The Last Girl

by Joe Hart

  She waits, her senses screaming for her to run. How far does she have to go before they quit searching? How far until she’s out of their dominion?

  The copter’s sound fades before vanishing completely. Again she’s alone with only the sun and the steady rush of the river.

  Near mid-afternoon the river widens out into a flat, calm stretch, and the harsh cliffs give way to gentle rises covered with more trees than she ever thought existed. Her legs ache, and the back of her neck is burned from the sun. The hunger has taken on a new life, something wholly separate from the burning fist it was that morning. It now seems to speak to her directly from her center. The small plants that grow from the banks have become delicacies, the moss from rocks delectable appetizers. Even the bits of brown flotsam that bob along the river’s edge tempt her.

  She tries to ignore the hunger’s voice, but her body is beginning to tremble with each step, and soon her steady pace slows to a hitching plod. She stops to rest beneath the closest tree, leaning against its bark, its smell enveloping her. How long since she last ate? She can’t stop herself from remembering this time.

  At least forty hours ago. Almost two days.

  The thought increases her trembling, and she closes her eyes. She can still taste the last bites she had, how the bread crust crunched between her teeth, the soft vegetables in the soup sliding down to the pit of her stomach, warming it, and . . .

  “Stop it,” she says. Her voice is weak, and she hates the sound of it. A gust of wind rustles the branches of the tree, and several pine needles brush her hair. She reaches up and grasps a handful, tearing them free. And before she can think about it, she shoves them into her mouth.

  The taste is a lot like the fresh smell they give off, but much thicker. It envelops her senses, clogs her nasal passages. She chews until the needles are a sludgy paste and swallows, managing to get them down before she gags. Zoey shudders, both at the pleasure of swallowing something solid and at the revolt of her stomach. It twists upon itself, trying to send the needles back into her mouth. She breathes deeply, and to distract herself, climbs to her feet and begins to walk again. She makes it a dozen steps before she stops in her tracks.

  The end of something red pokes from around the next bend in the river.

  She raises the rifle, sighting down its length at the object and slowly approaches. With each step more of it is revealed, and soon she sees she’s looking at a strange boat. She’s seen boats before in the NOA textbook, but this one is narrow and long, with an oddly curved front and rear. It is maybe large enough for two people.

  As she studies it, she notices more of them farther back in the woods that have thickened in the last several miles. It appears they were once on some sort of rack, but time has weakened its structure and sent the boats into a pile, the paint on their hulls dull in the afternoon light.

  Zoey’s heart quickens. Past the boats is an overgrown trail, barely visible, extending through the trees. It twists out of sight, but between the large trunks she can see the side of a building that it must lead to.

  She listens for a long moment before hurrying away from the river. Pine needles crackle beneath her feet as she climbs the trail. There are portions of manufactured stones protruding from under decades of dirt and refuse of the forest. Stairs—these used to be stairs.

  Zoey steps into a clearing before a row of very small houses, all painted the same drab brown and speckled with moss and mildew. They all share identical steel roofs that are slanted hard in upside-down Vs. All the windows are whole, the doors closed.

  As she stands at the edge of the small clearing, her stomach growls so loudly, if anyone were nearby, they would’ve heard. Food. There has to be some kind of food here.

  She moves forward and begins to search.

  There are five “cabins,” as she learns they’re called from a small wooden sign in the first of them. It says Welcome to Pine Ridge Resort. We hope you enjoy your stay in our nostalgic cabins that offer the antiquity of former years and all the present amenities of today.

  The only amenities she can find are beds with decaying quilts nestled across them and old video screens mounted on the walls that reflect her dark image through a layer of dust.

  She looks in every cupboard, every closet, every nook and cranny.

  There is nothing.

  The last building she searches sits above the other structures and is three times the size of the cabins. The door is wide open, and it appears that animals have made it their home in the past. All manner of branches, grass, needles, and brambles cover the floor. She moves through the rooms, opening doors, checking beneath beds, but there is nothing that even resembles food. Not that she would know exactly what she’s looking for. All of her meals have been served to her, always waiting to be eaten whether hot or cold. She curses the dependency that has been forced upon her. Just another form of control. Reaper’s words float back to her then, eerily disembodied.

  You need us.

  Zoey returns to the front of the lodge and sits on the broken porch. She stares out at the forest. How ironic—to escape imprisonment and a certain fate, to overcome all odds and elude capture, only to starve to death here by herself.

  She begins to laugh. She can’t help it. The giggles become belly laughs that hurt her stomach both inside and out, but she can’t stop. She succumbs to the insane mirth that pours from her. The rifle drops from her hands and she holds herself, quaking with the gales that aren’t funny at all. And before she can register it, she’s sobbing.

  After a time the tears slowly stanch as a memory rises within her. Terra, stricken with fear, and something else. Some unspeakable secret behind her eyes. She was absolutely terrified the night Zoey escaped, and something kept her from leaving. What could have enough power to hold her in that place?

  Her sobs slacken until they are gone completely. She clenches her hands into fists, and though the weakness is still there, rage overcomes the sorrow, batters it, beats it into an insubstantial feeling that no longer has meaning. There is no use in regret. What’s done is done. There is no changing her actions, who she has become in the last weeks.

  Zoey clenches her teeth. She’s not going to die out here, alone and for nothing.

  She rises from the porch, grasping her rifle, because it is hers now, no one else’s. She stalks back to the river, steps steadier even though the hunger still rages on. There has to be something here, some way to find food. She approaches the cabins again but pushes past them toward the riverbank. She stands, watching the water flow by, searching its aquamarine depths for an answer. She’s about to turn over the boats to see if there’s anything useful beneath them when she spots something floating near shore.

  It bobs there, white and out of place among the drifting sticks and muddy scum that extends the first six inches from the bank. Zoey moves toward it, stopping a few paces back when she realizes what it is.

  The fish floats belly up, nestled among the water’s accrual. She can see one of its dark eyes looking sightlessly through a layer of algae. Its scales shine muted silver in the late sunlight, and as she watches the current tugs at the detritus around it.

  Without thinking, Zoey snatches it from the water and walks back to sit down on the nearest overturned boat.

  Its scales are wet and clammy, and a thin layer of slime covers its length. She doesn’t know what kind of fish it is or how long it’s been dead, but she’s eaten baked fillets before. At least once a week they were served a meal of fish with steamed vegetables. Nutritious, always nutritious.

  Zoey wipes the creature off on her filthy pant leg. She brings it to her nose and sniffs. Definitely fishy. She hiccups a laugh.

  How to do it? The hunger beckons. She searches the nearest rocks and finds a suitable one almost immediately, one edge blunt and rounded, the other curved like the moon and thinner than a fingernail.

  Zoey holds the fish belly up and, before she can think about what she’s doing, slices through the white flesh of its st
omach.

  Pink and red ropes pool out over her hands, and she nearly yelps with surprise. She’s vaguely aware of the animal’s anatomy, but no text could prepare her for the sensation of its innards falling into her palms. She swallows her revulsion and cuts some more. The insides of the fish look nothing like the baked fillets she’s eaten before. She carefully extracts the intestines and small organs with shaking fingers. The cold slickness of the job nearly breaks her resolve. She can taste pine needles again.

  Once the inside of the fish is relatively clean, she pries the bones free. It is a messy job, and she knows she isn’t doing it right. Her hands shake, and she utters a small cry as a particularly sharp rib bone slides beneath her fingernail. Gradually she scrapes the last of the bones away, revealing grayish-white meat. Despite the tangy smell and slime that covers her fingers, saliva pumps into her mouth. Slowly, she cuts through the scales and pries out a portion of meat that clings to her fingers in a translucent blob. She should cook it, but how? She understands the basic premise of cooking, how you need to heat food perhaps by fire, maybe by another method . . .

  Without meaning to she shoves the dripping flesh into her mouth and chews.

  The flavor is sour, the texture gooey and gelatinous. The fish had been rotting, she knows it now. She can taste it. Zoey squeezes her eyes shut as they begin to water. Just get it down, get it in your stomach and you’re set. She thinks of mashed potatoes, of warm bread, a ripe apple full of tart juice, a mouthful of walnuts.

  She tries to swallow, and a scale sticks in the back of her throat.

  Zoey lurches to her feet and is sick beside the small pile of offal. The milky blob of fish comes up, as well as a strikingly green mush of needles. She stands with her hands on her knees, trembling, hair hanging down with strands matted by her vomit. She spits out the offending scale that somehow remained stuck to the roof of her mouth, and shakes as a full-body tremor runs through her.

  Try again, Meeka says faintly.

  “No, I can’t do it,” Zoey answers out loud. She glances around, almost expecting to see the other woman standing yards away, arms crossed over her chest, a disdainful look in her dark eyes.

  Quit saying you can’t. You’ve done the impossible, and now you’re quibbling over a little raw fish?

  “You don’t know how bad it tastes.” Zoey stumbles back to the boat and collapses onto it. Her head hangs down, and she doesn’t have the strength to raise it.

  Does it taste worse than death?

  “I don’t know.”

  Well, you’re going to find out if you don’t eat it.

  “Go away.”

  I already did, don’t you remember?

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Zoey raises her head and scans the little clearing beside the river. Meeka isn’t there. She never was, of course. Zoey stifles a sob and leans forward, already feeling the tears in her eyes. The fish’s carcass lies at her feet. The baleful dark eye staring up at her. She bends lower, grabbing it from the ground, and snatches her cutting stone from beside her. With an angry slash she cuts another small hunk of meat from the fish’s side, studies it for a second before placing it in the side of her mouth.

  Zoey chews slowly with the steady determination of a machine performing a task. She doesn’t stop even when a stray bone jabs her gum. She bites harder, cracking it like a splinter until it is mixed with the rest of the meat.

  She swallows.

  The morsel travels down to her stomach and doesn’t rebound. Somewhere in the forest she hears Meeka’s laughter.

  Zoey eats everything she can off of the fish. She strips the scales away to get to the meat better and devours it without thought. Her stomach accepts each bite, and soon her mouth is coated with an oily flavor she’s sure will never fully leave her taste buds. When she’s finished, the fish is only a head with a few scraps of skin and vertebrae hanging from it. She tosses it into the woods behind the closest boat before eyeing the intestines on the ground.

  “Now you’re pushing it,” she says to herself.

  Her stomach is full though she’s only eaten a few handfuls of meat. Weariness invades her like some type of parasite feeding from her strength. She makes her way back to the cabins, carrying the gun by its strap, thinking only of rest.

  Zoey flops onto the bed in the first cabin after locking the front door. The fog of sleep surrounds her, and she barely has time to drape the rifle across her chest before it carries her away into a soundless slumber.

  She wakes to a soft scuffling of movement in the next room. Her eyes come open, and the darkness that meets her is impenetrable. Zoey shifts on the bed, mind scrambling to associate where she is. The cabin beside the river. She’s in the bedroom, and there’s something outside the door.

  Her heart steadily picks up speed until it hammers against her breastbone at a frenetic pace. She manages to sit up and grasp the rifle’s stock with one hand.

  Something slides across the floor and falls silent.

  It’s Reaper and his team. They’ve found her.

  She releases a held breath and pivots to her feet, the rifle tucked against her shoulder. How did the helicopter not wake her? They must have landed miles away and moved in on her in the dark.

  A bang from the other side of the door stops her in her tracks and clenches her guts into a cold mass. Why are they making so much noise? She doesn’t have time to think about it. There is a window to the left, but the chances of her opening it and climbing out without being detected are infinitesimal. If they’re in the next room, they’re outside as well.

  She won’t go back to the ARC.

  Zoey sets her jaw and crosses the room silently. She can’t remember if she left the rifle’s safety on or not. She feels its position and thinks it’s ready to fire but can’t be sure. She takes several calming breaths that do nothing to slow her racing heart before reaching out to find the doorknob. Her fingers graze it, clutch it.

  She’ll have less than two seconds.

  She hesitates, listening to the quiet in the next room, counts to three in her mind, and flings the door wide.

  There is a terrifying second where her fingers scrabble around the flashlight’s switch before the beam lances the darkness away.

  Eyes shine close enough for her to see the detail in the irises, and she nearly yanks the trigger, but their height is all wrong. The eyes hang only a foot above the floor.

  Details register to her as they are revealed by the light.

  A fluff of dark fur, rounded ears, black rings that fill up most of a pointed face.

  The animal lets out a harsh shriek and lunges away toward the corner of the room. Zoey follows it, still pointing the weapon in its direction, but now more curious than anything. There is a small rotted area in the floor beside the bathroom wall that she missed earlier and the animal slides through it. There is the whip of a black-ringed tail that reminds her of its face, and then it is gone.

  Zoey stares at the hole, waiting for the creature to reappear, and when it doesn’t, she steps to the window to see if she can get another look at it. A foot from the glass she stops, turning the light off as quickly as she can, and watches, wide-eyed, for a dozen breathless seconds.

  The flickering of flames dance against trees past the lodge above her, and through the silence of the forest, comes the steady chatter of voices.

  20

  Zoey stands at the farthest corner of the lodge, watching the sinuous way the light rolls through the trees.

  She holds the rifle ready across her chest, finger just outside the trigger guard. The voices echo to her through the forest in eerie layers, words lost in the distance. It sounds like several people all talking at once. She even catches a snippet of what could be song, the melody there and gone in the cool air.

  She shifts in place, a chill creeping through her light clothing. She’d been warm and full upon falling asleep but now her belly aches again, the meal of fish no match for the strenuous pace at which she pushed herself for most of the
day. The wound on her stomach throbs in time to the jumping flames. The voices are unmistakably male, and the knowledge fills her with dread. Why are there people here? The country is barren from the plague, and those still alive would be few and far between. She should’ve been able to travel for months without encountering . . .

  But that’s it, isn’t it? She’s relying again on the information given to her by NOA.

  Zoey shakes her head. The flames dance, beckoning.

  She moves up the hill through the massive pines, their bark full of menacing faces created by the firelight and shadows. The rest of the woods are quiet save for the odd creak of branches far overhead moving in the wind’s embrace. Zoey steps over a fallen log heavy with moss and crouches on the other side. The voices are closer, words clearer.

  “Bullshit, David. You seen it once, I was with you all day.”

  “—ee times, at least. They’re . . . for someone.”

  Laughter peals out, ricocheting off the trees.

  “—aranoid!”

  More laughter.

  Zoey jogs thirty yards up to the top of the rise that sits between her position and the fire. There is a massive stump jutting from the ground at least three feet wide that towers over her, and she slides behind it before gazing around its far side.

  The hill descends in a steady grade through a spattering of trees to a clearing that levels off before falling away again down the side of the slope. A small ring of younger pine trees grows to the left, while a line of sage curls in a half-circle opposite the conifers. Beyond the sage, the fire burns in orange tongues that lap the air. Around it she can make out the heads and shoulders of at least six men. Their faces are in shadow, but it is plain that most wear beards, and their hair is unkempt and falls to their shoulders.

  Zoey watches them, studies their movements, how they gesticulate at the air. Their words are slurred, and they speak of things she doesn’t understand. “Fae Trade” is mentioned several times, and for some reason the term sends a shiver of fear through her. She is about to search for a better position from where she can listen to their conversation when the breeze changes, and with it comes the smell.