Bits & Pieces (Benny Imura 5)

Under the water.

From under the back of the truck.

Jack screamed, inarticulate and filled with panic as he tried to jerk his leg away. The hand holding him had no strength, and his ankle popped free and Jack staggered back and then fell flat on his ass in the frigid water. It splashed up inside his raincoat and soaked every inch of him. Three of the white-faced things turned to glare at him, but their snarls of anger flickered and went out as they found nothing worth hunting.

“Jack—?”

Her voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Still wet and gurgling, drowned by rain and blown thin by the wind.

But so close.

/> Jack stared at the water that smacked against the truck. At the pale, thin, grasping hand that opened and closed on nothing but rainwater.

“Jack?”

“Jill!” he cried, and Jack struggled onto his knees and began slapping at the water, pawing at it as if he could dig a hole in it. He bent and saw a narrow gap between the surface of the water and the greasy metal undersides of the truck. He saw two eyes, there and gone again in the lightning bursts. Dark eyes that he knew would be red.

“Jill!” he croaked at the same moment that she cried, “Jack!”

He grabbed her hands and pulled.

The mud and the surging water wanted to keep her, but not as much as he needed to pull her out. She came loose with a glop! They fell back together, sinking into the water, taking mouthfuls of it, choking, coughing, sputtering, gagging it out as they helped each other sit up.

The white things came toward them. Drawn to the splashing or drawn to the fever that burned in Jill’s body. Jack could feel it from where he touched her. It was as if there was a coal furnace burning bright under her skin. Even with all this cold rain and runoff, she was hot. Steam curled up from her.

None curled up from Jack. His body felt even more shrunken than usual. Thinner, drawn into itself to kindle the last sparks of what he had left. He moaned in pain as he tried to stand. The creatures surrounding him moaned too. Their cries sounded no different from his.

He forced himself to stand and wrapped an arm around Jill.

“Run!” he cried.

They cut between two of the figures, and the things turned awkwardly, clutching at them with dead fingers, but Jack and Jill ducked and slipped past. The porch was close, but the water made it hard to run. The creatures with the white faces were clumsier and slower, and that helped.

Thunder battered the farm, deafening Jack and Jill as they collapsed onto the stairs and crawled like bugs onto the plank floor. The front door was wide open, the glow from the Coleman lantern showing the way.

“Jack,” Jill mumbled, slurring his name. “I feel sick.”

The monsters in the rain kept coming, and Jack realized that they had ignored him time and again. These creatures were not chasing him now. They were coming for Jill. They wanted her.

Her. Not him.

Why?

Because they want life.

That’s why they went after Mom and Dad and Uncle Roger.

That’s why they wanted Jill.

Not him.

He wasn’t sure how or why he knew that, but he was absolutely certain of it. The need for life was threaded through that awful moan. Toby had wanted more life. He wanted to be alive, but he’d reached the point where he was more dead than alive. Sliding down, down, down.

I’m already dead.

Jill crawled so slowly that she was barely halfway across the porch by the time one of them tottered to the top step. Jack felt it before he turned and looked. Water dripped down from its body onto the backs of his legs.

The thing moaned.