White Space

“Rima.” Tania’s voice was less than a whisper, and so weak there was barely any sound at all. Already whiter than salt, her face was going translucent and glassy, the color bleaching away. “R-Rima?”

“Oh God.” Rima started to unwind Tony’s scarf, still knotted around her neck. If she could slow down that bleeding, get them to someone who could help. In the school, the nurse’s office, there’s got to be—

There was an enormous, splintery crash, followed by the instantaneous hoosh of cold air. Rima’s eyes jerked front, expecting to see a fist pistoning for her face. But the windshield was intact. Oh shit. Heart thudding, Rima inched round to look over her shoulder and back toward the passenger cab. In the next instant, a thin, strangled, squeaky sound midway between a moan and a scream dribbled from her mouth: “Ohhh!”

This second man-thing was much taller and beefier, with a dense, furry ruff sprouting from its neck and glistening skin as slick as a black grub’s. When it saw Rima look, the creature’s yellow eyes lit with a feverish, feral gleam. Its lips skinned back from a bristle of teeth and a tongue as ropy and muscular as a black snake.

Time seemed to hesitate for a span no longer than the pause between two heartbeats. In that moment, Rima heard the splash of Tania’s blood and her faltering breath growing weaker and weaker; she could smell the man-thing, wild and animal and utterly alien, and taste it, too, rank and raw in her mouth. She even had time to wonder about Casey, who must be dead by now, torn apart, because where there was one thing and then two, there were probably a lot more.

And she had time to know this: she could run or she could fight, simple as that.

Without taking her eyes from the thing, she squatted, reached down—and felt her fingers close around the hammer.

Fight.

BODE Whatever This Place Makes Next

“WHAT IS THIS stuff?” The billowing fog surrounding the Dodge sponged up all sound, so that Chad’s voice came out flat and, Bode thought, a little dead. “Can’t see for shit. You ever seen anything like this, Bode?”

“Nope, never, not me, not even after they drop smoke, you know?” As soon as the fog swallowed them, Bode had taken his foot off the accelerator, but the Dodge still thrummed, the engine having settled down to a steady rattle. He took a sniff and grimaced. “Smells weird. Not like phosphorus or how napalm stinks when it’s cooking off. Like burnt diesel.”

“Naw. This smells like”—Chad’s blade of a nose wrinkled—“like, you know, blood. And I don’t mean cooked neither, like from an explosion, but fresh. Man, I don’t know what this shit is.”

“Do you?” Shifting his gaze to his rearview mirror, Bode saw two faces: Eric’s, pinched with strain but intent, and the blasted ruin no one else could see that was Sergeant Battle. He said to Battle, “You know what’s going on, Sarge?”

Got some ideas. Battle’s face twisted, but given that half the sergeant’s head was blown apart, his left eye dragged on his cheek, and his brains slopped over his neck in a wormy pink goo, Bode couldn’t be sure if Battle was frowning—or cracking a grin. None of ’em you’re going to care for.

“Yeah?” Bode eyed the white world beyond the Dodge. He really couldn’t tell whether they were still on the snow, on a road, or hanging in midair. The truck was nowhere—and nowhere was deep within the fog, which boiled and curdled and rushed by in dense clots. He understood the Dodge wasn’t going anywhere and only the fog was moving, but the optical illusion was disorienting, like sitting by a train’s window as another train the next track over pulled from the station. “Well, I don’t much know if I care for what’s going on now. You want to give me the straight dope?”

Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

“Try me,” Bode said.

You’re not ready to hear it yet. The mortar had chunked a blast crater just above the sergeant’s left ear, so that when Battle shook his head, Bode saw straight through to the fog. The view reminded him of peering out the murky window of a Huey flying low and NOE, nap-of-the-earth, through the tangles of a jungle’s early morning mist. Same way you didn’t listen outside that honky-tonk. Told you to let it go, but no … you just had to pull that trigger.

“Let it go? Let it go? Oh, that would’ve turned out really great.” Bode snorted. “Sorry, Sarge, but a court-martial wasn’t in my plans.”

If they catch you, son, it’s the firing squad for sure. You’re supposed to kill the enemy, not your LT.