Feast (3 page)

4

“What do we think?” Peter asked, looking out the windshield at what looked like a busy supermarket.

There were cars still in the lot. The day was clear and warm. The corn growing on the large flat roof looked like a neat haircut, but there was so much growth covering absolutely everything that Alia Rossi filtered it out. If not for the stench of their odor-masked bodies, she might have been able to convince herself that the nightmare had come to an end…that the Change had never occurred…that her father had never gone mad and her mother was still alive.

But she couldn’t even pretend, because if she felt just a hint of her previous life, she would cling to it like an addict.

Except that it’s gone,
she told herself.
This is the world now.

She tried to be strong for Jakob. Modeled herself after Ella, and Anne, and Peter. But she was no good at it, really. And when push came to shove, and then teeth and claws and twisted freaks of nature, she cracked. Hiding became her specialty. No one judged her for it, or complained. Better that she was out of the way, rather than in it. But that didn’t stop her from feeling useless.

So when Peter posed the simple question about what looked like an untouched oasis from the past, she thought,
I can check expiration dates on food,
and said, “Let’s do it.”

“Well, if Princess Pouty-Pants is in, I’m in.” Anne smiled at Alia.

Alia couldn’t tell if the younger girl was really mocking her or engaging in some kind of playful banter. Anne was a mystery to her. Funny, but jaded. Young, but somehow older than her and Jakob. Their relationship was rocky at best. Anne took every sarcastic potshot that presented itself. Alia came to the conclusion that the girl was trying to thicken her emotional skin. Maybe because she cared about Alia. Maybe because she cared about Jakob and didn’t want to see him hurt. He was doubly at risk because of Alia. He took risks protecting her, and if he ever failed to protect her, the fallout might be enough to break him, too.

Jakob was adapting. Learning. Growing stronger, tougher and more resilient. He was a far cry from Peter, Ella and Anne still, but he was cruising ahead, while Alia was standing still.

But I can read labels,
she thought, and opened her door first.

After a brief and cautious walk, they stood in front of the grocery store entrance. The doors were shut and the interior was dark, far more ominous than Alia expected. “So...we can’t break a window, right? That would be too loud.”

Peter’s response was to step up to the automatic door, grasp the metal handle and pull. It resisted for a moment, but then the gears that hadn’t moved in a long time, gave way, whirring as the door opened.

Before entering, Peter said, “Lights on. We’ll do a sweep of each aisle and then break into two groups.”

After turning on their headlamps and chambering rounds in their silenced weapons—Alia had a handgun but she couldn’t remember what kind—they crept into the store. Peter took the lead, followed by Jakob, Alia, Anne and Ella. This was their usual formation, and Alia understood the point of her position. There were two layers of people who could fight on either side of her.

Protecting her.

They moved across the front of the store, which faintly smelled of rotted food, but more like dust. They paused for a moment at the cereal aisle, where a heap of dead bodies lay between the Cocoa Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

“There was either a really good sale, or these guys got a hankering for fresh meat all at the same time.” Anne seemed unfazed by the mound of death, but Alia thought...hoped...it was just an act.

When the Change started affecting humanity, people resisted their growing urges. At first they ate more meat. And then only meat. And then raw meat. Eventually, someone would succumb and take a bite out of a neighbor, family member or total stranger at the grocery store. And once the smell of fresh blood filled the air, it triggered a response in everyone nearby. Alia had no trouble picturing that here. One of these people, probably someone buried beneath the rest, had snapped and attacked. Then everyone in the store on the fringe of changing had lost the battle against it and had joined in.

She shivered as her imagination took over, replaying scenes of spraying blood, gnashing teeth and tearing fingernails. It would have been like some kind of zombie apocalypse, but worse. Because people weren’t just killing each other, they were changing as they did, growing more efficient and deadly and hungry with each kill. Whoever walked away from this feeding frenzy probably didn’t even look human anymore.

“Okay,” Jakob said. “Cereal was never on the list anyway.” As one of the most genetically modified and processed foods available before the Change, cereal was generally off limits. But it had remained popular even after ExoGenetic crops sprang up everywhere. Everyone was fed during those days, but that didn’t stop people from wanting their microwave meals, instant puddings and chocolate-dipped donut bites. Fresh produce was no longer sold in stores, but processed food never went out of style.

“Looks like this store is a mixer,” Jakob said. He’d coined the term at the last grocery store they had visited. Mixers didn’t separate organic food from regular food, but shelved them together, making their best bet at finding safe food a little bit harder.

After finishing the sweep, they split into two groups—adults and kids—but Anne wandered off within thirty seconds of the split. “You guys need some smoochy time,” she said as she wandered away, scanning lines of boxes. “Just like Mom and Dad.”

Alia didn’t think that was true about Ella and Peter. They hid their affection for each other during the day, but Alia wasn’t deaf. She heard them on occasion during a sleepless night. She never got up the nerve to peek, but it didn’t sound like they were having thumb wars.

But for her and Jakob...time alone was at a premium, so Alia didn’t complain when Anne walked away.

And neither did Jakob.

They didn’t speak for a few minutes as they scanned the shelves, but they grew steadily closer. When they stood shoulder to shoulder, Jakob leaned closer and said, “You smell horrible.”

She laughed and said, “And together, we’re like a bouquet of shit.”

He put his arm around her and squeezed her close.

As she turned to kiss him, her eyes locked onto a jar on the far side of the aisle. She stopped mid-pucker and said, “Whoa.”

It was peanut butter.

Organic peanut butter.
Chunky
organic peanut butter. The holy grail of post-apocalyptic treats. Peanut butter had a long shelf life. Back when there was still an Internet, she’d watched a video of a man eating sixty-year-old peanut butter rations from the Korean War. If the expiration date, which was more of a suggestion to keep food moving off the shelf, was early enough, there would be no fear of ExoGenetic contamination. They could eat it.
All
of it. And there were at least thirty jars.

Jakob picked up a jar, twisted it in his hand and smiled wide. “Jackpot.” He lifted the jar and looked inside. “It’s separated—”

“Organic peanut butter is always separated.”

“Well then, it’s perfect.” Jakob looked up and down the aisle. “Now we just need to find some coconut oil and dark chocolate and we’ll be in business.”

Both items, when organic, were on Ella’s safe list. Coconut was not an ExoGenetic crop, and organic, free-trade chocolate was one of the last crops to be overrun. They also had very long shelf lives. If the dates were right, they could have the makings of an epic snack, unlike anything she’d had in two years. Her mouth watered, but the food took a sudden back seat when Jakob, in his excitement, wrapped her in his arms and kissed her.

They had kissed before. A lot. Their awkward first kiss had been back at her farmhouse, in the biodome, just a few feet from where her mother had been buried. They had never met, but shared a kiss that expressed their elation at finally meeting. There had been many more kisses, snuck in during brief private moments. In the darkness of night. When Anne fell asleep in the truck and the parents were looking out the front. But this...this was different. This was passionate.

When they separated, Jakob looked bewildered. “I guess peanut butter is an aphrodisiac.”

Alia said nothing. She just took him by the hand and led him away.

“Where are we going?”

“Bathroom,” she said. “I saw them in the corner of the store.”

“Why?”

“I have to pee.” That was the truth, and she never passed up a toilet, whether or not they flushed. But that wasn’t the whole truth, and as Jakob’s hand grew sweaty in hers, he knew it, too.

When they reached the door to the women’s room, she put her hand on his chest and said, “Wait here.”

He looked a little surprised, but said, “You really do have to pee. I thought that was like code or something.”

“Real and code,” she said.

“Hold on.” Jakob pushed the bright blue door open slowly, aiming his rifle inside the room, scanning it from side to side. With no signs of danger or even a bad smell, he stepped aside and held the door open for her. “Your throne awaits.”

“Be just a minute.” Alia said and stepped inside. When the door was closed, she tried to let herself feel normal.
It’s just a bathroom.

She opened the first stall. The toilet was pristine and empty. There were few things more disappointing than a post-apocalyptic toilet that hadn’t been flushed.

Just pretend the power is out,
she told herself, dropping her pants and sitting on the cool seat. When she was done peeing, she reached for toilet paper and smiled. It was a simple thing, but she’d gone without it too many times. Once was too many times. It was a stupid thing, but it brought her joy, and as she wadded it up, wiped and then stood to pull up her pants, she was lost in the moment. Her hands moved on muscle memory, first buckling her belt, and then reaching back and pushing the small metal lever.

Her mind woke up as the lever shifted downward. She flinched her hand away, but it was too late. Water pressure that had been contained for years exploded into the toilet with uproarious urgency.

The bathroom door burst open. “Alia!”

She stepped out of the stall, face twisted in concern. “I flushed. I didn’t mean to. It just—”

The wall between them shook. A long hooked talon punched through, separating them. Alia screamed and reeled back. The hard shell was green, and its bottom side was serrated like a massive knife.

Jakob fell back out of the bathroom, raising his rifle to fire. A second exoskeletal appendage slammed through the wall and struck the door, slamming it shut.

Alia scrambled away, slipping on the smooth tile floor, grasping for the silenced handgun she had holstered before sitting on the toilet.

The massive limbs moved in and out, sawing through the wall with frantic jerking motions. Alia’s screams were drowned out by a loud chirping that tore through the air like an alarm. It was the most noise she had heard since the battle at her parents’ farmhouse, and if anything else was around, it would already be on its way.

The wall gave way, coughing a cloud of drywall into the room. Support beams bent and broke. And then a head slid into the room, insect like, but unidentifiable. It had massive oval eyes that shimmered under the glare of Alia’s headlamp. Three sets of mandibles opened and closed, while smaller grinding mouths twitched. The thing lacked any kind of expression, but exuded menace, and hunger.

Alia drew her weapon and pulled the trigger. The first three rounds missed, despite the creature’s size. But the rest struck the oversized insect’s head and forelimbs, ricocheting into the ceiling and walls. The 9mm weapon, about all she could handle, was ineffective.