Hunger Chronicles (Book 1): Life Bites (31 page)

That’s it, I’m done arguing. John, my quiet follow-the-rules, don’t-rock-the-boat John, has gone off the deep end. Not only is he purposefully baiting me now—and why in the heck is he baiting me?—but he’s delusional if he thinks I’m going to be sleeping with him on this rug either. This is getting completely out of control, bungling into territories that are far better off not being explored.

All of a sudden my idea to stop here rather than going on to Flagstaff seems like a really poor one. The sooner we get there and do what we came to do the better. This whole traveling together alone thing is charging the air with a chemistry that I’m sure is simply a matter of availability. I.e. the current state of limited availability.

“The cave?” he prompts.

I blink, until my mind clicks back to the cave outside the storage facility and how, right before we settled in to sleep, my Wolf-dog had swiped that big sloppy wet tongue across my face. “Ew! That doesn’t count.”

“No?” He frowns, his brow furrowed up in puzzlement. “Then how about this?”

And then he leans in and kisses me.

33.

A branch slaps me in the face, which is completely fitting. Kind of like my own personal whipping. I can’t stop thinking about what happened back in the hilltop mansion. Like a bad nightmare it replays in my mind endlessly. I’d let John kiss me. Worse, I’d kissed him back. And then after, when we were both panting and eyeing each other like dessert, I’d allowed him to pull me down and “cuddle” until hours later, when we’d both finally calmed our racing hearts enough to fall asleep.

Sweet right? Until that evening when he’d gotten up before me, fixed his “breakfast” and I’d came into the kitchen all awkward and unsure and he’d started talking about the day’s plans, all the while acting like nothing had ever happened between us. Not even that stupid sloppy kiss that he had initiated.

Nope. John is definitely in touch with his wolfy nature. Or more accurately, their dog cousins: All playful and attentive… until something else catches their attention.

I’m such a fool. At least I hadn’t actually “slept” with him; that would have been…

What, Eva? Heavenly? Sublime?

I growl, and then when John turns around to look at me, I cough, pretending I got something in my throat. It’s possible. The ground we’re trekking across isn’t exactly dust free. True to my prediction, the truck had run out of gas. Thankfully we were only a couple miles short of Flagstaff’s outer boundaries when it happened. Still, it would have been nice if the rusted out tank had held it together for a couple more miles before quitting on us. Bad enough I’d had to sit in a noisy cab with John, but now we trudge through the quiet suburban streets with nothing but the wind and a few songbirds to excuse our silence.

It doesn’t help that John is becoming increasingly agitated as we get closer and closer to our destination. I know part of it is probably the nearing of the end of our mission, but there is something else there too, and somehow I doubt it’s what did, or rather didn’t, happen between us last night.

Finally he halts, right smack in the middle of a four way stop, his hand coming up like I am his soldier. His “girl” indeed.

“What is it?”

His gaze skirts around nervously, his nostrils flaring like a winded thoroughbred on the backstretch. “I don’t like this.”

I look around at the deserted streets, the empty two story houses, the brown lawns. “Like what? There’s nothing here.”

“Exactly why I don’t like this.”

“John. Your nose is keener than a hound on a hunt. And I can hear heartbeats. Anything gets close to us, we’ll know.”

“Your range is limited to a quarter mile or so, right?”

“So?”

“A vampire, or a were, can travel a quarter mile pretty damn quick.”

I sigh, rubbing my forehead with my index finger and thumb. “There are no vampires here.”

He looks over sharply at me. “How do you know?”

“Even more than their heartbeats, I’d smell them. The queen and her followers all have a distinctive smell. It tends to linger. And I can guarantee, without a doubt, that none of them have passed through here in weeks.”

“What smell?”

Why the same smell I have.
I shift uncomfortably, look away. I hate admitting this. “Almonds.”

There is nothing but silence for a few really uncomfortable moments, but then a hand touches my chin, urging my head back up. “Eva, it’s not your fault. And really, I like almonds,” the sides of his mouth crinkle up, “especially chocolate covered ones, so no worries, okay?”

I ignore the tickle on my heart when he says he likes chocolate covered almonds, though it’s nice to know I don’t insult his doggy senses. It doesn’t matter. What matters more is, “How do you know it’s not my fault. I never told you exactly how I was turned.”

“Not in so many words, no. But I’m pretty good at reading between the lines. Unlike I, who chose to be a were, you didn’t want what was done to you. True?”

I shake my head. Didn’t want? The statement is almost laughable in its simplicity. A young boy doesn’t want to go to bed. A gangly little girl doesn’t want to have to play softball in gym in front of her more coordinated friends. But being made, against your will, into a monster that would hunt down those same children? No words can describe that horror.

All of a sudden John is pulling me into his chest, his arms circling around me. The action seems out of place and over the top until I find myself choking back a sob that threatens to bubble up in my throat. Maybe this heightened awareness goes both ways. How else would he have known I was about to lose it?

“Shh… it’s okay. It doesn’t matter what you are. It’s who you are that counts. Okay?”

I’m not sure that makes any sense, but I can guess what he wants: Me to stop sniffling so we can get on with the mission. So I nod and mumble an, “’kay.”

He shifts me back, his hand reaching up to brush away a tear.

“Now, let’s go see if there is anything in your house.” He looks up at the sky. “I want to be out of here and on the way home by sunrise.”

Home. Home sounds good. I wonder though, all John’s talk of pack aside, can a monster like me ever really have a home?

34.

“Still not sensing anything?” John asks from where he is crouched, gun lifted and ready beside me.

I shake my head, but can’t draw my eyes away from the overgrown shrubs that hide more than half the front of the stucco house in front of us. Mom would be appalled if she could see this. The sugar bushes dad planted have gotten completely out of hand.

“I don’t smell any almonds, ‘cept you,” he says.

Neither do I.

He shifts his gun back over his shoulder, the tension easing but not totally dissipating from his body. “We’d better hurry. I don’t want to spend much time here.”

“And time’s running out.” Especially if what we’re looking for isn’t here.

I turn my attention back to the faded green door. My entire being is vibrating with a mixture of dread and anticipation. I don’t want to go in there, but I need to. And I need to do it alone.

I can’t explain my reasoning aloud though, hard to when you’re not sure what they are, so instead I go with logic. “Why don’t you get whatever supplies you need while I search. If I’ve found nothing by the time you get back, then we’ll head down to the Medical Center.”

John turns to look at me. I can tell, without meeting his gaze, that he wants to object—but one look at the sky has him nodding. “Okay. I won’t take more than an hour. There was a Walmart a mile or so back and that guns and ammo store. Might not be anything if there was much looting before the virus took hold, but it doesn’t hurt to check.”

He stands, starts to turn, but then stops, spinning back around.

“Eva?”

I drag my gaze from my house, looking up over my shoulder at him. He stands there, jaw working as if he’s unsure what to say. “Yeah?” I prompt.

“Don’t do anything that will get you in trouble, okay?”

“What could I possibly do that will get me in trouble?”

“I don’t know, but you seem to have a knack for it.”

And with that he is off, out of sight before I can blink. Huh, it just might be possible he is faster than me. It would explain why I had such a hard time keeping up with him back in Bakersfield. Even half-starved, I should have been able to outrun a human.

I turn my attention back to my house, trying to see past the overgrown bushes, the chipped stucco, and the grimy windows. It used to be beautiful, or pretty at least. I suppose I should be happy that it holds none of the sweetness or simple homey touches that would delude me into thinking the house is still a safe harbor for me. It’s a house, no more, no less. And if I want to be able to put it behind me for good, I need to get in there, get what I need, and get out again.

Up and at ‘em, Eva girl,
every second you procrastinate, life is passing you by.

Right.

Taking a few deep breaths, I stand and force myself to walk across the brittle grass of the lawn. The front door looms bigger and bigger the closer I get until I’m standing before it. This close, it seems as monstrous as the doors in Alice in Wonderland—after she’d taken the drink.

It takes Herculean effort to bend down and lift up the planter that flanks the left hand side of the porch, and a giant leap of faith to take that step back to the door.

I can do this. I’m not stupid enough to think I’d really fooled John with my flimsy reasoning. I’m sure he realized I wanted to do this alone. Just as I’m sure he wouldn’t have left me here to this task if he didn’t think I could.

I stuff the key into the lock and twist, then, before I can change my mind, push open the door and step into the hall. It’s a mixture of relief and unease when the first thought that comes to me is: This is not my house. It is, of course. I’m not so far lost that I can’t remember the home I lived in for over seventeen years. But it holds none of the sense of home for me anymore. The toppled and shoved aside furniture, the dusty curtains that billow in the breeze I just let in, they are only props. Without the actors, the players, there is no life here. There is no love. There is no home.

With new eyes I once again look around the house. It takes me a minute to realize it, my eyesight is so good, even in dim light, but then I note that the only light in the place is from the door I just opened…and a slim stream that comes in through the kitchen in the back. Every window is boarded up. The door I entered through? Braced by a chair that now lays smashed on the floor between it and the wall.

Stronger than I used to be too.

I inch my way further into the house, gruesome images from the photos the queen forced me to look at overlapping the present time. There, upon the stairs in the pool of stained wood. That’s where he fell. If I were to go upstairs, I’d find the spot in the back bathroom where my mother was torn to shreds.

I move back into the kitchen, my gaze immediately honing in on the splatters of blood that stained the linoleum floor. Dumb dog. Stupid, lovable, brave dog.

I wipe my eyes, turning away from the signs of violence. It’s as I stare at the back door with its shattered window, torn off boarding, and missing hinge, that I’m struck with two thoughts: First: There are no bodies. Why are there no bodies? Did a scavenger find them and drag what remained after the zombies got to them? And second: they stayed. Why in the hell would they have stayed? Dad, more than anyone, knew the danger they were in. He knew the true horror of the virus. What would have made him and mom chose to board up the house and try and ride it out?

You, Eva girl. We did it for you.

The truth of this hits like a knife in the gut. I clench at my stomach, bending over as I hyperventilate through the nauseating sickness that threatens to take me and send me under.

No. I was gone. Missing, and though unbeknownst to them, already turned. They wouldn’t have stayed on a hope and a dream that I’d come back. Would they?

Yes, they would have. I, was their only daughter. Their much fought for child. My parents had been older than my friend’s parents, not because they’d waited so long to have children that they could only have one, but because it had taken them so long to have me. Ten years of miscarriages and infertility treatments and finally I came along. Neither mom nor dad had talked about it much, never wanting me to feel the pressure of
being
the only child, but occasionally the subject would come up.

They would have waited for me until the world ended. They would have ridden the fiery chariot into the depths of hell. For me.

I scream. The table is up and hurtling across the kitchen before I even realize I’m the one who threw it. The wood splintering crash as it hits the basement door is not nearly satisfying enough. I need more. I need to kill something. I need to find a zombie and rip its head off. I need to hunt down the queen and her bastard of a son and drive a stake through both their hearts. I need…

I need to calm down.

It’s hard though, so I settle for screaming again. And then I settle for ripping wood from every boarded up window and door in the house. I don’t even realize I’m done until I find myself back in the kitchen leaning against the marble sink, panting. There I squint my eyes to block out the disastrous mess I’ve made around me, and look through my mother’s gingham curtains. This is what settles me, staring through my mother’s curtains up at Orion as he passes with club and shield through the sky.

Just like I did the night before my last as a human.

It’s enough to calm me. When I’m sure I have my anger under control, I push off the edge of the sink and make my way to the basement door. It takes me a few seconds to clear away the debris, but then I’m on the stairs that lead down to my father’s home lab. Mostly used as a quiet space to get away and jot down his ideas, there isn’t much equipment down here. No more than you’d find in a high school lab. But it’s obvious a man of learning used this space. The metal shelves are filled with journals and plastic bound research papers. The white board is crammed full of equations and theoretical meanderings of the mind. Across the back wall is the old countertop that was stripped out from when my parents first moved in and decided a full remodel of the 1950’s style kitchen was needed.