The Redding is a sinister force that captures and controls anyone it knows by name. Meg and her fellow survivors navigate a delicate balance of survival using nicknames and newfound communication methods, until they discover the rain can communicate...
"Sure," I say, because I'm not about to call her out on her coping mechanisms, and because I'm actually glad to have a shorthand for our new enemy. "Sleepwalkers."
I'm tired. Tired of being scared, of the uncertainty, of thinking we've made progress in the direction of staying alive, only to come face to face with another obstacle. I find my eyes drifting to a red patch that peeks out from Patrick's collar. We're immune. For now. But we can't guarantee that will last if the Redding keeps evolving. I can barely keep up with the new developments anymore. Naming that to myself, though, makes me realize neither me nor Patrick has tested our new powers properly. We might need to soon. The damn red stuff started creeping up the hill again in the time that Ditzy and I spent stalking Psy.
"Patrick," I say, "you hadn't done that before, had you? The Morse code commands."
He shakes his head.
"I want to try something. Can you stand by in case you need to intervene?"
There's a thread of Redding creeping through the ground not far away from us. Patrick puts his hands to the grass as I crouch and do the same. Ditzy finally lets go of me and backs away. Surface, I drum on the ground. I direct all my intention towards the thread in question, hoping that will do anything. It does. The Redding balks, but slithers up through soil and plant roots in response to my call. It doesn't want to obey me. It halts just below the grasses' lowest stems.
Surface, now, I repeat. Show yourself.
It's still fighting. The second order, though, confirms its lack of choice. A wet darkness seeps over the soil in the exact place I detected it. Ditzy and Calico J scuttle backwards. I nod to Patrick. Leave, he drums. The Redding-stain flies backward. In a flash, it's smeared across two meters of ground, splattered up the grass stems and flung downhill. It whisks underground seconds later. Beneath the soil, I can feel it slithering back to wherever it came from.
When I look back at Patrick, he's smiling. It's the kind of smile you see on someone who's about to pee themselves because they're so damn scared that smiling's the only thing they can do, but there's triumph in it, too. "It listens to us," he says.
Naturally, that's all it takes to revive the two brainiacs among us.
"But how far?" says Calico J. "And is it actually listening, or is it just scared? Because if it's scared, you might not be able to control it forever."
"I don't think it's scared," says Patrick. It dawns on me belatedly that his Redding-sense is probably far stronger than mine. "I think we can actually control it."
Calico J looks like he's not sure how to process that. Ditzy has forgotten to maintain her mask. I can see her two sides battling for dominance as she watches the ground where the Redding was a moment before. Confident Ditzy wants to bluff and laugh and make a show of our new abilities. Real Ditzy is as ready to pee herself as Patrick is.
"I want to try and talk to it," I say. "It keeps talking to us, and we have a common language. I want to know why it keeps telling us to run."
"Don't get yourself killed, please," says Calico J.
Ditzy, though, surprises me by speaking up. "Meg knows what she's doing."
I don't, not really. But we're not going to get anywhere if we can't follow the leads we already have. The Redding has talked to us twice already. Maybe it just wants to talk. I'm not about to act without another opinion, though, so I turn a silent question to Patrick. He's watching the ground with a nervous look that I know better than to dismiss as mere anxiety. He's more attuned to this stuff than I am.
He nearly drowned more recently than I did. And I nearly drowned more recently than Ditzy or Calico J. I wonder if that's coincidence.
"I don't know if you're going to get a real answer," he says slowly. "But it might be good to try."
That's all the confirmation I need. I also get the sense he's not going to initiate this conversation, so I return my hands to the ground and drum, Come.
The thread from before returns altogether too fast for my liking.
What are you? I ask, when it's within a meter of the surface and me.
A wave of pure hatred hits me from the hands up. It boils up from the ground, churning like rapids, so fast and powerful, I lose my balance and fall hard on my tailbone. Patrick too has leaped back. I'm still in contact with the ground, though, which means there's no escaping the wet snap against my palm, I whip my hand away. A bubble of Redding subsides into the soil. It snaps against my other palm next—twice. It's talking. I grit my teeth and muster all my self-control to keep this hand in place as the anger manifests in a familiar series of pops and drags against my palm.
Run, it says. Run. Run. Run.
Hatred seethes through every letter. It snaps me to a realization I should have had the very first time I heard this stuff talk. It's not trying to warn us. It's telling us to run so it can hunt us like prey.
Hungry.
My hand is still on the ground. I locate Patrick, whose face mirrors my helpless fear. He's standing—right now, the entity is only talking to me.
Hungry, it grates again. The feeling is so big, so deep, I close my eyes with the effort of not withdrawing. I feel like it's going to engulf me.
Empty.
I'm sinking deeper. There's a different note in the tone now, though I can't pin down what it is. It's painful. Hollow. Pained.
Woken. The entity is still talking to me. Or maybe not to me anymore. The feeling rises higher, drowning my thoughts and senses with every word. Words aren't enough to capture this.
Empty.
Hungry.
Leave, drums a sharp hand in front of me.
I snap from my reverie as the Redding whips back from around my hand and halfway up my arm, where it crawled without my noticing. I blink back to daylight to find Patrick crouched in front of me, glaring at the ground. He's so tense, I think he'll shatter if he moves. Then his gaze swivels up to meet mine, and I'm shocked for a different reason entirely. There's a hardened look there that I'm not sure I've ever seen from Patrick. He's protecting me. His mouth moves as he says something. I hear his voice through the crescendo of my own pulse building in my ears, but the words make no sense. My hands have begun to shake again, this time with adrenaline.
"What did it say?" he says—again, I can only assume.
There's no time for that. There's something I need to know, immediately.
"I'll explain on the way," I say. "We need to follow Psy."
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Like this chapter if things are getting intense now
