***
The city was ruined. We stood in the center of what served as Lerna’s Main Street, or rather, what used to serve as the town square, I reflected with a sick sense of disbelief. The place had become a ghost town. There simply wasn’t much left, I grimly acknowledged. It looked as though a tornado had ravaged the city; that or an army, and personally, I was betting on the army. Windows were shattered all along the street, shards of glass littering the once neatly swept walkways. Entire store fronts were ruined, their contents ransacked.
Looting…Kahn’s men had been here, I realized in an instant, fear pooling in my stomach. It was hard saying what else had ambushed the city; enormous three-toed prints were visible in the dirt, plants hopelessly crushed under what must have been unbearably heavy footfall. I didn’t want to know what weighed probably upwards of three hundred pounds and had three giant toes, and certainly didn’t intend to stick around long enough to find out. But the fact remained, Ashley and I needed supplies and I desperately needed rest.
Taking in the massive street sign pole that hung snapped in two in the middle of the road, I mentally kissed six hours of restful sleep goodbye. In fact, the chance of getting off my feet at all in the near future was looking slim. But at the very least we would need to eat. The field rations I’d packed at the start of our journey were running low, and Ashley would need a more balanced meal very soon. Not only that, I admitted with a resigned sigh, but we were nearly out of water. Running in the other direction was simply not an option. Hell, I thought, traveling on foot is not an option, not without the protection the fences would have afforded. We would have to steal a car…if there was one left behind that hadn’t been ruined.
If it had fuel. If it had the keys in it.
I rubbed my temple with the hand that Ashley wasn’t clinging to like ivy, feeling a headache forming behind my eyes. Too many ifs…I didn’t like this one bit. We moved silently through the deserted streets and I half expected to see tumbleweeds blow across the broken road in front of us. We crossed to the sidewalk, trying to stay in the shadows cast by the tall trees that graced the once prestigious residential neighborhood we found ourselves wandering through. This, I decided, was likely as good as it was going to get. Any one of the tall houses that lined the street would contain the food and other supplies we would require. But which house to break into? They all appeared to be long since deserted, grass overgrown, gardens untended, dark, dingy windows facing the street.
The cars, I considered, coming to a stop and gathering Ashley close to my side, would determine which house I ultimately forced my way into. We needed something reliable, not too old, no bright colors, and it had to be sturdy. A tank, I thought with renewed enthusiasm, peering up and down the block. Failing that, an SUV would have to do, I decided as I spotted the midnight blue sport utility vehicle about six or seven houses down. It even came equipped with a brush guard, I noted on closer inspection. Hopefully it had plenty of fuel in the tank, enough to get us at least fifty or sixty miles away from Lerna. Ideally, the tank would be full, eliminating at least one potential problem. If the roads and towns all the way to Grandview looked anything like this place, we wouldn’t be able to stop and fill the tank.
Starting out with a full tank meant we could make the trip to Bob and Marta’s without stopping. It could mean the difference between life and death. If Grandview had been affected…well, I didn’t want to think about that, not just yet anyway. Truth was, if Grandview had been affected, if their fences had failed too, we would be screwed. Well, maybe not screwed, necessarily, but it would certainly complicate matters.
I turned my attention to the house after trying the handle on the SUV and finding it to be locked.
Great, I thought dismally, I have to find the keys, too, in addition to breaking into the house quietly and gathering the required supplies. I could only hope the people who used to live here were neat freaks, or at least religiously hung their keys in one spot each and every time. The old adage “don’t borrow trouble” flitted through my mind.
“Ash, I need to go into that house and pack a few things that we’ll need for the rest of our trip,” I began, unsure of how to explain to the child that she was about to see me carry out acts that, back home, would have landed me in a jail cell.
“But nobody’s home,” she protested, pointing at the darkened property looming before us.
“Right,” I nodded, waiting for comprehension to dawn on her.
“You’re going to steal stuff from that house?”
“Yes,” I patiently explained. “But it’s okay—just this once—because we have to. Do you understand the difference? The people who used to live here look to be long gone; they don’t need anything that was left in the house, and I doubt they’re coming back for any of it anyway. We, on the other hand, are here now, and we need food and water and a change of clothes.”
“But we have clothes,” she said with a frown.
“We need clothing from here, from the magic place. The people here dress differently than we do and we should blend in, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.”
“So.” I smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “We need to take a few things, which normally would be wrong; but right now, under the circumstances, is okay and perfectly acceptable. Does that make sense?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, let me put it another way. Do you want to stay here in this city?” I calmly asked.
“No.” Her response was automatic.
“Neither do I. So we’ll do what we have to in order to get out of here, and soon,” I added, noticing the sun sinking lower on the horizon. I had to move quickly if we were going to be out of Lerna by nightfall. “You’re going to stay here while I go in, Ash.” I broke the news to her in a tone that booked no argument. “I want you to duck into these bushes right here next to the porch,” I continued smoothly, walking with her to the thick cluster of shrubbery gone wild.
“Do I have to?”
“Yes. And you are not to move from this spot for any reason, no matter what you see or what you hear.”
“Fine,” she pouted, minuscule but mutinous.
“I mean it; I can’t stress enough how important this is—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it—stay put,” she sighed, climbing into the vegetation and wrapping her arms tightly around her knees.
“Right. Good girl,” I nodded, diplomatically opting not to take her to task for her attitude. Truth be told, I was relieved that she hadn’t yet broken into hysterics, which, while not her usual style, wouldn’t have been an unnatural reaction to all that she’d endured in less than forty-eight hours. Dramatics wouldn’t even have been an abnormal response to what I was currently asking her to do. Hating the fact that I had to make her hide in a tangle of overgrown landscaping to wait for my return, I arranged the foliage around her until I was satisfied that she was well hidden from view before stepping back onto the porch, promising to hurry as I wrapped stiff fingers around a brass knob and turned it, testing.
As I had figured, the knob turned only a fraction of an inch, if that. It was locked.
“No surprise there,” I sighed, eyeing the wide window that faced the porch. From the looks of it, that particular window would get me into what appeared to be some sort of living room or parlor. If luck held any favor at all for me today, the window would not be locked. I realized that it probably was, but I couldn’t help but hope for the small miracle. The less noise I was forced to make, the better. The town looked deserted, and it very well may have been, but it was always better to err on the side of caution, and intuition told me that we weren’t the only living things skulking about the city. If we had been detected, we would have been attacked by now, I reasoned, calming myself by degrees while I applied increasing pressure on the dusty window frame. Although some beasts, I remembered, only came out at night. Though I couldn’t recall the name right then, they were Terlain’s answer to Earth’s
mythical vampires. Except vampires were creatures of legend, stories passed down from generation to generation that made for some good, spooky entertainment but little else. Terlain’s “vampires,” on the other hand, were very real and very dangerous.
Though not typically found so far north, it was hard to tell what creatures were where, considering the breach in Lerna’s fence. With no way of knowing if the breach was an isolated incident or if other places in Terlain had experienced similar glitches, it was impossible to say what was where at this point.
As far as I knew—and my knowledge on Terlain was admittedly limited—the beast had always been native to southern regions like the coastal city of Coztal. The million dollar question was, did the beasts remain in their typical warm climate out of necessity or geography? Had they once been indigenous to other parts of Terlain and been trapped in the southern hemisphere at some point for some reason? If the fences failed to keep them repelled would they—could they—make it this far, and more important, could they survive? If so, for how long?
I exhaled, then took several deep breaths as my efforts finally paid off; the dingy window slid up in its casing with a screech that seemed to ricochet through the unnatural stillness that permeated the once vibrant neighborhood. As noise levels went, it was probably the lesser of two evils, I admitted, wincing at the shrill sound. At least I had not been forced to break out the heavy pane of glass. If there was anything out there roaming the city in search of blood, then glass shattering would have been the equivalent of hanging out a welcome mat to every predator within a two mile radius. If the beasts were inhabiting the city, I thought with renewed fear, then it wouldn’t matter how much noise I made or didn’t make. We would have already been spotted. If they had found their way to Lerna, they were probably watching us right now. Ashley’s hiding spot would prove useless, and I had no idea if my bullets would stop them. Logically, it should work, but I’d long since learned not to take anything for granted in this strange land. In Terlain, the phrase “expect the unexpected” took on a terrible new meaning.
I considered this and more, hoisting one leg through the window and swinging easily over the sill, paying little attention to the smears of dirt that rubbed off onto the thighs of my snug jeans and the palms of my hands. Gun held steadily forward, I swung into the room, immediately dropping into a crouch below the window. Keeping perfectly still and poised on one knee, elbows down and gun held firmly in both hands, I let my eyes do a couple of sweeps of the dark room. Only when satisfied that I was alone in the musty-smelling space did I allow myself to relax and do a more thorough inspection of my surroundings.
The room was bathed in shadow and full of plump, artfully placed furniture. Plastic coverings protected the living room set. It was next to impossible to discern much beyond the general shapes of the pieces; a couch, an overstuffed love seat, two recliners, and a couple of coffee tables complete with high back chairs. I imagined the set was some sort of Victorian style; one elegantly-patterned sofa arm stuck out from under the plastic. A row of tiny polished brass buttons marched up the front edge of the piece of furniture.
The strong odor of mildew clung to the stale air; I leaned out the open window I’d just entered through and took a deep, cleansing breath before continuing through the silent house. Each filmy window I passed was a grim reminder that the sun was setting and would soon relinquish its position to the moon. I had to hurry. Time was running out and we couldn’t afford to get caught on the streets after dark. Not here in this ruined place. Even one weakened beast would be deadly, and that wasn’t taking into account the other…things…that we had the potential to encounter.
Moving swiftly into the kitchen, I made quick work of locating several plastic grocery sacks, mentally berating myself when, out of habit, I reached out to flip on the switch for the overhead light.
Silly. The electricity in this house was long gone. That much was appallingly obvious when I opened the stainless steel refrigerator that sat in a little alcove in the far corner of the kitchen. What possessed me to open the fridge door, I can’t say. Of course, I knew that any perishable food left behind would be beyond spoiled, and how many people stored non-perishable items in a refrigerator? Even if the owners of this house did store such items in the icebox, the dry food would have been contaminated by mold by now, if the fuzzy lumps on the shelves that used to be food were anything to go by. The space was a breeding ground for a bacterial infection. I shuddered, closing the door and trying the freezer with trepidation.
Nothing but spoiled meat and the congealed remains of what probably used to be ice cream. I sighed.
A thin shaft of light from the kitchen’s large bay window caught the glint of silver a split second before the freezer door closed. Silver? Pulling the door wide open, I stood on the edge of my toes for a closer look. A pile of slender silver cards was stacked in the left hand corner of the freezer. Razor thin and plated in one hundred percent genuine silver, I immediately recognized what the cards were; besides the answer to my prayers, the cards were the equivalent of credit in Terlain. The silver could be scanned by the machines in most stores and restaurants around the territories in exchange for goods and services.
Unlike a traditional credit card, however, these cards bore no name across the front, only a thin blue strip on the bottom and the official round emblem of Terlain in the upper right corner; they came pre-loaded with whatever amount of money one had added to the card, and thus were fully transferable. Ashley and I could use the cards.
I closed my eyes and squeezed the pile of cards until my fingers ached. “Thank you,” I whispered to the empty room. We could buy clothes. We could buy fuel and anything else we needed. The minuscule amount of gold we had brought with us from Africa would have seen us through our journey—barely. But the rules had changed. Compared to the cost of buying our own fuel as opposed to paying for a buggy ride or a chauffeured vehicle, the small pile of gold in my backpack seemed a paltry amount. We would be hard pressed to handle any financial emergencies or anything beyond the short term with my provisions alone.
With the silver cards, however… I did a little two-step around the kitchen counter and began to root around the glossy oak cabinets for food and anything else useful. Maybe the celebration was a bit premature; after all, I was not even sure there was money loaded onto the cards, but was ninety-nine percent sure there would be at least a little currency left on them. Why else would they have been tucked away in the back of a freezer? They had probably been some sort of emergency fund for the family that had owned this house. I felt the pang of an emotion that was part sympathy, part guilt when I thought of the people who used to live here. Despite what I’d told Ashley about our actions being socially acceptable for the circumstance we found ourselves in, I had misgivings about taking the cards. What if the family returned to their home at some point? Sure, this was probably not going to happen; they wouldn’t have fled to safety without their vehicle. Bottom line, they were not coming back. So why did this feel like I was looting? I supposed that, in a way, I was.
A howl in the distance brought my attention back to the present and more pressing matters. The fierce sound echoed in the distance, closer now. I froze, the blood in my veins turning to ice. I had heard that sound before. The retrievers were coming. I hastily shoved a few more packets of granola into my bag, wiped my hands across my jeans, and made a mad dash for the front door. The sense of panic didn’t stop me from making a careful perusal of the street, no matter how bad I wanted to rush onto the porch, grab my daughter, and run. I knew that she must be frantic after hearing the animals—if one could call retriever wolves “animals.” I shuddered.
Seeing that nothing obvious lurked beyond the porch, I scurried out the door and down the steps, frantically whispering to Ashley even as I hauled her from the bushes and down the walk to the car. The keys. Shit. Hell. Damn.
“I forgot the keys,” I uttered, closing my eyes, feeling the cool exterior of the SUV pres
s against my forehead.
“That’s not good, is it?” Ashley bit her lip, peering around the vehicle to the street beyond.
“It’s fine. I remember seeing them on a peg in the kitchen.” At least I hoped the set of keys I’d seen had at least one belonging to the car. If not… I swallowed audibly as I watched the shadows continue to deepen around us, day turning inexorably to night. If not, I was pretty sure I would be the one in hysterics.
“Come on, you can come with me this time.”
“It’s getting dark.”
“I know, we’ll be out of here in two minutes. The kitchen is at the back of the house,” I whispered as we hurried across the threshold.
Luck had graced us for a second time that day because, after dashing back to the SUV, heavy key ring in hand, we found that one of the keys did in fact belong to the midnight blue set of wheels. We sped through Twelfth Street a moment later, bags tossed into the back seat, the last rays of the sun disappearing in the rearview mirror.