Sundered: Book 1 (The Nevermore Trilogy)

by Shannon Mayer

  I had a single helping, keeping it to oatmeal and a banana, then splurged and had some bacon with it. What the hell, if it was the end of the world, who cared about counting calories?

  “What’s the plan today?” Sebastian asked, looking from me to Jessica, and then back again.

  “Oh. Well, I thought that we should make a tally of all the food in the house, plant the garden, and check fences.”

  “We just had the new page wire fence put up! And haven’t even pulled down the old barbed wire on the other side,” Sebastian said, his irritation filling the room.

  Jessica slouched in her seat and stared at her plate.

  I rubbed my face with both hands. “I know that. And maybe it’s good that we have a double fence line, but the deer can still get in. I know the deer can jump, but what if there’s a little hole somewhere? One at ground level? The Nevermores maybe can’t jump, but I bet they can crawl.”

  At that Sebastian paused, his mouth open to argue, and then he snapped it shut and nodded. The thought of a horde of Nevermores pouring through a small hole was all too possible and all too frightening to take the chance that there was even one small opening on our first line of defence.

  “We also need to find some way to store water,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

  Sebastian nodded and leaned back in his chair, mimicking me. “We can draw water from the well even when the power’s out, but you’re right, we should store some anyway.” He stood up. “I’m going to start with the fences and I’ll throw another chain and padlock on the front gate. Why don’t you come with me, Jessica?” He glanced at me, and I gave him a slight nod. Neither of us said what we were both thinking. The Nevermores saw her as one of their own and wouldn’t hurt her, and it might keep Sebastian safer too, having her at his side. Jessica nodded and took another bite of a sausage, her face glowing with pleasure. I smiled to myself, it would be good to keep her distracted, and having her crush all to herself was a perfect way for a young girl to have her mind taken off the scary parts of life. It didn’t bother me, Sebastian was not the type to wander or stray, especially not for a sixteen-year-old girl.

  As they headed out the back door, I grabbed Sebastian by the hand, pulling him back to me and planting a kiss on his lips. “Don’t forget to reinforce the gate. I saw some extra bars in the grass beside it.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” He saluted me sharply and headed out, following Jessica’s lithe figure.

  After they left, I spent the morning going through all our cupboards, charting out canned food and preserves, cleaners, toiletries, and perishables. Once I had them stacked in order of how fast we needed to use them, my heart sank. I’d never really been a person to buy in bulk and it showed. There were three bags of pasta, less than two dozen cans of soup, one large bag of rice, eight cans of pasta sauce, seven cans of tuna, fourteen cans of fruit of various kinds, three boxes of Jell-O, one bag of flour and sugar each, a small bag of brown sugar, a half box of tea, one of each of my favourite spices, and that was about it for food of the non-perishable sort.

  I scrubbed my hands over my face. The fridge was full of fresh veggies and fruit, milk, cheese, half a dozen eggs, and two cuts of beef from dinner two nights ago. The freezer was not so full, but there were a few bags of bread, ground beef, one package of bacon, a package of chicken drumsticks, and two frozen pizzas. How the hell were we going to make this stretch?

  “We are so screwed,” I said softly, needing to break the depressing silence even if it was with a depressing statement. Nero woofed softly in seeming agreement. I laughed and rolled a ball for him across the floor, which he bounded after. I sat on the floor rolling the ball, enjoying the normalcy of the moment. After ten minutes of playing, Nero yawned, and I scooped him up, grabbed a towel, and made a makeshift bed in the tub. At least there he wouldn’t get into trouble if he woke up and I was outside.

  A huge rumble reached my ears as I tucked Nero in, a rumble that I recognized and had cursed most mornings as the neighbour and his god-awful diesel minus-a-muffler truck headed to work. Scrambling to my feet, I ran to the door, flinging it open in time to see the horde out front of our house get scattered by the black Dodge mowing them down.

  Bodies flew in all directions, screams of pain and rage coming from every side. I shouted and pumped my fist in the air. I knew we could get out with a vehicle, I just knew it.

  8

  My jubilation was short-lived. The Dodge lurched to a stop just past our house.

  I frowned. Sebastian and Jessica came running in from the far field, tools in their hands, worry written across their faces.

  “Mara?” Sebastian yelled.

  “I’m here. The guy with the noisy truck!” I pointed to the front of the property.

  We stared as the truck rumbled, coughed, and fell silent, choosing this moment to protest its rough usage. The horde of Nevermores swarmed around the truck, scratching and screaming, their nails on the metal making my skin jump and twitch.

  “What’s he doing?” Jessica asked.

  “I think his truck stalled out,” Sebastian said.

  The back window slid open, hands emerged, and our neighbour squeezed himself out into the truck bed.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Little help?” He flapped his arms and pointed around him like we hadn’t noticed the Nevermores surrounding him, or like we had some magic wand that would carve a path for him through the horde.

  “What are we supposed to do? Walk out there and ask them if they would mind not eating him?” I said, not really expecting an answer.

  Jessica was nodding though. “They let me through once; maybe they’ll let me through with Tom.”

  Sebastian and I stared at her. “Jessica,” I said. “You don’t know that they won’t attack you.”

  “They didn’t attack us on the back of your property when I was with Sebastian. They just stared at us, swaying, and kind-of-like singing under their breath,” she said, her voice far more confident than I felt.

  Chills rippled over me at the picture that came to my mind, the scene I could see in my head even though I hadn’t been there. What Dr. Josephson on the TV had said slid into place along with what Jessica had said, and my mind filled in the missing bits. The horde would be working like wolf pack with an Alpha male and female, the rest acting together as hunters and protectors. A final moment of understanding came to me and I sucked in a lungful of air, the simplicity of it making more sense than I would have thought. The pack, or whatever it was, wanted Jessica, if that Dr. Josephson from the TV was right, and the Nevermores were working like a wolf pack, they’d be looking for females to increase their numbers.

  Oh. My. God.

  More pieces slipped into place. The drug made people more fertile, made them territorial, ravenous, and made them disease resistant. The population of Nevermores was going to boom. And if the genetics didn’t pass the drug to their young and make new Nevermores, I had no doubt what they would be eating for their next pack meal.

  “No,” I said, startling both Jessica and Sebastian. “You can’t go out there.” I stood in her way. “They want you, the pack—pride, whatever it is, they want you.” I swallowed hard.

  Sebastian stood behind Jessica, frowning. “What are you talking about, Mara?”

  “Hey, come on guys, don’t leave me hanging here,” Tom yelled, and the pack went wild with the sound of his voice.

  “In a minute,” I yelled back, turning only my head to them, and then focused back on Jessica. “A breeder, that’s all you’d be. Something to make babies and those babies will be just like them.” I flung my arm out behind me. “And if they aren’t, you can guess what’s going to happen to the babies.”

  Jessica paled and Sebastian frowned at me. “They’d eat them,” she whispered.

  I nodded.

  “You don’t know that, Mara,” Sebastian snapped at me. “And you’re scaring her.”

  “It’s the truth,” Jessica said. “I can feel them pulling at me, wanting me to
come to them. Especially that one there.” She pointed to a big male who stood back from the rest of the pack, overseeing their efforts. The leader stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes narrowed as he grunted and barked what seemed to be orders to the rest of the group. He was taller than the rest, but not as big as Sebastian, with light blond hair that had seen better days. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, but it was hard to tell with the changes the drug put them through. The male had a definite air of command around him, and I had no doubt who was in charge of this pack. Trouble, that’s what he was.

  Jessica stared at him, her eyes not moving away for even a split second, it wasn’t a look of fear that washed over her face—but desire. Shit.

  She walked past us, heading straight toward the gate. “He won’t eat the babies. I’ll come back after I get Tom out. I don’t have to go with the pack yet,” she said certainty strong in her voice as she climbed the fence and dropped lightly on the other side. The pack made room for her, touching her lightly, stroking her hair. She walked straight up to the big male, brushing her fingertips against his. He stared down at her and she shook her head, and then pointed at Tom.

  Sebastian shifted on his feet. “Is she negotiating with him?”

  “I guess,” I said, not sure this was a good idea at all. The big male shook his head and roared.

  The pack scattered, leaving the truck clear.

  “Tom! Hurry your ass up, man,” Sebastian yelled when Tom hesitated. Another breath and he jumped down from the truck and started to run toward our gate. “Shit, I forgot my stash,” he yelped and turned back toward the truck. He grabbed the handle and I grabbed Sebastian’s hand.

  “Forget your weed, man! Move it,” Sebastian yelled.

  “He’s not going to make it,” I whispered.

  “He’ll make it,” Sebastian said.

  One of the pack members crept forward, sniffing the air. It was too much for the creature’s desires. It lunged at Tom and I stifled a scream. Tom screamed for us both. Like unleashing a tidal wave, the pack rushed back in and Tom disappeared under a flurry of bodies and mouths.

  Jessica screamed and tried to run toward Tom, but the big male held her tight against his chest until she stopped squirming, her eyes glazing over with resignation.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she yelled, but the pack didn’t listen to her anymore than they listened to Tom’s pleas for mercy.

  I buried my head into Sebastian’s shoulder.

  “Look,” Sebastian said.

  I turned to see the pack retreating with their prize; none of it even recognizable as human, and Jessica and the Alpha male were walking to the gate.

  As if in a dream, we met them there, just out of reach.

  “Thank you. I wish I could have stayed with you longer,” she whispered, silver tears pooling in her quickly shifting eyes. She reached through, and though Sebastian grunted at me, I took her hands and held them with my own, rubbing my fingers over her knuckles. If she were my daughter, my child, I would want her to have this last moment of humanity, touching one of her own kind before she forgot everything she was and could have been.

  “I wish we could’ve done more.”

  Sebastian stepped closer and the Alpha male growled, his grip tightening on Jessica. Sebastian held up his hands, then slowly lowered them to my shoulders, squeezing me almost painfully tight.

  I ignored the pissing contest and stared at Jessica. “Be safe, sweetheart,” I whispered and lifted her hands to my lips, kissing the back of them.

  The skin underneath my lips was spinning into a dusky yellow with faint lines that looked like veins, but weren’t. They were images of yellow teardrops like a poorly drawn tattoo of a broom flower. The plant was taking hold of the humans it inhabited like it did all the areas it was introduced to.

  The Alpha male pulled her away, but not before giving Sebastian one more glare, one filled with hatred so intense that I was surprised he didn’t try to come over the gate.

  “I don’t think he likes me.”

  “What does it matter? He’d kill either of us,” I said. I turned away from the gate, heart heavy at losing Jessica, though I’d known it would happen. I just didn’t think it would be so soon. I reached up, took Sebastian’s hand off my shoulder and wrapped it around me, taking some comfort in the warmth. If only I could so easily ward off the chill in my heart.

  9

  The next week was spent digging the garden, watering it daily, checking fences, and drinking lots of water to keep our hunger at bay. Nero romped at our feet oblivious to the danger all around us, though he quickly learned to stay far away from the fence line. Only once did he stray close to the front gate; the growling and fury, along with a set of hands reaching for him, sent him running back to safety.

  We phoned family and friends, trying to find out who had taken the shot, and who hadn’t. Of them all, only Sebastian’s Gran was still answering her phone, and she was in London.

  “You two take care of each other. I’ll be fine here, I have a flight to—” She was cut off, the line going dead, but at least we knew she was still alive and well. It was a small ray of sunshine.

  We argued about whether or not to go to Dan’s, but I won out.

  “Fine, Mara. Fine. We won’t go to Dan,” Sebastian said, his body slumped on the couch.

  “We can’t trust him, Sebastian. He came here to raid us, not help us. He said so himself. We’re safe here; the Nevermores can’t seem to get in. If it comes down to desperation, then yes, maybe then we could go to Dan, but he’s a last resort.” I went back to attempting to hand-stitch a patch on a shirt.

  The pack left us alone for the most part, sending out what seemed to be a scout once or twice a day. He was smaller than the rest, and slightly hunched over with angry red slashes on his upper body and face, with one that went right across his forehead. The scout, who we simply started to call Scout, would attempt to rattle the massive gate, give us a growl, and then wander off.

  The long hours, hard work, and emotional stress taxed us, making us both edgy and out of sorts, not even leaving us enough energy to make love, which was unusual for us. The day before the power went out, we checked the TV as we did each morning and each night. For the first time in over a week there was an announcement of sorts.

  “Mara, come here, the TV’s on,” Sebastian called out.

  I ran downstairs, a towel wrapped around my hair.

  There was no announcer, just a single picture like a page out of a book that scrolled up on a continual loop.

  I read it out loud as it went. “All areas of North America are now considered dangerous territory, as is the North and West of South America, all of Australia, Europe, and much of Asia.”

  There was a long stretch of blank screen and then a last warning.

  I read it slowly, disbelief and a low thrum of resignation settled over me.

  “All remaining residents from these named continents are now considered independent of any government, agency, or military command. We consider . . . .”

  That’s where it ended. The screen blinked and slid into white fuzzy static, reminding me of the twilight zone. I grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.

  “What does that mean?” I already suspected the answer, but wanted Sebastian to say it out loud.

  He reached up and took my hand. “We’re on our own, babe. That’s what it means. No one’s going to come help us or try to get us out of here. They’re going to let nature take its course, just like Dan said, and hope the Nevermores die off.”

  I squeezed his hand and slid onto his lap. He circled his arms around me and we held each other tight, the fear surrounding us.

  “We’ve still got each other,” I said.

  Sebastian didn’t answer me, just laid his head against my breast, his breathing uneven as if he were holding back tears.

  The next day, two weeks in, the power finally went and we had to break out the flashlights and candles, hoarding them, using them only when necessary. At
that point, we realized we needed to dig a latrine of some sort. Shit—in the most literal sense of the word.

  Worse than that realization, was the fact that we were through half our food stores—not that we had much to begin with—and our garden was a long way from producing.

  “We’re just going to have to cut back some more,” I said, staring at our already meagre meal of pasta and a half a can of tuna cooked over the barbecue. Come winter we could use the wood stove and the old wood-burning stove I’d thought to replace for heat and cooking. But there were so many things on the list of needed items: candles, seeds for the garden, and canning equipment, just to name a few.

  Sebastian scrubbed his hands through his hair, his wedding band catching the last rays of the setting sun. I watched as it slid around, bumping up against his knuckle. The weight we were both losing was a testament to our hard work and lack of nutrition.

  I started to laugh at the irony of the situation.

  “What’s so funny?”

  I gulped the laughter down enough to answer him. “We’ve wanted to lose weight for so long and all it took was for the world to shut down.” Another peal of laughter ripped its way out of me, leaving me shaking and gasping for air, tears running down my cheeks. Hilarity rarely gripped me, and now I seemed unable to shake its grasp.

  He frowned at me, which only made me laugh harder; lack of food, poor sleep, and hard work making me giddy. I sat on the floor and the laughter rolled out of me, Nero dancing around my head woofing, and making me howl all the louder. Sebastian got up, left his plate of food and went outside, the back door slamming behind him.