Feral (19 page)

There were cheers from some in the crowd and silence from others.
 
Ginger glared at several of the silent in the raggedy throng until their unenthusiastic cheers joined the others.

“It has to be a choice,” Jenny said. Her words had the ring of formality, or ritual.
 
Other names were tossed out, though with less enthusiasm.
 
At Jenny's right hand, Toni stood suddenly and his voice rose above all.

“
Charity
!”

Gasps, silence, disbelieving looks.
 
The crowd drew back from her.

“Her?”
 
Ginger looked Charity up and down with a frown.
 
“She's new!
 
She doesn't even have a torch yet.
 
She's not one of us!”

“Look at what she has,” Toni shouted to the crowd, ignoring Ginger.
 
He pointed at the blood-crusted scissors under her belt.

There were a few ‘
ohs
,' a few pointing fingers and admiring stares.
 
Most still looked doubtful.
 
Charity wanted to go but she was suddenly frozen, pinned down by the dozens of scrutinizing eyes.
 
She pulled the scissors out and slid her hand through the cold grip, squeezing.

“What,” Ginger said, and laughed.
 
“So she swiped some scissors from her mom's sewing box.
 
Who gives a shit?”
 
She waved the gun over her head again.
 
“Look what I have!”

“You took it from a corpse,” Toni said.
 
“Charity took those from the King of The Bogeys.”

The smile on Ginger's face vanished, her thunder stolen.
 
Suddenly no one was watching her.
 
All eyes were on Charity, and one by one they drew closer to her, staring at her like she was some kind of Super Kid.

My very first fan club
, she thought.

“Charity, come on down,” Jenny said.
 
When she didn't move, those behind her pushed her forward.
 
She stumbled to a stop beside Ginger, who had tucked the gun back into her pants and stood pouting with her arms folded across her chest.

“You've been called out to replace the one we lost earlier,” Jenny explained.

Charity thought it was strange the others hadn't asked about Jesse, the blond boy who evidently sat at the left hand of this ghostly child queen.
 
Jenny wouldn't even speak his name now; he was just
The One We Lost
.

“Do you know why you were picked?” Jenny asked.

Charity said nothing, felt incapable of speech, just shook her head no.

“Because you kick ass,” someone shouted from the crowd, and the cheers started again.

“Because, like Ginger, you are strong,” Jenny said.

“I don't want to be picked,” Charity said to a dozen startled gasps, and then she stepped back from the throne.
 
She gave Toni a questioning look, and he stared down at his feet.

“But you are,” Jenny said, as if that settled it, and Charity supposed it did.

“But she's not one of us yet,” Ginger yelled at the girl on the throne, her face flushed with anger.

There were more gasps from the crowd of kids, then silence.
 
Jenny looked down at her, and in a tone that invited no argument, she said, “She will be!”

Ginger went pale, nodded and was silent.
 
From his spot at Jenny's right hand, Toni smirked, then looked away.

“Tomorrow we will tell her about Feral Park, and us.
 
Toni will teach her,” Jenny said to silent nods of approval.
 
“When she
is
one of us, she and Ginger will decide who sits with me.”
 
There were more nods, a few murmurs, gleams of excitement in the eyes of the children.

“Decide,” Charity said uneasily.

Ginger smiled at her and patted the stock of the gun jammed into her pocket.
 
Then she stepped into the loosening crown, kids scattering to every corner of the massive cavern, and Charity stood alone.

F
or the next few hours she was something of a curiosity, and though it made her uncomfortable, Charity tried to be nice.
 
Some asked her questions about her life, and about the Bogey Man, who they called
The King of the Bogeys
.
 
She didn't like that term; it implied that all adults were like him, only lesser monsters.
 
She supposed it was correct though.
 
Shannon and her father, her own father, had abandoned her to The Bogey Man.
 
The kids here had saved her; Jesse had died trying to save her.
 
Jenny, whom Charity thought of as Queen of the Brats, had lost her left-hand man, or boy, saving her.
 
Maybe she was supposed to be picked then, maybe she owed it to them.
 
She didn't want to.
 
She had finally escaped, but into what?

At length the kids, starting with the younger ones, each wandered to a torch,
their
torch, she assumed, and laid down to sleep.
 
She didn't have one yet, maybe because she wasn't officially one of them.
 
She grew cold, having no torch to lie down next to, so she found a spot and lay down alone, shivering.

She was almost asleep when Toni appeared next to her.

“C'mon,” he said, and grabbed her arm, helping her up from her cold, granite bed.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Over here where it's warm,” he said.

Charity pulled her hand from his grasp and crossed her arms.
 
“No thanks, I'll stay over here.”
 
She gave him a cold look, then turned around and walked.

“Hey,” he said, indignant.
 
“What's up?”
 
He caught her arm again, and flinched back a little when she turned and looked him in the face.

“I'm mad at you,” she said, and pulled her arm back.
 
“I just got here and I'm already getting into trouble because of you!”

Kids glanced up from their resting places, watching the two speculatively.

He shook his head and smiled.
The crooked grin of a born troublemaker
, she thought.
 
There was something about it, though, and she couldn't stay mad at him.
 
He grabbed her hand, gently. “We need to talk about it, and I'd rather do it over there away from everybody.”

That time Charity let him lead her.
 
They walked to his stone ledge seat beside Jenny's throne, and he lifted the light from its holder with his free hand.
 
About ten feet farther down the wall they stopped.
 
He wedged the butt of his torch into a crack where ground and wall met, then sat.
 
Charity sat beside him.

This part of the cavern was empty; no kids camped out along the wall where the queen sat.
 
They were as alone as they were going to get.

“Okay,” she said, “what's going on?”

“I can't tell you yet,” he said.
 
“That starts tomorrow.
 
I can tell you about Ginger, though, and why I picked you.”

Charity crossed her arms over her chest again, wanting to be mad at him, and mad at herself because she couldn't be.
 
“I'm listening.”

“Nobody much likes Ginger, but a lot of the other kids are afraid of her.”
 
He peeked back over his shoulders, making sure no one was close enough to listen.
 
“I guess that's why they picked her.
 
We may be free here, but only as free as we allow ourselves to be, and a lot of them still think authority should be scary.”

“Yes,” Charity prompted, still unsure where she fit in.

“She's more than scary, though, she's mean, and not very smart.
 
If she ends up being Jenny's left hand, things down here could get bad.”

“
But why me
?”

Heads turned toward them from across the room.
 
Jenny watched the exchange with detached interest.

“
Shhh
,” Toni said with a grimace.
 
“Because you're stronger than she is,” he said.
 
“You escaped from the King Bogey,” he said.
 
“And,” he added, his face reddening slightly, “you're nicer than she is.”

“You don't know that,” Charity said.
 
“You don't even know me.”

“Yes, I do,” he said.
 
“I know you enough.
 
I trust my instincts about you.”
 
He looked at her now, deep into her eyes as if probing, and she looked away.

She saw Ginger sitting next to her own torch, the gun tucked into the front of her pants, glaring at them.
 
She tapped the stalk of the gun with anxious fingers.

Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll shoot herself playing with it
, Charity thought.

“She's gonna shoot me, Toni.
 
Stupid or not, she has the gun.”

“Can you count?” Toni asked, more than a hint of sarcasm showing.

“Yes, I can count!”

“Good,” Toni said.
 
“Do it then!”

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head.
 
“I can't say any more.
 
It's against the rules.
 
You're smart,” he said. “You'll figure it out.”

For a while they said nothing, and though she was tired she didn't want to sleep yet.
 
Toni was tired as well; his eyes slipped shut every few minutes.
 
The broken conversation in the cavern dissipated as the kids dropped off.
 
Even Ginger slept, her hand resting on the gun in her lap.

“I'm sorry about Jesse,” Charity said softly.

At once Toni was wide-awake, his eyes blazing.
 
He grabbed her arm and pulled her so close his lips nearly touched her ear.
 
“Don't say that name again,” he whispered harshly.
 
“His flame burned out.
 
He doesn't exist anymore.”

“Okay,” she said, a little embarrassed, and suddenly a little scared.
 
“Sorry.”
 
She looked around nervously, but no one else had heard.

He released her arm, frowning.
 
“I'm sorry,” he said.
 
“It's just bad luck—to talk about the dead, you know.”

“Toni?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you come here?”

There was a long pause, long enough to make her think she had crossed another unknown line, that there would be no answer.
 
Then he spoke.

“Maybe later,” he said.
 
Then he rested against the wall and drifted off.

She scooted against the wall next to him, careful not to touch him, and let her eyes close.
 
She was too tired to fight it now.
 
Sleep would have her, and no matter how safe from
Him
she was here, she didn't know where her dreams would take her tonight.

S
ometime later she awoke from dreams of running and she heard quiet sobbing echoing through the cavern.
 
She opened her heavy eyelids, turned her head with an effort toward the sound, but Toni was in the way.
 
It was coming from their left, from the rock throne where Jenny sat.

She turned her head again and saw a few of the others had awakened.
 
They watched the throne with wide eyes.
 
A few were crying themselves, silent tears.
 
Ginger was awake too—she lay on the ground, head resting on a balled-up coat, and watched Jenny without emotion.

She wanted to awaken Toni and ask him what was going on, but hated to disturb him, he rested so peacefully.
 
She turned her head back toward the throne and tried to sit forward, but didn't have the strength.
 
After a few moments she gave up.
 
The noise that had awakened her fell to the back of her mind, and her eyes slipped shut.
 
Soon she dreamt again, of running—and crying.

W
hen Charity awoke it was dark as before, but the growing bustle of activity made her think it was morning.
 
Her stomach cramped with hunger.
 
That was when she first considered the very real problem of her survival down here, and what she was going to eat.