Weird. They were Changed, no doubt about it, but beneath the characteristic boiled sewage reek was another odor: harshly chemical, completely artificial. It reminded her of the metallic odor of the chemo the doctors had used on the monster, especially cisplatin, a drug that had made her puke her guts out. But why would any Changed smell that way?

Behind these weird Changed and in the trees, she spotted other figures hanging back, got a snootful of fusty old people and horses. Men . . . with the Changed? How can that be—

Her monster suddenly quivered, straight-arming her mind with that strange shove—go-go-go push-push-push—as either it, or what was out there, tried snagging hold. Oh no you don’t. Reeling back, she snatched up a splinter of glass. Not understanding, Wolf reached for her wrist, but she whirled away. “No, let me just—” Grimacing, she jabbed the glass into her thigh, a quick in-out. She let out a yelp of pain, but there was an abrupt snap in the dark center of her brain as the monster recoiled. Good enough. Her mind cleared and she looked up into Wolf ’s eyes, which were wide with shock.

“Come on, Wolf,” she panted, tossing aside the bloodied glass, “before we all die.” Scooping up Bert’s fallen shotgun and Ernie’s rifle, Alex bounded into the kitchen, wheeling right to drop behind the granite counter. Racking the pump, she thought about shucking rounds to count how many shots she had left and decided against it. The last thing she needed was to crawl after fumbled slugs. Figure one already gone, four left. The bolt-action should have five, maybe six, depending on if Ernie had gotten off a couple rounds.

None of this makes sense. What do they want? First, one group chases down Wolf and his gang because they’ve stolen food. Then those guys get slammed by these weird Changed. Now they’re storming the place, but why? Can’t be just over food.

To her right, she saw Penny’s terrified eyes over the lip of the refrigerator. All of a sudden, a lightbulb went off, illuminating a nasty thought she couldn’t ignore. My God. “Don’t tell me this is about you,” she said to the girl.

There was a gigantic bang from the great room, followed by a squeal of stressed wood against metal as something hit the front door. The heavy oak shuddered but held. Given the sound, she thought whoever was out there had a sledgehammer or log.

The air again erupted with gunfire, but this time it was close, coming from inside. Wheeling back, she saw Wolf, still in the great room but behind the overturned leather sofa. Springing up, Wolf popped off another shot, then dropped as bullets whined in. Another boom at the door; beyond the blown-out window, she saw those weird Changed dart past. Dancing from cover, Wolf sidestepped left, trying to get a shot at whoever was breaking down the door, then threw himself flat as the air rattled with another burring round of gunfire. Bullets clanked the woodstove’s flue. Miniature geysers of stone and white dust erupted from the walls and hearth as the bullets came, very fast and in bursts.

Automatic weapons? Wolf was still on the floor, facedown, and for a fraction of a second, her heart seized. “Wolf !” She saw the white flicker of his face as he looked her way. “Wolf, come on, you can’t do—” Another stutter of gunfire at the same instant the door let out a huge CRACK. The wood blistered inward, like a boil about to rupture, and she was so busy looking at that, she only half-registered something moving into view at the broken picture window. Looking back, she saw Wolf, still on the floor, and a pair of gloved hands hooked over the ruined sill.

Trying to get inside. “Wolf !” Coming out from cover, Alex sprang past the counter, the shotgun already coming up. “Stay down, stay down!” She fired once, muzzle flash sheeting, the slug too high, but she saw those hands let go. More bullets came ripping through to clank the woodstove. One drilled into the hearth just over her head, sending a jet of stone splinters pecking at her hair and neck. Dropping, she scrambled forward on hands and knees over jags and debris, feeling the bite of glass and tear of stone and the wash of heat from the woodstove less than twenty feet away, the icy waterfall of air spilling over the blasted sill.

She swarmed over to Wolf. “Either upstairs or out the back,” she said, “but we can’t stay here.” Neither option was great. If they blew out the kitchen window for an escape, they might as well take out an ad. So that left going upstairs: get to the bathroom, put Penny in the tub, and then she and Wolf could pick off whoever tried coming up.

We’ll run out of ammunition first. She jumped her eyes from the stairs to the kitchen, skimming past the counter cluttered with the loot she’d found in the basement: camp stove, the lantern, propane. Still, higher’s bet—

“Wait a minute.” Her gaze zeroed in again on the camp stove. The propane. “Fire,” she said out loud. Yes, it really might work. There was all this fresh pine. The chimney was heavy with char and creosote. This close to the hearth, the air tasted like a lump of coal. Yes, but it’s also crazy; we’ll be barbecued. But it was the only thing she could think of. Scurrying back to the counter, she shoveled the three propane canisters into her arms and darted back to dump them into the hearth along with the sticky pine Penny and Bert had brought in less than half an hour before.

Behind and from the kitchen came another glassy explosion, followed by a girl’s shriek. “Penny!” Barreling into the kitchen, Alex waded over a river of broken glass from the shattered window above the sink. Bits of glass glinted from the girl’s hair; blood dribbled from her scalp and down her cheeks. “Come on,” Alex said, trying to tug the panicked girl to her feet. “Penny, come on, don’t fight me, we’re going—”

There was the whipcrack of a rifle shot, the drone of a slug over her head, followed by a loud, sharp scream. Gasping, she looked up, saw the business end of Wolf ’s rifle pointing her way, then jerked around just in time to see an old man in a hunter’s winter camouflage clap a hand to his spurting face and tumble back from the window.

Storming the place back and front. A moment later, the air tingled with that resin pop and then Penny stopped struggling and broke from behind the refrigerator as Wolf dashed up from the great room to meet her. Clattering out of the kitchen, Alex pointed at the stairs: “Bathroom, bathroom!” Behind, she heard the squall of hinges and fatiguing wood and thought they had maybe ten seconds left.

As she turned to follow Wolf and Penny, she spotted her green canvas medic pack resting on the floor near the door where it had been blown in that first explosion. She gave it exactly a millisecond’s thought, then bulleted across the room, snagged the pack in a one-handed grab, and wheeled back to blast up the stairs. Peeling right, she saw Wolf kick open the bathroom door, whip aside a shower curtain, and cram Penny into the tub.

Downstairs, Alex heard another smash of metal against wood, more shots. And voices. It took every ounce of willpower not to scurry after Wolf and Penny. Just a few more seconds. She felt Wolf moving up behind her, and then his hand on her arm as he tried to pull her out of his way. But his shot would have to be dead-on, and there wouldn’t be time for another.

She looked at him. “I have something better than the rifle,” she said, and then she was pulling the flare gun from the small of her back. She read in his face and smelled in his scent the shock of recognition, and understood: Wolf knew this gun.

Below, she heard the door burst open. Peering around the corner, she spied three of those weird Changed, in camo-whites and armed with what she thought were Mac-10s, fanning out in the great room. In the center of her head, she felt the muted thump: go-go push-push. Then she heard murmurs—voices—and spotted four old men moving in from the kitchen to meet them.

Okay, Dad. Crouching, poking the pistol between the banister rails, steadying the flare gun in both hands, she picked her spot. Just like the target range.

She pulled the trigger.

74

“Chris!” someone shouted. “Chris, wait, let me—” But Chris didn’t stop to look, didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, wouldn’t. Roaring, he brought the skillet around like a batter, so hard and with so much force he felt his shoulders try to pop from their sockets. The Changed boy was still gawping up at Chris when the skillet connected—and the sound, already so deep in Chris’s memory and his nightmares, became real again: a solid slam, the clunk of an ax biting into a tree trunk. Of a hammer cratering bone and brain. Of the flat of a cast-iron skillet smashing skull.

The boy’s head whipped to the side. Over the clamor in his head, Chris heard the sharp crackle as the neck snapped.

Panting, blood painting his cheeks, Chris stood over the body as a voice boomed: Go on, boy, hit him again, hit him, go on . . . “Go on,” he said in a voice not his own. “Go on, boy, hit him bloody, make him pay, you know you w-want . . . you kn-know . . .”

Then his knees buckled as the ground opened and Chris swooned into the dark and—

“Chris.” A voice in his ear, and then a shake. “Wake up. Open your eyes.” “Nooo.” He was on the snow again, under the tiger-trap, in a pool of blood, and slowly dying, freezing to death. Everything hurt. He tried turning from the voice, but a hand hooked his chin. “I can’t,” he said. “It’s too hard; it hurts too much to see.”

“Stop this,” the voice said. “Open your eyes.”

“Why?” he asked, even as his lids creaked open. Of course, it was Jess, with her Medusa hair and black-mirror eyes: Chris in the right, Chris in the left. Or Simon and Simon, depending on how you looked at it. “Why is this up to me? What do you want? What good does it do me to see anything? I can’t change what’s already happened. I couldn’t help Alex. I didn’t help Lena. Peter wouldn’t let me because he never told me.”

“You refused to see.”

“Fine.” Another bolt of pain grabbed his throat. “Leave me alone,” he wheezed, thinly. “Please, Jess, why can’t you let me alone? Why won’t you let me die?”

“Someone will die. Someone must. Without blood, there is no forgiveness.”