The Rains

ENTRY 42

It was worse than we thought.

Two nights later, after a grueling journey, Alex, Patrick, and I found ourselves perched in the tree-studded hills above the cannery, gazing down at the compound with shock.

The factory had been repaired using the construction materials stacked around the area. The walls had been built out thicker and a security fence erected. The Hosts progressed with their grisly work on the assembly line, feeding bound children through the hatch in the factory wall to the Queen beyond.

But that wasn’t what was alarming.

What was alarming was the number of Drones patrolling the perimeter. After my raid to free Alex, they must’ve been called in from all over the area.

Or from somewhere else.

With the hunting rifle from the cabin snug in my hands, I crouch-walked backward, vanishing through a screen of foliage. On either side of me, Patrick and Alex eased back as well, melting into the underbrush.

We reconvened in a low clearing by an abandoned backhoe undercutter.

Thump. Squelch.

I’d hoped to take a shooting position at the tree line below, a football field’s distance from the Queen. But there was no way we could penetrate the new perimeter to get me that close. Not without a much bigger plan. We were outnumbered, overpowered, and outgunned. Alex ducked her head into her hands, made fists in her hair, and gave a low growl of frustration.

“With the new fences and the patrols, I’m not even gonna get close,” I said. “We’re looking at a four-hundred-yard shot now.”

“You got a bolt-action Ruger M77 Hawkeye in your hands,” Patrick said. “I’ve seen you hit smaller from farther.”

“Not with Drones patrolling around trying to kill me,” I said.

“We’ll create the diversion once you get off the shot,” he said. “Draw them after us like we talked about. You just get in as near as you can, take her out, and hunker down somewhere to hide out until it’s safe to move.”

We’d gone over the plan a dozen or so times in the past forty-eight hours. From a position much farther away, Patrick and Alex would make a lot of noise in the wake of the gunshot, broadcasting their position immediately while I tried to hide. The Drones would have much more ground to make up to get to them. At a certain point, Patrick and Alex would split, confusing the Drones even more.

Leaning the rifle against my leg, I slipped the nylon loops off my wrists and handed Alex my baling hooks. It felt like letting go of a part of myself.

Just me and the rifle now.

Patrick turned around so Alex could unzip the pack he was wearing and slide my hooks in. My own backpack held only food, water, my journal, and ammo. With all the crawling I had in front of me, it had to cling tight to my back, so I couldn’t take anything bulky.

Patrick pivoted to face us again. “We’ll reconvene at the cabin tomorrow.” He cleared his throat, and I could see in his face that he didn’t think there would be a tomorrow, any more than I did.

We shifted, avoiding eye contact. Before seeing the compound, we’d figured we were probably on a suicide mission. Seeing the number of Drones around the place had removed any doubt. Patrick had his shotgun, Alex the revolver, and of course I had the rifle. We’d never made the vow out loud-we never had to-but we all knew we’d never allow ourselves to be taken alive.

“Sure,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

Thump. Squelch.

Every delay cost another life. The pressure felt like something tangible, smashing in from all sides.

Patrick leaned back, his knees cracking, and hiked the pack higher on his shoulders. Alex stepped beside him.

Here’s where we parted ways. Them in one direction. Me another.

Like always.

Knowing that this was probably the last time we’d see each other, I swallowed back any bitterness. I hugged my brother. There was nothing more to say.

Then Alex reached for me.

Patrick started upslope, giving us a moment of privacy. She put her hands on my face and looked deep into my eyes. My thoughts tumbled, catching me in a white-water swirl. There was so much I wanted to tell her but nothing I could say.

She leaned forward and gave me a kiss at the corner of my lips.

“Good luck, Little Rain,” she said.

“Bye, Blanton.”

Her eyes watered, but she turned quickly away.

I watched as they vanished into the foliage, Alex hurrying to catch up to my brother, her hand swinging to find his. Their part of the mission-making themselves the target of the Drones’ wrath instead of me-was just as scary as mine, but I couldn’t help feel a sliver of envy that they’d be together right up until the end.

Thump. Squelch.

The sound called me to the task at hand. I had to decide on a shooting location. Closing my eyes, I exhaled, scattering all thoughts of Alex and my brother to the wind. In my mind’s eye, I scanned the terrain between me and the cannery, terrain I’d forged across last time when I’d gone to get Alex. I picked my spot. And my hiding place.

When I opened my eyes, I was ready.

Bellying down in the earth, moving the rifle ahead of me, I crawled through the weeds. I angled toward the muddy ruts beside the storage warehouse where the bulldozer had been parked.

I forced myself to take it slow. I was hunting now. A hunter in a hurry never brought home a deer. I tried to make myself invisible. Just another piece of the land.

The terrain opened up, a break in the trees exposing me to the midday sun and any eyeless faces below. I moved in bursts, crawling a few feet, then pausing, breathing hard. My face pressed to the dirt, I’d strain my ears. If I heard nothing above the breeze, I’d continue. It was brutally slow going. Every ten feet or so, I’d risk a peek to make sure I was staying on course.

Thump. Squelch.

Somewhere on the hillside up above, Patrick and Alex were in position waiting.

And somewhere down below, kids were being killed.

The gravel pile remained ahead, though it was only half the height it had been before. The Drones must have made use of the gravel in their construction or repairs. The sun inched its way up, baking down on me. My clothes felt itchy. The start of a sunburn tingled across the nape of my neck. The backpack straps chafed my shoulders.

It took me two hours to come into range of the storage warehouse, but at last I was safely behind the gravel.

I gave myself a minute to stretch my aching limbs, then peered around the edge.

The Queen was in her position at the end of the assembly line. Her squirming stinger rose, then plummeted into the midsection of the girl secured before her. Though a variation of this scene had been playing through my head on a near-continuous loop for day and nightmare-riddled night, it felt as fresh as a cut. My chest cramped, and I had to concentrate to slow my breathing. It wasn’t a sight you could get used to.

Nor was the sight on the foundation.

Countless floating slabs of sheet metal, each supporting a kid’s deadweight, now covered the majority of the vast concrete plain. The closer kids, those who’d been more recently implanted with offspring, looked like the ones I’d seen last time I was here. Their stomach and lower chest areas were swollen, the humps ranging in size.

But the kids at the farthest reaches of the foundation, those who’d first been turned into cocoons, were no longer recognizable as humans. The entire front sides of their bodies ballooned upward, in some cases even higher than the kids were tall. Their clothes had ripped, their skin stretching to conceal whatever was growing inside them. Broken ribs floated beneath the skin, visible like sticks pushed through latex. Worst of all, their flesh pulsed erratically.

As if ready to hatch.

Thump. Squelch.

From where I lay, the Queen was at least six hundred yards away, too far for me and the Hawkeye.

I had to move fast. And yet that was the one thing I could not risk doing.

Ignoring the sounds rising to me, I continued crawling cautiously down and across the hillside. Progress was slow, but I was able to pick up the pace a little as the trees thickened.

At long last I reached the giant hollowed-out tree where I’d stashed my backpack last time.

Thump. Squelch.

I passed it. The earth swelled into a knoll between two trees and then dropped sharply away, providing a clean line of sight down to the Queen below.

I took my position at the top of the rise, setting the rifle in front of me and fishing two extra rounds from the backpack. I placed the bullets on end on a flat rock. If I missed with the first shot, I’d be lucky to get off a second. There’d be no way I’d have enough time to fire a third, but I wanted the bullet right there within reach as a comfort.

Then I set my eye to the scope.

Thump.

The Queen’s faceless helmet loomed into view. It dipped forward with a plunge-Squelch-then leaned back again, filling the crosshairs.

It took all my control not to rush off a shot.

Reading the wind and my distance, I forced myself to account for drift and holdover. My elbows sank into wet moss. Sweat stung my eyes, and I blinked them clear, arming it off my forehead.

Thump. Squelch.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the kid floating off across the plain to join the others.

I set my eye to the scope. Closed my other eye. Flicked off the safety.

Thump.

The shiny black mask dipped forward out of sight.

Squelch.

I didn’t dare move my lips now, but the words cycled through my heart, my brain: I’m sorry.

I eased out a breath through my teeth. Took the slack out of the trigger. Moisture from the moss seeped through my shirt at the elbows.

The seconds stretched out.

The Queen’s head reared back up, filling my scope, the world.

I fired.

The bullet rifled past her head.

She paused, looked to her side. Her mask held no expression, but her body language conveyed puzzlement.

Forcing myself steady, I worked the bolt, the empty cartridge ejecting with a faint pop. As I reached for the flat stone, my hand nudged the nearest round, knocking it into the one beside it. The first bullet tumbled off the knoll, ping-ponging down the slope ahead. The other spun at the very edge of the rock, each turn rotating the end out over the open air.

I plucked it up.

Thumbed it into the chamber.

Worked the bolt.

Eye to scope.

The Queen was still reeled back, gazing to her side, that unreadable mask giving up nothing more than a slight air of confusion.

She swung her head back and looked, it seemed, directly at me.

Her head cocked to one side.

I put a bullet through the mask.

Her head jerked back, a stream of black smoke hissing through the bullet hole. Her knees went wobbly, and she seemed to deflate as if punctured. The rush of expelled air grew stronger, pressure blowing out the chink in her mask, shards flying. The hiss turned to a scream. It seemed her whole being was shooting through the widening hole in her helmet. It reached whale-spout velocity, and then, all at once, it stopped.

She crumpled to the ground, limp.

From way up above me and a good distance around the rim of the valley came the sound of a construction truck’s engine turning over, then roaring to life. A thunderous crash followed almost immediately, several treetops shuddering conspicuously.

Patrick and Alex, purposefully botching their “getaway.”

I turned my gaze back to the factory. All around the assembly line, the Hosts stopped their work and stood in place, as if awaiting orders. On the foundation the young floating bodies looked even more ready to hatch, if that were possible. Stretch marks fissured their flesh, widening even as I watched.

Crashing sounds drew my focus to the bigger scene. From every direction the Drones bounded toward the Queen, a swarm of bees narrowing to enter a hive. More and more black space suits leached into view from the surrounding landscape, drawn to their dead leader. In their quest to reach her, they took giant leaps, smashing through fences, bushes, and even Hosts, destroying everything in their paths.

They formed a protective mass around her. Those at the perimeter faced outward, their helmets pointing at the hillside, masks aglow with blueprint-like renderings.

Assessing the hillsides.

I had forgotten to breathe, but seeing those black helmets aimed in my direction got me moving.

Jerking back from the edge of the knoll, I slid on my stomach across the sleek moss, bringing the rifle with me. I scrambled for the dark mouth of the hollowed-out tree, then crawled inside, brushing away spiderwebs, shoving the backpack and rifle ahead of me. The ancient tree was several yards across. The moist air of the tree’s core clung to my skin, the sound of my ragged breaths echoing up the shaft through the darkness.

I leaned against the inner wall, not even caring if I was squashing bugs beneath my back, and tried to calm myself down. Aside from the fall of light from the narrow hole I’d squeezed through, the heart of the tree was pitch-black. The darkness cooled the sweat on my face.

I thought about how the Queen had crumpled to the dirt, dead. All the kids she’d never hurt now. The master plan would go on, that seemed certain, but we’d managed to throw a wrench into the works. For that I allowed myself a flicker of pride.

My brother and Alex were high in the woods above me, running for their lives, and I took a moment to send all my hope to them across the distance.

I also said good-bye.

No matter what happened to us now, we’d done it. We’d killed the Queen, fired the first shot in the revolution. Maybe after we were gone, that would inspire other kids to take other measures.

I inhaled deeply and held my breath, listening for any sounds from outside.

A furious insectoid screeching carried up the hillside.

It compounded, rolling across the valley in stereo. I’d never heard such rage. Or such menace. I was glad to be hidden here inside the dark core of the giant tree.

Moving of its own volition, my hand dug in the backpack for another round. I wanted the rifle loaded in case they closed in on me. If I had to take myself out, I’d be ready.

Another series of screeches split the air, and I started, the round slipping through my sweaty fingers. Setting the rifle aside, I leaned forward, groping around in the dirt.

Across from me something glowed bluish white in the darkness.

A mask.

Belonging to a space-suit helmet just like those worn by the Drones.

An arm sheathed with metal flew out at me, a hand clamping over my mouth before I could scream.