Bonechiller (14 page)

A few times I came
this
close to telling him what really happened. But no matter how I play it out in my head, I can’t see him buying it. Dad lives in the real world.

Last week, so did I.

Shifting my head on the pillow, I glance at the window and see the pane glazed over with frost. Tomorrow, Dad has to pick up a new regulator for the boiler.

He’s a mechanical magician. He can fix anything. That’s how he met Mom.

Dad was working a summer job at an auto body shop. Mom came in after a fender bender to get some work done. This was when they were still in high school. Dad hammered out the dents and did a patch-up paint job to cover the scratches.

“Then when I came to get my car, he tried to pick me up” was how Mom told it.

“
She
was the one hitting on
me
, big-time” was his version.

Mom rolled her eyes at that. “I’d broken my pinkie finger crashing the car, and it was in a splint. So he said to me—I can fix that too. Then
Slick
here took my hand and kissed the splint.”

“Hey, we were a full-service shop.”

“And I told him it still hurt. He said it’s a daily treatment, gotta come back for more. I said—can I have my hand back? He goes—can I have my heart back?”

I can’t imagine him making moves, acting slick. But this was in his prehistoric youth, when he had a wild streak that was gone by the time I came along.

“After that,” he said, “she started stalking me. Kept coming back with new dents and scrapes.”

“So I was a bad driver.”

“Or a bad liar.”

Anyway, that was their “how we met” story.

Dad’s always had a feel for machines. If he can get his hands on something, he can fix it. Worst thing for him is being helpless. Like he was with Mom. Having to wait and watch her suffer.

I sigh. Stop thinking so much! I’ll never fall asleep.

But as I stare at the ceiling, I find myself drifting off. It’s like there’s a strong current running through my head, with a powerful undertow tugging me down.

My eyes close in one long blink.

And they open on darkness.

What the—?

I’m gone from my room, lying out in the open under a midnight sky. A sky deep with stars. I sit up with a gasp, looking around, expecting to find my bed under me. But I’m laid out on a slab of ice. No, not a slab, a whole field of ice, stretching away to frozen hills and bluffs.

I’m barefoot, and still in my T-shirt and sweats. But I’m not feeling the cold. Not a shiver.

I get up and do a three-sixty, taking in the view. The polar landscape is colored in shades of blue. By the starlight, I make out massive mountains in the distance. No trees, no lights anywhere, and nobody but me.

I’m dwarfed by the scale of this place.

Where the hell am I?

Then I hear a cough. I swing around, searching the dark. There are breaks in the ice field where jagged rocks stab upward like rough gravestones.

I consider calling out, but who knows what’ll answer?

I wait, holding my breath. Another cough. Close by.

Stepping carefully with my naked feet on the slick ice, I do a wide circle around the nearest gravestone. Not wanting to surprise whatever it is, or be surprised.

Nothing behind the first rock. Moving on to the next, I
get halfway around and see a crouching figure. Takes me a second to recognize it.

“Howie?”

He squeaks, swinging toward my voice. “Who—who’s there?”

“It’s me. Danny.”

Howie lets out a shaky breath but stays huddled against the boulder.

“What’re you doing here?” I ask. Maybe a dumb question. I mean, what am I doing here? And where’s
here
?

“Hiding.”

“From what?”

I glance around, searching for any movement in the icescape.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It just felt like the right thing to do.”

With Howie, hiding’s always the right thing to do.

“Where are we?” I sit next to him and lean back on the rock.

“Don’t know,” he says, looking up at the sky. “For sure, a long way from home.”

I follow his gaze, taking in the blackness thick with stars. A full moon is rising above a distant mountain range, shining down on the ice world with a cool blue glow. “Weird.”

“Definitely a long way from home.”

It looks amazing, but none of it feels real. It’s like some billion-dollar special effects, with awesome visuals. I can feel the rough surface of the rock against my back, and hear the
hollow rush of wind blowing past our hiding place. But where’s the cold?

I shake my head.

“We’re dreaming, right?” I say, figuring it out now. “I mean,
I’m
dreaming. I guess you’re not really real.”

“Who’s not real?” He hugs his knees to his chest.

“Well, I’m dreaming you, right?”

He gets a worried frown. “I thought I was dreaming you.”

“Wow, you just blew my mind,” I say, sarcastic. Then I decide to try something and give him a punch in the shoulder.

“What’d you do that for?”

“Did you feel it?”

“Yeah. You feel this?”

Howie jabs me in the ribs with his bony elbow.

“Yeah. Quit it.”

He rubs his shoulder. I rub my ribs.

“So, what did that prove?” he asks.

“Nothing, I guess. Except maybe that we’re a couple of idiots. Lost in space.”

I try to laugh, but my throat is too tight and dry.

Howie clears his throat.

“Some primitive cultures believe in shared dreams,” he tells me. “Like as part of a … a spiritual journey.”

“Fascinating, Yoda. What is this?
National Geographic?
”

“Just trying to help.”

If I have to get stuck in a dream with somebody, why couldn’t it be Ash?

“You know,” I say, taking in the view. “When I’m having a dream, I usually don’t realize it’s a dream.”

“Me neither.”

“This feels different. Kind of, I don’t know,
wrong
somehow.”

I notice Howie shivering.

“You cold?”

“No. Just … scared, I guess. You?”

I run my hand over the sheet of ice we’re sitting on.

“Cold? No. Should be, though. It must be fifty below.”

“So, what do we—”

But he’s stopped by a noise. I hold my breath, ears wide open.

A clicking sound.

“Do you hear …,” Howie starts.

I put my hand up to quiet him. I hear it all right.

Peering around the edge of the rock, I see nothing but ice. Frozen hills and bluffs beyond. Glaciers looming in the distance under the midnight sky.

Then by the light of the stars and the blue moon I catch sight of it. Stalking across the frozen field about fifty yards away, claws clicking on the ice.

As I watch, pressed tight to the stone, the beast rises up on its hind legs, towering above the rocks poking up through the ice. Its enormous head sways, like it’s scenting the air. Clouds of steam blow from the long slits of its nostrils.

Scenting. For us.

I slip back out of sight. Howie stares a question at me.

My lips to his ear, I whisper: “It’s here.”

His shivering gets worse, but he stays quiet.

Think! I tell myself. Quick!

The gravestones stick up across the ice field, with clusters here and there. I spot one of these crowded spots off to the right, in the opposite direction from the beast. I point it out to Howie.

Let’s go
, I mouth.

He nods. I have to help him to his feet. Howie’s shaking so bad, I don’t know how he’s going make it if we have to run.

I peek around the boulder and see the beast roaming on all fours, weaving through the jumble of stones.

As long as we can keep out of sight, dodging from rock to rock, maybe we can put some distance between us and that thing. I grab Howie by the elbow and set off for the thickest cluster of stones.

We run silently, my bare feet and Howie’s socks soundless on the ice. It’s slick, like running on wet glass. Howie keeps slipping and almost going down.

Reaching a tall cluster, a kind of icy Stonehenge, I lean to look past the corner.

Nothing. Good. I can pick out the rock where we started out, black against the deep blue of the ice.

If we can keep moving—

I go stiff as the beast comes into view and bends close to the ground right where we were.

Picking up the scent.

It lifts its head, showing a glint of teeth. The wind carries a low growl to where we’re hiding.

I slip back behind the rock. Howie’s eyes are shut tight, and I have to pull him from his grip on the stone. Even with my own knees like rubber, I hurry him along. Twisting and turning, dragging him with me.

Behind us the clicking nears. Long claws tapping and scratching across the ice.

The growl shivers through my ribs.

“Quick,” I breathe to Howie.

We come to a tight crowd of stones where we have to slip single file through the gaps. These crevices are way too narrow for the beast. It’ll have to find a way around.

Howie holds my arm as we make our way through the maze.

Suddenly we break out into the open, and I skid to a stop, breathless.

The ice cuts off in a sheer drop ahead. The end of the world.

Slow, careful, I inch up close to the edge.

Down below—way down below—is what looks like open water. At the base of the cliff there’s a lot of sharp, jagged rocks.

“We’re dead,” Howie says.

He’s beside me, taking in the lethal drop. I’m about to answer when I see a pale form outlined against the starry sky behind us.

From its perch on top of the standing stones, the beast is watching. It couldn’t fit through the maze, so it climbed over.

“Howie.” My voice cracks.

He turns and sees.

It watches. No hurry. We’re cornered.

Howie’s wheezing little whimpers.

Think!
I shout at myself. Think of something.
Anything!

But there’s nowhere left to run. Nowhere but—

“Let’s jump.” I think it and blurt it in the same second.

“Wha-what?” Howie shoots me a look like I’m crazy.

“When you fall in dreams you wake up, right? It’s the vertigo, or whatever, makes you wake before you hit the ground.”

Or before we hit those rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

“What—what if you’re wrong? What if we don’t wake up?”

I shake my head, eyes locked on the beast.

“Dreams can’t hurt you.” But even I’m not buying it. “Anything’s better than staying here.”

The growl picks up. My whole body shudders.

Howie moans. “I can’t.”

Maybe the beast senses what we’re thinking. It tenses, ready to leap.

Gotta do it. Now!

So I shove Howie over the edge of the cliff. There’s a half second where I take in the shock on his face as he tumbles backward into nothing, reaching out to grab on to me.

I jump after him, before I can think and freeze up.

Over the edge, into the night. I’d scream if I could, but the speed of the fall rips the breath out of me.

The beast’s outraged roar follows me all the way down.

In the blurring rush, I catch glimpses of Howie tumbling toward the rocks.

I shock awake like I’m being electrocuted. A strangled yell dies in the back of my throat. I stare blindly around the room, still feeling the wind tearing at me.

The light’s on. There’s no wind. No falling.

It takes me a minute to convince myself of these things. I’m here. Awake. Alive. Safe.

Safe?

I swing my feet to the floor just as my cell phone rings. Getting shakily to my feet, I glance at the clock. Two in the morning? I grab the phone and see the caller ID.

“Howie?”

“Danny, you there?” He’s breathing hard.

I still feel dizzy, my heart machine-gunning in my chest. I collapse on the bed. “Guess so. What’s going on?”

“This is going to sound weird. Really ‘out there.’ ”

I know what he’s going to say.

“You had a dream?” I ask.

He lets out a shuddering sigh. “Yeah. With that thing, you know …”

“I know.”

“It was chasing us,” he says, a tremble in his voice.

“I know. I was there.” I rub my eyes. “This is not good.”

“You’re telling me? Why did you have to push me?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Howie gives a weak, nervous laugh. “Yeah. But a little warning next time?”

We’re both quiet, thinking.

“What the hell’s going on?” I ask him, and myself. “Am I going nuts?”

“If you are. I’m riding shotgun.”

I look down at my hand and rub the blue dot there with my thumb, like I can rub it away.

“Remember Ray Dyson?” Howie asks out of nowhere.

“Yeah? What about him?”

“Well, I was thinking. Maybe the same thing that got us got him too.”

I pause. “But that was a dog that bit Raid, right? Made him sick.”

“Nobody’s sure what it was. There were all these rumors going around. I heard they couldn’t find any bite marks on him. They thought he was making the whole thing up, till he started showing symptoms.”

“Symptoms of what?”

“You heard what people were saying. Rabies. West Nile virus. Lyme disease. Or none of the above.”

I remember that picture in the paper of Ray running away from the hospital in his pajamas, into the night.

“You know, before he freaked out and they stuck him in the hospital?” Howie says. “When I ran into him in the washroom, Ray was delirious. He kept saying how he thought he’d got away, but
it
was only letting him think that. He said it was coming back for him.”

“
It?
What the hell is that thing?”

No answer from Howie.

I’ve got a million questions.

Like, where was Ray running to? Was he trying to escape? To hide? To die?

And if the thing that attacked him was the same beast that got me and Howie, then how long before we go running into the night?