Page 34 of Fable for the End of the World

Another memory keeps rising in my mind, just as persistent as the first. The Angel lying face down in the dirt, as still as a corpse, mouth open in arrested protest. The echo of Luka’s voice:Who fucking cares?

I shouldn’t. I should be cheering for what he did. I’m sure everyone watching the Gauntlet cheered. If the Angel really is dead, Luka will be famous. I can imagine the chat’s comments so easily.

I lose myself in these self-pitying and fairly embarrassing thoughts until Luka says suddenly, “Wait. Stop.”

I skid to a halt. “What?”

Lowering his voice, Luka asks, “Can you smell that?”

I draw in a breath. The rain has brought out all the scents of the forest, the earthiness of the moss and the bark. But under it, just barely detectable, is the bitter, curling smell of rot.

Luka and I press close together, our gazes snapping wildly around the clearing. There are no bones—animal or human—strung up in the trees, no strips of cloth, but the scent of decay is familiar and unmistakable. We got away quickly enough last time that we didn’t even get a good look at the Wends. This time—

“We have to run,” I whisper.

A throaty, inhuman growling sound seems to come from everywhere at once.

Luka lifts his rifle. I fumble with mine—the one I stole from the Angel—but it’s heavier than I expect it to be, and difficult to heft up to my shoulder. My eyes blur as I try to look into the scope, and my hands are shaking so hard, I’m not sure I’ll have the strength to pull the trigger.

They burst from the bushes, three at once. Their skin is the mottled gray of meat gone bad and their clothes hang off them in filthy rags. Their flesh has peeled away in places to reveal the bloody sinew and muscle beneath. Their lipless mouths are open, exposing yellow teeth sharpened to jagged points.

Worst of all are their eyes. The pupils are dilated, whites cracked through with red, but there’s no emotion in them. Nohatred, no anger, no wrath. There’s only hunger. A desperate need that animates their spindly limbs and slouching bodies, so when they launch themselves at us, I’m too shocked to shoot.

Wham.My back is against the earth, stars blinking across my darkening vision. The Wend is on top of me, panting, slobbering, arms flailing. Spittle drips down toward my face. The smell of decay is so strong that my stomach heaves. With all the strength I can muster, I let the rifle slip and then shove my hands against the Wend’s bony chest.

It falls over, yowling like a cat. I scramble to my feet, clumsily grabbing the rifle again. Across the clearing, Luka is fending off the other two Wends at once. He swings his rifle and knocks one of them in the head. There’s a garbled wail of pain as its frail skin folds inward, and I can hear the crushing of bone as its skull splinters.

I try to swing my own rifle, but I’m clumsier than Luka, and the barrel whistles through empty air. The Wend lunges at me again. This time, it manages to grab my jacket in its gnarled hands. There’s soft, webbed skin growing between its fingers.

The Wend’s grip tightens and its razor-sharp nails slice through the fabric, into the skin of my arm. I suck in a breath at the sharp, sudden bolt of pain. I find myself locked in a terrible and furious game of tug-of-war, where the Wend tries to reel me in closer and I desperately try to yank my jacket out of its grasp.

“Inesa!” Luka shouts. “Look out—there’s more!”

They break through the bushes and lurch across the clearing. Three, four—too many to count, their grayish bodies all blurringtogether into one snarling, lumbering mass.

I manage to pull free of the Wend, but the momentum sends me stumbling backward, and I collide with another. This Wend has a third eye, still milky as an infant’s, budding on its forehead.

They howl like wolves and hiss like snakes. One of them tangles its claws in my hair. Another digs its teeth into my shoulder—not quite hard enough to break the skin, but with enough force to make me cry out. I jerk away, and end up falling to the ground.

On my hands and knees, I crawl through the crush of limbs and claws and teeth. I can’t even see Luka anymore; I can just hear him breathing hard with exertion. A shot rings out. There are more yowls, and one of the Wends crumples.

Its blood is black, like tar. I know it’s not really human, not anymore, but I still feel a lump in my throat as I watch its eyes lose their gleam and its chest rise and fall unevenly with its very last breaths. I try to tell myself it’s more like an animal, and Luka has killed hundreds of those before.

Still. Once upon a time, this was someone’s brother or sister, son or daughter, neighbor or friend.

My vision blurs. I don’t have time for this strange, mangled sort of grief. The Wends scramble backward, making too-human whimpering sounds. Luka struggles through the mass of them, but he can’t reach me. There’s blood running from his nose.

Luka manages to break through the crowd of clawing, snarling Wends. “Inesa,run!”

It takes me a moment to force my legs to move. Luka and I skid through the mud and leaf pulp, the Wends loping after us. Treeroots make each step perilous and rocks jut up menacingly from the ground. We come along the edge of a ravine; a sheer, steep drop on the other side.

Luka stops suddenly and turns, readying his rifle. I try to lift mine, too, but I’m shaking all over with adrenaline and terror. I don’t know why I think this will stop them. They aren’t human enough to remember how to be afraid. They just hurtle forward, and even Luka isn’t fast enough to fell them all.

They’re almost on us. I stagger back, and my ankle curls inward with a jolt of pain. I skid along the very edge of the ravine. One of my legs slips out from under me, and I claw at the leaves and the dirt to try to pull myself up again.

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