Marcus Holloway's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Marcus crouched in the dark school with the boy. For a moment the brick had hidden them. Then he heard the claws. The beast scraped along the outside wall. Its nose pressed to a gap under a boarded window. It had found his scent and come around the building. There would be no rest here. Marcus could not sit still long enough to hear the silence he needed. "It smells me," Marcus whispered. "Brick isn't enough. I need to kill my smell." The boy stared at him. Then his eyes moved to the far end of the hall. "The old farmhouse," he said. "Out back. My family worked it. There's a smokehouse. The smoke sticks to everything. It'll bury you." Marcus did not like the plan. The farmhouse meant crossing open ground again. But the beast's claws already dug at the boards above them. He took the boy's hand. They moved slow and silent through the broken school, out a rear door, into tall weeds. The farmhouse leaned ahead of them. Worn boards. A sagging porch. The windows caught a gray light. Behind them the beast burst from the school wall, snout to the ground, hunting the line of Marcus's scent. Marcus forced each foot down soft. The weeds brushed his jeans. He did not run. Inside the farmhouse, the boy pulled Marcus past a front room. On the wall hung a carving. A boy swung a tree branch at a hulking monster. A small girl crouched behind his legs. The boy touched it once as they passed. "My sister made this too," he whispered. "She thought a stick could stop it." They reached a low stone shed out back. The smokehouse. Black soot coated the walls. Old ash filled a pit. The boy grabbed a fistful and smeared it down Marcus's arms. Marcus rubbed it into his black shirt, his neck, his hair. The bitter smell filled his nose and buried everything else. He coated the boy too. The beast's head pushed through the farmhouse weeds. It lifted its snout. It swung left, then right. The scent trail ended at the smokehouse door and then simply stopped. The creature circled. It sniffed the ground where Marcus had walked and found only ash and old fire. Marcus held his breath. The beast stood two steps away, close enough to see its wet teeth. Its nose worked the air. It smelled smoke, not boy. After a long moment it turned. It paced into the weeds, confused, hunting a trail that was gone. Marcus sank against the sooty wall. His smell was dead. For the first time the beast could not follow him by scent. He could stop. He could stay still long enough to listen. The boy sat beside him, black to the elbows. "It'll find another way," he said quietly. "It always does. But not tonight." Marcus closed his eyes and listened. Under the ash and his own breath, the farmhouse was quiet. Somewhere in it, maybe, the whispers would finally stop.