Everyone hushed. People stared at their feet and whispered to each other. A couple people scowled at Eli, shaking their heads.
"It's a suicide mission," someone spat back.
"Look what just happened to Squirrel," said another. "No way I'm going out there with him."
Suddenly Jane burst from the crowd and climbed the steps in her nightgown. She held up her bloody arms. A couple people gasped.
"This is Ben's blood. He's dead. Just so you know." Everyone fell completely silent and Jane watched them with a scowl, her cheeks flushing red. "Fucking cowards!"
The sea of faces turned downward and people on the crowd's fringes broke off and drifted down the street.
Mrs. Sharpe glanced at the blood on Jane's hands, Eli's clothes, then turned to Frank. "I'm sorry for the girl, truly. But what can we do?" She stepped off the porch and vanished into the crowd.
Frank shook his head and plodded across the porch to his wife, held her, and kissed the top of her head. Jane stood with her hands on her hips, her face flecked with blood, watching the entire town drift down the streets back home.
"We're going after her," Eli said. "Frank and me."
Jane nodded and crossed her arms. She didn't hesitate. Jane never hesitated.
"I'm coming."
Chapter 8
Eli tiptoed over root and rock. If he had to speak, he whispered. Every inch of his exposed flesh was covered. He carried his crossbow, Jane a spear, Frank a long ax. They all breathed deep and cleared their minds.
As he weaved through birch and maple trees, Eli repeated a mantra to himself.
Stay calm, stay invisible, find Lily.
Eli found her footprints behind Simon's larger ones at the tree line, where he'd seen the figures disappear an hour and a half before. They'd traveled at least a couple miles before anyone knew they were gone. Eli hoped that was close enough to catch up.
A blazing sun had burned away the morning mist. Bright shafts of light sliced between trunks and poured through leaves to dapple the forest floor. For three miles, Eli didn't look up from the ground. He knew these woods and when something was out of place. He followed the signs — the bent twigs, flattened brush, shapes pressed into dew-softened mud.
"I haven't been this far from Hope in over four years," Jane whispered behind him. "How long has it been for you?"
"Five." Frank's voice was weak, gravely.
"I feel like a bird that's been let out of its cage."
Their feet crunched leaves, broke twigs underfoot. Eli bristled. There were rules for crossing the Parasites' hunting grounds and Frank and Jane were breaking them.
"Lily was afraid of the wilderness," Frank said. "She barely remembers what the world was like before."
"I hardly do either," Jane said. "Everything looks wilder to me."
"The world's moved on without us, I suppose."
"I wonder how much."
They fell silent and Eli calmed. Then their footsteps hastened loudly behind him and he searched the woods nervously for signs of movement. Jane came up on his left, Frank on his right. He could only see their eyes — Jane's mossy ones, squinting above her bandanna, and Frank's darting behind and around him, searching.
Hoping to see Lily.
"Care to join the conversation?" Jane said.
Eli shook his head and quickened his pace; they fell behind a step.
"You need to calm down." Jane smacked his arm from behind. "Eli. You're speeding through here like a man who's pissed off."
"I am calm," Eli said in a gruff whisper. "Be quiet."
"They can't hear a pin drop from a mile away, Eli. They're not superheroes." Jane grabbed his arm. "But they will pick up your scent if you don't chill."
Jane was right — his mind wasn't clear. Fear and worry and the storm of other emotions swirling through his mind would lure the Parasites more easily than sound. They felt nothing but desire and pain. Humans felt everything.
Stay calm, stay invisible, find Lily.
Eli only nodded and marched down the path, fixated on Lily's prints peppering the soft earth beneath his feet. He imagined her dirty sneakers pressing into the dirt and Simon's hand gripping her skinny arm. He heard her begging and whimpering. Every sight, scent, and sound made him flinch with fear and hope.
He took Lily.
Eli tried not to wonder what Simon wanted with her.
Lily's footprints led them to a flat clearing where the trees thinned and a creak bubbled over amber rocks. Eli crossed it with a hop, then squatted beside it and fished an extra canteen from his pack and dipped it into the frigid water. Frank and Jane caught up.
"So what's the plan, boss?" Jane asked. "You say you know your way around. What's out there?"
Her voice echoed through the forest. Eli swallowed his annoyance.
"West is a state park. There are two towns on the other side. A couple more to the north, survivors and infected both, last time I knew. I never been east. Footprints are heading north."
Which begged the question: Where did Simon come from?
"And the plan?"
Eli paused and listened, but the only sound was the wind rustling leaves. A shiver of panic ran through him: Parasites could be watching right then. Silent, waiting, hungry. He felt their eyes.
"We follow the trail. Doubt he thinks he's being followed," Eli muttered, almost too quiet to hear. "That's our advantage. We'll catch up."
"Then what?"
Jane leaned closer. He smelled rosemary, remembered the scrape of her fingers on his body as she cleaned his wounds. The burn of Derek's hot, writhing throat in his hand, his eyes crazed with fear. A wave of power. The eyes turned mossy green, the cheeks sprouted freckles, and Jane's throat pulsed beneath his hand. Her nails scraped his wrist as he squeezed.
"Eli —" Jane thwacked his arm.
The vision faded and Eli found he was shaking. He stood, screwed the cap on the canteen, and put his hand up to keep Jane at arm's length. He was breathing too heavily to speak.
"If we catch up, I'll kill him." Frank stood on the other side of the creak; his voice was shaky but firm. "I shouldn't have let her out of my sight."
"You couldn't of known," Jane said. "He seemed like a nice kid. Eli, tell him."
Eli watched the water slip over the rocks and muttered, "Sure, sure."
"She should've been safe inside the walls—" Jane started.
"We shouldn't have let him in," Frank cut in. "We shouldn't have trusted a stranger."
The creek murmured its soft rhythm. Eli peeked at his friends and turned on slow, heavy legs, motioning silently for them to follow. He walked ahead alone, listening to their dim whispers. Jane's husky voice, Frank's deep growl.
You trusted me. And look what I did.
"Where are you, Lily Bear?" he murmured.
Birds chirped from distant branches; Eli whistled along as he followed Lily's prints in a trance. His body wove automatically around brush, through an open meadow, over a gray road. The morning passed and the sun's rays brightened on the forest floor. The air grew sticky and hot. The ground beneath Eli's feet spilled down a hill and he realized where he was.
He hadn't seen it in three years, but he remembered the way the path twisted. It hooked right around a knotty oak, then straightened further up and into black, needle-straight trees. He remembered the leaning tree on one side of the path, its thick roots curling through cleft granite, and on the other side, the boulder shaped like a teardrop jutting through soft leaves.
How long had he rested there? Hours? Days? He stared at the spot where he'd sat, felt the rock cutting into his spine and pain boring through his side. Hot blood seeping through his fingers.
"What happened to following the rules, Mr. Stentz?"
Eli flinched at the sound, spun around to find Jane and Frank approaching. Noted they were safe, that Frank looked afraid and Jane confused.
"What?" Jane said.
Frank motioned to the boulder but didn't look at it. "The boundary. Five
miles. He's taken her five miles away from home."
The edge of their known world. Even the hunters rarely ventured that far, but three years ago they did and found Eli, with his body riddled with bullet holes.
"Eli, look." Jane pointed ahead, off the trail and to the right. "Was that here back then?"
Eli shook his head, cleared his head. Focused his thoughts into the present and followed Jane's finger, pointing at a slapdash cabin hiding behind the tumble of granite and its invasive tree.
"No."
Eli crouched at the path's edge and found a print dug into the soft earth. He gazed up, spied a trail of broken twigs and flattened leaves leading to the cabin.
Eli forgot his own rules and launched himself noisily through the brush.
"Eli!" Jane hissed behind him.
The footprints wove around stumps, down a dip in the land and up a small rise. Two large feet, and behind them two small, dragging ones. Eli pursued them, light-headed and sick with panic, weaving around the stumps, thudding down the dip and rushing up the hill.
Eli lunged at the cabin, slapping a hand on its rough logs, splintery against his palm. He encircled it and found a door; dozens of footprints pitted the ground in front of it. He popped the door open.
Light spilled across the small space inside. Eli's skin tingled — someone had just been there.
He spun around the room, corner to corner, head bent. He found a barrette, a stuffed toy rabbit, a ripped T-shirt, dozens of footprints. He raked a hand over a table shoved in a corner and grease and crumbs coated his palm. He dove his fingers inside a dozen tin cups — the bottoms were cold and wet.
They'd just left.
Eli's heart skipped with a painful thud.
They.
He scanned the floor and his eyes caught on something small and brightly colored, hiding in a corner. Letters traced in the dirt. Eli dove for it.
Whispers drifted up the rise and into the cabin. Eli peered over his shoulder to find Frank edging inside. Jane remained in the doorway. "Someone's been in this place, and recently."
"Do you think Lily has been here?" Frank asked.
"Maybe. Otherwise this is one hell of a coincidence." Jane's gaze — oddly distant and fearful — found Eli. "You find something?"
Eli rolled it between his fingers. "A pink thread," he breathed, and a knot loosened in his chest. He was picturing Lily's skinny little wrist, always adorned with a ratty, braided bracelet of pink and yellow thread. Her favorite colors.
"Is it hers?" Frank rushed to Eli's side and stared at the thing between his fingers with reverence. "From her friendship bracelet, maybe?" He smiled. "Her sister gave it to her. Her real sister."
"There's something else, in the corner." Eli pointed and let Frank pass. He hunched beside the small letters, scratched in the dirt beneath the table.
"LT, NW," Frank read.
"Lily Timmons." Eli could almost see her there, quietly tracing her initials. "'NW' means northwest."
"Northwest?" Tears puddled in Frank's quivering eyes but didn't fall. "Where is he taking her? What does this mean?"
"It's just a guess, mind you. The footprints, the cups tell me we ain't just following Simon and Lily."
Jane's sharp voice cut in. "More victims or more kidnappers?"
"Can't say. Likely both." The ghostly figures of missing girls swept past him, huddled in corners, whimpering. He dropped his voice. "Them things on the table tell me more victims."
Jane sighed angrily, ran her hand through her hair, and gazed up at nothing. "More victims. And accomplices to boot. Great."
"What's northwest?" Frank asked.
Bruised knuckles. Gunpowder. Twisting hallways and echoing, shrill screams. Frank's wrinkles deepened with a scared frown. A gun pressed between his thick brows. Eli held his finger, poised on the trigger.
Do it.
Eli sucked in a shaky breath, shook the vision from his head, and backed away from his friend. "I don't know."
Frank stared at him long and hard, waiting for something. Reassurance, comfort, hope. Eli couldn't find the words.
"I need fresh air." Frank dashed to the door, wiping his eyes.
Jane met him there, put a soft hand on his arm. "She's a survivor, Frank. And we're going to find her."
He swept past her and went outside. When he was gone, Jane gave Eli a withering look and stepped farther inside. She padded around the room, stooped to study the clues. Eli watched her, frightened, feeling like a wild animal penned in with its innocent prey.
"We need to get going," he said.
"I know. Just give him a minute." Jane stared at the toy rabbit, a torn, graying thing with an eye missing. She crooked an eyebrow at him. "It's bringing back memories of his daughters. The eldest, Becky, he never knew what happened to her."
Frank only called them "my girls." Eli always sensed it wasn't his place to ask questions about them. Could Eli have protected his new daughter? Lily's screams woke him that morning, and he'd seen her slip into the woods. Why hadn't he followed? Why hadn't he seen that something was wrong?
"Girls are always victims, aren't they?" Jane was saying. She stared at the horde of small footprints. "No matter where you go, or when you live. Or if the world ends. They're always victims."
The cabin vanished, like someone snuffed out the light. In the dark, gunpowder and blood assaulted his nose. He ran down those twisting hallways again, cold nipping his skin. Screams echoed from a distant memory — one he'd buried three years ago.
Jane's voice punched through the memories. "Are you listening to me?"
Eli rooted himself in her eyes, her irises gleaming emerald in the sunlight, until the memories dissolved. Her eyes changed color, he realized, with every passing hour. They penetrated his soul.
"I'm gonna look for more clues outside," Eli said.
He hurried passed her and into the open, sunlit air. The forest canopy swirled above him and the ground pitched and heaved beneath his feet as he trudged through the brush. He hid behind a broad tree, bending at the waist with his hands on his knees. A gag began at the back of his throat. He closed his eyes, sucking in deep breaths, swallowing down his sour stomach.
Girls are always victims.
The black pit opened before him. He'd fallen in so many times before and could again, so easily. But it was hell to crawl back out.
"Get it together," he said to himself. For Lily. Lily, with her dimples and curly hair and her questions. Lily, who was now being dragged northwest while Eli hid behind a tree trying not to vomit. "Get it together."
Somewhere, a bird chirped. His favorite one — a chickadee. He concentrated on its song and rooted himself in a childhood memory. He and his mother sitting in the grass. That's where she taught him to sing like the birds. He pursed his lips and whistled with the chickadee and it sang back.
The pit closed. His heart hammered slower and his nausea ebbed. He peeled his eyes open — the sun blazed bright, blinding him for a moment. He found himself staring at an avenue of footprints, foliage flattened in their wake.
He pushed himself from the trunk and forced his legs to move. Lily was relying on him. There was no time to be weak. He followed the crowd of footprints, which trampled down the rise, around stumps, and over roots.
Each step was one step closer to her.
Eli's world narrowed to those footprints. He pursued them into the unknown without stumbling or making a sound, telling himself Lily was just around the corner, just up the path, just behind that boulder, on the other side of that creek. He spotted each footprint and broken branch until a flash of color burst from the green and brown. Eli stopped and plucked a yellow thread from a bush.
"Atta girl, Lily Bear." He rolled the thread between his fingers and prayed she could be strong a little while longer. "I'm coming."
Branches snapped to his left, cracking in the quiet woods like fireworks. Eli looked up. He didn't recognize his surroundings and couldn't remember how he'd gotten there. Frank and Jane we
re nowhere to be found. He was alone. He stopped and shouldered his crossbow, searching with his finger on the trigger.
Another branch cracked to his right. The air around him changed, his skin grew cold. Eyes were on him. Dead eyes. Anyone wandering in the woods was a Parasite until proven otherwise.
A crackle sounded behind him, then up ahead. He spun in that direction. Movement flicked between tree trunks.
Eli spun to the left: a head emerged from below a rise, growing taller. On the right was a second. He spun around and found a third.
Long, stringy hair. Skin draped over bones. Dirt-stained clothes.
Eli counted four Parasites. They loomed between the trees, their bare feet gliding softly as they crept forward with spears in hand. He whipped his crossbow between each one, aiming the arrow at their heads.
Dead eyes peered back. Was Lily right? Were they still somewhere inside? Did they remember who they were?
The muscle and bone in his finger froze in place. The Parasites exchanged glances and gestured to each other. They stretched out skeletal arms and encircled him, blocking escape.
From between their skinny arms, he spied two more figures bobbing into view.
Frank and Jane.
The Parasites grinned, traded glances, nodded. Feet kicked off the ground, grimy bodies blurred. Two of them headed toward Frank and Jane. The two left went for Eli.
"No..."
He had thirty seconds.
Eli pulled his dagger from its sheath at his hip. Raced toward the closest Parasite and plunged the blade into its neck. He flipped around, found the other racing toward him and kicked him in the chest. The creature hit the ground. Eli hovered over the creature and thrust his knife into its chest. Then he spun around to find the other two, now racing toward his friends.
Jane glanced up the path, found Eli. Above her mouth guard, her eyes widened in a seizure of fear.
Frank and Jane readied their weapons, but he couldn't let them risk it. He shouldered his crossbow, loaded an arrow, and squeezed the trigger. The arrow thudded into the back of one Parasite's head. Eli reloaded another arrow, ready to kill the fourth, but it ran away, plunging into a thicket of scrub.
The Human Wilderness (A New America Trilogy Book 1) Page 7