The Wilds: The Wilds Book One (9 page)

His friend screamed in outrage and even the girl I’d just saved looked pissed. Now that she could get free she was all righteous indignation. “You idiot, you just cost me a job.”

I looked about the place. They all saw me now, including Dax in the corner by the bar.

“I saved you,” I told the waitress.

“You better pay me now!” she screamed.

My unconscious target’s friend grabbed my arm in a death grip. “Oh, she’s going to definitely pay for that.”

I saw Dax heading over from the other side of the bar not bothering to hide his irritation. I straightened and made the most of my diminutive height and said to my accoster calmly, “I’d unhand me, sir, if you knew what was good for you.”

His mouth just gaped open and I figured I needed to bring this down a bit for him to understand. “You want a piece of this? Because I’ll give you a lot more than what you think. You like a little—”

“Don’t do it,” I heard Dax say just as the words “Bloody Death with your afternoon drink?” came out of my mouth.

The man’s hand jerked away from me like I had worms oozing from my skin.

The room went deadly silent and I heard Dax say to someone, presumably Tank or Lucy, “Get the bikes ready.” And then he wrapped an arm around my waist and was carrying me out of the bar just as the place started going crazy. People screamed “Plaguer” and were becoming altogether frantic.

I heard someone scream, “Block the door,” as others yelled, “Kill her.” But whatever their intentions, Dax cruised through the crowd as he held me in front of him like a shield of death and they scrambled out of our way, although I had fists ready and legs primed to kick.

Just as we were leaving, though, I saw a man stand up in the farthest, darkest corner of the place and I thought I caught a wisp of storm-gray haze around him. A Dark Walker? Here? It was so quick it could’ve been just some heavy smoke. It didn’t make sense that one would be here. All the stories I’d heard whispered over the years had said Dark Walkers stuck to the countries. We were out the door too quickly for me to confirm if I’d actually seen one, and on the bikes a minute later.

I was forced to cling to Dax for fear of falling off the bike, and I had a feeling it wasn’t from fear of people chasing us that he was going so fast. We were both riding high on adrenaline. Now that was going to be a good story.

He finally skidded the bike sideways, bringing us to a stop at a violent angle.

He hopped off the bike and I had to jump off myself or I would’ve gone down with it.

Tank and Lucy slowed a bit past us, clearly not looking to do the kamikaze slip and slide stop, hoping your legs made it through intact.

He stormed off a few feet and then turned on me. “What was that?” His finger pointed in the direction we’d come from.

He wasn’t screaming but the little vein in his neck was popping out and he had a new stare going on. I didn’t think he’d actually hurt me, but I’d go so far as to name this one
I’m going to kick your ass.
Didn’t change anything. It wasn’t like he’d kill me. He needed me.

“I thought the girl could use some help.” I threw my hands up and tilted my head. Enough said, no?

“And you thought you should be the one to do something?” His voice had gone down a couple of decibels and I heard Lucy and Tank rev up their bikes.

“We’ll just be a little up ahead,” Lucy said quietly, and the two of them took off like they were the ones about to get reamed. Wusses.

“Yes. Someone had to. I thought I handled the situation pretty well.”

He advanced on me but stopped just short of stepping on my toes, which was a good thing because they were much smaller than his boots.

“We had to run out of the place because you attacked a client that she
wanted
. That’s well done?” We were almost nose to nose.

“I get what you’re saying but hypothetically, if she had been in need”—I stopped for a dramatic pause and laid my hand on my chest—“I would’ve saved her.” I couldn’t wait to tell the girls this story.

“You’re right. That would’ve been just brilliant, but she didn’t need help.” He walked away again as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to beat me or run away from me. He ran both his hands through his short, dark hair. “You know, maybe you Plaguers are fucking crazy.”

I shrugged. “It could be true.” Maybe I was. Lucy and Tank had made a run for it while I didn’t fear taking him on. Yeah, he had a lot of bark and I didn’t doubt there was a serious bite to back it up, but so what? I had some teeth too. And the other thing? A bad day out here was still better than a good day back at the Cement Giant.

He let out a long sigh, the kind that told you just how exhausting he found me. “Why did you have to announce to everyone that you were a Plaguer?”

“To get the guy off me.”

He shook his head. “I was walking over toward you. You knew I was going to handle him and don’t say you didn’t.”

“It was in my arsenal and I used it. I’m sorry if that bothers you. Should I be meek and embarrassed of it?”

“You wanted to shove it in their faces.”

I snorted, not bothering to respond.

“You know, you’re a very hard person to like.”

I put my hand to my chest and started fake crying. “Oh Dax, please, not that! Please say you like me.”

He shook his head and walked to the bike that was lying on its side. He got on and I didn’t wait too long to follow. He might not kill me, but I wasn’t so sure if he wouldn’t leave me hanging out there with a possible mob on their way just to screw with me.

The look I got when I climbed on confirmed my suspicion that he’d thought of it.

We caught up to Lucy and Tank only a few minutes later and we didn’t stop again until it was nearly dark.

Tank set about making a fire, and it looked like we’d be camping out here for the night. I settled myself against a boulder while Lucy started digging through her pack.

“What do we have left?” Dax asked.

“We’ve got four jerkies left. One each.”

“One and a third each,” Tank said.

“One each,” Lucy said, surprising the hell out of me.

“Why does she get to eat?” Tank asked. “She just cost us our dinner and now we’re going to have to drive through the night because she tipped off everyone in the area that there’s a Plaguer around.”

“She eats,” Lucy said. “I might’ve done the same thing.” She shot me a look that was far from
hey, let’s be friends
but close to
maybe I don’t totally hate you
.

“Those aren’t the rules. She cost us a meal,” Tank said. “You cost the group a meal, you go hungry. That’s the way it’s always been.”

I thought Dax was going to let them fight it out but then he spoke up. “I don’t want to feed her right now either but she’s a walking skeleton, and I need her alive. If there was one jerky, she’d get it before any of us.” He reached over and grabbed two dried meat sticks from Lucy and tried to hand me one.

“I’m fine. I don’t need it,” I said, looking at Tank.

Dax grabbed my hand and shoved the jerky into my palm. “I took you out of that compound for a reason. I will force-feed you that jerky before I let you starve yourself.”

“Fine. I’ll eat it. Whatever. You don’t need to get so bent out of shape about it.” I was hungry as hell so it wasn’t actually a concession, but he didn’t know that. I mean hell, I knew I needed the calories and the Cement Giant wasn’t going to blow itself to smithereens.

I took a couple of bites as Dax got up and walked out of the camp.

I gnawed on the stuff as I leaned against my rock. “What flavor is this? It’s really good stuff.”

Lucy and Tank looked at me kind of oddly. Hey, if I was going to eat it I didn’t see a lot of reason to pretend it sucked. These people were weird.

Chapter 11

We arrived at Dax’s home the next day. I knew it was his because when we pulled up to the man guarding this gate nobody had to dig around for glass jars filled with fuel. The man just opened it once he saw us. His eyes fixed on me as we passed, and I had a feeling there weren’t too many strangers welcomed here.

A large farmhouse sat in the middle of a huge field and dominated the area that looked like it was gated all around, except for where it backed up to a stone cliff. There were other buildings spread out as well that appeared to have been built more recently, all smaller than the main house. Some looked like small ranches while others looked like one-bedroom cottages. There were a couple barn structures and scattered sheds, and there was a windmill too. Off in the distance I could see animals roaming the area outside and other gated, partitioned-off areas, which looked greener than the rest. A couple of specks in the far distance looked like people riding horseback along the perimeter.

We pulled up to a porch that ran the length of the main house and two people came out. One was an older lady with a head of white hair who had to be about seventy.

I’d heard people in the Wilds died young but I’d also been told they had no fuel. I’d decided very little of my information was reliable. Half was Newco propaganda and the other dreamt up internally, probably by Ms. Edith. At the current rate of propaganda I’d been fed, for all I knew, my head full of information could have been ninety-five percent bullshit. I was willing to give it a five percent accuracy rate, because even bullshit usually had a thread of truth running through it.

There was another guy there who looked close to my age with a mop of shaggy, dark hair. He was tall and broad but lean, like he hadn’t had time to fill out all the growing he’d recently done. It was the first boy I’d been around that was close to my age since I’d gone to the compound.

He waved a silent greeting and I instantly liked him. I didn’t even have to get close enough to see the dark memories. Some people were like that, so good their insides sort of just glowed through their eyes. In this case, large hazel ones with thick black lashes that looked so wholesome they made me think of peach pies like the ones Moobie would describe.

“I see it went well,” the older woman on the porch said as her gaze landed on me.

“Dahlia, this is Fudge and that’s Bookie.” Dax stepped up on the porch beside her, wrapped an arm around the woman’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “We’re starving. What do you have brewing?”

“Don’t act like you don’t smell my meatloaf cooking,” she said with a smile. “It’ll be ready in a few hours. There’s some fresh fruit and dried meat to pick on until then.”

Dax glanced at me and then back to Fudge. “Can you handle this?”

“I’ll take care of the details. Go take care of things.”

“Thanks,” he said, and patted her on the shoulder as he left.

“I’m Fudge,” the woman said, and waved me forward as Bookie walked down the stairs to help Lucy and Tank with their stuff.

I looked up at the woman and hesitated, not wanting to know what bad thing I’d find. When I’d gone into
Eat, Drink, Sleep
, there had been too many people close to me at once. If I didn’t center in on one person, they all sort of blocked each other out. It was kind of like too many people trying to get through one door until no one could. One on one, it was a lot harder to avoid what was lurking underneath.

“Come on, now,” she said, and I pushed myself to move closer but I had a really bad feeling about this one.

When I got near people, sometimes it was the worst things they did that would come to me. Other times like these, it was the worst thing done to them, the deepest scar they had that they couldn’t outrun, delivered up to me on a silver platter, garnished with scents and feels. If I was lucky, it was a little fuzzy around the edges, and other times it was like I was right there going through it with them.

Fudge had been a young girl when it happened. She was sitting in the middle of the woods while people were draining her parents of their blood in front of her, slowly and methodically. I could feel the hands on her, holding her tiny frame in place.

After there wasn’t a drop of blood left, they skinned them and threw their hides on a pile with the rest of the ones they’d gathered. I’d heard about these people, even in the countries. They sacrificed humans in belief that it would save them from Bloody Death outbreaks.

They finished with her parents and turned to her, but a blur of activity stopped them, wisps of hair as two creatures tore through the area. I couldn’t see anything clearly but I heard the growls. The creatures moved so quickly it was hard to figure out what had happened until there was nothing but dead bodies, torn apart and lying before her. So these were the mighty beasts of the Wilds I’d heard about. It was said that the strongest ruled in the Wilds. Fudge’s tormentors had just dropped a rung on the food chain.

I stumbled but caught myself with a hand on the top step before I did a face plant. It was one of the most terrifying things I’d ever seen, and I wanted to know how she’d escaped the beasts with her life but I wouldn’t ask. That might have been one of the most frustrating things ever. I hated the damn cliffhangers but I wasn’t stupid enough to try and get the sequel.

By time I was straightened back up, she had a look that said it all.

“So it’s true?” I could hear the wonder in her voice.

I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I said. The two words fell short for my having intruded on such an experience, but I wasn’t used to getting caught and didn’t have a better line ready. I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for exactly, that she’d been through that or for my encroaching on her hurtful memory. It just seemed the appropriate thing to do.

Margo had said it a couple of times when talking to other people in the compound after hearing their sad stories—and there was
always
a sad story. Margo had been a late bloomer, as we called them, and come to the compound after ten. I didn’t understand why she was saying sorry when she heard their stories, since none of it was her doing, but it had made them feel better. Since she’d had the best social skills, I’d followed her lead.

“Not your fault. You don’t get to choose, do you?”

“No. Sometimes if there’s a lot of people around, they’ll cancel each other out, but I don’t really have any control of it.” I’d wished I could stop it sometimes. It was hard to explain to others what it was like to have your first memory of most of the people you meet be something so terrible. If I let it, it could make the world seem like a very horrible place, but that wasn’t the world I chose to see.

“We’ve all got our burdens.” She turned and headed into the house.

I followed her as the simplest things were setting my senses off into delirium, like the sound of our feet crossing the wood of the porch. I walked into the house with her and desires I’d tamped down over the years were trying to flood up to the surface all at once. In all my years in the Cement Giant, when I imagined what a home should look like, this was it. A massive fireplace sat against the wall, competing for attention with the spindled staircase. A table not that far away looked like it would accommodate a huge family for a homemade dinner. Nothing was bright and shiny but everything was clean and warm, like the things had been used for years with love and adoration.

She turned toward the wooden stairs and began climbing them. I followed as I tried to not touch everything within reach, like the flowers that sat on a well-worn table on the landing, or reach down and touch what appeared to be a braided rug that ran the length of the hallway.

She stepped into a bedroom at the end of a long hall and waved me in. “You're going to stay in here.”

The four walls and a door were the only similarity between this place and where I’d slept at the compound. Instead of a harsh gray cover it had a soft white blanket that my fingers itched to touch.

“I’ll bring you a snack and get you something to wear. Didn’t know who was coming or how big you’d be so didn’t have anything prepared.”

“I’m staying here?” I asked, probably sounding like the mental patient most thought I was.

“Yes. I’ll be right back,” she said. I had a feeling it was as much to get distance from me, and the hurtful things I’d made her remember, than to do anything else.

She left and I didn’t know what to do. Afraid to touch all the wonderful things in here, like the fluffy pillows or the frilled curtains hanging above the picture window. I was still standing in the middle of the room when she came back ten minutes later with a pile of things in her hands.

“You can make yourself comfortable,” she said.

I nodded even though I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what that meant. No one had ever told me to “get comfortable” before.

“Here’s a few shirts and pants.” She looked me over. “They might be large on you but that couldn’t be helped.” She looked down at my feet. “I found you a pair of boots but they might be a bit big as well.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” I said as I watched her place the brown leather shoes by the wall.

“Come with me.”

We walked back down the hall into what I recognized was a bathroom. “I thought there weren’t working bathrooms in the Wilds?” Even in the country, only the rich could afford these kinds of amenities.

“We don’t heat the water except in the winter, but it’s functional. There’s a water reserve attached to the house that catches rain. Just be warned, we’ve had some good rainfalls recently, but come drought time, you take more than a five-minute shower and you’ll be catching some serious flack around here. We run the generators from sundown to ten, but if you want to stay up later than that you’ll have to use candles.”

“You’ve got fuel?” I asked.

She smiled. “Don’t get the wrong impression. This isn’t how things are in most of the Wilds, but Dax…” Her words trailed off until she caught herself again. “Dax is a resourceful one. We live pretty good here.”

“How many people live here?”

“In the house? Only a handful, but our community has probably a hundred or so. There about twenty or so within this immediate area but there’s more beyond the gates.”

She moved to a cabinet and pulled out a tannish-brown bar of soap and a large cloth. “This is yours. We only make soap once every month, so don’t leave it in a puddle of water. Make it last.” She walked over to the door. “Now that Dax is back, we’ll be having a feast tomorrow, so rest up.”

“What’s the feast for?” I asked as she was shutting the door.

“Dax’s return. Everyone will come.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“Few weeks now. I’m guessing you’re from the country of Newco?”

I nodded.

“Figured. Your country was the last on the list. He’s been trying to track down a Plaguer for a while.”

I didn’t know that much of the world beyond Newco, and even that was limited. I did know there were a handful of other countries, though. Did they all have compounds where they stashed Plaguers away? “And he couldn’t find one?”

“Not if he ended up in Newco.”

Were there any more Plaguers left? Was I one of the last ones?

“Don’t worry. Things will work out,” she said with a smile.

I nodded and she shut the door but I didn’t believe it for a second. Things didn’t just work out. That was only what you told little children.

***

There was a sandwich sitting on the table beside the bed when I got back to the room. I was starving, but what if there was something to what they had said in the compound? What if eating a lot would make me sick again? But it would make me healthier, so wouldn’t that do the opposite of getting me sick? But what if the virus was still in me and it made that stronger too? I’d take a couple bites only. That should be safe.

Two bites had turned into inhaling the sandwich.

I’d chewed my last bite while standing and looking at the bed. She did tell me this was my room. She had to assume I’d use it.

I stretched out on it and wondered how they made their mattresses. The ones at the Cement Giant had been a thin layer of feathers, but this one felt like I was lying on a cloud.

It was dark when I awoke. I’d only meant to lie down for a minute, but that intention went to the same place as only having a couple of bites of food.

My drowsy brain thought I was still back in my cell until I smelled the smoke and looked up to see a small girl of maybe five or six hovering over me. She had riotous red hair just like mine sticking out every which way, and was holding a bundle of what looked like weeds that were smoking. She smiled widely at me.

I drew a big fat blank on the memories, and I was grateful. Kid memories were the worst, just unfiltered pain with a nice serving of shock because most of them didn’t see it coming. Nothing had scarred her too badly…yet.

“I’m Tiffy,” she said.

“Hi, Tiffy.” I looked at the smoking weeds as she moved her bundle back and forth a couple times as if she couldn’t decide what was the best spot for them, over my chest or closer to my head with a couple gratuitous ashes for flavor. My brain searched for some explanation that made this normal but came up with nothing. “What are you doing?” I asked.