Feast (12 page)

“It’s moving,” he said, “for everyone. The first time they come here. And smell this. See it for themselves.
Taste
it. But to truly appreciate it all, you need to see the macro view. Lead the way.”

The layout of the biodome hadn’t changed from her original design. There were twenty raised rectangular garden beds. Each fifteen feet long and seven wide. A central aisle divided the space into even sides with walkways between the beds and along the walls. A network of water pipes crisscrossed overhead, with three nozzles positioned over each garden, providing an even spread for the plants growing below.

And they were growing.

Whoever was in charge of the dome had a green thumb. But right now, she and Mason were alone. She’d expected to find people—more women—tending the gardens.
It can’t be just Mason and the maids. Not with five functioning domes.

He sent everyone away
, she thought.
Wanted the place to himself. Away from prying eyes or judgmental glares.
He might have already visited the self-service station while she was in the bath, but he apparently had vigor to spare. In fact, now that she could see him up and about, he looked bigger and fitter than she would have guessed. But was he a threat—aside from the gun tucked into the back of his pants? That would be determined the moment he tried anything.

“What do you think?” Mason said, walking the long way around the room, admiring the crops. “Take a closer look.”

Ella obeyed, crouching down beside a row of carrots. The stems were lush and green. Fragrant, too. Her stomach growled.

With a chuckle, Mason said, “I heard that from here. Take one. Try it.”

That was an invitation Ella couldn’t pass up, and doing so would be supremely suspicious. She uprooted a carrot, surprised and delighted to find its bright orange body a full foot long. She stood, wielding the carrot the way an actor might an Oscar award, and she carried it to the sink mounted to the side wall. She looked at the root vegetable, almost glowing in the bright sunlight beaming through the glass dome above, protecting this oasis from the deadly crops outside.

“Daucus carota ssp. Sativa. It’s perfect,” she whispered, and then took a bite.

Flavor exploded with each chew. It was distinctly carrot, but almost like carrot concentrate, enough to make her pucker, salivate and crave more. She took a second bite without swallowing, chewing vigorously as the sweetness hit her. The flavor, on par with the best cake she’d ever eaten, was followed by a realization. She’d gotten the carrot’s identification wrong.

This is Daucus carota ssp. Sativa variant RC-714.

This is an
ExoGenetic
carrot!

Her jaw stopped moving, the toxic food frozen in her mouth and stuck between her teeth.
Did I swallow it? Oh god, I swallowed it!

“Too good to be true,” Mason said, slowly moving toward her. “Right?”

She pushed the carrot chunks out of her mouth, letting the food fall to the concrete floor. She spat a few times and then used the sink to rinse out her mouth.

Mason stopped ten feet way. “Didn’t your parents teach you not to waste food, Ella?”

Her mouth was full of water, ready to spit into the sink, when the last word of his sentence sank in.

‘Ella.’

He knows.

He knows who I am!

Ella turned toward Mason, fists clenched, but he’d already closed the distance.

16

“I can’t do that,” Boone said, taking a step back from Peter. “Not until I get Mason’s say so.”

“Your men are dead.” Peter motioned to the back of the still-open moving truck. The gesture was unnecessary. Boone knew what Peter was talking about. But it got the man to take another sobering look. The absolute carnage filling the inside of the truck—and only the inside—revealed an attacker, or attackers, who were incredibly strong and smart. And if Peter was right about who that was... “We’re running out of time.”

Boone stared at him, no doubt weighing the dangers of trusting Peter and betraying Mason’s orders. And while he was doing that, Peter was gauging the likelihood that he could subdue Boone and take the weapons he needed. He hoped he wouldn’t need to do that. Weapons weren’t any good without people to aim and fire them.

“Don’t try it,” Boone said, taking another step back and bringing his AR-15 up a little. It wasn’t quite aimed at Peter, but the threat was clear.

“Damnit, Boone.” Peter gripped the sides of his head, trying to contain his building anger. “You don’t know what—”

A loud
thunk
against the outside of the moving truck interrupted and pulled Peter’s eyes toward it. A spear protruded from the metal side. The tip was stone, but it had been thrown with the incredible force of someone no longer human.

When Peter turned back to Boone, the man held a hand up to his cheek, where it had been sliced open. Blood flowed into his beard. The spear throw had been meant for his head, a realization that slowly crept into Boone’s eyes.

Too slowly.

“Down!” Peter yelled, diving into Boone. He shoved the muzzle of the AR-15 down and tackled the man to the ground as a second spear sailed past, puncturing the truck’s large tire.

Peter scrambled back to his feet, yanking Boone up with him and searching their surroundings for attackers. The fenced-in lot was clear, but they were surrounded by swamplands. The spears gave him a direction, though—across the street, in the trees through which they had come.
They’re blocking the path back to Hellhole.
Peter glanced at his truck...
If we go on foot.

“Where are my keys?” Peter shouted.

“In the garage,” Boone replied, stumbling forward as Peter shoved him toward the garage door. Movement atop the chain link fence surrounding the lot caught Peter’s attention and confirmed his fears. It was a hair-covered Rider. The creature, who had previously been a man, was a foot shorter than Peter, but it would be far stronger. And the long, curved teeth protruding from his lower jaw and curving up into the skin of his cheeks, were a formidable weapon, not to mention the long, black fingernails turned into claws.

Peter yanked the spear from the truck’s tire, triggering a loud hiss of escaping air. He lobbed the spear at the Rider about to leap into the lot. The spear missed its target, but it forced the man-beast to lean out of the way. He lost his grip and fell away. It was a momentary reprieve, but it gave Boone time to reach the garage.

Boone turned in the doorway, dropped to one knee and brought his weapon up. Peter flinched when he looked down the weapon’s barrel. The rifle coughed. Bullets buzzed through the air. There was a shout of pain and then a thud of flesh hitting pavement.

Peter spun around to find a dead Rider laying behind him, three rounds stitched up its chest. Even as blood pooled around it, the creature still reached for him, black claws flexing. Peter had saved Boone’s life and Boone had returned the favor.

“Move it!” Boone said, his shock giving way to the confident actions of a man who had seen action in the past and come out on top. But how many men had Boone had by his side during those encounters? And how many monsters were out there now?

Only one way to find out,
Peter thought, as he charged for the open door.
The hard way.

Boone closed and locked the door behind Peter, watching through the glass. “The hell are they? You know, don’t you?”

“We call them Riders.”

“Riders? What do they ride?”

“Woolies, but I didn’t see any out there, and that’s a good thing.”

“But...” Boone looked stymied. “They’re working together? Like people?”

“Most ExoGenetic creatures became solo predators, hunting each other toward the mass extinction of all life on Earth,” Peter explained. “But the last creatures to turn during the Change—some people and some herd animals—adapted into packs. And in this case, they evolved as cooperative species. Almost symbiotic.”

“Symby-whatic?”

“Means they need each other to survive.”

“Seem to know a lot about this stuff,” Boone said, suspicion creeping back into his voice.

Peter moved to the front office, ducking low as he looked out the window. “Also means the Woolies won’t be far.” He snuck back into the garage. “Now would be a great time for those weapons we spoke about.”

Boone hesitated for just a moment and then kicked open a chest against the wall. Inside was a collection of weapons that looked like they might have been taken from previous captives. Atop the haphazard mass of metal was Peter’s own rifle. He picked up the weapon and ejected the magazine. It was full, but he didn’t see any spares in the chest, or ammunition. He looked out at the lot again.
Beastmaster’s
back hatch was down. His cases of supplies and ammo still surrounded the mounted machine gun. Boone’s men had been interrupted before they could fully pillage the vehicle. “We need to get to my truck.”

“These walls are concrete,” Boone said. “Safer in here.”

“Against spears maybe,” Peter said, and then as though to prove his unfinished point, the garage’s side wall folded inward, vomiting concrete blocks as something massive plowed through.

Peter and Boone both dove for the pool table, sliding beneath the solid sheet of slate. The table shook as chunks of wall toppled into the room, but it withstood the assault. Before the last blocks hit the floor, Peter poked his head out and saw the ugly face of a Woolie pulling out of the newly formed gap. The creature looked like a cross between a hairy rhino and a buffalo. The single horn on the tip of its nose split like an antler, ending in razor sharp scoops. Tendrils of brown hair hung in clumps, matching the drool dangling from its mouth, sweeping back and forth across the floor, like a lazy janitor’s mop. Its jaundiced eyes twitched toward Peter, but it made no move to attack. It just lumbered back.

Making way,
Peter thought. “We’re about to have company!” He pulled himself out from under the table, climbed to his feet and chambered the first round. Before he could aim the weapon at the massive hole in the side wall, the window beside him shattered inward. He twisted toward the sound and caught sight of a male Rider curled up in a ball, unfurling his body as he catapulted through the air.

Peter tried to fire his weapon, but it wasn’t designed for close quarters combat. The Rider struck him in the side. Man and beast went down together, sprawling across the concrete-littered floor.

A spear tip stabbed toward Peter’s throat before he could get back to his feet. He caught the shaft, stopping the blade just an inch from his throat, but he only managed to delay his death. The male Riders, while smaller than Peter, and the females of their ExoGenetic species, had powerful muscles. Like apes, who could out-muscle a man more than twice their size.

When the tip of the spear met Peter’s skin and began slipping through it, he nearly lost his grip. And as a shout of pain and emotional agony at failing his family rose up in his throat, the blade sank deeper.

And then, with a blast of noise, the blade slipped out.

Peter’s chest heaved as he watched the Rider fall to the side, an arc of blood flowing out behind its head, while a plume of gore sprayed out in front of it. He stared at the creature, as its body struck the floor, kicking up a cloud of powdered concrete. Its lifeless eyes looked back at him.

Then a voice cut through the shock. “Get the fuck up, man!”

Peter gasped a deep breath and adrenaline carried the oxygen straight to his brain, sharpening his senses and speeding up his reaction time. The effect, which he’d felt before, was that time had suddenly slowed. In reality, he was simply processing the world around him much faster.

A shadow moved in the open wall. He gripped the spear lying next to him and hurled it toward the opening without fully registering what was there. By the time he saw the Rider, it was already falling back, the spear planted firmly in its sternum, its long-toothed lower jaw slack in surprise.

Thumps echoed down from the ceiling. Shadows shifted in the swamp outside the ruined wall. A Woolie bellowed from the street, its call like a fog horn.
That’s going to attract a lot of attention,
Peter thought, but maybe that was the idea. If the man accompanying these creatures was who Peter feared it was, they might be calling reinforcements.

Peter hauled himself up, and shouted at Boone. “Keys!”

Boone gave a nod and made for the front office.

Movement outside the garage door spun Peter around. A Rider had leaped down from the roof and was coiled to spring. As the creature dove into the garage, Peter pulled the trigger and held it, putting six rounds into the Rider’s head. The first shot killed it. The force of the remaining five stopped its forward momentum and deposited the body at Peter’s feet.

Boone stumbled back into the garage, stepping over debris and jingling the keys. “This them?”

Peter snatched the keys from Boone’s hand and turned for the ruined door. “The moment we’re out in the open, they’ll be on us.”

“Ayuh.”

“Don’t stand your ground. Don’t even slow down. Just get in
Beastmaster
and—”

“Beastmaster?”

“The truck.”

Boone flashed a grin. “Well, all right then. Let’s kick this in the nuts and get ’er done.”

“I’ll take point, you cover our six,” Peter said. “Steady pace. Stay close.”

“Copy that.”

Peter stepped through the ruined door, leading with the assault rifle, sweeping back and forth, looking for targets. The lot appeared empty, but he could hear movement just beyond the fence.
Riders hiding behind the cars,
he guessed. Boone shuffled out behind him, walking backwards, aiming up at the garage roof at first, and then in all directions.

“Don’t see nothing,” Boone said.

Peter ignored him and kept moving. They were fully exposed now. It wouldn’t be long before they proved too irresistible a target.

The attack came just three steps later, but the Riders were done throwing spears and attacking one at a time. A fog-horn blast bellowed from the swamp across the street. It was followed by the rumble of heavy bodies charging across the pavement. Six Woolies, three with Riders, three without, burst from the trees, headed straight for the lot.

“Run!” Peter shouted, tugging on Boone’s shoulder. He pressed the ‘unlock’ button on the key fob and was happy to see the tail lights flash on twice. The doors were unlocked.

As they reached the truck, the first of the Woolies reached the lot, plowed through the chain link fence and slammed into the truck parked there. The smashed vehicle shot across the lot and crashed into a second with tremendous force.

The second Woolie did the same. They were turning the parked vehicles into massive projectiles, while simultaneously blocking off any chance of retreat back to the garage.

Peter put the key in the ignition.

A third truck careened across the lot, followed quickly by another.

The gear shift clunked down into Drive.