Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

At my back Alex leaned against the tack wall, the reins clanking behind her.

“It’s like he’s not real,” she said.

I put my hand on the stallion’s flank, felt the muscle and heat. Stacks of hay remained in his stall, a nearly empty bucket of oats, and a trough half filled with water. Though he’d been nourished, he was agitated from being pent up. He was ready to run.

That was fine by me.

I tapped my heels into the stallion’s ribs, pushing him from a two-beat trot to a lope. We rode bareback straight down the asphalt strip of Ponderosa Pass, his hooves like thunder against the tarmac. I leaned forward, gripping the reins, Alex’s arm looped around my waist. Her other hand swung free, gripping the hockey stick. Just in case.

Sure enough, a Chaser darted from the tree line ahead of us. I yanked the harness to the right, and Alex nearly lopped off the eyeless head as we cantered past.

The road gleamed with night dew, a black river leading us down to the barricade. We floated above the world, high enough to be safe, fast enough to soar. Alex’s body felt warm and tight against mine. She leaned into me, resting her cheek against my back when she got tired.

We made great time, the ride way easier than the brutal off-road hike we would have had to make. The rhythm of the horse beneath us was hypnotic, the crisp night air intoxicating. We encountered few Hosts on our descent. Two of them Alex dispatched with her hockey stick, and a third I trampled right over.

At last the eighteen-wheeler came into view where it had plowed off the road, crashing into the forest and starting the cascade of trees. We reached the rear of the barricade and slid off, Alex’s legs wobbly beneath her. I propped her up. The stallion was in full lather, breathing hard, and he looked regal, even godlike. His shiny black coat made him nearly invisible in the darkness, save for the white star.

I stroked his muzzle and thanked him. Uninterested, he turned and trotted off.

Once the mist folded around him, it was as though he had never existed.

As I helped Alex up and over the fallen trees, I realized that she was even weaker than I’d thought. Though she was toughing it out, it was clear that the past two days had taken a serious toll.

We peered over the top of the barricade to check for Hosts, then picked our way down the logs. I set my hand on an upthrust branch, and it felt soft, wrapped in fabric of some sort. When I looked closer, a cartoon of an old king with a scepter and crown became visible. It was Nick’s Stark Peak High Monarchs hoodie, snared there where I’d dropped it after he’d been snatched away by the horde.

I kept moving.

When we landed on the roof of the station wagon, Alex took note of the corpses splayed around the vehicle. She glanced over at me. “You did this?”

I nodded.

Again she gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. I hopped down, then eased her off the roof. She landed gingerly, trying not to put all her weight on her sore leg.

We rushed off the highway in the direction of the Silverado, our feet squelching in the marshy reeds. It seemed wetter down here; there must’ve been a good rain on this side of the pass last night.

A few steps farther, when I started to sink to my calves, I sensed we might be in trouble. Once we reached the truck, I pulled up short, dismayed.

It was sunk to the bumper in the boggy reeds, the tires lost from view.

No way I’d be able to drive it out of here, not until the land dried.

The nearest vehicles were fifteen miles away at the gas station. On foot across the open plain of the valley, Alex and I would be picked off easily. I doubted she could make it fifteen more steps, let alone miles.

For the first time since I’d left the school, despair settled through me.

To have come all this way to be defeated by a simple rain.

How stupid of me to park the Silverado out here on soft ground.

As wetness crept through my socks, I leaned against the truck. Then my temper snapped. I banged the hood with my fist, then tried to kick the side panel, though I could barely yank my boot free to do it.

“Chance,” Alex said.

I felt her hand on my shoulder.

“I don’t care,” I fumed. “I don’t care if they hear me.”

Part of me wanted the Hosts to come so I could take out my rage on them.

I tried to kick the truck again, a poor effort.

“Are you done?” Alex asked calmly.

I turned, hooks dangling around my wrists. “I think so.”

“There is another car we could use.”

“What are you talking about?”

But already she’d started sloshing back to the highway, her feet making sucking sounds as they pulled from the earth. Alert for Hosts-maybe I didn’t really want them to show up-I followed.

She reached the station wagon, its tailgate smashed beneath the last tree trunk in the barricade. Opening the driver’s door, she reached in and unbuckled the seat belt from around the dead Host’s thighs. Then she nonchalantly yanked him out and dumped him on the ground.

Nick’s father. Killed by Patrick. Now just another dead Host lying among others.

She climbed in and stared at me through the shattered windshield. Streaks of blood marred the hood, along with those fingernail scrapes. “Well,” she said, “get in.”

“Alex. The car is crushed under that tree.”

“Just the back.”

“Not a prayer.”

“Fine,” she said. “Out of my way, please.”

I stepped to the side.

The engine coughed as she turned it over and then died. On her second try, it coughed some more but finally caught. The transmission clanked as she jerked the car into gear, and then she stomped the gas pedal.

The motor roared, the tires spinning, throwing up smoke. The station wagon went nowhere.

I didn’t think it could get louder, but it did.

Bent over the wheel, her face set with determination, Alex gave the engine more gas.

The car remained in place, pinned down by the tree.

“I told you!” I shouted.

Alex either ignored me or couldn’t hear.

I cast a glance at the darkness behind me. A few floating white ovals resolved-faces of Chasers. Then bodies came visible beneath them, making slow progress through the reeds. Some of the Hosts were sunk to their knees, but still they drove themselves on.

The wheels screamed against the tarmac.

The station wagon’s front bumper lifted an inch. The tree made a faint crackling sound against the crunched metal of the tailgate. Perhaps the slightest shift.

The frontline Chasers were now only a few steps from the highway. Legions more appeared behind them.

“Alex! We don’t have time for this!”

She didn’t so much as look up.

All at once the station wagon shot free of the tree, the massive trunk slamming into the ground behind it. The car bolted past me, then screeched to a halt. My mouth gaping in amazement, I watched as Alex leaned over and flung open the passenger door.

“Coming?” she asked.

The closest Chaser pulled her foot free of the muck and set it on the edge of the highway, the others waddling behind her. She was near enough that I could see stringy hair flicking behind the holes bored through her face.

I sprinted over and hopped in. Alex pulled out, the car rattling like crazy, a rear tire whining against the collapsed wheel well.

Alex shot me a little smirk.

She pegged the speedometer at sixty, the car shuddering like it might come apart. After a few miles, smoke started drifting up from the hood. The whine from the back grew louder and louder until the stink of burning rubber filled the car.

After another stretch of highway, we heard the rear tire flap free, the car resettling on its chassis. By some miracle Alex kept us going another few miles on three tires and a rim, sparks flying out behind us. Surprisingly, we spotted no Hosts alongside the road.