Chapter 6

The pungent odor of cigarette smoke barreled into the cellar throughout the night, followed by the earthen scent of afternoon rain. The snarls increased and split into separate voices, beasts, and humans alike.

Dogs fought, and children giggled. Each growl had distinguishable layers, and an image slowly formed in my mind.

A gravelly voice called from across a golden field of tall grass and hay bales. A woman shrieked when mange covered dogs with rotten flesh knocked her to the ground—unfamiliar faces looped, different scenes played out, but the message remained the same. Packs of beasts ravaged the countryside and ripped men, women, and children of all ages apart.

Whatever sat above me never entered the cellar. It never left the floor above. The distance between us never changed, although its ringing pleas pulled me from the ground. The creature wanted to save me like I was in danger, and it wanted to protect me, or so I thought.

A beam overhead buckled, then snapped and knocked me back to the concrete, pinning me at the waist and forcibly emptying my bladder.

The last time I peed myself was at the haunted house in the Riverside fair. Every October before mom died, we’d get our faces painted, pick a pumpkin for carving, eat fried dough, and drink way too much apple cider. When the chainsaw came from behind Lia and me, water trickled down my legs into my shoes. I never shied away from spooky places, even when they terrified me.

But haunted houses only cost five tickets, and everyone made it out.

An hour before dawn, faces covered each brick of the cellar walls. Some smiled, some frowned, and others cried, but each looked towards me and begged. At the top of the stairwell, a hunched over silhouette stood on stilted legs bent backward. Spike-like fingers tapped the floor.

I froze. The being wasn’t human, but it was too blurry to know for sure. The shadow snorted like a horse and turned its back to me, fading into the fog once dawn broke. As the creature vanished, a deep chuckle that transitioned into a wild cackle pierced the air. When the fog lifted, the world became silent, and sunlight peeked through cracks in the roof, revealing the wreckage from the night.

Shelves of worthless goods, ornaments, and knickknacks that made for great souvenirs littered the floor. In the corner, a porcelain elf nobody would purchase stared at me, and fake wreaths hung from a pegboard—Christmas products stored for the next cycle that never came.

The images disappeared like a bad dream, and if it wasn’t for the beam holding me down, I would have believed I had a mental breakdown. I witnessed wild beasts destroy a town and ignored the faces begging for help. They cried out, but I had no way to save them.

The shadow wasn’t an essence beast; it was something far more sinister. The creature somehow linked every face in the wall together, like they were victims it carried within. Scabs came from humans when their souls collapsed. They were common, and they were weak.

Monsters were born when frontliner souls corrupted, when powerful souls lost the ability to filter out the essence particle’s decay products.

I had only heard whispers of their existence and discarded them as rumors, but the transforming priest changed my opinion. Frontline monsters were real, and one toyed with me through the night. Once my body healed enough to escape, I fled into the woods, putting as much distance between the store and me as possible before I collapsed.

Outside the town, far from the lake and mist, I caught my breath on an overlook and pushed the thoughts from my mind. I was safe in the light. Safe from the screaming images. I needed to leave the mountains.

Nearly 200 miles of mountains, lakes, and small towns lay between me and the military fortification. I knew how to travel to Albany, but the rest was fuzzy. Head West from Albany and stop at the cliffs. That’s all I ever heard—East to the highway, South to Albany, and West to the bunker. The directions were simple enough, so I probably wouldn’t need a map, but it would help if I found one.

The beasts didn’t destroy everything. They hadn’t trampled isolated gas stations and markets to the ground. Finding food in them was difficult, but I doubted they were all stripped, and I doubted anyone fought over paper maps. If gas stations still sold maps.

I walked until the bubbling of water caught my ears and remembered my empty canteen. It was hard to go a day through the mountains without finding running water. There was no shortage, and I needed to rinse the filthy night away.

At less than ten feet across and two feet deep, the sandy-bottomed stream wasn’t large enough to house a monster. I slid my shredded pants off, removed my helmet and vest, and stepped into the frigid water. I never understood how mountain brooks stayed so icy.

Dried blood regained its viscosity and flowed downstream in red streaks. Even though the water was cold, I hadn’t fully healed all my cuts, so the water’s pressure stung. The dirt and sweat accumulating on my body floated away, and after 30 minutes of soaking, I saw my skin again.

Somewhere along the way, I built up a heavy farmer’s tan.

I washed the bloodstains from my pants, and without waiting for them to dry, squeezed my way back inside. If something attacked, I didn’t want to escape through the forest bare-assed. They weren’t pretty, but they offered some amount of protection when I sat.

The brook had fish, small as they were, so I flipped over rocks near the water’s edge and collected a handful of worms. I wouldn’t dare touch them before, but now I had no problems sliding them over a hook.

Father never brought us fishing with him. He said it was for boys, and we never questioned him. Grandpa took us, though. He always baited the hooks and let us drop the line from our princess fishing poles off the edge of the dock. I caught sticks and water plants, but Lia caught a sunfish, like the one I pulled from the creek.

The fish was tiny, with sharp fins that poked my fingers, and it wouldn’t stop flopping around until I stabbed its head. With orange bellies and blue and olive scales, they didn’t look like food. Sunfish looked like something you’d buy at a fish store. After catching five more, I left the area.

I didn’t want to sleep next to the water again. Instead, I wanted to be high enough that any mist didn’t have a chance of reaching me, so I searched out the tallest hill within a reasonable distance, and hiked my way to the top. Even if I wasn’t safe, the unrestricted view in every direction eased my mind.

It took two hours to clear the dry leaves from my makeshift camp and start a small fire. I didn’t care if scabs saw me. I didn’t care that I stood out like a war beacon, alerting the kingdom that The Huns were attacking. Scabs weren’t what worried me. I needed sleep, but closing my eyes in the dark was challenging.

I jammed sharpened sticks into the fish and propped them up to cook, but the sticks kept catching fire, and the fish fell into the ashes below. Mom once said you had to soak kebab sticks in water before using them, but I didn’t think of that by the stream. After a few more failures, I laid them on a flat rock and watched them bloat until their stomachs popped.

I knew the insides had to come out before I cooked them, but I couldn’t figure out how to remove them. Grandpa never let us keep the fish we caught, and I'd never eat one as a child, anyway.

Once the fish were burnt, I scraped them towards me and rinsed them off. The outside was like a shell, and the inside had so little meat I questioned whether eating it burned more calories than it added. My fishing skills didn’t improve much.

At one time, tourists would flock to the Adirondacks, fish the streams and rivers, and hike the peaks during the summer. Chipmunks chittering and birds chirping would compete against children laughing and screaming. Crickets, fireflies, and the Milky Way turned the night into a party only mosquitoes would dare ruin.

It was quiet now. Too quiet.

In school, teachers taught us the Adirondacks were new mountains made from old rock, and the crystals sparkling through every stone came from billions of years of heat and pressure. A few years of breaches and beast hordes stripped the glitter from the hills.

It’s odd how people remembered useless information. Hours spent on makeup tutorials could have been hours on camping and survival. Days wasted learning dance steps when I could have learned how to repair clothes or find food.

My friends made it look so easy; I failed ten times before I got anything right. Before we went on class trips, they researched everything. I only cared about the smores.

How much pointless information did I fill my head with? How much knowledge disappeared when people died? If we ever tried to restore our societies, it’d probably take generations to get back to a year ago. Not that we had a chance. The world would end before we rebuilt.

After picking through the last fish, I searched the supply pouch and removed five bottles: vitamins, sugar pills, pain relievers, antacids, and cod liver oil. The priest grew so strong, the energy he radiated was enough to maintain his body.

But he still needed sugar and micronutrients. I wasn’t sure what the cod liver oil was for.

I decided not to think too deeply and grabbed two of each. Ibuprofen helped relieve my headache, and I took an antacid to quiet the burn that crept from my stomach. The priest had a small pharmacy but had nothing for sleeping.

He probably thought they dulled his senses, or he had no trouble sleeping at night.

The heat radiating off the rocks kept me warm, and no howls in the distance echoed through the forest. It was another starless sky, but somehow I found solace in that. I curled into a ball and closed my eyes. There were two hundred miles to the fortress, and one month until autumn.

If I didn’t arrive by November, there was no guarantee they’d let me in before the winter breach. There was too much to do. I hadn’t grown stronger since I left the priest, and fights with scabs didn’t help me gain essence. I was too weak to fight an actual monster, but animals on the verge of changing were possible.

Fortresses and military settlements weren’t completely safe. I couldn’t survive a breach alone, but I couldn’t afford to turn into the prey of a used car salesman that gained a bit of authority either.

There was always someone willing to protect me before, but I didn’t have that luxury this time. This time, I’d need to fend for myself, or die.