For the first two episodes, I’m too aware of Griffin at my side and can’t follow the damn plot and political twists. Luckily, I remember the books enough to understand where they’re going. By the time we reach the third episode, I’m dozing off. My head slides along the couch and comes to rest on Griffin’s shoulder. He tenses for a second, and I fear that he might push me away, but he doesn’t. I marvel at the fact that two nights ago, I was sleeping alone on the dusty and cold floor of the ruins of a ranch, and tonight all I can feel is Griffin’s warmth.
The next day, we enter the burned territories north of Idaho.
“What happened here?” I ask, watching the scorched land through the window.
The trees burned for weeks last year, erasing miles of forests. The smoke darkened the sky for days and it rained ashes over the neighboring states. Humanity might have been brought down by the Rise, but climate change isn’t so easily reversed. Planet Earth is still too warm, and fire is our common enemy. That’s why most people prefer to live in the wastelands as nomads. The gods can be avoided and food can be fought over, but fire can never be stopped.
“Lightning, humans, a god…” says Griffin. “How it started doesn’t really matter. It burned.”
I nod sadly. “And your friends?”
“They survived in the mountains. The wind was in their favor, and their parts were spared.”
All those scorched lands might never recover and just become part of the wastelands. Before the Rise, the scientists estimated that it might take our planet two centuries to go back to normal and reverse climate change. I won’t be here to witness it, but the old gods will.
“Do you think the old gods might have woken up to stop us?” I say. “That they’re Earth’s guardians and we’re the parasites?”
Griffin’s red eyes fall on me. “It’s a common belief.”
“But what do you think?”
“I think it makes sense,” he simply says.
A few hours later, theBeetlestarts the climb, and the first trees appear on the horizon. A rocky mountain range stopped the fire from spreading on the other side and we’re welcomed by a lush forest. We find our way through an old road carved into the mountainside.
“Tracks,” announces Beet.
Griffin is already reaching for the hatch and jumping out. I follow. A cloud of ashes rises around my feet as I land on the darkened road. There are a few tire tracks, varying in size, in the black dust. It looks like a small army has traveled that way recently.
“Your friends?” I ask Griffin.
He’s crouched on the ground, frowning at the tracks.
“No,” he says quietly. “They don’t have those kinds of vehicles, and they rarely leave their farmlands.” He hurries back to theBeetle.
We follow the tracks for a few hours, right to the green pastures and fields where the farm has been standing since before the Rise. Our fears come true when we see the corpses in the grass outside the main house. Two men and one woman, all killed by bullets. There are two more dead inside, and blood all over the stone floor.
“How many people lived here?” I ask grimly.
“Thirty-two,” says Griffin. “Nine of them were children.”
“Fuck.”
But we find no other bodies, which means twenty-seven people are missing. They’ve been taken. The food stores, too, have been emptied. Judging by the state of the corpses, they have been dead for less than three days.
“Let’s hunt,” says Griffin.
And there’s a gleam in his eyes, something predatory that makes me shiver.
8
The hunt.
“The second to appear on worldwide news was Quetzalcoatl. The feathered serpent emerged from an underground temple in Central Mexico. He had been sleeping for thousands of years, but the Aztecs found him centuries ago. They built a temple around him and worshiped him. He had been carved into walls and written in stories, and yet, it still took us by surprise when he broke out of his resting place. He lost a few green and red feathers on the way out, and they showed them on the news. They were as long as a grown-up man. I remember that for an eleven-year-old, he looked stunning. Unlike the Kraken, who was a creature out of nightmares. But then he attacked a nearby city and gobbled up humans like afternoon snacks.”
Extract ofWhen They Came, by Arakawa Koichi, published in 2052.
Beet follows the tracks at a neck-breaking speed, through the forest and the scorched lands. Unlike theBeetle, the slavers will have to stop for the night.
