Feast (4 page)

Through the frenzied chirping, she thought she heard voices. The bathroom door shook from the far side. It opened an inch, but when it struck the creature’s leg, it was pushed back, sealing predator and prey in a fifteen-foot-long space with no other exit. Not even a window.

A claw snapped out and cracked the tile floor, just missing her legs. She pushed back further, but stopped when her back struck the wall.

The insect pushed deeper into the room, incensed by its failure.

Alia tried to reload her weapon, but she only managed to drop it and the spare magazine.

When the creature struck again, so fast that the limb looked like it had teleported from one spot to the next, Alia pushed herself up onto her feet. She screamed, again and again, but the sound was lost in the insect’s chirping, a symphony of life and death.

With nowhere else to run, Alia dove into the stall, yanked the door shut and twisted the lock. She huddled atop the toilet, clutching herself, sobbing.

The metal walls vibrated. The tip of a claw stabbed through. It pulled free with a shriek of carapace on metal. The next strike would be hard enough and deep enough to find her.

A cacophonous boom shook the air.

The floor trembled.

A second boom rang out.

The chirping fluttered and stopped.

In the silence that followed, Alia wept. Then something moved.

It’s coming back!

Walls crumbled. Tiles crunched. It was right outside the stall.

The door shook.

She heard voices shouting her name, but she couldn’t hear who, over the sound of her own ragged screams.

The door was torn open.

It was Peter, shotgun in hand, face covered in white gore.

She fell into his arms, vision fading. She remembered being carried. She saw a large number of empty shells lying on the hallway floor as she was rushed out of the bathroom. Peter had resorted to using the loud shotgun when normal bullets had failed. The rest of the retreat from the grocery store, and then the area was a blur. Somewhere along the line, she fell asleep.

When she woke up again, everyone was quiet. She said nothing, but started crying when she found a jar of peanut butter in her lap. She could have gotten them all killed, but they were still showing her kindness. Alia wondered how long that would last. Sooner or later, she was going to get someone killed.

Sooner or later, she was going to have to leave.

5

“Are we there yet?” Anne asked. It had become a running gag and was usually good for a chuckle, harkening back to a time of normalcy, when driving across the country with siblings was considered mind-numbingly boring. But now, with the possibility of every turn revealing a new horror, crossing the country was far from dull. They rode mostly in silence, each of them keeping watch in a different direction.

Jakob had told Anne about how, when he was younger, he used to imagine a man running in time with the truck, leaping from building to building, or trees, or whatever else they passed. She thought it was strange at first, but sometimes caught herself imagining a giant sword extending from the side of the truck, cutting down all the trees and endless fields they passed.

Instead of laughing, Ella replied, “Almost,” which killed the joke and put her fellow backseat riders on edge. So far, the two biodomes Anne and her mother had visited had been left in ruins. Lives had been lost or uprooted. Jakob and Peter had nearly died on multiple occasions, and Alia had lost her father. The man had already been out of his mind, but he was still her father. Anne was still getting to know her father, but already she couldn’t picture a future without him in it. He was brave, and strong and disciplined. While the world had fallen into chaos, he brought order and balance, even to her mother, who had become somewhat savage to survive. Anne didn’t hold that against her mother. They’d both survived only because they were willing to do horrible things, and Peter was equally willing, but his strategic mind was better at avoiding trouble, or getting out of it without losing a piece of his soul in the process.

Or maybe he just lost less of it. He’d seen combat before, and not the kind where people were killing ravenous monsters. He had fought and killed other people. Normal people. And it had left scars on his body and psyche. He had told her about it one day while foraging. At first, it seemed like he was just shooting the breeze, telling stories to his daughter. But then she understood that it was a morality lesson about the horrors of war. A warning to not get lost in the killing and death and non-stop adrenaline. “It can change the way you see the world,” he had said. “When you become numb to death, you become numb to life, and it’s a lot easier to lose something you can’t feel.”

“Like I might cut off a finger if I can’t feel it,” she had said.

“Mmm,” he had agreed, “except that losing your finger only affects you. If you were to die...”

She had thought his concern was about how Anne dying might affect Ella. But when he turned away from her, hiding his face and whatever emotion was going on there, she understood that he was becoming as fond of her as she was of him.

Since then, she had fully embraced the idea that she now had a complete family unit. Maybe the only one left on Earth. And for that, despite all the death and violence and horrible monsters trying to eat them, not to mention a good deal of the numbing he had warned her about, she felt blessed.

And now, as they approached another biodome, she couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of impending doom. Would they be welcomed? Would they face yet more monsters? Would a member of her family—even Alia, who sometimes irked Anne—be in mortal danger? And how could Anne’s parents not see these risks? Why not just drive around and keep on going? Could the people holed up there be that helpful? They probably weren’t even alive.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jakob said, looking out the side window opposite Anne. She blinked out of her thoughts and understood her brother’s disheartened tone. The roadside for miles had been flanked by unending fields of what looked like miniature trees with green, orb covered stalks topped with lettuce heads. Her mother said they were Brussels sprouts. Actually, she had said, “Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera,” but Anne knew what that meant...somehow.

But now the Brussels sprout plants were giving way to lush, swampy land. It wasn’t the terrain itself that was frightening, but the kinds of creatures that once might have populated the area, and what they might have become since the Change.

“Aww, geez,” Alia said, leaning over Jakob, her body nearly lying on top of his. Was she really afraid or just copping a feel?
Teenagers
, Anne thought with a roll of her eyes. She hoped she’d never be one. Not that she wanted to die, she just hoped she could skip past that stage of life. From what she could tell from Jakob and Alia, not to mention her own mother’s monthly cycle, hormones were hell.

“Did you see the name of the street?” Jakob asked.

While street names weren’t very important to Anne’s day-to-day life, she often read the signs anyway. She made a game out of guessing why the name had been chosen. Was it random? Did it describe the terrain? A person who lived there? The funniest she’d seen was French Hussy Road. She had been tuned out for the past few minutes and missed this sign.

“Alligator Road,” Jakob said. “
Alligator
. They were bad enough before. What could—”

“Hey Jake,” Peter said, sounding calm. “Do me a favor?”

“Uh,” Jakob said. “Yeah?”

Peter glanced in the rearview, making eye contact with his son. “I think you know.”

“Right,” Jakob said. “Sorry. I’ll try not to point out what a bad idea this is.”

Anne cracked a smile. Jakob had been picking up some of her biting sarcasm. She liked it.

A wooden sign on the side of the road read, ‘Alligator Creek Ahead.’

“So am
I
allowed to say what a bad idea this is?” Anne asked. Peter just smiled. He wasn’t stupid. He knew they were entering dangerous territory. But really, everywhere was dangerous territory.

This just
sounded
worse.

The small two-lane road was framed by lush trees and wet ground, full of ferns and moss and surprisingly few ExoGen crops. The already aggressive swamplands had maintained some of their territorial grip. But not all of it. A mixture of crops grew in patches. Anne whispered their names as she spotted them. “Beta vulgaris. Brassica oleracea var. botrytis. Brassica oleracea var. capitate. Oryza sativa.” Otherwise known as Sugar Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage and rice, which grew right out of the water.

She wondered again how she knew all these strange scientific details, but her line of questioning was cut short by yet another sign, this one for “Little Hellhole Bay.”

“Okay, seriously,” Jakob said. “Little Hellhole Bay? Did you search the map for the most ominous sounding stretch of road on purpose?”

Ella looked back over the seat, a slight grin on her face. “Actually, that’s where we’re headed. That’s where the biodome is. Just because it doesn’t sound safe, doesn’t mean it’s actually unsafe.”

“Pretty much does these days,” Jakob said. “If things like lemon trees can dissolve people from the inside out, and suck them dry for nutrients, then a place like Little Hellhole Bay can live up to its name.”

“Only one way to find out,” Ella said.

“Are the people there really worth the risk?” Alia asked.

“One’s a geneticist. The other is a computer scientist. So, together, they’re like a replacement me.”

“I thought
I
was the replacement you?” Anne asked, a spark of anger creeping into her voice. She still hadn’t really come to grips with the idea that she’d been grown, in a lab, as some kind of better version of her mother, with all of her mother’s knowledge stored on a USB drive embedded in her skull. How numb did her mother have to become to make decisions like that? What kind of person steals DNA from a long-lost boyfriend, engineers a daughter and implants tech into her head? Anne had no memory of the surgery, so they must have done it when she was young. Anne had wondered how old she really was, but didn’t ask. Her oldest memories were hazy, and
felt
really old, but that didn’t mean they weren’t manufactured or implanted. Maybe she was ten years old, or three. Either way, she didn’t want to know. It made her feel less human. Less alive. Less...loved.

Sadness swept over Ella’s face. “Anne, you’re—”

“Better,” Anne said. “You’ve said. The best of you both. I know. That doesn’t mean...forget it. Also, people with guns at two o’clock.”

Peter hit the brakes and brought the truck to a jarring stop, angling the vehicle, so that if bullets started flying, they’d hit him first. Three men dressed head-to-toe in black military uniforms stepped onto the road, assault rifles aimed at the truck.

“Three more in the trees,” Ella said.

Anne saw them a moment later, perched on hunting hides mounted to trees, partially concealed by the lush, green foliage. All weapons were trained on the vehicle. If these people wanted to, they could riddle the windshield with holes and kill them all far more efficiently than a lone ExoGen. Even in a world full of rapidly evolving death machines, the human race could still get the job done when they banded together.

Peter rolled down his window and extended both hands, showing that he wasn’t armed. His assault rifle was just below his hands, easily within reach, but the message was clear: We aren’t looking for a fight.

The three armed men strode toward the car, but only one of them kept his weapon turned on Peter. The other two started scanning the surrounding swamplands.

The nearest of them, leaned in and peered through the windows, his eyes hidden behind a mirror-lensed face-mask. “Well, gol-dang. Y’all out for a Sunday drive?”

Is it Sunday?
Anne wondered. She’d stopped keeping track of days a long time ago.

“We’re here to visit some friends,” Peter replied, his voice calm and neutral.

“That so?” the man said. “What’re their names. Might know ’em, seeing as how these are my stompin’ grounds.”

Ella leaned toward the window. “Bob and Lyn Askew.”

“Bob and Lyn...” The man cocked his head to the side. “Oh, right. Yeah, I know ’em. They’re back inside the compound.”

“Compound?” Peter asked.

“Up the road a ways,” the man said, motioning back behind him. “Safe place, if y’all want to kick up your feet for a spell.”

Anne squinted at the man’s reflective face and saw Peter’s skeptical reflection.

“You know,” Peter said. “I think we’ll just—”

The man pulled his facemask up to reveal a gaunt face covered in random patches of hair. He grinned, revealing a gap where his front teeth had once been. “Well now, I’m going to have to insist. Folks round here don’t take too kindly to people refusing our hospitality. Best you all step out of the vehicle, slow and steady, like that turtle that beat Bugs Bunny in the race.”

Peter glanced at Ella. She shook her head slowly, almost imperceptibly. Anne couldn’t discern if she was telling him to not act, or to not listen to the man. Then Peter raised his empty hands a little higher. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Listen to what I’m tellin’ you and you won’t find none,” the man said. “Name’s Boone.”

Peter offered his hand, and the man shook it. “Peter.”

“Why ya’ll shave your heads?” Boone asked.

Really?
Anne thought.
That’s the first question he has to ask?

“Lice,” Peter said, and Boone quickly withdrew his hand.

Anne nearly laughed, but held it in.

“Fair warning,” Peter said. “There is an M4 between me and the door. I’m going to have to catch it, so it doesn’t fall out.”

Boone took a step back and aimed his weapon at Peter’s head. “Like a turtle.”

“Ayuh,” Peter said, apparently imitating the cartoon turtle. He got a laugh out of Boone and then opened the door slowly, lifting the M4 by its handle in the most non-threatening way possible. He then placed the weapon in the truck’s flatbed.