Blood Thirst

by Lena Hillbrand

  “All right,” the blond man said. “This here’s how it goes. I didn’t know I’d be having so many of you, but I reckon we’ll make it work. I need the four of you to stay put while I go get the last one. Then I’ll be back, and we’ll get on outta here. We meet our connection in a few hours. If we all make it that far, we’ll probably make it to freedom. We stick together, unless someone gets caught, and then it’s each man for himself. So run like hell, is all I got to say. Now, this here man’ll take care of you.”

  The blond man left, and the one behind the counter said, “You all go downstairs and wait.”

  He left his counter to open a door, and they all went down into a dank basement. Cali noticed Martin limping more on the stairs, and she hoped he’d make it to wherever they were going. She felt bad for having injured him, but she didn’t know what to say. It hadn’t been on purpose, and she certainly hadn’t chosen to jump.

  One bare bulb lit the basement room. All over the walls, hundreds of tiny pictures of babies and kids clustered to form a sort of mosaic. Cali looked at it for lack of anything else to do. Terry sat nursing the baby, and Martin rubbed at his knee, grimacing the whole time. After what seemed like three hours or so, Terry said, “Why don’t you go up and see if that man’s got any medicine. This is a sapien supply store. I’m sure they got painkillers.”

  “I don’t need anything,” Martin said. “It’ll work itself out.”

  “Martin, we’ll be walking for hours,” Terry said. “I don’t think this man will slow the pace much for you. You gotta make it.”

  “Might hurt it worse to use it too much, if I can’t feel the pain.”

  “You wanna go back? That’s your only choice. You can walk in pain or walk without.”

  “Fine, I’ll go. Stubborn woman,” Martin muttered as he hobbled up the steps. He knocked on the inside of the door, and a minute later he went into the store and the door closed behind him. Cali had looked at all the babies on one wall and moved to the next. Some of the kids were older, and she noticed a picture of a group of kids holding books. She stared at it. She’d only held a book once in her whole life, at the apartment where she’d stayed with the Man with Soft Hair.

  She had almost finished looking at the second wall when the blond man came downstairs, followed by a skinny girl with long brown hair. Cali smiled at her, but the girl looked away and hunched her shoulders.

  “All right, let’s go,” the man said, glancing around. He looked scared, too. “Here’s a bottle of water for each of y’all. That’s all you’ll be carrying, except you with the baby, so it will be easier to run. It’s a hot day out, and we got a long walk, so let’s get to walking before it gets any hotter.”

  He turned and started up the stairs.

  “What about Martin?” Terry asked.

  The man stopped but didn’t turn. “We lost him.”

  “What do you mean, we lost him? Where is he?” Terry asked, her voice high.

  “He got caught. One of them bloodsuckers came in here late and caught him without a note from his ‘master.’ Now let’s go.”

  “I can’t go without him,” Terry said, but she started up the stairs. “He’s my husband. I need him. I have to go back.”

  “You can’t go back. Too much risk. We’ll get y’all settled and make sure your baby’s safe. We’ll get him next time.”

  Terry’s crying made a sad and lonely feeling descend on the procession, and Cali’s former excitement turned gloomy. The sun shone brightly on their party as they made their way through the deserted streets, past a few scattered buildings, and out onto an open road.

  “I’m sorry, Terry,” Cali whispered, trying to put her arm on the woman. Terry shrugged her off and glared, and Cali knew the woman blamed her more than she blamed herself. Martin wouldn’t have gone into the store if Cali hadn’t landed on him wrong. Then again, any of them could have gotten stuck as the last unlucky one that had to jump.

  Cali wouldn’t beg forgiveness for something that she couldn’t fix, so she went up to the front of the group and walked next to the blond man. “Where we going?” she asked.

  “Can’t tell you just yet.”

  “Well, once we’re at our stopping point, we can split off, right?”

  “Can you live out here yourself?”

  Cali looked around at the strange plants she had only seen from far away. Green exploded all around them, hanging towards the road from tall rough stems, every hue and shade of green imaginable, and some beyond imagining.

  “I don’t know,” Cali said. “What are these things?”

  “What things?”

  “Those.”

  “Those trees? What, you never seen a tree before?”

  “Well, from far away.”

  He scoffed. “And you wanna go live on your own?”

  “I don’t know. Where do you live?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Well, what’s your name then?”

  “No names ‘til we get to safety. And if you know someone else’s name here, you better forget it quick. Not safe.”

  Despite the man’s resistance to answering questions, Cali liked him. She didn’t think it seemed too dangerous out here, either. Trees surrounded them in every direction for what looked like forever, until they came out and saw down the mountain to the city below, glittering silver in the sunlight.

  “That there was your home,” the man said. “Say goodbye, ‘cause you’re never gonna see it again. And that’s a good thing if I ever heard one. This here is close to freedom. Couple more hours walking and we’ll get some rest. Now, you with the baby. Let me carry him for you. We’re gonna cut through this mountain pass instead of going around by the road. It’s hard walking but worth it to save another hour.”

  They began scrambling their way up the steep mountain, pulling on trees and any plants they could grab on their way to keep from slipping back on the glittering grey scree. Cali radiated heat inside her wool suit, and soon sweat soaked through the fabric, which prickled her skin. She scratched and rubbed at the places where the rough fabric irritated her skin, but she didn’t complain. No one said anything. Talking wasted breath.

  They slid and scrambled down the other side of the mountain, and after a while, they found the crumbling road again. They stopped and drank from their water bottles, and the blonde man returned the crying baby to Terry. Cali’s feet hurt so bad she wanted to cry, too. Her thin shoes were no match for the rough rocks underfoot, and the soles of her feet felt like someone had pounded them with hammers. Her toenails were screaming inside her shoes, and her entire feet radiated heat and pain.

  “Now, this here is a resting spot if any of y’all need to take a leak. You aren’t gonna take one from here on out, so I suggest you do it.”

  “What if we need to go later?” Cali asked.

  “Then you best learn to hold it. The bloodsuckers’ll be tracking us, you bet your pretty little ass. They can smell your piss and find you. So go on and go. Unless you can’t go in the woods, princess.”

  Cali stomped off into the woods and pulled down the top of her jumpsuit. It was the dumbest garment ever invented, and obviously made by Superiors, who didn’t use the bathroom. She had to take her arms out of the sleeves and peel the whole garment down around her knees to squat. Her body had gotten so hot she thought it would steam when she took the thing off. Her skin had grown red from heat and irritation, and she wished she could just roll her jumpsuit down around her waist like Shelly did at home. She knew some women didn’t care, but it seemed strange to go around exposing herself here with these people she didn’t know, and who might be free soon.

  She might be free.

  She’d never made it so far before. Her excitement built all over again when she went back to the road and saw the group. Maybe they could all live together and help with the baby until Martin came. She wondered if the girl with long hair would be her friend where she went, if they’d build a garden and share secrets like she had with She
lly.

  The leader of the group sat down in the middle of the road and gestured for the others to join. They all sat. Cali hoped they were going to eat. She was getting hungry. As if he’d read her mind, the man started handing out food. “Eat this bar,” he said. “Not gonna eat anything else all day. Except you can nurse your baby, of course,” he said to Terry. “And if you need a rest, you just let me know and I’ll carry him anytime. Don’t want to get held up. Anyone else here will carry him too, if we need. We’re all together in this. All right, here’s the rules. We walk on the road. No touching anything. No giving out of names. Stay on the road at all times, unless I say get, and then you best get fast. No taking leaks or dumps. No lagging behind. We stay in a group, on the road.”

  When they finished eating the dense food bars, the man gathered the wrappers and put them in a small plastic sack along with three of the empty water bottles, tied the top, and went to the ditch beside the road. He covered the bag with stones and gravel.

  “They can track us up here, but no reason to make it easy on them,” he said, coming back. He removed a bag from his pocket, took out some sort of round bulb and started breaking off sections. “Now, I need you each to peel this and rub it on your feet. All over the bottoms of your feet real good, and up onto your legs, and your knees and hands, in case you fall. This here makes your scent die to the bloodsuckers. They can’t track us past here. So make sure you get your feet real good. We’ll stop and reapply later.”

  “Why aren’t you doing it?” Cali asked, rubbing the smelly yellow lump on her feet.

  “I already got it on, princess,” he said. “You think I’d go up in your place and leave my smell all over for them to figure out who’s been there?”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s all right, you’ll learn,” he said, peeling the shiny purplish shell away from a section. “Besides, you can’t be too careful, right?” He started rubbing the thing on his foot. “Put your fingernails in it and get the juice on you as best you can,” he said as he worked. When they’d all finished, he took out a knife. “I’m gonna cut these cloves in half, and you gotta rub the wet part on your feet and then put them in your clothes somewhere they won’t fall out.”

  Cali put her piece in her underwear, the only secure place she had. She remembered putting the picture she’d stolen from Man with Soft Hair in her underwear once. She’d left the picture in the drawer at her apartment. A part of her wished she’d taken it, just so she’d have something from home. But Shelly would probably like to have it more than she would, anyway. And she didn’t want to risk getting punished for it, by either humans or Superiors, if she got caught.

  When the rest break ended, they all got up and stretched. Cali didn’t get much exercise in her apartment or the garden, and she was awfully tired after the morning of hard walking. She wanted to sit there in the road and rest her swollen feet for a week straight, but too soon, they started off again. She could tell the rest were tired too, except their leader. He didn’t seem to notice. Cali had cooled a little when she opened her jumpsuit, but sitting on the open road in the sun had her as hot as before, and she was sticky and smelly and itchy and tired and sore. She wished the man would offer to carry her.

  Terry handed off the baby again. The blonde man carried it on his chest in a sling. Terry had fashioned her shirt into the carrier for the man, and now she was bare above the waist. Cali wished her master had gotten her a set with two pieces so she could take off the bottom. She had underwear on, so what did it matter? She didn’t want to dwell on envy so she walked ahead of Terry, closer to the girl with long hair, wanting to talk to someone but too tired and irritable to start a conversation.

  41

  Draven was sleeping when they came for him. He awakened when sunlight streamed through the door. Their hurried footsteps and the commotion of movement and muttered words registered in his mind before he awakened fully. When the chain around his ankle tightened and they dragged him across the dirt floor by the foot, he snapped to alertness.

  “Stop,” Sally yelled. “You’re gonna get kicked out of the community. You gotta do what they says.”

  “I can’t get kicked out, I made the community,” Tom said. Draven recognized Tom’s scent as easily as Sally’s now that he’d drawn from Tom.

  “You got to at least start out with burying,” Sally said. “It’s in the rules. You don’t do what they said, they’ll get you. You know it. ‘Sides, they’ve all been waiting to see the death. We can’t hog it for ourselves.”

  When Draven tried to twist away, he saw that the two men outside the bars had stakes. He’d savored the other’s scent before as well—one of the community men. A boy, really.

  “You can’t do it without Larry,” Sally went on. “We found the bloodsucker together, and you know how much he’s wanting to see it. He got the right, just like I do.”

  Tom and the boy studied Draven, and he squinted back at them, his head throbbing. “All right,” Tom said. “But I ain’t waiting for them to get back for the burying. I wanna see this sucker’s face when I shove a big shovel of dirt in his filthy cannibal mouth.”

  “Ah, come on Tom, it’d be so cool,” the boy said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Sally’s right, we gotta wait. But I’ll let you stake him afore we chain him up. Last time we thought he was sleeping, he done bit me and nearly kilt me.”

  The boy lifted his hand and brought the stake down on the section of exposed calf above the ankle cuff. It tore through the skin and into the flesh above the ankle. When Draven jerked his leg at the impact, Tom yanked the chain tight. The boy laughed and got another stake. Draven ground his teeth together and tried not to scream when it sank into his leg.

  “Now, is that really necessary?” Sally said, her heart beating quickly as she fluttered around trying to dissuade the men.

  “Hell yeah, make him scream,” Tom said, and the chains tightened around both Draven’s ankles. Tom struggled to secure it while Draven thrashed against the restraint. But steel could always hold him. They came inside then, while Draven lay breathing hard and trying to stop the pain from snuffing out the light of reason. He’d let them do all this before, and he’d thought it had almost ended. He couldn’t lie passive while they took what little freedom he had.

  When the boy came near with a stake raised, Draven knocked him off his feet, dragged the body under him, and put his teeth in the boy’s neck—so full of huge throbbing veins and sap. He drew as hard as he could until a stake went through his own throat and he could no longer pull sap into his mouth. The boy began screaming the moment Draven’s hold failed. Draven heard himself screaming, too, but it was a sound mostly in his head. Outside, his ears only heard the boy and the gurgling wheeze coming from his own throat.

  More stakes sank into him.

  The pain rose until it blinded him, and they pinned his arms again, bound him. Bright sunlight shone on his face as they carried him from the murky dark of his shed. Sally was near, her hand touching his for a moment. Draven thought she spoke, and the other two, but he couldn’t make his mind translate their language. His home-language inside his head made half-thoughts that were ripped away by pain before he could form them into something coherent even to himself.

  Then he felt one of the stakes come out.

  “Holy Moses, there ain’t even blood squirting out,” the boy said. “You reckon we done drained it all out stabbing him so much? ‘Cause it won’t be near as much fun if he don’t bleed none when we chop him all up.”

  “Shut up, Neil. You’re a heathen,” Sally said.

  “I’m a heathen? This thing bit me. I can’t wait to tell all the rest of ‘em I got bit. I defeated a bloodsucker and lived to tell. Too bad Ethan didn’t. I wish he was here to see this. Hey, stop pulling them stakes out, woman.”

  “My name is Sally, you moron. And how can you bury him with the stakes still in? They’ll know you been at him while they’s out doing the important things.”

  “If they’s s
o important, how come Uncle Tom ain’t with them? He’s an elder.”

  “I nearly died th’other day,” Tom said. “I’m weak. I can’t make it that far, or I would’ve gone.”

  “Hey, any newbies coming out this time?”

  “I heard we’re getting three of them. Two of them’s a married couple, and then a girl, I think fifteen.”

  “Reckon she’s pretty? I bet I could marry her.”

  “Ain’t nobody wants to marry you, Neil,” Sally said, yanking a stake out of Draven’s other leg.

  “Hey, cut that out,” Tom said. “Let him suffer a little. He done bit me and Neil, here. Nobody cares if we rough him up a little, long as we don’t kill him.”

  “Then how come Pappy took the only key and kept it on him?”

  “Well, your Pappy ain’t here no more, is he?” Tom asked. “Now let’s start to digging, all of us. You too, Sally. If you don’t like blood, quit looking at the thing.”

  “I can’t help it. I try not to, but I just keep on looking.”

  “Reckon the flies will lay eggs in his wounds and the maggots will eat him in the ground?” Neil said. “I mean, he’s already dead anyway, right? I bet the worms and bugs eat all his flesh away, and his bones’ll rise up to suck our blood in the night.”

  “You’re too dumb to even talk to,” Sally said. “You’re so dumb I can’t believe you haven’t shot your own self looking to see if your gun’s loaded. My only question is, does it actually hurt being dumb as you?”

  They argued and dug while Draven lay rigid with pain, unable to swallow or breathe, his neck a hole of pain that wouldn’t heal. If they left him in the ground for a year, he’d be crawling with insects all summer, and a frozen block of ice in winter. And all the time with stakes driven into him, lying in agony. He wondered if a Superior could lose his mind. He’d never heard of it happening, but it must be possible. The mind was one of the only aspects capable of change for Superiors.