Voracious - Alice Henderson [122]
The door opposite the observation car opened, and the young security officer appeared. “Was that you guys who opened the emergency door?”
They nodded exuberantly.
“Is everything okay?”
“For now,” Madeline said.
George looked at her nervously. “For now?”
The cop glanced out of the window. “We’re heading into Whitefish now. Going to unload the people who got injured. Ambulance will come for the guy I … killed.” He worked hard to get out the last word. She got the feeling he’d never even shot a person before, much less had to kill one.
Madeline glanced back toward the observation car. “Don’t feel too bad about shooting that creep,” she said. “You didn’t kill him. He got up. In fact, he just got off the train.”
The officer raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
She pushed the button for the door leading to the observation car. It slid open. “See for yourself,” she said.
The train cop pushed by them and entered the observation lounge. He stood there motionless until the door closed again behind him. She heard his muffled “What the hell?” as the door clicked into place.
“Your arm,” George said, gesturing at her blood-soaked sleeve.
In the excitement, she’d totally forgotten about it.
“We should get you to the train’s EMT. She fixed my head up pretty good.”
Madeline smiled, taking in the small bandage. “She sure did.” After a pause, she added, “I’m really sorry about that. I think when I explain it all, you might find it in your heart to forgive me.”
George shook his head and held up his hands. “If you’ve been dealing with this kind of crap lately, I can see why you’d totally flip out.”
She looked out of the window as the train slowed, heading into Whitefish. Huge log cabin-style resort homes lit by dusk-to-dawn lights streaked by outside the window. “I was going to catch a bus to Mothershead from here. But we should go back and get your car. I’m sorry I ditched you.”
“I’d like to get my car, too. I just left it in a gas station parking lot when I saw you get on the train. I hope it hasn’t gotten towed. But first I want to know what’s going on.”
“Well, I hate to tell you this, but that thing we just threw off the train is practically indestructible, and it’ll be back. We’ve just bought a little time, is all.” She thought a minute. “Maybe we’d be safer getting on the bus. It might be looking for your car.”
“It’s that smart?”
She laughed sardonically. “It’s brilliant.” She brought a tired hand to her forehead. “Let me think a minute. It knows where I live, but taking the bus just might buy us enough time to at least get back to Mothershead and get more help. Maybe we can overpower him again somehow. In a more permanent way.”
“You keep calling it ‘him.’ What is it?”
Madeline looked up at George and almost smiled. She had asked Noah the same question that first night on the mountain. Now she was the one in the know, and her poor friend was trying to understand. She put her arms around him. “It’s so good to see you,” she told him. Then, wondering when exactly the bus left Whitefish, and where she should catch it, she pulled away and reached into the back pocket of Noah’s jeans to pull out the slip of paper the train station clerk had given her.
Her fingers closed around a piece of paper, but it wasn’t the clerk’s note. She fished it out. It was the receipt from the cabin they’d stayed in.
Immediately powerful visions hit her.
Noah, distraught, devising a plan to get Madeline to leave the park by acting crazy to get her out of danger …
Noah planning to go to the creature’s cabin to lie in wait, believing that if he ingests more blood, he will be able to manifest his own metallic spikes and kill the creature …
A gasp escaped her lips. He didn’t hate her. It had been an act—all those hateful words he spat at her—just an act to get rid of her, to protect her. Relief flooded over her as the hurt she’d felt so deeply was replaced by hope, and then fear as she thought of the danger he was in. He couldn’t face the creature alone and unarmed. Clutching the receipt, she pushed the door button and ran into