Awakenings

            The skin on the back of his neck prickled and Thom shuddered, lifting his head and looking around slowly.  The mist that had burned off earlier that morning was back again, but he didn’t think that’s what was giving him the creepy crawlies.  His fingers tightened around his lukewarm mug as the dampness settled in and goosebumps rose along his limbs.

            Shadow-shapes dove from the tops of walls like silent death, flickering in and out of his vision as he watched them.  His heart thundered and he fumbled for the nearest weapon, a half-forged something laid out on a split log to cool.  All he knew is that he couldn’t face these things without a weapon in hand.  He wasn’t Rory or any of the rest.  All he had was physical defenses.
            The screams began a moment later.  He spun at the sound of claws on gravel, eyes searching for any bare sign of the creatures that had landed here.
            Nothing, just a scraping sound of claws on gravel.
            His heart hammered against his ribs.  Where are you, ugly?  His fingers tightened around the unfinished shaft of iron and steel.
            Pain blossomed in his arm and he struck out toward where he thought the source might be.  Something inhuman screamed.
            Something hit him square in the shoulders and he stumbled forward, losing his grip on the unfinished weapon in his hand.  He hit the ground, rolling, searching frantically for the things that he could only occasionally see.  It was getting worse.
            It was getting deadly.
            Someone was calling his name to his left and he tried to shout back, but something large and heavy landed on his chest, driving sharp knees into his diaphragm and robbing him of breath.

            Matt shook him again.  “Thom?”
            Thom blinked blearily back to himself, shivering as he looked up toward Matt.  “Sorry,” he mumbled.  “What were you saying?”
            “I wasn’t,” Matt said, brows knitting.  “You just had…y’know, that look.”
            Thom exhaled.  He knew what look Matt was talking about—the one that Marin got when she was seeing something, the one that apparently he got, too.  He shook his head slowly.
            “I’ve got a bad feeling about this morning, Matt,” he muttered before he could stop himself, hunching uncomfortably.  He started to fumble the letter back out, but stopped himself.
            She can’t help me now.  Might not ever be able to help me again.
            Matt winced.  “Good to know I’m not the only one.”  He paused for a moment, then asked quietly, “Did you—?”
            “The Shadow Man is coming.”
            Thom jerked, looking toward Angie, whose expression was far too serious to grace the face of such a young child.  What the hell is she talking about?  “Who’s that, Angie?”
            Her nose wrinkled as she came closer to the fire and stood between where Thom sat and Matt crouched.  An errant breeze lifted her dark hair away from her face, making it float, wreathing her head almost like a halo. She stared into the flames for a moment, eyes old and distant.  “He came and talked to Paul and me, before Miss Kellin and Miss Stasia and Miss Tala and Mister Brandon came and took us away from the farm.  He wanted Paul to help him, but Paul said no.  I had to make him say no, though.  I had to tell him the Shadow Man was bad and that he shouldn’t help him.  It didn’t matter what he wanted, it wasn’t gonna be right to help him.”
            She looked at Thom.  “And now he’s coming here.  I can feel him.  He makes my skin feel all funny and my head hurt.”
            Holy shit.  This is coming from a ten-year-old kid.  Thom stared at the girl mutely for a moment.
            Matt touched Angie’s shoulder.  “What does he look like?”  He looked at Thom over the girl’s shoulder, jaw tightening.
            Guess this is getting too weird for him, too.  Thom’s lips thinned as Angie turned toward Matt.
            “He’s tall and all covered in shadows,” she said, crossing her skinny arms and staring at him intensely.  “Didn’t Miss Kellin tell you about him?  She and I talked about him a lot!  She wanted to know, too, because I think she knows what he looks like, too.  I don’t know if he tried to talk to her, too, but she wanted to know about him back at the farm, so I told her.”
            Her eyes bounced between the two men for a moment, then she scowled and looked at the fire again.  “You could see him if you looked, when he comes, but I don’t think you want to see him, do you?  I don’t want to see him ever again, but he’s coming.  I can feel him.”  She looked at Thom, her gaze almost baleful, voice shifting subtly.  “You can feel it, too.  I know you can.”
            Thom held steady, but the desire to recoil almost overwhelmed him.
            She’s just a kid.  She’s just a kid.  She’s just a kid.
            How the hell could she know that?  How the hell does she know any of this?
            He thought of his cousin’s dreams, of how strongly she believed she was seeing another time, another life.  His throat started to close up, a lump rising and choking off his air.  He swallowed hard and steadied.
            “Yes,” he said softly.  “Yes, I can feel something, too.”
            Angie nodded slowly and stared at the fire.  When she spoke again, her voice was normal.  “He scares me.”
            Right now, I’m not sure that everything doesn’t scare me.  Thom’s hands tightened around the mug again as thunder growled in the distance.
            He edged closer to the fire.  Something about the light and the heat made him feel safer.  Angie glanced at him and smiled a small, weak smile.
            “It makes me feel safe,” she said quietly, pointing to the flames.
            Thom nodded as Matt sat down on the other side of the little girl and put his arm around her shoulders.
            “Me too,” Thom said, touching the girl’s knee.
            Me too.  I just wish it was enough to shake this bad feeling.  It wasn’t.
            The Shadow Man is coming.  But who is he, and what the hell does he want with us?
            He didn’t want to know the answer, but he had a feeling that one way or another, they were going to have to find out.

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            Carolyn’s head came up as they sat near the well, watching for Leah’s return.  She canted her head to one side, nose wrinkling.  “Did you hear that?”
            “Hear what?”  J.T. mumbled, looking up from the surface of the well.  He kept seeing the replay of his dream about the woman in the tarn in the water’s surface.  He kept thinking that if he could keep watching it, maybe he’d figure out what was being pressed into his dream-self’s hand.
            “That…that faint roaring sound.  You didn’t hear it?”
            All I can hear is my goddamned heart, so no.  Even on the bright, sunny morning, something was turning his guts to ice, filling him with dread.  “No.  I didn’t hear anything.”
            “Hm,” her brows knit and she seemed to be listening carefully for a moment, then shook her head, spreading her hands.  “I must’ve imagined it.  Sorry.”
            He shrugged and reached for her hand.  “No harm, no foul.”  The feeling of her warm, small fingers helped bring him fully back to himself and he closed his eyes, sighing softly.
            “Are you okay?”  She asked as she edged a little nearer on the rock where they perched.
            He gave a little shrug and a head-shake.  “Yeah, I think so, maybe.”
            They fell silent for a few long moments before Carolyn said softly, “It’s those dreams, isn’t it?  You’re distracted.”
            J.T. swallowed, glancing at the water again.  He caught a glimpse of one of the dream faces in the ripples there and squeezed his eyes shut, though he couldn’t escape the dark red hair and large eyes that seemed burned into his memory.  “They’re just weird-ass dreams, Care.  I wish they didn’t bother me so much.”  I wish they didn’t feel so goddamned important.
            A mist started to rise to the west, cool dampness moving in with clouds that began to shroud the sun, dark clouds promising rain or worse in the near future.  Carolyn’s fingers tightened and she edged even closer.
            “Why do they bother you so much?” she whispered.  “I’ve never seen you like this before.”
            Thunder growled in the distance, and J.T. squinted at the sky, buying himself time to formulate an answer.
            Fuck it.  If I lie, I’ll just be like Thom, and I’m not a hypocrite.  “Fucking past life or genetic memory bullshit,” he grumbled at last, shaking his head as he kept staring up at the darkening clouds.  He stood up, shaking his head.  “Let’s get under cover before that storm that’s brewing hits.”
            Carolyn’s nose wrinkled and she tugged on his hand.  “Thom’s back there.  Do you really want to talk about this in front of him?”
            After a few seconds of contemplating saying yes, J.T. shook his head.  “No.”
            Something flickered in the gathering mist.
            “‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’”
            J.T.’s gaze snapped toward the mist as if tugged by a tether, vainly seeking the source of the movement, throat tightening painfully.  He took a step forward, sucking in a few rapid breaths.
            “Jay?”
            “You didn’t hear that, did you?” he breathed.  Carolyn stood, coming up behind him and wrapping both of her arms around one of his.
            “All I hear is the wind,” she said softly.
            The hairs on the back of his neck stirred and his muscles began to tighten as he stared out into that mist.
            “They’re near.  Beware.”
            “Beware of what?” he asked before he realized he was talking to something that might be a figment of his imagination.
            A figment of his imagination that sounded exactly like Constance.
            Carolyn’s arms tightened and she said his name again.
            “I’m fine,” he said, swallowing.
            She shook her head slightly.  “There’s something out there.  I can feel it, too.”  She rested her cheek against his shoulder and he swallowed, feeling tightness spread through his neck and shoulders.
            “What kind of something?”  He whispered, staring at the mist.  It swirled, thickening slightly, but he didn’t see any movement like that first one he’d caught out of the corner of his eye.
            Thunder growled again and he shuddered.
            “Something unsettled,” she said softly, “but it doesn’t feel hateful, like those other things.”
            Ghosts.  Just say it, you can feel them out there even if you can’t see them.  He closed his eyes and caught glimpses of faces he knew, some only in passing, others well.
            Faces of the dead.
            “It’s all around us.”
            He nodded mutely.  He could feel it, too, and could see the mist starting to cocoon the camp.  They’re trying to protect us.  “Something’s coming,” he said quietly.  “And it isn’t good.”
            “No,” she agreed.  “Not at all.”
            J.T. drew himself up straighter, ignoring the tension in his muscles.  “Go back to the tent and make sure Matt and Thom have the fire good and hot.”
            Her tone went wary.  “…why?”
            He shook his head slightly.  “I don’t know.  The light and heat, I think.  Just a feeling.”  He looked down at her and smiled weakly.  “I’ll wait for the others to get back.  If they’re hearing the thunder, they’ll bring it in whether they’ve found Leah or not.  If she’s smart, she’ll be headed back already.”
            “You sure?”  Carolyn asked.
            “I’m sure.”  He really wasn’t, but he said it anyway, turning back to the mists as she let go of his arm and headed slowly back toward the tents.
            Lights glinted out in the mist and lightning flashed in the distance.
            “Hold fast.  They’re coming.”
            A tendril of ice wormed its way down his spine.  He didn’t know what was coming, but he had his suspicions.
            What worried him the most was the chance that he was right.

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            “Damn her,” Rory mumbled under his breath as he tramped down into the fringes of the ravine down one of the paths sheltered by the rubble of some of the dormitories.  What the hell is she panicking about?  So Leah decided to wander off on her own.  Not all of us are that keen on staying together all the time.
            He’d had the advantage of being able to buck that rule a bit, mostly because of the effect he’d had on the grays when they’d attacked Marin.  He still wasn’t quite sure what he’d done, other than let loose something that lurked inside of him, something he tried to keep tightly bottled up.  No one tried to stop him when he slipped off alone on short walks in the area, hikes up to the ruins of 45 and back, sometimes across to the orchard.  As long as he brought back any fruit he found ripe, no one really complained.  A few asked why he was allowed to wander freely, but a shrug usually quieted the questions.
            After all, no one really wanted to go anywhere alone but him.
            That’s what landed him heading down into the ravines by himself to see what the heck Leah was doing on her own down by the river.  He had absolutely no doubt that she was just down there clearing her head, probably fishing like she’d told Thom, just doing it alone rather than with a gaggle of other people.
            It might’ve been the end of the world, but not everyone wanted to be all huggy-touchy-feely—or with other human beings twenty-four/seven.
            Of course, that morning, all he’d wanted was a hot drink and a spot near the fire, since digging the well had left him feeling about twenty years older than he actually was, but Kellin had other ideas.  More to the point, Leah had other ideas, which caused Kellin to have other ideas.
            “Damn her,” he muttered again, no longer sure who he was cursing about.  At least they’d let him go by himself rather than dragging someone along behind him.  Brandon and Drew, Marin and Kellin, Stasia and Paul, and Davon and Jacqueline had all gone looking, too, hoping that they’d find her that much faster.
            She’s probably down by the old crew launch, fishing.  If it were me, that’s where I’d be.  Good purchase and places to sit, current’s not too fast, either.  Not that he trusted the Grand’s bounty yet, but there were a few people more trustworthy of its yield than he was.  As long as Tala kept on producing salted or smoked meat, he’d be fine for a little longer.
            The woods were dead still for most of the hike down.  He’d come to the spot where the hills started bottoming out into the river’s upper flood shelf when he started hearing whispering rustles somewhere someplace above.  The air was dead still, not even a breeze.
            I’m not alone out here.  It was too high to be one of the others, too widespread to be a squirrel or another critter.  He stopped walking, looking around slowly as he became aware of something dark, foreboding as his eyes sought their source.  There were shadows moving through the trees, silent as the grave, around and above.  He rocked back against his heels on the dirt trail, starting to hear the whisper of voices amidst the brush.
            Forsake them, Old Soul, and come to us.  We are your kind, blood of blood, flesh of flesh.
            His heart began to pound, the sense of violence and darkness starting to sing in his blood even as his heartbeat pounded in his ears.
            Come to us, Old Soul.  Come to us.  We ask for nothing but your hands and your talent.  All else is yours.  Help us.  Help us.  Help us.
            The whispers became a wail.
            Help us!
            “Help you do what?”  He demanded, looking around at the shadows gathering along the trail, unnatural and concerning.
            Help us!  The voice demanded it, now, instead of begging.
            “Do what?”  Rory asked again, voice as commanding as the whisperer’s.
            You will help us, Old Soul, or suffer like the rest!
            He opened his mouth to shout back at it but never got the chance.
            The shadows coalesced into a mass around him, binding and choking, squeezing and clawing.
            Fuck no, he thought, you don’t get me without a fight!
            He could feel the heat burning just beneath the surface, setting his palms tingling and eyes stinging.  He could sense the clean heat building inside, begging for release.
            “You want me?”  He shouted.  “Try and take me!”
            Even as the shadows forced him to a knee, heat and flame pulsed off of him in a shimmering, writhing wave.  Tongues of flame licked hungrily out from him in a circle, devouring the shadows in their wake.
            The shadows screamed as the clean flames touched them, consumed them, vanishing into dust and foul-smelling smoke one by one as Rory knelt on the ground, hands balled into fists.
            He struggled for control, taking deep, labored breaths.
            It wasn’t like helping Drew save Marin.  This was like the first time, trapped in the gym when he was twelve with no way out.
            Of course, he didn’t remember anything about that day beyond the flames erupting and waking up halfway down the hall.
            Breathe.  You’ve got this.
            The flames sucked inward, vanishing with a pop mere inches from his skin.  The acrid smell of burnt hair lingered as he slowly straightened up and flaked some dried mud off his knee.
            I think I had some control there.  Maybe a little.
            That control had been tenuous at best, though, and he grimaced.
            Next time, don’t start to panic.
            Rory looked around.  No sign of anyone coming to investigate.
            Must’ve been quiet, or far enough away.  Either way, small favors strike again.
            A shiver went down his spine at the memory of those voices.  They’d scratched at his brain, at places he kept shut away, the dark, hidden places of his mind.  That darker part of him had been deeply tempted, but he’d refused.
            He couldn’t be sure he’d manage to do that a second time.

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            Thom folded the letter back up again, into thirds and then in half once, in half again, and tucked it back into his pocket.  It was becoming a familiar ritual; he’d read his cousin’s letter seven times over the past three days.  It still didn’t make sense to him, still made him ache.
            Was she right?  Were all of them right?
            She wrote the letter on the fifteenth.  She never called.  Why didn’t she call?  He squeezed his eyes shut, hunching a little and ignoring his complaining ribs.  The September morning was chilly as he perched on a broken slab of concrete near the newly-dug well.  A mist clung damply to the ruins and the grass, though it was slowly dissipating with a slight breeze.  His fingers were already cold, but he wasn’t ready to go back to the fire yet.  He rubbed at his eyes, stubborn tears refusing to stop welling up against his lower lashes.  He didn’t want any of them to see him crying.
            “Hey Thom.  Everything okay?”
            He blinked, looking up slowly at the sound of Leah’s voice.  She was standing a few feet away, carrying a tackle box, bucket, and fishing pole, head cocked to one side as she looked at him with a concerned smile on her face.
            “Are your ribs bothering you?”  She asked, setting down the tackle box and bucket.
            “No,” he said, shaking off his initial surprise.  “No, they’re okay.  Where’re you going?”
            She looked at him like it was the stupidest question he could have asked, and if he were to admit it to himself, he knew that it was.
            Damn.  Where the hell did I think she was going with all of that?  But by herself?
            “I’m going down to the river to do some fishing.  I know that there’s a few people that won’t risk eating any of it, but we can’t keep being afraid of the river forever, right?  Even if I don’t catch anything, I can bring some sand up when I come back.”
            Thom didn’t bother to ask about the sand, shaking his head a little.  “You’re going down there alone?”
            Leah grinned.  “What, are you going to tell me that you’re going to come down with me as an escort, with your ankle and all?  I’ll be fine.  A couple of the guys already went, I’m just going to join them.”
            I don’t remember seeing…bah.  They probably said hello and I didn’t even hear them, or they went down before I came out here.  Either explanation was equally likely.  Thom shrugged a little.  “You sure you’ll be okay climbing down by yourself?”
            “You bet.”  Leah grinned, shaking her head slightly.  “You shouldn’t worry so much, Thom.  I think Marin and Kel worry enough for all of us, especially when they’ve got Jac to help them worry.”  She winked at him, shrugging a little as she started to gather up the tackle and the bucket again.  “It’s an easy trail and the bank’s still really stable.  Doesn’t look like it’s eroding as fast anymore.”
            When the river’s current had picked up two weeks before, they’d been worried about that, but the river had settled down again over the past few days, back into is normal flow.  At least, that’s what Matt and Dr. Doyle had said about it, and Thom didn’t have any reason to disbelieve them.  If the banks were stable, more the better for the long run.
            Thom just nodded, watching her gather her supplies.  “Be careful,” he said.  Leah laughed.
            “I will be.  I’ll see you around lunch, okay?”  She nodded to him with a grin and headed on her way, toward one of the trails they’d beaten down to the ravines and the river below.
            The hairs on the back of his neck stirred and he shivered at a sudden chill.
            Time to go back to the fire.  He pushed himself to his feet, hobbled back toward the tent to find Matt starting breakfast at the fire with some help from Tala, who seemed to be doing most of the work.
            “Does it itch yet?”  Thom asked Matt as he lowered himself to the ground near the fire but out of the way.
            Matt snorted.  “Starting to.  Jay and Jac said that’s a good sign; means it’s healing.  It’s starting to make me crazy.”
            “Not a far putt,” Thom said, giving Matt a teasing grin.  The younger man rolled his eyes and shook his head.
            “Takes one to know one,” he countered, then poured Thom a mug of tea.  “You’re up early this morning.  Marin’s still sleeping, isn’t she?”
            Thom nodded.  Was when I left, and I’d rather leave her to catch as much as she can get before I wake her.  Her sleep had been restless the past few days, as if something was bothering her—something she wasn’t quite willing to share.  He’d been trying not to pry.  She probably wasn’t telling him because she didn’t want to fight.
            Things were going too damn well for him to pick a fight now.  Especially after last night.  It’d been the first time since the world had come apart, but they’d both needed it, and both enjoyed it.  His ribs were a little more sore this morning than they had been the day before, but he’d decided it was worth it.
            Matt stared at him for a moment as he handed over the mug.  “You two okay?”
            One corner of Thom’s mouth curled in a smile.  “Yeah, we’re okay.”
            Matt eyed him for a moment longer until Tala whacked him in the thigh with a wooden spoon.
            “Move, you’re in my way.”
            He moved out of the way, giving her an exaggerated bow.  “A thousand apologies, m’lady of the Smoked Meat.”
            Tala glared at Matt, then glanced at Thom, shaking her head.  “He’s been like this all morning.  It’s starting to make me crazy.”  She waggled the spoon in his face.  “And if you make the same wisecrack about me that you did about him, you’re going to end up with this spoon where the sun don’t shine.”
            Thom choked on a laugh, nodding.  “Right, right.”  He waited until Tala had turned back toward the fire and Matt was seated again before he asked, “Did the folks fishing down by the river eat before they left?”
            Matt frowned and Tala stopped, looking over her shoulder.  She shook her head slightly.  “There’s no one fishing down by the river this morning.”
            “…Leah just went down there.  Said a couple of the others were already there.”  She wouldn’t have lied about that, would she?
            Matt shook his head slightly.  “I’ve been up for at least two hours.  I didn’t see anyone get up to go down to the river.  Is that where Leah was going?”
            “That’s what she said.”  Thom frowned.
            “Then she went alone,” Matt said slowly.  “We’re…we’re not supposed to do that.”
            Thom felt a shiver work its way down his spine.  “Think we should send someone down after her?”
            “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Tala said softly, turning back to the fire.  “Nothing ate her or anything when she was the one going for water all the time, after all, and she usually did that by herself.”
            Right.  Just paranoid over nothing.  Safety in numbers, but what’s going to get her down by the river?  A deer?  She’s a big girl.  She’ll be fine.
            He didn’t want to be the one to tell Kellin and Marin, though.  If that made him a coward, he was fine with that.  Let someone else tell them the rule had been violated—someone who could have done something about it.
            Still, he frowned, and brooded, staring into the fire.
            Why did she lie about someone else being down there?  Why did she go alone?

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August 15

 Dear Thom,

             I hope you can forgive me.  I know what I decided to do was sudden, impulsive, and completely unlike me, but I swear to it, it was something I had to do.  Do you understand?  I had to do it.
           I’d have called to tell you all of this, but I don’t get anything remotely resembling a cellular signal up here.  My odometer says we’re some twelve or fifteen miles out of Saint John, New Brunswick.  Teague says Loch Lomond—the lake itself—is only a few miles west.   I’m just hoping it’s someplace safe.  He says it is.  Promised me it is.  He hasn’t lead me wrong yet, even though I know that you think he has.
            I hope that you decided not to go to the city.  Something’s about to happen, something connected to that damn asteroid, and I just feel like it’s better that you’re with everyone at the university.  Something—not someone—tells me that.  I know you stopped believing her and believing yourself, but please, just believe me in this.  The interview isn’t that important.  If you walk away from her—from all of it—now, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.
            However long that’s going to be remains to be seen.
            We drove for days to get here—twenty-some odd hours of actual driving time.  It’s beautiful, majestic, and I can feel the power here.  I can feel it, Thom, in ways I never dreamed were possible, even when we were little kids, talking about those weird dreams I had growing up, the ones where I’d see his face, the memories from another life.  I know you don’t want to talk to anyone about any of it, but you need to.  If it’s not me and it’s not her, talk to Jameson.  I think he’ll understand better than any of your other friends.
            I just wish you’d tell me
            I think if you stay at the university, you’ll be safe from what’s coming, but I can’t be sure.  Teague said that Phelan was on his way to all of you up there, but I don’t know when that was going to happen or if he’ll make it there in time.  I know you’ve never met him and you’re probably not very inclined to meet him, but please, for my sake, give him the benefit of the doubt and listen to what he has to say.  Even if you’re just going to decide to do whatever you’re going to do anyway.
            I’m worried about you, Thom.  A lot of people are worried about you.  But you don’t need to worry about me because I’m safe and in love and… 
            I’m married, Thom.  We got married.  I was going to tell you on the phone, but I couldn’t find the words.  I choked on them when I tried to tell you.  This is easier, somehow.  Much easier.  I guess because I won’t have to hear the pain in your voice when you ask me why I’d do something like that.
            I did it because it felt right, because it was right, and our souls were already bound across time and space…so why not, right?  I know you think he’s crazy, but he’s not—no more than I am, no more than you are.  He just knows more than we do, remembers more than we do, and I love him.  That’s the most important part.  Regardless of anything else, I love him with every bit and fragment of my heart.  He’s good for me, and I think Mom and Dad would have agreed.  Your parents like him, even if they think he’s a little strange.
            I know, that’s not much incentive to like him.  But he likes you (god only knows why) and he’s only met you once.  He says I should be patient, that you’ll come around eventually.
            He knows how badly I want your approval, though.  He knows how close we are, and he understand how important this is to me.  I just keep hoping against hope that this letter won’t reach you too late, that somehow I’ll find out that you’re okay with…everything…before something really bad happens.
            And something really bad is about to happen.  Otherwise, Teague and I wouldn’t be here.  He’d be there, and I’d be in the city, and we’d both be starting to teach again in a couple weeks.
            Everything would be normal in my life for once.  Can you believe how amazing that would have been?
            There’s so much I wish I could tell you, so much I wish you’d understand, believe if I told you.  But if I fill this letter up with all of that, you’ll just throw it away.  You’d hate me for it, and I can’t live with that.
            I love you, Thom.  Write to me soon.  I’ll try to call when I go to Saint John for the last of our supplies.

 ~ Kira

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            Thom came back to our cubby after dinner that evening bare-chested with damp hair, face ruddy with sunburn.  He smiled faintly at me as I looked up copying over a list of books we’d salvaged from the library, and I smiled back.  “Clean?”
            He nodded, shuffling over to the mattress and sinking down next to me.  Most of the bruises on his chest had faded to sickly brown and yellow, but a few were still dark at the center, deep and painful-looking.  “Cold, but clean.  I think I just made the bath house a bigger priority than previously anticipated.”  He reached for the blanket that was half underneath me, tugging on it pitifully until I grinned and moved over.  He pulled the blanket around his shoulders with a slight shiver.  “What’re you working on?”
            “Book inventory.”  I slid my pencil through the clipboard’s clip and smiled at him, setting it aside.  “But it’s nothing that can’t wait until another night.”
            Thom grunted as I eased closer to lean against his shoulder.  “There a lot of books left to pull out of there?”
            “Another four of five days’ worth of work, I think.  But we’ve got a lot of it out, which is good.  Using all of the cars to store them was a good idea; I’m glad you thought of it.”
            He shook his head a little.  “None of them seem to be working, god only knows why.  Might as well get some use out of them, right?”
            Davon had cursed a little bit about that when he tried to get one of the engines started the other day.  He tried almost half of the cars left in the lots and found that he couldn’t get any of their engines to turn over—that came in the wake of the last of the generators crapping out.  The flatbed was still working, but we’d all been eying it warily ever since, wondering when it, too, would give out on us, just like everything else.
            “Right,” I agreed, sliding my arm around his waist.  He smiled at me and brushed some hair out of my face.
            “What’d you and J.T. wander off and talk about earlier?  He okay?”
            I hesitated for a bare moment before I nodded.  “Yeah, he’s all right.  He’s…less worried about you than he was before, which I think is probably a pretty good thing.”  I grinned up at him and gave him a slight squeeze, which he answered by putting an arm around my shoulders.  Just ask, Marin.  It’s as good of an opportunity as you’re going to get.  “He did mention something, though.”
            “Oh?”  Thom arched a brow, stretching his legs a little and not quite looking at me.  “And what did my brother from another mother see fit to mention about me that’s got you bothered enough to mention it?”
            Either he’s in a good mood, or he’s being flip to hide the fact that he’s not in a good mood.  I exhaled silently.  Too late now, anyway.  “He said Kira wrote you a letter before…things happened.  He didn’t think you ever read it.  Did you?”
            Thom stiffened a little, looking away, but didn’t recoil.  His arm tightened around me instead, fingers digging into my shoulder almost painfully for a moment before he realized it and loosened his grip.  “Sorry,” he murmured in apology, then fell silent again.
            I rested my head against his jaw.  “Are you okay?”
            He shook his head slightly.  “I’ve just been trying so hard not to think about it.  That’s the one that really hurts, you know?  She’s…she was my best friend, the closest person I had in the family, even if I did spent about half the time teasing the shit out of her.”  Thom rested his head against mine, eyes bright with gathering tears.  I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair and he sighed.  “She’s gone like the rest of them.  Everyone who wasn’t here with us when it happened…they’re just gone.”
            “Maybe not,” I whispered.  “You never know.  There’s no way we can, not until we go looking ourselves, or other people come looking.  We can’t know.”
            He looked at me for a moment, eyes brimming.  “You really believe that?”
            My thumb brushed against his cheek, catching a tear that escaped from his eye and erasing it.  “I have to, Thom.  There’s more than just us out there.  There has to be.”  I offered him a brave smile.  “We can’t lose hope.”  There has to be more than just out there.  There has to be.  Nothing makes sense if we’re the only people on the planet left alive.  That’s just not even possible.  “Right?”
            Thom was quiet for so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer, or that he was trying to find a way to tell me I was wrong without shattering us both.  Finally, his head just dipped and he nodded slightly, staring at our knees.
            “Yeah,” he whispered.  “Yeah, you’re right.  You’re right.  We can’t possibly be alone.”  He rested his forehead in the crook between my jaw and shoulder, against my neck.  “Do you think she’s maybe alive?”
            “I hope so,” I whispered.  For your sake, above and beyond anything else, I hope she’s alive.  I hope she’s okay, and I hope you get to see her again.  I rubbed his back gently, holding him close.  “And if she is, I know we’ll see her again.”
            “Promise?”
            I nodded.  “Promise.”

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            “That’s what I’m afraid of, y’know?”  He swallowed hard, fingers fidgety, flexing and unflexing, curling and uncurling around each other.  “That somehow, I’ll stop being in control of myself.  I see what having those visions does to you and Thom.  It’s like you’re not even here for a few minutes.  I don’t want that to happen to me.”
            “Oh, Jay,” I sighed.  I slid an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him tightly.  He took a shuddering breath and shook his head.
            “I didn’t ask for this, Mar.  I didn’t ask for this.  Why now?  Why did they…why did I…”  He set his jaw, a muscle at the corner twitching as his nostrils flared with a deep breath.  “I thought we were going to die, the three of us, when those things got us surrounded.  They were about the ugliest motherfuckers I’ve ever seen.  I just held onto Care and prayed with every fiber of my being that it wasn’t the end for us.”
            A shudder ran through him and I held on tighter.  He glanced at me, expression tight.  “I’d been seeing misty shadows all afternoon that day.  I thought the light and my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I was wrong.  I think I was starting to see them a few hours before I realized what it was I was seeing.”  His expression softened for a moment.  “They were the dead, and they came to protect us from those things that were ready to rip us apart.  One of them talked to me.”
            My stomach felt hollowed out, left cold and empty by the pain and fear in his voice.  Oh, J.T.  I’m so sorry.  “Who was it?”  I whispered.
            “Constance.  Someone from the theatre.  Nice girl, good friend, good actress.”  His eyes misted and a shiver went through him.  “Why can I see them, Mar?  Why me?”
            “I don’t know.  Why any of us?  It’s just…how it is.  It’s what’s happening, and we can’t do anything to change that.”  I wrapped my free hand around one of his and squeezed.  “It’s a gift, Jay, even if it feels like a curse.”
            “Is it?” he rasped, closing his eyes.  “Thom doesn’t seem to think it is.”
            “Well, we’re both agreed that Thom’s kind of stupid about this stuff.”  I managed to smile and squeezed him again.  He let out a weak, bitter laugh, then nodded.
            “Yeah,” he murmured.  “I guess so.  But that doesn’t stop me from sharing his doubts about whether or not this is a gift.  I’m scared, Mar, and you know I don’t admit to that very often.”
            “I know,” I said softly.  “I know you don’t.  And I’m pretty sure it’s okay to be scared.  I’d be scared.”  I shook my head a little.  “Jay, you have to realize that for Kel and I and some of the others…we’ve had time to get used to seeing and feeling and being, and we can help you get used to it, too, but the only person who can master your fear…that’s you.  We’re all scared sometimes.  I know I am.  I just don’t let it control me, and that’s probably key for you, too.  You can control this.  I don’t know how, but I know that you can, because you’re stronger than your fear.  You always have been.”
            He sighed deeply, glancing up toward the trees again, then nodded.  “Yeah,” he finally said, voice quiet.  “You’re right.  I know you’re right.”
            “Doesn’t make it any less scary, though, right?”
            He laughed.  “Right.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “…the dead saved our lives, Mar.  When those things were chasing us.  What the hell were they, anyway?”
            I shook my head.  “I don’t know.  I don’t think any of us know, just that they’re bad.  Thom…Thom once told me he’d seen them before he ever met me, but that was before he started denying everything.  It was that night when he and Drew and I went hiking in the ravines a few years ago.”  I could still remember that night vividly.  I’d lost a pendant, a Celtic knot pendant, which my grandmother had given me when I was still very small.  It’d been important to me—but it also stopped one of those things from getting its claws into the three of us.  I’d seen it, in snatches and glimpses, and Drew had felt it.  Thom had gotten the full effect, seeing it clear as day.  We’d tried not to talk about it after that night, and it only came up occasionally.
            I’d never found the pendant again, even though I’d looked for it, and finally gave up on it as lost, a sacrifice that I was convinced had probably saved our lives.
            “If I ever see one of them again, it’ll be too soon.”
            I shuddered, nodding.  “Yeah.  Me too.”
            He looked at me, expression grim.  “I think we’re going to see them again, though.  A lot.  I think they’re gunning for us.”
            I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  Yeah.  Me too.  I just squeezed him again and stared at the trees.  The storm in my stomach wouldn’t let me answer him.
            I think he knew I agreed with him all the same. 

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            “She’s the one that suddenly dropped everything before the asteroid…”  My voice trailed away and I stared at him, mind struggling to process the implications of what I was about to say.  She dropped everything and drove to god knows where a week before all of this happened.  Went off the grid.  I remember Thom mentioning it and laughing, not knowing what to make of it.  Blamed it on that guy she’d been seeing.
            The guy that was supposed to start teaching here for the fall semester.
            Shit and goddamn.
            I wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, but the math in my brain led me to believe that it was all a little fishy.  Like they’d somehow known something we hadn’t.  Then again, we’d known something most of the rest of the world hadn’t, we just hadn’t realized what it meant until it was too late.
            Some of the fear had melted out of his expression as he stared at me, apparently watching me try to work out possible conclusions about what all of this could mean.  “About a week before,” he said quietly, brow furrowing.  “He got a letter from her, but I don’t think he ever read it.”
            He did?  And didn’t read it?  That’s not like him.  “That doesn’t sound like her.”  I’d met Kira a few times, usually when she cooked Thanksgiving dinner in her loft in the city.  Thom liked going there more than he liked spending his holidays with his parents, and I couldn’t blame him for that one bit.  She’d always been nice to me, a few years older than he or I, and just finishing her Ph.D at the University of Chicago.  “Dropping everything and just going, I mean.  Not calling.  All of that.”  I frowned.  “She’s like a sister to him.”
            J.T. shrugged a little.  “I don’t know.  Maybe they talked on the phone while I wasn’t around.  Maybe she convinced him he was going to do something idiotic by leaving without saying good-bye to you.  I just…I don’t know, Mar.  But he didn’t seem all that worried.”
            “I’ll have to ask him,” I murmured.
            “Why?”  J.T. swallowed, shaking his head.  “I don’t know that you should.  I really don’t know that it’s a good idea.  I mean, what if she said that she’d decided to stay in the city?  Or that she was coming up for the weekend or something?  I mean…Mar, she could be dead.”  He swallowed hard, looking away again.  “…even though I don’t think she is.”
            I just stared at him wordlessly for a moment.  He squirmed uncomfortably, something I’d only seen him do once or twice in all the years I’d known him.  Big, bad Jameson Thaddeus MacKenzie was never uncomfortable, and if he ever was, he never showed it.  He’d always laughed about doing crazy shit while he was high, or seeing things while working as a paramedic, that made him pretty much immune to being uncomfortable.
            But now here he was, squirming like a virgin on a prison bus.
            “Jay,” I said softly.  “If you’re going to tell someone, you might as well tell me.”
            He looked at me square after a moment, then shook his head.  “I’m not sure I want to tell anyone.”
            I squeezed his hand tightly and he sighed.
            “If I don’t, you’re going to tell me it’s going to eat me up inside, aren’t you?”
            “If you don’t tell someone?  I think it might, Jay.  I really do.  Tell me, tell Carolyn, tell Kel…but tell someone.  Talk to someone.”
            “I don’t want to tell Carolyn,” he mumbled.  “She’s got enough on her plate already.  Enough stress.”
            Don’t we all?  And here I am sitting here, trying to take on more.  There’s got to be something wrong with me.  “Then tell Kel or I about it, Jay.  Tell someone.  You don’t need to shoulder whatever this is all by yourself.  I mean…she already knows it’s bothering you and bothering you a lot.  Are you getting any rest with these dreams?”
            “Yeah.”  He cracked a smile.  “Yeah, even with fucked up dreams, I’m still waking up feeling like I’ve gotten solid sleep.  That’s not a problem.”
            Not yet.  I tried to shake off the morbid thoughts, then exhaled.  “That’s at least a small blessing.  Probably a pretty big one.”
            He laughed weakly, nodding.  “Yeah.  Yeah, that’s something, at least.  We’ve got enough people not sleeping well.”  He stared at me for a moment, frowning.  “Are you all right?  Sleeping okay?”
            “Yeah, I’m good.”  I squeezed his hand again, smiling.  “But I appreciate the concern.”
            A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he nodded a little.  “You’re welcome to it.  Distracts me from what I’m afraid of.”
            I stared up at him, chewing the inside of my lip.  “What’re you afraid of, Jay?”
            He let go of my hand and leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees.  He stared at his hands and spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper.  “I’m afraid that I’m seeing ghosts…and I’m afraid that I can’t control that.”  A tremor entered his voice.
            “And if I can’t control that, how long will it be before it controls me?”

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            He met me near the ward-lines about ten minutes later, shrugging into his battered leather jacket, the one without the spikes that he’d only started wearing late last winter.
            “It’s not that chilly,” I said quietly, watching him as he walked toward me.
            J.T. shook his head.  “It is to me, but I’m not so sure that’s not psychosomatic.  C’mon.  Sooner we’re out of earshot, sooner I can stop being paranoid about someone overhearing us.”
            Shit, he’s really rattled.  I frowned, jogging a few steps to catch up with him as he breezed past me, heading down toward the ruins of some of the suite-style dorms.  We passed where they were trying to dig wells, past where they were starting to dig shallow trenches for whatever heating system Thom had engineered.  Matt waved to me as we passed and I waved back, then picked up my pace to keep up with J.T.  The midmorning sun peaked through ragged clouds, giving us glimpses of blue sky tinted with other, stranger colors since the stone rain more than two weeks before.
            It’s been more than two weeks.  God, it seems like forever and yet…  I suppressed a shiver and followed J.T. down toward what had been a sledding hill, one upon a time, heading down toward the ravines and the river.  He didn’t say a word until we were at the bottom of that hill and had hiked through some of the trees and over to one of the clear-running streamlets that emptied out into the Grand River.  He sat heavily on a rock and I joined him on another nearby, brows knitting.
            “I’ve been having the dreams since I was a kid, but I didn’t completely understand them until…recently,” he said, staring at the water rushing by.  “I didn’t realize I was dreaming about the long-dead.”
            Oh holy hell.
            He glanced at me sidelong and smiled weakly.  “Yeah, I know.  Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
            I swallowed the bile that had suddenly risen in my throat.  Yeah, crazy.  Dreaming about ghosts.  Not just any ghosts, either.  Ghosts of people who died…who knows how long ago?  I put a hand on his knee and squeezed.  He laid his hand over mine.
            “It looked like the tarn near my nan’s cottage in Scotland, but I knew that wasn’t the place.  The huts were wrong—all stone with bark and thatched roofs, no glass for their windows.  And the people…all in cloth and hides and soft leather.  Not like us.”  His lips barely moved as he spoke, fingers tight around mine as he stared at the trees.  “I keep seeing this woman—old, long white hair, wearing a torc around her neck and some kind of circlet.  Beaten silver, both of them.  She looks old, but she doesn’t move like she’s old.  She comes out of one of the cottages as the sun’s going down and walks to the edge of the tarn, then she looks at me like she knows I’m there, watching her, even though I’m dreaming.
            “ ‘Don’t worry,’ she says.  ‘Don’t worry, my dear boy, you’ll see me again.’  Then she just…falls face-first into the tarn.  She sinks and she doesn’t try to swim, and I can see her spirit rise out of her body  and she smiles…and then disappears on the wind.”  He was white-knuckling my hand, now, voice barely a whisper.  “I see it over and over, every time I sleep—at least once a night, usually more than once.  Then last night, there was another dream, after the first one.
            “It was in the same village—that much I could tell, I was sure of.  We were carrying a body on a bier out to a cairn.  I knew it was the woman from the other dream.  There were so many people crying, weeping—keening, Mar.  Whoever she was, she must’ve been really important to them.”  He went his lips, then continued.  “There was a stranger by the cairn, a red-haired man in a black cloak with a half-mask.  For some reason, I remembered thinking that he shouldn’t have been there, that they’d all gone away forever, and why the hell was he here now instead of days ago, when she was throwing herself into the tarn?  He smiled at me when we got there, but it was a sad smile.  Then he said, ‘He loved her well and truly, loves her still, and will love her again in some tomorrow yet to come.  He loves you and yours and hopes someday he can forgive himself as she forgave him.’  I remember setting the bier down, and that stranger came to me and put something in my hand.  ‘I will see you again someday,’ he said to me, then he just walked away.  And I keep waking up before I can see what it is he’s given me.”
            He tore his gaze away from the trees and looked at me.  “I don’t know what they mean, Marin.  I don’t know what they mean and that’s got me scared shitless.  I keep trying to convince myself that they’re just weird dreams, but somewhere, deep down, I know they’re not.”
            “How do you know?”  I whispered.
            J.T. laughed a bitter, almost hysterical laugh, shaking his head.  “How do you know your visions are real?  My gut tells me so, Mar.  That’s not the worst of it, though.”  A muscle in his jaw twitched.  “The woman, the one who I keep watching commit suicide…I know who she is.”
            “I thought you didn’t—”
            He shook his head quickly.  “Not who she was.  I’ve got no idea who she was or why she did that.  But I’ve got this weird feeling I know who she is now.”
            Who she is now?  What, reincarnation or something?  I didn’t think he believed in that.  Hell, I’d only half convinced myself that I believed in that.  “I’m almost afraid to ask who.”
            Smiling a humorless smile, he shook his head again.  “It’s not much better for me, I promise.  But I think it’s Kira.”
            Kira…do I know a…oh!  “Wait…”
            He nodded grimly.  “That’s right.  Thom’s cousin.”

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            “Edges are starting to firm up nice,” J.T. said, his quiet voice carried on the breeze as I approached.  “There’s going to be a scar, but not as bad as it could’ve been.  Been keeping the antibac on it?”
            “Yeah, and uncovering it when I’m not working on something so the air can get to it.”  Matt’s gaze flicked toward me as I ducked into his cubby.  J.T. was seated next to the mattress on the ground, his back to me and my brother’s hand in both of his, examining the healing gash there.  “Hey Mar.”
            I smiled faintly and stepped around J.T. to Matt’s side.  “Hey.  Giving Jay any trouble?”
            “Tons.  He doesn’t smell as pretty as Jac and Leah.”  He grinned up at me, then looked back down to his hand.  I winced a little as I watched the stitches down near the lower corner tug, but it apparently didn’t bother him that much.
            J.T. glanced up over his shoulder at me and shot me a smile, then turned back to Matt’s hand.  “Well, you’re doing all the right stuff, and that’s as much as we can really do.  Just keep on keeping it clean.”
            Matt nodded and withdrew his hand.  “Thanks, J.T.”
            “No problem.”
            I forced a grin.  “Is he going to live?”
            J.T. snorted.  “Without a doubt.  I’ll let you two be.”
            “Actually…I came looking for you.”  I tousled Matt’s hair.  “Seeing my little brother is just an added bonus.”
            Matt muttered a curse and tried to put his hair back in order, getting up from the mattress.  “Hate it when you do that, Mar.”
            “Where’re you going?”
            “Going to watch people try to dig a well.”  He grinned at me and headed off.
            J.T. glanced at me while he was packing up his kit, chuckling.  “I’m really glad I got off that detail.”
            I smiled wryly, nodding.  “I think I would be, too, but I think Matt’s a little upset he can’t be getting down and dirty with the rest of them, even if it is hard work.”  I crossed my arms.  “He’s really going to be okay?”
            “Good as new in a few weeks, when everything’s fully closed up, yeah.  They were deep, but not too deep, and he’s doing everything right.”  J.T. straightened up, his smile warm as he touched my elbow.  “So you can stop worrying about your little brother and get back to worrying about Thom.”
            My nose wrinkled and J.T. laughed, shaking his head.
            “Yup, that’s how Matt said you’d react to that suggestion.”
            Well, at least everyone’s sense of humor is intact.  I snorted softly and shook my head.  “He’d know it, too.”  I glanced off in the direction Matt had disappeared in, then looked back at J.T.  “Carolyn said you might need to talk.”
            J.T.’s mirth faded and his expression blanked out, eyes momentarily going cold.  “That’s why you came looking for me?”
            I shrugged slightly.  “It’s either me or it’s Kellin, Jay, and I guess Carolyn thought I was the better choice.  She knows something’s bugging you.”
            “Bullshit,” he muttered, looking away.  “She told you more than that.”
            Damn straight she told me more than that.  I shrugged helplessly.  “She thinks you need to talk to someone, Jay.  Especially about whatever dreams you’ve been having since one of those shadows chased you guys back here.”  I frowned.  “Did she tell you that she talked to me?”
            “She tried,” he muttered, shaking his head.  “I was trying not to listen, but I heard anyway.”  He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and sighed deeply.  “They’re just dreams, Mar.  I want to believe that they’re just dreams.”
            “But they’re not,” I said quietly.  Damnation, Jay.  What’re you seeing?  What’s woken up inside of you?  Bottling it all up inside is too damned dangerous.  We’ve agreed about that, you and I, when it comes to Thom.  So what makes you think you’re different when it comes to all of that?
            His hands dropped and he looked me square in the eye, exhaling slowly.  “If we’re going to talk about this, we should take a walk,” he rumbled, shaking his head slowly.
            “Why?”  I asked quietly, taking a step closer to him.
            J.T. wet his lips and stared at nothing, looking toward the fire without really seeing it.  “Because I don’t think it’s a conversation that you’re going to want Thom to overhear.  My gut tells me it’d just make things harder.  More complicated.”
            My stomach started to knot up again.  Shit, J.T.  What are you dreaming?
            Ghosts, Carolyn said.  She said he was dreaming about ghosts.  “Jay?”
            He shook his head slightly, eyes sliding shut.  “Better safe than sorry, Mar.  I don’t want him to overhear us and think that it’s not safe to talk to me anymore.  We’ve been over this—he needs an outlet sometimes, and that’s me.”
            “Right,” I whispered, nodding slightly.  He was right—if Thom couldn’t talk to him, who would he talk to?
            “Let me stow my kit, then we’ll walk.  Down to the river, maybe.
            “All right,” I said softly.  I squeezed his arm and he smiled slightly.
            “He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong, does he?”
            “With you?”  I shrugged a little.  “I don’t think so.  He hasn’t said anything.”
            J.T. nodded, sounding tired and relieved all at once.  “Good.” 

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