by Laken Cane
“They absorb us.” She replied with the automatic blankness of someone repeating something they’d been told. “They learn what we know.”
“So they can talk.”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Most of them. Some of them can’t because their brains are hurt. They’re not good absorbers. Some of them are dumb.”
Those must have been the ones I’d experienced. They hadn’t seemed particularly intelligent or thoughtful and I couldn’t imagine one of them speaking.
It was my turn to hesitate. “How long did they have you?”
She didn’t answer, and I didn’t push.
We went first to the grocery. “In and out,” I said. “Fast as we can. We’ll fill one cart—no way you can push one back home.”
“Get a car,” she said, and frowned at me, like I was the stupidest person she’d ever seen.
“You know noise brings them running, Sage.”
“The orphans will know the gods are coming. They…hear each other. In their heads. They won’t be here to hear us because they’ll run to meet their masters.”
“Orphans?”
“The…” She gestured, searching for the right word. “The loose ones. The ones that can’t absorb. The dumb ones.”
I put a hand to my chest and stared at her. “There are different types of mutants?”
“Yes. The gods are smart. You can’t run from them and you can’t kill them—not even with that machete. They’re too fast and strong. All you can do is hide.”
I stared at her. “How old are you, again? No way you’re eight. No way.” I didn’t really want to think about what she’d just told me.
Her eyes sparkled for a second and she lifted her chin. “I’m wise. It’s why I’m called Sage.”
“How did your mom know you were going to be so sage?” I grinned at her, but she wouldn’t look at me, and she didn’t reply to my question.
The kid was unbelievable, there was no doubt. But the mystery of Sage made me uneasy.
“The forsaken,” she went on, “will unite. They’ll rebel. Someday.”
“The forsaken—you mean the loose ones?”
She curled her lip, then thumped her chest with a small fist. “We, the forsaken.”
Holy shit. I stared at her, my mouth open. “Sage…”
“Get a car,” she said, and something about her stiffness, her absolute stillness, freaked me out.
“Are they coming?” I whispered, a hand to my stomach.
“I told you they were.” She frowned at me.
“I mean like now.”
She shrugged. “We should hurry.”
There was a row of homes across the highway from the mall. “Come on,” I said. “There are cars in nearly every driveway. The keys will be inside the houses.”
We rushed across the street to the homes. “Pick one,” I told her.
She immediately pointed at a black SUV. “That one is big.”
“Good choice.” I picked up a rock and knocked out the glass beside the front door, then reached in to unlock it. Once inside, I found the keys in a tray in the entryway, but as I turned to leave, Sage hurried deeper into the house.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“Supplies.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. Didn’t matter where we got supplies, as long as we got them. I followed her into the kitchen, and she began filling a bag as I fished a cardboard box from the pantry and loaded it with as much as I could carry.
I worked quietly and quickly, concentrating on the task, as did Sage. At the back of my mind was a niggling worry about the girl. I wasn’t sure what it was, other than the fear that she’d get hurt or I’d lose her or something horrible would happen and I’d be responsible for another child’s death.
It bothered me. It was like a word on the tip of my tongue that I couldn’t quite grasp. It danced teasingly just out of my reach.
The house was full of goodies and I wanted them all. Before the little girl, I hadn’t reached the point where there was nothing left. I thought I’d had time.
Time had run out.
Now fear of losing food and supplies combined with the sharp terror of the incoming group of mutants made me a cringing, fearful person who couldn’t wait to return to my home where I might be safe.
Might be safe.
“Do you know where they came from, Sage?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I paused. “You don’t know anything at all about them?”
Again, she shrugged. “I think in the ground.”
Then she refused to say anything else about it. Probably whatever she’d seen and heard was a big ball of confusion in her mind, and she wasn’t sure of anything.
We cleared out the house with grim determination, making several trips to the car before we were finished. Afterward, we climbed into the SUV and for only the second time in two years, I drove a car.
I wasn’t very good at it, but I’d gotten some experience driving when I had to help cart corpses to the burn piles. When the world went crazy, those who were able and sane pitched in to help those who weren’t.
We found only two more houses holding anything of value, and then we gave up on the houses and went to the mall.
We loaded the SUV down with everything we could get in. By the time we were ready to leave, there was barely enough room for the two of us to squeeze in.
Sage was surprisingly capable. She didn’t need to be told what to do—the kid grabbed a cart and threw everything in that she could reach, then left the full cart for me to shove to the car while she loaded up another one.
She was small, but she was strong and fast.
And when I roared down the highway toward home, not one mutant appeared.
“We’ll go back for more tomorrow,” I said, as we unloaded the car.
Sage nodded. “Okay.”
“How long before they get here, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Not today.”
“Like three or four days?”
“I don’t know.”
“But how long do you think, Sage?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded like a child—a grumpy child—which relieved me in a strange way.
I shoved canned food into the pantry. “We’ll go back tomorrow, then we’ll lie low and wait for the mutants to pass through.”
“The gods. The mutants aren’t as scary.”
“Whatever.” I turned to face her, my hands on my hips. “How long will they stay in town for their little pillaging and plundering party?”
“A long time.”
But what was “a long time” to an eight-year-old? When I was that young, a day was an eternity.
“Until they get everything they want,” she added, making things a little clearer.
“Sometimes,” I told her, “I think about loading up a car and just driving. But I couldn’t drive forever, could I?”
“I’m hungry,” she said.
I sighed. “Okay. Let’s finish unloading the car and then I’ll make some dinner. Deal?”
“Deal.”
But she looked pale and tiny, and her hands shook when she handed me a can of green beans.
I opened a can of milk, grabbed a box of sugary cereal, and poured them into a huge bowl. “Go sit down and eat, honey. I’ll take care of the rest. Won’t take me long.”
She didn’t argue. She sat on the couch, and before she was halfway through her cereal, she fell asleep.
It’d been a very productive day. I finished unloading the car, locking the door behind me each time I brought in another bag or box of supplies.
I’d learned to be careful.
Not because of the end of the world, though. I’d learned to be careful long before the world ended, and locking a door was a habit I wouldn’t shed anytime soon.
After I’d filled the pantry, I clicked on the battery-powered lights in the cellar, then carried the rest of the supplies down to the well-stocked room.
There was one thing
left for me to do, and I wanted to get it done before nightfall. I left Sage a note just in case she woke up and found me gone—though I doubted she could read it—and then I hurried to the Johnson’s to find her some clothes.
I was back home in less than twenty minutes, carrying two bags of clothes and shoes I figured would come close to fitting her.
I stopped at the couch, then leaned over to kiss her forehead before falling into my own bed. It’d felt good working all day. Had made the time pass quickly.
Having company didn’t hurt.
But that night I dreamed of mutants and blood and pain and Robin, and when I woke up, sweaty and disoriented, I decided no way in hell were we making a return trip to town in the morning.
Because in my dream, the mutants had me. Worse than that, they had Sage.
So we weren’t going back to town.
She was mine now. My kid, my sister, whatever.
My responsibility.
And I was not going to let anything happen to her.
But by the light of day, my decision to stay home disintegrated beneath the brightness of the sun, the very clear realization that we’d need every bit of the supplies we could find, and the insistence of the strange little girl.
Chapter Six
The sound of the car engine made my stomach clench. It wasn’t a loud car, but the town was even quieter. Any sounds that weren’t birds or wind stood out in all that quietness.
That day, even the birds were silent, and the wind didn’t blow.
I took a deep breath and pushed it out slowly, hoping my anxiety would go with it. “It feels different.” I looked at the kid. “This day.”
She said nothing.
I was pretty sure she could feel the difference in the air, same as I could. Maybe more.
She wasn’t a regular kid. Obviously.
And she’d already gone back inside her shell.
“What’s wrong, Sage?” I asked.
She kept her face turned toward the window and never said a word. I hoped that when we got to town and started working, she’d cheer up a little. Her silence made me nervous.
Funny how quickly I’d gotten attached to the sound of another person’s voice.
I didn’t speak again until we reached town, and then only to caution her to stay alert and let me know the second she heard, saw, or felt anything at all.
She gave me a terse nod that sent her red curls into her face, and then with a weary sigh, she grabbed a cart to begin the long process of once again filling the car with supplies.
When we were finished with the grocery store, we’d head to the pharmacy and then the farm and feed store. I wanted to get everything that was left—not that there was a lot.
“I’ve been lucky,” I said, “that this town hasn’t been looted or burned by roaming humans. There haven’t even been many mutants here.”
She didn’t reply, but I knew what she was thinking.
That was about to change.
We sat in the car and had our lunch. “After we eat,” I told her, “let’s go to the pharmacy and clean it out.”
She nodded. “Get medicines.”
“Yes.” The child could use some vitamins. “I’ll get some gummies for you.”
She looked at me blankly.
I pointed across the street at a cute red car sitting in one of the driveways. “When we need to switch out this car, we’ll take that one. I like red. It’s bright and cheerful and…”
“What?” she asked, when I trailed off.
I reached out to turn the key in the ignition, and then, I groaned. “The gas tank’s almost empty!” It simply hadn’t occurred to me to check. “Damn it.”
“Drive fast so we can get home before the gas runs out.”
I laughed. “Okay, honey. I’ll drive fast.”
She nodded.
I sighed. “I’ll drive as far as I can, then return for the stuff when I have another car. One with gas.”
She climbed from the car to stand in a patch of sunlight.
I downed the remainder of my water then joined her. “Let’s go.”
“You go. I want to stay in the sun while I can.”
Her words hit me in the stomach and knocked the breath from my lungs. I couldn’t have said why, but her voice, her words, and her eyes held something so dark and ominous I knew without a single doubt she was seeing either the future or her past.
And either way, it was grim.
“Get medicines,” she repeated, softly.
I ran for the pharmacy, wanting to get it over with. I barreled through the doors and grabbed one of their little red carts. I didn’t take time to see if what I pulled off the shelves was anything we’d really need in our dismal future. I was quite certain we’d need everything.
I was relieved when Sage decided to join me. She stood just inside the doors, peering out, her shoulders stiff, keeping watch.
“Bandages,” I muttered. “Vitamins. Pain relievers. Cough drops.” I talked because I could not stand the silence. It was too heavy and hurt my stomach. “Scissors. Tape.”
I turned around to toss the items into my cart and nearly tripped over Sage, who had quietly moved from her post and now stood stiffly behind me.
“Shit,” I cried. “Don’t sneak up on me like—”
“They’re coming,” she whispered.
The tape and scissors dropped from my grip and fell to the floor with a clatter. “What?”
Without taking her stare from me, she lifted her hand and pointed toward the wall of windows.
I thought I heard my neck creak as I turned my head to follow her pointing finger.
I couldn’t move, not at first, but finally I forced my body to unfreeze and I ran to the windows. There was nothing in the parking lot.
“Sage, come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She shook her head. “It’s too late to run.”
“Oh, honey. It is never too late to run. Now get the hell over here. I’m not leaving without you.”
She didn’t move. Her eyes were huge and sunken in her pale, thin face. A face full of doom. She was frozen to the spot, too terrified to move.
I knew exactly how she felt.
I rushed to her and grabbed her arm, skinny and small through the sleeve of her thin coat.
As we ran toward the SUV I darted glances around the parking lot, the street, and even the yards of the houses across from the mall. I saw nothing.
But they’d arrived. I heard them.
Just as we reached the cover of the car, I caught movement from the corner of my eye.
The first of the mutants appeared around the bend. They strode purposefully down the street, their walk and constantly swiveling heads quick and eager.
I dropped to my hands and knees, and Sage, her back against the car, slid down to the pavement. I scrambled to the back of the car so I could keep the intruders in view.
“Teagan,” she cried. “Don’t let them get me.”
She’d never sounded more like a child.
“Never,” I promised, fiercely.
I knew it was a promise I could only keep if they kept walking and didn’t see us. But we were in the parking lot of the mall, and they were going to raid the mall.
More of them appeared behind the first group. In seconds, the street was full of stomping feet and the air was heavy with muffled voices. The first group might have been scouts—they never stopped swiveling their heads as they searched the area, and they were quiet.
They were tall and skinny, the scouts, with darting heads and twitching limbs. They resembled the mutants I’d faced, but were different in certain ways. They were more observant, and even their strange, jerky movements were faster than I’d ever seen a mutant move.
Maybe even faster than humans.
And what scared me almost more than anything else…
They were laughing, joking, talking.
And one of them, a female mutant, was singing. Singing.
“T
hey absorb us. They learn what we know.”
I’d never seen those types of mutants. Not once.
“What should I do,” she sang, her voice as pure and sweet as a child’s. “The day is through, and I’m still waiting. Waiting for you…”
I closed my eyes for a long second and tried to gain control of my galloping heart. A piece of gravel was grinding into my left knee, and the small distraction of that pain helped me focus on something besides the complete and utter terror roaring through my brain.
I continued to peek around the back of the car, and in the next second, I saw them.
The gods.
There was no mistaking them for the scouts or the orphans. They barely resembled the lesser mutants.
They strode down the street, tall and swaggering and big, some of them almost leisurely jogging as though their energy was too much for walking.
Their hair was dark and tied up in topknots, and the ends of the thick strands spilled over broad shoulders. Both the male and female gods were larger than the other mutants—likely they got the biggest share of the food.
Unlike the scouts, the gods seemed almost relaxed. They didn’t search the area obsessively, they weren’t stiff or erratic or twitchy, and they talked. With each other.
They talked. And they laughed.
In their midst one god rose above them all, but only because he rode a horse. He looked the same as the other gods. Same hair, same huge body, same relaxed manner.
Farther behind the first group of gods came more gods, all on horseback.
“It’s like a Halloween parade,” I whispered. “A hideous parade of monsters.”
And then…
Then I saw their captives.
Behind those swaggering gods came a small knot of humans. Women, all with huge, swollen bellies, all naked. All I could think of through the buzzing of horror in my mind was that soon the humans would freeze to death if they were denied clothes.
That’s what I concentrated on, because if I didn’t, I was afraid my mind would shatter.
Cords or ropes of some sort snaked from thick collars around the women’s necks, and appeared to be connected. Even as I watched, one of the women stumbled and fell to her knees, and the woman directly behind her was pulled down as well.
A mutant grabbed the first woman by her hair and yanked her to her feet. The second woman rose hastily but clumsily—even from the distance I could see the grimace of pain on her face.