Burn (Pure #3)(33)

The light keeps gliding past her. The cries echo around them in all directions. How many are there? What did they do to the children? Where’s Bradwell?

A hand grabs her other arm. This time she yanks the arm toward her and a face suddenly appears—a thick jaw with an underbite, gaunt cheeks covered in thin burnt skin. It widens its mouth, showing its yellowed teeth, and the skin stretches—taut and shiny and damp from the wet air. Its mouth snaps. Its eyes are blind and roving. It wants her in the fog because here she’s nearly as blind as it is.

She imagines the teeth gouging her flesh and muscle. She tries to pull her arm free, but others appear out of the thick fog and grab her. Their grips are too strong. How many? Five, six? She can’t tell. They force her to the ground. She writhes and kicks, but still they pin her on her back. She can feel the sharp outline of the metal box holding the vial and formula. The ground is cold and wet. She manages to cry out for El Capitan. “Cap! Cap!” Is he here?

“Pressia!” he shouts. She turns in the direction of his voice and sees only his flashlight falling and bouncing, and then it goes out.

She whispers his name as two faces loom above her. There’s darkened blood on their skin, splotches of it—from the thorns or from the wild dogs or… “Where are the children?” Pressia says.

They don’t seem to understand her. One reaches out and touches her forehead. It runs its cold, bony hand down her face. She twists away but the hand follows. She clamps her lips, and one secures her head with an incredibly strong grip, pressing one side of her face into the dirt. But the creatures have a strange calm about them. They’re moving slowly. She’s hoping to find their weakness, or hoping for a distraction.

They start humming now—tuneless and dull. One touches her hair softly. This chills her.

Maybe they don’t want to kill her.

Maybe they want her.

And now she starts to fight with everything she’s got. She throws her legs in the air and kicks one of the creatures in the chest. She rolls away from the other. Its fingernails claw her arm. Her shoulder is wrenched. She gets to her feet. Not being able to see clearly makes her dizzy, disoriented. Her heart is pounding. The fog has a heartbeat—it’s her own, hammering.

She pulls out her knife and holds the blade in front of her. The fog thins when there’s a breeze, and she can see them—if only for an instant at a time—shifting around her, four of them. They can’t see the knife, of course, but they seem to react to her energy. They’re misshapen with uneven limbs and staggered gaits. Their scars are Detonation marks and burns and thick ropy keloids, but also scars from stitches. She knows stitches. Her grandfather, the mortician, the flesh-tailor, was known for his tidy work. These stitches were rushed and messy. The scars run around their shoulders, down some of their arms and chests.

They sniff at her—smelling her fear, the small blade of her confidence. Are more being drawn in? Kelly’s dead and bred—there’s an animalism to them. Were they bred to be vicious carnivores? To be insatiably blood hungry? They’re mostly bare but for some mossy kind of homemade coats to keep them warm. She can see now that the one female has turned away from the others as if she’s drawn to something far-off.

Pressia takes a few steps backward. The pain in her shoulder intensifies with each step. They know she’s moving. They step toward her quickly then stop—do they sense the knife? Is it the fog—is it that the moisture in the air connects them all, like some kind of web?

“Cap! Helmud!” Pressia calls out. “Damn it! Where are you?”

And then she hears a dim echo. “Damn it! Where are you?”

Helmud—at least he’s alive, but his voice sounds choked. Was this what the female creature was smelling in the air? More prey?

Pressia lunges at the creatures grunting brutishly, then turns and starts running as quickly as she can without being able to see well. She puts the knife back in her belt and holds her good hand out in front of her. Each time she feels a tree, she grabs it and pulls herself around it. She can hear them behind her. Their panting seems low to the ground. Are they on all fours?

“Helmud! Call to me!”

“Call to me! Call to me!” Helmud says.

She’s getting closer. “Keep calling!”

“Calling,” Helmud cries.

Then she hears the growling. She takes out the knife again. The fog ripples enough that she can see one of the creatures has El Capitan and Helmud shoved to the ground. His clawed hands are on El Capitan’s throat.

But the creature must sense Pressia—the vibration through thickened air? The fog has a heartbeat.

This time she moves decisively, running at the creature with her knife. He jumps off of El Capitan and Helmud, and, his eyes glazed over, he has enough of his senses intact to dodge her attack. And then, in one quick snatch, he grabs her wrist with such force she drops the knife. She has nothing.

El Capitan gasps for breath and manages to stand up. Helmud gasps too—though maybe he’s only an echo.

The other four creatures have been drawn close and start to circle.

El Capitan says, his voice raw, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Pressia says, gripping her arm to her ribs. “We’re about to be eaten.”

“True.”

“Eaten!” Helmud shouts as loudly as he can. “Eaten!”