Barren Sky, page 10
“Wait.”
The boy turned, and she could see his eyes again. “Follow.”
She heard him open a door, and Dia followed. Although she couldn’t see it, Dia felt as though they’d stepped into a large room—as if she could swing her arms around and hit nothing. Before she could ask, the boy sparked a lighter which nearly blinded her.
“Where are we?”
Dia had used her arm to shield her eyes from the sudden light, but they quickly adjusted. She saw the boy standing in the middle of the room holding a lit candle.
“Home.”
“You live here?”
The boy nodded.
“Alone?”
He laughed, and this time Dia saw his teeth. The boy was missing some, and others looked black as night. But she noticed something about his incisors that didn’t register right away.
“Friend?” he asked.
“You want me to be your friend?”
The boy nodded vigorously.
“What is your name?”
“Feto.”
“I’m Dia.”
He smiled.
“How long have you been living here? How are you getting food? This is no place for a boy to be all on his own. The ruins aren’t safe.”
“I feed.”
She took a step forward and the boy took a step back, the candle’s flame flickering and threating to go out from the sudden movement.
“Feed what? Do you have a dog?”
“No, no.” The boy’s expression changed, the smile morphing into a grimace. “Feed. Feed!”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Dia could tell the child was becoming frustrated, but she didn’t know what to say.
“Feed!”
“Feed what, Feto? I don’t understand.”
Dia thought about Lane. How long had she been following this boy, and where was he? Shouldn’t he have come looking for her by now?
“Feed, feed, feed.” The boy mumbled the words repeatedly, now looking at the floor.
“I should go. I have a friend waiting for me.”
The boy grabbed Dia’s wrist, his grip like the jaw of a powerful snake. He pulled her in so that she could smell the body odor and dried feces on him. She recoiled, but he wouldn’t let go.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Feed, feed, feed.”
Feto’s breath stank like rotting meat and Dia heaved, trying not to vomit. He smiled, and that was when she noticed his teeth again, but this time her brain processed what she’d seen.
Pointed. His teeth had been filed down to points.
“Feed, feed, feed.”
Dia slapped his hand away. Feto yelped and blew out the flame, leaving after-images in Dia’s field of vision. She stumbled around, her feet stepping in what she assumed were piles of wet and molding books. But the stench that rose from the floor was not that of sopping pulp. Dia had spent enough time in the ruins to recognize the reek of decomposing flesh.
She gasped, stumbling around and knocking books from shelves. She could see the dim light at the doorway, though. Her breath came in quick, short bursts and she heard Feto whimpering behind her. He sounded like a beaten dog.
Shadows crossed her path and the bookstore fell into almost total darkness again. The human stench became overpowering and she pulled her cloak up over her face. Then Dia ran into a wall, a sharp pain radiating through her knee and down her leg when she hit it.
“Feed, feed, feed.” The boy was right behind her.
Dia heard the flick of the lighter again, and this time the flame lit three candles. As the light filled the sci-fi section of the small bookstore, she looked around.
Eight or nine other people stood with her in the room. They all wore rags, and the atrocious odor made her eyes water. Feto approached again, smiling and putting his pointed teeth on full display. When Dia looked up, she noticed the others grinning, also with teeth filed to points.
“We need to feed,” the boy said. “Feed, feed, feed.”
Chapter 21
They’d already had Lane bound to a chair in the basement of the building when Feto had led Dia down the steps. Several candles had been lit, but she didn’t fear the old boxes catching fire because about an inch of water sat on the floor. Dark streaks of black mold crawled up the cinder block walls that wept with excess moisture. Two empty chairs sat against one wall while Lane and another empty chair were against the other.
If the upstairs had been unbearably contaminated with the smell of death, the basement was hell. Dia vomited halfway down the stairs, but the people behind her didn’t even give her a moment to spit before pushing her in the back. They escorted her off the steps and across the floor, and then sat her down in the chair next to Lane. He looked at her, his eyes dark, but he seemed unhurt.
“You should have come right back.”
Dia looked at Lane as they tied her arms to the chair. “It wouldn’t have mattered. They have the numbers.”
She looked around and confirmed it again for herself. Nine adults and the boy, each one now staring at them while licking their lips.
“I told you. I warned you about these ruins, about the monsters that live here. Now you see.”
Lane was right, but it wasn’t going to get them out of their predicament. Dia turned her attention back to the boy, the only one she’d interacted with thus far.
“What are you going to do with us?”
“You’ve seen their teeth, haven’t you?” Lane asked Dia before the boy could respond. “I’m assuming you know why they do that.”
“To more easily tear flesh from bone.”
“Yes, girl. But not any flesh. Human flesh.”
None of the people so much as moved, each one still staring at Lane and Dia. Feto moved forward and tucked a lock of Dia’s hair behind her ears before running a finger down the side of her face. “Pretty.”
The adults in the room gasped. Several growled.
“What are they doing?” she asked Lane.
“How the fuck should I know?”
“So pretty.”
Dia smiled and looked at the boy. He was older than she’d originally thought. Not her age, but maybe only four or five years younger.
“Do you have any friends?”
The boy leapt back, shaking his head and spewing words. “No! No! No! Forbidden. Friends forbidden.”
“Good, because I’m not your friend. So, we can talk, right?”
He looked around the room, his eyes moving from one adult to another. None spoke. “Yes. Enemies talk.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m your enemy, either. We’ve just met.”
Feto nodded.
“My friend here. His name is Lane. We need to search the ruins for parts. You see, we have a way of making water clean, so you can drink it. If we can’t do this, many people will die.”
Feto stared at Dia, unblinking.
“So, you have to let us go. If you do, I promise we’ll bring you some clean water.”
A man with a patchy beard and scar tissue where his left eye should have been walked over to Feto. He bent down and whispered in the boy’s ear. Feto nodded twice and then looked at Dia. “We’re hungry.”
“I understand. We are, too. But there are many things we can live on, to fill our bellies.” She closed and opened her eyes quickly and took a short breath, thinking about what they’d already put in their stomachs. She shivered and tried breathing through her mouth to keep the stench from her nose. “But we die within three days without water.”
The man shook his head. “No. No water.”
“You don’t want any or you don’t have any.”
“Feed. Feed. Feed.”
Lane groaned and Dia turned to face him. “They’re fucking animals,” he said. “You’re trying to reason with animals. Forget it. They’re going to barbecue us. Just accept it.”
Dia looked back at the boy. “If you let us go, I promise to come back with water. I know you’re all hungry, but I’m sure you also understand you’ll die without water. Unless you have a tank or cistern hiding somewhere, I’d say you’re all on the verge of dehydration. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The one-eyed man put a hand on Feto’s shoulder. “Liars.”
“I’m not lying. About any of it. Let me go and I’ll prove it to you.”
Feto raised a hand and the man walked backward and into position with the others. “Okay.”
Dia smiled and looked at Lane, whose mouth hung open.
“Okay, meaning you’ll let us go?” she asked.
“Yes. But you get hour.”
Gap-toothed grins spread across the faces of the adults in the room. Some even began to chitter like hens.
“I don’t understand.”
“Hunting.”
“They’re turning it into a game.” Lane shook his head, snarling at Dia. “They’re going to give us an hour’s head start before they hunt us.”
She looked at Feto. “A hunt in the ruins? Is that it?”
He smiled.
She looked at Lane. “Those are better odds than what we have now.”
Lane shook his head, but didn’t otherwise respond.
“What are the rules?”
“No rules,” Feto said. “One hour. Then we hunt.”
“Okay. Then cut us loose.”
Feto looked at the one-eyed man, who immediately stepped up, brandished a shiny knife, and cut the rope off their hands and feet.
“Not home.”
Dia helped Lane to his feet before answering Feto. “So, you want us to go deeper into the ruins.”
“Yes, girl. He’s telling us we can’t run and hide. So, I guess there are rules.”
“Feed. Feed. Feed.”
“No, no,” Dia said, addressing the boy whose voice cracked on the third ‘feed.’ “We understand.”
“I have a feeling the clock is ticking. Say goodbye to your new boyfriend and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Dia leaned down and stared into Feto’s eyes. “I promise that I will return with water for you and your people. I’m sorry to say that you will not be eating us today, so consider the water a consolation prize.”
The one-eyed man snarled and tapped his knife on the wall several times.
“C’mon. He’s telling us the clock is ticking. You can talk to the boy when you come back with his water jug.”
“Go,” Feto said to Dia.
She brushed past him with Lane behind her. Dia took two steps upward and then turned to face the clan of cannibals, all of their blackened faces looking back at her.
“You have a choice. You don’t have to live like this or do this to each other. With fresh water, we can grow crops, raise livestock. You don’t have to live in the cold, wet shadows of the ruins. Believe me, I know this.”
“One hour. Less. Go.”
Feto had spoken the words with a smile, enjoying this game in the same way that all young boys enjoyed playing games.
Lane pushed Dia up the steps and out of the basement, not allowing her another response. She fumbled through the book racks until she saw the gauze of daylight at the front door.
Lane coughed and then spoke. “The sun is coming up. We’re going to lose any advantage we had in the darkness.”
Dia stepped over a box and stopped in the threshold, staring through the broken window of the store’s glass door.
“Did you see their faces? The way they moved through the basement? I don’t think we ever had the dark of night on our side.”
Lane sighed and rubbed his only wrist against his hip to get the blood flowing again. “They’re going to have their fun and then they’re going to eat us anyway. We should never have come to the ruins.”
“I refuse to die with regret.” Dia smiled. “Try and keep up with me if you can. Nobody can run the ruins like I can.”
“Let’s hope I can be just a stride faster than you.”
Chapter 22
Dia led Lane down a long corridor—an alley hemmed in on both sides by the solid brick exterior of the buildings. Dumpsters sat spaced every five feet along, most of them blackened by a fire that had had burnt out decades ago. She leapt over piles of trash that the wind had pulled into the alley and accumulated like leaves in the forest.
“It’s a dead-end. We should turn around.”
She stopped and turned, waiting another second for Lane to catch up. His hair was plastered to his forehead and he took deep, heaving breaths.
“There’s a turn in the alley ahead. I can see it from here.”
“You’re wrong.” Lane gestured. “These types of alleys almost always end at a fence or the back of another building.”
Dia shook her head. “Trust me. I know ruins. C’mon.”
She’d begun sprinting for the turn in the alley when the sounds of voices reverberated through the silence of the still afternoon. Not just any voices, she knew. The hunters had picked up their scent. They were coming.
As if realizing the same, Lane appeared next to her, trying to outrun the shouts of death that would be on their heels within minutes.
The alley did turn, and Lane was right. There was a fence at the end, an opening in the man-made canyon they’d been running through. Dia’s heartbeat picked up and she ran faster now because the fence at the end was sagging in the middle, the top rail sitting only about a foot off the ground.
As she leapt over a pile of porcelain with hunks of sinks and toilets sticking out like sharp teeth, Dia heard Lane yell.
“Dia, don’t! It’s a—”
The sound of the sliding dirt interrupted Lane and, for a split second, her brain couldn’t process what was happening. She felt her feet floating and Dia waved her arms but felt nothing, plunging down into a freefall. After a moment in the air, she hit the ground with a thump, her right foot smashing down first, and then her right hip and side taking the brunt of the impact. She rolled over onto her back and looked up to see fading daylight cutting through a rough-edged circle at least fifteen feet above her. Dia closed her eyes as the pain radiated from her ankle to her ribs. She used her left hand to touch her right shoulder, pulling it back with a wince. Dia heard a moan then, and looked to her left, where she saw Lane.
His fall into the pit had been less fortunate than hers, if that was possible. Even in the depths of the hole, she could see the slick, dark essence blooming on his chest.
“Dia?” The question had come as a groan. “Damn edges collapsed before I could jump out of the way.”
“Lane, are you okay?”
She sat up and sucked in a quick breath, her eyes watering and her hands shaking. She didn’t think she’d broken anything, feeling some bruises which wouldn’t kill her.
He laughed, and when he did so, Dia knew he was anything but okay.
“I got this hunk of rebar stuck in my chest, but I’m otherwise fine.”
She scrambled to him on her hands and knees. Lane sighed, his eyes closing as Dia looked down. A hunk of steel, a rod about two inches in diameter, stuck out of Lane’s chest like an arrow from a master archer. She could see blood oozing out of his chest around where the rod protruded.
“I fell right on this thing. Fucking sucks.”
“You’ll be fine. Let me see what I can—”
“No, I won’t be. The second you lift me off this kabob skewer, I’ll bleed out even faster than I am now.”
He tried to laugh at the joke that Dia hadn’t understood.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Trap. A pit,” Lane said, coughing and then spitting blood. “Stop wasting time on me and start looking for a way out. A semi-buried hallway; a door. If we fell into a basement or near one, there could be hope for you.”
“Can’t we climb out?”
“Not possible. The sides of the hole are soft, and you’ll risk collapsing them and burying yourself.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“That’s not your choice. Now, start looking.”
She shook her head and kept her eyes down, hoping they’d adjust to the low light filtering down from above. She tore at several hunks of asphalt and piles of rocks before she could see the shape of a doorway emerge in the debris. Dia began clawing at the scree, the dry dirt easily giving way. Dia smiled, using both her hands to fling the earth aside.
“I found a door.”
“Good, good. You’d better open it before they get down here.”
Dia looked over her shoulder at Lane, and then up. Two silhouettes stood on the rim of the sink hole above them, silent and unmoving. Within seconds, several more appeared, until they rimmed the edge.
She turned back to the door, clawing with bleeding fingernails until she had enough clearance to try the knob. Dia had spent enough time in the ruins to tell from the hinges that the door swung inward—a stroke of luck in an otherwise dire situation.
“They’re getting rope.”
The knob turned, and the door swung open on rusty hinges, revealing nothing but another curtain of utter darkness. She felt air pushing against her face. At least the door opened to a passage that went somewhere.
Dia didn’t bother asking how many or how they were going to safely descend into the hold. Instead, she scampered back to Lane and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“C’mon. I’ll lift you up. Once we get through the doorway, I’ll bar it from the other side. If we’re inside a building, it’ll take them a long time to figure out how to get in. But we gotta go now.”
“Dia, stop. I’m not going with you. I can’t.”
She felt tears running down her face as the dirt began to rain down from above. Two of the hunters had dropped rope down the side of the hole. She had twenty, maybe thirty seconds before they’d be at the bottom.
“I believe in you. I knew it the moment we met. You need to rebuild this world. It won’t be the old timers like me who can do it. I’m not even sure guys like Willie or women like Quinn are capable. We have too much history with death. But you’re different. Now, go through the door and let me buy you an extra few minutes.”
Lane pulled a round object from the strap across his chest and held it in the palm of his hand. It looked like a green egg.
_preview.jpg)
