by Darcy Coates
Clare did the only thing she could think of. She pressed the horn, leaning on it. The noise blared across the foggy shipping yard.
Pain spiked across her head. Marc’s fingers caught a fistful of her hair, dragging her out of her seat. She gasped as she hit the bus floor. Her legs scrambled for purchase as she tried to right herself. A fist hit her stomach, starving her of air and making her curl over.
Marc didn’t stop. He dragged her by her hair to the door and hauled her out. Her thighs hit the steps, then he threw her onto the concrete.
Clare rolled over. She couldn’t breathe, could barely think, but she knew she couldn’t let him get back onto the bus. She threw out a hand and snagged Marc’s pantleg, pulling him back. He stumbled then kicked her, leaving a vicious red boot imprint on her forearm. Then he leapt up the step. The door slammed. A second later, the engine roared.
Clare struggled to breathe. Footsteps pounded in the distance. The bus reversed, pulling away to clear the gate. The tyres ground close to Clare, and she scrambled back to avoid them. Hex’s voice called, unintelligible. They were still too far away.
Marc had heard them, though. Clare could see his pale face leaned over the dashboard, peering through the windshield. Perspiration sparkled in his frosty hair. His teeth ground as he glanced from the truck to the road ahead. He didn’t have enough time to exit the bus and climb back into the truck. But the road ahead was clear. He could take the bus and escape with his life.
The engine roared, and the wheels screeched as he turned towards freedom. Then the bus jolted and ground to a halt. Clare staggered to her feet, and through the window, she saw Alden grappling with Marc. He’d engaged the stop brake. One arm was looped around Marc’s throat, trying to drag him out of the driver’s seat. But Alden was drugged, injured, and tired. Marc’s fist connected with his stomach and ribs again and again, until Alden crumpled to the floor.
“What in the hell?” Hex called, no longer trying to keep it to a stage whisper.
A crack pierced the cold air. Clare flinched. The engine’s revs fell to silent. A hole had appeared in the windshield, tiny spiderweb cracks spiralling out from it. Marc sat stiffly in the driver’s seat, eyes wide as they stared in shock at the wheel. The driver’s-side window had been painted red, and a thin line of blood ran down from a tiny, discreet hole in his temple.
Hex stumbled to a halt beside Clare, panting. She repeated her question, this time in tones of stunned resignation. “Oh, what in the hell.”
Chapter Twenty
Clare lay on one of the bus seats with a jacket draped over her body, her head in Dorran’s lap. He stroked her hair tenderly, seemingly unbothered by the grime. His other hand rested on her shoulder, just firmly enough that Clare knew he still hadn’t fully relaxed. She’d been offered painkillers. She’d refused them; she still didn’t feel safe enough to fall into a daze.
They were waiting for the last few barrels of fuel to be loaded in the truck. Dorran hadn’t volunteered to help, and no one had asked him to. They understood that he needed to be close to Clare.
Alden had been laid in the aisle, with a blanket draped over him as he breathed in raspy gulps of air. To Clare’s right, Charlene, one of the snipers, had curled herself towards the window, facing away from the rest of them. Her counterpart, Bill, sat with one hand simply resting on her shoulder. She’d seemed to be in shock at first, repeating the same phrase: “I shot him. I shot him.” After a pause, she’d said again, unbelieving, “I didn’t know what else to do. I shot him.”
Now, she faced away from them as she cried. Clare wondered if Marc was the first human she had killed. She’d felt the same effect in Mother Gum’s slaughter shed, when she’d sunk her blade into one of the youths’ thighs. Real blood running, real muscle tearing, a human’s screams. It was so different to fighting hollows. A new level of barbaric.
Hex had told Charlene that she did the right thing. She had saved Alden and the other injured in the back of the bus. Charlene had simply shaken her head, repeating with dull grief, “I shot him.”
The movers had been told to wait in the bus while the remaining guards loaded the barrels. Cushions, jackets, and spare blankets had been brought in to make them comfortable. The driver’s-side window and dashboard had been wiped off with a scarf, though the smell still lingered. Clare did not envy the bus’s driver, tasked with sitting in a seat still warm from a dead man.
Marc’s body had been wrapped in a blanket and moved into the back of the truck, where he was tucked between the barrels of fuel he’d lost his life for. Hex had insisted on bringing his body back. “We bury people,” she’d said. “We don’t leave them to get eaten by hollows—it doesn’t matter what they did in life. Some day in the future, a mother or a nephew or a grandchild might want to visit his grave. So we bury him.”
They couldn’t do the same for the three other souls who had been lost during the swarm. During the last trip to retrieve fuel, Hex had looked for any remaining traces of them, but there was no life in amongst the piles of dead creatures. The hollows were beginning to creep back in, emboldened by the noise.
There were injuries—almost none of the guards had gotten away without tears in their armour, and many of the movers were scraped, bitten, and bruised. But the circular defensive formation had worked. Even when it broke, when the many-legged creature had torn one side out, it had done enough to hold them together until they could regroup.
And in return, they had the fuel—a lot of it. The barrels made thumping noises as they were piled into the truck. The shutter rattled as it was closed, and Clare raised her head to watch the remaining men and women climb onto the bus.
Hex boarded last, shutting the door behind her. Instead of walking around Alden, like the others had, she sat beside his head and tossed the hatchet aside. She settled, cross-legged, then gazed across the rows of volunteers. “I’m proud of you all.”
Her voice was weary, and her face was still streaked with drying blood. Very little light made its way through the cloud cover, but Clare could still see the dragging tiredness on all of their expressions.
“That was a tough raid,” Hex continued. “Maybe the worst I’ve seen so far. But we got through it. I know everyone back at West Hope will want to thank you, but I’m going to extend my own thanks now. You guys did great. All of you.”
Murmured words echoed back through the bus. Clare smiled. Dorran’s fingers felt nice on her sore scalp. She didn’t need to be fussed over, but he refused to let her up, and Clare wasn’t going to argue. She felt safe there, close to Dorran, her tension being brushed away with careful, steady caresses, her bruises and cuts temporarily forgotten.
“Let’s go home, yeah?” Hex nodded to the driver. The engine came to life, and the headlights washed over the foggy shipping yard. Hex looked down at Alden, then gave his shiny forehead a pat. “You nearly got yourself killed back there, idiot.”
He managed a broken chuckle. “No… you… you’re the idiot. Ugh. I can do better than that.”
“Yeah, not really at the peak of your game, are you? I’ll give you a deferment. You can insult me properly when we’re back home.”
Brakes screamed. The bus, barely outside the shipping yard’s gate, shuddered to a halt, and Hex’s head snapped up. “Talk to me.”
“It’s back.” The driver’s face had turned pale. His eyes, wide and glazed, stared into the distance. Clare pulled herself up to get a clearer view of the windshield, and her heart missed a beat.
Enormous, towering legs drifted through the mist. The creature, its body suspended so high that it vanished into the gloom, travelled towards them with ponderous intensity, each step moving it closer, faster than they could drive, faster than they could outrun.
“Lights!” Hex hissed. The driver turned off the engine, and the bus’s insides descended into shadows. Clare’s shoulder ached as Dorran’s hand held her there. She could scarcely breathe. Every face inside the bus was turned towards the monster. Taller than the cran
es in the shipping yard, it paced closer, bearing down on them.
We can’t run. We can’t stay here. A drop of gritty sweat ran into Clare’s eyes, but she didn’t dare blink. Hex remained crouched on the bus floor, her tense expression only just visible in the gloom, one hand poised in the air as a signal for silence. She was hoping they could go unnoticed if they held still. Clare wished she could believe that would work. The monster was upon them.
One of its immense legs stabbed into the concrete less than ten meters ahead of them. Cracks ran through the ground as the sharpened tip pierced it. The leg travelled up, disappearing into the fog and the gloom. Another limb drifted forward, swooping towards them, its tip just barely travelling over the bus’s roof. Clare turned. Through the back window, she saw the limb stab down behind them, just inside the shipping yard’s bounds.
The monster’s body had to be suspended directly above them. Not a soul in the bus moved. Dorran’s hold on Clare was tighter, crushing.
The leg ahead of them quivered then rose, skimming over the bus’s top, inches away from clipping them. The monster was continuing on, pacing into the shipping yard.
Why? It must have seen us. It could have easily broken into the bus. Why did it spare us?
An awful noise rose from the fog behind them—crunching, chewing noises. The sounds were muffled but unmistakable. Clare closed her eyes.
That’s why. We’re nothing compared to the feast we created. The piles of dead hollows, stacked high and drenched in blood, were almost like an offering to the towering monster.
Clare could barely make out shapes through the briny fog. Long, pole-like limbs were spread wide as the malformed, many-mouthed body dipped down to eat.
“Go,” Hex whispered. “No lights. Keep the engine quiet. But go.”
The bus’s engine purred to life. The distant creature’s body rose into the air, and Clare thought she saw shapes drop from its mouths—arms and legs, tumbling back to the concrete below. It stared at them for a beat, then the head descended again, intent on the easier meal.
They crept forward, slowly at first, navigating with painstaking care through the gloom. As they gained distance from the shipping yard, the bus gradually picked up speed, until they were back on the winding rural roads and Hex deemed it safe enough to turn the headlights back on.
Chapter Twenty-One
Clare was half asleep by the time they arrived back at West Hope. Her first clue that they were back at base was that the horizon grew lighter, even though they were slipping into night.
Bodies hit the bus’s sides. Hungry, desperate creatures frustrated into a futile attempt to reach food. It was over within a moment. The lights surrounded them, and the bus began creeping over speed bumps as they approached the safe haven’s entry.
“There’ll be hot showers tonight,” Hex said. “You deserve them. But the regular cold ones are available for anyone who can’t wait for the water to boil. If you’re hurt, join us in the meeting room to get patched up. Then get some rest. I’ll recruit some fresh blood to unload the fuel.”
Clare was one of the bodies who couldn’t wait for the warm water. She showered in the cold downpour, scrubbing and scrubbing to cleanse herself. Dorran had her sit in the centre court, near one of the foot heaters that had been set up, while he brushed the tangles out of her hair. He took painstaking care not to pull, but her scalp still ached from where Marc had dragged her out of the bus.
Night had fallen by the time they were both washed, dressed in clean clothes, and full of that night’s stew. They returned to the meeting room. This time, only John and Patty were present. As John indicated for them to take a seat, he explained that Alden was in the medical bay, sleeping off the medication, and Hex was trying to tie off the last details of the raid before she let herself rest.
“You did good out there,” John said, leaning back in his chair with a weary sigh. Patty hovered around them, bringing Clare and Dorran mugs of coffee and patting John’s shoulder each time she went by. Clare knew how she must feel. It couldn’t have been easy to spend a day wondering if her husband was coming home.
“Yesterday you wondered why Hex was on the council.” John paused to sip his coffee. “I bet you have a pretty solid idea why now. We found Hex during an early raid for supplies. She was trapped inside the store she had once worked at. She’d defended it. Spikes in the windows, barricades over the doors. She’d made Molotov cocktails and attached broken bottles to broom handles to make spears. And when the hollows began to come through the roof, she had fought them off, nearly constantly, for two days straight. Backed into a corner and with no way out, the streets around her teeming with the creatures, she had stood her ground and just kept striking them down whenever they got close. I have never seen such grit before. And I figured if someone can survive that, they must be able to survive almost anything.”
“She helped fortify West Hope,” Patty added. “She found all of the nooks and ventilation systems that the hollows might be able to get in through. Plus, the raids she runs have the highest survival rates out of any of the nearby safe havens.”
“I talked to Hex, and she agreed,” John continued. “We’re giving you both an equal payment to what the other volunteers receive. Higher rates for guards, since they shoulder most of the risks. You’ll get it in credits, which is what we’re using now that money is worthless. You can spend that however you want. We have official guidelines for what everything costs according to supply and demand. I know you’re keen to get some fuel, but we can sell you other things, including weapons, batteries, spare parts for your vehicle, or an extra night of accommodation if you want to wait until morning to leave.”
Dorran glanced at Clare. “How much is the extra night?”
“It’s two credits each, and includes food and showers. Here.” John pushed a sheet towards them. On it, a list of items had been painstakingly printed, with the according prices often scribbled out and re-written multiple times. “Between the two of you, you have eighty-five credits.”
Clare and Dorran sat with shoulders bumping as they pored over the list and attempted to divide their credits carefully. It wasn’t a simple task; the family at Mother Gum’s Nest had taken most of their necessities.
“We’re only a day from home, so we won’t need a huge amount of fuel or clothing,” Dorran said. “We should stock up on food, though. We’ll have at least three weeks before anything in the garden will be ready for harvesting.”
“We could scavenge for food on the road,” Clare noted.
“True, but it would be safer to buy it here.”
“Mm. But at least we have practice getting food out of houses. Finding fuel will be much harder; any obvious sources will have already been raided. Plus, we need fuel to keep the garden’s lights running. We can’t do without it.”
Dorran chewed that over. “True. We’ll focus on fuel, then.”
The liquid was expensive. Purchasing enough to fuel the minibus and keep their garden’s lights running used up nearly all of their credits. They spent the rest on long-life food, with a focus on items they couldn’t grow themselves, like meats and grains.
John was patient as they reworked and reworked their budget, and when they were done, he double-checked their numbers and shook their hands. “I’ll have someone help load your vehicle.”
Clare stretched, yawning, as she tried to work some stiffness out of the muscles in her back.
“You look tired,” Dorran murmured.
“Honestly, I think I’m just lazy. I’ve had more sleep than you, so I’ll take the first shift driving tonight.”
“Or…” He looked back at their list of purchases, thoughtful. “Let’s stay here for the night. It’s only four credits.”
The idea was dearly tempting. Clare bit her lip. “I feel like those four credits are better spent on other things.”
“If breakfast is included, we’re scarcely worse off.” Dorran smiled at her, warm and gentle. “We have already taken too many r
isks in the last few days. It would be nice to begin the last stretch of our journey in the morning, when it’s safest.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Clare grinned. “And it beats loading the bus in the middle of the night.”
Clare slept more heavily than she had in a long while. No dreams troubled her. She and Dorran were surprisingly comfortable in the storeroom bed, an excess of loaned blankets keeping them warm, and when Clare finally stirred, she knew she’d overslept. Dorran was already awake, lying at her side, watching her sleepily. Clare rolled over to face him. “Hey.”
“Hmm.” His fingertips traced across her arm.
“Have you been up for long?”
“Not long.”
Clare narrowed her eyes at him. She was starting to get good at telling when he was lying. Dorran grinned in return, and within a moment, they were both chuckling. Clare wasn’t even sure why. It was like some euphoria had been released after the tension from the previous day, and once she started laughing, she couldn’t stop.
Finally collecting herself, she asked, “What time is it?”
“If I trust the clock on that wall, eleven.”
“Eleven?” She sat up and brushed her fingers through her hair to get it back in some kind of order. “I’ve gone and wasted half the day.”
“You needed to rest. If it makes you feel any better, West Hope runs on a flexible time schedule. Some people would consider this very early morning.”
Clare snorted. Dorran still lay in bed, one arm behind his head, his beautiful eyes full of contentment and his smile freely shared. Clare thought she could spend the rest of the day there, just soaking in his happiness and enjoying his company. But the road wouldn’t get any shorter. She patted his chest and rolled out of bed. “We’d better get some breakfast before we leave. And…”
“Hmm?” Dorran caught her hesitation.
Clare cleared her throat. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking. We’re expecting the Evandale team will activate the code and end the stillness. But we don’t know when that will happen or if the code will even work. The fuel we got yesterday will keep West Hope’s lights on for a few more weeks, but then they’ll need to look for more. And it’s getting harder to find. And eventually, there won’t be enough, and the lights will have to be shut off. West Hope will be forced to find a new location.”