The Shade Chronicles | Book 2 | Predator

by Bradley, T. K.

  I have to admit, I’m curious too. I may have given him the instruction to run ahead as a distraction, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a positive outcome for all of us. Not just the whole not-immediately-dying part, but also the surviving-dawn part.

  Ellis’s matte-black eyes are even more unsettling in the electric glow of the flashlight. I angle my gaze away, down to where he guides his finger over the creased paper. “We’re around here somewhere, and about two miles ahead, you’ll see the landscape start to change. Craggy and eroded. There’s a crack that opens up into a cave; we can stay there for the day.”

  “And the ocean?” Howell asks, hopeful.

  “It’s there.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I can’t help but take that as a bad sign.

  The ocean has been a constant in my mind for the entirety of my life. It’s this massive, eternal being, so stable that I’ve never questioned its existence. It seems wrong that I haven’t spent more time contemplating the global consequences of our current situation. I mean, I was kinda busy focusing on the not starving. And, you know, the Shredders have a way of demanding our attention.

  Plus, the age-old adage: out of sight, out of mind. I couldn’t see it, and therefore, it wasn’t my problem. Sad, but true.

  “We’d better get going, then,” Bob said, far too enthusiastic for my liking.

  Although, with a more concrete destination in mind, I can’t help but also feel a certain lift to my spirits. Ellis is tamed, for at least a little while, and there’s a cave with my name on it. Howell tucks the map away, and I click off the flashlight and pass it to Bob to put back in his pack.

  Except…

  I can see Bob’s features too clearly, even without the flashlight. “Dawn is coming,” I whisper. We all cast our eyes towards the east, where there’s a faint but distinctive glow. “We’d better get a move on.”

  “Double time,” Ellis adds.

  Ellis said two miles. That’s doable… right? We’re not exactly in the best shape right now. Hungry, dehydrated, exhausted from walking for hours, plus a tad iron deficient. We can survive a bit of the early-morning light, but if we don’t hurry…

  I refuse to think about it. One foot in front of the other, right? We start off at a slight jog, allowing Ellis to lead this time. Better to keep him in front of us where we can see him, and to keep us out of his view too. Less temptation that way.

  But… if Ellis, a trained soldier, is suffering, then what about Lori? Obviously she’s used to feeling hunger, we all are, having lived in the compound. But I have no sense of scale for what this new bloodlust must feel like. She described it as an itching feeling. How long can any of us go, leaving an itch unscratched.

  At least with me, Howell, and Bob removed from the equation, she won’t have any human temptation, but my blood was just barely keeping her sane before. She’ll have to hunt. If she can even find anything to eat, that is. I hate to think of the dark space her mind might descend to.

  Focusing on Lori is a way to distract myself from my own problems, but I can feel them edging in on all sides. The sun is our most immediate threat, and it’s a hard one to ignore. Our pace picks up the brighter it gets, until we’re all tripping over our own feet in our mad dash for safety. I feel clumsy and delirious.

  Ellis increases his pace as he feels us pressing at his back, until we’re all running as fast as hungry/dehydrated/exhausted humans with blisters on their feet can possibly go.

  First, it’s bright enough that I can see the landscape changes that Ellis described.

  Then, the sun is high enough that my skin begins to tingle.

  Just when I start to wonder if we won’t make it, the ground drops off, and we all scramble down the escarpment into the relative shade.

  “Ahhhh,” Howell lets out a long sigh of relief. We all sag into the rock face; all of us except Ellis. The sun seems little more than a mild annoyance for him, as he shades his eyes and strolls farther along the bluff—yep, downright saunters, not even a little out of breath from our frantic dash.

  “It’s over here,” he calls, pointing. From the outside, it looks like little more than an eroded crack between rocks, but I trust Ellis enough to wedge myself in and wiggle through. Just as he said, it opens up into a larger space. Not exactly a palace, but I think we can make do.

  Bob gets straight to work preparing us some breakfast. I don’t want to look too closely at whatever he’s making, because it seems to involve some kind of reconstituted powder mixed with a can of saucy noodles. Smells like sweaty feet. Or maybe that’s just because Bob took off his socks, laying them out over a rock to dry out.

  Howell looks about to say something rude, but then Bob shoves a cup full of food at him and our fearless leader snatches it from him and retreats into the far corner of the cave to prove that he can simultaneously pout and eat.

  I turn to say something to Ellis, only to find that he’s not here. “Ellis?”

  He peeks in from the cave entrance. “I’m not staying,” he says simply. Regardless of the snack we provided for him earlier, I can still see deep creases below his eyes, a tight set to his lips. Our blood basically just took the edge off enough that he could maintain some kind of control. But it was temporary. We knew it would be. He’ll be off to see if he can dig some rodent out of its hiding place, or at the very least, stay the hell away from us.

  “I’ll be back at sundown.” He draws himself out through the crack, leaving a strip of light.

  When I turn to face our little group of remaining humans, I’m struck by the stark differences between the three of us. Bob is humming away, happy as can be. I wish I had his outlook. Howell, on the other hand, is glaring after where Ellis disappeared. He’s the kind of guy that will never be happy with anything, no matter how privileged he is. I don’t like the expression on his face, I don’t trust it. I’ve known Howell a long time, and I know all too well that he will only ever be looking out for number one.

  He sees me looking and snaps, “What?”

  “Oh, nothing… I was just thinking about how remarkable it is to see my experiment in action.” I’m fishing for information. It’s always best to know what Howell is thinking. “Years of work, progress, all culminating in Ellis. He really is the perfect candidate.”

  I have to swallow past my own self-hatred at the words, but I manage to keep my voice light.

  Howell’s eyes glint, but he says nothing.

  “I wonder if it was because he was infected as a secondary carrier. When Dan was infected and we injected our serum during his transition, and then his venom infected Major Hill. Would the result be the same if we injected the serum straight into an uninfected subject? And what if Ellis infected someone else, would the virus mutate further? Or would it be weakened in some way?”

  Howell’s eyes dart back over to mine, and I know I’ve hit the nail on the head. As we’re cowering in this cave, hiding from the sunlight, Ellis is out there walking free. It’s tempting, thinking about that kind of power and freedom. Howell has been dreaming about it for himself.

  He doesn’t take my bait, never says a word, but I think I know him too well by now.

  We all settle in for the day. Bob uses his pack as a pillow, though it doesn’t look terribly soft, filled as it is with gear. I just use my arm to curl under my head. Not even the hard, rocky ground could keep me awake right now. This is a full-body fatigue that runs bone-deep.

  I breathe out a long sigh, letting myself finally relax for the first time in over a week… but then I hear something.

  It’s just outside the scope of my senses, but once I’ve heard it, I wonder how I didn’t notice it sooner.

  “Do you guys hear that?”

  I swear we hold our breaths, straining our ears. And there it is. A rhythmic rushing sound. Pulsing.

  “The ocean!” Bob gasps reverently. He sits up, and for a split second I wonder if he isn’t about to bolt outside to throw himself headlong into the waves. It’s far, though. Miles, probably.

>   Howell, ever the optimist, says, “It doesn’t sound right.”

  As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. I cast my memory back into the depths of my childhood and dredge up the crystal-blue waters, the sandy beaches. Laughing, splashing. Granted, I’ve never been to a coast as far north as this, but how different could it be?

  We fall back into our silence, but it’s no longer relaxed. Whereas moments ago, I thought nothing could stop me from falling into a comatose state, now I struggle to even keep my eyes closed.

  And when I do sleep, I dream of being thrown about by the waves, slammed again and again into a rocky seabed.

  I awake hours later, and my body aches as if I really have spent hours being pummeled by the waves. The cave is nearly full dark, and I suspect night is upon us. Ellis should be back soon.

  I sit up and stretch my arms out over my head. A light flares like a struck match. When I turn, however, expecting to see Bob getting ready to prepare some breakfast, I freeze, my breath caught in my throat.

  A stranger is sitting there in front of me. “You’re not Bob,” I say dumbly.

  “No. I’m not Bob,” she replies.

  And then she turns her gun on me.

  15

  Lori

  I know I’ve said this before, but seriously. What. A. Clusterfuck. Seriously.

  Howell had this whole thing planned out. Sort of. Well, he had it planned for humans. And yes, I’m very aware that we’re not humans.

  So aware. But seriously!

  Can things get any worse?

  Shit, I shouldn’t have said that. Aren’t I supposed to knock on wood or something? Except, when I look around at the completely barren landscape, there isn’t a single piece of anything even resembling wood. Just so I can say I tried, I reach down and touch the rough rock beneath my feet.

  “What are you doing?” my mom asks.

  “Oh, you know, warding against evil.” I shrug, and she doesn’t say anything.

  After a moment of silence, she reaches down and touches the ground too. “Couldn’t hurt, right?”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  We’ve been walking for hours. Well, not so much walking as running, but it might as well be a nice, relaxed stroll for how easy it is. And you know what? It feels good! In the compound, exercise wasn’t really a thing. They wanted us weak; harder for us to fight back if we’re so beaten down and malnourished that we couldn’t even contemplate picking up a weapon, right? But now?

  I’m running! Fast enough that I’m generating a breeze to tug at the remains of my hair. I can feel the bear’s blood coursing through my veins, and it’s making me stronger, faster. It’s hard to imagine that this feeling could ever end…

  Except of course it will. I will have to hunt again, I will have to—

  I grit my teeth, and Mom looks over at me. “What is it?” she whispers. Not quiet enough, because nothing is ever quiet enough when surrounded by Rippers. I see other heads turn in our direction.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Just… eager to get there, I guess.” Get where? Who knows? But it’s answer enough to turn attention away from me. Mom and I share a look before she focuses her attention back on the desert in front of her.

  Because she knows what’s wrong.

  When we came back from our hunt, we found… death. It was a massacre. Black blood splattered in all direction, guts strewn, limbs dismembered… And no, it wasn’t what you’re probably thinking, there weren’t any “bad guys.” There were only our guys. Or maybe our guys are the bad guys, one and the same.

  I don’t even know if they bothered hunting for prey at all. Maybe it was a coordinated plan, the strong turning on the weak. Or maybe they were just hungry. All it takes is one drop of blood in the water to trigger a feeding frenzy.

  I shudder at the memory. And there was Trey, just standing in the middle of it all, not even trying to stop them! He was unapologetic when we confronted him. Survival of the fittest, he said. Evolution at its finest. Blah, blah, blah. “Besides, aren’t you glad I stopped them from going after Kenzo?” he said.

  Was that slaughter the price for Kenzo’s life? It seems a little expensive to me… but at the same time… not. No price is too steep to keep the chance of a cure alive.

  A tiny voice inside me nudges me, saying that it goes deeper than that. Kenzo is more than just my chance to return to normal. He’s… Can’t I just stick with saying he’s more and leaving it at that? Now is not the time to analyze my life choices—or rather, my lack of choices.

  For now, I focus on the easy pace of my jog, the steady beat of my heart, my breathing relaxed. There is most definitely no panic over what we might face ahead of us. Nope, not a bit. No thought wasted on the rising sun, no matter that I swear the temperature is rising, threatening our impending demise.

  Our group of remaining Rippers is padding along in a loose formation. We’re all keeping our distance from each other, but can you blame us? Trust was in short supply before they started cannibalizing each other. Now? Now we’re just a giant ticking timebomb, and we have no idea how much time is left on the countdown.

  My nostrils tingle. Blood.

  I’m not the only one who smells it—I can tell by the way their heads whip around looking for prey. Even as glutted as we are on fresh blood, the hunting instinct runs deep. Just because we’re full, that doesn’t mean that we’ll be full tomorrow, and who knows when we’ll find our next meal. We’re opportunists at our most basic level.

  Regardless of everyone’s awareness of the blood, I’m the only one who bothers to stop and investigate. I crouch down over it and breathe deeply. It’s clearly not a wounded animal. It’s nothing but a single red drop staining the ground. Whatever left it here is long gone.

  My mom sees that I’ve stopped and jogs back to see what has me so curious. “What is it?” she asks when it becomes clear that I’m not volunteering anything.

  Just because we bonded or whatever with our hunting excursion, that doesn’t mean I’m feeling all buddy-buddy just yet. I look up at her, and she must see the answer in my eyes.

  “It’s human?” she asks, and I nod my confirmation.

  I rise up beside her and we spin around in circles, looking for more evidence, but beyond a few footprints and scuffles in the dirt, it’s impossible to tell anything except that someone had been here.

  “It’s not Kenzo’s blood.” I can say that with certainty; I feel like I’ve become pretty intimate with the nuances of his life blood.

  “Howell’s or Bob’s then?”

  I shake my head slowly. “Maybe.”

  “Should I get Kelly?” she asks. Kelly would likely recognize her father’s blood, much in the same way that I know Kenzo’s, but the suggestion makes me uneasy.

  “How would she react if she knew her father was bleeding? Even if it is just a single drop.”

  Mom’s face crinkles. “You have a point. Best to keep her on even ground.”

  We resume our run, picking up the pace to catch up with the rest of the group. Trey spares us a glance, raising his brow in question. I just give a small shake of my head. I’ll tell him later. He seems to understand, darting his eyes to all those pesky listening ears around us.

  God, do I ever miss privacy. It’s more that just the lack of walls between us, but there’s nowhere that I can escape to that will be outside the range of their senses. And as a woman—well, female, anyway—I am now far outnumbered by the males in this group, which just makes everything more awkward. Turns out that survival of the fittest strongly favors males. Gee, big surprise there.

  Darwinism also favors trained soldiers. Go figure. It’s no wonder Trey didn’t stop them from killing everyone. These are his buddies, his teammates. I wish I could trust him, but it’s becoming pretty clear where his loyalties lie.

  My list of trusted allies is getting awfully short… Hmm, can it still be called a list if there’s only one person on it?

  The landscape begins to shift and change with our pr
ogress. It moves from a softer dirt ground into bare rock. My toe claws click against it as I run, and the group of Rippers sounds almost silly with their clickety-clack rebounding between us. A few of the Rippers try to alter their footing, raising their toes up, angling back onto their heels, but then they just look even sillier.

  I stifle a giggle, and a few of the soldiers send daggered eyes my way. My mom, on the other hand, cracks a grin. It no doubt makes her happy just to see me laugh.

  The smile falls from my lips.

  Something’s wrong.

  The sky is beginning to lighten, but that’s not what is sending that prickling sensation down my spine. There’s a figure standing in the distance.

  “Ellis?” I call out. I have to squint against the bright light, the sun now having crested the horizon. Where are the others? He must just be waiting for us, catching our attention to let us know that we’re close.

  I hit a burst of speed and blast past a few of the Rippers, until Trey barks a command and they increase their pace to match mine.

  Before we can reach where Ellis is standing, he turns and lowers out of sight. I don’t even hesitate to throw myself off the edge of the embankment, landing in a low crouch some 20 feet below, just in time to see Ellis disappearing into a crack in the rock.

  I slide in behind him. I can hear the others following, single file. It’ll be a tight squeeze for some of the bigger guys, and it brings me a tiny bit of joy when I hear them grunting their complaints.

  Kenzo’s scent lingers on the air, but I know right away that he isn’t here in the cave. And as it opens up around me, my suspicion is confirmed. No Kenzo—and no Howell or Bob, either.

  My eyes zero in on Ellis straight away. “Where are they?” I burst out.

  He holds a hand out to stave off my barrage of questions. “I’ll explain everything. Everybody have a seat. Sunrise will be here soon, so this is home for the day.”

  I don’t take my eyes off him as the others file in. I just lower down and wait.