Page 53 of Fable for the End of the World

“It’s just a deer,” I say.

Very slowly, I walk over and examine it. Melinoë follows. It’s definitely dead, but there’s almost no blood—her bullet went right through its eye. Its tawny fur is matted and damp-looking, with a shimmery pattern of scales emerging on its chest. Its antlers are draped with moss. And where its hooves should be are webbed feet instead, only lumpy and misshapen, the transformation not quite complete.

“A mutation?” Melinoë asks.

I nod.

I’ve seen a hundred of them before. Luka doesn’t kill them, because there’s no point in wasting the bullets, but every so often a group of men in Esopus will round themselves up and go hunting for mutations. Obviously there’s no eating the meat, and the pelts are usually too disfigured to do anything with, either, the antlers too yellowed and ugly to display. But it’s an exercise in camaraderie, one of the rare times that people from Upper Esopus and Lower Esopus voluntarily mingle, bound by a shared purpose.

More than that, it’s a release. A necessary one. All the small, daily humiliations people face eventually build up and harden intorage, and it’s better to take that anger out on mutated deer than on each other. The more powerless you are, the better any shred of power tastes. It’s like taking a lifter.

“Oh,” I say suddenly. “Oh, no.”

Melinoë’s head snaps up. “What?”

“The scent of the kill will draw the Wends here.” The thought sets my hands shaking. “I’ve heard they can smell fresh meat from miles away.”

Melinoë draws a breath. “I shouldn’t have killed it. It was just instinct.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know.” I stand up straight, drawing in a breath of my own. “It just means we should get out of here—fast.”

After the hunts, the men pile up all the deer and set their bodies alight, precisely so the smell doesn’t attract the Wends. I can build a decent fire of my own, given enough time, but we don’t have that time. The Wends could be on us in minutes.

I zip my jacket up to my throat, because the rare sunlight is already waning, and set off at a quicker pace, almost a jog. But I don’t get far before I realize Melinoë isn’t following me.

I turn around. “What is it?”

She’s staring down at the deer’s body, eyes oddly unfocused. A small furrow emerges in her forehead, marring a face that is otherwise as smooth and flawless as marble.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Her voice is low and distant, like an echo of itself. “It was just instinct.”

Twenty-Two

Melinoë

On the move again. My muscles are still twinging. Even now thatthe worst of the withdrawal has passed, running isn’t exactly easy, and my ribs feel like they’re going to crack. After a few moments of breathless scampering through the brush, I realize this is the first time in my life that I’ve been the one being chased. Hunted. I’ve only ever been on the other side. I’ve only ever been the thing people are runningfrom.

I still manage to keep pace with Inesa. I would be embarrassed if I couldn’t. She surprises me by having decent stamina, if not being particularly fast. The earth seems to roll steadily under her feet, as if it’s carrying her. Meanwhile, the ground seems to sense that I’m an intruder in this world and is throwing up all its defenses against me, thrusting rocks and roots into my path.

Inesa doesn’t say anything else about it, but I do regret shooting the deer. Not just because it’s forced us to flee again, but because it was pointless. It makes me feel like I don’t have control over myself. Like I really am just a mindless killing machine.

And it makes me think of the girl. Even after so many Wipes, I can’t erase her face from my mind. And I can’t think about death without remembering her limp body in the rain.

Stop.I squeeze my eyes shut, just for a moment, to make it vanish.

When I open my eyes, all I see is Inesa, her long, dark hair streaming over her shoulders. Somehow, this is no less distracting. I find myself watching her so intently that I nearly trip over another tree root.

Over the sound of my labored breathing, I strain to hear the cameras. But there’s still no humming in the air. And, unaccountably, the knot in my stomach loosens with relief.

It appears out of the woods like a desert mirage. Slapdash and tiny, made of rain-dampened wood, it blends in perfectly with the trees and brush around it. The roof is a sheet of corrugated tin, striped with flaky orange rust. Inesa skids to a halt and darts behind a nearby tree trunk. Then she beckons me over.

It’s not a broad tree, and in order to fit myself behind it, I have to press close to her. Our bodies are almost touching. I can see the faint sheen of sweat on her face, the way her tongue darts out to lick away the salt on her lips. My heartbeat stutters. I dig my fingernails into my palm.

“Do you think anyone is in there?” I ask in a whisper.

It seems like too advanced a structure to be the work of the Wends, but it’s not exactly what I’d call civilization, either. I listen again for the cameras. Nothing.

“I don’t know,” Inesa admits. “There are some people who live out in the wilderness... to get off the grid. But I assumed they’d live together, in some sort of community. I don’t know how you’d survive alone.”

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