Page 35 of The Dead of Summer

We’re not moving fast enough. Through the fire and smoke, a shadow prowls, searching for a way through. The sound it makes is a tormented whimper unlike any of the other weepers so far, a cry of exquisite pain that rings in the tiny bones of my ears. And now I can hear individual words.

“Gooooing to the chapel.”

The night boils with the discordant refrain, a dozen voices merging into one.

“Gonna get marrrrried.”

On the road behind us, a jeep lurches to a stop. Headlights blast our backs. Elisa drops me and throws herself over us both. We press into the muck, waiting to see which doom befalls us first. From fire, or from light?

The weeper-monster stops singing. The night quiets. Footsteps crunch on the road. I peek into the glare and see the shape of a man standing in the headlights, searching the flaming marsh. When he finally shouts, it’s not the commanding voice I expect from the guards.

“Ollie? Elisa? You better not be dead!”

Elisa’s hand squeezes mine. It’s Bash! How he got here doesn’t matter—he doesn’t know about the danger lurking in the smoke.

“You guys can’t just leave me, okay?” Bash shouts.

“That’s not what friends do. They don’t leave each other behind.

” There’s real emotion in Bash’s voice. Desperation.

He paces at the edge of the road. He’s scared, but not of the right thing.

The rest of the night has gone too still around us.

The weepers, or whatever dragged those guards away, are listening, too.

At any moment, from any side, they could rush Bash.

“Whatever happened to Suds stick together ?” Bash cries. “You can’t just leave me behind!”

Already the fires are shrinking against the damp wind of the marsh. We have seconds, maybe less. I ignore the needling burn of my leg and push myself up. Elisa is right by my side. We scrabble up the bank and fall over Bash in a messy embrace.

“I knew it, I knew it!” he sobs. “The second the alarms went off, they came for me, but then everything turned to chaos and they threw me into the back of this jeep.” He’s babbling through tears.

“But then they just got out and ran into the marsh, so I thought I bet those two idiots are on foot out there , and then I saw the fireballs, and I thought you guys … I thought maybe you had …”

“Later, Bashy,” Elisa says with forced cheer. “Tell us all about it in the car.”

We rush him back into the driver’s seat. Elisa shoves me into the back seat, then throws herself atop me. It would hurt, but I can’t feel my leg anymore. Numbness has set in.

“Why are you guys dressed like tourists? Is that a bucket hat? Is that a souvenir tumbler?”

“I said later !” Elisa swings the back door shut. “Just drive, Bash.”

“Drive where ?”

Up the road, more headlights are rocketing toward us. Ahead of the jeep the smoke thins, and against the red lights of AMIOS, we watch a shadow rise. Its spines of coral jut straight up to the starless sky.

“Anywhere else!” I scream.

Bash cranks the car into drive, and just as the shadow starts toward us, we cut away.

“Don’t you ever leave me behind again,” he keeps saying. “I heard the sirens and I knew the two of you pulled some shit. I knew it .” Bash and the car are one thing, both seemingly furious with us as we’re rolled against the doors in a violent turn.

“Kill the headlights!” Elisa manages to scream. Bash snaps through a bunch of buttons on the console until the lights are dark, never once interrupting his rant. Somehow we’re already in the forest.

“I know I said I wanted to stay, but that’s not the same thing as being left behind. You could have at least left a note! A clue! But noooooooo.”

Elisa pulls me into the crawl space of the back seat as branches lash at the windows.

The car’s radio crackles as someone commands all units to “spread out, search the surrounding forest, find those little brats , and retrieve the documents.” Bash hits it until it turns off so he can yell at us a little more.

“I could have gotten really hurt, you know! Do you know how embarrassing it is to be interrogated when you’ve been kept in the dark? They didn’t even have an interrogation room! They were about to execute me in a parking lot!”

I do my best to get a look out the side window and see dead stoplights rocketing by. We’re nearing town. There’s no sign of the monster in the abandoned cars around us, but with the wind rushing in my ears, I can’t hear it coming. It doesn’t help that Bash is still yelling, too.

“So it was just me and these idiots. And then all hell broke loose when you made a run for it, and the adults were rushing all over the place, and they dragged me along in this jeep. Next thing I know my guards are pulling over to run into the marsh, and I’m alone. Again!”

Bash finally breaks, stopping us right before the road vanishes into a bank of thick, unmoving weeper fog. He’s breathing hard through a swell of emotion I know is no joke to him. He slaps the wheel in frustration. “And my mom wonders why I have abandonment issues.”

Elisa and I are frozen in a knot somewhere in the back seat, listening to the click of the engine. It seems like a bad idea to tell Bash to be quiet—it might make him louder—so I whisper, “Bash, we’re really sorry. We didn’t want to take you away from your family.”

Bash’s hands clench and unclench on his thighs. He stares ahead, into the wall of fog. Elisa and I unfold from each other so we can reach out and wrap our arms around him, like a deranged human seat belt. It helps. His breathing levels out. His voice lowers.

“You guys are my family, too.” His whisper scores my heart. “Suds stick together.”

Finally, Bash hooks his hands over ours, holding us back. Then he twists around to get a good look at us.

“What happened to you guys, anyways? You smell like gasoline.”

“It’s a long story,” I say, hiding my whale shirt before he notices that, too. “But something was chasing us in the marsh.”

Bash’s voice gets even softer. “Weepers?”

“Something bigger,” I say.

“And, like, way grosser,” Elisa adds, pointing at my leg. A raised welt wraps from ankle to thigh, and it feels like my nerves have grown nettles, but the numbness is a temporary blessing.

“Just a sting,” I assure myself.

“And, Bash, we found something. In the visitors center.” Elisa hoists up the dented tumbler. “Something that could change everything.”

Bash looks incredulously at the tumbler. “A sensible solution that combines hydration and style?”

Before Elisa can respond, headlights shine through the back windows.

First one, then two, then five vehicles screech to a halt, boxing us against the fog.

Before we can figure out what to do, boots stomp over the pavement and every window fills with gun barrels.

We’re surrounded. One of the soldiers lifts up their gun and smashes the butt against the window.

CRACK.

The window holds, but it won’t for much longer.

CRACK.

Cracks shoot across the glass.

CRACK.

Where do we go? What do we do? If we get dragged back to AMIOS, we’re never making it out again, but all that awaits us ahead is the drowning fog.

Not all , I remind myself, watching the way the lights in the fog group and scatter. The weepers saved us once. Why not again?

“Drive,” I tell Bash.

CRACK.

One more hit and we’re doomed either way.

Elisa catches Bash’s hand on the gear shift. “Don’t. We’ll drown!”

“We won’t,” I say. “Drive. Now. ”

THUNK. The soldier’s gun hits the metal of the jeep as we lurch forward. Right before we enter the fog, I slap off the AC, killing the air circulation in the car.

“Close the vents,” I cry.

And we plunge into the sparkling depths of downtown.