[2018] Reign of Queens

by Melissa Wright

  “Did they scratch you?” Mackenzie asked. “Those things, did they cut you with a claw, Mark you?”

  His chest stiffened under her grip, but he only looked at her sidelong, the blood spattered across him drying to a deep red. Like the monsters. She decided most of the blood had not been his, and gestured toward the road. “We have to go.”

  Mackenzie stepped forward, pulling him with her as she scanned the streets for any sign of the creatures. It wasn’t going to be an easy walk, but none of the structures here were safe. Everything had been flattened, torn, twisted into rubble. She and Riley had been lucky in that aspect. Of all the houses on their street, 1024 Oak Lane had fared the best. The upstairs rooms had a new view to the skyline and several downstairs windows were busted out, but for the most part their home remained intact. Riley had wondered at it aloud, but not Mackenzie. They’d had their share of bad luck in life. It was about time something fortunate happened.

  “It’s only a couple more blocks,” she assured the boy, feeling his heaviness grow with each passing step. “It’s safe there. I promise.”

  He coughed, hand coming away from his mouth wet with blood, and Mackenzie’s stomach dipped. He was hurt worse than she’d feared. They might have dropped him from a height like they had tried with her, or kicked and punched him hard enough to damage his insides. She was going to be sick. The thought of him dying, the last person here—this boy leaning on her shoulder—was too much.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, forcing her feet to keep moving, pushing down the dread.

  He took a shallow breath, and coughed. Mackenzie didn’t stop. She couldn’t leave him there to die in the street. She tightened her grip on his waist, pressing her hip hard against him for support, and took another step.

  “Hunter,” he said between gasps. “My name is Hunter.”

  “Two more blocks, Hunter.” She nodded toward the two-story white Colonial standing between the remains of its neighbors. “That’s us.” His eyes flicked to the house, its white shuttered windows and gingerbread trim. It had been pretty once. She’d drawn pictures of it as a kid, crayon outlines with oversized daffodils and a bright purple window shade that indicated her own room.

  Now, it was as if the whole scene was washed in a haze of gray. That giant yellow sunshine was gone; the thing that remained had peeling paint and torn-off shingles. Its dormers had been battered by wayward limbs, a gaping hole that stared at the sky.

  “It’s sound,” she said. “We’ll be safe inside.” And when night fell, if he was still alive, they’d hide in its basement.

  He didn’t respond, only dragged himself forward. It must have taken them a dozen times longer to get back as it had for her to reach the park site, but she had no true way of knowing. The importance of time had ceased after the monsters came. There was only the relative safety of light, and the seemingly-endless hours she’d spent alone in the darkness of night.

  Chapter 4

  They had walked through the antique iron railing that fenced in the house more than an hour ago. Mackenzie knew this because inside the hallway rested the only remaining furniture that had not been overturned: a too-heavy grandfather clock. She had deposited Hunter onto some cushions on the floor, because the couch and chairs had been braced against every door after Riley had been attacked. She stood in the kitchen, staring down at the stranger’s motionless form, more than a little aware of the waning light outside.

  Her fingers tapped against the counter, click, click, clicking away the seconds with the tick of that clock. He had barely moved. Since the request for baking soda and chalk, an antidote for what ailed him, Hunter hadn’t spoken a word. He’d not even groaned. Poisoned, he’d said. Not beaten, not dropped from the air, but poisoned.

  By monsters.

  She had stepped back from him then, stared in dull shock as the boy she’d found lying on the ground was now sprawled very un-boy-like over the cushions of their brown woven sofa, and watched as he mixed the white powder with the dregs of a cola they’d found in the unplugged refrigerator. It had made a paste, thick and foaming, and Hunter had choked it down. She’d had some ideas about poisoning, some notion of needing to induce vomiting, or of definitely not, but the answer was the first option, apparently, because Hunter began heaving in a matter of breaths. Mackenzie had kicked a bowl toward him, the plastic basin they’d used to catch a drip from their now leaky ceiling, watching in horror as black bile rose from his stomach. She had been frozen ever since, petrified of nearing him as he retched, and then afraid to disturb him once he’d fallen silent.

  But now the sun was getting low and she couldn’t leave him be.

  Sweat had beaded on his forehead, grabbing locks of dark blond so that they clung to him, mussing what was already a disheveled, bloody mess. He’d brushed a forearm across his face, clearing a cheek of the red, but smearing it across his brow. He needed cleaning up. She could at least do that.

  The water in the basement was for drinking, but Riley had managed to save some rain from the small pots and pans that he’d poured into a larger plastic tub. She thought she remembered the tub having once held gardening tools, but that had been long enough ago that all evidence of dirt had dried and flaked away, leaving only sun-faded plastic.

  Mackenzie shuffled through the cabinet drawers to find an old dishcloth before she filled an empty container with rainwater. She knelt beside him as the rag soaked, pushing the hair off his brow with the tip of her pinky before wringing the cloth. He had a kind face, peaceful with sleep and smooth beneath the filth. It had been hard to tell when he’d been in so much pain, but she guessed he must not be more than a year or two older than she.

  Riley wasn’t a boy any longer either. He was going to be eighteen soon, and he would have gone off to college if not for this bizarre invasion. She’d never have protested him leaving for school, but his chances of being killed there were considerably less than the current case.

  She felt the weight of his note in her pocket as she brushed the damp cloth over Hunter’s brow. I am Marked, Kenzie. They will come looking for me, and there’s no way I can chance it, not with you. He didn’t want to risk her by staying, and she’d have never let him out of her sight.

  Hunter’s fingertips brushed her wrist and she jumped. “Oh,” she said, “I just—” She was as awake as he now, her gaze trailing over the dishcloth, stained a rusty red. “How did you get so much of their blood on you?”

  He shifted, pressing himself up to lean on an elbow. His eyes were blued steel, lined in coal and cut through with silver. They were like clouds and storms and all the things she’d never really given credit to in poetry and romance novels. It made her feel silly to have noticed, but she was so near him. He coughed. “I guess you weren’t the only one who got a couple of good blows in.”

  Refusing to be distracted by the line of his jaw, she shoved the damp cloth into his hand, stood. “We need to get downstairs.”

  His brow drew down, something in his gaze giving her the impression he didn’t quite trust her.

  “It’ll be dark soon,” she explained. “They’ll come back. And down there is the only place it’s safe.” No place was truly safe, not anymore. But she didn’t need to tell him that. “Clean yourself up. I’ll go grab some clothes.”

  He nodded, taking a moment to glance around. The kitchen was a mess. After the first night, she’d not even bothered cleaning from the storm. They’d only worried about sealing up holes. About barricades. She bit down the urge to tell Hunter there weren’t normally leaves and trash strewn across the floor, let alone half their belongings.

  With a muttered curse, she realized the bat that usually rested against the door frame was gone, abandoned in her fight with monsters. She glanced back at Hunter—whose gaze was narrowed on her—then the lowering sun through the kitchen shutters, and decided to make a run for it without a weapon in hand.

  She took the stairs two at a time, sidestepping the missing plank that had not been missing two wee
ks ago, and held her breath as she swung the corner into the chaos of her brother’s room. Hunter appeared larger than Riley both in height and the width of his shoulders, but her brother had taken to wearing whatever vintage shirts they’d been able to find at the secondhand shop. The money she earned only went so far, and Riley had never complained.

  She grabbed two of the larger tee-shirts and a gray and red flannel top. If they were a bit snug, Hunter would have to make do. She wasn’t about to risk hitting up her father’s room. Not after the ceiling collapse.

  “Mackenzie?”

  She spun, heart in her throat and ready to swing.

  It was Hunter, just standing there, holding a hand to his midsection.

  “You said Mackenzie. Mackenzie Scott.”

  She stared at him, unable to form a response… until he held up the letter bearing her legal last name: Green.

  She glared at him. “Are you going through my mail?” It had been on the floor beside him, along with some other paperwork knocked from the counter in their haste to block the exits.

  He tossed the envelope on Riley’s desk, his voice level. “I can think of no reason for you to lie to me.”

  She crossed her arms, throwing the tone right back. “For one, you’re a stranger. And two—” Her gaze flicked to his midsection, the way he was holding himself. “How did you even get up here?”

  “I can’t stay here,” he said.

  He didn’t trust her; it was as plain as that. Why she should care was beyond her, but she couldn’t help but be annoyed. “I just saved your life. What’s your problem?”

  “Why were you there? At the threshold?”

  “You saw it? You know it was there?”

  The boy, this stranger, didn’t answer. He simply watched her.

  She let out a puff of air. They were both on edge, but there was no sense in hiding anymore. “Scott is my mother’s maiden name. I started using it a few years after she died.” When he didn’t move, she said, “You can leave if you want, but it’s going to be dark soon and I wouldn’t be running around out in the open when night falls.”

  She tried to brush past him, furious for no good reason, but he caught her arm. “The gateway. Why were you there?”

  Mackenzie’s eyes met his, frozen in the force of his gaze. She’d been startled, and then angry, but now, up close, she could see the sweat beading his brow, the way his shoulder trembled and curled in toward his side. Her eyes trailed down, tracing the line of his arm.

  “Hunter, you’re bleeding.”

  She stared at the hand that had been pressed to his side. Red seeped through the material of his shirt. It hadn’t been like that before. Hunter swayed, the fingers on her arm sliding free as he moved back.

  Mackenzie grabbed him before he fell into the door frame, slipping under his arm the way she had near the park. There was a rustle of leaves outside, the bite of wind from Riley’s busted window, and she shivered. “Come on,” she said. “We have to get to the basement.”

  The trek downstairs was considerably harder than their walk home, not only because the way was more treacherous, but because the adrenaline from facing the monsters was gone. And Hunter was a lot heavier than he looked. She was careful not to bump his side, and when they finally made it through the kitchen hallway and down the narrow basement stairs, she fell with him onto the cot where they sat for a moment, backs against the cement wall and panting for air.

  Mackenzie eventually caught her breath, but Hunter wasn’t doing as well. He’d not vomited since taking that homemade concoction more than an hour ago, but his skin was cold and clammy. “What happened, Hunter? What’s wrong with your side?”

  “The metal—” He grimaced. “They cut me; I must not have gotten it all out.”

  His breathing was labored, and she knew she needed to help him, but the wind had picked up outside, and the whistles and clatters had her all twitchy. “Lie back. Just give me a second and I’ll check it out.” She jumped up, securing the basement door with an old empty freezer and two heavy wood slats. No light came through the door jamb and a chill ran up her arms. Shaking it off, she turned, the dim light of the basement coming from a fortunately timed brownout.

  “This probably won’t last long,” she said, gesturing toward the light fixture as she hurried back to the cot to kneel at his side. “We usually don’t get more than a few flickers after nightfall—”

  Her words cut off as she raised the hem of his shirt. His stomach muscles contracted at the move, the angry red wound on his side weeping fresh blood through a thick black rot. “Hunter,” she whispered.

  He shook his head, staring at the basement ceiling. “It’s the poison. You have to find the metal, get it out.” He handed her a flat piece of metal from his pocket. It might have been a keychain once, or a medallion, but she didn’t look at it long, only stared at the man lying on her family’s basement cot. “One of us has to dig it out.”

  She didn’t move, and he reached for the trinket. “No,” she said, fingers wrapping around the cold metal. “I can do it.”

  He nodded, wiping the blood clean with the hem of his shirt, and let his head fall back to the mattress. Mackenzie stared at the wound. It had hurt him, she could see that. Not by the way his jaw clenched or the way his muscles quivered, but by the red ring of heat surrounding the cut, the pale sheen that had taken over his skin.

  “They stabbed you,” she said, more to herself than anything.

  “Threw me onto the metal,” he murmured. “That’s how the poison got inside.”

  He wasn’t making sense again, and Mackenzie worried that she’d waited too long. Not leaving him in the street to die was one thing; being trapped in her darkened basement with a body, that was a whole other. She squeezed the narrow end of the medallion between her thumb and forefinger, pressing her other hand to his side. He tensed, muscles tightening into cords.

  The wound was only a few inches wide, but appeared to run deep. She held her breath, separating the cut and wincing at the sight of open flesh and actual tissue.

  She could only pray she wouldn’t pass out.

  Leaning forward, she forced the split further. Hunter hissed. The hand that held the tool was shaking; she didn’t have much time before courage deserted her completely. She shifted in the dim light, and a new stream of black dripped from the severed meat of his side. “There,” she said, “I see it.” She was moving before she had a chance to appreciate what she was about to do, talking herself through it aloud. “It’s a shard of rusted metal. Probably from that fencing or whatever the busted pipes were I found.” Her mouth twisted as she pressed the blade of the medallion into the gash. “Must have shifted when you moved from the kitchen, opened the wound back up…”

  The fragment of iron clinked to the basement floor and her face pulled up in disgust. Her fingers opened reflexively, pulling away from his bloody side. She grabbed a scrap of towel from beside the cot—one of her father’s old shop rags—and pressed it to Hunter’s skin.

  She was so glad he couldn’t see her expression right then.

  His hand came down, covering hers over the makeshift bandage, and she could feel the tremble in his fingers as he fumbled to take over the task. She pulled her own free, groping for some new duty. “Can you… Should I go upstairs and get gauze or bandages? We don’t have any ice, the power…”

  “Thank you, Mackenzie,” he said. She knew he’d meant it as a denial, but she started toward the door anyway. “No,” he told her.

  Mackenzie turned, concerned by the vehemence in his voice. “Don’t go out there,” he said. “Not alone.”

  Chapter 5

  Mackenzie had dated her share of boys. It had never been anything serious; to protect Riley from social services, she’d always shut things down the moment they’d mentioned meeting her parents or stopping by the house. Still, on occasion, she’d been in close proximity to a guy. And given that she’d spent the last few days hiding in a recess behind the house’s basement heating syst
em—alone—she certainly didn’t mind the company.

  What she hadn’t expected was to fall fast asleep on top of a stranger the moment her exhaustion won out. Sure, she’d barely escaped with her life, but nothing quite prepared you for waking to find you’d been drooling on the new guy for the last few hours.

  Forcing down a terrifying remainder of the dream that had woken her, the echoed sound of beating wings, she cleared her throat, pushing off Hunter in the dim light to glance at the covered windows.

  “It’s not yet daybreak,” he offered.

  She rubbed a hand over her face, disappointed she’d let them fall asleep without moving behind the heating system, but the winds had quieted outside, the air calm. They might not have been as safe as she’d like, but they were awake now and mostly unharmed. Her gaze returned to Hunter. “How’s your side?”

  He patted a hand over his stomach, one of Riley’s old elastic sports bandages hidden beneath the hem of his shirt. “I’ll be fine in a few days.”

  Her fingers caught in the matted hair that had pulled half-free of her ponytail, apparently having teased itself to Fashion Week level in her sleep. She pulled the band loose to run a few fingers through the tangle, scrunching her face at each tug. It didn’t hurt near as bad as her neck and shoulder, but as long as she didn’t use that side she’d be fine.

  Her movements stilled when she realized Hunter was watching her. He’d lost his pallor, but that was about all she could tell in the muted light.

  She moved to her knees on the floor in front of him, sliding a cardboard box from beneath the cot. After handing him a bottle of water, she leaned forward to light one of the stubby emergency candles they’d found that first night. She smiled, thinking of Riley’s face when he’d spotted the words “Emergency Kit” on the outside of the box. He must have thought there was something in there that might save them. She imagined an End of Days remedy instead of candles, batteries, and a foil blanket, her smile widening.