by Laken Cane
He curled his lip and pinned me with his emotionless stare. “What does it matter what they’re called?” He put his hand on his water gun. “What matters is that they die.”
“I’m Caleb Kelly,” the boy said. He nodded toward the older man. “That’s Richard Connor, and she’s Lila Stone.”
I lifted the edge of my jacket to wipe away the blood still trickling from my nose. “So after I hear their death screams a few times, they won’t hurt me like this?”
They glanced at each other, and there was uneasiness in their faces. “We don’t know,” Caleb said, finally. “We’ve never seen anyone hit that hard by death screams.”
“They didn’t hurt any of you? Ever?” I took a step back, automatically, as though their immunity was somehow a bad thing.
“It hurt us,” Richard Connor said. “In the beginning.” He gestured at my bloody face. “But not like that. None of us bled or fainted.”
“Gave us headaches from hell,” Lila said. “And made us a little soft for a while. Not enough to keep us from blasting the ugly fucks, but still.” She shrugged. “After a while, we stopped feeling the pain.”
The older man, Richard, pointed his chin at my house. “This one yours?”
I hesitated. I did not want three strangers in my home. My safe place.
Sage squeezed my fingers, and when I looked down at her, she nodded. “Let them in. We can’t survive without other humans.”
“You saw what the humans did back in the woods,” I told her. “You know what the men are doing.” I glanced at the man, then the boy. “You saw.”
“These ones are not the bad guys,” she insisted.
“How do you know?”
“Teagan,” she said, her voice soft. “They’re starving.”
“You have food in there?” Caleb asked. He rested a hand against his belly.
“It’s not up for debate,” Lila said. “Move your ass and open the fucking door. We need a place to crash while we’re in town helping you clear out mutants.”
Sage began walking toward the door, still gripping my hand. “It’s okay. Let them in.”
I still felt the mutants.
More of them were heading our way. And when they saw the dead littering my backyard, they might start kicking in doors. Searching for us.
I was shivering so violently I could barely speak, and sensations like electric shocks shot through my body every few seconds. I wasn’t thinking clearly and I knew it. Pain, hot and red, shot through my skull and the light, fading though it was, hurt my eyes. My stomach was rolling, I was thirsty, and I just needed to lie down.
And the mutants were coming.
“Follow me,” I told the small group.
They had saved my life, after all. They’d saved Sage.
And I did not want to be alone. Not anymore.
Once we were inside, I shut the door and locked it, then leaned against it as my head swam. I was nearly certain I’d caught a glimpse of a mutant just across the yard right before I’d shut the door.
“Oh, my God,” the girl whispered.
I’d never heard such awe in a person’s voice. I turned to look at her, curious.
“Oh my God,” she said, again.
She and the others were staring at the food and cases of water stacked against the walls. As I watched, they walked slowly around the room, dazed, touching the supplies.
If they thought the kitchen was incredible, they’d faint if they saw the cellar.
“Help yourselves,” I said, and almost before the words were out of my mouth they fell upon the food like starving wolves. “I don’t understand. Why are you guys so hungry?”
The girl, her cheeks bulging in her thin face, looked at me, her eyebrows up, eyes wide. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I shook my head, mystified. “What?”
“There is no food,” the older man said, opening a can of beans with his knife. “The towns have long since been looted—if not by other humans and animals, then by the mutants.” His stare was hard. “There is no food.”
I pointed at a drawer. “There are can openers. And you can use that camp stove to heat your food.” I didn’t believe there was no food. No supplies. I just didn’t.
They saw it in my face.
The boy, surrounded by packages of cookies, jumped to his feet, then began shrugging off his tanks, unbuckling his belts, and finally, ripping off his coat. The other two ignored him, even when he lifted his shirt over his head.
I put my fingers to my mouth when he waited, shirtless, staring at me. His chest was caved in, and his ribs stood out in sharp relief like a picture of a starved dog I’d once seen. His cheekbones were sharp, his eyes sunken and ringed with darkness, and his lips barely closed over his teeth. “There is no food.”
I nodded, trying to keep my tears in check. “I’m sorry.”
Satisfied, he pulled his shirt back on—thank God—and sat back down to finish his meal.
“I had nothing else to do for two years,” I told them, opening a bottle of water, trying to control my emotions as well as my nausea. “I’ve gone out every day for supplies. Only orphans have been in Crowbridge.” I frowned. “Until now.”
“You got lucky,” Richard said, finishing his beans. He tossed the can in the garbage, then began taking off his gear.
He unstrapped the tanks from his back, then took off the belt holding the squirt guns—the one on his right hip was large, but the one on his left hip was small. A backup, probably.
“I’m going to make some dinner,” he murmured, and smiled at the thought.
“Alcohol,” I said, wiping sweat from my face. “That’s seriously what kills them.”
He ignored me and began looking through my stock, pulling out cans and packages as he searched.
“Other than slicing their heads off—which grow back, for all we know, if they’re taken care of—it is the only thing that kills them,” Caleb said, his mouth full. “And we’re not even sure they know what it is we’re spraying them with.”
“What do they want?” I asked. “What is their purpose?”
“We don’t know.” He stared into the distance and his sparkly brown eyes became flat and serious. He looked immediately older. “We don’t really know, do we?”
“To survive,” Richard said. “They want to survive. Just as we all do.”
“Do you know they’re impregnating human women?” I rubbed my arms. “I…” But I couldn’t tell them that I’d slaughtered one of those pregnant women.
“Of course we know,” the girl said, angry. “We were out there fighting them while you hid in this house with your bed and your food. You don’t know what it’s like out there. Richard’s right. You’re fucking lucky.”
I swallowed three Tylenol tablets. “I’ve been out there. You don’t know me and you don’t know what I’ve seen.” I rubbed my throbbing temples, then looked at Richard. “What are you doing?”
“Making dinner.” He frowned at me. “I just told you that.”
Sage took my hand. “Come lie down, Teagan. You’re sick.”
“Kid’s right,” Caleb said. “You look like you’re about to pass out again. We’ll wake you when it’s time to eat.”
I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.”
And all three of them stared at me when I uttered those unthinkable words, their stares full of envy, disgust, and a little bit of hatred.
I didn’t want to sleep while my house was full of strangers, but I was sick. Bad sick. The mutants’ death screams had done something to me, and I was recovering much too slowly.
Sage followed me into the living room, and after I’d unbuckled my belts and fell into bed she leaned over and pulled the covers to my chin. “We should stick together,” she murmured. “Whenever we find humans who are nice, we should add them to our group.”
“Nice? Lila’s an asshole and the other two are male. They’ll probably hand us over to the gods tomorrow.” But in spite of my misgivings, my heart was ligh
ter. The three strangers were the reason. I hadn’t quite realized how lonely I’d been.
And they had killed a dozen mutants almost easily.
“Maybe they could be nicer,” Sage agreed, “but they won’t eat us or make us have their babies. That’s nice enough for me.”
I fell asleep to the unfamiliar rumbling of deep, quiet voices and the occasional hushed laughter, and though I fetched a knife from under my bed and slid it under my pillow, I was more comforted by the company of my new friends than I was by the cold, meager protection of the blade.
Chapter Ten
Alcohol would kill mutants.
Alcohol was our defense—better than clubs, blades, anything. Alcohol killed the mutants. And with that knowledge, with the alcohol, hope was born.
When I woke up, I remembered floating sporadically to consciousness during my sleep, and hearing the strangers talk and laugh and eat. Sage’s melodic laugh echoed dimly in my memory, and though I’d never heard her laugh, I knew it belonged to her.
She was happier in the group than she had been with just me. It was understandable. Safety in numbers and all that.
I sat up, yawning as I stretched. My sleep had been sweet and uninterrupted by nightmares, something I’d needed since…forever.
“Sage,” I called. “Sage?”
I stood, wincing as my full bladder threatened to explode. I hurried toward the bathroom, nearly certain I was alone in my house. It had that dead silence that only came from an empty home.
Twenty minutes later I was back in the living room, washed, combed, and wearing fresh clothes. “Sage,” I yelled, then headed for the kitchen to see if she or the others had left me a note.
There were no notes, but a large water gun sat on the table with a pack of tanks beside it. Someone had written my name on a Post-it note and stuck it to the gun.
My stomach tightened with excitement. It was like Christmas morning. Grinning, I hefted the gun, then put it back down and turned toward the small pot of stew sitting on the camp stove. The stew was cold, but I didn’t care.
I grabbed the pot and a spoon, and began shoveling stew into my mouth. I was ravenous.
I wasn’t much of a cook. Actually, I wasn’t any kind of cook. I heated food up on the little camp stove in the kitchen, but never made anything unique. Whatever was in the can was what I ate.
I took a quick drink of water, then finished off the stew. I could almost close my eyes and pretend I was at the dinner table with my mom and Robin, having one of Mom’s home cooked meals.
Mom had loved to cook. Robin would have taken after her in that department. She’d always been the one playing with the Easy-Bake oven while I raced around the cul-de-sac on my pink and purple trike.
I didn’t like to cook. I didn’t like cleaning up much either, but after I finished the stew, I took time to wash out the pot and my bowl, then sat them in the drainer to air dry.
My headache was gone, my mind was clear, and my usual anxious energy was strong. I had to get out of the house.
Richard and his gang had better take care of Sage. They shouldn’t have taken her in the first place, but I wasn’t upset. Most likely they’d gone to raid the houses on the block for alcohol.
I strapped the tanks to my back, then grabbed the water gun holster and buckled it around my hips. After I’d pushed the water gun into its holster, I grabbed my vest off the hook by the door, then picked up one of the ten machetes leaning against the wall. In the living room were six more. I’d stashed another dozen of them in the cellar, along with other weapons—swords, knives, slingshots, bows, even some guns.
When the guys had left, they hadn’t locked the back door. That just pissed me off. They’d taken the extra keys I’d put on hooks by the kitchen door--so why would they have left the doors unlocked while I lay unconscious in the living room?
I stepped out through the door and onto the porch, but hesitated when I started to lock the door. What if Sage got separated from them and couldn’t get into the house?
In the end, I left the door unlocked.
Richard, Lila, and Caleb had carried in several gallon jugs and placed them against the walls around the back porch. Some of them were completely filled.
“Alcohol,” I whispered. They’d been busy.
I chose an extra-large canvas bag from the pile in the corner. I’d need something to put bottles of alcohol in. Despite my energy, my muscles were a little stiff.
Because of everything I’d found—the extra water gun, the containers of alcohol, my nearly exploding bladder—I began to realize I’d slept longer than one night.
I shut the porch door gently and stepped out into the backyard, inhaling deeply. It was almost cool enough to make me go back inside for a heavier jacket. The yard had been freshly covered with a blanket of leaves. The air smelled wet and the ground was damp. Sometime while I’d slept we’d had some rain, and fall had come for real.
And I had a new purpose.
Searching for alcohol would become one of the most important things I ever did.
I patted my new mutant-killer, almost surprised at how much more confidence the gun gave me. I’d seen what it could do. I was going to stock up on squirt guns. It couldn’t hurt to have backups.
Slipping from backyard to backyard, tree to tree, shadow to shadow, I stayed alert for sounds of mutants in the area as I watched for Sage and the others.
I went into a two-story halfway down the block, figuring I’d work my way back up both sides of the street until I was once again home. If these homes didn’t net me much alcohol or any water guns, I’d try the houses in the opposite direction.
There were no sounds in the house. It was unlikely a mutant would be lying in wait, but there could easily be baddies. Raiding, healing, sleeping, hiding…
But the house was dusty with disuse. Sure, there could have been a human hiding in a closet or under a bed, but the house just felt empty. I hoped it wasn’t my wishful thinking.
I found eight bottles of alcohol—most of them only half full—before I neared my house again. I’d also found eleven squirt guns. Only one was large and similar to the one I wore at my hip. The others were the tiny, cheap toys that I could stick in my pockets and pull out if I were desperate.
The next house was a tall, skinny house with peeling green paint and a rickety porch. The place had belonged to a horrible cockroach of a man named Bertram Riggs and his wife, a thin, quiet woman named Bonnie. They’d had six kids, so surely there’d be a few water guns, as well as a couple bottles of alcohol.
Every time I’d seen those kids, they’d sported a bruise, cut, or swollen lip. My mother had said their father had a temper. Baker County Children Services had been there dozens of times. Didn’t seem to matter how many times they took the kids away.
They always came back.
Any house with that many banged up kids would surely have a lot of alcohol.
I went upstairs before checking the lower floor. The upstairs always made me nervous, and I was eager to get it out of the way first.
There were three bedrooms. The kid’s rooms held few toys, but I did find two plastic squirt guns. I looked around the room, wondering if the faded brown stain on the wall was blood, and if the splintering hole in the cheap door had been put there by a child’s head.
I closed my eyes.
Sorry, Robin.
As always, guilt and grief rose up to choke me and for a second, I couldn’t get air past the lump in my throat.
I couldn’t wallow in the cold, painful past. How many times had I told myself that? The problem was I didn’t seem to know how to dig myself out.
I took a deep breath and left the oppressive kid’s room. I’d check the bathroom, then head downstairs to the kitchen.
As I stood in the small bathroom, rifling through the medicine cabinet, I thought I heard a distant sound. A crack, like someone had hurled a bottle at a metal traffic sign.
I listened for a moment longer but when I heard no other so
unds, I tiptoed from the room. There was almost too much silence. The old house held its breath, watching as I crept down the carpeted stairs, harsh odors rising up to greet me as I descended.
Mustiness. Rot. Blood.
Death.
I missed Sage’s company.
I pulled my machete strap over my head and clutched the weapon as I stood at the bottom of the stairs, my head tilted, listening.
There was nothing.
No sounds, no movements, no creaks.
I slung the strap of the canvas bag over my shoulder, patted my holstered water gun, then walked through the living room with a bit more determination. A bit less fear.
Dust covered the furniture, the walls, the drapes. Lacy cloths like thick, dusty cobwebs lay on the backs and arms of the sofa and chairs, and braided rugs were everywhere.
It made me inexplicably sad.
I walked on to the kitchen.
And then, I heard voices.
I dropped my bag and pulled my gun from its holster. Silently, quickly, machete in one hand and gun in the other, I walked to the window and peered through the dusty, splattered glass.
The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention.
My heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings, and for one second I swayed as dizziness washed over me.
Then I saw Richard Connor and his two companions walking down the street.
“Shit,” I whispered, and shoved the water gun into its holster. I grabbed the bag and bolted from the kitchen, then slammed out the front door and across the yard.
“Hey,” I called. “Wait!”
They had their water guns up and aimed at me almost before the words left my lips. I wasn’t afraid they’d attack me. I barely even considered it.
My heart was being squeezed by a giant fist of fear, and it had nothing to do with Richard Connor and his friends.
The three of them stood staring at me, eyes narrowed, bodies stiff, weapons ready.
“What did you do with her?” I yelled, as I raced toward them. “Where is she?” I swiveled my head wildly, searching the yards and the street, terrified.
Because I saw Richard, and Caleb, and the angry Lila.
But Sage…
