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And then the chestrose

"Ah!" She let out ato rock and shiver as it fought against the sheet like a butterfly too weak to battle its way out of its cocoon I have to help, I have to do so back to lifeand that was nuts She’d never seen any of the Mus went down? Stupid person stu, and finds a stone coffin and thinks, Whoa, I think we’ll just open this puppy and see what’s what

"And then the stupid person gets killed," she whispered Or theFor a split second, she thought, Run, run fast, just go! Leave and roll the slider back into place and shut up the death house and stick her fingers in her ears--la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you--and pretend she hadn’t seen a darned thing No one would ever know Of course, when they ca thaw to bury the bodies, they’d notice that the burlap was all torn up They’d see the blood But she didn’t have to fess up Because here was the thing: how did she know that this wasn’t what happened to some kids when they beca, or turned in the same way So what if ? What if the second she ripped open that sheet, that person--who rabbed her and

By her side, Mina pawed at her shoulder and let out an anxious whimper

Listen to Mina, the little voice from deep in the closet of her mind said She would know if this is trouble Coot to do it quick, or he’ll die

"But he’s already dead," she said, only meekly, the way you offered an answer in class you weren’t quite sure of Unless he really isn’t It could’ve been aAnd that cal out of control like boots on slick ice Mina knows it’s okay She wantsback her heart, she patted her hands over the dome of his head Of all the places she could cut, this was probably the best way not to hurt him Not hurt him? She tented up a handful of sheet, stabbed with her knife, worked a horizontal slit He’s dead, or he was dead

She could hear hi that went on and

h the slit she’d made, Ellie could see black hair and now the broad plain of his forehead Slipping in her fingers, she jerked the cotton sheet hard, grunting as the fabric first resisted then gave His face appeared His skin was very white, ales brushed the hollow beneath his eyes, which were still closed His lips were dusky blue, like dead wor, his chest heaving against the sheet, the wiry cords standing in his neck

"Chris! Chris!" She was crying again, ripping the sheet apart and crying, screa his name He was naked--as in no clothes at all, a fact heryou passed on the road in a really fast car His chest strained to suck in air She could see the way the skin actually bowed between his ribs

But what really riveted her to the spot, made her actually start back with a little shriek, was the blood: scarlet roses unfurling where Hannah had placed the wound wood after blessing it

That can’t work She saw that the wounds weren’t raw or ragged anymore either but dimpled with half-formed scar tissue It’s just a char, all over, as if he’d stuck his finger into an electrical socket She battled the sheet away fros Chris had ash on each pal blow, the real ht down, a through-andthrough that had shredded first his diaphragm, which Hannah said helped you breathe, and then his liver, which was nothingbloody sac, easily torn by a broken rib Or, in Chris’s case, obliterated by the weight of the door and that iron spike No way to stop the bleeding either, not fro as he had only because he was young and strong

But now there’s bloodThat terrible wound glistened like the red eye of a loon in high summer--and yet there was also a rim of very pink flesh, like the new skin of a baby It’s all just voodoo; there’s no such thing as rabbed his face and realized with a shock that as he gothectic with fresh color "Chris, can you hear me? Are you--"

All at once, his eyes flew open At the sa a thin spray of new blood, and hooked her shoulders It happened so fast her shriek was only halfway to her asp Chris’s eyes, the centers black and huge, bored into hers--and for Ellie, it was like staring into the asped again "H-help ht have been a couple cans shy of a six-pack right about then, but he knew the gun wasn’t hers No cross-trigger safety, for one thing, and Alex’s had been a Glock 22, standard police issue with a fifteen-roundBesides, Alex had been a prisoner No way the Chuckies would let her keep her father’s weapon

This gun was sazine He eyeballed it as nineteen rounds altogether Yet he had no way of checking for sure, or even jacking back the slide to shuck a chambered round A thin scrilaze over a stale doughnut

It got wet His own battered hands were stiff with cold, and he was starting to shiver all over Wincing, he claht hand under his left ar his butt against boulders, he shrugged back into his parka, but his torn hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t work the zipper and finally gave up Had to warloves, he studied the rise directly east No question about it: that Glock was in the fall line, either carried here all by itself or stripped from its owner as the avalanche roared downslope Sothis Glock had belonged to a Chucky? That stood to reason There had been seven plowing up the rise, and he’d already found one The Chuckies had only just breached the hillside when Luke and Weller forced him to leave So, prepared or not, unless you were a real er like Weller and knew your way around ropes and rocks, reaching Alex would have taken precious tiht not have had to spare So wasn’t it much more likely that none had survived, and other dead waited, entombed under his feet? Of course He’d found a ski pole That dead kid had an Eagle and now here was a Glock Probably rifles under the snow and skis and all sorts of goodies Only ti melt would tell, unless he came back with a shovel and excavated the entire flat A futile effort He knew that Didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it, but

The ice He slid a thulove Spied a tiny frozen teardrop hanging fro over the Chucky, he laboriously worked the Eagle from its hip holster To his utter lack of surprise, the e even the safety "But there’s no ice on it," he le, a heavy sucker, in his left hand So the gun probably hadn’t gotten sopping wet "What the hell does that round, in theThere was plenty of ice now, not only a skin of it over the new lake itself but also frozen into beards over the rocks along the shore But the only ice down here was a brittle surface crust, and what you’d expect frole on the dead boy’s stohs No ice on the Eagle ot wet Unless Alex got her hands on a weapon The thought was a golden blaze, and crazy, too, just another loony-tunes ite afternoon of insanity, but he couldn’t help it That would explain it, because that wouldin his chest His eyes sprang hot Hold it together Don’t get ahead of yourself But it ht? Alex had been in that tunnel, working her way to the surface If anyone could’ve found a way to get a weapon, it would be Alex, and what if, what if

"Alex" Closing his eyes, he folded his hands, pressing the weapon to the hard thruet out?" Or did they take you? Is that how you lost the gun? He hated that thought because then, more likely than not, she really was here, now, beneath the snoaiting for hiot were virtually none at all: only that wind, laced with decay, sighing down frorate of stone at his back Just a tick, to his left Sayeight o’clock A tiny tock as rock butted rock, a sound that did not belong but that he heard even past the pulse and pound of his ra blood because, after all this ti was storet hi her bare hands under her ar Now that her initial burst of shock had dribbled away, She was starting to feel the cold Shucking out of her coat, she’d draped that over his chest, then stripped burlap from all the other bodies and piled the shrouds over Chris to keep him as warm as she could On the pallet and under his burlap blankets, Chris was quiet now, eyes closed again, but he was panting, his breath chuffing in wavering gray clouds

There were really only two things she could do: leave Chris and ride for help, or take hiuard hiallop all the way to the farot poky old Bella to really book