Luna's Arc

Chapter 21 of 29

The recovered memory faded, and Luna stood frozen on the bus steps. Behind her, the last of the children pushed toward the door. Luke waited beside her, gripping his red multitool. The clearing had gone silent. No birds. No wind. Then the woods began to breathe. The trees groaned and cracked. Branches bent as if something huge pressed through them. Luna spun on the steps and looked back. Shapes moved between the trunks. Tall shapes. Too tall. They came out of the dark. Dead things, human-shaped but wrong. Bare bone showed through gray skin. Long fingers ended in claws. Their heads hung forward on thin necks. The tallest one stopped at the treeline and stared with red eyes. Then it lurched toward the children. "Get on the bus!" Harper shouted. "Now!" The children screamed and climbed over each other up the steps. The oldest Ghost Kid shoved the smallest ones ahead of him. Luna grabbed a little girl by the collar and hauled her inside. Luke froze, staring at the dead things. Luna still held her carved wooden club, the one she had shaped with Luke's multitool. She raised it and stepped down onto the grass. Her hands knew the weight. Her hands remembered how to swing. Harper caught her arm. "No." Her mother's face was hard now, not soft. She pulled the club from Luna's fingers. "Not you. Not tonight." "Mom—" "On the bus." Harper pushed her up the steps, one strong shove. Then she turned to face the dead. Luna caught the door rail and watched through the barred window. Her mother moved fast. The first dead thing reached for her with both claws. Harper ducked under its arm and swung the club up into its jaw. The skull snapped off the neck and rolled into the grass. The body dropped. A second one came. Harper spun and cracked its head sideways. Bone shattered. She did not stop. She moved between them like water, the same way Luna's hands wanted to move. The same technique. Luna understood now where she had learned it. One by one Harper took their heads. The tall watcher came last. It towered over her, jaws open. Harper stepped inside its reach and drove the club up hard. The head burst apart. The tall body folded into the dirt. The clearing was still again. Harper stood among the fallen, breathing hard, the club dripping in her hand. She ran to the bus and jumped inside. "Hold on," she said. She dropped into the driver's seat and turned the key. The engine roared. The heavy grille pushed through the wrecked bodies as the bus lurched forward. Luna gripped a seat and stared at her mother's hands on the wheel. Those hands had killed a dozen dead things in under a minute. Those same hands had trained her, then erased it. But why? Why would remain unanswered. As Luna let herself sink into a deep sleep for the first time in a week.