I found myself drawn back to that photograph of the older couple. How content they looked sitting there, umbrella drinks in hand. What was it like to grow old with someone that way? To know the other person was by your side. Not just for the big romantic moments but the day-to-day stuff, too. My mom and dad had it like that. Uncle Jim and Sue-Anne, too.
It didn’t seem like something I’d ever have.
I set down the framed picture, then went to do the dishes. It seemed important somehow, a gesture of respect for the folks who’d owned the place, who’d once taken a trip to enjoy each other’s company in the sun.
Alex came out, dirty clothes over clean, toweling her hair.
She paused by the bed, leaning a hip against the mattress, still looking a bit weak from her ordeal. “You cleaned up the kitchen? Why?”
I finished wiping down the counter. “I don’t know,” I said.
It seemed too hard to explain. But she nodded as if she understood anyways. She didn’t move from her spot by the bed.
“What did you go through?” she asked. “To get to me.”
I looked down at my boots.
“Tell me, Chance,” she said quietly.
So I did. I gave an abbreviated version of the empty church, of Chet’s attack and how Zeus died. The cemetery and the barricade, the climb up the pass and how I’d waited for dusk to come on, the terrible sounds of the assembly line carrying to my perch in the hills above the cannery.
She didn’t say a word, not even after I finished. Her lips were pursed, her eyes glimmering. It looked like she might be about to cry, but I wasn’t sure why. We stood in the silence a moment.
Then I remembered. I dug in my pocket. Came up with her jigsaw pendant.
“Patrick told me to bring this to you,” I said.
She seemed to realize she was still holding the towel, and she dropped it on the quilt next to the cowboy hat.
She reached back and took up her wet hair, exposing her slender neck. The whole time her eyes held mine. “Will you put it on for me?”
Blood rushed to my face. I looked down at the silver piece in my hand. That chain pooled in my palm, the tiny, delicate links. I willed my legs to move, but they wouldn’t listen.
“C’mere, Little Rain,” she said.
Keeping my eyes lowered, I walked over to her, my boots creaking the floorboards. I was standing right in front of her. We were about the same height, and I wondered when that had happened-she’d always been a few inches taller. Her neck was right there before me, an arc of wet hair floating just off the skin. I was looking at her jawline, her mouth. I didn’t dare lift my eyes to meet her gaze for fear of what they might reveal.
I reached up, the pendant dangling between my hands. My fingers grazed her neck. Her skin, so smooth. Her hair, cool against my knuckles as I fumbled with the clasp.
At last I got it.
She leaned forward.
And kissed me.
My heart stopped.
Her lips were as plush and soft as I’d ever imagined.
She pulled back, plucked the cowboy hat off the quilt, and seated it on my head. The room felt hazy to me, my thoughts and emotions swimming. Words drifted out of reach.
She gave me a sideways smile and brushed past me toward the door. “Let’s get going.”
Yanking on the backpack, I stumbled out after her, still unable to speak.
Alex’s limp was more pronounced. Though we’d just had a rest, her shoulders sagged with exhaustion. I wondered how we’d make it all the way down the pass. We headed off the porch, passing the little barn, forging into the trees.
That’s when we heard it.
Something moving inside the barn.
Something very big.
I paused, and we looked at each other. I knew she was thinking what I was thinking, that she held the same hope for what it might be.
But there was a risk, too. If I rolled back that barn door, a swarm of Hosts could spill out.
Alex staggered weakly to the side, setting her weight on her strong leg. I thought about how tired she was and how rough the terrain before us was.
It was worth the risk.
Reversing course, I moved back toward the barn, and she did nothing to stop me.
My fingers curled around the metal handle. Something shifted inside again, the wood creaking. I hesitated, staring at the flaking wooden door.
Then I slid it open.
ENTRY 38
A shiny black Andalusian stallion loomed in the single stall. Seeing us, he threw back his head, exposing a white star on the left side of his chest. I pushed back the stall door, and he pranced out. With massive hindquarters and powerful hocks, he must have been seventeen hands.
At my back Alex leaned against the tack wall, the reins clanking behind her.
“It’s like he’s not real,” she said.
I put my hand on the stallion’s flank, felt the muscle and heat. Stacks of hay remained in his stall, a nearly empty bucket of oats, and a trough half filled with water. Though he’d been nourished, he was agitated from being pent up. He was ready to run.
That was fine by me.
I tapped my heels into the stallion’s ribs, pushing him from a two-beat trot to a lope. We rode bareback straight down the asphalt strip of Ponderosa Pass, his hooves like thunder against the tarmac. I leaned forward, gripping the reins, Alex’s arm looped around my waist. Her other hand swung free, gripping the hockey stick. Just in case.
Sure enough, a Chaser darted from the tree line ahead of us. I yanked the harness to the right, and Alex nearly lopped off the eyeless head as we cantered past.
The road gleamed with night dew, a black river leading us down to the barricade. We floated above the world, high enough to be safe, fast enough to soar. Alex’s body felt warm and tight against mine. She leaned into me, resting her cheek against my back when she got tired.
We made great time, the ride way easier than the brutal off-road hike we would have had to make. The rhythm of the horse beneath us was hypnotic, the crisp night air intoxicating. We encountered few Hosts on our descent. Two of them Alex dispatched with her hockey stick, and a third I trampled right over.
At last the eighteen-wheeler came into view where it had plowed off the road, crashing into the forest and starting the cascade of trees. We reached the rear of the barricade and slid off, Alex’s legs wobbly beneath her. I propped her up. The stallion was in full lather, breathing hard, and he looked regal, even godlike. His shiny black coat made him nearly invisible in the darkness, save for the white star.
I stroked his muzzle and thanked him. Uninterested, he turned and trotted off.
Once the mist folded around him, it was as though he had never existed.
As I helped Alex up and over the fallen trees, I realized that she was even weaker than I’d thought. Though she was toughing it out, it was clear that the past two days had taken a serious toll.
We peered over the top of the barricade to check for Hosts, then picked our way down the logs. I set my hand on an upthrust branch, and it felt soft, wrapped in fabric of some sort. When I looked closer, a cartoon of an old king with a scepter and crown became visible. It was Nick’s Stark Peak High Monarchs hoodie, snared there where I’d dropped it after he’d been snatched away by the horde.
I kept moving.
When we landed on the roof of the station wagon, Alex took note of the corpses splayed around the vehicle. She glanced over at me. “You did this?”
I nodded.
Again she gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. I hopped down, then eased her off the roof. She landed gingerly, trying not to put all her weight on her sore leg.
We rushed off the highway in the direction of the Silverado, our feet squelching in the marshy reeds. It seemed wetter down here; there must’ve been a good rain on this side of the pass last night.
A few steps farther, when I started to sink to my calves, I sensed we might be in trouble. Once we reached the truck, I pulled up short, dismayed.