Instead, I had the dark and unsettling impression that it was just beginning.
We marched out to the first field without seeing a single Freak, but the reason became clear. They’d already destroyed everything. Fragile green plants had been torn from the ground, and they lay dying, tiny roots exposed to the air. They had raked the neat furrows repeatedly with their claws until it was impossible to tell this had once been a site of renewal and hope.
To make matters worse, the Freaks had left us a sign, an unmistakable offering. We had lost six on our last patrol, two growers and four guards. Now there were six heads, mounted on stakes—just reasonably straight branches, true, but it reflected a forethought that chilled me to my marrow. These poor folk had been half consumed, faces and all, and the putrid, ragged skin showed slices of bone. They’d removed the brains, to eat I assumed, and left gaping holes in the back of the skulls.
A cry went through the growers as they noticed, and a few fell to their knees, some vomiting up their breakfasts, and others weeping for the lost. The guards held themselves more stoic, so their revulsion revealed itself only in the way they cut their eyes to the sides, unable to look on the desecration for more than a few seconds at a time. As for me, I took a long look, for this was the new face of an old enemy.
As warnings went, this one was masterful. Not only did it instill terror and revulsion, it also told us there were more Freaks hidden nearby. Watching. Waiting. And we had no idea of their numbers. Longshot thought we got most of them, but some had clearly hung back, then crept out after we left and eaten our dead. Horror crawled up my spine like a many-legged insect, insidious and inexorable.
“They’re trying to starve us out,” I said softly to Fade.
He nodded. “That’s not simple instinct. That’s—”
“Strategy,” Stalker finished. It was the first time he’d spoken to me since he came in my window, but apparently he judged this situation worth setting aside his personal grievances.
“I don’t like this,” I muttered.
“It’s a caution,” Stalker went on. “The gangs post similar messages, just not with heads.” He didn’t elaborate on the difference, and I was glad.
Genuine fright flared. Though there was plenty of food now, one bad growing season could destroy Salvation’s prosperity. Momma Oaks had a small kitchen garden for us to augment the crops planted for the whole town—and of which each family received a share—but it wouldn’t be enough to last the winter. Other families didn’t have the space or inclination to plant anything at all.
“What do we do?” a grower asked Longshot. “Do we clean up and sow a second time?”
It was an excellent question. But now that the Freaks had worked out the importance of this site, they could easily return. More substantial measures were required, and by his expression, Longshot knew it. He conferred quietly with other patrol leaders—all seasoned men who spent their winters guarding the wall. Finally, after some argument, and with the rest of us watching the horizon and sniffing the air, they came to an accord.
“We’ll put the problem to the council,” Longshot said. “Something’s shifted in the way the Muties act. No point in hangin’ around here waitin’ to be ambushed. Let’s get back and call an emergency meeting.”
As we returned to town, people discussed the problem in low tones.
“We could build a wall,” one of the growers suggested.
Another laughed with quiet scorn. “It’s all we can do to get out for planting and tending, idiot. How would the patrols protect builders and planters? And you know how much trouble it would be to fell and haul that much timber?”
I followed the man’s gaze out to the dark forest that bordered Salvation. Plenty of wood, sure, but it was also the staging ground for the last Freak incursion.
A second guard shook his head. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go in there, even to protect men sawing down trees for the good of the town.”
His misgivings made sense. There had to be another way.
“We could put a permanent guard on the fields,” someone else offered.
That sounded more doable to me, but it would be dangerous. There was no shelter, just the endless threat of a sudden, gruesome death. The isolation and uncertainty could crack a lesser soul.
It went without saying that I’d volunteer. I was distracted, trying to work out how I’d present this to Momma Oaks when the world exploded with tooth and claw.
The Freaks hit us at the gate this time; it was quite a process to get the wheels and pulleys moving so our party could pass through. They came in low, around the sides of the walls, instead of a direct assault. These monsters had learned a measure of cunning; they had camouflaged themselves—even their hideous smell—with natural earth and greenery, so when they came at us from the sides, they were already closer than anyone could have imagined. They must have hunkered down during shift change and waited for us to return.
Another two minutes’ better timing, and they’d have breached the walls, I thought, fear spiking in my head.
My knives slid into my hands by instinct alone. Those of us who excelled at hand-to-hand, including Fade and Stalker, planted ourselves before the gates while the other guards fired. It was pure madness with the report of rifles, howling, growling Freaks, snarling their intentions through blood-frothed mouths.
“Lock it down!” Longshot shouted.
And the gates groaned as guards towed on the ropes, slowly hauling the heavy wood back toward them. In their haste, one of them pulled too hard, unbalancing the mechanism and a metal piece sheared with a horrid twang. Behind me, the gate stood open by two feet, and over my head, men cursed as they ran for replacement parts.
The planters ran, screaming, toward that small gap. They thought walls still represented safety, but there was none outside of your own strength. I’d believed it down below, and I still did as I received the first rush, Freaks maddened by the possibility of success—and a feast greater than they’d ever known.
This is sheer cunning, and they have such numbers.
I became a creature of reflex and training, born to slash with my daggers. I fought three at once, wheeling away from claws and fangs. I knew firsthand how they could rend fragile human flesh—and how prone such wounds were to infection. My left blade opened one’s throat, and I wheeled to take another, my spin low so that I sank my right knife into the Freak’s belly. It keened, both clawed hands going to cover the wound, and its fellows paused to watch the death for seconds that cost them in other ways. But it was a gesture of respect that said the Freak I’d killed mattered to them. These weren’t like the ones we’d fought in the tunnel, at the ruin of the iron carriage, who cared for nothing but the meat.
Fear boiled in my veins. I fought it even as I lashed at the Freaks. If I let this feeling grow, it would overwhelm me. I’d break and run, and if I did, others would. The battle would be lost. The Freaks attacked; therefore, they would die, or I would. It could end no other way.
My hands steadied.
None shall pass, I told myself. It was a vow in the silence of my own head. I shut out the external distractions, inner dread, and focused on my enemies. They were stronger than those I’d fought in the ruins, better nourished. They ate well in the wilderness, plenty of big, meaty game, which made me think they had another reason for attacking us. Certainly, we were a food source, but their hate-filled cries told me they viewed us as real enemies. It was a horrifying thought.
To them, we are the evil ones. We are the threat that must be exterminated.
The idea shook me so much that a Freak pushed me back, unbalancing my stance. Its claw raked a runnel in my stomach. I lost sight of the terrain around me and stumbled over the corpse of its fallen brethren. I landed hard, and my right dagger bounced out of my hand.
For this, I thought, I deserve to die. I’d failed in my training. Permitted my thoughts to break my concentration. The shame would kill me if this Freak failed. Nonetheless, I aimed my left dagger at its hamstring and sliced, driving it away from the killing strike.
In that extra moment, Stalker and Fade came from either side, cleaving the Freak nearly in two. They’d cleared a path to me, the dead falling in great waves behind them. Morning sunlight limned them, darkness and light, and they both offered me a blood-slicked hand to pull me to my feet. In that, I accepted help from them both, and I sprang up, away from my humiliation; they did not chide me. Stalker handed me my fallen weapon.
We went together back into the fight, and I focused. I stabbed and blocked, kicked and struck without consideration, without mercy. By the time we defeated the last of the desperate rush, we had lost five more guards. This time, at least the growers had gotten to safety—and we’d prevented the Freaks from pushing past us into Salvation. For long, terrifying minutes, we stood out front, crimson smeared and weary, waiting for those inside to finish repairs.
I trembled with exhaustion. Fade touched my chin lightly, drawing my gaze up to meet his. “Are you all right?”
“Not my most shining moment. But thank you for saving me.” I directed my words to both of them, Stalker standing to one side. He nodded, but didn’t approach, and I ached that I’d driven him away by choosing Fade, that we apparently couldn’t have anything without the kissing. Sometimes I didn’t understand boys at all.
At last, the gatekeeper called, “Come in!”
With Fade’s help, I dragged a guard’s body inside the wall, and others followed suit. We would not leave these men to be desecrated as the others had been. It seemed odd to me that I would find that offensive. After all, down below, we had routinely put our dead out to feed the Freaks. But they had never returned any of our offerings in such a hideous fashion. They ate until they could hold no more and then they left the rest for the tunnel creatures. Perhaps, then, it was the obvious loathing those poor impaled heads represented. I had never thought Freaks capable of strong emotion, other than hunger, but it had become obvious that these were.
Once the gates closed behind us, the guards dropped the reinforcing timber. In the time I’d been here, I had never seen the great doors sealed in this way. Which established how unprecedented these attacks were. We’d warned them that the Freaks were changing, but even I didn’t expect these tactics.
My heart thumped wildly in my chest, both in reaction to the fight and the alarm at the unknown. It seemed that the Freaks got smarter all the time, but why? Then again, if I could answer that question, I could rule the world. I puffed out a shaky breath and rubbed my hands along my arms.
“Any thoughts?” I asked Fade.
He shook his head. “If we could somehow study the Freaks, catch one or two and observe them, that might help.”
I choked out a shaky laugh. “I’m sure that would go over well with the good folk of Salvation.”
Fade trailed a finger down my cheek, and it came away tacky with blood. “You’ll notice I’m not in any hurry to propose the idea to anyone but you.”
I began, “Please tell me you’re not suggesting—”