White Space

Stay with it. Fight. But her hand was empty. Hammer … dropped it …

Another blow, solid as a battering ram, drove into her belly, punching out her breath and what was left of her strength. Doubling over, trying to pull air into lungs that would not obey, she simply crumpled.

Get up. She knew her feet were moving, but only in a useless shuffle. Her head felt as if someone had buried the business end of an ax in her skull. Her grudging lungs balked. C’mon, get up, get—

There was a sudden blinding flash of yellow light, firecracker-bright, as a deafening ba-ROOM filled the cab. The blast was so strong she felt it shiver through the deck and into her teeth.

The thing’s chest erupted in a liquid black halo. An oily rain of blood and mangled flesh sheeted over the walls and fell on Rima in a viscous shower. For a moment, she was too stunned to do anything, much less understand. The roar had been replaced by a muzzy, muffled hoosh, like water rushing past her ears. But then she felt something: a slick creep along her skin, a worming sensation over her clothes, eeling through her hair.

“Ahhh!” Rima clawed her way to her feet. To her left, the man-thing splayed, its chest replaced by a huge crater of obliterated bone and tissue. Frantic, she began swatting at the mucky bits of the monster’s flesh squirming over her chest and arms and hair. “Get off, get off, get them off!”

Through the hoosh, she heard someone say, “Rima, what is it?” Then: “Casey, are you … Jesus, what the hell?”

Still disoriented, she turned a wild look. An older boy, with dark hair and eerie blue eyes, crouched in the entrance to the passenger cab. Openmouthed, the boy stared at the wriggling bits and shivering globules of black blood. “My God, its chest,” the boy said. “It’s moving.”

“Re-repairing it-itself.” Her voice felt rusty, her tongue thick. From where she stood, Rim could see strings of the thing’s chest muscles nosing and then coiling together. Closing her eyes against a bolt of nausea, she pressed her trembling lips together and gulped against the sudden acid bite on her tongue. Something squiggled on her thigh, and she swatted it away in a fast sideswipe. The black slug of muscle sailed across the cabin to hit the far wall with a moist splot. For a second, it clung there, trembling as if trying to clear its head, before beginning a slow slither toward a neighboring splotch. She turned aside with a shudder. “Just like Father P-Preston.”

“Who?” Shotgun still in hand, the older boy was helping Casey ease to a sit against an equipment locker. “What’s going on? What is this thing?”

“D-don’t know.” Groaning, Casey clamped an arm to his left side. “My th-throat f-feels broken,” he croaked. “H-hurts to … ahhh!” He threw his head back as the other boy probed his chest, and Rima saw a necklace of purple-black bruises ringing Casey’s neck. “God, Eric, d-don’t.”

Eric. Of course, his name is Eric. He and Casey are brothers. She put a hand up to her throbbing forehead and felt the beginnings of a knot. Why couldn’t I remember? What’s wrong with me?

“I’m sorry, Case,” Eric said, calmly enough, although Rima saw a ripple of fear as the older boy touched a gentle hand to Casey’s bruised jaw. “My God, what happened to your face? Can you walk?”

“Y-yeah. It’s a long story.” Wincing, Casey backhanded a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “Where’s Emma? How did you guys find us?”

“She’s back at this farmhouse we found. The fog pulled us here, me and these two guys out in the truck …” Eric made a face. “That sounds pretty nuts.”

“No, it doesn’t. Fog got us, too,” Casey said, then looked up as Rima dropped to her knees by his side. “Rima, are you … God, you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.” She covered his hand with hers. An impulse, not something she really thought about, but which, once done, felt entirely right. “Thank you for coming, for not letting that thing g-get …”

“Would never l-let that happen.” His eyes fastened on hers, and she could feel a slow flush working its way up her neck. He turned his hand over, palm up, and gave her fingers a squeeze. “Tania?”

“Who?” Eric asked.

“Oh God.” She felt a pang of guilt. In all the commotion, she’d forgotten. Hurriedly pushing to her feet, she edged past the thing, sparing it a swift sidelong glance, then stopped dead and gave a much longer stare.

“What?” Eric was there in an instant. “What is … oh shit.”

“Yeah,” she breathed against a clutch of dawning dread. A moist mesh of fresh connective tissue had already formed; a toothy cage of remodeled bone arced over a gray sponge of new lung. Whips of thickening muscle waggled, and she swore she saw that thing’s left hand convulse in a sudden spasm.

“I think we’re out of here, now,” Eric said, and moved to help Casey make his feet. “What about your friend? Is she …?”