Then there was Ted, the baker at the Piggly Wiggly. His kind smile and crusty Italian loaves made listening to his tales about nineteen grandchildren worthwhile. He probably mutated then fed from the family he adored.
I smiled, remembering the kid at the corner McCoffee. He could barely keep his dick in his pants long enough to steam my espresso before skittering to the parking lot to steam his windows with the girl du jour. I didn’t have to do too much imagining to guess his demise.
“Evie, keep your face covered. Just because we haven’t seen anyone, doesn’t mean we won’t.”
His distraction wouldn’t work. The brick building, the playground, and the school buses filled my horizon. The “Home of the Grain Valley Eagles” sign swung on one end, a haunting reminder of what must have occurred there.
I traced a finger along the stitching on my forearm sheaths. It was the first time I’d worn them outside of training. Joel gave me six knives. I wore two on each arm. Each had a black six-inch blade of 1050 high carbon steel with a paracord-wrapped handle. When he gave them to me, I read The Art of Throwing. Then he drilled me in the same way he did all his training. Merciless repetition. But I looked forward to the drills and to the rush of power from every throw. Within a few months, I was flinging them with confidence. Each time the blade slipped from my grasp, down that horizontal plane, I felt invulnerable. My small size no longer significant.
I flexed my forearms to test the straps. They felt like they belonged there.
Joel hissed. I snapped my head up from the knives in time to see an aphid lurching into the road. He jerked the wheel to avoid hitting it and regained control of the jeep long enough to throw us into the path of three more. The brakes squealed as we bowled into them.
Given the height of our Rubicon, we bounced over two of the three, jarring my body against the seat belt. But the hard brake caused the jeep to take a slight nose dive and send the third one up the ramp of the hood. Just as quickly as it cracked our windshield, the aphid regained its bearing and glared at us through the crunched glass.
Black blood bubbled from its head wound, but it didn’t seem to notice. It crouched on the hood, its humped body vibrating in sync with its buzzing.
The aphid orbs fixed on me, unmoving. Its hunger dripped in shoestring spittle from the pointed mouth that writhed in its jowls. But under the hunger, something else lurked. Something trapped in its milky eyes that didn’t blink. There was a knowing.
For the first time, I felt the weight of the knives buckled to my arms. I didn’t care if the thing staring back had once been Jan or Ted or the horny coffee boy. It wanted to eat me. I rolled down the window and unsheathed a blade.
“What are you doing? Roll up the fucking window.” He thumped the gas pedal to the floor.
The jeep propelled forward, and the back of my head hit the seat. The aphid lashed out a claw and smacked the brittle windshield. More spider webs crawled through the glass. It held on, its claw embedded in a splintering hole.
We raced down two blocks, building speed. The aphid reached through the open window. I swiped its forearm and amputated the claw. A spurt of blood filled the car with a metallic rot.
The aphid yanked its maimed appendage tight to its body and hung on to the windshield with its good arm.
It took six blocks of unobstructed roadway to max out our speed. He released the gas and locked up the brakes. His forearm smacked my chest as inertia shot the aphid tumbling through the street before us. He stomped the gas again. The bug screamed as we rolled over it. I rubbernecked to watch it drag its mangled body into the gutter.
We arrived in Hermitage, Missouri three hours later with fewer bumps in the road. The sky opened between soggy clouds as daylight weakened under the segue of dusk. The jeep’s knobby tires stirred up dust laden with acidic moisture, scenting the air with the earthy aroma of rain.
Joel sped up when we neared an open pasture. Four aphids grazed on a bull, which was toppled over and turned inside out. The placidness of the feeding seemed unnatural. One of the aphids lifted its head from the carcass and watched us pass.
At the end of the field, a cow pressed against the fence. Its big brown eyes stared at nothing as it bellowed, nudging the post with its head.
My heart flipped over. “Joel, we have to—”
“Where was the cow destined before the virus? In the hands of humans, in the claws of aphids, the food chain hasn’t changed.”