Feral

by Jami Lynn Saunders

“Looks like the batteries are fully recharged. We’ll pull it underneath the bridge, make camp, and try to get some sleep. Then we’ll make our way down the road that runs along the river.”

  Aiden volunteered to stand first watch and slipped into his meditative state. He was beginning to feel at ease with the hyenas, considered them friends, if not intimates. Yet he was determined to remain vigilant.

  Two hours before dusk, Pippa nudged Aiden’s shoulder and persuaded him to get some real sleep while she stood guard. When she woke him two hours later it was dark, and thick clouds blocked the moonlight.

  Silently the five travelers boarded the Jeep. Driver took them out from under the bridge and onto a small winding road heading south. They passed under another bridge, and Driver veered onto an entrance that took them through a wide circle that led onto it. They crossed the bridge, still heading south.

  It was nearly midnight when they entered a town. Driver slowed to a crawl as the others looked around in the darkness trying to make sense of what they were seeing and smelling. Nearly every building had been destroyed, mostly by fire, and broken furniture and other debris was strewn about like autumn leaves after a windstorm. The road was blocked by an overturned logging truck, its load of massive logs spilled across the roadway.

  “Ferals did this,” Hyena Boy whispered as he sniffed the air. “They aren’t far.”

  “I smell them, too,” Pippa said. “It’s the same stench I smelled last night.”

  “We better get out of here,” Abby said. “Should we go around this mess or turn around and find another route?”

  “There was a road leading west about five or ten miles back,” Aiden said. “It was an exit from the last bridge we crossed.”

  Driver grunted in agreement, backed up, and turned the Jeep around. They were silent as they peered into the darkness waiting for a feral attack, hoping none would come. They found the road they were looking for and turned onto it, still watching the terrain. A deer darted out of the woods and across the path of the Jeep, then disappeared into the trees on the other side.

  “What was that?” Pippa whispered.

  “Deer,” Abby said. “Never saw one in the flesh before, just pictures in books.”

  “It was beautiful,” Pippa said.

  “Yeah,” said Abby.

  Less than an hour later they came to the outskirts of an old rural city. In the moonlit distance, they could see the silhouettes of buildings spread out in a murky vista.

  “Athens,” Abby whispered to Pippa. “An old college town.”

  “What’s a college?” Pippa asked.

  “Like a big school, but they’re long gone. This is the route our mother took to reach New York.”

  Pippa lost her focus when a familiar stench filled the air. Hyena Boy smelled the ferals at the same time. He quickly climbed into the back of the Jeep and uncovered the crossbow, and she took his place in front. Abby grabbed Excalibur from her pack, and Aiden turned on his fire saw. Every eye peered into the darkness.

  A feral flew through the air and threw itself against the Jeep. Driver swerved, and Pippa nearly fell out of the vehicle. A dart whistled through the air as Hyena Boy fired the crossbow. The explosion killed two ferals and its fleeting light revealed hordes of others stampeding toward them. A feral dropped from a tree on top of Abby, and Aiden slit its throat open and pushed it out of the Jeep. Driver lowered his head but held a straight and steady course.

  A pink sunrise glowed to the east, and the sky began to lighten. Pippa saw a wisp of smoke rising in the distance and pointed to it.

  “Head toward the smoke,” Hyena Boy shouted. “It might be a safehold.”

  The Jeep crested a rise, and they saw a collection of buildings sitting up on a hill. Driver pushed the accelerator to the floor, but when the Jeep took the hill, the straining engine began to whine. A feral caught up, and Abby cut it down with Excalibur. Two more ferals appeared, one on either side, and tried to jump into the Jeep. Abby and Aiden fought them off, but more ferals were coming. As the Jeep entered a bend in the road, a feral leaped in front of it and was struck dead. They heard a sickening thud as the creature went under the wheels. The Jeep lurched and began to slide. Driver fought for control, but the vehicle spun off the road and flipped. It rolled twice and landed on its top. Everyone but Driver was thrown clear.

  Hyena Boy screamed when he saw Driver pinned under the truck. He cried out, his howls filling the air. He morphed and attacked the oncoming ferals like a berserker, ripping out throats, crushing bones with his teeth, and throwing ferals against trees or onto the road.

  Aiden grabbed the girls and tried to pull them toward the twenty-foot-high brick wall that surrounded the complex. Pippa hissed and pulled away. She morphed and lunged at a pair of ferals that were harrying Hyena Boy. A mighty paw ripped the head off one, and Hyena Boy finished the other. Pippa turned and leaped and brought another feral to the ground, tore out its throat. She leaped again and raked another feral with her claws, leaving it bloody and dying. She rose up and roared, then launched herself at another feral, even as Hyena Boy’s mad howls rang in her ears. The rest of the ferals ran off, their instinct for survival overcoming their hunger and madness.

  Pippa heard Abby call her name. She and Hyena Boy turned and ran after Abby and Aiden, but the remaining ferals had regrouped and were swarming toward them. The four rushed up the hill on which the compound stood, ferals right behind them. Aiden stopped and turned and took out the lead feral with his fire saw. Abby saw another feral run up beside them, and she lunged at it with Excalibur, then joined Aiden to try to hold off the pack. Pippa and Hyena Boy stopped and turned and took positions on the flanks of their meager defensive line.

  Suddenly, flaming arrows filled the air and showered down on the ferals. They heard someone yell, “Run!” and they turned and did so. A line of archers stood atop the wall, firing at the ferals, trying to drive the beasts back down the hillside. As the four approached the wall, two metal doors swung open. They quickly entered and a couple of men swung the doors shut behind them.

  Exhausted from the fight and their wild run, the four teens dropped to the ground and tried to catch their breaths.

  “Try to relax,” Abby whispered to Pippa. “You, too,” she said to Hyena Boy. “We don’t know how they feel about werecats.”

  A door in the nearest building opened and a tall, burly man with flaming red hair emerged, beckoning the bloody and battered teens to enter. They staggered into the building, and the man pointed to a long wooden bench along a wall. “Sit,” he said. “Rest. You’re safe now.”

  Suddenly Abby fell sideways, gasping for breath.

  Alarmed, Pippa leaped to her feet and looked around, but their backpacks had been thrown from the Jeep when it flipped. She looked at the red-haired man. “She has asthma. She needs her inhaler.”

  The man stepped toward a hallway and bellowed, “Dr. Tanner, hurry!”

  Moments later a tall man of around forty rushed into the room and knelt next to Abby. He retrieved a syringe from a black bag he’d brought with him and quickly injected her. Seconds later, Abby’s breathing returned to normal.

  “She’ll be fine,” the man said.

  “Thank you,” said Pippa.

  The doctor extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Tanner. Dr. Jack Tanner.”

  Abby was placed on a stretcher and carried to the infirmary, an area on the second floor filled with twenty narrow beds, ten on each side, with an aisle between the two rows. Two beds along the far wall were occupied, but the patients were asleep, and the infirmary was quiet.

  The stretcher bearers lifted Abby to a bed, and a pair of nurses undressed her, cleaned her up, and tended to her injuries. Dr. Tanner examined the other three and cleaned and dressed their wounds. When he was finished, he went to check Abby.

  “She’s okay,” Dr. Tanner told Pippa and the others after making his examination. “But we have to burn her clothes. In fact, I need to get you all a change of clothes. I don’t bel
ieve feral blood is contagious, but we don’t like to take chances.”

  “Where’s Abby’s weapon?” Aiden asked.

  Dr. Tanner retrieved Excalibur from the stretcher that had been used to transport Abby and handed it to Aiden. Then he sent for fresh clothing for the three teens and took them to a locker room, where they showered and got dressed in their new clothing.

  When Abby felt well enough to get out of bed, Dr. Tanner took them to a quiet room where they could grieve and rest. Hyena Boy was informed that there was no way that Driver’s body could be recovered. He asked if he could look out over the walls of the confine and say a few words. His request was granted, and his three friends accompanied him on his sad errand. Silently, the three said goodbye to Driver, each lost in his or her thoughts.

  When they were ready, Dr. Tanner took them to an office where the red-haired leader was waiting for them. The four took seats on a long sofa, and the leader and Dr. Tanner sat in chairs facing them.

  “Dr. Tanner you’ve already met,” the leader said. “My name is Tom Jones,”

  “Like the novel,” Abby said.

  Jones smiled at her. “Used to be a singer by that name, too, but that was before everybody’s time.”

  “Thank you for helping us,” Pippa said.

  “It’s been a long time since we’ve had visitors—especially werecats.”

  Pippa tensed. “So you know.”

  Jones nodded. “Saw you and your friend here in action. But don’t worry, we don’t persecute your kind. In fact, two werecats lived here with us ten years ago, but they died in a big feral attack. They were good people. Looked like mutated tigers when they morphed.”

  “Those ferals that hit us,” Hyena Boy said. “I’ve never seen so many in one pack. I know they’re crazed, but they usually run in small packs, and they were never very smart. But it seemed as if these ferals planned to ambush us.”

  Jones nodded. “The younger ones, the children of feral parents, are smarter. They seem to have regained some semblance of intelligence, and they’re not as rabid as the ferals from the Fallout. Unfortunately, they’re just as bloodthirsty.”

  “But you’re safe here, right?” Abby asked.

  Jones sighed. “Not as safe as we used to be, thanks to those younger ferals I mentioned. But we can’t leave. We’ve got nearly five hundred people in this compound, and we’re growing. We’ll run out of room in a few years.”

  “What will you do?” Abby asked.

  Jones shrugged and smiled. “Oh, we’ll come up with some sort of solution, don’t worry about us. But tell me about yourselves. You might start with your names.”

  Pippa decided there was nothing worth hiding and related their story, beginning with her encounter with Bruno and ending at the gates of the sanctuary.

  “West Coast is a long way off,” Jones said. “I was there once. Even saw the ocean. But that was when I was a child. My father was in the military, at least what was left of the military after the Fallout. His unit was ordered to come here and form up with a group of about four thousand. They were the ones who built the outside wall. This building used to be an asylum about two hundred years ago. It was still intact, so they figured this place could be a headquarters for the army. Ferals hadn’t been spotted in this area, so they aimed to rebuild the city down below.”

  “Athens,” Abby said.

  Jones nodded.

  “So what happened?” Aiden asked.

  “Same as New York,” Jones said. “Ferals began showing up in droves. I never seen so many swarm so fast. Nearly wiped out the entire army. Only people who survived were the ones that made it in here. But enough talk, let’s get you four fed. Then you can rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

  Jones took the four outside and led them across an expansive courtyard, which had a large building along each side and a smaller building at each end, including the one from which they had come. Those four buildings were intact, but some outbuildings were in bad shape, a couple of them in ruins.

  A vegetable garden took up a large area at one end of the courtyard, and a nearby area looked like a place for community gatherings. It was adjacent to a small playground with a swing set, slide, and seesaw.

  Pippa looked at the playground and smiled. It brought back memories of playing in the park behind the Hunter Library.

  Jones led them into the main building, which overlooked the front of the hill. The inside of the massive structure was well kept, but its paint was faded, and the floors were well worn. The corridors were lined with sconces that held small bulbs that produced a dull yellow glow. Pippa peered at the sconces and saw small solar cells on the sides of each. She glanced up and saw an intricate array of mirrors attached at various places along the ceiling and walls.

  “Solar-powered light,” Jones said. “The mirrors were placed to reflect sunlight throughout the building during the day, and the solar cells store it for nighttime light.”

  “Very clever,” Abby said.

  “And necessary,” said Jones. “You don’t want to be caught anywhere in here in the dark. The place is haunted.”

  Aiden laughed. “You’re kidding, right? There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  Tom stopped and looked at Aiden. “Oh, there’s ghosts all right. You stay here for a few days, you’ll find out for yourself. Things go flying around, invisible forces push people down steps, and we’ve even had people go missing, never to be found again. Once we realized it was haunted, we made it a rule never to go anywhere without at least five people to a group.”

  “You’re serious,” Abby said.

  Jones nodded. “Even the ferals sense that this place is possessed, which is good for us, since they rarely come up here

  on the hill.”

  “Are these ghosts dangerous?” Pippa asked.

  Jones shrugged. “Yes, but not as dangerous as what’s outside these walls.”

  He led them to a mess hall, where they ate a meal of stew and crusty bread. The mess hall was empty except for three people who sat silently at a nearby table.

  “What are they doing?” Aiden whispered. “They’re not eating. They’re just sitting there.”

  “Tom said they always have at least five people in a group,” Abby said. “There are only four of us, so I’m assuming they’re our extras.”

  “You don’t believe that stuff about ghosts, do you?” Aiden asked.

  “Course not,” Abby said.

  Just then, Pippa heard a low moaning sound and saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  “Hear what?” Abby said.

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing. Never mind.” Pippa looked at the three strangers sitting at the nearby table and was glad they were there.

  When they finished their meal, the three at the other table took them up to the third floor and showed them to a room with six cots and one large table in the center. Along the way, two more people showed up, making an escort of five. When the escort left, Aiden, Pippa, Abby, and Hyena Boy each flopped down on a cot and were asleep within minutes.

  They were awakened next morning by a knock and the smell of eggs and sausage. It reminded Pippa of breakfasts in the Hunter Library. Alexander may have been a bad seed, but he kept the orphans well fed.

  Tom Jones entered the room as the four were yawning and stretching. “Wake up, guests,” he said as he motioned a group of kitchen workers into the room to place food on the large table. “Figured you’d enjoy room service this morning. It’s the least we can do after you killed a few dozen ferals. Take your time eating, and when you’re finished, I’ll have five people out in the hall to take you down to the courtyard. We want to properly welcome you to the community.”

  Jones and his crew exited, leaving the four to dine by themselves. They took full advantage. Fresh, hot food was a welcome change from freeze-dried rations. As promised, a group of four teen boys and one girl was waiting outside their door after the meal. They were dressed in militia-style
attire, similar to what the New York militia wore and identical to the new clothing they themselves had been given the night before. Each of their young escorts carried a long wooden staff.

  They followed their guards down to the main floor and through a corridor and out into the courtyard, where hundreds of people were gathered. Tom Jones met them outside and took them to the center of the throng as the crowd applauded and cheered. Dr. Tanner was there, and he nodded as they took their places next to Jones. He seemed to be the only person there without a big smile, and Pippa wondered what was wrong. She felt uneasy at all the adulation, and the doctor’s expression made her even more uncomfortable. But her companions seemed pleased, so she put her concerns out of her mind.

  Tom Jones cleared his throat and looked out over the crowd. “People of the sanctuary, as you know, we’ve prayed long for a sign that we’d eventually find freedom. That sign arrived last night. The prophecy is true. They have come home, and they now stand before you. We saw them fight and we know it’s real.”

  The crowd broke into loud applause again, shouting and whooping, and Pippa saw men and women crying aloud, tears flowing down their faces. Many dropped to their knees to pray.

  “What’s going on?” Aiden whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” Abby whispered back. “But it looks as if we’ve wandered into a sect, and they think we’re some kind of saviors.”

  Pippa shushed them so she could hear the rest of Jones’s speech.

  “Tonight we will have a celebration dinner to announce the beginning of the twenty-year countdown,” Jones said as the crowd continued to call out exultations. He smiled at the four standing beside him. “Now, let us go prepare for the feast,”

  The crowd quickly dissipated, but the buzz from their euphoria seemed to remain suspended in the air. Only Jones, Dr. Tanner, and the five-person escort remained outside with the four visitors. The four faced Jones. Pippa was the first to speak.

  “What was that all about?” she asked in a cold voice.

  “Let’s go to my office,” Jones said. “I’ll explain everything.”