Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4)

by Jamie Thornton

  Alden closed the door and dragged his feet to the last door, using up a full minute to walk the ten feet. This one was the same size as the others, but there was only one individual inside it. A girl.

  He looked forward to caring for the chimps, mucking out their cages, watching them play. He felt sorry for the Faints he helped take care of—a whole wing of them strapped to beds with drip lines and beeping monitors. They reminded him of his mother and the awful things his father had done to try to save her over the years. They reminded him of Maibe and how she slowly disappeared into herself. There were at least a dozen uninfected who ran the facility. He was allowed to interact with them now that he’d been cured. But there were Vs here too and the girl in this cage was one of them. The worst one.

  He pressed his hand against the cold surface of the door and told himself to just get it over with.

  There was a giggle behind him.

  He dropped the bucket, the food spilling onto the floor. He whirled around and saw her. Kailyn—Dr. Stoven’s crazy brat.

  “What are you doing?” she said, her voice high-pitched. She was maybe ten years old. Today she’d worn a pink dress like out of a Disney movie—with ruffles at the sleeves and a thick petticoat. It matched her blonde pigtails and turned her into a grungy sort of Alice in Wonderland.

  “My job,” Alden said. “You know this is my job.”

  She rolled her eyes. “FYI, I’m pretty sure your job isn’t about just standing there and looking super dumb at the door.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You were too,” she said, her eyes wide, a vicious smile on her lips.

  After he’d woken up cured he had been harsh with her when she tried to make friends with him. She dumped all this salt into the food bucket one day, which made some of the chimps throw up. They blamed him. He yelled at her, and then they yelled at him. He learned the hard way that she liked to hold grudges and that Dr. Stoven really didn’t care as long as she kept herself out of trouble.

  There was a whimper on the other side of the door.

  Kailyn giggled again.

  He was going to teach her a lesson. She should take things seriously. This was nothing to joke about.

  “You want to feed this one?” He gathered the food back into the bucket and held it out.

  Her eyes widened behind her glasses until they became like huge, round lenses. They reminded him too much of the camera’s eye that had watched while they turned him into a Feeb.

  “I’m not supposed to,” she said.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re right. Dr. Stoven always says this stuff isn’t for little kids like you.” He waited to see if she was smart enough not to take the bait.

  She held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

  The bucket weighed barely anything because it was almost empty now. It swung at her side, hitting her leg once. Her face, her uninfected skin, had gone even paler than usual.

  He banged on the door. The V girl was aware enough to know that was the sound of food and she was only going to get the food if she put herself away. That was the problem. That’s what weirded him out so badly about her. She was more aware than other Vs. Not by much, but enough.

  He looked carefully through the grate to confirm she was in the cage. After all, he didn’t want to kill Kailyn, just scare her.

  He turned the wheel, then unlocked the door. This room was different, more like a hospital room than a chimp cage. Her bed and blanket had been torn to shreds in a fit of rage at some point. The V girl looked healthy except for the crazy light in her brown eyes. She seemed only a few years older than him. Her hair was in mattes around her face. Her fingernails were dirty. She wore a hospital gown that looked three sizes too big for her.

  “Go on,” Alden said.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. Both of them were staring at him. But her stare was different than Kailyn’s. She looked at him like he was prey.

  Kailyn stepped into the room with the bucket. Her legs shivered. He pushed her in further. She screeched and whirled around. “Don’t touch me!”

  “FYI,” he forced out, the tremble in his voice betraying his fear, “I’m pretty sure just standing there and looking dumb isn’t going to get her fed.”

  Kailyn gave him an evil look. “I’m fine. Just don’t touch me. You might still have Feeb germs lurking around you. Just because they say you’re cured doesn’t make it—”

  A hand shot between the bars of the cage and grabbed at the bucket. Kailyn was so shocked, she forgot to let go. She was slammed into the bars. The V grabbed both pigtails and held Kailyn inches away from her face.

  Alden shouted and threw himself between the two of them. The V didn’t budge. He hit at her arms and wrenched Kailyn away. He tumbled backwards, but didn’t fall because the V caught him by the shirt. He prayed for it to rip. Kailyn wailed behind him, but he couldn’t see her. The V brought him close, her breath harsh, her brown eyes huge and fixed on his face.

  “Ricker?”

  This stunned him. It wasn’t a common name. There was only one person in the world he’d ever met who had that name. She couldn’t—

  She pulled his arm through the bars and bit him deep on the flesh of his bicep. The pain seared into him like fire. Panic flooded his hearing with a roar. She still held his arm. She was going for another bite.

  Her pupils contracted.

  She let go of him and he fell hard onto the cement, bruising his tailbone. She stepped away until her back was against the stone wall of the other side, as far from the bars as she could get. She covered her bloodied face with her hands.

  Alden cradled his injured arm in his lap.

  Kailyn got down on her knees next to him and tried to peel back his sleeve.

  “Don’t!” He jerked away.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Get help, Kailyn. Hurry.”

  Chapter 10

  The healer’s house was cold. The walls were thick with the stink of incense. Freshly brewed tea steamed on the table in front of us, the tendrils floating up in lazy arcs.

  He wanted everyone to call him a memory healer. I told myself every good zombie movie had their version of a person with the answers, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  Beaded curtains, tea leaves, cotton paisley throws everywhere, a cat twining around the table legs, a dozen eclectic rings covering his fingers. I half expected a crystal ball to come out next. I decided he must have always wanted to be a witch doctor, full of potions and motions that were faker than the special effects head when Quaid’s disguise had malfunctioned in Total Recall—the original, please, not the remake. Now that the world had ended, this was his chance.

  When Dylan had come to relieve Gabbi from Ano’s bedside, I’d said goodbye to Freanz, Molly, and the twins. I collected some food and water in a backpack and now there was nothing left to do—except to leave. But Gabbi wouldn’t leave until we visited the healer. Ricker told me she’d been seeing him every time before heading out of town, like he was a sort of good luck charm.

  Gabbi had wanted us to come because I think she believed in it a little, probably more than a little. Angels and demons and Mary—Gabbi talked about it all in her fevers. She never admitted it outside the fevers, so I dared not bring it up.

  The healer used a metal circle, rusted, almost like a basketball hoop torn off its backboard, and a ruler with bells attached. He turned circles around us while chanting. His assistant, a much older Feeb who walked with a limp, waved smoking sage over our heads and sprinkled water onto our hands and faces. They both wore shades of green, because green was thought to calm the memories. Red was for Vs and a sign of violence. Blue was too calm, too close to how Faints lived. Green was for life, for growth, for energy, for control. Green was for fakes.

  I sighed and caught Ricker’s eye. He smiled. He had been upset with me about too many things, but he could never stay mad for long. His shirt hung big on him, highlighting the weight he’d lost beca
use of infection, or cold, or too little food, or all the above. He needed to eat more, rest more, laugh more.

  The chanting grew louder, to almost a shout, then a silence that was almost stunning. My ears rang.

  Gabbi remained still. Eyes closed. Face tense. She wanted peace, I knew that’s almost all she searched for—those moments when she could calm the emotions that always seemed to boil up inside. She and Kern were made for each other in that way, if only his mother, Tabitha, weren’t so terrible a person.

  The healer rang a final bell. He took up the food Gabbi had brought in trade.

  “Thank you,” Gabbi said.

  I realized it didn’t matter if I believed in anything he did. Gabbi believed it, and maybe that’s what mattered.

  We walked outside, onto the creaking wood porch, down the rotting steps lined with rickety railings and flaking paint.

  Jimmy waited, hopping from foot to foot with impatience. “Corrina’s in her garden. She wants us to meet her there.”

  Gabbi went ahead while Ricker and I grabbed our backpacks—barely halfway filled with some of the supplies Leon and the rest hadn’t taken.

  The path to Corrina’s garden was overgrown and green. She carried buckets of water for it everyday from the town’s reservoir. A waist-high gate separated the garden from the rest of town. Hedges grew along the edge, creating a semblance of a fence. I knew behind those hedges deer-fencing had been strung up, otherwise many of her plants would have been chewed down to dirt. The wooden bars of the gate were made out of stripped branches. A triangle of branches formed the center of the gate. This was not the food garden for the town but Corrina’s personal garden.

  The shadows of the surrounding forest seemed both to somehow protect this spot and yet hide monsters in its depths. The faint smell of licorice floated in the air. Gabbi and Corrina stood in the sunlight, examining a wooden frame made out of the same branches as the gate. The bars of the frame towered a good foot above their heads. Bundles of flowers and other herbs hung upside down from the branches like decorations.

  Their heads were bent, almost touching. They looked comfortable with each other, like they often worked in this garden together. Like they were friends doing something important. My heart ached. I had made myself stay away for so long. I wasn’t really part of this circle anymore, not how I was, not how I desperately longed to be again.

  Gabbi noticed the three of us first. She stood and turned away. As if thinking better of it, she stomped back, little puffs of dirt kicking up from beneath her shoes. “Just because you’ve decided to come along now doesn’t make it okay how long you stayed away.”

  “Gabbi,” Corrina said, a warning note in her voice.

  Gabbi whirled on Corrina. “Don’t even start. You’re the one who made us all keep the secret from her. You said we should leave her alone. You said to give her time.”

  “Calm down!” Ricker yelled at Gabbi. I didn’t understand that—amping her up wasn’t going to help. He moved as if to step between Gabbi and Corrina.

  Gabbi bared her teeth. I held my breath. Those few moments of peace I thought I’d witnessed between the two of them had vanished into smoke. In its place was the old Gabbi I knew, except this one was more dangerous than ever, ready to go V at any time.

  “Gabbi, we were having a moment. Go back to the moment.” The look on Corrina’s face became just a little too dreamy. She swayed, closing her eyes. The purple flowers in her hand tumbled to the dirt, releasing a lavender scent.

  I pushed Corrina and sent her sprawling. I feared it wouldn’t be enough to snap her out of the Faint episode. I didn’t dare touch Gabbi, didn’t dare look at her in case it made her erupt into violence.

  Corrina gasped and opened her eyes. Jimmy helped her up.

  Ricker was breathing hard like he’d just run a mile. He handed Gabbi her pack like nothing had happened and glanced my way. Dark circles surrounded his eyes. “She’s okay.”

  “Maibe…” Gabbi said, but she couldn’t finish.

  “I missed you too, Gabbi,” I said, even as her earlier accusation settled heavy on me. Maybe she hadn’t meant it, but I still deserved it. I’d hidden away with my Faints. I’d watched Leon and Nindal take the medicine. I hadn’t stopped any of this from happening.

  Corrina held out four pouches for us to take and suddenly I felt so angry I almost shook. She made everyone promise to keep things from me. They listened—even Gabbi, the person you could count on to tell you the truth no matter what.

  Corrina opened one of the pouches, revealing a plastic baggy full of leaves that looked like just blowing on them would make them disintegrate. “Steep in hot water for ten minutes. If it works, it might lessen your symptoms for a few hours. There are enough for three doses each.”

  “If it works?” Ricker said.

  “What is this?” Gabbi passed a pouch around to each of us.

  “Plants from my garden,” Corrina said. “Cinnamon, chile peppers, ginseng, a bunch of other plants that support brain function. I’m hopeful it could help, but there’s no way to know for sure.”

  I stuffed the pouch into my pocket. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait.” Corrina glanced at Gabbi and Ricker.

  “Come on,” Gabbi said. “That’s our sign to leave them be.”

  “Very subtle,” Ricker said.

  “I’ve been practicing,” Gabbi said.

  They wandered a few yards away with Jimmy, leaving me and Corrina alone.

  “You haven’t been yourself,” Corrina said. “Not for months.”

  “That still doesn’t mean—”

  “I was scared we were going to lose you. Every time something happened and you found out, you retreated even more.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “I’m making it all up? You weren’t hiding out with your Faints? You didn’t bother leaving that place to even ask what was really going on out here?”

  “I…” But there was nothing to finish that sentence with. She was right. I had done all those things. I had wanted to hide and never come back out. I would still be in that room if it wasn’t for Ano and Alden.

  My anger vanished. I shouldn’t be mad at her for making everyone keep things from me—I should be mad at myself for making it necessary.

  “After what happened at the camp, we feared it was too much for you.” Corrina looked anguished. “I kept hoping if we gave you enough time, just a little more time, then you’d come back to us, you’d forgive yourself—”

  “I can’t do that,” I said. “But I’m not mad at you. I promise.”

  Corrina pulled me into a hug. “This is not your fault. Blame the infection. It’s not your fault they died.”

  I relaxed into her hug, feeling the warmth and love she was offering. We’d been through so much together. I couldn’t bear to contradict her.

  Before I walked through the gate, I turned back. Corrina had returned to the drying rack and was tying another bundle of flowers to it.

  Another puzzle piece clicked into place.

  This was what Gabbi said Mary had always wanted. Gabbi, Ricker, Ano, even Jimmy, they each ranted about a place like this in their fevers. My own memories conjured them up—tying Gabbi down to a bed, Jimmy to a chair, Ricker once to a bathtub.

  The bathtub was the most vivid and it crowded out the other memories. It had happened in the early weeks of all this, right after Leaf had been killed. We’d been trapped inside a warehouse where a claw-footed tub had been dumped at some point. Ano and Gabbi dragged it into the middle of the room and tied Ricker down to it because he’d gotten bit by a V. He’d looked so small and helpless, his feverish skin a sickly contrast to the dingy white of the tub.

  “We can’t do anything until Ricker is out of the fevers.” Ano’s remembered voice echoed across the space of the garden but couldn’t penetrate the trees that darkened its edge.

  We’d piled together a bunch of broken chair legs and set them on fire for warmth. I hadn’t know them well yet—except tha
t I knew I could trust them. I’d pressed my back against the cold of the tub and waited out Ricker’s fevers. My face was the first one he saw when he came out—but before that, he talked about Mary and the garden. A garden like this, in the country, where they could all live together in peace.

  But Ano was trapped inside the fevers. The rest of us were on the verge of going V or Faint.

  I didn’t feel much peace at the moment.

  Chapter 11

  We started out on foot, not because there were no working vehicles, but because engines made noise.

  Gabbi walked in front, Ricker was at the end, Jimmy and I were in the middle. The main exit out of town was basically an obstacle course for zombies, like something out of The Walking Dead. Burned-out cars were towed into positions meant to slow down anyone trying to weave through. Furniture was turned into piles of scrap that formed little alleys. Dead ends would drop the unaware into spiked pits.

  We’d built all this those first few months before rescuing more Feebs. Layers of ash from the fires that burned unchecked during the summers coated everything. It all smelled dead and dusty and forgotten. Symmetrical cobwebs were everywhere—those weren’t the ones to worry about. The webs that crackled at the touch and looked like they had been built by a drunk spider, those were the ones to watch for. Jimmy jumped back after brushing against one, slamming into my stomach. I let out a groan.

  “Sorry,” Jimmy said. His corkscrew hair was plastered to his neck in swirls. Even I could see the fear in his eyes as his brain pictured a black widow jumping out.

  I touched his shoulder. “Memory-rush?”

  He passed a hand over his face and pushed the damp hair off his neck. “I was in this garage once when I first tried running away. It was perfect because it was full of stuff to hide in and looked like no one had been there for months. I got too close to one.” He lifted up his pant leg. There was a puckered scar on his ankle I had always thought came from a V.