The Rains (Untitled #1)(83)

At my back Alex leaned against the tack wall, the reins clanking behind her.

“It’s like he’s not real,” she said.

I put my hand on the stallion’s flank, felt the muscle and heat. Stacks of hay remained in his stall, a nearly empty bucket of oats, and a trough half filled with water. Though he’d been nourished, he was agitated from being pent up. He was ready to run.

That was fine by me.

*

I tapped my heels into the stallion’s ribs, pushing him from a two-beat trot to a lope. We rode bareback straight down the asphalt strip of Ponderosa Pass, his hooves like thunder against the tarmac. I leaned forward, gripping the reins, Alex’s arm looped around my waist. Her other hand swung free, gripping the hockey stick. Just in case.

Sure enough, a Chaser darted from the tree line ahead of us. I yanked the harness to the right, and Alex nearly lopped off the eyeless head as we cantered past.

The road gleamed with night dew, a black river leading us down to the barricade. We floated above the world, high enough to be safe, fast enough to soar. Alex’s body felt warm and tight against mine. She leaned into me, resting her cheek against my back when she got tired.

We made great time, the ride way easier than the brutal off-road hike we would have had to make. The rhythm of the horse beneath us was hypnotic, the crisp night air intoxicating. We encountered few Hosts on our descent. Two of them Alex dispatched with her hockey stick, and a third I trampled right over.

At last the eighteen-wheeler came into view where it had plowed off the road, crashing into the forest and starting the cascade of trees. We reached the rear of the barricade and slid off, Alex’s legs wobbly beneath her. I propped her up. The stallion was in full lather, breathing hard, and he looked regal, even godlike. His shiny black coat made him nearly invisible in the darkness, save for the white star.

I stroked his muzzle and thanked him. Uninterested, he turned and trotted off.

Once the mist folded around him, it was as though he had never existed.

As I helped Alex up and over the fallen trees, I realized that she was even weaker than I’d thought. Though she was toughing it out, it was clear that the past two days had taken a serious toll.

We peered over the top of the barricade to check for Hosts, then picked our way down the logs. I set my hand on an upthrust branch, and it felt soft, wrapped in fabric of some sort. When I looked closer, a cartoon of an old king with a scepter and crown became visible. It was Nick’s Stark Peak High Monarchs hoodie, snared there where I’d dropped it after he’d been snatched away by the horde.

I kept moving.

When we landed on the roof of the station wagon, Alex took note of the corpses splayed around the vehicle. She glanced over at me. “You did this?”

I nodded.

Again she gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. I hopped down, then eased her off the roof. She landed gingerly, trying not to put all her weight on her sore leg.

We rushed off the highway in the direction of the Silverado, our feet squelching in the marshy reeds. It seemed wetter down here; there must’ve been a good rain on this side of the pass last night.

A few steps farther, when I started to sink to my calves, I sensed we might be in trouble. Once we reached the truck, I pulled up short, dismayed.

It was sunk to the bumper in the boggy reeds, the tires lost from view.

No way I’d be able to drive it out of here, not until the land dried.

The nearest vehicles were fifteen miles away at the gas station. On foot across the open plain of the valley, Alex and I would be picked off easily. I doubted she could make it fifteen more steps, let alone miles.

For the first time since I’d left the school, despair settled through me.

To have come all this way to be defeated by a simple rain.

How stupid of me to park the Silverado out here on soft ground.

As wetness crept through my socks, I leaned against the truck. Then my temper snapped. I banged the hood with my fist, then tried to kick the side panel, though I could barely yank my boot free to do it.

“Chance,” Alex said.

I felt her hand on my shoulder.

“I don’t care,” I fumed. “I don’t care if they hear me.”

Part of me wanted the Hosts to come so I could take out my rage on them.

I tried to kick the truck again, a poor effort.

“Are you done?” Alex asked calmly.

I turned, hooks dangling around my wrists. “I think so.”

“There is another car we could use.”

“What are you talking about?”

But already she’d started sloshing back to the highway, her feet making sucking sounds as they pulled from the earth. Alert for Hosts—maybe I didn’t really want them to show up—I followed.

She reached the station wagon, its tailgate smashed beneath the last tree trunk in the barricade. Opening the driver’s door, she reached in and unbuckled the seat belt from around the dead Host’s thighs. Then she nonchalantly yanked him out and dumped him on the ground.

Nick’s father. Killed by Patrick. Now just another dead Host lying among others.

She climbed in and stared at me through the shattered windshield. Streaks of blood marred the hood, along with those fingernail scrapes. “Well,” she said, “get in.”

“Alex. The car is crushed under that tree.”

“Just the back.”