Dylan

The street was in worse condition than the parking lot. Cars littered both sides of the road; crunched up against one another, flipped over, or burned out. Some vehicles were still undamaged, but had stopped at an angle blocking both lanes. I had to roll the Land Rover up on the sidewalk to get around them. More than once, I sideswiped a stopped car, but I guess there was no point stopping to leave my insurance information.

Either the griffins really did sleep at night, or they didn't eat cars, because aside from in the parking lot a few hours ago, we hadn't been attacked.

Here and there, trees grew out of the street, or between cars. Or outof them. Most of the new trees were species that weren’t native to the area—palms and tropical trees with large blooming flowers—and were old and mature as if they'd been there a hundred years.

Those, too, had once been people.

"I don't understand," I said as we passed a tree with a thick bulbous trunk and a spread of high branches. Baobab tree, I thought. I'd seen it on nature shows set in Africa. "The griffins are one thing, but why did some people turn into trees?"

"Really?" Lilly drawled from the back seat. She refused to sit shotgun, saying that it was statistically safer for when (not if) I got in an accident. She was being stupid. With all the stuff on the road, I could only creep the car along at ten miles an hour, max. "Like turning into big man-eating birds makes any sense?"

"At least griffins are a type of animal," I shot back.

"Made-up animals. The Egyptians drew them in hieroglyphs. They thought that they guarded tombs." But for once, it didn't sound like Lilly was arguing with me. Just reciting something she'd learned in her AP classes. "Ancient Greece and Persia, too."

I pumped the brakes and peered through the moonlit gloom to a new clump of stopped cars ahead. I hadn't turned on the headlights. The brake lights already glowed like beacons in a city gone dark. The headlights would attract a lot more attention.

"Why is this happening?" Merlot whispered. "Why didn't we turn into something?"

The same question had occurred to me on and off. I'd set it aside because I had to figure out how to drive, and not hit anything.

"Age?" I suggested. "I was the only one who stayed normal in the auditorium. Everyone else was an adult and they all—" I swallowed, "turned."

"That's stupid," Lilly said. "What, so you turn eighteen and you're sorted into Gryffindor?"

I gripped the steering wheel harder. I'd be seventeen at the end of the year.

"No," Merlot's voice was quiet, barely over a murmur. I glanced back to see her clutching a flowery old purse to her chest. It had probably been her grandmother's. "I was in the bathroom with Jennifer when everyone else began to turn. She was acting like she couldn't breathe. I thought she was having an allergic reaction. Then her skin started to—it began, like, melting. She made these gurgling noises, and—" She stopped.

"It's okay," I told her. "You don't have to say it. But was Jennifer your age?"

Merlot nodded and looked down. "A little younger, I think."

"Maybe it has to do with virginity. We all know Jennifer didn't have hers." Lilly’s smile to Merlot was mean. "That would explain Dill, too. He's never had a girlfriend."

"Shut up," I snapped, but my heart wasn't in it.

"Maybe it's the ozone layer," Merlot suggested. "My science teacher said it still thin and allowing radiation in—"

Lilly scoffed. "You think radiation did this?"

My attention drifted back to the road as the Land Rover crept past another charred car. Why were so many of them burned out?

For the same reason people turned into griffins and trees, I thought sourly. Whatever that was.

The burned-out car was butted up against a light duty truck. As I drove by, I caught a glimpse of movement in the passenger seat. A flash of a tiny clenched hand.

I hit the brakes, jolting the two girls forward.

"Why'd you stop?" Lilly complained. Then, as I opened the door, her voice rose to a shriek. "Dylan! What are you doing? Don't go out there!"

"I think I see something."

"No, you can't—"

I shut the door and took a careful look around. With the street lights all out, my eyes were adjusted to the dark. We were in an area I knew well, right by the library and the state park, with the lake just across the street.

I waited, my breath held, but nothing came at me from the gloom. Overhead, the tops of trees swayed in the light breeze. It was getting foggy—or was that smoke in the air? The charred cars already reeked of burnt oil. I couldn't tell.

From the direction of the truck came a thin, piteous wail.

I followed the sound. The truck was one of the few that didn't look like something had crawled out. No broken windows. No blood. The driver's side door was slightly ajar, like the driver had got out but hadn't closed it hard enough behind them.

"Hello?" I called softly as I pulled it open.

The interior light came on, flooding the cab and making me blink. Heart pounding, I smacked the off switch on the roof-light and waited a beat, half-expecting to feel the sharp stab of talons.

Nothing happened, and I found myself looking down at a baby.

It was maybe nine or ten months old, still strapped into its car seat and garbed in a little pink T-shirt and shorts. Probably a girl, then.

She reached out to me, making short half-crying sounds. Her bottom lip stuck out.

"Shh." I didn't know anything about babies, but if she made too much noise, she would attract attention. "Where's your mom?" Dumb question.

I fumbled with the strap that kept her in the car seat, and then lifted her out. The baby was loose and trusting in my arms, and smelled like ripe diaper. She'd been alone for hours, after all.

I awkwardly patted her back. "It's all right. It's okay... Shh..."

Maybe the baby knew of the danger after all, or maybe she was just exhausted. Either way, she kicked me once, hiccuped, and then settled.

"What are you doing?" Lilly hissed behind me.

I startled and whirled to glare at my sister. "You scared the hell out of me!"

"That's a baby."

"Yeah, I saw it move as we drove by." I looked around, feeling suddenly sick. We'd driven past a lot of cars in the last couple hours. How many others had small children trapped inside?

I didn't expect my sister to step close to me, or grasp my forearm hard. The points of her fingernails dug into my skin. "We can't do this, Dylan."

"What?"

"God! You are such an idiot. Look around you." Lilly gestured to the dark road, the burned-out cars, everything. "Do you think this is a game? This is life or death, and that," she gestured to the baby, "is going to need food and water and diapers and formula and... And who knows what else."

I stared at her. "I can't believe you. You're actually saying we should leave her behind to become griffin chow?"

Lilly's eyes flicked to the baby. She pressed her lips together and nodded once. "We can't afford any dead weight."

I hadn't physically fought my sister since we were little. I wanted to hit her now. "We’re not leaving anyone behind," I said between clenched teeth. "Mom would be ashamed of you."

"Mom's dead," Lilly said. "And unless we start thinking ahead, we will be too."

I growled something under my breath that babies shouldn't hear and moved to push past her, but Lilly stepped in my way.

"You don't know anything about taking care of a baby."

"I'll figure it out."

"What's going on?" Merlot walked up to us tentatively, looking around like she was ready to bolt at any second. Her eyes widened when she saw the baby.

"Dylan's being an idiot." Lilly glared up at me. "We can't take in everyone we come across. I'm sorry, I really am, but we have to be realistic."

"This is the first other person we've seen." Merlot crossed in front of a fuming Lilly to look in the cab of the truck. "She smells like she needs a diaper change." Merlot crawled in and dug around in the foot-space in front of the passenger seat, coming back with a baby bag patterned with stars and balloons.

"You know how to change a diaper?" I asked.

Merlot shrugged and looked down modestly. "I've babysat a few times. Come on." She swung the strap of the pack up to her shoulder. "We should probably do it in the Land Rover. She's going to cry when we take the diaper off."

"So that's it?" Lilly demanded. "You two are out-voting me?"

Her snotty tone frayed away the last of my temper. Turning around, I shoved my sister back against the truck, hard.

"There's no vote," I told her coldly. "Not on this. You don't vote on doing the right thing."

She narrowed her eyes and stomped viciously down on my foot with the heel of her shoe. I yelped and stepped back, bobbling the baby for a dangerous second. When I'd righted myself, Lilly was slamming the heavy door of the Land Rover behind her.

I winced and quickly looked around. We'd both made a lot of noise.

When nothing came at me out of the shadows, I headed back to the car. Merlot took the baby from me and immediately my arms and chest felt colder. The comforting weight was gone.

"We don't know her name," Merlot said, patting the baby's bottom. The baby made a small noise and mouthed Merlot shirt.

I shook my head. The top of my foot ached. Lilly had stomped hard. "Come up with something, I guess. We have to get moving."

"How about Jane? You know, like Jane Doe?"

I smiled. “That’s a good one.” But I got the feeling that if any of us survived this, there were going to be a lot of Jane Does.