Bonechiller (20 page)

That warped snow-pale face leans in close. The wide mouth parts slightly, showing a glint of the blades inside. It seems to sniff, tasting my fear.

Then a low sound rises from the depths of the beast, almost a purr, shivering my eardrums. A purr, but something more. For a moment it seems like the beast is trying to speak to me. But in frequencies I can’t make out. And in a language so alien.

Whispers murmur at the edges of my mind, words just out of reach. I feel the strangest sensation inside. My body stays locked in place. But it’s like something has reached through flesh and bone and taken hold of me.

In those round silver mirrors I see my face clenched. The tendons on my neck stand out, straining.

I feel myself move forward, even with my body frozen stiff.

I’m being pulled.
Out
.

The purring resolves into something familiar.

Words. Thousands of words, crowded together in a confused jumble. But not just words.

Voices
. So many, breaking over me.

Then a fist of ice reaches into me and yanks me inside
out. It feels like the night wind is blowing right through me for a moment. Like I’m a ghost, nothing but vapor.

And with a dizzying snap, I’m staring at myself again. But not at the reflection in those mirror eyes. I’m looking at myself from the outside.

Through eyes that aren’t mine.

I feel nothing now, bodyless.

The voices shout at me from all directions, trying to be heard. Desperate.

I look helplessly at the empty figure of Danny Quinn.

I see my eyes, wide and blind with panic. And in them I catch another reflection mirrored not in silver but in my own blue eyes. The beast’s looming face in miniature, mouth stretched open, showing all those razor teeth.

Trapped behind the beast’s eyes, I can’t look away.

It lunges forward and my view twists wildly.

When the beast pulls back, I can see clearly. And a scream I have no real voice to make rips through to join other screams. I’m not alone here in this endless dark. Not the only one made to watch the slaughter.

My scream gets swallowed by my pillow. I have to push up on my elbows to breathe. The sound dies to a whimper in my throat as I recognize my room.

I try not to blink, scared of getting sucked back into the nightmare if my eyelids close even for a millisecond.

Rolling out of bed, I lean against the wall, panting. With shaky hands I feel my face, making sure it’s still there. Then I hold them out and look at them.

No blood. I’m okay. I’m okay.

I keep telling myself that, getting a grip.

I hear the low murmur of the TV down the hall. Dad’s up late as always. I’ll go join him on the couch in a minute, and we’ll get through the night together.

When I was little and I’d cry out in my sleep, Mom would come and wake me gently. She’d listen to my drowsy retelling of the bad dream and tell me it was safe now. She said she’d guard me, sitting next to me on the bed, until I was settled in sweeter dreams. There are nights when I’m surfacing from one dream before diving into another that I imagine I can feel her there. Feel the weight of her pressing down the mattress, feel the warmth coming off her.

Even with all our drifting these past couple years, she seems to be able to find me, in whatever strange new place and strange new bed I’m in. Just thinking of her now calms me down a little. I’d give anything to have her here. Anything and everything. Guarding me.

These nightmares are the beast’s playground. Torture chambers it builds inside my brain for its own amusement.

I’m still catching my breath, leaning on the wall, when my cell phone rings.

I see the name on the cell’s screen.

“Howie?”

“Danny. I was calling to wake you.”

“Why?”

“I was there. I saw what happened.”

“You were where?”

“I saw it chasing you,” he says. “In the school, then out by the lake.”

I slump down on the chair at my desk.

“Where were you?” I ask. “I didn’t catch sight of you.”

Howie’s quiet a second, just breathing.

“I was right there,” he says, finally. “Trapped inside that thing’s head. Seeing out of its eyes. I saw what it did to you. That was the worst thing ever.”

I glance at the window, half expecting to see something staring in at me.

“You know,” I say. “Something weird happened. Well, even
more
weird, I should say. Right before it … you know, attacked me. It was like I got sucked out of my body. Into its head. And then I was watching through its eyes, what it did to me.”

For the longest time, all I hear is Howie breathing on the other end.

“They’re all in there,” he mumbles.

“What?” I press the phone tight against my ear.

“All those kids. The disappeared. I could feel them all crowded inside its head. There were so many. I heard their voices, all talking at the same time. Didn’t you hear anything?”

“I heard.”

“Ray Dyson was there. I could hear his voice. He thinks he’s lost somewhere. Kept asking where was the way out. But nobody was listening. They were all just talking over each other.”

I slouch in the chair, staring blankly at the picture above my bed of the horses pulling blocks of ice from the lake a hundred years ago. A century is nothing to this beast. It was
hunting the Cree Indians a thousand years ago. A thousand years of victims. Of voices.

“What did the Indians say about it?” I ask. “Stealing souls?”

“And eating dreams.”

“How did you get out? How did you wake up?”

“When it started … eating you, I freaked. Just went over the edge. Guess the shock was enough to wake me up.”

I feel a winter breeze coming in the window, licking at my bare feet. Feels good. Too good.

“Why doesn’t it finish us off?” I ask. “I mean, there’s nothing we can do to stop it. But it keeps toying with us. These nightmares are like wet dreams for this thing. It gets off on them. Why not just kill us and get it over with?”

Since that first nightmare, the autopsy, it’s like the beast has been dissecting our minds. Finding where it hurts, feeding on our fear.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Howie says. “With Ray and the other missing kids, there was a couple weeks between when they got bit and when they disappeared. Maybe whatever that beast infected us with takes time to work. You know, to change us.”

Now that Howie’s talking science, he’s sounding calmer.

“Change us into what? Human ice cubes?”

“Don’t know. I’m still working on that. Whatever’s going on inside us, I don’t think we’re
ready
yet.”

Ready for
what
?

“But there’s more,” Howie says. “I was in its head for a while before it started hunting you. And when I was looking through its eyes, I think I saw where it goes.”

“What do you mean, where it goes?”

“Where it’s holed up in the daytime,” he says. “And through the summers, I guess. Where it hides. I can find the place. We can find it.”

“Huh? And do what?”

He’s sounding very un-Howie-like. He jumps when the phone rings. Now he wants to find this killing machine?

“What’re we supposed to do?” he asks. “Just wait? Ray waited, and look what happened to him.”

I can only shake my head. If Howie’s calculations are right, then I’ve got maybe four days left. And this infection seems to be working even faster on Howie.

“Gotta do something,” he says, almost pleading. “We can find it.”

I open my mouth to tell him he’s crazy. But he’s right, we can’t just wait. His idea is beyond nuts, but it’s all we’ve got. So I heave a heavy sigh and ask: “Where?”

TWENTY-FOUR

“What the hell is that?” I ask, getting in the backseat with Ash.

Pike’s behind the wheel of his junker, with some kind of futuristic spy gear strapped on his head. It has two short cylinders poking out like binoculars over his eyes.

“Night-vision goggles,” Pike says. “We’re going hunting, aren’t we?”

“You bust those, Dad’s gonna kill you,” Howie tells him, riding shotgun.

“You worry too much, bro.” Pike fools with the controls on the side of the headgear. “I can see everything with these babies. See body heat, see through clothes. Damn, Ash, don’t you ever wear a bra?”

“You want to lose some teeth?” She leans forward.

“They can’t see through clothes,” Howie says. “If you set them on infrared, they track body heat signatures. But you can also set them to pick up on ambient light.”

“You’re going to have to dumb that down a bit,” I say.

“Okay. They catch even the faintest existing light, like from stars or light pollution off cloud cover, and amplify it a thousand times brighter. Makes even a moonless night look like daytime, but on a green planet.”

Pike keeps playing with his new toy. “What do you say I try driving with these on?”

“You got a death wish,” Ash says. “Save it for yourself. Let’s get moving.”

Pike pushes the goggles up onto his forehead and we pull out from the marina lot.

Me and Howie had to give up our secret about the shared nightmares. It was the only way to explain how we knew where to find the beast. I was scared we might lose Ash and Pike with this new symptom. But Pike was easy, saying: “Great. Let’s track it down.”

Ash held back judgment. “I don’t know. Weirder and weirder.”

But she’s here. Not going to miss a fight.

“What did you bring
that
for?” Pike glances back at the small rifle in my lap. “That wouldn’t stop a squirrel.”

I snuck it out from the rack in the marina house. I feel better just holding it, even if it wouldn’t make a dent in the beast.

“Now,
this
will do some serious damage,” Pike says, holding up a double-barreled shotgun he’s got stowed between the front seats.

“You got the safety on?” Ash asks.

“Of course. I may be a gun nut, but the Captain taught me to respect my firearms.”

Ash brought along a .32-caliber rifle she uses when she goes deer hunting with her father.

It’s weird, I never even touched a real gun till I got stuck out here in the Big Empty where everybody’s got some kind of firearm. Now I know where all those buckshot holes in the
WELCOME TO HARVEST COVE
sign come from.

While other people are home drinking eggnog, roasting chestnuts and watching Charlie Brown pick out his sadass Christmas tree, we’re out hunting a demon.

We follow the dirt road along the shore till the hulking skeleton of the ice factory comes into view.

Its black bones are just visible in the moonlight. I can see easy in the dark now. Last night, I got up to take a leak and was walking back from the bathroom before realizing I hadn’t even turned the light on. Usually I have to fumble to find the switch. But now I almost see better, the lower the light. Photosensitivity, Howie calls it. Freaky, I call it.

“You sure you can find the place?” I ask Howie.

“I can find it.” His voice is quiet. Shaky.

We bump over frozen muck as we drive up to the factory. Pike stops and kills the engine. For a minute, there’s no sound but us breathing, and the creaking of the rotting structure. Seems like one stiff wind could topple the whole thing.

“Well.” Ash speaks up. “If we’re gonna do it, let’s do it.”

Pike nods, looking ridiculous in his goggles. “Okay, boys and girls. Lock and load.”

I open the door and step out. The wind off the lake feels like nothing to me, but Ash zips her jacket up to her chin.

She sweeps her flashlight beam around in the murk. I’m seeing okay, but she must be near-blind without the light.
Her and Pike check their guns one more time, so I make like I’m doing the same. But I barely know how to shoot the thing.

“Stay close, bro,” Pike tells Howie. “Which way?”

Howie points over to where the bluffs rise in dark humps past the factory. With Pike leading and Howie right behind him, we crunch through the shallow snow.

After almost falling on his face a couple times, Pike pushes his goggles up on his forehead. “They don’t read the ground too good.”

We come to the first of the bluffs. It stands about four stories high, jutting out on the lake.

“Over to the right,” Howie says. “Should be a way through.”

We find a cleft, a deep cut in the rocks as if a huge hatchet had chopped down on it. We climb through to a little clearing between two tall bluffs.

“Dead end.” Ash pans her light up the rough rock faces.

“No,” Howie whispers. “This is it. Turn off the light.”

Ash kills it, and we all look around in the dark.

The two bluffs shelter this hollow like rocky hands cupped around it. At the far end, the clearing opens onto the lake. Behind us, the walls join again. A nice little hideaway.

“Nothing here but rocks, Howie,” Ash says. “Maybe your dream was just a dream.”

He stands there searching the surrounding walls. Right about now I’m hoping he’s wrong. This thing wants to stay hidden? Let it.

Howie shudders. “We better hide!”

We scan the dark for any moving shadows.

“Now!” he whispers.