The Dream Thief by Kari Kilgore (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

it. The less you know, the better your chance of keeping your job instead of getting a lifetime pass to join the residents on the other side of the restraints.

Not telling was usually easy for Karl, and forgetting was too, at first. Not so much lately.

Not asking had been the toughest thing for him since day one.

George still hesitated, and Karl had a childish certainty he wasn't going to let him in on the secret after all. Knowing it was childish didn't stop him from reacting.

"I understand, George. I'm not going to say a word to anyone. I found a couple of strange things myself yesterday. All about our old neighborhood. Maybe we can help each other."

George blinked and sat back in his chair.

"I don't know that more secrets to keep would actually help me out, Karl. I have to admit I'm curious, though." He sighed, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. "The ’sters aren't found or captured or made, not the way you're thinking. They're birthed. Just like you and me."

"Horseshit," Karl said before he could stop himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound..."

"That's exactly what I said when I first heard it myself. But that's exactly what happens, always has. You've heard about the things in the Fog, right? The things we're not supposed to know about?"

"Well, yeah," Karl said. "I heard before I was out of short pants. That's a little different than whatever you're saying. Do you mean they're born, like from a woman?"

"No, not like that. Sorry, man." George shook his head, scowling at the same time, but his face was turning red. "I'm out of my depth here a little bit, but I don't think they come out quite that way. What I've heard is they have a special birthing room for the ’sters. That could all be rumors though, and no one is likely to admit the truth to the likes of us anytime soon."

Karl was surprised and a little relieved that his friend had said a little more than he knew. He was glad to know he wasn't the only one. Gaps in his friend's knowledge or not, this was way too big a mystery to pass up.

"What do they look like?" Karl said. "The ones you've seen?"

The flush in George's face faded until he was paler than before.

"I've only seen a few," George said. "All different. They look like walking nightmares. Not a nightmare I'd ever want to have. The worst part, though, is there's always something human about them, Karl. Something twisted and sick and broken, but human."

"But how do they look?" Karl said. "That one last night. What did you see?"

George stared out the window at the spiraling brick towers that stretched as far as the eye could see. Karl knew whole floors of those towers were full of ’sters, but he'd never seen one. George didn't turn back to Karl when he finally spoke.

"That one was like candle wax," George said. "That's the best I can do. Not solid, not like a candle that could stand up. It was red like blood, but it moved, like it was trying to fall apart the whole time. You know those aspics our mothers are forever shoving down our throats, the things that make the food here taste fantastic by comparison?"

Karl nodded, afraid to try to speak. If he said the wrong thing, George might stop.

If he said the wrong thing, George might keep talking.

"It looked like one of those that was halfway melted, you know?" George said. "It moved, sort of lurched around, but there was nothing solid about it. Except for one thing." George rubbed his face before he looked into Karl's eyes. "It had a perfect mouth, Karl. Perfect, like a woman's mouth that couldn't stop screaming. The sound was closer to water screaming than to any woman, but it couldn't stop."

"Did it..." Karl stopped and took a deep breath, not wanting to revisit the cool gray lunch he'd forced down. "You said it did damage."

"Oh yeah, that's the best part," George said. "This one didn't just scream and scare everyone. Whoever it touched, at least when it touched bare skin, they started screaming too. Whatever that one's made of takes skin off, right down to the meat. It just disappears in the perfect shape of how it touches them."

George pushed his own tray away, his face nearly as gray as the splatters of gravy. He swallowed and kept talking.

"I saw a bunch of the people who first tried to stop it before they figured that part out. Whole hands with no skin, a few forearms. A few people had it on their stomachs or backs or legs where their clothes raked up when they tried to grab it. The worst ones, the ones I really wish I didn't see, those were the faces. One woman's whole face, not a scrap of eyebrows or lashes or anything else left. Just her eyes."

Karl was swallowing convulsively now, desperate not to lose that dreadful lunch in front of his friend. He was a nurse in a bloody insane asylum. Things he'd seen people do to themselves and others were surely worse than this. And the things he'd seen doctors do to some of the patients—that was definitely worse.

But he couldn't get the image of the woman's eyes, rolling and bare in a mask of raw flesh, out of his mind.

"How did they stop it?" Karl said.

"That's how I saw the thing," George said. "And I still wish I hadn't. Some of the night shift docs wanted to throw a bunch of blankets on it and knock it down, but the Director was afraid that would kill her. It, kill it. In case it dissolved or something. It seemed plenty solid when it broke through a few doors to get out into the hall, but what do I know? So a few of us had to volunteer. You know how we're