The Human Wilderness (Prequel): Among the Monsters

by S. H. Livernois

  Martha crooked an eyebrow at him. "We will learn from our mistakes, then." She raised her voice. "I will have no more defiance. You will all be good girls, or else. All of you."

  Would anyone rescue them?

  Once their neighbors realized Rebecca and Ruby hadn't been to class, weren't in their beds or at dinner, would they send out a search party? Sure, they'd be upset and worried. Would it be enough to convince them to go outside the walls, into the wilderness, and follow their tracks through the woods?

  Rebecca knew the answer: There would be no search party. She and Ruby were likely considered dead and already forgotten. She was certain the same was true for Gwen and Ava. They'd all been spirited away into a land swarming with monsters.

  It was the perfect crime.

  August led them like cattle through the woods. As usual, Ruby was in front of Rebecca, trudging along with her head down. She wasn't bound or gagged, and neither was Ava. They did as they were told.

  But Rebecca wasn't going to obey. She was going to fix this and erase the pain of disappointment, of hopes raised high then dashed. If no one was coming after them, she was going to get Ruby home herself.

  Her eagerness to leave Hosmer had been foolish. What had been so bad about the place? When they got back, life would be better. Now she had Ruby. Two lost causes could make a two-person family. It's what she'd wanted all along. They could live together in that small house in the quietest corner of the settlement, taking care of each other. Rebecca could teach Ruby everything she knew about astronomy and physics, could help her grow up strong and smart. The fantasy carried her through the woods.

  They stopped at a wide, slow-moving river, its banks dotted with tall trees that leaned over the water to form a tunnel. August and Jonah filled canteens with water, then sat on rocks and stretched out their legs. Martha disappeared behind a tree to relieve herself. Rebecca stole her moment, whispering through her gag in Ruby's ear.

  "I'm going to get us out of here, I promise." She turned around and said the same to Gwen, who nodded. She turned back to Ruby. "I'm sorry you won't get to see your mom. But I'll get you home."

  At the front of the line, Ava spun around. "You better be quiet. You'll just get yourself in more trouble."

  Gwen grumbled a curse through her gag.

  "Martha told me about where we're going," Ruby said. A small smile passed over her lips. "It's sounds better than home. You may like it there."

  Rebecca's stomach fell. "She's ly —"

  Martha returned from behind her tree. Rebecca gulped her words and stared at the ground.

  "Lunchtime," Martha said with a big smile.

  She handed strips of jerky to Ruby and Ava, followed by a canteen. Rebecca tried to ignore the food and water as Ava, then Ruby, took a deep pull; the sight only made her throat dry and her stomach hurt.

  "Give it here, now. Bad girls don't drink or eat until they learn to behave." Martha cupped Ruby's chin affectionately but didn't look at Rebecca or Gwen. She whistled at August and Jonah, still seated on their rocks. "Let's go."

  They walked nonstop the rest of the day, until Rebecca's limbs began to tremble from hunger and her head pounded from lack of water. They walked until shadows pooled beneath the trees and the crickets began to chirp, and the forest gave way to asphalt.

  One by one, the group filtered onto the road, which climbed straight up a hill to a horizon painted with red and pink by the setting sun.

  Bad girls.

  "We're almost there, my dears," Martha said.

  Rebecca cringed at the sound of her voice. She sensed what Martha was doing — manipulating their emotions and actions, driving a wedge between them so they couldn't unite and escape. Rebecca had seen it in Ava's vicious hiss, ordering her to be silent. In Ruby's hopeful words, declaring their destination was better than home.

  She wouldn't let that happen.

  Martha pointed to a driveway crawling snakelike up a small rise to a small gray house with boarded windows and a porch.

  "Here we are," she said.

  They traversed a jungle of weeds and overgrown grass in the front yard to the door. The men went in first, the sounds of doors banging open echoing from inside. They reappeared and motioned the girls inside. Rebecca walked into gray shadow and the scent of dust.

  The house was like the first one — filled with empty silence and signs of a dead world: a TV coated in dust, disused furniture, family portraits on the wall. August lit a fire in a small fireplace. Ruby and Ava and the men shared a dinner of a rabbit Jonah shot and canned carrots Martha pulled from a cupboard. Martha took a meaty leg and hovered the food in front of Rebecca and Gwen's faces.

  "Are you ready to do as you're told?"

  Through her gag, Gwen spat something that sounded like "fuck you." Rebecca nodded her agreement.

  "Suit yourself." Martha shoved the food in her own mouth.

  After dinner, the men sprawled out on the couch, propping their feet on a dusty coffee table. August began his nightly lecture in post-apocalyptic philosophy, and Martha shuffled the girls into a bedroom. She motioned Ruby and Ava to a bed and Rebecca and Gwen to spots on the floor, then paused in the doorway.

  "I hope you don't think me cruel. Please believe that I am doing what's best for you. It breaks my heart to see you suffer," she said. "Good night, my precious girls."

  She left, and minutes later, voices drifted down the hall — talk of another settlement, scouting the site, Martha's three-day visit inside.

  Rebecca claimed a spot on the floor, leaning against the wall beside a dresser; Gwen sat beside her. Across the room, Ruby's large eyes burned at Rebecca through the darkness and Rebecca smiled. Ava's skinny arm draped over Ruby's shoulder, and she closed her eyes peacefully.

  "After she leaves, I'll lure Jonah outside." Rebecca mumbled through her gag. "August sleeps like the dead, but we need to be sure. Can you knock him out?"

  "I'll do better than that." Gwen's lime-green eyes were aflame; she reminded Rebecca of a feral cat forced to be a pet. "I'll kill him."

  Smoke curled from the chimney of the small gray house, an island of life in a sea of black forest. From the depth of the wilderness, the infected howled into the night, calling for the healthy to join their ranks, to give in and be wild like them.

  They howled outside another settlement of survivors called Kildare, where Martha had been for a day, a couple miles away from the small gray house. Inside, August snored in the living room and a small fire crackled. Jonah sat up in an armchair, dozing in and out of sleep, listening to the creatures' high-pitched yowls, trying to measure how close they were to their hiding place.

  Fingers of firelight crept down a hallway to the small bedroom, where Ruby and Ava slept soundly on their bed. Gwen sat upright on the floor, green eyes blazing. She glanced at Rebecca, who sat beside her; she, too, listened to the creatures outside, thinking that the Parasites sounded just like coyotes.

  Rebecca felt Gwen's eyes on her and turned to find her eagerly staring. Gwen nodded stiffly, the taut muscles along her jaw flexed.

  It was time.

  "If I don't come back, take care of her," Rebecca said, motioning to Ruby with her head.

  "I will," Gwen said.

  Rebecca pulled herself forward with her tied feet, scooting across the floor on her rear to the bed where Ruby slept. She removed her gag, then gently tapped the girl's arm with her nose, and her eyes sprung open.

  "I need you to do me a favor," Rebecca whispered.

  Ruby nodded.

  "Untie Gwen for me."

  "Why?"

  "We're getting out of here."

  Ruby eyed the corner where Gwen sat, waiting. Slowly, Ruby pushed herself up off the bed and sat on its edge.

  "What about Martha? She won't know what's happened to us."

  Rebecca shook her head. "I don't care about her, I care about you," she said, picturing the little house in Hosmer where they'd live together. Rebecca felt a sting of fear.

  "But —"<
br />
  "Ruby, please do this for me. I promise, I'll get you home."

  On the bed behind her, Ava woke up and, seeing Rebecca kneeling beside the bed, scowled.

  "What are you doing?" she said, a little too loudly.

  Rebecca glared at her.

  "You're going to be punished if you don't behave."

  Rebecca shook her head. "Be ready to run out of here, both of you." She peeked over her shoulder at Gwen and asked, "Ready?"

  Gwen nodded. Ruby rose and slid off the bed. Rebecca put her gag back in her mouth.

  Rebecca scooted across the room to the door, then down the hallway to the living room, where she found August and Jonah. Panting from exertion, Rebecca took a deep breath.

  "Jonah." He didn't stir. Rebecca dared not speak louder, for fear of waking August. "Jonah."

  The man flinched as if woken from a trance and spotted Rebecca, tied up on the floor at the end of the hall.

  "I have to go to the bathroom."

  Jonah nodded, rubbed his face with dirty hands, and stood slowly. He strolled over to Rebecca and untied her ankles, briefly laying his warm palm across her bare skin. He stood, grabbed the rope tying her hands, and gently tugged her to her feet. Rebecca was close enough to smell him — the scent of outdoors, woodsmoke, his own masculine musk — as he untied her gag, replaced it with a wool mouth guard, then covered his own mouth.

  "Let's go."

  Jonah picked up his crossbow at the door and rested it on his shoulder. Rebecca glanced over her shoulder, saw August was still unconscious on the couch, noted the poker beside the fireplace, and followed Jonah outside into the velvet-black night.

  Wind soughed through the trees. Crickets chirped and nocturnal animals scampered across the ground. The infected had grown quiet, but Rebecca listened for their footfalls, felt them watching and waiting to strike. Jonah led her by the arm, his deep-set eyes scanning their dark surroundings, listening.

  "How 'bout that tree?" Jonah pointed at a towering weeping willow, its long, draping tendrils nearly reaching the ground.

  "Sure."

  Rebecca peered over her shoulder, looked past Jonah to the house beyond, where Gwen should now be free and creeping down the hall. As they stepped through the curtain of leaves, she remembered the girl's face, stern and scowling, her voice firm and strong.

  I'll kill him.

  Jonah let her arm go. "I'll keep watch."

  Rebecca studied Jonah's young face, with its long nose and deep, pained eyes, and admitted he was handsome; she hoped his infatuation with her could be manipulated. She lifted her hands.

  "I can't go with my hands tied."

  Without taking his eyes off her, Jonah set down his crossbow and began to untie the rope. Rebecca pictured Gwen, silently slipping the fire poker from its stand, creeping toward a sleeping August with it clenched in her small hand.

  Rebecca's wrists came loose, and Jonah took her hand in his rough one and stroked her palm with his thumb, studying its lines with a drooping scowl. His breathing became quick and heavy.

  "Martha lied to you about your families," he said finally. "But you've figured that out by now, haven't you?"

  "Yeah." She banished dark thoughts of loss, replaced them with the hope of what she'd gain after they escaped.

  Jonah folded his hands over hers, his mouth guard billowing with his heavy breaths.

  "Why were we taken?" Rebecca peered over his shoulder through the willow's swaying leaves, to the front door of the house. All was quiet.

  Jonah slowly shook his head and squeezed her hand. "I'm not supposed to say."

  "Then let us go, please. Ruby's just a child..."

  "I can't." Jonah dropped her hand and looked into her face. His blue eyes kindled with a smile. "You're going to save us all."

  An angry howl burst from the house. Something fell over and crashed to the ground as shapes flitted past windows and footsteps slammed through the house. Beyond the veil of the willow's leaves, something rustled in the dark, spooked by the sudden clamor.

  Jonah grabbed Rebecca's arm and they raced through the leaves and into the open. He raised his crossbow and searched the surrounding trees with tense silence.

  He froze.

  "There..." Jonah protectively thrust out an arm. "Quiet."

  The front door of the house burst open and two small figures ran out and across a porch dimly lit by the firelight: Gwen and Ruby. They scrambled down the steps to the front yard, where Ruby spun around, looking for Rebecca amid the shadows.

  "Help us escape." Rebecca clutched Jonah's arm. "Please."

  Jonah grunted, still staring down his crossbow, his eyes fixed on something Rebecca couldn't see but could feel: a stalking presence, hiding just beyond their senses.

  "I told you I can't."

  He pivoted on his heels, following the invisible something with the tip of his arrow, toward Gwen and Ruby. But Rebecca didn't see Ruby anymore — her straw hair became silken black, the large hazel eyes darkened.

  Rebecca blinked once, twice, hoping to erase the hallucination of Abby, standing where Ruby should be. Alone in the dark, vulnerable, without her big sister to save her.

  "I'm over here!" Rebecca called, waving her arms.

  "Shhh!" Jonah hissed.

  Abby's phantom faded. Ruby took her place. The girl spotted her. A smile brightened her face. She ran.

  Two shapes burst from the bushes. Rebecca heard a grunt. One long arm reached out, a finger pointed. Another grunt in response. The two Parasites parted. One darted toward Rebecca. The other sprinted toward Ruby and she, oblivious, kept running. Rebecca didn't have time to scream.

  In the semi-dark, the two shapes became one. Moonlight traced a knobby spine, bent low over Ruby. Long, sinewy arms swooped over her small frame, swallowing her, holding her tightly. Ruby's skinny arm thrust outward, her leg kicked and she squealed. The Parasite groaned, a guttural, lusty sound, as its shadowed hand reached for Ruby's neck.

  "Rebecca!"

  All it took was a small break in the skin, one drop of fluid.

  In a split second, Rebecca imagined ripping the creature off the girl. Her own skin invaded by the contagion. Screaming for Ruby to run and watching her vanish into the darkness before she took a blade to her own veins. Her last thoughts would be happy ones: She’d kept her promise and Ruby was safe. That's what big sisters did.

  But it was over before she could even move.

  The Parasite snatched the back of Ruby's head and lowered its mouth to her neck; its teeth punctured her flesh. Ruby squealed and Rebecca could only summon enough energy to groan her name.

  The crossbow whirred in her ear. An arrow catapulted through the air, sunk into the creature's temple. It fell and Ruby stood on the lawn, alone.

  Thirty seconds.

  She stared at Rebecca, her large eyes full of confusion and fear. She began to shake and crumpled over, whimpering in pain.

  Rebecca didn't want to see what happened next, what she had seen happen to her mother and her sister. What had probably happened to Abby, alone in that school three years ago.

  The turn. The subtle shift in Ruby's eyes as she transformed into something else — a creature with no emotion, no love, no words. A creature who didn't know who she was and didn't care, hovering somewhere between life and death.

  Rebecca clutched Jonah's arm. "Make it stop," she whispered.

  Jonah notched another arrow.

  The next thing Rebecca knew, Ruby lay on the ground, and an arrow stuck grotesquely from her narrow chest. Then she smelled blood, sweat, dirt. Figures swirled around her — more Parasites — and howls and yips echoed in her ears. Something pushed her to the ground. Arrows sliced the air and the yips turned to screams.

  All was silent. A hand clasped her shoulder and a soft baritone purred in her ear. The voice was comforting, but she had no idea what it said. She only saw the vision of her sister, Abby, lying on the ground, her small body so quiet and still. Ruby and Ava — two little girls she couldn'
t save.

  She'd lost her chance to say goodbye to both of them.

  August sat on the couch with his thick arms resting on his knees, staring at Rebecca.

  He'd propped her in a recliner, her arms and ankles tied again, the gag back in her mouth. A muscle twitched in his jaw and he held a bloody rag to a swollen purple bruise at his hairline.

  A smile teased the corner of Rebecca's mouth. She was glad he was injured and hoped he was in pain. He deserved it for what he'd done to Ruby and Gwen and Ava. And her.

  "What were you thinking?"

  August's face blurred and vanished. Ruby's eyes stared back, confused and afraid. Something in them shifted, mutated. She didn't recognize Rebecca. The hazel turned yellow, her straw hair matted with grease and dirt, and instead of her tiny, childish voice, a coyote howl poured from her lips.

  I was thinking I could save her.

  August glanced at Gwen and Ava, who he'd also tied up and shoved into a corner of the room. "I'm now one short on my quota, you know. He will not be happy with us."

  In the back of Rebecca's mind, a voice asked who “he” was and what this quota was for, but a thick cloud had descended over her mind. She had to trudge through it just to lift her head, to breathe, and to notice Jonah now cowering in the hallway watching her and only her, his expression vacant and somber.

  August's eyes flicked to the window, now shining pearl gray with dawn. His skin blanched and he scrunched his nose. "And now here she comes."

  Martha stomped up the stairs and across the porch. The door popped open and she swept inside, one girl at her side. Her steely eyes shot across the room at August, her wrinkles pulling her face into a deadly grimace.

  "Find a seat, dear," Martha said coolly. The new girl scampered to the side. "Idiots."

  Martha scanned the room: Gwen and Ava in the corner, Rebecca trussed up on the recliner, August and Jonah's slumped figures, both of them with faces downturned to avoid her gaze.

  "When we get home, I will suggest to the Savior that we change this procedure. Clearly things aren't going to go quite as we'd envisioned. And then it’s Confession, for both of you."