The Farm (21 page)

Carter opened and closed his mouth a couple of times like he was trying to think of something to say and failing.

“So what kills them?” I met Sebastian’s gaze in the rearview mirror. As unsettling as it was, I did it to convince him I was serious. “Guns don’t, right? Otherwise the police and National Guard could have taken care of the infestation before it even left south Texas.”

Sebastian was silent for a long moment, like he was trying to judge how serious I was. “No. Guns generally don’t work. Large-caliber assault rifles, sometimes. Buckshot at close range will slow them down. But the stake through the heart is your best bet.”

Involuntarily, I imagined what it would actually take to thrust a stake through the heart of anything. The physical strength. The willpower. Plus, if you were close enough to stake a Tick through the heart, wouldn’t it be close enough to rip your heart out?

I swallowed my nausea, closing my eyes to block the image. “Isn’t there anything that just . . . scares them off?”

“They are like any primitive beast. Fire frightens them, if you have enough of it.”

“You would have thought,” Joe mused, “that with all the things the army and the police tried back in the Before, they would have tried spears and fire, too.”

I didn’t open my eyes, but said, “I don’t know about spears, but they did try fire.”

“Well, obviously they didn’t,” McKenna said in her most obnoxious know-it-all voice. “Because all the news reports said the Ticks couldn’t be stopped.”

But I could picture the news segments in my mind. Hours and hours of footage of that initial wave of Ticks. The way they swarmed through the Southwest. I could see the images of first the police, then the National Guard, then the army. All our lines of defense, decimated one after another. There were huge losses on our side in every attack. Worst of all, some of the men and women didn’t die, but turned into Ticks themselves. And in my mind, I could practically hear that chick from the local news station Mom used to watch. Marena something. “The CDC is working around the clock to try to find a cure. . . . Nothing seems to affect them. . . . People are advised to stay indoors at all costs. . . . Teenagers in particular seem to be at risk. . . . The government is recommending teenagers be relocated to fortified camps. . .
 
.”

I opened my eyes and pushed myself up. I angled my body sideways so I could easily look from Sebastian in front of me to Carter behind me. “So why do spears and fire work? Everything we know about Ticks says they can’t be killed. Not with guns, not with poison gas, not with bombs, not with flamethrowers. Now you’re telling me all we need are some matches and really big pencils?”

“Everything
we
know?” Sebastian asked drolly.

“Okay,” I conceded. “Everything I know. But I know a fair amount. How could everything in the news have been wrong? Were we all lied to?”

Carter and Sebastian exchanged a look—another one of those whole-conversation-in-a-single-glance kinds of looks. Like they were disagreeing about how much to tell me, and I wasn’t sure which of them came down on the side of total honesty.

Finally Sebastian said, “Let’s just say the media didn’t know the whole truth. They rarely do.”

There was obviously more to the story than that. I would have to get Carter alone at some point and try to get the details from him. And if he didn’t give them, then I’d need to talk to Sebastian.

But I wasn’t going to push it now, when Mel was listening. Instead I asked hopefully, “Are the Ticks getting weaker?”

“Ah . . . would that that were true. But sadly, they are not getting weaker. Only better fed. A lion that’s not hungry will not bother chasing antelope.”

I shuddered at the thought. Beside me, Mel looked just as disturbed. We’d been lucky.

“What would have happened if they had been hungry?”

It was Carter who answered. “We have a full tank of gas and a van that can go faster than they can run.”

That actually hadn’t occurred to me. “Jesus, how fast can they run?”

“Thirty-five, forty miles an hour.”

“Holy crap,” Joe said from the background.

I sank back against the bench seat thinking. Despite all my preparations, now that we were off the Farm, I felt woefully unprepared. I hadn’t thought about having to siphon gas or defend against the Ticks in the daytime. I hadn’t planned on having to kill them. How could I possibly keep Mel safe? I didn’t have large-caliber assault rifles or buckshot or an endless supply of pointy broom handles.

The van fell silent as we crossed into Oklahoma. Carter finished bandaging up McKenna’s back. Then he opened one of the windows in back and threw the bloody antiseptic rag away.

After a long moment, I said, “I was a Girl Scout.”

I didn’t necessarily expect a big reaction, but Mel did smile. She knew what I was getting at.

“So was I,” McKenna said.

I laughed at that. I don’t know why it was funny. But I had completely forgotten that once, long ago, McKenna and I had been in the same Daisy troop when we were kids. “Yeah. You were. You remember summer camp?”

I turned and looked at her in the back of the van. She frowned, her cheeks flushing red. “Yeah, sure.”

“I went every summer for eleven years.”

From the front seat, Sebastian said, “I’m sure your Scouting experiences are very impressive.”

I ignored him and said, “My point is, I took archery every summer for eleven years. I can shoot a bow and arrow. If a stake can immobilize a Tick, will an arrow work?”

Carter blew out a sigh. “It would. If we could get one.”

“Stores—” I started to ask.

“They’ve all been looted,” he answered. “All those fishing, hunting, survivalist places . . . they got hit early and hard.”

Frowning, I sat back. Mel sat there humming, staring out the window. I didn’t place the song right away, but it was homey and comforting. Now that I’d seen the Ticks in action—not once, but twice—I knew I needed some way to defend myself and Mel. I couldn’t just sit back and let Carter and Sebastian rescue us. I wasn’t ready to give up the idea of the bow and arrow. If it was an advantage I had, I was going to find a way to use it. Which was when I realized she was humming “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain,” a song Mom had always sung during road trips to our uncle Rodney’s. Once again, Mel was one step ahead of me.

“Do we have a map?” I asked.

“Of course. Would you like to see it?”

I choked back my
Well, duh
. “Yes, please.”

Sebastian handed it back and I unfolded it on the bench between Mel and me. After a few minutes of searching, I found the tiny town of Vidalou that we’d just left. With my index finger I traced a path to the main highway that headed north up through Oklahoma.

Mel leaned over the map and looked with me. After a minute or so, she pointed to a spot just east of the Oklahoma-Arkansas border. I nodded. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

“What?” Joe asked, leaning forward to brace his arms on the bench in front of him.

I still didn’t want to talk to Joe—I knew I could never trust him again—but at the same time, the experience in Vidalou had changed things. It brought home so clearly how right Carter was. We humans had to stick together. We couldn’t tear into one another. The Ticks were all too eager to do that for us. So I turned and looked over my shoulder.

“I’m wondering if we can take a little detour on the way to Detroit.”

“Detroit?” Sebastian drawled. “I wasn’t aware our travel plans had changed.”

Carter cleared his throat. “Yeah. I didn’t have a chance to mention that. Lily doesn’t want to go to Utah. She wants to seek asylum from the Canadians.”

“Ah.” The way Sebastian said it, it was a sort of that-explains-everything “ah.”

I looked at him. I felt that same shiver of apprehension I always felt. I considered backing down, but something told me that backing down now was the wrong thing to do. That he was judging me in this moment, waiting for me to fall short of some unspoken standard.

I didn’t like being judged any more than I liked people who manipulated others. “If you have an opinion, Sebastian, share it now.”

“Only that it should be interesting, if the person who is supposed to be leading the rebellion is in Canada.”

“I never asked you to come with us.”

“Oh, I did not mean me. It hardly matters at all where I am.”

“Fine. Carter then.” I glanced at him to see him clenching his fists again.

“Ah. I see.” To Carter he said, “Then you didn’t—”

Carter interrupted Sebastian. “I didn’t think it was smart to debate where we were going until we were off the Farm.” His tone was fierce. “Getting them out was the most important thing. I figured we could debate where to go next once we were all out.”

Neither man said anything for a few minutes. When I couldn’t take the tension in the car any longer, I said, “I never asked anyone to come with us. At the next town, you can help us find a car and we’ll get to Canada on our own.”

“I’m not trying to convince anyone,” Sebastian said. “Merely commenting that I was unaware our plans had changed.”

“Why does she get to decide?” McKenna asked.

“I’m not deciding for everyone. Just Mel and me. It’s the logical destination. North Texas to Detroit is just about the closest border. Once we get there we can throw ourselves on the mercy of the Canadian government.” I shot her a glare from under my lashes. “No one’s going to make you come with us.”

Joe and McKenna exchanged a look. One of those things couples do where they seem to say a lot without ever saying anything at all. Then Joe gave a terse nod.

I couldn’t help the little flurry of jealousy that went through me at their bond. And the truth was, I’d been hoping they’d decide not to come with us. But since that didn’t happen, I said, “I’m just wondering if we have time to drive through Alpena, Arkansas.”

McKenna snorted. “Why would we want to do that?”

“Our uncle Rodney has a cabin outside of town. He’s one of those redneck gun-nut types. He’ll have weapons. Bows and arrows. Mop handles we can whittle down,” I added with only a little sarcasm. “Besides, he probably even has antibiotics. Which McKenna might need.”

Carter sat forward. “One of those survivalist gun-nut types? The kind who might have, oh, an arsenal of weapons and food stockpiled?”

“I don’t know about an arsenal, but he’s the only guy I know who fills his own shotgun shells.”

Sebastian smiled. “Looks like we’re going to Arkansas.”

By the time I’d found the approximate location of Uncle Rodney’s place on the map, exhaustion had started to sink in. We still had a long day of driving ahead of us. I figured at some point it would be my turn to take the wheel. So I closed my eyes and tried to get some rest, but as I drifted off to sleep, one thought haunted me. If the Ticks we’d just encountered weren’t hungry, then why had they chased us at all? And why were they out in daylight? They were supposed to be nocturnal.

I thought about what Sebastian had said about lions. It was true, a pride of lions who were well fed wouldn’t chase an antelope. But they would chase off another lion.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Carter

They stopped to siphon gas again in Muskogee. By then it was around noon. Sebastian assured him there was a nest of Ticks sleeping in a barn outside of town, but they were unlikely to wake. It was a tedious thing. Driving to residential neighborhoods and walking through them, house by house, looking for cars that might still have gas in the tank. The town itself was completely deserted. Nearly every home showed signs that its occupants had left quickly, but no clues remained as to where they’d gone. They found a few cars with gas in their tanks. They stopped again in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It made for slow going, but they’d learned that anytime the Ticks weren’t around, they had to take advantage of it. Each time they stopped, he and Sebastian siphoned gas while the others searched the nearby houses for canned food and supplies. Even with Sebastian’s assurance that the Ticks were asleep, Carter tried to insist Lily wait in the car. She merely rolled her eyes and muttered, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

By Fayetteville, McKenna refused to get out of the van. She looked so battered and worn, no one blamed her. Carter kept expecting Mel or Lily to rip apart at the seams. To come to him in tears. Neither did.

However, he still worried about taking the detour to Alpena and not because of the extra hours it would take. He only hoped Lily and Mel would be strong enough for whatever they found there.

Since she knew the way, Lily took over driving on the outskirts of Alpena. Sebastian moved to the middle row and lay down for a few minutes of sleep.

Mel sat in the passenger seat beside Lily, humming “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain.” Carter sat on the first bench, right in the middle so he could lean forward and talk to Lily.

“You sure you want to do this?”

“Of course.” But her voice trembled slightly as she said it.

“Searching for supplies in abandoned houses is one thing. Ransacking the house of someone you knew, somewhere you stayed, that’s going to be something else entirely.”

She glanced over her shoulder as she slowed down to take a sharp right onto a steep, tree-lined drive. “Do you say that from personal experience?”

“Some. We passed through Dallas on the way to your Farm. I didn’t go to my parents’ house, but we drove past the building my dad’s company was in.”

“But not your parents’ house?”

“No,” he said, suddenly aware of what not going might say about him.

She nodded like she understood exactly what he was talking about. But part of him knew she couldn’t. Yeah, sure, her parents were divorced. But he remembered seeing her mother at school events, looking tired and frazzled, but there for her kids. He’d never had anyone in his life who’d been there for him like that.

“Yeah,” she said finally. “I get why you wouldn’t want to see it. I’ve been the same way. Avoiding facing the hard facts.”

He didn’t disagree with her, even though that wasn’t the reason he’d avoided going home.

Then she frowned, tilted her head to the side as she seemed to consider. “No, not avoiding it. I know my mom probably isn’t . . .” Her voice cracked a little on her words. “There is nothing that woman wouldn’t have done to get us out of there if she knew what was going on in the Farms. But until I know for sure, until I have proof, I’m just not going to go there. I don’t need to obsess about what happened or how it went down.”

“I don’t obsess about it,” he said flatly. “But I know my parents. They’re the kind of people who buy themselves out of any tough situation. You can bet the second the Ticks got too close to home, they bailed. They’re probably on some lush tropical island right now, worrying about how the vampire apocalypse has affected their portfolio.”

“That’s”—Lily blew out a breath—“that’s pretty harsh. You can’t really believe that.” She met his gaze and after a second of him not backing down, she looked away. “You’ve never really had anyone in your corner, have you?” She looked like she wanted to cry.

He couldn’t bear to see that. He’d never wanted her pity. “I do now,” he said, and then, because he was afraid of what she might read in his words, he explained. “Up in Utah, I’ve got nearly a hundred kids who have my back. People who would fight to the death with me. People I’d trust with my life.”

And suddenly it hit him how much he wanted her to be one of those people. He wanted her with him in Utah for reasons that had nothing to do with the rebellion. He wanted her there for her courage and for her fierce, unshakable loyalty. He wanted her there for himself.

And he knew then that part of him wished she wasn’t an
abductura
.

She was quiet for several long minutes. He could tell she was trying to think of something to say. Something that would bridge that awkward revelation of his.

Finally she must have decided to ignore it completely, because she said, “My uncle Rodney, he used to do all kinds of crazy crap. He’d hunt wild boar with only a bowie knife. Stuff like that. If anyone could have made it, he did.”

Carter felt something crack inside his chest for her. “Lil, don’t—”

“I’m not saying he’s going to be there. Just that he would have made it to safety or gone down fighting. The sight of his empty house isn’t going to freak me out.”

A moment later, the sloping driveway evened out to a grassy yard. A small clapboard house sat in a clearing beside a covered carport. There was no car in the drive.

Carter woke Sebastian so the vampire could use his spidey sense to feel around for Ticks. He gave the house the all clear and they piled out of the van.

McKenna—who’d mentioned needing a potty break about a dozen times already—went straight for the front door. She hesitated on the porch.

“The door’s been busted in,” she called. “Looks like we’re not the first people here.”

Carter glanced around, expecting to see disappointment on Lily’s face, only to see her and Mel disappearing around the side of the building. He called out to Joe. “Go with McKenna and make sure the house is clear before she uses the bathroom.”

He didn’t wait for Joe to answer before trotting off after Mel and Lily. He found them around the back of the house, standing over a stack of wood. It was the better part of a cord of wood that covered a good eight feet by four feet of the ground. It looked like it had been culled from the surrounding forest, if the variety of branch size was any indication. A tarp covered the wood and a pallet of plywood kept it off the ground.

“Do you want to start a fire?” he asked. “It’s not a bad idea, if we want to stay here for the night.”

Mel turned and looked at him. She pointed at the wood and said, “There’s no place like home.”

“Um, sure.”

But Lily dropped to her knees and angled to look under the pallet. She stood up, dusting her hands on her jeans. “Hey, can you help me move this? Uncle Rodney always kept the woodpile beside the doors to the storm cellar. I think before he left for wherever he was going, he must have moved the wood on top of them to hide them from anyone passing by. If we can just shift the whole pallet over . .
 
.”

Before waiting for him to answer, she went and grabbed one side of it, like she could get started on her own.

“Hey, Wonder Woman, you’re not going to be able to budge that thing.”

She smirked. “I can if you help.”

“No. Even if Mel helps, the three of us aren’t going to be able to move a cord of wood.”

“Together—”

“Why don’t you go inside the house and make sure Joe and McKenna know we’re out back?” She looked ready to protest. “I’ll move the wood myself. That way, whatever’s down there, I see it first. If he’s down there and alive, I’ll get you right away. If he’s down there but . . .” He couldn’t think of a tactful way to say it and he didn’t need to. From her expression, he knew she got his point. “Then you don’t have to see it. Besides, Sebastian can move the pile more easily than any of us.”

“Oh, yes,” Sebastian grumbled with irritation as he came around the back of the house. “That’s what I’m here for. The heavy lifting.”

Lily ignored Sebastian completely, but seemed to be considering Carter’s words. Finally she nodded and left for the front of the house with Mel, guiding her sister with a single finger on Mel’s elbow.

Sebastian followed Carter’s gaze. “You know, I get the feeling she doesn’t like me.”

“Why? Because you’re a bloodsucking monster?”

Sebastian placed a hand dramatically to his heart. “Sometimes your words hurt.”

Carter ignored him and knelt down to start moving the wood. Despite what he’d told Lily, he didn’t expect Sebastian to help. It would take much longer for Carter to move it himself, but he’d never asked Sebastian for anything without him wanting something in return.

Sebastian must have seen Carter’s ruse for what it was, because he didn’t offer to help but leaned his shoulder against a nearby tree and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Is that why you haven’t told her she’s an
abductura
? Because she doesn’t like me?”

“I haven’t told her because she freaked out after I tranqed her. She wasn’t in a particularly trusting place.”

“Ah.”

Moving it mere inches at a time, Carter was able to pull the pallet of wood to a new spot. The pallet must have been on skids, because he was able to move it even though the corners of the two-by-four frame dug into the moist earth, leaving a trail.

“And so you’ve decided to keep her in the dark. So that she won’t . . . freak out?” The modern slang sounded awkward on Sebastian’s tongue. “Because you are running out of time to convince her. Even if we stall and stay here tonight, we should be in Canada by dawn the day after tomorrow.”

Carter ran a hand through his hair. “You’re right. I know, you’re right.”

“I would be happy to—”

“No.” He said it more forcefully than he meant to. To hide his discomfort, he squatted beside the cellar door latch and pretended to examine the lock. “I know you get impatient with us humans and our silly emotions, but she wasn’t ready to hear it. I’ll tell her soon, but it has to be me who tells her.”

Sebastian didn’t answer right away and Carter looked up to see the vampire tilting his head to the side as if listening to the conversation in the house. After a second, he returned his attention to Carter and whispered, “You’ll stay here tonight, examine your own motives, and then find a time to tell her. Don’t test my patience any longer.”

“Or what? You’ll refuse to go to Canada with us?”

Sebastian smirked. “Of course I’ll go to Canada. I’ll go wherever she’s going to be happiest. A happy
abductura
broadcasts more strongly. But you, my boy, can’t lead your little revolution from Canada. If you’re content to leave me alone with your
abductura
, I will certainly oblige you.”

Carter stood and stalked over to get in Sebastian’s face. “This fight is yours as much as it is ours. And don’t pretend for a second that you don’t want to bring down Roberto just as badly as I do.”

Sebastian straightened so that the distance between them was mere inches. “Obviously.” He enunciated the word with all the crisp perfection of a British schoolchild. A sure sign his temper was short. “If undermining Roberto’s plans was not of the utmost importance to me, I would not be reduced to playing fetch and carry for a disorganized group of teenage kine.”

Carter gave a harsh chuckle. “Yeah. You hate having to work with us at all. The feeling is mutual. We’re both stuck with each other. Neither of us has a choice here. But just know, if you touch Lily or Mel, I will find you and take you down. If you so much as breathe in their direction—”

Sebastian chuckled. “See, this is the advantage of dealing with teenage kine. Your emotions are so close to the surface, it’s quite amusing.”

Carter had to grit his teeth to hold back the urge to punch Sebastian. That would be sheer stupidity. Sebastian—maybe all vampires—had a short temper and deadly outbursts. You didn’t pick a fight with a vampire unless you already had a stake halfway through his heart.

Instead, he breathed out and changed the subject. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

Sebastian’s eyes had a dark, glazed look that Carter didn’t like. He looked hungrily at Carter’s arm. “Why? Are you offering?”

Carter gritted his teeth and resisted tugging on his sleeve. “No. I fed you last month.” That was the one scar he hadn’t shown Lily. The shallow, inch-long cut on his inner wrist, where he’d bled a pint into a cup for Sebastian. The guys in the rebellion took turns feeding the vampire, but none of them liked it. Thank God he didn’t drink directly from humans anymore.

Sebastian was exceptionally paranoid about accidentally turning a new vampire, even now when the vampire territories of the Before were gone. Maybe especially now.

“I know you don’t like the premixed blood on the Farms, but you should have eaten there. Since you didn’t, you should go hunt tonight.”

Sebastian smiled. “Excellent advice. I’ll follow yours if you follow mine. ”

“I’ll worry about Lily; you worry about quenching your thirst.”

“The forests around here have been overhunted already. I will hunt, but I have little control over the outcome of my night’s work. I may find nothing worth eating. You, however, know exactly what you should do and have the means to do it.” Sebastian’s enlarged canines gave his smile a nasty wolfish appearance. “You should act quickly before she slips out of your fingers and you find yourself walking to Utah alone.”

With that, Sebastian sauntered back to the van, hopefully to be useful and actually carry something in. Carter watched him walking away, still gritting his teeth. He took out his frustration by kicking the latch on the door. Pain spiked up his leg, but it was worth it.

“If you’re having trouble with the combination,” Lily’s voice said from behind him, “try Elvis’s birthday.”

“What?”

“Eighteen, nineteen, thirty-five. My uncle was a big Elvis Presley nut.” She and Mel were walking down the back steps of the porch. “I once heard him tell my mother that’s what he always used for his passcodes. January eighth, nineteen thirty-five.”

“Oh. Okay.” Carter dropped to his knees again and spun the tumblers into place. “Where are Joe and McKenna?”