Oz lay awake, staring up at the ceiling and listening to York’s stuffy breathing beside him. The stress and adrenaline rush of the past few hours combined to keep him wide awake, though he felt exhausted down to his bones. He tried to force himself to sleep but sleep wouldn’t come. Time ticked by, until the first faint light of dawn crept in through the small barred window at the top of one wall. With a sigh, Oz swung his feet out of bed and got up, thinking he could have a look around in the morning light.
He left the bedroom quietly so he wouldn’t wake Sarah when he passed her, but the couch-bed was empty. Feeling uneasy, he glanced at the shelf where she’d hung her dress to dry and saw it had been replaced by the sweatpants and T-shirt York had given her to sleep in. He went upstairs to get a drink and to see if she was awake, and found the kitchen empty but the front door hanging slightly open. A bitter smell had crept into the kitchen and he wondered if a skunk had wandered by during the night. Waving a hand in front of his nose, he went to the front door and looked outside.
Sarah was sliding into the driver’s seat of the Jeep, the keys in one hand and one of York’s grandfather’s hunting rifles in the other. Swearing under his breath, Oz bolted down the steps and grabbed her arm, yanking her halfway out of the car. She glared at him and tried to bring the rifle to bear on him, but it got tangled in the seatbelt.
“Let go, or I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you,” she snarled.
“You are not stealing our car, you lying bitch,” Oz snapped back, catching her in the chin with the heel of his hand and slamming her head back. She grunted and pulled on the gun, almost freeing it from the tangles of the seatbelt. Starting to panic that she might get it free, Oz grabbed her by the front of her dress and by her long hair, and hauled her out of the car.
She dropped the keys but kept her grip on the gun, and as she tumbled out of the Jeep, the gun came free of the seatbelt. Oz scrambled back, then froze as she got to her feet and aimed the rifle unwaveringly at his head. Sudden vicious hatred flared through him and he took a lunging step towards her, meaning to make a last-ditch effort to tackle her. He saw her eyes narrow, then she pulled the trigger.
Heat flashed through him and he hazily wondered if it meant he’d gone straight to hell. Screaming jolted him out of his confusion and he opened his eyes to see that Sarah was on fire, flames licking at her dress and long hair. She flung the gun away and threw herself on the ground, rolling and beating at her body to try and put out the fire. Oz gaped at the sight, then turned and ran for the kitchen, passing a sleepy York on the way. He snatched the fire extinguisher off the wall and ran back outside to spray Sarah.
The flames were strangely resistant and by the time they finally went out, Sarah had stopped screaming. Holding his breath against the smell of charred and smoking flesh, Oz cautiously approached her body. The sight of her eyes opening in her burnt face nearly made him scream, but her gaze was unfocused and a moment later went blank. He tried to force himself to check and make sure she was really dead, but he couldn’t bring himself to reach down and touch her.
“Oz.” York’s voice snapped him out of his horrified daze and he looked up, realizing there were people in the shadows under the trees. They didn’t stray out into the light but he still paused only long enough to scoop up the car keys before running for the house. He caught York around the waist on the way by and hauled him bodily back inside, kicking the door shut behind them and locking it.
“Basement, now,” he said, interrupting York’s demand to know what was going on. To his relief York shut his mouth and went back down into the basement.
“Is she dead?” he asked quietly, once Oz had shut and locked the basement door. In the gloom his eyes were wide and white.
“Yeah. Dammit, I should’ve grabbed the gun too.” Oz ran both hands through his hair, making it stand up in tufts, and thought of the flash of heat that had gone through him. “I don’t know what happened. I went out and she was trying to steal the car, then she tried to shoot me, and then she was on fire.”
“Spontaneous combustion?” York asked uncertainly.
“Maybe it was your aliens,” Oz snapped, and immediately regretted it. “I'm sorry. I'm rattled.”
“Forget about it.” York stepped forward and pulled him into a hug, resting his chin on the top of Oz’s head.
Oz leaned against him for a few moments, grateful for the comfort, then nuzzled his neck and pulled back. “We have to get moving.”
“What? Why?” The look York gave him was almost reproachful.
“Because something is seriously wrong and we can’t spend forever hiding out in your grandparents’ basement in the country. We need to find out what’s going on. We’ll go…” Oz hesitated slightly, thinking, then continued, “Ottawa. We’ll go to Ottawa and make the PM actually do his job.”
He saw the hesitation and uncertainty on York’s face and turned him bodily around, pushing him towards the back bedroom. After a moment York went forward under his own momentum and Oz let him go, briefly watching him start packing clothing and toiletries before jogging back up the basement stairs. He paused at the closed door and listened intently, then cautiously let himself out into the empty kitchen. A band of sunlight lay across the kitchen table but it was weak and pale.
He gathered up the cloth shopping bags from the hook on the inside of the pantry door and started filling them with cans and jars of food. He added a loaf of bread and the can opener, then set the bags by the door and went to the fridge to add a case of water and a carry-pack of Sprite to the pile. After a few moments of thought, he also grabbed a couple of long knives from the drawer and a bunch of dish towels to wrap them in.
Oz contemplated the pile for a minute then glanced out the window at the front yard, avoiding looking directly at Sarah’s charred corpse and squinting at the shadows under the trees instead. He could see vague flashes of colour—red, blue, purple, white—against the greens and browns of the woods. A shiver went down his spine and he turned away from the window, double-checking to make sure the front door was locked before he went back downstairs to see how York was making out.
York met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a duffel bag in one hand and a hiking backpack slung over his other shoulder. Oz took the duffel bag and led the way back upstairs, dumping it beside the little pile beside the back door.
“Anything else we might need?” he asked, purposely keeping his back to the window that looked out over the front yard.
“If the power's still off, I don't think we'll be able to get gas. Papa might have left some out in the shed.” York chewed on his bottom lip. “The other hunting rifles are probably out there too.”
“Wait here.” Oz unlocked the front door and eased it open, stepping out onto the porch when nothing leaped out at him. “I want to grab this rifle first.”
“You don't need to act like a hard-ass, Oz,” York called after him.
“Sure I do,” Oz muttered. He glanced at the shifting colours under the trees then hurried across the dying grass towards the rifle. The sickly-sweet stench of charred flesh and hair filled his nose and he fought the urge to sneeze. Crouching down, he snatched up the rifle and nearly ran back to the porch.
“My hero,” York said, laughing a little. Oz stuck his tongue out and took York's hand so they could walk down to the shed together.
He glanced up at the sky as they walked, watching the clouds gather and drift across the sky. It was growing dark as they covered the sun and he looked nervously at the trees, but the shadows beneath them were empty. He couldn’t help wondering what was wrong with the people who had been lurking there earlier, that they wouldn’t step out into the light. Before he could stop himself, he thought of Sarah’s story about her dog and a violent shiver went through him, making York look at him in concern.
The shed door was padlocked but York felt around on top of the doorframe until he found a key to unlock it. The inside was cool and dark; the windows had been covered with dust and cobwebs, allowing very little of the grey light inside. Wishing they’d thought to bring a flashlight, Oz flicked off the safety on the rifle and took a cautious step into the shed.
His eyes adjusted slowly, showing him that there wasn't much room for anybody to hide in all the clutter; there was barely enough room for Oz to walk to the back, where the guns sat neatly in a homemade rack. He took down the other hunting rifle and handed it to York, then started filling his pockets with small cardboard boxes of bullets from the worktable below the rack. Beside him, York loaded the second rifle with the ease of practice.
Oz turned to go back outside and froze at the sound of a low growl directly over his head. He looked up slowly and felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of the child in the rafters, hanging from one of the beams like a grotesque spider. He couldn't tell if it was male or female; it was skinny and dressed in nondescript rags. Both eyes had been torn out but it was focused on him so intently that he had the uncanny sensation it could see him anyway.
York walked past him then glanced back and followed his gaze up to the ceiling. Oz saw him begin to raise the rifle but the child launched itself at them before he got it further than halfway. It landed on Oz, knocking him flat on his back, and he felt its hot breath on his throat. Grabbing it by the shoulders with panicky tightness, he tried to shove it away, surprised at its wiry strength. It darted its head down and snapped at his neck, missing his skin by centimetres and frightening a choked scream out of him.
He'd dropped the rifle when he fell, but a desperate attempt to reach out for it rewarded him with the feel of cool metal under his fingers. He tightened his grip around the muzzle and brought it up and around in a short, punishing blow against the side of the creature's head. The creature tumbled off him and he heard it wail in a perversion of a normal child's cry of pain. Shuddering with revulsion, Oz scrambled to his feet and bolted from the shed, dragging York with him.
“Get in the car.” He pressed the keys into York's hand and ran to grab their supplies, taking as much as he could carry out to the car and tossing it haphazardly into the back seat. He forced himself to walk back for the rest of their gear, though his walk was stiff-legged and uneven. As he was getting into the passenger seat he thought he saw movement from the open door of the shed and nearly slammed the door shut on his own foot in his scramble to get fully into the vehicle. York put his foot down on the gas as soon as Oz was in, sending the Jeep fishtailing down the driveway and out onto the road.
“We never got the gas,” York said after they'd gone a few miles in silence.
Oz leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed his eyes, fighting nausea. “We'll think about that later.” Still with his eyes closed, he reached out for York's hand and relaxed as York’s fingers laced with his. “We'll get through this.”
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