The Barriers Page 19

  With my chest tightening, I try to think as I keep my eyes on her. If I charge, she’ll scamper off like she did before, find some small crevice or alleyway, and disappear. But I can’t let her get away again. And I can’t let her make off with our pack. It has the weapons, the satellite phone, everything. I look at Doc. He’s got nothing that will help. Doing a sweep of my surroundings, I find a hunk of broken concrete about the size and shape of a softball. I grab it and begin inching toward the creature. It’s not like I want to brain her, but they did almost kill us. Twice.

  I inch forward. The urge to cough is so strong it makes it hard to breathe, but, somehow, I manage to stifle it. As I creep up, the creature pulls out the satellite phone and begins to pry at it with slender, dirty fingers.

  Good. Stay occupied, little one.

  I’m four feet away. Three. I can smell her—the tang of sweat and feces layered in with the scent of smoke. On the right side of her head, some of her hair is singed away. She’s only two-and-a-half feet tall, naked and covered in grime, weighing maybe twenty pounds. Her spine runs like boney knobs down her bare back. Her ribs show through the skin.

  When I’m an arm’s length away, I raise the hunk of concrete. What’s my plan? Brain this tiny creature that looks like an underfed toddler? I lower the rock. Maybe I can grab her.

  She whips toward me.

  Huge, round eyes lock on my face. Her lips pull back in a snarl, the look of a startled dog, one that would be backing away with its hackles up. Only, she doesn’t back away.

  I drop the rock and raise my empty hands, a symbol of friendship, of peace, or at least that’s what I hope it looks like. She cringes, pulling my pack to her naked chest like it might shield her from me, this big predator.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She looks at my face, at my open hands. Her lips relax slowly until her face isn’t vicious or defensive. The look says curiosity. She’s interested in me.

  I nod at the pack. “That’s mine.”

  Her huge eyes flick down to the pack and back to my face. Does she understand what I’m saying?

  I reach out tentatively, gesturing for the pack. “Here, let me show you.”

  She pulls it away from me, taking two steps back—a kid who doesn’t want to share her toy. I almost smile.

  “I won’t take it away, I just want to…” How do I explain? I mime holding a sandwich and taking a bite. “Hungry? I have food in there. Can I?”

  She looks at the pack and then at me. Reaching down, she pulls out the silver package marked “MRE,” the military food packet. She sets it on the ground and slides it over.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Food.” I tear open the package with my teeth. It smells like sugar, apples, and a strange chemical additive. When I hand the open pack to her, she snatches it and then presses the opening to her nose. It isn’t there long before the package is in her mouth, and she’s sucking on it like she’s never eaten in her life. It must be hard out here. How do they eat? No wonder I can count every rib.

  In the dark, she sits beside me, wolfing down the food and licking the inside of the package. Watching her is somehow comforting. She’s just a tiny bit of thing, with her small, angular nose and pink lips. She’d be beautiful with all the filth washed off. And to be honest, I like having her near me. I like that I gave her food and made her day a little bit better. It makes me miss Ethan terribly.

  Dropping the empty package, she peers at me with her orb-like eyes. She looks at my pack and then at me.

  “You want more?” I ask, pulling the pack to me so I can peer in it.

  “Mo,” she says.

  I stop, letting the pack lay unexplored. “Did you just… Did you just speak?”

  She peers at me and then the bag, her message clear—food.

  “More?” I ask, slipping my hand in, finding the other meal packet and bringing it out.

  She looks at the packet hungrily and scoots closer, until she’s almost touching me. “Mo.”

  Jesus, they can talk. I tear open the packet and hand it to her, watching her eat. Maybe she’s more like us than we thought. And if she’s like us, then maybe all her kind are. I think about the decaying body in the back of the car. We came into their home with weapons. No wonder they attacked. If we could somehow communicate with them, tell them we mean no harm—

  The crack of a twig freezes me cold. Beside me, the little one stiffens. She sniffs the air as I scan the moonlit parking lot. I see nothing but cracked, weed-choked concrete and burned cars.

  Beside me, the girl is a statue. The package lies forgotten on the ground. She crouches, knuckles on the pavement, her eyes trained on the dumpster about twenty feet away.

  “What is it?” Inside the bag, my hand finds the Taser.

  The creature sniffs the air.

  A dark shape sprints out at us. The larger of the two creatures. She runs upright, powerful thighs flashing.

  I jump to my feet and lift the Taser.

  “Doc!”

  He doesn’t move.

  “Doc!”

  She runs, growling and gnashing her teeth.

  God, she’s going to tear me to pieces.

  When she gets six feet away, she crouches low, circling us. Her hands are clawed, and her posture aggressive. I hold the Taser out. This is my chance to take her back to the compound. My finger slips over the trigger.

  In four strides, the child bounds over and clambers up the beast, climbing on her back.

  How did it take me so long to figure it out?

  They’re mother and daughter.

  My heart pounding, I lower the Taser. “I mean you no harm.”

  She watches me, her eyebrows folding down in a very human expression. She doesn’t know what to make of me. The little one peers over her shoulder. “Maybe we can help each other,” I say.

  She cocks her head. Her eyes flick to the ground. Something stirs behind me. I start to turn.

  When the gun goes off, it’s the last thing I’m expecting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Riley

  I watch the red hole open up on the creature’s chest between her sternum and breast. I watch her stumble back, eyes wide, and fall. The little one on her back jumps off and lands in a crouch on the weed-filled pavement. She looks up at me as if to say, Why?

  Stunned, I turn and see Doc on his back, holding the gun. His face is flush with anger.

  “Get behind me!” he yells, sitting up.

  My eyes trail to the open backpack beside him. He must’ve woken up, found the gun, and shot it while half-awake.

  I hold my hands up, putting myself between him and them. “No.” I’m barely able to choke out words. “They… aren’t our enemies.”

  Doc looks up at me, confused, and then leans to glance around me. “There goes the little one!”

  I whirl around, seeing the little girl scamper around the dumpster and disappear into the dark.

  “No! Come back!” I start to run, but I turn around. “Save this one!” I say to Doc, pointing at the gasping creature on the ground. “Stop her bleeding or… something. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Then I run.

  Doc calls, “Riley, wait!”

  I don’t stop. That little girl will starve out here alone. I have to find her. I have to get her back.

  Past the dumpster, the landscape becomes littered with hiding spaces, making this hunt look impossible. Dark shrubs rise up to my right, tangled, gnarly, and just big enough to hide a small girl. To my left and twenty feet down the main road that leads to the burned strip mall, a minivan is tipped on its side. All the windows, tires, and doors are gone, but the interior is dark. Across the street, dozens of dark alleys, abandoned buildings, stripped cars, and shrubs offer all kinds of nooks to hunker in. If I don’t find her soon, I never will.

  “It’s me!” I call, pawing through the shrubs. They’re thorny and tear at my palms as I push the branches away. “I’ll help you! We can g
et your mother medicine.”

  I stop and listen, but there’s nothing but the wind dragging trash down the street. On a sagging wire above, a huge crow watches me with cold, black eyes.

  Her mother is probably bleeding out on the pavement right now. If we could get her back to the compound, she might live. But that would mean abandoning the girl.

  “Come out!” I shout, feeling desperate. “If I leave you here, you’ll die!”

  A giant boom smashes through the silence. Around me, buildings rattle. Roosting birds thrust themselves into the air, cawing loudly. The ground shakes. I look around, trying to determine where the blast came from.

  I spot a fire escape ladder clinging to a two-story building that looks mostly intact. Someone has pulled the metal ladder to the ground, making it very easy to clamber up. Hand over hand I go, until I reach the top and roll myself over the roof ledge. From this height, huge, gray smoke clouds pour into the sky. Something blew up. And judging from the direction and distance, it looks like it was the Corra’s compound.

  “Auntie,” I say, barely breathing. I turn to the ladder. As I am about to climb down, something runs at me.

  I stand ready to fight, but then I see it’s toddler sized and naked. The girl. “Hey, I was trying to find you.”

  She lunges at me and climbs up my body like a baby monkey. Like she did her mother’s. Then she clings, shaking like a leaf in a rainstorm.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I murmur as I run my hands down her bare back. But it isn’t. Nothing is okay. Her mother has been shot, and my auntie may have just been blown to smithereens.

  Locking all emotion away, I focus on getting the girl back to Doc. I climb down with her still clinging to my back. She holds on easily, her hands locked around my throat and feet wrapped around my chest. When I run back, I barely feel her. But when Doc and her unconscious mother come into sight, she hisses and begins tugging on me.

  “He’s not a bad guy,” I say, reaching behind me to try to calm her. “He’s trying to help.”

  My words do nothing. She climbs under my shirt, clinging to the binding around my breasts, and shivers.

  Doc looks up from the body splayed out on the cracked pavement. His hands and chest are bloody. He’s stripped off his shirt and is using it to try to stop the flow from her chest wound. The amount of blood on the pavement makes me think he isn’t having much luck.

  “What’s that?” He points with his free hand.

  “The little one,” I say. “She’s afraid of you. Try not to do anything startling.”

  He gives me a look that says, How am I supposed to do that? Then he nods down at the body. “The wound is bad, Ri. I missed her heart, but she’s lost a lot of blood. I can’t even see…” He gestures with his free hand around the dark parking lot. “I… I don’t know what I can do here.”

  I look at the body and up at the cloud of smoke in the distance that’s nearly tripled in size since I spotted it on the roof. “Take her to the car. I think someone just attacked the compound. Did you hear the explosion?”

  “Yeah. The compound? Who would…” He trails off. “No.”

  “Auntie’s in there. I’m not leaving her. But we could be driving into an ambush.”

  His expression is blank when he nods. “With a half-dead monster and her young.”

  “Yeah.” Careful not to jostle the little one, I lean down and start filling the backpack. “You’ll have to wear the pack. I’ve got my own.”

  He leans around and peers at the shivering mass under my shirt. “How’d you get her to do that?”

  I hand him the full pack. “I don’t know.” I grab the mother under the arms, my hands immediately sticky in her blood. “Lift her legs. We need to move.”

  It takes us twice as long to get back to the car as it did to get out here. When we find it, the smell from the dead body in the back is so rancid, we can barely stand to be in there. Doc and I drag the bloating, hardening body out of the backseat and lay it beside the mother, who’s breathing shallowly. Still alive, but for how long? The little one in my shirt makes strange crooning sounds. I try to comfort her as best I can while helping Doc move the living creature into the back where the dead one once was.

  Doc looks down at the body on the concrete beside the solar car. “What do we do with her?”

  I shake my head. This has already taken too long. We’ve begun to hear more explosions. Whether they are follow-up tremors from whatever is going on in the compound or more attacks, we can’t tell. What I do know is if Auntie was still alive after the first explosion, her chances of staying that way are going down each minute.

  “We’ll have to leave the body here. And come back for it maybe.” Shifting the little one around to my stomach, I sit in the passenger seat. “You drive,” I tell Doc. “I can’t fit behind the wheel with her.”

  Doc sets the backpack carefully in the backseat beside the unconscious monster. I wrap my hands around the bundle shaking inside my shirt and stare straight ahead. When we pull away, I try not to look back at the creature, the one we killed, the one we left to be torn apart by dogs and picked at by crows. I try not to look, but I do.

  Doc maneuvers the solar car around the barrier and out of the city. He keeps the headlights off, which makes the going slow. With the windows rolled down, the wind whips through, fluttering our clothes, but at least it helps with the smell. Still, the stink of death, even the feel of it, hovers in the car like an odor that can’t be washed away.

  What have we done? I think. What have we done?

  When he pulls onto the dark road leading back the compound, Doc finally speaks. “Gun’s in the pack. We might need it.”

  I lean around, open the pack, and draw out the gun. When I hand it to him, he shakes his head. “I’m sorry.” When I look at him questioningly, he nods toward the backseat. “I’m sorry I shot it. Shot her.”

  I take a deep breath. “You were trying to save me.”

  “Well, I really screwed up.”

  I don’t look at him. I stare at the crescent moon and the stars around it. “Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not worth it.”

  “What?” he asks, flicking a glance at me before looking back at the road.

  “Nothing.” I rub the little girl’s body beneath my shirt.

  Doc looks over. “It looks like you’re pregnant.” I glance down at my rounded shirt and then at Doc. He shrugs. “Sorry.”

  I don’t answer. I keep one hand on the gun and one on the girl.

  Suddenly, Doc slams on the brakes. I can barely get my hand out before my body goes crashing in to the dash. Luckily, I’m able to keep my weight off the little girl, and, instead, slam my shoulder into the dash. “What the—?”

  “Look.” He points out the windshield.

  About a hundred yards away, men walk three abreast past the intersection—twenty, maybe thirty, all carrying weapons. A burly guy with moonlight shining on his bald head swings a baseball bat lazily in front of him. Another carries a rusty sword slung over one shoulder. I see a few guns, but mostly blunt objects or blades. They’re looking for a fight. And they’re headed for the compound.

  “Crap,” Doc whispers. “Have they seen us?”

  I watch for a moment, but no one turns our way. “The car is so damn quiet. Thank God you have the headlights off.”

  Doc grips the steering wheel with white knuckles. “I could turn around and circle back.”

  “Don’t.” I watch the procession of violence. “These men aren’t heading to the compound for tea. Follow them. But be careful.” I grab the door handle.

  “Me?” he asks.

  Stashing the gun in my pants, I try to pry the little monkey from around my body, but her grip only tightens until she’s crunching my ribs. “Ow. Okay, okay. I guess this peanut is coming with me.”

  “Coming with you?” Doc looks terrified.

  “I’ll go on foot. They aren’t moving very fast, and if I don’t stick to the road, I can get to the compound before them
.” I grab the pack, make sure the box of ammo is inside, and hand the Taser to Doc. “Wish we had two guns.”

  “You know what I’m going to say.” Doc’s eyes gaze into mine.

  “Then don’t. I have to find Auntie.” Quietly opening the car door, I slip outside. I can’t see the men marching up the road, but I know they aren’t far. “See you at the compound.”

  Doc looks miserable, but I have to give him credit. He doesn’t once tell me how terrible this idea is. That it may be my worst one yet. Desperate people do desperate things. And when you’re beyond desperate, what do you do? The only thing you can think of.

  I shut the door without a sound. When I open my shirt, two dark, round eyes peer up at me.

  “Hang tight, Peanut.” Looking back up, I take off running.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Clay

  I almost can’t believe my eyes when I behold the scene unfoldin’ before me. The dark shapes are nothing but shadows illuminated by the glow of the fires raging down below, but the voices are unmistakable. Hank’s whiny alto can be heard from every rock peak across this valley. With any luck, Cole’s with him.

  I was lucky as hell to get out of that pipe. And lucky as hell it busted away from its strappings and fell against the side of the crater at an angle where I could climb out with a bit of sweat. The smoke was terrible. For a minute, I thought I’d suffocate in that hot metal tube, but then my head popped out into clean night air. I was able to climb up the rocky slope to the top. That’s when I heard Hank’s donkey bray.

  Even now, his whine cuts through the night like broken glass through skin. “Clay’s dead. Now, it’s your turn.”

  “He’s not dead!” a voice yells. A kid’s voice. “Clay’s not dead!”

  My pulse picks up before I can even form the words. Cole.

  I shoulda known that bastard would go after Cole. He’s been eying him ever since we strolled into their shantytown. And there’s no accountin’ for what Hank might do to Cole if I ain’t there to stop him.

  I start running.

  A series of pops explode in the crater ahead of me. Down below, a fire flares, momentarily illuminatin’ the bodies on the ridge. There’s a lump sittin’ on the ground that can only be Betsy. Three other figures stand by the cliff’s edge, two little and one big. The big one is the driver. He probably still has his gun, though there’s no tellin’ if he can use it. And he sure as shit can’t use it like me.