Lupine Howl: The Complete First Series (All 8 books)

by Amy Cross

The man glances at me, laughs, then suddenly knocks my arm against the cupboard, causing me to drop the corkscrew. He twists me around and slams me against the wall, then he pulls me back and throws me against the kitchen counter. I bounce off the side and onto the floor, and I can tell that I'm bleeding from a cut on my forehead.

  “I told you not to make me do that,” the man says. “Now just stay on the floor and don't fuck about, okay?”

  I don't dare to move. This guy seems crazy enough to kill me if I push him too far. Plus, I'm not sure if I'm concussed, because the front of my forehead really hurts and I can see a small patch of blood where I fell. Listening to the guy as he finishes filling his bags, I finally hear him heading to the door, but he comes back and kneels next to me.

  “Okay listen,” he says, “I've never done anything like this before. I'm not this kind of guy. I've never hurt anyone. But you understand, right? I have to look after my wife and kids, and they need this food. I'm sorry, but what am I supposed to do? Let them starve because I'm too polite?”

  I'm too scared to look up at him.

  “Are you listening to me?” he asks.

  I look at him, hoping he'll just go away if I keep quiet.

  “Fucking bitch,” he says, grabbing my hair, lifting my head a little and then slamming it back down against the floor. I cry out in pain, and then the tears come, but finally I look up and see the guy is leaving. I stay on the floor for a few more minutes before I slowly get to my feet, feeling a little dizzy, and I look at the fridge, which is empty. The cupboards are the same. Fuck, this guy completely cleaned us out. There's no food anywhere in the house and –

  I walk over to the sink and turn the faucet, but there's no water. At first I can't work out why a lack of electricity would stop there being water, but then I realise there's probably a ton of electrical systems controlling the pipelines.

  I hear a noise outside. Grabbing the corkscrew that I dropped earlier, I go to the window and look outside, but I relax as soon as I see that it's only Pierce coming out of his house with a big backpack. I watch him walk down the path and onto the pavement before I realise what he's doing, and I run out to catch him.

  “Hey! Pierce!” I shout, catching up.

  He turns to me. “What?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Why do you care?”

  I sigh. “Someone stole all the food from my place,” I say.

  He nods. “I can see you've been crying”.

  I wipe my eyes. “Fuck you,” I say. “So do you really think no-one's coming to help us?”

  He bites his bottom lip for a moment. “Think about it,” he says eventually. “There's no electricity. There's not gonna be any, either. So everything's broken. No-one can contact anyone. No-one can go anywhere fast. No-one can fix things. Who do you think is gonna come and help us?”

  I turn and look at my house. “My parents...” I start to say.

  “They're in California, right?” Pierce replies. “That's two and a half thousand fucking miles away. The only way they can get here is if they walk, and that would take fucking a hundred days, not counting getting over mountains and the fact that they probably don't even have a detailed map. Do you see the scale of the problem?”

  I nod. “So where are you going?”

  “I have a plan,” he says cagily.

  “Is it a good plan?” I ask.

  “It's better than sitting here and waiting for a bunch of fucking zombie assholes to come and eat me,” he says. He sees the expression on my face. “What? You don't think they'll all turn into fucking cannibals when the real food runs out? This place is getting more dangerous by the fucking minute”. He laughs. “Fuck,” he says, “all my life I've been the crazy, paranoid one, and now suddenly everything's flipped and I'm right and you're the crazy ones”. He stares at me. “No offence”. He looks up at the sky. “It's gonna get dark soon. I have to get going. Seeya”.

  He turns, but I grab his arm and pull him back.

  “Are you sure you don't want to wait it out?” I ask. “They might come and help”.

  “You don't fucking listen,” he says, pulling away. “I'm going to walk to New York. It should only take a couple of weeks, at least there'll be some people there with brains. Look at this place. It's been a day since that plane crashed and no-one's come to put out the fire or take the bodies away. No-one. You know why? Because there's no-one whose job it is to do that any more”.

  “So you're just leaving?” I say.

  He nods. “I sure as hell ain't sitting around here waiting for someone to come and make everything okay. Fuck, you'd be better off praying to God if that's your attitude”.

  I think about this for a moment. “Can I come with you?” I ask eventually.

  He stops and stares at me. “You?”

  “Everyone's just standing around,” I say, “like they don't know what to do. And I kind of believe you that no-one's coming to help any more. So if you have a plan of what to do, I'd like to come in on it. If that's cool with you”.

  He stares at me, sizing me up, clearly deciding whether he wants me with him. “Ten minutes,” he says eventually. “I'll give you ten minutes to gather some stuff to bring. No girly crap, no make-up or any of that shit. Food. Tools. Stuff that might be useful. Okay?”

  I nod. “Okay. And when we get to New York, then what?”

  He shrugs. “Hopefully there'll be someone to help us”.

  I open my mouth to ask “And if there's not?”, but I decide to keep quiet. I can see in Pierce's eyes that the question is already on his mind. “I'll grab some stuff,” I say instead, turning and running into my house. When I get inside, I stuff some clothes into my bag, then I take one last look around and try to think if there's anything I need. Grabbing some paper from the desk in the hallway, I write out a quick note to my parents, telling them where I've gone. I tuck the note under the fruit bowl in the kitchen, and then I stare at it. Will my parents ever come home and find it? Will they ever stand here and read it? For a moment, I imagine them standing here, right where I am, reading the note. Would they be glad that I've gone off to get help, or would they be sad that I'm not here. And -

  “Come on!” Pierce shouts from outside.

  I take one last look at the note and then I head out the door. I don't know if I'll ever be back.

  Extract from the diary of Lydia Hoff

  Tonight there was blood in my pee. There, I said it. At my age, perhaps I should be more circumspect, maintain a little more dignity. But I want to be honest with you. My body is breaking down, it's falling apart on the inside. Things are becoming unstuck, and soon I will be dead. And since I am the last person in this part of the country who remembers that Great Disaster, I feel I should not censor myself as I tell my story. If you don't like to hear an old woman's rambling account of her life, you are free to leave.

  I mentioned Emma earlier. She was the girl I met when I was very young, shortly after the Great Disaster began. I met her, on and off, over a very long period in my life. She came to Morristown with her friend Pierce, having set out from her hometown shortly after the Great Disaster struck. She was a kind, happy girl who seemed very poorly equipped to deal with the growing emergency. I imagine that if the Great Disaster had never happened, Emma would have lived a long and happy life without adventure. But that's not how her life turned out, not at all. She ended up being the one who went up against the anarchists, but that just proves my point: it is often the most 'ordinary' people who prove to be capable of the most extraordinary acts of courage and bravery.

  Now that I know I am dying, that I have just a day or two left, I find myself thinking more and more of Emma, Pierce and the others. Back then, we thought that we would soon have electricity again, that the world would quickly get back to normal. But it never did. For example, in the early days we were always waiting for news from Washington. We assumed that, given time, the American government would get a handle on things and would come to tell us what was happeni
ng. But ninety years later, there has been no sign of the government. It is as if they simply vanished when the Great Disaster struck.

  And I often wonder what things are like in the rest of the world. Oh, when I was young I had such plans to travel to Europe and Asia and Africa. I wanted to see everything and everywhere. But back then, thanks to aeroplane travel, long distances could be covered so quickly. Today, even a trip to from the east to the west coast of the United States is a lifetime achievement, a journey that takes many months by horse. People make fewer big journeys these days, though the few journeys that they do undertake are inevitably grander and more epic.

  People ask me if I miss the old days. In truth, I miss the ease of my old life. If you wanted water, you turned on a tap. If you wanted to go to another city, you jumped on a bus or a train. If you wanted to find out an item of knowledge, or you wanted to watch a video, you went online. All those things are gone now. If I want to know a fact about history, I have to go to the library now. The world has changed so much, but in some ways things are the same as ever: fortune still favours the bold, and the brave.

  I wonder, is the light truly coming tonight?

  Chapter 5

  HOLLY

  We walk along the highway, figuring we can reach New York by following street signs. At first we walk in silence, sharing a kind of awkwardness that stems from the fact that although we're the same age, we have nothing in common and we've never really spoken before today. Pierce walks a few steps ahead of me, but eventually we start talking about how we grew up in neighbouring houses but never really became friends.

  “My parents told me to keep away from you,” I say, figuring I might as well be honest. “They said you were weird”.

  “Funny,” he says, “my parents said the same thing about you”.

  “Why?” I ask, genuinely shocked.

  He shrugs. “They said you were too normal”.

  We walk a little further. “My Mom said you bite,” I say eventually.

  “Not any more,” he replies, turning back to look at me. “Well, not often. I bit of few of my psychiatrists, though, and they all stopped seeing me. Fucking idiots”. He stops suddenly. “Look!”

  I turn and see what he's looking at: there's someone else walking on this road, a few hundred metres behind us.

  “Great minds think alike,” Pierce says.

  “So do idiots,” I say.

  We wait, and eventually the other person catches up. It's a girl, about my age and carrying a large backpack. She has long ginger hair and a pale, freckly face, and she's wearing a really girly summer dress. She doesn't look particularly excited to see us, but she stops as she gets close.

  “Hi,” says Pierce. “You going to New York too?”

  She stares at us for a moment. “Yeah,” she says, with a kind of vacant tone of voice.

  Pierce steps towards her and reaches out a hand for her to shake. “Pierce,” he says.

  She seems cautious and suspicious, even when it comes to shaking Pierce's hand, which she does reluctantly. “Holly,” she says, eyeing us both.

  “We're going to New York,” Pierce says in a friendly manner. “You going the same way?”

  She stares at us for a moment. “Yeah,” she says eventually.

  “Exactly,” says Pierce, smiling at me. “See? I told you”.

  I nod unenthusiastically before introducing myself to Holly. “Emma,” I say, trying to seem friendly. Really, really trying.

  “Hi,” says Holly.

  I feel like I recognise her face from somewhere. “I think I've seen you on Facebook,” I say. “I think you might be friends with some of my friends”.

  “Maybe,” she says, clearly totally uninterested.

  “I don't know the exact route,” Pierce says as the three of us turn and start walking, “but I figure we can follow the road signs, and we can look at the stars, and we should get there without too much trouble”. He seems almost hyperactive, like he's trying to impress... someone. But who? Me? Holly? Both of us?

  “Let's just keep walking,” Holly says dourly. Wow, she makes me seem like a ray of sunshine.

  “I'm thinking it'll take two, maybe three weeks to reach New York,” Pierce says jauntily, leading the way. “By then maybe there'll be some degree of organisation. Hell, we can get in at the ground level, maybe help organise. That'd be cool, right?”

  He glances back at us, but we don't really respond.

  “Pierce is very much enjoying the whole apocalyptic tone of events,” I say.

  Holly smiles. Just a little, but enough to tell me that she's at least human.

  “I'm not enjoying it,” Pierce says. “I just figure we have to play the cards we're dealt. And this is how things are working out so far. There's no point sitting around twiddling our thumbs, let's get on with stuff”.

  Holly turns to me and, unseen by Pierce, mimes sticking her fingers down her throat and vomiting. I laugh. Surprisingly, I think I might actually end up liking Holly.

  As it starts to get dark, we realise that we need to find somewhere to sleep. We head off the highway and into the scrubland by the side of the road, at which point Pierce reveals that he has a sleeping bag in his backpack, but only a single one.

  “I guess I'd better give this up to one of you two,” he says, clearly a little reluctant but determined to do the 'right thing' as the only man in the group.

  “I'm okay on the ground,” Holly says, sitting down. “But it's gonna get cold. What do we do about heat?”

  Pierce smiles and produces a box of matches from his bag. “We build a fire,” he says. “Like they used to do in the old days, right? We'll be warm all night”.

  “If we don't burn to death,” Holly mutters.

  “It'll be okay,” I say, suddenly finding myself in the surprising position of not being the most pessimistic member of the group. “Pierce knows how to do it, right Pierce?”

  Pierce nods, though perhaps a little unconvincingly. “Survival 101”.

  As Pierce tries to look like he knows what he's doing, I glance over at Holly. There's something strange about her, but I can't quite explain it. She seems kind of... vacant, as if she's not quite with us. She often seems to be staring into space, and her answers to questions are usually just one or two words, like she's half-asleep all the time. There seems to be nothing proactive about her personality; she just reacts to things, as minimally as possible, and spends the rest of the time just kind of floating along. At first it was cute, but now it's slightly unnerving.

  “So where are you from, Holly?” Pierce asks as he digs a small hole in the ground using his hands.

  “Back there,” Holly says, staring at the ground.

  Pierce glance at me, as if to check if I've also noticed how vacant and blank Holly seems to be. I raise my eyebrows for a moment, to show him that he and I are on the same wavelength.

  “Er, okay,” says Pierce. “It's pretty fucked up what's happened, right?”

  No reply.

  “So where were you when the plane crashed?”

  Holly looks at him. “I was quite near,” she says.

  I look at Pierce. “I'm going to find some more wood,” I say, standing up and walking a little way away. I indicate for Pierce to come and join me, and he makes an excuse and heads over.

  “What's wrong with her?” I ask.

  “World collapsing. People dying. Probably made her a bit sad,” he replies.

  “It's more than that,” I say. “There's something not right about her”.

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder,” he fires back. “Maybe she saw someone die. Maybe she's never had a fucking aeroplane nearly land on her head before”. He looks over at the back of her head as she sits watching the first flickering of Pierce's attempts at a fire. “So what if she's a bit odd. Doesn't mean she can't come with us. And fuck it, you used to think I was odd”.

  “I still think you're odd,” I say. “Sorry, that didn't come out right”.

  He smiles. “If
it's any consolation, I still think you're odd too”. With that, he turns and heads back over to the fire, which is kind of getting started but is still a long way from being impressive.

  I grab a few branches and then head over, but as I walk behind Holly I spot something in her hair that grabs my attention. I stop and stare, but I can't see it now. Stepping back a pace, I see it again: something metallic, catching the light of the moon. Not sure what to make of it, I walk over to Pierce and drop the branches by the fire, then I circle around and go behind Holly again. When I'm standing in the right place, I can see the little metal thing, like a triangle, sticking out from under the hair on the back of her head.

  “What's that in your hair?” I ask.

  Pierce looks up. Holly doesn't say anything.

  “Holly,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “What's that thing in your hair?”

  There's a pause. “I don't know,” she says with the same blank, listless tone.

  Pierce gets up and slowly walks around to join me. He can tell from the look on my face that this is something serious.

  “What the fuck is that?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head.

  “Hey, Holly,” he says, “you mind if I take a look?”

  Another pause. “Sure,” she says.

  Pierce steps closer, leans in and parts her hair. “Jesus!” he says, stepping back, a shocked look on his face.

  “What?” I ask, glancing down at Holly, who doesn't seem to have reacted.

  I can see from Pierce's expression that he's just seen something that's freaked him out. “Take a look for yourself,” he says, his voice suddenly devoid of all the cocksure swagger that normally characterises his attitude to me.

  I lean in, part Holly's hair and for a moment I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at. The fact that I can only see by the light of the moon isn't helping much, but gradually I realise that there's a metal triangle, about five inches wide, sticking out from Holly's head. And as I peer closer, I realise with horror that it's embedded deep in her skull, with dried blood around the wound.