Cookies, Jell-O, cinnamon rolls, Doritos … I am in a world filled with food, and it is heaven. It should be, at least. But it is not. I stare at the tables covered with every edible luxury imaginable and take a step back. Eating will make my body change, make it turn soft and voluptuous. Voluptuousness is a death sentence. I have to hide behind my thin, childlike frame, like a child vampire, never changing, never maturing, never progressing.
“Hey, Jacqui.” A hand shakes my foot and I blink sleep away. “Time to go,” Fo says. I nod and tuck my gun, clutched in my hand, into my belt. “What were you dreaming about?”
I sigh. “Food. Do you remember when my mom taught us how to make cinnamon rolls? Do you know what I would give for a single cinnamon roll, fresh out of the oven, dripping with cream cheese frosting?” She nods. Of course she knows. I open my backpack and take out a bottle of tablets. One tablet has twenty calories and all the vitamins I need. Fo sees me put it into my mouth and her lips pucker. I shrug. “I didn’t know what else to pack that I could carry over a long distance, so I get to eat these for now.”
Bowen opens the van’s sliding door and morning sunlight shines in. He reaches for his backpack, unzips it, and takes out a water bottle and the atlas with the marked Wyoming trail. He plops the atlas onto the peeling vinyl bench seat and opens it to the page with the map of the entire United States. I peer over his shoulder, at the red ballpoint pen showing a path from where we are, all the way to northern Wyoming. He turns the pages until he gets to our state and I snort.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. No one would be stupid enough to fall for that,” I say, leaning in for a closer look. “All the cowboy did is highlight the main highway all the way to the edge of the state! That seems like the most dangerous route possible!”
“Look here.” Fo touches the side of the map with her right hand. I stare at her tattoo and shudder with revulsion. My gaze moves from her hand to where she’s pointing. Tiny words have been written in pencil.
Beware the Sirens. This is where they typically make a first attempt at contact. Stay wide of highway.
There is a line drawn from the writing to a point on the map. “I think this is just a couple of miles north of where we are,” says Fo.
I look a little closer. The place with the Siren warning is a couple of miles north of us.
“Well, we won’t be seeing the Sirens since we’re not going north.” Bowen takes the atlas and tries to tear it in two, but it is too thick. “I can’t believe I paid four ounces for this piece of crap.”
“I’ve been thinking.” Fo looks between Bowen and me.
“What have you been thinking?” I ask, prepared for anything but hoping she suggests we turn back. I am beginning to doubt whether or not I should have left home.
Her eyes lock on mine. “If Wyoming is a trap,” she whispers, “who do you suppose is trying to lure people away from the path to Wyoming?”
“Probably more murderers and thieves,” Bowen snaps, chucking the atlas out of a broken window.
The atlas flutters in the morning air and falls to the ground like a bird with broken wings. I glance out the window, remembering the sound wings made, and frown. I lean my whole head out of the van’s window and squint at the wide blue sky stretching overhead. Straight up it is as blue as a robin’s egg. But west, a brownish haze frames the mountains.
“Bowen, Fo, come here.” They come to the broken window and follow my gaze west. “Am I imagining things or does the sky look … wrong?”
“It looks weird,” Fo agrees. She puts her fingers on her thighs and starts pressing, as if playing the piano. In time with the movements of her fingers, she hums a gloomy tune under her breath, and suddenly I feel doomed. More doomed than I’ve felt on this whole journey.
“It’s just smoke,” Bowen says, shrugging.
“Just smoke? But smoke means people! What if I’m wrong about going west? What if we are being lured into the hands of more raiders?” I hug my arms over my chest. “We should turn back. This was a stupid idea. I don’t think I can do this.”
Bowen and Fo share a look. She rests her hands on the fanny pack that she wears over her stomach, like a woman resting her hands on her pregnant belly—as if there’s something precious inside the pack. “You can go back if you want to, Jack,” Fo says. “But I’m not.”
“I go where she goes.” Bowen nods at Fo. As if I didn’t know that. “And not all fires are manmade. Everything is dead. Maybe lightning struck somewhere and there’s a forest fire burning.”
I bite the inside of my cheek once, hard. “Sorry. I’m just having a moment of weakness.” Someone screams outside the van, a man-scream—deep and rough, like a growl mixed with a yell. “Please say that’s your brother, Fo.”
“Jonah!” she cries, and darts out the open door. Bowen follows, and I follow him.
Fifty yards away on the sidewalk in front of an elementary school, a man in a hooded sweatshirt is rolling on the ground with another person. Limbs are flailing. Dust is flying. I sprint past Fo and Bowen and reach Jonah first, staring in amazement as he grapples with a short, bone-thin, totally naked boy.
“Stay back, Jacqui,” Jonah growls. The boy lunges away from Jonah, at me, and I leap out of his reach just before his small outstretched hand can grab me. A hand marked with the sign of the beast. He has nine marks. A Level Nine. Level Nines are lethal. I slowly back away. And then I step off the curb and fall flat on my back, the air whooshing out of me in one painful burst.
The beast jumps on me, his gap-toothed, olive-skinned face inches from mine. Glossy black hair hangs in his eyes. He whips the hair out of his face like a normal, rational boy, and then he opens his mouth for a bite—of me—and is pulled off by a pair of scarred hands. Jonah wrenches the boy’s arms behind his back.
“Fiona,” Jonah pants, slamming the beast onto the ground and resting one of his knees between the kid’s sharp shoulder blades.
Fiona calmly walks up to her brother and the beast. “Hold him still,” she says. The beast squirms beneath Jonah but can’t get away. She unzips her fanny pack and removes a long, thin glass tube. I watch in silent fascination as she uncaps a syringe and jams it into the beast’s bare butt cheek, injecting a clear liquid into him.
I scramble up onto my feet. “What are you doing?”
Jonah looks at me with pained eyes, but it is Fo who answers, “Injecting him with the cure.”