“NOOO!” I shout, and charge at Ashley June, throwing myself with all the force I can muster.
She smacks me away. I feel nails gash the side of my head but no pain. The pain will come later. I go flying, over ground that spins wildly beneath me. The impact smacks the air out of my lungs. I rise unsteadily, fall down. Start crawling toward Sissy.
Ashley June’s eyes flick past me, over my shoulder.
Another dusker has emerged out of the dark shadows of a cottage. Its eyes are rapt with desire as it places me in its crosshairs. It crouches low and scuttles forward, crab-like, its legs and arms stabbing the ground like pincers.
Ashley June lifts her head from Sissy’s neck, blood dripping down her chin. She growls at the other dusker.
In a split second, the dusker goes from crab-shuffle to puma-sprint. At me.
As it leaps past the unconscious Sissy, Ashley June snaps her hand out and grabs its long flowing hair. I hear the tear of hair roots ripped out of scalp skin. The dusker’s legs fling out and it flips over, crashes to the ground. Ashley June is upon it before it can regain its footing. Crouched atop the dusker’s body, she lowers her face until her nose is almost touching the dusker’s. She snarls, her jaw widening to expose the long sabres of her razor-sharp teeth. The dusker snarls back, its eyebrows pulled together in fury. But also fear. It snaps at Ashley June.
Ashley June pulls her head back to avoid the clash of teeth. Then, in one fluid, powerful motion, she flings the dusker across the square. The dusker spins ungracefully through the air. Its upper torso smashes through a cottage window, its legs smacking into the siding. It hangs draped and twitching, half in, half out the window.
Ashley June turns to me. Her chest is heaving in and out. Her emerald eyes, clear and fierce, yet somehow also softened, contain a questioning, yearning glimmer. The pouch bag strapped on her back is ripped half open now; the cover of a book pokes out.
I take a step backward.
She is suddenly pummeled from behind by the other dusker, shards of glass sticking out of it. They fall away in a tangled ball of fangs and claws, hissing and attacking one another.
I use the precious few seconds to run to Sissy. Her eyes are closed; she’s murmuring incomprehensibly. I pick her up in my arms, start sprinting. I ignore the sound of Ashley June fighting with the other dusker behind. I ignore the tiredness in my legs as I race across the meadows on the other side of the village, ignore even the sight of the train beginning to pull out of the station. Ignore the thunderous stampede I know is closing in on me, the horde from Krugman’s office catching up with me. And most of all, ignore the heat humming off Sissy, the sweat pouring down her face, the ashen paleness in her face. Ignore the fact that she’s begun turning. Right in my arms, she’s turning.
I cry out sounds that have grown hidden and unseen in me for years, for my whole life, gurgled, strangled sounds of anguish. They pour out of me like a tide of fury, and they are more than the tears gushing down my face, more than the lactic acid rocking my legs.
The ground softens and undulates beneath my feet, and I can’t locate solidity, can’t find traction. And then I am collapsing because I have no strength left, because I cannot go on for one more stride, because the running and constant fleeing has wrung out the last drop of strength. I fall on the grass. Enough. Enough. I cradle Sissy’s fevered head on my chest, gaze at the stars above. Feel the ground shaking under me. I hear their approach, so close now. Pounding of feet, hollers, high-pitched, hysterical voices.
Then hands grabbing at me, my legs, arms, pulling me apart.
No, not apart. Pulling me up, hands in my armpits, hoisting.
“Gene! Get up! Get up!”
Above me loom the faces of David and Jacob. They’re already picking up Sissy, dragging her away. More footsteps approaching. It’s Epap, and he pulls my arm over his shoulder. “Gene, you’ve got to help me. I can’t carry you all by myself. Run, damn it! The train’s pulling out!”
I do. As fast as I can, but I’m exhausted. I reach the platform, can barely climb the stairs. The train is halfway down the platform, pulling away. I see David and Jacob climb into the nearest train car, lower Sissy to the floor. The train is already picking up speed. Epap and I are going to have to run for it. From behind us, a cry of anger. I steal a quick look back. There’re about a dozen duskers way ahead of the pack. They’ll be on us in less than ten seconds.
Jacob jumps out of the last car, sprints back to Epap and me. He pulls my arm over his shoulder, drags me. “C’mon Gene, come on, help us.”
“Drop me,” I say. “There’s no time.” I’m right, and they know it. We’ll never make it to the train, not with me weighing them down; the duskers will get to us before then.
Jacob suddenly lets go of me, starts sprinting ahead. “Keep going, don’t stop, get into the train!” he yells. And he bends over, picks up a hose from the platform. As we push past him, he flicks the ON button of the generator. It hums to life. Water shoots out, a strong propulsive force.
The duskers bound up the steps onto the platform. As they do, Jacob turns the hose on them. The jet of water smashes into their misshapen bodies. Their flesh—partially melted and made pliable by earlier exposure to the sun—is hosed off their bones in seconds, splattering off in a wet explosion of chunks. Not even their skeletal structure is spared. The jet of water obliterates their bones, sending fragments and chips flying into the air. The duskers disappear in a mist of bone and flesh. Jacob drops the hose, races to catch up with us.
And then he trips over another hose. Goes sprawling onto the platform floor.
A trio of duskers leap up the stairs. In seconds, they are upon him.
“NO!” Epap shouts. He drops me to the platform floor. Even as he vaults over a large container and picks up a nearby hose, the three duskers are already hunched over Jacob’s body, fangs sunk into his neck and thigh, eyelids fluttering with rapture. Epap turns on the hose. In seconds, the duskers are obliterated. He runs to Jacob, picks him up, slings him over his shoulder. Doesn’t look to see the damage he knows has been inflicted.
I’ve gathered strength in the meantime, enough to scramble to my feet and kick aside hoses on the platform that might trip the approaching Epap. He draws even with me, and together we run for the train.
I can feel the heat pouring off Jacob in droves. Even without looking down, I know he’s turning, and rapidly. Bitten and infected by three duskers, his turning will be exponentially swift.
“Faster! The train’s pulling away!” David shouts, hanging out of the last train car.
Fear injects both Epap and me with adrenaline. We explode forward in a burst of speed. As we draw even with the train, David sticks his arm out of the still-open door. He pulls in Epap and Jacob, then me, and we go crashing onto the train floor. Sissy is lying next to us, still unconscious, surrounded by a group of kneeling village girls. The girl with freckles looks at me, then casts a panicky look back at the duskers giving chase.
“No, no, no!” Jacob says. He’s beginning to shiver, sweat beads pouring out. I see his punctured neck, not just two tidy holes, but a slew of fang marks polka-dotting his neck. He’s turning with exponentially accelerated speed.
He knows it, too. He looks at Epap with frightened eyes.
“You’re going to be all right, Jacob!” Epap says, stroking back Jacob’s hair. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”
Outside, we hear the manic cries of the duskers as they charge toward the train. It’s gradually picking up speed but the doors are still open.
“Where’s Ben?” David screams, looking back.
Jacob spasms, a film of sweat glimmering over his cold body.
“How much more speed?” I shout to the girl with freckles. “Before the doors close?”
“Soon!” she answers. “I think we’ve almost hit the critical speed.”
And then, sure enough, there’s a mechanical click, and the door begins to slide shut.
At the sound, Jacob
turns to see. A haunted, terrible expression crosses his ashen face. “I’m turning,” he says. He stares at the closing door. And he realizes what none of us have yet to fully grasp. If the door locks shut and he turns inside, everyone in this train car is dead.
Jacob springs to his feet. A second later, I realize what he’s about to do. My hand shoots out to stop him, to tackle him to the floor. But I freeze. And in that hesitation, he takes three strides and is leaping through the closing gap. And then he is gone. The door clicks shut.
“NO!” David cries out, and he is already at the door, trying to pull it open. But it is locked and will be, until we reach the destination. “JACOB!” he shouts, “Jacob, Jacob!”