Series Firsts Box Set

by Laken Cane

  I clenched my gun so tightly it cracked.

  It sure seemed like there were more than twenty of them awake. More like forty. Maybe there’d been more of them in the cluster than I’d realized.

  Richard would have known, though.

  He and Lila had made alcohol bombs, and they’d use those intermittently placed bonfires to their advantage.

  “We’ll fight, you’ll rescue.”

  That was fine with me.

  I pressed my back against a tree, waiting. I kept darting looks around the tree from the mutants to the wagons—it wasn’t hard to see the one that contained the prisoners.

  The sides had been built high, but the back was protected only by a tailgate type door. The mutants were secure in their belief that the prisoners would not try to escape. I wasn’t sure why.

  Sage and her mother had escaped, after all.

  There were also two mutants guarding the prison wagon.

  I heard a horse whinny, and close by, someone cleared his throat.

  And I heard moans.

  The smell of human and animal waste was strong. Not even the burning plastic scent could mask it.

  “God,” I whispered, and my hands began to shake as the reality of the situation hit me.

  One of the mutants stiffened suddenly, and held up a hand to halt the conversation. They fell immediately silent, and in the next second they all began sniffing the air.

  They smelled the bodies melting. Burning.

  They smelled mutant death.

  And then, the death screams began.

  I hadn’t planned to wear the earplugs, but when the screams started, I changed my mind. I dug them from my pocket, then almost immediately dropped one.

  “Shit fuck!” I leaned forward, trying to catch sight of the earplug. I screwed the one I had into my ear, then squatted and ran my hand over the ground.

  It was lost forever. One would have to do. I stood, my legs as weak and fluttery as paper.

  The two mutants watching the wagons finally rushed away, and that was my cue.

  I darted out from behind the tree, cradling my big gun across my chest—it wasn’t attached to tanks on my back, but I had two water bottles full of alcohol in case I emptied my gun. I sprinted for the prison wagon.

  I reached the wagon in seconds, but it took me at least a minute to unhook and drop the tailgate.

  I leapt into the wagon, then understood why the mutants didn’t mind leaving the prisoners in an unenclosed wagon.

  They were roped together and couldn’t move. The ropes were thick and short, and some of the humans were bound so close they couldn’t even turn their heads to look at me.

  Their wrists were tied behind their backs.

  Eight of them, all bound together. Bleeding, beaten, and one man, I saw, who appeared to be dead. The smell from the pitiful group rose up to surround me in a cloud of horror, and I just stood there, frozen, staring.

  I saw neither Sage nor Caleb.

  “Where are the pregnant women kept?” I knelt beside the first man, put my gun in the straw covering the wagon floor, then yanked a sharp blade from a sheath at my side.

  The rope was twisted around his neck so tightly it sank into his flesh, and even in the darkness I could see blood on the rope. Still, I had to try.

  I pulled a different knife—one with a serrated blade—and began to saw at the rope.

  He cried out, and I could see there was nothing behind his eyes but fear.

  “Shit,” I cried. “Shit!”

  If I got him free, I’d give him the blades and let him free the others. I had to hurry. I had to find Sage.

  “Please,” someone whispered. The voice was as raw and rusty as a death rattle, and it slithered down my spine with cold fingers of something so bad that it had no name. “Please.”

  I grabbed my gun and jumped to my feet. My boots sank into something thick and mushy, but any revulsion I felt was buried quickly beneath the awfulness of those poor people and their situation.

  “Where are you?” I asked, softly. “Hello?”

  “Here.”

  I pulled my tiny flashlight from my pocket and clicked it on. Sounds began to penetrate the shocked haze in my mind—thumps, bullets spraying, and finally, screaming.

  Death screams.

  I burst into sobs, then hurriedly shut my mind to the screams. I couldn’t allow myself to hear them.

  “Here,” he said, again.

  I worked my way through the bodies, stepping carefully, shining my light over each person until…

  “Oh, no,” I murmured.

  The person who’d spoken wasn’t a man. He was a boy. A boy maybe twelve years old—it wasn’t easy to tell beneath the grime and blood covering his face.

  His hair was short and dark, his eyes huge and sunken. His cheekbones were almost sharp enough to cut my finger when I touched his face.

  I tried to put my fingers between the rope and his throat, but the rope was wrapped too tightly.

  “Oh, no,” I said, again. “Oh, God.”

  “Get me loose,” he said. His lips were cracked and bloodstained, but almost as pale as his face. “Get me loose.”

  I tugged at his rope. “Okay, honey. I’ll try.”

  Someone behind him wheezed suddenly. A laugh, maybe. “You can’t.”

  We had one hour. One hour to kill the mutants and get out of there before the others woke up. I knew Richard would kill every sleeping mutant he could find, but he would never be able to find or kill them all.

  And if they woke up while we were still in their camp, it would go badly for us.

  “In and out,” Richard had said. “We fight and kill the awake ones, then find and kill as many of the sleepers as possible before the hour is up. Then we get the hell out before they come after us.”

  “Help us,” someone else begged, and suddenly the wagon was full of pleading voices.

  Time was running out.

  “Please don’t let me cut him,” I whispered, and began to saw at the rope around the child’s neck.

  “Cut me loose first,” the man next to him said.

  But I ignored him and holding the flashlight in my mouth, I sawed, and hacked, and held my breath.

  “He’s not strong enough to cut us free,” the same man cried.

  He was probably right, but I couldn’t stop. I had to free the boy. I’d free him and hope for the best. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  And finally, the ends of the rope parted, and the boy took a deep, hoarse breath, and he was smiling.

  Smiling, even in his situation.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Vito.”

  I nodded. “I’ll remember. I’m Teagan.”

  Cutting the rope from his wrists went much faster, and when he was free, I handed him the knife. “Which one of these men will help the others, Vito?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Danny, in the back.”

  “I’ll get his neck, you get his wrists, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Danny was waiting. He was nearly indistinguishable from the others. He was restrained, filthy, and beaten. But he wasn’t broken.

  “Help them when you’re free,” I told him. “I’ll try not to cut your throat.”

  “I’d rather have my throat cut than this,” he said. “Do what you can. Vito will stab me in the heart if you can’t get me loose, won’t you, buddy?” He laughed.

  I shook my head, unable to comprehend how they could still laugh. Or talk. Or function.

  I cut him free.

  Terrified with every second that passed that the mutants would find me, that the gods would awaken, and that I would never have enough time to find Sage.

  “I’m looking for a little girl and a new boy,” I said. “Do you know where they might keep them?”

  “Girl, really?” one of the men said. “Do we look like we see anything but this shithole?”

  “Alcohol,” I told them. “It kills them.”

  But they
were no longer listening to me. They were begging Danny and Vito to cut them loose or kill them.

  I grabbed my gun and got the hell out of there. I leapt off the wagon, and though I could no longer hear them, I imagined I could.

  I could still hear death screams, and flickering flames lit up the night. Everything bounced around in my skull like ping pong balls and all I could see was hell.

  Fire, smoke, death.

  “Sage,” I screamed. “Sage!”

  A melting mutant ran toward me. His shirt had burnt into his skin as the alcohol ate away at his flesh, and his eyes were wide and demented. I could feel his desperation, and I knew if he got his hands on me, I was dead.

  Or worse.

  I didn’t run. I brought my gun up and I pulled the trigger. A stream of alcohol burst from the barrel and hit him in the throat. I didn’t stop, though.

  He fell to the ground, twisting and screaming, his body smoking, and still, I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.

  I knew I was wasting my mutant-killer, but I couldn’t stop.

  Then Lila appeared out of the smoke, her face covered with soot and blood. I saw her mouth moving and I knew she was screaming at me to find the kid, find Sage, but I stood there like an idiot and sprayed alcohol on a dead mutant.

  She shoved me.

  The gun flew from my grasp about three seconds before I hit the ground hard enough to shake the crazy loose, and the sharp, immediate pain from my already damaged tailbone brought my mind back to the matter at hand.

  She plucked my gun off the ground and threw it at me, hitting me in the chest. “Find the fucking kid,” she screamed. “You have thirty minutes.”

  Thirty minutes.

  Shit.

  “Okay,” I murmured. “I’m okay.” I pulled a full bottle of alcohol from my belt and poured it into the gun with surprisingly steady hands. Then I turned and ran toward the other wagon. Where else would she be?

  But I knew they could have stashed her anywhere—if they’d been the ones to take her in the first place. Human baddies could have gotten her.

  And in the back of my mind a quiet voice told me that I was never going to find her.

  Sage was gone forever.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The second wagon was full of supplies, and despite everything that was going on, part of me wanted to get into the driver’s seat and drive those horses, the wagon, and the supplies out of there.

  No bodies were in the wagon—alive or dead.

  I ran into the grocery store, and tripped over a sleeping mutant who lay right inside the doorway. I screamed before I could control myself, but he never moved.

  I scrambled to my feet and wiped blood from a cut on my face. I had no idea where it’d come from. It didn’t matter, really, but my mind wanted to fixate on that injury.

  I had another flashlight in my belt, so I pulled it free and clicked it on, then I pointed my gun at the sleeping mutant.

  He didn’t move as I sprayed him. And when I moved on, I found another, and another, and another.

  I watched their skin blister and burn with a grim, almost psychotic satisfaction I’d never felt before. I destroyed the ones in my path, but I knew there were others, probably all over the store. Everywhere, there were others.

  And I had yet to see a sleeping god.

  I sprinted down the aisles and deeper into the store, every sense I had on high alert. The beam of my flashlight bobbed as I ran. It lit up a path for me, but made the shadows even more ominous. I felt spotlighted.

  My running footsteps were loud and echoing on the hard floor, and my breath could have been a bellows.

  Despite the noise I was making, I heard the prisoners.

  The pregnant women had been herded into the back storage room and left there on the hard, cold concrete floor. They were connected and restrained by ropes and by collars around their necks.

  The collars were thick and heavy, but I had strong blades almost sharp enough to cut through stone. I could cut through a collar.

  They moaned. That’s all they could do.

  But their moans were like winds sweeping through the store, rising and falling, gentle and harsh.

  There were fourteen of them. Fourteen pregnant women.

  Fourteen dead women.

  I could free them, but then what? They were carrying mutant babies. They wouldn’t survive the births of those monsters. Still, I would give them whatever chance I could.

  I began to cut them loose, panting and frenzied, agonizing over the fact that there was still no sign of Sage or Caleb.

  And any minute, the gods were going to wake up.

  I averted my eyes from distended bellies and broken bones and terror filled stares. I closed my mind to the fate that awaited me if the gods woke up.

  Their moans were almost as painful to hear as the mutants’ death screams.

  “I beg you,” I said. “Be quiet.”

  They fell silent so abruptly it was disorienting.

  In that horrible silence, I cut them free.

  One at a time.

  Each slash of the knife, each slice, took an eternity. Sweat gathered on my forehead, then ran down my face in itchy rivulets. Some drops caught on the tip of my nose before falling off with plops I could almost hear.

  I cut the collar from the first woman, then hacked through the rope binding her arms. She grunted and scurried into a dark corner to hide as I continued on to the next one.

  They couldn’t hide from the gods. Not there. But I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Ah,” one of them murmured, when I sliced into her arm in my hurry.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “So sorry.”

  The third pregnant prisoner was a young girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, and she made no sounds at all. When I looked at her, flashlight in my mouth, her eyes did not sparkle. There was no life in them at all.

  When she was free, she simply fell over.

  I took a moment to squeeze her cold hands. Later, I would cry. Right then, there was no time.

  And I went on to the next woman.

  I cut too fast. I hurt some of them, though I doubt I caused them any pain that was stronger than the agony the gods had given them.

  By the time I was done my heart was broken, and my throat hurt from the thickness of tears I could not allow myself to shed.

  They sat there, those women, free from their bonds but too resigned, too injured, and too pregnant to run.

  I stood. “Come on. Come with me. I’ll take you out of here.”

  But no one moved. In the shadowy light they stared at me with hollow, hopeless eyes and broken minds.

  “Get up,” I whispered. “Please get up.”

  One of them smiled at me. I think it was a smile. Her gaze was soft, and she understood. I know she understood. She tried to wet her lips with a swollen, pale tongue, but it was too dry to do anything other than scrape her split skin.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. And she held out her hand.

  “God.” I broke down, but just for a second. I sobbed as I handed her my alcohol gun. I pulled a smaller one from my belt and gave that to her as well.

  And then, I placed the blade on her lap.

  She nodded.

  I turned and ran, but my feet were slow, my legs heavy.

  Her haunted eyes stayed in my mind as I sprinted through the store and slammed through the doors at the back.

  I had to get away.

  Not only because the gods were stirring, but because I needed to get to a safe place before I lost my shit.

  I heard the gods roaring, and maybe I heard a scream as my people tried to escape the awful mutants who’d taken over our world. Maybe.

  Maybe I didn’t.

  I ran faster than I ever had, sick with disappointment and guilt and awful, awful despair.

  Sage was lost.

  Probably, she was dead.

  Maybe I’d never see her again, but I would never give up searching for her.

  Not until I
found her cold, dead body and had proof she was gone forever.

  I couldn’t seem to save anyone, and deep inside, I felt like Sage was my last chance to…to do something. To redeem myself.

  To prove that I was worthy of the life I’d been given.

  Why wasn’t I back there in that cold storage room, pregnant and doomed?

  I was always escaping while other people died.

  Maybe I hated myself a little for that.

  I had been spared, surely, for a reason. I could no longer hide. I could no longer cower in a house of supplies as the world crawled on, full of murderous mutants and pitiful humans.

  I ran to our temporary new home and slammed through the back door.

  Then I stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, my mind chaotic and confused.

  I wasn’t sure why I was there.

  I had no real recollection of the run home. I vaguely remembered falling to my knees and vomiting nothing, then curling up on the ground until my position made me think of the babies inside the doomed pregnant women.

  Mostly, I remembered running.

  Richard and Lila were still in town, fighting. I’d left them there. I’d slunk home like a coward, leaving them to fight while I hid inside my house. Just as I’d always done.

  I hadn’t even found Sage, and I’d barely even thought about Caleb.

  Or freed the men in the wagon.

  Or saved the horribly pregnant women.

  I threw my head back and moaned, because the sorrow was too big to hold inside.

  Then, as some of the pressure inside my skull eased, I hurried to the table and grabbed a machete and another bottle of alcohol.

  I shoved an extra blade into my belt, drank a bottle of water, then headed back out. I didn’t think about it.

  Thinking too much was one of my problems.

  I was a different person when I left that house.

  Just slightly.

  But different.

  Better.

  I jogged down the dark street, listening, watching for movement as I went back to search the shadows for a child I couldn’t let go of.

  She’s not me, Teagan.

  I have to save her.

  Save yourself, sister.

  I did that once. Not doing it again.

  I’d thought the mutants—even the orphans—would be occupied in town, fighting my new friends. So when one raced from a yard toward me, his hands up, I gave a quick, involuntary yell of shock before bringing up my gun.