Inhuman

17

I faced Bearly, who looked none too happy to be surrounded by Moline townsfolk. “I need the key to Rafe’s handcuffs.”

Scowling, she dug in her pocket. “Cruz pulled every string there is to come here and get you. This is how you thank him?” She dropped a key into my palm and moved away from the jeep.

“Hey, Bear Lake, I want my gun back,” Rafe said.

She held up her hands. “One of those things took it off me.”

“Which of you hairballs has my shotgun?” Rafe asked the crowd. “Hand it over now.” When no one offered it up, he scowled.

“All right, people, mission accomplished,” Hagen called out. “Give ’em some breathing room. Ed, put him down!”

The walrus-man released Fairfax from his viselike hug. The guard crumpled to his knees, wheezing for breath.

“Sid, please open the gate,” I said. With a nod, he trotted off. “Sorry,” I told the guards, without meeting Everson’s eyes. I didn’t feel good about leaving them here unarmed. “You can call the base as soon as we’re out of Moline.”

“What do you mean we?” Rafe demanded. “You’re not going.”

“There’s been a change of plan.” I tossed my messenger bag onto the backseat next to him. “I’m the fetch. You’re the hack.”

“Forget it,” he growled.

“I had a feeling you’d be like that.” I climbed behind the wheel. “And that’s why you’re staying cuffed until we’re out of the compound.”

Hagen looked worried. “Mack is not going to like this.”

“Yeah, and guess who he’ll blame?” Rafe glared at me in the rearview mirror.

I didn’t care who my dad blamed as long as he escaped the firing squad. “I’ll tell him that I forced you to take me along.”

Rafe waved off my promise. “If I don’t knock you out the first chance I get and haul you back to Arsenal, Mack’s not going to want to hear it.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” I put the jeep in reverse. “Now I’ll keep you cuffed all the way to Chicago.”

“That better be a joke,” he warned.

With a shrug, I steered the jeep into a three-point turn. “Guess I don’t have such a humane heart after all.”

“What?”

I glanced into the mirror to see Rafe’s brow furrow. “Nothing. It was just something Chorda said.”

“The grupped tiger-guy said something” — his voice turned hard — “about your heart….”

Leave it to him to mistake civilized conversation for murderous intent. He wasn’t going to let a little thing like logic change his mind. So why waste my breath arguing that Chorda was not the rogue? I had bigger worries. Now that I had the jeep pointed toward the open gate, I shifted into drive, only to catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Everson shoved past the walrus-man, dashed for the jeep, and dropped into the passenger seat.

I lifted my foot off the gas. “What are you doing?”

“Coming with you,” he said.

Bearly hustled over. “Ev, get out. Our orders were to go as far as Moline.”

“I’m done following orders.”

“You’re going rogue?” she gasped.

“Can we not use that term?” Rafe asked from the backseat.

“Don’t be stupid, Ev!” Bearly gripped the edge of the jeep’s windshield. “Not for some unruly girl.”

Unruly. I kind of liked it.

“Think the patrol will ever let me cross the bridge again after this screw up?” Everson asked her. “Not a chance. If I’m going to get the blood samples Dr. Solis needs, it has to be now.”

She scowled. “Well if you’re going, then I have to.”

“Why do you have to babysit him?” Rafe asked her.

“She doesn’t.” Everson stepped on my foot, forcing me to floor the gas pedal.

“Yes, I — Hey!” Bearly shouted as the jeep launched forward. “Stop!”

But it was too late. With my foot trapped under Everson’s, all I could do was steer toward the gate, leaving Bearly in a cloud of dust.

Sid waved as we sped through. “Sayonara!” He held up a shotgun and then banged the gate closed behind us.

“That pig has my gun!” Rafe jerked on the handcuff. “Unlock me.”

I shoved at Everson as we pulled onto the broken road. “Get off.” Good thing I was wearing steel-toed boots.

“When I get back, I’m going to tenderize some pork!” Rafe shouted at Sid.

When Everson lifted his foot off mine, I slammed on the brakes. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of this, because I’m not stopping along the way so you can hunt for forty different strains of the virus.”

“We’re only missing thirty-two,” he said calmly.

“You should go back to Arsenal with the others.”

“Look, I’ll get whatever blood samples I can.” He popped the portable GPS unit out of the dashboard. “And if we can’t stop, I’ll keep track of where the infected people are.” He clicked a button on the side of the device, and a red dot appeared on the screen. “If I have specific locations, it’ll be easier to make a case for coming back.”

I turned in my seat to face Rafe. “Tell him how dangerous it is in the Feral Zone. Tell him about the rogue ferals and chimpacabras.”

“Actually, I think it’s a good idea to bring hunky and his fancy compass.”

Everson made a face. “Don’t call me that.”

“You said he was the silkiest of the bunch,” I reminded him.

“Who cares? Look at him.” Rafe flicked his free hand toward Everson. “The guy’s a Sasquatch. He’ll make good backup.”

“We don’t need backup,” I said.

“Really?” Rafe scoffed. “ ’Cause I’m thinking the feral has picked its next victim. You. And we have one gun between us. So if you won’t let this stiff take you back to Arsenal —”

“No,” I snapped. “And I’m not staying put in Moline either.”

He leveled a hard look at me. “And I’m not taking chances with Mack’s daughter.”

“What’s that mean?” Everson asked. “The feral has picked its next victim?”

“It means you could get hurt.”

“Wow,” Rafe said, oozing sympathy. “Guess all your guard training doesn’t impress her.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Why did Rafe have to turn everything into an insult?

“Look, unless he skipped boot camp — You didn’t, did you?”

“I ranked highest in my class in every skill set,” Everson ground out.

Rafe turned to me. “See? The silky can use a gun and compass. If something happens to me, he’ll get you back to Arsenal. Right?”

Everson frowned. “Of course.”

“Okay. Discussion over.” Rafe jangled his cuff. “Now how ’bout unlocking me?”

I tossed him the key and looked at the two of them — one clean-cut and controlled, the other a lewd, crude scam artist. What could possibly go wrong? “Promise you won’t fight.”

“I’m not going to arrest him, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Everson said.

“That’s not what she’s worried about.” Rafe dropped the handcuffs onto the floor, leaned back in his seat, and propped his booted feet by my headrest. “She’s worried we’re going to fight over her.”

I shoved Rafe’s feet off the seat. “I am not. That’s not what I was saying.”

I really hoped Everson didn’t believe that. I glanced over and caught his grin, which was big and broad — like him. Well, he could choke on it. Yes, the idea of two boys fighting over me was hysterical, but he could’ve at least tried to hide his amusement. I flopped back into my seat and stomped on the gas. “Forget it. You two can kill each other for all I care.”

They both cracked up. So glad they could share a laugh over a joke, except that I hadn’t made one. I narrowed my gaze on the weedy road and turned the wheel sharply, sending them spilling toward the jeep’s open sides. Their amusement vanished as they scrambled for handholds.

“Pothole,” I said with a shrug and got a couple of disgruntled looks in return, which had me smiling. Should be an interesting trip.

We sped past ravaged, desolate towns and overturned cars, all of them either scorched or rusting. But each time I started to feel hollow over the devastation, around the next bend I’d spot deer in a pasture, grazing like small herds of horses. There was wildlife everywhere, and above, the sky was blue, with high puffs of clouds.

Even though the land itself was as flat as a book, the road was so broken up, I felt like I was riding a bucking bronco. Still, Everson and I twisted in our seats, eyes wide, trying to take everything in.

Rafe had long since given up his carefree attitude and turned into an old lady, complaining about how fast I was going and how bumpy the ride was. At first I’d taken it personally, since I considered myself to be a conscientious driver, but then Everson asked Rafe if he’d ever ridden in a moving vehicle before. To my shock, Rafe hadn’t. Now he sat in the backseat, looking very green. Had he been anyone else, I might have felt sorry for him.

I made a sudden swerve off the road and heard Rafe gag as the jeep bumped down the embankment. I hadn’t had a choice. Smashed, burned-out vehicles clogged the highway in a miles-long collision dating back to the exodus. I had seen plenty of recordings of that time and been required to watch documentaries about it for school ad nauseam. But as horrifying as those recorded images were, passing miles of wreckage and glimpsing charred skeletons still belted into their seats gave me a sense of what it had really been like during the exodus. How people’s desperation to escape the plague had messed with their judgment.

After we’d driven along the shoulder for nearly an hour, Rafe said, “Got to make a stop. Pull in there.”

I didn’t want to slow down, let alone take a break, but I thought maybe he had to pee. Rafe directed me onto what once had been a golf course, according to a sign. The links were gone, replaced by deep ditches as far as I could see, and another weather-beaten sign, which read “Quarantine Cremation Site.”

As soon as I touched the brake, Rafe hopped out and strode through the waist-high grass toward one of the ditches.

If this was a cremation site, then these were graves, I realized with a start.

Everson pulled off his Kevlar body armor shirt and refastened his gun holster over his T-shirt. “I’m taking this back,” he said, scooping his gun from off the seat between us.

“Look.” I pointed to the ditch on our right. “It’s still smoking.”

As Everson and I climbed out to take a look, I saw Rafe snap a wildflower from its stem and toss it into the open grave. His lips were moving, but from where I stood, I couldn’t hear what he was saying. As Everson and I approached the smoking crater, I had a sudden, creeping sense that we weren’t alone. I paused to scan the tree line beyond the open graves, but saw nothing within the red-gold foliage — human or otherwise. Ahead of me, Everson let out a long breath, and I hurried to join him.

Blackened bones and ash filled the pit, with burnt skulls topping the heap. My self-control splintered. “Why are they burning bodies?”

“They can’t bury an infected corpse,” Everson said grimly. “An animal might dig it up.”

I wondered who Rafe was paying his respects to. Everson followed my gaze. “Here’s what I don’t get — that guy is only out for himself, so how did you get him to agree to do the fetch for you?”

“Not for me. For my dad. He got Rafe out of an orphan camp.”

“Yeah, the one on Arsenal,” Everson said. At my look of surprise he added, “That’s why all the career guards know him … and hate him.”

“They don’t hate me,” Rafe said, coming up beside us. “I’m fun.”

“Fun? You stabbed the cook’s assistant.” Everson snapped. “The guy lost two feet of intestine.”

Rafe shrugged. “He was coming at me with a butcher knife.”

I stepped between them. “You said you wouldn’t fight.” I waved Everson toward the driver’s seat, figuring it would keep him distracted, and I climbed into the passenger seat. Rafe gave the open grave a last look, swung into the back of the jeep, and wiggled the rolled blanket out of his pack frame.

“Your sister?” I asked softly.

Rafe stiffened. “What do you know about my sister?”

Shoot. I’d forgotten that I wasn’t supposed to mention it. “Hagen just said …”

“What?” he pressed.

I swallowed. Why had I brought up his sister? “That her husband went feral and killed her.” Right in front of you …

Everson glanced over in surprise.

“No, he didn’t.” Rafe stretched out on the backseat, using the blanket roll as a pillow. “He felt it coming on and took off before he could hurt us. But then we didn’t go back to the compound like we should have. We kept living in the Feral Zone because my sister couldn’t bring herself to leave with him still out there.”

“What happened?” Everson started up the jeep.

I braced myself, knowing this story was going to leave a bruise.

“He came back. Because that’s what ferals do.” Rafe gave me a pointed look. “He knew her scent, and what used to be love got twisted up in his animal brain and mistaken for hunger. He came back and he tore out her throat.”

I clapped a hand to my mouth as my mind reeled, trying to reject that mental picture even as it formed. And he’d lived through it firsthand. How could he function with a memory like that? I’d never leave my house again, never even go near a window, knowing what might be outside.

Rafe caught my expression. “It’s ancient history. I’m fine.” He draped an arm over his eyes. “Maybe if I saw it I’d be screwed up, but I stayed under the bed, looking out for my own hide. It’s a talent of mine.”

“You were a little kid,” I protested.

“I’ve seen kids make a difference in a fight with a feral. I didn’t even try.” Rafe’s tone was nonchalant. Too nonchalant.

I wanted to spill into the back seat and hug the memory right out of him, but I remembered Hagen’s warning. Rafe didn’t want my pity. So I stayed up front and ached for the little boy who’d heard his sister die, even if he hadn’t witnessed it.

Everson cleared his throat. “Who was in the grave?”

“Hagen’s daughter,” Rafe replied. “Delilah.”

I wasn’t sure I could bear another devastating story, but Everson was clearly in research mode. “Did a feral bite her?” he asked.

“Her dog. The mangiest-looking mutt you ever saw. When it started shedding, she didn’t think anything of it. Had no idea the stupid animal had gotten itself infected.”

Everson glanced back at him. “Which strain?”

“How should I know?” Rafe sat up, looking annoyed. “All her hair fell out. Does that tell you something? After that, she went feral fast and got driven out of the compound.”

A chill settled into my muscles, into my bones, and slowed my pulse. “What happened to her?”

Rafe studied me as if deciding whether to answer. Finally he said, “Hagen sent me after her.”

“To bring her back?”

“To put her down.”

Everson’s gaze jumped to the rearview mirror. “She sent you to kill her daughter?”

“You better get off that high horse, silky, before it throws you,” Rafe snapped. “It’s what Delilah wanted. She made Hagen promise to do it, but when the time came, Hagen couldn’t. I did them both a favor.”

Again I wanted to reach for him, but I wrapped my arms around myself instead. “How awful for you.”

He snorted. “I don’t cry over dead grups,” he said roughly. “Not even one who used to be a friend.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, ending the conversation.

Everson sent me a sidelong glance. He wasn’t buying Rafe’s blasé act either.

I wondered if Rafe had been in love with Delilah … and felt my guts twist. Whoa. What was that? I couldn’t possibly be jealous of a dead girl on account of a boy I didn’t even like. This place was making me crazy, and I hadn’t even been bitten.

After another hour, we drove into what once might have been a quaint little town of one-story shops, but now was a debris-littered wasteland with crumbling buildings. Power lines draped what was left of the street and Everson had to swerve to avoid a snarl of downed wires. The jeep scraped along the jagged curb until, with a bang, its right front tire dropped into an open storm sewer. Despite having four-wheel drive, the jeep was completely and utterly stuck.

The three of us climbed out to survey the situation. “And this would be why we ride bikes,” Rafe said and then his expression turned wary. “How far east did we get?” He turned in place, eyeing the town. “I can’t keep track of the miles, going so fast.”

“Fast?” Everson mocked, and popped out the portable GPS. “We’re sixty miles outside of Moline.”

With over a hundred left to go before we reached Chicago. “We need to find a car jack.” I looked for a garage among the empty shops that lined the street. “There.” I pointed to a filthy gas station sign at the end of downtown.

Rafe frowned at the sky. “We do not want to be on this stretch of road after dark.”

“Why not?” Everson asked as he took a flashlight from a compartment under the seat.

“Tell us after we get the jeep unstuck.” I took off toward the gas station with the guys right behind me. Unfortunately, the station was attached to a convenience store, not a garage. A rusted pickup truck sat in the parking lot. Behind the squat building, the land seemed to drop off.

The guys checked inside the store and I crossed the parking lot, which ended at the edge of a steep hill. A lake lay in the valley below with woods on the far side. I took a deep breath, letting the smell of pine and the rustle of cattails fill up my senses. Dusk was almost upon us and we still had miles to go and yet I didn’t feel like a girl with an impossible task ahead of her. Instead, my body and mind were humming as if the oxygen on this side of the wall were laced with caffeine.

The door to the abandoned store squeaked open. “I’ll check the pickup truck,” Everson said.

I was about to turn around when movement drew my attention to the bottom of the hill. Two large dogs were tussling in the reeds. One gave a low-pitched growl, which sounded like the noise my dogs made when we played tug-of-war. I had a creeping feeling, however, that these dogs weren’t fighting over a dish towel. I eased back slowly to keep them from noticing me.

“What’s with all the blood?” I heard Everson ask. The dogs below heard him too. Their heads snapped around and their growls deepened.

Oh crap! I spun back onto the asphalt, looking for Everson, who had the gun. He and Rafe stood frozen in place with their eyes locked onto something beyond the rusting pickup truck.

“Dogs!” I hissed, hurrying toward them.

“We know,” Rafe whispered and held up a hand.

I stopped just short of Everson, who was several feet behind Rafe. On the other side of the pickup, four mutts were brutalizing a bloody carcass.

The other two dogs scrabbled over the rise and started barking.

“Great,” Rafe muttered as the rest of the pack lifted their blood-soaked muzzles and glared at us. He glared back and I could have sworn that he was growling as well.

Everson took aim and fired. The shot ricocheted off the metal of the truck and hit the asphalt next to the biggest dog — a black mutt. The pack scattered.

Rafe spun around, eyes blazing. “You said you could shoot.”

Everson lowered the gun. “I wasn’t trying to hit it.” At Rafe’s incredulous look, he added, “What? I was supposed to open fire on all of them?”

“Yeah, Ace, that’s the idea.”

Everson rolled his eyes. “They’re gone and we’re only down one bullet.” He jammed the gun back into its holster.

“Were the dogs feral?” I asked, crossing my arms to stop them from trembling. “As in feral feral?”

“They wouldn’t have run if they were.” Rafe nudged a bloody bone with the toe of his boot.

“What was it?” I asked.

“Turkey.”

Everson leaned against the bed of the pickup. “You can tell that from a bone?”

“No. From that.” Rafe pointed to a chewed-up turkey head by Everson’s foot.

Everson scooted back, only to slip on gristle and land in a puddle of coagulated blood. With a yell of disgust, he shot to his feet and tried to wipe off his blood-coated hands with the hem of his shirt. He caught the glimmer in Rafe’s eyes. “You think it’s funny?”

“It’s a little funny.”

My mind reeled with the potential dangers. This situation could have been scripted for a freshman health class. “It’s not funny at all! What if he has an open cut? What if the turkey had Ferae?”

“Birds can’t get it,” Rafe said.

I knew that, but still … “There’s no running water over here. How is he supposed to wash off?”

“He could try using that.” Rafe pointed past me to the lake.

Everson and I skidded down the hill to the water’s edge where he washed his hands, but his blood-spattered clothes posed a bigger problem.

“Take them off,” I said.

Rafe sauntered down the hill. “You were just waiting for the chance to say that.”

“Shut up.” Everson tossed him the holstered gun and pulled off his shirt to reveal washboard abs.

I hadn’t been waiting for the chance to see him shirtless, but maybe I should have been. I cleared my throat so my voice didn’t come out squeaky. “We can find him new clothes. That’s easy, right?” I dragged my gaze away from Everson’s perfect chest to look at Rafe, but he was staring at the sky. I glanced up to see what had put the crease in his brow — the setting sun.

“We’re done traveling,” he said abruptly. “We need to find a place to hole up for the night.” Then he seemed to remember Everson. “Oh crap. You’re gonna bring them right to us.” With two hands, he shoved Everson backward into the lake.

“Bring what to us?” I asked.

Everson came up spitting mad, but Rafe pushed him down again, getting himself soaked as well. “Get the blood out of your clothes!” His tone made it clear this was no joke. Everson rubbed his pants down under the water.

“That’ll have to do. Come on,” Rafe hissed, waving him out. “See that?” He pointed at a small cottage on the other side of the lake. “That’s where we’re sleeping tonight.”

“Why not pick one in town?” I asked, gesturing up the hill to the road. “Those are closer.”

“Because that one is boarded up.”

He was right. Big wood shutters covered the cottage’s windows as if someone had closed up the place for the winter.

Holding his shirt in one fist, Everson slogged onto the bank. At that moment, a faint rattling sound started up, as if dried seedpods were shimmying in a breeze. But the lake’s surface was still, and the cattails on the bank around us remained ramrod straight.

“What’s that sound?” I asked.

Rafe froze, listening, and his expression darkened. “A whole lot of nothing good. Go.” We took off, cutting through the tall reeds along the lake’s edge with Rafe leading the way.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, the lengthening shadows seemed to turn up the volume on the odd sound. Less of a rattle now and more like the hard, dry clicking of a hundred bead curtains being swept aside. The houses on the ridge seemed to quiver with the noise. I sloshed through the marsh and tramped over fallen logs, trying to match Rafe’s fast pace. But the clicking intensified to the point where I swore I could feel the sound waves bouncing off my skin. I glanced back. Up on the ridge, black smoke billowed out of a church spire.

I stumbled to a stop and turned to watch. “It’s on fire….”

“What is?” Everson paused beside me.

“Everything.”

Smaller wafts of black smoke rose from the houses, pouring from upper-story windows and holes in the roofs. High in the darkening sky, the undulating columns melded together to become one rippling, shifting mass. And suddenly, I knew — remembered — what I was seeing. “That’s not smoke….”

“Don’t stop!” Rafe yelled, but when he followed our hypnotized gazes, he froze midstride. “Oh, come on!” He swiped a fist at the growing black cyclone. “What is this, their spawning season?”

Everson shouted to be heard above the frenzied clicking. “Are they bats?”

I clamped my hands over my ears. “Weevlings.” The word alone triggered mental epilepsy, but making it worse was my father’s description of how the creatures would descend upon a cow like a smothering black shroud, only to fly off a moment later, leaving nothing but a skeleton. “Piranha-bats.”

Rafe shook off the trance first. “Go, go, go!” But it was too late. Moving with gang intelligence, the weevlings zoomed in our direction. “Scratch that, hit the ground!”

A musky smell pressed down on us two seconds before the clicking mass descended.