Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

Just as we coasted up on the gas station, the engine sputtered and quit. Alex hopped out by the pumps and gave a little bow.

“I gotta admit, Blanton,” I said. “That was impressive as hell.”

We edged into the parking lot, strolling among the vehicles like a couple of car shoppers.

“Well, dear,” she said, taking on a housewife’s demeanor, “the minivan has more room for groceries and is much more sensible, but then again…” She halted by a Mustang and regarded me over the low roof with a wicked smile. “I’ve always thought ‘sensible’ was overrated.”

Seconds later we vroomed out of the gas station, 420 horses rattling our bones against the seats. Alex rolled down her window, sticking her arm out in the wind, and I followed suit. We must’ve looked like some kind of crazy earthbound airplane. We averaged well over a hundred across the valley, slicing past the occasional Mapper, barely slowing until Alex veered onto that dirt road outside of town. Snaking back into the forest, we parked where we’d left the Silverado after our last journey, our tires settling into the same ruts in the mud.

We climbed out, and Alex regarded the woods nervously, her fists clenching around her hockey stick. “Think I’ll be okay on this leg?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“I’m pretty tired, Chance.”

I could tell it was hard for her to admit.

“Slow and steady,” I said.

We pushed into the branches, heading toward town, toward school, toward Patrick. Alex leaned on her hockey stick, using it like a crutch. We hadn’t made it ten steps when we heard a crackling of branches, something moving swiftly toward us.

The sound of a body crashing through underbrush.

I stepped protectively in front of Alex. The crackling grew nearer, nearer.

Chet’s hulking form emerged, shredded clothes swaying about him. One of his hands was gone, the other mangled by Zeus. Bite marks raked his torso and face, and yet he still came at us, drawing back the nub of his arm to strike.

Stepping forward, I swung a baling hook straight down through the top of his head, sinking it a half foot deep.

The weight of the blow sent him to his knees. I kicked him, and he collapsed to the side. Then I set the tread of my boot on his lifeless cheek and ripped the hook free of his skull.

It surprised me how little I felt.

Alex was behind me, drawn back against a tree, her chest rising and falling from the scare.

“You okay?” I asked.

Again she regarded me with that expression I couldn’t quite read.

“Why do you keep looking at me that way?” I asked.

“You’re not who you were,” she said.

I wiped the bloody hook across my jeans. “None of us are anymore.”

She pushed herself off the trunk, balancing on her good leg.

“These woods are full of Hosts,” she said. “You ran into so many on your way to me. I don’t know that I can outrun them.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ve got friends here.”

“What do you mean?”

I put my fingers in my mouth and gave a sharp whistle.

Nothing.

I stared through the branches, waiting.

“Chance?” Alex looked at me like I was crazy. “What are you doing?”

But already I heard them charging through the foliage, churning up dirt. Alex didn’t have time to get scared before the pack of ridgebacks exploded through the trees, surrounding us, nipping at our hands and butting into us, fighting for attention. Cassius jumped up on me, setting his paws on my chest, licking my face. Smiling, I settled him down.

The others swarmed Alex, who laughed, delighted.

“Come on, boys,” I said. “We need a fanged escort through the woods.” I clapped my hands once. “On guard.”

They folded around us, burying us in the pack as we stumbled toward town. Alex looped an arm over my neck so I could help her limp along. Bypassing the town square, we charted a course that kept us in the trees for as long as possible. If it weren’t for the dogs, we would’ve been in trouble hobbling through the dark woods, but they were amazing. At one point we heard shallow panting from the foliage to our left. Deja, Princess, and Tanner charged off. When Alex and I peered through the branches, we saw our former history teacher on her knees, being yanked to and fro like a rag doll.

These dogs were bred to hunt lions.

The thing that had been Mrs. Olsen didn’t stand a chance.

The dogs came back to us, their snouts bloodied, and we heard nothing more from beyond the branches.

We kept on peacefully for a time, making progress, Alex guarding her hurt leg. Halfway to town the dogs heard something we didn’t, and the whole pack shot off through the underbrush. There were snarling and ripping sounds, and a brief time later they emerged, ears perked, tails wagging. We never even saw the Hosts. The ridgies surrounded us again, their brown eyes flashing alertly, and picked up right where they’d left off.

But that only highlighted how vulnerable we felt when we reached the edge of the woods, halting before a row of unfenced backyards that signaled the start of the neighborhood around school. Though there were no visible Hosts, the sight of all that open ground before us made my stomach lurch.

Firming my grip around Alex, I stepped onto the Woodrows’ back lawn, veering past the barbecue by the side of the house. Then I noticed that the dogs were no longer with us. Hesitating back in the tree line, they whined. Some pack instinct must have told them to stick to the forest.

When we turned, we saw only their eyes glinting in the dark spaces between the trunks. Set by set, they pulled back, vanishing. One pair of eyes remained a little longer, floating there. I knew they were Cassius’s. Then those, too, drew back and were gone.

Suddenly the night seemed much lonelier.

Alex and I moved silently alongside the Woodrows’ house and up their long driveway. A few blocks ahead, the big shadowy block of the school loomed, barely visible in the first rays of dawn.

Home. Or at least as close a thing to it as we had left.

The streets looked empty, but even so we made our way carefully from hiding place to hiding place. Alex stumbled, slipping from my grip, holding her injured leg and wincing. She leaned against a pickup truck.

Nervously, I watched a seam of light nudge the horizon, the glow bringing the street into clearer view.

“C’mon, Alex. Just one more block.”

“Sorry. Gimme a hand.” Biting her lip, she grabbed around my neck and let me hoist her to her feet.

Looking past me, she gasped.

I glanced up.

Barely visible in the predawn glow, a wave of movement swept around the corner between us and the school.

I had no time to think.

Lifting Alex off her feet, I dumped her in the back of the pickup, then hoisted myself up and slid in next to her.

We lay curled into each other so our foreheads touched.

Her whisper was so quiet I could barely hear her. “What if they saw us already?”

“It’s still mostly dark.”

Dozens of feet rasped across pavement toward us.

“But what if they did?” she said.

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Closer. Closer. Then I sensed shadows flicker past us on either side. The group of Hosts had split around the truck. If any one of them paused or looked to the side, they would see us there, holding our breath and hiding in the bed of the truck.

But they didn’t.

Being single-minded had its advantages.

But also its disadvantages.

Alex dipped her face into the hollow of my neck, and I held her, breathing the smell of her hair. The wave of Hosts kept coming and coming, split by the prow of the truck.

Finally the stream thinned, and a brief time later we heard nothing at all.