Chapter 55
The shovel blade whickered through the air.
Malcolm swung like he was at bat. A heartbeat before it connected, he turned his grip so instead of slicing into his brother’s neck, he smashed the flat face of the shovel into the back of Elias’s head.
He collapsed into the shallows, water flowing over his head.
Jennie knelt in the surf. She turned to look at Malcolm, pale and slack with shock.
On her knees and propped with one arm, she reached her free hand to touch the back of her neck, where Elias had ripped off a two-inch wide strip of meat with his teeth.
In the shimmering blue-black before sunrise, she brought that trembling hand back around to stare at the fresh blood dripping from her fingers.
“Get up, Jen. Behind me, now!” Malcolm shouted.
Elias levered himself out of the rippling shallows and turned on them.
One of Elias’s eyes bulged obscenely from its socket.
In the other, no trace of their brother remained.
The thing that had been Elias roared with such manic ferocity that Malcolm could hear the damage it did to his vocal cords. Shrieking, shredding.
Malcolm barely got the shovel between them in time. Elias charged, Malcolm knocked him in the teeth with the shovel handle, twisted around as they fought over it, and they crab-walked together out of the water and tumbled to the sand.
Elias clamped a hand on Malcolm’s throat and slammed him to the sand.
Malcolm kept the shovel between them, lengthwise, and Elias might have killed him if he’d held on to it.
As it was, Malcolm expected him to be stronger, faster, but he saw the pain in the monster’s eyes, the madness and disorientation it caused, and knew he had a chance.
He used the shovel handle to lift Elias, just enough to get his knee up into his brother’s chest. Malcolm threw Elias off. As he rose, he saw how light the horizon had become. Sunrise might be any moment. Soft colors lay along the edge of the ocean in the distance.
The grave for Maggie would have to be deep enough.
He turned toward the pine trees and that shallow grave, and Elias piled into him, arms wrapped around his legs, dragging Malcolm down.
They had fought so often as brothers. Elias had teased and bullied, and sometimes they’d shared the camaraderie for which Malcolm always longed.
As the older brother, Elias had always held back, knowing how angry their mother would be if he really hurt Malcolm.
When the day arrived when Malcolm fought back hard enough to hurt him in return, they’d seen the shock in each other’s eyes.
They’d recognized how easily a fight between them could have ended in blood.
There hadn’t been any more fighting after that.
Not until now.
It’s not Elias, Malcolm reminded himself.
This monster with his ruined face, a torn-up mouth, and red froth sliding over wicked teeth …
this thing was not really Elias. It wasn’t his big brother, who’d explored the woods with him and held his hand every time they crossed Cabot Creek, who’d never let him win at marbles but gave Malcolm his favorite tiger’s eye as a reward for being a good sport.
It wasn’t Elias. But it had been, and that made Malcolm break a little inside.
The Morák raked nails like claws across his clavicle, dragged down the collar of his shirt, tore skin and fabric.
Malcolm twisted the shovel, jabbed the blade into Elias’s side, drawing blood and cracking bone.
They struck with fists and knees and shouted hate and desperation at each other, and out of the corner of his eye, Malcolm saw Maggie’s corpse stand up from where he’d left her lying next to her grave.
Maggie but not Maggie.
Hunched over, clutching her gut, head twisted trying to endure the pain of her own curse. Coming down the beach. Undead again, because her boys were trying to kill each other.
Malcolm knew he had to sing. Ridiculous, but she lurched toward them, hungry and hate-filled, and he knew he would never survive fighting them both. The sun would edge above the horizon in minutes, but he didn’t have minutes. He had to sing.
Elias clawed at his eyes. Malcolm jerked away, and Elias got the better of him, rolled on top of him the way he always had when they were children and he was the bigger one.
Bloody spittle drizzled into Malcolm’s eyes as his brother began to strangle him, crushing his throat.
Malcolm couldn’t sing. He couldn’t breathe. Could barely think.
His strength flagged. His vision darkened, as if the dawn had decided not to come after all.