“Was I talking to you, Trots?” Rafe snapped back. “Go eat some hay.”
I steered him toward the station. “You don’t have to be rude.”
As Rafe and I passed the church, a woman came out, looking sunburnt and tough despite her flowered dress. She wiped at her eyes and then propped open the double doors. The sound of organ music drifted out. I paused in the street and saw mourners inside in their somber best. I hadn’t really heard organ music since my mother’s memorial service. Of course, then it was just piped into the room where my dad and I sat alone with the casket, listening to something by Bach — Mom loved Bach. That day, each chord had hit me so hard, I thought they would pound me right through the floor.
My mom had had lots of friends and though I didn’t forgive them for staying away when she was sick, I had still expected to see them at her service. It was their last chance to see her and say good-bye.
“Where is everybody?” I’d asked my dad.
“Doesn’t matter,” he’d said softly, gathering me onto his lap. “We’re here and we’re her family.”
People and manimals started filing out of the church in groups of two and three, squinting in the light. Like Rafe, they all wore weapons, mostly guns and knives, as well as strange combinations of clothing. Several had loaded on the jewelry like Alva, and many wore hats. I squirmed at the sight of the humans and manimals so close together. I wasn’t about to tell Rafe, but I did understand his reaction at a gut level. I didn’t want to get too close to infected people even if they weren’t technically feral yet. At least I made an effort to hide my discomfort, unlike him.
The manimals were not only walking side by side with humans, but also hand in hand or with their arms around each other, which weirded me out even more. Then again it had been a funeral, and they were all clearly feeling the loss. A sobbing woman passed us, buoyed along by a man so huge and hairy, he could only have been infected by bear. Two young children held the clawed hands of a man with vertical stripes of dark fur over his eyes and gray hair sprouting thickly from his ears. Badger maybe?
“Who was it?” I asked Rafe quietly as we joined the flow of people and manimals headed for the station. “The first victim?”
“Yeah, Jared. He had farm duty,” he said. “The shift had ended, but he wanted to finish the patch he was working on, so he was out there alone. When he didn’t come back that night, his wife and Sid went looking for him. He’d made it halfway home. He couldn’t make it the rest of the way, what with being ripped open and all.”
I felt the color in my face drain away.
Rafe waved me forward. “The place will fill up fast. Usually it’s just hacks hanging out at this time of day.” At my questioning look, he added, “Path hackers.”
“English, please.”
“Someone you hire to get you from compound to compound safely. They know the best routes and will hack up any ferals along the way. You don’t want to travel without one.” He stopped next to a low stone wall and dropped his pack onto it. “Mack spends a lot of time in there.” He unzipped the knapsack and pulled his filthy shirt over his head. “It’s a good place to pick up information about what’s happening in the zone.” He began pawing through his bag. “Anyway, stick close. Most of them aren’t worth the dirt they’re caked in. Except me, of course.” He shot me a sly smile.
Why was it that every time I saw him bare chested my mind went to art? When we’d first met, I’d thought of an archangel, and now, Rafe reminded me of Michelangelo’s David. All he needed was a rock in one overlarge hand and a slingshot flung over his shoulder. Even his stance was like the statue’s, slung back and yet poised for action. When I was little, I’d spent way too much time staring at a photo of David in one of my father’s art books. “A High Renaissance interpretation of the idealized male form,” the caption had read, and I’d agreed wholeheartedly. David had been my first celebrity crush. I was definitely an art dealer’s daughter.
Rafe groaned. “You know Mack is around here somewhere.”
“I hope so.”
“Then have a heart and don’t look at me like that.” He pulled a clean thermal shirt over his head — light blue this time. “I don’t want to take this test.” He swept a hand at my body. “I’ll fail.”
My face caught fire. “I wasn’t looking at —” I gave up and hurried over to the door. A part of me was flattered that such a gorgeous boy found me tempting, but a bigger part wondered why Rafe had suddenly developed morals. This was the guy who’d invited me to share his sleeping bag five minutes after meeting me, and yet now that he knew who my father was, he didn’t want me staring at him. Not that I had been.
An answer popped into my mind. One that I didn’t like, but now I couldn’t unthink it.
Rafe hefted on his pack frame and joined me by the door.
“How old are you?” I asked in a rasp of a voice.
“Seventeen, eighteen. I was born right after the wall went up.”
His answer didn’t dispel the ugly thought in my head. “Tell me again how you know my dad?”
“Mack used to take me on fetches.” Rafe pulled open the door to the station and waved me in.
I stayed put. “What are you telling me?”
“That I was his lookout.”
“Why you?”
“I don’t know, ask him.”
“I’m asking you. So, why don’t you just come out and say it?”
Rafe released the door, letting it close. “What are we talking about?”
I dug my nails into my palms, letting the pain brace me for his answer. “Is he your father?”
Rafe’s smile returned. “Nope. I’m not your brother, Lane. I know that’s got to be a disappointment.” He paused, considering it. “Or maybe not. Now you can throw yourself at me. Just not when Mack’s around, okay? He’s not my dad, but he is the guy who busted me out of an orphan camp when I was ten.”
Rafe’s answer should have relieved me, but it made me feel even heavier. My dad had taken Rafe on fetches — a kid not even related to him — and yet he’d never told me anything about this part of his life. Yes, Dr. Solis had explained about my father’s fear that I’d have to take a lie detector test. But the good doctor had also been right when he’d said that sometimes a reasonable explanation wasn’t comforting.
“Now what’s wrong?” Rafe asked.
“All that time my dad left me alone, he was here with you.” My words came out choked.
Rafe wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. You’re making me sound like the other woman. I’ve been on my own for years now, not waiting around for Mack to show up.”
“But you did when you were younger? Wait for him to show up so you two could go off and have fun?”
“Fun? Yeah, that’s life in the Feral Zone. One big septic tank o’ fun. We yuk it up —”
“Please, stop talking.” I swallowed against the ache in my throat.
“I don’t know what’s got you so worked up. Mack loves you more than anything. You’ve got to know that much.”
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Okay, if you want to be all tragic, go ahead. Stay here and kick rocks. Me, I’m going in to find Mack … because I’m the good kid.” He hauled open the door.
What I really wanted to kick was him. But I shoved past him and entered the station. Of course I was questioning everything now, trying to fit pieces together. I wasn’t going to apologize for it either. Last night, my reality had been turned upside down and shaken beyond recognition. I just wished that my insides didn’t feel so bruised and broken.
What had been a train station before the exodus was now a marketplace and dining hall. Along the perimeter, food stalls displayed the offerings of the day: plates of grilled meat and glasses of foamy beer. Carcasses hung from iron support beams — turkeys, geese, and chickens — yet the place didn’t reek of blood. The smell was more reminiscent of a summer barbeque. The center area was taken up with various tables and chairs, everything from wooden
picnic benches to elegant dining room sets — probably plundered from abandoned homes.
Despite the dirt and debris tracked across the inlaid floor and the somber reason for holding the town meeting, the station didn’t have the desperate or unhappy feel that I’d expected. These people were living in the Feral Zone, and yet as they found seats, they exchanged greetings and words of reassurance with those around them. There was even a sprinkling of laughter as children chased one another, some of whom were manimals. Still, there was a worn, scuffed quality to the adults’ faces. Clearly life within a quarantine compound wasn’t one big campout with sing-alongs and s’mores.
Rafe paused by a food counter piled with smoked meats to survey the area. I looked around too, searching the crowd for the familiar head of wavy dark hair, the wire-rimmed glasses, my heart accelerating with the anticipation of seeing my father’s face. How surprised would he be to see me here? Would he be mad at me? Considering the trouble he was in, me coming to the Feral Zone had to be the least of his worries.
“Hey, Rafe, did you kill it?” a young voice asked.
I turned to see two boys sitting on the other side of the meat counter. They wore baseball caps pulled low, yet not low enough to cover the faint green speckles that ran from their temples to circle their eyes, which made them look moldy. Their vertical pupils were even more disturbing.
Rafe frowned slightly, a pucker between his brows.
“It’s Andrew Lehrer, remember?” said the boy.
“And Avi,” said the other. “You did a job for our grandma last month.”
“No, I didn’t kill the rogue yet,” Rafe said in a flat voice and returned to surveying the crowd. “Mack here?” he asked without glancing back.
“Haven’t seen him.” The boys took me in with curious eyes.
“Thanks,” I murmured to them and hurried to catch up with Rafe, who’d strode off. “You know, you could be nicer when you talk to them…. Manimals.”
“Why? So they think we’re friends?”
“Would that be so awful?”
He shot me a look and leaned against a massive pillar. Then he nodded toward the center staircase. Halfway up the stairs, a middle-aged woman, dark-skinned and curvy, stood alone, looking out at the crowd. Her riot of curls and high cheekbones gave her an exotic look, which was saying something, considering she was dressed like a lumberjack in jeans and a plaid shirt.
“That’s the mayor,” Rafe whispered. “Hagen.”
With a bartender’s apron wrapped around her hips, Hagen wasn’t the western vision of a mayor, but her demeanor was serious enough. “Okay, people,” she said loudly, “I’ll get right to it.” The room grew impressively silent. “Every one of us is torn up about losing Jared, but none more than his family. I know that Ruby and her sons can count on all of us to pick up their work shifts as they navigate their grief.”
People and manimals at the tables nodded, while I continued to scan the crowd for my father. He should have been easy enough to spot in this odd assembly, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
“When we found Jared,” Hagen continued, “the circumstances suggested a feral that’s gone rogue — probably the one that was preying on people in this area two years ago.”
A cry went up from the crowd and hovered over the room like a storm cloud. Hagen lifted a hand, and the voices faded. “I’m sure you’ve all heard by now how Jared died….”
I nudged Rafe. “I don’t think my —”
Rafe put a finger to his lips.
Fine. I’d go look in the back of the station by the food stalls. Maybe my dad was —
“And I’ll confirm it,” Hagen continued. “His heart was ripped out.”
I stopped short with a gasp. Ripped — how was that even possible? When Rafe told me about the rogue, I thought he was just trying to freak me out. What was I doing in a place where people got their hearts ripped out?
“And now a teenage girl has gone missing a mile south of here,” Hagen went on. “I don’t want anyone else disappearing, so I’ve allocated compound resources to offer a reward to the person who brings in the rogue. And thankfully, we have a bunch of hunters and hacks willing to try.” She gestured to a small group of people in the back corner. No surprise that from where I stood they looked like the sketchiest clump of humanity I’d ever seen. I needed to get out of this place ASAP. But my dad wasn’t in the crowd as far as I could tell.
When questions swelled in the room like a roaring wave, the mayor clapped her hands. “One at a time! Leonard, spit it out.” Hagen pointed at a man seated in front.
“Are we going to be stuck inside the compound again? We were holed up for weeks last time,” Leonard said. “We couldn’t trade or hunt. If it’s going to be like that —”
“It’ll be worse,” Rafe said loudly. I slid another foot away from him as the townsfolk twisted in their seats to see who’d spoken.
Leonard scowled at him. “That thing snatched anyone who set foot in the woods and if we were lucky — if — we’d find a heap of bloody clothes days later. How much worse can it get?”
“Two years ago, the feral skimmed the edges of the compounds, grabbing people who were outside the fence. It’s bolder now.” Rafe’s voice easily filled the echoing space.
“How much bolder?” Hagen asked, clearly dreading the answer.
“For the past year it has been going into compounds after dark and dragging people from their beds.”
Gasps and cries rippled through the room and I didn’t blame the crowd one bit. I was verging on hyperventilation myself over that image.
Hagen rubbed a hand over her eyes. “And you have no idea what it is?”
“Nope. Only that it’s strong. A couple of months ago, it hauled a 250-pound man over the Peoria fence.” Rafe’s gaze settled on me. “I do know there’s a guy infected with tiger in the area. I can’t prove it’s him, but that’s where I’m placing my bet.”
“Tiger!” The word cut through the crowd, followed by a horrified silence.
I glared at Rafe. How dare he bring up Chorda when he knew that the tiger-man wasn’t feral based on what I’d told him? Now those hunters would shoot Chorda on sight — no questions asked — because Rafe had just declared it open season on tigers.
“And here’s what else I know,” Rafe went on. “This feral has hit five other compounds — enough that I’ve picked up on a pattern.
“This rogue doesn’t have a pattern,” scoffed a greasy hunter in the back. “No one knows where it’ll hit next.”
Rafe looked unfazed. “True, but once this feral shows up in an area, it does have a routine.”
“And what’s that?” Hagen asked.
“It’ll stick around for about a week, kill one person a day, and then disappear for a couple of months. I don’t know where it goes when it’s lying low, but that’s its pattern. And here’s what you all really need to know: This feral isn’t taking whatever dirtbag crosses its path anymore. It’s gotten much pickier about its prey. Now it’ll stalk the person it wants, waiting for its chance to pounce.”
I wondered if Alva Soto had confirmed that for him when she’d said that her sister had sensed something hunting her.
“That’s a load of crap.” The greasy hunter sneered. “Ferals don’t plan — rogue or not. They eat, they sleep, and some howl at the moon. They’re animals.”
A low grumble of protest came from the manimals in the station. One gave an agitated flick of his hand, rejecting the statement, while I shuddered at the sight of his long black claws.
“Animals also hunt and they have preferences when it comes to prey.” Rafe folded his arms over his chest. “But I’m willing to consider another theory. Maybe it isn’t totally feral. Maybe it’s a manimal — evil as all get out, but still thinking straight.”
I frowned. He was throwing that out there so that he didn’t have to admit he was wrong about Chorda.
“Why a manimal?” A large man got to his feet. A layer of gray filmy skin hung from h
is cheeks, half peeled away. Considering his whiskers and downward pointing tusks, he was probably infected with walrus. “It could just as easily be fully human. Serial killers were around long before us.”
“The victims’ chests were ripped open with claws” — Rafe waggled his fingers — “not fingernails.”
“Rogue, alien, demented nun … I don’t care what it is,” Hagen said loudly. “I just want its head in a Hefty bag. Comprende, people?”
“Excuse me.” A young woman stood, her eyes on Rafe as she nervously fingered the knife tucked into her belt. Pockmarked and wiry, she could have passed for a boy. “You said the feral is choosing its victims. Who is it choosing?”
“Two years ago, it stuck to the bottom of the food chain, mostly picking off drifters. Now it only goes for respectable people. That’s a broad range, I know, but it is selecting its victims. Every person who went missing this year told someone that they felt like they were being watched the day before. So if you have that sense, come find me.”
“So, the feral’s already picked its next victim?” the greasy hunter scoffed. “Well, heck, I guess that means the rest of us can kick back and relax.”
“You can, Tox,” Rafe retorted. “Like I said, it’s only snatching decent people.”
The hunter started to reply but Hagen cut him off. “Okay, everyone, here’s what that means,” she shouted to be heard above the frightened chatter. “Mandatory curfew. No ifs, ands, or buts. The gate doesn’t open for anybody after sunset. Anyone out at night will be considered a threat. Manimals, that goes double for you.”
“Why double for us?” the walrus-man huffed.
Hagen held up her hands. “That’s it, meeting’s over.”
“Come on, Ed,” said the normal-looking woman beside the walrus-man. “Leave it alone.” She tugged at him until he followed her, glowering over his shoulder at the mayor. When he caught me staring at him, I looked away quickly.
“If Mr. Walrus is smart, he’ll leave town,” Rafe said, watching the couple go.
“Why? Is the rogue killing manimals too?” My voice caught on the word manimals, but I got it out. Maybe someday it would even sound like a real word.