When I look out the front window of the car, the first thing I see is ordinary road. The second is what looks like the world's longest earthworm extending sluggishly along the pavement. Only it isn't an earthworm. It runs for as far as I can see, meandering aimlessly; it's as thick as my wrist in the fatter portions, and every bit of it is red. Redding-red.
When my blurry eyes clear, I realize there is not, in fact, just a single cord of Redding snaking up the road. That cord is the main one, but smaller tendrils branch off it in some monstrous pantomime of a fungal network or ground-nesting spider's web, connecting and diverging and eventually finding their ends in the sodden soil on either side of the road. I've seen the Redding do this before, but not in broad daylight, actively moving, or in the absence of any living creature connected to its web. I think it might be hunting for one.
The tip of it bulges, then surges forward. In a dozen more pulses, it will reach the car.
"Back," I say automatically.
Ditzy doesn't need to be told twice. Another g-force turn later, we're headed back up the road we came in along. "Where to?" says Ditzy. Her hands grip the steering wheel, knuckles bone-white even against her pale skin.
"Northwest," I say, remembering Ember's map. "And keep away from the river."
"There are two rivers. They fork northwest here. We'll have to cross one."
I don't normally swear, but sometimes there are no other words to express a sentiment. "Try and find a way across it that doesn't look like that, then. Or we head east and take our chances on the Cape."
Even saying it makes my skin crawl with inexplicable dread.
"Can't it corner us better on the Cape?" says Ditzy, saying it before I have to second-guess myself.
"Yes." I grit my teeth and cling to my seat as she swerves around another, smaller Redding-worm probing its way onto the road. "I also really don't trust the ocean right now, and given that I could sense Redding coming up through that murder house's basement, I'm going to take that as a bad sign."
We swing onto a long, empty stretch of road, and Ditzy hits the gas. I'm flung back in my seat. The impact makes the patch at the base of my neck ache dully, and my hand touches it of its own accord. I'm self-monitoring for symptoms almost constantly now. Every skip and blur at the edge of my vision sets my heart pounding, even though I've had some four hours of sleep in the last forty-three, and seen two bodies within that timespan. My brain feels simultaneously electrified and stuffed with wool. I touch the patch again. Ditzy shoots me a worried glance.
"Still good, I think," I say. My voice comes out hoarse. Is that a symptom?
Her eyes dart downward, then sharply away. I look down, too. Aside from not wearing a shirt, I still look healthy. No additional red patches. Not that I've done a proper full-body check since before we left Chesnet.
"The river's ahead," says Ditzy.
The road is still clear. In the distance is a bridge, thus far free of barricades. Something about that makes my skin crawl, too, but Ditzy hasn't slowed. She grips the wheel tighter and applies more pressure to the gas pedal as the speedometer creeps up past 120 km/h, then 130, then 140. The bridge hurtles towards us. We can't do this. Something in me cries out to slow, to stop, to turn around. But Ditzy's been possessed by our escape, and she knows this area better than I do.
The bridge is still clear.
"Stop!" screams Patrick from the back seat. "Stop!"
It's too late. We hit the bride's upswing and crest it so fast, my stomach goes airborne. There at the top, frozen like a freeze-frame, I see the river.
It's red. It's boiled up just beneath us, as a swell larger than our vehicle races to intercept us at the end of the bridge. Patrick screams. So do I. Ditzy's foot slams the gas pedal, and the car's roar becomes a shriek for all of a moment as we shoot off the bridge, the red wave slams into the tail of the car, and we're sent careening uncontrollably down the road. The vehicle pinwheels. I'm crushed to the wall. A bang like a point-blank gunshot shakes the whole vehicle.
Ditzy, by some miracle, retains her grip on the steering wheel. She fights it like a bucking bronco as the trees and road outside spin crazily past my window. Our donuts slow. The moment friction and gravity get a hold of the car, it skids to a stop in the middle of the road, fifty meters from the river. Smoke rises from the tires.
Ditzy turns the key, but it just clicks. She swears.
"Get out," she snaps, and kicks open the door. We tumble from the vehicle. Redding smears our tire-tracks and drips out from under the car. It got in.
I feel the presence from the river before I look back. Sliding towards us up the road is a solid sheet of Redding, like a river in flood, only much, much faster. "Run!" I shout. "Get to higher ground!"
We abandon our bags and sprint up the road. There's a hill ahead, but we won't make it. Even if we do, this stuff can move where and how and how fast it wants.
"Fuck off!" I scream behind me. My vision blurs. For a moment, the Redding and everything else seems to slow. A hand grabs my arm. In a moment, I'm caught between Calico J and Ditzy, who hold me up as we reach the hill and scramble up its side like wild animals, grabbing trees and scrabbling on all fours when we fall. The ground's slope isn't as steep as it looked from a distance, but it's steeper than the road. We're only halfway up when I hear the Redding hit the trees behind us. It's a crash of leaf litter like a thousand pounding footsteps, the crack and snap of twigs, the rumble of the earth as the flood bears down.
"Tree!" screams Ditzy, the moment before my foot catches a root, and I hit the ground hard.
Someone skids to a halt beside me. They need to keep running. That's the only thought I have before I hear Patrick scream, "Back off! Leave us alone! Leave us alone!"
The twig-snapping hurtles past on either side. At any moment, the flood will crash over my back and finish what a river once started. But it doesn't. I roll onto my side just in time to see Patrick grab a stick and hurl it back the way we came, then a rock. Tears pour down his face. "Fuck off!" he screams. "Don't touch her! You can't touch them! Leave us alone!"
I'm scared to look. Just ahead, Ditzy and Calico J have frozen mid-getaway, trapped between fleeing and leaving us behind. Both their gazes are locked behind us, struck speechless by whatever they see. I finally turn.
The Redding is gathered into a swell as high as my shoulder, poised beneath the trees. It shivers as Patrick stamps his feet. He throws another rock, and the wave draws back. I can't process this anymore. Patrick is still screaming, but the words stop making sense as I watch the entity that has put the world to sleep, infiltrated countless waterways, busted our car, and killed more people than I can count pull away from the assault like a wall of bloody jello. It tries to move forward again, but flinches when another stick hits it.
Hands grab my arms again. Calico J drags me to my feet and up the slope.
"Patrick—" I manage.
"He's fine; he's got it. Move."
I find my feet and stumble with him up the hill. A glance behind me reveals that Patrick is backing up after us, still holding the Redding at bay. At this rate, we can reach the hilltop. It won't be enough to escape, but it's better than nothing, and it gives us higher ground. If this stuff listens to Patrick, that might be all we need to survive.
It's not until I look around for Ditzy that I realize why Calico J is helping me on his own.
Ditzy hasn't moved from where she stood a moment ago. She's not poised anymore. Just standing, arms at her sides and flail hanging limply, watching the Redding with an expression I can't read. Time seems to slow. Calico J shouts something to one or both of the others, but neither responds. A single tear slides down Ditzy's face. Her hand tightens around her flail handle, and she begins to walk back down the hill.
She's gone mad. She's always been eccentric, but this isn't eccentricity. Maybe it isn't madness, either. This is whatever she's carried under that valley-girl mask ever since we first met. Her footsteps quicken. She breaks into a run, lifting her flail like Joan of Arc reincarnated and handed a different weapon as something like pure pain rips her pretty face.
Patrick is stumbling. Panicking. The Redding lunges every time he looks away, and only retreats when he shouts or throws something. Ditzy barrels straight past him. Her flail carves an arc through the air, and I see that scene like it's frozen, too. The hottest girl I've ever met standing against an enemy a thousand times her size, her weapon and the tears streaming down her face both glistening brighter than the Redding in the first rays of dawn.
This is Ditzy taking back whatever the Redding took from her. Or maybe it goes back farther than that. Maybe Ditzy's whole apocalypse persona has been reclaiming something. This is the girl who brought a chair down on her Sleeper-mother's skull without a trace of remorse. I've never seen or heard her flinch when she talks about her family, even as Calico J and I come close to tears at the mere thought of ours. I still miss mine so much, my chest aches. It's aching now, picking up on something I don't have words to name, as I watch Ditzy throw herself into a fight she can't possibly win.
She whips her weapon around again. It tears into the wave with another swing that bloodies her flail and sends an arc of Redding flying. Patrick flings another rock. He's not backing down, either. Calico J says something to me. I don't process it the first time, so he repeats, fear and helplessness written into every part of his expression.
"Do we help them?"
I don't know the answer to that. I want nothing more than for someone to swoop in and answer for me, but no one's going to do that. No one ever has. Even my companions have always deferred to me on matters of survival, called me their leader, and only made important decisions by consensus or under duress when I back down. There are exceptions, but this is not one of them.
I could help. I could throw a rock. Pretty accurately, too. I could stamp and scream like I'm driving off a black bear. Grab a stick—I lost my hockey stick somewhere in the forest, but there are plenty around—and swing like Ditzy. I don't know if it will do anything. But I could help.
I don't move in time. Neither does Calico J; he's waiting on my evaluation of the danger. Before I can open my mouth to give it, several things happen at once. Patrick flings a final stone and collapses. Ditzy sees it, and falls back momentarily. It's all the opening the Redding needs. In a flash, it gathers itself and surges forward to swallow her whole.