Alive Like Us

by Hallows, Quinn

  I must get to him. It’s the only way to stop this. Sanna cut her way through the horde, dodging bites and venom. The Infected receded once she got close, forming a ring with Sanna and Twig in the center.

  “What are you doing?” He roared to the retreating horde. His right arm hung by a grisly thread and the rest of him was a mass of seething tissue. “Get back here! I order you.”

  His arm sloughed off.

  “You’re not an Omega,” Sanna inched closer. “That’s why you’re falling apart, isn’t it? You weren’t made to control them.”

  “Yes I am. I earned it! I can do whatever I want!” Twig turned to the Infected, his lone hand squeezing into a fist. Sanna sensed he was calling to them, ordering them to attack. He coughed, spitting teeth.

  “If you keep this up, I won’t even have to kill you.”

  “You think you’re special?” Twig sneered, blood pouring down his chin. “You’re an abomination! The Omegas won’t stop until your dead, along with whoever dared to create you.” His left leg detached at the knee and he fell to the ground, dark blood oozing from the stump. He glared at the Alpha. "What are you waiting for? Kill her! KILL HER!”

  “She’s not yours anymore. None of them are.”

  Twig’s glistening jaw dropped. He stared at the infected standing around them in a silent gray ring. “H-how? You’re not an Omega—”

  “My father was. And this Alpha was my mother, before he turned her.” Sanna pressed the tip of her sword to his throat. “Thanks for reuniting us.”

  “Infected don’t have human memories! You’re controlling her. Using her, just like I did.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Sanna bent down, pressing her fingers to Twig’s raw temple. A series of visions shuffled before her eyes, rooms of different shapes and colors. Garbled voices, each ending in a terrified scream. Disjointed chaos, a dozen different deaths playing out in her mind, overlapping each other. Fighting to be seen. Heard.

  “Stop it!” Twig cried.

  A cold, hard table stretched beneath her. Machines whirred and beeped and inflated but did little to drown out the tangle of nearby screams. A web of wires and tubes stemmed from her chest, which had been cleaved open in a grisly cavern.

  “God, were you drunk when you made this?” A strange voice said. She couldn’t see his face beyond the brilliant light that blazed overhead. “What an ugly bastard.”

  “Do you want to work the human farms?”

  The other man laughed. “No.”

  “Well, he’ll have to do then. Don’t worry, I made him weak. Small too. Won’t take up too much space. The perfect servant.”

  Silver flashed in the light. A needle hovered close to her eye.

  “GET OUT!” Twig jerked away, breaking the connection.

  Sanna blinked as the vision dissolved. Her sword was still pressed to his throat, but her arm trembled. “You’re not Infected. And you’re not human either. You’re something in between, like me.”

  “I’m nothing like you,” Twig glared at her, his face a seething red mask. “I might’ve been made from scraps, but I’ve accomplished more than they ever thought I could. I’ve controlled an Alpha—”

  “Don’t you get it? The Omegas won’t care. They used you. You’re worthless to them—”

  Twig snapped the bone of his right arm against the frozen earth and rammed it into Sanna’s chest. She gasped, tasting blood. A coolness radiated through her core.

  “Not as worthless as you,” Twig sneered as he dragged her closer, a fish on a pike. “Demon.”

  Sanna cried out, swinging her sword. Twig’s bloody skull rolled off his body and into the snow, lifeless.

  “Go away,” she whispered to the surrounding Infected, then collapsed to the ground. The star-washed sky spread above her and in its dark depths, she saw her mother’s face.

  A woman who’d loved a monster so much she became one herself.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  After three days of rest inside one of Cerise’s trailers, Sanna’s wounds healed enough to travel, though the one on her chest remained an ugly knot of flesh.

  She chose her path carefully, remembering Kai’s fevered instructions from the day before. He was strapped to the sled she pulled, unconscious, with Frankie nestled beside him. The dog had refused to move, intent on keeping his shivering master warm.

  Follow the river. Up the hill. Kai had murmured over and over when she’d first awoke. He'd been slumped against the wall, his face slicked in sweat.

  She understood his words as the directions needed to finish their journey and immediately gathered whatever she could find. They set out within minutes. On the first day, the forest had been eerily empty of Infected, but by the second they’d returned with a vengeance and didn’t listen to her at all.

  Even the Alpha—her mother—wouldn’t answer her calls.

  It seemed as if Twig’s demise had broken their chain of command and left them to roam the territory like starving dogs.

  Sanna froze as yet another pair of stage twos blocked her path. Two more quickly flanked her on either side. They all had the strong, wiry bodies of good hunters. She was out of weapons, having lost the last of them in a skirmish with a hunchback that morning.

  She shifted her stance, desperate to protect Kai. Her foot nudged a rock loose beneath the snow. She grabbed it, ready to strike. The stage twos snarled.

  “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” A woman’s husky voice filtered through the trees. “I can’t suppress their instincts.”

  Iris. She sounded just like she had in her mother’s memories.

  Sanna spotted her picking her way through the brush, her long chestnut hair woven into simple braids. Her face hadn’t changed over the years, still oval-shaped with a hooked nose and eyes so fiercely blue they seemed to glow in the forest’s February gloom. Sanna guessed she was probably in her thirties or forties. But, then again, Twig had looked like a child, so there was no way of knowing for sure.

  The woman’s gaze zeroed in on the festering wound above Sanna’s elbow. “You’ve met your mother, I see? I’d recognize those teeth marks anywhere.”

  “She tried to kill me. Multiple times, actually.”

  “Humph!” Iris scoffed. “If she wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here, now would you? Always difficult to control, that one, even when she was human. I knew that upstart would never manage her.”

  “You mean Twig?”

  “Yes. He tried to do too much. He was a servant, like me, made from corpses and given life by the virus, but his ambition tore him apart. It’s important to know one’s limits.” She shifted her focus to the charred holes in Sanna’s clothes. “So, you heal like your father, hmm? You should know, then, that there’s a limit. Severe injuries to the heart or brain will kill you. Bullets must be removed. No matter what, while you heal, you are at your weakest, so always find a safe place to hide. Bury yourself deep, if you must. And feed after. Always. If you don’t, the virus may take over and you won’t remember what you’ve done until it's satisfied. He hated that, your father.”

  “Virus?” Sanna’s stomach fell. “So...I’m unclean? Infected?”

  “Infected is a human word and beneath us,” Iris snapped her fingers, and a stage one took the sled’s rope from Sanna, his bloodshot eyes glazed. “Stop using it.”

  “So, what am I, then?”

  “A mystery, for the most part. Half human. Half Omega.” Iris led the way and her Infected escorts followed. “No one thought it was possible, not even your father.”

  Frustration mounted inside Sanna. “If no one knows what I am, then why did Twig call me an abomination? Why did he try to kill me from the start?”

  “He, like so many before him, sensed you were different. It’s in our nature to root out abnormalities and destroy them. Omegas have been sending crusaders here to kill you since you were born. A single cancerous cell can overtake an entire organism if left unchecked.”

  “I’m like a virus...to
the virus?”

  “When you were born, your father said you would either destroy the Omegas, or perfect them.”

  Iris didn’t speak again for a long while, cautioning that if she didn’t keep her concentration on the Infected, they could attack at any moment. “They’re very territorial, you see, and we are trespassing. If they are part of a horde, then you can challenge the strongest among them. When they are rogues like these, however, it becomes much more time consuming.”

  Sanna nodded. She was still in no condition to fight, and the Infected watching from all angles made her increasingly nervous. Many were outright aggressive—snarling and snapping as their downtrodden group moved along. Iris responded by keeping her pace slow and deliberate while avoiding their menacing stare.

  By midafternoon they passed the waterfall Sanna recognized from her mother’s memories. They climbed a steep hill next, and she saw Iris’s house at the far end of a snowy meadow.

  The front door swung open. A young girl stood in the doorway; her jet-black hair braided into stubby pigtails. Frankie yapped and bolted across the snow, launching himself into her waiting arms. He wiggled and laved her chin, brimming with glee.

  This must be Esme. She was a small, spindly thing, with knobby knees and Kai’s dark coloring. She let Frankie go as they approached, her smile dimming. “Where is he?”

  Iris glanced at the stage one pulling the sled.

  Esme’s brows knitted together, her mouth forming a soft “o”. She rushed to her brother’s side. “Who’d you piss off this time, Kai?”

  Kai’s eyes cracked open. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Esme.”

  Esme’s lips pressed into a quivering smile.

  “Get him inside,” Iris instructed. “Quickly.”

  Esme tried to help Kai stand, but she was too weak. Sanna stepped in, taking Kai’s other arm, and together they helped him into Iris’s cabin. It was a small, tidy space with a wood stove in the center of one wall and two pallets on the floor. This was where my mother and I were when the hybrids attacked.

  Kai was fast asleep by the time they heaved him onto the nearest pallet. Sanna grabbed a pitcher of water from the stove and brought it over, along with what she hoped was a clean cloth.

  “I’ll do it,” Esme said, snatching both from her. “You’ve done enough. How could you let this happen? I thought you were like Iris.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” A sickly-sweet smell wafted from the girl’s hair that made Sanna instantly uneasy.

  “You can control the Infected, right?” Esme spoke slowly, as if Sanna were the child. She wetted the cloth and pressed it to Kai’s forehead. “So why is he so badly hurt?”

  Iris brushed by Sanna before she could respond, lighting a kerosene lamp near his wounded side and adjusting it so a yellowish glow flooded the room. “All right. We begin, yes? Esme get my basket. I’ll stitch him while you prepare that poultice I taught you.”

  Esme bumped into Sanna’s shoulder as she walked past. Sanna clutched her nose, the girl’s scent overwhelming her. She raced out of the cabin and leaned against the wall, gulping the crisp winter air.

  Frankie trotted up to her, nudging her hand for pets. Sanna obliged, lost in troubling thoughts.

  The door flung open and Iris emerged. Her expression was smooth and bland, but her neat braids had frayed slightly. “There you are. I did not see you leave.”

  Sanna made sure the door was shut and kept her voice low. “Esme is about to change, isn’t she?”

  “Your senses must be improving. That’s good. You’ll need them if you’re to build a horde of your own.”

  “How long does she have?”

  “That is...unknowable, but I have noticed a change recently. Perhaps soon.”

  Sanna’s heart ached for the girl. And Kai. “Twig mentioned a cure—do you think there might be one?”

  “It’s possible,” Iris shrugged. “The Omegas were working on a way to inoculate humans when I left with your father. Starvation was a real threat, then. Too many Infected.”

  “We have to go,” Sanna bolted up. “We have to find that cure and bring it back before Esme turns.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Even if we knew one existed, you’d be killed before you even cross the mountains. They will not care who your father is, only that you are a threat. Forget about the girl. She is unnecessary to your survival.”

  “Why am I here, then?” Sanna asked as Iris continued to the backyard, where two Infected waited like statues. Stage twos, one male and one female. They bent down to Iris’s level, and she pressed a tender hand to each of their cheeks.

  “The humans sensed you were different, yes? They were threatened by you. Your face is changing. Your body. Soon they will attack you on sight. I will teach you how to stay hidden. How to defend yourself. You should be safe, so long as you are careful. Sometimes a crusader will arrive from the west, like this Twig. You will kill them not because you protect the humans, but because the Omegas must not know you exist.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I will stay with you, ” Iris removed her hand. The stage twos jerked as if waking from slumber, then immediately sprinted for the forest. “Until you die, or your mother finally becomes an Omega. Then I will return to your father.”

  “What if I moved around a lot? Or stayed outside the village walls? I could still be around people then, couldn’t I?”

  “Rumors will start. Humans will notice. You will be driven out—or worse. There is no real place for you with humans or the Omegas. You must make your own way.”

  As they headed back to the cabin, Sanna’s life stretched before her, long and lonely. She ignored Esme’s glare as she entered, too exhausted and heartsick to build bridges.

  Instead, she followed Iris to the cookstove and accepted the bowl of steaming brown gunk that was offered. She ate it, though it tasted like ashes on her tongue. Later, when she was on the cusp of sleep, a thought formed that changed everything.

  The scientists in Twig’s vision mentioned human farms. If the Omegas had a cure, it’d be there. That would be the first place she’d look. If she could sneak into one of those and steal a vial, then she could take it to the CVC and they could replicate at.

  Imagine a world without walls. Without the infection.

  She had to find out as much as she could about what the West was like, and the people in it. Iris might refuse to help directly, but if Sanna asked the right questions her answers could fill in the blanks.

  Either way, she would not live her life like a scared ghost. She was Ivan Iron Tooth’s daughter. A warrior.

  If there was a cure, she’d find it. And bring it back.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Kai slept for two days after his fever broke. When he finally awoke, he found himself alone in what could only be Iris’s cabin. Esme was nowhere to be found, and although he had vague memories of her being near him while he was sick, he didn’t know if they were real. She'd never been the nurturing type.

  He had to know if she was alive. He rose, dressing quickly, and strode out of the cabin intent on finding out. Harsh sunlight reflected off the snow, nearly blinding him. He threw up his arm for shade.

  “Kai!”

  His heart stopped. He had precious few memories worth keeping, but the moment he heard Esme’s high, urgent voice, he knew this was one of them. She leapt into his open arms and he squeezed her tight, burying his nose into her hair.

  She’s alive, he repeated to himself, over and over. Part of him still thought it was a dream—that he’d wake up somewhere else and there’d still be miles and miles between them.

  “Hey,” she giggled. “You’re crushing me.”

  Kai set her down, a thousand words crowding in his throat. She wasn’t as thin and miserable as she’d been when he left. Her cheeks were rounded and still spattered with the freckles she hated, and her hair gleamed. She seemed healthy. Happy.

  “What are you looking at?” she demanded.

>   “You. I’m so glad you’re better, Ez.”

  Esme crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Of course I am. What else did you expect?”

  “Right,” Kai chuckled, shaking his head. “I should have never underestimated you.”

  Esme held her stance, a teasing light dancing in her eyes. Suddenly she flung her arms around his neck again, holding him tight. “I’m glad you’re better, too. I missed you. Who’s that girl?”

  “You mean Sanna?”

  “Yeah. She’s really weird.”

  “She’s nice, if you give her a chance.”

  Esme shot him a suspicious look. “Why should I do that? Is she your girlfriend or something?”

  “No.” Kai choked on the word. “Not really. We’re friends, that’s all. And you might...see a lot of her. I mean,” he pointed to the cabin. “Have you seen the size of that place? There’s no privacy. You have to be friends with her.”

  “She’s hardly ever around. She and Iris always go off together and leave me here and I get so...bored,” Esme said the last word as if it was the worst possible thing in the world, which for her, it was. “At least you're awake now,” she added brightly. “Iris taught me how to make a fever reducer. I used it on you. Are your stitches okay? She did those."

  “Yeah. I think so.” Kai probably shouldn’t have picked her up, but he’d been so relieved to see her that he’d forgotten about his injuries. Neither of them was bleeding, at least. “Do you know where Sanna is? I’d like to talk to her.”

  Esme’s smile dimmed. “She’s over there,” she pointed to the forest. “By the river. You should probably clean up, though. You’re kind of a mess. We found some clothes that might fit you—they’re in the trunk by your bed.”

  “Thanks.” Kai returned to the cabin and washed quickly, using a pitcher of melted snow. He pulled on a fresh shirt and pants, and knabbed his coat hanging from a hook near the door.

  Esme was playing a game of chase with Frankie when Kai left the cabin, who seemed overjoyed at being reunited with his favorite master. Her shrill laughter echoed across the meadow as Frankie gained on her, until she dramatically flopped onto the snow and submitted to his eager, excited licks.