Chapter 20

The abandoned lots in every direction were nothing like the farms from my memories. Fields of planted bushes and grassy meadows no longer had children picking berries or cows lazing away. Children were rare, and domestic animals turned feral. We found a swine farm.

An ice ax into the thick hide and three hard slams to the boar’s skull with my mace was all I needed to drop the enormous beast. They weren’t the cute and cuddly pink animals in the cartoons.

Dan said most pigs weighed 500 lbs before the fourth and fifth breach opened, four times less than the monster I put down. I hopped backward and let the hairy pig fall onto the muddy ground. Although they took an hour to tire, we finished the two that charged us before midday. Carrying so much weight made them easy to wear down when we worked as a team.

“Chris, make sure you take care of any scabs.” Dan pointed north towards a small stretch of pine forest where we encountered a group of slow movers. “Allie, watch for bears or anything else.”

We hadn’t seen any in a few days, but they’d be a pain to fight even at our increased strength. I pulled up my bodies status to confirm the amount of essence I had before draining the coarse-haired monsters.

Name: Amy Sullivan

Age: 22

Expansions: 73

Essence-Particle Mass: 5.460g

Expansion Mass: 0.018/0.221g

Particle Output: 697.9W

Attenuated Eff: 31.4%

Attenuated Mass: 1.725g

Attenuated Output: 219.1W

Soul Status: Abnormal

Body Status: Fatigued

Twenty-four expansions and 3.8 grams of essence gained in a week.

In two days we would enter the capital district, an urban region crawling with problems. Our new strength would help, but it didn’t guarantee our safety. Sadly, there weren’t many creatures to hunt.

I removed the ice ax I found the day before and placed my hand on the pig’s filth-covered back. The push and pull of essence was no longer a struggle, and draining animals took less time with each kill. But something was wrong. Something I felt before.

“Why’d you stop?” Dan walked up to the boar and kicked its back. “You couldn’t have finished already.”

I tucked the mace into the loop on my vest and flipped one of its ears. “Look for bites.”

“Bites? What are you talking abo—”

“Two piercings. Should be a red line or rash coming from them.” I searched through the bristly black hair in search of the same marks that left me delusional.

After several moments of picking through the fur, Dan found the telltale holes.

He stuck his knife into a patch of rosy skin. “What’s this supposed to be?”

I raised my head to the sky and checked my clock—less than six hours.

“We have scabs.” Allie pointed the rifle towards the forest, and clumsy bodies drifted out. “Chris, there’s seven of them.”

“On it.”

I walked to the next boar and found the same thing. “Chris, wait. Dan, let’s take care of them and check those scabs for the same bites.”

“What for. Just let Chris deal with them. He needs experience.”

I ignored him and moved to the woods. Like the scabs I saw chained to the trees, the flesh fell from their faces, and what little clothes they wore hung in tatters. It wouldn’t be much longer until they broke down completely.

Fragile and barely more than desiccated skeletons, the scabs were weak, and a simple knock to their heads was enough to end their lives. Dan finished the remaining four, and I searched through each one. Bitten. They had the same bites, but they didn’t have the parasites.

Scab souls collapsed. Although they had a small amount of essence in their bodies, they no longer had the soul the parasitic constructs needed.

I turned towards Dan; confusion covered his face. “We saw a few animals ripped apart, right?”

“Yeah. Something really made a mess out of them. Why?”

“We need to leave.” I stood from the bodies and jogged in Allie’s direction. “We need to find a place now.”

Chris lowered his machete and strapped our bags to his back. “Aren’t you draining those pigs first?”

I shook my head. “They’re infected. I’ll explain once we find a place.”

Dan nodded his head, rare for him to not argue, and pulled Allie and Chris with us. After an hour searching through dilapidated barns and homes, we discovered one that looked defendable. With no tracks or traces of recent movement, Dan popped the door open and entered with the shotgun he found.

I followed behind with my mace in hand. Room by room, we flipped beds, searched closets, pulled down shower curtains, and checked cupboards. There was nothing inside.

“Alright talk.” Dan lowered his gun and walked into the living room.

“The pigs were infected.” I sat on the couch and removed my coat and helmet. Although I wasn’t comfortable taking it off while outside, I grew close enough that I no longer worried about them trying to harm me.

“You said that already. What’s that supposed to mean?”

I took a breath and scratched my arm as if the rash never left. “Some kind of beast can infect things. It spreads parasites, but they’re made from essence.”

Allie sat in the blue armchair across from me after checking the silver drapes. “An essence parasite? Like, formed from essence?”

I nodded my head and described the bat-like creatures with human faces and how they came out at night. They ate the dead bodies, but the one that found me only tried to infect me. I didn’t tell them about my ability to tear souls and remove the parasites yet. I wasn’t sure how much to share. Instead, I let them believe it was an essence manipulator skill.

“And you only told us now?” Dan glared in my direction.

“Shut up, Dan. It’s not like you listed out every creature we’ve seen.” Allie placed her hand on her chin and nodded. “So what do you think, Amy?”

“I. I think we need to make this place safe.” I walked towards a window and pulled the heavy drapes open. “They’re quiet, don’t trigger my alarm, and don’t hunt alone. We can’t let them inside.”

Allie walked towards the kitchen and tore at a piece of blue and white splotched wallpaper. “Dan, how do we cover the windows?”

“Boards, probably. I’m not sure I’d trust what she says, though. If those things are real, they might be too strong.”

“Then find something stronger.” She shot him a sarcastic smile and turned towards her brother. “Chris, go with Dan and check the barn and garage for anything we can use. Amy, let’s look around.”

Allie gave everyone orders, and I searched the house for windows and any other openings.

“Two doors, eight windows, two skylights, and a pull-down attic we missed.” I opened the curtains and blinds and let the light pour in. Unfortunately, there was no cellar.

“Let’s wait for Dan before checking the attic. There might be something or someone in there.”

I agreed and stepped outside to explore the yard. There was no storm basement hidden by overgrown weeds, nor was there any wood leaning against the walls. When dad had a project he worked on, he often left boards on the ground. But there were none that I could see.

“Hey, give us a hand.” Dan returned from the barn with two wood panels. “They only had a little plywood and two by fours. Grab the hammers and the bucket of nails by the barn door.”

It wasn’t enough wood to cover everything. Not eight windows. Two in the living area and one in the kitchen. A bathroom, three bedrooms, and a back door with a windowpane. We’d need to figure something out. I checked the rest of the barn: tractors, lawnmowers, and tools I had never seen before. Nothing I saw looked useful.

By the time the sun set, Dan and I investigated the empty attic and found two narrow glass panels on opposite ends. They were too small for the creatures to make it through. Chris covered the back door with plywood. Dan barred the front door shut with two by fours and dressers he tore apart.

Allie boarded the windows in the living area with cupboard doors, then covered them with the drapes to prevent light leaks through the gaps. I tied bedroom and bathroom handles together so they wouldn’t open. There was little we could do with the time we had left, so before it turned completely dark, we took a break to eat.

“Maybe they’ll just take the pigs and leave.” Chris opened four cans of ravioli we found along the way and placed them in a stainless steel soup pot from the kitchen.

Like we thought, his ability increased the stronger he got. Boiling water or heating food was easy, and he quickly gained enough power to turn it into a weapon. If he grabbed a person’s face, he’d leave them with third-degree burns.

“I hope they don’t come.” I sat next to Allie on the couch and pulled my legs to my chest. Even though I wanted that to be true, I doubted we’d be so lucky. “Maybe they won’t come.”

We ate in silence. Allie usually told me stories about growing up in such a snowy city, high school boyfriends, and all the places she wanted to visit before the breaches. But nobody was in the mood for memories. Everybody was stressed. Ten minutes after eight, the first one arrived.

I wasn’t sure how the creature found me in the tall grass overlooking the town. It had to be scent. Even if everyone but Allie was as filthy as the rest of the world, they still had a way to sniff us out. Perhaps body odors distinguished us from the background. Monsters that fed on the dead and infected the living.

I put my helmet on, and Dan moved towards the boarded front door, crowbar in hand. One of the beasts scratched, searching for a way to enter, and soon another arrived. I clutched my mace and handed Allie my ice ax. Chris grabbed his machete, and we stood back to back, watching all directions for anything to enter.

Glass shattered from a bedroom window, and the scratching came from two sides, then three, then four. Each of the bedrooms had at least one monster inside, clawing at the walls. If they threw themselves into the cheap wooden doors, I wasn’t sure they would hold.

Finally, the first windowpane in the living area broke.

A long finger slipped through a crack, reaching in and scraping the wood. I removed a bowie knife from my waistband and walked towards the window. The room was dim, with only small candles providing light, but I could see well enough once I opened a slight gap in the curtains.

Dark green talons nearly an inch long scraped at the wood until it hooked into a knot, then it pulled. The wood bowed at the center like it would snap. I placed the knife over the finger and grabbed the claw hammer next to my feet. The creature tore at the board, but before it could do any damage, I hammered the back of the knife, and its finger dropped to the floor. No screams and no sounds. Just blood.

One by one, the windows shattered. In the kitchen, a beam cracked, and a wrinkly face with large ears burst through. Long fangs protruded from the top of its snapping jaws. I wasn’t sure before, but it became clear. The beasts had eye sockets with no eyes.

Chris chopped its neck with his machete and nearly decapitated it. Board after board barring the windows in the house came loose, and not long after the first finger fell, a small pile of body parts and slick blood accumulated on the hardwood floors next to me.

An entire wing broke through Allie’s window, and half the body wriggled in. She swung the ice ax and buried it into what passed as a shoulder. The piked end dug deep, but did little to stop it. She’d need to land a blow to its skull to kill it. Allie always backed us up with the guns. She learned hand to hand from Dan, but she only carried two pistols and a few knives.

“Fuck, this thing is useless.”

I had never heard Allie curse before. The vulgar slip almost made her sound like a different person. Dan slammed his crowbar across its skull. Despite a barn full of tools, none of us thought about grabbing anything for Allie as a weapon. It was careless.

A head pushed through a gap in my window, stretching the flesh from its fuzzy face like a rubber mask. Pressing every bit of strength I had into my arms, I buried the mace into the top of its skull and burst through the other side. The candles went out.

I switched my lenses to night vision. Allie, Dan, and Chris backed away from the windows and leaned against each other. The only sounds other than the clawing beasts were the heavy breaths each of us made. I watched the entrances and waited.

Another beast tried to remove the body stuck in the kitchen window. With wobbly legs, I stumbled across the room and slammed my mace into its fingers, ripping them off when the flanges bit into the bone. Three windows and a door, I’d need to watch the hall as well. Everything closed in. My heart raced. And I couldn’t breathe.

“Amy. Hey Amy. Where are you?” Allie’s voice trembled, and Dan didn’t move. It was hard to be brave when the lights went out.

“Stay. Stay in the. Just stay there.” I had trouble speaking through my gasps. They couldn’t help, but I was only one person. “I think I can. I can do this.”

Another at Allie’s window. Then another at mine. Almost in a pattern, they tried to get in, but they couldn’t. Their bodies wedged together, eventually creating a blockage. My legs no longer shook, and instead of thinking about what to do, my body simply reacted.

By the time the sun rose, and the creatures disappeared, I dropped to the couch. My body shivered and locked up. Every muscle burned—the combination of using too much essence and adrenaline.

“We. Somehow we survived.” Chris dropped his machete and fell to his side on the floor.

Allie took my helmet off and placed a wet rag on my head, rubbing my arms and cleaning my face. “Don’t move. Just relax.”

I closed my eyes and let the tension in my body drift away. The sun was up, and it was finally over. When I looked again, Dan and Allie had the atlas spread on the coffee table.

“Five miles south there’s a small town, then this one further down.” Dan slid the map to Allie and Chris. “But we need a place to cross.”

The Hudson River was too wide to swim across, and I was still against going on a boat. The problem was the bridges.

“Three bridges here, and this one also.” Amy removed her hat and combed her fingers through her sweaty hair. “They’ll probably guard each.”

Trap areas, no matter the direction. Coming from the north or the east meant crossing a river. That’s what made Albany grow the way it did. The rivers connected New York City to the great lakes. Trade routes and a way to connect the cities. I remembered a way across.

“The towns.” I sat up from the couch; my eyes spun, and my head pounded. “What’s the name of the towns?”

“Chris, grab her some water.” Dan nodded in my direction. Perhaps his way of saying thanks.

“Hmm… Melrose. Just a little south is Waterford.” Allie passed the map to me, and Chris handed me a glass.

“Here.” I tapped on the river’s edge. “Let’s go here.”

Dan took the atlas back and checked. “There’s nothing.”

I leaned in and pointed towards Waterford. “My Grandpa brought me and Lia here when we were young. There’s a canal.”

Chris hovered over Allie’s shoulder and stared at me. “Who’s Lia?”

“She’s my…” I paused. I wasn’t ready to tell them. Thankfully, Allie stopped Chris from prying further. “The canal. Let’s find the canal. I remember a way to cross.”

“I don’t see it on the map.” Dan looked for any markings but couldn’t find any.

“It’s there; I went there when I was a kid.” Grandpa told us stories about boats that offered tours of the Erie Canal. The tour guides went out of business, but the locks were still there.

“We’ll be in the open here, though, and anyone—”

“Alright, you’ll just need to scout ahead, Dan. We don’t have any better ideas, so we’ll look for the canal.” Allie placed the atlas in her backpack. “Chris, pack up Amy’s things. Let’s leave when she’s ready.”

Once my head cleared enough to walk straight, I checked each of them for parasites. None of them bit us.

Dan left to inspect the path ahead. And we circled the house to look at the monsters. Each window had pale, gray bodies stacked that died trying to enter. The skin on their backs bubbled, and gashes from previous attacks remained opened. I hadn’t noticed it before, but a short tail extended through the veiny flap connecting their legs.

“We’re good.” Dan gave a thumbs up. Something I had never seen him do before.

Before we left, each of us turned back to the house one last time. The white vinyl siding had cracks throughout, and in many places, entire panels were missing. Ripped shingles on the roof told how hard the creatures tried to enter the skylight. I tightened the strap to my rifle and started up the road. Putting the night behind us would be difficult.

Chris took one step in front of me, and his knee buckled. He dropped to the ground, clutching his leg, yelling loud enough to echo in the distance.

Dan dragged him behind a white painted rock with handprints, and I pulled Allie with me back into the house. We waited. Other than Chris’s moans, there were no other noises. I peeked through the doorway and scanned the fields. The alarm didn’t go off. Allie prepared herself, but nothing happened. Not a single noise other than Chris, until Dan broke his silence.

“You gotta be shitting me. Allie, you better help this idiot.”

We stared at each other for a moment, and I walked out first. With the helmet and vest, if someone shot, I’d probably be ok.

Chris squeezed his calf, squirming on the ground in pain while Dan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Chris, move your hand. Let me see.” Allie yanked his hands from his leg and searched for injuries. “Huh?”

I helped her look, but there was no blood and no holes in his pants. “What happened?”

Dan raised his head. “A cramp. He got a cramp.”

Not a bullet wound, not a stab, and not a bite. Dan dragged Chris, and we ducked into the house, fearing for our lives over a cramp.

I tried not to; I turned around, but I couldn’t hold it. A small chuckle became a laugh I couldn’t control. How stupid. All night we fought to stay alive. We planned a route and prepared for the dangers we’d face, yet before we made it 15 feet from the house, our plans collapsed because of a cramp.

Tears filled my eyes, and I tried to stop laughing. It was such a silly reason. The stupidest thing I had seen in so long. I laughed, and before long, Allie and Dan joined. Pissed, Chris shouted how it wasn’t funny, but I barely heard him.

How long had it been since I last laughed? There was nothing to laugh at anymore, but I couldn’t stop. I told myself there was nothing funny left in the world.

When I finally calmed down, I thought of Lia. I should have listened to her instead of Mike. I apologized to her again and promised to keep going after him. But I thought maybe it was ok. Maybe things could get better.

And maybe sometimes, it was ok to be happy.