Silenced

by Natasha Larry

  “You guys okay?” Tripp yells out to someone.

  “Yeah, let’s take it easy for ten minutes,” Kiwi yells back from somewhere in front of us.

  “Nah, damn that.” I pant. “Just leave my ass.”

  “Oh, you’re fine.”

  “Fork me, I’m done.”

  Tripp laughs, and then forces a hand under my neck and forces me into a sitting position. I have to press my weight down on the dented roof to keep my balance.

  “See, I would think you’d be in your element out here.” He shoots a tired smile at me.

  “Ha-ha.” I cough and pull my backpack off to get to my canteen. “That might be funny if being a siren had anything to do with literal water.” I force myself to take slow, measured sips, when what I really want to do is gulp the whole thing down.

  Tripp takes a sip from his own canteen. “Well, it must have something to do with water. Everyone thinks you guys are born of the water gods.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “Are you serious?”

  He shrugs and points at his face. “For future reference, this is my serious face.”

  I grin, then take another sip and put the water away. “I expect this from the humans, but from my own people…”

  He laughs and pulls out a pack of dry crackers. He hands me one, and I shove it in my mouth.

  “Sorry for my ignorance, but I still think sirens must have something to do with water.”

  I turn my head, swallow my food, and wink at him. “Maybe. You gotta remember I’m a Muse, not a Spirit.”

  The skin around his eyes crinkles. I’m guessing he’s abandoned his serious face for his thinking face. It’s goofy as hell.

  Finally, his eyes widen and he snaps his bone-thin fingers. “You weren’t made by the gods. You were thought into existence by the gods.”

  I give him a thumbs up. “Trademark of a Muse. That a boy.”

  He points at me. “So, sirens are manifestations of what your parent gods thought of the qualities of water.”

  “Another gold star.” I strap my backpack on and try to stretch out my burning limbs.

  “Who was that, by the way? Poseidon?”

  My eyes narrow. “Nah.”

  Tripp doesn’t say anything, probably assuming that I’m going to answer him. He has no way of knowing that I don’t talk about that dick bag. When Tripp’s eyes stretch so wide they look like they’re going to pop right out of his head I offer a tight smile.

  “You’ll meet him soon enough.”

  “Ah.” Tripp replaces his canteen. “I love a boy with baggage.”

  Laughter bursts out of me and, for a moment, I feel like I’m back in my crappy living room, having a beer and cutting up with a good friend. I lean into him, nothing homo.

  “Thanks for that, man.”

  “Thanks for what?”

  I start to shake my head when Juliet screams, “Alright, we have to get going!”

  With I sigh, I throw my head back. “Crap stain.”

  Tripp laughs, already lowering himself back into the murky water. I shut my eyes and give myself an inner pep talk before going in after him.

  A shiver races through me as I paddle behind Tripp through a maze of submerged cars, bodies, and random objects that used to be a landscape for life.

  A child’s teddy bear.

  A worn copy of some piece of literature.

  A full sized mattress.

  A box of Christmas ornaments.

  Now all they represent is unnatural death. The leftovers of fear. Mankind’s new hell. I wade through all this shit and try and picture Sadie in this world.

  I can’t see her.

  I can’t picture her doing anything but becoming another empty shell of a world that chose fear.

  They are destructive thoughts that my twisted gut is starting to accept as true. I push them to the back of my mind and swim on. Swim through the shit. That’s all that’s important now. Get to the other side.

  Hell, there might even be something better there.

  I just highly fucking doubt it.

  It seems like hours, days, or months before we get to the end of this stretch of water. When it starts to shallow, I feel a new burst of energy buzz in my muscles. By the time it’s on my knees, I begin running as much as anyone can run in thick water, until finally I drop down on all fours and crawl out of the watery hole, then flop down onto my back.

  I smile up at the strange, cloudy gray sky and take comfort in the pavement under my ass. Kiwi plops down on her butt near me, while Tripp squats down, breathing hard. Juliet and Lee are the only two still on their feet.

  “That. . .” Kiwi pants. “Didn’t feel like two hours.”

  Juliet nods and flips her hair. “All the debris we had to navigate around tacked on to the time.” She sucks in a breath. “Take a minute. I’m going to comm our contact.” With that, she walks several feet away and starts talking to her wrist.

  Grunting, I roll up to sitting, then stagger to my feet.

  “See, beauty, you made it.”

  Kiwi snorts. “Beauty.”

  Tripp points between him and myself. “It’s an inside thing.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Adorable.”

  Tripp retorts with something that I don’t hear. My attention is caught up in a figure stalking our way from the distance. I narrow my eyes and step away from the two of them to get a better look. The figure is a person, draped in a hooded, moss green cloak. Juliet turns toward the figure as it passes her, and she freezes.

  That can’t be good.

  I reach behind me and grasp my trident.

  “What the hell is that?” Kiwi says under her breath.

  Almost on cue, the figure lifts her head. A green cowl covers the figure’s face, but I can tell it’s a woman because a mess of long, violet hair tumbles out of her hood. She’s still several feet away from us, but close enough to make out the olive hue of her skin. Something about her face, half draped in shadow, almost stops the pulse in my throat.

  Despite her cowl, I can make out the tears running from her eyes. They run all the way down her chin where the droplets dance a few moments, then drip to the ground.

  Her tears are black as pitch.

  “Oh, no. Ohmygod,” Kiwi says.

  Three pairs of feet start to back away. I’m moving with them, almost against my will. As if that will stop this. After a few moments of tense silence, I release my trident. It won’t help. Neither will any of my immortal given gifts. There is nothing I can do. There is nothing any of us can do to stop the incarnation of death before us.

  The woman—no, girl—stops ten feet away from us.

  “For gods sake, no,” I say.

  It doesn’t matter.

  The girl sweeps her hands out, opens her mouth, and inhales a large breath. When she does, tension grips my body and doesn’t let go. My heart hardens in my chest.

  No, please, don’t do it.

  A gust of wind rushes the air. The girl’s hood flies off, and her violet hair blows up and away from her head. Black tears rush like rivers down her cheeks. They make tiny black ponds on the ground.

  She freezes, then a mind numbing shriek rips through her lips and crashes into all of us.

  The Banshee’s scream stops time. Even with my hands mashed over my ears, I can’t keep the death wail out. I try to move toward her, but invisible waves keep me rooted to the pavement. I shut my eyes and grit my teeth, helpless against this bitch that’s totally fucking us.

  After what feels like decades, her scream starts to die down. After a few moments, I can open my eyes. I squint at the black tears running down her face. My eyes water in response. Then, just as if she was never there, she is gone. The quiet she leaves sticks to my insides like something that will never wash away.

  I stand to my feet and wipe a rainstorm of sweat from my face. We all look at each other in tense silence. We all know that one, or more, of us is dead.

  We just have no idea who.

  And right
now it doesn’t matter.

  The rumble of an inhuman growl stops anyone from saying anything.

  I don’t so much see them as feel them.

  The banshee’s scream brought them down on us.

  I close my eyes as my heart sputters, then slowly open them again.

  With a knot of dread in my stomach I turn in a slow circle.

  We are surrounded by berks.

  Get to higher ground.

  It’s the only thought in my head as we all take off running. No one has to yell anything. We just all know that if we don’t move, and move fast, the banshee will have predicted all our deaths.

  I set my eyes on a line of tall trees in the distance. The low rumble of a steady growl rumbles in the background. A chorus of teeth snapping at my back. Even in my complete exhaustion, those sounds make my movement possible.

  It feels like my muscles will rip open with every stride. As the soles of my feet hit the pavement tiny knives slice into them, yet I keep moving. The warm breath of more than a hundred berserkers slide up and down my spine. Air hardly moves inside my lungs.

  I crash into a small hill of rocks and fall forward. I scramble onto my hands and knees and pull myself up. After a few moments, my feet hit plush soil. I keep going, darting between bare trees. Something tight clamps down around my ankle. My face plants into the ground.

  Without thought, I reach into my holster for my gun as the thing that used to be human picks me up around the ankle and slams me onto my back like I am nothing.

  I glance up into those yellow, saucer-sized eyes and blow a hole right between them. Blood and chunks of brawny tendons splash down into my face.

  “Arg.”

  His body falls down on me, rooting me to the earth.

  “Fuck.”

  With all the strength I can call on, I shove him up and over me. By the time I’m free, dozens more of them are circling me. Wheezing, I turn in a circle, throwing them off and taking headshots until I am no longer pinned down.

  I twist out of another grasp and tumble through the woods as fast as dead legs can carry me. Somehow, I manage to find the tallest tree in the area. Taking in a deep breath, I start to climb.

  I feel my energy wane. Get to higher ground. I ignore the snapping teeth below me and get to the highest branch that can hold my weight. I wrap my arms around the branch like it’s a long lost lover. Once I have a sure grip, I take a moment to catch my breath.

  My limbs shiver to the point of shaking the leaves off the branches around me. I glance down at a sea of monsters crawling all over one another trying to get to me.

  “Goddess fuck,” I mutter.

  Good thing they aren’t so great at climbing. I wait until I’m reasonably sure I’m not going to get my head snatched up to reorient myself in the tree so I can have a look around. I manage to get myself to a standing position. Blowing out my breath, I squint and dart my gaze around. Whatever fear is chewing out my insides is soothed because I see Kiwi and Juliet right away.

  Kiwi is in a tree two hundred feet away from me. I squint past her and see a streak of blonde hair in the wind. It speaks to the fucked-upedness of the situation that I’m actually glad to see Juliet.

  The ground lurches. I start being ejected from the tree, but I grab a branch and manage to hold on. I shift my gaze below me and see that it’s not just the horde of berserkers.

  It is Tripp in his Orc form.

  He is a massive, growling beast pounding down monsters dozens at a time.

  He is the one giving us a chance.

  I set myself up in the tree and get ready to take out as many of these monsters as I can. As soon as my rifle is out, I start splattering monster blood on the trees and grass below. The air is saturated with the smell of lead, rotted meat, and smoke. Through the debris, a flash of black streaks across my vision.

  Then another.

  And another.

  “Pike.” It’s Juliet in my wrist comm. “We have to get the hell out of here before more of them come.”

  As soon as she says it, more of them come. My eyes try to follow them and fail. I shake my head and reload, then train my scope on the mess below me. With shaking hands, I drop as many as I can. But I can only dead the ones I can see, and the ones I can’t keep my eyes on are swarming us like African bees.

  A sharp scream stabs the air. I dart my eyes over to the tree Kiwi is perched in. The blurs are climbing toward her like ants up a log. They are adapting, using the bodies of their fellow monsters to form a flesh ladder.

  I train my weapon on them and start to shoot. Soupy liquid explodes in the air. Two red beams emanating from Kiwi’s eyes slice through berks, and together we spill bodies to the forest floor like rain.

  I run out of ammunition and pull back. I sling the weapon over my shoulder and unsheathe my trident. After a deep breath I tap my wrist comm.

  “If we’re going to get out of here, we’re going to need a path.”

  “And how do you expect us to do that, siren?” Kiwi hisses the question back.

  I sigh and look down. “I got this.”

  I snap my trident out to its full length and take in another deep breath.

  “What do you mean, you got this?” Kiwi asks.

  Ignoring her, I press the electricity function on my trident. Then, before I have time to think, I start to swing down through the branches and toward the ground.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kiwi yells from my wrist.

  I grunt and tap my comm off. I land on the ground hard and spike the tongs of my trident into the ground. A burst of electricity ripples outward and cracks into the nearest dozen bodies.

  Then, I’m on autopilot.

  My trident swings through the air as if it has grown its own mind. I let my arm follow. Bodies smash to the ground in rapid succession. I climb over them to decorate the forest floor with monstrous dead. I’m all spins and stabs.

  Don’t think about it, I tell myself. Just keep moving. And I do. Spin, stab. Spin, stab. Spin, stab. It helps that I can’t see. I can’t see what just grabbed my ankle, or what I have to shove off me. It’s all streaks of black. I keep this up until I finally make out something.

  A long, bouncing stream of red.

  My muscles tighten. I’m alert. More alert than I want to be.

  Kiwi.

  I slow for a moment. “What the hell is she doing?” My feet start running toward her before my brain makes the decision. Then, my mouth is moving. “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

  Her head swings in my direction and she lets out a burst from her magic, laser beam eyes. Twenty or so monsters are sliced in half only inches from me. Their sticky insides spray me straight in the face. Quickly, I wipe the hot mess off on my sleeve and continue toward her. She falls in step beside me and we run, clearing a path out of the woods together.

  Something heavy bounces around inside my chest. I wonder if she feels it.

  That we’re not going to make it.

  Before I can dwell on this much longer, a blur rushes across the right side of my vision.

  Kiwi.

  I slow to a stop and glance up to see she’s been snatched up by a berserker. The monster moves fast. Unnaturally. Gives me a rotten smile that dribbles yellow saliva to the ground. Without a thought, I ram my trident into its bumpy, gray knee.

  The thing makes a noise somewhere between and laugh and a snigger at the back of its throat. I glare into its dead eyes and swipe a blade across its belly. Its insides plop to the ground like rotten tomatoes. Its top half slides off sideways. As soon as it hits the ground, I jam my trident into the middle of its forehead.

  Kiwi rolls to the ground in a puddle of nasty shit while I jerk backward to remove my weapon. Once it’s free, I reach down to help her up.

  By the time she gets to her feet, we are surrounded.

  There are too many for us to mow down.

  Our escape route has been cut off.

  I lower my weapon and grab for Kiwi’s hand. Then, a groun
d trembling growl cuts through the wind.

  I glance up at Tripp. He’s all beast. Big yellow eyes staring calmly as he swipes dozens of monsters up into the air. He launches them into trees. They collide and the earth rumbles. Wood splinters, falling like rain all around us. My eyes are locked on him. On his display of power. My body is glued to the ground by blood and sweat. Beside me there is a thud, followed by a scream.

  I shake myself and glance to my right.

  No.

  Kiwi.

  Another scream pounds into my brain.

  I whirl around. There she is, hands reaching toward me. She’s being dragged by one of them. Soggy dirt and bits of ruined trees splash up into her face. I start after her.

  And don’t make it far. Something grabs me from behind. Without seeing, I know it’s another one of them. It latches onto my leg. I fall to the ground. A hand vice grips my head and slams my head into the dirt. Struggling, I force my head back up and suck in a huge breath.

  Then I have to watch as Kiwi is ripped into the air. The creature dangles her in front of its mouth.

  “No!” Then my face is back into the moist earth.

  There are hands everywhere. Pressing down on me. Crushing me. My spine. My neck. Everywhere. I can’t move. But I have to. I have to move. I struggle to with these manmade monsters, trying to get them off. Soon, I’ll be struggling to breathe.

  I have to get to her.

  I have to get us out of here.

  Why’d the dumbass have to leave that fucking tree? It’s the last thought I have before a thundering roar shakes the world. Right before I’m about to pass out, I’m snatched up into the air. I gasp and glance around.

  It’s Tripp. He has me in one of his massive hands. His yellow eyes look at me. His head nods slightly. Then he stomps a few feet, where he snatches Kiwi up with the other hand. Blood is running down her face, but other than that she appears fine. She grabs onto Tripp’s wrist and looks into his eyes with an expression I don’t quite understand. An expression that sets my nerves on edge.

  I frown. A bad feeling stirs in my stomach.