X spread his arms wide. His shoulder blades flashed in the darkness and his back became broader still.
Zoe couldn't help it: she took a photo to put on Instagram later.
X seemed to be summoning something up. He let out a sharp cry, like he was trying to force a sickness out of his system. Then his back came alive with images.
His skin became a screen.
What played on X's back looked almost like a home movie, jittery, dizzying, chaotic-and unearthly somehow. She and Stan watched, transfixed. Stan remained immobile. It was as if he were bound and tied by the air itself. Zoe stood in the dark not far away. They watched in shock, and then horror, each for their own reasons.
Suddenly, it occurred to Zoe that Jonah might have woken up-that he might be watching from the living room. Her eyes flew to the house.
The windows were black. Her brother might have been standing at one of them-there was no way to tell.
Zoe turned back to the movie. Bert and Betty were in it. They were cowering in the living room in the very same capital A by the lake. They were rigid with fear. Someone was circling them. Someone who'd burst into their home.
Zoe couldn't see much of the intruder's face-just a sliver of it, like a crescent moon. Still, she recognized the ugly buzz cut and the pitted skin. She saw the intruder walk to the fireplace, saw him hoist the lethal-looking poker and test its weight in his hand.
Stan tore his eyes away from X's back, unable to look at what he had done. He turned to the house, hoping for relief.
X expected this. He extended his palm toward the long sloping roof of the A-frame, and in an instant the images were flashing there, too. Stan was shocked. He cast his eyes down. X knelt, pressing his hand to the ice. The orange glow disappeared, and for a second the world was black. Then suddenly the movie was playing beneath them-all around them-the figures giant and distorted, the voices booming.
Zoe couldn't understand what anyone was saying. She couldn't even figure out where the sound was coming from, though it was everywhere now. But she could see that Stan, Bert, and Betty were screaming. One of them in anger. Two of them in fear.
Then, suddenly, Uhura was in the movie, trying to protect Bert and Betty. She was barking wildly, like she had when Stan's truck pulled up. Spock, amazingly, was howling, too.
In the movie, Betty took Bert's hand and pulled him toward the door, toward safety. Bert looked bewildered. Childlike. As Betty tried to rush him outside, he stopped, as if he had all the time in the world, and took a peppermint out of a dish on the coffee table.
They burst outdoors just a few seconds ahead of Stan. Seeing them escape even for a moment made Zoe's heart leap. She didn't know why-she knew there was only one possible ending.
Stan went after them, clutching the poker.
Bert and Betty stumbled to their car, and Betty started the engine, but the tires spun uselessly in the snow. By the time they'd gone a hundred yards, Stan was close behind, shouting and gesturing savagely with the weapon.
The car struck a tree.
Zoe watched as Stan yanked Bert and Betty out of the car, and went after them with the poker.
She saw Betty in the snow. She saw Bert crying like a kid. She saw the dogs snap their jaws at Stan's legs and she saw the psycho snap back at them sarcastically and then kick them in the stomach.
She saw the poker flash up and down.
Zoe saw Betty die.
She died trying to shield Bert's body with her own.
Then Zoe saw Bert die.
He died sobbing over Betty. He died hiding his face behind his hands. He died pleading over and over in a high, terrified voice, "Gimme a break, I'm just an old codger. Gimme a break, gimme a break, gimme a break."
Stan slid the Wallaces' bodies, one after the other, into the lake.
When Zoe realized what she was seeing-when the evil of it really sunk its long fingernails into her-she looked back at the house, praying again that Jonah was still asleep.
Then she fell on her knees. She held Uhura to her chest. And she threw up into the snow until her throat was on fire.
By the time Zoe could stand, X had let his arms fall to his sides and tugged his shirt back over his head. The movie had sputtered to a stop. The lake glowed fiercely once more. X, looking sickly and spent, reached down and dragged Stan closer to the hole in the ice.
Stan hadn't said a word while they watched the killings, but Zoe could see from his expression that something had been building inside him. It wasn't guilt or sorrow-or even fear, anymore.
It was rage.
"This the part where I'm supposed to say I'm sorry and so forth?" he shouted at X. "Well, don't hold your breath, superfreak. Them people were old as dirt. They was no damn use to anybody."
X still hadn't spoken. He looked down at Stan patiently, as if he knew everything he would say before he ran out of words.
Stan started up again, more quietly this time.
"Lookit," he said. "I wasn't aiming to hurt them-didn't even bring a weapon. I was just looking to borrow one or two valuables. I expected them to be all meek and mild, because their brains were applesauce, correct? Yeah, I knew about that. I was real meticulous about that robbery. Took me nearabouts a month to plan it. I mean, I really did my homework. Which is ironical because when I was in high school? Never did my homework."
In his terror, Stan had begun to babble.
"Anyway," he said, "the whole thing coulda been a pleasant experience for everybody involved. Relatively speaking. But that old broad was a fighter-she was trying to keep me away from her man. Scratchin' at my eyeballs and whatnot. Can't say I predicted that. So things got more, uh, contentious and acrimonious, than I planned on. Joke is, I didn't find anything worth a shit in that place. Been out here two or three times since and still ain't found where they hid their damn money."
Stan spat noisily on the ground.
"All right," he said, "I got nothing else to say-except that you gotta hate god if you're really fixing to drown me."
And that was the thing that made X speak.
His voice was deep, but scratchy from lack of use. Zoe couldn't tell what country he was from or even what century.
"Mark me well," X said, then stopped to clear his throat and wipe the sweat from his forehead. "No one respects god's love more than those of us damned to the Lowlands-for we know what it means to live without it." He took Stan by the collar. "Now you will, too."
He bent down and, though he looked too tired now to manage it, lifted Stan into the air.
Stan fought him, clung to his neck, scratched at his face.
X winced and, with what seemed like his last bit of strength, pushed Stan into the jagged hole in the ice.
Then he paused, turned-and looked straight at Zoe.
His eyes were overwhelming.
A wave rose inside Zoe's chest. X seemed to be asking her a silent question. She thought maybe he wanted her permission to end Stan's life.
Stan hadn't even been aware that Zoe was standing there. He saw her now and gave her a sickening smile.
"Call him off, girlie," he begged. "Please. Hell, I knew your father!"
X reddened, furious that Stan would dare to address Zoe.
"Stop your mouth," he told him, "or I will plug it with my fist."
X looked to Zoe again, and again she was shaken by the force of the connection. His eyes still held a question, but it wasn't what she'd thought it was. She could see that now. He had no intention of sparing Stan, and wasn't looking for her opinion. So what was he asking her then?
It came to her. Somehow X knew how much she had loved Bert and Betty. Somehow he knew that a lot of what was good and right about her was their doing-and that her hatred for Stan was like a fever under her skin. He was asking if she wanted to kill him herself.
Zoe felt a surge of something she couldn't name. She didn't even know if it was pain or relief. But it electrified her.
She walked across the ice toward X and Stan.
Stan was writhing spastically in the lake. The freezing water lapped into his horrible mouth. It was what he deserved, Zoe knew.
She walked as fast as she could without sliding sideways, planting her feet hard on the ice. She gained speed with every step. X never stopped looking at her, never stopped holding her with his eyes. Zoe still didn't know what she was feeling, not exactly. She searched around in her mind for the word, and-though it didn't seem possible-she could feel X inside her brain looking for it, too.
They found the word in the same instant.
It was not rage or vengeance.
It was mercy.
X's eyes flashed with surprise. He pivoted away from Zoe and hurriedly put his boot on the top of Stan's head, just as Stan had done to Spock.
He was about to push him under when Zoe hurled herself at him.
X was exhausted. Zoe was fierce.
She knocked him onto the ice before his boot came down.
three
She didn't expect X to fall, but his body collapsed under her, and they went sprawling onto the lake. For half a second, they lay entangled. His skin smelled of pine and campfire smoke.
Zoe waited for him to spring up again, but he lay on his back, twitching with pain. He was more feverish than she'd realized. She got to her feet, and turned to Stan, who was sobbing in the water, his skin turning blue-gray. The thought of touching him repulsed her, but it wasn't right that he die that way, no matter what he'd done.