SIX
New physiology brought with it change to old patterns. Humans infected with White Horse mutated in unpredictable ways. Ninety percent died. Of the remaining ten percent, maybe half were immune. The other five mutated in a way that was survivable. Unless pushed by career or some other drive such as the burning desire to beat the next level on a video game, humans are not nocturnal. Oh, we can do it, of course, but never wrench from it the satisfaction that comes from sleeping nights.
But in this leftover world, in the dying gasp of humanity, some things now hunt at night. Which means during the day they sleep….
The once-woman twitches like a dog mid-dream. Is there enough human in her that she dreams of an exorbitant shopping trip in Milan, or has her mind slipped into the primordial stew where her single- cell body propels itself to its next meal with a whip-like flagella?
All six creatures are sleeping like obscene, fattened kittens nestled in the straw. Their mouths chew in their sleep, but they’ll stop when the Swiss blows this barn clear off the field. These stones have withstood earthquakes, weather, and war, but they will crumble in a duel with plastic explosives.
Lisa. I have to get her. I can’t leave her here.
She’s crouched in the same wooden intersection, knees drawn to her chest as though they’re a shield that will keep the monsters at bay, the equivalent of a blanket warding away the bogeyman.
When I move several inches to the left to gain a better view inside the barn, Lisa’s head jerks as though she’s spotted me. But it’s a lie. Her eyes are flat and lifeless. She’s given up. Probably thinks I’m dead, or as good as, too.
Please don’t let her move. While the creatures sleep, there is a chance.
The backpack slides off my shoulders. I cover several dozen feet and drop it at the base of a tree. The paring knife is already in my pocket, and a moment later I am wielding the cleaver. It has good balance.
The barn has one set of doors. A rusted padlock is a broken arm dangling from an equally oxidized latch. It’s a low building with the characteristic red roof that dots the Italian countryside like the measles. Three windows. One on each wall that doesn’t have a door. None are large enough even if they did open. Which leaves me with the door and hinges so old they’ll sing soprano at the first touch.
I pray Lisa can hold on.
At the house, the Swiss is poking through a metal box. He slaps it shut as I stride past him with silent purpose, straight to the tiny galley kitchen.
“Were you unlucky?”
“No.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Nothing.” I pull a gallon can of olive oil from its hiding place beneath the narrow strip of counter. There are no cabinets below, just curtains concealing pots, pans, and baking goods from polite company.
“Olive oil?”
“No kitchen in Italy is complete without it.”
“You can’t save her,” he tells my back. “They probably ate what was left of the other villagers. They won’t care about your stupid friend.”
It’s not just college grades that fall in a curve. Human decency is bell-shaped, with some of us slopping over the edges. Saints on one end, sinners on the other—if you want to be biblical. There’s no way of knowing where these posthumans fall, how much of the
I can’t play the genetic lottery with Lisa’s life. I’m armed only with my own good intentions.
Oil slops over the hinges, seeps between the metal cracks. I pray to a God I don’t really have faith in just so I feel like I have company, but He doesn’t answer. Minutes tick by. I wait as long as I dare; I don’t know how long the posthumans will sleep. For all I know, they’re like dogs, sleeping with one ear open, waiting for food to fall on the floor in the next room.
Behind the dense high clouds, the sun is a spot of lighter gray. Morning is here in full. Enough light that I can peer through the window and tack together some kind of rescue plan.
The door barely complains as I inch my body through the narrow slit I’ve made. And then I’m in a scratch- and-sniff snapshot of hell. The church was just a warm-up. These things sleep here. They shit here. They eat here amongst their own filth.
My boots poke holes in the straw. I look down because I don’t want to step in the brown sludge piles littering the floor. In places it’s thick, like a melted-down mud hut. It is this disjointed dance of one hesitant step after the other that carries me to the beam holding Lisa.
One of the beings stirs.
I hold my breath until it settles again.
Hold.
The pressure stings. Carbon dioxide burns my lungs, but I don’t dare release too soon.
Hold.
Tears fill my eyes.
On the barn floor, the creature is still once more, lost in its wretched dreamworld.
Lisa’s lips move, forming the shape of my name.
Matted, bloody hair clings to her right ear in a red poultice. Her right eye is beaten to a blackened slit. They must have knocked her out to bring her here, although I haven’t yet figured out how they got to her and not me. She must have gone exploring after I fell asleep, probably through a window, because the door was blocked by what there is of me.
No. Something must have lured her. There’s no way she’d go alone.
Idiot kid.
Thank God she’s alive.
Blood flakes from the red-brown crust around her mouth. She seems even thinner than yesterday. Her legs are compasses bent at tight angles beneath the denim. I want to cry. I want to hug her. I want to shake the stupid from her bones.
There’s the scraping of the doors closing and locking as the rusted parts rub together.
I run to the doors.
“No,” I whisper as loud as I dare. “Don’t do this.”
His voice is as cold as winter in his homeland. “They’re an abomination. I warned you.”
“You prick.”
“If you can survive this, maybe your life is worth saving.”
“Your logic is flawed.”
“Is it?” He sounds surprised.
“I’m going to Brindisi, and I’ll be damned if some cheese maker is going to lock me in a barn and blow me off the planet. I haven’t come all that way for this.”
“Have you heard of Charles Darwin?”
“
He falls quiet.
“Hello?”
