Feast (17 page)

22

Ella sat on the first floor staircase, hands linked behind her head as instructed. She kept the grip light, her head still recovering from the blow that knocked her unconscious. Mason stood at the bottom of the stairs, revolver leveled at Ella, but his eyes on the front door. The hairy woman standing on the far side of the door, visible through the side windows, was swaying back and forth impatiently, waiting to sell Girl Scout cookies, or Mormon Jesus, or Jehovah’s Witness Jesus. She was a Rider. There was no doubt about that. The hooked teeth were impossible to mistake, and that adaptation, combined with the hair-covered body, was an unlikely combination to be repeated.

But why was it knocking on the door?

To call it strange behavior was an understatement. ExoGenetic creatures were driven by instinct. By
hunger
. They didn’t knock on doors. Then again, they weren’t supposed to talk, either, but Peter had communicated with Kristen before he shot her. Perhaps the other Riders could speak as well?

It didn’t matter.

None of it.

What mattered was that the creature outside wasn’t just her enemy, but the enemy of every living thing that wasn’t also a Rider or a Woolie. It was a predator. They were its prey.

“You need to give me a weapon,” Ella said.

Mason waved her off, keeping his attention on the door, but his weapon trained on her. Dave stood by the door, clutching an assault rifle that he didn’t look very comfortable holding.

Ella guessed he’d never fired the weapon, at least not at anything living. The men outside the compound, the ones who had taken them captive, were the real fighters. Dave and Chad guarded the house, and manned the third floor lookout, but they weren’t even good at that.

“Mason,” Ella said. “The creatures outside are killers. Savages. And my kids are missing.”

“They’re not all your kids,” he said, turning toward her. “Are they?”

“They are now.”

“How noble of you.”

“Let me save them. Let me help you fight.”

“What good are hair and teeth and claws against bullets?” Mason asked.

Ella laughed. “When was the last time you stepped outside these gates?”

He said nothing, which was answer enough. He hadn’t been in the wild since before the Change. He’d heard stories, but filtered through the bravado of his men.

“I should have known,” Ella said. “Rape and subjugation are the tactics of a coward.”

Mason’s left eye twitched, but he said nothing. Just stared.

Then the Rider knocked again, louder this time, hard enough to rattle the thick wood.

“Shit,” Dave said, taking a step back from the door.

Chad entered the foyer, arms clutching an array of weapons. Rifles and assault rifles. All of them presumably loaded, but there wasn’t a spare magazine or even loose ammunition in sight. He stumbled, fell to his knees and let the weapons clatter on the hard wood floor. “Sorry, sorry.”

The barrel of each and every weapon was pointed in Dave’s direction, and when he saw them hit the floor, he reversed course, back toward the door. His fear of a misfire wasn’t unfounded, but in that moment of confusion, he mistook the falling weapons as the greater danger.

Ella slowly backed up a step.

Dave’s back pushed against the side window beside the door. The solid glass panel was ten inches wide and four feet tall. It shattered inward as a large, hair-cloaked fist punched through. The thick fingers opened like a fisherman’s net, wrapping around Dave’s face. The man’s muffled scream rose to a high pitch as he was lifted off the floor, and then was silenced as he was yanked through the window.

The ten inch wide space was far too narrow for Dave’s body. As his chest shot through the space, the jagged edge peeled away his shirt, and his skin from both his chest and his back. His sudden motion came to a jarring halt as his buttocks and hips became jammed in the narrow space. Past the thudding of his twitching legs, there was a pop and a slurp.

Then the body, half inside, half outside, hung limp and still.

Even Ella was immobilized by shock.

She, Mason and Chad stood motionless, eyes on Dave’s savaged remains. Five quiet seconds ticked by.

The spell was broken when Dave’s head and torn-free spine arced back through the window like one of those ‘The More You Know’ stars. And there was a lesson here: never underestimate the ExoGens. It was a lesson Ella found herself learning over and over. Making any kind of assumption about any ExoGenetic life—in this case that the Riders lacked the intelligence, mental and emotional, to track down their slain leader’s killer—was deadly.

Ella backed away another step, preparing to flee upstairs. The windows on the second floor were barred, but the third floor might not be. And if it wasn’t, maybe she could hide?

She stopped when a wide-eyed Mason turned to her. His face was slick with sweat and his lips were quivering. His first real up close and personal experience with an ExoGen wasn’t quite as glorious as his men had likely described it. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“A weapon. Take your pick.”

“You aren’t afraid I’ll shoot you?”

He frowned but then said, “I’d rather be shot than end up like that.” He waggled his revolver at Dave’s
The More You Know
head and spine.

Ella moved down a step, not fully convinced. But a second look at Dave’s head, torn free from his body, twisting coils of nerves still attached to the spine, helped cover up her animosity for Mason. She would fight beside her enemy, for now, and if they survived, she’d put a bullet in his dick. And then his head.

She stood and made it two steps down before a voice called through the broken window. “Hello, in there.”

The voice wasn’t just human. It was familiar. It was unmistakable. Eddie Kenyon had survived, and he’d tracked her down. She closed her eyes and shook her head. They should have killed him. Instead, they’d allowed this very dangerous man to befriend and join forces with inhuman savages, all of whom wanted her and Peter dead.

“Don’t answer him,” Ella warned, but Mason’s body language had already shifted. While the old man was no good in a fight against monsters, he could verbally spar with the best of them.

Mason swiveled his handgun back around toward Ella’s chest. “Sit.”

Ella sneered, but obeyed. She wasn’t far from the weapons, but couldn’t risk diving for one until Mason’s eyes shifted away from her.

“I said hello in there,” Kenyon repeated, louder. Closer.

From her perch on the stairs Ella saw more hairy bodies climb up onto the porch. They spread out to either side. Waiting. Strategizing. When the time came, they could each plunge through a window and bring the fight inside. Mason and Chad might get off a few shots, but the brute force and speed of the Riders would quickly overwhelm them.

“Sorry for the messy introduction,” Kenyon said, “but these ladies aren’t really known for their subtlety. Let’s call it a show of force. A taste of things to come, if you do not reply right this
God-damned second.
”

“We’re here,” Mason said. “We’re listening.”

“Excellent,” Kenyon said. “So let’s get right to it. We have come a long way and my patience is like paper.”

“Yes, sir,” Mason said. “What can we do for you?”

Ella enjoyed hearing the terror in Mason’s voice, but would have preferred it be in response to her, not Kenyon and a bunch of female Riders.

“We are looking for a group of people and have reason to believe you are sheltering them here.”

Mason’s gaze became incredulous. Ella could nearly hear his thoughts, ‘You brought this upon us?’ If bending his index finger didn’t cause him so much pain after cracking against her skull, he might have even pulled the trigger, but he refrained and said, “Anybody that’s here, that you want, you can have.”

“Appreciate that,” Kenyon said. “Let’s start with Crane. Peter Crane.”

Incredulity turned to anger. “He’s not here.”

“Don’t fuck with me.” Kenyon’s voice shifted into rage so fast that Ella wondered if he’d resorted to eating ExoGenetic food.

Maybe he’s not fully human anymore,
Ella thought.
Maybe he’s one of them.

“He left ’bout two hours ago. But he’ll be back. We have his kids.”

“They inside the house?” Kenyon asked. “Because there’s nobody out here.”

“That wasn’t you?” Mason asked.

“What wasn’t me?”

“The missing people.”

“You are the first person I’ve spoken to since I had a sit down chat with your men at the gas station. What’s your name?”

“M-Mason.”

“Mason. My name is Edward Kenyon. You can call me Eddie. You sound like a reasonable man. Like a real Southern gentleman. How about we stop talking through a closed door and you tell me where everyone is. If this is an ambush, I—”

“Ella is here,” Mason blurted out. “I don’t know about the kids, I swear. But Ella is here. Right behind me. You want her, too, right?”

After a beat of silence, Kenyon spoke. “You have no idea.”

“I’ll bring her out.” Mason shoved the gun at Ella’s face and motioned for her to stand up. “Just...Just get down from the porch, okay? Give us some breathing room.”

Heavy feet stomped over the front porch as the shadows hovering by the windows faded back.

“Come on out,” Kenyon called.

Mason hissed at Chad and then motioned to the door with his chin. “Open it.”

Chad looked horrified, but part of him was still equally afraid of Mason. He flitted to the door like a nervous mouse, starting and stopping, until his hand wrapped around the knob and twisted. The door swung open, smooth on its hinges. He pushed open the storm door next, cringing as the glass pushed up against Dave’s headless and gored body. Dave’s wet flesh squeaked against the glass, leaving deep red smears.

Kenyon stood ten feet back with a group of female Riders. He stood partly behind two of them.

Living shields,
Ella thought, wondering if the two creatures understood why he had positioned them that way. They might not fully understand the danger posed by the weapons Mason and Chad carried, but Kenyon certainly did. And he was armed with an assault rifle of his own, though he kept the barrel low and unthreatening.

Mason waved Ella out and she complied. As she passed Mason she met his eyes and offered him a fiendish grin. “Your funeral.”

A flash of doubt and horror flickered over his face, doubly so when he noticed she’d ripped her shirt, revealing the bra he’d supplied her. Then she was outside, on the porch, limping, crying and holding one hand to her head. “Eddie, thank God.”

Kenyon’s face was a frozen mask. He didn’t look angry or confused, but Ella knew that it was his poker face. Just because he wasn’t showing emotion didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling it. The question was, what was he feeling. Anger? Hate? Concern? The emotion she was hoping for, the one that would get her the result she sought, was love. If he loved her still, despite her betrayal, he wouldn’t be able to ignore what she said next.

Stumbling toward the steps, she said, “He sent Peter away to be killed. He’s probably already dead.” That didn’t get a reaction, but it wasn’t really supposed to. That information was only offered to lend credence to what came next. “He kept me here. Dressed me like this.” She motioned to her Southern belle outfit and let her hand stop over her chest, pulling Kenyon’s attention to the lacy bra he knew she would have never worn by choice. “Eddie...” She fell to her knees, eyes on the ground and the large hairy feet at the bottom of the steps. “He
raped
me.”