“Mom?” Lizzie can’t look away. “Mom, what is that?”
“The Peculiars … all that stored energy, I’d hoped it would be enough to take out the Mirror, but I didn’t stop to think that your father had already opened the gateway; he’d bound that thing and … My God, I’ve only given it more fuel.” Mom sounds as broken as the Peculiars and the Mirror. “What did I do?”
Behind them, the sky is moving. High above the trees, something steams across the night: a boiling wall of white so dense that the stars are winking out, one by one.
Something has bled into this world, all right. Something is storming after them. Something is running them down.
Not an aurora.
Not clouds.
What is coming for them is the fog.
EMMA
Not the Way I’m Made
“EMMA.” PAUSE. “EMMA.”
A voice, very distant, as tinny as a radio. For a horrible second, her ears heard that weird hiss—peekaboo, I see you—and she thought, Kramer?
“Emma?”
She didn’t answer. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. God, she was freezing. She hurt. The cold was intense, the snow burning across her skin like a blowtorch. When she pulled in a breath, she heard a jerky little cry jump out of her mouth as something with claws grabbed her ribs and ripped her chest.
“Emma?” The voice was closer now, on her right, and it wasn’t the radio or Kramer at all. Why would she even think that? “Emma, come on, wake up.”
A … a boy? Where? Emma tried moving her head. There was a liquid sound, and then a thick, choking chemical funk.
“Emma, can you hear me?”
Her neck screamed. So did her back. Her forehead throbbed, a lancet of pain stabbing right between her eyes, not only from the blink but …
We crashed. I’m still in the van, but I saw that little girl again, too, and someone or something was … chasing her? But what? She couldn’t remember. The threads of the vision were fraying, unraveling. Didn’t matter. She dragged a hand to her aching forehead. She felt the familiar nubbins and that bigger circle of her skull plate just beneath her skin, but also something wet and sticky that was not gasoline.
Blood. Cut. How deep? Her fingers slid over torn flesh but not metal. She must’ve hit pretty hard. Her head was swimmy and she was already dizzy from gas fumes. Her stomach did a long, slow roll. No, please, I don’t want to puke.
“Emma, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. She tried prying her lids open. They felt sewn shut, and she had to work to make her muscles obey. Then the darkness peeled away, and she winced against a stab of silver-blue light. “Bright.”
“Sorry.” The featureless blot of the boy’s head and shoulders moved between her and the snowmobile’s headlight.
“Better?”
“Uh,” she said, and swallowed, waiting for her stomach to slither back down where it belonged. It was only then that she realized he was on his hands and knees, peering through a window. The van had flipped. She was lying on the roof. Or was it the ceiling? She couldn’t think. What was the last thing she remembered from this world? The sensation of whizzing through space, a free fall, and then the bang as the van plowed into something nose-first. Her back had slammed the windshield, and she’d rebounded, flying past the steering wheel, her shoulder clipping the driver’s side headrest as she shot for the rear window, as Lily screamed and screamed.
“Lily?” Her voice came out in a weak little wheeze. “Lil?”
“Hey.” The boy squirmed in, sloshing through gasoline until his face was right up to hers: so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. “Hey, look at me, stay with me. Here,” he said, lacing his fingers around her left hand. “Feel that? Remember me? Eric?”
“Yes, I … I do. I remember.” It took a lot of work and concentration to swallow. “But where’s Lil?”
“We need to get her out of there.” Another boy, a voice she didn’t recognize. “That gas isn’t stopping. I’ve never seen so much gasoline. How much you think this thing holds?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Eric tossed the words over his shoulder, while his eyes never left hers. “You guys got a blanket or maybe a first aid kit? She’s bleeding pretty bad.”
“First aid kit in the trunk,” the boy said again. “Hang on.”
A girl’s voice: “I’ll come with you.” The boy and girl moved off, their voices dissipating like smoke.
“You’re going to be okay.” Eric’s grip on her hand tightened. “I’ve got you now, Emma. You just keep looking at me. Don’t worry about anything else, all right? Can you tell me what hurts?”
Everything? “My head. Chest. Hurts to breathe. I think I hit the steering wheel.”
“Might be nothing more than a bruise. What about your neck?”
“Eric.” She swallowed back against another tidal surge of nausea. “Where’s Lily?” When he hesitated, she thought, Oh God. “Lily … she … she’s dead, isn’t she? I got her killed, didn’t I? Where is she? Is she”—ignoring the knifing pain in her neck and shoulders, Emma tried to turn her head—“was she thrown or is she still …”
“Emma, does it really matter? Seeing won’t change anything.”
No. She used her eyes the way she might her fingers, tracing the shape of his nose, that line of jaw, tangling in hair that was wavy, black, and thick. Even in the gloom, she could see the deep blue of his eyes. You don’t understand, Eric. Seeing is believing. Seeing changes everything. Aloud, she said, “Thank you for not leaving us.”
“Not the way I’m made.” He cupped her cheek. “Come on,” he said, gently. “Let’s get you out of here.”
CASEY
Dead Man’s Shirt
“OH BOY.” TONY was kneeling in deep snow by the Camry’s rear tire. “This is not good.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” said Casey, smearing ice from his cheeks. He grimaced as snowmelt trickled down his neck to soak the collar of Big Earl’s shirt. Casey hadn’t wanted the thing, but his was shredded, cut to ribbons by Big Earl’s switch, and blood-soaked to boot. At first, shrugging into Big Earl’s oversize flannel had been like slipping on the slack, discarded husk of a gigantic python, and just about as pleasant. The thing was a little better now, but that wasn’t saying much, all things considered. The shirt felt … squirmy. Not alive, exactly, but every now and again, he thought he could feel it actually moving in tiny creeps, as if trying to worm into and wrap itself around the muscles and bones of his much smaller, slighter frame. Which, of course, was crazy; the thing was just a dead man’s shirt. Still … he could feel his skin flinch and cringe, withdrawing the way cats slithered low to the ground when they just didn’t want to be touched. He shrugged, wincing as old flannel raked raw flesh and clotted blood. “Man, that tire’s flatter than a pancake.”
“Wh-what happened?” said Rima, doing the freezing person two-step. “I thought you were being c-careful.”
“I was, but …” Tony sighed, his breath huffing in white steam the wind grabbed and tore apart. “If I had to guess, I’d say one of these downed spruces. Branches are sharp as spears. Probably drove over one buried under the snow.”