The Rains (Untitled #1)(32)

Alex pulled the cuffs of her sweater down over her fists. She jackknifed over, her feet up on the bleacher bench in front of her, her arms pressed between her thighs and her chest. Patrick sat beside her, rubbing her back.

Again I looked across at my brother’s name and birthday written up on the board. Then down at the wet smudge from the mop where Britney had fallen.

I didn’t mean to speak, at least not that loudly, but there was my voice, carrying across the gym. “How could they know?”

“How do they know any of it?” Ben said. “They know to burn the guns. They know to cut the power. And the phone lines. The grown-ups—it’s like they’re still in there somewhere, but just the bad parts.”

Beside me, Alex shook off a shudder.

I said, “What I mean is, how could the parasite know exactly when Britney turned eighteen?”

Rocky said, “Well, Dr. C. said the white matter—”

“I know, I know,” I said. “But everyone develops at different rates. I mean, we’re humans. It’s not like we’re trees and you can just cut us open and count the rings inside. I know that doctors can make guesses based on teeth and bone development and stuff, but it’s not like we have some internal meter or something. Besides, nothing can tell when we actually enter the world. I mean, as opposed to conception or being in the womb or whatever.”

“If there is a meter of some kind,” Eve said, “maybe it starts the instant air first hits the lungs?”

“But there isn’t one.” I looked over at Dr. Chatterjee. “Isn’t that right?”

“Not a meter, exactly,” he said. “But there is something. Structures on the tips of chromosomes called telomeres. They’re repetitive nucleotide sequences that get shortened every time DNA duplicates. Recently there’s been some research indicating that these provide estimates for how long an organism has been alive and how long it has until it dies. They’ve been doing promising work with warblers on Cousin Island—”

“But those are estimates,” I said.

“As our technology advances,” Chatterjee said, “we are finding them to be alarmingly accurate as indicators of life expectancy.”

“Fine,” I said. “But we can’t tell how old a person is to the day. To the minute.”

“Well…” Ben stood up, his weight creaking the bleacher. “We can’t.”

I felt a tingling under my scalp. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re dealing with more than spores and parasites,” Ben said. He hopped down the benches, one after another, then stood at the bottom and looked up at me, Alex, and Patrick. “When I was out there taking care of Britney’s body, guess who I bumped into? Ezekiel. Looks like our ol’ janitor was sleeping off a hangover in the football stadium again, woke up with the commotion.” Ben took a moment to wipe his hands across the front of his shirt, mimicking the gesture that had left those bloody streaks. “So I handled him, too.” With a glance at Chatterjee, he added, “Maybe not as well as our elected leader here could’ve.”

“Why on earth didn’t you say something?” Chatterjee asked.

“Didn’t want to overstep my bounds. But seeing as our leadership is casting about for answers, I figure I’d better speak up now.” Ben started for the doors, waving at us to follow. “You three and the good doctor better come with me.” He turned back to look at us, the crimped skin of his forehead shiny even in the diffuse light of the high windows. “You’re gonna wanna see this.”





ENTRY 15

We halted in the corridor of the humanities wing, bumping into one another. I tried to swallow, but my throat gave only a dry click. The sight before us had brought us up short.

A pale arm thrust across the threshold of Mr. Tomasi’s classroom. Limp fingers touched the floor as if reaching for something.

And they were twitching.

“Wait,” Patrick said. “He’s still alive?”

“If you can call it that,” Ben said.

A dark snake of blood streamed parallel to the arm, polished and gleaming, mirroring back the pinhole ceiling tiles above. The duffel bag containing Britney had been dumped by the lockers; Ben had probably dropped it there when he’d run into Ezekiel.

Alex’s voice cut through my shock. “This whole time we’ve been in the gym? You left a Host out here still alive?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Ben said. “He ain’t going nowhere. You’ll see.” He strode forward, but none of us moved.

We’d seen a lot, but that didn’t mean we were used to it.

Aside from Ben, who led the way with a big-game hunter’s delight. “C’mon, then,” he said. “He’s not gonna get you. Not anymore.”

Patrick broke us out of our statue formation. Alex, Chatterjee, and I followed. I’d had Cassius stay back with JoJo, who’d started crying at the thought of being left without me and Patrick. The big pup had tucked up to her side, and she’d rested her face on his tan fur, her head rising and falling as he breathed. Seventy pounds of Rhodesian ridgeback was a pretty good comfort.

I could have used some comfort myself. Though it was day, the hall was surprisingly dim, and I realized I’d never been inside the school with the lights off. Another first.