Kate
“Dad!” I scream. Over and over I shriek his name, only stopping when my windpipe feels ravaged.
My father never answers me.
The only sign that he was ever here are a few forks scattered in the street and a wadded-up piece of foil that was flattened under his boots as he ran away.
I don’t take it personally. I can’t blame him for his reactions to this new world. He wasn’tall therein the old world either. For most of my childhood he was stationed overseas, and after continuous deployments, he was finally discharged with a lovely little war souvenir called a dissociative identity disorder. Nowadays, he spends most of his time believing he’s my ten-year-old brother.
Every once in a while, though, his real personality is lucid, fueled in protecting us—but we haven’t seen it since we lost Mom. So I haven’t seen either of my parents for almost a month.
That’s all it’s been—one month.
All that projected research about how long it’d take the world to end—all the books and movies about it? That was all bullshit.Bullshit.
It took a week.
One week forsomethingto come and invade us. I’m still not sure who or what they are. There was no warning. No state of emergency. No time or reason to prepare. No safe places to evacuate to. There were just a few hours of news reports. Then the air changed and the world smelled different. People got sick. Food rotted and strange vines grew. A quarter of the population of New York was reduced to a handful of bodies withered to skeletons, pocked with sores covering their bluish skin. Most people just seemed to vanish, and whatever remains is slowly disintegrating into dust.
“Dad!” I call out once more, hoping he’ll hear me. Hoping he’ll see, from wherever he’s hiding in his mind, that I need him.
But the only sound I hear is a low, wet gurgle.
My heart speeds up again. The unmasked creature is lying on its side staring at me. One long strand of blood drips from his mouth, pooling on the asphalt beneath his head.
A flash of lightning brightens up the sky and the sounds of raindrops against stone fall heavy on the street. The scent is fresh and crisp, masking the stagnant, pungent air.
“Where are they taking everyone?” I demand, storming over to it. There’s no fear in my voice, just hate and vengeance. I need answers and I need to find my sister.
Rain pelts down from the sky, heavy and cold. It streams down the monster’s face, washing away rivulets of blood and filth. There’s a flat plane of flawless skin beneath, smooth and clean. Its eyelids flutter, deflecting the droplets, and its lips, though bruised in one corner, let out a small puff of breath.
Squatting down, I grab its face in my hand. My grip is hard and it takes everything in me not to slide my fingers around its neck and squeeze the life out of him, but he’sgot to knowwhere they are taking people. Ineedthat information. I’ll make him tell me where. I’ll make him tell me how to find Claire.
Up above, something blacker than the night sky circles over the rooftops. His eyes—at least I think it’s a he—dart up past my shoulders as if he senses it too. There’s no time to think. I stuff his mask into the top of my pack and tug him by the back of his metal collar. He has to weigh more than a damned elephant, but adrenaline is screaming through my veins, making me feel stronger than I know I am.
I drag his body out of the street. Metal grates along the cement, sending sparks up into the rain. I hope it hurts.
As I flop him over the curb, he grunts out in pain. This makes me snort out a devious giggle—an uncaring, evil sound—one I never knew I could make.
I haul the giant thing a few feet and shove him into a small, dark alley between two buildings. There’s an abandoned van parked sideways, that on any normal day would be blocking traffic down that small dark street. Maybe we could hide inside. I sweep my gaze quickly over the street; it’s all shadows and rain. There’s a large window in one of the buildings that’s been shattered, and my boots crunch loudly over its broken glass. I think the safest bet for the night would be the van. The door opens easily, so that’s how my decision is made, but mostly because I don’t want him—it—to think I can’t drag it anymore—because I can’t, he’s too damn heavy.
Pulling out my flashlight, I press my thumb down and shine a few hundred lumens in his eyes.
A fluttery feeling rushes low in my belly and I lean out a hand to steady myself against the outside of the van.
A pair of icy blue eyes squint back at me.
Holy crap.
His face looks…human.
