sometimes. That was just part of life. When she and Mel had been planning their escape from the Farm, she’d tried her damnedest to do it all on her own. To rely on no one. But that hadn’t worked. Her stubborn self-reliance had caused more problems than it had solved. She wasn’t going to make the same mistakes twice.
By midnight, roughly the time that Carter had said he’d be rolling into town, she was even more keyed up. By one A.M., she was downright jittery.
She’d told him where she’d be, but maybe he hadn’t understood. She tried calling him again, but her phone must have been too far away from the antenna she’d left at the Cayenne. Which meant if he was trying to get in touch with her, he wouldn’t be able to.
By two A.M., when he still hadn’t shown up, panic was eating away at her. Josie had woken up, eaten, and gone back to sleep. Too jittery to even sit still, Lily cracked open the freezer door and stuck her head outside, listening for the sound of . . . anything.
She thought about what Ely had said. If the Ticks couldn’t hear you or smell you, you weren’t there. But that assumed there were Ticks in the area. She hadn’t seen any sign of them all day long. Signs of human looting and destruction, yes. Signs of Ticks, no. Maybe there just weren’t any here.
She was hours away from a Farm. They tended to congregate near their food source. So it was feasible that this entire town was as Tick free as an indoor dog.
She waffled for a few more minutes. Leaving the freezer to get within range of the antenna maybe wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but wasn’t being out of range of the antenna just as dangerous? It was a tradeoff.
Grasping the phone in one hand, she snuck out the freezer door and crept to the front of the store, opened the door, and stepped right outside. About a minute after the signal icon on her phone lit up, a beep sounded letting her know that someone had tried to call her. The number was Carter’s. From a half hour earlier.
She listened to the message with a pounding heart.
“It took longer than I thought to get out. We’re almost there now. Thirty minutes. Tops.”
Okay. Thirty minutes. So he should be walking through the door any second now.
She’d already made it back to the freezer compartment when she heard a noise from beyond the freezer. Not the quiet shuffle of human footsteps, but a loud noise. Something crashing—a noise that, under the circumstances, Carter would never make.
She waited, heart pounding, for the howl of a Tick. It never came, but the store echoed with more crashing. Shattering glass. Shelves being knocked over. It didn’t sound like Ticks. Ticks traveled in packs. They moved fast. They yowled and yipped to communicate over long distances. They didn’t forage in stores.
So who or what was this?
What kinds of creatures prowled around this part of Texas at night? There were all the benign small things: rats, possums, raccoons, and nutria. Then there were the bigger things. Coyotes. Bobcats. Mountain lions. None of those were animals you wanted to meet in a dark alley. Or an abandoned grocery store.
Had she attracted the attention of some creature when she’d stepped outside to listen to the phone message? She must have. Crap. That was a newbie mistake. And Carter would pay the price. Because he was about to walk into the store and come face-to-face with whatever beast had followed her scent.
He was about to walk in unprepared. Because of her stupid mistake.
And she couldn’t warn him. She couldn’t call him. She had no way to let him know. Unless she walked out of the freezer and faced down this creature herself. Except, if she was wrong, if this thing was a Tick, then going out there was the last thing she should do.
Christ, she hated feeling useless. Hated knowing that her genetic makeup made her a risk to everyone around her. It was like her very blood had turned against her.
For a few heart-wrenching moments, she paced back and forth, listening to the sounds of the beast out in the store and watching baby Josie sleep. She clipped the holster she’d gotten off Ely to the waistband of her jeans. She checked the clip before sliding the gun into the holster. Seven bullets wouldn’t kill a Tick, but it would sure as hell get the beast’s attention. She picked up one of the mop handles and tested the jagged point against her thumb before sliding it through the belt loop of her jeans. She picked up her bow and quiver only to put it down again. Was she really doing this? Was she being smart or foolhardy?
Then, finally, she snatched it up and headed for the door. She didn’t have to go all the way out into the store. There was a refrigerator section right beside the deep freeze in back. She could sneak in there and look out into the store though the glass doors. If the doors were well-sealed, whatever was out there wouldn’t be able to smell her. It might see her, but it might not. She wouldn’t bring a flashlight. Her night vision was good enough that she should at least be able to tell the difference between a Tick and a mountain lion.
She waited for another burst of racket from the main part of the grocery store, then opened the freezer door, snuck out, and shut it tight behind her, all the while praying that Josie wouldn’t wake up and start crying.
A few steps later through the darkened backroom, she found the latch to the dairy case and slipped inside.
The stench of rotting food made her nostrils curl. No wonder Ely had thought these freezer sections would hide them. If the Tick’s sense of smell was strong like an animal’s, then this had to be horribly offensive to them.
Breathing shallowly through her mouth, she wended her way through discarded boxes and other trash to the shelves that made up the dairy case. Most of the food was long gone. She quietly removed the few plastic tubs and bottles that remained at eye level, and stared out.
At first she saw nothing. She could still hear something rummaging, she just couldn’t see it. It didn’t sound like a raccoon. Something bigger then. Would a mountain lion be better or worse than a Tick? Surely both would be equally dangerous, if they were hungry and hunting.
Then she saw a flicker of movement maybe twenty feet away. Then that movement morphed into a recognizable shape. Not the low, svelte swagger of a panther or mountain lion, but a hulking, upright form. A Tick.
Her heart seemed to thud to a stop. She didn’t even dare breathe. Suddenly, the dairy case seemed like a bad idea. A very bad idea.
Theoretically, it was securely closed, but that didn’t make her feel much better. The freezer section had only one door. This thing had a dozen and they were all glass.
She had to get out of here. She took one, extremely slow, step backward. And then another.
Unfortunately, he was also moving. Toward her hiding place.
Why was he alone? Ticks were pack animals. They hunted in groups. Except Ely said their behavior was changing. That the Farms had poisoned the blood at the feeding stations and killed off all but the smartest of the Ticks. Was that why this one hunted alone? Was he all that was left of his pack? The smartest of the bunch?
He was too far away for her to tell for sure, but he didn’t seem to be looking at her. He kept sniffing the air. Like he was following her trail. Okay, then. Unless something else distracted him first, he would find her. He would follow the trail right to the door of the dairy section. Or would the stench of the rotted dairy confuse him? Was the human scent of blood stronger going to the freezer section? Would he go there first? Would he be able to open the door or would he get discouraged and wander off? If he did follow her to the dairy case, the door handle’s mechanism was less complicated. He might be able to open it.
And all of this would be a moot point if Carter wandered in here in a few minutes. The Tick would catch the scent of his blood, nearby and unmuddied by rotting dairy. The Tick would bound across the store in maybe five or six leaps. Carter might have a chance to raise a weapon, if he had one handy.
No. Carter
The Tick moved closer to the glass door; he was the biggest she’d ever seen. When they ran or attacked, they moved with grace and speed that was as unnatural as it was terrifying. But Ticks were at a disadvantage when they walked. Slow and awkward on his feet, this guy shuffled forward upright for a few steps, dropped to his knuckles and scuttled another ten feet closer in a few easy movements. This guy was huge. In life—in human life, that was—he must have been more than six feet tall. He paused, raised up on his knuckles, head tilted to sniff the air. He resembled a gorilla way more than the human he’d once been. His body was covered in patchy hair that didn’t quite hide his bulging muscles.
Lily had no doubt, none at all, that he could crush her chest with one hand. That he could close his fist
