The Lost Souls (3 page)

Shivering, Hockey stepped over the sleeping bodies of his companions, looking for a big enough slice of floor to lie down on and get some shut-eye. Wedging between Mira and Tyler, he wrapped his woolen blankets tightly around himself and closed his eyes.

“Hey,” Mira whispered.

His eyes opened.

“It’s extra cold tonight,” she said through chattering teeth. “Winter’s coming quickly. You wanna double up?”

He did. He wanted to triple up, quadruple up even. The warehouse they’d barricaded themselves inside, in preparation
for the fast-coming winter, retained heat about as well as a drafty shed. Even with several fires burning inside strategically placed garbage bins, it was still far too cold for comfort. But he wasn’t a social person, even after spending months alongside the people who’d saved his life; he still felt so far removed from them. Yet he owed them his life and Hockey always repaid his debts.

After the botched raid, he’d wandered for weeks—sleeping with one eye open as he searched for his clan, hot-wiring cars and using them until they ran out of gas, eating whatever garbage he could find
.

And for a man alone in a world full of demons who would just as soon kill him as look at him, he thought he was doing pretty damn good. It wasn’t fun, he wasn’t happy, but he was surviving
.

Until he was attacked.

• • •

While digging through the inner remains of a fast-food restaurant, his stomach burning with hunger, Hockey
hadn’t heard the Skin Eater until it was nearly on top of him. Sensing the malevolence in the air, he had spun around and found the creature in midjump, fangs bared. Cursing, he stumbled backward, summoning fire to his palms as he tripped over the garbage strewn on the floor. Orange-and-white flames blasted from his palms and wrapped around the Skin Eater. The creature screamed as its skin and organs melted under the onslaught. Dead, it fell to the floor and proceeded to set fire to the wrappers and boxes it had landed on.

Trapped between the growing flames and the
restaurant’s drive-through window, Hockey had no choice but to try to squeeze through it. Gripping the top of the window, he hauled his large body up and attempted to squeeze himself through the small opening. But his frame was too wide and his shoulders wouldn’t fit. Feeling the flames licking his legs, he shoved as hard as he could, cracking the window frame. As he fell through the opening, the broken plastic sliced through his shoulder.

Hockey
hit the pavement hard on his back and shot immediately to his feet, looking for any threats. Finding himself alone, he hurried back to the minivan he was currently living in. After locking himself inside, he stripped off his shirt.

Fuck.

The slice through his shoulder, although only a few inches long, was deep. His arm was drenched in blood, and the bastard was still bleeding.

After digging through his backpack,
he found the small sewing kit he’d swiped from a convenient store. With shaking hands he threaded a needle, and set to work sewing his shoulder back together. He used his shirt as a temporary bandage, wrapping it tightly around the wound before tying it into a knot. The material was dirty and torn, but it was all he had. It would have to do for now.

Two days later, parked on the side of a country road, Hockey found himself shivering and sweating, his thoughts muddled with the fever raging through his body. The gash on his arm was swollen, a painful, angry red mess.

But even fevered, he knew he was going to die.

In a minivan.

And the cause of his death…

A dirty window.

Super.

Time began to pass slowly after that. For days, he faded in and out of consciousness, sometimes awaking to the sun, sometimes to the stars. Instead of dwelling on the pain or the knowledge that this would be the end, he thought of Becki—her smooth brown skin, her deep chocolate eyes, her long mass of curls hanging down her back.

“Holy shit, there’s a dude in here!”

“Is he dead?”

Hockey felt something cool touch his face, but lacked the strength to open his eyes.

“No, not dead, but he’s not looking too good.”

“Dump him. We need the van.”

“I’m not dumping a sick guy on the side of the road, just so we can steal his car
.”

“Great. So we’re gonna lug around a half-dead guy, wait until he dies, and
then
dump him on the side of the road?”

Hockey counted three different male voices.

“You are such an asshole!” That last shrill, horrified statement had come from a female.

“Fuck you
. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s fucking Armageddon out here! Survival of the fittest.”

“If we dump him, we’re no better than those monsters trying to kill us!”

“It’s his arm. He’s got blood poisoning. See? But he’s not septic…yet.”

“Who the fuck cares?”

“He’s a human being! You should care!”

“All of you, shut up! Get in the damn van and find me a pharmacy
. In the meantime, someone give me a knife.”

Hockey decided right then and there whoever this man was, he liked him.

“Why?”

“Gotta cut these stitches out.”

“You’re not a fucking doctor!”

“No,
but I was a medic. I know what I’m doing.”

The voices faded out after that. A few times, he thought he could feel the van jerking beneath him.

Sometime later, he felt his body being moved and juggled awkwardly around. He was laid out on something flat and cold and…searing pain was shooting up his arm, and then…everything went black.

The next time Hockey awoke, his head was clear, his fever was gone, and seated around him in a circle on the floor of a pharmacy were five people.

Tyler—a blond-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-six-year-old army medic turned gym teacher—was a friendly, easygoing guy. He was a hard worker and handy to have around in case of medical problems.

Rachael—a curvy, blonde-haired thirty-one-year-old—wasn’t the easiest person to like. She complained incessantly about matters of little concern, and she was useless in most situations. Hockey got the feeling she’d been pampered and spoiled before the world changed, and he often found himself wondering how she’d survived the initial fallout.

Chris—a scrawny seventeen-year-old with long black hair and an excessive amount of facial piercings—was an idiot. He outright didn’t like the kid. Hardheaded and a know-it-all, his manic temper at times reminded Hockey of Xan—except this kid was scrawny, he couldn’t hurt a fly, and he was as dumb as a brick. Xan was neither scrawny
nor dumb. Xan was lethally intelligent and remarkably strong, and Hockey desperately hoped his friend had survived that fateful raid and made it home to the clan.

Then there was David, a dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned, thirty-six-year-old businessman whose muscles rivaled Hockey’s own. The guy was almost as quiet as he was and kept mostly to himself. He didn’t involve himself with the arguments of the others, and yet something about him struck Hockey as…not
quite right. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but his gut told him not to trust the guy, and his mamă had always said the gut didn’t lie. Considering his mamă had never lied—most times, she had been painfully truthful—he was inclined to believe her. It wasn’t as if he could kill the guy before he did something. But if he ignored his gut, he might not be in time to catch David before he completed his goal.

He knew what his tată would say—no man should be judged before he acts. Then there was what Xan would say—shoot now, drink later.

No question, Xan would have killed David months ago. But Hockey wasn’t Xan, and he’d never killed a man. Animals, yes. Skins, yes. But never another human being.

But now
, holed up on the top floor of a ten-story warehouse on the outskirts of Philadelphia, ready to wait out the winter before they started traveling again…

What
would cabin fever do to a man like David?

Lastly, there was Mira—a nineteen-year-old college student, petite with fair
, freckled skin and dark brown hair, who was a tomboy and a ridiculously talented shot. She had killed several Skins from a good distance with just one hit. She was also strapped head to toe with knives that never failed to hit their target. He’d asked her once, after she’d killed a Skin with a single knife toss with terrifying accuracy, what sort of training she’d had.

“I’m a military brat,”
Mira said, laughing, “and an only child. Therefore, I reaped all the benefits of the son who never was.”

Hockey
smiled. It was the first time he’d smiled since he’d been separated from the raiding party.

• • •

So when Mira asked if he’d like to double up, Hockey didn’t have to think too long. “Yeah,” he whispered back, holding open his blanket for her. “Let’s double up.”

As she scooted closer to him, he closed the blanket around her. She immediately buried her face into his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. But even as he reveled in the extra heat, guilt welled up inside him.

He missed Becki.

No matter what, h
e would find his wife.

He would find his clan.

Until then, he was…surviving.

Winter

Squinting as he tried to see through the blizzard outside, Marko Siwak pulled his truck off the icy highway and onto the first exit ramp.

He was so screwed.

Pennsylvania was a snow-covered hellhole. It was dark and snowing, and he couldn’t see jack shit. Now, he was out of gas and out of hope.

“So much for good intentions,” he muttered.

He’d left the safety of his Romani clan and their ancient Romani magic to try to right a wrong. Out of jealousy and spite, he’d left his friend Xan’s wife, a young woman named Trinity, all alone in this shit pit of a world. Everyone had thought she’d run off with another man, and Xan had taken to sleeping with other women to try and stave off the pain of losing her.

One of those other women had been Marko’s fiancée, Nadya Popa. Their pending marriage had been an arranged one, one that Nadya had continuously put off for years, and he’d let her
. He hadn’t forced her into becoming his wife, as Gypsy law allowed, because he’d loved her fiercely and would have done anything to make her happy, including waiting. Losing her had been devastating.

The pain was still red hot when Marko had run into Trinity while out on a supply raid
, and he’d let his emotions get the better of him.

Gripping the steering wheel, he cringed, remembering what he’d said to her. Blinded by jealousy, he’d callously told her that she was no longer wanted by Xan or the clan.

Now, everything he’d done was out in the open.

Feeling triumphant, Marko had tossed Trinity’s gun onto the ground in front of Xan. For several moments, Xan had just stared dumbly at the weapon. Then reaching out, his hand shaking, he picked it up and turned it over. Marko knew what Xan was looking for—the inscription,
Trinity,
fată mea
.

Finding it, Xan’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed repeatedly. Swaying back and forth, he began to tremble.

“Xan?” Becki yelled
. “Xan! Are you going to be sick?”

Xan attempted to shake his head but he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from the gun in his hands
.

“Frate!” Pesha shouted.

“Xan!” Nico bent down in front of Xan and shook him.

Someone within the nearby crowd shouted, “Where did you get Trinity’s gun?”

Instead of answering, Marko dropped to his knees beside Xan. “You know where, don’t you?” he sneered. “Kicker is, Trinity left roughly twenty minutes before you showed up.”

“You stupid fuck!” Becki cried out.

“Fată,” Marko said, looking up at her, “that’s not even the best part. According to Trinity, Gerik left her. He dumped her in the woods the same day as the attack in the Catskills, and he never came back for her. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Becki gasped,
and the surrounding clan members cried out in shock.

But Marko wasn’t done yet. He had to drive that knife just a little deeper. He needed to take from Xan everything the man had taken from him. “Your wife has been alone since the end of
summer
, Deleanu,” he said. “Summer,” he repeated. “That’s a long fucking time. It would be a damn miracle if she’s survived this long.”

Marko was suddenly yanked to his feet, coming face-to-face with Nico.

“You dirty fuck,” Nico hissed, right before he slammed his fist into Marko’s face.

Dazed and disorientated, Marko staggered for a moment before falling backward into the crowd. Landing hard on his back, he stared up at the disappointed and horrified faces above him, wondering why he didn’t feel any better than he had before.

It was done. He’d gotten his revenge, only he still felt like shit.

In fact, while watching Xan break down, instead of basking in his revenge, he’d felt a million times worse.

So
Marko had packed up his shit and planned to head back to where he’d last seen Trinity, hoping like hell she was still alive and holed up somewhere nearby. He’d tell her what he had done, that he’d lied out of spite and jealousy, and then he’d bring her home to Xan, to the clan. And maybe, just maybe, Nadya would want him again as a result.

A
t least, that had been the plan. A snowstorm the likes of which he’d never seen, and he’d seen a lot, had thrown him off course. Now he was running on empty in the middle of nowhere in the midst of a blizzard.

The first farmhouse
Marko came across, he didn’t bother looking for a driveway. He just threw the truck into four-wheel drive and headed straight across the lawn. Parking his truck and trailer directly in front of the house, he tied a scarf around his face, grabbed his backpack, and left the warmth of the truck.

It was slow going, fighting the biting wind and flurries as he made his way to the house. Luckily he found the front door unlocked
and hurried inside. The house wasn’t any warmer than outside, not that it mattered. He wouldn’t be sleeping in it.

A few months back while preparing for the coming winter, he’d altered his trailer, as had most of his clan, and installed a wood-burning stove. It wasn’t an easy job. First, he’d had to rip out the entire kitchen unit and, using bricks and sheet metal, built a fireproof area. Once that had been completed, he’d taken a saw and cut a rectangular hole in the ceiling of the trailer. Using more sheet metal
, he finished off the entire project by creating a flame-resistant chimney area.

Before he left camp in Ohio,
Marko had taken a shit ton of firewood, and had since been collecting anything he could find. Didn’t matter what it was as long as he could eat it, drink it, or burn it.

Gypsies
didn’t sleep cold.

And they certainly didn’t die just because Western
civilization had. Fuck that.

Rubbing his gloved hands together, Marko looked around the basic home. It was a little more floral than most and a filthy mess
, which meant it had probably been ransacked several times over. His last shred of hope dissolved. He wouldn’t find any gasoline here. If there had been any to begin with, it was definitely long gone by now.

Still
, he never knew what he could find. Anything could be useful.

He started walking, kicking broken furniture out of his way, searching out the kitchen. Because it was winter and everything outside and inside was well past frozen, he didn’t have to
worry about the smell, not that it smelled good by any means. It was just not nearly as overpowering as the putrefied stench of rot and decay brought about during the warmer months.

Ignoring the refrigerator,
Marko headed straight for the cupboards and was greeted with the usual dead insects and rodents. After some digging, he managed to find a few things that hadn’t been pillaged by the vermin or ruined by the freeze. Once he’d secured his finds in his backpack, he made his way through the mess back to the living room, headed for the staircase. He needed clean clothing. Freezing temperatures weren’t conducive to washing anything, not that he knew how to do his own laundry. He’d always had women around for that. Yet another thing that sucked about leaving the clan.

He had his boot on the first stair when he heard the telltale sound of a door squeaking as it opened and a frigid breeze blew past him. Dropping his backpack, he pulled both his guns from his jeans and whirled around. A bundled-up figure, slight in stature and quaking from the cold, stood in the doorway.

“Don’t fucking move,” Marko growled. “And open your goddamn mouth.”

• • •

Carrie was cold, so very cold, and hungry and terrified. She was out of firewood and out of food. She’d been living off melted snow and a box of stale macaroni noodles for the past week since the crazy bitch had killed her brother. She been rationing the noodles until two days ago when she’d had no choice but to eat the last one.

If she didn’t leave her house, she was going to die in it. And soon.

Her entire family, her entire town, was gone. It was the middle of the worst winter she’d ever seen, and she was starving to death.

“How is this my life?” she mumbled, wiping warm tears off her cold cheeks.

Packing a bag full of spare clothing and anything she could find that could be used as a weapon, Carrie pulled on layer upon layer of clothing, bundling herself against the blustery wind. Then, with a heavy heart, she stepped out into the storm and went south, toward her grandparents’ farm. It was her last hope, her last shot at finding food or gas, something, anything at all, because she didn’t want to die, and more importantly, she definitely didn’t want to die in Elderton.

“I will not die in
Elderton,” she repeated over and over again as she battled through the bitter wind and driving snow.

It took the entire day and the very last of her energy, but she made it. Pushing open the familiar wooden fence and half
-blinded by the sheer volume of snow, she staggered through the yard. Praying the door was unlocked, she gripped the handle and pushed.

She saw the guns first and the man holding them next.

“Don’t fucking move,” he growled. “And open your goddamn mouth.”

Carrie
tried. She gave it her all, but her skin was numb, half-frozen, and her limbs were weak, her body exhausted and malnourished. So instead of opening her mouth, her already blurry vision winked out, and she collapsed.