Whiteout (Book 5): The Feeding Page 8

  A team of reluctant volunteers searched every dark nook and cranny and no other wraiths were found. The lights were back on and running, but with the new fuel shortage, we didn’t know for how much longer.

  Sometime in the early morning of the next day, Ell came and roused me from a semi-doze. She saw the hopeful look on my face and did what I hoped she’d do: cut right to the chase.

  “He’s okay, Grady. The bullet went through. All we have to worry about now is an infection, but the medicine should prevent that.”

  She grabbed my hands and pulled me into a hug. I was on the brink of tears—sadness, relief, fear, you name it—but my chest felt a little lighter.

  “Can I go see him?”

  Ell nodded. “Yeah, but none of those bro shoulder punches, please. Doc Hart’ll be real mad if he busts open his stitches.”

  Stone was sitting up in bed. His left arm was in a sling, and his upper chest/shoulder was wrapped in gauze. Blood had already seeped through. He paid it no mind, and when I pointed it out, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, shit. Will ya look at that.”

  “I see the pain meds have already kicked in.”

  “What pain meds? Man, you’re crazy, Grady. I ain’t high on anything but life!” He broke out into a fit of giggles. I couldn’t help myself either, and I laughed with him. For a long time, I thought I had lost my best friend. I didn’t, though, and that’s all that mattered.

  We talked it up for a bit until Stone’s eyelids started getting heavy. I started to tell him to get some rest, but he was snoring before I finished the sentence.

  The woman who’d ran through the snow to our front gates while I was on watch had a name. It was Credence. I learned this three days after the attack. She had passed her tests and was released from quarantine, but she'd suffered enough injuries to warrant an extended stay in the hospital.

  Mia, Monica, and I were dropping off some pie that Debbie had made for the recovering Stone and the hardworking medical staff when we walked by Credence’s room. What I saw out of the corner of my eye made me stop. The woman was just sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, staring at the wall. Mia kept on going a few steps before realizing I was no longer with her. She was holding Monica, who pointed at me and made a “Bah!” sound, which snagged Mia’s attention.

  “Yo, what are you doing, Grady?”

  I nodded toward the room. “The woman in there…” But that was all I had to say for Mia to understand what I meant.

  Mia walked back, leaned forward, and looked at Credence for a few seconds. When she faced me, the expression on her face was one of both concern and morbidity.

  “Think she’s okay?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Those people who attacked, they were her friends. Were being the operative word here.”

  Mia suddenly tensed. I didn’t know why until I saw what she saw. The woman was staring at us, almost blankly.

  I offered a weak smile and said, “Sorry. Don’t wanna bother you. We’re just passing through.”

  “You’re the one who got me, aren’t you?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, yes and no. George technically brought you in. I saw you on the monitor and I opened the gate.”

  “Superman better watch out,” Mia mumbled sarcastically.

  “Oh…well, thank you,” the woman said. “You look different without all your winter clothes on.” She smiled. “You guys don’t have to stand out there. You can come in. I won’t bite.”

  Mia said, “No, we don’t wanna bother you or nothing like that.”

  “The loneliness is what bothers me. Please, come in. I passed my tests. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  I led the way, but I’ll be honest and tell you I didn’t want to go in that room. She was a stranger, yes, but her eyes were nearly lifeless. Empty. The light inside the room tried its best to make the woman look healthy but that was no easy task.

  “What was your name again? Grady?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” I offered a handshake. She took mine in hers. Her skin was cold and dry, but the tattoo on the back of her hand was what caught my attention. What the hell it was I don’t know, but it looked far from professionally done, like someone had done it in their basement with a needle and some pen ink. It was a series of rough lines. Scribbles, the kind you’d make in the margins of your notebook while watching the clock tick slowly by in school, but there was some structure to it too. Almost like a triangle.

  She saw me staring at it and hid it with her shirtsleeve when our handshake was done. Her gaze averted to the floor, those almost-dead eyes, and she slipped the hand beneath her thigh. Then she put on a smile so fake and trying it almost pained me to see it.

  “Well, my name’s Credence.” Her left hand came up, palm out. “Yeah, it’s a weird name, I know that.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve heard weirder.”

  “Yeah, Grady’s kinda weird too,” Mia said. She passed me Monica, who was goggling at Credence, the corners of her mouth tight with curiosity, and then Mia leaned forward and offered her own hand. That was when Credence shifted on the bed. The television remote fell off the side and hit the linoleum with a terrible crack. The remote’s back popped off and skittered across the floor. Each of the AA batteries went their separate ways.

  I knelt down and retrieved them while Mia went for the remote itself. This was no easy task with Monica in my arms, but I managed, and the second handshake was forgotten. I made no mental note of this.

  In fact, I hadn’t remembered this happened until I saw that symbol again—only the next time I saw it, it wasn’t in the form of a tattoo.

  After we got the remote put together, Credence scooted back on the bed. She looked paler than before—weak.

  “Mia, we'd better get going,” I said.

  “Yeah, all right.” She nodded at Credence. “It was nice meeting you. Sorry about your friends. That’s super crummy.”

  Credence smiled somberly—this one seemed real enough—and a touch of sadness filled her eyes.

  We left, and I didn’t see her again for another few days.

  The second time was in the cafeteria a few days or after our conversation in her hospital room. Credence was eating alone. Well, saying she was eating would be a stretch. She was pecking at her food. Nibbling. Debbie’s mashed potatoes and sliced ham still covered the majority of her plate.

  I was also by myself. Since I'd opted for a quick nap before dinner to prepare me for my shift on watch, the others usually ate without me. I thought it might be a good idea to sit by Credence. She seemed lonely. She was still grieving, no doubt, and I knew a decent amount about losing people you cared for. Maybe I could help her. I had a few friends in the City, but most of the people here kept to themselves. They were all huddled into little families of their own. In such a difficult time, it was hard to infiltrate one of these units. People weren’t trusting before the end of the world, but now they really weren’t trusting. I imagined Credence felt isolated too, like the new kid in school, lost.

  Turns out, I was wrong.

  As I walked her way, John Berretti slithered behind her with a devious grin on his lips. I stopped about halfway and turned toward a vacant table near the back. When I sat down, there was no chance I’d be able to focus on my food no matter how monstrously my stomach was growling. So I watched them from afar, and pretty soon I lost my appetite.

  Berretti snaked his hands up Credence’s back. They paused at her shoulders, and he started massaging her. I feared he might throttle her neck, squeezing until her face turned purple and her eyes bulged from their sockets.

  That never happened, thankfully, but they were real buddy-buddy with each other. Eh, a little more than that. Berretti took a seat next to her and leaned forward. They spoke in hushed tones. I couldn’t understand either of them if I tried. Then Berretti took a piece of ham from Credence’s plate and popped it into his mouth. She scooted the tray toward him after that, and Berretti went to work on the uneaten food.

 
; In between bites, he pulled out a little brown notebook from inside his lab coat. He flipped it open and pointed to the pages. Credence nodded as he talked fervently. They were both passionate over whatever the subject was. I wondered what it could be, but then again, I didn’t really care all that much. If anything, I was weirded out by this unlikely match. But hey, opposites attract, right?

  My curiosity piqued and my stomach queasy, I decided I’d need a to-go box for my dinner (wasting food in the City was a big no-no). If Debbie ever found out you threw away a perfectly good piece of ham, she was liable to have you hanged. Besides, Debbie’s cooking wasn’t the kind you wasted. It was too damn good.

  So I walked up to the kitchen where Deb and two other cooks were cleaning up for the night and asked for a container.

  Debbie came out of the back a few seconds later with a Styrofoam box. “Didn’t like it? You don’t have to kiss my ass, Grady. I can take a bit of criticism.”

  I shook my head. “No, no, I loved it. Well, what I ate of it, anyhow. Your food’s too tasty to throw away, Deb. I’m just not that hungry right now.”

  “Aw, you little ass-kisser.”

  I smiled, but I felt that it lacked actual happiness, and Debbie noticed this. She gave me a searching look, hands planted firmly on her hips, and said, “Grady, you all right? Stone’s still doing good, yes?”

  “Yeah. He’s fine. It’s not him.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I nodded my head over my shoulder. “Them. What’s going on there?”

  Debbie squinted at the table Berretti and Credence shared. “Looks like a nice dinner date to me, but dessert’s not gonna happen here. That’ll be in the bedroom...probably with lots of icing.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Aw, leave ‘em be, Grady. Love is a beautiful thing. And so is lust.”

  “Okay…I don’t like where this conversation is going.”

  She giggled.

  I asked, “Debbie, how do you feel about Berretti?”

  “He’s a sweet man. Kind, polite, and above all else, smart. Maybe a little distant sometimes, but his mind is focused on other things.”

  I wondered if she blamed him for the death of her family. Judging by her opinion of Berretti, I doubted it. She didn’t seem like the kind of person to put blame on anyone.

  Debbie tapped the side of her head, near the temple. “He has a fine mind. If you ever get the chance, you should sit and talk with him. Pick his brain. You’ll be astonished. It’s like conversing with a human encyclopedia. I think you two would get along swimmingly.”

  “I doubt that.”

  She squinted. “Let me impart some wisdom on you, Grady, my friend. Life is short. It always has been and it always will be, but it’s especially short now. We are all basically walking around with grenades in our hands, grenades that had their pins pulled as soon as that first unnatural snowflake fell. So don’t hold grudges. Forgive and forget. Move on. You’ll feel a lot better, trust me.”

  Maybe she was right.

  I kept the incident I’d seen between Berretti and Credence to myself, mostly because speaking of it would make me relive it, and that was certainly not something I wanted to do anytime soon. Honestly, I would’ve taken it to the grave had Eleanor not come into our barracks one night looking like she’d seen a ghost.

  Her face was pale and her eyes were watery. She stumbled her way through the door, and when she got to her bed, she plopped down like a rag doll.

  I had been kicked back, reading The Great Gatsby for our book club, but as soon as I saw her, the paperback fell from my grip. I stood up, concerned.

  “Ell, what’s wrong?”

  She shook her head, buried her face in her hands, and moaned.

  “Ell?”

  Mia leaned in from her room. She’d been watching another one of her old black-and-white television shows. I looked at her and shrugged, but inside, I was thinking bad things.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “Just my sanity.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I-I saw something…in the hospital.”

  Images of gruesome injuries twirled through my mind—broken bones, fractured skulls, burned skin. Who was hurt? What happened?

  Ell read my expression. She always did that well. “No one’s hurt, Grady. But I’m lucky I didn’t go blind.”

  Now I was really confused. Mia entered the room. She stopped behind me and leaned on the bedpost.

  “Blind?” I repeated.

  Ell nodded and took a deep breath. “Oh God, here it goes… I was doing my rounds, and I heard something down the hall. There wasn’t anyone in those rooms. We keep everyone grouped together. Easier that way. So I hear this noise and I’m thinking the worst. I’m thinking it’s a…a monster, but then I notice how bright the lights are all around and I realize that's impossible.”

  Mia sat on the bed. She offered me a concerned glance, and then turned back to Ell as she continued her story.

  “I went to check it out. It was a soft banging noise, like a cupboard door knocking against the wall over and over again. Sometimes that happens around there. People forget to close cabinets, and the air registers blow them around. Harmless but annoying. I stopped in front of the door the sound was coming from and listened. There wasn’t any pattern to it. It was bang-bang-bangbang-bang-BANG!” She paused and swallowed hard. “That’s when I heard the voices.”

  “Oh, don’t leave us in suspense, Ell,” Mia said.

  “It was…it was John and Credence.”

  I cocked my head. “What? Berretti?”

  “They were—” She held up her index finger and with her other hand made a circle, she then proceeded to stick her finger through the hole, back and forth, back and forth.

  Cringing, I held up my own hands. “Okay, okay, we get the picture.”

  “You mean—” Mia lowered her voice and her head. “They were fucking?”

  I pointed. “Swear word.”

  “Shut up, Grady.”

  Swallowing hard again, Ell nodded. “Yeah. That’s what they were doing. Completely nude. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at for a few seconds. It was like some weird, shifting pale alien.”

  I sat next to her and rubbed her shoulder. “It’s okay, hon. It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not,” she replied, head in her hands again.

  “She’s right, dude. It ain’t okay. That’s pretty…gnarly.”

  “Did they see you?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. They were…very into it.”

  “Literally!” Mia said, laughing. She looked around, and then back at us with a frown. “Aw, where’s Stone when you need him?”

  I smiled. Stone would’ve loved that joke. Ell didn’t find it amusing, however. She bared her teeth at Mia and said, “C’mon, Mia, I’m going through a crisis right now!”

  “I know, I know, but since you can’t trade eyeballs with someone or take out bad memories, you’re gonna have to deal with it, sister.”

  “I saw them getting pretty close at dinner not too long ago,” I said. “He was eating off her plate. Gave her a back massage too. Made me lose my appetite.”

  “What?” Mia gasped. “You saw this and you didn’t think it was noteworthy enough to tell us?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t want to relive it.”

  “I don’t blame you there,” Ell said.

  “Well, I like gossip. I miss it! If you haven’t noticed, there ain’t much in the way of entertainment around here,” Mia said. “I’ve already watched the entire Three Stooges collection, and I hate The Three Stooges.”

  “How can you hate them?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Reminds me of how you, Stone, and Mikey—” Mia shook her head, risking a glance at Ell. “Sorry, never mind.”

  Ell said nothing about it. Mikey hadn’t been gone long, not that it mattered; the wound his death left on all of our hearts would never heal. I couldn’t tell if Mia’s words had g
otten through to Ell or not. She seemed too shaken up about what she'd witnessed in the hospital and wasn’t paying attention to the banter between Mia and I. Thankfully. I guessed her walking in on Berretti and Credence was a bit of a blessing in that regard.

  But after a few moments of silence, she spoke up. “What do we do?”

  “About the new lovebirds?” Mia said.

  Ell nodded.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing we can do. They’re adults, they can do what they want.”

  “In this case, each other,” Mia snickered.

  “You’re so gross,” Ell said.

  She was really filling Stone’s role, and I liked that, but I missed the hell out of my best friend and wished he was back on his feet and out of the hospital already. Soon, though, if Doc Hart’s estimate was to be believed—which I did believe. She was a hell of a doctor.

  “I mean, should I tell anyone? It’s probably against City rules to do…that in there,” Ell continued.

  “Unsanitary, that’s for sure,” I said, “but it’s probably best to let it be for now. If it happens again, we’ll say something. But Berretti, God knows why, has a decent amount of pull here. I’m already on his shit list. You don’t need to be too.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Mia said, “let ‘em be.”

  “And in the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to try and scrub your eyeballs,” I added.

  The next night, Ell came back with a notebook. I asked what it was.

  “I found it in the room Berretti and Credence were in,” she answered.

  “You think it’s one of theirs?”

  “Maybe. There’s no name inside or anything like that. Could be someone else’s. Nina talked about a few people who’d worked in the hospital before we got here. Some of them, she said, were kinda weird. They’re dead now.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you look through it?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Just flipped through the pages. It’s mostly…well, it’s mostly weird stuff, gibberish. There’s some poems and drawings. Dark and odd, but good.”