Ashes (8 page)

One second she was sound asleep, the next she was vaulting to consciousness, fully alert, certain that something was wrong. The light was gray in the shelter, and Alex could see splinters of white through the roof of pine boughs. From beyond the shelter came the early morning chatter of birds. She'd cinched the hood of her sweatshirt down around her head, but her face was freezing, her nose a lump of ice, and she heard the sough of the wind through the trees and felt it lick her face with its promise of water.

Wait a minute
.

She came up on her elbows and then saw why she was so cold. Why there was wind on her face.

The leaves she'd mounded so carefully at the mouth of the shelter were gone. She saw daylight … and she was alone. Her fanny pack was there, but Ellie's backpack and the Glock were gone.

She tunneled out of the shelter so fast that the ridgepole came crashing down. She saw, in an instant, that the fire was as they'd left it. So Ellie hadn't tried to start it on her own.

“Ellie?” she called. Louder: “
Ellie?”

She got what she expected: nothing. But she smelled the wet again and understood that the wind had changed direction. What was more, she knew they'd been much closer to the river than she realized.

Three seconds later, she'd strapped on her fanny pack and set off down the trail at a dead run.

There came the gurgling boil of water over rocks. Another ten feet through a thick stand of aspen, and then she saw the water churning to white froth. The sight of all that water made her nearly crazy. She wanted to run and dunk her face; no, she wanted to dive in and start gulping.

Easy, just take it easy.

She unscrewed her water bottle, filled it, dropped in a purification tablet, then capped the bottle and gave it a good shake. In seven minutes, she would have plenty to drink.

This river was wide—sixty, seventy feet across—with a series of drop-offs and waterfalls that went on for a good fifty yards before tailing into rocky shallows. A tangled trio of aspens had fallen across from her side of the river, where the bank was much steeper and the ground more unstable. The felled trees acted as a dam, forming a single deep pool—not dead center, but to the right, so that water shot left down a natural rock sluiceway. A fourth tree jutted over the water. Almost exactly halfway down its length, the trunk forked into a wide V, and the thicker, stouter end of the fork hung over the pool.

Ellie was there, rod clutched in both hands, her back and shoulders hunched against the cold. Her feet dangled fifteen feet above the water. The open bait box perched in a tuft of smaller branches to her left. The Glock—in its holster—nestled on her right.

When she spotted Alex, Ellie threw a look that Alex easily read:
Please don't be mad.
To her surprise, Alex wasn't, but she was worried about how she was going to get Ellie to shore without both of them ending up in the drink. Hitching herself out over the water wasn't hard, but the trees were slippery with frost and
freezing
cold. She could feel the muscles of her thighs dancing away from the frigid bark. She wasn't exactly sold on how stable the thing was either. Every bump and jostle, every quiver, set her teeth on edge, and she kept waiting for a huge
CRACK
.

She stopped when she was perhaps five feet from where Ellie perched. “So, you really think they're going to be biting? It's pretty cold.”

“Grandpa says fish get hungry, too.” As if to prove a point, Ellie twitched her line, reeled it in, inspected a tiny orange nubbin on the hook.

“What is that? It doesn't look like a worm.”

“Egg sack,” Ellie said.

“Really?” Everything Alex knew about fishing could be written on the back of a matchbook, a definite gap in her backwoods education. “You mean, like sushi?”

She saw Ellie give this some thought. “Sort of. I don't think you'd want to eat it, though.” Ellie flashed a look of concern. “I wasn't hoarding it from you or anything.”

“I know.” She uncapped her water bottle, tipped back a mouthful. The water was so cold, she got brain freeze and then gasped as the water burned all the way down her chest before exploding in her stomach. She had never tasted anything so wonderful in her life, and despite the ache, she took another swallow and then another. She might have kept going if not for Ellie. As it was, handing over the bottle was an act of will. “Drink up,” she said to the girl. “We'll fill our bottles before we leave.”

“Thanks,” Ellie said gratefully. She took two ginormous gulps, nearly draining the bottle, then cast a fearful look at Alex.

“Go ahead,” Alex said. “It's okay. There's a whole river, right?”

“Yeah.” Ellie drained the bottle. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said. “So, how's it going? You had the bait in your box?”

“Uh-huh. It's going okay.”

“How do you know this is a good place?”

“Because Grandpa said so.”

“Because it's a pool?”

“Uh-huh. He said you should always cast on the downstream part of cover and not right on top of them …” Ellie prattled on, but Alex listened with only half an ear, her mind already leapfrogging ahead, trying to figure out how to bring up the subject of,
oh, next time you decide to go hiking, please tell me, and by the way, don't touch the Glock.

“And then you eat them,” Ellie finished with a flourish.

Eat them.
That got her attention. Saliva squirted into Alex's mouth, and her stomach cramped. If Ellie really
could
catch a fish or two … She nearly moaned out loud. “Do you know how to cook them?”

“Sure. Don't you? Your dad taught you everything.”

“Not this.”

“Oh. Well, you scale them. With a knife. And cut open their stomachs to get out all the guts.”

“Yuck.” She meant that.

“It's not so bad,” Ellie said airily. “You save the guts to use for bait.”

“You've done that?” She was genuinely impressed.

“Yup.” Ellie's expression bordered on the supremely smug. “Then you poke some branches into their mouths and out the other end and roast them over a fire, and then you eat them just like corn on … Alex? Are you okay?”

“I—” Alex began, but then the odor came again, a harsh blast that nudged the gooseflesh along her arms.

“Alex, what—” Ellie's gaze drifted to a point over Alex's shoulder, and her eyes went round. “Oh.”

Alex knew what the girl saw. Much later, she would think all that talk of food was to blame for what happened next. That if she hadn't been distracted by daydreams of roasted fish on a spit, things might've turned out differently. Maybe.

Her heart pounding, Alex turned, already knowing what she would find.

A dog.

A few feet in from the right bank stood a collie that looked ragged, thin, muddy, and miserable. A length of frayed rope hung from a worn collar. When it saw Alex looking, its filthy tail whisked back and forth a few times, and then it whimpered.

“Ohh,” Ellie breathed. “It must've chewed through its rope. Or maybe somebody lost it. It's probably really scared and hungry.”

Alex thought that was probably true. After all that talk about wild dogs the night before, she'd been startled at first, afraid the collie was feral. But this dog looked about as dangerous as Lassie. “Hey, girl.” She had no idea if it was a girl or not, but thought the dog wouldn't be all that choosy. “How are you? Whatcha doing out here?”

The dog's tail fanned the air, and it danced a step forward and then back.

“Oh, Alex, look, she's
hurt
.” Alex felt the tree jiggle as Ellie scooted to get a better look. “There's
blood
.”

There was. A dried, rust-colored splotch splashed the collie's rump.

“Someone
shot
her.” Laying aside her rod, Ellie hitched herself around and started scooching toward Alex. “We have to help her. Here, girl, it's okay, we won't hurt you. It's okay.”

It was the smallest of movements, and maybe the image of that brown slink disappearing into the woods four days ago had stayed with Alex, because her eyes shot left to a dense thatch of underbrush just beyond the collie—and then her stomach bottomed out.

Another dog crouched, belly to the ground, behind dense brambles. This dog was dirty brown, with a huge ax-wedge of a head. Some kind of very big mutt.
Really
big.

And the smell she got from it was
danger.

Maybe the collie saw her eyes shift and sensed something about to go very wrong, because it let out a short, almost playful yelp.

Ellie laughed. “It wants to play.”

Now that she knew what she was looking for, Alex's frantic eyes scoured the forest right and left of the collie. She spotted two more dogs in the underbrush: a dusky, speckled hound and a ragged German shepherd, its left ear hanging in crusty tatters.

Four dogs
. Four.
Less than a week since this nightmare began, and none of these dogs looked like they'd ever been anyone's pet.

“What are you doing?” Ellie said as Alex pressed back. She let out a yelp and then Alex heard something splash. “Alex, you made me knock the tackle box—”

“Move back,” Alex said, injecting as much urgency as she could without outright screaming. “There are more dogs, Ellie. Move,
move
!”

“What? I don't see …” Alex heard Ellie gasp.

“Go.” She felt the girl begin to inch away, and she followed, legs still straddling the trunk, palms cupping the icy bark, eyes never leaving the dogs. She watched as the other three slid from the tangle of brush and briars. The collie was no longer wagging its tail, and the playful look on its face had been replaced by what almost looked like rage. The dogs were rigid, ears pricked, nostrils flaring as they sampled the air. Sampled
them.

“Go away.” Her voice shook and Alex thought,
God, I
sound
like dinner.
She tried again, putting some steel in it. “Go on! Get out of here,
go
!”

The dogs did not go. Instead, they tossed looks at one another. Alex could almost hear them debating; felt the air go alive with thoughts. Then four pairs of glittering eyes swiveled back, and the hound and the very big mutt began nosing along the bank.

“What are they doing?” Ellie said in a high voice. “Are they going away?”

“No. They're looking for a way across.”

“Why?”

“So they can come at us from both sides.” The mutt and the hound were picking their way down the bank, slithering on wet leaves. She kept hoping they'd take a tumble, maybe break a leg, maybe get so wet and discouraged they'd just give up, but they didn't look like the kind of dogs that gave up. Then she remembered the dried blood on the collie and she thought,
Gun.

“Ellie.” She craned her head over the hump of her shoulder. The girl's face was bleached of color, and she was crying, silently, huge tears rolling down her cheeks. “Ellie. The Glock. Get it.”

Ellie's eyes went even wider, but she nodded—a quick jerk like a puppet. She started backing away in little hip-hops, up and down, like a kid hitching along a balance beam. Every bounce knocked a gasp from Alex's chest, and she hissed, “Not so fast. We've got some time, be
careful
.”

“Almost there!” Ellie wailed. She'd made it back to the V butt-first, but instead of turning, she swept her right hand back to reach for the Glock nestled in its thick cradle of branches—

Alex saw it right before it happened. “Ellie, no,
stop
!”

Too late.

Ellie's hand knocked the gun, a good solid hit that sent the pistol sailing. Ellie let out a shrill
no!
She tried to snatch at the gun, but then her body shifted, and she screamed again, throwing herself forward this time and wrapping her arms around the tree. Alex watched in a kind of dumb horror as the gun tumbled butt over bore, once, twice, three times, and then hit the water with a dull, wet
thawunk
, a sound Alex had heard countless times as a kid dropping rocks into a pond from a tire swing. She watched, helpless and sick, as the water swallowed the gun. Swallowed her dad.

“I'm sorry.” Ellie's teeth showed in a tight, terrified rictus grin. She hugged the tree with both arms. “I'm sorry, I lost my balance. I'm sorry, I'm—”

There had to be something else she could use as a weapon. Alex's eyes raked the tree, looking for something,
anything
. She saw that the dogs were fording the river now, carefully crossing over rocks, keeping one eye on them and the other on where they were going. She had to
hurry
.

“What about your knife?” Ellie's voice was breathless with terror. “Can you use your knife?”

“Not enough reach.” The blade wasn't long and all a dog had to do was dodge and grab her wrist, and then it was over.

Drop into the river? Alex was a good swimmer. She eyed the water, saw the gush. That current was pretty fast. The rocks were slippery and the water deep and, probably incredibly cold. She might make it, but she didn't think Ellie would, not with boots and a parka and clothes to drag her down. And dogs could swim, too; she knew that. Even if Alex got her feet under her, one slip and those dogs would swarm in and she'd be done.

Groping beneath the tree trunk, she wrapped her hand around a branch as thick around as her wrist and pulled. The branch bent, squealed, and Alex tugged harder, heard a snap and then a splintery sound, and gasped as the branch gave so quickly that she slipped. Still clutching the branch, she squeezed her thighs around the trunk; felt her chin bang wood and then pain, red and hot as a brand, as her teeth drove into her tongue.

“Alex!”

“I'm okay,” Alex said, swallowing a ball of blood. Her mouth sang with pain. Her fingers knotted around the stick in a death grip. “Go back the way you came. Down that great big branch, the one you were fishing from.
Hurry.
” Alex waited until Ellie had shimmied off the main trunk and begun inching onto the branch before following. She listened to the crackle of branches, holding her breath each time.
Please, God, just get us down there.

“Alex, how … how much farther do you want me to go?”

Alex flicked a glance. The branch was thick and stout, as big around as Ellie, and she was at the midway point. The branch bowed in a slight, gentle curve, but Ellie wasn't swaying and Alex thought it was strong enough. “That's good. Stay right there. I'm coming.”

“But what are you doing? What are we going to
do
?”

Alex didn't answer. She wouldn't need to go far, just enough so the dogs had only one way of getting at them.
A funnel leading to a chute, like the rocks on the mountain.
If she was far enough from the V, the dogs would have to come single file, and that she could defend. She butted against the V, then hugged the tree as she swung her left leg up and around. There was a solid
thunk
as the side of her boot knocked wood, and then she was hitching up her hips, thinking,
I never was any good at balance beam.

“You're almost there,” Ellie said. “Scooch up your butt.”

Alex did, dropping onto the branch hard enough that she felt the bang ripple up her spine. Beneath her legs, the branch groaned and bent, like an archer's bow being drawn, and Alex held her breath, waiting for the break, the crack, the sharp razor of a rock slicing the back of her head …

The limb swayed, creaked like a step in a haunted house, but did not break.

She felt the tiniest squeak of relief. “Ellie, can you give me some more room?”

“Yes.” The wood shuddered in Alex's arms as Ellie scooted back, and then Alex saw the bark ripple and buckle. This time, the limb protested with a loud squall that reminded Alex of forcing open a wooden door, swollen with humidity, on a hot summer day.

“That's far enough.” Maybe too far, but at least she had some maneuvering room now. She looked left, saw that the very big mutt was already across and eyeing the trunk. Then her head swiveled right, and she saw with a sudden, sickening jolt that the hound was already halfway to the V—just twenty feet away. “Hang on, Ellie—really, really tight.”

“Alex? What are you going to do?”

She did not answer. Wrapping both legs around the branch, she hooked her ankles together. She hugged the tree with her left arm but let her right fall, choking up only a little on her makeshift club.

Ten feet away, at the fork, the hound hesitated. It was close enough that Alex saw that its eyes were muddy brown, the whites red. Its black lips curled in a yellow snarl. Then it crept forward one step and then another and another …

Alex swung.

Her club cut the air with a whistle. The hound saw it coming, tried twisting to snatch the branch with its teeth, but it was off-balance and too late. The splintery knob smacked the hound's ribs hard enough to make their perch bob, and then the dog was yelping, its nails scoring bark as it skittered over the slick wood. Still yowling, the dog tumbled from the tree and, unlike a cat, smacked the water with a mighty splash that sent up a geyser of water in an icy coronet.

Yes!
Elation thrilled through her like blood. Twisting to peer over her shoulder, Alex saw the hound's black head, sleek as oilskin, bob to the surface, but the current was swift and the dog was a good twenty feet downstream and still picking up speed. Beyond her feet, Ellie was dripping. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Ellie's face reflected both mingled hope and mortal terror. “Is it dead? Will it drown?”

“No.” Alex watched as the hound battled for shore and then, ten seconds later, clambered into shallows on the right. Water streamed from its flanks and then sprayed in a wide halo as the dog shook itself. In another moment, it was bounding back up the bank toward level ground. “It's coming ba—”

“Alex! On your left! Look!”

The shepherd was working its way onto the tree as the collie watched from the safety of solid ground. Then she saw movement to her right, and there was the very big mutt. The animal put a tentative paw on the wood, and then the dog took a step, and then another.

No.
The dogs were coming at them from both sides, and she knew she couldn't do this forever. If only Ellie hadn't lost the Glock, she might have—

Something rocketed from the woods, something very fast, charging so quickly that Alex caught only a brown blur, and then she saw, with a start, that it was another dog.

No, no, not another one.
And then she caught its scent and thought,
Wait. Isn't that—

“Mina!” Ellie crowed.
“Mina!”