Huntress

Behind her, Trace floated free of the darkness. She was younger, her brown skin as flawless as dark cream; only, her eyes were as black as ink, inhuman and cold, and her mouth was full of long white teeth.

Things change, she whispered throatily. We can change. We can forget what we were meant to be.

I am not this, Maggie told her.

You don’t know what you are, Trace replied, and reached inside her mouth. She began to pull out her teeth. One by one. Sharp and white. Like a shark’s.

Maggie stared, horrified. Until, suddenly, another presence entered her dream—someone solid and real—and strong arms slid around her waist, pulling her close against a broad, warm chest. Trace faded into the shadows, as did Maggie’s monstrous reflection.

Do not be afraid, whispered a familiar voice. Maggie, I am here.

Here, where? she murmured in despair, accepting him as though he had always been with her—her crow, who was now a man. What am I? What am I doing?

Hunting, he rumbled. Hunting hearts.

Maggie sagged within the circle of his arms. I don’t know what that means.

His warm mouth brushed against her ear, and those arms turned her around until she placed her hands against a hard chest that was searing to touch and shockingly naked. She had never touched a man—not like this, even in a dream—and the sensation sent a jolt from her heart into her stomach.

He kissed her cheek, and then her mouth, gently. “Never mind,” he said, his voice no longer echoing through her mind. “Maggie, rest. Go back to sleep.”

“I am asleep,” she mumbled, wanting more of his mouth.

“Yes, of course,” replied the man, after kissing her again, more deeply. Maggie’s hand slid around his chest to his back, tracing the hard line of his spine; and down, down even more, as she discovered he was truly naked, everywhere. She pressed closer, grinding her hips against the hard pulse of his body, and realized dimly that she was not standing, but resting on her side. The man made a slightly strangled sound, and kissed Maggie so hard that she sighed with pleasure.

And then he disappeared, abruptly, and she found herself holding nothing but air. Awake, she listened to the rain drum against the old tin roof, her body still aching and her mouth still tender from kisses that had been only in her dreams.

Or maybe they were not dreams. Maggie dragged in a deep ragged breath, curling around herself. She tried to remember those arms holding her, especially when thunder rumbled and lightning flashed outside the window, but it was the man’s voice that lingered instead. Warm, steady, and reassuring. Familiar now as her own.

Mister Crow, she thought, sensing something behind her. She twisted, glancing over her shoulder, and found the bird perched on the edge of her blanket. Not quite looking at her. Tense. Feathers ruffled. She stared at him, remembering that man in the creek who had run from her. The man in her dream. Heat filled her cheeks.

“It’s okay,” Maggie said weakly, just to break the ridiculous silence. She rolled into a little ball, and felt the crow settle against her back. He was a small, warm lump. An hour ago he would not have been noticeable, but now his presence burned.

“I lied,” she told him, after several minutes of discomfort. “It’s not okay. I’m going insane.”

We both are, replied the crow. Maggie hugged the blanket more tightly to her chin. It was still dark inside the house, but the rain had stopped, though not the thunder. It continued to prowl, a rolling, restless sound that throbbed through the night with an ever-deepening growl.

Maggie sat up, listening hard, skin prickling. The crow fluttered his wings and, after one short bounding hop, flew through the dining room to one of the open windows. He perched on the sill. Maggie ran to the window after him and saw lights flashing along the road—a long line of them, one after the other.

She hurriedly packed her things, but by the time she raced outside, the motorcycles had passed from sight. Maggie could hear them, though, growling beneath the thunder. She dragged her bicycle from the farmhouse and started riding hard, chasing them through the lingering fumes of their engine fuel. Faint light touched the eastern horizon, and stars peeked from behind fast-moving clouds.

In the distance, at the crest of a hill, she caught the glow of headlights and watched as the motorcycles turned off the road, following a ramp that joined the long cement loop of the old interstate. Maggie’s heart sank. She knew where they were going. She had known since leaving home where this journey would end—in one of the dead cities.

They might not have Trace. And if they did take her, she’s probably dead. There’s no need to do this.

Go home, she told herself wearily.

But those thoughts were like ash in her mind: dead and bitter and burned out. Her only instinct that felt right, and real, was the worst one.

The crow swooped in and landed on Maggie’s shoulder, his wings buffeting her head. She did not duck away or flinch, but kept watching those headlights move farther away from her.

“Mister Crow,” she said quietly. “I’m about to do something stupid.”

The crow said nothing. She started pedaling again, and followed the men.

There were always stories, always. Most everyone had something to say about the Big Death, but only a handful in Olo could talk about escaping the cities. Kids, and some adults, still paid attention with bated breath, but Maggie had stopped listening. She was no stranger to violence, but there was a wildness that crept into the eyes of the men and women who had survived those early evacuations that scared her. What was in their eyes, what went unspoken, was the real story. The rest was filler.

As she rode her bicycle along the interstate, Maggie saw the evidence of other stories, twenty years dead. There was only empty road the first ten miles, cracked and pitted with shrubbery. Then a concrete barricade, shoved aside, presumably by the motorcycle men, who had disappeared ahead of her, hours earlier. Her tires rolled over abandoned guns, rusted by two decades of rain and sun.

Beyond that, nothing but cars; more cars than she had ever seen, parked bumper to bumper. Small holes riddled the hoods of the vehicles nearest the barricade—bullet holes, she guessed— and for a moment all she could see were men in green uniforms and gas masks, standing on ladders behind the tall concrete walls, aiming their weapons and shouting—shouting at a roaring, desperate mob of men and women rushing from their cars, trampling one another.

A loud shriek filled her ears. Maggie winced, then rubbed her head and her eyes. She found the crow perched on top of the blanket inside her bicycle basket. His black feathers were ruffled.

Be careful, he said, tilting his head to stare at her. Your mind is sensitive. And this is an unpleasant place.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, her eyes still burning, and then leaned over to gag as another image pushed flush through her head: a little boy, left alone in a backseat, sobbing helplessly while outside, men and women screamed, cut down by bullets. His face was red and dirty, his fear agonizing. Maggie pushed her palms into her eyes, groaning.

Maggie, whispered the crow, more urgently. Shut it out.

She shook her head, unable to speak, as the boy disappeared and was replaced by an elderly woman, sprawled in the grass outside her car, clutching her heart. A small dark dog licked her face. No one helped her. No one looked. The simple despair of being alone—that poor woman, dying and alone; that little boy, afraid and alone—sickened Maggie in ways that bullets and disease did not. She could feel their fear and misery, and not just theirs, but everyone’s who had died in this place, on this road—hopelessness so thick in the air that every breath felt like murder in her heart.

Maggie heard her name said again, distantly, and then warm hands took hold of her shoulders. She was so startled, so distracted by that unexpected touch, that all the pain flooding her senses receded just enough for her to gain control over herself.

She began to twist around, and those hands tightened. Warm breath touched her ear, and her heart raced.

“Maggie,” said her crow, no longer just a little bird. “Maggie, breathe.”

It was impossible to breathe with him touching her, but she could not say that. Instead she nodded, bowing her head—those memories of the past threatening to devour her again. Tears burned her eyes.

His hands tightened, and his warm mouth grazed the back of her neck, shooting chills and heat through her body. “Leave it alone, Maggie. Just let it go. You do not have to see what is there.”

“I can’t help it,” she muttered through gritted teeth.

“You can,” he said firmly, and his hands trailed closer to her neck until his thumbs skimmed the base of her scalp. His fingers squeezed gently, again and again, and the slow, easy strength of his hands kneading her shoulders sent such soothing heat through her that those ghostly feelings of despair faded away.

She reached back and touched his right hand, warm and smooth with muscle. His movements stilled as she persisted and wormed her fingers through his, knotting their hands together.

“Maggie,” he whispered, and before she could ask him a single question—like, What kind of oddness, exactly, was he?—he leaned forward, slid his large hand under her jaw, and turned her head. Then he kissed her.

It was a slow, deep kiss. Maggie forgot everything but him, so wrapped up in the deliciousness of his mouth, she could not even open her eyes to look at his face. She tried, but everything was too heavy, and all she could do was to breathe and stay upright. She wanted to be back in that farmhouse with him, or home; anywhere but here.

He broke away from her, making a small, frustrated sound. Maggie tried to turn with him, wanting to see his face, but all she glimpsed was a flash of shining black feathers, and then nothing. He was gone, and in his place flew a crow, wings beating furiously, ascending into the cloud-scattered sky.

Maggie stared after him. Burned up, seared to the bone. But there was no man here now, just a bird, and she looked away, embarrassed and aching, sensing she was more than a bit insane.

Think of Trace. Keep moving, she told herself, and began pedaling down the interstate. She passed miles of rotting cars, as far as the eye could see, all pointed in the same westbound direction. Both sides of the interstate were occupied, six lanes of traffic. It was a graveyard. She saw bodies in those vehicles, behind dirty tinted glass; desiccated remains, skeletons held together with only the thinnest, driest vestiges of flesh. She had no doubt what had killed them, and saw—as if time-traveling—flash images of men and women sitting behind their wheels, trying to stay conscious as blood trickled from their nostrils and ears, and pain crippled their joints.

She blinked hard, sickened, and glanced through the windshields. She saw those people again, but dead for two decades now: sagging, locked inside metal coffins that Maggie doubted would ever be opened—not until folks forgot about the Big Death and stopped being afraid. Maybe never. The hanta-bola pox had disappeared, perhaps, but the miasma remained. She could taste, in these endless rows of cars, the bitter tangle of desperation that had led nowhere. Luggage still sagged atop the rusted roofs. She saw plastic toys in the road, unable to disintegrate. All those belongings: grave markers.

The crow swooped in close, over her head. Maggie, look.

Maggie stood on the pedals, staring at the horizon. The road curved, but not enough for the hills to obscure the wall of trees that cut across the cold distant line of the interstate. Beyond the forest, or within it, glittering towers rose toward the sky: steel and glass shining with shears of sunlight. She held her breath, coasting until her bike almost slowed to a stop, and then sat back on the seat and pedaled hard before she remembered that there … that there was death, and blood and loneliness, and men on motorcycles who hurt people. That was the forest, the city forest, and deep within monsters awaited.

The interstate had been eaten by the forest. The road ended at the tree line, without evidence that it had ever existed. There was pavement, where Maggie stood with her bicycle, and then nothing but dead leaves and thick curling roots that supported massive trees, as though the concrete had been more nourishing than the soil; or the trees had grown from magic seeds embedded in stone. There were still cars in the forest, parked on the interstate that had been. Maggie could see faint outlines of them, like ghosts, but the trees had grown through and around the vehicles,