by Katie French
“I was just telling him where he stands,” I say, trying to keep emotion out of my voice.
Doc narrows his eyes. “Didn’t seem to take it well.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“I’m going to say this one more time,” Doc says, gripping the top of the solar car. “We should leave Bran here.”
I look across the landscape, focusing on the glowing sunrise and the scraggly peaks that block our view of the valley. “I’ll do whatever it takes. And Bran is what it takes.”
Doc storms around me to where Corra is reorganizing our supplies.
“Time to go,” I call.
Bran walks back over, zipping up his fly. Doc shoots him a look and says to me, “I’m sitting in the back.” He leans closer. “To keep an eye on him.”
I ignore him and turn to Corra. “We’ll be able to reach you on the satellite phone?”
She nods even though she’s answered this question at least twice. “We’ll be keeping an eye on things. If something goes wrong, call. Sometimes, reception can be shoddy. Just keep trying. If you need us to send in backup, don’t be afraid to ask.” She smiles and looks for a moment like she wants to touch my face, but doesn’t. “Be careful,” she whispers. “We’ll see you when you get back.”
The portly man who sat beside me at the meeting steps out of the bunker’s overhang shadow. “And remember, our world depends on you bringing Subject Eight back alive.”
“I got it.” When I slip into the driver’s seat, Bran sits beside me. He’s not a big man, but the tininess of the car makes him look like one. “Ready?”
He nods.
“Ready?” I ask Doc behind me.
In the backseat, he’s quiet, too. “Let’s get this over with.”
I start the car and pull out.
The car handles surprisingly smooth despite how small and low to the ground it is. And it’s easy to navigate with the push-button start and the automatic transmission. And unlike every vehicle I’ve ever driven, this one hasn’t undergone decades of decay. As we roll along the road up and out of the valley, I marvel at its speed and agility. The engine’s quiet, too, a car that can sneak up on people if you’re careful. Maybe with this type of advanced technology, this mission’s in the bag.
Then again, they lost one of their men a few days ago, and he had every advantage we have.
We drive in silence for about a half an hour. Soon, I see buildings in the distance.
The town below us looks like a rotten tooth eaten through with decay—buildings are missing windows, roofs, whole sections are toppled into piles of brick, car husks look like huge, fire-ravaged beetles, and scraggly trees are growing in the centers of streets that haven’t been driven on for decades.
“This is it,” Doc says, leaning forward. He watches as the first buildings pass by.
Corra said she thinks Subjects Seven and Eight are hiding in a strip mall in the center of town. She’s also assured us she hasn’t seen any human activity, but she can’t be sure we’ll be alone. I watch the abandoned buildings, with dozens of dark rooms, streak by and feel the tension build in my shoulders.
Then I see the barricade.
Ahead, a manmade wall blocks most of the road. Someone has dragged large items and stacked them a few deep—a giant sign that says “Motel,” a billboard with a woman’s tattered face on it, dozens of sheets of plywood, and even a few pitted cars. But the middle of the homemade wall is pried outward like someone rammed their way out of town.
My eyes scan beyond the barricade to the buildings. A thin trail of grayish smoke wafts into the sky from the north. If something is burning, it means one of two things—an accidental fire or something living. I’d think that these creatures are smart enough not to set fires, but then again, who knows how intelligent they are?
I slowly drive up to the barricade. Two-and three-story brick and concrete buildings rise around us, making me feel walled in. A lamppost hangs over the street like an uprooted tree. From the top of the closest building, the largest crow I’ve ever seen watches the solar car’s approach.
“Get out of here, you bastard, or you’ll be lunch,” I mutter under my breath.
Doc, who hasn’t said much the whole ride, leans forward. “Huh?”
“Nothing.”
“They said it’s just their genetic mutants here, right? No crazy people are going to jump out and shoot us?” Doc asks, pulling on the back of my seat to get a better view out the windshield. I want to tell him he’s making me tense, but instead, I keep my eyes glued to the buildings. We’re too far away to really tell, but the town looks uninhabitable.
I pull the car up so my bumper is nearly parallel with the barricade. Just as I’m about to drive around a huge sheet of plywood and into town, Bran speaks up. “We should go in on foot.”
I step on the brake, lurching us to a stop. “But we’ll lose our cover if anything comes after us.”
“If we drive up in this clown car, sis, we’ll be announcing we’re here. Might as well come in with a bullhorn and give ourselves a grand welcome.” Bran’s eyes search the buildings, the sky, and the street. “Quiet is the way to go.”
“Leave the car? Are you crazy?” Doc’s voice is flooded with panic. “We can’t leave the car.”
Bran gives him a look reserved for idiots and children. “How many recon missions have you lead, Nancy boy?”
Doc blanches.
Bran smirks. “I was leading missions when you were in nappies. Now shut up and let the big boys talk.”
Doc stiffens. “Wait a goddamned minute—”
I pound the steering wheel with my palm. “Stop arguing. We’ll go on foot from here and check it out. If everything seems okay, we’ll come back for the car.”
Doc falls back against the seat, obviously mad. Bran smirks under his beard.
“Christman Jesus,” I murmur. “Get out of the damn car.”
We slide out quietly, grabbing what we need—water, rations, the stun gun, and our weapons. Doc pockets the satellite radio. I punch the code in the four-digit keypad beside the solar car’s door and hear the lock engage.
Turning, we stare at the city before us.
The smell is acrid and stale, like something long dead. A hot breeze stirs the trash at our feet, and a brown lizard skitters away as we approach. My eyes scan left and right, marking the open windows on the two-story building on my right and the half-crumpled three-story structure on my left, just a tumble of bricks and twisted metal. So many places to hide. An ambush could come from anywhere.
My gun is out. I’m worried I might shoot Subject Eight instead of stun her. We were told she was the smaller of the two, but how will I know unless I see both of them together? At my left shoulder, Doc has the stun gun out. Bran, on my right, doesn’t have anything in his hands. This seems stupid, but I’m not going to tell him what to do.
We slip through the hole in the barrier and walk down the center of the road, three abreast, eyes everywhere. Weeds and shrubs have started to push their way through the blacktop. Up ahead, bullet-riddled cars are the only memory of old violence. We walk two more blocks, seeing more of the same—empty buildings, trash, burnt cars, a dog carcass—but find nothing alive but the crows that watch us with round black eyes. About ten sit atop a nearby building. I don’t like their silent judgment.
“Where is this strip mall?” I whisper to Doc.
He scans left and right. “Corra said it’d be in the center of the town.”
“Well, how bloody big is the town?” Bran asks. In a second, he’s climbing onto the hood of a picked-over bread truck. I lift my handgun, pointing it around to any rooftops, my heart hammering in my chest.
Bran quietly clambers down. “Three blocks that way,” he says, pointing. He starts off in that direction without even checking to see if we’re with him.
Doc comes up beside me and gives me a look, but at least he doesn’t say he told me so. I might coldcock him if he does.
We trail after Bran,
slinking up the streets with our eyes on every dark window and shady alleyway. From a ledge, the crows caw and arrow into the sky.
When we make it to the strip mall, my stomach is in knots. Across a weed-filled parking lot with lampposts angling in all directions like crooked teeth, a dozen boarded-up shops sit connected in a long row. The brick is a faded brown. Above each entryway, signs cling desperately to the storefronts. One has a faded cartoon dog, smiling and happy, painted on it. I make out the word “Pets” but nothing else. The building next to it has just a few letters left on its sign—C and H; the rest are on the ground in pieces. Tattered red awnings flap around metal frames. Road-gang graffiti is scrawled in dripping black paint. Will we find dead bodies inside? Are Seven and Eight waiting to take us out?
Crouching down, Bran creeps around the building and disappears. Doc and I exchange a look, but we don’t follow. If he isn’t going to communicate with us, Bran can go ahead and risk his life alone. A few minutes pass, which feel like hours, but then Bran appears, scampering back toward us.
“There’s an entrance in the back. Big hole someone blasted in. It’s dark as tits inside, no real light with everything boarded up. We’ll have to go in and poke about. No other choice.” He pulls out his knife and flicks it open. “Ready?”
“Ready or not, we need to go in there.” I feel like I’m talking to myself. Doc looks as pale as a corpse. I wish he’d just let Bran and me do this alone. If something happened to him, I’d feel awful.
Weapons out and eyes alert, we jog around to the back of the strip mall, Bran in the lead.
The back of the building is one straight line of dirty brownish brick and black doors with faded lettering. I’m sure they’re all locked, but it gives me hope that there are exits in each shop. Behind a rusted dumpster, someone has smashed a hole about three people wide into the brick. And the dumpster can be rolled over to hide it. The dark throat of the building is visible and terrifying.
“Did you roll that out of the way?” Doc points to the dumpster beside the opening, whispering to Bran.
He shakes his head, his gray hair cascading over his eyes. Then he gives us hand signals that I’m sure mean something, but I have no idea what. Something like “watch me” or “walk this way.” We probably should’ve discussed this yesterday.
The mission feels like it’s spinning out of control, and I don’t like the look in Bran’s eyes or how he’s suddenly taking over. I’m the leader. I shake my head and step around Bran, slipping into the darkness with my gun out.
And that’s when something huge jumps down from above, slamming me to the ground.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Riley
I’m forced down, my body crashing into debris. The thing tumbles down on me, crunching my ribs and blasting my breath away. My gun flies from my hand. All I see are flashes—an arm, a thatch of hair. It uses my body as a springboard, jumping off. Gasping, choking, I roll over onto my side and claw away from it.
It’ll be back to finish me. Gotta find my gun.
I hear Bran and Doc run in. Hands touch my shoulders. Doc leans over me.
“Are you okay?” His eyes are wide with terror.
I shake my head, unable to speak. “My gun,” I mouth.
Bran tears past us into the darkness, but he is back a few seconds later. “Can’t see a blasted thing. Not sure where the bugger went. Should’ve brought the bloody flashlight,” he pants.
All I can think about is breathing again. Sucking in slow breaths, I fish around for my gun and finally find it under a wooden pallet. Shaking, I stand with it aimed around the abandoned building.
Rot has run rampant here. The walls, floor, door casings, and furniture are warped, splintering, and covered with dust. With the boarded-up windows, the only light comes through ceiling cracks and the entrance behind us. And with the sky boiled over in gray clouds, we can only see a few feet in any direction. This store is so torn up I can’t tell what it used to be, though I see a few desk chairs, their fabric disintegrated, and an ancient black desk with tarnished metal handles. The drywall is gone, leaving bare studs. The room is about the size of a small business, probably thirty-by-fifty, with high ceilings and open ductwork.
I spy a hole dug straight through the remaining drywall on the far side of the room. “It just ran? Why didn’t it finish me off?” I croak, walking over and peering through the hole in the wall, Bran at my shoulder.
“Bastard went on through there,” Bran says, pointing to the black void on the other side.
Staring into the darkness, my fear comes alive again. The blackness is infinite. I can’t see anything beyond a few shapes on the other side of the hole. Is there a room like this one on the other side? More than that? Is the whole mall hollowed out and strung together like train cars, leaving this creature plenty of room to play hide-and-seek?
I aim my gun into the void, expecting that at any moment, it might pounce.
There’s a touch on my shoulder. I swing around, nearly taking Doc’s head off. He skitters back, throwing his hands up to his face. “God, Riley, don’t shoot!”
Puffing out a breath, I lower my gun. “Damn it, Doc. I’m jumpy enough as it is.”
He takes me by the shoulder and leads me to the open doorway. I fill my lungs with fresh air as he speaks. “We should let Bran head in there alone. He seems willing.”
I look at Doc and then Bran, who’s still peering into the darkness with his knife out. “That doesn’t seem fair. We’re in this together.”
Doc frowns. “That man tried to attack you. We hardly know him. Sure, Bell knew him a long time ago, but that doesn’t do much for us now, does it?” Doc takes his sleeve and wipes a small trickle of blood from my forehead that I didn’t know was there. “Please just try to stay alive a little longer,” he says, looking at me with that longing in his eyes again.
I look away, unable to keep his gaze when he’s staring at me like that, but maybe he’s right. I have Ethan and Clay to think about. And possibly another human life if my suspicions are right, though I really can’t think about that right now. But I can’t just sit here and let Bran go in alone. I’d never forgive myself. “We do this together.”
But back inside the dark, decaying store, my confidence is sucked away. I scan the black hole and then look at Bran. “Thoughts?”
“No easy way, lass. They already know we’re here. We’ll have to overwhelm them with force, three of us, two of them. And we have weapons.” He indicates his knife, smiling wickedly.
“Let’s try to keep this as bloodless as possible.” When I reach back to Doc, he hands me the stun gun. I hand him my pistol with a twinge in my stomach. “This is my idea and my mission. I’ll go first. If I can stun Subject Seven, we can get to Eight easily. Let’s try not to shoot or stab it. After all, it only knocked me down. I don’t think it’ll hurt us on purpose.” I think back to the surveillance video they showed me. Subject Seven hadn’t minded ripping out that doctor’s eyes.
Doc makes a face, but I choose to ignore it.
“Stay close. A flashlight would’ve been a good idea, but it’s too late now.”
Taking a few deep breaths, I scamper through the hole and into the darkness.
The air is thicker in here and dank with mildew and something rancid. With the stun gun out in front of me, I slowly rotate. Large, glimmering eyes lock onto mine.
I stumble back. My finger fumbles for the trigger, the red laser beam dancing on the chest of the huge creature before me. The probes shoot out, and the snap of electricity courses from the gun. The smell of burning is sharp and awful, like fabric caught on fire. There’s a pop and a small orange flame gathers on the creature’s chest. I expect it to charge me, fall, or scream—something—but it just stands there, burning, not moving. Its eyes are huge, round, and unblinking.
“What in the hell?”
Bran comes thundering up behind me. “Jesus and Mary, what’s going on?” He stops beside me, staring. I stare, too, as Doc fills out o
ur circle.
Orange and blue flames lick up the creature’s chest, illuminating its face. It’s a giant rat with huge buck teeth and a dirty snout as long as my forearm. He grins at us.
“It’s stuffed,” I say, poking it. It really is a seven-foot rat with a stupid smile that was meant to be welcoming, but it’s terrifying in this dark room. “What the hell’s it doing here?”
Bran finds a piece of wood, wraps cloth around it, and holds it on the rat’s flame until it catches. After, he beats the fire on the rat’s chest out. Bran waves his handmade torch near the rat’s face, curls of smoke still slipping past its awful smile.
“Why would this be here?” I know I should be looking around for Subjects Seven and Eight, but I can’t seem to take my eyes away from this terrible creature.
While Bran leans in to look, the torch glows orange in the black of the rat’s eyes. Bran steps back and waves his torch around the rest of the room. More stuffed creatures lurk in this building’s corners—a giant white bird with a yellow beak wearing a frilly dress, a purple monster with a white beanie and green shoes, a cartoony man with a giant black mustache and chef’s hat, and a hound dog holding a guitar. His glass eyes watch us suspiciously. I half-expect him to burst to life and smash us with his guitar.
“What kind of place is this?” Doc asks, his eyes wide.
We walk slowly around the room. In the dim light from Bran’s torch, more items appear—metal street signs, a store mannequin with a brown wig, and jugs of a yellow-brown liquid that I don’t want to identify.
“Someone was collecting,” I say, spinning a hundred eighty degrees, taking it all in. “These things have been here a while.” I wipe dust off a naked baby doll with automatic open-and-shut eyes.
Bran peers at a mannequin torso wearing a decayed bra and panty set in lacy pink. “One odd ducky made this collection. But I don’t think it was our target. Let’s move.”
I follow Bran but can’t shake the feeling we’re being watched.