The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Beneath me I can still hear Argos battling the Unconsecrated, the moans growing more intense as their numbers multiply. I hear a yelp and I look down to see Argos backing toward me. Without thinking, I slide down the ladder and grab him by the scruff. Instantly he goes slack, as if knowing that struggling might make me drop him. Together we make it into the attic.

Travis slams the heavy trapdoor shut and then throws the thick bolts to secure it. Argos, covered in blood and shivering, begins to lick my legs and Travis must push him away to get to me.

He kneels in front of me and I sit with my knees bent, my weight back on my hands. I am afraid to meet his eyes. Instead, we both look at my feet and legs, which are covered in blood, my skirt in tatters.

“Were you bitten?” His voice cracks on the word. His fingers frantically prod my skin, trying to find the wounds.

“I don't know,” I say.

“Were you bitten?” he screams at me and I yell back, “I don't know!”

He pauses, still looking at all the blood, some of it dripping onto the floor.

He cups my calves with his hands, his fingers wrapping themselves around the muscle. He closes his eyes as if somehow he can sense whether the infection of the Unconsecrated is even now eating away at my system. Killing me.

“I love you, Mary,” he says and that is when I let the tears come. The great heaving sobs of terror and pain that shake my body until I can do nothing but grab on to Travis to anchor me to this spot.

He pulls me toward him and I curl around his body as I weep. I fall into darkness with his fingers trailing through my hair, my cheeks still wet and my body heaving.

In my dreams I feel hands pulling at me from every direction, tearing at the flesh that falls from my bones, and everywhere I look it's my mother clawing for me.

Chapter 27

“Mary.” Someone is tugging at my arm and I jerk awake, my dream still vivid deep in my mind.

“Mary, we don't have time now for sleep.”

I dredge open my eyes to find Travis crouched by my side. I feel heavy and achy and then a memory sparks and I'm wide awake, tearing my skirt away from my legs.

They are wrapped in delicate fabrics, a few with spots of crimson betraying the wounds underneath. “Were there bite marks?” The words tumble from my mouth.

He stands and walks away from me to where the trunks are cast open, their contents spread across the floor. All the beautiful clothes I had tried on are now tossed aside, some of them ripped for my bandages.

“I couldn't tell,” he says, one hand in his hair as if he's searching for something.

I watch his back, watch the way the muscles along his jaw contract when I see his face in profile. I wonder if I would know if I'd been bitten. I run my tongue over my teeth, wondering what death tastes like. Wondering what eternal hunger is like.

With trembling fingers I fiddle with the bandages, peeling their edges up. They stick to my skin for a moment before giving way with a sharp sting. Travis is right—it's impossible to tell if the wounds are bites.

But as I come fully awake I know. I know that every heartbeat isn't pushing the infection deeper into my body, killing me with every breath. I know that these wounds come from fingernails and broken bones, not teeth.

I know that I'm okay. That I have survived being tossed in a sea of Unconsecrated.

Travis kneels and digs through the clothes spread out near the trunks, inspecting each garment and then pitching some over his shoulder and others into a dark corner. Every now and then Argos will take an interest and chase the discarded fabrics as they flutter to the ground, growling and tearing at them with his powerful jaws.

Underneath me I can feel the vibrations of the Unconsecrated piling down the hallway, almost thrumming like a heartbeat. They will keep coming until there are so many they can reach the ceiling, reach the trapdoor by standing on the bodies of each other. I rub my hands over my legs at the thought.

I hear a thump as the book with the photographs skids across the ground. Travis is tearing through the trunks and tossing anything that isn't useful.

“What's happening, Travis? What are you doing?” I ask. I crawl to the books. Photos are scattered everywhere, the little girl's progression through life now a jumbled mass. He tosses another book, one I hadn't seen before, and paper explodes from it as it careens across the floor, yellowed pages fluttering down around us. I reach for one with the words USA Today written in large block letters across the top. Travis interrupts me before I have a chance to read more.

“We have to find a way to get out of here, Mary. We don't have much time.”

I look back to the door to the porch. It's still closed.

“Have you spoken with Harry?” I ask.

“Just to let him know we're still alive,” he says. I can tell that the fear is eating away at his patience.

I stand and walk to the door. When I open it I see that it's covered in arrows and a breeze blows through the attic, sending the papers into flight again. I look past the edge of the porch to where Harry and Jed stand and they wave frantically at me. They've watched as our house was breached. Watched and wondered what happened to me and Travis.

I turn back to Travis and an arrow whizzes past my head into the attic. I hear a sharp yelp and Travis storms out of the dark inside, his hand on his arm, blood seeping through his fingers.

He glares across the gap to where Harry still holds the crossbow. Harry shrugs with a sheepish look. “It's too bad that Argos is over here,” Travis says, gritting his teeth. “I would feel much safer with him at the crossbow.”

I try to pull his hand away and look at the wound. “Only a scratch,” he says, batting me away. He goes back to sorting the clothes and I can't help but smile when he rips a strip of fabric from a frilly pink dress and wraps it around his arm to stanch the blood.

I pluck the arrow from the floor and unwind its note. What now? it asks in shaky handwriting. I don't know the answer and so I cast the arrow aside and join Travis by the trunks. I kneel next to him, place my hand on his shoulder.

His sits back on his heels and rubs at his thigh as if it hurts. When he raises his head to meet my eyes I can see the weight of his sorrow there.

“We will make it,” I reassure him. But we both know that we may not. That this attic may be our tomb.

Argos yelps as another arrow careens into the attic and sticks into the flooring. “I should have closed the door while Harry was still trying to send his messages,” he says.

“They're worried,” I say. “They want to help.”

Travis plucks the arrow from the floor and tosses it into a dark corner without bothering to read the note. “We don't have time to deal with them. We must get ourselves out of here.”

All at once he slumps against the trunks and I catch a glimpse of his profile, of the strain that he's been trying to keep from me.

“Mary.” He looks down at his hands clenched into fists, the knuckles a bright white. “Can you tell anything? I mean …” I watch his throat convulse as he swallows. “Can you feel it?”

He is terrified of the question and it hangs in the air like a horrid smell.

“I'm not infected,” I answer him, my voice firm and strong. He doesn't look convinced. “Don't you think I would know if I was infected? Don't you think the Infected can feel death eating at their veins?”

He thinks about what I've said and then seems to accept it. “Would you tell me if you were?” he asks, turning to look at me.

I am about to tell him that of course I would but I can't. “Not until close to the end,” I say. Because I can't bear the thought of breaking his heart before I have to.

He opens his mouth to protest but then closes it and looks around at the clothing splayed across the floor. The thumping of the Unconsecrated pulses against the floor beneath us and his face falls into a hard tight expression of terror and purpose.

“Never mind about them,” he tells me and I don't know whether he means the Unconsecrated or the others out on the platforms. “Help me tear these sheets and clothes and knot them. Braid them if it's not sturdy enough. We'll use them as rope.”

I nod and take my place by a pile of clothing. I rip the sheets, tying them in sturdy knots. The first dress I pick up is the green one I wore so many weeks ago and I must tamp down thoughts of the woman who wore this dress as I pull it apart, the fabric protesting as it tears.

Travis goes back to the porch and begins pulling the thick ropes that dangle uselessly to the ground. They used to be part of a bridge and he kicks out the wooden slats with his good leg as he coils the rope into a rough heap.

“Will it reach them?” I call out.

“We'll make it reach, somehow or another,” he answers, not looking up from his task, his fingers a blur as he knots the various pieces of rope into one.

I feel the floor shudder beneath me and I know that Argos feels it too because he growls low in his throat, his tail tucked between his legs. He comes and leans against me, his warm body positioned between me and the trapdoor. Like water filling a bucket the Unconsecrated flow into the space beneath us. I wonder how much time we have before they force their way up through the trapdoor and these thoughts make me even more diligent about my task.

When I have ripped apart every dress and knotted the strips together I rise from the floor and stretch, wincing at the pain in my legs, and join Travis on the porch. I ask him what more I can do and he grunts.

I stand there watching him, twisting my hands together and feeling useless. A wind blows around us, sweeping through the attic, pulling paper from the floor out to float toward the Unconsecrated below.

I try to catch them, to save them, but the paper crumbles in my hand, turning to dust. One page lands on my foot and I carefully pick it up. The edges are rough, as if it was torn from a larger page. Across the top The New York Times is written in large letters. Below that, in equally large letters, it says: INFECTION SWEEPS THROUGH CENTRAL STATES: CITIZENS URGED NORTH.

Below is a picture of a massive horde of Unconsecrated, taken from above as if by a bird.

I hold the photograph closer, trying to ascertain the details in the graininess. It is more Unconsecrated than I have ever seen in my life. Stretching wide and deep and determined.

I stumble dazed back into the attic, scattering the other pages on the floor, looking for more pictures. The large black words scream at me from every page: GOVERNMENT MOVED TO SECRET LOCATION; CDC UNABLE TO DETERMINE CAUSE OF INFECTION; LAST STAND AT ROCKIES FAILS; OUTBREAKS REPORTED WORLDWIDE; PREVIOUSLY CLEARED AREAS ENDANGERED BY FAST-MOVING INFECTED.

My fingers shaking, I pick up one page that shouts NEW YORK CITY UNDER SIEGE with a picture of buildings taller than I could ever imagine. They are massive, stacked almost one atop another for as far as the eye can see. I feel dizzy just looking at them, remembering the stories my mother told me of buildings that used to touch the sky.

But I had never thought of anything like these, could never have dreamed of buildings such as these!

I swallow, my breath catching in my throat as I realize the implication of this photograph. It proves that my mother was right. That the stories she passed down are true.

That there is an ocean. And that it must be massive.

I scramble to my feet and run to Travis on the porch.

“You have to see this,” I tell him, tugging on his sleeve.

He looks at me as if from far away, a furrow between his eyes as if he is deep in concentration.

“Are you ready?” He walks past me back into the attic. I follow him, holding out the brittle paper.

“Travis, look at this picture. Look at what it means.”

He still looks at me from somewhere else, my words seeming to mean nothing to him. There is a loud thump and a crack of the boards under our feet. The floor tilts just enough that I stumble, throwing out my hands to catch myself.

The page crumbles between our hands as Travis reaches for me, steadies me.

“We must hurry, Mary,” he shouts, grabbing the makeshift rope I had braided and taking it out to the porch.

My heart thunders in tune with the Unconsecrated writhing beneath us. My picture ruined, I drop to my knees, sifting through the rest of the pages for more proof. For another glimpse of those buildings. But everything vanishes as soon as I grasp it, falling apart, ripping into nothingness.

My eyes blur with frustrated tears. I no longer even see the words or the pictures, just blindly cast about for something to hold on to. For the memory. And then my fingers trace over something smooth, sturdier. It is a picture of a vast stretch of impossibly tall buildings—just like the picture I had destroyed only moments before. More buildings than I could have ever thought existed in the world, much less in one location.

Around the edge of the photo is a bright yellow border and the words New York City written in curvy letters.

I smile and stand, my foot kicking a small book that slides across the attic floor, coming to a rest by the door. I pick it up. Compared to the Scripture it is tiny, just slightly larger than the photo of New York City and only as thick as my thumb. I slip the picture inside and tuck the book into my shirt to keep it safe. On the porch Travis has tied one end of my makeshift rope to the thicker rope and the other end to an arrow. He notches the arrow, aims, holds his breath and then releases the bowstring.

The arrow soars through the air, its long tail of brightly colored fabric trailing behind it, before it digs into the edge of the platform at Harry's feet.

“Nice shot,” I tell him.

His mouth curves up as he responds with a wink, “One of the many things at which I excel over my brother.” I slide my hand into his; heat radiates up my neck and into my cheeks and we watch as Harry grabs the rope from the arrow and begins to pull. Travis holds our end up with his free hand so that it doesn't sag down to get tangled in the Unconsecrated. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">