I lay in a field of white wildflowers, the warm sun overhead making me drowsy. Someone had their arms around me, and I could smell a musky cologne that reminded me of chocolate. His face was a blur, but the stranger held me close, his calloused hands pressing down over my sternum in a way that made heat pool in my core. Soft, velvety lips met mine, and a light sensation filled my chest, like I would burst.
“Come on.” He whispered, his warm breath tickling my ear. “Wake up.”
“Come on, civvie, wake up!”
A heavy weight leaned on my chest, and my mouth shot open to drag a long, damp gulp of air down into my lungs.
“I got a live one.” A male voice echoed over me, and gentle hands cradled my head. “Hey, can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes for me. Open your eyes civvie, come on.”
My eyelids fluttered, and I blinked up at a pair of sky-blue irises, bushy brown eyebrows, and a warm, relieved smile. Bright fingers of light cut through the murky woods around me, flashlights mounted on the ends of rifles, held by dozens of people dressed in black polo shirs. A few trucks sat near the fence, and I could hear the crackle of radio chatter. Jumbled piles of old, smelly shoes lay clustered around me, partially covering my stomach and legs. A metallic taste stung the inside of my mouth, and my ears rang with an irritating tone.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you.” The guy looked to be in his early twenties, with broad shoulders and the start of a stubble beard. He had close-cut hair the color of maple syrup, and wore a black polo shirt, over which was strapped a green bandolier full of rifle magazines. The barrel of a rifle poked from behind one shoulder, and I saw the words New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve stenciled on the breast pocket of his shirt.
Is this a dream?
I tried to take another breath, but my head spun, and stars danced before my eyes. More coppery taste flowed over my upper lip, and pain pulsed in my temples.
“Jamie, get over here, I’m losing her!”
A girl appeared behind the boy, her bleach blonde hair in a tight bun, a Kalashnikov slung over her shoulder. She threw herself down beside me and reached down to cup my face with both hands.
“Can you hear me?” She stared into my eyes, turning my head with her hands, inspecting me like a ripe watermelon.
Blackness nibbled at the edges of my vision, and it took all my effort just to nod.
“Blink twice if two plus two equals four.”
Despite my dizziness, I managed to press my eyelids down twice in a row.
“She’s not scrambled, but she’s going into shock.” The girl pressed two fingers to my neck, her skin cool and dry compared to my sweaty flesh. “Jeez, Chris, did you break her sternum?”
“No.” Above me, the boy looked down at my face in despair, his expression starting to blur as my eyes watered. “I swear, I didn’t push that hard, just enough to get her breathing—”
Bwwwooonnnggg.
A loud, electro-synth foghorn ripped through the trees from somewhere nearby, and a strange metallic screech-thudding rumbled closer.
“Technos!” One of the other fighters pointed his rifle into the dark tree line, and the night came alive with the crack-crack of gunfire.
Everything tilted, and the shoes fell away as the boy lifted me from the ground like a sack of potatoes. “We gotta go. Jamie, help me get her in the truck.”
Trees crunched, brush snapped, and piercing white light flooded over the clearing. The blonde girl put her hand over my eyes and ran alongside the boy who carried me.
“You stay awake, you hear?”
In between the girl’s fingers, I barely glimpsed the outline of something huge and angular clambering through the pines, its eight gray legs skittering over the rough terrain with ease. Small, dark figures of the fighters surrounded it, and like something from a cave painting, they fired up at the colossal shadow with everything they had.
“Get the magnet spears! Bring it down!” A deeper male voice bellowed, and long sticks flew through the air at the encircled thing, followed by the resounding clang of metal hitting metal.
A truck door creaked open by my head, and several hands pulled me inside a small, hot metal box. Tense faces peered down, and the boy who carried me leaned close, his worried blue eyes boring into mine.
“Don’t you die on me.”
But shadows clawed away the light, pain throbbed in my head, and just before I blacked out, another long, strange foghorn blast echoed, like the roar of a prehistoric dinosaur.
Darkness.
Soft, smooth warmth covered my arms. The electric whining of machines hummed somewhere in the background, along with the distant chirp of crickets and the croaks of frogs. Crisp, acidic chlorine tickled my nose, and a cool breeze whispered past my cheek.
My eyelids split open, and I inhaled.
Ow.
Breathing hurt, my ribs ached, especially around the front, and it took all my effort just to prop myself up on both elbows.
What the . . .
White cotton sheets lay over me, a small twin-sized metal bedstead holding me up off the tile floor. A thin blue medical gown hugged my body, and my hair flowed loose around my shoulders in soft brown rivulets. The bed I sat on was surrounded by a little alcove of hanging white sheets, and through the thin curtains, I could just make out a larger room beyond. It smelled of industrial cleaner, the walls lined with white-painted tables and cupboards. A few metal trays stood next to some squat gray plastic machines that idled in the corner like waiting cars. Through the closed window just behind my bed, I could hear the muted songs of insects and frogs on the other side of the glass. The lights overhead were dimmed, dark enough that I almost felt bad about saying anything, like I risked waking someone up.
“H-Hello?” My voice rasped scratchy and weak, as if I’d swallowed a bucket of nails.
Squeak.
A swivel chair moved somewhere out of my line of sight, and the quick tock-tock-tock of shoe heels on the cold floor echoed closer. Shadows closed on my white-cotton sanctuary, and I shrunk back into the covers, my heart racing.
Slender fingers drew aside the curtain, and I jumped, startled despite myself.
“Well good morning kiddo.” A woman appeared dressed in a white doctor’s coat, with a light blue blouse underneath, and tan slacks. Likely in her mid-forties, she was tall and slender, with long golden-brown hair pulled back into a functional ponytail. Her face bore many lines of fatigue, but she gave me a friendly, almost maternal smile. “Or rather, good evening. You gave us a scare back there. How are you feeling?”
Confused.
Swallowing, I coughed dry as a cotton ball, and winced at how it stung. “I . . . my ribs kinda hurt.”
“How bad, on a scale of one to ten?”
I breathed deep on purpose, pushing my limits to see just how much it throbbed. “I guess, like, four. Maybe three if I don’t try too hard.”
The woman ducked behind the curtain to pull at an unseen cabinet, and came back around to sit beside me, with a paper cup full of water. “It’ll probably be that way for a while. Chris said he had to do compressions to get you conscious. Lucky for you, our X-rays didn’t find any fractures, and you don’t show any signs of brain-scrambling. You’ll have some nasty bruises, but nothing worse than that.”
I flicked my eyes down at the hospital gown covering me and fought the fire of humiliation in my cheeks. “My clothes . . .”
“Sorry about them.” The woman leaned forward to poke a cautious finger through my hair around the scalp and seemed satisfied to find nothing there. “But they were growing sprouts from the organic material we found you in, and we figured better safe than sorry. Same with your personal effects. But you’re clean, so you don’t have to worry about any infections, or internal growth.”
Both relieved and puzzled by her words, I downed the water she’d given me in a few greedy gulps. “So, what hospital is this?”
A rueful chuckle burst from the woman’s lips, and she shook her head. “I’m afraid it isn’t at all, really. This is the Fur-and-Fang Veterinary Clinic, or at least, it used to be. I’m Doctor Alicia O’Brian, the chief medical officer for New Wilderness.”
I stared, my heart skipping a beat at the memory of that name. New Wilderness. I was still here, still stuck in this nightmarish place with the monsters that had . . . wait.
Why am I the only one?
“My friends.” Cautiously, I looked around for any sign of Matt or Carla. “I . . . there were two others with me, a boy and a girl about my age. Did you see them?”
Her kind eyes lost some of their glow, and Dr. O’Brian sighed wearily. “Did you happen to come here in a gray Toyota?”
Oh no, please God, no . . .
“Yes.” I squeaked, my stomach lurching in a sickening knot.
She stared at the floor for a moment, a look of remorse on her tired face. “Our patrol spotted a gray car speeding away just before they got to the scene. A boy and a girl, matching those descriptions. With all the anomalies around, we couldn’t chase after them, so I honestly have no idea where they went.”
It felt like the floor fell out from under me, and I sat there, stunned. Matt and Carla had left me? They had left me, left me to die, to be ripped apart, eaten, devoured like a package of hamburger helper. And they hadn’t even looked back.
No. It can’t be true. This lady has to be lying, she just has to.
“C-Can I use your phone?” I gathered my hospital gown around me, doing my best to hold my composure.
Dr. O’Brian handed me a square black smartphone from her trouser pocket. “You might have to walk around the room to find some decent signal, if there’s any at all. Ever since the mutants started showing up, cell service has been terrible. None of our landlines work either.”
My feet hit the cold floor tiles, and I sucked in a breath at the tingling sensation it brought. Standing, I swayed, but paced around the room until a solitary bar popped up in the upper right-hand corner, and I dialed Carla’s number.
Nothing. The call dropped before I could even hear a dial tone.
“Come on, come one.” I grumbled under my breath and tried again.
Again, the call never even rang.
Just five minutes, for God’s sake, I just need five—
The phone began to ring, and I listened, mentally begging Carla to answer.
Click.
“Hello?”
“Carla?” I almost broke down in tears at the sound of her voice. “Carla, i-it’s me, it’s Hannah. Where are you?”
A long pause followed.
“Oh my Go . . . Matt, it’s Hannah, it’s freaking Hannah, she’s alive!”
Matt’s voice echoed through the speaker shortly after hers. “Hey, Hannah, is it really you?”
I couldn’t stop the grin from crawling across my face, and tears streamed over my cheeks. “Yeah, it’s really me. The park rangers found me, so I’m safe. You guys alright? I thought those things got you.”
“Yeah, we’re good.” Matt chuckled. “That was super gnarly huh? Did you get it on camera?”
Wow. That’s your first question?
For some reason, that stuck in my brain more than usual. Matt and Carla had one track minds about our blog, but this . . . they hadn’t even asked if I was okay.
“Matt, where are you guys?” I demanded, with more force to my voice this time, and my smile began to melt. “Those creeps attacked and you both just . . . took off.”
More silence. Through the hushed static, I thought I heard them whispering to each other on the other side, as if arguing over what to say.
“We, um,” Carla came back on at last, with a heavy, reluctant sigh. “We’re in Cincinnati.”
What?
I almost dropped the phone, my mouth hanging open. “W-Wha . . . I . . . Carla, you guys left me behind. I’m still here, at New Wilderness. You drove four hours to Cincinnati without even coming back to look for me?”
“We thought you were dead.” She whispered, and it seemed she started to choke up, her voice cracking with partial sobs. “Hannah, we didn’t mean to, honest. But we had to get out of there, and—”
“Why didn’t you call somebody?” My tears returned, but not out of joy, the anger and hurt boiling over after months and months of keeping it bottled up. “Those things tried to eat me, how could you just leave and not at least tell the police?”
“We thought about it.” Matt tried to sound apologetic, though I could recognize the fake charm he used on the street to talk-down angry policemen. “But we ran into a bunch of soldiers close to the county line, and they were super pissed to find us there. Seriously, Spielberg, we didn’t want to get sued for trespass—”
“Are. You. Serious?” To hear him try to humorously use my nickname, now, after everything, sent me over the edge. “You scummy lowlife coward, you left me to die all for a freaking video and you don’t even have the decency, the common sense, the balls, to go and tell someone where I am? What the actual hell is wrong with you?”
“Hannah, please, we didn’t—” Carla tried to interject, but I was a volcano, and the eruption wouldn’t stop.
“Shut up, Carla.” I snarled through gritted teeth, remembering all the fines, the creepy homeless people chasing us, the irate policemen calling my parents. All for clicks. All for a stupid blog that I never appeared in, because I couldn’t lie as well as they could. “Forever shut your stupid mouth. I am so sick and tired of you two doing this to me. I could have died, and you weren’t even going to tell anyone, were you? You weren’t going to call my parents, or the cops, or any-freaking-one, because you didn’t want to get charged for being the dumbest pair of morons in the universe. I told you it was a bad idea, I told you not to, but do you ever listen? No!”
“We’ll call someone, okay?” Matt sounded irritated now, as if he had a right to be. “Look, we’ll call Carla’s mom, and maybe she can work out a deal—”
“Don’t bother.” I hissed as my rage grew to a crescendo, my hand gripping the phone so hard I heard plastic begin to crack under the strain. “Just don’t, alright? I’ll take care of myself. We’re done, I’m done, screw you both, screw your stupid blog, and I swear, if I ever see either of you again, I’ll break your worthless nose!”
I jabbed my thumb into the red ‘end call’ button and tossed the phone onto a nearby table. My vision tinged crimson, and I hurled my balled fist at the drywall over and over with a high-pitched scream of bitterness.
Crunch.
At the final blow, the sheetrock crumpled under my knuckles, pain flared in both my hand and chest, and I slumped to the floor in a puddle of hot tears. Sobbing, I rested my forehead against the wall, and berated myself for being so stupid. Mom had always told me they weren’t good friends, she’d warned me so many times. Had I listened? No. I’d wanted to prove to her that I was grown up, that I could handle myself, that I knew what I was doing. And what did I have to show for it? I was marooned, stranded in some hellscape nightmare, with my only two ‘friends’ having left me high and dry the second things went south.
Two gentle hands smoothed over my trembling shoulders, and Dr. O’Brian knelt beside me. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay, just take deep breaths for me.”
I couldn’t see, hot tears coated my face, and my nose ran like a faucet. “Y-You’re phone I . . . I think I c-cracked it, I’m s-sorry, I—”
“Don’t.” She pulled me closer in a warm, soft hug, and patted my back between both shoulder blades. “It’s just a phone. You’ve been through a lot, I’d be upset too.”
She held me until the tears stopped and guided me back to my bed to hand me a box of tissues. My fingers pulsed, and I could see the torn skin bleeding, the flesh around them red and swollen.
“Did I break it?” I whispered, embarrassed as the doctor inspected my poor hand.
“I don’t think so.” Dr. O’Brian poked at my fingers until I winced in pain. “But these knuckles are going to swell like golf balls now. At least you didn’t punch the fridge door, or we’d be looking at a broken wrist. I’ll clean these cuts and get you some ice.”
The soft swish of a door opening caught my attention, and from the opposite side of the room, a girl walked into view. Both of her arms were full of folded clothes, and a pair of scuffed tan-colored hiking boots hung by their laces from one elbow. She wore close-fitting khaki pants tucked into set of combat boots, and a black polo shirt. A leather pistol belt sat atop her hips, adorned with numerous small pouches, and the black grip of a handgun stuck out of a holster on her right side. A long knife in its scabbard hung from the opposite hip, and I recognized the bleach-blonde hair from the girl who had helped rescue me.
Our eyes met, and she beamed in similar recognition. “Hey, you’re still kickin. Wow, that hand looks rough.”
My face almost melted with shame, and Dr. O’Brian threw the girl a stern, raised-eyebrow look. “Hannah, this is Jamie Lansen. She’s one of the rangers who brought you in.”
“All in a good day’s work.” Jamie winked at me, and her expression softened a little at seeing the tear streaks on my face. “You’re pretty lucky, you know. Chris insisted on searching the shoes, after his flashlight glinted off your camera. If it weren’t for him, we never would have found you.”
Sniffling, I nodded, and tried to bring his face up in my mind, those sapphire-colored eyes, his rugged jawline. But it was hard to focus with the throbbing in my hand, and the sting of betrayal still burning in my chest.
Jamie shuffled closer and held out the clothes. “These are mine, but I’ve got more so you can have them. You should fit, since you’re smaller than me. And look, I even dug up a pack of underwear, brand-new.”
The way she said it, so optimistically, and yet undoubtedly knowing that such a thing was hardly noteworthy struck me as funny somehow, and I couldn’t help but grin. As an only child, I’d always wondered what it would have been like to have siblings, especially sisters, someone to talk to, confide in, and share with. Mom and Dad were pretty tight-lipped about their reasons for only having me, but in the moment, it felt nice to imagine having a cool older sister like Jamie to defend me at school.
She’d probably have decked those preppy downtown girls in their upturned noses. That’d be fun to see.
Her own grin flashed, wry and pleased, across Jamie’s sharp face. “There’s that smile. See, I knew you were tough. Those Brain-Shredders better watch out for you.”
My eyebrows must have gone clear to the ceiling. “Brain-Shredders?”
“The creature that almost killed you.” Dr. O’Brian pulled a clipboard of the foot of my bed and scribbled something down on it. “It’s a psy-organic, one of the rarest and most dangerous anomalies that exists. It works off telekinesis and psycho-manipulation, immobilizing prey and scrambling their neural firing patterns before ingesting their body.”
“Basically, a mental hand-grenade with mold issues.” Jamie chimed in and crossed her arms to throw me an inquisitive look. “But you brought it down. From ten yards away no less.”
My throat scratched dry again, and I wished I’d saved some of my water from earlier. “I . . . I had a dog whistle around my neck, one of those electric ones. I just pushed it, and then everything went blank.”
Both Dr. O’Brian and Jamie blinked at me, stunned.
“You killed a Brain-Shredder, at close range . . .” Jamie repeated, pointing a finger at each imaginary word like she wanted to be sure she’d heard me correctly. “. . . with a doggy beeper?”
My face burned, and I dragged my eyes down at my lap. “I-I didn’t have anything else.”
Dr. O’Brian and Jamie both exchanged surprised, delighted smiles.
“Impressive.” Dr. O’Brian scratched something else down on her clipboard.
“Badass.” Jamie shook her bleach-blonde head, emerald green eyes glittering with approval, and pointed to the clothes in my arms. “I definitely want to hear that story later. Come on, get dressed and I’ll show you around.”
Dr. O’Brian threw her a sideways glance. “Be careful with this one, alright Lansen? She needs to rest. No crazy stunts for a few days, minimum.”
“Crazy stunts?” Jamie winked and headed for the door to give me some privacy. “I think this one might finally be crazier than me.”
Pulling on my new clothes proved to be tricky with how sore my chest was, but I managed. Dr. O’Brian helped lace my boots for me, and gave me some Tylenol, before walking me to the door of the clinic.
“I’ll check in with you every so often.” She patted my arm with a gentleness that eased some of my jangled nerves. “If you need anything, my door is always open.”
I made a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
She strode back into the dimly lit interior of the clinic, and just as I turned to go, something caught my eye.
A door stood not far to my right, slightly ajar. Through the crack between the door jam and the door itself, I could just make out a room beyond, with tables, shelves, and various pieces of laboratory equipment. Dim blue light filled the space, and I figured it to be some kind of ultraviolet lamp to keep bacteria at bay. I almost shrugged it off . . . until I saw the eyes.
Two milky-white eyes gleamed back at me from the shadows, unblinking, and wide with a strange mania. Dark greasy hair floated around the still pale face, and a slack jaw displayed stubby, peg-shaped teeth. Black nylon straps ran under the armpits of the creature, holding it suspended, and I realized that the thing was surrounded by some kind of clear fluid, in a large, upright tank.
“Everything alright?”
Dr. O’Brian watched me from a few feet away, her face partially obscured by shadow. I could have sworn I saw something like a curious glint in her eyes, but the moment passed too quick for me to be certain.
“I’m fine.” I blurted and pushed my way through the double doors.
Somehow, plunging into a forgotten corner of Appalachia felt safer than being in that room, with its humming machines, chlorine smell, and something horrible trapped within walls of glass.