Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4)

by Jamie Thornton

  “We need to find a second trailer.” I said it so only Ano could hear. He pressed his lips together and nodded.

  We separated. Ano and me to the pharmacy, Kern, Laurel, and Jimmy to the grocery store. Everyone else remained behind. It didn’t feel right leaving them.

  The inside of the pharmacy was cold and our steps echoed on the tile. The aisles were these huge shadows that loomed over our heads. Parts of the store had been ransacked, other aisles were in ruins, as if someone had come along and run their arms across the boxes to purposefully crash them on the floor.

  There were two dead bodies in the back, both were clerks. We didn’t look close enough to see what had killed them. I kept my eyes open for a trailer, anything that a bike might be able to drag, but there was nothing. The pharmacy gate was bent, almost ripped off its track. The shelves behind it looked—empty.

  “No,” I whispered.

  Ano ran and jumped the counter. “All of it is gone!”

  I heard a low growl and reached for the bat strapped to my back. The clerks weren’t dead.

  They rose from the ground like monsters out of the horror movies Maibe talked about. I cleared the counter just as there was a crash. Ano appeared at the gate, wide-eyed, his black hair a shock of darkness across his face. He was scared.

  Behind him the pharmacy was totally empty, except for the five Vs headed our way.

  We scrambled back over the counter and into the waiting arms of the two clerks. One was a large, older woman with a gray-haired perm, the other was a younger man with a goatee. They snatched at our clothes and screeched. The Vs behind us screamed. I screamed back and swung my bat. The goatee guy caught the bat and ripped it out of my hands. It flew across the store, slid along the tile, bounced off an aisle, and disappeared. Ano smashed into the guy’s chest and sent him tumbling to the ground. The woman with the perm dug her fingers into my arms. The Vs behind us stumbled over the counter and one of them grabbed my hair. They were pulling me back and forth between them as I tried to fight them off, but they were too strong, too angry, too determined.

  Lights blazed inside the store and made everything disappear into a sea of white. The woman’s head exploded in front of me. I tasted blood on my lips. My ears rang, muffling the shouts of people in uniform who surrounded me. I tumbled backwards. The V that still held on broke my fall. Arms wrapped around my stomach, cutting off my breath until one of the soldiers yanked me up and dealt with the V.

  There was silence now in the store except for my ringing ears. Ano was on his knees, hands behind his neck, a gun pointed at his head. The Vs were dead now. Some of them looked almost exploded into pieces.

  Kern and Laurel stood behind the soldiers and no one pointed a gun at them.

  Chapter 18

  The army truck was filthy and dark. We sat on benches facing each other. They had bound all of our wrists and ankles, except for Laurel and Kern’s. Maibe was laid out on the bench and she groaned at each jolt of the truck. Ricker sat on the floor of the truck and leaned back, using his weight to keep Maibe from falling off. A guard holding a rifle sat on the end of one bench.

  I saw all of this from the periphery of my vision because I stared at my hands and the rope that bound them. I’d be able to untie it all easily enough, but we were part of a convoy and I did not think we could escape them on foot.

  The canvas smelled damp and moldering. I sneezed into my hands and dug my fingers into my eye sockets to keep tears from falling.

  All of us captured again. As if we had never been released. We were back at square one, worse than before, because the guards were better than the ones before. Too slick and mean and professional. Too watchful. Too careful.

  “It’s not what you think,” Kern said softly.

  I did not respond. He wasn’t talking to me anyway. He was explaining himself to Corrina or Dylan or someone else who actually cared about that sort of thing. As if getting us captured could be explained away.

  “They’re looking for a cure, but we need more help.”

  “Indentured servitude,” Ano said. “Slavery.”

  “Gabbi,” Kern said.

  I looked up and saw his face in the dim light. Like stone, no remorse, if anything, a sense of pride and a layer of anger.

  “You would have done the same,” he said. He looked stricken with shame then, just for a moment, but the emotion disappeared and disdain replaced it. “You don’t understand—”

  A strangled cry lodged in my throat and I launched myself off the bench. I straddled him, even with my ankles locked together, and used my fists to pummel his shoulders, head, arms. I saw his fists too late. He brought them up and slammed them into the underside of my chin. My head snapped back and stars exploded across my eyes. I was pulled off Kern and onto the truck’s floorboards.

  When my head cleared, a rifle barrel filled my vision. “Get back onto the bench.”

  I tried to talk around the blood in my mouth and choked. I spit out a glob by the guard’s feet. I couldn’t get up on my own and I wasn’t going to ask for help.

  The guard motioned to Kern and Laurel. “Get her back on the bench.”

  The two men lifted me back onto the bench. Kern rubbed his temple and returned to his seat. The others remained silent. I almost blamed Corrina, she was the one who had pushed us to trust the two strange men, but really, I blamed myself for not stopping the stupidity before now.

  We rode the rest of the way in silence. I figured Kern and Laurel must have been working with Sergeant Bennings at the fairgrounds. It must have been them who had killed all those Vs on the trail near the underpass. I wondered how long they had actually been Feebs for.

  Once, Kern looked ready to say something else, but a warning elbow from his father silenced him. Bumps threw me against Dylan at times, but there was no hint of attraction present. He was like a lump of coal.

  Out the back of the truck, neighborhoods passed by, some rich and spread out, others close together and run down, most burned away. When we crossed over I-80, the convoy slowed near the middle of the overpass. The freeway was thick with cars. People had tried to flee—not many had made it out of the city by the looks of it. Taking the freeway would have been the wrong move. But then again, the bike trail hadn’t turned out so great either.

  Smoke still hazed the sky, otherwise we would have seen the snowcapped Sierra mountains, some hundred miles away. A few miles later, all of it disappeared as we went through a tunnel. Out the other side was the rail yard. We’d ridden the train here often enough that I recognized the medians and markers. A large Methodist church built in the late 1800s was usually the first thing you could see from the train station. Its painted white bricks and stained glass windows were still intact, but the surrounding buildings had burned to sticks.

  Here the streets were clear. In fact, the entire drive had been mostly free of obstacles, as if someone had cleared it.

  The entrance to this camp bustled with activity. Guards were posted at regular intervals in lookout towers. We rumbled through. Cooking smells drifted into the truck and made my stomach cramp from hunger. A train whistle, long, high-pitched, and familiar sounded.

  People, uninfected, walked around. The truck rumbled through the grounds, paused while the driver talked with someone, then continued on, not stopping again until it hit some sort of office building, but there was something not quite office-like about its windows or shape.

  The ramp unlatched. The guard motioned us out with his rifle then jumped off.

  I stood, wobbly on my feet, my jaw aching, my head throbbing.

  A glance at Kern showed he wasn’t much better off. He might be bigger than me, but I knew how to throw a punch. His left eye was swollen shut and blood had dripped down and dried on his chin.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them wide. I rolled my shoulders trying to get the kinks out, then stepped behind Spencer to walk down the ramp.

  “When you enter the jail, we will need to decontaminate your clothing and all o
f your possessions. You will get everything back after decontamination.”

  I could not yet see who spoke, but something about the voice made my stomach cramp. I stepped forward. Corrina crowded behind me. She drew in a sharp breath. “No.”

  Sergeant Bennings was at the end of the ramp.

  Chapter 19

  Sergeant Bennings stood with his legs hip-width apart and his hands behind his back. A clear plastic shield covered his face and his hands were gloved. His eyes skated past me and settled on Dylan. I let out a silent breath of relief. I feared he would recognize me as the one who had killed his soldier on the stage.

  “Hello, Dylan,” Sergeant Bennings said, nodding in his direction. “You may not believe it, but I’m glad to see you alive. Infected or not.”

  “I can’t say the same,” Dylan responded.

  Ricker stepped off the ramp with Maibe leaning against him. When she saw Sergeant Bennings she stopped and became rigid.

  “I know him.” She touched Ricker’s shoulder. “That’s Alden.” Her face was blank yet focused on Sergeant Bennings.

  It gave me the chills watching her act out the memory-rush right there in front of me. We’d been inside the fairgrounds with our stack of blankets, figuring out a way into the warehouse.

  Sergeant Bennings froze. “How do you know about my son?”

  “We went to school together.”

  He thought she was answering his question but I knew it was part of the memory-rush.

  “He’s alive and untainted. He won’t be allowed to have anything to do with you.”

  Maibe opened her mouth. Ricker looked at me with wild eyes. I stomped on her foot.

  “Ow!” Her face cleared. She blinked and looked at me. “Why did you do that?”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “You’ll find things run a little different here,” Sergeant Bennings said. He was talking to all of us but stared at Maibe like she was an insect. “More strict in some ways, more relaxed in others. If it gives you any comfort, I’m not the one in charge. They didn’t like how I ran the fairgrounds.”

  “How it fell apart under your command?” Dylan said.

  Sergeant Bennings finally looked away from Maibe. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He reached for the stick at his waist.

  “Sir, what about my wife?” Laurel left the line and moved to within feet of Sergeant Bennings. Guards leapt forward. The click of tasers went off. Laurel screamed and bounced onto the ground. The rest of us jumped away, but then suddenly we were all surrounded with clicking shock sticks.

  Kern dropped to the ground. Dust puffed up. “Wake up, Laurel. Wake up. Come on!”

  “He’ll be fine,” Sergeant Bennings said. He wiped some imaginary dust from his right shoulder. “The council has clearly become too lax here. Please remember that infected are not allowed to stand within six feet of any uninfected person, or said infected person risks shock and possible execution. Now—” He motioned for the guards to step back.

  “We did as ordered. There’s no need for this,” Kern said.

  “Yes, you’re right,” Sergeant Bennings said. “You will be rewarded. Now—”

  He surveyed the rest of us. His eyes rested on me for a moment and then slid on. Maibe vomited spindly translucent trails of saliva onto the ground.

  “—please follow me.”

  “She needs medicine.”

  Sergeant Bennings stopped and looked at Ricker and then at Maibe. “She’ll get it.”

  Ricker helped Maibe forward. Laurel moaned and then braced himself on the dirt while Kern lifted him to his feet. We shuffled into the building—a large sign over a bullet-proof encased reception area revealed the building had been used as a county jail. The plaque said “state-of-the-art, built in 2004.”

  They escorted us to an open area. Natural light streamed onto the railings and concrete surfaces and into the surrounding layers of cells. I was prodded into a cell with Corrina, the others walked past and it sounded like they were separated into cells of their own.

  A fire alarm bell rang. I sat on a cot next to Corrina and watched Feebs stream across the opening of our cell. “What’s going on?”

  “I have no idea,” Corrina said.

  I stood up. No one was watching us. We could leave.

  The cell bars clanged shut. The bell turned off. A door opened. A cart, heaped with trays, rolled by. People in hospital scrubs with face masks and gloves pushed the tray. Delicious food smells almost overwhelmed my senses. My stomach cramped at the thought of food.

  Corrina and I looked at each other. I surveyed our new little home. Two beds, a toilet, and a sink.

  “What do you think is happening?”

  I laid out on one of the beds. “Nothing good, of course.” Though I hoped we’d get some dinner first before the next awful thing started.

  “They said they were working on a cure.”

  “And look at how that turned out for Leaf.”

  Corrina sat down on the bunk and then lowered her head to her knees.

  “I think that most things have fallen apart or burned down or will have both happen to them very soon,” I said. “I think that when a thing breaks, it’s harder to piece it back together than to just toss it aside and start again. I think that even if they are looking for a cure, it’s for themselves. Not for us.”

  Corrina looked up at me, her brown eyes staring into mine.

  “You know it’s true,” I said softly, remembering our truce. She had that haunted look about her, that look that said she knew what it was like not to belong so badly that it turned you into something worse than an alien, it turned you into trash people could throw away and never think about again.

  I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together. Leaf’s numb face appeared. He was smiling, but only half his face moved. The ghost-memory wasn’t a happy one, they usually weren’t for me. I opened my eyes in the hopes that he would disappear, but instead I saw him sitting next to Corrina on the cot. His legs were crossed, and his arms, his good arm, lay draped over one knee while the other one hung limp against his side.

  “If this has affected most of the country, hell, most of the world, maybe there’s a scientist in a bunker working on a solution, but that’s not going to help us here and now.” I jabbed myself in the chest to emphasize my point. “Any help that comes our way comes from us.” Even as I said the words, I wasn’t sure how much I meant them.

  But in the silence that settled between us, among us really, because Leaf still sat there nodding his head as if in agreement, I realized I did mean it.

  “I would welcome you to Camp Pacific, but such words would be farcical, and I no longer have a sense of humor.” A female voice drew our attention to the cell door. She had the tell-tale marks of a Feeb, but she was also unfettered and unguarded.

  “Who are you?” Corrina asked.

  “A traitor.” She smiled. “That’s what new ones like you call me, but I usually change their minds.”

  I got up from the cot and approached the bars. Leaf’s ghost stood up with me and reached out a hand as if to place it in warning on my shoulder. I flinched from the almost-touch. He drew his hand away, a hurt look on his face. I don’t know why I flinched. He’d never done anything to hurt me.

  I turned back to the lady. She had long gray hair that dangled past her shoulders. Clear blue eyes twinkled with intelligence and sternness, but the smile on her lips was friendly and she held her hands out, palms up, almost in supplication. Her eyes caught on my arm with all the scars, but she didn’t ask about them.

  I felt the loss of Leaf all over again and how his name was missing from my arm and how that needed to be fixed.

  “In two minutes or so, they will have finished dropping of the food, then they will release your locks and dinner will be served. We all eat together in the greenhouse.”

  “The…what?” I said.

  She cocked her head over her shoulder. “The center of the jail.”

  “They power th
e locks with a generator, but otherwise there isn’t any electricity on this side of camp. They save the power for their side.” The woman moved away from the bars toward the next cell.

  “Wait!” Corrina said.

  “Yes?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tabitha. You can call me Tibby, if you like.”

  “You’re a Feeb,” I said. “Why aren’t you in here with us?”

  She smiled and moved on.

  “Hey!” I ran up to the bars and shook them. They were supposed to rattle like in the movies, but they were too sturdy for that. I searched the cell. There was a spoon underneath the mattress. I took that to the bars but before I could touch them, the latch released and the cell door opened.

  Corrina pushed passed me and onto the walkway. I came out slowly. Ricker burst out of a cell with Jimmy. Ano came out with Spencer and Dylan.

  “Where’s Maibe?” Ricker said. His face was pale and veins throbbed along his neck. “They took her from me.”

  Other Feebs came out of the cells, talking and laughing and shaking hands and hugging as if this whole thing were a normal part of the day. Laurel helped a woman with a cane limp out. He had his arms around her shoulders, protecting her from falling. He kissed her on the lips. Fury rose alongside understanding. All our lives traded for his wife’s one life. There would be payback.

  Kern was talking to Tabitha against the railing. I stalked up to them. “Where’s Maibe? What have you done with her?”

  Tabitha looked at me with steady eyes. Kern rubbed his hand across the stubble on his neck. “She wasn’t with you?”

  “No, she wasn’t with me. That’s why I’m asking, dumbass.”

  Ricker came up next to me. Then Corrina and Dylan.

  Tabitha looked at each of us in turn. I felt the pressure building to an explosion.

  “Maibe!” I shouted. “Maibe, where are you? Are you in here?” A breathless feeling filled my chest. I took my eyes off her for one second. But it hadn’t been one second. It had been hours. I hadn’t thought about her since they had loaded us into the truck. I cursed myself. I had promised to look out for her and now—