Sin City

by Jennifer Martucci

  “Doesn’t look too bad,” Xan comments with a wry smile.

  “Riiiight,” I draw out the vowel sound, elongating the “i” to express that I got his sarcasm.

  “So we’re driving straight into land that looks like it’s ripped from a nightmare. So what?” He shrugs. “And so what if the creatures or monsters—whatever the Uganna are classified as—are worse than Urthmen?” He shudders dramatically. “Jeez, I can’t even joke about it. Freaks me out.”

  “Me, too,” I look over my shoulder.

  The gasoline continues to pour. “The barrel is much lighter. The tank should be just about full,” Xan says. “I don’t know what’ll happen if it’s too full. Should we try to get more in there?”

  The rustle of dried leaves just behind Xan and I holds my reply hostage somewhere in the vicinity of my throat, where my heart has lodged itself firmly. The sound silences Xan, silences me, too.

  Whirling, I turn in the direction of the sound. I stand perfectly still, not even breathing as I listen. Deafening silence rings in my ears. I exchange glances with Xan. He parts his lips to speak but I bring my index finger to my lips, signaling for him to be quiet. He doesn’t protest or shoot me a look of annoyance. In fact, he doesn’t move a muscle. He’s frozen in place. So am I. We resemble a pair of animals sensing a predator, edgy and alert. Somewhere nearby, a twig snaps and my heart stumbles like a clumsy runner. A faint breeze stirs, carrying on it the scent of damp earth, the musky smell of molded leaves, and something else. An acrid smell mingles with the scents of the forest. A stench that’s akin to wild onions, urine and sweat swells in small surges, raising the fine hairs at the back of my neck. I realize we aren’t alone, the presence of others as certain as the blood pumping in my veins.

  Another breeze stirs the leaves and thin branches around us. Then utter stillness follows. I take a cursory glance in the distance and swear I see oily shadows streak by. I glance at Xan to see whether he saw the shadows slink in the darkness. He stares hard in the direction of them, seems to notice what I observed. Goose bumps prickle my arms as waves of apprehension sweep over me. The stillness all around us is unnatural. Something is not right.

  “We need to get in the truck now. We’re not alone,” I say in a low voice.

  “I agree.” Xan lowers his side slowly. I follow suit. The barrel is almost empty, still we don’t abandon it on the side of the road. Instead, we run while holding it, all the while I feel the press of eyes upon me. Hungry eyes. Predatory eyes. “We’re being watched. I feel it.”

  I don’t reply. Don’t need to. I nod knowingly to Xan.

  Heart thundering, the air thickens with tension, the adrenaline-laced agitation of prey caught in the crosshairs of a predator. The intrinsic uncertainty of whether death or escape awaits. An unseen adversary holds our fate in its hands.

  The moment my hand reaches the handle of the rear door and it swings open, we toss the barrel inside and climb in, slamming the door behind us.

  “Let’s go!” Xan calls out. “We’ve got company!”

  “Company?” Lark’s head whips around. “Are we under attack?” Worry drains the color from her cheeks.

  Aiden stands. “Oh no.” He grabs my arm as I pass. Fretful eyes plead with me. “What do we do?”

  I look from his hand on my arm to his face. “For starters, let go of me.” He drops his hand immediately. “We need to get out of here immediately.” To Garan, I shout, “Let’s go! There’s something in the woods! It must be Uganna.”

  “I saw it, too,” Xan calls out.

  “We were being watched.” Aiden’s eyes widen in fear. In a calm voice, I tell him, “Sit, please. None of us wants to encounter an Uganna. The best thing we can do now is get moving.”

  “O-okay,” he replies in a tremulous voice. “I’ll sit.”

  “Good.” I pat his shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. Feeling what I felt on the side of the road, I’d need a heck of a lot more to reassure me than a pat on my shoulder. But my objective is to drive. To keep everyone on board calm and drive. As long as we’re in the truck and moving, we’re safe. And an attack against us is far more difficult to orchestrate. At least that’s what I hope.

  I make my way toward the passenger seat. I pause to quickly ask Ara and Pike if they’re alright. I bend and whisper, “Are you guys okay?”

  Ara looks at me. She tries to mask the nervousness she feels with a smile. But the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. Her expression is wooden. “We’re fine.” She looks up at me. “Go help Garan. Hurry up and get us through Uganna territory,” she adds. The quiver in her voice reveals her fear. It also reaffirms the absolute need to keep everyone else calm. I don’t want her to be upset. She’s been through enough. And while I realize I can’t safeguard her from pretty much anything these days, I will still try. I’ll try as hard as I can to protect her and shield her from as much as I can.

  “You got it.” I kiss the top of Ara’s head and exchange a quick glance with Pike before I race to the front of the truck. Passing Reyna, I give her shoulder a gentle squeeze. She doesn’t say a word. I only share a look with her fleetingly as I peek over my shoulder.

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” Garan says as I slide in to the passenger seat.

  His words are haunting wisps that trace the back of my neck like icy fingertips. “What are they?” I ask, though a part of me doesn’t want to hear the answer. “What are the Uganna?” The word trembles on my tongue.

  “They are a species you created. They’re here because of you.”

  My head rears slightly. “Excuse me?” I balk. “What the heck are you talking about? How did I create the Uganna?”

  “You, specifically, didn’t create the Uganna, though you had the largest hand in it,” he says with the same even tone he’d report the weather.

  “No, I didn’t.” My temper is brimming.

  “Your kind—humans—destroyed the Urthmen city of Kildare with a bomb, the same kind that was used during the War of 2062.”

  I feel my brow dip, my mouth contort in confusion. “Humans got hold of a bomb? A bomb that destroyed the entirety of an Urthman city?”

  “Yes. And not just any city. The city where the Urthman King resided.” There’s an edge to Garan’s voice that borders on sadness. “But the surrounding boroughs, the towns and villages that edged the city weren’t destroyed. They’d have been better off if they had been I suppose.” His gaze grows distant and his voice trails off. Several beats pass before he resumes speaking. “More than a million Urthmen lived just outside Kildare, they took the brunt of the fallout, the radiation, the sickness that resulted from the bomb.”

  I recall my father telling me about the bombs during the War of 2062. The sicknesses and damage to all living things that occurred as a result of them.

  “The ones that survived suffered the same fate as the earliest Urthmen,” Garan continues. “They transformed, morphed into something else, something terrifying.” He swipes his brow with his hand. The memory of my father telling the story is crystal-clear in my mind. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about the original Urthmen, right?”

  I nod somberly. I used to ask my father why the Urthmen hate us so much. He said they fear our intelligence and they resent that we are unchanged by the War of 2062. Recalling tales of the War of 2062 sends a shiver down my spine. My father explained to me what happened to our kind, that we had brought this misery on ourselves. Humans from different countries had warred with one another. A powerful chemical virus had been created by a Middle Eastern country, and released on the people of North America. The attack caused the leaders in America to launch nuclear weapons in retaliation, destroying much of the world.

  North America, where I live, is the only place where life is thought to still exist. It has been ravaged by chemical warfare, but life has continued. I don’t know for certain whether the rest of the world is inhospitable, but judging from the stories I’ve heard, I don’t see how it would be possible. The only reas
on many humans survived the War in the first place resulted from the mass underground shelters that had been created when the threat of war seemed imminent.

  Bomb shelters, as they were aptly named, were created for important people and rich people to take refuge in. Hundreds of thousands of the rich and important people lived there for decades until their supplies ran out and forced them to come aboveground. By then, they figured the diseases had cleared and that they were safe. The diseases were gone, but something much worse awaited them.

  When they surfaced, they were met by grotesque, distorted versions of human beings, abominations, who had gone mad from the chemicals and diseases. Those abominations butchered any humans they came across, who had hidden and were unaffected by illness. Those creatures were the earliest Urthmen, the version of which Garan speaks.

  “The Uganna are just like them. They’re just like the early Urthmen. They’re mindless savages, bloodthirsty monsters.” He sighs and rubs his hand down his face.

  His words sink in. I try to digest the fact that a creature even more relentless and bloodthirsty than Urthman—than any creature we’ve ever encountered—exists. “Are we safe in this truck? What could they do to us in the truck?”

  Garan shrugs. “Probably nothing. Hopefully.” He looks at me, his expression sober. “But don’t forget, we’ll need to refuel at some point.” His gaze returns to the road. I’m left without a response. Without fuel, our vehicle cannot function or move. If we don’t keep moving, we’re in mortal danger. My mind worries around these key points in dizzying laps. I stare out the window, begging the ever-darkening heavens for a solution to our very obvious problem. But the answer isn’t written in the stars and it isn’t spelled out by the clouds. We’ll need to be quick and heavily armed. That’s the best we can do.

  I continue peering out the passenger-side window as the hours roll by. Night has swallowed the day. The ethereal blue of dusk has been eclipsed by nightfall. I watch trees and bushes hurry past me in blur of shapes. But among the seemingly innocuous shapes, I notice new ones emerge. Sinewy silhouettes appear. Inky shadows slink, darker that the night as they dart between trees.

  “Garan, did you see that?” I wonder whether my eyes are playing tricks on me. The moon isn’t full, but it casts a meager amount of light.

  Garan nods slowly without looking at me. “That’s them.”

  My head swivels from Garan to the window as I feel my insides plummet to my feet in a dread-filled freefall. I press my face to the glass to get a closer look before chaos erupts all around me. From out of the pitch-black brush, a creature explodes, loping with speed that contradicts its massiveness. For a split-second I wonder whether Garan lied about eradicating the Lurkers, whether we’re being ambushed by them right now. But that thought is dispelled immediately when I catch sight of powerful arms hitting the ground knuckles-first, propelling the upper body of a different monster ahead of its legs in a smooth, fluid motion. Moonlight reflects off its creased forehead, a broad feature that projects out over small, murderous eyes, and I recognize it immediately: Uganna. Its mouth is partially open, long, pointed teeth bared as it emits a growl that’s more beast than Urthman seconds before its body launches into the glass out of which I watch. I recoil, screaming in shock. The body of the Uganna bounces off the door. Panting, I watch through the sideview mirror as it lands on the side of the road. “What the—” I start to say but my words die on my lips before I finish my sentence. Behind us, hundreds of creatures pour into the road, chasing us on all fours.

  “Hold on!” Garan shouts.

  I look straight ahead. There, beyond the windshield, dozens charge straight for the truck.

  Pulse jolted so that it hammers at the base of my throat, panic strikes through me like a bullet. “Oh my gosh!” The words leave me as a hoarse whisper.

  Ara, Pike, Reyna, Xan, Micah, Kai, Aaron, Aiden and Lark have rushed to the front of the truck. They’re gathered around Garan’s seat and mine, gazing out the windshield in stunned silence. In horror.

  “Everyone, in your seats, please! Sit down and hold on.” Garan’s plea ring out and fills the vehicle.

  No one questions him or protests. Instead, everyone scurries back to his or her seat before the front end of the truck absorbs the impact of the closest Uganna. A loud slam rocks us. Blood splatters on the windshield. Garan activates wiper blades, which only smear it and make matters worse, reducing visibility to practically nothing. Another Uganna immediately hurls itself at us. But just before we hit it, the beast leaps up onto the hood of the truck. It grabs hold of the lip of the windshield. It glares at me with vicious, ruby-red eyes. This close, I can see the color. Even behind the overhang of its forehead, the garnet color shines, like twin pools of blood. Saliva strings dangle between its teeth as it snaps at the glass before it lifts one arm and pounds the windshield. Lifting it and hammering its muscled, powerful arm again and again, hairline cracks form. Quickly, they spread. Pops and snaps sound as a network of vein-like fissures fracture the glass.

  A swell of panic-saturated anger surges through me. I can’t let the Uganna destroy our vehicle. I won’t. “Pike, give me a bow and arrow. Quick!”

  My brother brings me a bow and several arrows. I lower the passenger-side window and lean my upper body out it.

  “Be careful, Lucas!” Pike shouts above the rush of air.

  The beast on the hood pauses his assault against our windshield long enough to flash a look of surprise before I let my arrow fly less than two feet from its face. The arrow sinks into its temple. It rears its head, releasing an awful, pained howl. It releases its grip. I tuck my body back inside the truck and roll the window up as fast as I can. Garan jerks the wheel to the left then right. The beast tumbles off the hood. I watch it fall to the pavement lifelessly. I’m aware of the voices in the truck. The cheers. The chatter. The buzz. But it’s barely audible over the roar in my ears, the drumming of my heart and the tide of lifeblood thundering through my veins. Ahead of us, the path is free of Uganna. Behind us, however, an innumerable pack chases. They grow smaller as we place more distance between us. My pulse dares to slow.

  Glancing between me and the road, Garan isn’t even breathless as I feel when he says, “They travel in herds. That was only one of them.”

  “There are going to be more?” I do not bother to hide the fear and dread in either my tone or features.

  Garan levels me with a gaze as grave as any I’ve ever seen. “We’re not even in the heart of the Uganna territory. We’ve only just begun.”

  Frost crystallizes within my blood, sharpened like shards of glass. My heart freezes mid-beat. More will come. More will stalk. More will attack. And we will have to stop and refuel.

  Garan is right. I realize with certainty that chills the very marrow in my bones that the nightmare of crossing through Uganna land has only just begun.

  Chapter 9

  Sleep eludes me as we drive. I turn left then right, repositioning myself, and allow my heavy eyelids to close. My body is tired. Drained from the adrenaline rush earlier. It’s my mind that refuses to shut down. Hours have passed since refueling and the initial ambush. I’ve tried to force it to the back of my brain, tried to ignore it. But it’s useless. Impossible to ignore. Especially when the attacks have continued. Though minor, they’re a constant reminder of what’s happened and where we are. When I think too hard about it, allow my mind to relive each moment of the attack, ice-cold terror races through my body, leaving me frozen, suspended like the icicles that would hang from trees in winter. The Uganna are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen quite a bit. A shiver passes through me. No longer able to bear the chill that’s permeated my core, I decide to venture to the back of the truck to seek out the person whose company will bring me peace. And as soon as I spot her, the tempo of my pulse picks up. Everyone is asleep except her and my sister. Reyna’s eyes lock on mine when I pass the first row of seats. She’s mid-conversation with Ara, her voice low enough that I can’t hear
what she’s saying, and gesturing animatedly until she sees me. She pauses while speaking. The faintest hint of pink touches her cheeks. I nod toward the back, toward the place where we sat earlier. Our space, where the lip of the rear compartment prevents the barrels—or anything being stowed—from rolling into the seating area. I watch her reaction to my wordless invitation. Her brows draw together then a smile curves her lips prettily. She says something to Ara that I can’t hear then stands before making her way down the center aisle ahead of me. Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she sits down with her legs folded. I plunk down beside her.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “What’s up? Why aren’t you asleep like everyone else?” Reyna tilts he head to one side slightly. The dim lights that line the aisle illuminate her eyes. They glow ethereally.

  “I’m tired. But I keep seeing those…things in my head.” I shake my head as if doing so might ward off the image.

  “The Uganna,” she says with disgust.

  “I didn’t think something more savage than the Urthmen existed. Something that wants us dead more than they do.”

  “The Uganna seem to want everything dead. It’s like they need to kill.” She shrugs and allows her gaze to drop to her lap.

  “I know.” I nod in agreement. “You’re right. And now they’re after us, too.”

  “We’re human. We’re the enemy of pretty much every species, aren’t we?” she asks.

  I consider her words. “Pretty much.” A small, humorless laugh leaves me. “Really stinks to be us.” I shake my head. “What’s next? Small woodland creatures will form a coalition and launch an attack?”