I probably am.
When I go back inside, my phone is littered with alerts: another round of snow is on its way.Up to a foot expected,reads the headlines.Prepare for blizzard conditions beginning around four PM.
A dark, sick despair tugs at the pit of my stomach. Blizzard conditions? How is this happening here, in fuckingNorth Carolina? It’s worse than what the meteorologists were predicting, at least earlier this week.
Maybe I should have gone to stay with Abi, even if the idea of leaving my house for an extended period of time makes me feel strange.
So I build the fire up higher than is strictly safe. I try to read the old pulp paperbacks, my eyes skimming over the words. I pull the blankets tighter around my shoulders.
And I wait for the storm to hit.
33
THEO
Reviving always feels like an electric shock. Death contracts like sleep does; I drift in and out of a kind of half-consciousness, only vaguely aware of the thick rot of the soil around me. But the moment of revival is bright and zapping, all my atoms firing up at once.
I plunge my arms up through the soil, clawing and digging my way to the surface. There’s a hot, panicked instinct to it, a sense that I’m being buried alive. My wits aren’t all about me yet. All I can focus on is air and?—
Andher.
I see her face, smiling up at me in the shadows and the firelight. Then I see her screaming at me, tears streaming over her cheeks, blood on her clothes.Why did you do this?
Dirt spills into my mouth, cold and steely. I spit and dig, pushing myself upward. I know she’s not going to be waiting for me on the surface. No one is. I did what the killing moon calls me to do, which is drive all the humans away until I’m alone in my territory.
My fist plunges into something bright and unexpected. For a second, I think it’s fire, because it burns at my skin. But Ikeep squirming my way upward, and I realize that no, it’s the opposite. Not burning, but freezing.
I escape the dirt only to suck down a mouthful of cold, white crystals that turn to water on my tongue. By the time I heave myself out of the ground, my hands are screaming from the cold, and all I can see is a sweeping expanse of white that glitters like diamonds.
I blink at it, my thoughts still blurry from the revival.Heaven, I think stupidly, squinting against the light. Like the cold, it’s so bright that it burns. But it can’t be Heaven, because there’s no place in Heaven for a monster like me.
The closest I came was her. Chloe. The way she would cling to me as I sank into her warm, squeezing cunt. The sound of her blood rushing in her veins and her moans escaping her plump, swollen lips. But I’m not good enough for that Heaven, either.
I roll onto my back, breathing hard. Overhead, the sky is a pale, feathery grey, suffused with a soft, pale glow. It appears to be falling as well, dropping in soft, ashy flakes that look like stars. A freezing dampness burns through my ragged, blood-stained clothes.
Snow, I realize with a jolt. It’s snowing.
I sit up, my heart thudding, and twist around, trying to get my bearings. More memories come to me, sudden and painful: the unblinking eye of a shotgun barrel, the resistance as I racked back the pump to load in a fresh shell. The shell that killed me.
I want it to be you.
I squeeze my eyes shut, a sudden wave of sadness welling up in my chest. At the moment, I did want it to be her. I had done my work. I split open the humans who hurt me.
No, they hadn’t hurt me this time. Not her, either. The boy. The boy who reminded me of myself.
His face flashes in my thoughts, his big eyes staring up at me, at the blood on my shirt. His parents’ blood. I had killed them already, although he didn’t know.
Hide in your closet,I told him, my hands quick and darting,and wait for Chloe. Don’t come out until she says it’s safe.
That had been so important to me, him hiding. Him not seeing what I had done, what I was about to do.
I drag myself up until I’m standing on uncertain, newly revived legs and turn slowly in place. I’m on the wrong side of Hanging Lake. Houses rise on either side of me, but they feel empty. I don’t know if the snow is muffling things or not. It’s falling more thickly now, adding a pale haze to everything. I’m not used to it, all this silence around the lake. It’s like the whole world is trapped in a half-death.
I trudge toward the house, my boots sinking into the snow. I’m leaving tracks, which can’t be good. Not for a predator.
No. It doesn’t matter. No one’s here. I don’t sense any human heartbeats.
The house’s windows are boarded up. I stare up at it for a few seconds, trying to remember why it’s familiar. Is this her house? Chloe’s?
