Ashes (Ashes Trilogy 1)

As she broke down her tent, she again flirted with the idea of going back to her car. With the electronics on the fritz, would her car start? She knew as much about cars as she did Chinese—like, nothing—but most cars had complex electronics, and a computer chip or two. So maybe not.

She buckled her lumbar pack around her waist. The pack was heavier than usual because, along with her emergency survival gear, she’d also wedged a black, soft-sided case she hadn’t unzipped for nearly three years, since the week after her parents died. The case was weighty, almost twelve pounds, and was sort of hers and sort of not. Aunt Hannah had never made the contents a secret; had told Alex she should feel free to look inside any time she wanted. It might do you some good was how her aunt put it, though she never explained what that good might be and Alex sure didn’t know.

There were memories in this case. At first, they’d been memories too painful to want to think about, much less remember. For the first year, she’d had no control over those memories at all. The triggers could be almost anything: a snatch of song, the sudden warble of a police cruiser, a stranger with hair so exactly like her mother’s that the sight stole her breath. Every memory brought pain that was sharp and sudden and so fierce it was like someone had slipped a knife between her ribs and given a good twist. Then, as the monster grew and her sense of smell died, the triggers seemed fewer and her memories harder to get at, as if she were trying to recover files from a corrupted hard drive. In a way, she’d been okay with that. What she never told Aunt Hannah was that, sometimes, having a monster squatting in her brain—eating away at her memories, crunching them to dust—had been, almost, a relief. Her brain wasn’t exactly hers anymore, but at least her thoughts weren’t out of control.

It also occurred to her now that she’d stolen the case from her aunt for nothing. No way she’d reach Mirror Point now. Her reasons for coming to the Waucamaw to begin with had just gone up in those proverbial flames.

Which was pretty ironic, considering what was in the case.

“I’m leaving now,” Alex said. “I think you better come with me.”

“No. I hate you.”

Yeah, yeah. “Okay, listen: I’m taking the shorter trail, the one I showed you on the map that goes straight down into the valley. When you decide to come—”

“I’m never coming.”

“Don’t forget your pack, and don’t forget to strap on Mina’s pack …”

Ellie stoppered her ears. “I’m not listening to you.”

“… because I don’t have dog food. If you could go through your grandpa’s pack and bring along some—”

“La-la-la-la,” Ellie sang. “La-la-la-la.”

“—some more food and water for us, that would be good, too.” Honestly, she didn’t want the kid or her dog to come along, but Ellie was only eight. Alex didn’t even remember what it was like to be that young.

Slipping her father’s Glock from her pack, she slotted in a full magazine, pulled back on the slide, and jacked a round into the chamber. A standard Glock didn’t have an external safety. It was one of the reasons her cop dad had liked the weapon. Just point and shoot. When she’d inherited the gun, though, she’d installed a cross-trigger safety. No really good reason—this was well before the monster sent up smoke signals—but maybe her subconscious was on the ball even then. Considering how often she and the Glock had gotten cozy in her aunt’s basement, the time it took to jab that little button and release the keeper bar probably accounted for why she was still ticking. A millisecond was just long enough for a person to change her mind.

Now, after double-checking the safety, she reseated the gun, then clipped the paddle holster to her right hip.

Ellie had stopped singing. “Why are you wearing that?”

Because Jack’s dead and our electronics are toast and I smell you, Ellie. I smell blood. I smell the dog. “You can never be too careful.”

“Whose is it?”

“My dad’s. Mine, now.”

“My grandpa says guns kill people.”

She wasn’t going there. “Don’t wait too long. It gets dark fast.”

“So go.” Ellie screwed in her earbuds. “I don’t care.”

She wanted to point out that the iPod was dead but thought that was mean. “You will if you’re caught on the mountain in the dark.”

“I’m not coming.”

“I’ll see you later.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Okay then.” She set off and didn’t look back. But she felt Ellie’s eyes for a long time just the same.

10

The trail was much worse than she’d imagined. The drop was steep, slippery with dead birds, scaly rock, and soft, splintery gray limestone. Centuries of erosion from rain and snowmelt had left the mountain scored with steep chutes and funnels where debris—loose rock, fallen trees—emptied before being swept down into the valley. After an hour, her thighs and knees were screaming; her face was oily with sweat, her mouth gummy, and her shirt glued to her shoulder blades. Stopping for a water break, she stripped down to her sweatshirt, tying her parka to her pack, then dragged off her cap to let the air’s cold fingers glide over her scalp. Tugging free one of two Nalgene bottles from her fanny pack, she splashed water onto her face, sucking in a breath against the chill. The water was a luxury. Normally, she’d conserve, but there was a stream where she planned to camp overnight, and she had a good filter with a seventy-ounce capacity, so she could afford to splurge. She’d need the extra water, too. After the stream, there wouldn’t be any more opportunities to replenish her supply until she intersected the river fifteen miles on, and then nothing until she hit the station.

From habit, she held her water bottle in her right hand, the one that didn’t shake. Now she paused, and then—before she could chicken out—she shifted the bottle, grabbing it with her left with all the force she could muster.

Her left hand was rocksteady. No shakes. She’d built up muscle mass the last few months with all that lifting, but that had done nothing for her shakes. Now, though, the shakes were gone, and she felt stronger. Powerful. Like she could grab hold and really hang on.

This is so crazy. She was still freaked out, but her getting better didn’t jibe with her idea of what happened when a person died. Or—wait—did it? Weren’t there stories about how people came out of comas just long enough to say good-bye? Like the brain was on its last legs and kind of let go all at once, all the juices flowing so that everything clicked one last time? Well, maybe she ought to enjoy this for as long as she could.