Page 83 of Death Valley

“Red?” Cole says, voice shaking slightly. “You with us, buddy?”

Red’s head swivels toward Cole, movements jerky, unnatural. His lips pull back in what might be a smile, revealing teeth that seem too sharp, too numerous. When he speaks, his voice is a raspy approximation of his normal drawl.

“So hungry,” he says simply.

Then he lunges.

Cole barely has time to raise his arm in defense before Red is on him, movements blindingly fast. They crash to the floor in a tangle of limbs, Red’s teeth snapping at Cole‘s throat like a piranha, held back only by Cole’s forearm braced against his chest.

“Get him off me!” Cole screams.

Jensen and Eli move simultaneously, grabbing Red’s arms and trying to pull him away. But Red’s strength has multiplied exponentially, his transformed muscles resisting their combined efforts. It’s like trying to move a boulder, his body locked in place by inhuman determination.

I grab the rifle and, with as much power as I can muster, bring it down on the back of Red’s head. The blow stuns him just long enough for Jensen and Eli to haul him off Cole, throwinghim back against the table. Red snarls, the sound more animal than human, and prepares to lunge again.

“The rope!” Jensen yells to Eli, who is already moving toward our packs. “We need to restrain him!”

Cole scrambles backward, putting distance between himself and Red. Blood trickles from a scratch on his neck where Red’s nails—now elongated into something like claws—raked him. He pulls his knife from its sheath, holding it out defensively.

“I don’t want to fucking hurt you,” Cole says to his friend. “Don’t make me do it, old boy.”

Eli runs back with coils of rope, and he and Jensen approach Red cautiously, one from each side. Red’s head swivels between them, tracking their movements with predatory focus. His breathing has changed, becoming more labored, each exhale accompanied by a low growl that makes the hair on my arms stand on end.

“On three,” Jensen says quietly to Eli. “One…two…”

They move, Jensen grabbing Red’s arms while Eli loops the rope around his chest. Red howls, the sound piercing, and thrashes violently against their hold. But then Cole jumps into the fray and within moments they have him secured to one of the support beams, multiple loops of rope binding his arms to his sides.

Red continues to struggle, strength undiminished, but the ropes hold.

For now.

I can’t help but stare at him, trying to wrap my head around what we all just witnessed. The transformation of a man into something else entirely, something driven by hunger so profound it obliterated his humanity in a matter of hours. Is this what happened to Hank? To Lainey? To the McAlisters? All the lost hikers and travelers who came to these mountains and never left?

“What do we do now?” I ask softly.

I don’t voice what we’re all really wondering.

Jensen turns to me, his expression grim in the dim light. “We wait,” he says simply. “Watch him. See if there’s anything left of Red in there. We don’t know how it happens but the fact that he can speak, the fact that we’re able to restrain him, that means he’s not quite turned. I believe he has a ways to go. If there’s a chance the spread can be stopped…if maybe we can help him before…”

It sounds like a lost cause but I don’t think any of us want to deal with the alternative right now.

He glances toward the window, where the tapping has momentarily ceased. “Let’s hope the ropes keep. And hope whoever is out there doesn’t break in before dawn.”

Red strains against his bonds, muscles bulging, veins standing out against his skin like dark rivers. His eyes, that unnatural blue, follow our movements with predatory intent. His teeth, still changing, still sharpening, snap at the air between growls.

“And if there isn’t?” Eli asks. “If there’s nothing left of him?”

Jensen meets his gaze. “Then we do what needs to be done. Same as we’ll have to do with Hank.”

The implication hangs in the air, heavy and terrible. I look at Red—at what used to be Red—and try to see any trace of the man who was. I never liked the man. He was crude and predatory and I’d never want to be in a room alone with him. But he was a human being.

There’s nothing in those blue eyes but hunger now.

Endless, insatiable hunger.

The tapping at the window starts again, faster this time, more urgent. As if they can sense what’s happening inside, can smell the transformation taking place. Can feel the pack growing.

We gather on the far side of the hut, as distant from Red as the confined space allows, all of us armed to the teeth.

---