White Space

And what about me? What Rima had said about whispers, and his own transformation, a taking-on, taking-in, to become his father when he’d slipped into Big Earl’s shirt … No, that wasn’t exactly right either. Dad wore me, instead of the other way around, like I was the shirt, and he had to fill me out in all the right places. A grab of fear in his gut. So what did that mean? His memories of the last few hours were so hazy they felt as if they belonged to another boy’s dream. Did he even remember if something like this had happened before? God, do I even know what it feels like to be myself? So weird. He wasn’t … sure. But how could he not be?

Stop it. You’re Casey. He was freaked, that was all. This place freaked him out, especially the fog. He lifted his eyes to the crows overhead; thought about the church behind and how Rima seemed to be … slotting herself in? As if the fog was really a … a thing that could spin itself into the intricate web of your personal nightmare.

What are you? He eyed the fog, thick and bunched and viscous, which had peeled back to hover above the distant trees, and he thought of the types of coverings used to protect furniture. Do you read our thoughts? Can you hear—

A loud, hard bang jolted him back. Uh-oh. That sounded like it had come from behind. The church? But it was empty. There was just that body.

“Casey,” Rima suddenly shouted. “Behind you! Look out!”

Something clamped onto his left shoulder, and then Casey let out a startled yelp as his feet left the ground. The world spun in a sudden, drunken whirl. He felt the whip and bite of cold air, heard the whir as he bulleted around, and then whatever held him let go, as if some little kid had gotten bored and flung this toy aside.

Casey went flying. As he hurtled through the air, he heard Rima scream again, a kind of decrescendo wail like the shrill of a passing ambulance siren. Flailing, he plummeted to this strange snow that had no give, no play at all, but was hard as packed earth. At the last second, he managed to twist, taking the brunt on his left shoulder, before turning in a somersault to slam onto his back. The impact jarred air in a great whoosh from his lungs. A streamer of hot pain scorched his spine, then licked down either leg, and he went instantly numb. For a trembling moment, he could only lie and stare at the crows oiling over the sky.

Breathe. His lungs were on fire, no air in them at all. He couldn’t make his chest work. Breathe, got to breathe, got to— With a giant effort, he sucked in a deep, gurgling gasp, felt a violent ripping in his chest, and then he was coughing out a scream of crimson mist. Something wrong with his chest, something broken … His lips were wet; he tried to gulp air but choked on another gush of warm blood.

The thing heaved up from the snow. It seemed to grow, as if the snow had split to spit out a monster caught somewhere in the middle, no longer a man and only halfway into becoming. The thing’s face, studded with bony spikes, twisted in a grimace. Pale lips peeled back to reveal a bristling forest of very sharp, very pointed teeth.

What is this thing? Casey’s stunned gaze tracked to a gory thumbnail of Roman collar around its throat. He thought back to the tumble of limbs and black cloth in the chancery and what Tania had said: I shot Father Preston.

Her aim had been spot-on. The thing’s chest was a wreck of mangled and splintered bone and moist, bloody tatters of flesh, but the body itself was rippling, the chest shimmering and boiling. Its skin seemed almost molten, sloughing in elongated runnels that somehow curled in and around pink fingers of revitalized muscle and glimmering silver ligaments of tendon and gristle.

It’s repairing itself. A black fan of horror unfurled in Casey’s chest, crowding out what little breath he managed as the thing bellowed and reared over him. Where was the shotgun? He didn’t have it. Must’ve lost it when it threw me. He was going to die here. All that thing had to do was reach down and—

The air shattered with a sharp CRACK. Flinching, the thing bawled and then spun around, clawed hands splayed, slavering jaws open in a vicious snarl.

“Over here!” It was Tania, somehow upright, and leaning out of the snowcat’s passenger’s side door. Brandishing a long gun in one hand, she waved something else—a hammer?—in the other. “Come on, you son of a bitch,” the girl shouted. “Come and get me!”