Inhuman

22

I paused on the second floor landing to listen for the tiger-man, but the house had fallen silent. The smell of death coated the air like oil. A smear of blood stained the wallpaper. I hurried down the dark corridor past closed doors, too terrified to open any of them, afraid of what I’d find, until a blood-curdling roar shook the house.

I yanked open the closest door — an empty closet. I tried the door across the hall and blinked against the sudden flood of sunlight. A smell slammed into me, so foul that I had to clamp my hand over my nose and mouth. On the opposite wall, tree branches invaded the room through the broken windows. Like sturdy arms they reached out to me, promising to bear my weight. I stepped through the doorway, my eyes adjusting to the light, and caught sight of someone crumpled on the floor. My muscles went rigid.

No, not someone. A corpse. The room was filled with them. Dried out corpses with taut grins and shrunken eyes, they’d been flung into corners and on couches. All with their chests mutilated. All in various stages of decay. I felt something inside of me tearing and then breaking.

I backed out of the room so fast I bumped into the wall of the corridor. Something brushed my face and sent me spinning aside. A thin rope hung down from a hatch in the ceiling. I gave the rope a tug, pulling the hatch open just a few inches when I heard a strange rustling, like the sweep of dry leaves on concrete.

I knew that sound!

My fingers flew open and the hatch banged shut. I’d nearly pulled an attic full of weevlings down on myself. Creatures that were attracted to the glistening stuff dripping down the back of my calf where Chorda had clawed me. Chorda, who had to have heard the hatch bang shut.

Suddenly a plan formed in my mind. Insane. Dangerous. But I had no other ideas and someone was now pounding up the stairs.

I caught hold of the hatch rope again and backed into the narrow hall closet. With the door cracked and hatch rope in hand, I watched Chorda stagger onto the landing. Lowering his head, with his broad, striped back to me, he sniffed the first doorknob. Then, inhumanly fast, he swung around to stare at the cracked closet door, his pupils enormous in the dim light. As his muscles shifted, coiling for the pounce, I burst from the closet and yanked the rope as hard as I could.

The ceiling hatch dropped open and a skeleton tumbled out. I tugged harder and brought down the whole collapsible staircase. The dry rustle of featherless wings filled the air, followed by the deafening clicks of hundreds of weevlings. They poured from the hatch like black, billowing smoke. With the attic stairs now between us, I couldn’t see Chorda, but I heard his scream — shockingly human — as I tore into the room with the corpses and hefted myself onto the largest tree branch poking through the broken window.

Outside, I perched in the tree and quickly scanned the area. Chorda’s house was bound by an overgrown, tangled hedge with meadow beyond it. I saw no sign of the broken highway or the lake.

I climbed down a few branches, dropped out of the tree, and ran through the garden gone wild, wishing I had my father’s machete. I had no idea if I was headed in the right direction to find Rafe and Everson, but no direction could be wrong so long as it led away from the death house. My ears pounded with the sound of my own feet hitting the ground. The cuts on my calf throbbed, and my lungs burned, but I didn’t slow down, and I didn’t look back.

As I barreled through the hedge, the branches caught my hair and scratched my face and arms. The evergreen scent was a welcome relief. On the other side, I tripped over something in the dirt and landed on my stomach. Inches from my nose, a human rib cage jutted out of the muddy ground. Too breathless to scream, I heaved myself up and raced through the meadow — a killing field — leaping over bones and tearing through the scrub until I reached a broken road. Was it the same one that we’d taken the day before?

I glanced back and saw the tiger-man lurching across the field, bloody and enraged. A cry burst from my throat.

How had he gotten away?

Something growled to my left. I spun to see the jeep skidding for me. It didn’t even make a full stop, just swerved alongside me long enough for Rafe to lean out, grab my arm, and haul me into the backseat with him.

Chorda veered onto the road to cut us off. Everson laid on the speed, heading right at the tiger-man. Blood streamed from the gashes that crosshatched his face and body. With foamy lips and glistening fangs, he locked eyes with me. Everson hunched over the wheel while Rafe braced us for impact. The jeep bore down on Chorda until — at the very last second — he vaulted aside and we flew past. I twisted around to see him throw back his head and bellow out his rage.

Rafe pulled me close and I pressed my forehead into his chest, trying to block out Chorda’s roars. My muscles began to jerk and tremble. I dug my nails into my palms to give myself something to concentrate on, but it didn’t work. Fabiola’s vacant eyes kept floating into my mind, followed by the corpses. My stomach twisted, and with a groan, I pulled away from Rafe to lean out of the speeding jeep and vomit up the pineapple I’d eaten for breakfast. There wasn’t much, but my body kept going until my throat burned raw. Rafe gripped my arm to keep me from falling out, and then he swore under his breath. “You could have mentioned you were bleeding to death.” He guided me back onto the seat.

“He bit her?” Everson slowed the jeep and twisted to look at me.

“No,” I croaked. “It’s from his claws.”

Rafe placed my leg across his lap and pushed up my torn pants leg. Blood coated my skin from the knee down. He grimaced, but a split second later, when he lifted his eyes to mine, he’d wiped the worry from his face. “Man, these will be some fierce scars,” he said, as if that was something I would look forward to.

The jeep slammed to a stop and Everson leaned over the front seat. I knew the cuts were bad when he too steeled his expression. “That needs to be disinfected. Stitched.”

“No kidding.” Rafe pulled his T-shirt over his head. “Go! You don’t want to know how fast a raging feral can run.” As the jeep bucked and tore out, he wrapped the shirt around my lacerated calf. I closed my eyes and ground my teeth against the searing pain.

“Tell me when it’s safe to stop,” Everson said over the engine’s roar. “I’ve got what I need in the med kit.”

“You know how to stitch a wound?” Rafe asked skeptically.

“Yeah, and I won’t leave her with a fierce scar.”

I opened my eyes to see a fuzzy little gray face, peering at me over the front passenger seat. I sat up, legs still across Rafe’s lap, and tried to smile. “Hi.” Cosmo blinked back the tears that were rapidly filling his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m okay,” I told him in a scratchy voice. “A-okay.”

With a wet sniff, he popped up in his seat and thrust his ratty dish towel into my hands. I held it close to my heart and mouthed, “Thank you,” knowing my voice would break if I said it aloud.

“You know, you scared the crap outta Cosmo,” Rafe said and then cast me a sidelong look. Any other time I would have smiled at his reluctance to admit that I’d scared the crap out of him, but not now. Not when I was struggling to hold in a sob.

Everson glanced over his shoulder again, checking the T-shirt on my calf — now blood-soaked. “Wrap it tighter and apply pressure.”

“I knew that,” Rafe muttered. I gasped as he rearranged the makeshift bandage and cried when he clasped a hand to my calf. Pain blazed along each cut as if Chorda’s claws were still embedded in my skin. I tried to wriggle free, but Rafe held on, and slowly, after several panting breaths, I realized that the firm pressure of his hand had taken the pain down by a degree.

I swiped the tears from my cheeks. “How did you find me?”

“I followed the tiger’s trail, but lost you at the stream.” He sounded apologetic.

“You got us close enough,” Everson pointed out. “We found her.”

“Yeah, we did.” Rafe’s voice sounded strained. Probably leftover worry. “There’s a place about twenty miles from here. We can fix up your leg there.”

My thoughts weren’t on what lay ahead, but on the nightmare behind me. “You were right,” I whispered. “He killed all those people.”

Rafe stared at me, brow puckered. “Tiger-guy told you that?”

“I saw them.” I could barely get the words out. “He eats their hearts. He thinks it’ll turn him human again. If he eats the right one.”

“Lemme guess, you have the right heart.”

I nodded. “Because I stopped you from killing him.”

“See what being nice gets you?”

“She doesn’t need to hear that,” Everson snapped.

But Rafe had been right and I’d nearly had my heart ripped out because I hadn’t listened to him. “I’m so stupid….” The memory of the tiger’s claws threatened to pull me under. I focused on taking in air. Chorda was out there loose, because of me. If he killed someone else … it would be all my fault.

After thirty minutes of bumping over broken asphalt, Rafe pointed in the distance to what looked like a limestone fortress, complete with stockade walls, turrets, and towers.

Cosmo rose to his knees in the front seat. “What’s that?”

“Home sweet home,” Rafe said with a forced smile.

In no time we were cruising alongside a massive stone wall — the Titan in miniature. The place truly did look ready to withstand archers and battering rams. We rounded a corner and reached the front wall where my romantic notions were quickly dispelled by the windows — all iron barred.

Everson parked the jeep right next to a large sign near the entrance that read “Joliet State Penitentiary.” “A prison?”

Rafe pulled a circle of keys from his knapsack and headed for the heavily fortified gate. “Doesn’t get any safer than this.” He unlocked a number of chains and used his weight to push open the gate. “We’ll stay here tonight. And go into Chicago before dawn.”

“But it can’t even be noon yet,” I said. “Let’s go now.”

Rafe gave me an odd look. “It’s way past noon.”

“Oh.” How long had I been unconscious after Chorda’s punch? “Still —”

“Let’s see what time it is when Ev here is done stitching up your leg.” He said it so firmly, I didn’t bother to argue, just followed him through the gate.

With Everson’s arm wrapped around me, half holding me up, I limped my way into a spacious courtyard where squawking chickens roamed freely. The afternoon sun lent a golden hue to the walls and parapets. But most striking were the solar-collecting panels. Almost the entire roof was taken up with slanting and shimmering panels that blazed in the sunlight. I had to admit the place wasn’t horrible as we passed a vegetable garden. But still … “This is where you live?”

“I keep my stuff here. Mostly I’m out working for some compound, hunting ferals or path hacking.”

Inside the main building, he led us through a series of barred doors, which had been electric at one time but now he just shoved open. “It’ll be homier when I get the power on.” He directed us down a caged-in stairway and along a hallway to a thick door with a small, round, wire-mesh porthole. Opening a panel, he found the circuit breakers labeled “Solar Generators.” When he switched them on, the overhead lights flickered to life.

I felt a little better when we got to the infirmary. It was a large room, with old cots scattered haphazardly, but at least every corner was visible from every angle of the room. There were no closets in which a feral could hide; no doors to lurk behind. “Where’s Cosmo?” Had we lost the little manimal in the halls?

“He’s looking around the place,” Rafe assured me. “How do you feel?”

“Stupid.”

“No. Physically how do you feel?”

“My leg hurts.”

He clapped a hand to my forehead and had me sit on the nearest cot. “How long since we picked her up?” he asked Everson, who was dousing a gauze pad with antiseptic.

Everson shrugged and wheeled over a table laid out with medical supplies. “She said she wasn’t bitten.”

“She’s sitting right here!” I said irritably.

“Okay.” Rafe propped a shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. “Just tell me if you start feeling hot.”

I nodded, which turned into a grimace when Everson pressed the gauze to my calf. As he cleaned my cuts, I squeezed my hands together to keep from yelling. Two of my nails were broken off below the quick and there was grit and dried blood under the others.

“This is going to hurt.” Needle already in hand, Everson pulled up a stool, and sat, placing my foot between his thighs to brace it. He gave me a faint smile. “Do me a favor — don’t kick.”

I nodded, pretending like this was no big deal, though I’d never gotten stitches in my life. Even after he’d rubbed some kind of numbing cream around the cuts, I had to chew the inside of my cheek to keep from yelling every time he jabbed the needle into my torn flesh. But I didn’t kick. If anything, the pain helped me keep certain images at bay — such as all the corpses, pale and cold on the floor.

When Everson finished, Rafe leaned over for a look. “Huh,” he said with surprise. “Good stitches.”

“I’ve had training as a field medic,” Everson said.

But some cuts couldn’t be sewn up. “Fabiola was there,” I told Rafe as a wintery feeling filled my chest.

“Dead?”

I nodded. “You’ll tell her father and Alva, so they’ll know what happened to her?” I reached for my dial to see if I’d gotten an image of the dead girl, so they’d know for sure that it was her. But there was nothing around my neck. Chorda had taken my dial, along with my bag. I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to block out the thought of Chorda patting me down while I was unconscious. “I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have gone near him. I should have run.”

“Yeah,” Rafe said evenly. “Why didn’t you?”

I wanted to crawl under the cot, but I deserved their scorn. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“No, seriously,” Rafe said. “Why didn’t you at least yell?”

Everson glanced up from bandaging my calf and took in my expression. “She is serious.”

Rafe started to scoff but then turned a stunned look on me. “His feelings?” He choked on the words. “You were worried about a predator’s feelings?”

“Cut her a break.” Everson finished taping the bandage. “She didn’t grow up over here.”

“Right. ’Cause in the West you all just skip around and hug,” Rafe said acidly. “You’re all best friends and everyone gets a pony on their birthday.”

Everson shoved the rolling table aside and rose. “Why don’t you go check on your chickens?”

“You’re not doing her any favors, silky.” Rafe stepped forward to meet him. “Unless you’re planning to stitch yourself to her side, you won’t always be around. All she has are her instincts to keep her safe. And you want to tell her things are so different over here that she can’t trust her gut? Gotta ask yourself why. Maybe because you like being the hero?”

Everson’s fist moved so fast, I didn’t even see the punch, only Rafe’s backward stumble. He recovered fast, heading right for Everson. Tumbling off the cot, I threw myself between them. “Stop it!”

Both halted in their tracks. Each waited to see what the other would do.

“I’m done.” Everson put up his hands though his voice was harsh with anger. “He’s right.”

“Then why’d you hit him?” I demanded.

“I didn’t like the way he said it.”

Something soft rubbed my arm. I glanced down to see Cosmo petting me with a threadbare stuffed animal — Curious George.

“No one said you could touch that.” Rafe swiped the blood from his split lip and reached for the toy.

Cosmo clutched the stuffed animal to his chest. “Jasper’s mine.”

“Hand it over, ape-boy.”

Hunching down, Cosmo curled back his lips and growled.

“Don’t give me the get-back face,” Rafe snapped. “I taught you that face.”

Instantly Cosmo dropped the attitude, popped Curious George’s head into his mouth, and took off running.

“Hey!” Rafe shouted after him. “Get back here.”

“Oh for — Grow up,” Everson growled while nursing his knuckles in one hand.

Obviously the toy had sentimental value for Rafe, but come on; Cosmo was eight. I limp-jogged after him, despite the burn shooting up my calf, but I lost him at the first intersection of corridors. When the guys joined me, I turned on Rafe. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Me? I don’t go into people’s homes and take their stuff.” He paused. “Well, actually I do, but not while they’re still living there!” He shouted the last part down the hall for Cosmo’s benefit.

“Where did he take it from?”

When Rafe didn’t reply, I glanced over to find him eyeing me. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shook off whatever it was he’d been thinking and led us to the cellblock, a three-story space with a gangway on each level. Rafe headed along the row of dingy stone cubicles that passed for cells. I trailed behind him with Everson’s help and felt my heartbeat thumping in my calf with every step. I didn’t want to think about what I had coming when the numbing cream wore off.

Rafe stopped abruptly and glanced back at me. “He got it out of that one.” He pointed to the next cell in the row. “If he’s in there, you should be the one to talk to him.”

I nodded and limped into the cell. Everson started to follow but Rafe blocked him. “Let her do it.”

Bunks hung off one wall and a crosshatch pattern covered the opposite wall — ceiling to floor. Graffiti? I angled closer. Seven lines in a row, with a star after every three rows. It was a crude calendar, which reminded me of how little time I had left to get back to the tunnel before the bulldozers filled it in. I turned and spotted Cosmo lying on his stomach on the top bunk with his chin propped on Curious George. He was looking at a picture book.

“Hey, buddy,” Rafe called from the corridor. “You want to keep the monkey?”

Cosmo glanced back at him. I too shot Rafe a look, although mine was annoyed. I’d thought he was going to let me handle it.

“You can,” Rafe went on, “but you have to do something for me.”

Cosmo sat up, clutching the stuffed monkey to his chest. “What?”

“Come here and I’ll tell you.”

Whatever Rafe had in mind, it had better not be mean. And he’d better not even think about reneging. I held out my arms to Cosmo, but he leapt off the bed without my help and scrambled into the corridor where Rafe stood waiting.

Curious, I picked up the book that Cosmo had been reading — The Runaway Bunny. I remembered that one. Every place the little bunny ran off to, his mother found a way to follow him. I wished Cosmo’s mother could follow him and keep him safe. I wished my father could find me as easily out in the world. I breathed for a moment, forcing down the sadness. Behind me, the cell door clanged shut.

“Very funny.” I dropped the book on the cot and turned to see Rafe pocket the key.

“George is all yours,” he told Cosmo.

“Jasper,” Cosmo corrected and then cast a worried glance back at me.

“What are you doing?” Everson demanded. “She said she wasn’t bitten.”

Rafe pinned his gaze on me. “People lie.”