The New Wild Read online

  “Do you want to turn back?”

  “No. That’s the only way to go. I’m not taking the long way on foot,” he says.

  “Okay,” I gulp.

  I see something out in the grass, about halfway between us and the black towers. Whatever it is, it’s moving really fast. The golden wheat obscures it, but it’s on a mission.

  “Xander, do you see that?” I ask.

  “What now?” he hacks.

  “There’s something out there, headed toward us.”

  “What is it?” he says, urgency rising in his voice.

  “I can’t tell. Don’t worry, it’s not that big.”

  He lets out a big grunt. “Well, rabid dogs aren’t that big. Plague-carrying mice aren’t that big. Knives and guns and grenades aren’t that big.”

  “Yeesh! Chill out!. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. It’s moving so fast we don’t really have a choice.” Every second that passes, we get closer to colliding with it.

  “Give me that axe,” Xander demands. “You can have the knife. I’m not staying down here as a hors d’oeuvre without something to defend myself with.”

  I pull the handle of the axe out of my pack and toss it down to him. He catches it in the air with one hand, like it’s nothing but a softball. The thing is coming toward us faster and faster, but all I can see is the grass parting around it.

  “Jackie, what is it? Can you see it any better? Shit. Shit shit shit. I hate being so low to the ground! Any minute now, it’s going to spring on me and you’re just going to gallop away, la-dee-da.”

  “Shh!” I say, straining my eyes to get a better look at the thing. But it’s no use. I can only catch flashes between the blades of grass. Kitten’s ears twist back, and I can feel her crouching a bit.

  “It’s getting close,” I whisper to Xander.

  He ducks behind Kitten, who’s kind enough not to kick him in the face. It’s so close now I can hear the grass swishing. Xander's whirling the axe in circles over his head. Suddenly, the wheat opens like a curtain, and a baby lion hurdles toward us. I've never seen a cub before, not even in the Portland Zoo. This one looks like it just ran out of the womb. It's got that roly-poly, newborn thing going on.

  “Oh, wow,” Xander says, “Guess I can put this axe down. That thing is about as big as a house cat.”

  Kitten is not her usual self. The minute she spots the cub, her lips curl back, revealing her vicious fangs. She swings her body hard, and I’m catapulted off, dropping to the ground with a thud. All of our gear goes flying, too. “Hey!” I scream. I'm a little worried she broke my pelvis, but she's not listening to me. She darts forward and lunges at the cute, wide-eyed lion cub. I want to cover my eyes, but I can't help but stare as Kitten picks it off the ground with her jaws, blood spurting into the air. She turns back and looks at us with a satisfied moan, and when I look up, I notice the cub has a wriggling snake for a tail and a weird, tiny, goat head behind its own. Like a lion went to an orgy on Noah's Ark, and that's what popped out nine months later.

  “Holy crap, it's a baby chimera,” Xander says, his eyes huge.

  “A what?” I scream, as the unicorn gallops off into the distance with the creature in her fangs. Soon enough, I can't see her. My heart drops into my belly, and I feel like I could burst into tears. How are we going to get home without her?

  “A chimera,” Xander repeats. “Didn't you ever study Greek mythology? It’s part lion, part goat, and part snake, and when it gets old enough, it'll be able to breathe fire. It’s so crazy that they’re actually real now!”

  “In that case, thank God it was a baby,” I say, still reeling from the whole gory mess. “Xander, Kitten is gone. How the bleep are we gonna get home?”

  “I will be just fine. I have been walking this whole time, thank-you-very-much,” he says, with a proud stare.

  “Well, I haven't. My leg muscles have gone soft. And she's been carrying all of your shit, anyway.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. How are you, by the way? Sorry, that chimera thing was a little distracting. Are you hurt?”

  Part of me wants to pretend I cracked something to see what he'd do, but I don't want to waste any more time. Those weird spires are still looming in the distance, and I want to get past them before night falls. I look up at the sky and thumb my compass with my hand. “No, I'm not hurt. I'm fine.”

  “Good,” he says, grabbing my hands to pull me up.

  The closer we walk to the black towers, the farther into a burnt-out suburbia we get. We pass rows of tract homes, all exactly the same—one long, low level with flower-filled vines crawling along every crack. One of them has a silver trailer out front, now crackled and warped from the fire.

  “A trailer!” Xander practically squeals, racing toward it and yanking the door open.

  “Xander, stop!” I shout, though I don't know why.

  “Why? There might be something good in here!”

  Before I can reply, a deep, loud, gravelly moan sounds from within the trailer. Xander takes a step back and slams the door shut.

  “Run!” he yelps, hustling me along in front of him. I don't know what made that awful sound, but I really don't want to, so we run harder and faster than I ever thought possible.

  The thing is, the sound is getting louder. And it's not a moan anymore. I hate to say it, but it's a full-bellied roar followed by a hissing sound. I turn back in time to see the door swing wide open. Out jumps another chimera, except this one is fully grown—seven feet tall, at least. Its mane is huge and fluffy, its talons fierce. Out of its neck, a goat's head is bucking its horns. And at its tail, nine slithering snakes are giving new meaning to the phrase “hissy fit.”

  Xander looks back in disbelief, then turns to me, shaking his head as he runs. “Jackie, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do,” he repeats, tears in his eyes. “I think…” he says, as he races alongside me, “I think we're gonna die.”

  The chimera is gaining on us. It's five or ten times faster than we'll ever be, and it's not long before it's within spitting distance. It pounces on Xander, hard, and my eyes brim with tears. Rage is pouring through my veins, turning my heartbeat into an unstoppable techno soundtrack. I'm not dying here without a fight, and I'm not going to let him take Xander, either.

  The chimera paws Xander’s torso while the snakes on his tail slither over his feet. It bats Xander off the ground, letting him fall with a thud. It’s playing with him the way a cat plays with a mouse. Moving as stealthily as I can, I take the axe in my hands and lift it high above me, plunging it as hard as I can into the chimera's side. Blood rushes from the wound, and he bellows in agony, then turns my way. He locks eyes with me and fire issues from his mouth in wispy curls that tickle my forehead and singe my eyelashes. His giant paw swipes my side, leaving four deep cuts at my waist. I double over instantly. It burns and blood oozes from between my ribs. I feel faint.

  Xander lies on the ground, as still as a corpse. The chimera stands on its hind legs, spitting sparks that fly up into the sky. I wail, screaming Xander’s name, willing him to wake up, to get up. Then I see her. Kitten charges toward us. Amazingly, terrifyingly, her horn is glowing bright red and spinning around in its socket. She looks over at me and then leaps straight at the chimera, a puny cat compared to Kitten. The chimera blows full-bodied flames straight into Kitten's face, but she is unfazed. She pierces the chimera with her horn, right through the skull. Blood bursts forth from the wound like a geyser. The freakish goat-head is still bucking. Kitten slides her horn out of the chimera and waits patiently for it to slow to a stop. The snake-tail writhes violently and Kitten promptly tramples it.

  I feel like my eyes are lying, but the pain in my side is very real. Blood has seeped all over my shirt. I crawl over to Xander, lying in a puddle of blood spreading into a pool. The golden wheat surrounding his body is sopping it up like a paper towel. I shudder and clutch my own wounds. This is bad.

  I look across the way, where Kitten has hauled the
corpse to eat. I realize then she didn't kill the chimera to save us. She was hungry. Xander's eyes are closed, but his chest heaves weakly and he expels the occasional whimper, so I know he’s alive. I look up into the sky, into the sun that's beating down on us like a heat lamp. Thoughts of my mom cross my mind. I worry I’ll never see her again. I can hear her nagging me, the same words she used when she was tired of always being the one to wash my dishes. I can't do this anymore! I need you to help me! I need you to take control, take care of yourself! Now that I'm lying here in a pool of my own blood, her words have new meaning. Take control, take care of yourself.

  Kitten downs the chimera like it’s a well-cooked steak, hurling clumps of fur and mane over her shoulder. I look at the chunks flying through the air and landing all around us. I grab as many as I can and wrap them together into a few long bandages, grunting as I go. I wrap the whole thing around my gashes, tightly, until the burning sensation feels muffled. At least the bleeding will slow. Then, I turn to Xander.

  He’s lying a few feet away, face down. I gasp when I get closer to him, when I see his back is covered with stab wounds, like someone took a whip to his spine. He winces when I come near. He’s sobbing into the grass, his breath shallow.

  “Xander, it’s me. I’m gonna…”

  “Stop!” he interjects. “Don’t touch me. I’m dying.” His voice is thick. He’s having difficulty breathing.

  “Stop it, man,” I say firmly, choking back tears. “You’re not dying, you’re maimed. There’s a difference. Now sit still while I address your wounds.”

  I move slowly so as not to irritate my own messed up body. It stings every time I twist my torso, but I have to keep going. I pull the sweater I wear as an extra layer at night off my waist and cut it into several long strips of wool. When I wrap them around Xander’s back, pressing to control the bleeding, he starts to bellow in pain.

  “Fine! Yell, scream, I don’t care! Whatever gets you through,” I say, as I’m cinching the last of the bandages.

  “It hurts!” he yells.

  “Well, of course, it hurts. The second it doesn’t hurt, you’re dead, you got that?”

  “All right,” he grumbles.

  The minute I get his bandages tied, I feel all the strength I had drain out of me in an instant. I’m dizzy and my vision goes blurry. I fall back against the hard earth.

  I don’t know how long I was unconscious—minutes? Hours? But when I come to, I hear Xander crying. I’ve never heard a boy my age wail like this before, and the sound of it terrifies me even more than the blood. If he’s crying like this in front of me, he’s really hurt. The cuts are almost a centimeter deep on each of us—I think the chimera wanted to play-fight before he turned us into dinner. We could be hurt a lot worse, but I can’t imagine a pain worse than this. My whole side is throbbing. The skin on Xander’s back is twisted in a mess of churned up skin and blood.

  We lie there for a long time, each of us drifting in and out of consciousness. When night falls, I start to envision another chimera coming to finish us, sparks from its mouth lighting up the sky. But all we see are stars twinkling. I look up at them and remind myself that they’re the same stars that are currently shining over my mom and Bernard. If they looked up now, they’d be seeing the exact same thing. It’s such a small thing, but it makes me feel closer to home. We’ve come so far—we can’t give up now.

  In the morning, I twist one of our bottles of whiskey open from the medicine kit and pour it into our wounds to kill the bacteria. Xander screams so loud you would think I was pulling his cuts open further. When I do it to myself, I understand why—it feels like fire lapping at my insides. I’m starting to think Xander was right—that we’ll die here—but I don’t even have the strength to cry.

  I pass out again in a dizzy haze. When I wake up, something wet and rough is moving over my wounds. It doesn’t hurt, though—it almost numbs the pain. I open my eyes to see Kitten standing over me, licking each scrape with long, steady laps. I’m amazed when she does the same for Xander. Then I hear him laugh—a little, sad laugh, but a laugh, nonetheless—and I feel hope for the first time.

  I pull myself up slowly, and Kitten looks at me like she’s smiling. She nudges Xander’s side, as if begging him to get up, too. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t get near Xander, but for some reason, she sticks her snout against his chest and breathes in, smelling the place where I wrapped him in my sweater. Then she turns to me and smells me. She goes between us several times. Then, as if she’s determined we’re still all right to associate with, she lowers herself down onto her haunches and motions for both of us to get on. Xander gasps.

  “Oh my, Kitten, I love you! Done,” he whimpers under his breath. I can’t believe it myself. Part of me wonders if it has something to do with him wearing my clothes. Kitten hated him so much before, but maybe now that he’s wrapped up in my scent and hurting, it’s okay? I don’t know enough about the unicorn psyche to tell, but I’m sure glad she changed her mind about him, even if it’s just for now.

  We head west in the direction of the spires, the inevitable path of least resistance. We have to go through there. There’s no getting around it unless we totally re-route. So we head, step-by-step, toward that looming, darkened skyline.

  Chapter 14

  When we reach the spires, we see a charred-up sign that reads, CHICAGO: CITY CENTER. I’m amazed we’ve made it this far and terrified that this is what our great cities have become. The last time I was here on a shopping spree with Mom, we made our way along the Magnificent Mile store by store. I remember my arms being sore from carrying heavy shopping bags—I can’t believe I was ever such a weak person, not to mention so consumed with material things. I wouldn’t recognize the old me.

  I’ve changed a lot since then, but Chicago has changed more, and not in a good way. A few of the people who loved the natural world enough to survive the Burning are dying all over the streets, because most of them didn’t know how to survive without modern comforts. The cities are more devoid of fresh water and palatable wildlife than the countryside has been, so getting by is harder here, if it’s even possible at all. If Deb hadn’t found me and taught me how to live, I know I’d be dead, too, probably from starvation or sickness from poisonous or undercooked food.

  The Chicago River, a waterway that just months ago was filled with tourist-topped rowboats and soggy trash, is now stocked with the floating, rotting corpses of those who were supposed to survive but couldn’t make it. I try not to look, but I can see the bodies out the corner of my eye, and I shudder ever time. The smell of them—putrid and foul—is permeating. I hold a piece of fabric over my nose, but it does nothing. That chipmunk from what feels like years ago was a fresh apple pie compared to this. Flies are running rampant everywhere, buzzing over everything. When they land on me, I squeal—it wasn’t long ago that they were resting their wings on a waterlogged cadaver.

  The skyscrapers are not only charred and barren like every other modern building, but covered with ivy, kudzu, and moss. Greenery has wedged itself into every window and crack, a jungle crawling straight to the sky.

  The sun is nearly set when we reach the inner city. Trees dot the streets, their roots churning up what was left of the cement. There aren’t any people around, but in a few windows of some of the remaining older buildings, I notice candles glowing—Jewish menorahs, Christian crosses, a few engraved with the detailed embellishments of Islam. Every religion you can imagine is still represented here in this nearly empty city.

  It gets darker the farther we go. There’s no moon tonight, and low clouds block out the stars. I’m starting to think we should stop and beg someone for a candle when Kitten’s golden horn lights up from within like a beacon. It casts a bright-yellow glow all around us. Xander and I rear back. My mouth is hanging open. Kitten is a godsend.

  “Jesus, dim the brights, will you?” he says.

  “No, sir,” I say. “Ask and ye shan’t receive.”

  “I don’t want to
see the stuff we’re stepping on. There was a flattened Labrador back there,” Xander says, shuddering. He’s right—the streets are filled with the remains of humanity—not just charred trash, but also the bodies of pets that were eaten for food. It’s totally disgusting.

  “Sorry, X,” I say regretfully. “I don’t have any control over this lunacy.”

  The light emanating from Kitten’s horn is as warm as a torch, so much so that I have to scoot back a little, forcing my back to press against Xander’s chest. I thank my lucky stars for the heat. With Xander’s warm body behind me, I’m snuggled in a heat sandwich. I look back at him and smile, and I suddenly feel very sleepy. I rest my head on his chest. At first, I worry he’ll shove me off, but then he wraps his arms around me, careful not to put too much pressure on my wounds.

  We’re almost out of the city. Thanks to Kitten’s glowing horn, we managed to mostly steer clear of the body-rotting river and its immeasurable stank. We emerge into more darkened suburbs, having only encountered one other moving person as we cut through the city—a woman so gaunt and nuts-looking we didn’t even stop to talk to her. She looked like she wanted to skin us alive.

  To our left, a huge parking lot sits in front of a box store, and it’s still filled with cars, charred and covered in plant life. A compact car nearby is overgrown with brambles. An adult-sized corpse is burnt and decaying in the driver’s side, and a tiny version rests in the back in a liquefied car seat. It’s so sad.

  We ride as far as we can before Kitten needs a break. We’re in what must have once been a parking lot when she rears back and screams, a terrifying signal that it’s time to take a serious breather. She drops us off her back almost instantly and darts away into the night.

  It takes us a while to adjust our eyes to the dark without her glowing horn. We stand until we can make out shapes in the murky air, then start walking onward. Xander selflessly leads. I’m starting to like him more with each passing day. He makes me feel safe and protected. Even with him in front of me, it’s spooky without a light. Our feet crunch on tiny, oddly shaped things. It kind of reminds me of swimming in the ocean—how you never really know what that slippery thing is under your foot. You just pray to God that it’s seaweed.