Breadcrumbs For The Nasties (Book 1): Megan (7 page)

When the growling, and sniffing, and panting began to fade away, I thought it was over. I figured we’d gotten lucky, that it somehow missed the obvious and went on its merry way. When
Blueeyes’
hand slipped from my mouth, I assumed we were safe. 

Assumptions are stupid.

The
howler
slammed the full weight of its body into the trunk of our tree and nearly tossed me from my perch. If
Blueeyes
hadn’t tied me to the trunk, I would have been dead. I would have been ripped in half, torn in two and left for the forest. I would have been dinner.

The tree shook again.
Blueeyes
stood. “Hold on! Whatever you do, just hold on!”

I spun around to face the trunk and wrapped my arms around it, mashed my face into the bark. The howler smacked against the base again, rose on its rear legs and scratched at the side, wrapped his mouth around it and bit down. Dead branches shook loose from above, bounced off my head. When I looked down, the
howler
looked back. Our eyes met. I swear I could see it smile. 

Growls changed to barks. It lowered its head, lunged forward, and wrapped its shoulders around the trunk.
Blueeyes’
branch snapped beneath his feet just as he leapt to another. The moment he had his footing, he lifted a spear over his head, coiled back, and launched it at the monster below. The weapon sliced through the flesh of its hairy back, into the muscle underneath. It screamed. It leapt back, jaws snapping at the air, front paws flailing wildly, trying desperately to knock loose the weapon protruding from its back. While it spun and yelped, another spear pierced its leg. The
howler
snapped it loose immediately. It rammed its body into the base of the tree once more before charging into the darkness.

He had done it.
Blueeyes
had scared it off. He fought one of them off. I wanted to scream. I wanted to clap my hands. I wanted to jump up and down. For the first time in a very long time I wanted to smile. And I did. 

When I turned to look at
Blueeyes
, he wasn’t where he should have been. The branch he’d been perched was gone as well. The
howler’s
lunge knocked it loose. He was on the ground. He was on his back. The darkness growled. A pair of deep red eyes emerged from the shadows. They were low to the ground, looking right at him.

Blueeyes
noticed them too, and was on his feet immediately. “The spears, Megan! Throw me the spears!” He was pointing at a branch beside me, spears caught in twisted limbs, dangling just out of his reach. The shadow’s growl transformed into a snarl. The
howler
wasn’t done with us, not by a long shot. It was going to attack. I leaned to my right, reached for the bundle of spears, fingers stretched. It wasn’t enough.

Blueeyes
pulled the knife from his pants. “Megan! The spears!”

I reached again, extending my injured arm as far as I could, so far it hurt, so far my eyes began to water. It still wasn’t’ far enough. Shadows barked, huffed, claws digging into soil, muscles tensed. 

“Now, Megan!”

I hugged the tree again and reached my arms around, frantically trying to undo
Blueeyes’
knot. The bark scraped my face, sliced my lip, fingers working frantically. The
howler
barked. It’s jaws snapped. The echo of tooth against tooth reverberated in my ears. The moment I was free from the trunk, I jumped to my feet. I didn’t care about falling, didn’t even consider it. I did what I needed to do, what my
friend
needed me to do, without hesitation. My jump to the branch with the spears was awkward; I slipped, landed on my stomach, knocked the air from my lungs and nearly fell to the ground. My clumsiness also knocked the spears loose. They dropped to
Blueeyes’
feet. 

The howler charged.
Blueeyes
charged back. From thirty feet up I watched the spectacle. It was incredible. He didn’t back down,
Blueeyes.
There were no second thoughts, no thoughts at all. He wasn’t reacting so much as acting. This was what he did, what he was made for. Four hundred pounds of lean muscle and teeth barreled down on him, mouth wide, teeth exposed. When the creature leapt, he leapt as well. They were monsters, the pair of them, airborne beasts, single-minded and focused.
Blueeyes
screamed. The
howler
screamed back. The tip of his spear pierced the creature’s belly. The forward motion and weight of the
howler’s
own body sank the weapon further in, through muscle and organs and out the other side. Even with a spear through its midsection, the monster refused to relent. It crashed into
Blueeyes,
bent him backward, the full weight of its bulk crushing his chest. He squirmed underneath, attempting to maneuver himself from striking distance as the creature snapped at his head, missed, and received a mouthful of dirt. Its paws swiped at him, coming up empty. A single arm emerged from under the
howler,
knife in hand.
Blueeyes
drove the blade into its neck, twisted, pulled, and stabbed again. When the creature rolled off him, he rolled with it, stabbing and turning, jaw clenched, eyes wide, teeth bared. He didn’t stop. His arms never stopped moving.

So much blood; I’d never seen so much blood.

Every time
Blueeyes
stabbed, the mauled flesh sprayed blood, soaking his arm, drenching his face in warm crimson. Eventually the
howler’s
limbs stopped twitching. It stopped fighting. With a knife in its head, its eyes went blank. Its snout fell limp. It had lost. When it was done,
Blueeyes
rolled from the corpse and dropped to his knees, chest heaving, trying desperately to catch his breath. He looked up at me,
howler
blood dripping from his chin as if he’d bathed in it, saturated. I was terrified. I was in awe.

He wiped the blood from his eyes and nodded. 

I nodded back.

8.

It was amazing we weren’t attacked again that night with all the noise we’d made. The
howler Blueeyes
killed hadn’t gone silently. It had roared, fought, and clawed. It shrieked to its last breath, squealed for its life. That alone should have attracted more of them. We should have been surrounded, outnumbered, and alone. We sat in that tree for hours, back-to-back, wide awake, spears in hand. Nothing happened. 

We were
lucky.

In the morning we climbed down, collected our things, and headed east.
Blueeyes
said it was the quickest route to the road. I believed him. Early into the trip, we came across a haphazardly constructed campsite—what remained of it, anyway. There were
bodies
everywhere: pieces.
Blueeyes
suggested it could have been the reason the
howlers
hadn’t come for us. They were busy, bellies full.  

We scavenged what we could; dug through backpacks, peeled bloody clothes from dismembered limbs, and picked through the pockets. I was getting good at knowing what to look for, realizing what we could use and what we couldn’t. I suppose I felt bad rummaging through their remains, stealing. I felt worse having to leave the bodies the way they were, strewn about, destroyed, mismatched dinner scraps. I wanted to bury them like Father had buried Mother, like I should have been able to bury him. They were people, after all. They might have saved our lives. 

Blueeyes
said
no,
said we didn’t have time, it would be messy, that the scent of their blood on our hands would only alert the
howlers.  

I lowered my head. “Breadcrumbs for the
nasties.
” 

I barely whispered it. I didn’t think he’d hear me.

“What?” 

“Nothing.”

When
Blueeyes
turned his back, I removed a necklace from something vaguely resembling a spine. It was small and silver, with delicate etchings carved into the top. The chain was snapped, links crinkly with frozen blood. I pushed a little tab on the side and it popped open. Inside there was a picture, a girl, a little older than I was. Her hair was long, blonde, and straight, neatly combed. It glimmered white like her eyes. I’d never seen hair so beautiful, so clean and healthy. I wondered how she got it to look like that, to stay that way. She was sitting straight, chin up, eyes wide, smiling proudly. She looked like she didn’t care, like nothing mattered but that moment and that picture. She looked like she’d never been hungry, or scared, or felt alone. She’d never hurt, really hurt. She never would. I closed the heart, put it back where it belonged. It wasn’t mine, never would be. 

She wasn’t real anyway, not anymore.

By midday we found a road. By night we found shelter. I offered to stay awake with
Blueeyes,
keep watch. He insisted it was safe, told me to get some sleep. I woke in the middle of the night. It was the whine of the
howlers
that did it, like always. I noticed
Blueeyes
across the room at the window, unmoving. He was just watching the way he always did, always would. I knew I wasn’t in danger, even from the
howlers.
I went back to sleep and slept until morning. 

I’d never slept so soundly. 

Blueeyes
woke me at daybreak. We snacked on the food we scavenged from the camp in the forest. I didn’t care that it was terrible, didn’t care about the taste at all. I was hungry. It was food. Nothing else mattered. When we were done,
Blueeyes
checked my arm and poked it with his thumb and forefinger, watching me wince, gauging my ability to work through the pain.

“How does it feel?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t smile.
Blueeyes
never smiled. “Good.” He didn’t need to. I knew what he meant.

We made good time that day, kept a steady pace. I stayed close to
Blueeyes,
no less than a few feet away at any given time. When he moved too fast for me to keep up, I moved faster. I didn’t complain, didn’t question, over think, or complain about my feet hurting. I just walked. When I felt like I couldn’t walk anymore, I did it anyway. I made sure to keep an eye on my surroundings, watched for unexpected movements, for anything unusual. I tried to remember where we were and where we’d been, constructing mental images in my head and repeating them until I couldn’t forget. I listened closely to everything. I wanted to be better for
Blueeyes
. I had to be better. After four or five hours of walking, we stopped and took shelter in the half-crumpled remains of a building with a faded sign on the roof. I told
Blueeyes
I was fine, that I didn’t need to rest, that I could keep going. 

He told me to
shut up. 

The remainder of the day was uneventful. We walked and walked some more. At one point we made our way through the remains of a small town, crumbling buildings flanking the road, bloodstained concrete under our feet. Everything was charred, stained with soot and gun power, the faraway scent of ash clinging to the breeze. I found them interesting in a way, the remains. Peculiar. I never knew the world before things went
bad,
can’t honestly say I understood it. None of it made sense. Nothing seemed to go together. Everything was labeled. Using bits of information Father and Mother let slip over the years, I tried to imagine what the buildings might have looked like before they were burned to the ground, how tall they were, what they were used for. Can’t say I ever really succeeded. How could I? My only frame of reference was confusing images of golden-haired girls in lockets alongside childish flights of fancy. It was pointless, silly, all the stupid labels and comforts, all the beds. Everything
important
and easy was gone, turned to ash. In the end it didn’t matter, none of it. They didn’t matter, not any more.
Blueeyes
never paid any more attention to it than he needed to. If he didn’t care about what he’d lost, why should I care about what I never had? 

The sun went down. The
howlers
came out. Same as always.

In the morning we ate—nibbled really—and took to the road once again. Early into the trip we encountered a small pack of
gimps.
There were five of them plodding through the remains of a roofless building, scratching at the walls, jaws half-heartedly chewing the air. We could have walked right past them. They might not have noticed us at all if
Blueeyes
hadn’t whistled. The moment he did, dead eyes lit up, feet shuffled in our direction. 

I don’t know why he did it. When I tried to ask, I stuttered. “Wh-what’re you…?” It didn’t make sense. Why did he want to get their attention? They were coming right at us, bent fingers grabbing at nothing.

Blueeyes
retrieved his knife, placed his hand on my shoulder. “Wait here.” 

In the years since, I’ve learned that
gimps
are most dangerous in large numbers and when they catch you off guard, especially in tight spaces.
Blueeyes
already knew this. He already knew everything. The moaning corpses bearing down on us were spread apart, spaced awkwardly, attacking as individuals rather than a horde. They didn’t stand a chance.
Blueeyes
dispatched them with ease. His breathing never changed. He never stuttered or second-guessed. He never broke a sweat. He moved and murdered, and when he was done he did it all again. It seemed so easy for him, second nature; he almost looked bored. It was over in less than a minute.
Blueeyes
used one of their tattered shirts to wipe the blood from his knife and hands before returning to my side. He passed by and headed to the road. 

“You have to hit the brain.” It was the first thing he’d said to me all morning.

“What?”

“The brain…only thing that kills them, all of them:
gimps, howlers,
even the
biters.
Anything else and they’ll just keep coming.”