Derek Landy - Desolation

“Thanks,” Milo said.

“Sure thing!” He bent lower, and smiled in at Amber. “Hey there, little lady.”

He had light stubble on his chin and his shirt didn’t fit right. The top button wouldn’t close round his thick neck. There was blood on his tie.

That was all Milo needed. He’d been behind the wheel for nine or ten hours without much of a break and certainly no sleep, and this was all it took to make him snap. He shifted, growing horns, his skin and hair now the deepest, most impossible black, and, when he snarled, the same red that spilled from his eyes spilled from his mouth. He grabbed the trooper’s tie and yanked hard as he hit the gas. The Charger lurched forward, picking up speed, dragging the hollering trooper along with it. They passed the patrol car and Amber glimpsed a bare leg sticking out of the grass behind it.

The man in the trooper uniform gurgled and cursed and clung to the side of the Charger as they hurtled uphill. His right hand disappeared for a moment, then came back, holding a pistol that he quickly dropped when they went over a bump.

They got to the top of the hill and evened out, and Milo released his hold and the road snatched the man from the window. Milo braked, testing Amber’s seat belt and jarring her hands.

He put the car in neutral and got out.

Amber stayed where she was, the Charger’s low rumble helping to calm her beating heart. The sky was beginning to brighten. Cold, startlingly fresh air filled the Charger.

There was a sharp wail of pain that was abruptly cut off.

She angled the rear-view to watch Milo drag the body into the bushes. Once that was done, she knew, he’d go back down the hill, stuff the real trooper’s corpse in the trunk of the patrol car and park it somewhere out of sight.

Then she’d insist that he get some sleep. They were in Alaska now, with maybe five hours of driving ahead of them, and the Hounds were still twenty or so hours behind. For the first time since all this began, Amber allowed herself to wonder if this was maybe the first step towards everything being suddenly okay.

IT TOOK LONGER THAN expected to find Desolation Hill.

They finally got to it a little before midday. This troubled Milo. Amber could see it in his face, and she didn’t have to ask why. They should have turned on to its streets without even thinking about it, such was the power of the Demon Road, or the Dark Highway, or the blackroads, or whatever name you used to describe the phenomenon of horror seeking horror. Such things were intertwined. Fate guided travellers on the blackroads, steering them to people and places that had been similarly touched by darkness. Sheer coincidence alone should have led Milo and Amber right on to the town’s main street.

Instead, they took several wrong turns and passed the turn-off without even noticing it. Once they’d found their way on to it, the road took them on a winding line between snow-topped hills until they came to a sturdy old sign that said

Just before the sign, a narrow track led off to their right, and directly beyond it the main road continued straight for a while before veering off and getting lost behind overgrown bushes and tall trees.

Milo pulled the Charger over to the side of the road.

“Why are we stopping?” Amber asked. “We’re here. We actually made it. What’s the problem?”

“We don’t know what’s waiting for us,” said Milo.

“Sure we do,” she said. “I’ve read you the town history. It’s short and boring. It’s a small town with a creepy name where nothing exciting ever happens.”

“That the internet knows about.”

“The internet knows all,” she said. “It’s the one place we’ll be safe from the Shining Demon.”

“But why?”

“Is that important?” she asked. “I mean, obviously it’s important, yeah, but is it important now ? Is it important right now, at the side of the road? All we need to know is that we’ll be safe in there.”

“Buxton only lasted a week.”

“He said it was a weird place. That’s fine with me. I can handle weird. Milo, we can sort this out later. We can ask questions and get answers. But I’m tired. You’re tired. We need a good night of sleep. We need to stop running.”

He sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Damn right I’m right.”

“Okay then, we go in, we don’t attract any attention. We speak only when spoken to. We fade into the background, understood?”

“I’ll try.”

“Try?”

“It’s a small town in the middle of nowhere. Newcomers are going to be noticed. That’s kind of inevitable.”

“Yeah, maybe, but we do our best to keep a low profile.”

“Agreed.”

Milo paused for a moment longer, then put the Charger in gear. “Okay then.”

They pulled out on to the road and passed the town sign and the Charger bolted forward suddenly and Amber yelled as she shifted, pain flaring in her hands, the shock of the change nearly blinding her to the fact that Milo, too, had turned into his demon-self. He jammed his foot on the brake and the Charger slid to a halt, growling in protest.

Cradling her hands to her chest, Amber met Milo’s burning red eyes. They were narrowed. He looked behind them, then in front, then stuck his head out of the window and looked up. Expecting an attack. Expecting something.

They waited. The Charger waited. But nothing came.

Milo’s skin lightened and the burning red left his eyes and mouth, and his curved horns retreated into his hairline.

“What the hell?” said Amber.

Milo examined his hands. “I don’t know. I can still feel—”

He shifted again without warning, into that black-skinned, horned demon, and he snarled in irritation and immediately reverted to his normal self.

“That was weird,” he muttered, then looked at her. “You’re going to have to change back.”

“But it hurts.”

“You have to change, and then you’ll have to fight against the impulse to shift again. It’s strong. It’s very strong.”

“For Christ’s sake …”

She gritted her teeth and reverted, and fresh pain sprang from her fingers and blinded her to her own thoughts and there was another flash of pain and she was a demon again.

“I can’t do it,” she gasped. “I can’t.”

“Revert,” said Milo. “And hold.”

“Give me a minute.”

“Now, Amber.”

“I’ll try again in a minute, you dick!”

“ Now ,” Milo snarled, his eyes starting to glow red, and Amber snarled back and reverted and this time she held it, despite the pain, and she focused on staying a normal, clumsy, ugly human …

And when the pain retracted far enough she took a deep, deep breath.

“Well done,” Milo said, settling back into his seat.

“This is horrible,” said Amber. Every inch of her wanted to shift. Her nerve endings jumped. Her skin was electric. The human form she inhabited was all wrong. “I feel like I need to pee,” she said. “I don’t need to pee, but you know that feeling? When you’re about to burst and you know that all you have to do is relax and it’ll suddenly feel so much better? It’s like that, times a thousand.”

Milo looked at her for a while. “Right,” he said at last. “Not the analogy I’d have used, but fair enough.”

“What’s wrong with us?”

Milo didn’t answer. He just got out of the car. Amber turned in her seat, watched him walk to the sign. He passed it and turned, a curious look on his face. He took a big step back to the Charger and shifted.