Chalk compressed his lips. “Just like the others.”
It was late in the afternoon, another sultry, miserably hot day on the flats above the Columbia River, another day of sitting around and waiting for something to happen. They were crouched together in the partial shade of some tall brush off to one side of the main camp. Fixit was working on an explosives fuse he had picked up from the discards down by the bridge where the demolitions teams were wiring the bridge. If the demon army that they were expecting reached them before they could escape, they would blow the bridge. It would take time for the enemy to find another way across the river. It would gain them at least a day and maybe more.
He glanced at Chalk, who had begun drawing images in the dry earth with the end of a stick. Even using such rudimentary materials, he soon had the beginnings of a sketch of the mountains south, using dark and light earth and sand to shade and delineate. Fixit watched the picture take shape, struck once again by how talented his friend was. No one could create images with the precision and depth Chalk could.
“Do you think we might leave anytime soon?” he asked.
Chalk shrugged. “Hawk makes those kinds of decisions, not me. Even the lady who runs the camp listens to him. No one leaves until he says they should.” He shook his head and looked up at Fixit. “The boy and his children. Can you believe it? We all thought it was a story. Oh, we thought it might really happen, someday. But we thought it was only meant for us, for the Ghosts, and not for all these others.”
“I believed it,” Fixit insisted.
“Sure. But think about it. We didn’t believe it was going to happen now. Not right away. In the future, sure. But we’re still just kids. We aren’t ready for this.”
Fixit looked at his friend’s sunburned face, nodding. Chalk wasn’t used to being out in the heat. He looked flushed and angry. “I know,” he said, mostly to end the conversation. “You should get some water to drink. Aren’t you hot?”
Chalk smirked. “Only all the time. Guys like me, pale-skinned guys, don’t belong out in the sun. We belong inside. That’s why it would be better if we were back in the city, in our home, away from all this.” He paused. “What about the monster, Fixit? You think it’s doing all this with the missing kids? You think it’s taking them?”
Fixit didn’t know, but he nodded anyway. “Hawk says so. He’s convinced it’s that demon that almost got him a couple of days back. Tracking him still, right to our doorstep.”
Chalk shivered. “I wish it would just go away, go hunt someone else. I don’t like having that thing out there. You heard how Panther described it.”
Fixit nodded. He tried to picture the demon in his mind. It was hard because he hadn’t seen it, only heard it described by the others. A big, shambling hulk formed of scales and hair and leathery hide, long arms with massive hands and claws, and a head that looked as if a boulder had fallen on it. He could see it, all right. Eyes that looked right through you, that cut you apart and left you helpless. He shook the image from his mind. He was glad he hadn’t been there when it came after the others. If Hawk, Bear, Sparrow, and Cheney weren’t enough, then he didn’t know what was.
“Tell you what,” Chalk said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. “I’m not going anywhere until they kill that thing. I’m staying right here in camp.”
“Those kids were in camp, too,” Fixit pointed out. “It got to them anyway.”
“I don’t know about that.” Chalk shook his head, his face flushed with more than the heat. “I think they must have wandered off, gone somewhere outside the perimeter. That’s how it managed to get them. I mean, think about it. If they had stayed inside the camp, how could something that big take them and no one see or hear anything?”
“I don’t want to think about it,” Fixit said. He glanced past Chalk in the direction of the camp. “Hey, let’s see what Owl has to say.”
They turned to watch Owl approach, wheeling her chair carefully over the rocky ground, eyes fixed on them. River was walking with her, helping with the chair.
When she reached them, Owl took a moment to size them up. “Don’t you think you’re a little farther out than you should be?” she asked quietly.
Fixit and Chalk looked at each other. Neither one had given it a moment’s thought. In fact, they had believed they were pretty close in.
“It’s dangerous for you to be anywhere but in the center of the camp,” River added. “You know why.”
“You think that was what happened to those kids, Owl?” Fixit asked.