Ashes (Ashes Trilogy 1)

Oh, Dad, tell me what to do. Her throat tightened. Would he understand if she had to use the gun? Would her mother? Because if Alex changed even more—if she got like those kids—she’d have to take control, do something before it was too late. Anyway, it wasn’t like she’d never thought of suicide. Call her crazy, but suicide was a way of taking charge and fighting the monster, an alien invader she’d never thought of as remotely belonging to her in any way. Killing herself before it could finish its work was sticking her thumb in its eye, a way of depriving the monster of its final victory. Now, though, she and the monster might be inseparable, one and the same, and that changed everything.

I’ll be the monster. If I use the gun, I won’t be taking it out. I’ll be killing me.

Then she had another, even more horrible thought. What if she was all right, but Ellie changed? Could she shoot a little kid?

God, this was all so messed up! She burrowed out of the shelter fast, winking against the burn of tears. After the warmth of the shelter, the slap of the chilly forest air set her teeth, and she stood a few moments, shivering in the dark, her throat working. The rasp of her breaths seemed very loud, and she clapped a hand to her trembling lips to catch a sob. Stop this, stop this! She had to get ahold of herself. She had to deal. She was the only one who could. Ellie was just a little kid, so it was up to Alex to get them out of this. She just didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself—

She gasped.

Time. The airplane. The plane. That’s what had been bothering her all day: that feeling like a toothache, that thing about time. The airplane hadn’t come back, and it always came back at the same time, every day.

She hadn’t heard the airplane on its return trip.

She ticked through the possibilities. Maybe the plane had crapped out and could no longer fly. Or maybe she’d just missed it. There’d been a lot going on. Maybe the plane’s engines wouldn’t carry into the valley, or it had altered its flight path. Maybe it didn’t fly back to its home field on Saturday nights. Maybe it came back on Sundays.

Or what if the plane had been airborne when the zap happened? Would the plane crash? She thought back over the time frame of that morning. The plane passed overhead at 7:50. The zap happened at 9:20, ninety minutes later, give or take. Where would the plane be then? That depended on its speed, right? It might’ve landed before the zap. Or maybe not. If the plane crashed, would she hear it? She thought not.

But assuming she could hear it and the plane a) hadn’t crashed and b) flew a regular Saturday afternoon route, then either she’d missed it in all the excitement—or the plane could not fly, and if that was true, then this thing was way bigger than eighty square miles.

There were two ways to figure this out. She could wait for morning, get herself oriented, and listen for the plane. If it flew over or near the valley, she would hear it. If she didn’t hear it, that didn’t necessarily mean anything bad, but she’d still have a lot of questions.

Or …

One thing about being really far away from other people and cities: no light pollution. Even with a moon, she should be able to spot planes even high overhead. First, she had to find a break in the trees. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could make out her immediate surroundings: a murky patchwork of moth-eaten splotches of gray at her feet, the blacker forms of trees rearing up from the forest floor, glimmers of moonlight that shone through gaps in the forest canopy as dull, silver coins. The moonlight was a little off. Not as bright as she expected. Too gray. Weird. In the four days she’d been on the trails, the moon had been waxing. The last time she’d noticed, the moon was, what, three-quarters full? Well, maybe the moon was setting.

A splash of silver-gray light glimmered off to her right, which meant a large break in the trees, and she moved that way, slowly, one hand in front of her eyes to ward off low-lying branches, pausing every few paces to listen, wincing at the rustle and stir of the forest with every step. Twice, feeling a little foolish, she even sniffed, registering cold leaf rot and soggy wood but no roadkill reek—nothing that translated as wild or dangerous. So that was good.

The gap in the trees was as big around as a house, and she stood in the center, her head back and her left hand raised to block out the indirect light of the moon leaking from behind a veil of pine. The stars were a little off: not hard and glassy the way stars were in fall and winter, but hazier, like summer stars. Well, that was strange. Stars always seemed brighter this time of year, not only because the view was different but because cold air held less moisture and the Earth was turning from the Milky Way. With fewer visible stars in the sky, the ones that were left were easier to see and appeared brighter. But this sky looked fuzzy, the stars not glassy but gauzy silver burrs.

Now why should that be? The rusty cry of a coyote sounded again, though she barely heard. Instead, frowning, she turned a slow circle, her eyes gliding over the night sky and those strange stars—and then the moon.

No. Her heart jerked in a sudden, painful lurch, and her mouth fell open. She was so stunned, she forgot to breathe. No, it can’t be.

But it was.

The moon was blue.

PART TWO: TOM

16

By Tuesday afternoon, three days after what Alex had come to think of as “the Zap,” she had not heard or seen any planes, the moon was a deep, dark blue, and they were down to two packets of instant Jell-O and half a power bar. Alex’s head thumped from hunger and caffeine withdrawal, her stomach had shriveled to the size of a raisin, and her thoughts were starting to get muddy, sluggish, and thick. On the thin side to begin with, she’d definitely lost more weight. She kept hitching up her hiking pants, and she’d jabbed another hole in Ellie’s belt to keep the girl’s jeans from puddling around her ankles.

When they stopped to rest, Ellie only sat and stared until Alex coaxed her into moving on again. Despite rationing themselves a half cup of water a day, there were only two swallows left in her bottle. The river was still miles in their future, and Alex knew they were in big trouble.

Because they’d hit the damn fork in the road.

Alex stood there a few seconds, absolutely stupid with amazement. The valley trail was marked with blue blazes so faded that the bark had bled through and turned them gray. Yet other than that first dilapidated sign, they’d not run across a single marker. And now this: a fork and faded blue blazes on both trails, each of which was thick with weeds. Neither trail looked as if anyone had taken it in quite a while.