Still, if she made it through the next few hours, she’d have to figure a way to take care of her arm. She flicked a quick, sideways glance at her backpack hooked over Wolf ’s right shoulder. Had Jess included a first-aid kit? She couldn’t remember. But wasn’t it a good sign that Wolf had bothered to bring the pack in the first place? She worried the thought, turning it over, considering. It might be, if the Changed planned on keeping her alive for a little while. She didn’t think they were into energy bars and trail mix, but a captive would need food.
Job one was to keep track of where she was and where she might be headed, maybe devise a plan to get away. Yes, but to go where? Not back to Rule. She thought of the whistle her father had given her, which she’d found in the lining of that boy’s jacket. Chris discovered the boy up north, near Oren. So that’s where she should head. For all she knew, Chris might even go back.
But do I want that? The memory of Chris, unconscious and facedown in the snow, sent an arrow through her chest. That was her fault. Chris had tried to save her. All Chris had ever wanted was for her to be safe. She wished she could warn him now about Jess and Nathan and their crazy scheming. And this boy, his brother—what the hell was that about?
Oh, Chris, be careful. There are more shadows and secrets in Rule than you kn—
Her left snowshoe skittered on an icy patch. Suddenly offbalance, she let out a little grunt of surprise. Her left foot skipped into thin air, but then Wolf ’s hold on her arm tightened to steady her.
“Tha—” The word was automatic, a reflex. She let the breeze claim it. This is not your friend. Looking at Wolf was too disconcerting.
Then, she thought about the fact that she had slipped—and frowned down at the path. The way was very well-traveled, the snowpack compressed and slick. That made sense, she guessed; the Changed had to have come from somewhere else. The killing grounds were all about ritual. But when had the last good storm been? Yes, there’d been snow a little more than a week ago, she remembered. And yet this path was worn down enough that she could feel her snowshoes slew and skid.
Just like a game trail. Which means that either they or other Changed come through pretty often.
Ahead, she could see Acne laboring under the weight of the still-gurgling Spider draped over his shoulders. Blood from the girl’s ruined nose left a vermillion ribbon in the snow.
And that made her wonder: were the Changed following a circuit? Made sense, all things considered, but there was still the problem of supply and demand, wasn’t there? As the winter deepened, the flow of refugees had dwindled, a blessing in some ways because Rule had food and supply issues of its own. Of the few refugees who straggled in, only a handful were allowed to remain. Most were turned away.
Her nose suddenly filled with a steaming welter of odors. Dead ahead, she thought. A furtive, sidelong glance at Wolf revealed that the boy was unconcerned. Something cold and charry, like old wood smoke, and—she inhaled again—a fizz, slightly sweet . . . Spoiled fruit? For reasons she couldn’t fathom, her mind jumped to the hospice back at Rule and the thick miasma that filled the halls where the very few terminal patients waited to die. This scent was similar. But that would mean . . .
Oh boy. Her heart thudded to her toes. She was getting a very bad feeling about this. Yeah, but you might be wrong. This could be old.
Another hundred yards and they stepped into a shallow clearing. A tumble of gray stone, common to rudimentary campsites, stood to her left. Okay, given the charry scent, that added up, but judging from the snow cover, no fire had burned in that hearth for some time. Further on and to her right, close to the tree line, a series of irregular drifts abutted a three-sided wooden structure. No one there. All right, not bad but not necessary good either, because that fruity fizz was much stronger, the air more turgid and somehow rancid, like meat starting to go bad. Her eyes sharpened on the camp shelter, but aside from a stack of empty, olive-green nylon duffels on a solitary bench, the shelter was empty. Too small to comfortably house the Changed, too, come to think of it.
Which begged an interesting question. Where did Wolf and the others live? Other than her backpack dangling from Wolf ’s right shoulder, these Changed carried nothing but weapons and, probably, some extra ammo stashed in their parkas. There was no gear piled alongside the shelter. That fire pit hadn’t seen action for months. Wolf ’s clothes and those of the other Changed were well-worn but not filthy. So either they shucked dirty clothes as they went along, or cleaned up. One thing was clear, however: these Changed hadn’t been out here, in the snow, roughing it, since the Zap.
So this isn’t the last stop. Rule must be on the way between point A and point B. Her eyes strayed over the shelter again, then clicked to the woods beyond. A slight trough, judging from the slouch and dip, meandered between trees, heading vaguely northwest. Perhaps twenty yards further, her gaze snagged on a smudgy slate-blue hash mark halfway up the trunk of a sturdy oak. A blaze. So this was or had been a trail at one point. Given the shelter and hearth, this made sense, too.
Using established trails to get around, maybe even to follow a kind of circuit. They have to be putting inside somewhere. If I planned to hang around, that’s what I would do. Use a couple abandoned houses as base camps. Her eyes strayed to that shelter again. Lay in a store of ammo and supplies and then move from one to the next, give game a chance to come back before I—
By the shelter, one of the drifts stirred. She blinked. For a crazy second, she flashed to a Jack London novel she’d read in seventh grade English and thought, Sled dogs. Burrowing into snow was how Buck and the other sled dogs got through the night. Yet the mélange of warmed odors which pillowed out was full and round—and all wrong. Besides, dogs hated the Changed.
She watched as the lumps of snow broke apart. Two clenched fists punched through and then more fists and arms and now legs and heads—
People.
14
Three women and two men, all well along in years, struggled up from the snow. With no fire, rudimentary snow caves would be their best option. She’d have done the same thing.
Ten eyes set in five slack faces watched her watching them. They said nothing. Neither did she. They were—she sniffed— what? Not frightened. No one could stay scared to death all the time. Aside from their rancid flesh and that fruity fizz, these old people smelled like cold oatmeal, an odor that was almost no odor at all. Apathetic: that’s what their scent said. She even understood. Endure a couple rounds of chemo that didn’t kill the monster and only made you puke your guts out, and see just how interested in living you were. You really, truly didn’t give a shit.