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BAKER: Come on. Come on.

NOVAK: Just go.

BAKER: I’m not fucking leaving you. I’ll get stuck babysitting your kid. I hate kids.

She grunts, tripping over something.

BAKER: What—

She lets out a gulping sob. A woman lies sprawled on the ground in the graceless pose of the dead, one leg bent so far her foot is near the middle of the back, her head tipped up and mouthopen in an expression of guileless surprise. She wears the same green jacket and black T-shirt as Baker. She wears the same face as well. There is a hole in her flesh just below her collarbone. The ground beneath her is soaked with blood.

Novak’s voice is quiet.

NOVAK: Just keep moving.

But Baker seems not to hear. She creeps forward, her breath uneven, and bends over, reaching a trembling hand toward the shoulder of her double. Her fingers have almost brushed the body’s shoulder when it twitches. Baker stumbles away with a stifled scream as the woman rolls awkwardly forward, then flops to the ground. Her jaw works once, twice. She blinks her eyes. They snap over to Baker.

BAKER [2]: Wh... wh...

It’s not clear if she’s trying to say something, or merely aping speech. The sound is wet and slurred. She rolls again, this time more successfully. Her hand closes around Baker’s ankle. Baker screams and kicks, but the woman’s grip is implacable.

BAKER: Help! Help!

She falls over backward. Her double claws toward her across the ground, still forcing out those gasping syllables. Novak seems frozen. And then, dropping the camera to dangle by its strap, she lunges forward. She grabs a rock from the ground the size of two closed fists. She brings it down. The camera strikes the ground as she does. The lens fractures. Someone—Baker or her double—screams. Novak slams the rock down again.

NOVAK: Shh. You’re all right. Caro.

BAKER: I know her.

NOVAK: She looks like you.

BAKER: You don’t understand. I know her.

NOVAK: You’re not making sense. Stand up, Caro. We have to catch up with the others.

She seems as disturbed by the fact that they haven’t appeared as by the body at their feet. She clears her throat, checks the camera. She murmurs to herself.

NOVAK: No one’s going to believe this if we don’t...

She doesn’t finish the thought. She wipes off the lens as best she can, though there is nothing to do for the crack now running through the image, and helps Baker to her feet. Baker is weeping, but she follows placidly enough as Novak leads her.

NOVAK: Don’t tell anyone what happened. Just say you fell.

BAKER: Why?

NOVAK: Because we’re almost at the bunker. And the bunker is higher on the slope than the village, and toward the north bluff.

BAKER: Why does that matter?

NOVAK: Vanya and Will were supposed to head toward the beach. They didn’t say anything about coming up here.

17

WE WALKED BACKto Mrs. Popova’s together. It was early enough that we were the only ones up. “Do you get used to this?” Liam asked Abby. “Does it ever stop feeling like you’re dreaming and you’ll wake up at any minute?”

“It does. But then you miss when it felt like that,” Abby said. “When it still felt like there was a chance it could all be undone.” She was thinking of her sister, I was sure.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m dreaming,” I said. “It feels like I’m awake for the first time in my life. When I’m in that other place—it’s like when there’s a loud fan running, and you’ve stopped noticing that it’s there, until suddenly someone turns it off.”