The Forest of Hands and Teeth Page 11

  Suddenly, her body stiffens with an age-old terror. I see a wetness appear on the front of her skirt and she stumbles back, her eyes shifting between her brother and something beyond. Jacob turns his head and then flops onto his back, using the heels of his hands to drag himself across the packed dirt. My view is blocked by the frame of the window and I have to press my face awkwardly against the glass to see what I already know is there. It's a pack of Unconsecrated shambling toward the boy. They always come in packs.

  The sister takes two steps toward her brother, grabs his arm and tugs, but she's too small and weak to drag him. The Unconsecrated approach and the boy struggles against his sister, batting her little hands away, pushing her toward the platforms.

  All of this takes place in the space between heartbeats and I back away from the window before my heart beats again, before I see Jacob's fate which I know all too clearly. Like the little girl I shake my head in disbelief.

  This is panic. And panic means the people on the platforms will pull up the ladders early. Will do anything to save themselves first.

  The hair on Argos's back spikes, his head is low and I see his body vibrate with a growl. All dogs in our village instinctually fear the Unconsecrated and have been trained to scent them. His entire being is focused on the door to our cottage, he is warning us of what exists beyond.

  Something crashes into me. I'm pushed away from the window. Harry shoves the ceremonial knife into my hand and grabs my chin, his fingers digging against my jaw as he searches my eyes.

  His chest heaves, sweat trickles down his temples. And then he throws open the door, dashes outside and is back before I have a chance to recover. Before I have a chance to scream or hold him back. While I am still rubbing where his thumb dug into my skin. In his arms is Jacob, who had been left for the Unconsecrated by both his sister and me. Harry drops the boy onto the bed and returns to his work gathering supplies.

  He tosses a bundle to me and I clutch it to my chest with one hand, the ceremonial blade in the other. He grabs two water bladders from a hook by the door and then pauses, looking at me. I'm still standing where he pushed me against the wall.

  He reaches a hand out toward me and I take it. His fingers trail along the white Binding rope on my wrist and I see a hint of a smile touch his lips. He opens his mouth to say something but I'm deaf with the continuing siren.

  I feel the cottage shudder as something crashes into the door. Harry turns from me and grabs Jacob. Slings him over his shoulder. At the door Harry pauses, placing his hand against the wood, touching the Scripture carved into the frame. I want to close my eyes, to block out what is happening. To pretend as if this day has never begun—will never begin.

  I try to get a feel for the blade in my hand, for my only weapon. From a young age everyone in my village is taught how to fight for a day such as this. The wood on the handle is smooth and slippery from the dampness of my palm. It feels awkward and unwieldy, and the bag of food throws me off balance.

  And then, before I have a chance to rearrange myself, to prepare, Harry throws open the door and we are running.

  Even encumbered with the boy, the water, an ax and his own bag of food, he's faster than I am, his steps surer than mine, my terror blurring my eyesight. Argos tangles himself around my legs, not knowing any other refuge, and I stumble.

  Our cottage is set back behind the Cathedral, just on the edge of the main living area of the village. Platforms are scarce here and I run for the closest, thrown off by the bulky bag I carry pressed to my chest. My fingers are about to close over the rungs of a ladder when it slips from my grasp, the mist of the morning making the wood slick. I pause and look at the people above—only half full. The man who pulls the ladder up to the platform just shrugs at me. Not even an apology. Not that I could have heard it with the siren continually pulsing in my senses.

  Beside him on the platform men pull at bows, letting loose arrows toward targets somewhere behind me. I can feel the compression of an arrow splitting the air as it cuts next to my head. I don't know if the arrow was meant for me or for something behind me and I refuse to look over my shoulder to find out. Reality is too much to bear at this moment and so I shove it aside.

  Frantic, I glance around for another platform and scramble toward it. Argos is still at my side and he bites at my skirt to get me to stop and I stumble and fall to my knees. I look up and see Travis at the ladder, not ten lengths from where I kneel. He's waiting for his turn to climb, Cass at his side.

  I can't stop myself from shouting out his name.

  It's useless, of course. The siren is too loud, our combined panic deafening us. I yell again, closing my eyes with the effort of pushing every bit of breath in my body into this one word. The siren cuts off just as the sound leaves my mouth and the world is silent except for me and the echo of Travis's name leaving my lips.

  It's as if I've frozen the world for this moment. He looks up and our eyes connect. Two heartbeats, and then three—we are almost one person. There amongst the nothingness we exist for a brief moment in our own calm and I can almost imagine the feel of his lips against my wrists.

  And then there's a tug on my sleeve as men begin to shout out orders and the moans of the Unconsecrated press in around us, crashing into the silence. I swing out wildly with my bag but it's Harry again and he deflects my blows.

  He grabs my arm and pulls me away from the circle of houses, away from the too-full platforms and Travis and toward the Cathedral. I hear people screaming. Panic, pain, terror. The sound becomes a harmony with the moans, with the shouts of battle.

  Something pulls at my hair and I stumble, fall to one knee. I roll to the side as slick gray arms lunge for me. I'm on my back, Argos barking madly as an Unconsecrated woman falls toward me. I thrash at the grass around me with my hands until I feel the smooth wood of my knife. I swing up and around and bury the blade in the Unconsecrated woman's shoulder.

  It's the first time I have used a weapon against an Unconsecrated, and I gag as I feel the smooth metal slice through the flesh and dig into bone. The woman keeps coming at me, her arm almost severed, her filthy blond hair falling in clumps across her face. I try to pull at the blade to dislodge it but can't seem to gain enough leverage.

  She continues to fall on top of me. Her mouth is hanging open and I can see the gaps from where she is missing teeth. I hold up my hands to try to keep her away and she claws at me. Her mouth is so close to my flesh that I can feel the stench of death seeping through me. I kick at her, whip my arms at her, but to no avail. I close my eyes and wait.

  The pain does not come. I open one eye to find her progress toward me stopped. The end of the long handle of the blade is buried in the dirt by my head and barely keeps her teeth from my flesh. She continues to flail and snap, her fingertips scratching my cheeks.

  I fall back, lie flat with her hovering above me and begin to push myself along the ground, sliding out from under her. Hands grab at my shoulder and I begin to struggle again but it's Harry and he pulls me free.

  With one clean stroke he decapitates the Unconsecrated woman and her head tumbles to the ground. I reach for my weapon but it is buried too deep, stuck in the bone. Harry tugs on my arm and I have to leave it behind, making my hands feel too empty, too vulnerable.

  My body quivers, my legs wobble and I can already feel the burn of tears stinging in my throat as we start moving again. The air feels heavy with the smell of blood, its tang sticking to the back of my mouth as if I taste it rather than smell it. My chest convulses with each breath as if I can't get enough.

  Around me my friends and neighbors fall to the Unconsecrated. Some have already died and Returned, their throats mauled, their limbs torn. They continue to pour from the mist enveloping us all.

  They're everywhere. Those on the platforms struggle to fight them, to protect the living left on the ground, but the Unconsecrated flow in a never-ending wave, multiplying as they come. The fog confuses everything, making it difficult to discern livi
ng from dead.

  Harry stands to the left of me, Jacob thrown over his shoulder again. He points past me and I turn. To my right is the Cathedral, its stone walls thick and solid. While the Unconsecrated press in behind us, they have yet to make it to the shelter of the Cathedral. Already Sisters and Guardians stand at the second-story windows letting loose a constant flow of arrows.

  I can hear the sound of hammers as those inside fortify the large windows on the ground floor. We are still a distance away when I see two Sisters come around the side of the building. Together they fling closed the thick shutters bounding each window and make their way toward the large front door, where another Sister stands beckoning them with her hands.

  There seems to be a problem with the last shutter. As we draw closer I can see that they are furiously working to get it secure. Finally, one Sister pushes the other to the door and stays outside alone and I realize it is Sister Tabitha.

  She struggles against the heavy wood with all her weight, leaning away from it. Finally, it budges and I watch her stumble backward as the shutter slams shut. She pulls a thick length of metal and settles it into the brackets on either side of the window, reinforcing it. Her task complete, she hustles back to the front door and I see her knuckles rap against the wood.

  Harry and I sprint toward her, running for the temporary sanctuary of the Cathedral. I try to yell to her to wait for us, but I am too out of breath and the words fall limp from my mouth.

  But somehow she seems to know and as the door opens she turns. She watches as Harry and Jacob and Argos and I draw closer even while hands try to tug her into the safety of the Cathedral.

  Still she stands in the doorway. Hesitating.

  It's not as though the world around me slows as much as every detail becomes bright and vivid. For a moment I feel as if I'm outside myself, floating and watching. I no longer feel the sear of my lungs or the strain of my legs, the tenderness in my knee from having fallen earlier.

  Sister Tabitha almost smiles, and I can see that her knuckles gripping the edge of the door are white. My every step seems to take longer and longer. We are close enough now that I can see the Sisters behind her begging her to come inside, yelling for her to close the door. Shouting for the fortification.

  But still she waits. Barring the door open, holding them off. She takes a step forward, reaches up a hand as if she can pull us toward her faster.

  She does not see the streak of red.

  And yet she must sense that something is terribly wrong for suddenly I stop running. She must hear the crack of feet sprinting over dry ground to her right. She must see the look of horror on my face.

  Gabrielle is upon her before she can turn her head. Crashes against her before she can register any expression. Sister Tabitha tries to pull back, tries to escape into the Cathedral as Gabrielle tangles in her long black tunic. I watch as the other Sisters' hands shove her out the door. I can hear her cries of pain that turn into screams and gurgles. I hear the panicked shouts of the Sisters inside as they try to close the door, try to thrust Sister Tabitha outside, away from them.

  Gabrielle's attention shifts to them and she pushes around Sister Tabitha to gain entrance. She almost makes it, is almost into the Sanctuary. But then Sister Tabitha wraps her arms around Gabrielle's thin body and pulls her away from the opening, even as Gabrielle twists and sinks her teeth into Sister Tabitha's throat.

  The door to the Cathedral slams shut and still Sister Tabitha and Gabrielle wrestle on the ground. Fog spins and twirls around their struggling bodies.

  I can feel the whimpers choking me and I clamp a hand over my mouth, knowing not to draw attention to myself lest the thing that was Gabrielle seek out a new victim so soon. The Unconsecrated never hesitate to leave a fresh kill in order to bring down another living victim. It's in their nature to kill and infect above all else.

  The world around me seems to speed up and I suddenly feel dizzy, everything spinning. The platform ladders have all been pulled up or pushed aside. The Cathedral is closed. There's nowhere left.

  Except for the path, I realize. Except for the gate Gabrielle came through when she first entered the village so many weeks ago. Back before, when she was healthy.

  I turn and sprint, Harry behind me. I hear the sound of too many feet in pursuit. I'm sure Gabrielle is chasing us. As we draw near the gate the siren begins to wail again, alerting the villagers to what I already know—the platforms are full, those left on the ground must seek other refuge.

  The fence bulges where the Unconsecrated who haven't found their way in push against it, the smell of fresh blood in the air driving them insane with hunger. My fingers feel clumsy as I fumble with the latch on the gate and then Harry is behind me, pressing against me, his breath hot and fast in my ear.

  Finally, the latch gives and he pushes us through with such force that I stumble and fall down on the path, my palms stinging. I turn back just as Argos slips through. The gate crashes shut and Gabrielle slams against it, her mouth open, blood trailing from her chin.

  I close my eyes, hold my breath, let the siren pulse through my body, for once grateful that the sound is so overwhelming that it takes over and blocks my other senses. I do not want to see right now. Or hear or feel or smell.

  But my body screams for air and the stench of death filters through me. I get to my feet and walk back to the gate we came through, pushing Harry's hand off my shoulder as he tries to stop me. An arm's length away, I stop. I stand and face Gabrielle.

  I look death in the eye.

  Her fingers are all broken; some have bone pushing through the flesh. Her arms are ragged and yet she flings herself at me with a passion that will not end until her body is too spent to stand and still she will crawl onward.

  The siren halts its wail again and the sound is replaced by the rattle of the fence as Gabrielle lunges against it again and again, her broken teeth clacking as her jaws snap in anticipation. But her eyes are still clear—that clarity of the newly Unconsecrated. And she stares at me as if I am her only salvation.

  I realize I am standing on the path that she traveled to our village and it's now she who is trapped on the other side of the gate. I want to ask her who she is, where she came from and what she wants from me. Why we are connected in this place.

  But then she raises her head as if she is sniffing the air, something catching her attention from the corner of her eye, and she darts off back toward the village. Back into the fog and my friends and neighbors. Back to her sustenance.

  Harry comes to grab me, to urge me down the path. Argos spins around us both, barking and growling at the Unconsecrated that pulse against the fences on either side of us. But I refuse to move, to go any farther. Instead, I lace my fingers through the mesh of the gate where Gabrielle just stood and look through the early morning haze back toward our home.

  “It was her,” I whisper. My body is beginning to go numb, as if it can't take any more and it's shutting down.

  Harry tugs at my arm, tries to pull me away from staring at the carnage swirling in the mist. “What are you talking about, Mary?”

  “The one I was telling you about last night.” I start to beat at the gate, wanting to feel as many emotions as possible to prove that I am still alive. “Gabrielle. The girl who came down the path. She was the one who caused this. She was the reason …”

  “Mary, what are you talking about?” His voice is sharp around the edges, as if he will shatter at any moment.

  I feel as if I'm ripping apart inside, everything fragmenting at once. “Don't you see? They did this to her! The Sisters, they caused this and—”

  Harry pries my fingers from the fence and pulls me against his body. “That doesn't matter anymore.”

  I struggle against him, not wanting comfort as fury and terror mix in the pit of my stomach. “But what if the Guardians had something to do with—”

  “I said it does not matter, Mary!” His voice rumbles through my chest, vibrating my entire body. “What is do
ne is done and now is not the time to speak of it!”

  I bow my head. I know I shouldn't press him and yet I can't help it. “But it proves—”

  “No!” he shouts. His nostrils flare and he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, shakes his head. When he speaks again his words are carefully measured, barely contained. “It proves nothing. Only that the fences have been breached and that our village is under attack and that we are not there to help them.”

  Looking back at the village, I see figures moving but I can't tell if they are living or Unconsecrated. I can't tell if it is a skirmish, a battle or a war. I think I see that flash of red again but I can't be sure that it isn't my mind playing tricks on me. Telling me what I want to see.

  But then there is someone coming toward us out of the fog. Two people approaching. I take a step back, wondering if it's more Unconsecrated. Wondering how I have now found myself on the side of the Forest fearing what is in my village.

  Their features begin to crystallize and I recognize the limp of Travis.

  The path just on the other side of the gate is wide enough for the four of us to stand in a row—me and Harry, Travis and Cass—our shoulders sometimes touching as we watch the fog lift and understand fully the chaos that's taking place in our village.

  The oddest thing about an Unconsecrated invasion is that no dead litter the ground; they all rise and join ranks with the enemy or are devoured. Again and again we see friends and neighbors felled, only to return and fell more friends and neighbors in time.

  I stand between Harry and Travis. Cass is on the other side of Harry. Behind us Jacob lies wrapped up tightly like a roly-poly, his arms around his knees. I can hear his body jerk as he struggles to contain his sobs. Occasionally Argos goes to Jacob's side, whimpers and licks his face. But Jacob doesn't notice and Argos returns to place his muzzle in my hand and whine.

  Next to me I feel Travis shift and the skin of his knuckles skims my hand. I twitch my fingers in response, and we link our pinkies. He pulls my hand into his and I sway with relief. With this simple gesture that he is safe. That we are still okay. I tamp down the thoughts that had crept through my dreams the night before: that Travis never came for me. That he never cared for me. That he did not want me.