The New Wild (11 page)

“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.

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.

I can see Kitten’s horn coming our
way. She’s cresting a hill and racing toward us. She slows as she comes nearer,
and when she’s right in front of us, I notice her horn is a little less bright
than it was a few hours ago when she left us. In fact, it looks dirty. She’s
prancing in a very self-satisfied way and seems to be happy to see us.

 We press on by foot, with
Kitten walking beside us. Her horn casts a yellowish, dappled glow over the
earth. We desperately need to find a place to crash. I’ve lost almost all of my
energy, and Xander is wilting fast. He’s still walking in front of me, but he’s
barely plodding along. I know without asking that his feet hurt. Mine hurt,
too.

In front of me, Xander stops
walking abruptly. He turns to face me and his mouth is hanging open. He’s
looking really freaked.

“Xander, what is wrong with you?”

“Uh…” he utters. Something is
definitely amiss. I can hear it in his voice. “Dead body,” Xander says.

Kitten flicks her tail and chomps
on some grass.

“Yeah, I know. I can’t believe how
many there are.” I rub his back. “Try not to let it get to you.”

“Oh my fuck,” Xander manages
before bending over and throwing up. He dry heaves for a good minute after
that. Something is seriously wrong.

I don’t want to look, but I have
to. Something in me is forcing me to stare at whatever it is he’s seen.

A dead man lies on the ground
before us, his eyes snapped open, his skin blue. His eyes are bloodshot and
covered in tiny flies. And right through the center of his chest, where his
heart was, is a gaping, bloody hole so precise, I’m scared to say it could only
have been made by one thing
—
a unicorn’s horn. The air smells like a butcher shop. I
want to barf, too, but I need every ounce of energy inside me to get through
this shit.

I gulp. “Do you think that hole
was made by what I think it was made by?” I ask Xander, flicking my eyes toward
Kitten.

He looks at me with fear in his
eyes. “Oh, God. Maybe.”

We both shudder. For a while, we
stand there, holding our shirts over our noses to block the stench. It takes a
while, but eventually, we notice a blanket of sorts to the right of the corpse.
Xander yanks it away and finds two blankets, both made of warm-looking wool.
“Yes!” Xander exclaims. I shoot him a look.

“Really?” I say. “You really want
us to use a dead guy’s blankets? Isn’t that a little—unethical?”

“Why? He wasn’t using them.
Besides, winter is coming fast. If we don’t take them, we’ll end up dead like
he is.”

I shake my head, but Xander has a
point. I guess it’s better to take his stuff than die without it. I look a
little closer at the body and see that his hand is wrapped around a thick metal
chain.

“What’s this?” I say under my
breath. I follow it as far as I can within the ring of light, then trail it
with my fingers as it continues into the darkness. I’m terrified to find
whatever is on the other end of this chain, but something is propelling me
forward. I have to know what it is, but Xander is freaking out.

“Jackie! What the bleep are you doing? This is not
okay!” I hear him hollering.

“Come and get me then,” I shout over my shoulder. I'm
determined to see whatever it is this man was holding onto. It must be good.

Behind me, Xander is bathed in the golden white halo
of Kitten's light. I can't see more than a foot in front of me, though, and
it's as thrilling as it is terrifying. I inch along, grasping the chain more
firmly with every step. I stub my toe on something. A ledge. I step up with both
feet, but when I take another step, my foot falls, taking my body with it into
a deep abyss. I shriek as I fall, grasping for something, anything. But soon
enough, I'm submerged up to my shoulders in slimy, putrid water. My eyes are
stinging. It smells worse than anything I could have imagined, like rotting
corpses and blue cheese and dead fish combined.

“Xander!” I scream. “HELP!!!”

My words echo around me.

It takes a few moments, but I hear him come running. “Jackie?
What the fuck did you do?”

“Be careful! There's a drop!” I squeal. My body is
freezing, swishing in this stank water. And something—I have no idea
what—is dripping onto my forehead. “Aim Kitten's horn down here and help
me out!” I yell. My voice sounds louder down here, amplified on the water.

“Uh, I can't
…
She ran off again
…
but
hold on, I’ll be there soon.” In the distant glow of the waning moon, I can see
him hovering far above me, looking down. “Jesus, woman
…
You tumbled
into a manhole.”

I'm losing patience. “Xander, I don't care if I fell
into buried treasure. Get me out of here! For the love of GAWD!” The light from
the moon is illuminating the length of this chamber, but it softens as it nears
me. I have no idea what's surrounding me, but in the water under my feet, the
surface is uneven. Crunchy.

I can hear waddling rats scurrying around the tiny
ledges next to me. The water is absolutely stomach-churning—if I could
see it in the light, I know it would have an otherworldly green tinge. One of
the rats plops into the water and lunges at me. I can feel its thin, spindly
whiskers flicking against my face. I scream at the top of my lungs—this
thing could be rabid.

“Xander, I don't know how much longer I can take
this!” I shout. “Xander? " There's no answer. My heart sinks. What if
something happened to him? What if I’m alone down here?

I grab at the rat with a grunt and pull it down into
the water, shuddering the whole time. I want to twist its neck until it’s dead,
but the thought of that is too gross, so I hold it under water until it drowns.
Its wet, furry body moves frantically for a while, then stops. When it does, I
breathe a sigh of relief.

I frantically scan the walls of the manhole, looking
for something to grab on to. I see only bricks and scurrying rodents. I try to
grasp the bricks above me but can’t get a hold and sink back into the rancid
water. Just when I think I'm ready to slip down and drown or be eaten alive by
vermin, I see Xander again at the top of the hole.

“Where were you?” I scream at him.

“You don't want to know, Jackie,” he says somberly. “I'm
going to lower this chain down and lift you out.”

The chain. He must have pried it from the corpse’s
hand. I want to puke, but in this water, I know that would make me even
dirtier, so I grab hold. He lifts me out like some kind of he-man, grunting
savagely until my fingertips reach the lip of the pit. The rats lunge at my
feet. When I’m standing again on firm ground, it’s all I can do to stop myself
from throwing my soaking, putrid arms around him. What a man. He’s still clutching
the chain, and I notice a hand dangles on the end of it, freshly cut.

“What were you
doing
, Jackie?” he says,
brushing the hair back from my forehead.

I look at him with tears of relief in my eyes. “I
wanted to see what was on the other end of this chain,” I say, somberly.

“Do you still want to know?”

“No!” I wail, choking and burying my head in his
shoulder. “I don’t ever want to know.”