*Ainslee*
The transport vehicle jars all of us as it goes over the rough terrain. It’s still cold, but it’s warmed up a bit since the sun came up. So far, the reactions are almost as different as the twenty of us. A few of the younger kids are crying. The older ones, the almost adults, the ones that should be able to shift if they weren’t so fucking tired, are angry.
And a lot of them keep glaring at me.
I’m waiting for someone to say this is my fault, to just go ahead and put words behind the evil looks, but no one has done it yet. I keep my eyes focused out the slats between the timbers holding this rickety piece of shit together the best I can and try not to lose it.
“We should talk strategy,” one of the older guys, Nelson Pebbles, says. He’s a short, stocky guy, about five years older than me. If this culling would’ve happened in three years like it was supposed to, he would’ve been too old. That’s true for four or five of these angry people.
“Shit, I meant to go talk to Mark Beavers last night, but my ma wouldn’t let me leave the house,” another guy about the same age as Nelson says. Travis something--I don’t remember his last name. “He got away last time. He probably has some tips.”
“Fuck, I’ve been planning for this ever since the last culling, Nelson says, resting his arm on the knee of his dirty pants. “Just in case.”
“We shouldn’t be here.” Annamarie Bone has been crying nonstop since she showed up at the mayor’s office at dawn. Probably before then. She probably cried all night. Her eyes focus on me, and I brace myself. “It’s your fault, Ainslee.”
I open my mouth to say something, hopefully an apology, but Nelson talks over me. “Nah, that’s just what the fucking Blacks want you to think. Those bastards have been up to no good for years. Besides, my old man works at the logging station behind the blood donation clinic, right? He says he sees Black’s men out there moving bags of blood all the fucking time.” He shakes his head, his brown hair blowing in the wind as he does so. “They’re up to something. They probably staged this just to get rid of us. All of us have some sort of beef with the Blacks, don’t we?”
I look around the cart, stunned. We do? I mean, I know I do, but everyone here does?
“I don’t.” Annamarie sniffles and wipes her nose on the back of her hand.
“Bullshit.” Kevin Red, whose hair is bright orange, an interesting contrast to his name, speaks up. “Your mom started that rumor that Blythe Black is fucking Bart Black—her brother-in-law.”
My eyes widen. There’s a rumor that the mayor’s wife is banging his brother? I had not heard this.
Annamarie’s face turns as red as my hair. “That’s bullshit. My mother would never say something like that.”
“Whatever, man.” Kevin shakes his head. “You’ll just have to accept the fact that your ass is here, and getting mad at Ainslee is exactly what those assholes want from us.”
I swallow hard, shocked to hear that. “Do your families know that?” I ask. “I mean, do you think they’ll go after my parents and my younger siblings?”
“Nope,” Nelson assures me. “They know you’re the scapegoat. They’ll leave ‘em alone.”
“Maybe even help them, I’d think,” Travis adds.
I begin to feel slightly better, despite the death march we are all on. Well, sort of. None of us are going to die. Not yet, anyway. “Does anyone know how Mark got away?” I turn my eyes to Nelson. “Did you talk to him during your prep time?”
He nods. “So the place is named after this little dilapidated church that sits in the northeast section of the forest. It’s old as fuck and falling apart. Rumor has it that the priest there went crazy and started killing everyone in the congregation. Thus, Forte Inglesia Malefique. Forest of the evil church. So it’s supposed to be haunted, but Mark hid there last time. There’s a crypt underneath that has space to hide, as well as an altar that’s hollowed out. He said there’s room for several people to hide there, and the vamps hate it because it’s still a church, even if it’s evil.”
Annamarie’s face somehow seems even paler. “Do you think it’s haunted?”
“Fuck no,” Nelson says. “Besides, even if it were, I’d rather hide with a bunch of ghosts all night then feed the vamps for the rest of my life.”
We continue to discuss our options for the next several hours until the creaking sound of other wagons starts to fill our ears. Then, we all go quiet. Five other wagons are converging in the same area, a meadow near a dark forest.
My eyes wander over the blackened wood that makes up the craggily trees in the distance. Their leaves are a blackish-green, and the canopy is so tight, I can imagine it’s difficult to see through there even with a full moon.
“There it is,” Nelson whispers. “The evil forest.”
By now, we have our plan in place, but Nelson and Travis keep talking strategy. My eyes wander over the other transport vehicles. I see lots of scared young people like me, a few who look pissed, and a couple who just appear to be morbidly curious.
“Listen, when we make it back home, though, things have got to change,” Nelson says, and Travis nods. “We can’t keep letting the Blacks treat us like this. We need to overthrow them and put a new family in charge.”
We can all agree to that, but it’s going to take someone getting back to make it happen. If it’s me, well, I’m probably not going to be any help. Because the Blacks will just kill me.
Yet another reason not to go back.
Our guards are out talking to the guards from the other villages, laughing and carrying on. I think I hear something wrestling in the trees behind me and quickly turn around. The trees on that side of us are not scary at all. They look like ordinary pines, maples, and elms. Looking between their trunks, I try to see if someone is there or if I’m just imagining it. I see nothing.
“So the church. That’s our best bet,” Nelson whispers, if it can be called that. It’s a loud whisper, and considering the guards aren’t that far away, it makes me nervous that he’s giving away our plan. But none of them turn around.
“What if we don’t all fit?” Annamaria asks. “What if we get there, and it’s too full?”
“We’ll make it work,” Nelson assures her. “Just don’t fucking lead the vamps to us. I don’t know if they’ll go in or not.”
“Where are they?” Travis tries to get a better look out the holes in the slats by pressing his face to the wood, but he shakes his head, seeing nothing more than our guards nearby.
That metallic scent I’d picked up on the day they’d come to the village enters my lungs. It’s mixed with something else, something I hadn’t noticed the last time I smelled them, maybe because there’d been so much going on with the bread and the rain. It reminds me of some flowers I once came upon in the forest. Not particularly floral, though. Just fresh and clean.
“They’re nearby,” I tell them.
“How do you know? You got some sort of vamp senses, Ainslee?” Nelson jokes. He’s awfully chipper for someone whose about to play a game that could change the complete outcome of his life.
I shake my head. “I smell them. Can no one else smell them?”
“All I smell is Travis’s pits,” Kevin says, and we all laugh.
Our laughter stops abruptly when the wagon door opens. A few of the others mutter curse words, but I was expecting it because the scent had grown stronger.
“Everyone out.”
The voice is familiar, and as the others get out one by one, I wait to be last. Called last, last to leave. When I lock eyes with the familiar man standing at the opening. He lets out a loud sigh and says, “Well, shit.”
“Hello again,” I tell him, taking the hand he offers me to get out.
“Hi, Ainslee. I sure the hell was hoping you wouldn’t be here.”
“Me, too,” I admit with a shrug. He shakes his head, and I can tell he really means that.
Zeke wishes I wasn’t here.