The sound from behind the house was unnerving: a slick, wet, squelching sort of noise mixed with the crackling of dry leaves and twigs. Faith looked around. Heath stood at the corner of the house, his fingers still wiggling, as Dalton's duo of henchmen came around the right corner of the house, but Dalton was nowhere to be seen. That was worrisome, but worse was the fact that the cronies were not charging; they advanced slowly and grinned, each of them holding a short length of pipe. Faith felt sweat running down her ribcage. She took two shuffling steps backward, her eyes scanning between Heath and the two numbnuts. A shadow moved behind the lackeys, then slid around them on Faith's right. The thing came out of the shadow of the cabin into the mirror-like moonlight and the Slayer felt her breath catch in her throat.
The creature probably would have been very tall if it had stood upright, but it seemed to lack the necessary skeletal structure. Instead, it slewed forward, hunched and shifting, a black void in the phosphorescent night. It had appendages, but it was impossible to count how many. It seemed to create new limbs as it moved, only for the extremity to be absorbed back into the main mass when it shifted. There was one knobby lump that Faith thought must be the head: three fluorescent–green patches marked it in a rough triangle. Then it reared up, and it was pretty obvious that the lump was the head, because when it rose, a gaping maw lined with concentric rows of needle-like teeth flashed wet and slimy in the light of the moon.
"Okay," Faith breathed. "Okay, I know what you look like. Now, I find out how to kill you." There was movement to her left: a second monster sloughed around the corner and moved further in that direction. The two creatures' movements were jerky and rough, and Faith had a sudden epiphany: Heath Beck wasn't the monster, he controlled the monsters. The shoggoths slid further apart, spreading out to her far right and left, the two human goons roughly in the middle. The monsters emitted a whistling, nerve-rattling wheeze, like the wind blowing across an unpatched hole in a roof; it mixed with the gross, wet sounds of their approach.
The monster to her left moved forward; it might have looked awkward and ungainly, but it moved fast, very fast. Faith brought the wrench around from her hip and hit the creature at about the spot where the knob she had decided was the head met the rest of its mass. It was spongy and giving but solid, like hitting a new pillow. The wrench rebounded, but the shoggoth's momentum was broken; apparently it didn't like iron any more than most supernatural critters. A tendril shot out of its midsection and wrapped around her left arm. She brought the wrench down squarely on the middle of the head; the fibrous black surface gave, then bounced back, but it released her arm.
Faith jumped back, which caused the swinging pipe to whistle through the air in front of her face. One of Dalton's lackeys had moved in while she was preoccupied with the shoggoth. Faith made a backhanded swipe at him, but it was a weak effort; he was able to evade it. She started to square up on him, but a sticky noise to her left made her pivot back to the monster, just in time to knock away its slavering teeth; apparently the neck area was elastic. She could feel the lackey moving in on her back. She had no idea how she would fight both of them, but she risked a quick glance over her shoulder. The yellow fiberglass handle of the mattock flashed through her vision and the head crunched into the chest of the lackey. The head was turned sideways, so instead of the point opening his sternum like a ripe cantaloupe, the flat side merely cracked it like a walnut. The kid fell to one knee, screaming. Faith looked up and met Ben's eyes. They exchanged a quick glance, then Faith flipped her attention back to the shoggoth, and in the nick of time. It had shaken off her earlier blow and lunged forward, apparently bent on enveloping her in its bulk. She dropped to one knee, spun, and popped up behind it. The Slayer mustered all the force she could and hit it three times in the back of the head. It shuddered a little, but didn't seem terribly fazed. She could see the other creature approaching Ben, the remaining human minion trailing in its wake. The second shoggoth didn't seem to be moving as quickly, and Faith had another flash of insight: Heath couldn't exert equal control over both of them at the same time. As this occurred to her, Ben took a fast, compact swing with the mattock. This time, the pick end was forward, and it pierced his shoggoth's midsection. It screamed, that wet, whistling howl, and withdrew. Faith glimpsed a dark fluid running from the puncture wound, then it closed. As she danced away from her adversary, she processed that information: didn't like metal, holes could be poked in it. She silently cursed herself; the monsters were vulnerable to edged weapons, and here she was, armed with a blunt instrument. She took a step back and the folded knife in her pocket poked into her thigh.
Dalton's flunkie made a quick strike at Ben, swinging another short length of pipe; Ben struck back with the mattock and broke the cronie's forearm. The diner owner's shirt was drenched with sweat as he bounced on the balls of his feet, mattock at the ready as he faced the shoggoth. Faith started to reach into her pocket, but before she could touch the knife, screams pierced the air, screams she could hear even over the pounding of her own heart in her ears. She froze.
Dalton's left arm was wrapped around Tori's throat, raising her up on tiptoe. A knife, probably a replacement for the one Faith had taken from him, the one that was in her pocket now, was held in his right hand, the point at the soft flesh under Tori's jaw. A thin inky trickle oozed down her throat. Time stopped for a heartbeat, then Faith sensed the shoggoth in front of her going slack. She spun, leading with the wrench, trying to get turned toward Ben.
She was too late. The other shoggoth's head leaped forward, the slavering rows of teeth grabbed him at the junction of throat and chest. There was a wet crunch and blood, black in the moonlight, spurted into the air with a force that made the Slayer's heart stop. She felt splatter on her face and then she was pounding on the thing with the pipe wrench, clubbing it with all her force. It let go and pulled back as Ben took two staggering steps backward and collapsed. Faith found herself in a triangle formed by Ben at one point and the shoggoths at the other two.
"I'll kill her," Dalton screamed. "I'll kill her right in front of you." Faith opened her mouth, but what could she say?
And that's when the woods around the Beck cabin lit up and she was blinded by bouncing, flashing lights, lights that the shoggoths shrank away from, lights that caused Dalton to turn and shift his stance, which gave Tori a chance to pull out of his grasp and throw herself to her left because Dalton had released her so he could dive out of the way.
And then the pickup bucked and roared out of the lane and hit the shoggoth that had attacked Ben. The grill caught it flush and exposed. One of the headlights shattered on impact, but Lewis had the light bar turned on. The creature was flung backwards, screaming, rolled over twice, and was still. The pickup slewed to one side, then stopped. The door flew open and Lewis scrambled out of the cab and knelt to check on Ben as Tori crawled across the ground and scootched under the truck. The other shoggoth withdrew from the light. Faith froze for a tenth of a heartbeat, then dropped the wrench and flung herself toward the truck. She glanced over her shoulder as her hand went into the pickup's bed. The shoggoth Lewis had pasted was sprawled across way too much ground, like a handful of mud thrown at a brick wall, unmoving, but the other one had withdrawn into the darkness, away from all the light. Her hand closed over a smooth, cool cylinder, and pulled. A fierce involuntary grin erupted as she beheld the Husqvarana, oiled bar gleaming darkly in the silvered moonlight, then vanished as her eyes caught movement beyond the truck's lights, a shadow moving within a shadow. The other shoggoth. "Okay," Faith whispered to herself, "let's see how tough you are." She stepped away from the truck and yanked the starter rope. Nothing happened. The shoggoth took more definite form as it drew closer, oozing through the dark with frightening speed. Faith looked down at the chainsaw. There was a small toggle switch on the housing. She flipped it, grabbed the handle, and yanked again. This time, the engine caught with a roar and she squeezed the trigger, the chain a screaming silver blur. The shoggoth was almost upon her, its strange, sidling approach somehow more unsettling for looking so clumsy. The luminescent green eyes rolled and that gaping hole opened near the head, lined with multiple rows of needle-like teeth.
"Let's dance, Sparky," Faith said and shoved the chainsaw forward. The blade bit into the creature's midsection, and the Slayer was pelted with what felt like a spray of rancid Jello. The goo splattered on her face, overlaid on Ben's blood; she turned her head to one side to protect her eyes, but kept pushing the Husquvarna forward, trusting that the creature's screams meant it was hurting. Tendrils lapped at her arms as she moved a half-dozen paces, then the chainsaw was torn from her hands with a shocking jolt that pulled her to her knees. The motor sputtered and died. Faith whipped her head around, her left hand dropping to her pocket, but the shoggoth was not in front of her. The creature had drawn away, whipping its torso back and forth, and grabbing at the chainsaw that protruded from its middle. Faith wiped as much of the crap off her face as was possible with one swipe, then realized that she had no weapon aside from the knife in her pocket. She looked to her right; Ben lay still in front of the truck, the mattock on the ground beside him, the blade surrounded by a dark viscous pool, and the pipe wrench on the ground further out, at the edge of the headlights' reach. Lewis was still on the ground beside Ben, trying to apply pressure to the gaping wound between his neck and shoulder. Faith scrambled to the wrench on hands and knees, then looked over her shoulder.
Dalton charged from behind the truck. Faith screamed; it was lost in the general cacophony, but Lewis saw her. Perhaps it was an old instinct, maybe he saw where the Slayer's eyes were focused, but he turned toward Dalton. The old man grabbed at the boy's arm, but Dalton had the advantages of youth, strength, and leverage. Faith saw his blade plunge into Lewis's chest once, then again. Faith reacted without thought, rising to one knee and hurling the wrench. Dalton pulled back his arm for a third attack, and the tool caught him just above the left eyebrow. His eyes rolled back, he turned a lazy half-circle, and his legs collapsed under him.
The Slayer raced across the ground. Lewis sprawled on his back across Ben's legs, the front of his shirt dark with blood. Faith started to reach for him, but she heard a bellow that brought her up short. She dropped to one knee, then grabbed the wrench and stood in one fluid motion. She turned to see Heath Beck step out of the treeline, immense in the dappled shadows cast by the moonlight. Faith stepped away from her two fallen comrades, the wrench held low in her right hand. "You hit my boy again," he growled.
He came at her like a charging bull. Faith swung the pipe wrench as hard as she could; it bounced off his shoulder, and his grunt proved that the blow hurt, but his momentum was unchanged. He simply slammed into her, his gargantuan bulk crushing her against the side of the truck. The Slayer's breath whooshed out of her lungs and the pipe wrench dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. She felt a stab of pain just below her shoulder blade as the gas cap jammed against her ribs, then scraped down her back as Beck gathered himself and pushed, rolling her up and over the side of the truck bed. Faith landed in the back with a crash and scrambled for purchase, her fingers sliding over the slick metal of the bed as she pulled her knees up under her. She raised her head, and Beck grabbed her by the neck, flinging her to the right. Her shoulder hit the rear window; the glass spider-webbed under the impact as her head bounced off the top rear edge of the cab. Starbursts exploded behind her eyes, then everything went black for a heartbeat as she collapsed into the truck bed. She landed on her back and coughed, sending a burst of agony through her entire torso. The stars spun in the sky above her, then were blotted out as Beck's toilet-seat-sized hand reached over and grabbed the front of her shirt, along with a fair amount of flesh and skin. Faith flung out her right hand; the fingers closed around something round and ridged as Beck hauled her up for whatever coup de grace he had planned: break her neck, punch her in the face with that fist the size of a frozen turkey, or maybe just snap her spine across his knee. As he yanked her up, Faith brought her arm around, loose and free, using both her own strength and the momentum Beck provided, swinging with all the force she could muster. She felt a shock up her arm as whatever she'd swung made a solid impact. Maybe it would stun him, maybe it would buy her a few more seconds to try and find a way to stay alive for another minute.
She gasped as Beck's hand tightened and searing pain lanced through her chest, then the pressure was released. Beck staggered back into a patch of moonlight, and Faith collapsed forward, groaning as her bruised body banged against the wall of the truck bed, her arms draped over the side. She spat and looked up to see the pick of the masonry hammer buried in the crown of Beck's skull. He looked puzzled, and when he opened his mouth, blood gushed out and ran down his chin in a black river, splattering his filthy T-shirt. His lips worked, and a horrible gagging sound came out, then Heath Beck's eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched forward onto his knees, then collapsed onto his face. Faith coughed again; it felt like an iron bar was being rammed up her esophagus.
"Hey, Lewis," she gasped. "You're right. Hultafors is the best." She pulled herself to her knees, then her blood froze as a wet, hissing gargle cut through the fog in her brain. The first shoggoth had pulled itself together after being rammed by the truck. She could see its grotesque, quivering bulk hunched over the ground. It stretched up, and the Slayer realized it had not simply been gathering itself; a ravaged husk lay on the ground, the ribs stark and white in the night, and she knew what had happened to the young man Ben had taken out. The monster turned and advanced toward the vehicle, and its movement had changed; this was the shoggoth uncontrolled by human magic, free to follow its own base drives. Faith's heart tried to leap out of her mouth as she scrambled over the side of the truck bed and fell heavily to the ground. She hurt so bad the impact barely registered as a dull ache. Half-blind with pain she groped along the ground until her fingers closed upon the hard, cool steel of the pipe wrench. She rolled over, and rose to a crouch, then stood as she pulled the knife out of her pocket and flipped it open. She faced the monster, wrench in her right hand, knife in her left. The shoggoth skirted the arc of the headlights, then, when there was no painful light in its way, sloughed forward, fast, faster than before without Heath Beck controlling it. Bits of leaves and twigs swirled in the wake of its passing. Faith swung the wrench, hard. The shoggoth struck at her, rows of teeth glistening in the light as it bit down on her improvised weapon, which was exactly what she had hoped for.
She twisted the pipe wrench at the last instant and jammed it upright into the shoggoth's mouth, forcing and holding the snapping jaws apart, then she plunged the knife, held in her left hand, as deep down the creature's gullet as she could, up to the shoulder, the needle teeth scraping her skin. The knife struck something soft and squishy, and she pushed as hard as she was able. She stared into the creature's green, glowing eyes, almost touching, and felt whatever she had stabbed pop as an oily, gelatinous goo engulfed her hand. "Time's up, fucko," she panted. The shoggoth's jaws spasmed; the wrench bent, but held for a second longer as Faith yanked her arm back, then the steel of the wrench failed and the monster's jaws clamped down. Faith screamed as dozens of needle-sharp teeth scored her arm, but the wrench's handle wedged momentarily, caught in the shoggoth's mouth, and the Slayer was able to tear her hand free as the slavering jaws snapped shut. She took a step back, empty-handed, as the shoggoth reared up, towering over her, then a vile black pus spewed from its pores, and the monster collapsed in a heap. Faith turned away, cradling her mauled arm. It was hard to tell the extent of her injuries by the light of the headlamps, but even in the dimness, it was easy to see the strips of skin peeled from her flayed arm. She squeezed her hand into a fist; it hurt like a motherfucker, but she was able to do it. Tears ran down her face, and then the thought hit her: What about the other one? She turned slowly, stumbling a little from the pain. She heard a pitiful scream and looked in that direction. The remaining shoggoth had shaken or pulled loose the chainsaw and, with Heath Beck's control broken, turned on the nearest target, Dalton's human lackey. The mouth opened and struck, and the scream was cut off as a suddenly headless torso toppled over onto the forest floor. The shoggoth oozed toward the truck, coming around the safe circle of the lights. It emitted a hacking, snuffling noise, then turned its fluorescent eyes toward her. Faith gasped for breath and made a break for the safety of the headlights, but the monster was cunning. It moved and cut off the angle. Faith gritted her teeth and reached for her pocket, then realized that the knife was still inside the dead shoggoth. Her mind raced, searching for alternatives, and came up empty.
And Lewis turned on the spotlight.
He had dragged himself across the ground to the pickup and then draped his arms through the window of the open driver's door. The powerful halogen beam sliced through the night and pinned the monster, which hissed and recoiled. Lewis played the light back and forth as the creature moved, trying to keep it covered. Faith turned and ran toward the truck, every step a pounding agony. She reached the pickup and tried to leap into the bed, but her muscles failed her and she ended up slamming into the side and rolling over it in a parody of the way Beck had thrown her in moments before. She landed on her hands and knees and a low moan escaped her lips. She took three panting breaths, then began digging around the bed of the truck.
"Lewis," she said, and her voice trembled, "are you with me?"
"Well, I don't have a lot of choices." His voice betrayed an immense amount of strain.
Faith grabbed the top of the cab and pulled herself up. She leaned against the metal, legs trembling, and coughed. Something wet came up and she spat it out. "Do you trust me?" she asked.
There was a beat, then he said, "If I can't trust you now, I figure I'll never be able to trust anyone ever again."
"Okay." Faith nodded, her breathing a painful stab in her chest. "Do you hear, hear the sound it makes when it moves? When I give the word, turn off all the lights." She waited for any protestation or comment, but Lewis was quiet. "Okay, when the light goes out, it'll make its move. When you hear it come toward us, count three and turn on the spotlight again, okay? Aim it at the sound."
There was a beat, then Lewis said, "Gotcha."
"Okay. Stay with me, Lewis." Faith peered over the top of the truck, watching the shoggoth prowl. It was on the passenger side of the truck, oozing around the wash of the headlights. "Lewis," Faith hissed, "can you put the light out ahead of it, make it come back around the truck?" The circle of white light jumped out ahead of the monster; the shoggoth pulled back. "Stay a little bit to that side of it," Faith whispered.
"You want me to drive it back to our side?" Lewis's voice was tight with pain.
"Yeah, exactly." Faith watched as the creature looped back around the penumbra of light from the truck, the squish and rustle of its passing audible over any other night sounds. As it came to Faith's ten o'clock she said, "Kill the light." All the lights went out, and Faith held her breath in the sudden blackness. There was a moment of scuttling indecision, then the shoggoth lurched forward. Faith counted three and, as she stood up, shouted, "Now, Lewis!"
The spotlight popped into life; Lewis was dead on the mark. The shoggoth halted, not ten feet from the front fender of the pickup, and reared up, mouth open in a feral shriek, rows of spiky teeth reflecting the light and forming a perfect target as Faith threw the digging bar with all the strength she had left. She had been right about it being a perfect weapon: five feet and seventeen pounds of forged steel with a sharpened point flew straight and true, right into the shoggoth's maw. The monster gagged, vomited out venomous black sludge, and crumpled. Faith's hand hit the roof of the cab on her follow-through and bounced; her legs sagged and the torque turned her around to slide down to the floor to the truck bed. She raised her hand as Lewis pointed the spotlight at her.
"Jesus God," he breathed, "how are you alive?"
Faith looked at her left arm; the sleeve of her hoodie was pretty much gone and her skin hung in tatters. Blood still oozed from a deep gash along her triceps, and what wasn't covered in blood was coated in slime from the shoggoth's insides. She held up her hand and, with great effort, closed it into a fist. "See?" she said.
"See what?" Lewis asked, his own voice thready.
"I can make a fist. Hand's not broken." Her arm fell to her side. "Lewis?"
"Yeah?" He played the light over her.
"How come you're not dead? I saw you get stabbed."
His voice was strained. "That idiot didn't know to go for the gut. He stuck me up high, did a helluva lotta damage to a couple of ribs, but he didn't get my lungs, so, I'm not saying I'm fine, I'm not, it hurts like nine kinds of Hades, but if I can get the bleeding to stop, I'll live. You on the other hand..." He shone the light on her head. "That doesn't look good. Here-" he leaned over and pulled at the collar of her T-shirt "-what on earth-"
Faith slapped weakly at his hand. "Hey, watch it. I just killed a man for trying to grab my tit." She sobbed. "That was supposed to be funny." Lewis didn't say anything, and Faith realized he was gathering his strength.
"Okay," he said, his voice slow and a little wobbly, "I'm going to leave you back here, because I think it might do more damage to move you, and I don't think that, even between us, we've got enough oomph to get you in the cab." The spotlight moved away and she heard him rummaging behind the seat. "Here." He dumped the sleeping bag next to her and leaned over to unzip it, struggling and hissing with pain as he did so. He flopped the opened bag over her and Faith used her right hand to help arrange it. "Now," he said as he dropped the blankets near her legs, "try to put one of them under your head, like a pillow, and put the other two on the sides, to keep you from sliding around. It's gonna be bumpy no matter what."
"What about Ben?" The Slayer fought to keep her eyes open. Tori appeared behind Lewis; she had crawled out from under the truck, filthy and wide-eyed.
There was a beat of silence in which Faith felt the earth open up to swallow her. "Ben's not going with us." Lewis leaned against the truck, his eyes closed.
"Lewis," Faith rasped as he hung the spotlight on its hook, "are you good to drive out of here?"
He took a breath and she heard it catch in his chest. "Well, you're not, so I'm all that's left. Hang on, and say a prayer, chant a mantra, whatever you do, do it. We need any help available." He grabbed the door handle and almost fell over on his ass.
"Give me the keys." Tori's breathing was fast and ragged, and the hand she held out shook like a branch in a high wind. "You can't drive."
Lewis staggered and groaned softly. "I think you're right. But can you?"
Tori nodded, tears running down her face. "I can. I have to." she pulled up the tail of her shirt to wipe her eyes. "I'll get us home."
"Then here. I'm played out." He held out the keys. Tori stuffed them into a pocket.
"Lewis," Faith whispered, "we have to put Ben in here."
"No," Lewis said. "That won't do any good."
Faith stared up at the stars, her eyes filled with tears at the contrast between the simple pointillist beauty of the heavens and the grotesque carnage surrounding the truck. The Slayer closed her eyes and felt the pulse throb in her mauled left arm. "Did you leave anyone behind in the army?"
There was a long space of silence, then Lewis said, "No."
Faith raised her head from the blanket. "We're not leaving him out here with those… things." Her head collapsed back. "So, you put him in here, or you take me out, and I stay with him until someone comes back." She concentrated on breathing, her strength spent.
"Okay," Lewis said. "Okay. Tori, can you help me? Here's what you do, when I roll him toward me, slide my jacket under him." He gasped, then Faith heard the rustle of leaves and twigs and the sound of something inert being dragged across the forest floor. The tailgate dropped. Tori stood there, blood smeared on her jacket; Lewis was bent over, his left arm pressed against his ribs. Tori shook her head.
"Here." Faith worked her way around until her head pointed toward the rear of the truck, her damaged body screaming at her every movement. She dragged herself back until she could see Ben's inert body lying on Lewis's coat. "Okay," the Slayer said, her breath coming painful gasps, "I'm gonna reach down. Tori, Lewis, you're gonna have to raise Ben up enough that I can grab his shirt, then when I pull, you're gonna push, and we're gonna get him up in here, okay?"
Lewis looked at her; one side of his face was squinched down tight with pain. "You can't do that."
"Lewis," Faith said, "shut the fuck up." She extended her hand. "Let's go." Tori snapped out her reverie and grabbed Ben's leg while Lewis grabbed his shirt front. Ben's head dropped back loosely as they lifted his upper body, exposing the shredded wound at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. "Okay," Faith gasped. "On three."
'Yup," Lewis said, his voice tight and grating. "On three." They lifted and Faith pulled the collar of Ben's shirt. "Just a second," Lewis said. He motioned to Tori, who grabbed the corpse's other arm. "All right," Lewis said. "Here goes nothing on three. One, two…"
Faith screamed as she pulled as hard as she could. It was all arm strength; she had no leverage and her battered ribs felt like they were stabbing through her lungs. She believed she was about to vomit out her heart, then Ben's shoulders cleared the tailgate and the rest of him followed with comparative ease. She dropped her head onto the steel of the pickup bed.
"Here," Lewis said. "Get yourself back up there." He couldn't do much with one hand, but his fussing annoyed Faith enough that she dragged herself back to the makeshift pallet behind the cab. Lewis checked on her, then apologized as he took one of the blankets and, with Tori's help, pulled it over Ben to cover him, then put the mattock and shovel down to weight the covering. The smaller girl slammed the tailgate closed and paused.
"I was so scared," she said. "I'm so sorry… you're hurt so bad."
"I've been hurt worse," the Slayer groaned. "Now, get us home." Tori nodded and disappeared. Faith heard the doors slam, then the engine fired up.
Faith gasped and sobbed, she even cried out in pain a couple of times as the pickup bounced through the woods and along the gravel road, but that was the easy part of the trip. When they made it to the highway, Tori had trouble keeping it between the ditches; the truck veered all over the pavement, kicking up gravel from both shoulders. Faith looked up at the madly oscillating stars and had a flash of mordant humor: this would be the perfect way to go, dead in a stupid one-car rollover after managing to kill two monsters. She passed out at some point, jerked awake in agony when the truck's tires dropped off the asphalt for a second and she slid toward the side of the bed, but Tori wrestled the vehicle back on the road. She wondered if she was dead, and this was her afterlife, an endless Mobius strip of rural highway slalom, her bruised and lacerated form skidding over the corrugated bed of the truck forever and ever. The pickup came to a sliding stop and it took the wounded Slayer a moment to register that the stars were no longer visible. For a second, she wondered if she was dead, but then she heard voices and heard the truck doors open, and somewhere under all the pain she realized that Tori had done it; they were in town. Faces appeared around the truck bed, then a scream rent the air. Faith closed her eyes and swallowed: Beth was home. The tailgate was opened and the truck rocked on its springs as Ben's body was removed. Faith bit her lip to keep from crying out, then a hand touched her shoulder.
"You still with us?"
She rolled her eyes to the right. Lewis leaned against the truck's sheet metal, his arm extended toward her. His face was deathly pale under its perma-tan.
"Yeah," she said. "Lemme get up."
"Hey, hey." He held up his hand in a useless gesture of stoppage. "Just be still. The ambulance'll be here in a minute."
"Ambulance?" She struggled to a sitting position. "For who?"
"Well, me, for one. And you."
She shook her head and the world reeled. "I'm not going to any hospital."
"I don't think you have a choice." Lewis looked down, as though gathering enough strength to be able to speak. "I think that, in your present state, we all might be able to hold you down and bundle you in."
"Nope." Faith struggled to the end of the tailgate and slipped off. Her knees buckled and she almost fell, but she caught herself. She looked around. No one had left; she saw Pat and Ruby and Ethel, Tori's mom, Kim, and Lynda-with-a-y, the old guys from the Breakfast Club, Bernice. They all turned pale and looked away as her gaze passed across their faces. She leaned against the tailgate, willing herself to stay upright. She looked to her left. A blanket lay on the sidewalk, covering an unmoving form. Beth Stillwell Hopper knelt beside it. She looked up at the Slayer, and that look was as crushing a blow as any Faith had received in the battle. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Beth looked back down at her brother's body, and Faith pushed away from the truck and began wobbling across the street toward the diner. Footsteps pounded on the asphalt behind her and she turned in a great, wide, staggering arc as Tori ran up to her.
"What are you doing?" the smaller girl asked. A cracked trail of dried blood ran down her neck, and her face was scratched where she'd pressed it into the ground under the truck.
"To get some sleep." Faith sighed and it turned into a series of coughing sobs. The gashes on her left arm throbbed, and blood trickled from the goose egg above her ear where Beck had slammed her head into the pickup. Her jaw hurt, and when she opened her mouth and worked it, there was a popping and clicking just under her right ear. When she reached up to touch it, there was a grinding sensation deep in her shoulder. Her left hand burned; she looked down and almost laughed when she saw that the nail on her index finger had been torn off. "Look," she said, holding the digit up in front of Tori's face, "I broke a nail." Her head cleared for a second. "I gotta get to bed."
Tori nodded and held up both hands, as though she meant to grasp the Slayer by the shoulders but realized that there was no stretch of undamaged skin to touch. "You need to wait here, okay? The ambulance will be here in a second, and they'll take you and Lewis to the hospital. My mom's gonna drive me over there."
Faith squeezed her eyes shut; the light was too bright, the noise too loud. "No," she mumbled, "no hospital… don't need one… just need to rest." She wheeled back around, her arms flailing at her sides and pointed herself toward the outer door. She stumbled over the curb and almost fell, but she caught her balance and took a shaky step. She blinked; there was a girl behind the door, a girl with matted hair and face that shaded from almost a solid black to a Jackson Pollock-style splatter. An enormous bruise crept above the collar of her T-shirt, and blood had oozed through the skin and dried. The girl's arm looked like it had exploded; fragments of skin and cloth hung in tatters. Faith giggled: the cuff of the girl's hoodie was still around her wrist, but the sleeve had been torn to bits. The girl giggled too, and Faith realized it was her.
"Honey, you look like hell," she slurred and took a step forward. Her palm touched the glass, then her knees buckled and the darkness reached up to pull her into its deadening embrace.