Chapter Twenty-Two:

Maybe This Time You Were Wrong

"So then Ashley showed up because she had another one of those dreams—this time everyone died. We figured we had to warn them and—"

"And I think I know the rest," Melinda said tiredly, waving a hand vaguely. She rubbed her eyes. Outside, the world was beginning to lighten. It had taken Matt hours to catch her up, what with the number of questions she had. She sighed. Her violent grief, coupled with her injuries and lack of sleep, had left her utterly wiped out. "I'm sorry, Matt. Thank you for telling me all of this. I'm sorry I didn't listen before."

He shrugged. "I don't blame you. If someone else had told me all this, I don't know if I would have believed them. I was lucky enough to have my Grandma believe me. Most of the others weren't that lucky. I don't think Em—Emily—even tried to tell her parents. She knew they'd just think she was nuts and lock her up."

"Still. You all deserved better than this. So this was Sam's plan from the beginning. I wish she'd told—" Melinda broke off. That was an unfair statement and she knew it. If Sam had told her the truth about why she wanted to come up here, Melinda would have been even quicker to shut her down. She didn't even want to think of what Bob would have said to Sam about it. "This thing that's happening to Josh… is it… is it permanent?" It was hard to get the words out around the lump in her throat.

Matt frowned. "I don't really know. Ashley mentioned something about a cure, but I don't know exactly—"

A soft knock sounded at the door, then it cracked open. Ashley stuck her head around it, looking anxious. "I'm… um… I don't mean to interrupt, but this sounded like my cue, so…" She came in and shut the door again. "Can I—can I sit?"

Bewildered, Melinda gestured to the open floor beside them and Ashley took a seat. "Were you listening?"

"Yeah, I mean, um… Sorry?" God, the girl looked like she was afraid Melinda was going to bite her head up. She tried to smile, but couldn't seem to get her face to cooperate. "I wasn't trying to eavesdrop. I just woke up and you weren't on the couch and then I heard you guys talking… I didn't want to interrupt, so I just sat outside the door, but then Matt mentioned a cure, so—"

"It's fine. I would assume nothing Matt said was really a surprise. You were there too, after all."

The redhead swallowed hard and nodded. "Um, yeah. Okay, so, look. I haven't really had a chance to talk to Sam or anyone about this in a lot of detail, but I had Flamethrower Guy's journal and he talked about a cure. It's kind of hard to figure out exactly what he meant—he wrote in code a lot and a bunch of the pages were destroyed or illegible."

"Flamethrower Guy?"

Matt laughed. "They didn't get his name, I guess. I never met the guy, myself."

"Jack Fiddler?" Melinda offered.

"Yeah!" Ashley nodded, rocking back and forth eagerly. "Yeah, that's right. I keep forgetting that was his name. We got so used to the other nickname. Anyway, yeah. He talked a lot about a cure that he was told about but never able to try. I'm not sure how he found out about it. He didn't really write about personal stuff."

Melinda's heart seemed lodged in her throat. In the space of a few hours, her life had become something out of a nightmare or one of Bob's stupid movies. She couldn't complain, of course. The children had been living this horror for far longer than she had. She nodded sharply. "Okay. What did it say?"

"Basically, it says that blood calls to blood. He wasn't sure exactly what that meant—or if he was, he didn't write it down—but he said that if he cut a wendigo and got through its skin, its blood would, like, jump? He wrote that it was like magnets. If there was another wendigo nearby, the blood would be drawn to them. Like it was all part of some big whole that wanted to get reunited with itself. He thought that maybe living human relatives could sort of draw the human part of the wendigos out of them, while another wendigo or wendigo blood could draw out the wendigo bit."

"Like some kind of magical plasmapheresis?"

"Exactly. Or, well, I think so. That's what it sounded like." The girl lapsed into silence, shooting a nervous, hopeful look at Matt.

"So you need me," Melinda said finally.

The redhead hesitated, then nodded and shrugged simultaneously. "I think so. Human relative, right? And he seemed to think that maybe the closer the family member, the better? I'm not sure exactly."

"We need to go back up to the lodge, then."

The kids exchanged a look, then Matt cleared his throat and raised his hand. "No offense meant, Mrs. Washington, but I'm not sure… I think you need to see a doctor."

"I'm fine."

"No, you aren't. I get it. Trust me, I get it. Power through, right? Leave no man behind, etcetera. I know you want to go rushing off after Josh, but that thing I told you about is still out there too. And you can't move very fast and you might even have internal bleeding." She hated the look of pity on his face almost as much as she hated the fact that he was right. "Just get checked out. Then you can come back. We'll keep him alive until then. I promise."

Another wave of grief crashed over her. How had it come to this? She looked to Ashley and saw her nod, face a picture of sympathy and understanding. "He's right, Mrs. Washington. I'm sorry. But we should really try to get you to a doctor or something."

She took a deep breath, trying to stomach the thought. Wasn't this just abandoning Josh all over again? She was leaving him alone and, worse, this time she knew what she was doing. She remembered entrusting him to the staff at the care facility in their clean, pale blue uniforms and wondering if she would ever see him again. Returning home, she had sat alone in the garage, holding the box cutter with its red plastic casing and trying to figure out what she'd missed. There was some piece she hadn't picked up on, some piece that still didn't fit quite right in her mind. And now she was leaving him again, trusting him to children who were practically strangers.

After another breath, she clenched her jaw and jerked her head in an approximation of a nod. "Fine." She began to shove herself to her feet, biting back any sound of pain. "Then we'll go now. Get my phone."

"Are you sure you want to—"

"Now," she snapped. "Every second I delay is another second before I can come back up here. Ashley, get my phone. It should be on the sofa. Wake the others if they're still asleep. We need to get everyone on the same page."

Ashley vanished for a moment before returning with the phone. "I… um… I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but did everyone notice that Sam and Mike are gone? Was I the only one who missed that memo? I really hope so. I really, really hope so."

"Yes," Melinda pursed her lips and took the phone. "They were gone when I woke up. I'm not sure where they went."

"My money would be on back up the mountain." Matt stood, stretching. He rolled his eyes, but his slight smile was affectionate. "It's Mike. And Sam. There was no way they were going to just leave the mountain. Not while Josh is still up here. Big ole heroes, right? Not even a little common sense."

"That is not particularly reassuring." There were two missed calls on her phone. One from Bob, which she ignored. The other was from Hank, only a few hours ago. Right around the time Josh showed up. She vaguely remembered that she had been trying to call Hank when she saw her son. Quickly she dialed again. The first ring didn't even have a chance to end before he answered.

"Mel? Mel, are you okay? You called but when I answered, there was just fuzz."

The sound of his concern made her want to weep all over again, but she swallowed the desire. "No, I'm not. Hank, I need you to come get me. I'm at… was there an old outpost station about a day's hike from the lodge?"

"Yeah. Hasn't been used in years."

"I'm there. Can you get me here? Or is there somewhere nearby I can go?"

Hank's voice was layered with worry. "Mel, what happened?"

"It's—it's a long story." She tried to think of what she could tell him now. What did he need to know? Ultimately, she decided to keep it simple. "The cable car collapsed and—"

"Holy shit!"

"Well said. The cable car collapsed, I found all the kids, and Josh is… Josh is…" Somehow she just couldn't make her say it. She settled on: "Alive."

The line went utterly silent. Then she heard a ragged breath and Hank's hoarse voice. "He's alive?"

"I'll tell you more when I see you." If she couldn't trust Hank, she couldn't trust anyone. He'd been telling the truth; he'd been around the kids almost as much as she and Bob had been. He'd also lived up here. If there was anyone outside of the late Jack Fiddler that she could talk to about the harder to believe aspects of this, it would be Hank.

"There should be a break in the trees near the cabin," Hank said finally, his voice still hoarse and shaky. "It'll be tight, but I think I can touch down there. Do you need me to bring anything? Is it just you?"

"Yeah. Just me. For now. I need a doctor, but it's not… I don't think it's urgent enough to necessitate you bringing one with you. Hold on." She covered the phone with her hand and looked at Ashley and Matt. "Do you need him to bring anything?"

The kids exchanged a look. "Unless he can bring us another flame thrower, I don't know what else we'd want. Guns are useless, right? And they found food at the house," Matt said, shrugging.

"Just come get me as soon as you can, Hank. Where's the break?"

"Should be east of the cabin. I can be here in an hour. Maybe less."

Jessica and Emily were packing up what little they'd brought with them, Jess pulling the flamethrower onto her back. "Um, where the fuck did Mike go?" Emily asked them, pointing accusatorily at the empty spot where he'd been sleeping. "And Sam?"

Ignoring the question, Melinda laid out the bare essentials of what had happened, namely that she was going to get picked up and they were to keep Josh safe until she could get back. Emily snorted at that, folding her arms over her chest and looking mutinous, but Jess had elbowed her and they both agreed. It would have to be enough. She leaned heavily on the makeshift walking stick and waited anxiously as the kids finished getting ready.

That's what they were, she realized. Kids. Barely more than children, and she was leaving them in real, mortal danger. More than she'd even realized—it wasn't just the weather or the treacherous terrain. There were things up here actively hunting them, Josh possibly included. She took a deep breath and tried to take confidence in their confidence. The mood was serious, but there were small smiles, the occasional dry joke.

It wasn't hard to find the spot that Hank had described. Through a break in the trees, they came upon an open area that, in the summer months, would probably be a lovely picnic spot. Distantly, she could hear the chopper coming. She turned to the kids. "Go. I'll wait here for him."

The expression on Matt's face made it clear what he thought of that idea. "No way. It's way too dangerous to be out here by yourself."

"I appreciate that, but I don't want to have to fight with Hank about why you're not coming back with me. He'll be here in minutes and he's not going to want any of you left up here, regardless. It's best if you start heading back now. I'll come back as soon as I can, I promise."

He looked like he wanted to argue further, but just frowned and nodded. "Fine."

"So… We're not leaving this horrible fucking mountain that's trying to kill us?" Emily muttered. "Fine. Whatever. Not like I wanted to live to see twenty-one anyway. No big. Totally fine."

Melinda leaned heavily against a tree as she watched the kids head off, vanishing into the woods and the brightening dawn. She hoped she was doing the right thing, but nothing was certain anymore.

-o-

The new, gleaming sunlight was unpleasant. Some of its weaker brethren shunned the day entirely, preferring to skulk in their burrows deep in the mine. Or at least they had, before they had been destroyed. It suspected at least one or two were still around, but dormant. It didn't like to do that. It got bored.

So, though the sunlight was less than ideal, it had learned to ignore it. Clouds helped. The light didn't burn, but it made its eyes smart and its skin twitch.

It would be worth it. It was bored. It was hungry. It had been patient long enough. It could smell their sweet young flesh in the air, coupled with someone's blood. It didn't know who was bleeding, nor did it care. Blood set its senses on fire and it was time. Time to eat something that wasn't venison or old desiccated corpses.

Time.

Its long, long tongue snuck out to swipe at the old blood on its cheek. Its skin was already knitting back together from where the man that smelled like anger and peppermint had burned it. The blonde girl's blood was sweet, even old and dried. She would be a lovely treat. But for now, it watched these four. The determined one, the bitter one, the fierce one, and there, in the back, the soft, scared one.

It smiled.

-o-

Mike ran his fingers lightly over Sam's hair, skirting around the gash she'd gotten when the thing had thrown her through the wall. She was still sleeping, he thought, and her face was perfectly relaxed. He hoped that meant she wasn't having any dreams. Or at least that they were only good ones. From the corner of his eye, he could see the monitors' pictures changing slightly. Those showing rooms with windows brightened a bit. Dawn. That was good and bad in equal measure, though he was self-aware enough to admit that all the 'bad' aspects of it had to do with his own selfish desire to stay here with Sam's head resting on his chest.

He was afraid to wake her up, if he was being honest with himself. Things were getting increasingly complicated, and they had already been pretty damn complicated to begin with.

Finally, he smoothed his hand over her shoulder, trying to absorb the feel of her skin. "Sam," he murmured. "Sam, it's dawn."

She stirred sleepily, then buried her face against his chest. "No," she said, voice muffled.

It made him laugh. "Tired, huh?"

"S'your fault." A finger poked into his side and he jerked reflexively away from it. She pushed herself up and grinned at him. "Holy shit, Mike. Are you ticklish?"

"No."

"Oh?" She raised a hand, waggling her fingers threateningly. "Should I test that statement?" Then her smile abruptly vanished as something caught her eye and she turned to the monitors. "Oh… oh. Mike, look." Sam scrambled to her feet and padded over peer at the screen.

As much as he wanted to enjoy the view, he tore his eyes away, climbing to his feet and grabbing his pants. "What is it?"

"Josh," she said quietly. Her fingers hovered over the monitor's surface, trembling slightly. "Look. It's Josh. He's okay."

Better than okay, Josh seemed to be whistling. Mike hopped on one foot as he tugged his pants up and frowned. That was unsettling. The guy was leaning against a wall in what could only be the shed where he'd set up the prank he 'died' in. Restraints hung from a wall and there was a saw buried in it. He had his hands in his pockets and, were it not for his fucked-up face, he might have been the picture of purposeful innocence.

"Why is he whistling?"

"I don't think he's whistling," Sam said, leaning closer to the screen. "Is he?"

"I guess it doesn't really matter, right?" That was good. Better than saying It's not the weirdest fucking thing he's done in the last year. Mike sat to pull on his socks and boots, stealing glances at the still-naked Sam. Fuck, she was beautiful. And, like that, intensely distracting. "Are you going to—I mean, not that I'm complaining, personally, but you might get kind of cold…"

She grimaced at him, but grabbed her clothes. "Very funny, Munroe. We should… um… we should talk at some point."

"We keep trying, but we don't seem to be very good at it. Other things, however, we are very good at." He waggled his eyebrows at her, but she didn't seem fooled by his forced levity. Sighing, he stood and looked around for his shirt. "I know. I want—we need to. There just never seems to be a good time."

Sam moved towards him and he tensed unthinkingly. She hesitated, then cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. "Top team, right?"

"I thought you didn't like that."

"I didn't like that you were lying to me and being deliberately obtuse about shit," she said, shooting him a look as she pulled on her bra. "There's a difference and you know it."

Rather than respond, he turned to the monitors while she finished dressing. The cable car one was still down and in the image from the shed, Josh was still waiting. Waiting. That's what it looked like. Waiting for what, though, Mike had no idea. There was no one visible on any of the other screens, which he was both happy for and concerned about. Were they others with Mrs. Washington? What had she done when she discovered they were missing? She might be just now finding out, waking up to see that two of her errant charges had vanished.

He considered their options. If they found Josh, they had another shot at getting him to go talk to Melinda. That could change everything. Personally, he was getting more than a little irritated with the guy. All the shit he put everyone through and then they came back for him, risking life and limb, and he was too scared to talk to his fucking Mom? Irritated. That was a better word than the real one, which was 'totally and utterly fucking pissed.'

Given that the other possibility was to try to convince Sam to leave Josh alone, he figured he could safely discount that as a real option.

There was no sign of either Hannah or Beth as they climbed back up through the ruins. Just as Sam was reaching for the door handle at the top of the stairs, he couldn't take it anymore. Leaning forward, he grabbed her hand, pulling her back to face him.

"Mike, what—"

He didn't give himself time to think; he closed the space between them to kiss her. God, the way she seemed to melt against him made him feel like he should sing, or kill the talking wendigo thing with his bare hands. Before he could get carried away, he broke away again. "Sorry," he said softly. "I just… before we go back out there."

One side of her mouth twitched up in an impish little smile that gave him a lot of other ideas and she tipped onto her toes to butt her head affectionately against his chin. "Yeah, yeah. You big softie. I always knew that macho stuff was bullshit."

"Excuse you, I am extremely and obnoxiously macho and I worked very hard to get this way."

"C'mon. Let's go get Josh. Melinda's going to kill us for leaving as it is."

Mike shuddered. Again, he just didn't do parents. Especially not the parents of someone he wasn't even dating. That was just unfair.

-o-

The four of them hiked in silence. Ashley kept feeling like she was supposed to say something, but every time she opened her mouth, her brain seemed to short out. So instead she tried to think through the cure clues again. They had so little to go on that it was kind of stupid. Maybe they could just get Josh to not eat people anymore? Did you have to keep doing it in order to turn into a monster? Or was once enough? Did one moment of weakness and desperation just totally fuck you over?

Too many questions, with more occurring to her every day. Ugh. If—when—she got out of here, she was just going to read something super easy and relaxing. Like her old Tamora Pierce books or something.

As they climbed up a small rocky ledge, something made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It reminded her of being in the old hotel with Chris when they'd found the camera. She'd just had a horrible certainty that they were being watched.

She turned and surveyed the forest. The light seemed practically blue, casting a strange, otherworldly sheen over the snowy landscape. It seemed peaceful, which just put her on edge even more. She didn't think she used to be this paranoid, but after what had happened up here already… Well, as Josh had once put it: "It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you." She forced a nervous giggle at her own anxiety. She was being ridiculous.

A shriek rent the calm of the forest, high and long and sharp. Before any of them could do much more than look around in shock, there was a series of creaking groans, like the very forest was moving.

Ashley heard Emily say something about another rockslide just as she saw it. Another monster—huge and horrifying, its mouth split into a wide, evil grin—was hanging in a pine tree. Or was it even smiling? She stared at it, stunned, as her brain continued its weird ramble. Maybe it was like a dog, where its gaping mouth resembled a smile by human standards. It saw her notice it, and its smile grew wider. The bough beneath it bowed and it screamed. Ahead of her, Ashley heard Jess yelp and there was a metal clang as she fumbled with the flame thrower. The quiet morning was suddenly over-loud, between the swearing and shrieking and the sound of what must be Melinda's helicopter behind them.

"Fuck!" Matt grabbed for a fallen branch as Jess continued to try to get the knobs on the flamethrower to cooperate.

She couldn't move. Its attention was still fixed on her, and why not? She was easy prey. She'd always been easy prey; she knew that. "I'm sorry," she whispered to no one in particular. Its muscles tensed and she saw it leap at her as if in slow motion, its arms extending towards her.

In the end, she just hoped it would be quick. She closed her eyes, flinching back, waiting to feel its razor claws piercing into her.

A deafening boom split the air and her eyes sprang open again, just in time to see the monster being thrown violently to the side. With a crash, it hit a tree hard and sending snow and shards of wood flying. It slammed into the ground, then immediately was on its feet again. Its arm hung at a crazy angle and it spun, driving its hand into the trunk of the tree and wrenching its shoulder back into place with a horrible fleshy sucking sound.

She tried to move, tried to focus around the echoing pulse in her ears. The thing's head swiveled to look at her and it hissed, pacing towards her again. There was a muffled clicking sound and then another boom tore through the clearing to send the thing flying once more. This time it missed the tree and was thrown a good fifteen feet before it skidded to a halt.

Fire split through the freezing as Jess was finally able to get the flamethrower working. Jess cheered loudly as the thing came bounding back, dodging around the bursts of fire. Its face was twisted into a horrible, furious grimace. Its gaze swung around the group before fixing on Ashley again. She stumbled back. Why was it so determined to get her? Maybe she just seemed the easiest, she thought. It wasn't wrong on that count.

Someone shouted: "Get the fuck away from her!" Another boom. This time it wasn't thrown, but part of its leg seemed to splinter. It snarled and flinched back as Jess's flame came dangerously close to catching it in the face. Finally, it hissed at Ashley, then bounded off, limping and leaping one-legged, swinging itself away through the trees like a gibbon.

Jess whooped again. "And stay gone, you dickweed!" she crowed, spinning in a circle.

"That was fucking awesome." Emily ran to her, catching her in a hug. "You are officially much more badass than you were last time."

"Told you so. This is my new best friend."

Ashley wanted to join in the exultation, but stumbled slightly until she could catch a tree for support. Her head was swimming. That had been… she should be dead right now. Why wasn't she dead right now? It was still hard to hear. The ringing in her ears hadn't gone away.

A warm hand rubbed a small circle on her back and she turned to see Matt watching her, looking concerned. "Are you okay?"

"I should be dead, Matt." Her voice was flat, emotionless. It was just a statement of fact. "You guys saved me."

He smiled and shook his head. "I don't think we get the credit." His eyes shifted to something over her shoulder and she turned, numb and waiting for some new horrible development.

Chris grinned sheepishly at her. "Surprise?" he offered.