alone before the open threshold of the snowing night. He pictured two pixelated characters, Holly and Hank, walking toward the bright block letters that read THE END. They had made it this far together by virtue of their grudging love. But as they make their ending move, there comes the shriek of an invisible ax to tear one of them away.
Holly shook her head: slowly at first, then speeding. Her dark hair swam and slapped across her face. No, no, the motion seemed to say. Doesn’t work this way.
“Hey-it’s-okay!” called Patrick brightly, his crescendoing distress causing uncharacteristic emotional tone-deafness. “Hank just played wrong, pff. We played right, huh! Michael said there was gonna be a Betray—”
“Holly, I am so sorry,” Michael interrupted. He moved slowly toward her, gun still raised. He wanted to touch her, to hold her; most of all, he wanted to shield her eyes from the sight of her brother, the blood pooling under her brother’s head and mixing with the black Cady-core that had splattered on and around him. But he had to keep the bead on Jopek. “I am so sorry that Hank . . . that he—”
Holly sucked her lips into her mouth. She’s going to freak, Michael saw. And maybe she’ll be too upset to leave. He felt a flash of guilt for analyzing her grief.
Holly asked as if to herself, “Is he gone?”
“Yeah—God, I’m sorry.”
“Got shot, that’s my thinkin’,” muttered Jopek. He stood from the body, brushing his hands, shaking his head as if in mourning.
“I thought maybe he was going to get bit, but . . . I didn’t think he hit his head that hard. . . I—I didn’t think he—”
Patrick tugged Michael’s waist. “We always play right, huh?” he whispered, with a building urgency, his voice beginning to quiver. “That’s why we’re awesome, huh? Low-five, huh?”
“Is he going to come back?” Holly said to herself.
Michael didn’t think so—Hank had died only of his head wound—but he still pictured himself having to shoot Hank in the head in front of Holly to keep Hank from possibly rising again. His throat clenched sickeningly and he had to fight back a moan of dread and despair. That was too much. He looked at Jopek and silently told him, You killed him. You. We should have been gone.
Then he said, “Holly, we’ve got to go.” Holly looked past him, far-eyed. “Patrick? Okay?” Nothing from either of them, and Michael thought: I’m going to have to touch Hank. I’m going to have to go through his pockets for the keys. “You guys go outside, I’ll be there, we have to go before that Bellow”—he stopped; calling it a Bellow somehow didn’t feel right—“before that . . . kid comes back.”
“How did that kid come back?” Holly asked suddenly, watching Hank. Tears spilled from her eyes, unblinked.
“The ceiling?” offered Patrick.
“How did it come back?” Holly repeated to herself. “He wasn’t bit. When things were getting bad, the CDC checked every goddamn coroner’s report, my dad was helping, and they dug up any body that had been bitten. I remember my dad told me the CDC checked Cady’s body too, to make sure his head wound wasn’t a bite from a Zed. I’m saying Cady wasn’t bit, this isn’t possible, this can’t be real!”
She jammed a shaky hand through her hair. “Changing,” she said. “The virus is changing.” She sucked a single sob, a low, humorless laugh sliding from her.
Michael didn’t like the off-kilter edge her voice had. “Well, that just means even more that we should go, right?” he said quickly, double-checking Jopek as he did. “Since it’s changing?”
Holly nodded fervently. For one single second, she looked like a girl who has not been sledgehammered across the mouth with grief. “I guess I’m just kinda like, ‘how?’” she said, her voice cracking. “You know? How did it happen? I guess . . . it’s just . . . I just . . . how goddamn it did it happen!” she cried. “HOW DID MY BROTHER DIE, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN, THAT KID NEVER GOT BIT! THEY CHECKED CADY AND THERE WEREN’T ANY BITES, THEY CHECKED AND ALL THAT KID HAD ON HIM WERE A COUPLE GODDAMN SCRATCHES!”
And, as if by command, Holly’s voice cut quiet.
And Michael did not understand why.
He did not understand why Holly’s hands plummeted. He did not understand why her eyes flicked to Patrick with sudden and heartbreaking pity. He didn’t understand why Jopek’s lips twitched, as if to contain a smile.