Ashes (Ashes Trilogy 1)

“Yeah.” Ellie drained the bottle. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said. “So, how’s it going? You had the bait in your box?”

“Uh-huh. It’s going okay.”

“How do you know this is a good place?”

“Because Grandpa said so.”

“Because it’s a pool?”

“Uh-huh. He said you should always cast on the downstream part of cover and not right on top of them …” Ellie prattled on, but Alex listened with only half an ear, her mind already leapfrogging ahead, trying to figure out how to bring up the subject of, oh, next time you decide to go hiking, please tell me, and by the way, don’t touch the Glock.

“And then you eat them,” Ellie finished with a flourish.

Eat them. That got her attention. Saliva squirted into Alex’s mouth, and her stomach cramped. If Ellie really could catch a fish or two … She nearly moaned out loud. “Do you know how to cook them?”

“Sure. Don’t you? Your dad taught you everything.”

“Not this.”

“Oh. Well, you scale them. With a knife. And cut open their stomachs to get out all the guts.”

“Yuck.” She meant that.

“It’s not so bad,” Ellie said airily. “You save the guts to use for bait.”

“You’ve done that?” She was genuinely impressed.

“Yup.” Ellie’s expression bordered on the supremely smug. “Then you poke some branches into their mouths and out the other end and roast them over a fire, and then you eat them just like corn on … Alex? Are you okay?”

“I—” Alex began, but then the odor came again, a harsh blast that nudged the gooseflesh along her arms.

“Alex, what—” Ellie’s gaze drifted to a point over Alex’s shoulder, and her eyes went round. “Oh.”

Alex knew what the girl saw. Much later, she would think all that talk of food was to blame for what happened next. That if she hadn’t been distracted by daydreams of roasted fish on a spit, things might’ve turned out differently. Maybe.

Her heart pounding, Alex turned, already knowing what she would find.

A dog.

18

A few feet in from the right bank stood a collie that looked ragged, thin, muddy, and miserable. A length of frayed rope hung from a worn collar. When it saw Alex looking, its filthy tail whisked back and forth a few times, and then it whimpered.

“Ohh,” Ellie breathed. “It must’ve chewed through its rope. Or maybe somebody lost it. It’s probably really scared and hungry.”

Alex thought that was probably true. After all that talk about wild dogs the night before, she’d been startled at first, afraid the collie was feral. But this dog looked about as dangerous as Lassie. “Hey, girl.” She had no idea if it was a girl or not, but thought the dog wouldn’t be all that choosy. “How are you? Whatcha doing out here?”

The dog’s tail fanned the air, and it danced a step forward and then back.

“Oh, Alex, look, she’s hurt.” Alex felt the tree jiggle as Ellie scooted to get a better look. “There’s blood.”

There was. A dried, rust-colored splotch splashed the collie’s rump.

“Someone shot her.” Laying aside her rod, Ellie hitched herself around and started scooching toward Alex. “We have to help her. Here, girl, it’s okay, we won’t hurt you. It’s okay.”

It was the smallest of movements, and maybe the image of that brown slink disappearing into the woods four days ago had stayed with Alex, because her eyes shot left to a dense thatch of underbrush just beyond the collie—and then her stomach bottomed out.

Another dog crouched, belly to the ground, behind dense brambles. This dog was dirty brown, with a huge ax-wedge of a head. Some kind of very big mutt. Really big.

And the smell she got from it was danger.

Maybe the collie saw her eyes shift and sensed something about to go very wrong, because it let out a short, almost playful yelp.

Ellie laughed. “It wants to play.”

Now that she knew what she was looking for, Alex’s frantic eyes scoured the forest right and left of the collie. She spotted two more dogs in the underbrush: a dusky, speckled hound and a ragged German shepherd, its left ear hanging in crusty tatters.

Four dogs. Four. Less than a week since this nightmare began, and none of these dogs looked like they’d ever been anyone’s pet.

“What are you doing?” Ellie said as Alex pressed back. She let out a yelp and then Alex heard something splash. “Alex, you made me knock the tackle box—”

“Move back,” Alex said, injecting as much urgency as she could without outright screaming. “There are more dogs, Ellie. Move, move!”

“What? I don’t see …” Alex heard Ellie gasp.

“Go.” She felt the girl begin to inch away, and she followed, legs still straddling the trunk, palms cupping the icy bark, eyes never leaving the dogs. She watched as the other three slid from the tangle of brush and briars. The collie was no longer wagging its tail, and the playful look on its face had been replaced by what almost looked like rage. The dogs were rigid, ears pricked, nostrils flaring as they sampled the air. Sampled them.

“Go away.” Her voice shook and Alex thought, God, I sound like dinner. She tried again, putting some steel in it. “Go on! Get out of here, go!”

The dogs did not go. Instead, they tossed looks at one another. Alex could almost hear them debating; felt the air go alive with thoughts. Then four pairs of glittering eyes swiveled back, and the hound and the very big mutt began nosing along the bank.

“What are they doing?” Ellie said in a high voice. “Are they going away?”

“No. They’re looking for a way across.”

“Why?”

“So they can come at us from both sides.” The mutt and the hound were picking their way down the bank, slithering on wet leaves. She kept hoping they’d take a tumble, maybe break a leg, maybe get so wet and discouraged they’d just give up, but they didn’t look like the kind of dogs that gave up. Then she remembered the dried blood on the collie and she thought, Gun.

“Ellie.” She craned her head over the hump of her shoulder. The girl’s face was bleached of color, and she was crying, silently, huge tears rolling down her cheeks. “Ellie. The Glock. Get it.”

Ellie’s eyes went even wider, but she nodded—a quick jerk like a puppet. She started backing away in little hip-hops, up and down, like a kid hitching along a balance beam. Every bounce knocked a gasp from Alex’s chest, and she hissed, “Not so fast. We’ve got some time, be careful.”