The tree hammered down the front of the barricade, smashing Hosts, bulldozing everything in its way. It picked up speed, catching one Chaser square in the thighs and launching her so far that she smashed into the overturned bus. Once the tree hit level ground, it slowed until it rolled off the highway into a ditch.
I didn’t have time to be impressed with the damage. A number of Hosts still remained down below, picking themselves up, regrouping. I stared hard through the darkness, but there was no sign of Nick. He’d been carried off already. Some of the injured Hosts staggered toward the barricade again. A woman with a caved-in cheek and a missing lower jaw. A man with his collarbone spiking through his uniform shirt.
We couldn’t wait around.
When I turned, I saw Patrick and Alex looking up at me. I was still holding Nick’s Stark Peak Monarchs hoodie. I reached over the top of the barricade and let it go. It fluttered down out of sight.
Then I started hopping down the back side of the barricade. At the bottom we circled up. Cassius stuck his wet nose in my palm, and I stroked his soft head.
“I should’ve left him to hide in the car,” Patrick said, and walked away.
Alex shot me a frustrated look and then followed. The road up was empty. No abandoned cars we could take. We made the choice to stick to the woods beside the pass, hiding under cover as we started up. Sure enough, the few Hosts we saw came stumbling down the middle of the road. They were smart to do so; the terrain was brutal. We went from mud to boulders to brambles to granite faces that we had to help one another scale. Treetops blotted out the moonlight, making the climb even harder.
Through the trees we kept an eye on the road for vehicles but spotted nothing except a Subaru upended in a roadside gully. We hiked until I felt like my hamstrings might snap, until my hands were raw and my calves on fire. At last we broke free of the pines, standing in an open patch near the top of the pass. Looking back across the valley, we saw only darkness. Crisp air usually meant that from high on the pass we could spot the flare of lights marking Creek’s Cause, but not today. Not anymore.
We topped a cracked hump of stone, pulled ourselves to level ground, and lay panting on the cold dirt. Above us rose a solemn ring of Douglas firs. A stone’s throw away, the highway forked into two dirt roads, one winding up to dead-end at Lawrenceville, the other rising to a plateau on the north before starting its corkscrew descent into Stark Peak. At either side crevices fell away treacherously, sheer drops without bottom.
“Let’s rest here a bit,” Patrick said.
I about collapsed with relief. He and Alex started clearing pine needles to make a space to lie down. Taking the hint, I got Cassius, moved a brief ways off toward the road, and cleared my own makeshift camp.
Patrick with Alex.
Me with my dog.
I sat down, my muscles complaining, my lower back stiffening. It had been a grueling climb. I stared at the stars and breathed the air, as clean up here as it was anywhere on earth. Was it free of spores? This far away from Creek’s Cause, it had to be.
Cassius lay against me, the ridge on his back pressed to my side. As I scratched behind his ears, I noticed that he’d grown into some of the extra folds of fur. The shape of his face had changed, too, losing some of its puppy softness. Sometime over the past few days, he’d become a young dog.
I supposed whether we liked it or not, we were all growing up.
I took out my notebook and leaned against my backpack. Resting my flashlight on the ledge of my shoulder threw enough of a glow for me to write by.
From across the clearing, I could hear murmured voices.
“… have to send help back for the others,” Patrick was saying.
I had to strain to hear them.
“We will,” Alex said. “But we don’t have to worry about your birthday anymore. About your turning into one of them next week. We can let adults worry about fixing everything. That’s supposed to be their job anyways.”
“Then what?” Patrick asked.
“Then we can do whatever we want.”
I felt a gnawing at my stomach. It took a moment for me to recognize it for what it was. Loneliness.
Patrick and Alex were going to move off into a new life together, and I was going to be left behind.
I pictured those windshield pebbles spilling from Mom’s purse, red like rubies. How they’d bounced on the floorboards at my feet. How alone I’d felt downstairs with the purse and my dad’s cracked watch. How the smell of lilac had flowered all around, taunting me. The darkest despair I’d ever felt until Patrick had found me. I got it from here, little brother. He’d held me tight, so I knew that even if the world had come apart, he’d be there.
Would he be there now?
Falling asleep felt like an escape.
*
A hand clamped over my mouth.
My eyes flew open. Dead of night. Skeletal branches overhead.
I bucked, but the grip was too strong. Cassius lay at my side, not growling but watching silently. I put it together an instant before the whisper came in my ear.