Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

We watched this for a time, doing our best to remember to breathe. After Afa had retrieved five kids, he didn’t come back from the front of the church. We waited nervously for him to reappear, but that door stayed shut.

Alex’s gaze stayed locked on her father. Sheriff Blanton led several Hosts up to the meat grinder, each of them carrying food-a pineapple, dry pasta, a jar of pickles. It would all go into the gruel. He patrolled around the church, passing right in front of our window. As his boots thumped past us, Alex pressed her hand to her mouth, tears spilling over the bumps of her knuckles. His shadow rolled across her face and then was gone.

Cassius gave a low growl, fur standing up on his shoulders. He swung his head toward the side of the building.

“What?” I whispered. “What is it, boy?”

From around the corner came the rattling of wheels.

My muscles tensed. “Let’s go,” I said. “Now.”

We hurdled the boxwood hedge, making it to the far side of the flatbed truck just before Afa came into view. He was hauling the pallet jack. Shooting a look over my shoulder, I saw that it was stacked with cages. Fortunately, Afa was bent forward, straining against the weight of the pallet, so he didn’t see us as we vanished into the tree line.

Breathing hard, we watched him roll the pallet jack to the side of the big truck. Several more big male Hosts trailed behind him. They hoisted the crates up onto the flatbed. Seeing the kids loaded up like produce was almost too much to bear. Cheeks pressed into wire. Fingers curled around bars. Sobs and pleading.

When he was done, Afa grabbed the pallet jack and started back the way he’d come. One of the Hosts climbed into the truck and drove off, exhaust steaming from the tailpipe. The flatbed vanished, and a moment later another pulled in. They were running shifts, moving the kids somewhere.

The driver left the flatbed idling and walked into the church, probably to help with the next load. The other Hosts remained at the far end of the truck, staring at the church, waiting for Afa and the driver to reemerge.

Patrick drew back farther into the trees. “Let’s go,” he said.

Something stopped me in my tracks. I thought of Lyssa Unger curled in the fetal position. Blake crammed into that battery cage, his kicked-over wheelchair left behind. Wherever he was going, he’d be even more helpless than the others. Anger clawed its way up my throat.

I put Cassius on a sit-stay and broke from the tree line, sneaking up behind the truck. The male Hosts were right there on the far side, facing away, but any fear I had was overpowered by anger.

I swung one of the baling hooks into the rear tire. It punctured the rubber softly, giving off a hiss. The guards didn’t turn around. Keeping a careful eye on them, I walked silently backward into the woods.

Hands reached out, grabbing me from behind, and I almost yelled.

Patrick.

“That was dumb,” he said.

Annoyed, he nudged me along through the tree trunks.

He was right, of course. Taking out one tire wouldn’t solve anything, but maybe it would slow them down a little.

Right now it was the best I could do.

We carved through the woods, staying off the main roads until we were well outside town. I had an urge to whistle for my missing dogs, but I didn’t, worried what else might come crashing through the trees to answer my call. If we got anywhere near the other ridgebacks, I figured Cassius would let me know.

We crested a rise. Through a break in the pines, we could see Jack Kaner’s place below, the weathered barn thrusting up from the fields. Long tunnels of tarp covered some of his vegetable crops, insulating them from the cold. To the south, the highway snaked through the landscape, a dark strip splitting the darkness.

Alex gestured toward the barn. “Ever since he got rid of his horses, Mr. Kaner parks his truck in there by the stables. I came once with my dad when someone spray-painted graffiti on the side of the barn.”

“I heard that was Andre Swisher,” Patrick said.

I thought about Andre running around the square like a trapped rat as the women-the Chasers-closed in. How they’d circled the pickup and dragged him out through the shattered window.

“Do you think it’s safe to drive now?” I asked. “The noise and headlights might draw them.”

“It’s fifty miles just to Ponderosa Pass,” Patrick said. “Then up and over to Stark Peak. No way we make that on foot.” He scanned the highway ahead, the wide plain of the valley unfurled like a giant map. “More open space out here. Less chance we get penned in.”

We worked our way down the steep hillside toward the barn, our flashlights stabbing the dark. We stumbled over roots, sent pebbles and dirt cascading. We were as quiet as we could be, but probably not as quiet as we thought we were.

At last we came out onto level ground about a mile from the barn, walls of corn spreading before us. In the plots behind the corn, rows of curved tarp lay over beds of lettuce and other produce that Kaner sold in his market. The “caterpillar tunnels” were built by stretching tarp over arcs of bent PVC piping, so they were segmented like the bugs. Each one was as long as a football field. A corner of tarp had pulled free from its rebar stake, snapping in the wind. The air smelled of rich soil, rot, and greens. A scarecrow jutted up, pitchfork in hand, and in the distance the Kaner house sat dark and quiet.

Cassius hesitated, his growl no longer a puppy growl but a rumble in his chest.

“It’s okay, boy,” I whispered. “Come on.”

As we eased out into the field, more scarecrows came into sight all around us. A whole patch of them. And then we realized.

They weren’t scarecrows.

First the heads moved, rotating to face us, moonlight streaming through the skulls. Then the shoulders pivoted. They turned as one, the bodies separate and yet coordinated, like a flock of birds changing direction.

A bunch of them in ragged crop-picker overalls and flannels. Weather-beaten cheeks, bronzed skin, lanky builds. Jack Kaner used migrant workers and paid them a decent wage, though he rotated them through like crops. Sometimes there were a dozen. Sometimes more.

From the corner of my eye, I caught more movement. Turning, I came aware of shadowed forms spread through the fields, ovals of countless faces hidden among the cornstalks.

They’d frozen at our approach, letting us creep right into their midst.

My chest jerked in breaths. Instinctively, we’d fallen into a fighting formation, facing outward, our backs nearly touching. Cassius barked and barked.

The Hosts exploded into motion, flying at us, stalks rustling. The nearest one leapt. I saw Patrick’s arms move, and then the boom of the shotgun thundered through the air. With a swipe of her hockey stick, Alex snapped a Chaser’s head to the side. Cassius launched himself at the next Host, locking his jaws around the throat. The Host fell back, arms grabbing to pry his jaws loose.

“Into the corn!” Patrick said. “Stick together!”

Cassius lifted his dark muzzle from the Host and led the charge. We ran right over the Host’s body, breath hissing through his torn throat as our boots trampled his chest.

We plunged into the field. Leaves tore at my cheeks. Ears of corn knocked against my shoulders, my chest. Stalks snapped underfoot. I kept Alex’s back in sight, but it was hard, the view chaotic and jumbled. Arms and leaves flew at us from all sides like brushes at a car wash. The panting breaths and flashes of limbs all around made the very field seem alive.

A face and shoulder shot into sight, knocking Alex two steps to the side. I swung a baling hook in the Host’s direction, felt it penetrate flesh, jerked it free. We kept on, stumbling behind Patrick and Cassius.