Chapter Seventeen Shea #2
It’s what’s in the middle of the room that turns her stomach. A hook hangs from the ceiling, tips pronged sharp. The floor beneath is stained a dark, deep brown. The color of dried blood.
“This seems like the wrong time to ask,” whispers Poppy, poking at a moonlit blade, “but why do we think the watch isn’t allowed onto the premises?”
Below them, something bellows. Both Shea and Poppy freeze, their eyes meeting across the dark.
“Was that a cow?”
“I don’t think so,” says Poppy.
Another cry reaches them, higher and keener than the first. They follow the sound down the shallow set of stairs, emerging onto the first floor to find themselves in a cluster of stalls, all dark.
The only light falls in through an open Dutch door at the far end of the barn.
The air hangs still, smelling of stink. Of sweat.
“Something is in here,” whispers Poppy. “I can hear it moving.”
Shea readies her crossbow, her heart hammering, but Poppy hangs back, dubious.
“Whatever it is, I don’t think you should shoot at it.”
“Poppy, not everything is a stray animal in need of saving.”
“It’s not that. It’s just—what if you miss?”
Shea swallows, glancing down at the singular projectile lined along the barrel. She doesn’t have any more ammunition, which means she has only one shot. One chance.
“I won’t miss,” she promises.
She repeats it internally, in a desperate chant: I won’t miss. I won’t miss. Please, don’t let me miss. Inching forward, she peers into each stall in turn. Every last one is empty, the floors wet with straw. At the final stall, she rises up onto her toes and peers inside.
This one is different from the others. The straw is fresh and dry.
The paneling looks strange, as if it’s been shingled in paper.
She peers a little closer, bringing her face near the bars.
As her eyes adjust, she can just make out the tiny typeset of baseball cards.
Dozens upon dozens of them, same as there’d been on the bottom of the bunk.
In the dark, there comes a soft trill. It’s a sound she knows cold—a sound she’s heard a hundred times, seated at the bottom step of her cellar. Watching what’s left of her mother tear into whatever scraps she’s managed to bring home from the butcher’s.
“Shea,” hisses Poppy, her voice urgent.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees something shift. A humanoid shape breaks away from the dark, shoulders hunched and head hanging. It’s a boy, his movements odd and quirking. His face is sunken in, his lips peeled back from his gums. With a snap of his teeth, he rushes the bars.
Shea topples back, stifling a scream.
“What is it?” demands Poppy. “What’s in there?”
“It’s my son.”
The voice is decidedly male and unnervingly close. Shea whips around, her finger depressing the trigger without meaning to. The projectile embeds itself in the wood just beside Egor van Haut’s head. He stands unbound before them, looking startlingly unperturbed.
“Well,” he says, removing his glasses to clean them, “I’m certainly glad that wasn’t another inch to the right.”
“I wish it had been,” seethes Shea.
“Do you?” Egor lifts a brow. “Whatever happened to ‘no killing’?”
“I said that before I knew what you did to Lys. You’re lucky he’s not here. I’d let him tear you apart.”
Egor replaces his glasses, his smile thin. “You really would, wouldn’t you? You’d let him do anything, even if it destroys you both. And it will. Like I told him before, you’re a cataclysm.”
“That means nothing to me,” says Shea.
“It will,” Egor assures her. “Before the end. For now, I’d like to use what little remaining time we have together to tell you a story about my son.”
The door to the stall rattles. Egor’s smile wavers.
“Nel was taken with Oliver from the very first day he and his mother appeared on my doorstep. He’d always wanted a sibling, but his mother and I had a late start.
We were already old when we had him. The world was already over.
We weren’t in a place to have more children, which meant Nel was a very lonely little boy.
He took to following Oliver everywhere, and there wasn’t much I could do to stop it.
Oliver was tolerant of it but only just.”
In the stall behind them, the boy trills.
“All Oliver has ever learned about love is that it hurts,” Egor goes on. “He doesn’t know any other way. I’m sure he thought Nel would Turn. I’m sure he thought he’d be stronger. Faster. Crueler—just like him. But the change doesn’t always take.”
Understanding worms its way into Shea. She blinks and sees her mother standing over her bed, her eyes lightless, her throat clicking horribly. The beginning of the end.
“What is he?” asks Poppy.
“Nel is a natural byproduct of the human body’s immune system,” says Egor.
“It’s common knowledge that not everyone Turns.
What’s less known is why. When the Rot is ingested, it knots itself so tightly along the human genome, it creates something entirely new.
Some bodies accept the change. Some bodies fight. ”
“Acute rejection,” Poppy cuts in. “It’s what happens when the body sees a transplanted organ as foreign and attacks it.”
“Precisely.” Egor beams over at her. “You’re a very clever young woman.”
“I read,” says Poppy.
“Yes, well, as you might imagine, there aren’t too many books on the topic.
And the critical difference in this situation is that the change takes place so quickly, by the time the body recognizes what’s happening, the Rot is already coded into its DNA.
It attacks itself, hollowing out until there’s nothing left but a husk. ”
The boy slams into the stall door again. Shea thinks of her mother, scooped clean. Of the way she’d have done anything, said anything, sacrificed anything to preserve her. She’s come all this way in hope of a cure. She’s not all that different from Egor van Haut, clinging to hope in the dark.
“I am fond of Oliver,” says Egor. He’s watching her too closely, inspecting every blink and every breath.
Taking note of her, like she’s a specimen in a jar.
“He is a marvel, yes, but he is a danger. I am not oblivious to his faults, and what he did to my son is nothing compared to what he’s capable of.
A cataclysm is a violent thing, you see.
The damage it does is irreversible. I’m afraid I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to continue leading him down this path. ”
“I’m not leading him anywhere,” says Shea.
“Oh, but you are,” Egor disagrees. “We are, all of us, balanced on the razor-thin tightrope of equilibrium. One shove from you, and everything topples into chaos.”
Push me again.
“Lys will never forgive you if you hurt me.” It comes out thin, lacking bluster.
“I don’t need his forgiveness,” Egor assures her. “I needed my son. Oliver took something precious from me. Something I can never get back. And so now, I’ll take something precious from him.”
“This isn’t about maintaining ecological balance,” says Poppy, “this is revenge.”
Egor’s eyes have gone watery. He blinks them clear. “I am a man of science, and science requires sacrifice. Anyone will tell you that. I’m terribly sorry to say it, but Shea Parker will not be leaving this place alive.”
The quiet night is rent in two by the squeal of tires, the honk of a horn.
The barn floods with headlights as the RV comes rumbling into view.
A door squeals open and then slams shut with equal force.
A lone figure steps out into the light. It’s Asher, his shotgun readied.
He stares down the barrel at Egor, eyes burning, a streak of blood on his cheek.
If Egor is surprised to see him, he doesn’t show it. “Are they dead, then?”
“Yes.”
“Every last one?”
“Yes.” His voice is cold, iced over in a soldier’s careful detachment.
“Impressive,” says Egor. “I suppose they call you the sunshine sniper for a reason.”
Asher blinks, lowering the barrel. “You knew who I was?”
“I suspected,” admits Egor. “Your disappearance has caused quite a stir in certain circles. There’s a bounty on your head, you know. A fairly sizable one, at that. There are rumors, too. I’m afraid they don’t paint you in a very favorable light.”
Asher pales. “You want the money? Is that it?”
“I’m only pointing out a fact. It’s a rather large bounty. It would keep my research funded for a year, at least. Maybe more.”
“Go ahead and call it in,” says Asher. “See if I care. Parker, Zahar—get in the RV.”
They don’t argue, slipping out from the barn and racing for the vehicle.
In action, it looks even worse than it did as a lawn ornament.
The retractable awning hangs loose. There’s a crack in the windshield.
The body is off-color, fiberglass yellowed with age.
The inside isn’t much better. The windows are shuttered in bent vinyl blinds.
The furniture is torn in places. Mold seeps out from under the fridge, discoloring the floor.
“It’s disgusting in here,” says Shea.
“I think it’s homey,” says Poppy, collapsing into the dinette. “Oh, hello, Kit. I didn’t even see you there.”
The door slams shut, sending the possum scuttling for cover. Asher climbs the shallow staircase in three short stomps, his face bloodless. There’s a hunted look in his eyes as he takes hold of Shea’s chin and angles her face toward his.
“Are you okay?”
She weasels out of his grasp. “I’m fine.”
“Zahar?”
“I’m not dead,” says Poppy, “but I would prefer not to do that again.”
Asher zeros in on Shea. “That was some horrible listening back there.”
“Yeah, well.” She shrugs. “My ears don’t work so good.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. You should have followed orders.”
“I’ve famously never been great at that,” she reminds him hotly. “God, what is that smell? It reeks in here.”
“That would be the mold,” says Poppy cheerlessly. “Where’s all our stuff?”
“In the back room.” Asher slings off his shotgun and drops into the driver’s seat. “And I raided the Van Haut kitchen. We should be good on food for a few days, at least.”
“What about the bikes?” asks Shea.
Asher checks his mirrors. “No longer an option. You should take a seat, the suspension on this thing is crazy loose.”
“What about Lys?”
His eyes flick to hers in the rearview. “Parker, will you please sit?”
“Not until you tell me where he is.”
As if in answer to her question, the shuttered entrance to the back bedroom rattles with the full force of a body slammed against fiberglass. She sees now that the bifold doors have been bound with the same chains that held him in Egor van Haut’s sunless basement.
“He’s alive,” says Asher.
“Will that hold him?”
“Let’s hope. Now, sit. We’ve got a lot of miles to eat up before morning.”