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It was a child. Gray, and twisted, and with a smile nothing young or human should show, but a child. At least it wasn't Sharon. Unless it was.
She backed away; even after all this she was going to defend herself. It was Cybil who stepped in though, and shot.
Chunks of gray flesh tore from the thing, and the smile crumpled so that it looked a little more vulnerable, a little more child-like. Rose wanted to close her eyes but you couldn't do that here.
Cybil shot again, this time hitting the head and not the non-existent heart. Fluid gushed from the bullet wound and the child-thing fell. It lay still, dead, if there was still such a thing as dead. When Cybil stepped over it Rose followed her, trying to imitate her detachment.
The road ended in gray clouds and nothingness. Sharon wasn't there, either. Rose sat on the ground like a mourner and covered her face with her hands, peering through her fingers at the broken asphalt. Now was not the time to collapse; there was no time to collapse. But maybe there was no point to anything anymore.
The policewoman stood behind her with her hands on Rose's shoulders. Rose breathed shallowly, expecting Cybil to say something like "Be strong," or "Remember your daughter," but in the end she said "I wish I could give you hope."
"What would hope even be, in a place like this?" asked Rose. She gestured to the dark mist. "It's the end of the earth, and they kill children here."
Cybil reached her arms out and Rose lay against her chest, feeling the warmth and breath and closing her eyes just for a moment. The policewoman stroked her hair.
"When Sharon first started getting sick, it was like I knew it would happen. I knew someday she'd be taken away, that someone would say she didn't really belong to us."
"Because she was adopted?"
"I think I would have thought that even if I'd given birth to her. Every parent's nightmare, or something," replied Rose.
"I've never been a parent," muttered the policewoman. "But I'm in the nightmare anyway."
"I thought it was something human, at least... Insanity, or sickness. Something that could be cured or maybe the worst would happen but not this." The idea that Sharon's death had once seemed to be "the worst" would be funny now, if it weren't still true.
Rose let Cybil pull her closer, nearly let a sob escape her but choked it back. "Just tell me one thing. Will you stop me from doing what I have to, to save her? Even if there's someone I have to hurt?"
There was only silence.
"Will you?" persisted Rose, still not raising her head.
Cybil pushed her away then, held her by the shoulders and looked her in the eye.
"I follow the law, and I protect people, and if I don't have that I don't have anything. Don't ask me to break that."
"There is no law here."
"Don't remind me."
They began walking away from the nothingness, toward more nothing in the center of town. Cybil reached for Rose's upper arm and squeezed it.
"I'll protect you. And you'll protect Sharon."
Rose could not be consoled, but at least she had those words. She scanned the mist for the sign of monsters or of those she loved, and did not answer.