“That’snota dog,” Meg protested as she shook her head from side to side. “That’s a monster, just like the thing the guys are keeping captured in the camp. It scares me to death, Terri. I swear, the look in its eyes—it looks at us as if it would kill everyone and not feel even the slightest bit of discomfort or remorse. You can’t trust these… things.”
That answered her question about what happened to the alien. If it was as bad as Meg said, perhaps it would be better just to leave it and let things work out on their own. She could keep Bedlam at her side and pretend that she never knew that the alien survived.
Her eyes trailed over Bedlam and she felt a surge of guilt for considering it. If she was going to let someone die in cold blood, she had to at least acknowledge what she was doing. Despite Meg’s fear, Bedlam wasn’t evil. She doubted that the alien deserved such a fate and completely lacked good qualities. Groaning, she rubbed her face with one hand and shoved it through her hair.
An idea took root in her mind as she looked at Bedlam. She was overlooking one huge benefit to helping the alien, one that made her almost breathless with excitement. It didn’t just arrive by foot out of nowhere. It was an alien! It likely had a spaceship nearby and could fly from any place on the planet to another. A grateful alienmightbe willing to transport her… say …to the coast. She would be far from the Reapers and could cross the continually expanding desert safely—which itself was a terrible feat.
All she would have to do is sneak into the encampment and break it out. How hard could it be if she secured inside help and attacked when the men were guaranteed to be blitzed out on drugs and drink? She would suffer only minimal risk, especially considering that as soon as the alien was free, it would probably rip through anyone who tried to stop them.
She licked her lips in anticipation and smiled at her friend. It was an insane plan. There was no guarantee that the alien wouldn’t outright kill her the moment she freed it. But what was the alternative? Hang around Phoenix and hope to scavenge enough before the Red Reaper boys caught up to her? Terri had already come to the conclusion that she was living solely on the grace of borrowed time. She didn’t have much to lose.
When it came right down to it, she would trust her chances better with a scary-ass alien.
Inching forward, her smile widened. “Meg,” she whispered, “I need you to do me a big favor and help me sneak inside.”
Meg narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why would you want to do a stupid thing like that, Terri? You said you won’t accept their protection. Why go inside?”
“I want to free the alien,” she answered honestly.
Her friend snorted and stomped away a short distance before rounding on her. “That’s fucking insane, Terri. I should have guessed you would say something like that with how you’re cozying up to its pet,” she hissed. “That thing will kill you!”
“If it does, so what?” Terri returned hotly. “I don’t want to die, but if I don’t find a way out of here before the Reapers catch me, I’m well on my way to dying in one form or another… We both know it. I can’t hide for much longer, and what they would do to me would be worse than death. I would long for death until I finally managed to take my life to escape them. If I have to risk being killed by this alien for even the chance of escaping this hellhole, I will!”
Meg stared at her incredulously for a long moment before her shoulders slumped and she sighed miserably. “Okay. I’m going on record to say that I don’t like this at all,butI will at least feel better with it out of the camp. For better or worse, it’s my home and I don’t feel safe there since they brought it in.” She met Terri’s eyes sadly. “I wish that you would change your mind and submit yourself for protection. It isn’t so bad when you’re there willingly. You might even get a decent guy who doesn’t share you too much with the others. I mean, sometimes it happens because there just aren’t enough women to keep the peace, but you would be safe.”
Turning away from her friend, she sought out Bedlam and found comfort in his solid presence before she trusted herself to speak.
“No,” she replied at last as she struggled to keep her voice even. “I wouldn’t be safe by any stretch of the imagination… no more than you are, even if you’ve convinced yourself otherwise. I love you, Meg, but I can’t live like you do. I would be reduced to someone’s property, spending the rest of my life serving another’s whim and slaking their desires. I can’t do that. I won’t. I’ll take my chance with the alien.” She turned and gripped her friend’s hand urgently, desperate hope swelling within her as she spoke in a hushed voice. “You could come with me, though. We could escape to the coast together like we talked about before the Reapers came.”
Meg stared at her and smiled wistfully as she gently pulled away. “I can’t do that, Terri. I can’t leave Dale. He’s a bit of an asshole, but he cares about me. I don’t want to go back to struggling to survive alone. But I will get you in, and we will both have what we want. Meet me late tonight by the gates. You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it. I can’t do more than that without risking punishment.”
“I understand,” Terri replied. She winced as she heard Bedlam growl behind her. She thought he was growling at Meg, but her friend turned and glanced over her shoulder. When Meg turned back again, it was with a sense of urgency.
“Get out of here, Terri,” she hissed. “One of the guys is coming down with some of the other girls. You don’t want them to see you.”
Terri nodded and slipped on her pack. “Thanks, Meg.”
Her friend nodded with a watery smile and turned her back to her as she hurried to pull out her own water bottles beside the spring while Terri slipped around the rocks heading the opposite direction. Bedlam slid off the rocks like a shadow as he skirted around her, his whips twisting around him in agitation.
She didn’t speak to her silent companion even after they had put a safe amount of distance between them and the spring. It wasn’t like he could offer any words to comfort her. That he loped by her side was enough. There was no reason to fill the space with words for no one other than herself. Instead, she made her way through the broken city, scouting for food as she bided her time. She gathered random supplies and cracked open cans, sharing the contents with Bedlam as she kept a continuous watch on the slow drag of the sun across the heavens.
5
Terri cursed her own stupidity as she crept closer to the camp. Torches flared around the perimeter wall, ghost-lighting skulls and the impaled remains of people who attempted to resist the Reapers’ encroachment through the city. It was a grisly sight even in the light of day, but at night it seemed to contain a dark malevolence that made her want to run in the other direction. The nearest head, freshly spiked, stared at her with sightless eyes, his mouth gaping open at her as if he were laughing. Bedlam sniffed at it until she snapped her fingers and patted her leg, drawing his attention away from it. His interest in the corpse made her want to gag.
Peering through the darkness, she relaxed as she made out the silhouette of her friend waiting for her. Meg stood just inside the entrance, a shawl clutched around her shoulders. The moment she spotted her, Meg frantically waved Terri in.
Terri ducked down along the side wall and hurried toward the entrance, keeping her steps light and quick. From the corner of her eye, she saw Bedlam gliding within the shadows as he kept pace with her. She felt better about going inside knowing he would be close by. It boosted her confidence so that, as she slipped through the barrier, she offered her friend a small smile in passing before plunging into the one place that had given her nightmares since the arrival of the Reapers.
Meg’s lips twitched in response and she stepped out of the way as Terri entered the compound. She opened her mouth to whisper her thanks but Meg shook her head, pressing a finger to her lips as she pointed to the far corner of the camp before stepping back into the shadows, leaving Terri alone in the weak light of the encampment. Terri shivered in dread, warmed only by the press of Bedlam’s hot flank to her side. Swallowing back her nerves, she too stepped into the shadows so that she might linger for a moment to survey the camp stretched out in front of her.
From where she stood, she could see tents littering the area between rusted-out cars and trucks that, by some miracle, the Reapers had managed to get running again. To the side of the trucks, a few motorcycles leaned against the remaining wall of a building that had fallen. She marveled at the collected vehicles. She hadn’t realized that they had so many. Usually, when they chased after her, they never used more than two. She wondered what they were going to do when they ran out of gas. She considered trying to puncture a few fuel tanks with her knife but, despite how satisfying that would be, Terri didn’t want to risk it before she found the alien.
It was a shame, though. They would find it much harder to catch their prey without vehicles.
Terri crept from her hiding spot to follow the line of cars, nearing the light of the bonfires that she could see just beyond them. Being so close to the trucks, her fingers itched to take one and strike out across the desert with it. But she would either be caught by the Reapers or die a terrible death among the sands. She didn’t have the supplies, or even one of the flimsy tents dotting the encampment, to help her in her escape if she attempted it now.
A small voice in the back of her mind whispered enticingly that she could always steal one of the tents and make her getaway. She didn’t need to go any farther into the camp. She wouldn’t need the alien.