So they stuck her in that classroom down the hall, the one with the door that locked when you closed it. Addy had heard the nicknames they gave the kids in this class. The freaks. The monsters. The science experiments. A class for those handicapped mentally, emotionally, socially. The principal called them "those who need a little extra help." Others just called them the weirdos.
So Addy sat among them. She listened to them blabber and scream and weep and slur. When the big one fought her, she fought back with all her strength, losing every fight, losing a tooth to his fist, but always fighting back. She was Addy Linden, her dad in and out of jail, her mom a strung-out junkie, and these were her kind. She was a freak. She was a monster. She was a weirdo. And every day, she hated herself, and every day, it was only the booze and cigarettes and cuts on her arm that gave her some relief, that hid the world for only a moment or two.
On that trip to the science museum, Addy had stood with her kind. With the girl who drooled and could not speak. With the big boy who hated the world and fought all those he saw. With the boy drugged out on medication and obese and barely alive. Those who needed a little extra help. Those who had such love from teachers and parents yet such hatred from their fellow students, often such hatred for themselves. They walked together into the museum, afraid, some wailing in fear, one weeping.
"Who let the freaks in?" one student said, one of the normals, a pretty girl with pigtails.
Her friend, a boy with red hair, looked at Addy and her classmates in disgust. "It's a science museum after all. Maybe the museum wants to study them."
The pretty girl made a gagging noise. "Maybe they'll euthanize those freaks."
And there, with dinosaur skeletons and mammoth dioramas around them, Addy leaped at the girl and boy. And as she swung her fists, she screamed, and she was punching her drunk father who spent all day working on his motorcycle and bringing home girlfriends, and she was punching her mother for spending all day drugged out on the couch, she was punching the scum who kept raining down on the city. She was punching her life. She was crying by the time the teachers pulled her off.
They wanted to send her to the bus to wait out the day. They wanted to kick her out of school. They wanted to send her to juvy. They wanted to do all those things they always threatened, to hurt her, and Addy didn't care.
"Let the damn scum just kill me already!" she shouted, struggling against the teachers who held her arms. "I'll fight them too. I'll fight everyone! You can't hurt me. Nobody can hurt me anymore."
Through her tears, she saw a kid approach, another one of the normals. She wiped her eyes, refusing to let anyone see her weakness, to taunt her. She raised her chin, even as the teachers gripped her arms, and she stared at the boy. She knew his name. Marco. Marco Emery. His dad volunteered at the prison, donating used books and magazines for the prisoners, even teaching the illiterate prisoners to read.
"What do you want?" Addy said to the boy. "To gawk? I'll punch your fucking face in."
Marco hesitated, took a step back, then seemed to muster courage and stepped closer. He turned toward the teachers who were holding Addy, trying to drag her back to the bus.
"What do you want, Marco?" one teacher asked, a hulking brute who had been a drill sergeant in the army a decade ago.
Marco gulped. "Mr. Dougal, I thought that maybe Addy could still join us at the planetarium."
The burly, towering teacher frowned. His voice was like rolling thunder. "I appreciate that you care for your friends, Marco, but let me discipline Addy. She must learn the consequences of her actions."
Marco's face flushed, and his voice shook. He nervously clutched his gas mask box, but he plowed on. "Mr. Dougal, we all grew up in war. We all learned from a young age to run into bomb shelters, to put on gas masks. We all saw soldiers fight. We all learned that space is scary, that space is where the scum come from. But . . . sometimes at night, I look at the stars from my roof. And I see beauty too. And I think we all need to learn that. That there's beauty up there, not just terror. That there's more to this universe than war."
Mr. Dougal's face softened, and amazingly—Addy couldn't believe it—it looked like he was crying. The teacher nodded silently and released Addy.
That day, Addy sat among the other students, gazing up at the stars shining on the planetarium ceiling. She was a child of the city. She had never seen more than one or two stars between the skyscrapers. Around her, kids were whispering crude jokes, passing notes, making fart noises, spitting and drawing dirty pictures on the backs of seats. Addy ignored them. She gazed up at those stars, at the Milky Way, at the planets floating just beyond her reach like Christmas ornaments, and Addy wept. Because Marco had been right. There was beauty up there. Down here was all ugliness and shit and drunk fathers and whores that reeked of cheap cigarettes and mothers lying on the couch for days on end in drugged-up stupors. But up there, beyond the skyscrapers, there was beauty. It wasn't just the scum up there. There was also wonder and light and hope.
Someday I'll fly up there, Addy thought. She would not share that hope with her teachers, her parents, her friends; she knew it would earn her only mockery. But that day Addy vowed to rise into space someday. To become a heroine who fought the scum. To become an explorer. To purify the heavens.
At the end of that day, Addy sat on a fence outside the school, smoking a cigarette, waiting for him.
"Hey!" she called when she saw Marco walk by. "Fuck-face!"
Marco turned his head. He paled, turned away, and began to walk faster.
Addy tossed down her cigarette, leaped off the fence, and chased him. "Hey, I'm sorry, all right? That's how I talk. Slow down."
Marco stopped walking and turned back toward her. Addy approached him, wearing her torn jean shorts and her Wolf Legions shirt—the loudest, scariest metal band in the world. Her eye was still puffed from her fight, her arm still scarred from her blade. Marco stood before her in corduroys and a polo shirt, holding his Dungeons and Dragons books under his arm.
"Look, I don't want trouble," he said. "I just thought that—"
"Listen to me, Normal," Addy said. "You stay the fuck away from me, okay? Maybe you think you can save me. Maybe you think I'll be your girlfriend. I don't know what the hell you want from me. But I'm bad news. You lie down with us freaks, you wake up with warts."
Marco's lip trembled, but he managed to square his shoulders, to stare steadily into her eyes. "I just thought you'd like the stars, all right?" He looked around, licked his lips, then looked back at her. "Did you?"
Addy looked away. Fuck her damn eyes and how quickly they grew damp. "Yeah, they were all right." She reached into her pocket, fished out a hockey puck, and gave it to him. "You can have this. Bon Gossow once signed it. Famous hockey player. My old man gave it to me, but . . . hey, fuck him."
He stood frozen before her.
Addy rolled her eyes. "Look, kid, I know you probably never watched a hockey game in your life, but this is the only valuable shit I own, and I want you to have it, all right?"
He took the puck. He pocketed it. "Thank you," he said.
"Now go." She pointed down the road. "Go back to your nice life. And never talk to me again."
Marco all but ran.
Addy promised herself that she would forget the boy. She could never be one of the normals. She could never be his friend. She could never talk to him about the stars without sounding like a retard. Addy Linden knew she was trash, but she also knew that those stars awaited her, and that Marco had given her a greater gift than any signed puck.
She kept her promise for seven months.
When the snow lay thick on the city, when the scum pods rained and killed her parents, when the monsters from space ate his mother, she spoke to Marco again.
She pulled him away from the inferno. She moved into his apartment over the library. He became the most important person in her life—but not on that night of snow and blood. It had been on a summer morning in a science museum. It had been
under kinder stars.
As Addy ran through the darkness now, twenty-five years old, the stars above her and the enemy behind, that day in the planetarium returned to her. Dark trees rose before her. All around spread the ruin of the world. Once more, horrors from the darkness crawled across the earth, shrieking, stinking, killing, festering, chasing her, calling out her name. The marauders had come from space. They had come to feed.
But as Addy fled them, limping and bleeding and gasping for breath, she raised her eyes to the stars. And she knew that there was beauty there too. There was hope. Marco was out there, seeking the Ghost Fleet, and even down here in the mud and filth, Addy knew that great light shone above.
"They're catching up!" Steve said, running at her side. "We can't escape them."
Hundreds of escaped prisoners were still running across the dark field, fleeing the slaughterhouse, desperate to reach the forest a few kilometers away. Among them, Steve rose tallest and broadest, a body meant for slamming into other brutes on hockey rinks. He carried an elderly woman as he ran, and sweat soaked his face.
Addy ran at his side, a child piggybacking on her. "Shut up and keep running!"
But too many were falling behind. Hundreds had escaped the slaughterhouse, but many were too old, too young, too frail, too slow. The strong carried the weak, but their burden slowed them. The marauders bounded behind, screeching, leaping forth. A web shot out, grabbed a man, and yanked him back to the waiting jaws of a beast. Another marauder pounced off a boulder, landed on a woman, and ripped her apart, scattering globs of flesh. Every step, another human fell, another meal for the aliens.
And more marauders kept arriving.
Ravagers were rising from the ruins of Toronto behind them. The alien starships roared across the sky, came to hover over the field, and opened hatches. Marauders leaped down, jaws snapping, stingers rising, webs flying.
A strand caught a man ahead of Addy, then yanked him up to a ravager. Blood rained and severed legs thumped onto the field. Addy leaped over them, swerved, and dodged another web. She ran on, panting, eyes narrowed, desperate to reach the forest.
After so many days of privation, Addy was slower than usual, weak, her head spinning, and she still carried the extra pounds from the forced feedings. She was still naked, cut, bleeding, traumatized. Every step was agony.
Just imagine you're back at boot camp, Addy thought. Just imagine that you're running with Ben-Ari again. Imagine that Marco is running with you, that he'll mock you forever if he wins the race.
"Keep running!" she shouted. "We'll hide among the trees."
A child fell before her. Addy raced toward her, tried to help the girl rise, but was too slow. A marauder pounced, grabbed the girl, and leaped away, the child dying in its jaws. A ravager landed before them in the field, and a dozen marauders spilled out, racing toward the humans. More blood splashed.
Addy ran, the child bouncing on her back. Darkness around her. Blood showering her. Death everywhere. Eyes narrowed, breath burning in her lungs, she ran.
A ravager roared down to hover above her.
A sticky strand shot down, wrapped around the child Addy carried, and yanked the boy off her back.
"No!" Addy shouted.
The child screamed, reeled up toward a waiting ravager.
Addy leaped, grabbed the boy's legs, and clung.
The strand kept retracting, pulling them toward the hatch of the alien starship. Addy saw the marauders waiting there, snapping their jaws. Addy snarled, grabbed the boy, climbed higher, and lashed her marauder tooth.
The strand tore.
Addy and the child fell toward the ground.
Addy thumped down first. An instant before the boy could land, another web grabbed him, yanked him back up, and blood rained.
"You bastards!" Addy shouted. "You fucking bastards!" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Come on! Grab me! Pull me up!" She stood in the field, weeping. "I'll kill every last one of you!"
More strands shot down from the ravager. Marauders were climbing down, sneering, reaching out to grab her. Addy stood still, naked, bloody, panting, ivory sword raised, ready to fight and die.
With a howl, Steve leaped toward her, stabbed a marauder with his own tooth-sword, and grabbed Addy. He pulled her away from the descending aliens.
"Addy, run!" he shouted. "The others need you! Run!"
She ran, barely able to see through her tears. The blood of the boy still coated her. With every step, she saw others die.
I hate them. I hate them. I will kill them all.
Dark shapes rose from the field ahead. At first, Addy thought them mere boulders, maybe bales of hay. As she ran closer, she realized that a battle had been fought here. A Firebird lay shattered in a burnt field, its tail reaching up to the moonlight. Armored vehicles smoldered, skeletons spilling out from their doorways. Charred corpses lay everywhere, reaching out bony hands in supplication.
The HDF fought here, Addy realized. It lost.
With a shriek, a marauder emerged from the crashed Firebird. Two more leaped out of a dead tank. Others appeared from within armored transport vehicles. The aliens raced toward the escaped prisoners, drooling.
"Sweet meat, sweet meat!" the beasts chanted. "Soft brains and crunchable bones!"
Hundreds of other marauders still scuttled from behind, and more flew above.
A marauder vaulted over a Jeep and came flying at Addy.
Addy knelt by a dead soldier, his eye sockets gazing through tatters in rancid skin, his belly full of worms. Cringing, she wrenched his assault rifle free from skeletal hands.
She opened fire.
Her muzzle lit the night. Bullets screamed out and tore into the marauder. The beast squealed and fell, covering its eyes. Addy riddled it with bullets, then knelt and tore off the corpse's ammunition vest. She had to shake off the maggots. She loaded another magazine.
"Steve, armor up and keep running!" Addy said, pointing at another dead soldier.
He nodded, grabbed his own rifle, and roared as he sprayed bullets.
"Die, fuckers!" he bellowed, eyes red, naked and bleeding as he emptied his magazine. Another marauder fell, its eyes shattered.
"Now keep running!" Addy cried.
The survivors ran onward, firing the guns they had grabbed, but still falling every few steps.
Barely anyone remained alive by the time they reached the forest.
The maples and elms rose around them. The ground was no longer visible, and rocks, roots, and fallen logs kept tripping Addy. She fell, bloodied her elbows, ran again, fell again, ran onward. Cries of fear filled the forest. She could not tell how many other humans ran with her: perhaps dozens, maybe fewer than ten. She saw Steve's hulking shadow in the darkness, and she grabbed his hand. They ran together.
And everywhere, the marauders scuttled. Their eyes blazed among the trees. Their webs rose and fell. Their claws reached out, snatching up fleeing humans. More and more kept filling the forest. Addy skidded to a stop in front of snapping jaws, turned, ran another way. A marauder jumped down from a tree, and she swerved again, kicking up soil and leaves. She fell. A web caught her foot, and she cried out, tore off the strands, and ran onward.
"Addy, have you seen Stooge?" Steve shouted as they raced between the trees.
"Not since the field!" Addy shouted back.
"We have to find him. We—"
Engines roared above the forest. Flames filled the sky. Ravager claws opened above the canopy.
"Run!" Addy shouted, pulling Steve along.
Plasma rained.
Trees burst into flame.
They ran through the inferno.
Curtains of coiling flame shimmered, swirled, rose higher and rained down sparks. Tongues of hellfire lashed out. Trees cracked and fell. A man ran, ablaze, a living torch, and charred people crawled, reaching out blackened fingers, then collapsing, melting away. Still more ravagers streamed above.
"The whole forest is burning!" Steve shouted. "We're toast!
"
"I know a safe space!" Addy said. "Stay near me."
A marauder emerged from the trees before them, fangs shining. Addy and Steve fired in automatic, emptying magazines into its face, hitting the eyes. They ran around its corpse.
Addy glanced up. Marco had taught her to navigate by the stars, but she saw only smoke. She cursed. She didn't know where she was. The forest still burned, the fire spreading closer. Smoke filled her lungs. She had been heading north across the field. She only hoped she was still going the right way.
A dark shape loomed ahead, impervious to the flames. It rose like a demonic giant, black, peering with shimmering headlights like red eyes.
A train, Addy realized. The train tracks. We're going the right way.
She ran onto the tracks, and Steve followed. The trees burned alongside, and ravagers still screeched above. Addy ran along the tracks, Steve close behind, through this canyon of fire.
The forest spun around her. Her feet tripped on the rails. Her face hit the ground, and blood filled her mouth.
She floated in darkness.
"Addy!" Claws shook her. "Addy, wake up!"
Marco speaking. He knelt in the snow, the corpses of their parents around them. The boy she loved.
"You have to get up. You have to move!"
The scum rose behind him. Spaceships exploded in space, and the searing sun of Abaddon burned her.
The claws dragged her up, and Steve was pulling her along, skating across the hockey rink as burnt corpses watched from the tiers of seats. Addy ran with him, every footstep leaving blood on the ice. Her lungs burned. There were scum in her lungs. There were spiders in the forest. And still she ran.
Ahead she saw it.
It rose in the desert. It rose from ice. It rose in the ruins of her home. It rose over the corpses of her friends. A water tower. A skyscraper. A temple to cruel gods. An artifact where spiders worshiped.
Earth Shadows (Earthrise Book 5) Page 12