“Um, somewhere between five and… like, twenty,” I said as more flat, slick heads pushed in through the doorway.
“What are they waiting for?” Gazzy asked. “Maybe we can intimidate them.” With a roar of his own, he snapped open his ten-foot wings, sending bits of crud flying. And this seemed to be what the animals were waiting for. Their attack instinct kicked in and they sprang to life, crashing through the doorway at us, teeth bared. Their growls became a frenzied, barking hysteria that was deafening in the tiny room.
I fended them off okay at first, with roundhouse kicks and evasive pivots. But then a particularly ugly beast with pink eyes reared up on its hind legs and dug its front claws into my chest, and the full weight of a two-hundred-pound animal made me stagger sideways.
I barely heard a sharp hiss from Fang as one of them sank its incisors deep into his shoulder, but I couldn’t spare a glance—I had a huge snapping muzzle inches from my face. Its tongue slobbered over its teeth in desperation, and its pink eyes bulged, crazed with hunger. They were starving.
For a second, I felt a wave of pity for them. But just for a second. In a choice between me and something else, I always choose me. So I gripped Pinky’s lower jaw with my hands and head-butted the mutt right between the eyes.
It skidded like an ungainly bowling pin into the giants behind it, but they weren’t down for long and when they sprang to their feet, there was a new hatred in their eyes.
“Hang on, Max! We’re coming!”
I snapped my head around to see Nudge and Akila pushing their way through the entrance. Nudge was wielding a desk chair in one hand and a marble statuette in the other. I’d never seen Akila look so fierce—she was snarling, her teeth bared, and seemed so much more doglike than she had, say, at her wedding. But even though Akila was fairly big, she was dwarfed by these monsters.
“Nudge! No!” I yelled. “Find a safe place!”
I gave one vicious kick to my closest attacker and then grabbed for the sink hose behind me. Slamming the water on full blast, I sprayed all around, aiming for eyes, ears, and open mouths. The barking and howling hit a higher pitch.
On the other side of the kitchen, Gazzy fended the animals off as best he could, which was pretty dang good, but he was covered with bites and scratches and looked like he was starting to tire. One vicious hellhound dove for him, huge jaws open like a vise. I quickly sprayed icy water into its ear, and Akila snarled and dove at the creature, tearing into its throat. Her fur was stained with blood, and more blood dripped from her mouth. She looked pure wolf in that instant, and as they leaped, her cry pierced the air.
I lashed out however I could—the sprayer, karate chops to noses, hard kicks to their ribs, and, yes, plastic forks to the ears—anything to hold them back, but they just kept coming.
“Max!” Nudge cried, and I watched, horrified, as one leaped at the side of her face and clamped on with those long yellow teeth, tearing flesh from bone. Fang stabbed at it with a knife and it yelped and jumped back.
Nudge stumbled into the fridge, her eyes wide and dazed. She held her hand over the left side of her face, but blood ran through her fingers and spilled down her shirt.
Fang gave one animal a brutal punch in the face that made it yelp and fall back. My own arms and legs were pretty torn up, and I started to wonder… if there were actually just too many of them.
So I did what you’re never supposed to do in a dogfight: I charged.
And then the room exploded.
Well, part of it. Before I got to Nudge’s attacker, chunks of plaster shot toward me as one of the walls blew inward. For just an instant, there was silence as we all stared at the destroyed wall in surprise.
On the other side of the gaping hole, Iggy stood in the hallway, waving dust away from his face. “Go!” he yelled, choking on smoke.
While the beasts were still stunned, Fang grabbed Akila, and I reached for Gazzy’s and Nudge’s hands. We. Freaking. Ran.
Another floor-shaking blast made a few more of the creatures fall back, but there were plenty of them still on our heels as we ran through the mazelike hallways, searching for a way—any way—out of this. Then straight ahead of us we saw a conference room lined with big glass windows, and there was no time to hesitate.
“Abandon ship!” I shouted.
Just as the monsters rounded the corner behind us, I closed my eyes, tucked my head down, and crashed through a window, feeling the shards explode around me.
8
I CAREENED LIKE a broken helicopter down half of those thirty flights, but finally I snapped my wings open and righted myself. My wings were still heavy and full of crud—cleaning them off would be job one. After quickly counting heads—all accounted for—I looked back to see the bloodthirsty animals snapping their jaws at us. Several unfortunates got pushed out the window by their eager packmates, and we swerved out of the way as they twisted through the air, baying as they plunged downward.
“They’re more like cry-enas now!” Gazzy joked wearily as we headed toward the outer edges of Sydney.
I was so dizzy with relief, I didn’t even feel the bite marks on my hands, or the feathers missing from my wings, but all of us looked like we’d been put in a blender on “chop.”
I was especially worried about Akila. I eyed the bundled form that Iggy carried in the harness, and saw red splotches growing on the cloth. Nudge, too, was a bloody mess, and she flew with one hand holding the deeply torn flap of skin in place against her cheek.
When we stopped on a hill overlooking the city, we took stock of our injuries. Nudge seemed to be injured the worst, and I ripped off the sleeve of my ratty shirt. “Does it hurt bad?” I asked, tying the flannel under her chin.
“It’s f-fine,” she lied, her voice quivering as she bit back the pain.
I thought of all the times she’d spent scrapbooking fashion models and tried to make a joke of it. “What girl doesn’t want more defined cheekbones, am I right?” She nodded and forced a weak smile. “Zombie chic,” I pressed, and she actually giggled.
“Lame, very lame, Max.” Nudge shook her head and adjusted the bandage, but her eyes were smiling.
“Does that count as zombie chic?” Angel pointed.
A silence fell over the flock as we took in the grim scene below us.
So that’s where all the people are.
Our hill overlooked a subdivision, and while we couldn’t see inside any of the houses from our perch, we definitely saw the circular cul-de-sac drives—or the vague shape of them. I only caught a glimpse of cracked asphalt here and there, because the cul-de-sacs were littered with… skeletons.
Humans, animals, young, old. The ash was doing its best to bury them—it had already piled in drifts several feet deep in some places—but you could still see thousands of corpses in the mass grave.
“Jeezum,” I whispered.
It was a modern Pompeii: Some of the skeletons were curled in fetal balls, with arm bones circling skulls. Others lay side by side holding hands, or clasping their own hands together. Many looked like they’d been crawling away, their jawbones hinged open in a permanent, silent scream.
I felt the vomit rise in my throat.
“What happened to them?” I asked helplessly, looking for something, any type of answer that might make this somehow easier to understand. “The volcanoes couldn’t have erupted until pretty recently, or this whole place would be one big ash pit. But something killed these people long enough ago so that only bones are left.”
Gazzy started hacking again, and Nudge lifted a worried eyebrow. “Ash inhalation from some other volcano?” she suggested. When we’d flown over the open ocean, we’d seen any number of “new” islands being formed. It was like the earth itself was splitting in two, and volcanoes were erupting everywhere.
Gasman shook his head. “What about aftershocks from wherever that sky fire thing crashed? We got a lot of quakes on our island, and that’s hours from here.”
“Or starvation?” Iggy
countered. “Maybe they didn’t have any rats.…”
“Everywhere has rats,” Angel scoffed. “Besides, they’ve got loads of snakes, rabbits, dogs, cats, deer, even kangaroos. Tons of protein for the taking.”
“Maybe the climate change drove all the animals nuts and they went on a murderous rampage,” Gazzy said.
“Or someone—or something—more powerful did.…” That was probably Nudge’s conspiracy-theorist mind going into overdrive, but I wasn’t ruling anything out.
“Could’ve been mass suicide,” I said seriously.
“Stop it. Just stop it, will you?” Total snarled suddenly, and I looked at him in surprise. “These aren’t statistics. They were families. Look at them holding each other, protecting each other. They died with dignity. Just like… Akila.”
Shocked, I looked at the bundled cloth that Iggy had set down carefully when we’d landed. I hadn’t even thought to check on her, though I’d noticed Total licking her face and talking quietly to her. Oh, Akila. Not you, too.
“Total, no—”
Gently Total nudged her nose with his, and I hurried over to kneel by the still, beautiful dog. Her eyes were closed and I put my hand on her side, praying that I would feel her ribs rising and falling with breath. I didn’t.
“Total, no,” I whispered again, unable to think of anything else to say. The rest of the flock crowded around. Nudge and Angel had tears rolling down their cheeks, leaving odd, pale lines where they washed away dirt.
“A couple of the Cryenas got her good,” Total said, his words muffled. “And the ash—she breathed too much of it. She sacrificed herself. Miserable excuses for canines…” He coughed a bark. “Pure courage. Pure grace. That was my Akila.”
Weeping, Angel wrapped her arms around Total’s scruffy neck, and then he couldn’t keep his composure any longer.
If you’ve ever heard a dog cry, you know it’s absolutely heartbreaking, a wail that cuts to the rawest emotion and shakes it in its teeth. Total howled for Akila, but also for Dylan, for the thousands of people below, for the whole world. And by the time he was finished, every one of us was all cried out.
9
TOTAL CHOSE AKILA’S burial site at an abandoned cottage way out in the middle of nowhere. We had no clue if the soil was full of nuclear radiation or if the air was breeding deadly viruses by the second, but there was no ash cloud in sight right now, and that was good enough for us.
The cottage was run-down and looked like it hadn’t been lived in in years, but we found a shovel and a hoe in a lean-to, and Fang kicked in the front door in the hopes there would be stuff inside we could use.
We started digging in the hard, parched earth. From the corner of my eye I saw Akila’s swaddled form, and something in me felt like it had split open.
“You okay?” Fang asked. He lifted my hand and ran his thumb over my dirt-caked fingertips. “I can take over.”
His touch felt solid. Reassuring. But I just couldn’t handle it right now. I just wanted to feel my body working. I wanted to dig. Or scream.
“I’m good.” I stepped back stiffly, and Fang let his hand fall.
When the hole was ready, Fang gently placed Akila in it. Total’s soft sobs made my heart feel like it was wrapped in barbed wire, but as leader, I knew I had to step up and say a few words.
I cleared my throat. “Here lies our brave friend Akila,” I said. “She deserves better than this unmarked grave, and to tell you the truth, she deserved better than us. I wish we’d taken better care of her. But even so, she was a true and loyal friend to us, a loving wife to Total, and a fierce fighter under the worst circumstances.”
I had to clear my throat again. My eyes were burning from the hot, dry dust, and I brushed my sleeve over them. Nudge had started crying and was trying to keep the stinging tears out of her injury, which had barely started to scab over.
“I don’t know about heaven or anything,” I said gruffly. “Though God knows we’ve seen a thousand kinds of hell. But I know that somewhere, Akila is running free, the sun on her face and the wind in her fur, and she’s got plenty to eat and isn’t in pain.”
That was when I started crying. I barely got out my last words: “Good-bye, Akila.” Then I took a handful of gritty dirt and sprinkled it on her cloth. One by one, we each threw a handful of dirt on her, and then Total backed up to the pile of dirt and kicked furiously, filling in the hole faster than we could have with the shovel.
“Good-bye, my love, my princess, my beautiful bride,” he sobbed. “Our love will never die.”
We were all quiet for a couple of minutes.
“I wish we had flowers to put here,” said Angel, wiping her face and leaving a smeared streak.
“Maybe there’s something inside we could use as a marker,” Fang said, turning to the house. “Like a statue or vase or something. Be right back.” He headed inside.
We stood in awkward silence until a distant, bone-chilling howl made us all jump… and set the Gasman off.
“What else is alive out there? Max?”
“I don’t know, okay?” I said, suddenly exhausted and frustrated and so, so sad about Akila. “I don’t have all the answers. The world looks like it’s been completely obliterated. So whatever possibly survived is going to be… pretty… yucky.”
“I’m sure rats and cockroaches made it,” Iggy muttered.
“And us,” said Angel.
Dropping the shovel, I covered my face with my hands.
Breathe. Just breathe.
This was it: I had finally hit my breaking point.
“Guys?” Fang called from inside the house, oblivious. “Nudge, c’mere, I need you.”
“Akila won’t mind about the stupid fake headstone!” Nudge answered miserably.
“I think you’ll all want to see this.” Fang stuck his arm out the window, and I stared dumbly at the object he was holding.
Somehow, in the middle of this torched wasteland, Fang had found a laptop.
10
WE GAWKED AT Fang like he was holding an extra-large double-cheese stuffed-crust pizza.
“It’s a laptop,” I said, frowning in disappointment. “So what? With no Internet, all we could do is play solitaire. We need either actual food or a marker for Akila’s grave.”
“It’s a tablet, actually,” Fang corrected as we came nearer. “It’s smaller, see? And it has a touch screen!”
I rolled my eyes at his mocking tone. “Can we eat it?” I flicked the hard casing. “Can we use it to fend off the psycho hounds?” I gestured toward Nudge’s bandaged cheek.
“Let me see that.” Nudge took the tablet, turning it over in her hands. “I can sense the owner’s fingerprints. He was anxious, searching for something.”
“I knew it!” Gazzy punched the air victoriously. “I knew there were still other people alive out there. It’s not just us and the Cryenas!”
Fang’s eyes flicked to mine, challenging. Nudge did have the power to feel leftover energy, but since we didn’t know how old the energy was, it didn’t necessarily mean anything. And when you’ve had the kind of epically bad luck I’ve had, you learn not to get your hopes up.
Still, it could mean something—a record of what happened, or a connection to the rest of the world…?
“It means answers.” Angel sat on the cracked kitchen counter, swinging her legs. The way she said it—with that weird authority she had—made it seem real, and there was a collective inhale, a quickening pulse, a feeling that maybe, possibly, we might just have a shot.
I bit my lip and then asked the only question that really mattered: “Does it even work?”
Nudge held down the power button for a few moments and then looked up with a frown, like she’d been betrayed. Nothing.
“There’s no electricity to charge it, either,” Fang said, flicking a dead light switch.
I sighed. “Like I said, just another useless piece of junk some poor sap left behind.” Seeing some plastic flowers on the table, I grabbed them an
d turned to head out to Akila’s grave.
“Max, be careful out there,” Gazzy said. “We definitely heard some kind of wild animal.”
“What if we could charge it another way?” Iggy called after me. A high-pitched squeal made me cover my ears, and I turned to see him standing in the doorway to the next room, holding up a dusty radio.
“Where did you get that?”
Ig grinned. “Oh, just another useless piece of junk I found lying around.” He fidgeted with the dial, but all we heard was the crackle of static. “Looks like the antenna’s shot, but it has a charging panel—solar powered.”
“Doesn’t that mean you need sun?” I squinted out the window doubtfully. The sky was dark with ash.
“She still might have some juice in her.” Iggy shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
Somehow, of course, Iggy found some doohickey thingamabob, fiddled with it, and managed to plug the tablet into the radio. We crowded around, seeing our anxious expressions reflected on the touch screen. The tiny red light on the power cord blinked on, and we waited.
And waited.
“It’s not working,” I huffed, tapping the screen.
“Patience, Max.” Total licked away the smudge from my grimy finger. “Just give it a minute.”
But after five minutes, the radio started to hum with the effort, and the light was still red.
“It’s not going to be enough.” I started to pace.
Then, just as the radio took its last, groaning breath, a welcoming note chirped from the speakers, and our reflections faded as the screen glowed to life.
11
NUDGE’S HANDS HOVERED over the keyboard, and the rest of the flock huddled around her. “What should I look up?”
“Whoa, you actually have Internet?” Iggy asked. “I’m guessing this guy probably hasn’t paid his wireless bill in a while.”
“Five G.” Nudge wiggled her magnetic fingers. “I know it makes no sense, but don’t question it.”
We tried all the major news sites. Over and over, we saw the same thing: a white screen with stark black type that read CONNECTION TO SERVER FAILED. Then Nudge started trying anything she could think of. We squealed when an actual site popped up, but saw that it was a shopping list for a homemade disaster kit. Gazzy found “antidiarrheal medication” particularly hilarious, while my stomach growled loudly over such delicacies listed as “canned fruit and meats.”
Maximum Ride Forever Page 3
