“Then why cover up the barn?” Bode asked. “Why make the fog worse?”
“Upping the ante. It’s another test.” Eric looked at her. “You said that everything you’ve done is preparation for the next step. What if this is it?”
“Crossing through the fog?” She frowned. “What kind of test would that be?” What he’d said also made her think of something else: what if House wasn’t all Lizzie’s mom, or even a healthy chunk? They’d assumed House was a safe haven. I’m missing something. “I guess I could try finding them with the cynosure and pulling them through?” She heard the question and made a face. “Somehow I don’t think that will work. I really think we’re supposed to do exactly what Lizzie wanted: go over there.”
“So can we stop talking and spouting theories that get us nowhere and just do something here for a change?” Casey’s voice hummed with frustration. “God, Lizzie was right. You guys are overthinking this! Come on, let’s just go!”
“Not so fast, kid.” Bode reached for Casey’s arm, but a single black glare from the younger boy, and Bode thrust his hand into a jacket pocket. “I know you’re hot to trot, and I don’t blame you. But we got to think this through. Remember: other characters … other people, have been here before,” Bode said, grimly. “Things haven’t turned out so great for them. If we’re walking into a fight, we need more and better weapons than the crap we’ve found so far.”
Crap was right. While the boys had been dismantling kitchen chairs for clubs, Emma had unearthed three flashlights, a lighter, and a packet of birthday candles (blue, of course). Toss in the box of fireplace matches and Eric’s Glock, and that was it for weapons. All the long guns—Bode’s rifle and shotgun, the shotgun Casey had retrieved from that church—were gone, left behind in the doomed truck. Not that it would’ve mattered, anyway, because they had no ammunition.
Emma watched as Eric stepped to the edge of the porch and looked down to where his snowmobile ought to be. A thoughtful expression drifted over his face. “What?” she asked.
“Got an idea. Wait a second.” Darting back into the house, he returned a few moments later with a can of Swiss Miss in one hand and the lacy curtains that had hung from the kitchen window bunched in the other.
“Hey, you want to kill someone,” Bode said, “you go for the Nestlé Quik.”
“Ha-ha.” But Eric was grinning.
“What’s the can for?” Casey asked.
“Gas,” Eric said. “There’s a siphon and an empty can in the rumble seat of the Skandic. Big Earl used to …” He stopped, his jaw hardening. “We always carry them, just in case. And there’s a whole quart of oil, too.”
“So what?”
“So we fill up this Swiss Miss can and maybe a couple more. The gas might come in handy.”
“Well, you and Emma are kind of walking gas tanks already,” Bode observed. “But yeah, I see where you’re going.”
“I don’t,” Casey said.
She did. “Fire. Bombs.”
“Bombs?” Casey gaped. “You mean, like Molotov cocktails?”
“Well, not exactly,” Eric said. “We don’t have the right bottles.”
“What about the peanut butter?” Emma said. “We could empty the jars.”
“For a Molotov?” Bode made a face. “Might work, but the mouths are really wide and you have to score the glass to get it to blow up right. We don’t have that kind of time anyway.”
“How do you guys know these things?” Casey asked.
“Books,” Eric and Emma said together.
“ ’Nam,” Bode said.
“Gas burns and so does oil.” Eric cocked his head back at the house. “Grab a couple sheets from the beds upstairs, tear some into strips to wind around these chair legs, soak ’em in oil, and then we have torches.”
“But we can’t see the snowmobile,” Bode pointed out. “The same thing you’re worried about with the barn could happen here. Get yourself turned around, might not find your way back.” He paused. “Or it could be like what went down in the truck.”
“The fog swallowing and then taking me somewhere? Possible, but I have a feeling this is the end of the line. Anyway, we know where the snowmobile was.” Eric held up the curtains. “Tie these together, make ourselves a rope, I’m good to go.”
“Not alone, you’re not. I’m coming with you.” When Eric opened his mouth to protest, Emma put up a warning hand. “Don’t even start. We’ve already seen what the fog can throw at us. There’s no telling what could come out of it. You can’t siphon and watch your back at the same time.”
“Emma, the chances of anything bad happening to me are small,” Eric argued. “I’m not trying to leave. I only want another weapon.”
“Which it may not want you to have.”
“You popping off shots in a whiteout—”
“Is a terrible idea,” she finished for him. “Promise, I won’t do that.”
“But I thought you didn’t like guns,” Bode said.
“And I still don’t.” She hefted a chair leg. “Let’s go.”
2
“KEEP TALKING.” ERIC was looping a last knot of lacy curtain around his middle. “It’ll keep me oriented. If I don’t answer, give me a chance to tug or something. If you don’t get anything, then you guys pull us back. Whatever you do”—he gave the knot a final yank—“for God’s sake, don’t let go.”
Bode tightened his grip on the very end of the makeshift rope. “We’re on it.”
“What do you want me to say?” Casey said, paying out lacy curtain from the coils in his hands.
“I don’t care.” Eric shuffled to the first step with Emma, one hand hooked into his waistband, a half step behind. “Sing. Tell jokes. Whatever.”
“La-la-la-la,” Bode droned.
“Something with a beat would be nice,” Eric said.
“Row, row, row your boat …” Bode might be a decent soldier, but his voice made Emma’s brain hurt.
“Oh, that’s much better,” she said.
“MERRILY, MERRILY, MERRILY, MERRILY,” Bode boomed. “Life is but a—”
“Shut up.” Casey’s skin was white as salt. “Just shut the hell up. This isn’t funny.”
“Easy, Case,” Eric said.
“You shut up, too,” Casey said. “If it was Emma, you’d be the same way.”
Despite everything, her neck heated and she was grateful that Eric didn’t look her way. After a small silence, Bode said, “I’m sorry, kid. I was just blowing off some steam.”
“Yeah.” Doubling up on the makeshift rope, Casey set his feet and lifted his chin at Eric. “Go. And be careful.” He looked at Emma. “Don’t let anything happen to him.”
She only nodded, then looked to Eric, who stood to her left, and raised her eyebrows. “Ready?”
“Uh-huh.” Eric’s mouth had set in a determined line. “You stay close.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Her fist tightened around the chair leg. “Any closer, I’ll be on your left.”
At the edge of the porch, Eric hesitated, then put out a gloved hand. Emma watched the fog swirl and then cinch down around Eric’s wrist as if Eric had stuck his hand into a vat of whipped cream. “What’s it feel like?” she asked. “Is it cold?”
“Not really.” Eric’s eyebrows tented in a bemused frown. “Kind of thick, though. Almost … molten.”
“Can’t see your hand from here, man. It’s like it got amputated,” Bode said, passing Emma a flashlight. “I don’t think the light’s going to do you any good. That stuff’s too soupy and the light will scatter. But I’m curious how far you can go before we lose it.”