While the corrupted were human, something about the feral transitory stage gave them something like farmers’ strength—not to be judged by how they appeared.
The firing of a shotgun made my eyes snap shut. Hot blood sprayed over my face, stinging along with pieces of shell that landed in my shoulder and cheek. The creature slumped against me, and I opened my eyes, tracking Phoebe as she ran in the other direction.
I shoved the creature off to chase after her.
My boots slipped and crunched the ice below, the shouts and clamor bouncing off the side of the house and around our open field, only to smack my eardrums again. I had no time for mental checklists, no head counts, hell, I couldn’t even see, everything was moving so fast.
By the time we got to the front of the house, Rebecca and Mary had already taken care of another.
“Are you all right?” I dropped my axe, rushing over to the girls, checking each face. No wounds other than shock.
“Relatively.” Mary ignored me, glancing past and looking more troubled when she saw that only Phoebe was with me.
We were still, the morning quiet again as we caught our breath, gathering our bearings.
Despite the blood covering us, there was no sign of what had just occurred. Birds chirped, the breeze clipped through the leaves of the fir trees, whistling faintly in the distance as the wind zipped over the smooth surface of the snow. Whether it be white or red, it was all the same.
“Where is Addie?” Rebecca panted, clutching her gun as she caught her breath.
Mary paled at the question.
“She is not with you?” Phoebe spoke.
Rebecca elbowed past us and off the porch.
“Rebecca!” Phoebe shouted after her in frustration, but a certain strain in her tone was unnerving.
I jogged after, nearly slipping again as I turned the corner of the house, facing the wide-open field where Phoebe had shot the first one.
Rebecca was headed straight for the red stain in the middle.
No.
I wish my heart would be still.
“Rebecca, wait—” I chased after her.
Rebecca’s legs moved faster, desperately, when she saw the small body surrounded by a red puddle in the distance.
“Rebecca, stop!” I screamed.
My lip quivered as I watched her fall on top of the body, shaking and gripping it desperately. She cupped Addie’s cheeks, checking both sides and then over her torso, as if she were trying to find an injury she could come back from, despite the neck being chewed down to the spine.
The others gathered beside the house, watching the two forms in the distance, highlighted in the white expanse like they were the only things to exist. Sunlight cut through the clouds and shifted over the two.
I was an intruder, a voyeur, afraid of breaking the illusion of one last tender memory.
There was something haunting about the silence before the wail that came next.
The sound that came from our strong Rebecca... I would not blame poets for thinking it came from some malevolent being. A sound the forest would remember and tell tales of when the wind carried its sound as far as people were willing to listen.
When I finally took a breath, it only emerged as a sob.
Rebecca sat there for hours, and if we had not forced her inside, she would probably have stayed like that for days. She waspractically fused to Adeline by the time we finally peeled her away, the frost beginning to make their clothing stick.
The house that night was the darkest it had ever been. No matter how many candles we lit or fires we started, a grim shadow remained over the household.
We gathered in the living room; no one wanted to separate from the group. We all settled on sleeping by the fire, but I suspected no one would be sleeping at all that night. There were somber conversations, though it was hard to take joy in speaking of anything. I was sure they were all words of anxiety and fear. Many glances were traded and stolen as I paced the kitchen alone.
