“It’s okay.”
Damn, that was a creepy kid.
To Amy, John said, “You’ve got working e-mail there? Can’t you send a message to the
“Oh, I did. I also found out that the news channels and all the big papers were getting over a hundred thousand messages a day from zombie cranks and apocalypse crazies and everybody else. Mine will be one more in the pile. Maybe some intern will get to it six months from now. Maybe it’ll mean something to the town they build on top of the ashes of this one.”
I said, “Damn, girl, you got cynical in the last couple of weeks.” She didn’t smile. I read something in her face and said, “Wait a second. How did you get here? Did you come in on that RV?”
She nodded. “I came down with some guys. Hipsters who thought they were going to come down and shoot zombies and have future high schools named after them.”
“They, uh, didn’t make it, did they?”
She shook her head.
“Jesus, Amy.
She shook her head again.
I went to her and hugged her again. “How the hell did you get away?”
She couldn’t answer. Instead, she pulled away and said, “It really is perfect the way they set this up. It brought everybody’s worst fears out of the woodwork, and every little thing the government said made it just a little bit worse. It was all there, David. Under the surface. They just came along and pricked everybody’s balloon.”
I said, “Well, it doesn’t change anything. Our mission is to get the hell out of here. Then if, you know, they drop the bombs, that sucks, but all we can do is tell the world what we know.”
Amy stood up and brushed a dozen pieces of dropped popcorn off her lap.
She said, “What are we waiting for?”
I gestured toward Anna and said, “What do we do with her? We don’t have time to find—”
“Where’d she go?” John was looking around the room.
I said, “She was right he—”
The lights went out.
“Damn it! I knew she was a monster! John! Amy! Listen!
I heard John knocking objects off a nearby table, blindly grabbing for his shotgun.
From the pitch blackness, Amy said, “Calm down, it’s probably just the generator. It probably just ran out of gas.” She shouted, “Anna? Honey? Are you okay?”
I heard the click of a door lock.
Molly started barking.
“Somebody’s leaving! Who’s leaving? I heard the door!”
John said, “I got the shotgun. Somebody look for a flashlight.”
“Anna? Are you in here? It’s okay, honey, don’t be afraid.”
I said, “That’s right, little girl. Everything is fine. Come… get in front of John’s shotgun.”
Something long and slim and warm slid into my palm. It had bumpy ridges, like an earthworm. It slipped through my hand and around my wrist and forearm.
I yelled and yanked my hand away but the thing—the Anna thing, in its true form—held fast. It slithered around my elbow and came to rest under my armpit. Then another tentacle was wrapping around my knee. I made panicked, cursing noises and stumbled backward.
“DAVE! HEY! WHERE ARE YOU?!”
I went to the floor. There was a crash in the darkness, presumably John tripping over a chair while blindly flailing to my rescue.
Amy screamed. “DAVID!”
“IT’S GOT ME! SHE’S GOT ME!”
I kicked and thrashed and the bundle of flexing tentacles slipped around my abdomen. And then, around my neck.
I threw myself to my feet, and tried to find a wall to slam into, to crush it. I wound up flinging myself through thin air, tripping over a box.
The monster was shrieking in my ear. I pulled at the limb around my neck but it was strong, so freaking strong.
Everybody was yelling, but I could hear nothing over the screeching that was turning into an ice pick in my ear. Then, there was a crash from the room next to us, metal and glass like something big and heavy had been knocked over. Amy screamed. Molly barked.
I got to my feet once more, wearing the Anna monster like a writhing backpack. I found a wall and slammed backward into it.
It didn’t budge. Somebody was screaming my name.
I heard a door burst open.
“ANNA!”
This was a new voice, a man’s voice, with an accent.
A blast of light flooded the room. Everyone froze.
Standing in the doorway was a Latino guy who I thought looked like Marc Anthony. I knew I had seen him before but in my state of panic, couldn’t place where. He was holding a huge flashlight and he whipped it around the room, first finding Amy, who was still standing next to the dead computer and squinting at the sudden brightness. Then he spotlighted John, who was pointing his shotgun right at my face.
Then the light found me, and I felt the tentacle loosen from around my neck. The Anna thing slithered to the floor, and in the harsh shadows of the beam I saw a filthy nightgown tangled around a nightmare wad of tentacles that looked like they were made of knotted clumps of black hair. Somewhere in the center of it was a pair of eyes on either side of a sideways mouth and clicking mandibles.
The man with the flashlight said, “Anna. Are you okay?”
The tentacles started twisting and bundling together, fusing and melting and re-forming. In a few seconds, there was the little girl again. She straightened her nightgown and sniffled and started crying.
The man said again, “Are you okay?”
Anna shook her head.
“No, you’re all right.”
In the shadows I could see John looking back and forth, between me, the guy, and Anna. He was still pointing the shotgun at me, he realized, and he pointed it at the floor instead.
To me, the guy said, “Are you all right? You’re David, right?”
“She… turned into a… thing…”
“I know that. Did she hurt you?”
“The light went off and she got me around the neck…”
“Did she
“No.”
Anna sobbed and said, “He hurt
The guy said, “Now
“I didn’t mean to! The lights went out and I c-couldn’t h-help it…”
“Anna, you need to say you’re sorry to David.”
Anna did not agree with this.
“Anna…”
She defiantly said, “I’m
To me, he said, “Do you accept her apology, as heartfelt as it clearly wasn’t?”
I had no words. “I… she turned into a… thing…”
Anna started crying in earnest once more. Amy said, “Hey. David.” I turned and out of the darkness, an object came hurtling toward me. I flinched, threw up my hands and squealed. A filthy, stuffed bear bounced off my
