Dog Blood Part 21

"But what if...?"

"I won't hurt you," I tell her, meaning every word but still not knowing if she believes me. "All I want is Ellis. Take me to her and you'll never see me again."

She nods her head but still doesn't move.

"Just give him the keys," the pregnant woman says. "Let him find her for himself. Stay here with us."

Lizzie shakes her head and wipes her eyes.

"No, I'll go. I just want to see her again. One last time."

37.

THERE'S A FIRE ESCAPE at the rear of the hotel, a staircase running down the back of the building. Lizzie, watching me like a hawk and carrying a knife I know she won't dare use, pushes me down the landing and around a corner toward an innocuous-looking gray door. It's already been forced open. She gestures for me to go through. at the rear of the hotel, a staircase running down the back of the building. Lizzie, watching me like a hawk and carrying a knife I know she won't dare use, pushes me down the landing and around a corner toward an innocuous-looking gray door. It's already been forced open. She gestures for me to go through.

"Where is she?" I ask as I step outside, shouting to make myself heard over the sounds of fighting that fill the air. We stand at the top of a zigzagging metal staircase bracketed to the back of the old, run-down building. She points in the general direction of the streets behind the hotel, but I can't see anything specific. The sun is rising, and below us the city is beginning to burn. A fleet of planes and helicopters is taking off from somewhere far over to our left.

"There's a garage," she answers breathlessly. "The front of it has collapsed, so it's difficult to get in or out. We locked her in the back of a van."

"If this is a trick, Lizzie-"

"No trick," she says quickly, and I know she's telling the truth. We're wasting precious time. Sensing Ellis is close, I start climbing down.

There's another parking lot at the back of the hotel, and a small patch of wildly overgrown garden beyond it. Lizzie leads me away from the building down a narrow path that's barely visible through the long, damp gra.s.s. The sky is still filled with heavy gray cloud, but it's slowly beginning to brighten.

"This way," she whispers, catching her breath when a series of brilliant white flashes explodes, lighting up the early morning gloom for a fraction of a second at a time. A low-flying helicopter guns.h.i.+p rumbles overhead, heading back toward town.

I follow her to the end of the path, where there's a tall wrought-iron gate. Lizzie bends down and s.h.i.+fts a broken lump of paving slab that's keeping it shut, and the gate swings open. She pauses before going through, ducking back into the shadows as a group of people runs past. I watch them as we step out into the open, three figures chasing a fourth down a narrow, cobbled pa.s.sageway. They corner the lone runner, drag him to the ground, and kick the s.h.i.+t out of him. It's impossible to tell who's who-am I watching the Unchanged being hunted down, or is that one of my people cornered? It doesn't matter anymore.

"Move!" Lizzie hisses, shoving me forward again. There's another gate in a wooden fence on the other side of this alleyway. We go through, and I can tell immediately from the number of rusting car parts and piles of tires and m.u.f.flers that this must be the place. I follow her through a side door into a dusty office. It's dark. She stops suddenly, and I walk into the back of her, then hold on to her as she grabs my sleeve and leads me farther forward, pausing only to pick up a flashlight she obviously left here previously. We go through another door and down a single steep step into what must be the main workshop. The air's cold, and the noise we make echoes off the walls. She s.h.i.+nes the light farther ahead, and I see that the front of the building has collapsed in on itself, sealing it off from the street.

"Over here."

We move around the back of a jacked-up car to the farthest corner of the works.p.a.ce. There's a white and blue van parked with its back to the wall. Its front fender is a light matte gray color, primed and waiting to be painted by a garage employee who's never coming back. As we move toward the rear of the van, I see there's a light on inside it. Lizzie pushes me out of the way and unlocks the door. She opens it as far as she can, then slips through the gap, and I follow her.

Lying flat on her back in the middle of the van, chained to the front seats with her mouth gagged and her wrists, legs, and ankles bound together with plastic-covered clothesline, is Ellis. She's awake and alert, her beautiful brown eyes darting from Lizzie to me and back again. She looks straight at me, but I'm not sure if she remembers. Dressed only in a dirty gray unders.h.i.+rt and panties, her tiny body is covered in cuts, scratches, and bruises. Lizzie leans over her, and she immediately reacts, arching away from her, then trying to lunge forward and attack. The longer I look at her, the less familiar she becomes. She sobs and whines through the gag like a frightened animal.

Lizzie, Ellis, and me all together again. I never dared dream this would really happen. Suddenly the noise of the battles outside and the helicopters and explosions don't seem to matter. Everything that I have left is in the back of this van. I swing my backpack off my shoulders and open it up. I pull out Ellis's doll, and Lizzie takes it from me and holds it close, tears running down her face.

"You went back?" She whispers.

"Looking for you," I tell her.

Lizzie moves Ellis's wild, unkempt hair away from her eyes and tries to show her the doll. She recoils from her mother's touch, desperately trying to pull away. Lizzie seems unfazed. I guess she must be used to this now. Ellis's eyes show no recognition, no understanding.

"It would have been easier on everyone if she'd just stayed with you," she admits, "but how was I to know after what you did?"

"I know."

"I didn't even realize she was like you until a couple of days after you'd gone. I didn't expect it, didn't even think it could happen. One minute she was sitting there with her brothers, the next ... I was out of the room for less than five minutes. I came back in and saw her with Edward..."

She starts sobbing, tears dripping down onto Ellis, who wriggles and squirms as if they're corrosive acid drops.

"Why did this have to happen, Danny?" she asks. She knows I can't give her the answers she wants.

"It wasn't because of anything you did or didn't do. None of us could control it or predict it..."

She smiles and wipes her eyes. "Remember how hard we used to think we had it? How frustrated we used to get with the kids...?"

"How could I forget?"

"You hated your job, I couldn't stand being with the children, Dad was sick of bailing us out all the time..."

"I know. I remember."

"I'd do anything to have it all back how it was."

She's right. In spite of everything, sitting here with her and with Ellis lying between us, part of me knows she's right.

"I wish I could be back there," she continues, reaching down and resting her hand on Ellis's shoulder. Ellis flinches and tries to roll away, but Lizzie ignores her violent reaction. "You, me, Ellis, and the boys in the kitchen of our s.h.i.+tty little apartment, fighting over the TV or who'd eaten whose candy or something stupid like that..."

"Me, too," I say quietly, surprising myself with my admission. Another explosion reverberates around the garage, followed by the sound of dust and debris raining down on the roof of the van. This van is like a coc.o.o.n, temporarily isolating us from the chaos of the rest of the world, but I can hear the intensity of the fighting outside continuing to increase.

"We can't stay here," I tell her. "It's not safe."

"I know."

"I have to go. I have to take her with me and get her away."

Lizzie nods and wipes her eyes again. She looks down at Ellis and smiles, then crouches down next to her and picks up the knife she was carrying. Ellis tries to lunge at her, the chains still holding her back. For a split second I think Lizzie's going to attack her, but I watch her face and I know that she won't. She can't. She removes the clothesline that has been wrapped around Ellis's legs, then slides the long blade between her bare ankles and draws it up, cutting through the plastic ties that hold her tight. Ellis immediately reacts, kicking out at Lizzie with incredible, unrestrained fury and anger.

"What are you doing? Get out of here, Liz. Just go-"

"Hold her, Danny."

I lift Ellis up, her legs still thras.h.i.+ng, and wrap my arms around her chest as Lizzie removes the padlock and chains that have kept her anch.o.r.ed to the floor of the van. Her ferocity and strength are remarkable, and I struggle to keep hold of her. Lizzie removes Ellis's gag, and her head immediately lurches forward as she tries to take a bite out of her mother's face. Lizzie ducks out of the way, then lowers the blade toward the ties binding Ellis's wrists together.

"You should go," I tell her. "Get back to Mark and the others. Try to get away from here while you still can."

She shakes her head and starts to cut.

"Let her go, Danny. I just want to hold her before you take her."

I relax my grip. The plastic ties pop open, and Ellis immediately lunges forward, her incredible strength taking me by surprise. She flies at Lizzie, landing in her arms and smas.h.i.+ng her back against the side of the van with a sickening thump. For the briefest of moments they're locked in an embrace, Lizzie burying Ellis's face in her chest, not wanting to let her go. I watch the pair of them in the low light, huddled close together. They could be anywhere-saying good-bye in the school playground, sitting on the end of Ellis's bed last thing at night, keeping her warm when she's just come in from outside ...

Then the expression on Lizzie's face changes. Her eyes screw shut with pain, and she opens her mouth to scream but no sound comes out. Ellis pushes her away and glances back at me, blood covering the bottom part of her face. She spits out a chunk of Lizzie's flesh, then turns back and attacks again.

I shuffle back into the corner and cover my head as she rips her mother's body apart.

38.

BLOOD-SOAKED AND PANTING HARD, Ellis sits in the diagonally opposite corner of the van and watches me. What has she become? Does she even remember who I am? She hasn't tried to kill me. She'd have attacked if she thought I was a threat.

"We have to go, Ellis. We have to get away from here. It's not safe. People are going to try to kill everyone here. Do you understand?"

No reaction. No time to wait for an answer. I take her rainbow-colored sweater out of my backpack and edge closer to her.

"Put this on. Keep you warm."

I reach up to put it over her head. She swipes it out of my hands. I pick it up and try again, but she's not having any of it, and I drop it. She hisses at me and pushes herself farther into the corner. Poor kid, it's hard seeing her like this. I'd naively expected her not to have changed much. Maybe I'd just been trying to convince myself she wouldn't be like the kids we found at her school. She'll be better now that we're together.

"Come on, we're going," I tell her, forcing myself to move. I grab the knife and flashlight in one hand and Ellis's wrist with the other and drag her out of the back of the van. We hit the ground, and she immediately tries to pull away from me, but I won't let go. I drop the flashlight, shove the knife into my belt, and lean back into the van again. With outstretched fingers I reach the long length of cord they'd used to tie her legs together. It's wet with Lizzie's blood. Ellis keeps pulling against me, her strength and persistence hard to control, but I manage to keep hold and pull her closer. I tie one end of the cord around my waist and the other around hers like a leash. Christ, there's hardly any meat on her at all. The chubby puppy fat I remember around her belly has gone. She's lean and sinewy now-just skin, muscle, and bone.

"In case we get separated, okay?"

Still no reaction.

"Ellis, can you hear me?"

She looks into my face but doesn't respond. Now that she's attached to me I let her go, and she immediately darts away, almost dragging me over when the cord pulls tight. I try to haul her back, but she's fighting against me constantly.

"Stop! Ellis, sweetheart, it's Daddy..."

I'm struggling to keep my footing. In the brief lightning flash of an explosion outside, I see that she's trying to undo the cord. I run toward her and scoop her up into my arms again. She kicks and squirms to get free.

"Calm down," I whisper, my mouth next to her ear. "Please, Ellis, just stop..."

My words have no effect. Got to get out of this garage. Maybe she'll respond better if she can see me clearly and if she can see what's happening around us. Disoriented, I head the wrong way and find myself trying to get through the rubble at the collapsed front of the building. I double back on myself, past the open van and Lizzie's body, trying to retrace my steps back out. Someone s.h.i.+nes a light in my face. I can't cover my eyes, so I instinctively screw them shut. I almost drop Ellis but manage to tighten my grip before she falls.

"Let her go," an immediately familiar voice orders.

"Julia? How did you...?"

"I followed you. We knew you were looking for your kid, and Craven showed me what you found on the system."

"But what about the plan? The fighting?"

"What about it? Have you seen what's happening out there? The chain reaction's started, McCoyne. They're turning on each other."

"So you've got what you wanted. The city's falling apart and-"

"I can't let you take her. Kids like this are the future. We need them more than you can imagine-"

"She's staying with me."

"You don't understand. Sahota and Preston both-"

"No, you you don't understand. Ellis is my daughter, and I'm responsible for-" don't understand. Ellis is my daughter, and I'm responsible for-"

"Your only responsibility is to this war."

"But I'll take her back to the others. I promised Preston I'd-"

"Do you think I'm stupid? If I let you go you'd disappear and we'd never see either of you again. I can't take that risk. She's coming with me, and you should be proud to let her go. We'll take her, and she'll help us hunt more of them down until the last one's dead. Your kid's already more of a fighter than you'll ever be, and you should-"

"She's my little girl. I don't want her to fight."

"You dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d, do you think you have a choice? Just let her go."

I don't answer. I run forward, trying to find a way past. Julia comes at me, and I drop Ellis to defend myself. Another flash of the light blinds me for an instant, and the sudden tightening of the cord as Ellis darts away pulls me off balance. Julia swings a punch and catches me on the side of the head. I'm knocked back and sent reeling by the unexpected angle of her attack. I trip over something hard and heavy in the dark behind me and find myself on my knees in some kind of oily inspection pit. I feel the cord tighten again, and I immediately grab it and try to pull Ellis back. It gets even tighter, then goes taut, then drops down loose as Julia cuts through it.

"Ellis!" I shout as I scramble out of the pit. Julia drops her flashlight, and for a split second I catch a fleeting glimpse of her shape as she sprints through the office and back outside, barely managing to drag Ellis behind her. I chase after them, over the land at the back of the garage, through the wooden gate, then out along the cobbled pa.s.sageway. It's packed with people, far more than before, all of them running to escape the carnage that is steadily consuming the center of town. Can't see Julia-she's just one among hundreds now.

I follow the stumbling crowd until we reach the end of the pa.s.sageway. I look in all directions and shout for Ellis, but my calls go unanswered, most probably unheard. Too many people. I start to wade through them, unable to see anything through the waves of foul, barely human flesh that constantly crash into me. I grab the knife from my belt and start hacking into those nearest to me, not interested in killing, just wanting them out of the way. The sun's almost up now, but the light's still poor. Dirty smoke drifts everywhere like horror film fog.

Someone grabs me from behind. I spin around to defend myself, but they're not attacking, just trying to get through. I'm on my back in the gutter in a puddle of rancid rainwater before I know what's happening. My wrist cracks against a curb, and I drop the knife. I reach out for it, but it's kicked away by one of the stampeding crowd. Before I can get up someone plants a boot right in the center of my chest. Suddenly struggling to breathe, I roll over and manage to crawl away through the forest of legs. Other Unchanged trip and stumble over and around me, but I force myself to keep moving until I reach the side of the street where their numbers are fewer. I'm next to a badly decayed body in a deserted shop doorway when my hand rests on a length of metal tubing about a yard long. It looks like it was a fence post or part of a road sign, but it'll make a decent weapon. I use it to help me get up, then head back into the crowd again, swinging it around like a samurai sword. On a vicious, upward arc, the jagged end of the tube hits an Unchanged woman on the side of the head, tearing her flesh from below her ear up to the corner of her eye. I swing the tube again and more of them go down like I'm cutting down crops, scything a path through the chaos.

There's an overturned wreck of a car in the middle of the street. The crowd splits to go around either side of it, but I climb onto it. The burned-out skeleton of the car is precariously balanced on its roof, and it quivers and vibrates with my every move. Another helicopter flies overhead, and I instinctively duck and turn around to watch it disappear, looking back toward town.

Then I see her.

I'm surrounded by a sea of heads, but back in the direction from which I've just come, there's a break in the crowd-a small, unexpected bubble of s.p.a.ce. I struggle to see through the smoky haze and constant, uncoordinated activity, but then I glimpse a flash of remarkably fast movement. It's Ellis. Finally free and unrestricted, she's killing at an incredible rate. I can see her leaping from victim to victim with ferocious speed and intent, using nothing but her hands and teeth to kill. She wraps herself around each one of them, does enough damage to fatally wound them, then gets up and attacks her next victim before the last one's dead. Even after everything I've seen, my daughter's ruthless, savage brutality is incredible. Awe-inspiring and terrifying in equal measure.

There's Julia. I steady myself as the overturned car rocks again, then watch as she chases after Ellis. Holding on to what's left of the cord with one hand, she chops at the Unchanged around her with what looks like a meat cleaver held in the other. She's struggling. Ellis is too strong and too fast for her.

I swing the metal pipe out over the side of the car like a golf club, taking out several more refugees and almost decapitating one of them. I jump down into the s.p.a.ce where they were standing, then hold the tube out like a lance and run forward, shoulder dropped, toward where Julia and Ellis are fighting. I follow the trail of bodies, tripping over outstretched limbs and slipping in pools of blood and gore that Ellis has left in her wake. An unusually aggressive Unchanged comes at me with a machete. The downward sweep of the blade glances off my shoulder but does little damage, and I'm gone before he can take a second swipe.

Julia's dead ahead of me now, being virtually dragged along by Ellis as she's fighting. Yet another helicopter powers overhead, this one releasing a volley of screaming missiles into the crowd nearer to the center of town. I can feel the heat of the missiles as they scorch through the air above me, the shock wave from the explosions in the distance almost knocking me off my feet. Julia lifts her cleaver and chops it down into the pelvis of a slow-moving Unchanged man before the vibrations knock her off balance, too. She steadies herself and pulls back on Ellis's leash. The momentary delay is enough for me to catch her. I grab hold of her shoulder and spin her around.

"Let her go, Julia."

Distracted, she almost lets the cord slip through her fingers. She drops her weapon, s.n.a.t.c.hes back the plastic-covered line with both hands, then tries to wrap it around her wrist. Her face is bruised, her right eye swollen purple and almost completely shut. Did Ellis do that to her?

"Help me with her," she demands.

"Help you?" I yell back, using the metal pole to shove an unsteady Unchanged out of the way. "Are you serious? Let her go-"