Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4)

by Jamie Thornton

  Sergeant Bennings inclined his head. He waved his hand and the guards lowered their guns. “We suspect they are all in the same place.”

  “We’ve been following the trail for the cured ones,” Tabitha said, her voice also quiet. “Dr. Ferrad is the most likely candidate. She betrayed us when she—”

  “When YOU helped her escape,” Sergeant Bennings interrupted. “She was close to finding a cure in the camps. We always knew the double infection wasn’t a permanent solution. You destroyed our chances—”

  “Because you created the infections.”

  He barked a laugh. “That old conspiracy again? I would deny it, but you won’t believe it.”

  “You can’t deny the bacteria are your fault,” Tabitha said. “Look at your wife and try to deny it!”

  Sergeant Bennings went cold. The look on his face was dangerous. “We created the bacteria to fight the virus. It’s the only thing that holds back the Lyssa virus.”

  Tabitha snorted. “The camps had already been up and running for months before the epidemic devastated the state, the country—the world—for all we know. Kern and I are proof of that!”

  “The camps had been around for years,” he said, his voice still cold but under better control. “This happened to be the disaster that finally justified the money the government spent on them.”

  “And your experiments? Your prisons?” Tabitha strained against the ropes so that they formed indents on her arms.

  “Strict quarantine procedures with dwindling resources. Life isn’t very pretty when the world falls apart.”

  “There were plenty of resources, you—”

  “Enough!” Corrina said.

  They stopped. The church door creaked. There was the sharp slap of shoes on the wood floor. Jane appeared, her blonde hair tied back from her face, her Feeb lines almost nonexistent.

  “None of you should go,” Corrina said.

  I saw it, standing close to Corrina like I was, how she stiffened and her cheeks lost their color. Maybe it had been years ago, but the infection must make her relive all those terrible moments between her and Jane.

  Corrina glanced over to me. “None of you should go. Therefore, all of you will go. Maibe knows Alden better than anyone here and he may be our best chance at finding the cure. If there is a cure.”

  “I’m clear proof of that,” Jane said, her voice cutting through the hot air.

  “Yeah, you’re proof of something,” Corrina said. “Whether that’s a permanent cure for us, well that remains to be seen.”

  Jane stepped forward, her eyes blazing. She lifted her chin and forced her hands to relax at her sides. I don’t think the two of them saw us anymore.

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Corrina’s voice was steady and careful. “I’m saying I’m going to wait and decide what to think based on what Maibe finds.”

  They all looked at me. I wanted to drop through the floor. I wanted to hide in a room with my Faints. I wanted to prove to Corrina that I deserved her trust, but we’d already failed three times. We hadn’t made it more than a few dozen miles away from town—caught by the Feeb-haters, then by Tabitha’s people, now by Sergeant Bennings.

  “The kid?” Jane said. “The zombie-watching, movie-obsessed kid? Oh that’s classic.”

  “Think what you want,” Corrina said. “It matters nothing to me.”

  “Take me and my people with you,” Tabitha said, interrupting the crackling energy between the two of them. “We will help you find Dr. Ferrad. If you leave me behind, you will regret it.” She glanced over to one of the beds.

  A woman lay there, caught deep inside the Faint symptoms. The IV line dripped liquid into her veins, but she still breathed on her own. Her pale hair streaked the pillow around her face. The sheet was pulled up to her chin. She must have been brought in by Sergeant Bennings because I had never seen her before. There was something familiar about the shape of her face and the color of her hair.

  “You dare threaten my wife?” Sergeant Bennings said. “I should kill you.”

  It was Alden’s mother.

  Tabitha bowed her head in submission.

  “I live and act as if being uninfected is something worth protecting,” Sergeant Bennings said. “That does not make me a monster, but you…”

  He raised his hand as if to strike her.

  She did not flinch.

  He finally lowered it.

  “She’s right and you know it,” Tabitha said. “We all need to find the cure. We all just might know enough about where to find it—together.”

  Chapter 20

  It felt different this time. Feeb and uninfected, friend and enemy.

  But it was more than that.

  We were going to find a permanent cure for all of this.

  We walked silently into the forest, us Feebs in the middle so we couldn’t run off. Ricker, Gabbi, and I stayed together. Tabitha took two of her Feebs and somehow got Leon, Nindal, and Bernice included. Jane was there, protected from all sides by other uninfected. Her being cured and all, they hoped she’d recognize something eventually.

  Sergeant Bennings took along Hugh from the Feeb-haters. He didn’t explain why his people had been working with the Feeb-haters. Deep down, I felt sick about it because I suspected they would have taken out a whole town of people because Sergeant Bennings wanted me to find his son.

  Ricker wore a small pack, a water bottle latched to the side of it, a light, short-sleeve shirt, thick pants, and hiking boots. A bandanna around his neck, a hiking hat and sunglasses. In the before time, he could have been going for a hike in the hills to check out a waterfall. Now, it was a matter of preventing sunburn, dehydration, and dressing in such a way that you could walk forever. I adjusted the bandanna tied around my neck. Eyes skittered away from mine whenever I looked at the uninfected too quickly. It felt like they were waiting for me to do something to justify putting a bullet in me.

  Sergeant Bennings had wasted no time. We’d left town within an hour of when he showed me Alden’s notes. Even walking underneath the trees was hot. The sounds made everyone nervous. There were birds, hundreds of birds around us by the sound of it. Dry leaves crunched under us and yellow dust coated our shoes and pants. Water sloshed in the bottle slung around my shoulders. I hid my limp as best I could. The bite on my leg was even hotter than the sunlight. I’d been given no chance to clean it yet. I didn’t understand what it could mean so I didn’t want to think about it.

  We entered a clearing full of vehicles. The pine trees formed a green background against the dead grasses trampled by the cars. Sergeant Bennings planned for us to drive as far as the roads would allow. The hazardous waste camp in Alden’s drawings was about 150 miles away, down in the valley. Less than a three hour drive once. No way to know how long it would take now.

  We packed into the cars and the engines roared to life. The noise was deafening. The bird noises disappeared, the wind seemed to stop, the trees almost leaned back from us, as if wanting no part of the chaos that would come next.

  Our caravan ate up fifty miles of highway and main roads, maneuvering around obstacles, bypassing wash-outs, snaking through foothill towns when too many accidents clogged the freeways.

  Before long the Vs came out—sometimes from the side, sometimes from ahead. They were decrepit, gaunt things you could almost feel pity for. Whatever memories had allowed them enough consciousness to survive for this long wouldn’t last much longer.

  Our cars easily outdistanced most of them. Others were shot dead and run over. I sat in between Ricker and Gabbi and couldn’t help but feel as if the world was ending all over again. How long did either of them have before going fully V? How long did I have before I was trapped like Jimmy? We would get no mercy from Sergeant Bennings and his people.

  Ricker pressed his forehead against the glass, closing his eyes for a moment.

  “Are you okay?” I said, even as I watched the Vs outside. They had been alive once, they had been loved by
someone once.

  “Upset stomach,” he said. “Carsick, I guess. It always happens—just not in awhile.”

  “You felt it on the way back from the cave?”

  “Yeah, but not as bad. That was a short trip.”

  “Maybe we should stop,” I said.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “But—”

  “Stop, Maibe. It’s carsickness. It’ll be fine.” An angry note crept into his voice.

  I stopped. Ricker didn’t get angry. Ricker smiled almost as much as Jimmy. Ricker was gentle and kind and thoughtful. But the grimace on his face spoke of more than nausea. The tightness of his lips and the lines in his forehead showed tension, ferocious emotions held back—

  “I’ll be fine. Just leave me be.”

  Sergeant Bennings turned around and stared at him through his face shield.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “You,” Sergeant Bennings said. “Going V right here in this backseat. Aren’t you?”

  “And if I was?” Ricker snarled out.

  “I will put a bullet in your brain.” He pulled the gun out so fast it was a blur.

  I gasped, choking on my breath. Should I touch Ricker? Should I say something? Would that finally push him over the edge or talk him back down?

  There was a long measured look between the two of them. The driver watched through the rearview mirror, his eyes bugging out behind the mask. I realized with a shock that it was Hugh. From the group who hated Feebs so much they drained the blood out of one of their own. He looked ready to jump out of the driver’s seat any second.

  The silence stretched. They did not break their stares.

  Sergeant Bennings tightened his grip on the gun. Ricker trembled as if his willpower to hold back was breaking. Gabbi looked ready to lunge. My mind went blank. I shouted silently at myself to do something or my friends would die right here and now.

  “Good.” The word came out like Ricker had opened a release valve. He relaxed back into the seat. “You better be ready.”

  Chapter 21

  We left the foothills and stopped in a town. The brown sign called it Plymouth, population 861.

  We stopped because there was no more road. A sinkhole had taken out houses all the way to the base of this sloped hill of yellow grassland dotted with oak trees and crumbling tombs from an old cemetery. On the other side of the road, the pit had sheared a former elementary school in half. One of the classrooms spilled out its insides of desks, books, and papers like a waterfall frozen in time. The sinkhole stopped at the entrance to a large sign that read “Amador County Fair Grounds.”

  We needed to turn back and find a way around it. Instead, Sergeant Bennings ordered everyone out of the cars. Sweat poured down my face and arms. My clothes stunk. I didn’t want to think about the cemetery or the school or the fairgrounds or the sinkhole consuming all of it. Instead I focused on how the skin on their uninfected necks was so smooth, so different from ours.

  Hugh dug his rifle point into my back. He motioned me, Gabbi, and Ricker forward. Two other uninfected escorted Kern, Tabitha, and the rest of us Feebs.

  I struggled at each step. School had never been a good place for Ricker or Gabbi—for any of the runaways. But I missed going to school. I missed books and learning new things. I missed how the yard duty lady always smiled at me. Alden and I had gone to the same school for sixth grade. We had no classes together, but I had noticed him. He never noticed me. Not back then.

  Hugh pushed us on until the road turned into crumbling dirt, splintered wood, broken glass, and twisted metal pipes.

  I looked down and it felt like I looked inside the half-digested contents of the belly of a monster. This monster growled as if hungry for more. Debris shifted and groaned. A classroom desk slipped over the edge and tumbled into the darkness.

  Soon the sinkhole would eat the entire school. Next it would consume the fairgrounds, the rest of the houses, and then the cemetery at the top of the hill.

  The memories shouted at me—the Cal Expo fairgrounds that Sergeant Bennings had turned into a prison camp with human experiments. The high school where we’d lost Corrina and Gabbi and I thought I would die of dehydration while trapped on a rooftop by a mob of Vs.

  But those were the easier ones to remember. The memory underneath, the one like the belly of this monster that rumbled with hunger pains as beams shifted, and glass tinkled, and dirt resettled—that one had the shape of a stone like those dotting the hill. This stone was pockmarked, pale, and engraved in Arabic script with the name of my mother.

  I turned from those thoughts with all the force I possessed. My breath hiccuped. I slowed it down—five seconds to breathe out, five seconds to breathe in.

  A voice behind me said, “Company.”

  The Vs came out of the fairground entrance like a group of cats that had found an interesting scent trail. One fell into the chasm while shrieking her outrage. Dark dots shifted on the hillside. People stood up and began to wander among the tombstones.

  Sergeant Bennings signaled. Instead of heading back to the cars, his people shifted on their heels, pulled out knives, machetes, swords, bats. No guns. He wanted to fight it out, but with as little noise as possible. I thought he was crazy. They were all crazy for not running from this.

  The Vs from the fairgrounds skirted the edge of the sinkhole. Different ages, different clothes, different genders and ethnicities, but all had something in common. They had a decent amount of weight on them, not the gaunt, practically starving look of Vs who couldn’t remember to eat or bathe or how to use the bathroom anymore. They had few injuries among them. Their clothing was threadbare, but mostly intact.

  Something about their skin caught my attention.

  Was that—

  “That’s Feeb skin!” I said far too loud.

  “Quiet.” Hugh smashed the butt of his rifle into my side, knocking the breath out of me.

  Ricker pushed Hugh back so hard it dropped him to the dirt. Hugh swung a leg out and sent Ricker face first into the dirt. The sinkhole rumbled deep below.

  Gabbi stood at the edge of the sinkhole, staring, nothing but air under the front half of her shoes.

  One of the uninfected went down in a series of grunts and wrestling holds with the first V. Another cut a V down by slicing her between the shoulder and neck. Blood sprayed the air and splattered their face shields.

  People grunted, cried out, lashed out.

  Ricker was still on the ground, his chest heaving. He’d gotten the breath knocked out of him. One of the Vs dove for him. I threw myself at the V even as Hugh delivered a vicious kick into Ricker’s side.

  I barreled into the V’s warmth, into his musky stink, and landed hard on my injured leg. The ground seemed to slip away from me. My feet lost their hold and felt like they dangled in the air. I dug my fingers into the dirt but it crumbled. My stomach flipped and I tasted acid in my throat. I was eye level with the fighting now. A dozen legs twisting, stumbling, falling, smacking, grunting. The sucking noises of knife wounds. Gabbi still stood on the edge of the abyss as if the fighting around her didn’t exist. Her face had glazed over, her hands reached out for something that wasn’t there.

  I shouted the name she only revealed while deep in the fevers. The name none of us were supposed to know. “Cecelia Gabriela Vergara Ortiz!”

  She flinched.

  I shouted her full name again.

  My hands slipped more.

  The belly of the monster waited below. I couldn’t make out the bottom, only the remains of the house—jagged, sharp, dangerous.

  Hands grabbed mine. Ricker’s face filled my vision, his expression twisted, his eyes holding a terrible light.

  I flew into the air, my body weightless, my stomach turning over on itself. I landed on my side in the dust that painted everything with a blurry golden glow. The V that had jumped for Ricker tackled Jane. He clawed at her as if he were a dog digging for a bone.

  Jane’s knife flashed out but the
n dropped from her hand. I scrambled up, ignoring the screaming pain in my ankle, ignoring the terrible light I’d seen in Ricker’s eyes. I picked up the knife and drove it into the V’s skull. There was a crunch, and a slick, squishy, slurp. The sounds made me gag. The V went limp.

  I spit out the acid in my mouth but more returned.

  If we had the cure already, I might have saved him.

  Gabbi backed away from the edge of the sinkhole. The Vs were dead. Blood spattered every face, every shield, every piece of clothing. A guy cradled his left arm while sitting in the dirt. An almost perfect circle of bites leaked blood onto the dirt.

  One of Sergeant Bennings team had been injured—bitten. Infected.

  The fight was over, but not for long. The dark figures among the tombstones were coming down the hillside.

  “Cut it off, Eddy,” the injured man said to the man holding a machete. “Do it now, before it spreads.”

  “But what if we find the cure?” Eddy said. “We could heal you.”

  “What if we never find it? Cut it off.”

  Eddy looked at Sergeant Bennings. Instead of answering, Sergeant Bennings examined the hillside of moving dots. He rested a hand on his gun holster.

  “Put a stick in my mouth. Knock me unconscious first. Whatever it takes, just, just do it now…please.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Kern said. “It’s not fun, but you’ll live—”

  “Shut up.” The injured man had gone a weird gray under his brown skin. He extended his arm on the ground. In a muffled voice, he said, “Do it now.”

  Eddy held out the machete as if it were a snake about to bite him. He lowered it. “I can’t. I just—”

  Ricker snatched the machete out of his hand. Before anyone could stop him, he swung the blade over his head and sliced through the arm at the elbow. Blood squirted. The arm dropped onto the dirt. The man screamed and then fell unconscious.

  Hugh raised his gun and locked it on Ricker’s face. Kern whipped off his belt and knelt to strap it to the wound. The blood slowed into beads of red that bubbled and dripped on the ground.