Contamination (Feast of Weeds Book 2) by Jamie Thornton

Author:Jamie Thornton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Igneous Books
Published: 2015-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

The six of them hiked us out to the top of their lookout hill. In the daytime it overlooked the valley, the tracks, the river. Now in the dark only the smoke from still-burning fires was visible. It cloaked the area in a sort of soupy mess.

Ano squatted on his heels and started a fire. The others sat cross-legged in the cold grass, forming a semi-circle. I drew the heavy blankets they'd given us around me and Maibe. I didn’t think it said much about their intelligence as street kids that they lit a fire in the blackness, on a night so thoroughly dark it could act as a beacon for others.

Maibe shifted next to me. I helped her fix the blanket underneath since our hands and ankles were still tied. She huddled against my side and I used her counterweight for support. There was no sound except for the crackling of the fire and the random mini-explosions that seemed to haunt the city now that some of it was burning. But those sounds were muffled booms that felt far away.

Spencer took out a knife. Gabbi lifted the shirtsleeve of her left arm. He carved a line of blood into her bicep, and then another. Gabbi grimaced but held still.

After he was done, Ano came to Gabbi, wiped the blood away and rubbed a dark paste onto the wound.

Spencer held the knife into the fire for a couple of minutes, waited for it to cool, and then repeated the act on Jimmy, Ricker, Leaf, and then himself.

In the flickering light, I saw that Leaf’s and Spencer’s cuts were far lower on their biceps than some of the others. Shaky, scrawling, gray-black letters filled the upper part of their arms. Everyone had at least two names carved, but Leaf and Spencer had at least half a dozen.

When Spencer had carved everyone, they cleaned the tools and returned to the half-circle. Now all sat cross-legged. I knew I was in deep darkness, and with the firelight there was no way for them to see us, but I thought Spencer looked right at me.

Ano passed the bowl around. Each added more paste to their wounds.

When they emptied the bowl, they sat in silence for a moment, and then someone doused the fire.

I was blinded by the lack of light, and then a low howl echoed across the darkness. I flinched from the shock of the noise. Another low howl, and then a “yip, yip, yip.” I almost scrambled to my feet, almost woke Maibe from her coma-like sleep, and then realized the sounds originated not from the darkness, but from them.

Their voices rose into the orange starlight like a pack of coyotes. It didn’t matter that coyotes didn't run in packs, their chorus of voices sounded real and chilling and fitting. Coyotes were the outcasts, the throwaway predators of the world, the scavengers, the ones no one cared to protect, and yet, they still survived. The coyote had outlasted the wolves and the bears and the mountain lions and thrived in the very places the other animals couldn't.

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