by Laken Cane
And either way, it was grim.
“Get medicines,” she repeated, softly.
I ran for the pharmacy, wanting to get it over with. I barreled through the doors and grabbed one of their little red carts. I didn’t take time to see if what I pulled off the shelves was anything we’d really need in our dismal future. I was quite certain we’d need everything.
I was relieved when Sage decided to join me. She stood just inside the doors, peering out, her shoulders stiff, keeping watch.
“Bandages,” I muttered. “Vitamins. Pain relievers. Cough drops.” I talked because I could not stand the silence. It was too heavy and hurt my stomach. “Scissors. Tape.”
I turned around to toss the items into my cart and nearly tripped over Sage, who had quietly moved from her post and now stood stiffly behind me.
“Shit,” I cried. “Don’t sneak up on me like—”
“They’re coming,” she whispered.
The tape and scissors dropped from my grip and fell to the floor with a clatter. “What?”
Without taking her stare from me, she lifted her hand and pointed toward the wall of windows.
I thought I heard my neck creak as I turned my head to follow her pointing finger.
I couldn’t move, not at first, but finally I forced my body to unfreeze and I ran to the windows. There was nothing in the parking lot.
“Sage, come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She shook her head. “It’s too late to run.”
“Oh, honey. It is never too late to run. Now get the hell over here. I’m not leaving without you.”
She didn’t move. Her eyes were huge and sunken in her pale, thin face. A face full of doom. She was frozen to the spot, too terrified to move.
I knew exactly how she felt.
I rushed to her and grabbed her arm, skinny and small through the sleeve of her thin coat.
As we ran toward the SUV I darted glances around the parking lot, the street, and even the yards of the houses across from the mall. I saw nothing.
But they’d arrived. I heard them.
Just as we reached the cover of the car, I caught movement from the corner of my eye.
The first of the mutants appeared around the bend. They strode purposefully down the street, their walk and constantly swiveling heads quick and eager.
I dropped to my hands and knees, and Sage, her back against the car, slid down to the pavement. I scrambled to the back of the car so I could keep the intruders in view.
“Teagan,” she cried. “Don’t let them get me.”
She’d never sounded more like a child.
“Never,” I promised, fiercely.
I knew it was a promise I could only keep if they kept walking and didn’t see us. But we were in the parking lot of the mall, and they were going to raid the mall.
More of them appeared behind the first group. In seconds, the street was full of stomping feet and the air was heavy with muffled voices. The first group might have been scouts—they never stopped swiveling their heads as they searched the area, and they were quiet.
They were tall and skinny, the scouts, with darting heads and twitching limbs. They resembled the mutants I’d faced, but were different in certain ways. They were more observant, and even their strange, jerky movements were faster than I’d ever seen a mutant move.
Maybe even faster than humans.
And what scared me almost more than anything else…
They were laughing, joking, talking.
And one of them, a female mutant, was singing. Singing.
“They absorb us. They learn what we know.”
I’d never seen those types of mutants. Not once.
“What should I do,” she sang, her voice as pure and sweet as a child’s. “The day is through, and I’m still waiting. Waiting for you…”
I closed my eyes for a long second and tried to gain control of my galloping heart. A piece of gravel was grinding into my left knee, and the small distraction of that pain helped me focus on something besides the complete and utter terror roaring through my brain.
I continued to peek around the back of the car, and in the next second, I saw them.
The gods.
There was no mistaking them for the scouts or the orphans. They barely resembled the lesser mutants.
They strode down the street, tall and swaggering and big, some of them almost leisurely jogging as though their energy was too much for walking.
Their hair was dark and tied up in topknots, and the ends of the thick strands spilled over broad shoulders. Both the male and female gods were larger than the other mutants—likely they got the biggest share of the food.
Unlike the scouts, the gods seemed almost relaxed. They didn’t search the area obsessively, they weren’t stiff or erratic or twitchy, and they talked. With each other.
They talked. And they laughed.
In their midst one god rose above them all, but only because he rode a horse. He looked the same as the other gods. Same hair, same huge body, same relaxed manner.
Farther behind the first group of gods came more gods, all on horseback.
“It’s like a Halloween parade,” I whispered. “A hideous parade of monsters.”
And then…
Then I saw their captives.
Behind those swaggering gods came a small knot of humans. Women, all with huge, swollen bellies, all naked. All I could think of through the buzzing of horror in my mind was that soon the humans would freeze to death if they were denied clothes.
That’s what I concentrated on, because if I didn’t, I was afraid my mind would shatter.
Cords or ropes of some sort snaked from thick collars around the women’s necks, and appeared to be connected. Even as I watched, one of the women stumbled and fell to her knees, and the woman directly behind her was pulled down as well.
A mutant grabbed the first woman by her hair and yanked her to her feet. The second woman rose hastily but clumsily—even from the distance I could see the grimace of pain on her face.
Or maybe I just imagined that part.
Farther down the procession were human men. They appeared in worse shape than the women, if that were possible. I saw limbs hanging at awkward angles and even from the distance I could see their bodies were bloody and battered.
Blood, wounds, filth.
And so very much despair.
I wanted to cry, but I was too shocked. Too scared.
What I was seeing…that horror was beyond tears.
I saw no little kids. Thank God, I saw no little kids. So what did they do with the half mutant, half human babies after they were born?
One of the scouts gestured and began jumping up and down as though his excitement were too extreme to control. Then the other scouts joined him in his strange dance, jumping and shrieking like crazed monkeys.
I duck-walked to Sage, who still hid her face against her bent knees. “Time to go, little girl,” I said. Past time.
She didn’t move.
“Now, Sage.” I could feel her terror, but fear was okay. Being taken was not. “Get in the car.”
She looked up, finally. “There’s no gas.” She reached up to put her little hands on either side of my face. “They can run forever. They’ll catch us when the car stops. We can’t let them hear us.”
I put my fist against my lips. Already, I could hear them marching across the grassy area that led straight to the parking lot. “My God,” I whispered. “What have I done?”
Sage sniffed, and tears overflowed from her huge eyes. “I’m scared.”
I didn’t care how old she looked or what age she said she was. Her eyes were not those of an eight year old. Her eyes were ancient. And she knew things. She’d lived with the gods.
And she was terrified.
We had two minutes, at the most. “Trust me, Sage. I’ll take care of you.”
She put her hand in mine and didn’t make a sound as I dragged her to the doors of the groce
ry store, just a few yards from the car. I planned to go through the store and out the back doors, then we’d run home like we were on fire and we wouldn’t come out again until the gods were gone.
Please, God. Please.
Adrenaline lent me wings, and we flew down the aisles toward the back of the store. The doors were not locked—I’d gone out back a dozen times. I just needed to reach them.
Please…
The mutants shoved through the front doors, hooting and laughing like a mob of drunken humans. And that made it even more frightening.
Because they were so not human.
Then the doors were there. Right there in front of me.
I slammed through them, Sage’s hand still in mine. I dimly realized I was squeezing it too tightly but I didn’t ease up.
I couldn’t.
Once outside, I had to slow down. I couldn’t run blindly and let my panic fling us into the long arms of the mutants.
Still holding Sage’s hand, I flattened myself against the building and tried to be still.
My wildly beating heart fluttered like a trapped bird against my rib cage, and blood roared through my ears so loudly I could barely hear anything else. I took a deep, deep breath, then another, and another.
When I was a little calmer, a little quieter, I closed my eyes, and I listened. Thumps, screams, and roars came from inside the store, but not just the store. An unending line of mutants still marched down the street, and they were invading homes as well as the other shops.
Invading Crowbridge.
My town.
And there wasn’t anything at all I could do about it.
I began creeping away from the building. If we made it to the field at the back of the store, we could slip through the tall, concealing grasses and circle around gradually to the wooded area that would lead us home.
It would take longer. A lot longer. But I didn’t care about that.
Any minute the mutants could leave the store. Any minute they could rush curiously to the back of the store—perhaps the scouts would check the area. Maybe they’d want to check the dumpsters.
All I knew for sure was that we had to get out of there.
I glanced at Sage. Her face remained expressionless, her eyes…hopeless.
“We need to run now,” I told her. “Don’t stop for anything.”
She nodded.
We kicked off and began running, bits of gravel and debris crunching beneath our shoes. Ordinarily I would have been more careful and quiet because of their tendency to hear every little thing, but I didn’t have to worry about that now.
They were making too much noise to hear the sounds two humans made while running away from them.
We made it to the field and rushed into its welcoming, sheltering arms. The ground was softer and kinder than the asphalt of the lot, and I immediately breathed easier as the tall, dry grasses shielded me from sharp mutant eyes.
“Stay right behind me,” I told her, and used my machete to part the dense weeds and tangled undergrowth as we crept ever onward.
The sounds of looting became dimmer the farther we walked, but images of tortured, pregnant humans flashed continuously through my mind.
We’d escaped the mutants. For now.
But there was a lot of distance between us and home, and I didn’t believe for one second that we’d seen the last of the terrifying cluster of gods.
Chapter Seven
I began to believe we might actually make it home. There were no sounds other than singing birds and the occasional crack of a dry stick or twig beneath our cautious steps. We crept through the woods, silent and watchful.
“Soon,” I murmured, finally. “We’ll be home very soon.”
She didn’t reply.
My fingers trembled when I reached up to touch my tingling lips. The skin between my shoulder blades itched as though the mutants were right behind me, ready to pounce and do horrible, unspeakable things to me.
My mind buzzed and my legs, weak and shaky, wanted to fold beneath my weight. I’d known terror since the end of the world, but this was something more.
I almost screamed when Sage shot out a hand and wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “Shhh,” she said. “Listen.”
I stopped walking and stood still, barely breathing as I peered into the shadows of the bleak woods. The day had become overcast without me noticing—understandable since I’d been occupied with surviving the mutants—and the tall trees seemed to lean and sway as they watched us creep through their darkening domain.
Suddenly everything seemed like a threat.
“Shhh,” Sage repeated.
I held my breath as I listened. I wanted to ask her what she heard, but I didn’t dare speak. I could hear nothing but the insidious whispering of the leaves as a breath of wind rippled through them.
But maybe that wasn’t what I was hearing at all. Maybe the leaves rustling together was actually the gods whispering.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing. The last thing I wanted was a full blown panic attack making us more vulnerable than we already were.
“Humans,” Sage whispered.
I opened my eyes. “What?”
“Humans are coming.” She tossed a look over her shoulder. “And mutants from there.”
“Mutants are in the woods?”
“Yes. Can you feel them?”
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “Yes. Yes, I can. Mutants behind us and baddies in front.”
“The mutants are gaining on us,” she said, her eyes wide. “If we don’t hide now, we’ll be caught in the middle of both of them.”
“Then let’s hide,” I said, calmer. “And let the bastards catch each other.”
Sage didn’t hesitate. She ran to a tree, then jumped and grabbed a low hanging branch. “Come on,” she hissed, and began to climb like a little monkey. “This is how we escaped them the first time. They never look in the trees.”
The humans might, though.
I started to grab a branch and hoist myself up, but my weapons were in the way. I was wearing too many of them.
I yanked my machete strap from over my head. I tossed it away, then threw two of my smaller knives after it.
When the humans and mutants moved on, I would fetch the weapons.
I followed her up the tree. The trees I’d just imagined were out to get us suddenly became our refuge.
Sage was fearless and nimble and practically flew from branch to branch, higher and higher, until finally she straddled a sturdy branch, wrapped her arms around the trunk, and waited for me to join her.
Before I could climb as far as she had, I heard the voices. Human voices. The baddies. Human baddies were usually bad news.
“Human beings now have the freedom to be whatever they want. To do whatever they want. There are bad people in the world. People who’ve been fettered by society, Teagan. Who’ve been chained by laws and rules and fear. That ends now. Some of these people will live on.”
My mother had already been stricken with the flu when she’d talked to me about the baddies of the world and what would happen when they were freed from their chains.
As if I didn’t already know.
I’d learned that lesson when I’d been six years old and a man had taken my sister.
As she lay dying, fading quickly, she’d made one last plea. “Kill yourself when I die. I can’t bear to leave you here alone. Take the sleeping pills. Take them all.”
“I will,” I lied.
When she’d died, I’d wrapped her in a sheet and buried her in the shallow grave I dug in the backyard. Then I’d found a different house.
I hadn’t been quite…sane, exactly, after my mother died. The trauma from the terror of the invading mutants, the disease, the death, the grief…
No. I hadn’t been quite sane.
I still wasn’t. I’d never again be the girl I was.
I’d accepted that.
And I didn’t trust anyone.
I glanc
ed up at Sage and found her watching me. She put a finger to her lips.
I nodded.
The baddies were almost directly below us.
Carefully, I looked down through leaves that were just changing colors, grateful that it wasn’t so far into fall that the trees were barren.
I clutched the tree in a death grip as I imagined sliding off the branch and falling on top of the baddies. I closed my eyes and waited for the dizziness to pass. When I had control of myself, I peered down at them once again.
I saw seven humans. Six men, one woman.
And even though I knew better, part of me wanted to reach out to them. Part of me wanted to be with those of my own kind. To be taken care of. To belong to a group.
Part of me wanted to warn them about what was coming.
I didn’t move.
The baddies—funny how I thought of them as baddies even though I didn’t know if they would hurt me, not for sure—were not loud or boisterous.
Finally, one of them said, “Wait. Hear that?”
Terror exploded in my chest. Even when I realized it wasn’t me they heard—I wasn’t making a sound—the terror didn’t dissipate. Because it meant the mutants had arrived.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths before you pass out and hand yourself over to them.
“Shit,” one of the men said. “It’s them. Grab the bitch.”
The woman didn’t even scream.
I couldn’t see her well. The view was mostly obscured by the limbs and leaves, but I caught a glimpse when one of the men grasped her arm.
She stood with her head down, silent. She didn’t struggle or fight them or her fate in any way. She simply waited.
She’d given up long, long ago. She knew no one was going to save her.
Most likely if she’d been able to, she’d have killed herself.
The mutants flooded the area, surrounding the humans.
“Chill,” one of the humans said. “We’re collectors.” He shoved the woman away from his group. “Caught one for you.”
Wait. What?
The humans and the gods had been communicating? Human men were hunting human women to give to the mutants? That couldn’t be true.
