Eat the Ones You Love (The Thirteen Book 2)

by J. L. Murray

  “Omaha?” asked Jenny.

  “Yeah, I made a stop there. They never should have taken those fucking kids.”

  “But the formula, they must have stored in more than one place,” said Jenny. “They wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  Faron smiled. “You don’t know Mercer. Secrecy is his thing. He’s fucking crazy. Crazier than me. He believes in one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Himself. He wants to live forever. And he’ll do anything to achieve that.”

  “Zeke’s up there,” said Jenny.

  “Yeah,” said Faron. “He’s in and out of consciousness most of the time. Mercer wakes him up every once in a while for some grand prediction. If he's as smart as I think he is, he’ll have that fat old motherfucker wrapped around his finger.”

  “He’s smart, but he's sick,” said Jenny.

  “We should leave him,” said Trix, picking her teeth with her fingernail. “We’ve got what we came for.”

  “You killed your parents,” said Faron. “They did deserve to die. But these people? They’re worse. If we don’t take them out, they’re just going to keep expanding until they’re running the show. Then they’ll be too big to kill.”

  Trix wasn't buying it.

  “Look, I get it, they're the next big fish up the food chain, but we should get out while we can.”

  “You mean while we’re still alive?” said Jenny. “Too fucking late.”

  “They have my son,” said Sarah, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

  Trix was quiet then. Jenny nodded to Sarah.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah,” Trix said. “You're right. ”

  “You’re free to go, Trix,” said Jenny.

  “No,” said Trix. “We have something to fight for. Even if it’s just one kid and one nearly dead Prophet.”

  “Glad we’re all on the same page,” said Jenny.

  “Also?” said Faron. “If we kill them all, we get to take their helicopter.”

  “So what’s the plan?” said Jenny.

  “The plan is that there is no plan,” said Faron, grinning like a skull. “Chaos of the highest order. Blood and guts and fire.”

  “Sounds like the old days,” said Jenny.

  “Don’t you miss the anarchy?” said Faron.

  “I miss a lot of things,” said Jenny.

  FORTY

  Two elevators, no stairs, no other route up from the underground lab. Just the elevators, standing side-by-side and gleaming like the pearly gates.

  “How many do you think?” said Jenny, loading up the kids, armed to the teeth. “Soldiers, I mean. How many are up there?”

  “No idea. Maybe twenty, maybe a hundred,” said Faron.

  “That’s not helpful,” Jenny said, gritting her teeth against a painful wave of hunger. Her stomach was clenching up. She needed to keep busy. She needed to let the red come as soon as possible. But if she was in the red, would she hurt Zeke? As far as she knew he was still Living.

  “Fuck,” she said. A figure was stalking around behind the new set of The Thirteen. Someone tall who smiled at her like he knew something. Declan. “Go away,” she said, closing her eyes.

  “Kill them all,” he whispered in her ear. Jenny opened her eyes. She smiled.

  “Everything okay?” said Faron.

  “Oh yeah,” said Jenny. “Everything is perfect.”

  “Is this going to work?” said one of the women who had come with Faron. One of The Thirteen. It looked like she had flames erupting from her head. Jenny remembered her from her adventure in the wheelchair.

  “Two elevators, two waves,” said Jenny. “But after the first wave, they’re going to lock down the lifts. That’s when we get them with the second wave. That would be us, hiding on top of the elevators.” They made their way through the trap doors at the top until everyone was in place. She gave two stomps on the top of the elevator, the signal for the kids to take them up.

  “Kill them all,” whispered a voice in her ear.

  “Kill them all,” said Jenny.

  Jenny crouched as the elevator stopped, muscles coiled. She realized she was excited.

  “Kill them all,” Declan said again.

  Jenny raised her hand to signal for the others to wait. One of The Thirteen was on the other elevator doing exactly the same thing.

  The elevator bell chimed and Jenny heard the soft whoosh of the doors opening. She heard the bell on the other elevator and a fainter whoosh. The children's enraged screams sent chills up Jenny’s spine. Born into an inhospitable wasteland of despair and then taken away from whatever stability they thought they had, they’d been tortured, cut, and transmogrified into zombified killing machines. The researchers had done all their work for them today, Jenny thought, shooting them all up with rotter plague all at once.

  “Zeke,” Jenny whispered, smiling.

  “What?” Faron said.

  “He made the perfect storm,” said Jenny.

  “Damn right I did,” said Zeke, suddenly at her elbow.

  “You’re not real,” said Jenny. “You’re in there.”

  “Get me out,” said Zeke. “You know you can.”

  The guns were going off now, the deafening echoes in the elevator shaft sending plaster caked in cobwebs down on their heads. The Armageddon lasted a full five minutes. Jenny was motionless as the firing stopped. She heard combat boots as the elevator shook just a little.

  “There is no love of life without despair of life,” she said.

  “Ah, Camus,” said Faron.

  “Despair, motherfuckers,” she said.

  Casey grinned at her.

  “NOW!” she screamed, leaping down, shooting before she even hit the ground. Shooting and hitting soft bodies, stepping on the temporary corpses of the children. They were going to wake up and when they did, they would defend her own dead body until she became alive again. She screamed as she ran out of the elevator, Declan and Casey and Zeke screaming with her, alongside her, giving her strength. She felt the vibrations of the others around her, their guns going off, their screams as they burst through her hallucinations. And then she saw the reality of what was in front of her.

  Dead men in black lay on the ground and more came to take their place. Scared eyes and terrified expressions. But they kept coming with wave after wave of guns. The more who lay bleeding on the ground, the more who came down the hall. And then the children stirred again and rejoined Jenny, screaming all the louder, the shouts of hate from such innocent voices unnerving, even to Jenny. She wanted to cover her ears so she didn’t have to hear them. The soldiers hesitated. Jenny saw then that they weren’t the infinite waves of a huge army. They were several dozen in a small hallway with big guns. The children kept shooting and when the men went down Jenny rushed forward, climbing up onto the mountain of the dead, nothing brighter than what she was seeing at that moment, nothing clearer than everything around her. She grabbed the first man she found and she took a bite, ripping a chunk off of his neck. And smiling through the blood and meat, she pulled out the grenade, one of three that Faron had given her.

  The shooting stopped as Jenny held up the grenade and the soldiers started to back away.

  “You should have left me alone,” said Jenny, almost laughing. She jumped into the crowd of soldiers as she pulled the pin.

  “I’m trying to help you,” said Zeke. “But it’s getting harder and harder to come back.”

  Jenny felt herself floating out in the red. It was so deep that she could barely hear his voice. There were other voices in the red, too. All the voices converging to a low roar so she couldn’t hear Zeke at all anymore. The red wasn’t letting her float anymore. It was sucking her in. She felt slimy hands grabbing at her arms and legs and pulling her under. She opened her eyes and found she couldn’t breathe.

  “You don’t need to breathe if you’re dead,” said Declan, his face looming in front of her. She tried to answer that she was dead, but there was blood in her mouth and nose and in
her eyes. She was drowning. Drowning in blood.

  Another face loomed.

  “We’re going to save the world,” said her mother.

  “Yes,” said her father. “Have you saved the world yet, Dove? It was the only thing expected of you.”

  Jenny shook her head and tried to scream, but now it felt like her mouth was filled with sand. A hand grasped her arm then, a hand that wasn’t slimy or trying to hurt her and she felt herself being lifted up, out of the red. Out of the blood. And then she was standing atop a pile of bodies. Zeke looked down at her.

  “You can’t save me,” he said, his quiet voice even quieter now. As though his illness had robbed him of all strength even in this make-believe dead-world.

  “This is my death-dream,” said Jenny.

  “And I’m the Prophet,” said Zeke. “I’m telling you, you can’t save me.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Jenny. “You told me once that you saw yourself coming out of all this alive. You saw a vision of yourself.”

  “I lied,” said Zeke. “I’ve never been able to see my own fate.”

  “No,” said Jenny. “I can save you. I can do this.”

  “It won’t bring him back,” said Zeke.

  Jenny looked down at the sea of blood, just on the edge of the mountain of bodies. The blood rushed up and brushed their toes in tiny waves, like the ocean. Jenny watched as the red turned to scarlet, which turned to black and back to red again.

  “I’m so tired,” said Jenny. “I don’t sleep. I haven’t slept a full night since that day.”

  “The day in the train car,” said Zeke.

  “He tried to tell me not to go, but I wouldn’t listen,” said Jenny. “He told me to run, but I thought I was strong.”

  “You were. You are.”

  “Not strong enough.”

  “No one’s strong enough,” said Zeke.

  “I thought I would find the cure,” said Jenny. “I thought I would save the world.”

  “It’s okay to be disappointed,” said Zeke.

  “But I’m not,” said Jenny. “I’m relieved. Because if it was me, I’m afraid that I’d do what Mercer did.”

  “Lock it away?”

  “Burn it,” said Jenny. “There is no humanity anymore. The Humans are all killing each other anyway. Let the mountain lions sort them out.”

  “You wouldn’t give up on us, though,” said Zeke. “You died to try to get to me. And I’m basically gone.”

  “I can’t die,” said Jenny.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Zeke. “I’m satisfied.”

  “Why can’t I let them go?” said Jenny. “Why do I keep trying? Even when I’m at my most monstrous, I just keep trying.”

  “Because it’s who you are,” said Zeke.

  Jenny looked at her hands, covered in blood.

  “Jenny,” said a voice, and it wasn’t Zeke. She looked up.

  “No,” she said. “You can’t be here.”

  Trix smiled. “I just wanted to say goodbye. I never loved a cheerleader like I love you. I wanted you to know.”

  “Trix, no. Don’t do this. You can’t.”

  “Come on, bitch. You’re tougher than that. I know you are.” But the smile faltered and a ruby red tear fell from Trix’s eye down her cheek.

  “Dead girls don’t cry,” said Jenny.

  “We’re not girls, Jenny.”

  “Then what are we?”

  “I’m not anything. Not anymore. And you don’t get to blame yourself. We were in it because we wanted to be. Not for you, not for anyone but ourselves.”

  “You can’t leave me,” Jenny said, suddenly desperate. “You can’t leave me, Trix.”

  “Yes, I can,” she said sadly. “And you have to wake up.”

  “I don’t want to. I want to stay here.” Jenny’s voice was becoming fainter, without substance. “I want to sleep.”

  “No sleep for the wicked,” said Trix. “Besides, you don’t get to choose. Save the boy and save Zeke.”

  “Don’t save me,” said Zeke, suddenly appearing on her other side.

  “Fuck you, she’s saving you,” said Trix.

  “Please, I just want to stay.”

  “You can’t,” said Trix, sorrow in her voice.

  “Why?” said Jenny.

  “Because your heart is beating.”

  Jenny gasped for air and tried to sit up, but there was something on her chest.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” said a familiar voice. He grunted and the weight was pulled away from her. Jenny tried to get up, but fell back again. Her mouth felt as if filled with ash. She spat out black dust. There was a searing pain in her shoulder, under her ribs on her right side and she looked down. All of her skin there had been burned away, leaving charred muscle. On her upper arm, even the muscle had been burned down to the blackened bone. Jenny gasped and felt the pain then. It was better than sadness. She made herself feel it, moved her shoulder around to grasp the intensity of it.

  “Stop it,” said Faron. “I need you to focus.”

  “Why?” said Jenny. “Where’s Trix?”

  “The Asian girl?” said Faron. “Fuck if I know. Are you listening?”

  Jenny was up looking over the bodies. Nearly all of them were guards, but Jenny recognized some of their own. Faron’s girl with the flaming hair had half her head blown off. Jenny looked up at what used to be skylights but had now been darkened by vines and slime and mold.

  “She’s gone,” said Jenny.

  “I see that now,” said Faron.

  Jenny turned to see him looking at a face staring straight up at the darkened skylight. Trix’s fine features recognizable instantly, her hair spiked as it always was. Her eyes had been clear when she died. Jenny walked over and crouched down. She touched the perfect bullet hole in her friend’s forehead and her finger came away black and wet. Jenny sat down hard. She felt her heart hammering as she took a deep breath.

  “You were right, Trix,” she said. “My heart is beating.”

  Trix didn’t move. She didn’t snort derisively or glare or call Jenny a cheerleader. She didn’t do anything.

  “She’s dead.”

  “She was always dead,” said Faron.

  “Fuck off,” said Jenny. She pulled Trix toward her and cradled her head. She remembered cradling Declan’s head just like this.

  “Can you make me dead again?” said Jenny softly.

  “What?”

  “Can you make me a rotter? Can you make me walking around dead?”

  “It’s not going to help, Jen,” said Faron. “You have to let her go.”

  “Please make me dead,” said Jenny. “I can do this if I’m dead. I can save them all if I can’t feel anything.”

  “You’d still feel it,” said Faron.

  “Not like this,” said Jenny. “Not like this.” She touched Trix’s cold cheek, her cold lips. “My brother loved her, you know. I loved her too, but he really loved her. She was…”

  Faron put a warm hand on her back, where she wasn’t burned. She closed her eyes and felt the physical pain as her body repaired itself.

  “I loved him,” said Faron. “Abel.”

  Jenny turned to look at him. “You did?”

  “Does that shock you?” Faron was uncharacteristically morose. So serious that Jenny finally saw him. Not the crazy eyes or the Joker grin. But the real Faron. The Faron betrayed by his own sister. The Faron who had risked everything to steal a cure. Maybe it was only because he liked to eat bad people, but Jenny looked into his eyes now, as he talked about Abel, and she saw that he also did it just because he could. Because no one else would.

  “I didn’t know,” said Jenny. “He said he used to have someone.”

  “I went away for a long time,” said Faron. “I wasn’t myself. I worked for the Group. It lost me the love of my life. But I never stopped loving him.”

  “We never can, can we?” said Jenny.

  “No,” he said.

&nb
sp; “He died because of me,” said Jenny.

  “No,” said Faron. “He died for you. There’s a difference.”

  “What’s happening right now, Faron?” said Jenny. “Why aren’t they coming?”

  “Because they’re all dead,” said Faron.

  “Oh.”

  Faron carefully slid Trix’s body off Jenny’s lap and pulled her to her feet. Jenny stared at Trix’s face as they walked away. And if Jenny concentrated on her shoulder, she could just barely keep from crying.

  “Where’s my sister?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I died for a minute.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

  “The kids went to chase down the stragglers. Mercer is here somewhere. I can feel it.”

  “Do you dream?”

  “When I die? Yeah.”

  “Do you think they’re true? Is it real?”

  Faron didn’t answer for a long time as they picked their way across the lobby. Finally he answered in a small voice.

  “I hope so. They forgive me in my dreams.”

  FORTY-ONE

  As they walked through a hallway ringing the outside of the Pentagon, a movement caught Jenny's eye and she saw Declan put a finger to his lips and hurry down the corridor just ahead of them. Jenny quickened her pace and followed him. Faron looked at her questioningly, but kept up. Declan went down one hall and up another, the coils of the building wrapping around like a nest of snakes. He stopped at a door and smiled before vanishing. Jenny arrived at the door and turned the knob, letting it swing open.

  She stepped into a large executive office. With the top story window view, it must have been a high-ranking official. The plush carpet now full of mold and insects was once beautiful, the wood desk piled with various containers full of cigarette butts was abused mahogany. And the window was recently wiped clean.

  The air smelled of stale cigarettes and Jenny found an abandoned pack lying on the desk. She offered one to Faron.

  “No way. Clean living.”