puts his hand on Pike’s arm. “Hold on. Something’s wrong. Look at it.”
Look at what? I want to scream. Shoot! Now!
“I’m looking,” Pike snaps. “What the hell?”
“That’s not it,” Howie says.
Pike’s locked on the target with both barrels. “What’re you talking about?” He fights to be heard over the confusion of echoes. “I see it!”
I’m waiting for that thing to leap over and tear into me.
Then something clicks inside my head. There is something wrong.
The beast’s mouth is wide open but filled with shadow. No teeth. And the eyes—empty sockets stare back at me. The whole thing looks hollow.
“Wait!” Howie says, digging for something in his pocket.
He comes out with a pen. We watch in disbelief as he winds up and throws it across the cave.
His aim is good. The pen hits the crouching figure and bounces off, falling to the floor. The impact shakes loose a minor avalanche of dust.
Ash lowers the barrel of her rifle. “What is that?”
“I think it’s just a shell,” he says.
“A shell?” Pike asks.
“Trust me. Let’s take a look.”
Pike nods. “But you stay behind me.”
Pike leads us across the cave. The closer we get, the more it does look hollow. Empty.
Pike edges up close enough to give it a kick. His boot makes a dull thud, like kicking an oil barrel. It shakes loose more powdery dust. He shoves the barrels of his shotgun right through one of the eye sockets.
Howie reaches past him to knock on it himself, an amazed look on his face. “Some animals discard their shells when they get old, or when they outgrow them.”