by Susan Kim
The town of Prin wasn’t home, either. She fit in nowhere.
Esther knew how she really felt.
She felt alone.
Maybe there could be someone else to be truly close to, she thought. Or maybe there could be something bigger to be a part of—what, she wasn’t really sure. A little while ago, Esther would have laughed at the idea. But she wasn’t laughing now.
“Are they gone?”
Hearing her friend’s voice, Esther snapped to attention.
The variant girl now crept from behind a row of parked cars and stood by Esther with fists clenched, tense and ready to run.
Esther brushed aside her own concerns, to put her friend at ease.
“We’re fine,” she said, nudging Skar in the side. “Now let’s see who makes it to the tracks first.”
Eli and the others rode their bikes single file down the main road heading away from Prin. He led them past the hulking, plundered ruins of buildings on the edge of town, places that still had names, meaningless words they didn’t know how to read: STAPLES, HOME DEPOT, THE ARBORS NURSING HOME, STOP & SHOP.
Eli pedaled slowly, so Bekkah could keep up. He was careful to steer around the broken glass, discarded bits of machinery, and chunks of dirty plastic that littered the pavement beneath their tires.
They avoided detritus left by the periodic rising and retreating of floodwaters: bleached-white shells and stones, the rotting remains of a rowboat. There were other things that must have been swept away by the dank waters: a rusted hunting rifle; a blond wig that had become a filthy, tangled mop; a safe deposit box with the top torn off and the dust of long-dead crabs inside.
Ahead, the road became a bridge, passing over a much larger avenue underneath.
Eli stopped as he considered where to go.
“We already checked over the bridge,” commented Bekkah, as she pulled up alongside him.
“Yeah,” said Eli. “But we didn’t go down there.”
He pointed, and Till swallowed hard.
“Are you sure,” he muttered, “we have to?”
Eli shrugged. “We been out here two weeks and ain’t got a drop. There’s no place else to check. Come on—it’ll be fine, and maybe we’ll even be done today.”
The others seemed reassured. Eli pretended to look at ease as they glided down what had once been the on-ramp to the northbound lane of the interstate.
At times, the deserted road was almost impassable with fallen trees, downed streetlights, dead power lines; but the three managed to find a way through. Both sides of the highway were overgrown with heavy, tangled undergrowth that in some areas spilled past the shoulder and onto the road itself, and in some places obscured the aluminum barriers once built to muffle the sounds of traffic.
“Nothing so far,” Eli called over his shoulder. He was talking too loudly, he realized, from nervousness.
He was on edge in case they saw a body.
Although none of them talked about it, they all knew that people with the disease were Shunned, sent from town on this highway to die; that way, it was said, they wouldn’t contaminate the others. No one knew exactly where they ended up. There were rumors in town of a Valley of the Dead, a mass grave filled with the remains of innumerable children, although such a place had never been seen. Some thought it was no more than a bedtime tale told to frighten the little ones.
Eli was not sure he believed the story, but he worried they would see or smell remains on the road or off to the side. Which would be worse, he wondered: if the body was fresh enough to be recognized or too rotted to identify? The smallest ones would be the worst, he decided, and skeletons of any size.
“Hold on! Back up!” Till yelled.
They slowed down. Sure enough, they could see something peeking out from a dense tangle of vines, brush, and litter, close to the highway wall, where no one would have searched.
“Yeah,” Bekkah said. “Looks good.”
It was a dark green car, compact yet roomy, with an incomprehensible word framed by a steel circle on the front grill: VOLVO. The three pedaled onto the curb, then got off and walked their bikes through the clotted grass of the shoulder to reach it. With difficulty, Till pulled the wagon as well.
Bekkah fished out a steak knife hanging from her belt on a nylon cord and sliced away the vines and branches that strangled the car. Working methodically, she cleared away a space on the left side of the vehicle, above the back tire.
Eli took the crowbar from the wagon and flipped open the small metal panel in the side of the car. Then, with a few yanks, he pried off the cap to the gas tank. Till handed him the tube, and Eli snaked it down into the tank, feeding it inch by inch.
In the hot sun, the others watched his expression. Moments later, Eli smiled as he felt the end of the line hit gas.
“A decent amount,” he said, relieved.
“Good,” Bekkah said. “He was mighty mad last time. Wouldn’t hardly give us nothing.”
“He’s been like that for a while now,” Eli said.
They were talking about the one they worked for, the one who lived on the outskirts of town. The boy called Levi.
Levi lived in a kingdom of sorts, in that he saw himself as a kind of king. Yet his home was more of a fortress, as the windowless building was massive, guarded, and impenetrable. It was nicknamed the Source because while no one in Prin had ever ventured inside, it was quite literally the center of life; the townspeople would soon die without it. It was powered by the only electricity any of them had ever seen, electricity generated by the countless bottles upon bottles of gasoline everyone in town spent so much of their lives searching for.
The gasoline was exchanged each month for food and water from Levi’s endless supplies. This didn’t include his tuna, soup, meat, jelly, cereal, tomato sauce, peanut butter, stew, pickles, or vegetables; they had long since rotted to blackened tar, exploding their containers. His dry grains and beans were edible, barely, but had to be pounded into flour and boiled for hours before they could be digested. Salt, sugar, spaghetti, honey, and hard candy were available, packaged and sealed in plastic bags, cloth sacks, and cardboard containers; there were also countless gallon jugs of water. Everything was brought outside by Levi’s boys.
There were eighteen of these guards, hulking and hooded brutes armed with small, harmless-looking contraptions that made a terrible hissing sound and, upon contact with skin, could cause a teenager to drop to his knees in agony. (The word “Taser” was printed on the rubberized grips; a dozen had been found in a building on the outskirts of town, one with cobwebbed desks in the front room and barred cells in the back.) Levi’s boys measured the gasoline and doled out the provisions, watching over the transactions with a hawk-like attention that had only grown worse since the supply of untapped cars in Prin began dwindling.
For Eli and his fellow Harvesters, the “Volvo” guaranteed that the exchange would continue for at least a few more weeks. And so by extension would their lives.
“Lucky we found this,” Eli said. “Should last us a long while.”
With that, he bent down and sucked the tube until he sensed the fuel was about a foot from his mouth. Then he yanked out the tube and stuck the end into the neck of an empty plastic bottle, which Till was holding steady for him. A second later, the air was filled with the pungent smell of gasoline as it gushed forth into the container.
Without looking, he addressed Till. “Good eye,” he said.
Till smiled, abashed. “It was your idea to come down here.”
Eli filled one bottle; then, taking care not to spill a drop, he transferred the tube to the next bottle.
Yet something wasn’t right.
Eli looked up. Then he stood. As he did, the tube fell from the bottle neck, sloshing gasoline onto the ground.
“Hey!” Bekkah said. “Watch out!”
“Sorry.” Eli bent to put the tube back into the bottle, which by now was almost full. “I just thought I heard—”
Now he froze
in place. It was unmistakable: He could even see the fuel shaking a little inside the bottles.
Something was approaching, fast. Some of what Eli heard wasn’t human, just the faraway thump of tire threads. But he could also detect faint whooping and whistling, a scary celebration.
Eli’s eyes flickered around as he braced himself. Alone on the side of the highway, they were brutally, nakedly exposed. It was too late for them to do anything—to run away, to hide, to even scream for help.
“Aww, no—” Till murmured, under his breath. It was almost a prayer.
And at that moment, it began.
The air was split by noise, a blood-curdling shrieking that seemed to come from no one direction but from everywhere at once, pulsating and echoing. It was an uncanny noise that seemed neither human nor animal.
Bekkah stood still with her mouth half open, a hypnotized mouse in the sights of an owl, the now-forgotten plastic container at her feet overflowing. Gasoline splashed over her sneakers and filled the air with its fumes.
From nowhere, an object whistled at her through the air; it was a fist-size rock, ugly and jagged. There was a sharp cracking sound; it knocked Bekkah from her trance and she emitted a scream, high and thin and terrified. She reeled backward. Clutching her forehead with both hands, she knocked the rubber tubing from Eli’s hands and sent a stream of gasoline flying in a clear arc through the air. Blood spurted from between her fingers and ran down into her eyes. It dripped onto and splattered her filthy white robes. Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground.
Eli was backing up, his eyes darting as he looked in vain for their assailants. His forgotten bike lay on its side only a few feet away. Several rocks flew at him, too, and he ducked them, one arm held up in front of his face, as too late, he remembered the single weapon they had thought to bring with them, an aluminum baseball bat tossed in the back of the wagon.
Behind him, Till was scrambling for the vehicle closest to him, Bekkah’s bike, trying to detach it from the wagon, which he knew would slow him down.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he whispered.
But as his useless fingers picked at the knotted ropes, a fresh barrage of rocks was unleashed on him from all directions. Panicked, he gave up and made a dash for the side of the road, crawling into the underbrush to the sounds of jeering and mocking laughter.
And with that, the mutants, shrieking, descended from all directions.
It was impossible for Eli to tell how many there were—ten? Twenty-five? They attacked in a swarm, and at that moment looked exactly alike—all slight of build, androgynous and covered with road dust, with the same bulging lavender eyes and ornate labyrinths of scars and tattoos covering their faces and bald heads. Each wore a meager tunic, with a canvas bag loaded with rocks slung across his or her body.
The bikes themselves were strange-looking and menacing: black and low to the ground, festooned with strips of leather, with weird metal pegs and handles attached to the frames and axles. The mutants rode two to a bike, one pedaling and the other standing behind, straddling the rear tire and balancing barefoot on the foot pegs while wielding their slings, metal clubs, and chains.
Eli had heard tales of these recent and confusing attacks by the mutants, of ambushes sprung from nowhere and for no reason. He had taken comfort in the fact that the mutants had chosen not to kill but saved the worst of their savagery for buildings and objects. Still, hearing of such things was far different from experiencing them firsthand. He was choked with panic.
Covering his face with his arms, Eli ran forward, bent over to make himself as small a target as possible. He was able to reach Bekkah’s side unscathed. Grabbing her under the arms, Eli dragged his unconscious friend to the underbrush, near Till.
From there, Eli watched as the mutants dismounted from their bikes and turned their attention to the car. Soon glass was shattering, heavy chains smashing against metal, and bodies were jumping up and down on the roof. Better the car than them, he thought. He turned to the side and, when he did, his heart skipped a beat.
The two plastic bottles, still brimming over with gasoline, were where he and the others had left them, miraculously untouched by the side of the road. To Eli’s horror, one of the mutants backed into one as she whirled her chain overhead and knocked it over. Shocked, the boy watched as the precious contents glugged out, spreading across the pavement and spilling into the dust by the side of the road.
He was not the only one who noticed.
The biggest mutant, wiry and with a distinct network of swirling scars forming a rising sun across its face, had been standing to one side, arms crossed. Eli noticed the triangular tattoo on its bicep; clearly, it was a male. This mutant had been watching the others attack the car with an unreadable expression. Now, he cocked his head. With one swift movement, he crossed over to the second bottle, which was still full of gasoline. Then, he lifted it by its neck with two fingers in a gesture that seemed almost dainty and carried it back to the others.
Eli knew the mutants traded for nothing. They had no use for Levi’s supplies; mostly, they scavenged and killed wild animals. They didn’t need gas.
The big mutant said something, a few words the boy couldn’t hear on account of the noise; but whatever it was, everyone stopped what he was doing and backed away from the car. In the silence, Eli could hear their bare feet crunching on the pebbled green glass sprayed across the shoulder and road. Once everyone had cleared, the mutant took the bottle and started splashing its contents over the remains of the mutilated Volvo.
Eli realized what the big mutant had pulled from his shoulder pouch, what he now held aloft in one hand and was tossing in the air like a toy.
It was a small plastic object, bright pink, the size of a thumb. A firestarter.
“Oh no,” said Till next to him, involuntarily. “Please… don’t!”
As if he had heard, the mutant gave a faint smile. He pressed a button on the side of the object once, twice; on the third time, and with a distinct click, a small orange flame blossomed out of the top. Then he bent down and touched the flame to the wet, glistening asphalt.
The mutants scattered as fire licked and spread across the pavement and trampled grass, racing with unbelievable speed in rippling blue and yellow waves toward the car, the car that still had gas in it, at least half a tank of the precious stuff, maybe closer to a full tank. Leaping onto their bikes, the mutants took off and within seconds, they disappeared.
From their hiding place, Eli covered his head with one arm, the other around the unconscious Bekkah, his face pressed hard into the dusty ground. He braced himself and prayed that Till, next to him, would do the same.
Then the car exploded.
By the old railroad tracks, rusty and nearly obscured by weeds and trash, Esther heard the faraway blast. She froze; then she pulled Skar down so they were nearly hidden by the tall grass.
“What’s going on?” Skar asked, although she already knew.
“Nothing,” Esther lied.
Whooping and shrieking, the variants rode single file into town, rattling the broken, faded WELCOME TO PRIN sign as they thundered past. They spread into a V formation as they headed down the central street, flanked on both sides by sidewalks and two- and three-story buildings, with empty storefronts on the ground floors. While a few structures showed the effects of earlier recent attacks, most were unscathed.
The variants did not spare the first buildings they encountered. One stood on the foot pegs of a bicycle and whirled a sling around his head. He let fly with deadly accuracy, and the window of what had once been a clothing store shattered, collapsing in an explosion of broken glass.
Most of the variants rode ahead, while several dismounted, wielding chains and clubs. Using a broken windowsill as a foothold, one reached for the neon sign above the remains of a pharmacy; with one blow of her cudgel, she smashed it partway off the building, so it dangled at a crazy angle. She swung at it again, this time bringing it crashing down in pieces; then she pr
oceeded to beat it into fragments on the street. Another whirled his sling above his head, launching rocks to smash one window after another.
Residents scattered for cover, taking refuge wherever they could find it. They had no time to consider the senselessness of the event; they had witnessed it in the weeks before, but this ambush was far worse, more savage and out of control.
A girl, age eleven or twelve, ran to a rusted car in the street and managed to roll underneath before being seen. As she lay there, she saw bare feet stop in front of her. Holding her breath, she watched as the feet paced back and forth. After what seemed an eternity, they walked away and she heard a bike take off.
Elsewhere, faces appeared in second-floor windows, looking at the mayhem.
One boy, Jonah, decided he would try to save the town single-handedly.
When the variants blasted down the main street, the ten-year-old had managed to scale the fire escape of a battered building without drawing attention. He had made his way to the roof, and now, lying on his belly on the hot tar, he gazed down at the destruction. In one hand, he gripped a lead pipe, which he had kept in his back pocket for weeks for exactly a moment such as this.
He watched as variants kicked in the front door of what had once been a bar. He watched as they caught a boy trying to escape, ripped his headdress off him, set it on fire, then tossed it through the broken door of an old hair salon. He watched until they seemed to tire of causing chaos, until they were ready to move on, and gathered to huddle their bikes to make a plan, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
They waited for the one they called Slayd.
The variant leader approached, skidding his bike to a halt. Leaning over the handlebars, he addressed the others with emphatic gestures. His back turned to the stores, Slayd didn’t see the iron pipe, flung like a boomerang, winging toward his head.
Another variant saw it. He leaped forward, pushing Slayd out of the way and Slayd’s protector was clipped on the side of the head by the pipe and was knocked cold, feet jerking up and down on the pavement.