Hungry Independents (Book 2) (6 page)

“That’s very hurtful,” she yelled back.
“C’mon, we got stuff to do.”

Hunter jogged up behind them as they entered
onto Main Street, Cozad, which looked like Independents, right down
to the growing number of potholes. A scrawny brown dog barked at
them from the shade of a storefront. Hunter noticed the faces
peering at them from the windows. Then he saw recognition on one of
the faces, and a girl tore out of the building.

“Wesley, oh Wesley,” the girl cried. She ran
to Wes and scooped him up, swinging him around, laughing and crying
along with fourteen other emotions dancing across her face.

Barbie wrapped her arm around Hunter’s waist
and laid her head on his good shoulder. “It always feels so nice to
do good deeds for people. This is the reward: happiness, full and
abundant. Am I really what you said?”

“What?” Hunter asked, distracted. “Oh. No,
I’m sorry about that. I have a lot of pent up aggression. At least
that’s what my girlfriend keeps telling me.”

“She sounds smart. Are you sure things are
working out between you two?”

“Very.”

“Well, we’ll see once we get you home. Won’t
we?”

“Guys, guys, this is my sister, Carissa.
Carissa this is Hunter and Barbie. They brought me back.”

“Thank you so much for saving my Wesley. I
wish there was some way I could repay you for your kindness.”

“Something to eat would be great. I’m
starving. Then I need to speak to your farmers.”

“You want something to eat?” Carissa repeated
in a hollow voice.

That’s when Hunter noticed her emaciated
form, veins corded along the skin of her bony arms, her sunken
cheeks below big round eyes. Then the rest of the kids in the
building shambled out front onto the walkway. A couple kids
stumbled off the curb and were assisted back to their feet. One
chased after the dog in an attempt to do something. Hunter wasn’t
willing to speculate.

“Just take me to your leader,” Hunter
said.

They crowded around Hunter like a pack of
zombies and he knew his brains would not be enough to satiate their
hunger. The clothes draped over their bodies would have fit kids
twice their size. Their skin, drawn and grey, reminded him of all
the dead he’d stumbled across after the plague first hit. The
starving kids stared at Hunter with their mouths opening and
closing like they were eating oxygen. No way did he have enough
food in his backpack to feed this crowd.

Carissa fussed over Wes’s bangs, brushing
them to the side as she focused on his features. Wes looked healthy
and Hunter guessed it came from his time spent possessed by the
demon.

“Carissa,” Hunter said. “Which one is your
town leader?”

Carissa stopped stroking Wes’s hair. She
looked at the ground. “She died.”

Hunter’s stomach dropped. He hated this. “How
did she die?”

Carissa glanced at the hollow faces of her
fellow townspeople. None met her eyes. They stared at Hunter like
he offered them hope on a giant silver platter with extra pickles.
He maybe had two tortillas left, some jerky and an apple. Not what
you would call a bountiful buffet. This crowd would tear each other
apart for a single bite.

Carissa turned dark eyes on Hunter. “She got
eaten.”

A chill swept over Hunter. His hands trembled
and he tightened them into fists. His stomach flipped like a kid on
a trampoline who doesn’t make it all the way around. Needing
immediate clarification, his words came slowly.

“What—do—you—mean—eaten?”

An older boy broke from the pack and rested
his hand on Carissa’s shoulder. The boy nodded at Hunter. “My
name’s Henry.”

“Hunter.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Town like this one called Independents. It’s
southwest of Lincoln, just north of the Nebraska-Kansas state line.
I was sent here because we’re having troubles with grasshoppers
eating our crops, but first I had to deal with your sniper.”

Henry scratched his head and flakes fell like
a heavy snow. “That wasn’t our doing. You met the creature
controlling Wes.”

“This is Barbie. She chased it away for good,
right?”

Barbie nodded with heavy sadness in her eyes,
creasing her brow. Hunter guessed her magic was capable of many
things, but figured it couldn’t produce a stack of pizzas.

“If you did, then thank you,” Henry told
Barbie. “We knew something was wrong with him, but we weren’t
prepared for it. He kept us penned in here for the past two
weeks.”

“What did she mean when she said your town
leader was eaten?” Hunter asked.

Henry’s sad eyes searched the crowd. “That’s
why we haven’t left town.”

The kids in the middle of the pack stared
intently at Hunter and Barbie. Their eyes burned with a gigantic
need. It was the kids on the edges that made Hunter worry. They
appeared uninterested in the discussion. Their eyes were locked up
and down the street, flickering to the shadows and the rooftops.
Something else besides a demon sniper terrified the kids of
Cozad.

“Are we safe out here in the streets,
Henry?”

The skinny teenager shook his head. “We’re
not really safe anywhere.”

“Is it safer back in that building?”

Henry shrugged. “It’s better than
nothing.”

Hunter nodded and began moving toward the
building. He passed Carissa and she reached out, wrapping her
stick-like fingers around his arm.

“Thank you,” she said.

Hunter smiled at her. “You’re welcome.”

A sudden howl tore through the quiet street.
Hunter shivered in the morning heat. The crowd around him sprang to
life. Wide eyed and fearful, they moved with a shambling gait to
the better-than-nothing safety of the building. A couple kids fell
and were trampled by others in the panicked surge. Furious at what
happened, Hunter ran to the nearest fallen little girl and helped
her stand. Her nose bloodied, she broke away toward the building as
another howl erupted, louder, closer and a whole lot more
chilling.

Henry ushered people through the door, giving
instructions. “Twelve and under to the back. Everyone else, you
know what you have to do.”

Hunter heard the fear in Henry’s voice, but
the boy’s eyes were steady, focused. The last of the kids filed
inside with Carissa and Wes bringing up the rear. Hunter and Barbie
waited while all of Cozad packed inside the building. The older
ones lined up, pressing against the large windows and looking out.
This was not suitable protection from whatever howled.

“Henry, what the hell is going on?”

Henry looked inside, his eyes stopping on Wes
in the back with the twelve and under crowd. Carissa left him there
and went to the window in silent tears.

“About two weeks ago in the middle of the
night, six kids went missing, including my little sister. The next
morning after breakfast, Wes started shooting anyone who tried to
leave the diner.” Henry looked down the street. “Later that day,
this tall kid comes walking down the street with our missing six,
and when our town leader went out to see what was going on, the kid
killed her and then they ate her on the spot.”

“You’re fucking kidding me?” Hunter checked
Barbie, expecting a rebuke, but she stared at the ground.

Henry continued like he hadn’t been
interrupted. “I don’t know how or why but that tall kid turned six
of our youngest kids into man-eating monsters.”

Hunter’s head spun around the idea. He leaned
against the building before he crashed into the sidewalk. Another
howl tore through the town, and this time Hunter realized why it
was so disturbing. The person making that sound couldn’t be more
than nine. He wiped the sweat off his brow and dried his hand on
his shirt.

“It’s been two days since they last fed.”

Frustrated, Hunter’s anger sparked. “Why
don’t you fight back?”

“We tried. They slaughtered half of us like
we were a bunch of little kids instead of the other way around. The
creature leading them was the worst.” Henry scanned the kids as if
he didn’t want the wrong people hearing. He turned back to Hunter.
“He ripped off people’s limbs.”

Hunter looked around the street for signs of
the carnage that wasn’t there. “Where have the bodies gone?”

“I don’t know. Every night we hear a bunch of
growling in the streets, like a pack of dogs or something, but
we’ve been too scared to look. Every morning the bodies are gone.
Last night the rain finally washed all the bloodstains away.”

Hunter regarded Barbie. She still stared at
the ground, watching ants go by in their fruitless search for a
picnic. “Barbie?” She didn’t respond. He shook her shoulder,
breaking her trance. Slowly, she lifted her head and met his gaze.
“What are we dealing with here?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Her eyes fluttered like butterfly wings. She tried again, her voice
croaking the first word. “His… name is Famine. He feeds on
starvation, creating more in his image, and they will spread his
sickness across the land. As food sources are destroyed, the people
will consume each other until nothing and none remain.”

A screech sounded from nearby and Hunter
turned in the direction. A little girl the size of Catherine stood
in the middle of the street at the end of the block. She raised her
head, throat exposed, and howled like a lost soul. The girl lowered
her head and glared at them. Slowly, the other five filtered around
the corner and stopped in line with the girl.

A strong wind stirred up the dust lying
around town and blew through the street like a big brown specter,
momentarily blinding Hunter. A spray of dirt struck his face, and
when it stopped he chanced a peek. There was now a seventh person
standing behind the other six. He was tall and gangly, with a mop
of oily black hair on his head.

“Inside,” Henry said. “Go to the back with
the young ones. You’ll be safe with them.”

“What do you mean?”

Henry held the door open and pointed. “You’ll
see inside.”

Hunter followed Barbie into the Cozad
building and was greeted by a wave of putrid smells as if a bag of
dirty socks exploded in there and barfed before taking a dump. A
couple of tables and chairs were spaced throughout. The older kids
lined up against the window. Some of them wept, bodies trembling,
and all of their knees shook with fear. Whatever was about to take
place, Hunter knew it never should. The little kids in the back of
the building whimpered in a mass huddle. The look on their faces
showed a terror that Hunter never believed possible.

He turned back and found Henry taking a spot
at the window that must have been reserved for him. “What happens
next?”

“One of us is chosen.”

“Chosen for what?” Hunter asked as other
faces stared back from the opposite side of the windows, and Hunter
knew. This building housed a meat market filled with a selection of
cold cuts, and the lunchtime crowd had just arrived.

The tall gangly kid with the oily hair passed
by the first window and Hunter’s mind grappled with recognition,
but he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure. By the second window,
the percentages rose. The kid had grown two feet taller since
Hunter had beat the hell out of him and then Patrick banished him
into the wilderness.

“Tommy the Perv!”

Tommy came to a halt, turning his head at the
sound of his name. His smile revealed horrible pointy teeth. Black,
dilated pupils absorbed every inch of Hunter. Then Tommy
pointed.

Henry gasped. “You’ve been chosen.”

Hunter trembled with one part rage and two
parts terror. “Yeah, I’m lucky like that.”

The crowd on this side of the window gave a
collective sigh. Hunter watched the cannibal children leave the
window outside and move to the street. Only Tommy the Perv
remained. He looked hungry, licking his lips and smacking his
chops. Like the demon that controlled Wesley, Tommy’s teeth were
sharpened into tiny, unnatural points.

Tommy knocked on the glass, signaling for
Hunter to come outside like they had a play date scheduled and
Hunter was bringing the snacks. Creepy Tommy didn’t scare Hunter,
but those six little kids out there made him want to run and huddle
in the back. What could possibly turn them into hideous killing
machines? How do you hurt kids, even ones that want to eat you for
dinner?

Hunter considered his newfound invincibility.
How was that working, and how many bites could he surrender before
the portions ran out?

The scared kids of Cozad, unable to stand at
the window looking at Tommy and the six, turned away without making
eye contact with Hunter, like he no longer existed.

“Henry?” Hunter said. “Do you guys have
transportation?”

“We have a bus if we could get to it, but the
battery needs charging.”

“Great.”

“So what’s the plan?” Barbie asked. Her
narrowed eyes fixed on Tommy, showing she intended to go with
Hunter. He hoped this might work out after all.

“What are you bringing to the party?”

Electricity crackled around the tips of her
fingers. “Watch and see.”

“Maybe I should do that from in here.”

“I wasn’t chosen.”

Hunter wished he’d looked around the grain
elevator for the rifle before they left. “Do you have any guns in
here?” he asked Henry.

“No. We kept them locked up, but they all
disappeared when that guy showed up.”

Hunter rolled his sore shoulder and popped
his neck. “Fine, let’s do it then.”

He moved toward the door and grabbed a broom
leaning against the wall. The thick handle felt heavy and
comforting. Before he opened the door, he stomped down and snapped
the head off, leaving a jagged edge. He smiled at his pathetic
weapon even as he grabbed the door handle with a shaky hand.