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29

AUbrEY

N ight falls over the cabin with malevolent swiftness, the temperature plummeting as darkness claims the valley. I stand at the window, peering through a narrow gap in the wooden boards Jensen nailed across the glass hours earlier. The moon hangs swollen and bright in the winter sky, casting an unnatural blue-white glow across the snow, turning the landscape into something alien and threatening.

“See anything?” Jensen asks, his voice low as he feeds another chair leg into our fire.

“Nothing yet,” I reply, though the knot in my stomach tightens with each passing moment. The forest surrounding the cabin stands unnaturally still, no wind to stir the snow-laden branches, no wildlife making their usual sounds. Just silence, heavy and expectant, like the world holding its breath before a storm breaks.

Before the monsters arrive.

We’ve spent the day preparing as best we could with our limited resources. Boarding the windows with broken shelving and the hacked-up table. Reinforcing the door with the small bed he dragged from the loft. Creating makeshift weapons from whatever we could find—a chair leg sharpened to a point, metal brackets pulled from shelves and bent into crude blades. Jensen found a reserve of kerosene for the lanterns, so we have fuel if need be.

Small comforts against what waits in the darkness.

“How’s Eli?” I ask, abandoning my post at the window to check on him.

“Not good,” Jensen admits, his face grim in the firelight as he adjusts the blanket covering Eli’s shivering form. “Fever’s getting worse. Just like it did with Red…”

I place my hand on Eli’s forehead, feeling the unnatural heat radiating from his skin. His breathing comes in shallow, uneven gasps, each one seeming harder than the last. The wound on his shoulder is horrid—the flesh around it darkening, strange veins spreading outward like ink through water.

“Not long now,” I whisper, the horror of it settling like ice in my veins.

Jensen meets my eyes, no evasion, no comfort. Just the truth.

The words falls between us, heavy with implication. Eli is becoming one of them—like Hank, like Red. Like Cole, if anything remains of him after the feeding frenzy we witnessed on the trail. The hunger is taking him, transforming him cell by cell into something no longer human. And not like Nathaniel McAlister, or apparently my sister, but a monster. A hungry animal.

“We should restrain him now,” I say. “Before he does.”

Will make it easier to kill him , I think but I don’t say it. I don’t need to. We’re both thinking it and when it comes to it, I’ll step up again and do it so Jensen doesn’t have to.

Jensen nods, already reaching for the climbing rope in his pack. We work silently, securing Eli’s wrists and ankles to the frame of the cot. He doesn’t resist, doesn’t even seem aware of what we’re doing. His eyes, when they briefly flutter open, are glazed with fever, unfocused but already showing hints of that unnatural blue.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him as I tighten the final knot. “I’m so sorry, Eli.”

He mumbles something incoherent, head tossing restlessly against the thin pillow. I wonder if he’s dreaming, and what horrors fill those dreams as the hunger takes hold.

A soft scratching sound from the window freezes me in place. So faint it might be imagination—the brush of a pine branch against glass, perhaps, or just the cabin settling in the cold.

But then it comes again. Deliberate. Rhythmic.

Not random or natural.

“They’re here,” Jensen whispers, voice tight with tension.

Oh, god.

Jensen is already moving, rifle in one hand, the axe in the other, taking position beside the boarded window. I draw my gun as I sweep the small cabin, checking each point of vulnerability.

I join him at the window, peering through a different gap in the boards. At first, I see nothing but moonlit snow and the dark line of trees beyond. Then a shadow detaches itself from the forest’s edge, moving with that unnatural fluidity I’ve come to recognize.

Then another appears. And another. Five, seven, a dozen emerging from the trees to form a loose semicircle around the cabin. Their pale skin gleams in the moonlight, eyes reflecting an eerie blue like animals caught in headlights.

“Jesus,” I breathe, counting more shapes as they materialize from the darkness. “There’s so many of them.”

I don’t know if I’m relieved or not that Lainey isn’t among them.

Then the semicircle parts, figures stepping aside to create a path. From the darkness of the forest, a new shape emerges, moving with deliberate purpose.

It steps into the moonlight, and my breath catches painfully in my throat.

The figure is male, though barely recognizable as human anymore. His skin has the same waxy pallor as the others, but there’s something different about him—something more controlled, more aware. He wears the tattered remains of what might once have been hiking gear, the fabric darkened with old stains. His blonde hair hangs long and matted around a face that’s both familiar and monstrously transformed.

“Adam,” I whisper, the name tearing from me before I can stop it. “That’s Adam. That’s Lainey’s boyfriend.”

As if he hears me through the walls, through the boards, through the howling void that separates human from monster, Adam’s head turns toward the window. His eyes, that same unnatural blue as the others but somehow more present, more aware, lock onto mine through the gap in the boards.

And he smiles.

Not the mindless snarl of the hungry ones, but a deliberate, almost gentle curving of lips that reveals too many teeth, too sharp, gleaming like polished bone in the moonlight.

“Motherfucker,” Jensen comments. “Sure is him, alright. I reckon he seems different than the others. More like Nate, less like Hank.”

He’s right. He seems to be in more control, less feral. “If Adam bit Lainey when he changed, maybe her blood, the McAlister blood, helped?” It’s the only explanation I can come up with.

Adam lifts one hand in an almost formal gesture, and the other hungry ones respond immediately—spreading out around the cabin, taking positions at every window, every potential exit. They move with the coordinated precision of pack hunters, directed by Adam’s silent commands.

“That fucking seals the deal. He’s controlling them,” Jensen murmurs in disbelief.

Before I can respond, a sound draws my attention to the far side of the cabin—a rhythmic thumping, like something being repeatedly struck against the wall. It’s joined by another, then another, a percussive symphony of blows from all sides.

“They’re testing the defenses,” Jensen says, moving to check a different window. “Looking for weaknesses.”

A sharp crack splits the air—wood splintering as something impacts one of the boarded windows with tremendous force.

Then another crash, another board giving way under relentless assault.

“They’re breaking through!” I warn, already moving to reinforce the weakening barrier.

But it’s too late.

The board splinters entirely, and pale arms thrust through the opening—too many arms, multiplying in the confined space like some nightmarish hydra. Fingers like talons scrabble at the remaining defenses, tearing at wood with inhuman strength.

I fire my gun through the gap on pure instinct, the report deafening in the small cabin. One of the arms jerks back, dark fluid spraying from the wound, but it’s immediately replaced by others. More hands, more arms, reaching, grasping, tearing.

“Save your bullets!” Jensen is at my side, axe raised. He brings it down on the limbs, severing one, then another, the creatures screeching wildly. The arms fall to the floor in a thump, but they’re still writhing, as if they have a mind of their own.

Fuck me.

I take the hunting knife from my belt loop and start stabbing at the arms, hacking away at them, dark blood flying, doing enough damage for some of the arms to withdraw, getting out of the way just in time before Jensen chops some more in half.

But despite the massacre, they aren’t stopping. The hunger that drives them is stronger than pain, stronger than the instinct for self-preservation.

“We can’t stop them like this,” Jensen growls, breathing hard. I glance at him, at the blood sprayed all over him.

Just then a cold hand clasps over my arm, trying to pull me back against the boards.

“Duck!” he yells and I do so just as he brings the blade down on the forearm. The creature squeals, yet the forearm still remains gripping my arm, black blood running down it.

I yelp, twisting away from the window, yanking at the arm until it lets go and I throw it across the room.

“The loft!” Jensen grabs me, pulling me toward the ladder. “There’s a window up there—might be our only chance!”

I hesitate, looking back at Eli still secured to the cot. His eyes are open now, that unnatural blue fully manifested, watching us with predatory focus as he strains against his bonds.

“We can’t help him,” Jensen says, reading my hesitation. “He’s already gone.”

He’s right, I know he’s right, but leaving Eli feels like another failure in a string of them, another soul lost to these mountains and my inability to save anyone.

I do have some bullets left. But whatever peace they bring him would be temporary.

Just then there’s a snap and a collective snarl as the window finally gives way entirely, the hungry ones pouring through the opening like a pale, writhing flood.

“Aubrey, now!” Jensen’s voice cuts through my paralysis as the first of the hungry ones fully breaches the window, dropping to the floor with feral grace. It’s Red, or what used to be Red—his transformation complete, humanity erased by the hunger that now drives him, his brains hanging out where Jensen must have bludgeoned his skull in.

Behind him comes another familiar face—Cole, his features twisted in a permanent snarl, beady eyes tracking our movements, though most of his body is missing, gaping wounds of tissue, muscles and bone that have been eaten away. More follow, a nightmare parade of blue-eyed horrors flooding into the cabin.

I climb, following Jensen up the ladder to the loft as fast as I can. Behind us, the hungry ones surge forward, reaching with desperate hands, teeth snapping at the air mere inches from my boots as I pull myself beyond their reach.

Jensen is already at the small window, smashing out the glass with the butt of his rifle, his bloody axe in his other hand.

“It’s a drop,” he warns, peering into the darkness beyond. “Snow’s deep, should cushion the fall. Ready?”

“Then what?” I ask.

He can only shrug. His guess is as good as mine.

Below us, I can hear the ladder creak under weight, the sound of claws moving with frantic speed up the rungs.

“Go!” I urge Jensen. “I’m right behind you!”

Jensen doesn’t hesitate, squeezing his large frame through the narrow opening and disappearing into the night. I follow immediately, barely clearing the window before pale hands grasp at the empty air where I’d been moments before.

The fall seems to last forever, the cold night air rushing past me, then impact—softer than expected as the deep snow cushions my landing. I sink up to my chest in the drift, the cold a physical shock after the cabin’s relative warmth.

“Here!” Jensen’s hand finds mine in the darkness, pulling me free of the snowbank. “We need to move, now!”

Behind us, more shapes drop from the loft window—the hungry ones in pursuit, their movements graceful and deadly as they hit the snow and immediately begin to give chase.

We run, half-stumbling through the deep snow, the moonlight our only guide. The forest looms ahead, dark and threatening, yet our only hope for shelter from the relentless pursuit.

“This way!” Jensen gasps, pulling me toward a gap in the trees.

I follow blindly, trusting his knowledge of the terrain, the burn in my lungs and the ache in my legs secondary to the primal need to escape. Behind us, the hungry ones gain ground with every step, their enhanced strength and speed making the snow seem no obstacle.

The trees close around us, branches clawing at our faces, roots hidden beneath the snow threatening to trip us with every step. I can hear them behind us now, their breathing—a collective, hungry panting that seems to surround us from all sides.

“Almost there,” Jensen begins, then the ground disappears beneath our feet.

We’re falling.

Tumbling down a steep slope hidden by snow and darkness. I clutch desperately at Jensen’s coat, trying to maintain contact as we roll and slide down an embankment, snow and ice and stone all blurring together in painful impact after impact.

We land hard at the bottom, the breath knocked from my lungs in a painful whoosh. For a moment, I can only lie there, stunned, every part of my body registering new pains.

“Aubrey!” Jensen’s voice brings me back to awareness. “Are you alright?”

“Still alive,” I manage to gasp, sitting up slowly to assess the damage. Nothing feels broken, though my body is one massive bruise, and I can feel blood trickling from a cut somewhere on my forehead.

Jensen looks little better, a gash across his cheek already crusting with blood in the freezing air. He’s lost his hat in the fall, his dark hair matted with snow and ice.

Above us, at the top of the ravine, blue eyes appear—dozens of them, glowing in the darkness like unholy stars. The hungry ones stand at the edge, watching our descent with predatory patience.

“Why aren’t they following?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

Jensen’s eyes scan the ravine, understanding dawning in his expression. “They’re herding us again,” he says grimly. “Driving us exactly where they want us to go.” He sighs. “They knew our actions.”

I follow his gaze to the far end of a ravine where the moonlight reveals a dark opening in the rock face—a cave entrance, partially obscured by fallen snow and winter shadow.

“The caves,” I breathe, realization settling cold and heavy in my stomach. “We’ve been driven here all along.”

One figure separates from the others at the ravine’s edge—Adam, his transformed face unmistakable even at this distance. He makes no move to pursue, simply watching with those coldly intelligent eyes as we struggle to our feet.

“I think he’s waiting for us to go in,” Jensen says, his voice tight with understanding and dread. “They all are.”

I stare at the cave entrance, darkness yawning beyond like the mouth of some great beast. This is where Lainey disappeared. Where she either died or became something else entirely. Where answers wait, if I have the courage to seek them.

“We don’t have a choice,” I say. This was what I wanted. What Jensen threatened to tie me up over. But now that I’m here and staring death in the face, I’m not sure I want this after all.

I think I want to live.

“We can try to climb out somewhere else,” Jensen suggests, but without conviction. “Try to make a run for it.”

We both know it’s futile. The hungry ones have us surrounded, have been maneuvering us toward this exact point from the beginning. And with night fully upon us, with no shelter, no supplies, our chances of surviving until dawn are nonexistent.

“No,” I say, decision crystallizing despite the fear drumming through my veins. “This is where Lainey came. This is where I need to go.”

Jensen’s hand finds mine in the darkness, his fingers intertwining with my own. The connection grounds me, reminds me that whatever waits in that darkness, at least I don’t face it alone.

At least there is fucking that.

“Together,” he says simply.

“Together,” I agree.

Hand in hand, we move toward the cave entrance, toward whatever horror or truth awaits within. Behind us, the hungry ones watch our descent with patient, ancient hunger.

As the cave mouth engulfs us, darkness swallowing our forms as we step across the threshold between the known world and whatever waits beyond, the last thing I see as I glance back is Adam, still watching from the ravine’s edge, that terrible almost-human smile visible even at this distance.

Then darkness takes us completely.

The real nightmare begins.