“We’re not going to get close enough to the halfway point,” he says. “We’ll have to go back for the other two to help us.”
“Let’s just see how bad it is,” I say because I can’t leave here without doing something. Without trying. Maybe the water will be lower than it looks. I hope so because something tells me Emily won’t cross this again. I’m not sure Jude would do it either, not with the vultures hovering or that weird noise that’s drumming at my ears.
What is that anyway? I didn’t notice it before, a tinny droning that skates along the sound of the rushing water. The drone rises and falls a little, and when I look up, I see a black mist clinging above some of the underbrush.
Flies. It’s flies.
Don’t think about why they’re there. Don’t.
But it’s hard not to think about it when the smell suddenly hits me, so pungent, I cover my nose and eyes at once. The scent is unfamiliar and unmistakable at the same time. Death is on the other side of this river. I’m sure of it.
“Let’s head back,” Lucas says. “Let’s get the others.”
I want to go back more than anything, but if it were me over there, I’d want someone to try. I step farther into the water. It’s maybe ten inches deep here, but it’s dragging at my ankles. The current is a shock, and instinct sends my hands flailing. Lucas catches one, and I lock my gaze onto his.
“Don’t you dare let go,” he says.
I won’t. I inch my way deeper, the current rushing up my calves, not quite to my knees but close.
Really close.
“Too deep,” Lucas says. “You’re not even a fourth of the way across. Look.”
“It’s not that deep,” I say, and it’s not. Still below my knees. And all I can think is that they could be over there. Bears could eat them. Carry their parts away just like Madison’s story. “Just another couple of steps so I can get a good look up the ridge toward the tents.”
“Then switch with me. I’m taller.”
Something we should have thought of before. Still, I strain on tiptoe to peek at the other side of the bank. There’s something behind the shrubs but a good twenty yards from the tents. There are too many leaves to be sure of much, but I can tell it’s dark and large. Maybe wet.
That’s what the smell is coming from, what the flies are after.
I stop dead in the water, feeling the blood drain out of my face.
“Lucas, something’s up there. Can you see it?”
He pauses, looking, I guess, and then he tugs my hand. “I can’t. Switch with me.”
My heel hits something slick when I turn. My foot flies wild, and the current takes it. Everything is twisting, my knee, my ankle, the sharp thing that bites into my leg, carving a hot line into my cold flesh. Lucas pulls my arm with a jerk that makes my shoulder pop. I’m up. Standing like a newborn giraffe, but it’s better than hurtling downstream. Lucas has one hand twisted in mine, another curled into the side of my shorts. We’re both dripping and panting.
“You hurt?”
“No,” I lie, but I don’t think he’ll buy it. The water is shallower here, and streaks of red are swirling into the brown around us. I can’t tell how bad it is. My joints feel OK. I’m sore but intact.
Lucas swears, and I’m sure he’s seen the bloody water, but he hasn’t.
He’s looking at the shore, at the place where I saw the dark thing. One glance and I can see it again, a shadowy lump behind the green. The flies are the only thing moving. The only thing alive on that ridge.
Lucas groans like he might be sick. “Go back,” he says, gagging a little.
I don’t argue. I limp my way to the shore and try to see what he’s seen. I can only see the cloud of flies from here, a hungry web shifting and darting. Feeding.
I turn away, and Lucas gags again. I don’t know if he brings anything up, but his fingers go around my arm, and he starts walking fast.
“We’re done.” His voice is rough. “We can’t help them.”
“We—”
“Sera, we can’t help them. Do you understand?”
I close my mouth so I won’t scream, close my eyes so he won’t see how close I am to crying.
“OK,” he says softly, and somehow, I can tell he knows I understand. They’re dead. There was a body on that hill. Ms. Brighton’s probably. And something else by the tents, where the birds are hovering. It’s them. It can’t be anything else, can it?
He moves back toward the path, and I follow. We’re ascending when my cut brushes a tree. I yelp, and Lucas startles, turning back.
“What is it?”
“My leg. I cut it.”
I turn my leg so we can see. It’s not tragic, a diagonal slice just above my boot line, so it won’t rub the edge at least. It should be fine as long as it’s clean. A sinking through my middle reminds me that water isn’t even close to clean, and I don’t have a thing back at camp that can bandage it. No way I’m wasting bottled water either.