The Shuddering

“Fucking fuck,” she whispered, anticipating what was to come.
    Peering into the pot at her feet, she reeled back at the smell. Her throat started to tighten—the sensation of inevitable sickness.
    Ryan braced himself as he held on to Oona’s collar. “Just do it.”
    She grabbed the handles of the pot, hefted it up to her waist, and tipped it over Oona’s clean black-and-white fur. As soon as the thick liquid hit her back, Oona let out a loud whine and curved her back downward, trying to get away from the stuffthat was slithering down her coat. Ryan gagged, but he held his hand steadfast beneath the stream of blood, ladling it onto her head, rubbing it into her snout. Oona sneezed once, twice, then wriggled out of Ryan’s grip. A second later she was shaking out, spraying the garage with a putrid red mist.
    Jane turned away, sure she was about to puke. The stench was intense, permeating her nostrils, crawling to the back of her throat. She whimpered when Ryan pulled her back by the wrist. She sank to her knees and covered her face, her eyes watering from the stink. When she felt the liquid hit her shoulders, her stomach clenched. She tried to sit there as long as she could, but it only allotted Ryan a few seconds before she was up on her feet, vomiting onto the concrete floor.
    Ryan braced himself when it was his turn. Had they been in any other situation she would have laughed at the intensity in his face. But she was too sick and too disgusted to even smile at his expression. She backed away from him when he shot up to his feet, and Ryan rubbed the foul-smelling stuff into his jacket and pants despite his obvious revulsion. They looked like a pair of serial killers fresh from a sloppy kill, and they smelled as good as they looked. Oona was having a sneezing fit, rubbing her face against the floor, desperately trying to get the stuff off her skin.
    Ryan grabbed the half-empty pot of blood with bright red hands and walked it over to Sawyer. “Your turn, man,” he said.
    “Oh,” Sawyer said weakly. “Fantastic.”
    “Just pretend you’re Dracula.” Ryan tried for humor, but Sawyer only released a weak breath and covered his face with the quilt that was draped around his shoulders. He hardly made a peep when Ryan rubbed gore into his hair.
    With the four of them drenched, he put the pot in their basket of gear. It was for later. They would remain covered in this stuff until they hit the highway, and then— Oh god , she thought, imagine seeing three bloody hitchhikers walking down the road. Nobody will stop. Nobody in their right mind would ever slow down.
    Jane whimpered softly as she stood there, wet and sticky, not wanting to move, but there was no time for disgust.
    “Hold her,” Ryan said, motioning for Janet to grab Oona. Picking up the gas can from the basket, he doused the ends of three torches in gasoline. “You have to keep an eye on this. You can’t let it go out. I burned one of them when Sawyer and I were out there and they freaked. They know it can hurt them.”
    “What if it starts snowing again?” she asked. It was a distinct possibility. The clouds were still thick. “Or if the wind picks up and blows the fire out?”
    Ryan thrust the torch into her gloved hand, giving her a look. She knew it was stupid to question it, knew it was a waste of time to think of all the things that could go wrong, because a million things could. If they operated on what-ifs, they’d never go through with it; they had to save Sawyer.
    “They’re afraid of it,” he told her again. “If you see one come close, hold the fire out in front of you.”
    “Okay,” she said, her voice fading to nothing.
    Ryan looped an arm around Sawyer and helped him across the garage, and for a moment she was frozen in place, refusing to believe their situation was so dire, that the pain that flashed across Sawyer’s face was real. But she wasn’t given time to dwell on those emotions. Ryan looked over at her and she immediately fell into step, limping across the concrete floor to help get Sawyer situated on his makeshift gurney. She didn’t want to think about what they’d do if the wires they had used to tie the thing together came apart, or if Sawyer lost consciousness again and they couldn’t manage to keep him on that crude sled, or if Oona leaped off Sawyer’s lap and was buried chest-deep in the snow.Wrapped in the quilt their mother had sewn when they were kids, Sawyer tried to give them both a