“Abbie!” I gaped at him, my mouth hanging open.
Mayor Yang nodded approval. “Thank you, Abdul.”
Abbie’s cheek twitched, but he didn’t correct the mayor. Only his family called him Abdul.
“But he’s only a year older than me! And he hasn’t trained nearly as long.” I stepped close. “Why are you doing this?”
“So you don’t have to.”
“But I want to.”
He looked away. “Well, maybe I don’t want you to.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Abbie was almost sixteen, and he’d hinted a bunch of times about us getting married. I wasn’t against it, mind you, but I had almost two years until I was eligible. Even then, marriage didn’t make good hunters. You hesitated when you had something to lose. You might choose to run and leave behind something the block needed to survive.
“Abbie, this is my chance to prove I can do this. This is what I want more than anything else.”
He flinched and I knew I’d hurt him something fierce.
“At least right now,” I added, cupping his cheek. “In five years, who knows? But if I don’t try now it’ll be too late. I don’t want to be just a doctor my whole life. Or just a wife. I want to do more than add a few numbers to our population board every few years.”
He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “I know. You keep telling me that, but I hate the thought of you getting hurt.”
“I won’t get hurt.”
He looked at Deeke. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can try.” I tweaked his nose, which always made him laugh. He only smiled this time.
He sighed. “I don’t know why I’m worried. Yang’s not going to let you go anyway.”
I punched him in the arm. “Ye of little faith.”
“Since no one else has come forward,” Mayor Yang said, “I guess I’ll have to pick volunteers to stand watch.” He scanned the crowd, but avoided looking back at me. Not that it mattered. We all knew who he’d pick.
Those with the best aim, eyesight, and hearing started fidgeting. Those with the best sense stayed still. I folded my arms and thought up ways to get back at Abbie for stealing my chance to be a hunter—and not even being a little bit sorry about doing it.
“Doug, Samson, Avi—you cover the hotel. We can’t count on the chain link keeping juvies out if they want in.”
Heads nodded all around.
“Natalie, Dixon, Paul, and Zack—you’ve got the stadium. Lock the field down tight and pull the herds in best you can.”
Zack and Natalie looked okay with that, and I suspected they’d planned to keep watch anyway. They just weren’t the volunteering type. At least, not with Mayor Yang. They’d volunteered for Mayor Henderson a few times though.
“I’ll authorize use of the rifles for watchers, so come to the armory after and sign them out.”
That got folks chattering. There wasn’t much ammo left, and Sarge hoarded it like it was food. Even the hunters didn’t get them anymore. Sarge said those weapons were our last line of defense against the drooling bastards, and a good soldier should be able to kill a few dogs without bullets.
Deeke had argued once that hunters weren’t soldiers. Sarge hadn’t been happy about that, but he’d only made him do thirty pushups, so he must have agreed a little.
I looked over at Deeke, sure he’d be fuming about the rifles, but he wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t look so good, even if you considered the bites.* Pale, sweaty, real unsteady on his feet like he was about to fall over.
My stomach fluttered. He hadn’t been bitten enough to look that bad. He seemed more sick than hurt—
“Oh, God.” I grabbed Abbie’s arm. We hadn’t seen a new Bug case in years, but Doc had made me recite the symptoms so many times I could say them in my sleep. Fever, joint pain, swollen glands. “Get Doc. Now.” I raced for Deeke. Abbie raced the other way, into the lobby behind Mayor Yang.
Deeke collapsed two steps before I reached him. Just sagged down to the ground like his knees had popped. Those standing around him turned and stared for a second or two, then gasped and backed away.
“Deeke!” I dropped to my knees and pressed a hand against his forehead. Hot.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
“Shawna, what are you doing?” Mayor Yang yanked me back, scraping my butt across the driveway as he dragged me away from Deeke. “Wash your hands right now!”
I pulled my bottle of germ gel out of my pocket and squeezed a blob into my palm. Mama and Daddy hovered at the edge of the circle forming around Deeke and me. I wanted to run over and hug them both, but we all knew the rules. Mayor Yang had taken a big enough risk touching me, and I never should have touched Deeke.
“Where’s Doc?” Mama said, her voice shaking. She reached out a hand toward Deeke, then pulled it back.
“I’m here.” Doc shoved her way through, a green mask over the lower half of her face and gloves on her hands. She kneeled by Deeke and checked his eyes, his glands, squeezed his elbow. He whimpered and she swore.
More worried murmurs behind us. Abbie pushed through the crowd and came toward me, but Mayor Yang motioned him back.
“We need to quarantine him,” Doc said.
Mama started crying and Daddy held her. I stayed on the warm brick, my stomach twisted in knots. Deeke had the Bug. He could die, just like all the people who used to live in the city and the country and all the places in between. We could all die.
Doc stood, but she didn’t pull the mask off her face. Even though she’d told me the Bug wasn’t airborne anymore.
“Everyone, listen up. Full quarantine for the next twenty-four hours. One to a room. Y’all know the drill. You start to feel sick, hang the card on the door. Fever, headache, throbbing joints, vomiting. If you came into contact with Deeke, me, or Shawna in the last half hour, wash and disinfect.”
“Hang on, everyone,” Mayor Yang called as folks scattered. They stopped and turned back toward him. “Hunters and watchers, you’re exempt. Stay here and wait for orders.”
Doc’s hands clenched at her sides. “We need to quarantine everyone right now. You know how fast this can spread.”
“I also know we have an infected juvie out there that can do more damage if it gets inside the perimeter. We have to find and kill it before it infects anyone or anything else.”
“But—”
“What if it gets into the stadium?” Mayor Yang said. “Bites any of the herds?”
I shuddered. We didn’t have many cows left, a dozen goats, six sheep. Chickens we had the most of, but even they wouldn’t keep us all fed. The Bug had spread just as fast through animals as it had people, and if our animals got infected, it wouldn’t matter if we did too. We’d still be dead. Just not as quick. Starvation was an ugly way to die, too.
Doc’s eyes narrowed above her mask, but she nodded. “Hunters and watchers stay, everyone else, go.”
The others ran into the hotel as ordered. There’d be a huge dip in the cistern for sure. Even folks that hadn’t come anywhere near us would wash.
“What about Deeke?” I asked, squeezing another glob of germ gel into my hand. I coated both hands and rubbed it over my face and neck.
Mama sniffled and wiped her eyes. “We’ll take him to the clinic and wait.”
“No, you won’t.” Doc held up a hand when she started to argue. “Shawna and I will. If he’s contagious, we’ve both been exposed already. You two go to your rooms like I said.”
“No, I—”
“Just do it, Kayla,” Mayor Yang said softly. “There’s nothing to do but wait now anyway.”
Twenty-four hours. A whole day to see if my brother lived or died. To see if the Bug had mutated again and we all died.
“What about Shawna?” she asked, looking at me like she wanted to scoop me up. If only she could.
“After she helps get Deeke settled, she’ll join the hunters.”
My heart flipped—joy then guilt. Mama’s breath caught and Daddy shook his head. Mayor Yang rubbed his eyes. “I don’t like it either, but with Deeke down we need her. You trained her well. Let her prove it.” He glanced at me and I saw in his eyes what he didn’t want to tell my parents. I’d worked with Doc long enough to know it though.
If I was infected too, it was
***
We broke into two teams. Tonzo didn’t want to hunt with me, so he and Sarah took Abbie. Miguel and Pete both ignored the Doc’s warnings and hugged me, saying they hoped Deeke made it through the night. I told them I was sorry about Louie. Everyone nodded slowly.
“Okay, basta,” Miguel said, handing me three scratched red and black javelins. I slid them into the special harness on my back. “We take the east side of the block, you three take the west. If the juvie’s got the Underground, he’s got at least the two blocks around it.”
Sarah nodded. “Make sure you’re paying attention when you reach the Capitol building just in case it’s more.”
I’d never seen the Capitol building, but Deeke had told me stories. Said the whole dome was made of gold and sparkled in the sun.
“Good hunting, amigos.”
Abbie smiled at me, but I turned away without smiling back. He couldn’t decide my life for me. It was bad enough Mama and the Doc were trying to do it, but I couldn’t take that from him, too. How could he expect me to marry him if he got to make all the decisions?
We left the grounds of the hotel and headed north up Hank Aaron, staying on opposite sides of the street. The stink of compost and manure hit us as we passed Turner Field, the air clearing in the open blackness of the lots on the other side. Papa Ray said on game days the lots used to overflow with cars and people, but I figured he was exaggerating. Even if you parked all the cars abandoned on the 75 into these lots, you’d still have lots of room for more.
We passed beneath tall trees bright green with spring leaves and walked under the foot bridge with the five joined circles. Kept walking to where the roads widened and wound around each other like knots. A pack of six had claimed those grounds years ago, and Mama had been part of the team who’d hunted them down and took it back for us. It was risky, but we’d had no choice about that. Weren’t a lot of places to look for supplies by the stadium, but it was the most protected field in the whole city. We needed that protection if we hoped to keep the herds safe.
I’d been all the way to the road knot before, had touched the signs for both the 20 and the 75, but hadn’t had the stones to go farther. The gold capitol dome sparkled ahead, just as Deeke described it, tall as the skyscrapers behind it, though that had to be an illusion. The dome couldn’t really be that tall.
I looked back as we crossed under another foot bridge overhead. The city looked the same, but different. Gray and cold as always, but wary instead of sad. From the hotel roof you could see the rolling green of the foothills north of us, but there wasn’t much green here except the grass under the roads and the trees that had grown wild and busted out of their planters. The old Ramada was still there, its walls charred black.
“How far is the Underground?” I asked, just to hear a human voice.
“About a mile and a half from the hotel.”
Over halfway there. We’d have to start paying attention soon, though Mama had said a good hunter always paid attention. Dogs were alert all the time or they died, so we had to do the same.
Tonzo turned left just past the big roads, taking his team up the other side of the block at a building with a big red and blue triangle and the word, Delta, on it. Our team stayed straight, heading deeper along the city street. Buildings rose on either side, with rusty cars lining the sidewalks. Mama said to be extra careful around those. They made good dens.
“Shawna,” Miguel said gently, pulling a javelin out of his harness. I tensed. “It gets bad from here, so be ready.”
I nodded and grabbed my own javelin, rubbing my thumb across the worn bulldog face with a G behind it.
Shadows cut across the street ahead, hard and long, same as the buildings that cast them. The wind picked up, funneled through the rooms and halls around us, howling. I swallowed, my mouth dry.
“Creepy ain’t it?” Pete said. “Like the place is talking to ya.”
“Sounds more like crying.”
Miguel nodded. “That’s what Deeke always says, too.”
Piles of bones littered the path ahead. Arms, legs, ribs, skulls. Lots of skulls. Miguel veered right, leaving the safety of the street and heading closer to the buildings.
Papa Ray told stories about stuff like this. He said there’d been bones around the hotel when he was a boy. Inside, too. All the places people had up and died after the Bug came, or the piles the survivors had made before there weren’t enough left to haul the dead away.
“Shawna, you see that?” Miguel pointed to a section of bones.
At first I didn’t, then I looked closer, like a hunter would. I drew on everything Mama had taught us. “Teeth marks.”
He nodded, pleased. “Muy bien. Packs owned this block once. Ate the dead. So many bodies.” He crossed himself and kissed the pendant he always wore.
Packs.
I shivered, the javelin suddenly too small in my hands. I couldn’t hold off a pack with it. Nothing could anymore. If a pack found us, we’d be just like those bones, but—
“Shawna?”
I looked up. Miguel and Pete were thirty feet ahead, staring back at me with wrinkled brows.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Stay close.”
“Okay.”
Keep your wits, girl.
Hunting was more than breaking into rooms and finding clothes. More than discovering a crate of canned goods in a forgotten closet. It also meant being hunted. Treasure sparkled, and you couldn’t let it blind you.
I took a deep breath and hefted the javelin.
“We’re getting close,” Miguel said just past the Capitol. He pointed ahead. “A few more blocks.”
The buildings looked older here, red brick with arched windows on one side of the street, and flat concrete boxes on the other. We reached a church, the round window in the front not even broken. It looked like a castle from the stories Mama used to tell me at bedtime.
“This way.” Miguel crossed the intersection, passing under an old sign. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SE. Tall buildings of concrete and glass lined one side of the street, trees and a parking garage on the other. He went down one more block and turned right onto Pryor Street. Parking garages loomed on both sides. Trees lined the garage on the right. Overgrown planters ran the length on the garage on the left, good to climb onto, but wire screens covered the first-floor windows. Green lampposts held tattered remains of blue and red flags.
Miguel walked more cautiously now, javelin at the ready. We crept past a red brick building with a wide arch over its door. A brown sign hung over it, Trin-something written in fancy script. An alley was just past that, with a white archway at the entrance with “Kenny’s Alley” across it and a silhouette of a band playing above.
Sounds echoed off the walls. Miguel held up a hand. Stop. We froze.
Wet rips, sharp snaps, a low growl.
Eating.
I lifted a shaking finger, twirled it. Where?
Miguel didn’t answer, but he scanned the area, his head cocked. I listened too. I wanted to close my eyes to help focus my ears, but I wasn’t that dumb. Alleys on both sides of the street, and shops with no glass in the windows to keep dogs out.
A loud snap.
Miguel pointed ahead on the right, under the Kenny’s Alley sign. I nodded.
Go around? I signaled.
He shook his head.
I swallowed. Okay then, this was it. My first kill. I could do this. If this was the juvie, we could all go home.
Miguel signaled instructions, set up flanking positions. We had to move fast, get line of sight and throw the javelins as one. He looked back at me and pointed to his belt.
I looked down. The safety strap on my knife sheath was still snapped shut. I quietly popped it open.
Miguel nodded once, then waved us forward. Move in.
How did he know it was only one dog? What if there were more? What if something was between us and it and we couldn’t throw the javelins?
We moved together, sliding out away from the building. The dog lay in the middle of the walkway, something large and brown and bloody between its paws.
A deer, just a deer.
I threw the javelin a hair later than Miguel and Pete. The dog’s head snapped up and it growled, its bloody lips curling back, flashing its teeth. It leapt. Miguel’s javelin sliced its flank but didn’t stop it. The other two missed, both by inches.
Shit shit shit!
I reached back for another javelin. Yanked it out and held it in front of me. Miguel drew his second javelin and thrust it at the snarling, drooling, nightmare trying to get close enough to bite.
Pete threw his javelin. It sank into the dog’s side, just past the shoulder. It yelped and staggered. I swallowed my fear and threw mine. The tip slid right into the dog’s chest about where the lungs oughta been. Miguel was on it then, jabbing away at the dog until it stopped moving.
We stood quiet, our breath and the birds the only sounds. Unless the wind blew, then the buildings cried, like they mourned the dog.
Miguel picked up the javelins and handed them back to us. We wiped them off and put them away. “Good kill, Shawna.”
I grinned, even though bile stung the back of my throat. I’d done it. I was a hunter.
“Was that the juvie?” I asked.
“It’s a juvie. Barely a year old looks like. You should cut off a souvenir,” he said, kneeling down. “A tooth or claw, maybe—”
Something large slammed into Miguel. Warmth and wet splashed across my face. Screaming hurt my ears, but I couldn’t tell who was screaming. Maybe me.
Miguel was caught under the paws of the biggest dog I’d even seen, even bigger than the hunter stories I always thought were exaggerated. Its back was almost as tall as me, square head, floppy ears. Black and brown fur. I’d seen cows smaller. I tried not to see Miguel’s blood, or torn flesh. Tried, but failed.
Oh, God, it’s eating him.
“Matriarch!” Pete screamed, backpedaling away. He’d dropped his javelin.
Alpha Dog. Pack leader.
My knees turned to water. Run. I had to run, get away while she was eating Miguel.
But hunters didn’t run. I grabbed and threw my javelin. It wobbled and bounced across her back. She never even looked up.
“Shawna, run!”