Eat the Ones You Love (The Thirteen Book 2)

by J. L. Murray

  Declan smoothed back his hair just as he always had when he was alive and Jenny’s heart broke.

  “Same as it ever was,” he said. “You’re not losing me that easy.”

  Jenny relaxed and nodded to Trix. “Okay then. Load up the car. Let’s go find some Dregs.”

  FOURTEEN

  The car sputtered and came to a stop just inside Boulder. Jenny looked out at the small, deserted city. Wildlife had completely taken over, with vines and small trees growing in the middle of the street, and the mountains, as ever, looming above them. She didn’t like this place. Too quiet, and too many non-human species of animals. She thought of the mountain lion, sharing its prey, and seeming to accept her as a partner in killing. Here they would be just one among many species of killers. She hated the feeling that they were the monsters now.

  But she didn’t really have much of a choice.

  She looked at Declan.

  “I thought we had forty miles left.”

  Declan tried to shrug, but his midsection shifted and he grimaced.

  “Maybe they drained the tank the same way they took the jugs of diesel,” said Trix.

  “Maybe,” said Declan. “Jen, leave me behind. I can’t walk into town.”

  “Fuck you, Munro,” Jenny said. “Wait here. We’ll find a way.”

  Declan looked down at himself. He shook his head and looked at her. “Come on. I’ve held you back long enough.”

  “Held me back from what?” Jenny said. “Just hang on. Trix, give him a knife.”

  “Fuck you, what am I going to use?”

  “Take his axe,” said Jenny. “He’s too weak to use it.”

  Declan gritted his teeth.

  “It’s not a commentary on your manhood,” Jenny said, irritated. “Just sit tight until we come back, okay? Do that for me?”

  Declan finally nodded and Jenny, Trix and Benji got out of the car. Benji had taken a page out of Declan’s book and wrapped a piece of fabric around his neck, but couldn’t do much but paste a large bandage over his cheek.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Benji said, his voice quiet, but clearly enunciated now. Jenny noticed that he didn’t like to move his jaw much. She suddenly felt guilty for complaining about her unwanted ability to regenerate. Benji was missing part of his face and neck. Forever.

  “We can’t go to Expo,” said Trix.

  “Why?” Benji said.

  “We just can’t,” said Jenny.

  “Time to find out where these fucking Colorado Dregs hang out,” said Trix.

  “How do we do that?” said Jenny.

  Trix pulled a pair of cracked and bent sunglasses out of her pocket and slipped them on. She smiled. “Just ask someone, cheerleader. You should know that by now.”

  Jenny heard a motor and for a moment her heart sped up when the dune buggy came around the corner from the direction of the city. It kicked up a cloud of dust as the driver slammed on the brakes. Trix was smiling and walked toward him. The driver got out of the car, his hair a dirty, sad mohawk, his leathers old and torn. Jenny could smell him. Not just his blood, but his rankness, as someone who had given up on keeping clean.

  “What the hell are you girls doing out here?” he said, smiling like a cat that had just found his dinner. He looked Trix up and down and licked his lips. She was still far enough away that he didn’t notice anything odd.

  “Ran out of gas,” Jenny said.

  “Can you help us out?” said Trix.

  “Maybe,” he said, looking at Benji. His eyes flicked to the car, seeing Declan inside. “Just you girls, though. I’ll give you a lift.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Trix, walking coquettishly toward him. “I think you’re going to tell us what we want to know.”

  “Listen, bitch, you don’t want to mess with me. You want a ride or not? There’s a price for everything.”

  “That’s for sure,” said Trix. “Bitch.”

  She was just inches away from him now. Too late, he reached for his knife, but Trix was already on top of him, knocking him to the ground. In a blur she had his knife in her hand and the man was gasping for breath.

  “Fucking prick,” Trix said. “That was too easy.”

  “What the fuck are you?” he said, gasping, the knife at his throat.

  Trix took her sunglasses off and he saw her dead, white eyes.

  “Hungry,” she said.

  “Holy shit, it’s true. It’s fucking true. You’re real! You bitches are really, really real!”

  “Calm down,” said Jenny walking over to him and crouching down. “You think you know who we are?”

  “The Thirteen! The fucking Thirteen! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, okay?”

  “For what?” snorted Trix. “You think you were ever a threat?” She smiled for real then and a smell of ammonia wafted up to Jenny’s nostrils. The greaser had pissed himself.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jenny said.

  “Get on with it,” Benji said. “Stop playing with him.”

  “Tell us where the Dregs are,” said Trix.

  “Why?” he said. “Why do you want them?”

  “Never fucking mind why we want them,” Benji said, louder than Jenny had heard him in the time since they’d met. He walked quickly over to man on the ground. He was hot with anger, and it was frightening. He peeled the bandage away from his face and the man on the ground gagged and tried to scream, but he was too scared. It just came out as a hiss.

  “Where the fuck are the Dregs?” Benji hissed into his face.

  “Damn,” Trix said, impressed. “I like you.”

  “In-in-in the old bank building,” said the dirty, piss-covered Heathen. “It’s not ten blocks from here. I swear! Please! You can’t kill me, it’s against the rules.”

  “What rules?” Jenny said. “We’re not in Expo. The rules don’t apply. Especially to us.”

  “You were going to rape us, asshole,” said Trix. “Don’t try to play innocent.”

  “Fuck you,” he said. “I wouldn’t touch you. You smell like a corpse.”

  “So will you,” said Trix.

  The greaser sobbed. “Why? Why are you doing this? You’re supposed to be the good guys. You’re supposed to save the world.”

  “That’s what happens when you trust the monsters,” said Jenny, turning to leave.

  “Don’t go.” He looked at Trix then back to Jenny. “Help me.”

  Jenny barely waited a heartbeat before answering.

  “No,” she said.

  She turned and started walking toward the building the man indicated. Her stomach growled as she heard the sounds of ripping and tearing.

  “Let Declan eat, too,” Jenny called over her shoulder. She forced herself not to turn back as the smell of blood filled her nose and mouth.

  She might be a monster, but Declan needed to eat more than she did.

  FIFTEEN

  Jenny knew the building when she found it. On the edge of town, it was covered in indecipherable tags in black spray paint and almost entirely grown over with vines. Dirty clothes and garbage littered the entrance. The smell was revolting.

  “Seriously?” said Casey, standing beside her once more. “You’re going to eat here?”

  “It’s not a fucking restaurant,” said Jenny.

  “Still,” he said. “This place is nasty.”

  “Gross,” said Trix, joining her. She smelled like blood and Jenny had to take a step away from her. Casey was gone. Trix eyed her.

  “Why don’t you just fucking eat?” said Trix. It wasn’t anger in her voice. It was concern.

  “I can fight it.”

  “You’re wasting away,” said Trix. “You can’t do this.”

  “Why?” said Jenny. “It won’t kill me. For long.”

  “Fuck you, Jenny.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What are you waiting for?” said Benji, catching up and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  Without looking at either of them, Jenny said, “Did you le
t Declan eat?”

  “Yeah,” said Trix softly. “Look, Jenny…”

  “I know,” she said. “He’s hurt bad.”

  “What do you have planned here?” said Trix. “I mean, I know you’re not the kind of bitch to plan things out, but fuck. He can barely walk. Are you just going to take care of him for the rest of his life? Bring him Dregs to snack on so he doesn’t get soft and rancid?”

  “If that’s what I need to do.”

  “Shit, man.”

  “Are we going in, or what?” Benji said. “I smell Living.”

  “We just ate,” said Trix. “We don’t need to be here.”

  “We need gas,” said Jenny.

  “You’re going to get it on the Black?” she said. “Jesus.”

  “We’re in no shape to fight our way out of Expo,” said Jenny. “And that’s what it would come to, you know it. Zeke is always right about this shit.”

  “We shouldn’t have let them go,” said Trix. “Those Heathens.”

  “We should have killed them?” said Jenny. “What would that make us? Besides, it wouldn’t have mattered. They’re not the reason we can’t go to Expo. It’s not for us, it’s for them. We’re not animals. Not entirely.”

  “Maybe we are,” said Trix. “I just killed some dude just because he was there and I was hungry.”

  “He was a scumbag,” said Jenny.

  “Maybe,” said Trix. “Doesn’t make me a hero. It was still murder.”

  “No such thing as murder anymore,” said Benji. “Only survival.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Jenny. “I’m tired of just surviving though.”

  “Oh, isn’t this fun enough for you?” said Trix. “What happened to all your big ideas about saving the world?”

  “Look around,” said Jenny. “There’s no world left to be saved.”

  “You smell that?” said Benji. “Rotters.”

  “You sure it’s not just you?” said Jenny.

  “He’s right,” said Trix. “I smell Living and Undead. How is that possible?”

  “Let’s find out,” said Jenny. She pulled out her knife and walked through the door.

  “About time you had no fear,” said Trix following her in. “You have nothing to be afraid of. Nothing can fucking hurt you.”

  “It’s not that I’m not afraid,” said Jenny. “I just don’t give a fuck.”

  “What about your sister?” said Benji, his monotone, quiet voice strange in the corridor they’d walked into. The smell of piss was overpowering and Jenny could see a dead man lying in one of the puddles on the floor. “If I found out I had a sister that might be alive,” said Benji, meeting her eyes, “I might just give a fuck.”

  “You know what I give a fuck about?” said Trix. “Getting the hell out of this shithole.”

  “Do you really think people trade in a place like this?” said Jenny.

  Trix shrugged and got a better grip on her axe. “Only one way to know for sure.”

  Jenny followed Trix through a dirty doorway into what must have once been a bank lobby. Jenny gagged at the smell. Trix laughed.

  “I smell blood,” said Trix.

  The room was filled with people and stained mattresses and blankets and garbage. People were lying everywhere, many comatose, others moaning. A fire on the counter was guttering out with a rancid smell. They walked through the large open room, avoiding the places where people had defecated.

  “I thought there were no more drugs,” Jenny said.

  “There will always be drugs,” said Benji.

  Someone moaned and a hand reached out, cold and clammy, and grabbed Jenny’s ankle. She kicked loose and the hand lost its grip. It was connected to a man who promptly passed out, rolling onto his back and closing his eyes. The track marks on his still-upturned arm looked infected.

  “This is what happens when you don’t give a fuck,” said Benji.

  “These aren’t people,” said Trix. “They’re just a different kind of rotter.”

  They made it across the room to an elevator, filled with a mess of bodies. Jenny knew they were dead even before she smelled their stench. A dead girl no older than 14 had her face turned toward them, eyes blank and green sludge coming out of her mouth. They passed the elevator without speaking and entered a stairwell. It was dark and Jenny had to navigate around the bodies lying on the stairs.

  “Hey, fuck you,” said a woman.

  “No, fuck you,” said Trix.

  “Fair enough,” said the junkie.

  “Fighting for survival sounding better to you now, cheerleader?”

  “Piss off,” said Jenny.

  They peered into the second floor offices, and they could hear the moans and a rhythmic banging against a wall from a couple in the throes of sex. Up here, too, bodies littered the floor. A woman sitting on the floor, smoking a cigarette, noticed them and blew smoke out her nostrils.

  “Ain’t no life here, man.”

  “We’re looking to trade,” said Jenny.

  “Sex? You pedos?”

  “Fuck you, bitch,” said Trix.

  “You want sex, top floor,” she said. “Everything else, asshole is up on the fifth. But he don’t trade with just anyone.”

  “We’re not just anyone,” said Jenny.

  “I used to think that too,” she said. She turned away from them and took another drag. “We’re already dead anyway.”

  They walked up to the fifth floor.

  They could smell the blood before they got there.

  SIXTEEN

  As they walked into the corridor, Jenny tasted copper in the air. The blood scent was so thick, even Trix didn’t smell the Living woman until she had a knife to Jenny’s throat. She yanked Jenny back with a stringy arm. She was strong.

  Trix laughed.

  “Don’t come near me or your friend is dead,” she rasped, her mouth next to Jenny’s ear. She was wet with something sticky and the knife dripped something down Jenny’s neck.

  “We just came to find some gas,” said Jenny.

  “Bitch, you picked the wrong person to threaten to kill,” said Trix.

  “Shut up,” said the woman. She pulled Jenny backwards, towards an office door. Trix and Benji looked at each other. The sun filtered into the room, a wide-open space like the lobby had been, executive offices, no doubt. Stacks of boxes piled against the wall. A table in the corner was piled with packages wrapped in yellowing newspaper. One was unwrapped and overflowed with a brown powder. In the light, the woman seemed to get a look at them for the first time.

  Trix stepped into the light and smiled with her small gray teeth. “You see us now, don’t you?”

  A man lay face down in the middle of the room, in a puddle of blood. The woman’s breath came ragged.

  “It’s you,” she said. But pulled the knife tighter on Jenny’s throat.

  “Lady, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Benji said. “You can’t kill Jenny. She’s already dead.”

  “Oh yeah?” said the woman. “I can feel her heart beating real fast.” She had a barely discernible Spanish accent and smelled like sour sweat. Like fear.

  “Oh, that’s because she’s hungry,” said Trix, unconcerned. “Who’s this asshole? Friend of yours?”

  “What?” Jenny could feel the woman’s heartbeat on her back, her hands shaking on the knife.

  “Take the knife away,” Jenny said, “or I’m going to fucking kill you.”

  “You have no power right now,” the woman hissed.

  “She has more than you can imagine,” said Benji, inspecting the powder. He dipped his finger into the brownish powder and put it to his tongue. He made a face and spat. “Ugh. What is this? It tastes like rotten shit.”

  “Is there any diesel?” Jenny asked.

  “Shut up,” the woman said, her movements frenetic.

  Jenny sighed and reached up, taking hold of the woman’s wrist. She pulled it tighter against her own throat.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”
she said.

  Jenny felt the blade pierce her skin. She kept pulling, the woman fighting her, trying to pull away. Blood dripped down her neck, her own and that of the poor dead bastard on the floor. She pulled the knife deeper. She was touching metal to her windpipe now.

  “No!” the woman grunted.

  “Stop showing off, cheerleader,” Trix said. “I don’t see any gas.”

  Jenny let go of the woman’s hand and she staggered, her back hitting the doorframe.

  “You’re them,” she gasped. “The Thirteen.”

  “Has everyone heard of us?” said Trix.

  “I just came from Expo,” she said.

  Jenny wiped her neck. The woman was older, skinny, but muscular, with cinnamon skin and deep brown eyes. Her hair was dark but going gray in streaks, and pulled back into a tight ponytail. Jenny could see the pulse jumping in her throat.

  “Are you going to kill me?” she said. She had one hand on the door handle.

  “Why’d you kill him?” said Jenny.

  Her eyes flicked to the corpse on the ground. “Because he’s filth.”

  “Did you just walk through the same shithole we did?” said Trix.

  “The addicts?” she said. “The sex fiends? The Dregs of humanity no one wants to think about?”

  “Yeah, them,” said Trix. She moved some boxes. One fell and some cans rolled out. “Fuck, nothing but food,” Trix said.

  “He took my daughter,” said the woman. She curled her lip looking at the dead man. “I was a vendor. I deal with people like him all the time. They don’t mess with me because they know me. I can take care of myself. He took my daughter. Couple of weeks ago. Sent some fat assholes and shot me up full of something. He should have killed me. Took me a while to find out where she was. They took her in Seattle and brought her here.”

  “Good riddance,” said Benji, and spat on the man.

  “You’re a vendor?” said Jenny.

  “What else would I be doing in a place like this? I trade on the Black.”

  “Why?” said Jenny. “Why not Expo?”

  The woman laughed a dry husk of a laugh, then met Jenny’s eyes.

  “You really think it’s safer at Expo?”