Foamers

by Justin Kassab

  “How are you doing with the Primal Age?” Grace asked.

  “You mean besides being the outcast, and a coward, and shooting Kade on my first day? Other than that, I’m good,” John said, immediately regretting his sarcasm.

  “Hell of a first day,” Grace said, mocking him.

  “Could it get any worse?”

  Grace rolled to her stomach, tucking her hands under her chin. “Your brothers could have sprung a surprise attack while on the way to Houghton, wrecked Mick’s car, shot Kade, and killed one of their friends. Then, to save Tiny, you could have had to shoot your own brother with a double barrel at point-blank range. That could have been your first day.”

  John’s eyes went wide. She had him beat. The idea of killing his own brother tied a knot in his gut. In the movies, this would be the moment the hero kissed the heroine who was pouring out her heart. So he should kiss her. That’s what he would do. He would kiss her. Punctuating his thoughts with a nod, he rolled toward Grace and tipped his chin.

  Her hand met his puckering lips and shoved his head away. John stared between her fingers at her face, where a half-smirk had settled. It was the Did You Really Think You Had a Chance? smirk that John knew too well.

  John hopped to his feet. He hoped that she couldn’t see his flushing cheeks in the darkness. She ran a soothing knuckle along his spine.

  “Sorry,” John said, desperately searching but unable to find anything to add to it.

  Grace moved in front of him and grabbed the collar of his shirt with one hand. She stood as tall as she could on her tiptoes, barely making it to his jaw line, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

  “It’s a maybe later,” Grace said. “Just ’cause it’s the end of the world doesn’t mean I’m easy. You’re going to have to work for it.”

  John smiled, accepting the challenge.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE STORM AFTER THE HURRICANE

  ___________

  Xsat on the bed with Ashton while Tiny searched through dresser drawers for medical supplies. Argos sprawled by the door, studying Tiny’s every move. Mick had left to get rest before his next round of guard duty. A handcuff clicked shut around Kade’s wrist and attached him to the bed post. This was Tiny’s way to guarantee he wouldn’t do something stupid again.

  Tiny’s parka swished with every move she made. Frustrated, she unzipped the front and dropped the heavy coat. X whistled, for which Ashton playfully slapped him, as Tiny rummaged while only wearing her sports bra and spandex.

  Kade tipped his head back far enough to see Tiny’s exposed back. The sharp lines of her lats flexed across her shoulder blades while she searched for supplies. A dry cough shook through him, snapping his head forward. He reached for his mouth, but the chain of the handcuffs pulled taut. He pulled against them a second time, but all the strength he could muster wasn’t even enough to swat a fly.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Ashton asked.

  “I’m fine,” he replied.

  “He lost a lot of blood. It’ll be awhile until he’s 100 percent, but he’ll live,” Tiny replied as she came to the bed carrying an armful of bandages, sanitizers, and tape.

  “How’d he lose the blood?” X asked.

  Tiny gripped what was left of Kade’s shirt and tore the side open. He hissed in pain as the air bit at his wounds. Tiny glanced back at X. “The Stray shot him.”

  “An accident,” Kade added.

  “An accident,” Tiny confirmed.

  “Where did you get him, anyhow?” X asked.

  Tiny splashed rubbing alcohol unceremoniously over the wounds. “The prep school across the creek.”

  Kade gritted his teeth as Tiny casually ran a gauze pad across his remaining stitches. He didn’t know if he was too weak for painkillers or if this was her way of getting back at him for sneaking off. Either way, he was afraid to ask her. If he was too weak, that meant he’d be unable to be a productive member of the cohort; if she was punishing him, asking her about it would only make it worse.

  “Where is everyone?” Ashton asked.

  Tiny’s hand stopped mid-wipe as her brown eyes found Kade’s. Without saying a word, he could hear her telling him he should be the one to inform them. With his free hand, he ran a thumb along Ashton’s cheekbone. Ashton was definitely making a face at him, but he didn’t care. Of all the things he’d lost, Ashton was found. His hand dropped back to his side of its own accord, not of his choosing.

  “I was wrong about the Wilson brothers. They turned on us and killed Lucas,” Kade said.

  “What about Grace?” Ashton asked. She was safe; finally, after all the time he spent waiting, he knew she was safe.

  “Grace killed one of her own brothers to save Tiny, and she’s turned the dorm into a fortress,” Kade responded, stretching his shaking arm toward his sister. He wanted to touch her to make sure she was real.

  “Wow,” she said, gripping Kade’s hand in both of her palms. “I’m not sure if I’m more surprised she had to do that, or that Tiny needed saving.”

  “And then Victoria left us for a military scouting party,” Kade added.

  Tiny worked along Kade’s side, inspecting which stitches were damaged. Ashton sat beside X, who silently processed what Kade had said. Kade was thankful for X’s approach; this was what it was, and they had to move forward. Had he been explaining this to Mick, he would have needed to disclose every little detail.

  “Thank you for keeping her safe,” Kade said to X, clenching his eyes as Tiny tugged on a loose stitch.

  Since his eyes were closed, he didn’t see his sister thread her fingers between X’s, whose lips pulled into a wide grin.

  “X has something to ask you,” Ashton said.

  Kade felt like a guitar as Tiny plucked through his stitches; each strum sent notes of pain through his body. No matter what she did to him at this point, he didn’t care; today was a good day. X had safely brought his sister back to them.

  X rolled up his sleeve to show his bandaged arm. “Do we know if a foamer bite is contagious?”

  Kade’s mind retraced every line of Damian’s letter, hoping to find something that told him the bites weren’t contagious. These weren’t zombies or vampires, but they were creatures born of a flu, which gave their condition a logical chance of being contagious. There was no information that could prove they weren’t.

  His eyes settled on X and they shared a long look. He wished he had an answer. An understanding smile spread across X’s face before he gave Kade a wink. His disposition faded to an expression of resigned fate, and he swung his body around, lying on the bed behind Ashton.

  “Well, better cuff me up for a couple days. Least I can keep you company,” X said.

  Ashton twisted at her torso and put a hand on X’s chest. He reached back and patted her shoulder. Kade saw none of this because Tiny was dressing his wound.

  “Tiny, any idea?” Kade said, lying in the fetal position with his eyes squeezed shut.

  “I’m a medic, not a doctor. I need to find a hospital. Between the ambulance and the infirmary we’ve got a lot of basic stuff, but we don’t have anything for advance
d injuries. If this were any worse, you’d be dead,” Tiny replied as she rubbed ointment over Kade’s wound.

  “As soon as I’m healthy, we’ll go,” he said.

  Tiny opened a gauze pad and patted the mesh into the antiseptic.

  “That’s not soon enough,” Tiny said as she peeled off a second gauze pad. “Let me take Mick and John. It’s about twenty miles to the nearest hospital. We’ll take one of the pickups and be back before you know it.”

  “Wait—” Kade was cut off by her hand pushing the gauze against his side. He gritted his teeth as he clenched his face into something that resembled a pug. Ashton and X both watched as Tiny smoothed the gauze pad onto Kade’s side.

  “We can’t just hit pause till you’re healthy. Deploy your troops,” Tiny said.

  Kade panted, struggling to clear his mind enough to let a thought pass. Every choice he had made so far had come with a negative consequence. Much as he didn’t like the concept of sending anyone out there without him, he was less qualified than most of them, anyway. If Tiny thought this was necessary, then—

  He grunted as Tiny laid the next gauze. He knew it was her way of telling him to hurry.

  “Succubus.”

  “You only wish.”

  “Go. But please be careful.”

  * * *

  Sarge’s squad drove a zigzag path northwest toward the Niagara military base. Their orders were to map and itemize every store and supply cache they came across. Before the vaccine went out, they all had pasts that were better forgotten in the empty shell that was once their country. They had new names and new lives that were more rewarding than before. None of them ever wondered what had happened to their families.

  In the passenger seat sat their leader, Sarge, who had all the skills to have been the perfect soldier, fit to rapidly climb the ranks and one day be somebody. An additional skill he possessed, one that kept him from glory, was honesty. He was honest to a flaw. He had no issue telling his superiors what he thought as it crossed his mind. This type of behavior constantly kept him from promotions and with enough extra PT duty for the entire base.

  They were nearing the Niagara base, but it had only taken fifteen minutes after leaving Houghton College for Victoria to wonder if she had made the wrong choice. The message to Kade had served its purpose, but wandering off with four men she had never met might not have been the most intelligent of choices. The man to her right’s biceps were bigger than she was wide, making any attempt to physically defend herself, if the need arose, completely hopeless. If they wanted to harm her, she would be at their mercy.

  The thought of that alone had her nauseated for an hour before Sarge noticed her uneasiness and assured her they weren’t barbarians. He asked her why she was so anxious to leave Houghton, and she told him about her connection through Damian, and the way Kade and the others all treated her like she was beneath them. Sarge told her that they had all felt out of place before the Tribe, but now they all had a home and a purpose.

  She couldn’t hope for more than that.

  * * *

  Alpha circled the carrion, his hands and feet leaving imprints in the snow. He was on all fours, with his knees tucked under his chest, supporting his upper body on his knuckles. His elbows bent as he sniffed at the remains of one like him.

  The surrounding trees had been shattered and many had fallen. The trees that still stood were splintered.

  Alpha had witnessed it all. The big thing with the two light-projecting eyes—that wasn’t like him or the trees, but like a moving rock. The swiveling antenna on top had looked around like an eye, and then, when it saw one like him, it roared, and everything burst. Trees, others like him—the roar ripped them apart all the same. The one like him that had been killed was nearly torn in half and sprawled in such a way that its feet lay beside its head.

  The snow was a vibrant red in the morning light, disrupted only by Alpha’s dark form as he circled the corpse to its open midsection. Alpha sank his teeth into the entrails and tore away a mouthful. The one Kade called Pepper and a second one like Alpha cautiously approached with their heads low to the ground.

  Alpha sidestepped the corpse and strutted toward Pepper with his head held high. The second one like him scooted back, always facing Alpha, but not lowering his posture. Pausing before Pepper, Alpha’s eyes flicked toward the surrounding trees.

  The thick trunks couldn’t hide the crunch of footsteps in the snow. Others like them were watching from the shadows of the trees. Alpha took a long, deep sniff, swelling his chest with air, and then let out a snort. Extending his arms and collapsing his legs back, Alpha lowered himself to Pepper’s level. He bent his neck until his forehead touched the top of her head. Then he slammed his hands off the ground, throwing his weight back onto two legs as he stood to full height and spun away from her. He faced the trees with his torso lowered and his arms outstretched, inviting a charge.

  Pepper lifted her head and bounded to the corpse. She bit down on the first part of the body she came to, but her bite was blocked by a sleeve. Pulling back with a wrinkled brow, she moved down the length of the body and struck again at the shirt-covered ribs. Her jaw worked back and forth like a saw, but she still couldn’t feed herself.

  The second of Alpha’s kind kicked up snow as he rushed over and buried his face in the corpse’s innards. His mouth worked furiously to chomp on as much as he could. Pepper shoved him with both hands, rolling him away from the body. As he righted himself, he glared at her with a crimson face, his lips pulled into a snarl. Pepper responded with a rumble from deep in her throat.

  He crashed into her, and they locked arms to shoulders, like the antlers of two competing bucks. Forcing Pepper back over her own feet, he pinned her on her back. He exposed her face and neck by slamming his hands into her elbows and forcing her arms into the thin sheet of snow. His teeth aimed for her throat as she emitted a high-pitched cry.

  Alpha barreled at the two fighting bodies. His charge crashed into the aggressor and the two rolled across the ground, scraping at each other until they came to a halt with Alpha underneath. Alpha coiled his legs around the inside of the attacker’s thigh as his arm crossed under his challenger’s left arm and grabbed the wrist of the right arm. From some place in Alpha’s empty mind came the knowledge of what to do, as if his body had done it thousands of times before. Alpha wrenched the right arm across the body, pulling on the tendons all the way down the arm and pinning the left arm straight. The attacker tried to roll, flexing his body, but Alpha’s hold remained true.

  Alpha’s hand clenched a handful of the opponent’s hair and yanked his head to the side, giving him a clear shot at his neck. His lips curled back as his jaw stretched open. He bit down hard on the foamer’s jugular and ripped down the length of his neck, shredding the vein.

  Blood poured down Alpha’s face, jacket, and throat as he sealed the wound with his mouth. His eyes rolled back as he basked in the warm life force flowing into his body. The aggressor withered and squealed as he grew more still until, at last, he lay limp in Alpha’s hold. Alpha shoved the pale body off and rose onto two legs. Letting out the loudest roar his human vocal cords would allow, he pounded his chest, showing off his dominance to those who watched from the trees.

  From the shadows, nine more
like them crept forward. Pepper hopped to Alpha and they faced the half-circle of creatures before them. A rumble emanated from Alpha as he lowered himself onto all fours.

  The leader of the troop looked along his troop’s line, which returned Alpha’s growl. Beta was the dominant member of the others, which would not have been assumed by looking at him: He was the runt of the pack and had a dopey demeanor. He snapped his jaws once to the members on his right, and then once more to those on his left. The rumbling stopped as the members of the troop sat back on their haunches.

  Beta kept his head held high and sauntered forward. His knuckles left divots in the fresh snow, until he stood before Alpha, who still had blood dripping from his jowls. The two leaders faced one another. Alpha sneered down at Beta, who was half his height on all fours. Beta’s troop tensed in preparation to charge. Pepper’s lower lip quivered as she looked from Alpha to the pack.

  Inch by inch, Beta dropped back on his haunches and stretched his arms along the ground, until his chest touched the cold snow. He lowered his head, touching it to the earth. Alpha’s eyes focused on the line as each member of the troop bowed to him in succession. Keeping his left hand on the ground, Alpha thrashed his right fist against his barrel chest. He planted his fist on the ground and strutted toward Beta. Slowly panning across the pack one last time, Alpha lowered his head until it touched Beta’s.

  The smaller one’s entire body tensed in a defensive reaction at the moment of contact. As Alpha lifted his head, Beta’s muscles relaxed and he reared on all fours. He cocked his head toward the troop he used to command and let out three forced coughs. His pack rose in response. The group bounded toward the two corpses, playfully wresting with one another to be first to feast. Beta kept his eyes on Alpha as he circled around him to join in the feeding; Alpha, likewise, met Beta’s stare until Pepper came to him and nuzzled her face along his neck. Beta joined in the ripping of flesh, assimilating himself as one of the group he used to lead.