by Kyla Stone
It had been a good night—as good as could be expected, anyway. Now they were out in the wild again, trudging through the silence and the rain. They drove off several more rats, but no large packs.
He glimpsed several furtive movements out of the corner of his eye. Once he caught sight of someone in a pine-green jacket ducking behind a shattered window. There were survivors here, but they remained in the shadows, avoiding contact with others. Maybe theirs was the wisest method.
They trudged past the old CNN building, Centennial Park, a brightly-colored children’s museum. They passed what used to be the famous aquarium: the one the Earth Liberation Army had bombed three years ago. Now there was a forty-foot obsidian sculpture memorial featuring two entwined dolphins.
He’d never understood why a group so dedicated to animal rights could have murdered all those helpless sea creatures. In the manifesto repeated ad nauseam on the newsfeeds, the Earth Liberation Army claimed animals were better off dead than imprisoned. The world had been crazy for a long, long time.
After hours of walking, they took a break inside a deli called Flash Food. Micah and Gabriel cleared the place, checking for humans, animals, and bodies, and found nothing. There was a back exit to an alley down the hallway to the bathrooms, offices, and storage closet. This was as good a place to rest for lunch as any.
Gabriel stood guard by the shattered front doors while Micah and the others sat in the black chairs and unloaded the remains of their supplies from their backpacks.
On the left was a sleek gray smartwall with superimposed buttons to swipe for pizza, sandwich, pasta, fruit, or stir-fry. Once the printer robots behind the wall manufactured the meal from powdered ingredients, it would eject from one of several chutes. But without power, the wall was as silent and useless as everything else.
“We’ll have to scavenge soon,” Jericho said, chewing on a piece of faux-beef jerky. “I don’t care to expose us to more danger than we have to. The only positive about the city is the millions of kitchens and pantries full of food no one’s using anymore. There’s not enough people left alive to empty it all out. Not yet.”
“How long do you think it will take to get through the city?” Amelia asked.
“A few more days, if we’re lucky. Maybe we can find some bikes or Segways, anything faster than walking. But honestly, with getting around the cars blocking the roads and the bodies and broken glass and debris on the sidewalks, walking might be the fastest.”
“And the quietest.” Micah dug into a jar of peanut butter with a plastic spoon. “We need to get in and out before anyone even knows we’re here.”
Jericho cracked his knuckles. “He’s right.”
“So no talking?” Benjie asked.
“Only whispers, like we’ve been doing.”
They gathered their things, stood, and crowded around the entrance. “I’ll make sure it’s clear,” Gabriel said. “Then I’ll take up the rear.”
Outside, a light drizzle spat from the gunmetal sky. Several blocks away, a short, squat building was on fire, black smoke pouring into the air.
“Hey,” someone said. A voice he didn’t recognize. A stranger.
A chill zipped down his spine. Micah whipped around, along with Silas, Gabriel, and Jericho, their guns up and aimed at the threat.
Two men stumbled down the street. They wore dirty cargo pants, camouflage jackets with hoods, and masks and gloves. The first, larger man had a ragged gray beard. His arm was slung around the smaller man’s waist, propping him up. “Help us!”
Gabriel leveled his rifle. “Don’t come any closer!”
“It’s a trap,” Silas hissed.
“We don’t know that,” Micah said. The men looked unarmed. Neither held weapons or wore gun holsters that he could see.
“No closer!” Gabriel said again, flicking off the safety of his gun.
Jericho turned to Gabriel. “I thought you said it was clear!”
“It was.” Gabriel’s voice was tense, his eyes flashing. “They must have slipped through an alleyway or exited one of the buildings.”
“He’s hurt,” Gray Beard called out in a rough baritone voice.
“Get behind us,” Micah said to Amelia, Celeste, and the others. Finn pushed himself in front of Benjie. Willow joined Micah, Silas, Gabriel, and Jericho, who all stood in a line in front of the rest of the group, protecting them.
“Go back in the store, nice and slow,” Gabriel said. “Find something large and dense to hide behind, just in case.”
“Okay,” Amelia said.
Micah sensed movement behind him as Amelia and the others followed instructions. The tension in his gut eased a fraction. At least they were safe for the moment. If things went south, they could slip out the back exit and make a run for it.
“Please, we just need a little food and water,” Gray Beard repeated. He dragged his partner another step closer.
“Stop!” Gabriel shouted. “I’m warning you!”
“We will shoot,” Jericho said.
Micah lowered his gun, though he kept his finger on the trigger. “They’re hurt. We can help them.”
“They’re tricking us,” Silas spat. “Use your brain for once. Where did they come from? They just appear out of nowhere, needing our help? Needing our food and water when there’s still plenty to scavenge?”
Micah hesitated. “I don’t know, but we should ask rather than shoot them.”
Silas gestured with his gun. “I would if they’d back the hell up.”
“Don’t do anything rash, Silas,” he said.
“Tell them that,” Silas said, his voice rising.
“Stop right now!” Jericho demanded. “You could be infected! Stay at least ten feet away!”
“We’re not infected,” Gray Beard said, wiping sweat and dirt from his brow with his free hand. “I promise you that.”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t take you at your word.” Micah blinked the rain out of his eyes. His glasses were fogged and misty. He squinted at them, trying to make out the details of their faces, to read the intent behind their eyes. “Just stop for a minute. We’ll toss you some cans of food and a couple bottles of water. We’ve got some bandages, too.”
“There are bad people after us. We need shelter. We can’t stay out here.” Gray Beard kept repeating his plea. As he spoke, he kept advancing, dragging his wounded friend with him.
They were closer now, less than ten yards away. Micah rubbed his fogged glasses with the jacket sleeve of his free hand. Blood stained the wounded man’s pant leg from his thigh to his ankle.
But it could be fake. Both Harmony and Raven had warned them of the dangerous gang prowling the city. Silas could be right. They might be preying on the innate goodness of others, waiting to get close enough before they struck.
What was the right decision? What if they made the wrong choice? The consequences for getting it wrong would be devastating.
He bit the inside of his cheeks. Be brave. Be good. Always do the right thing, his mother told him before she died, Catholic prayer beads wrapped around her gaunt fingers. They couldn’t shoot unarmed men. “Put your guns down. They’ll stop if we lower our weapons.”
“Like hell, they will,” Silas said.
His stomach knotted in dread, every sense heightened. The cold rain drizzled against his face. The reek of smoke and ash and the fetid, stomach-roiling stench of death stung his nostrils. His heartbeat jack-hammered against his ribs, his breath loud in his ears.
The men staggered closer, dirt on their faces, panic in their eyes. Silas pointed his gun, his outstretched arms steady, his finger twitching on the trigger.
“They’re not stopping,” Willow said.
Gabriel punched off a few shots at the men’s feet. Chunks of concrete sprayed their legs. Gray Beard fell back, but as soon as the bullets ceased, he took another step. “Please, we can’t stay out here. I know you’re good people. I know you won’t shoot.”
Now they were five yards away, nearly
breaching the ten-foot infection safe zone. The wounded man reached for something in his pocket.
“Don’t move!” Willow cried.
Silas fingered the trigger. “To hell with this.”
Micah whirled toward Silas. “Don’t—”
But it was too late.
Silas squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession. A single bullet punched into the bigger man’s chest. The second bullet struck the smaller man in the head.
They both crumpled without a sound.
5
Amelia
Amelia huddled with the rest of the group behind the counter of the Flash Food place. Glass littered the black-and-white checkered floor. Dozens of Styrofoam coffee cups had toppled over the cash register screen.
Celeste clutched one in her hands, frantically tearing it to shreds. She stared at Amelia with huge, wild eyes. Horne crouched in the furthest corner, his hands over his ears, his head down, murmuring some useless meditation over and over. Finn hunched next to him, Benjie trembling in his arms.
Amelia hated this sense of helplessness, not knowing and not being able to do a thing to help. She couldn’t shoot a gun or throw a knife or break a man’s neck with her bare hands.
She wasn’t like Silas, who took to fighting like a dog to water. In this new, dangerous world, the social graces she’d so carefully honed were useless. As useless as her years perfecting her skills as an accomplished violinist. There were no orchestras in the apocalypse.
Two gunshots blasted in quick succession. Even with suppressors, the shots were impossibly loud in the echoing silence. She cringed. Her mouth went impossibly dry.
For a long moment, no one moved. Who’d taken the shots? Who’d been hit? Everyone she cared about was a possible target—Silas, Micah, Jericho, even Gabriel if she allowed her heart a choice in the matter.
Benjie whimpered.
“Stay here,” she whispered urgently. She refused to remain there a second longer. She needed to know.
Celeste ripped off a chunk of Styrofoam and let it drop to the floor. “You don’t know what’s out there. It’s too dangerous. Jericho said to wait—”
“It’s dangerous to wait here like sitting ducks. I’m going.”
“Be careful,” Finn said.
But she was already up and creeping around the front of the counter. She couldn’t see anything through the front windows and shattered glass door but empty sidewalks, silent cars, still buildings. No movement but the cold, gray rain.
She slipped outside. Silas stood stiffly on the sidewalk a dozen yards away, staring at the two bodies at his feet.
She raced down the sidewalk, pushing between people, counting them in her head even as she shoved them out of the way. Micah, Jericho, Willow, Gabriel. None of them hurt.
Relief flooded her. Her knees wobbled. “What happened?”
Jericho grabbed her arm to hold her back. “Silas shot two people.”
She wrenched free from his grasp. Jericho was like her mother, always trying to protect her. She didn’t need protecting from this. She might not be an expert marksman, but she was strong enough to handle death.
She went to her brother. “Silas.”
Silas didn’t move or speak. He hunched his shoulders, one hand shoved in his pocket, the other gripping his rifle with white-knuckled fingers. Rain ran down his face, matting his short brown hair to his skull.
She glanced at the bodies crumpled at their feet. They were both dead. Her stomach lurched. She took a deep, steadying breath and placed her hand on her brother’s arm. “Did they threaten you?”
“Yes,” he said in a dull voice.
“No, they didn’t.” Micah squatted beside the bodies. He lifted the men’s jackets with gloved hands and patted them down. “No guns.”
“That one was reaching for a weapon.” Silas pointed at the smaller man. “It was a trap. They were pretending they needed help to get close enough to attack.”
“He was hurt.” Micah gestured to one of the bodies. The smaller man’s hood covered the top half of his face, the lower half hidden by his face mask. Both men’s clothes were dirty, but the smaller one’s right leg was stained with blood.
“A trick,” Silas spat.
“It’s easy enough to check,” Amelia said with a calmness she didn’t feel.
Micah pulled out his knife and ripped open the man’s tan cargo pants. A long, ugly gash marred his thin, almost hairless leg from the thigh to the shin. His sock and shoe were crusted and clotted with blood. Red swirled in the rain puddling on the sidewalk.
Micah’s face blanched. “We just killed two innocent people.”
“Not us.” Willow glared at Silas. “Him.”
Silas staggered back. “They weren’t innocent. They wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t stop. We warned them.”
“He’s right about that at least,” Gabriel said. “They refused to stop. They could’ve been infected.”
“You should have waited for orders,” Jericho said.
“I did what I had to do, what none of you were willing to do! That’s what a soldier does. He protects his own.”
Jericho’s voice was hard as steel, his eyes a dark, glittering obsidian. “You’re no soldier. You’re an impudent, reckless child.”
Silas flinched like he’d been slapped. “At least I’m not a weak, indecisive pussy. You’re going soft, Jericho.” He pointed at Micah with a shaking finger. “Just like him.”
Micah’s nostrils flared. “We can’t just go around killing every person we feel threatened by!”
“Wake up, Micah!” Silas snarled. “This is a kill-or-be-killed world. That’s exactly what we need to do!”
“If one of them was hiding an M16 beneath his coat,” Gabriel said evenly, “we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Silas would be a hero.”
“I highly doubt that,” Horne said.
Silas lunged at Horne, but Gabriel and Jericho pushed him back.
Amelia kept staring at the wounded man’s leg. Something wasn’t quite right. It was too thin, too hairless. Too young.
She bent down and tugged off his mask. But for a smattering of pimples around his chin, his face was round and smooth. It wasn’t a man, but a boy, maybe thirteen.
Horror stuck in her throat like a hook. A low buzzing filled her ears. Numb tingling started in her fingers and crawled up her arms. It was just a kid. Her brother had killed a kid.
Silas swore and reared back. His mouth contorted, anguish shadowing his features. He masked it with a contemptuous grimace, but she saw it. Dismay vibrated through his entire body.
“He’s just a boy,” Micah said, shaken.
Silas recovered swiftly. “That doesn’t change anything,” he sneered. “He still could’ve killed us all.”
“He was unarmed. They both were,” Micah said.
“He knows, Micah.” She could see it in the quiver of his lips, the flare of his nostrils, the sharp panic in his eyes. He regretted his actions, but he couldn’t admit it. He’d never admit it. She felt dazed, shaken, unsure what to do. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and slap him at the same time.
Overhead, the sky darkened like a stain. The dull gray light drained all the color out of the world. Cold, dreary rain spat against her face. Her wet hair plastered against her head. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as the first beat of pain pulsed against her temple. A headache, possibly a migraine. Maybe worse.
Finn pointed at the boy’s neck. “There’s something else.”
Micah nudged the boy’s coat aside and revealed a tattoo of a flaming skull beneath his left ear. Amelia checked the older man. His neck sported the same tattoo.
“What is it?” Celeste asked.
Finn peered over Micah’s shoulder. “It’s a gang sign.”
“Are they Pyros?” Willow asked, shaken.
“Maybe.” Gabriel bent down and examined the tattoo with gloved fingers. “Probably.”
“What does that mean?” Celeste asked, her voice e
dged with rising hysteria.
Micah took off his rain-slicked glasses and wiped them on the shirt beneath his jacket. A single curl was slicked against his forehead. “We’re in even greater danger now.”
“Let’s just face the facts here.” Horne jutted his chin at Silas. “That boy is reckless and violent. He’s a stone-cold killer. He needlessly killed two innocent souls who may now bring the wrath of a ruthless gang down upon all our heads. He’s a danger to us all.”
Amelia whirled on him. “Just what are you suggesting?”
“I vote we kick him out.”
“I don’t know,” Finn said uncertainly, glancing between Willow and Silas. “That seems harsh, but he killed a kid. We can’t just act like it didn’t happen.”
“This isn’t the Boy Scouts or a book club,” Willow said. “We don’t just kick people out.”
Horne gave a scornful shrug. “Then banish him. Use whatever terminology you prefer.”
Celeste crossed her arms over her chest. “I vote for banishment.”
“Absolutely not.” Amelia fought down the anger and fear clawing her insides. They didn’t understand. They didn’t know Silas like she did. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a stone-cold killer. “I can’t believe you people.”
“Your brother’s going to get us all killed,” Horne snapped.
She whirled on him. “He protected you!”
“He’s a trigger-happy sociopath.”
She expected Silas to swear, rage, and insult everyone. Instead, he just stood there, his features etched in stone, his fists bunched—taking it.
“He’s a monster,” Horne hissed through clenched teeth, his face turning blotchy and ugly.
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But he’s my monster.”
She was scared and horrified and sickened, but she couldn’t turn on him. He was her brother, no matter what. No one else understood him. No one else knew what they’d both been through, the things they’d endured.
