By chance—or malignant will—the raging storm misled them, and Susan and Mark found themselves wandering from the slopes. It was Susan who found the footprints.
“Someone else is here,” she said, nearly shouting as Mark limped up behind her. The footprints ran dead ahead. She led, passing a second animal ripped to shreds; all that was left was a bloody mass of bone and guts and deep green fur. It was likely one of those monkeys, she thought; she hoped the beasts that had done this had long since vanished, their bellies filled.
They heard screams. Horrible screams.
Susan reached the Run first and stopped dead in her tracks. The oak towered above the rise. Its girth and stature were terrifying. It swayed in a steady rhythm, as if struggling against the storm. It seemed a force able to break free from its roots at any moment and leave havoc in its wake.
Mark moved up beside her and headed down the hill toward the flames—toward the shrieks. Susan, still spellbound by the enormity of the tree, broke from her idle stance and followed. She searched for her son but found only the trail of his snowboard. How he had retrieved it she had no idea, and her skin crawled when she saw it lying near the creek.
Halfway down Mark stumbled, his bad leg going one way, his weight the other. He crumpled to the ground, and Susan saw the anguish in his face. She changed course to reach him, but he waved her off as the screams grew to piteous wails that made both of them shudder.
Flames engulfed the screaming man as Susan reached him. His single arm betrayed his identity. His screams died suddenly, and she dropped to her knees and began scooping snow onto the blaze as furiously as she could. Her efforts had no effect, so she whipped off her coat and smothered the flames until he was a smoldering mass. Smoke rose from him in choking wafts that held the sickening undercurrent of charred wood and scorched flesh … and gasoline.
Wind ripped through her sweater. Though it reeked of hell, she slipped on her coat. Her eyes never left the body.
She knelt close. Cupped a hand to her lips.
Here was a Tree Man, a man once human, a man crucified by the Dark—a man whose fate she would soon share. His body trembled and twitched. His clothes were burned away, leaving him prisoner to a skin of sooty black bark. His chest rose and fell as his lungs hung on. His fading eye closed.
Susan reeled. Beside him lay a litter of spent matches and the box they came in. Beyond his remains, tipped on its side, sat a red jerry can. She could not believe he had come all this way, had fought so hard for so long, only to light himself on fire. She would not. Somehow, the Dark had managed to turn this man against himself, had gotten inside his head and twisted his will.
She looked about in a rush. “Kelan! Kelan!”
Susan picked up the snowboard and saw a slick scarlet mass at the edge of the creek. It appeared to be some kind of fish, and when she moved closer, could see its jaws were filled with razor-like teeth.
She had to look twice to be sure: The creek had turned into rich chocolate, the texture of unstirred paint. A rolling, living thing, she was certain it had swallowed her child. She stepped closer and shouted his name, and without really aware she was doing so, began to scoop the oily goo with the snowboard in search of him. As fear grew to panic, she flailed madly in uneven strokes that splashed her.
The snowboard struck something solid. She felt a firm tug on it as if she had snagged a big fish, but no. Something had snagged the snowboard. She slid forward, almost falling into the creek, but she managed to dig in her heels and stop her advance.
She let go of the board. The tow rope tightened around her wrist. She tried to draw herself free and couldn’t, and when she saw a hand spring from the muck, she froze in horror. It clung to the binding like a claw, and as a second hand emerged, there he was, pulling himself up the snowboard, his eyes black pits and his flaming red hair slicked with brown milk, his chest and his mouth dripping blood. And before she could fully comprehend this latest insanity, Arnie Kovacs tossed the snowboard aside and was right on top of her.
Susan struggled to get him off of her, but he was far too heavy. Arnie stunned her with a powerful jab, and for a second or two, she saw two of him. She tried to cry out for Mark, but Arnie choked her.
“Shut up, bish.” Arnie spat blood in Susan’s face. Half of his upper teeth were gone. “You’re dead, Lishk. You’re fushing dead.”
Arnie groped at Susan’s sweater, working his icy hands below it. He pawed at her right breast, and she screamed as searing pain burst from it. She tried to push him off, but he pinned her to the ground with ease. He leaned in close, his mouth adrip in saliva and blood.
“Quite the sishuashun,” he slurred, his voice sounding exactly what it was, a disgusting hybrid of an overgrown bully and a liquor store clerk. “Quite the sishuashun.”
Arnie’s brow fluttered. He tried to kiss Susan, tried to force his bloodied tongue into her mouth. She resisted, and when he reached down to unzip her, she struck him square in the jaw. He could only grin.
“Gonna show you cold, bish. Cold like that fushin’ freak of yours showed me.”
A shot rang out. The Arnie-thing rose to its knees, clutching its shoulder where the bullet had entered. It huddled there a moment, its freckled face twisted in surprise, its brow twitching. The second blast struck it between the eyes. It slipped back, blood pouring from the gaping wound. The third ripped into its chest and sent it rolling into the creek, and before it sank, a dozen of the most frightening fish Susan and Mark had ever seen had their way.
“Are you hurt?” Mark held his weapon at the ready, as if expecting the living dead to rise again.
“Is he—I mean, how—”
“I don’t know. Just pray he stays dead.”
Mark went to turn to the woodsman, and as he did, Susan gasped.
“Mark—”