Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4)

by Jamie Thornton

  I tried reaching back and unhooking the cord, but this only made me wobble dangerously. Other Vs closed in on the box.

  “Corrina!” I screamed.

  One V stared at me with bloodshot eyes. He twisted his head at the player and then back at me. Then he took a step toward me, then looked back at the player. Then another step toward me.

  Corrina came running, the knife in her hand glinting in the sun. She slashed at the bungee cord. It snapped back and stung me on the cheek. A group of Vs collapsed on top of the player, but others still advanced.

  “This way!” Corrina yelled. She ran backwards, facing the Vs, waving her hands around, yelling and screaming. “This way, this way!”

  Suddenly the player died and the music stopped. Vs pushed past those who had stopped for the player. I jumped back on my bike and rode after Corrina.

  The thick crush of their bodies sent an overwhelming aroma of sewer that enveloped me like a cloud. Their grunts and groans sent hot air across my neck. I knew, I just knew any moment that something would grab my shirt and yank me off the bike and I would fall to the ground under a pile of bodies and they would suffocate me with their filth and make me bleed with their violence.

  My front tire crossed the building’s threshold and slipped sideways across the slick, polished floor. My balance shifted, tilted. I slammed a foot down and a sharp pain shot up my shin. Corrina waved to me at the opposite side—the door open, the light silhouetting her body.

  “Go faster!” she screamed.

  I wanted to yell back something about how I would take my damn time if I felt like it. What the hell did she think I was trying to do?

  Halfway across the space decorated with flags and banners displaying softball tournament wins, I risked looking over my shoulder. The door had created a bottleneck, but a half dozen had tumbled through and were racing for me.

  “Go, go, go!” Corrina screamed.

  I didn’t look back again.

  I flew past the doors and the sunlight blinded me with its intensity. My tires hit the rough asphalt with a slap and I traveled another few yards before forcing on the brakes.

  Sweat slicked my hands and made them slippery on the handlebars. My heart pounded so hard in my chest I couldn’t hear very well. My legs felt like jelly. Corrina struggled with the chains and lock. Vs pushed the door out a few inches.

  “Watch out!” I raced back to her side, jumped off the bike and slammed my own weight into the door. My shoulder took most of the shock but I ignored the pain. Corrina wrapped the chains twice through the handles and clicked the lock in place.

  “The other side,” she said, a crazy light shining in her brown irises. Her face was streaked with dirt from somewhere. Her mouth formed a rectangular grimace around the teeth she bared. “You go around one way, I’ll go the other.”

  “We should stick together,” I said.

  “No.” She shook her head and took off.

  I wanted to shake her. I didn’t want to go around the building, I didn’t want to meet a V by myself. I didn’t want to be alone but she was already gone.

  One of the Vs slammed against the door, bucking it out, but the chain held.

  I scrambled backward and ran around the side, leaving my bike but pulling out my bat. A V turned the far corner and sprinted for me.

  I centered my weight on my feet, aimed, took an extra second to breathe, and swung. She dropped to the ground. I continued running and slammed my back against the wall just before turning the corner. I peeked. The space was mostly empty except for a group of Vs struggling against each other to get into the building. The player lay scattered in glinting black pieces on the asphalt. I held back, hoping they would all go inside as long as they didn’t see me.

  The last V, a teenager who had maybe once gone to school here, was the last one in. I raced to the doors, threw aside my bat and grabbed the chains coiled in a pile behind the cement trash can. I pressed the doors shut and then there was another set of filthy hands over mine.

  I yelped and jumped back.

  “Cool it,” Corrina said. “Hurry up.”

  I laced the chains through the handles several times. Corrina snapped on the padlock. We both stepped back, waited.

  Shuffling feet, more groans, and that sewer smell again. The breeze made one of the plastic pieces skitter across the ground. A bird chirped.

  One of the Vs slammed against the door. I jumped.

  “Corrina!”

  I followed the sound. Dylan waved and ran to her. Corrina met him halfway and he lifted her and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  I walked past their little reunion and admitted to myself that if not for Corrina and her knife I would be dead by now.

  The rest of the group straggled across the campus. Ricker and Ano walked on either side of Maibe, helping her stand. Spencer came last, behind Jimmy, Kern, and Laurel.

  The group sat in a circle in the middle of the athletic fields. It would let us see anything coming our way even as the knee-high grass provided some camouflage. Though it also made Jimmy break into a rash and itch like crazy.

  Dylan was still awake, sitting with his arm around Corrina. Fires still burned, but the grass smell that surrounded us helped mask it.

  Maibe’s memory-fever was gone, but she kept throwing up. The wound on her arm was festering. It was bright red, swollen, hot to the touch, oozing a pus that kept coming back no matter that we’d cleaned it three times. She needed medicine.

  Ricker helped Maibe down onto the grass and she fell into a troubled sleep. He brushed hair back from Maibe’s forehead. Ricker had always been whip-thin, but it was worse now.

  No one spoke about the Vs trapped in the multi other than to thank Corrina and me for saving them. We were leaving the Vs to die a slow death. I sort of did and didn’t care. They had tried to kill me and my friends. Sick or not, human or not, I wasn’t going to forgive that. There were no right answers. Better not to think of them at all. We couldn’t help them, we could only worry about our own safety. But that was easier said than done.

  Kern pointed at Ano’s arm of scars. “What’re those for?”

  When Ano only answered with a steady stare, Jimmy said, “For people who have died.”

  Kern looked around at each of us, his eyes catching on the ridged, white lines that formed messy, childish-looking names. He didn’t say anything more about it. Instead he searched the inside of his bag and began pulling out little packets. He did it without a word, but the crinkle of plastic wrappers drew our attention. The yellow caught my eye first—peanut butter and chocolate. Bright, fire engine red for a package of candy. A green bag of vinegar chips. Even a few soda cans. He emptied the backpack until there was a small mountain of junk food in front of him. I tried not to picture how the chips would taste: salty and sharp on my tongue.

  “So, who wants what?” Kern said.

  Jimmy reached over first, but stopped before touching any of it.

  Kern looked around and raised his eyebrows. “This isn’t a trick or something. I raided a gas station when we first woke up.”

  “And you took all the junk that would make you sick?” I said.

  Kern squinted at me. The bag of chips seemed to stare at me too. “I’m trying to say thanks for letting us tag along.”

  “We’d like to come along, if you don’t mind,” Laurel said.

  “I mind,” I said. “I don’t know you and I don’t trust you.”

  “We could use all the help we can get,” Corrina said.

  Corrina and I had come to a truce of some sort, but that didn’t mean I had to agree with her, but I also couldn’t get up enough energy to fight her on this.

  “We could all help each other out for awhile,” Dylan said. “I’m not back up on my feet yet, not really. Right now I’m a burden, which means you’re more likely to get killed hauling me around—”

  “We’re not leaving you behind,” Corrina said.

  “I know,” Dylan said. “I’m not suggesting that. But tha
t does mean we could use more help, more muscle than just a bunch of kids.”

  “Go to hell,” Ano said.

  I silently cheered at Ano’s words.

  “Who do you think saved your ass?” Ricker said.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Dylan said. “I’m sorry. I know neither of us would be alive without your help.”

  I waited for Ano to rip Dylan again, but there was only silence.

  Jimmy looked back and forth between me and Kern. His hand still hovered over the chocolate peanut butter bar.

  “Take it, kid,” Kern said, smiling. “I promise I didn’t secretly poison it—like Gabbi over here seems to think.”

  Jimmy still didn’t move. Now everyone seemed to be looking back and forth between Kern and me. Everyone except Spencer. He still looked out over the field. I scowled.

  A hint of a smile appeared on Ano’s face. “I claim the chips.”

  Kern smiled back and tossed over the bag. I burned holes into Ano’s head. He popped open the bag and crunched down on the first chip, looked at me, looked back at the bag. Laughed. He tossed the bag into my lap. “I’m full. Do you want the rest?”

  I took the first, delicious chip out of the bag before I even knew what I was doing. Jimmy dove for the chocolate bar, which made Laurel laugh. Corrina and Dylan split a soda and Ricker took a package of candy. Spencer took nothing.

  Kern drained his soda and tossed the can into the grass.

  My first impulse was to snatch it up for the recycling money. I saw it in Ano too, the way his muscles tensed even though he was sitting. He shook his head and half-smiled.

  “So what’s next?” Laurel asked.

  “We get out of the city,” Ano said. “We get medicine for Maibe.” He didn’t say anything about Dutch Flat.

  At the sound of her name, Maibe moaned. It was good that Dylan was awake, for however long that lasted. Maibe would need the trailer.

  Kern looked at me for confirmation on Ano’s words. I shrugged.

  “Good chips?” Kern said.

  I turned onto my stomach without answering and licked the last of the salt and vinegar from my fingers.

  Kern laid flat on the grass on his back. He was only several feet away now. His arm stretched up and over his eyes to block the sun. This pulled up his shirt enough to reveal dirt-streaked, well-defined muscle, and a strip of hair that disappeared into his jeans.

  I pinched myself hard and twisted around to stare up at the sky. Now was not the time for a crush.

  I turned and focused on the blades of damp grass in front of my nose. An ant crawled along the underside as if its whole world hadn’t fallen to pieces. You never trusted somebody out of the goodness of your heart—whether they shared junk food with you or not. They always betrayed you. But fighting off the Vs would fall to Ano and me, and we weren’t enough, and I didn’t know what should come next.

  I tore the blade of grass in half and threw it into the air. It spun and drifted to the ground a few feet away. Let’s see the ant put the pieces back together now.

  Chapter 17

  Before we left, I slipped away to pee behind one of the buildings. I passed by the multi and rested my hands on the lock for just a moment. Shuffling feet and soft groans as if from a dream drifted from the door. Was it murder if we left them all inside? I shook my head. Be smart, Gabbi.

  But it was hard to take my hands away. It was hard to walk away and leave them inside, in the dark, alone with themselves. I did that. I had gotten them in there.

  I left the chain in place and walked away and told myself going soft now would only get us killed.

  Kern and Laurel found bikes in one of the empty houses near the high school. They said they would lead the way on the trail. They said it was the least they could do to thank us for helping them. I didn’t know what to think about that, except to let them ride in front. They were easier to watch that way.

  We made good time on the trail for a couple of hours. It was twenty miles to Folsom Lake. Kern said there was a pharmacy just off the trail after reaching the lake. We knew there had to be other, closer ones in the neighborhoods that lined the river, but no one volunteered to search them out. The V sightings became less frequent as we got further from the city. The suburbs were still built thick along the river, but a wider greenbelt created a better buffer. Plus, there had been no refugee camp to draw the Vs out here.

  Soon we hit the dam and the lake opened before us. It was noticeably empty even on this winter day. The waves were calm and lapped gently on the shoreline a few yards from the bike trail. The gnarled trunks of the oak trees stood sentry like they had always done. A few shorebirds squawked over a trash can chained to a speed limit pole.

  For a second, I could pretend nothing had changed. We were a bunch of street kids taking advantage of our freedom to enjoy the lake. Maybe someone was going to light a joint and we would veg out to some music while letting the sound of the water hypnotize us.

  Then Maibe moaned. Ricker was taking his turn on the bike trailer. He locked eyes with me and shook his head. “She’s getting worse.”

  I caught up with Kern and rode alongside him as he scanned the trail ahead.

  “What?” he said.

  I was going to ask him how far until the pharmacy. Instead, I said, “What do you mean what?”

  “I mean,” Kern said. “Is there something wrong with me?”

  “Why would there be something wrong with you?” I said. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

  He flinched. “Chill out, woman. You were staring.”

  Had I been staring? “Don’t call me that.”

  “Gabbi, then.”

  “Don’t call me that either. You don’t know me.”

  “What’s your problem?” Kern said. He scowled at me, drawing his dark eyebrows together over his almost black eyes. “I’ve done nothing but—”

  “You’ve done nothing to make me—”

  “Why didn’t you leave them?” Kern said.

  “What?”

  “I saw you. I saw you go back and unlock the door.”

  “You were watching me?”

  “That’s not the point,” Kern said.

  “I think it is.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave them?”

  “I did leave them.”

  “You didn’t unlock the door?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But you thought about it?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You’ve killed them before.”

  “In self-defense,” I said.

  “It’s the end of the world.”

  “It’s murder,” I said. “Even if we have to do it.”

  “It’s the END. OF. THE. WORLD.”

  “It’s still murder if they aren’t trying to kill me first!” I said.

  “But they ARE trying to kill you. That’s the whole point,” Kern said. “That’s why you call them Vs. V for violent, as in, they will violently kill you if you give them the chance.”

  “We got you out alive. Why are you complaining?” I said. I didn’t understand how this conversation had gotten so out of control. I hadn’t unlocked the door. I might have thought about it. I might have done it if I’d been myself, but I hadn’t.

  “I’m only pointing out some important facts here,” Kern said. “Facts that might get us killed if others don’t accept them.”

  “I don’t need your facts.” I gritted my teeth. It didn’t matter if what I had thought about doing made sense or not. He didn’t get to judge me for it and think I would just take it.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he said, shaking his head, dismissing me. “You’re crazy.”

  He increased his speed and pulled ahead. I coasted and dropped back next to Maibe and Ricker. I hadn’t meant to start an argument. I hadn’t been looking for one. I’d wanted to know how far away the pharmacy was. I’d hoped to make him smile.

  We rode a few more miles in silence. Kern stopped at a large in
tersection. Four cars were piled up in the middle. One was charred and melted into the street, the others mangled bits of red and green and blue metal. Glass was everywhere in a thick, glinting carpet.

  “This is where we go in a bit,” Kern said. “The pharmacy is in that strip mall. Across the street is a grocery store. Laurel and I will grab us more food while you all get the medicine you need.”

  I wanted to argue for keeping the group together, but Kern’s judgment still ran through my mind. Maybe I WAS crazy for not trusting them. They’d been through a lot too. They’d lost people and woken up from the fevers, infected just like us with memories that kept betraying them.

  “All right,” I said, looking at Ano for agreement. “Everyone meet back here.”

  “I’ll stay with Maibe,” Ricker said.

  “Jimmy,” I said. “You should stay too. Help Ricker.”

  “I want to help get groceries,” Jimmy said. His dark curly hair had matted around his ears. Chocolate crumbs stained his chin.

  “And get more chocolate bars,” Ricker said.

  Jimmy looked away. Ricker poked him in the side. “You better get one for me this time.”

  Jimmy turned back, smiling.

  “This is serious,” I said. “This isn’t some game!”

  “We know,” Ricker said. His smile became a scowl. “It’s all death out there all the time. Thanks for reminding us.”

  I felt embarrassed. Of course they knew. I didn’t need to ruin every time someone tried to lighten the mood. At least Ricker was still trying, which was more than I could say for myself.

  “I’ll go with you,” Dylan said to me and Ano. His blue eyes were shockingly light against his dark hair. Sweat trickled down his forehead in spite of the cold. He’d stayed awake for the whole ride this time. The fevers were almost done with him, but not completely.

  “We can’t risk this,” Ano said. “If you go down and there’s trouble…”

  “Stay with Maibe and Corrina,” I said. “We won’t be long.”

  Corrina whispered in his ear and he sank to the ground in silent relief. He was going down again.