At the sound of her name, she stiffened, as if struck by a curious thought.
“You’re Dory Tatum! Phil is your husband! Look at me!”
She turned toward him, exposing her upper body. One shot, thought Caleb, taking the center of her chest into his sights, and then he squeezed the trigger.
The soldier began to shake. The motion began at his fingers, which bent into clawlike shapes, like the talons of a hawk. A groan poured from deep in his throat. The shaking hardened into a whole-body convulsion, his spine arcing, spittle boiling to his lips. Sara was on her feet and backing away. She knew what she was seeing. It seemed impossible, and yet it was happening before her eyes. She sensed movement above her, yet she could not tear her eyes away from the soldier, whose transformation was occurring with unheard-of speed.
“Sara, come on! We have to get out of here!”
One of the horses whinnied and tore past her. It made it all of fifty feet down the road before a glowing shape swooped down and knocked it off his feet. Jaws tore into the horse’s neck with a ripping sound.
Sara’s mind snapped back into a wider awareness. Hollis was pulling her by the wrist. The river! he yelled. We have to get to the river! With a hard yank, he hauled her into the cover of the trees; they began to run. Shapes bounded above them, limb to limb. Branches whipped her face and arms. Where was the river, their salvation? Sara could hear it but could not locate it in the dark.
“Jump!”
In midair, she realized what was happening. They had leapt from a cliff. As she hit the surface, a new, deeper darkness, the darkness of water, enveloped her. It seemed she would never stop descending, but at last her feet touched the bottom. She pushed off and shot to the surface.
“Hollis!” She twisted in the water, blindly searching. “Hollis, where are you?”
“Over here. Keep your voice down.”
She was spinning frantically, trying to locate the source of the voice. “I can’t find you.”
“Stay where you are.”
Hollis appeared, treading water beside her. “Are you hurt?”
Was she? She took stock of her body. She didn’t think she was.
“What’s happening? Where did they come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“Breathe, Sara.”
She fought to calm herself. In, out, in, out.
“It looks like there are pockets at the base of the cliff,” Hollis said. “We’re going to swim there. Can you do it?”
She nodded. The water was freezing; her teeth had begun to chatter.
“Stay close.”
With a smooth breaststroke he glided away, Sara following. The cliff took form above her. It wasn’t as tall as she’d thought, perhaps twenty feet, and irregularly shaped, with blocky protrusions of pale limestone cantilevered over the pool. The water became shallower; Sara realized she could stand. Hollis guided her beneath an outcrop. A flat-topped boulder rose above the surface of the water. Hollis helped her up.
“We should be safe here for the night,” he said.
Shivering, Sara leaned against him; Hollis put his arm around her and drew her close. She thought of her children, out there in the dark. She buried her face in Hollis’s chest and began to cry.
Dory melted to the ground like a puppet cut from its strings. Caleb stepped over the body. Kate was still propped against the wall, her body inert, numbed by shock and fear.
“There’s more out there,” Caleb said. “We have to get to the shelter.”
She looked at him with an unfocused gaze.
“Kate, snap out of it.”
He couldn’t wait. He grabbed her by the wrist and shoved her out the door. Pim was huddled by the hearth with the children. She hadn’t heard the shot, but he knew she had felt it, shuddering through the frame of the house.
Caleb signed a single word: Go.
He dropped the rifle and scooped Elle and Bug into his arms, balancing them on the points of his hips; Pim was carrying Theo. They raced out the back door into the yard. Pim was ahead of him, Kate behind. The darkness was coming alive. The crowns of the trees tossed as if by the wind of an approaching storm. Pim and Theo reached the shelter first. Caleb dropped the girls to their feet and hauled the door of the hardbox open. Pim scrambled down the ladder and raised her arms to take Theo and then the girls, Caleb following.
At the top of the ladder, he stopped. Kate was standing thirty feet away.
“Kate, come on!”
She drew her collar aside. At the base of her throat, a wound had bloomed with blood. Caleb’s stomach dropped; all sensation left him.
“Shut the door,” she said.
She was holding the revolver. He couldn’t move.
“Caleb, please!” She collapsed to her knees. A deep tremor shook her body. She was cradling the gun in her lap, attempting to lift it. She rocked her head skyward as a second jolt moved through her. “I’m begging you!” she sobbed. “If you love me, shut the door!”