The Girl in Red

“Some adventure,” Sam said. “I managed to get myself kidnapped.”

“Tell me how you did that,” Red said.

“Well, like I said—I thought I could catch up with you,” Sam said. “But you were moving a lot more quickly than I thought you would be.”

“I’m not carrying my pack,” Red said.

“I didn’t think about that,” Sam said. “Anyway, I was trying to follow you and I thought I was being pretty smart, staying in the shadows and everything.”

“You had to be pretty smart to get you and Riley to where I found you,” Red said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Well, the sun came up and I was getting thirsty because I was dumb and snuck out the window instead of planning properly. I know how you are about planning.”

Sam had only known Red for a short time but she already knew that Red’s defining characteristic was thinking ahead.

“Anyway, I came up to that intersection where there’s a Target and a little outdoor mall?”

Red nodded again.

“And I thought I could go into one of the stores and get some water. I was going to go back then, back to D.J.’s house, because I knew it had been too long and I wasn’t going to be able to catch up to you. So I looked all around and I didn’t see anybody in any direction. I started running toward the Target and then out of nowhere there was a gunshot. I knew it had to be them but I thought maybe I could still get away if I ran fast enough. I thought it would be hard for them to find me inside the store.”

“It was a good plan,” Red said. “There would have been lots of places for you to hide in the Target.”

“It doesn’t matter if it was a good plan,” Sam said miserably. “Because I tripped on a pothole in the parking lot like a dummy and by then they caught up with me.”

“Were they coming from the direction of D.J.’s house?” Red asked.

“I think so,” Sam said. “I didn’t really look once they started shooting at me.”

“Did they ask you any questions?”

“Yeah, a lot of them. Like who was I with and where did I come from and stuff like that. I didn’t tell them anything, though, even though they slapped me,” Sam said proudly. “That skinny guy punched me in the stomach, too.”

“I’m glad I beat his head in,” Red said.

“Red,” Sam said, and she tugged on Red’s shirtsleeve. She seemed younger than ten all of a sudden. “I’m glad that you found me.”

“So am I,” Red said.

Then there was a strange noise from the direction of the bodies, and Red stood up and pushed Sam behind her.

None of them could still be alive, could they?

She had to make certain. She couldn’t let any of them get up again. They might report back to their fellows that there was a woman and a child wandering around in their territory.

“Run toward the house!” Red said.

She was going to ensure that the men were definitely dead and then she was going to drag their bodies into the ditch. Red didn’t want Sam watching while she did that.

“They’re going to get us again,” Sam moaned. “They’re going to get up and take us away.”

She clutched Red’s pant leg with white-knuckled hands.

“No, they aren’t,” Red said.

She was going to make damned sure of that. She should have beaten all of their heads in, not just Toothpick’s.

Toothpick’s body was shaking and bucking like he was in his last throes of life, but Red wasn’t sure why that was happening. Had she done something when she smashed his head in? Something that set off a final surge of nerve endings in his body?

An incomprehensible amount of blood came out of his mouth. Red hadn’t even realized there was that much blood left in him.

“What’s happening?” Sam screamed.

Toothpick’s stomach and chest tore, like a great mouth opening wide.

And then Red saw it.

The monster.

CHAPTER 15 Supped Full with Horrors

After

It’s not what we thought it was.

That was what Adam had said, and because of that Red had thought everything Sirois told her was bullshit (except the part where he said the government was responsible—that part she believed).

She thought that it wasn’t really a parasite that grew inside people because Adam’s legs were mutilated and whatever it was had to be much, much bigger to do that. And because it didn’t make any damned sense. She knew enough about science to know that.

Then she saw its teeth—at first all she saw was teeth—and she realized just how wrong she was.

With that many teeth it can do whatever the hell it wants, Red thought.

Her mind tried to shy away from what she was seeing, because it wasn’t supposed to be. There were things like this in monster movies, but they were robots or puppets or computer-generated inserts. They weren’t giant black slugs that uncurled from the remains of a rib cage. They didn’t have a head made of teeth.

So many teeth—shaped like a great white shark’s serrated triangles and stacked like a whirling buzzsaw in concentric circles, and everything about them defied the biological laws of nature.