by Laken Cane
Or maybe I just imagined that part.
Farther down the procession were human men. They appeared in worse shape than the women, if that were possible. I saw limbs hanging at awkward angles and even from the distance I could see their bodies were bloody and battered.
Blood, wounds, filth.
And so very much despair.
I wanted to cry, but I was too shocked. Too scared.
What I was seeing…that horror was beyond tears.
I saw no little kids. Thank God, I saw no little kids. So what did they do with the half mutant, half human babies after they were born?
One of the scouts gestured and began jumping up and down as though his excitement were too extreme to control. Then the other scouts joined him in his strange dance, jumping and shrieking like crazed monkeys.
I duck-walked to Sage, who still hid her face against her bent knees. “Time to go, little girl,” I said. Past time.
She didn’t move.
“Now, Sage.” I could feel her terror, but fear was okay. Being taken was not. “Get in the car.”
She looked up, finally. “There’s no gas.” She reached up to put her little hands on either side of my face. “They can run forever. They’ll catch us when the car stops. We can’t let them hear us.”
I put my fist against my lips. Already, I could hear them marching across the grassy area that led straight to the parking lot. “My God,” I whispered. “What have I done?”
Sage sniffed, and tears overflowed from her huge eyes. “I’m scared.”
I didn’t care how old she looked or what age she said she was. Her eyes were not those of an eight year old. Her eyes were ancient. And she knew things. She’d lived with the gods.
And she was terrified.
We had two minutes, at the most. “Trust me, Sage. I’ll take care of you.”
She put her hand in mine and didn’t make a sound as I dragged her to the doors of the grocery store, just a few yards from the car. I planned to go through the store and out the back doors, then we’d run home like we were on fire and we wouldn’t come out again until the gods were gone.
Please, God. Please.
Adrenaline lent me wings, and we flew down the aisles toward the back of the store. The doors were not locked—I’d gone out back a dozen times. I just needed to reach them.
Please…
The mutants shoved through the front doors, hooting and laughing like a mob of drunken humans. And that made it even more frightening.
Because they were so not human.
Then the doors were there. Right there in front of me.
I slammed through them, Sage’s hand still in mine. I dimly realized I was squeezing it too tightly but I didn’t ease up.
I couldn’t.
Once outside, I had to slow down. I couldn’t run blindly and let my panic fling us into the long arms of the mutants.
Still holding Sage’s hand, I flattened myself against the building and tried to be still.
My wildly beating heart fluttered like a trapped bird against my rib cage, and blood roared through my ears so loudly I could barely hear anything else. I took a deep, deep breath, then another, and another.
When I was a little calmer, a little quieter, I closed my eyes, and I listened. Thumps, screams, and roars came from inside the store, but not just the store. An unending line of mutants still marched down the street, and they were invading homes as well as the other shops.
Invading Crowbridge.
My town.
And there wasn’t anything at all I could do about it.
I began creeping away from the building. If we made it to the field at the back of the store, we could slip through the tall, concealing grasses and circle around gradually to the wooded area that would lead us home.
It would take longer. A lot longer. But I didn’t care about that.
Any minute the mutants could leave the store. Any minute they could rush curiously to the back of the store—perhaps the scouts would check the area. Maybe they’d want to check the dumpsters.
All I knew for sure was that we had to get out of there.
I glanced at Sage. Her face remained expressionless, her eyes…hopeless.
“We need to run now,” I told her. “Don’t stop for anything.”
She nodded.
We kicked off and began running, bits of gravel and debris crunching beneath our shoes. Ordinarily I would have been more careful and quiet because of their tendency to hear every little thing, but I didn’t have to worry about that now.
They were making too much noise to hear the sounds two humans made while running away from them.
We made it to the field and rushed into its welcoming, sheltering arms. The ground was softer and kinder than the asphalt of the lot, and I immediately breathed easier as the tall, dry grasses shielded me from sharp mutant eyes.
“Stay right behind me,” I told her, and used my machete to part the dense weeds and tangled undergrowth as we crept ever onward.
The sounds of looting became dimmer the farther we walked, but images of tortured, pregnant humans flashed continuously through my mind.
We’d escaped the mutants. For now.
But there was a lot of distance between us and home, and I didn’t believe for one second that we’d seen the last of the terrifying cluster of gods.
Chapter Seven
I began to believe we might actually make it home. There were no sounds other than singing birds and the occasional crack of a dry stick or twig beneath our cautious steps. We crept through the woods, silent and watchful.
“Soon,” I murmured, finally. “We’ll be home very soon.”
She didn’t reply.
My fingers trembled when I reached up to touch my tingling lips. The skin between my shoulder blades itched as though the mutants were right behind me, ready to pounce and do horrible, unspeakable things to me.
My mind buzzed and my legs, weak and shaky, wanted to fold beneath my weight. I’d known terror since the end of the world, but this was something more.
I almost screamed when Sage shot out a hand and wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “Shhh,” she said. “Listen.”
I stopped walking and stood still, barely breathing as I peered into the shadows of the bleak woods. The day had become overcast without me noticing—understandable since I’d been occupied with surviving the mutants—and the tall trees seemed to lean and sway as they watched us creep through their darkening domain.
Suddenly everything seemed like a threat.
“Shhh,” Sage repeated.
I held my breath as I listened. I wanted to ask her what she heard, but I didn’t dare speak. I could hear nothing but the insidious whispering of the leaves as a breath of wind rippled through them.
But maybe that wasn’t what I was hearing at all. Maybe the leaves rustling together was actually the gods whispering.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing. The last thing I wanted was a full blown panic attack making us more vulnerable than we already were.
“Humans,” Sage whispered.
I opened my eyes. “What?”
“Humans are coming.” She tossed a look over her shoulder. “And mutants from there.”
“Mutants are in the woods?”
“Yes. Can you feel them?”
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “Yes. Yes, I can. Mutants behind us and baddies in front.”
“The mutants are gaining on us,” she said, her eyes wide. “If we don’t hide now, we’ll be caught in the middle of both of them.”
“Then let’s hide,” I said, calmer. “And let the bastards catch each other.”
Sage didn’t hesitate. She ran to a tree, then jumped and grabbed a low hanging branch. “Come on,” she hissed, and began to climb like a little monkey. “This is how we escaped them the first time. They never look in the trees.”
The humans might, though.
I started to grab a branch and hoist myself up, but my weapons wer
e in the way. I was wearing too many of them.
I yanked my machete strap from over my head. I tossed it away, then threw two of my smaller knives after it.
When the humans and mutants moved on, I would fetch the weapons.
I followed her up the tree. The trees I’d just imagined were out to get us suddenly became our refuge.
Sage was fearless and nimble and practically flew from branch to branch, higher and higher, until finally she straddled a sturdy branch, wrapped her arms around the trunk, and waited for me to join her.
Before I could climb as far as she had, I heard the voices. Human voices. The baddies. Human baddies were usually bad news.
“Human beings now have the freedom to be whatever they want. To do whatever they want. There are bad people in the world. People who’ve been fettered by society, Teagan. Who’ve been chained by laws and rules and fear. That ends now. Some of these people will live on.”
My mother had already been stricken with the flu when she’d talked to me about the baddies of the world and what would happen when they were freed from their chains.
As if I didn’t already know.
I’d learned that lesson when I’d been six years old and a man had taken my sister.
As she lay dying, fading quickly, she’d made one last plea. “Kill yourself when I die. I can’t bear to leave you here alone. Take the sleeping pills. Take them all.”
“I will,” I lied.
When she’d died, I’d wrapped her in a sheet and buried her in the shallow grave I dug in the backyard. Then I’d found a different house.
I hadn’t been quite…sane, exactly, after my mother died. The trauma from the terror of the invading mutants, the disease, the death, the grief…
No. I hadn’t been quite sane.
I still wasn’t. I’d never again be the girl I was.
I’d accepted that.
And I didn’t trust anyone.
I glanced up at Sage and found her watching me. She put a finger to her lips.
I nodded.
The baddies were almost directly below us.
Carefully, I looked down through leaves that were just changing colors, grateful that it wasn’t so far into fall that the trees were barren.
I clutched the tree in a death grip as I imagined sliding off the branch and falling on top of the baddies. I closed my eyes and waited for the dizziness to pass. When I had control of myself, I peered down at them once again.
I saw seven humans. Six men, one woman.
And even though I knew better, part of me wanted to reach out to them. Part of me wanted to be with those of my own kind. To be taken care of. To belong to a group.
Part of me wanted to warn them about what was coming.
I didn’t move.
The baddies—funny how I thought of them as baddies even though I didn’t know if they would hurt me, not for sure—were not loud or boisterous.
Finally, one of them said, “Wait. Hear that?”
Terror exploded in my chest. Even when I realized it wasn’t me they heard—I wasn’t making a sound—the terror didn’t dissipate. Because it meant the mutants had arrived.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths before you pass out and hand yourself over to them.
“Shit,” one of the men said. “It’s them. Grab the bitch.”
The woman didn’t even scream.
I couldn’t see her well. The view was mostly obscured by the limbs and leaves, but I caught a glimpse when one of the men grasped her arm.
She stood with her head down, silent. She didn’t struggle or fight them or her fate in any way. She simply waited.
She’d given up long, long ago. She knew no one was going to save her.
Most likely if she’d been able to, she’d have killed herself.
The mutants flooded the area, surrounding the humans.
“Chill,” one of the humans said. “We’re collectors.” He shoved the woman away from his group. “Caught one for you.”
Wait. What?
The humans and the gods had been communicating? Human men were hunting human women to give to the mutants? That couldn’t be true.
How could that be true?
“Collectors,” another man said, thumping his chest. “That’s us.”
The mutants were all scouts, though I thought I caught a glimpse of an orphan hanging back behind them. The orphans were easy to spot. Their movements were slower and there was just something off about them. They were like…dead mutants who’d been brought back from the grave with part of their brains missing, and it showed. They held themselves a certain way. Even their walk was different.
The scouts spread out, surrounding the humans. They were dressed in regular human clothing—jeans, jackets, tee-shirts, boots. Some of them wore baseball caps. Some of them were bald. They didn’t look that different from humans.
But there were differences. Their yellow eyes, their sharp fangs, their insanely pale skin. Yes, they were different.
“Murdering bastards,” I whispered, but only to myself.
They completely ignored the woman.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
Then something happened that shocked me so much I nearly lost my grip on the tree.
A mutant spoke.
Even though Sage had informed me they could speak, that they learned from us, it hadn’t really sunk in. Even though I’d heard rumbles of their voices as they’d marched down the street, even though I’d heard one of them singing…
I somehow hadn’t imagined them standing around conversing with humans.
The mutant’s voice was rough and raw and gravely, and it took me a moment to comprehend his words. I understood why immediately. Their mouths were crowded with too many teeth and sharp fangs.
“Find more,” he ordered. “More.”
“Yeah,” the human replied. “We’ll find more, and we’ll hand them over when we run into a cluster. We know the rules, dude.”
Human men had a deal with the mutants. Find women, and the men—the collectors—could live. It didn’t explain why I’d seen male prisoners with the cluster in my town…though I guessed those men had refused to “work” for the mutants. Maybe they’d fought the gods.
I felt myself pale as I considered the other reason the mutants would have male prisoners. Food.
And the human collectors…
Those men were turning on their own kind. They made me sick. They made me furious.
But I was a helpless human stuck in a tree, just trying to stay alive. I couldn’t fight the bastards on the ground. I couldn’t save the woman.
I’d been sheltered for two years in my tiny town. I’d had no idea what was really going on out there in the world. That blissful ignorance was over, and the town was no longer mine.
I glanced up at Sage. She pressed the side of her face against the bark and stared down at me, but her eyes were empty and unseeing. When things got too scary, she found a way to shut down. To escape somewhere inside her mind.
Maybe she’d teach me how to do that.
If I lived long enough to learn.
Below, one of the mutants beckoned to the human who’d spoken—the leader of the little group, it appeared. “Come here,” he said.
The man didn’t move. “You have the lady. We need to get back to our search.”
“Come,” the mutant insisted. “You can go back with us to get your reward.” He gave a very human-like shrug. “Or you can die.”
“Fuck,” the human muttered, but he walked toward the mutants.
The other five humans drew closer to each other but said nothing. Their fear was almost a physical thing, and seemed to waft up from the ground to surround me.
When the human was beside him, the lead mutant spoke again. “We do not need so many humans.”
“Kroog says we do,” another mutant argued. “Food for our masters.”
So I was right.
We’re food and baby growers.
I shuddered and tightened my
grip on the tree.
The leader snorted. “The gods shouldn’t have first choice with them all. We do all the work and I am hungry.”
“The gods will die without them,” one of the scouts muttered.
“There are plenty of humans to go around,” the leader scoffed.
“Mischa said—” another mutant started.
“I’m leader of this group,” the first mutant said. “Are you challenging me?”
The second scout backed up a step. “Not challenging. But I’m not a rule breaker. Our masters—”
The first scout stared at his argumentative friend. “You’re a coward.”
He rushed the mutant who’d sassed him, and he was fast. The second mutant turned to run, but one of the others shoved him so hard he flew backward and collided with the leader.
The leader didn’t budge—didn’t take a step back or stumble or so much as grunt with the impact. He stood like a stone wall and when the other man slammed into him, he tore out the other man’s throat.
With no fanfare, no words, no hesitation.
The injured mutant stumbled backward, his hands to his throat, and the leader followed him. He rode him to the ground, and then he pulled a blade from his side and with excruciating, purposeful slowness, he sawed the mutant’s head off.
He jumped to his feet, spattered with milky mutant blood. He shook the blade at the group, who stood watching in absolute silence.
“Someday I will be like a god,” he shouted, “and I will not need a blade to relieve you of your heads. Are there other challengers?”
No one said a word.
I felt a warm, spreading wetness between my thighs and realized I’d peed my pants—at least a little. That was a secret I’d carry to my grave.
And then, while the humans milled in terror, the leader spoke once more. “Feast,” he said, softly.
Just that one word, but the tiny knot of humans immediately broke apart, lifted their guns, and began to shoot. Wildly, though. So wildly a bullet tore off a chunk of bark not two inches from my leg.
They didn’t care that the sound of their guns would bring mutants. The mutants were already there.
The man who’d led the humans turned away.