Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel

by Bera, Ilia

  “The twelfth year,” she said sarcastically.

  “Yeah, but what—”

  “—I don’t remember.”

  Another shooting pain surged through the back of my skull.

  “What were you doing out here, anyway?” she asked.

  “I was hiking,” I said.

  “Hiking twelve hours from town?”

  “Yeah, I guess I got carried away.”

  “You weren’t hiking. Only an idiot would go hiking out here, twelve hours from town.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re carrying a bag of rice—everything in your bag screams ‘runaway.’”

  My face became rosy again.

  “So where were you running?” she asked me.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Just running away?”

  “I guess so,” I said quietly, embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell her about my mid-life crisis, because I knew she would just roll her eyes. “What were you doing out here?” I asked again.

  “I already told you.”

  “You told me you were hiking—but you just said that only an idiot would go for a hike out here. So what were you actually doing?”

  She was quiet. “I was just getting away. Sometimes I need to be alone. It’s complicated.” She stood up and went over to my bag. “What kind of food do you have in here? Or did you just bring rice?”

  Before I could say, she was already peeling back the wrapper of an energy bar.

  She threw me a water bottle. “Sit down and drink that.” I followed her command.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  She held up an empty bottle. “To fill this up. You need to drink at least three of these before you go to sleep so you don’t die.” Her tone was far too casual for my liking. “You’re in for a rough night.”

  As if on cue, another sharp pain ached the back of my skull and reverberated down my spine. The nausea returned along with the light-headedness.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FEVER DREAMS

  The spider venom spread through my veins like cement, aching and throbbing with blunt pain. It seeped into my gut and my nausea worsened.

  The cement venom crawled up my spine and crept towards my brain. It pushed against the back of my eyes. It was torture.

  Maddy sat over me, constantly insisting I drink more water, but I couldn’t.

  “Just drink it,” she said, putting the bottle to my lips.

  The water just poured down the sides of my face. My lips were swollen, and the swelling was moving towards my throat. I saw Maddy’s eyes widen for the first time.

  My body was burning and my head was freezing. I began shivering, trembling, convulsing. I couldn’t speak. I could just look into Maddy’s eyes and hope that she learned about this in Girl Scouts.

  “Try not to move,” she said. Her voice was fading. “Just stay still and…” I strained to hear the words passing through her lips. Her lips moved, but I was deaf. She mouthed my name. Chloe? Chloe?

  She left the tent. I would have followed but I was paralysed. Every muscle in my body was tense, aching with dull pain. I could hear nothing but the throbbing of my brain against my skull—like a soldier pounding a war drum.

  Everything became black.

  And then I saw his face, the man from upstairs, smiling.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  His hand stroked the side of my face, his fingers moved through my hair. I tried to speak, but even in my dream, I was a mute. I didn’t want him to leave, even though I knew he wasn’t real.

  The temperature dropped. My uncontrollable shivering returned. Everything became black again.

  My vision briefly returned. I could see the fabric ceiling as it swayed in the wind. I was still breathing, barely. My heart raced—a church bell, tolling against my ribcage. I was alone.

  Then, a short glimpse of his smile: Don’t worry, his lips said, but I couldn’t hear his voice as he faded away, back into the void.

  I felt a low rumble—a growl. Two yellow eyes stared down at me. They belonged to a long, black figure, a silhouette. Its mouth opened and I felt another low growl. The creature’s sharp teeth glistened. Crippling nausea overwhelmed my urge to scream. I had no energy—not even enough energy to keep my eyes open. Everything went black once again.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ALIVE

  When my eyes opened again, I felt normal. My headache and nausea were gone. Was it all a dream? My alarm would go off any second and it would be time to get ready for work.

  My eyes began to distinguish details in the brightness: the sun was blasting through the thin fabric of the small tent. I was wrapped up in my sleeping bag, alone, but I could hear the crackling of campfire, and I could smell smoke—and food—delicious food.

  Maddy sat on a log next to a fire. The sleeves of her oversized cargo jacket hung over her small hands as she set a long skewer over the hot flame.

  On that skewer was what I can only describe as a dirty, platinum blonde wig. The thing looked atrocious, but it smelled incredible—like fresh clams and garlic fried in butter.

  “Hey,” she said without looking up at me. “You’re alive.”

  “What are you cooking?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my slowly adjusting eyes.

  “A mushroom.”

  “That’s a mushroom? It looks like a Tribble.”

  “What’s a Tribble?” Maddy asked.

  “You know—from Star Trek.”

  “No. I don’t know,” she said.

  “Captain Kirk buys the Tribbles from a salesman and they end up multiplying on the Enterprise. It’s on Netflix…”

  “I don’t know what any of those words mean. How are you feeling?”

  “I feel okay.”

  “Good. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” Again, she spoke in a terrifyingly calm tone.

  She removed the mushroom from the fire. “Try it,” she said, swinging it towards my face. Despite its delicious aroma, I couldn’t help but wince away from the monstrosity—like someone dangling a big spider with thousands of legs in front of my face. “Try it—it’s good for you,” she insisted.

  “How?” I asked.

  She demonstrated by breaking off a handful of its long, noodle-like hairs. “Go ahead,” she said.

  I followed her example. The mushroom was delicious—and tasted precisely like fresh clams roasted with garlic in butter.

  “Oh my God, that’s fantastic,” I said, chewing a mouthful of the hideous mushroom strands. “Where did you get it?” I asked.

  “In the valley,” Maddy said, “last night, when you were dying in the tent.”

  I stared at her for a moment. “You went to get mushrooms while I was sick?”

  “No, I went to find Feverfew. It only grows in dark, damp places. I just happened to find the Lionsmane while I was looking for the Feverfew.”

  “Lionsmane?”

  “The mushroom.”

  “What’s Feverfew?”

  “The plant that saved your life.” She broke off another handful of straggly mushroom strands and put them in her mouth. “You would definitely be dead if I didn’t find any,” she said casually with her mouthful of mushrooms. She handed me the mushroom skewer. “Eat up. It’s a long walk back to town. I’ll pack up the tent.”

  “I’m not going back to town,” I said.

  She stopped and stared at me. “What?”

  “I’m not going back to town,” I said again.

  “Yes, you are.” She turned away from me and started breaking down my tent.

  “Look—I’m grateful for your help, but I don’t want to go back to Ilium.”

  “Well, too bad. That’s where I’m taking you.”

  “I’m going to keep heading towards the mountains.”

  “You’re being a child,” Maddy said. “You have to go home and rest and not kill yourse
lf out in the wilderness.”

  “I’m not asking you to come with me.”

  “If you go north, I’m not coming with you.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine,” she said. “You’ll be on your own—no help from me. If you eat a poisonous mushroom and die, I won’t be there to help you.”

  She collapsed the tent and crammed it into my hiking bag. She looked over at me. “If you see another mushroom that looks like that, don’t eat it,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s a mushroom that looks exactly like it, that will kill you in less than eight seconds.”

  “Okay—noted,” I said.

  “As a matter of fact, don’t eat any mushrooms at all. Most of them will just kill you. There’s a very common one out here that will make you poop out all of your blood.”

  “All of it?”

  “It isn’t pretty. Just leave the mushrooms alone.”

  “I’ll stick to my rice,” I said. I grabbed my bag and turned towards the mountains.

  “If you see a bear, play dead,” she said. “Unless its a black bear. Do you know the difference?”

  “It’s black?” I asked. She didn’t appreciate my smile.

  Maddy stared at me. “You’re going to die. You know you’re going to die, right?”

  “Good luck to you, too. It was nice meeting you, Maddy. I owe you my life. Maybe one day I’ll save your life!” I said.

  “I really doubt it,” she said.

  I smiled and then began my journey, walking towards the swaying tree line to the north. Maddy stood still and watched me go.

  “Do you even know what poison ivy looks like?” Maddy called out.

  “No,” I called back.

  “Do you know what nightshade looks like?”

  “No.”

  A moment later, Maddy ran up next to me. “They’re little blackberries—they look like blueberries. They have five little leaves around them—like a blueberry inside of a green star. Don’t eat them.”

  “Okay—I won’t,” I said.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

  “I told you—I can’t explain—”

  “—Yeah, yeah, yeah—it’s an existential crisis. I get it. Just promise me that this isn’t some stupid way of offing yourself.”

  “I’m not trying to kill myself.” As the words slipped out from my mouth, I tripped over a rock. She caught me before I fell flat onto my face.

  “See that bush you almost fell in?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what poison ivy looks like. Let me take you back to town.”

  “No.”

  She grumbled under her breath. “If you see little white berries that look like eyeballs, don’t eat them.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something I would eat,” I said.

  Maddy continued to follow me, describing all of the various plants that could end my life. When she finished, she continued to follow me in silence.

  “Do you remember anything I said?” she eventually said.

  “I remember some of it, sure.”

  “You’re so stubborn.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That was supposed to be an insult.”

  We stopped and she stared at me in silence. I could see her biting down on her tongue, as if she had more to say, but she didn’t know how to say it.

  “Are you leaving, then?” I asked.

  “I guess so. Back to town—back to real life.”

  “If you see me on any missing persons poster, just tell them I moved to another town.”

  “They’ll think I murdered you.”

  “Hm—Then maybe don’t tell them anything. Bye, Maddy.”

  “Bye, Chloe.”

  I continued my hike towards the mountains. Thirty seconds later, Maddy was back by my side. She said nothing. She didn’t have to say anything.

  CHAPTER NINE

  TO THE MOUNTAINS

  Maddy was right—had she not been there, I would have died. I lost count of how many times she caught me from falling, how many times she reminded me to watch my feet while I walked. She stopped me from filling up my water bottle in a stream, which ran through a small beavers’ dam. She explained that I would have almost certainly fallen ill with something called Giardia. “A parasitic worm lays eggs inside of your intestines and then you poop yourself to death,” she said. Apparently there were many things out in the woods that make you poop to death.

  When the sky began to darken and the sun crept below the horizon, we decided to stop. Maddy set up the tent and instructed me to collect some firewood. She stopped me within seconds as I was apparently collecting over a bush of poison ivy.

  “Just sit there and don’t move. I’ll set everything up,” she said to me.

  Maddy had the tent up and a fire crackling before dark. She showed me how to dig a fire pit, so that air could filter in and smoke could filter out. I was impressed when the smoke rose straight up, instead of straight into my eyes, like I was used to.

  She sharpened a stick and skewered a dozen different mushrooms that she’d collected throughout the day. She made me taste each one. Flaunting her impressive mushroom-knowledge seemed to fill her with a sense of joy that I hadn’t seen from her.

  She’d even picked out poisonous mushrooms throughout the day, to point out the differences. She said she wanted to teach me enough to survive on my own, but I think she just wanted to show off her survival skills.

  “In Ilium, do you have a job?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you go to university?”

  “For a year. I dropped out.”

  “Why?”

  “Wasn’t for me,” she said.

  “What were you taking?” I asked.

  She looked at me and smiled. “Earth sciences. What about you? What are you running away from?”

  “I work for a big insurance firm. Never went to college.”

  “Why not?”

  “Wasn’t smart enough.”

  “Really?” Maddy asked. I detected a hint of sarcasm. She passed me another mushroom. I was full, but she insisted that I try it. It tasted like cookies and cream.

  “Besides, I didn’t feel like wasting four years in college just to be replaced by a machine in five years,” I said.

  It was a moonless night. It was a cloudless night. The entire cosmos shone clear in the black sky. You could make out the entire band of the Milky Way as it stretched from horizon to horizon. Even Maddy was impressed by the night’s magnificent clarity.

  A streak of cobalt flashed through the sky, turning to violet before fading away.

  “Shooting star—make a wish,” she said.

  I didn’t have to think long before his face appeared in my mind—his smile and his chiselled, stubbly jawline.

  “What did you wish?” Maddy asked.

  I laughed. “If I tell you, doesn’t that mean it won’t come true?”

  “That’s boring,” she said. “Just tell me.”

  “No way—then it might not come true! I’m not taking that risk.”

  “Lame,” she said.

  We sat in silence and watched for another cosmic spectacle.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” I asked.

  She was slow to answer. Her face turned red and she looked at her feet. I still wasn’t convinced she wasn’t fourteen years old. “No,” she finally said. “Do you?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Not really?”

  “Not at all,” I clarified. I don’t know why I said otherwise. “I have a freezer with six different half-eaten tubs of ice cream and my phone background is a cat dressed like James Gandolfini.”

  We both laughed.

  “Tell me about him,” Maddy said.

  “About who?”

  “About the guy you like so much.”

  My face flushed and a lump grew in my throat.