Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Red continues to struggle, strength undiminished, but the ropes hold.
For now.
I can’t help but stare at him, trying to wrap my head around what we all just witnessed. The transformation of a man into something else entirely, something driven by hunger so profound it obliterated his humanity in a matter of hours. Is this what happened to Hank? To Lainey? To the McAlisters? All the lost hikers and travelers who came to these mountains and never left?
“What do we do now?” I ask softly.
I don’t voice what we’re all really wondering.
Jensen turns to me, his expression grim in the dim light. “We wait,” he says simply. “Watch him. See if there’s anything left of Red in there. We don’t know how it happens but the fact that he can speak, the fact that we’re able to restrain him, that means he’s not quite turned. I believe he has a ways to go. If there’s a chance the spread can be stopped…if maybe we can help him before…”
It sounds like a lost cause but I don’t think any of us want to deal with the alternative right now.
He glances toward the window, where the tapping has momentarily ceased. “Let’s hope the ropes keep. And hope whoever is out there doesn’t break in before dawn.”
Red strains against his bonds, muscles bulging, veins standing out against his skin like dark rivers. His eyes, that unnatural blue, follow our movements with predatory intent. His teeth, still changing, still sharpening, snap at the air between growls.
“And if there isn’t?” Eli asks. “If there’s nothing left of him?”
Jensen meets his gaze. “Then we do what needs to be done. Same as we’ll have to do with Hank.”
The implication hangs in the air, heavy and terrible. I look at Red—at what used to be Red—and try to see any trace of the man who was. I never liked the man. He was crude and predatory and I’d never want to be in a room alone with him. But he was a human being.
There’s nothing in those blue eyes but hunger now.
Endless, insatiable hunger.
The tapping at the window starts again, faster this time, more urgent. As if they can sense what’s happening inside, can smell the transformation taking place. Can feel the pack growing.
We gather on the far side of the hut, as distant from Red as the confined space allows, all of us armed to the teeth.
“We need a plan,” I say after a moment. “We can’t stay here indefinitely, waiting to what happens.”
“First light,” Jensen agrees. “We leave at first light, head back toward the ranch.”
“And you know we’ll be safe in the light?” I ask.
“All I know is that you rarely see them in the day.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” Cole asks him. “How do you know about any of this shit?”
“My family’s been here a long time,” Jensen tells him but leaves it at that.
“And him?” Eli asks, nodding toward Red. “Do we take him with us? Or do we just go and…leave him here? Like this?”
None of us answer. None of us want to voice the alternative.
Outside, the night stretches on, black and cold and filled with hungry things. Inside, we watch Red transform, the last traces of his humanity slipping away with each passing hour. And we wait for dawn, for decisions that can’t be avoided, for whatever comes next in these mountains that have claimed so many before us.
And are about to claim another.
24
AUBREY
Dawn arrives with grudging reluctance, pale, weak light that gradually illuminates the horrors inside the Benson Hut. Red remains bound to the support beam, his transformation seemingly complete. The man we knew is gone, replaced by something feral and hungry that strains constantly against the ropes, blue eyes tracking our every movement. He doesn’t speak anymore, just makes grunting, growling noises.
None of us slept. How could we, with the things tapping at the windows all night and Red’s inhuman rasps filling the hut? We passed the night in tense silence, broken only by whispered discussions of what to do next, wrapping extra rope around Red for good measure.
“We can’t stay here,” Jensen says for perhaps the tenth time, pacing the small confines of the cabin like a caged animal. “We’re sitting ducks. Supplies are running low, weather radio says the weather is gonna get worse, and there’s no telling how many more of them are out there with Hank. Last night with the tapping, it could have been him, could have been a bunch of them. We don’t know.”
“We can fight them off,” Eli suggests tiredly, rubbing his hand over his face, looking in no shape to fight anyone. “We haven’t tried to kill any of them yet. We’re only assuming they’re hard to kill. They might not be.”
“Perhaps,” says Jensen, “but I also don’t want to stick around and try it out. Do you?”