Read Breadcrumbs For The Nasties (Book 1): Megan Online

Authors: Steven Novak

Tags: #Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian

Breadcrumbs For The Nasties (Book 1): Megan (3 page)

BOOK: Breadcrumbs For The Nasties (Book 1): Megan
11.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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I’m not entirely sure how long I remained in that tiny room before I heard the locks again. It felt like hours. Could have been minutes. The air was stale, dank. It lingered on my lips, clung to my skin and stung my eyes. After the last of the three locks clicked, the door across from me opened. A tall man with short-trimmed hair stepped inside, dragging a chair. He face was clean-shaven, his hair neatly trimmed. He set the chair a few feet from my face, sat down, and crossed his legs. I’d never seen anyone cross their legs. He straightened his shirt, adjusted his collar. He looked fresh, cleaner than anyone I’d ever met, except for his boots. I remember his boots. His boots seemed massive, caked with bits of dirt and filth the color of blood. I closed my eyes and turned my head. His knuckles cracked.

It was at least a minute before he spoke. “Hello, little one.” His voice was softer than I expected, almost inviting in a weird sort of way. “I just need to ask you a few questions. Won’t take long, I promise. Think you’re up for that?”

When I didn’t respond, he nudged me with his boot. “Come on, sweetie. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. No one is going to hurt you.”

I felt his hand on my head, long, skinny fingers gently brushing my hair, tucking it behind my ear the way mother would sometimes do. “Just a few quick questions and we’ll get you out of here, okey dokey?” 

My head nodded. I didn’t want it to. 

It didn’t care.

Bloodboots
dug his hands into my armpits, lifted and maneuvered me into a sitting position against a wooden crate. He cupped my chin and adjusted my head while using his thumb to wipe the dirt and tears from my eyes. “There you are. Much better. Little girls shouldn’t be covered in dirt. It’s not ladylike.” Again he brushed the hair from my eyes. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

My throat locked, lips quivered.

“Do you have a name? Would it help if I told you mine first?”

Again my stupid head nodded. 

“I’m Travis. I’m sort of the man in charge around here.” I felt his hand on my shoulder, fingers softly kneading my skin. “Do you have a name? I bet you have a name. Pretty girl like you, I bet you have a really pretty name.”

“M-M-Me-Megan.”

Stupid mouth. Even with my eyes closed, I could somehow sense he was smiling. I was giving him exactly what he wanted. My breath was slowing and my eyes drying, two more things I didn’t want to happen, two more things I seemed to have no control over.

Bloodboots
sat back in his chair and I heard it creak. He crossed his legs again and sighed. “Were you all alone out there, Megan? All by yourself?”

Father.
I couldn’t tell him about Father. I shouldn’t tell him ab—“I was with my father.”

Stupid.

For a moment it was quiet, so quiet I could hear
Bloodboots
swallow, so quiet I recognized the subtle sound of teeth grinding. “Just you and your pops, huh sweetie? Just the two of you alone against the world, huh? Hell, if that’s the case, it’s pretty remarkable you survived out there as long as you did. Goddamn amazing. Your daddy must be a heck of a guy, huh, a real survivor? Where is he, Megan? Where’d that amazing dad of yours run off to?”

My limbs locked. I bit my tongue. “I-I don’t know.” It wasn’t a lie. 

“It’s okay, Megan. Take your time and think. How many people are with you and your daddy? It can’t just be the two of you. That’s silly. Do I look like the kind of guy who likes silly stories?”

“I-don’t kno—”

“Yes you do, sweetie. Try real hard to remember.” His voice was changing, half a whisper and half a growl, eerily monotone. 

“I-I-I do-don—”

“Yes you do. You’re not a little girl. You’re old enough to count and smart enough to remember. No one is going to hurt you if you tell me what I want to know.”

When I lowered my head again,
Bloodboots
returned it to its upright position. This time the act was more violent. It hurt my neck. “Who else is out there? Where are they and why did they leave you alone?”

My breath turned ragged. My chest heaved. Dry lips mouthed words devoid of substance or meaning. The next time he touched me,
Bloodboots
wasn’t so sweet. He was done pretending. His fist snagged a handful of hair and jerked my head backward violently. Suddenly I could feel his breath on my face, inches away, spittle spraying my cheeks. When he stood from his chair, he dragged me with him, whipping me against a nearby wall and sending a jolt of pain across the whole of my back and into my legs. 

“I have little patience for little girls, princess.” His face moved again to mine. He was hunched over me, bent like a scarecrow, a malformed mess of jagged angles and coiled muscles. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re only good for one thing, girly, and you’re barely good for that yet.” 

His hands coiled into fists. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Before you respond, I want you to think very, very hard about what you’re going to say. Double-check your work in that cute little head of yours. Ask yourself if it’s the answer I want to hear before you spit it from your lips, because I won’t ask again. There will be no more questions from this point on, Megan. To be perfectly honest, your answer won’t change what’s going to happen to you, nothing can. However, it might determine how badly it’s going to hurt.”

Outside, something exploded. Something else collapsed. Gunshots followed by a howl, then two more.
Bloodboots
let loose my hair as the door to the tiny shack swung open and
Scarface
stepped inside.

He removed a handgun from a holster on his hip. “We’ve got a problem, Travis. Goddamn
howlers
are loose.”

 

3.

Bloodboots
shoved me to the floor. The back of my head hit the edge of a table and the front hit the dirt. He moved close to
Scarface
, teeth bared, hand already reaching for the gun strapped to his belt.  “What? How?”

“Looks like someone snapped the locks on the stables. Bastards are loose all over the barracks.”

Bloodboots
kicked the wall beside him and the shelter wobbled. “Damn it!” Outside a
howler
roared. A gun fired. A man screamed, and then another. Things were getting louder by the second, coming in bunches, building to awful crescendo.
Bloodboots
looked at me just once before leaving, eyes wild and teeth bared. He readjusted the grip on his gun, brought it to his face, and glared at me over the barrel. For a moment I thought he was going to shoot me. A part even wanted him to. 

He didn’t.

Instead, he just stared, eyes narrowed, upper lip twitching. A noise emerged from his throat, an annoyed growl. With
Scarface
leading the way, he exited the room and charged into the fray. The door slammed shut, three locks clicked, and I was alone. I should have tried to wiggle free of my binds. There was a small window on the opposite end of the room—boarded up, but not very well. I could have pried those boards loose and created an opening just large enough for me to slide through. Once outside, I could have run. I could have kept running until my legs gave way and I couldn’t run anymore. I could have at least lifted myself off the floor.

I didn’t. 

Instead, I did nothing at all. I cried into the floor. I closed my eyes and mashed my face into the wood and filth. I thought of mother, the look on her face that day on the side of the road, the last time I saw her. Even though we were with her, father beside her with his fingers in her hair and his lips on her cheek, she was alone. Whatever she was going through in that moment, belonged only to her. Whatever she was seeing, only she could see. My mother died alone. Maybe we all die alone. Maybe there’s no other way. 

In the midst of the noise outside, I heard the locks again, three of them in close succession. I didn’t know if it was
Scarface
or
Bloodboots
or any of the greasy, disgusting men that pawed me when I was carried into the compound. I told myself it didn’t matter. Whoever they were, they weren’t done with me. This was only the beginning. It was going to hurt.
Bloodboots
said it would hurt. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst.

The door swung open. A hand grabbed my forearm, lifted me into the air. “Get up.” The voice wasn’t familiar. I didn’t recognize it and I didn’t care to. It wasn’t
Scarface
and it wasn’t
Bloodboots
. It wasn’t Father or Mother. It didn’t matter. 

“Damn it, kid!” 

He was hurried, impatient. “Don’t have time for this.”

Whoever he was, I was suddenly on his shoulder, bouncing as we sped through a warzone. Something hit the ground behind us, a mound of dirt tossed fifteen feet into the air and another after that. Gunshots came in multiples, spitting in bursts, destroying everything, whizzing past my face. Something collapsed. Rusted steel bent and old wood snapped. Somewhere behind me, something exploded. Then another, this time much closer. In every direction there was madness. My ears were ringing, my face covered in a layer of soot. Through tear-soaked eyes, I watched a massive creature, fifteen feet tall and engulfed in flames, slam into the side of jeep. The gargantuan beast lifted half the vehicle off the ground, nearly tipping it over. I could smell its hair burning, hear the agony in its screams. The smell was beyond words. I’d never encountered anything like that smell. When it opened its fiery mouth to roar, a spatter of bullets tore into its back, rippling up its spine and transforming flesh into tattered meat. Something else exploded nearby. I could feel it reverberate in my skull. Thinking my ears were bleeding, I covered them with my hands and pressed tight. We passed a man curled up in the dirt, blood-soaked fingers dug into the flesh of his face, half his head engulfed in crackling orange and red. Even when I closed my eyes I could see him, an impossible silhouette of black on black, a wild burst of sound against a wall of nothing. 

Shortly after, the insanity began to fade. I didn’t know where we were or where we were headed, but we were getting further away with every step. I bounced atop my savior’s shoulder for nearly ten minutes, the smell of sulfur and scorched fur evaporating into the night. Twigs snapped under the weight of boots. A branch tangled itself in my hair, broke from its tree and bounced along with us. Keeping my hands on my ears, I opened my eyes. The walls of the compound were gone, replaced by the dried out darkness of the forest. The man carrying me stopped, breath ragged, chest heaving. He leaned forward and I slid off his shoulder into the dirt and onto my rear. 

That’s when I recognized his face:
eyes the color of rain, silver-blue and unblinking.
It was the man from the courtyard, the one with the light hair, the one who stared at me and refused to look away.

“Can you run?” His voice was like charcoal, like clanking stones. When I didn’t answer he asked again, emphasizing every word. “Can. You. Run?”

I nodded.

“Then do it.” With one hand he lifted me to my feet. “Follow me. Stay close and you stay alive.”

I did.

For at least an hour, we moved through the forest, faint whispers of moonlight our only guide. He was hurried but cautious, careful with every step. I’m not sure why I kept so close to him, gripping the fabric of his shirt with one hand and tucking myself into his side. I probably shouldn’t have followed so blindly. In hindsight, I suppose it was a silly thing to do.

I was becoming quite good at silly things.

Truthfully, I didn’t know what else to do or where to go. My surroundings were a dead maze of shredded bark and fog. Nothing seemed familiar and everything seemed the same. Father had rarely let me drift from the safety of the road, especially not at night and certainly never so deep into the forest. The forest belonged to the
nasties
and the night was when they fed. The forest wasn’t safe.

Half an hour into the trip, my legs were sore, knees on fire, every step like trudging through broken glass. When I tried to take a break, my traveling companion snatched me by the arm. “Can’t stop. Not yet.”

When I started to cry, he told me to
stop.
When I tried to ask him a question, he told me bluntly to
shut up
. When I eventually crumpled to the ground, unable to go any farther, he forced me back to my feet. “Can’t stop, kid.”

The moon was directly overhead when we came upon a small shack in the woods, old, barely holding together. A substantial breeze could have toppled it, a single
howler
would have reduced it to splinters. The moment we were inside, I looked for a closet. When I found one, I crawled inside and closed the door behind. 

It opened a moment later. “What the hell are you doing?” My blue-eyed companion was still staring at me, wide-eyed, confused. His eyes never moved. His expression never changed. I wasn’t sure he knew how to blink. “I need you to watch the back door.”

“Wha…? I-I don—don—”

He snatched me by the wrist, dragged me into the open. “Going to be a long night. We’re in the middle of the forest, exposed here. Sleeping won’t work. No time for sleep.”

“B-but I-I don’t know…” I wasn’t sure what he was suggesting. I needed to be in the closet. It was dark, we were in the middle of the forest, and I felt naked without the closet. The closet was safe. 

He kneeled down, putting us on the same level. My teeth clattered, dry eyes aching to produce tears. His hands grabbed hold of my biceps, pressed them to my torso, and squeezed. For a moment, the shivering stopped. 

He motioned to a partially boarded window on the opposite end of the tiny enclosure. “Stay by the window near the back. That’s all you have to do. Just keep your eyes open. If you see anything, you come to me. I’m right over there, right at the window beside the door. I’m not going anywhere. Can you do that?”

I nodded.

It was a lie.

My new friend nodded back. He retrieved a knife from his belt, placed it in my hand, and wrapped my fingers around the handle before nudging me in the direction of the window. The steel weapon felt massive, cold, and heavy, stained with flakes of dirt, blood, and unspecified filth. As I approached my post, I reminded myself to breathe. I felt dizzy.  Every step was a struggle, inhaling an exercise. Through the cracks in the wood haphazardly nailed to the window frame, I watched the forest, gazing through the black and the trees, listening to my heart pound, sweaty hands struggling to hold my weapon. I’ll never forget that night. For as long as I live, I’ll never forget that night. Though my blue-eyed savior was just twenty feet away, it might as well have been miles. For the first time in my life I was alone, really alone. For the first time in my life, my safety was my own. Every breeze held the promise of disaster, every falling leaf the end of days. The forest became a living thing, angry and hungry, ugly-mouthed, a monster with its full attention settled squarely on me.

BOOK: Breadcrumbs For The Nasties (Book 1): Megan
11.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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