Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,61
on the trigger.
“Hello?” I call.
No answer, but he’s closer now, almost to the house. I can imagine it as he steps up onto the porch. The shape of him warped by the old glass in the windows at Raxter. The sound of his voice over the hum of a lawn mower. And then he’s through the doorway, a soft creak as he crosses the surviving floorboards, and he’s lifting his head and there’s a tear in his shirt and a cut on his cheek, but I know him. Even in the dark, I’d know him anywhere.
“Dad?” Reese breathes.
It’s Mr. Harker.
Until he eases into the red glow of the flare light, and it isn’t anymore.
“Oh God.” My voice sounds strange, muffled and far away. “Reese, Reese, I’m so sorry.”
Because it’s his face, and it’s his body, but I don’t think anything else is left. His skin bleached and pulling, his mouth sprouting roots. Branches burrowing in ears and under fingernails and slinking down his arms. And unblinking, eyes still his, pupils blown wide as he watches us.
More than a year out here, alone with the Tox. What did we expect?
“No,” Reese is saying. I grab hold of her arm, haul her back a few steps. She’s barely on her feet, and she stumbles, collapses to her knees. “No, no, Dad.”
But he’s not here anymore. “We have to go,” I say. “Come on, Reese. Now.”
He looks at me, cocks his head as he opens his mouth, takes a long, rattling breath. Black, splitting teeth, and a nest of green at the back of his throat. The air musty and sour, so pungent I can taste it.
I lift the shotgun, get ready to aim, but Reese shoves me away, looks up at me with a feral light in her eyes. Behind her, Mr. Harker advancing, step by step, vines unspooling from his mouth.
“Don’t you dare,” she says, and her voice breaks open, raw underneath.
“Please,” I say. “We have to run.”
It’s too late. A vine writhes up Reese’s legs, along her spine, and another curls around her arm, jerks it back. A cry, and a crack of bone. Her right shoulder pops, hangs wrong in its socket.
I lunge for her, grab my knife from my belt. Slash once, twice, at the vines holding her. Mr. Harker shrieks, rears back and drags her with him.
“Hetty!” Reese yells.
The shotgun. But when I fire into the heart of him, it makes no difference. He only roars and pulls tighter on Reese’s arm, winds a vine around her throat and starts to squeeze.
I could run. I could save myself and get back past the fence, back to the house. All I’ve got is my knife now. And what good is that against Mr. Harker?
But there’s no choice to make. I break for him. Duck the thickest vine as it swings around, feel the thorns rip down my back, and there he is. I crash into him, and we tumble to the ground. Dirt in my mouth, the scrape of bark against my skin. My knife knocked from my hand, and I scramble for it across the damp earth.
A vine locks around my ankle, yanks me onto my back. I graze my knife with my fingers, but it’s too far—I can’t—and he’s pulling me away.
“Reese,” I call. “Get it!”
But I can’t find her, can’t see anything but the looming dark as Mr. Harker bears down and his bruised hands, spongy with rot, close around my throat. I thrash, try to throw him off me, and his grip only tightens. Branches snake around my waist, holding me down. And one slithers up my neck, wrenches a scream from me as it hooks around my jaw and pries my mouth open.
It’s bitter on my tongue, and I’m choking, scrabbling at Mr. Harker’s bloated face. His skin peels off like strips of paper, gathering under my nails, soft and pulpy.
“Hey!” I hear Reese yell. For an instant the pressure lessens, before Reese’s silver hand flashes above, the knife deep in his shoulder, and she slams into her dad, sends him reeling back onto the ground.
“Quick,” I say. “Pin him.” But Reese is just looking at him, her mouth open. She’s no use, not anymore.
I throw myself down, trap Mr. Harker’s ribs between my knees and pin him to the ground. He roars, muscles straining, and he’s looking at me, I know he is. Me and Reese’s dad, face-to-face.
I cry out as his body surges up. The bristle and spray