The Edge of Everything (Untitled #1)(11)

X was shaking, but everything he did, he did calmly and methodically. He seemed to regret that he’d been sent to the lake. And that was the feeling Zoe got—that he’d been sent here, maybe even forced to come. He still hadn’t looked at her, but the way these thoughts suddenly took root in her head, not as theories or guesses but as facts, as certainties, made her think that he’d somehow put them there himself. How was that possible?

Stan was on his knees now, struggling again to stand.

X put a hand on his shoulder and in an instant Stan was immobile, conscious but frozen still.

X walked a few feet, turned his back to Stan, and pulled off his shirt. His shoulders were broad, his waist slim as a swimmer’s. Unlike the bruised skin of his face, X’s back was smooth and untroubled. A blank canvas. It occurred to Zoe that someone or something had spared it—and for a reason. She honestly didn’t know if she came up with this idea herself or if he gave it to her.

X spread his arms wide. His shoulder blades flashed in the darkness and his back became broader still.

Zoe couldn’t help it: she took a photo to put on Instagram later.

X seemed to be summoning something up. He let out a sharp cry, like he was trying to force a sickness out of his system. Then his back came alive with images.

His skin became a screen.

What played on X’s back looked almost like a home movie, jittery, dizzying, chaotic—and unearthly somehow. She and Stan watched, transfixed. Stan remained immobile. It was as if he were bound and tied by the air itself. Zoe stood in the dark not far away. They watched in shock, and then horror, each for their own reasons.

Suddenly, it occurred to Zoe that Jonah might have woken up—that he might be watching from the living room. Her eyes flew to the house.

The windows were black. Her brother might have been standing at one of them—there was no way to tell.

Zoe turned back to the movie. Bert and Betty were in it. They were cowering in the living room in the very same capital A by the lake. They were rigid with fear. Someone was circling them. Someone who’d burst into their home.

Zoe couldn’t see much of the intruder’s face—just a sliver of it, like a crescent moon. Still, she recognized the ugly buzz cut and the pitted skin. She saw the intruder walk to the fireplace, saw him hoist the lethal-looking poker and test its weight in his hand.

Stan tore his eyes away from X’s back, unable to look at what he had done. He turned to the house, hoping for relief.

X expected this. He extended his palm toward the long sloping roof of the A-frame, and in an instant the images were flashing there, too. Stan was shocked. He cast his eyes down. X knelt, pressing his hand to the ice. The orange glow disappeared, and for a second the world was black. Then suddenly the movie was playing beneath them—all around them—the figures giant and distorted, the voices booming.

Zoe couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. She couldn’t even figure out where the sound was coming from, though it was everywhere now. But she could see that Stan, Bert, and Betty were screaming. One of them in anger. Two of them in fear.

Then, suddenly, Uhura was in the movie, trying to protect Bert and Betty. She was barking wildly, like she had when Stan’s truck pulled up. Spock, amazingly, was howling, too.

In the movie, Betty took Bert’s hand and pulled him toward the door, toward safety. Bert looked bewildered. Childlike. As Betty tried to rush him outside, he stopped, as if he had all the time in the world, and took a peppermint out of a dish on the coffee table.

They burst outdoors just a few seconds ahead of Stan. Seeing them escape even for a moment made Zoe’s heart leap. She didn’t know why—she knew there was only one possible ending.

Stan went after them, clutching the poker.

Bert and Betty stumbled to their car, and Betty started the engine, but the tires spun uselessly in the snow. By the time they’d gone a hundred yards, Stan was close behind, shouting and gesturing savagely with the weapon.

The car struck a tree.

Zoe watched as Stan yanked Bert and Betty out of the car, and went after them with the poker.

She saw Betty in the snow. She saw Bert crying like a kid. She saw the dogs snap their jaws at Stan’s legs and she saw the psycho snap back at them sarcastically and then kick them in the stomach.

She saw the poker flash up and down.

Zoe saw Betty die.

She died trying to shield Bert’s body with her own.

Then Zoe saw Bert die.

He died sobbing over Betty. He died hiding his face behind his hands. He died pleading over and over in a high, terrified voice, “Gimme a break, I’m just an old codger. Gimme a break, gimme a break, gimme a break.”

Stan slid the Wallaces’ bodies, one after the other, into the lake.

When Zoe realized what she was seeing—when the evil of it really sunk its long fingernails into her—she looked back at the house, praying again that Jonah was still asleep.

Then she fell on her knees. She held Uhura to her chest. And she threw up into the snow until her throat was on fire.



By the time Zoe could stand, X had let his arms fall to his sides and tugged his shirt back over his head. The movie had sputtered to a stop. The lake glowed fiercely once more. X, looking sickly and spent, reached down and dragged Stan closer to the hole in the ice.

Stan hadn’t said a word while they watched the killings, but Zoe could see from his expression that something had been building inside him. It wasn’t guilt or sorrow—or even fear, anymore.