Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

Directly across from them, a Beater had gone down, but was not yet dead. Glynnis must have missed the spinal shot, and it twitched and spasmed. Two of its closest companions grabbed its hands and legs and dragged it up onto the bank, up the incline, depositing it on dry land, while others looked on. For a moment Cass thought she was seeing some sort of new ritual, honoring the fallen, but then several of them bent over the dying thing and began to bite it, tearing off shreds of skin and crowing the way they always did when they ate. Blood poured from the downed body and it twitched harder.

They were usually unenthusiastic about feeding on each other once finally dead, but something about the death throes apparently made the prospect more appealing, and it was not uncommon to see them devouring their wounded.

“Oh, God,” someone said nearby.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

“This is ridiculous. They can’t keep this up forever.”

Cass didn’t know if the speaker meant the Edenites or the Beaters, but she knew that Dor was losing them. They wouldn’t listen to him. They held him in contempt. And things were only getting worse here.

“Please!” she yelled. “Please, someone, get the canoe. I’d do it, but Dor needs me to shoot.”

“Getting in that water’ll kill you,” a woman said. “It’s got to be forty degrees. Do you know how long-”

“I know!” Cass turned on her, furious. “I know it. It’s a risk. But do you just want to stand here and wait for them to come get us? Look, Neal made it. He didn’t have to go as far, it’s true, and we need a strong swimmer.”

“ You go,” an angry female voice said. “I’ll shoot. I’ll go with Dor.”

Everyone turned to see who spoke.

It was Valerie. Incredibly, since the voice sounded nothing like hers. She stood off to the side of the crowd, her face knotted in fury, her hair released from its band, tumbling around her shoulders. She’d forsaken her Pendleton jacket and skirt for a pair of tight black pants and a man’s coat, and her hands were bare, clenched into fists.

“Do you even know how to shoot?” someone demanded.

“How hard can it be?” she screamed. Her eyes drilled into Cass, glinting with fury, and Cass noticed for the first time that Valerie was actually quite beautiful, with her dark features and pale skin, her arched brows and long neck. “If she can do it, I can.”

“This is not the time,” Dor said, his voice hard. He had lowered his tone but in the hush of the shocked assembly, it carried just fine.

“Roger. You go.” Dor turned his back on Valerie, and Cass, who’d been watching the other woman, saw her deflate, saw the fight leave her when she realized her desperate gamble had failed. Valerie had been willing to sacrifice everything-her life, his, the lives of everyone in New Eden-just to force him to acknowledge her, to claim her and love her.

But there was no more time for that.

Roger Taugher was staring at the canoe, trying to gauge whether he could make it. He was in his twenties, strong, a former soccer player who often led pickup games in the yard and entertained the little kids with tricks with the ball. Ruthie adored him.

He started to tug off his jacket and kicked off his boots.

“You’ll freeze!” the young woman next to him protested.

“Clothes’ll just slow him down,” Dor said. “Everyone else, give him room. The minute he gets back with the canoe, you all take him to get warm-Cass and I will head out.”

“I’m almost out of ammo!” Glynnis called, as they paddled toward a group that was splashing farther downriver.

“Dana. Go to the storehouse, bring back the box of 12-gauge shells. Glynnis uses the Browning, but she’s good with a handgun too so bring one. Don’t forget extra ammo for that. Take someone with you-Hank, you go.”

Hank nodded, but Dana hesitated, staring at Dor with a mixture of contempt and anger. “Look, Dor, we need to consider-you can’t just-”

“What the fuck do you think I’m doing, Dana? If I let you all take charge you’ll still be deliberating while the rest of us are being dragged off. Now, are you going to go or do I need to take the keys off you myself?”

For a moment it seemed like Dana was going to refuse. But he looked around the assembled crowd, and seemed to sense what Cass did, what the rest of them did-a turning of the tide of sympathies. She knew that few people liked either of them, herself or Dor, especially after Sammi’s revelation and Valerie’s outburst.

But they also knew that Dor could lead them.

Roger was down to his long underwear, and he threw himself into the river and came up already stroking powerfully toward the canoe. This was the easy part, since the current was in his favor. A gasp went up from the crowd, which turned to watch him.

“Get the shit, Dana,” Earl said. “I’d go myself but I’m too slow.”

Hank clapped a hand on Dana’s shoulder, and they took off at a brisk jog toward the sheds.

“Earl, can you coordinate getting the other boats?” Dor ticked off on his hand. “Get the Bronco from the shed, hook it up to the trailer. Sharon, Elsa, can you give him a hand?”

The two women who ran the auto shop nodded.

“Drive right across the yard, don’t bother to take the road. Don’t forget oars. When Dana and Hank get back-” Dor searched the crowd, his gaze falling on Harris, the quietest member of the council. “Harris. You need to take charge of arming people. Okay? You can do that? Good candidates would be Terrence, Shel, Fat Mike. Do not give a weapon to anyone without experience. Do you hear me? That’s important. It’s worse to have them in the wrong hands than to leave them unarmed.”

Harris nodded. “I got it.”

“Good. I doubt you’ll be able to get all that coordinated by dusk, and with any luck they’ll be gone by then. But this isn’t wasted, because we’re going to be ready in the morning. And I have a feeling we’ll need to be.”

Roger reached the canoe, and was struggling with the branch. Sharon and Elsa ran in the direction of the auto garage. Harris moved among the crowd, assembling his shooters.

Everyone else focused on Roger. He got the canoe unhooked with little trouble, but as soon as he started dragging it back toward shore, it was clear that he was in trouble. He sidestroked with only one hand free, kicking hard against the current. But the canoe dragged in the water and slowed him down.

“Go, Roger,” a man said near Cass. Another man repeated it, and then they were all saying it, quietly.

Though the struggling man could not possibly hear them, Cass felt their energy, their frantic hope. The sun slipped a little lower in the sky and orange brilliance shone along the horizon, the last gasp of the day. In an hour the sky would be velvety dark blue, and the Beaters would not be able to see. Their tiny pupils, altered by the fever so that they were no longer able to expand, would not let in enough light for them to make out rough shapes, much less details. If they could hold off this wave until then…

Roger paused, his hand on the lip of the canoe, and treaded water for a moment. Cass saw him gasping for breath. For a moment he went still, and was it her imagination or was he sinking down, down, under the water-

“Damn it,” his girlfriend exclaimed. “Do something, don’t you see he can’t make it, someone do something, save him!”

Cass wasn’t the only one to turn to Dor. He was deliberating, his jaw pulsing the way it always did when he focused on a problem.

“You could send someone else in for him.”

“And lose two men?” Dor answered quietly; their conversation was not meant for anyone else to hear. Valerie was as good as forgotten in the moment, and Cass saw that she knew it, her face blanched the shade of parchment. Defeat contorted her fine, frail beauty, and she turned away.