9 Days Later

Clarissa

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one followed me.

For the last few nights, we’d been raiding neighbor’s houses for food and supplies. The unfamiliar hallway ahead of me was dim. Furniture hidden in the deep shadows was hard to pick out with my night sight. I’d barked my toes and knees more than once. Stepping carefully, I trailed one hand along the wall for balance.

Even if the house had working electricity, I wouldn't use it. I didn't carry a flashlight for the same reason.

Rule number one since the world went crazy: Don't turn on a light after dark.

My fingers brushed the edge of a picture frame, and a shaft of moonlight fell across the picture. The photo inside was of a family, sitting together in a formal pose. The mail I found in the mailbox out front said that this house belong to the Norris's. I wished there was a way I could thank them for all their stuff. Maybe the afterlife, if there was one.

I found a small, half-bath at the end of the hallway. Stepping inside, I shut the door and locked it. Then I turned to look out the small window.

The stars were visible tonight. At night, the smoke rising from the still smoldering city was not visible. I could smell it in the mornings when the air hung low, though. The fire still burned, though it was getting further away every day. Today, the column of smoke had looked a little thicker; Dark gray and angry at the base, which faded to a sullen gray...

I was stalling.

Sighing, I reached into the pocket of my hoodie and pulled out a small can of chopped pineapple. It was maybe half a cup worth, and had been easy to hide while Merlot and I searched the Norris's kitchen.

The can had a pop-top lid, which I pulled open. I looked down blankly at the cubes of yellow, and a sickly sweet smell hit my nose.

I have a total sweet tooth, remember? Dr. Brandt would get on my case every time I had my teeth cleaned.

I pulled out a cube and popped it in my mouth. The first cloying, tangy taste almost made me gag. Face screwed up, I chewed quickly and swallowed.

Then I made myself eat another and another. The fourth, I had to force down. The muscles in my throat wanted to bring it back up.

I braced myself over the sink and breathed. A grossly sticky smell rose from the can and made my stomach roil.

No, screw this. That's enough. I opened the window and tossed the can with the last of the pineapple as far as I could into the trees. Hopefully no one would find it. Or if they did, they’d think it was just a bit of trash dragged into the forest by a raccoon. I’d found a couple of old, faded cans of cat food out in the middle of the forest that way.

Cat food.

My stomach growled, and the thought of opening up a can of Fancy Feast momentarily washed out the rising nausea. Cat food would be mushy, but probably salty, with meaty chunks and a little bit of that gravy stuff that always seemed to collect on the top.

"God," I whispered, hands clutching either side of the sink. I looked at myself in the mirror. My skin looked pale even in the dim bathroom, but the girl staring back at me was human. No beak. Reaching up the back of my shirt, I ran my index finger through the downy line of feathers just below my shoulder blade. They didn't feel like they were spreading. "What's wrong with me?"

But I knew. I knew. And about ten minutes later, my stomach burbled. Nausea rose up into my throat until I coughed and gagged into the toilet bowl. I brought up every bit of the four pineapple cubes I'd managed to choke down.

I wished more than ever that Mom was with me now. She always knew what to do when I got sick. Chicken soup, or 7-Up and watching bad TV under a blanket on the couch.

My stomach was empty and my eyes were wet with tears. With a deep breath, I stood, wiped my face with my sleeve, and tried the toilet handle. There was enough water in the tank for a single flesh.

It looked like I was on the paleo diet from now on.

* * *

To cover the time I’d taken, I searched the bathroom for anything useful.

I went downstairs only when my tears were dry and my face was free of splotches.

Dylan met me on the second floor as he came out of one of the bedrooms. He smiled at me, then did a quick double-take.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm awesome," I lied, and lifted a trash bag full of supplies. "I found some more toilet paper rolls, and a ton of heartburn medication. You?"

Dylan hesitated, as if he knew I was lying about being okay. But I knew he had a few secrets of his own. He still kept quiet about what really happened with Merlot and the bulldozer the other day.

Not that I was upset with him, or thought we’d had a moment of trust in the basement. Whatever.

He lifted his backpack. "Got a couple books on hiking trails and gardening. The kid’s bedroom had a laptop."

"Does it work?"

He shook his head. "Dead, just like mine and Lilly's."

It wasn't the lack of electricity. We’d first noticed the problem with electronics starting with Lilly's smart phone. It flickered and died the day after the turning. The same thing happened with her and Dylan's laptops. The screens stayed black even when plugged directly into the generator.

"Add that to Lilly's list." I found a smile from somewhere. "Merlot will be happy. She can stick on another star."

Dylan winced.

Four days ago, Lilly dragged out a whiteboard from the attic and started compiling every weird thing that had happened so far into a list. She said she would have preferred an Excel spreadsheet, but that's when she found out the computers were down.

Lilly insisted, and I privately agreed, there was a reason for all this madness. She said once she got it all down the connection would become clear.

So Lilly spent an evening arranging her list into bullet points: The adults turning into griffins, and some plants (with little sub bullets of what kinds of trees we could identify). Then, she added facts about griffin behavior — their cannibalism, hunting during the day, screeching as the sun rose and set, and how they were attracted to light and movement, but not sound.

As soon as Lilly's careful list was complete, the only thing that was clear was that there was no pattern at all. Or at least, no connection anyone could see. It had been a huge waste of time.

Merlot, feeling the growing frustration in the house, dug out little golden foil star stickers from her backpack. She then decorated each bullet point with star ratings according to weirdness factor. The trees got a full five stars.

Once Lilly discovered her whiteboard covered with stickers, she became enraged and called Merlot names. Merlot yelled back, and it took Dylan to break them up before there was a fight. Since then, the two girls weren't speaking to one another.

Stressed-out kids, grief, and middle school drama all combined under one household. I was glad to separate the two tonight. Lilly was left behind at the house with Ben and Baby Jane. Officially, she was on “babysitting duty”, though I suspected Ben would be the one actually taking care of the baby.

“Let’s see if anyone found anything good,” Dylan suggested.

Together, we went down to the main floor. Merlot was busy removing cans out of a large pantry. Meanwhile, Terry had spread his loot all over the dining room table. The last two houses were a bust, but here he found the Norris's gun safe, which hadn't been properly locked. Two rifles were laid out along with three pistols and boxes of ammo.

"What's that?" I pointed to an orange plastic-looking pistol with a wide muzzle.

Terry gave a half smile. "Flare gun."

Funny how his smile made the burning, acidic feeling in my stomach go away. None of us had had a shower in over a week, but Terry pulled off the scruffy look well. His dark hair was on the right side of shaggy, and thanks to his Native American heritage, he didn't have a five o'clock shadow to shave.

"Oh great, just what we need," I joked. "Bright lights."

"Well, I'm keeping it. What if the military shows up?" He hefted the flare gun in his hand and pointed it up at the vaulted ceiling. "We'll need a way to signal them."

"You shouldn't point that in the house," Dylan muttered. He turned his back and walked to Merlot, missing Terry's eye-roll.

Catching my eye, Terry mimed pointing the gun at his younger cousin and shooting.

"Not funny," I mouthed. Actually, it made me really uncomfortable. I was glad when Terry grinned and set the gun aside.

I looked to Merlot. "Is that everything?"

"I think so."

"Any seeds?" I asked. "I didn't find any in the garage."

Merlot held up a green packet. "Salted sunflower seeds. For eating, not for planting. Sorry."

I kept hoping to stumble across things we could use to start a garden. But maybe there was no point in trying if I couldn't digest anything I managed to grow, anyway.

* * *

We packed everything we'd scavenged into the back of a blue Toyota pickup truck we'd found at a different house last night. The cans and other foodstuff was easily thrown into trash bags and carried. Microwave dinners, melted and starting to smell from being thawed out, were left behind. Let the griffins have them.

Dylan drove a sedan that had been parked in the Norris’s driveway. The keys had been helpfully left on a hook to the side of the front door.

Terry and I took the pickup.

The quarter-full moon cast a dim light over everything. I drove slowly, with Dylan following behind. No one was stupid enough to turn on the headlights, and Terry had knocked out the interior and brake lights. No need to attract griffins.

The trees and road were coated with a fine dusting of ash, courtesy of the forest fire. In the half-light of the moon, the world looked bright and fresh.

Terry must have noticed my gaze because he said, "The fallen ash from the fire looks a lot like snow. I could almost imagine this was Christmas time, you know?"

My thoughts were elsewhere. I pointed out the windshield to the road, where our incoming tire tracks stood starkly visible. "Someone could easily find out where we live if they followed those."

He sighed. "I'm trying to be romantic, here."

I glanced at him in surprise. I knew I looked grungy. I hadn't showered since this mess started. My hair was a disaster. I used to have to detangle my curls every night. With the lack of products, I gave up and tied the whole blonde mess into a ponytail. I wasn't fooling myself. It wasn't a good look.

Not to mention my brand-new set of feathers hidden under my hoodie.

"Besides," Terry added as the silence stretched into awkward territory. "It's not like there's anyone around to follow the tracks."

"You don't know that. They could be hiding, same as us."

"I didn't want to say anything in front of the little kids," he said, "and Dylan can be sort of sensitive, so I didn't want to worry him. But... I don't think there's a lot of people left."

I ignored the jibe about Dylan. Terry did that a lot, I'd noticed. "Why do you say that?"

"Other than the raging forest fire? Well, just think about it." Terry counted points off his hand as he spoke. "We all happened to be in a good place to get away when the adults Turned. Somewhere not too populated, but where we could find shelter real quick. Even then, we barely made it."

He didn't need to remind me. I still had nightmares about that griffin which had almost taken off with Ben. "I'm sure plenty of kids survived."

"No, we’re luckier than we know. We found good, solid shelter that first night. None of us need something, like medicine, to survive. What if Lilly had asthma? Or Merlot needed heart medication? Or what if, when people started to Turn, you weren't with Ben?"

"I'd have gone searching for him."

"And probably gotten killed trying." He nodded once. "That's what I'm saying. Remember those kids we saw killed the second day? They were probably looking for their parents. Or maybe they were in a place where there wasn't fresh water. Or enough food. Or maybe they were just dumb."

I thought on that. "Los Angeles has millions of people, and it's practically a desert. They have to pump all our water down here from the north. After that dries up..." I shuddered.

"Exactly. Could you imagine?" He drummed his fingers on the dash and let out a chuckle. "People were practically living on top of each other in SoCal before they turned. All those new griffins gotta eat, just like us."

"I don't think it's funny," I said quietly.

"I don't either." He laid his hand over mine. "We're at war, Clarissa. A real war. Not going overseas and fighting for oil, or about whose God is better. Now, it's us and them, and I think... I think human beings like us are an endangered species."

His words shot a chill up my spine. I hadn't let myself think too much about this—it was too big, too scary—and it was terrifying to hear it said aloud.

Now would be a great time to bring up the feathers on my shoulder. But I didn't want to. Not when Terry's hand felt so warm over my own. If he knew, would he want to touch me? Would he think I was a casualty in this 'war'?

"So," I said, instead. I’m such a coward. "Then, you don't think the military's coming? What about that flare-gun?"

In reply, he reached to the radio and flicked it on. We'd done this every night. The third day after people Turned the looped programming had run out. Now every channel was snow.

"I told you, I didn't want the little kids to be scared." Terry squeezed my hand. "There's no help coming."

Hot pin-prick tears splintered my vision. I blinked them away. I needed to be strong, now. For Ben. For myself. "I think you’re right."

It was just us. What in the world was I going to do?