Hunger (The Hunger Series Book 1)

by Jeremiah Knight

  32

  Running through the dark acted like a time machine, propelling Peter to some other place, charging down an enemy position to rescue a captured comrade. It had been equally hot then, but the kind of dry that scratches your throat with each breath. And the land beneath his booted feet had been hard-packed sand, not...this. Not crunchy plants that were impossible to run over silently. Each step brought the rubbery crunch of firm, water laden leaves. His approach would not be stealthy, even if he cut his speed in half, so he poured everything he had into speed, while listening for a direction. The thing that took Ella had slipped away into the dark without a trace.

  He tried not to think about that long-ago mission, though he could still feel its weight on him, threatening to spill over from memory to déjà vu. The conclusion of that now-ancient assault had ended with many dead enemies, but at a price. The lesson for him then was, ‘sometimes there’s nothing you can do.’

  He heard the hard chop of blades—claws—striking bark.

  It’s moving through the trees, he thought, turning his gaze upward in time to see something like a bright apparition slipping through the sky. Was it a bird? No, he decided, birds didn’t need to leap off of trees. Unless... He remembered his earlier thoughts of those massive, flightless birds that had once roamed South America. But they were fast, like killer ostriches. Something like that wouldn’t move through the trees. This was just another who-knows-what conjured by the vast trough of available DNA unlocked by ExoGen.

  A flash of white ahead made him flinch. Instinct guided his hands as he raised the shotgun, taking aim at the broad, almost luminous surface. Part of him thought, Don’t shoot! You’ll hit Ella! but the rest of him knew that if he didn’t shoot and slow this thing down, it would eventually escape. And at this range, even if a few pellets found Ella, they probably wouldn’t be fatal. He had to risk it.

  The gunshot cut through the night like some ancient cannon announcing the battle’s start. It was followed by a high-pitched shriek, the target struck. But was it stopped? Or even slowed?

  Peter kept the shotgun against his shoulder, ready to fire. His pace slowed as his ears fought to hear over the shotgun’s echo.

  A gunshot blasted to his left. Peter ducked, recognizing the sound for a breaking branch only after he hit the vegetation. The creature was getting sloppy. Injured, he decided, climbing back to his feet and stalking toward the sound of crunching soy plants.

  He slowed when a smell struck him: fetid, rotting and rank. He winced, putting his hand to his nose. The air was thick with the scent of ammonia, sauerkraut and sun-baked, bloated fish. This was the scent of a kill. The animal, upon its death, had vacated its bowels, mixing the fragrances with blood from its wounds.

  He stopped when he saw the thing ahead. It was a large mound of gnarly white fur, the size of a horse. He took a step closer, wincing once more at the smell. The too-strong smell. He’d just shot the monster, but it smelled a week old. Unless this thing had evolved to rapidly decay, which made no sense, the stench wafting up from this thing was manufactured. Like a skunk.

  Closer now, he could see the white fur was actually a mottled gray, like the thing had been rolling around in mud. Its physical appearance was nearly as horrible as its smell. And then he knew what is was—or what it had been before DNA had been flung about through nature like a genetic Pollock painting.

  It’s playing opossum.

  It is an opossum—or was, once upon a time.

  He willed his eyes to see better in the moonlight’s glow, trying to confirm that Ella wasn’t going to be hit when he put a cloud of 12 gauge into the creature’s back. It would quickly go from playing dead to being dead, but he wanted to be sure Ella wouldn’t join it, if she hadn’t already.

  Keeping the shotgun aimed at the swath of putrid fur, he slowly crept around the creature’s head, or what he thought was the head. The opossum was bent in on itself, most of its features concealed. Then the back moved.

  Peter froze.

  Was it an involuntary muscle twitch?

  Was it preparing to strike?

  He held his breath, sure that he was going to cough from the ammonia scent, triggering an attack. The back twitched again, and then again, further down. It was like something was twitching inside the thing.

  Then a pair of eyes, black orbs like twin eight balls, opened from the creature’s back.

  Holy sh—

  A second pair opened, further down, staring at him.

  Like some demon from the Biblical apocalypse, this opossum had evolved eyes all over its body. Ten sets in all, opened to stare at him, hunger in every orb. He wasn’t sure if the revelation, in combination with the death scent, was meant to confuse an enemy, or to intimidate. It was doing both, but he wasn’t another ExoGen predator. So this must have been a hunting technique, luring prey in close to...what? The body remained still.

  Then one of the sets of eyes lifted upward to reveal a head. The opossum’s face was recognizable. Its ears were tipped black, as was its long snout. But the head was the size of a German shepherd’s. The mouth opened wide, hissing and revealing two-inch canines. Normal opossums, the size of footballs, had impressive jaws and teeth. This thing was worse than any attack dog he’d seen.

  And it wasn’t part of the larger creature’s mouth, it was clinging to its back. The giant opossum was laden with ten young, each nearly as big as Peter. Knowing the ruse was up, the larger mother began to stir, shedding its young like Allied soldiers from a landing craft on the beaches of Normandy.

  Peter took a step back, unsure of what to shoot first, or whether or not he should. Ten young and an enormous mother. He’d already fired one shell and didn’t have enough to take care of the others. And that was if they lined up, nice and orderly, and let him take his time to aim and shoot. He’d have to pump each shell into the chamber before firing, and if these things came at him in any way other than one at a time, he was screwed.

  So he took another step back, hoping the distance would equal time. But he didn’t think so. While these things were identifiable as once-upon-time opossums, mostly thanks to the hair and their behavior, they were built for strength and speed, closer to that of a jaguar than their more recent genetic history.

  He shifted his aim to the mother. The smaller ones were each big enough to take him down, but they were still animals. Still young. Without the mother’s living presence, the young might become confused, or even despondent. That would give him time for...what? He still didn’t have enough shells, and there still wasn’t any sign of Ella.

  Had she been dumped in a tree? Killed and left behind? Whatever the case, he didn’t see her, not even as the big mother stood on its hind legs and opened its mouth, which looked like it belonged more on a massive Nile crocodile. It hissed, pushing its death stink over him, causing him to gag. Its arms snapped open wide, the black, hairless limbs nearly invisible in the night. The tail, also black, snaked backward slowly, sliding up a tree trunk like a constrictor in the jungle, a mind of its own.

  The mother was intimidating as hell, but a shotgun shell in the chest would change that. Peter stopped moving back and looked down the sights, placing the barrel directly on the creature’s center mass. Impossible to miss. His finger slowly hooked around the trigger while he held his breath against the rank hissing flowing over him.

  And then, with a twitch, he stopped.

  The mother’s gut moved.

  Was it another young about to detach or...

  Oh, God.

  The form inside the mother’s belly was human.

  He could see the arms and legs moving. Straining. Ella was trapped inside the mother’s belly, and if he took the shot, he’d hit her, too. But had the thing eaten her whole? Was she slowly being digested in its stomach? She’d surely be dead already if that was true.

  But the truth was even more twisted. Pursued and perhaps wounded by his first shot, the mother opossum had played dead, but not before stuffing its catch into its pouch. T
he opossum was a marsupial, and while this creature had devolved in many way, it had kept that ancient evolutionary trait shared by kangaroos and koalas. And it had adapted it for storing more than offspring. It was using the pouch to hold its prey. How many other meals had met their end in that pouch before being fed to its brood?

  “Ella!” he shouted. “If you can hear me, I’m coming for you!”

  The flailing movements inside the pouch froze for a moment and then really moved. Ella was trapped, but she was still fighting.

  Peter swung the shotgun toward the nearest opossum and pulled the trigger, erasing its head. The gore splattered into the face, and eyes, of the next creature, sending it into a mad shrieking spin, perhaps because it was disoriented, but he hoped a bone fragment had found its eye—or even better, its brain. He didn’t wait to figure out which. He turned and fired again, putting a hole through another opossum’s chest.

  Only then, after two lay dead and one spun in confused circles, did the remaining seven, and the mother, take action—they scattered.

  “Damn it!” Peter shouted.

  If they scattered, he might never catch the mother. But the monsters weren’t fleeing. They were doing what opossums did best—deceiving. All at once, like the maneuver had been rehearsed, the family of ExoGenetic marsupials altered course, coming at Peter from all sides.

  He opened fire, pumping the shotgun after each trigger pull, dropping three more of the creatures. But as each young killer opossum fell, another took its place, leaping over its fallen brethren, along the ground, or climbing up the trees. Peter pulled the trigger as an airborne opossum fell from above. Guts blasted upwards, bloody Fourth-of-July streamers arcing outward, but the creature’s momentum carried it downward, tackling Peter’s back.

  Air coughed from his lungs as the impact slammed him down on the firm bed of soy plants. Despite the dead creature laying over his torso and head, he still had a clear view of the now purple sky above, staring up through the portal of flesh carved by the shotgun. As the thing’s guts slid toward his face, the view was blocked by another of the young opossums. It looked down at him, unflinching as it lowered its snout through the remains of its brethren, teeth bared to carve off Peter’s face.

  Peter felt for the shotgun, but he’d dropped it when he’d fallen, and he couldn’t find it. Even if he could have, firing from the side would likely break his wrist. So he gave up on the shotgun and reached down for his belt, freeing the knife and swinging it up without looking. He felt a moment of resistance against the blade, and then it sank into something soft before striking something solid—meat and then bone.

  His view cleared as the young killer opossum reared back. In that moment of clarity, Peter withdrew the blade from the thing’s back and thrust again, this time putting all five inches of the blade through its temple, skewering its brain. The creature’s long tongue lolled from the side of its toothy mouth. Then the black eyes became vacant, and the whole thing fell to the side, taking the blade with it.

  Was that six down? Peter wondered, as he tried to squirm out from under the pair of dead opossums. Or was it five? He couldn’t remember, but he knew that whatever the count was, he was dead if he couldn’t get up and recover his weapons.

  And then, that rare stench flowed down over him as the night sky was blotted out by a large body. The mother opossum stood over him, her awkwardly massive jaws open in a silent hiss. Her maw looked big enough to swallow him whole, and he thought that was exactly what she intended to do, as she reached down toward his head.

  As the first trickle of drool struck Peter’s cheek, dangling from a four-inch canine just a foot from his face, the opossum was cast in bright red light. Something roared and charged, striking the mother opossum in the side, its spiky horns piercing flesh. The mother was knocked aside, replaced by the rumbling body of his rescuer, which he recognized the moment it belched exhaust over his face and pulled forward.

  Peter reached up and caught the spiked metal frame he’d welded to the bumper. Once he was pulled free of the dead, he rolled for his shotgun, snatched it up, pumped it and found a target. He pulled the trigger, knocking a young opossum back. A shriek spun him around, and he swung the weapon like a bat, catching a second youngster in the side of the head. It landed on all fours, stunned, but not dead. Peter rushed forward, put one hand on the back of the creature’s coarse hair-covered neck, and the other beneath its long snout. He pushed down hard on the neck, while shoving the snout up. The sudden movement produced a loud crack, and the thing fell limp.

  Peter spun, looking for another attack, but a sudden thunderous booming dropped him to the ground. Fire spat from the back of the truck as the machine gun unleashed its few and final rounds.

  A voice cut through the silence that followed. “Dad! Get in!”

  He turned and saw Jakob standing in the flat bed of the truck, which looked like it had seen some action during the night. It was covered in scratches, and the windshield was shattered, but maybe that had happened on the way, because if Jakob wasn’t driving... He stood up and saw Anne behind the wheel, looking back. She waved.

  Peter recovered his knife and stalked toward the mother. The creature was dead, one half of its head punched through with three clean holes, the other side missing completely. The thing’s belly writhed as Ella fought. Her hand stretched out and then, with a sick tearing, a knife burst from within the opossum and slipped down through the skin. Ella emerged, eyes wide with horror, body covered in mucus. She saw Peter, blinked and then fell, her eyes rolling back. He caught her slick body before she hit the ground, but she was out for the count. He carried her back to the truck, as Jakob opened the back door. Working together, they slid her inside.

  “Buckle her down,” Peter said to Jakob.

  The boy nodded and climbed inside.

  “I think they’re all dead,” Jakob said. “We don’t have to ru—”

  “We just made a hell of a lot of noise.” Peter knocked on the passenger side door and waved Anne over. The girl understood and scooted out from behind the wheel. “I don’t want to be around when every hungry thing within a few miles comes looking for a snack, do you?”

  Jakob climbed into the truck without another word and set to work, buckling Ella’s prone form.

  When Peter climbed behind the wheel, Anne was smiling at him.

  He paused, not comprehending what could have put a smile on the girl’s face.

  “I like your way better,” she said.

  Understanding, he grinned back. “Me too.” He shoved the gas pedal down, shredding soy plants as the tires spun and caught, propelling them back toward the road and the rising sun.

  33

  The sun rose, a beacon guiding them east. The roads were congested with vehicles, abandoned at the end of civilization. Some had been fleeing the Change, only to discover that there was nowhere to run, and then, that they didn’t want to run at all. They wanted to feast.

  Jakob looked at a pair of SUVs stopped on either side of the road, their doors still open. In the middle of the road, between the two vehicles, were a pair of skeletons dressed in tatters, still locked in mortal combat as they attempted to devour each other, neither combatant having lived long enough to evolve into super-predators.

  Jakob had seen a few people during the Change. Long black nails. Extended canines. He thought they had looked a lot like basic vampires, with appetites to match, though people weren’t only eating people back then. They were eating anything they could catch—squirrels, livestock, pets. But people weren’t the only creatures on the planet changing. Sometimes the pets ate their masters. Sometimes the herds turned on the farmer, before turning on each other.

  He’d been protected from most of it, thanks to the forewarning and the biodome supplied by Ella. His father had tried to warn people, but no one believed him. Not even their family. Why would they? Food was plentiful, and nearly free. World hunger had been cured. To see a devil in those details took a level of paranoia that modern culture
had mocked. Jakob didn’t blame them. He understood the benefits of hacking genomes, and he understood the desire to feed the world had been mostly noble with a trace of greed. GMOs could have saved the world. He knew that. It was the rush, and hubris, that had turned the tools of modern humanity bad. But wasn’t that always the way? Isn’t that what history taught, back to the very beginning? The ExoGen crops were just the latest example of ‘corrupted human ingenuity.’ His father’s words, though he didn’t think Peter had ever said them to Ella.

  She lay in a fetal position across the back seat, held in place by two seat belts, her legs across Jakob’s lap. She was still unconscious, but breathing. Anne worried her mother had fallen into a coma. Peter said she hadn’t, but Jakob recognized the false confidence in his father’s voice.

  Looking at the woman sprawled across the back seat, it was hard to imagine his father having feelings for her. She was dirty, ragged and hard. She had a scar above one lip, and another revealed by her shaved head. She was also decisive and confident. If he was honest, she was a lot like his father. His mother had been...soft. Fragile. Sensitive. She hadn’t been cut out for the hard life of a farmer, let alone for the end of civilization. And in her weakness, or perhaps just to spite Ella’s warning, she had eaten. In secret. Not a lot. Not as much as everyone else. But enough to instigate the Change. It just took longer. Had she been more like Ella...

  Jakob shook his head. Images of his mother that he’d wanted to forget were coming to the forefront of his mind, not just of his mother launching herself at him, giving in to the hunger, trying to tear out his throat, but also of the woman-thing who had straddled him in the gas station parking lot. The woman he believed was his mother, but also wasn’t. His mother was dead. What he saw had been something...stronger. Confident. And savage. Perfectly adapted to the new world. But he also knew that wasn’t possible. His mother was dead. Shot. He looked up at the back of his father’s shaved head. Wasn’t she?

  The skeletons in the road crunched beneath the truck’s tires. Jakob winced at the sound.