Chapter Twenty-Three

To the Bone

Ashley could only stare at him, her head swimming. "Chris?"

"Blown away?" he said, hefting the shotgun in his hands.

Next to her, Matt groaned. "That was terrible."

"Hey, I had to take the shot. I didn't want to miss the opportunity, even if it means I have to jump the gun."

"Dude. No. That one doesn't even make sense."

She just couldn't seem to process this. Chris was here? That thought just repeated over and over in her head. Chris was here. Chris was here. "You're here," she whispered.

He closed the space between them, hopping down off the boulder he was on to crunch into the snow. His arms came around her and he pulled her tight to his chest. For all his bravado and dumb jokes, she could feel him shaking. "I'm here," he murmured against her hair. "I'm so sorry, Ash. I'm here."

"You're here," she repeated, burying her nose in his jacket. He smelled like gasoline and gunpowder and Chris. A thought occurred to her and she pulled back "How did you get here? We would have seen you hiking and the cable car—oh my god, Chris, the cable car crashed—"

Chris jerked a thumb over his shoulder. She leaned over to follow the direction and saw a rusty-looking vehicle she could only assume was a… "I borrowed a snowmobile."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, blinking at the machine. Glancing back at Matt, she saw him shrug ruefully. "We… we didn't even think of that. That never occurred to me. Okay, wow. Points for you. And they just let you ride it up here?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed awkwardly. "Not exactly. I… well, remember that guy we met?"

"Flamethrower guy?" Jess asked, picking her way back down the rocks to the rest of the group with Emily close behind. She hefted the nozzle of her weapon and grinned. "I have to say—I never met the guy, but I am a big fan of his random mechanical chops. This thing is so freaking cool. I'm taking it with me when we leave."

"Uh, yeah," Chris said, eyeing it with a certain amount of hesitation. "Just don't point it at me. Anyway," he continued as Jess stuck her tongue out at him. "I found out where he lived. Or, not lived, exactly. But he had this old storage unit in town and I just… borrowed some stuff? I didn't think he'd mind."

Emily snorted. "Oh? And how'd you get in? Did he have a key taped in his stupid book that you've been keeping secret this whole time?"

"Not exactly." He flushed slightly and scuffed the toe of his foot along the snowy ground. "Crowbars are a lot more useful than I thought."

"You broke in?" Jess laughed and nudged Emily with her elbow, still clearly riding high from successfully getting the monster to retreat. "We're all criminals now! Awesome!"

"I'm going to bring it all back," Chris muttered defensively.

Matt cleared his throat. "As much as all this is good to know, we should get a move on. I don't think we can trust that whatever the fuck that was won't come back." He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Plan. We need a plan. Do we have a plan?"

"Find the others?" Jess offered.

Ashley finally swallowed and broke her silence. She poked Chris hard in the chest. "You believe us now?" she asked him quietly. Matt was right, she knew. They needed to go, but she also had to ask. She had to know what had changed. "You were so sure before." So sure that you were willing to let all of our friends come up here alone, she wanted to add, but held it back.

He glanced at the others, then turned away slightly, as if afraid they would overhear. Ash didn't have the heart to point out that turning a fraction away from the group wouldn't prevent them from listening to everything he said. "Look, Ash, I—I don't have a good excuse. And to be honest, I still didn't believe you guys until… Until I saw that thing coming at you. And it was like I just couldn't pretend anymore. I didn't want it to be real, because that means… that means… Ugh. Fuck." He gestured wildly in the air, still holding the shotgun in one hand. "I'm an asshole, basically. Can that be enough? I admit I'm an asshole and that you guys were right and that I just didn't want to admit that I didn't know something. Can we go rescue Josh and get the fuck out of this nightmare already?"

Biting her lip to keep from laughing at his frustration, she nodded. "Yeah. Let's go. I'll fill you in while we walk."

"Walk?" He glanced from the snowmobile to the group and back, then sighed. "Yeah, I guess it would be pretty shitty to ride away while everyone else has to walk."

"You bet it would," Emily said, smiling with syrupy sweetness. "It might be the last thing you get to do."

Jess leaned forward and, in a stage whisper, explained: "It's because she'd probably kill you."

"Yep. Got that. Thanks."

-o-

They heard the whistling before they saw him. Sam didn't quite recognize the tune, though it sounded vaguely familiar. Something classical-ish, she thought, but couldn't get any more specific. She ducked a low-hanging metal trap. It was incredibly unsettling, especially here, surrounded by a rejected set from Saw. "Hello?" she called hesitantly. The whistling faltered, then stopped. Rounding a corner, she saw him behind a pane of glass, watching them approach.

Josh looked just as he had when he'd run from her, save for a faint trace of blood on his jaw. Her stomach squirmed, but she quashed the thought down. Probably just an animal. That wasn't great, sure, but he had to eat and it seemed like he had to eat red meat. At least he was eating, she told herself sharply. She smiled. "Josh! We were so worried about you."

Something about his expression made her profoundly uneasy, though, like his tune, she couldn't quite place it.

"Your Mom's okay," Mike offered.

"I know." His voice was flat.

"How do—did you go see her?" Sam wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. The shed was in bad shape. Portions of the roof had all-but rotted away and with the doors wide open and several windows broken, the cold winter air cut straight through her. Josh's fake frozen entrails were close enough to touch and she tried not to think about it.

He shrugged lazily. "It seemed polite. Can't go ignoring modern standards of behavior, after all. I figured you'd be with her on the way out of town right now."

That was a familiar tone. Sam knew it well. It reminded her of finding him in the movie room after the girls were gone, feigning indifference and talking about death as a fun alternative to boredom. She brushed past it. "Of course not. She was injured, so we had to get her to some medical attention, but I was never going to leave you up here. You know that."

"I do, do I?"

She rolled her eyes. "If you don't, you're an idiot. And we both know you're not an idiot."

"Is that a compliment, m'darling Sammy? A compliment for moi?"

"Sure. If you want to take it that way. Now come on. We should go find them."

The moment the words left her mouth, she could tell it had been the wrong thing to say. Josh froze in place, eyeing her warily. "No," he said softly, voice barely audible over the sound of the wind.

"Why not? Didn't Ashley—" Sam broke off. No, neither she nor Ashley had talked to him about what they'd found in the journal. He was still operating under the impression that he was on a path of no return. She felt like an idiot. An asshole and an idiot. "Josh, we think there's a cure."

His eye twitched, the only sign that he'd heard her at all. From the corner of her eye she could see Mike fidgeting, glancing around the shed nervously. She ignored him. If there was something, she figured Josh would be the first to notice. From what she could tell, his senses far outstripped hers or Mike's. She reached for Josh and he jerked away. "We are men of action, Sammy. Lies do not become us."

Scowling, she folded her arms over her chest again. "Don't you dare quote Princess Bride at me, Washington. Stop pouting and help us get this going. I told you. We think there's an actual cure. You think I'd lie about something like that? Do you know what that means? That means that you get to come home. We can actually get you out of here."

He wouldn't meet her eyes. Slowly, carefully, he started to whistle again.

"Dude. That's really fucking creepy. Why are you doing that?" Mike shoved his hands in his pockets, shivering. "Too many fucking horror movies. Bad for kids. Leads to violent videogames and shit. Just uncool," he muttered under his breath.

This time, Sam recognized the tune. Somewhere over the rainbow. Another relic of Hannah, of Beth, of happier times and uncanny, unlikely hope. She frowned at him. She wanted to do something—to hug him, to poke him, to tickle him or smack him. Something to shake him out of the grave he was digging for himself. Last time he'd just tried to crawl into a bottle. That had seemed so simple in comparison. "And she did get to go over the rainbow, you dolt. She had her adventure and then she came home. She left. She thought she was lost. And then she came home."

"You know they were assholes to her on set, right?"

"So you tell me every time we talk about that movie." She was freezing. Now that she was fully awake, she was hungry. And she, well, wouldn't say no to washing up. At least he was talking more like his old self now. "Can we leave this place now, pretty please?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. It was enough to make her groan aloud. "Why not?" Mike asked, irritation evident in his voice. It helped, a little, to know that he was just as annoyed as she was. Maybe more.

"Where's my Mom?" Josh's voice was quiet.

Sam and Mike exchanged a look and Mike shrugged. Sam forced a smile. "We're not sure. We left her in the little ranger station. With the others."

His head jerked up and his gaze caught hers. It was an odd sensation. It reminded her of finding a rattlesnake on one of her hikes in Placerita Canyon back home. She had known that it was unlikely that it would hurt her if she played it smart, but it had felt actively malevolent. Josh's eyes had the same sheen to them and it was all too easy to remember how he'd been when they'd first found him, his pupils blown and face almost unrecognizable. "You left her?"

"We didn't see you, so you must have seen her after we left," Sam said slowly. It was hard to suppress the urge to freeze in place, as she'd had to do with the monsters a month ago. "I figured you knew."

He shook his head, slowly at first and then faster. "No—no. I didn't—I was… Fuck."

"No, Josh, it doesn't matter. It's okay."

"It's not okay. It's not—I should have noticed, Sammy. I always notice. Why didn't I notice?"

Sam touched his arm lightly. "You can't expect yourself to notice everything. I didn't mean to make it sound like you should have—"

"But I should have, Sam. I should have noticed. Why didn't I notice? I'm—I thought I was getting better—I thought these pills were supposed to help, and I mean, I guess they do sort of help. Don't see the others as much, but—" She was losing him, she could see it: losing him into that dark pit inside his own head where he went when he panicked.

So she gave in to the urge she'd been having since she saw him again. She hugged him. It was an awkward side-hug and he was so bony that it made her want to cry. He'd stopped eating before, but it had never been like this. It had never gotten this far before. He stiffened inside the circle of her arms, his muttering stumbling to a halt. She rested her chin on his shoulder, just as she had from the moment in ninth grade when he'd finally been taller than her. Mike turned away, averting his eyes as if they were doing something private. She supposed, in a way, they were.

"Hey Josh?"

"Yeah?" He wouldn't look at her. His arms were clenched at his sides, his whole body as tight as strung wire.

"Sometimes people just miss stuff. You were there to see your Mom, who you haven't seen in a really long time. If you insist on blaming yourself for things, I can't stop you, but not noticing that Mike and I were gone better not be one of them. Or," she continued sweetly, "I will force-feed you nothing but tofu and vegan cheese. The bad vegan cheese."

That got the reaction she was hoping. His mouth twisted up in distaste and he faked a gag. "That's uncalled for. Unwontedly harsh punishment that does not fit the crime." At least he wasn't babbling. He still wouldn't move to hug her back and finally she let go, taking a step away. His nostrils flared as he looked from her to Mike and back again. "Now what, then? Do you propose we go down the mountain to try to find my dear mother?"

Sam shook her head. "No. Let's go to the saferoom. At least for a bit. We can eat—we have some supplies there—and regroup or something. Then we can figure out what we're going to do. I can fill you in on the cure, too."

"Oh yes. This magical, mystical cure. I can't wait to hear all about demon penicillin."

Unprompted, Mike turned to lead their departure.

As they passed through the wreckage of the living room, the idea hit her like a freight train. She stopped dead in her tracks, not noticing Josh's quick sidestep to avoid running into her. "Oh," she mumbled. "Oh. Maybe. Maybe? I guess it's worth a shot." She hopped over a blackened piece of granite and assessed the stairs.

"Sam?"

"What are you doing, Sammy?"

She waved a hand vaguely back at the boys. "I—wait here." Sam cast her mind back, trying to remember the exact places she'd stepped when following Beth that first night. The staircase groaned ominously but stayed steady as she climbed. Behind and below her, she heard Mike swearing and Josh letting out a long, low hiss of annoyance. "I'll be back."

"I would follow you and drag you back down here if I wasn't sure it would snap under my weight the second I tried," Mike said, rubbing his injured hand across his face. "What is it with you and climbing crazy things?"

She turned sideways and edged along a narrow metal support. "Just can't resist, I guess. I just… I have a theory."

"That theory is going to get you killed."

"Probably."

Josh looked between the two of them again, his mouth in as much of a fixed straight line as was possible given his changing features. Then he smiled. "Sammy, do you want us to wait here? Or should we meet you down below? Get cleaned up, like you said?"

"No, bad idea. Bad, bad idea," Mike interjected, but Sam was already nodding as she climbed, jumping slightly from one stable point to another.

"Yeah, that's a good thought. Go for it. I'll meet you back down there." She glanced down and smiled reassuringly at Mike. "It's fine. It's daylight, right? And I know what I'm doing."

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you, though?"

Sam stuck her tongue out at him, then turned her attention back to the awkward climb. Going up here might be a bad idea, but it also might work. Down below, she heard the guys start to leave and tried to focus. She couldn't do anything about that now. They'd be fine. At this point, she'd take any small victory she could get. Even just getting up the stairs would be enough to put a mark in the win column.

She just hoped that everything was still intact.

-o-

"Okay, here, let me…" Chris leaned down over the ledge and grasped Ashley's hand, helping to pull her as she scrambled up.

It was harder getting back to the lodge than Ashley had expected. Maybe it was their detour to that clearing, but the terrain seemed unfamiliar and unfriendly. Of course, it didn't help that it had started snowing again, thick flakes falling slowly but consistently. They were piling up fast. Chris had covered the snowmobile with a tarp from its storage box and they'd begun to walk in relative silence. She wanted to say something, but couldn't think of something that didn't sound awkward and dumb.

So, how have you been?

Man, the weather these days…

What was your plan coming up here?

I think we need to get some wendigo blood, guys.

Oh, by the way, Josh is turning into a wendigo, probably 'cause he ate the body of the Flamethrower Guy who saved your life… Which, incidentally, means that we need to go find that big ugly thing that tried to kill us and somehow get some of its blood.

None of those options seemed like a promising idea for some reason. Ashley watched Chris's back as they hiked. He was wearing a heavy-duty canvas coat over his own puffy one. She wondered if it was something of his Dad's she'd never seen or if it was from Jack Fiddler's storage unit. He'd always said that he didn't like to wear stuff of his Dad's. He said it seemed like he was being flippant or something, to wear his Dad's stuff to just hang out. But this wasn't 'just hanging out.'

She opened her mouth to ask, then thought better and closed it again. In the very front of the group, she saw Emily and Jess walking side by side. The flamethrower had been super helpful. Every now and then, Ash saw Jess adjust the straps or reach over her shoulder to touch it, as if reassuring herself it was still there.

From far off in the trees, they heard a shriek and all of them froze, tensing. It was off and to the right, somewhere beyond what they could see.

"I forgot how much it sucks up here," Chris muttered flatly and Matt snorted.

"Keeps you on your toes, though."

The blond shot him a look. "I'm pretty sure I was cool with not being on my toes. I like flat shoes. Super flat. Like, anti-heels."

Ashley wanted to laugh, but something was still nagging at her. She could hear something else. Something like a rumbling? Like distant thunder? "Do you guys hear that?"

"Rockslide?" Jess asked, looking around frantically.

Em shook her head slowly. "No… more like…" She glanced at Matt, face pale, and his eyes went wide. "Deer?"

The rumbling was growing louder, coming through the trees. Ashley spotted the first one, a slender, shaggy deer with a serious set of antlers, leaping over a fallen tree and plowing towards them. "Uh… guys? What do we do?"

"They might not be heading this wa—" Chris started to reassure her, just as a half-dozen more deer burst into view behind the first, heading right at them.

Matt grabbed Ash's arm and yanked her out of the way as the first one rushed past. "There are more!" he shouted to the others.

Before Ashley could ask him how he knew, there were more. She couldn't even count them as they came leaping and bounding towards them. Individually, they might not have been scary, but rushing towards the group, all she could see was horns and hooves and literal tons of shifting, panicky, furious muscle.

Instinct took over and she bolted, running the way she'd always read you were supposed to when faced with a forest fire, towards the threat but at an angle. The rest of the group was running too, but she was too focused on not tripping to pay much attention. Matt was still beside her. She could hear him breathing hard under the pounding and rustling of the stampeding deer. Snow was flying from the impact of their hooves. She could practically here the fucking music from the Lion King as she fled.

Finally, she felt safe enough to slow down, catching herself on a tree trunk and swinging to a halt. Matt skidded to a stop a few feet away, bending double and coughing as he tried to get his breath back.

She looked around. "Um…"

Matt raised his head and glanced at her. "What?"

"We—we didn't run the same way everyone else ran."

"Fuck."

"Yeah," she mumbled, pressing her forehead against the rough bark of the tree. "Fuck."

-o-

Emily shoved Chris's shoulder hard. "God dammit. God-fucking-dammit, Chris. What the fuck!"

"This isn't my fault! How can you possibly blame me for this?" He clenched one hand anxiously in his hair and looked around. "Ashley?! Oof. Ow. What the hell was that for?" Emily had shoved him again with a fixed and furious glare.

"Don't yell, you idiot. That thing is out there. That thing probably caused the stampede in the first place! Don't start shouting and let it know exactly where we are and that we're separated." She looked around, still breathing hard. Where the hell were they? And where was… "Jess?" she called into the woods. Pain flared in her shoulder and she yelped.

Chris smirked. "You said not to yell. That goes for both of us."

"So you shoved me?"

"Fair's fair."

"I'm injured, you unbelievable imbecile," she snapped, pointing deliberately at her shoulder, the makeshift sling still in place.

Chris had the decency to look embarrassed. "Uh—yeah. Sorry." He groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. "Don't split the party," he muttered. "You're never supposed to split the party."

She eyed him suspiciously. "What are you muttering about?"

"DnD thing. Bad stuff always happens when the party gets split up."

"Good thing we're smarter than your weird elf barbarian or whatever."

"Why would I play an elf barba—you're making fun of me."

"I am definitely making fun of you." Emily straightened her coat and pulled her scarf tighter around her neck. "…nerd," she added for good measure. "Okay, fine. We're stuck with each other. Now we need to find the others and get back to the lodge. All without dying. Think you're up for it?"

Chris wiped his glasses on his shirt and put them back on, then adjusted the shotgun's strap across his chest. He nodded, determined. "I don't plan to die up here."

She smiled slightly at that. "At least we agree on that. So who do we go after first?"

"Ash."

"Ashley was with Matt, though. So they probably ended up together."

He countered quickly. "—and Jess has the flamethrower."

They glared at each other for a few moments, then Chris sighed and waved one hand weakly in acquiescence. At least Emily chose to interpret it that way. She looked around, trying to figure out where they were, then set off decisively. No point in hanging around here waiting to get eaten.

-o-

It was hard to tell how much time had passed. It felt like only moments, but time was playing tricks on Sam in here. She let the slightly mildewed pillow drop into her lap and looked around the room. It wasn't too different from what she'd seen the last time she'd been here. Part of the wall was blackened and broken, letting in some of the weather. It made the butterflies droop sadly on the purple paint and lent a bit of a smell to the linens and clothes.

She couldn't bring herself to look around the way she'd planned. Instead, she'd sat cross-legged on the bed and hugged one of Hannah's ridiculously frilly pillows to her chest. When she buried her face in it, Sam had almost been able to convince herself she smelled Hannah's old lotion. It was probably all in her head, she knew, but it was oddly comforting all the same.

Hannah.

Mike.

Fuck. She'd fucked up. Or maybe she just was fucked up. Hannah would kill her if she knew. And, really, Hannah might actually kill her if she found out.

This wasn't helpful. It was dwelling and dwelling was the opposite of action. She needed to see if she could find anything that might work and then get down to the saferoom to eat and regroup. With a grunt, she shoved herself up off the bed and started going through the nightstand. It wasn't that she really thought she would find anything that would simply take care of Hannah instantly. But she remembered Beth's words about rage and strength. Perhaps there was something that could serve as a talisman to the Hannah she knew. The real one. The one that wasn't a love-hungry ghost.

She considered and discounted the worn copy of A Pirate's Embrace with its lurid cover and dogeared pages. Running her fingers over the battered edges, Sam sighed. Everything in here was going to be like this—a memory that would wash over her and hurt. The pain wasn't as sharp as it had been, though. It was more like the wistful nostalgia when she thought about sixth grade graduation or playing Rummikub with her parents, just with a harder edge. She remembered when Hannah had found the romance novel at a second-hand store and pounced on it gleefully. She remembered Hannah reading passages aloud to her during sleepovers in a hushed, breathless voice. It was tame, really, but to a couple of teenagers, it seemed like the height of scandal.

Moving on, she passed over the stuffed animals, the notebooks full of doodles, the odd misplaced hair-tie and knick-knack. Hannah was a collector. She wasn't a hoarder or anything, but she liked things. She would start collections, becoming utterly obsessed, and then drop them to move on to the next collection. The old ones would sit on shelves or be shoved into drawers, but never discarded. Never completely forgotten.

Sam supposed it made sense that Hannah crushed on people the way she did. She dropped an old cigar box filled with state quarters back into a desk drawer with a sigh.

A ballerina. She paused, considering. Why was she remembering a ballerina?

She snapped her fingers and rushed over to the dresser. The ballerina had been in the jewelry box Sam had found when she had been there the previous month. There was a plaque too – something about love, signed by Josh. That was probably a better bet than blindly rummaging through her desk. She opened it and nearly jumped out of her skin when the music started. Shaking her head, she forced a soft huff of laughter. Being up here had made her jumpy, albeit with damn good reason.

Last time she hadn't paid much attention to the contents of the box; she'd just looked at the inscription and moved on. This time she began to pick through the jewelry, searching her memory for anything that seemed significant. Her fingers found it before her eyes did. A thin, cold chain with a silver butterfly pendant. Sam turned it over in her palm, smiling ruefully. Hannah and her damn butterflies. It had been a gift from Beth and Josh, she remembered, given to Hannah when they were all kids. They'd pooled their allowance and bought Hannah the necklace she'd been desperate to have: a delicate, silver-wire butterfly with a sparkling blue stone set in the center.

It's real silver, too! Sam remembered Hannah boasting, showing it off with pride.

Sam rubbed her eyes, trying again to shake off the weird layer of nostalgia and exhaustion that seemed to hang over her. Would this even help? She honestly couldn't say, but she felt better holding it.

Looking around, she tried to think of somewhere else to look, but came up with nothing. She certainly didn't want to take anything that would remind Hannah of Mike or her ill-advised infatuation. Her eyes fell on the closet and she hesitated, then crossed the room to poke through the clothes. Here, between the hanging garments, she could definitely smell Hannah's lotion and body spray. Carefully, she slipped one of Hannah's puffy down jackets off its thick wooden hanger and considered it. She was so cold. Was it disrespectful to borrow it?

As much as she wanted its warmth, Sam put it back and headed for the door. Too long. She'd been here too long. It was time to get this show on the road—whatever the show was.

Back out in the open hallway, she glanced down the other side. That way lay Beth's room. And Josh's. That was a bad idea, Sam knew. If she'd thought Hannah's room had put her into a weird funk, what more would Beth's room do? And Josh's… Sam wasn't even sure what she'd find in there.

Curiosity nagged at her. She'd always had problems with that. Curiosity killed the cat, right? Although she'd read that the whole phrase was 'Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back,' which had a rather different meaning.

Glancing out through one of the busted windows, she saw the sun still hanging in the sky. A few more hours of daylight, then. That meant relative safety from the thing. After all, it had never attacked them during the day, right? She wondered what Melinda was doing now. There could already be a helicopter on its way up to the lodge to force them to leave, but she doubted it. Not if Melinda had seen and spoken to Josh.

Josh's door was closed and locked. Naturally. Sam remembered how the doors of the lodge had seemed to lock at random times. Now, in retrospect, she knew he must have rigged them up somehow so that he could control where they went. "Ugh," she muttered, shuddering. She was lucky she didn't have bathroom-related trauma or something.

Nope. She was getting nowhere. She had the best item she could probably hope to find and she should get back to the others.

-o-

"So… Here we are," Mike said, gesturing around at the saferoom.

The other guy just stared at him from where he sat against the wall. That alone was an unsettling thing. Up close, Mike could see Josh's fucked up eye, the bulging lips where his new sharpened teeth protruded, and all the other damage his face had endured. There were dozens of cuts and scrapes, along with a set of curving half-moon marks that Mike suspected were the result of Josh's own fingernails. They'd been sitting in silence for who knew how long and it was officially driving Mike fucking nuts. Where the hell was Sam? Should they go look for her?

Finally Josh spoke. "Yeah dude. I know."

"You would. This was your masterpiece, right?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Truthfully, he wasn't sure he wanted to stop them. He might feel bad for the guy, but he still couldn't shake the urge to strangle him. Who did shit like that? Who threw his best friends into a horror movie for his own sick amusement? And why… Mike sighed. Why do it to Sam, of all people?

"It was supposed to be." Josh tipped his head back against the wall. "We should do something. We should stock this place up. Just in case."

"There's food."

The look Josh gave him would have withered crops. "There are a few cans of beans and a granola bar. Maybe. You really call that 'stocked'? It'd be awesome if we survived monsters and shit just to starve to death. Super awesome. Is my sarcasm obvious enough?"

Mike's hand clenched into a fist. His missing fingers ached, a phantom pain that he wasn't sure would ever go away. He wanted to take something. He shouldn't have let his pack get lost. He shouldn't have let himself get fucking hooked in the first place. He should have punched Josh in the face when he'd had the chance. Technically, he had another chance right now, but the timing was less than ideal. Later, he promised himself, when they got out of this alive. Then he'd punch Josh. Maybe they could just have an all-out brawl. That seemed fair. He was sure he deserved more than a few square hits to the jaw himself.

"No, look," Josh said, gesturing broadly. "I know another place where the parental units stuffed some canned goods and the like. Too many enthusiastic Costco trips. Or whatever the Canadian equivalent is. Probably has a name involving moose. Mooses. Meese?" He didn't wait for Mike to answer, just hopped to his feet and vanished into the hallway.

Mike hurried after him. He sure as hell wasn't letting Josh out of his sight again. "How did they even get it up here?" They passed into a fancy parlor-type space. The marble underfoot was slick and Mike stumbled, catching himself on a doorframe.

Josh glanced back at him. "Airdrop. My family owns three helicopters and two prop planes."

"I can't even tell if you're joking." He caught Josh's sly smile and rolled his eyes. "Which is, of course, the point, right?"

"It's fun. Like taking candy from a bag of hammers." The other man stretched his arms up, then folded his hands behind his head as they walked. "So," he said conversationally. "You and Sam, huh?"

Mike stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Josh's back. Without seeing his face, it was easy to feel like he'd slipped back in time. Whether it was the prescription Sam got him or just being out of the mines and around people, Josh seemed to be standing straighter. "What?"

Shrugging his puffy green shoulders, Josh didn't turn, just paused in the hallway ahead. Everything about his pose, his tone of voice suggested blasé and total nonchalance, but Mike didn't buy it for a second. He'd seen under Josh's cool façade before; it didn't fool him this time. Regardless, this didn't feel like the right time for this conversation. Plus, Sam should be there for it, right? Mike wasn't even sure he could answer the question accurately without her there to weigh in. So he settled on denial. "I don't know what you're talking about."

A harsh, barking laugh rang out and made him jump. Josh turned and seemed to assess him. It made him twitchy. He didn't like being twitchy. Folding his arms over his chest and keeping his face as expressionless as he could manage, Mike waited.

Josh stalked back down the hallway towards him, circling him, nostrils flaring. It reminded Mike of the way Wolfie had come after him initially and of the way… the way Hannah had crept towards him, back when she was a monster. Josh's tongue darted out briefly, tasting the air like a serpent. Taking a deep breath, Mike fought the urge to swallow hard and tried to keep his voice light. "Um… what are you doing, dude? I thought we were going in search of bigger and better snack foods?" And not the human kind, he didn't add.

The other man's lip twitched slightly and he stopped, still staring at Mike. "Just tell me."

"Tell you what?" What did Josh want him to say? He didn't even know what was going on with him and Sam, so what on this big blue marble did Josh expect Mike to say?

"Mike," Josh muttered, his voice drawing out the vowels and turning his name into a warning hiss.

Mike raised his hands in front of him and took a step back. "Whoa. Calm down, Josh. Talk to me. What's going o—"

It was the wrong move.

Josh lunged at him, snarling, his face twisted once more into the inhuman thing they'd seen in the tunnels upon their arrival. He didn't even have time to think, let alone react. The other man was faster, stronger—he suddenly seemed to have eight hands and be made entirely of iron. There were sharp, ragged nails. There were teeth. Too many teeth. There was pain, bursting through his head like a floodlight.

Then there was nothing.