A rush of optimism hit him. He didn’t know where it came from but he grabbed on, relishing the way it brightened his view a little, and made Dana feel just that little bit closer. They drove on, sweeping around bends and making their way back toward the cabin. And still flushed by optimism he smiled and opened his mouth to say, “Everything’s—”
Something pressed against his throat. His voice ended. And the newly enlightened world grew suddenly dark.
Dark red.
She’d sensed a changed in Holden, but she knew it was nothing like the sense of doom that had settled over her. They could drive, they could run, they could hide, but the Puppeteers would find them. They’d find them because they were controlling this, and perhaps even now they were being watched by someone or something she couldn’t understand. In a way she hoped it was something, because if someone was responsible for all this… how sick must they be? How twisted?
She glanced at the road ahead of them, then looked back at Holden in time to see the shadow moving behind him. He was smiling as the scythe curved around his throat and flicked, opening his skin, tearing the meat of him, spraying the windscreen with a splash of blood, and she screamed, falling from her seat and pressing back against the side door as she saw who was there.
Father Buckner. The family killer, the murderer, the zombie, pressing his knee to the back of the driver’s seat as he tried to tug the scythe free.
Holden’s hands were still on the wheel, his eyes wide, body pulled back tight against the seat by the rusted blade buried deep in his throat. Blood bubbled there as he tried to scream.
Dana screamed for him, high and clear. Buckner did not even look her way. He tugged and shook and growled, throwing Holden’s body around in the seat like a— —like a puppet—
—and then the scythe came free with a wet sucking sound, and arterial blood geysered from the wound as Holden’s terrified heart thumped and pummeled, splashing the windscreen and spattering across Dana’s face and throat. She held up her hands and felt its warm impact, soft as a wet kiss across her wrist, and she screamed again because she knew what was to come.
Holden’s hands lifted from the steering wheel as he tried to hold in his blood. They pressed to his ruined throat, finding meat and bone and gristle instead of skin, and the big wheel jerked and spun unchecked.
We’ll hit a tree, Dana thought, and Father will go through the windscreen and I’ll pull Holden aside and—
But the Puppeteers would never allow that to happen.
As she wiped thick arterial blood from her eyes a shadow whipped through the air and she heard thwack! as Buckner buried the scythe’s point into the side of Holden’s head.
Dana gasped at what had been done to the man she had kissed and caressed just hours before. His throat was open and spewing, one eye had erupted from its socket, and his face was distorted by the metal buried deep behind it.
At least he’s free now, she thought as he slumped forward over the steering wheel, leaning to the right and turning the van to the left.
And then Dana tried to scrabble up to see over the dashboard and out the windscreen, because she had to know where they were going. For a second she thought, There’s nothing out there at all… no forest, no sky, no stars… it’s all make-believe… And then she saw that they were going for the lake, its calm expanse speckled only with the memories of long-dead stars.
She braced against the dashboard moments before the van hit the water.
If they hadn’t been moving so fast maybe they would have splashed down and floated for a while. But they hit hard and fast, and the already-fractured windscreen exploded inward. Lake water powered in, shockingly cold as it flowed down and lifted her up against her seat, pinning her there as the Rambler’s momentum drove it onward and increased the weight of the water pouring in. She kept her mouth squeezed tightly shut. Don’t scream don’t scream hold your breath and when we stop moving it’ll be time to swim—
Holden was thrashing in the seat beside her, and it was more than the water waving his limbs and battering his body. He was still alive! The zombie Buckner had gripped the scythe’s handle and was now struggling to free it from Holden’s skull.
How can he still be alive? Please let him be dead… I don’t want him to be alive if he’s like that, broken beyond mending.
The scythe came free with a terrible grinding sound, audible even above the thunderous water. Buckner swung it again, but without Holden’s body as an anchor the water blasted him back into the Rambler, rolling and shoving him toward the rear as the vehicle quickly began to fill. Doors broke from hinges, chairs tumbled, and the whole van shook as it came to a standstill.
Lake water still poured in and they were sinking quickly. Beside her, Holden had turned her way, hands clasped to his throat and his ruined face turned toward her. Fight through the pain, he’d said when they first jumped in and felt such coldness. It’s worth it. I’m nearly convinced it’s worth it. There was no way he could fight through this pain, because on the other side was death.
For him, blessed death.
Please die please die, she thought, and she pushed from her seat as the water filled the cab. She scrabbled at the ceiling and took in a deep breath, and when she ducked back down the thunderous sound was muted, and the still-lit headlamps cast a ghostly glow through the cloudy water.
Holden had slipped from his seat and was pressed against the rear of the front cabin, close to the toilet door where they’d kept the keg on their journey up and where Buckner must have been hiding. And as she let go of the seat and the water pushed her that way, she saw him die. His mouth opened and bloody bubbles rose in a final breath. The water around him was clouded with blood, and it was quickly obscuring the already-poor visibility.
I’ve only got seconds, she thought, but she held her breath. She’d always been a good, strong swimmer, but that was no comfort here. If she died in this sinking van, it would not be from drowning.
Maybe it should, she thought. Maybe I should just let go. I’m the last one, and there’s no escape, and who-or whatever has been controlling all this—the puppeteers—surely can’t see me now. So I’ll cheat them their final sick victory. Grab onto Holden—he’ll still be warm—and open my mouth to tell him about all the times we might have lived through together.
But Dana had never been one to give in. And she could imagine her friends’ reactions if she did.
So she kicked past Holden’s corpse, but she had no real control. The van was shifting as it sank—
—how deep is this fucking lake?—
—and the water inside swilled and shoved her this way and that, forcing her up eventually against the ceiling, tumbling her toward the back, toward where she’d seen Buckner swept just moments before.
She grasped onto the rim of one of the ceiling vents, thrusting her face up into a small air bubble there, thankful that it hadn’t been smashed when the tunnel caved in. She inhaled—it was stale and acrid, and she thought about stuff like battery acid, toxic fumes, and other horrible ways to die—and then she ducked back down.
Still holding on tight she looked to the rear of the Rambler. The water was almost impossible to see through, and the headlamps’ light barely reflected back this far. She knew that he was back there somewhere, though, and she wondered whether zombies needed to breathe. Of course not. If they did, the puppeteers would have never crashed them into the lake.