by Perrin Briar
“What do you want from me?” Siren said. “What do you think I have that made you come all this way looking for me worth it?”
“It’s not what I want from you, Siren,” Quinn said, flicking a fly from his face, “or even what we want from each other. It’s what we want the future to look like. What do you want it to look like?”
He gave her a minute to think about it.
“I know what I want,” Quinn said, rising, beginning to walk and stretch, gazing toward the hayloft ladder a few yards away, then at the high roof again. “If we work together, it’s possible. Living and Grayskins co-existing together, helping each other.”
He’s nuts, Siren thought. Quinn could evidently sense her lack of faith.
“Just think about it,” he said. “The Grayskins are perfect slave labor. How much time do we waste on meaningless tasks, never having the spare time to rebuild our infrastructure, to rebuild a real human society? We could have all the time we needed. We could educate our young, develop international communications again, and trade with other communities. Bring back order, and end the Raiders for good.”
“Sounds like you’re just as much a politician as Greer,” Siren said.
Despite her biting remark, she had relinquished the pitchfork, unable to keep her rage burning any longer. She stood and dusted her hands off, as if shaking Quinn and his ideas loose.
“I’m not a politician, Siren, just a leader,” Quinn said, pointing his finger at her. “And so are you.”
“No, I’m not,” Siren said. “I have no desire to help you destroy the world. I have enough trouble taking care of myself. Leave me out of it.”
“We didn’t ask to have these abilities,” Quinn said. “Neither of us did. But since we have them, don’t you think we should use them? For good? To prevent what happened to your brother from happening to others? We could put an end to all that. End the war, for good. But I can’t do it without you.”
He leaned back, giving Siren space, making it clear he wasn’t pressuring her.
“Sounds really nice,” Siren said with a smirk. She rolled her head to loosen up her pained neck. “I’ll believe it when it happens. But until that time, I’m going to go about my life, living my own life.”
Quinn looked at her blankly, his hands clasped together in front of him.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me,” he said. “So I brought you something, something I hope will change your mind.”
Siren stared intently at Quinn. She balled up her fists, and her Compulsion ability. She would hit him with everything she had if he tried to bring any of his monsters in here.
Instead, he only looked to his left.
There, at the foot of the hayloft ladder, was Wyvern. He was looking right at her.
Chapter Nine
SIREN BLINKED.
She’d been blinking for the past two minutes. She couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling her. Wyvern was back. But how?
“This isn’t possible,” she said, shaking her head, looking away, holding her head between her hands, trying to fit pieces of the story together that didn’t fit.
She looked back at Wyvern. He seemed to be the brother she had loved and depended on until just weeks ago. Instinctively she ran to him and threw her arms around him, her face finding its favorite place pressed against his strong chest. But something was different.
He was the same athletic shape, still the same height. But now he was cold. His arms did not automatically surround and squeeze her like the protective fortress of her past. He made no sound.
She backed away from him in the grayness, searching for an answer.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked Quinn, her voice quivering. “Something’s wrong. What’s wrong with him?”
She was insistent, but looked intently at Wyvern, trying to see the answer for herself.
Quinn smiled grimly, eyes closed.
“He’s a Grayskin now,” he said.
Siren knew that already, the truth was obvious. But she realized she needed someone to say it, to tell it to her. In the slivers of light slicing through the barn alley, her brother’s features came into clarity, barely resembling the beautiful man she once knew.
His skin was Gray, the front of his jacket wet with blood. His eyes were black marbles in dark sockets. But he was ready, muscles tense. He was ready and hungry. And she knew, deep down, that she would already be his food, lifeless and torn to shreds, if Quinn hadn’t been in control of him.
She slowly turned to face Quinn, all life gone from her eyes. She could have been a Grayskin too.
Chapter Ten
FOR THE SECOND day in a row, Siren stomped through heavy dew-covered weeds, tearing off wild wheat to suck on for breakfast. She imagined the farm breakfast she would miss today, and the relatively peaceful life she might have otherwise enjoyed with the Caldwells.
Like every dream, it was too good to be true. A simple hard-working life that would have bored her to death a few years earlier was now the best she could hope for.
They trudged westward. Siren wondered how long it would be until Quinn started giving her orders. He claimed to want to work as a team with her, but she already knew him too well. He had definite ideas and was intent on implementing them. One way or another, he would find a way to bring Siren in line. After all, he had been smart enough to use Wyvern against her.
Siren had one job to do, and that was to take them to a community she could Sense. Quinn hadn’t asked where it was, nor how far. He was trusting her, she realized. Perhaps she might be able to use it against him.
They had not spoken much after Quinn produced Wyvern. The whole thing was a drain on Siren. She did not have much energy left for either reasoning nor talking. Still, she had tossed and turned in the hayloft, little fragments of past, present, and future whirling around like puzzle pieces in her mind.
She had still been tired when they struck out in the darkness, not wanting to explain to the Caldwells. Besides Wyvern, no Grayskins were around. For a moment, Siren imagined she had dreamed them. But she saw way too many human footprints in the dirt to keep up that illusion.
Quinn was a necessary evil at this point. Otherwise, she wanted nothing to do with him. He was a manipulator. And she didn’t believe his claimed naiveté about Hell’s Angel. He would use anyone to accomplish his goals. It was the only thing that gave meaning to his twisted life, corrupted by a mental anomaly.
The same type of anomaly Siren had. He called it a gift. She supposed that made him feel better about himself. But he had brought Wyvern. Siren had to play along. She believed—perhaps there was no choice but to believe for her—that there must be a way to free him from the disease that made him a monster.
Quinn was the closest thing to a savior Wyvern had. At least he wasn’t devouring the living. If her “gift” could help save Wyvern, then she would do it. Wyvern was more than a brother. He was a mentor. He had instilled her with confidence.
She looked over at Quinn. His back was to her. She could kill him easily. Slit his throat and he would drop without as much as a whimper. For a second she enjoyed the fantasy of watching him twitch on the ground, hot blood pulsing from his sliced carotid.
But she could not kill him. As docile as Wyvern seemed for the moment, Siren knew his disease made him a powerful, insatiable killing and eating machine. Without Quinn, either Wyvern or Siren would need to die before leaving this overgrown Oklahoma field.
Quinn followed for the time being, perhaps plotting, perhaps just mentally tired, like she was. Keeping Wyvern under control had to be a strain. He had not been able to sleep for fear of releasing him.
Siren kept trudging through the soft furrows and grasses, watching the enormous clouds make their way across the even more enormous sky. Tornado Alley, she remembered. The season was not far off.
“My plan requires a large group of people,” Quinn said.
Siren was not surprised. Quinn was not the type to do anything without a plan. And domi
nation of people was his M.O. He needed her, but how long would he think that way if she put up too much resistance?
Siren looked back at Quinn, a little smile coming as she imagined him again with blood pulsing from his neck. She turned her attention to Wyvern, who followed, still tense, cold, and staring. Then she looked down at her own body. A bunch of freaks. Part of her wanted to send the three of them off a cliff. We’re not part of the human race.
But maybe, just maybe, in this world, at this time, we’re just what the human race needs.
The thought gave her shivers.
Chapter Eleven
SOMEHOW, roads were important. Walking across endless fields just did not feel like a journey. Siren was more focused on the work to be done, more deliberate in her steps. A road had been built, planned. It had a purpose, a way forward. There was a future.
Quinn had said there was a large community in that future. He looked as far down the road as he could as they walked. He was looking for his future. He was human. Humans liked order, direction, purpose. They looked for reasons in events to find meaning in their lives.
Quinn had wondered why he had been given the ability to Compel. It must not have been to save his parents. Something bigger, then. Something that required him to be older, to learn to harness his skill for his purpose. So, he had grown and learned.
He was human and they were Grayskins. He was certain he was meant to unite them. Siren was meant to help. They had been brought together for this purpose. To think otherwise was to embrace chaos. To think otherwise was inhuman.
Quinn saw structures up ahead. Siren was looking at them too. They eased to the side of the road and slowed their pace.
Siren said nothing. As they got closer, it became obvious there were no sentries or other visible signs of life.
“Can you Sense anyone?” Quinn said.
“There are a few people in the town,” Siren said. “Hiding. I can’t tell why, though. Too far away.”
“They’ll be watching the road,” Quinn said.
He led them to the wooded side of the road. They circled around, making mental notes. They found a clearing on a small ridge, with good visibility of the town and sufficient trees for cover.
“It’s getting late,” Quinn said. “We’re tired. I’ll send the Grayskins into the town for food. We’ll camp here.”
Quinn dropped his pack and sat down. Clouds moved between the tree tops, like ancient warships maneuvering for a battle. No rain was forthcoming. Not yet.
Chapter Twelve
SIREN sat beside Wyvern. She used her own brush to clean his teeth as he stared into emptiness. Quinn watched her treat her Grayskin brother just as she would have treated him when he was alive, if he had been sick or injured. And he was sick.
Quinn was under no illusion. He Sensed it in them, hoped it would help her to understand the Grayskins. He hoped she would come to understand, as he had, that they were victims as much as predators.
Wyvern sat motionless as his sister tried to make something of his hair, but it wasn’t cooperating. He really needed a bath. But baths were not easy to come by, especially for wanderers. She turned to other problems. Her brother’s skin was torn in many places. At his navel there wasn’t much skin left to work with, but she could sew him back up.
Siren knew the problem was bigger than just the three of them, and that she was key in solving it. Quinn knew people. Most do not understand big problems until they are personally affected by them. It is the same reason foreign wars had always been unpopular throughout history. The strongest societies had always fought them. All that was required was some visionary leadership, the kind Quinn hoped to provide.
Siren fashioned a needle from a nearby thorn bush and sewed up some of Wyvern’s wounds with thread unraveled from her blouse and the cuffs of her jeans. She moved back a little and smiled a tiny smile, pleased with her efforts.
“Nice work,” Quinn said.
The smile left Siren’s face.
“I guess with abandoned clothing everywhere there’s not much use for a sewing kit,” Quinn said.
“There is, but you can only carry so much,” Siren said.
She paused for a long time, looking at Wyvern’s face and wounds, then set to wrapping up the leftover thread. She looked down at her work, in a world of her own.
“Quinn, have you ever tried to use your Skill to bring someone back from being a Grayskin?” she said.
Quinn looked at Wyvern.
“Raise the dead?” he said.
He laughed.
“That would take a lot more than a needle and thread,” he said.
He looked away, hoping Siren did not notice he was joking to cover his own pain and regret.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Siren said heatedly. “There’s so much we don’t know about this disease. And you’re connected with it as intimately as anyone of the living could be.”
Siren continued to look at her brother as if she couldn’t accept losing him to the virus forever. She seemed to drift away as Quinn’s mind turned to an earlier time, a different place. He shuddered at remembered screams of torment. The horror of life after death. Things he could never ban from his experience or his thoughts.
“We should get some sleep,” Quinn said.
Siren stopped what she was doing and looked at him with disbelief.
“Just tell me,” she said. “You know I won’t give up until you tell me.”
“Yes,” Quinn said, his voice registering a kind of defeat.
The levity had completely left his face and voice.
“I have tried,” he said.
His expression was both sad and pained. He swallowed hard and steeled himself for the conversation ahead.
“What happened?” Siren asked, captivated. “Were you able to do it?”
“Yes,” he nodded, looking away. “I was able to rid them of the virus. I suppose it’s the virus itself that I control, so I can force it to leave a body. But it’s not that simple.”
“What’s complicated about it?” Siren said. “If you can eradicate the virus, why not do it?”
Siren’s voice betrayed her longing to have her brother back. Quinn knew he would have to explain why he had not already done so.
“The Grayskins don’t exactly take good care of themselves,” Quinn said, indicating Wyvern’s damaged body. “Sometimes the damage is too great. Some die immediately. Others have brain damage and are able to live, but not much else.”
“But sometimes they come back to life?” Siren said.
“Yes,” Quinn said. “Sometimes they do.”
Quinn’s voice cracked a little as he said this. Haunting memories danced in his eyes. He looked at Siren carefully, tenderly.
“But think this through,” he said. “How would you feel if you came back? Knowing what you know now?”
Siren averted her eyes, then looked at Wyvern again, and back at Quinn, gravely, still attentive.
“It would be like waking up from a nightmare,” Siren said.
“Only the nightmare would be true,” Quinn said. “And it would be one in which you brutally killed innocent people and consumed their flesh. Probably people you knew, or could have known. Could you bear that guilt? Could you keep your sanity?”
Quinn turned away from Siren, tending the campfire. Then he lay down and rolled over to sleep. To dream about monsters becoming human again.
Chapter Thirteen
SOMETIMES, it was easy to think the world had not changed. This was one of those times.
Siren walked ahead of her two companions. With them out of her field of vision, she was on her own, no ties to her present wandering life. It was all so easy to forget if she only let her mind wander.
Spring came early in the southwest. It was as if green life had been tied up, barely held back for the past couple months, dying to come out, before finally gnawing through the bonds in an explosion of nature. More than anything else, these little signs of beginning anew took Sire
n to a place where she was allowed to dream of her old life continuing in the present.
The wooded refuge became low shrubs dotting an increasingly rocky desert landscape. They walked into a valley with no civilization in sight, only the walls of red rock formed by years of erosion, a river that hadn’t existed for millennia. Siren remembered seeing places like this on family road vacations as a child. The cliffs were like old friends.
While Siren was absently communing with childhood friends, Quinn scanned the clifftops and the highlands above them like a military leader evaluating geographical vulnerabilities. He looked at the stitched up, hair-styled Wyvern walking next to him. Then he looked ahead.
“Siren,” he said.
Siren looked at him, annoyed at the interruption, then followed the direction he was pointing. It was a sign:
Last Chance Gas 2 Miles
Next Gas Station 70 Miles
Siren looked back along a flat section of land that began from the sign. They had stumbled onto a road hidden in the shifting dust. Of course, they had to investigate. In terrain like this, there was food, berries and the odd gecko. But water was dangerously scarce.
Quinn’s Grayskins had brought them plenty, but there was only so much one could carry before it evaporated. Even they would be slowed carrying just a few gallons. So, they traveled light.
The band of three instinctively walked toward the sign and the invisible road beside it. Siren said goodbye to her dreams of what might have been and hello to the road mentality she had come to know. She knew it brought ease of travel, potential of supply bounties, even the occasional motorcycle half-full of gas, but it also brought a greater chance of encountering trouble. Specifically, Raiders, and along with them, Grayskins.
Having picked up their pace, the group came upon an old Texaco station. It had been a full-service shop, useful in such an isolated location. The garage doors were closed, but the glass windows had been knocked out.