By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Hair rises up on the back of my neck and I wish I could borrow Colleen’s machete-or Doc’s faith.
There is a shout up ahead as Cal digs his heels into Sooner’s flanks and tears off across the meadow.
“Oh, shit!” Colleen voices my sentiments exactly before she brings the reins down hard on gleaming horsehide.
The horses plunge into sudden and frantic motion-hot-blooded engines snorting steam into the twilight. The wagon jerks and my cowboy hat goes flying. Liberated hair tumbles into my eyes, blinding me. I hear nothing but the agonized squeaking of the truck’s springs and the labored effort of the team. The truck is heavy, awkward, and probably a bitch to pull, but Colleen steers them off the road entirely and sends us bumping straight across the meadow. We’re on a path that will take us directly into collision with the others … if our wheels don’t fall off first.
Ahead of us, where the two roads meet, the first band of travelers has gathered to make a stand. There are seven of them. Three are children; two are women-one extremely pregnant. One of the two men is stretched out on the litter, brandishing a torch. The others have torches, too, and baseball bats, and a wildly barking dog. Slim defense against what they face. Advancing on them are strange, dark beings that are less men than shadows of men-vaporous, nebulous, writhing.
Cal rides Sooner into the breach between the two groups. His sword is still in its sheath, but he’s swinging a loaded sling. Slowing Sooner only a little, he looses a scatter of golf-ball-size rocks into the shadow troupe.
Surprise! The rocks connect. The sound that results is not one I ever want to hear again. It is as if the air itself has cried out-a siren of rage that drowns out the baying of the dog and the thunder of our charging horses.
The shadows seem to melt back into the tall grass. But only for a moment. Then they’re back. I try to count them and fail. The shadows uncoil and ooze forward, pressing Cal and his horse back toward the crossroads and the frightened refugees.
Colleen shoves the reins into my hands. “Take the team!” she yells, then rolls off the back of the seat into the truck bed, leaving me with a handful of fat leather noodles.
TWO
COLLEEN
My crossbow and a quiver of bolts were lying in the well behind the seat. I grabbed them as I went over. I’d barely touched down when the wagon veered sharply, slamming me hard against the left wheel well. If it hurt, I didn’t feel it.
Just ahead a child screamed high and shrill. I barely heard it over the rumble of the wagon and I barely heard that over the bass drum in my chest.
I came upright and poked my head out through the support struts of the awning. We were still aimed more or less at the crossroads, but unless Goldman suddenly learned to steer a four-in-hand, we were going to trundle by to the north, behind the… whatever-the-hell they were.
Looking at them made me want to rub my eyes. They were shadows. Spooks. No kind of tweak I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t tell how big they were, how fast, how nimble. From this distance I couldn’t tell a damn thing about them, except that they were attacking.
Cal had gotten out of their way and was circling, maybe hoping to distract them, maybe looking for time to reload his sling. The tweaks followed his movement, reaching out like shadowy fingers. A chill streaked up my spine.
I was nocking an arrow when Doc flew past. Before I could do more than yelp, he pulled the lantern off my side of the wagon and galloped his mare full tilt at the tweaks, shouting and waving the lantern at them. I ground my teeth together and shot the bolt into the cradle.
The lantern did jack. If anything, light made these things harder to see.
Fine. I’ll just have to guess what I’m shooting at.
I aimed into the pack of flickering shapes and fired.
The bolt hit something-I heard it-and one of the flickers stopped, suddenly solid. It flailed the air for a moment, then leapt. Straight at Doc. It was like a wave of quicksilver that covered eight or nine feet in a single bound.
By all rights Doc should’ve been dead. Would have been dead, if not for the blessed stupidity of animals. First, his horse shied, dodging the tweak but putting itself and Doc right between me and my target. Then this mutt torpedoed out of nowhere and started doggy-dancing all around, barking its fool head off. The horse bolted and Doc tumbled off over its rump. He and the lantern hit the ground with the sound of shattering glass. The dog disappeared, but I could still hear it barking.
My chance was gone; the wagon rumbled past the tweaks and onto the north-south road. The horses got tarmac under their feet and charged due north. I lost sight of Doc.
I jerked my head around toward the front seat and yelled at Goldman to bring us around. “Crank it!” I shouted, and mimed the motion at him.
He cranked, pulling us into a right-hand crash turn that I prayed wouldn’t tip us over. Against the force of the turn I clawed my way to the right side of the truck bed and tried to see Doc.
He was about twenty yards behind us now, pushing himself up off the ground. The lantern had fallen four, maybe five yards beyond him, and flames were spreading swiftly through the dry grass between him and the tweaks, fanned by a chill westerly breeze.
The shadow-pack would be on him in a flash.
I hefted the crossbow and tried to steady it on the lip of the truck bed. I didn’t have a clear shot, not arcing away like this. But if I had to wait until the wagon came around, it would be too late. I squinted through the fire and smoke and dying sunset for Cal, but he was riding away up the road with three children clinging to him for dear life. The other refugees were frantically dragging the litter along behind.
I was it.
Doc was on his knees, watching the tweaks from behind the spreading curtain of flame. Their bodies whipped as if caught in a fierce wind and they were making this freakish keening sound. Made my skin crawl.
They were afraid of fire.
I popped back into the truck bed, threw open a supply locker and scrabbled madly through the stuff inside. Ammunition. I needed ammunition. I found cotton wadding, cloth bandages, alcohol. I used a bandage to bind the wadding to the tip of the bolt in my bow, doused it in alcohol, and dug a cigarette lighter out of my back pocket. The small blue flame was a comfort. Scrambling, I made a handful of sloppy, drunken bolts, then slipped three of them into the magazine on the underside of the crossbow. The rest I slipped into my quiver.
We’d made a full 180 and were bearing down on the tweaks hard. Past the gleaming flanks of the team, I could see one of them circling to the left around Doc’s protecting veil of fire. I swear to God I could see through the damn thing. I had to take a shot anyway.
I scrambled back into the driver’s box, just about knocking Goldman off the seat, and used the frontmost support strut to drag myself upright. I lit the bolt, blinking at the sudden flare of light, aimed one-handed over the nose of the truck, and fired.
The bolt sailed into the shadow-thing and stopped dead. The tweak went solid. Its head twisted toward me, and eyes the color of magma speared me where I stood. In the split second I got a clear look at it, it went up like a bonfire. Bile rose in my throat.