Frost by M.P. Kozlowsky

Author:M.P. Kozlowsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Nearly an hour later, when the truck stopped a second time, instead of the Eaters being unloaded, it was the broots.

In the last few minutes of the ride, the animals were just waking up. In their haze, they attempted to stand, their legs unsteady and their eyes glazed over, although their jaws were instantly snapping at the bodies surrounding the cage, guttural sounds caught in their throats like the rumblings of engines. Frost thought how lost Romes would be among these broots. He wasn’t like them, not in the least. He knew what it was like to be human; he was more human than Bunt, possibly even more than her own father.

With a dispiriting turn of her stomach, the rear of the truck opened, and she watched as the cage of broots was ushered past and into the street. It was clear this was a part of the city she had never seen. It was more orderly than what she was used to seeing from the thirty-second floor of her home. This street was clean and rebuilt; it almost looked like it was a replica of the past. The building that the truck was idling in front of was in nearly pristine condition. There were sounds coming from it, as if it were reborn and functioning, growing louder by the moment. It pulsed with raging life. Had she traveled back in time? What was this place?

As she leaned forward, she could see past the open double doors. Inside, encompassing what seemed to be the entire floor, was a giant holding pen of some kind. Metal fences divided the massive space in scores of segments, and she could make out movement within each of them, lots and lots of movement in the shadows, as if everything was one, the floor an ocean of strong currents. With the doors open, the sounds were disturbingly loud and penetrating now. There must have been hundreds of broots packed inside the building.

As Grash conversed on the front steps with a black man who had a severe hunch and yellow blood on his hands, the cage door was lifted and the broots were guided inside the pen with whips and lasers. The animals squealed and growled, but, grudgingly, they went where they were directed. Then the doors were closed, and the sounds were muffled, but they still haunted.

As the truck pulled away, the man sitting across from Frost acknowledged her repulsed curiosity.

“You want to know what we do with them, too, don’t you?” he said.

Frost nodded, although, unlike with the Eaters being released into the Wasteland, she was afraid she already knew the answer.

“Well, we need to eat. We need to feed our people. And the Good John Lord has found a way to deliver. He never ceases to bless his followers with miracles. Broot is just the latest example. There’s farming to be done, sure, but that doesn’t produce enough—not in this environment. And with the weather getting colder recently, things are worse than ever. Besides, don’t all humans crave meat?” He tapped his gun.

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