It takes only minutes for us to bound down the hillside again. I hate being back at Redding level. I don't know if its words are still echoing in my head, or whether I'm more attuned to the whole entity now, but I can still feel it. That hatred and hollowness are all around us, saturating the soil, creeping through the grass, curdling in the river. I can feel it watching us.
Patrick grabs my arm. "There. Coming around the hill."
The Sleepwalker isn't in view yet. "Which way's it going?"
"Right now? Towards..." He scrunches up his nose, focusing on something that is neither sight nor sound. "Not us. Towards the river, I think."
That's what I hoped he wouldn't say.
"Follow it," I say. "We need to confirm."
Patrick leads the way nervously through the forest. He's so jumpy, I eventually take the lead and let him direct me until we're close enough that I can also feel Psy's signature. It's concentrated, like the river. Dense, almost, as if there's more Redding packed into Psy's body than into a similar volume of grass or soil. That supports Ditzy's hypothesis that he's being controlled. Or that his corpse is, rather. I need to stop thinking of this thing as Psy.
We reach the road within minutes. Psy's signature is very close now. Close enough to buzz uncomfortably against my consciousness, a black hole of hunger and anger and intentionality. He moves with the same deliberate slowness as he emerges from the trees. Here he... it. Here the Sleepwalker that is no longer Psy pauses for a moment, like its internal GPS has found a faster route and needs a moment to recalibrate. It orients towards the river.
We follow from just inside the forest's cover. We're making enough noise that we're not actually hiding, and the Redding already knows where we are. But it helps maintain a feeling of control. The Sleepwalker approaches the bridge where the Redding attacked us. Our car is still here. It looks smaller than it once did, isolated in the middle of the road. Just a lifeless shell of metal.
Ditzy's hand brushes my shoulder. "Should we get our bags?" she whispers.
"If we get close enough and it doesn't attack again, yeah."
She nods acknowledgement. When I look back, the Sleepwalker has disappeared.
"Down the bank," says Patrick.
"Come on."
We break cover and sprint up the road. The Redding pulses at the edge of my senses, but it doesn't lunge for us again. Like it knows lunging won't do anything. We skid to a stop above the bank just in time to see the Sleepwalker wade up its waist in the blood-red river. The water's too deep. It won't make it across like this... but that's not the point. We can only watch in dismay as the Sleepwalker continues forward until the water swallows it completely. It does not emerge on the river's other side.
The car is fifty meters back, and the road is clear of Redding. I pull us all away from the river. "Let's get our bags."
Our stuff, when we reach it, is mercifully undamaged. I dig a new shirt from my bag and give Calico J his sweater back, then check that my phone is still alive. Small blessings. Ditzy tries to start the car again, but it's well and truly dead. That means we have neither a vehicle nor shelter, and a lot more questions than answers as the Redding moves into what may well be its final phase. We need backup.
"We need to go back," I say. "To the murder house."
My friends recoil.
"They have a vehicle," I say. "And supplies—more than we have left, if they're not contaminated. But Oreo was also working on something. I never got to ask, but Ember mentioned it twice—something about crackpot eldritch theories. I think he was theorizing where this stuff comes from."
"Conspiracy theories?" says Ditzy with a raised eyebrow.
"He was a scientist. He and another ex-member were the ones who figured out why Chesnet was dangerous. So he might be onto something."
"They're just going to try and kill us again," says Calico J.
"We can break and enter," says Ditzy helpfully.
"It's too dangerous," says Patrick.
"Only if they're still alive."
Everyone falls silent when I say it. "We don't have to approach them directly," I continue. "We can sneak around and see if there's anyone left. They're losing members fast, and if the Sleepers are evolving..."
"The Redding might be coming for survivors," says Calico J, finishing my thought. "Like it just came for us."
"It was coming in through their basement when we left. They'll have evacuated if they're smart, or it might have gotten them. Either way, the house could well be empty."
"And if it's not?"
"I might be able to convince Ember to work with us." It's a slim chance after our dramatic exit, but I don't think it's a hopeless one. Ember asked us to join the Anport Rescues so she and Oreo would have more competent people on their side. If we've figured out why we're immune to the Redding, I can prove we're not cursed. That's the biggest bargaining chip we have.
"And if they try to kill us," says Ditzy, "we grab their vehicle and run?"
"It'd be faster to get one from somewhere else," says Patrick.
"It's not about the vehicle," says Calico J, and I shoot him a look of thanks. "If they have theories on what the Redding might be, we need to try. Especially if it's evolving."
We have no way out except forward.
Veins of Redding still carpet the road back to the Anport murder house, but they too don't bother us. We approach the house from the forest this time. Moving alone feels dangerous, so we break into pairs, ready to bolt into the trees if the Anport Rescues come for us. Patrick and Calico J keep watch by the driveway. Ditzy and I approach the house itself. It's eerily still. My phone reads twelve-thirty, but the van is still parked outside, despite Ember telling me the group sends people into town every day to forage. All but one of the windows is dark. I'm almost certain that's the office.
"Should I go investigate?" murmurs Ditzy.
She went all-out for this stealth mission, donning already-dirty clothes and decking out in mud, leaves, and other forest detritus. There's even a leafy twig thrust into her tied-up hair. That won't give her any camouflage if she sneaks across the lawn, but at least she's graceful.
"Just be careful."
She nods and slips away. I take the moment to scout the forest for tracks. I'm trying to find the ones where Psy left and returned again, though there's a good chance the rain erased them. What I find instead makes my blood run cold. Footprints. Lots of them, so recent, the grass blades they crushed have only just begun to bruise. They all move the same direction, and they all left at the same time. They all drag. I count the trails and then crouch beside them, waiting for Ditzy to return.
She does so at a fast sneak. "Ember's in there."
"Alive?"
"I think so."
"Alone?"
"She's the only one I saw."
Hope surges through me. I like Ember. And if there's one person in the whole world right now that I would even think of adding to our group, it's her.
"What did you find?" says Ditzy.
I just point to the ground.
Her eyes widen when she sees the footprints. "Are those recent?"
"Half an hour."
"How many?"
"Ten."
She does the mental math in the blink of an eye. "So it's just Ember and one other left."
The group was sixteen when we first heard from them. Vix made fifteen, Psy fourteen, the guy he attacked thirteen, the one who jumped out the window during role call twelve. "Yeah. Two left."
"Are we going in, then?"
So help me, she's smiling. I'm pretty sure it's not a mask. Ditzy genuinely wants to break and enter the Anport murder house, and her eyes have gone bright with the promise of adventure. I'm not sure the two of us are enough to take on Ember if things turn sour—I've only got a knife on me—but then again, if she's locked herself in her office, a softer approach might be all we need.
"Yeah," I say. "But let me do the talking. Please?"
"Can I raid their weapons storage?"
"How do you—you know what, I don't want to know. Be my guest. But only after we talk to Ember."
"Deal."
We approach the house together. It's got a back door, much closer to the office than the front one, and just as decrepit. The back steps, meanwhile, are concrete. They don't creak and give us away until we open the door, which lets out a sound like a peacock being trampled by a herd of terrestrial dolphins. Someone leaps up beyond the wall to my right. We're right beside the office.
This will probably go better the sooner we announce ourselves, so I lift a cautious hand and knock on the office door. "Ember? It's us."
There's a long silence. I'm about to question whether she heard us when her voice rings harsh and shaking from the other side of the wall. "What the fuck do you want?"
"Your help. We figured out why we're immune, but we're trying to solve what this thing is. You said you had other theories. Well, that Oreo did."
"Tell me why you're immune, and then maybe I'll believe you."
"We've all almost drowned."
Silence again. Long silence. There's a sober look on Ditzy's face, and it takes me a thought chain the length of Chesnet to figure out why.
Almost drowned.
Ember's still alive.
The lock clicks. I edge back as the door swings open, revealing Ember framed by the light of the office and the windows beyond. She has her club in hand, but it's lowered. The room behind her reeks of Redding.
"You, too?" says Ditzy quietly.
"Shipwreck." Ember's voice is rough, and I realize she's probably exhausted. "The tug I was working on when this all started ran aground when the crew dropped. Got trapped in the engine room by another body."
She did say she was a mechanical engineer. I never asked further, but we're hours from the ocean here, and Ember was the first to meet up with Oreo as he moved inland off Cape Morgan. If she worked on tugboats, she was probably right by the coast.
"White-water accident for me," I say with a weak smile. Ditzy says nothing. Ember glances at her and seems to guess it's something that doesn't bear disclosing.
"How did you figure it out?" she says.
"A close call and a lot of brainstorming. Some of us can control the Redding, though. The red stuff. The two of us who had our incidents most recent—"
My brain grinds to a halt. Most recently. Ember had her incident on Red Thursday. That's earlier than Patrick, but much, much later than me.
"Do you have them, too?" I say. For the first time since arguing with Oreo, the heat of anger stirs in my gut. "And you told us we needed to be screened. You were about to kill me."
Rather than answer, Ember lifts a hand. Ditzy and I both grip our weapons, but she just turns one arm over in the light from the doorway. Mechanical engineer nothing: she could crush rocks with those biceps. But that's just a distraction. She's dark—darker than Calico J—and it takes me a good, hard look to even spot the faint darker patches that pattern her arm. She's got sleeves of them. She gives us a mirthless smile. "There's a reason we keep the lights low in the room for Role Call."
"Did Oreo know?"
"Yes. And that I was a unique case. And I don't need to tell you why we reacted the way we did when you failed your screening."
She's right. She and Oreo have been responsible for a group that once had as many as twenty-seven members, and they've been contending with the horrors of everything from starvation to serial killers to Sleepwalkers since shortly after Red Thursday. They had every right to enforce that protocol.
There's a question burning on the tip of my tongue, and I don't know if this is the time to ask it. But with only ten sets of footprints leading away from the house towards the river, I need to know. "Did Oreo..."
I can't finish. But Ember knows what I mean, I think. And she swings the door open the rest of the way.
Like this chapter if you're glad Ember's alive
Comment how you feel about Oreo. I'm curious!