Part 18 (1/2)
”We could have been killed,” Sawyer insisted. ”That thing nearly took off my shoulder. I mean, really?”
”What do you want me to say?” Ryan asked. ”I couldn't take inventory of the garage that doesn't belong to me because I was busy s.h.i.+tting my pants.”
”What if it had gone after Jane?” Sawyer shot back, aggression tingeing his tone.
”Jesus, seriously?”
”How would you have felt if it had got her and then you remembered the ax, Ryan?”
”Hey, guys?” Jane rose from her seat.
”I would have been thrilled,” Ryan said. ”Really happy. I'd have thrown a G.o.dd.a.m.n party.”
”Yeah?” Sawyer challenged. ”And I bet if she was outside you would have gone out there to find her, right? No matter how big of a risk.”
Ryan's expression wavered from defensive to guilt ridden. He looked away, and Sawyer immediately regretted going there. He knew Ryan was doing the best he could. He was trying to protect them, trying to keep his s.h.i.+t together despite watching Lauren get torn apart, trying to be the voice of reason while Sawyer swung from cautious to utterly reckless, ready to stomp into the snow like some kamikaze with nothing left to lose.
”Sorry,” Sawyer said quietly.
Ryan didn't respond. He marched down the hallway, a flashlight beam illuminating his path.
Sawyer and Jane were left to stare at each other. She tried to look confident, but it was obvious that she was questioning her own plan.
”You think this will work?” Sawyer asked, if only to breach the silence, to keep himself from looking back down at the thing between them.
”I think so,” she said after a moment, but she didn't sound sure of herself. He supposed that was just as well. How could they be sure of anything with a nightmare lying at their feet?
”It's a good idea,” he said after a moment, watching her vacillate between going through with it or calling the whole thing off. ”You're right; we can use its scent to disguise ourselves. If it was just me and Ryan, we'd spend all night kicking the s.h.i.+t out of it or something.”
The flashlight beam bounced at the end of the hallway before Jane could reply. Ryan was returning from the garage.
”Hold this,” Ryan said, handing Jane the flashlight. She pointed it at the creature's head, and without so much as a warning, Ryan reeled back and brought the blade down on the dead thing's neck.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
Ryan took out his anguish on the corpse at his feet. Every ax swing was for Lauren. Whack. That was for never seeing her face again. Whack. For the sound of her laughter. Her smell. The taste of her lips-a taste he'd never know. He felt nothing but grief as he chopped off that toothy b.a.s.t.a.r.d's apelike arms, didn't even flinch when he buried the ax blade in its chest and cracked open its ribs.
He threw down the ax and drew his sleeve across his face, then looked over his shoulder at his sister. To his surprise, her eyes were locked on the b.l.o.o.d.y mess that he'd created. The girl who couldn't handle a bit of gore on television without covering her eyes was now mesmerized by the copious amounts of foul-smelling blood. That was what the stink had been-rotten eggs and the sharp scent of iron-and the fact that he had split open some sort of organ hadn't helped matters. Ryan waited for her to look up at him, hoping to G.o.d she wasn't going into shock. When she finally lifted her chin, he nodded at her as if to tell her that everything was fine.
”Check on Oona?” he asked her. That dog was smart. She hadn't set foot in the kitchen to see what they were doing, remaining in the warmth of a dying fire, the embers giving the living room a haunting glow. Jane slithered out of her seat and carefully stepped around the gore that the tarp failed to contain. Ryan knew there was going to be blood, but he had no idea how much. It seemed like an impossible amount, as though the size of the body couldn't have contained all that fluid. Yet there it was, oozing across blue plastic, creeping across the hardwood floor.
”Are you ready?” he asked.
Sawyer swallowed, then reluctantly nodded, snapping a latex glove onto his left hand before pulling another one on top of that, doubling up for good measure. ”We're going to have to be quick,” Ryan warned. ”I don't want to be in the middle of doing this when another one of these motherf.u.c.kers decides to make an appearance.”
”Or gets curious,” Sawyer said, giving a firmer nod of the head this time.
”G.o.d,” Ryan groaned, a bloodied glove grabbing hold of the doork.n.o.b. ”This thing reeks.” He jerked the door open and stepped back to the carca.s.s, plunging his hands into its body cavity before hurling the offal into the snow.
Jane stared at the mess at her feet, the contents of the refrigerator unsalvageable, the food that would have sustained them for at least a week completely destroyed. She began to pick up the mess, tossing crushed containers and broken gla.s.s into a trash bag, wondering what the h.e.l.l they were going to do. The snow just beyond the kitchen door was now strewn with body parts and entrails. Despite the moon's dim s.h.i.+ne, she didn't need the light to see the dark streaks-black in the moonlight but red in reality-decorating a once pristine white surface like abstract art. She didn't know whether the smell of one of their own would repel the others or attract them, but this was the only way to find out. They'd either avoid the area entirely, repulsed by the scent of the dead, or fall onto it like carrion birds, hungrily picking it apart until there was nothing left.
Not even sure why she was bothering to clean the mess, she left the trash bag beside the fridge and stepped around the island, the two people she loved most in this life squatting around the remains of a monstrous body. Ryan was decorated with a spray of blood, a smear of red streaking his cheek like a brushstroke. Sawyer had gotten gore onto his arms, that beloved T-s.h.i.+rt completely ruined, offering no protection against whatever disease may have been lingering in that creature's fluids. Both of them turned to look at her when she stepped into view, their gazes strange in their expectancy, as if waiting for the schoolteacher to tell them what was next.
”I think we need to leave,” she told them. ”Today, when the sun comes up.”
She watched their faces mirror each other in emotion, s.h.i.+fting from antic.i.p.ation to a worried sort of surprise. Ryan rose from his crouch next to the tarp, his arms at his sides, rubber gloves slick with blood.
”I thought we were supposed to wait to see what happens,” he said. ”Wasn't that the plan?”
”Yes, but the longer we stay here, the more opportunity they have to attack too.” No matter how much they planned and waited, there really was no guarantee of safety. No matter what they chose to do, it was going to be dangerous.
”You know that if we do that,” he said, his voice strangely dry, as though he'd just woken up from an eternity of sleep, ”there's no turning back. Once we leave here, we can't come back.”
Sawyer stood motionless next to the kitchen door, his eyes fixed on the floor, his arms hanging limp at his sides. Jane looked away from him, knowing that his thoughts were with April. But Sawyer eventually spoke, though he never lifted his gaze.
”I thought we were doing this so we could stay.”
Jane's heart twisted. ”We don't have anything to eat,” she reminded him.
”I doubt they like the smell,” Ryan said. ”Though G.o.d only knows why. It's so f.u.c.king pleasant. We can mask our own scent, maybe get to the highway...”
”But what if she comes back?” The hope that flashed across Sawyer's face was too much to bear. She looked away, her jaw clenching tight.
”Did you see the way it stopped?” Ryan asked, steering the topic away from April. Sawyer's quiet desperation was getting to him as well. She could see it in the way Ryan tensed every time April's name came up. ”It was scared.”
But the fire was almost gone, not having been tended for too long. It was little more than a few licking flames, glowing embers at their base.
Ryan made a sudden move, stepping around the island to the stove, grabbing an empty soup pot that had been left on a burner. Jane had intended to use it to make their next meal, but that was before Ryan had burst through the door and shoved them into the pantry; that was before monsters were real. He set the pot down on the floor, then looked to Sawyer in expectation.
”Help me,” he said, crouching to catch the tarp between his rubber-coated fingers.
Sawyer hesitated but did what he was told, carefully pulling the tarp upward to pool the remaining blood into the center of the plastic. Stepping forward, Jane caught the end of the tarp and helped aim it into the pot. The foul-smelling blood splashed against stainless steel.
Jane understood in a horrifying flash of realization: Ryan was serious. If they were going to leave that cabin, they'd do it covered in blood.
It wasn't that Sawyer wanted to stay. He knew they had to get out of there, knew that it was their only chance if they wanted to live. But he couldn't shake a lingering thought-the idea that somehow, by some miracle, April was still alive, and that she was making her way back up the drive through the blizzard; that she would arrive only to miss them by a window of a few minutes, and that in the realization of her being completely alone, she would die not of the cold, not of the beasts outside, but of a broken heart.
His logical mind tried to convince him that it was impossible: anyone who had been outside, even for a few hours, would have first succ.u.mbed to frostbite, and then to freezing to death. If those monsters were climbing onto the cabin's deck and peering through the windows, they had either exhausted their food supply out in the wild or were tired of looking when there was a guaranteed source here. April had become part of the wilderness over twelve hours before. He didn't want to believe it, but Ryan was right. She didn't stand a chance. Not out there. Not alone.
The dry crack of wood drew Sawyer out of his thoughts and into the present. Ryan had flipped the coffee table over and was kicking at its leg. There was a wall of firewood stacked along the outside of the cabin just beneath the deck, but despite its closeness it was too far away. They needed fire, and they were now resorting to apocalyptic means.
”The Realtor will be happy,” Sawyer said.
”The Realtor won't care. The new owner will be happy,” Ryan corrected. ”They'll show up, ready for a relaxing weekend in their brand-new, fully furnished cabin...”
”New owner?” Jane asked, the bloodied ax in her hands. She was trying to chop a chair into pieces, but there was no power behind her swing. Sawyer forced himself away from the window and took the hatchet from her, splitting one of the chair legs in half with a single swing. ”What do you mean 'new owner'?” she asked. ”This place is still for sale.” She blinked at Ryan when he failed to respond. ”Right?”