Chapter 11 (Anna’s POV)

  The dawn hardly qualified as light—just a smear of exhaust?gray pressing down on the rag?stitched roofs as I wheeled the bicycle beyond the cottage gate. In this part of the suburbs the lots were bigger, but the emptiness felt wider too. Trim hedges from another lifetime had clawed into thorny barricades; weed stalks slapped against my calves, whispering like paper coffins. Each slow revolution of the pedals sounded loud in the hush, chain links ticking over rust?scarred cogs.

  Every house wore a different failure: one sagged where termites had eaten the joists; another leaned away from its own chimney as if recoiling from the sky. I scanned windows for a wink of glass that hadn’t been shattered by rock or rifle butt. Anything untouched might still hide valuables Joshua could fence in his market?calm world.

  At the cul?de?sac’s end a split?level brooded beneath a storm?split maple. White clapboard had yellowed to the color of a smoker’s teeth, but the brass lion?head knocker on the front door gleamed intact. No pry marks on the jamb. Intact meant riskier to enter—but better odds of treasure.

  I coasted to the curb, let the bicycle sag against a mailbox swallowed by ivy, and drew the short sword free. The foyer breathed a gust of sour plaster and mildew thick enough to taste. Underneath lurked the copper tang of very old blood, faint as a bad memory. Wallpaper drooped in long tongues from walls puckered with damp. Floorboards bowed under each step, groaning like something alive.

  A walnut curio cabinet waited in the front room. Four panes of glass lay shattered on the carpet, but one velvet pedestal still stood upright inside. A bracelet rested there—white?gold chain so slender it was nearly thread, diamonds set close together like a row of milk teeth. I slipped it into the hip pouch beside my pearls. Light weight, high yield—perfect cargo for the Gate.

  Farther on, double French doors opened to a study. Books lay scattered like leaves across a Persian rug faded with mold blooms. Behind a toppled bookcase squatted a square safe the color of storm clouds, combination dial jammed midway. Bolt cutters and a pry bar would talk it open later; I logged the landmark in memory and moved on.

  Halfway down the hall I heard it: a wet scrape, flesh sliding on tile. The hairs along my forearms stood up. I nocked an arrow by feel, eyes locked on the kitchen threshold.

  A foot emerged first—swollen, bluish, toenails torn away. Then the rest of it lurched into view: a grotesque parody of a man, torso distended as if pumped with sludge, shoulders broad enough to clip the doorway. Blisters pocketed its skin, glistening like tar bubbles. The left side of its jaw hung by a spiral of sinew; each breath whistled through a split palate. Milk?blind eyes rolled outward, pupils gone to static.

  The mutated feral sniffed the air with a guttural clack, viscous threads swinging from its teeth. Then it charged.

  I loosed the arrow. Thock. The shaft buried in the center mass—too low for a heart shot. It barely slowed. I spun left; its clawed hand scythed where my braid had been, fingernails scraping wallpaper down to lath. A side table lay toppled near my boot; I kicked it hard into the brute’s shins. Dry wood exploded into splinters, tangling its stride. The floor trembled as it stumbled.

  Blade now. I braced, drove the short sword upward into the soft join beneath the ribs. Hot fluid flooded over my wrist—thick, black?green, smelling of spoiled meat and gasoline. The beast howled—a sound like metal shearing—and slammed its forearm into my chest. Pain burst along my breastbone, breath punched out in a gasp. I kept the hilt, but my fingers went numb.

  It reared back, jaws working, reaching blindly. I ducked beneath the next swing, bow still slung over my shoulder. In desperation I whipped the bow across its face; the tightened string snapped against one bulbous eye with a wet pop. It shrieked, features twisting, and I rammed my knee into the arrow already embedded in its torso, driving it deeper through cartilage.

  Momentum toppled it sideways into a cabinet. Plates cascaded in a porcelain avalanche. I seized the sword with both hands, planted a boot on its thigh, and wrenched the blade free—slick with bile and half?coagulated gore. One more opening: its head flung back, throat exposed. I thrust up, steel punching through the soft palate, out the crown. Vibrations shivered down the blade as brain tissue parted. The feral collapsed, whole house seeming to exhale with the thud. Kitchen tiles spider?webbed beneath its mass.

  The Pearl

  Silence rushed in, broken only by my heartbeat drumming in my eardrums and the distant plink?plink of a burst pipe leaking somewhere upstairs. My knees shook, but habit overrode revulsion. I knelt by the corpse; the heat of its corrupted insides steamed in the cold air.

  Just above the spine, behind the neck: a bulge firm beneath the loosened skin—pearl pocket. I set my jaw, positioned the point, and pressed in a deep, decisive cut. Flesh parted with a wet sigh, gray strings of tissue clinging to my gloves. Fingers worked blind until they found the orb: smooth, warm, faintly thrumming. I pried it free. Slime clung in webbed strands; I wiped the sphere on a scrap of drapery and dropped it into the pouch with the bracelet. One more bead of survival currency.

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  When I rose, my boots left tacky prints in the puddle of tar?black blood spreading across cracked tile. The stench—copper, rot, burst sewer lines—seeped into my lungs. I backed into the hall, breathing through my sleeve until the air thinned to simple mildew again.

  Exit and Resolve

  Outside, wind hissed through dead maple branches, tapping them against the siding like skeletal knuckles. I sheathed the sword, swiped viscous gore from my cheek with the back of a trembling hand, and tasted copper on my lips. The diamond bracelet felt absurdly light compared to the weight in my chest.

  There were more houses on this street, each with its own hidden jewels—or hidden monsters. Joshua needed trade goods; I needed antibiotics and plywood. The arithmetic of survival left no room for squeamish pauses.

  Still, I kicked the French?door wedge wide on my way out, marking the safe for a future raid, and walked the bicycle back toward the cottage. My pulse no longer raced; it settled into a steady march tempo, each beat synced to the rattle of pearls in my pouch. The sky remained a dull smear overhead, but somewhere behind grim clouds, a faint slash of light promised evening—and maybe, someday, a return of someone who knew how to turn this gore?bought jewelry into a roof that could withstand the empire’s next storm.

  Outside the split?level, the wind had thickened into a restless murmur—a thousand unseen mouths whispering through busted gutters and hollow mail slots. Morning’s sulfur?gray overcast had deepened toward a gun?metal noon, flattening every color until the world looked printed in ash.

  I rolled the bicycle onto the street, the warped front rim squealing rhythmically against the brake shoe. A funeral’s worth of silence trailed in my wake; even the crows kept their opinions to themselves now. Each pedal stroke throbbed in my bruised thigh, but the diamond bracelet’s faint clink inside my pouch urged me on: Keep moving—one mile of empty pockets could turn into truckloads of plywood on Joshua’s side.

  Half a block from the cottage, the neighborhood shifted from neglected suburb to outright corpse?yard. A Cadillac burned to its rims hunched at the curb, interior melted into tar. The stench of baked vinyl drifted in slow pulses, layered with a sweeter, meat?rot note that stuck to the back of the tongue. I held my breath, coasted past, eyes flicking to every porch shadow.

  A mail carrier’s satchel lay burst open on a sidewalk, envelopes fused into a single pulp by rain and time. On impulse I kicked it over with my boot—junk mail, bills, a birthday card still glittered with confetti inside. The absurdity stung; I left it face?down and pressed on.

  The wind changed again—carrying a low drone, almost a chant. I braked, crouched, and listened. Not voices. Flies. Their collective buzz seeped between two ranch houses up ahead. I dismounted, tucked my bowstring into the crook of an elbow, and slipped through a hedge gap to investigate.

  Behind the houses a shallow drainage ditch pooled with murky runoff. Two roamers bobbed inside like grotesque fountain sculptures, torsos trapped in thigh?deep sludge. They pawed at the bank, jaws snapping, unable to gain purchase. Waterlogged skin sloughed from their hands in translucent ribbons; maggots writhed where knuckles should have been.

  I considered leaving them—pearls weren’t worth the infection risk of sewage water. But their moans might draw a horde tonight, straight toward the cottage. Decision made, I stepped onto a toppled fence plank, balanced above the ditch, and raised my bow.

  First arrow: a neat punch through the nearer skull, dropping it like a cut marionette. Second arrow lodged just right of the temple; I cursed, nocked again, and corrected the angle. Crack. It folded, face first into the muck.

  Retrieval was the worst part. I lashed a cord around my waist, tied the other end to a porch post, and eased down the slippery embankment. The smell hit like ammonia and spoiled milk. Flies clouded my eyes and ears, crawling into my hairline. Gag reflex flared; I clenched my jaw.

  Both pearls sat deeper than usual—swollen tissue hid them like oysters. I worked the knife, sawing through bloated cartilage until each marble popped free in a slick plorp. One pearl tumbled into the sludge; I fished blindly and found it by touch—warm as fever against my fingertips.

  Back on solid ground, I rinsed the spheres with bottled water, though the stink lingered. Arrow shafts I left; wood swelling in filth risked bow?string snap later. I burned a mental tally: pearls = 2 → pouch total: 25.

  I reached a corner bungalow whose front door lay splintered inward. Inside, floral wallpaper peeled in damp waves, but the master bedroom’s dresser still held a jewelry box—oak, monogrammed S.G.. The clasp snapped under a screwdriver twist. Inside: two gold wedding bands, dull but unscathed, and a tangled string of freshwater pearls. I pocketed the lot, whispering a thank?you to ghosts.

  In the hall closet I found an old gym bag and stuffed it with salvage: a leather jacket (mold?spotted but intact), three unopened packs of AA batteries, and—miracle—a pair of nearly new trail boots my size. I unlaced the ruins on my feet, slipped into the boots, and nearly groaned at the way the padded insoles swallowed my aching arches. That’s one prayer answered, Joshua.

  By the time the cottage’s patched porch came into view, clouds had swollen purple, promising storm. My new boots squelched in roadside mud; the bike chain rasped tiredly. I lugged the gym bag up the steps, shoulders burning.

  Inside, the cottage greeted me with its stew of smells: drying lumber, kerosene, sun?baked tarps, and the metallic ghost of yesterday’s blood on my sleeves. I dumped the bag on the kitchen table, inventorying:

  Diamond?and?platinum tennis bracelet

  Gold wedding bands (2)

  Freshwater?pearl necklace

  AA batteries (36)

  Leather jacket, trail boots, spare socks

  The pearls joined their kin in the small cloth sack—clack of currency. Jewelry would thrill Joshua more; metals and gems always fetched clean cash in his world.

  Storm wind slapped a shutter outside. I shut it, latched the new interior bar I’d installed, and laughed—half?relief, half?wildness. Walls tighter. Supplies heavier. And I’m still breathing.

  Night settled in bruises across the sky. I lit the propane lantern, scrubbed gore from my arms with boiled water, and unwrapped a beef?stew MRE—count now eight. As it heated, the cottage creaked, but the boards held. For the first time since Joshua left, I caught myself humming an old tune I couldn’t name.