Creators (3 page)

“Better? At what cost?” I asked. “Leaving your family? Abandoning them to make it through this messed-up world on their own?” I fought back the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes.

“But you left, too, remember?”

I gulped. “I had to. They were going to kill me. I planned to go back for Louisa.”

“Maybe he had to make the same choice? And it’s not the reunion you imagined, but he did come back for you.”

I shook my head, crossing my arms against my chest. “The way he talks to them, worries about them…”

“Of course. He’s their leader. They’re his family.”

“But…he already had a family,” I said.

I never could tell if the screams were real. In the seconds after my eyes popped open, my mind struggled to answer the question: nightmare or real life? It was getting harder and harder to distinguish between the two. But then one scream followed after another. And another. They got louder, more frantic. Shrill cries into the night sky that seemed to stretch before us like some black ocean with no end. And as my sister scrambled to her knees from where she slept beside me, I knew with dread coursing through my veins: this was real life.

“Robert!” I yelled with all of my might, pulling myself up onto my feet, blindly reaching into the darkness for my sister’s hand. There was no point keeping quiet. The cries for help echoed throughout the woods that surrounded us, trapping our group with whatever was hunting us down. A cage of desperation and horror. A hand clamped down on my shoulder and I yelped.

“It’s me,” Robert said from my left, reaching across and helping my sister to her feet. I couldn’t see him through the pitch black of the night. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to being yanked from sleep. Besides, my reflexes weren’t nearly as good as his.

Before I could open my mouth, a voice cut through the night. “Tess! Are you hurt?” Henry bellowed in my direction from the darkness of the abyss. I tried to answer back, but the yells and groans of the men and women who scrambled around us filled my brain, making it difficult to form a coherent thought, let alone words.

“What’s going on? Can you see anything, Robert?” Lockwood called out from behind us. I hadn’t realized he’d been resting so close to where my sister and I had slept, but I wasn’t entirely surprised, either.

Robert and Lockwood continued to exchange words, but I couldn’t make sense of them. All I could hear were the screams. The wound in my side stung, a sharp pain radiating down my spine. It was a painful reminder that this wasn’t the first time I’d met danger in these woods. My heart pounded against my chest, and I found it difficult to breathe.

What now?

What dark thing would happen next?

The heavy beat of feet against the ground fell in sync with the rapid beating of my heart, and I thought I’d go crazy from it. Every voice around me sounded muffled and far away. Out of reach.

Get it together.

I couldn’t be weak.

Not now.

Not ever.

The pounding of feet came closer and closer to where my sister and I stood huddled against our chosen one brother-in-law. I could feel him shift next to me, turning in every direction, searching for some escape route, but from the sounds of the screams that came sporadically from around us, it didn’t sound like we had anywhere to go.

My father had demanded that Louisa and I rest inside the perimeter of soldiers he had created. I hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but the weight of the past few days had caught up with me, and I had lost my battle with exhaustion. My father said we would be safe. We were surrounded by an army. An army of men and women who were now being attacked.

“Down!” Robert hissed. I didn’t wait to be told twice. I grabbed my sister by her elbow, pulling her down hard onto the ground. “Try not to make any noise. Try not to move,” Robert whispered, assessing the situation that I couldn’t even see.

My stomach pressed against the uneven, rocky dirt, and the ground dug painfully into my wound. I grunted and lifted my head, resting on my elbows to squint, but I could only faintly see the shadows of men and women darting here and there across my line of vision.

The screaming had become less frequent, replaced with the rhythm-less beat of yelled commands and popping guns. Louisa pressed her forehead into the dirt, whimpering softly. The only music the world seemed to play anymore—a symphony of war and death. The song played on repeat; the world a broken record player no one knew how to fix. But there was something off about the song. Something different. A new instrument added to the mix, one I didn’t recognize. Guttural. Slow. Drawn out. Raspy. And it was getting closer.

“What’s out there?” I asked, my voice panicked. I cringed at how loud and desperate it sounded.

“Quiet!” Robert commanded.

The sound was getting closer. “Sir! I think I see them. They’re safe,” a voice I vaguely recognized yelled, and then the soldier was running toward us.

“Cover her eyes,” Robert said to me, nodding toward my sister. I turned to find her looking up toward the man who claimed to be coming to our rescue. I furrowed my brow, trying to make sense of Robert’s words. What was about to happen?

“Damn it, Tess! Do it! Now!”

Before I could reach my hand over, Lockwood covered my sister’s eyes with one hand while placing a protective arm around her.

That’s when I saw the first one.

The thing Robert knew my sister wouldn’t be able to handle seeing.

It was worse than the deformed easterner I had seen months ago in these very woods. I didn’t even know what to call the creature that sprang on top of the soldier, tackling him to the ground effortlessly, the soldier’s bones cracking and snapping as he fell like a tower of blocks knocked over by a vengeful child.

It wasn’t just that the creature was deformed. Appearance-wise he wasn’t much different from the deformed chosen ones we had stumbled across from the Eastern sector. Enormous in stature, the creature lacked any of the beauty that made up the design of the chosen ones flashed across the television screens of my childhood—lavish and grand promises that an age of innocence was about to begin. It had been anything but that. Forced into compounds. Girls used and abused to suit the council’s needs.

The beauty of the chosen ones was a lie. At least most of them. James’s outer beauty was nothing compared to the soul that lived inside of him—a soul he insisted he didn’t have.

But as the council became more and more sure they had properly subdued the naturals, they must have followed the lead of the eastern sector—mass producing killing machines to fight the war that continued to plague our borders, no longer caring about fooling naturals into believing these angelic, god-like humans were created to protect us.

The chosen one before me was an abomination. His skull was covered in ridges and bumps, sunken in places that made me feel like if I touched it, the entire head would cave in. His features were misshapen, haphazardly designed. Rushed. Grotesque. His head was covered in patches of long, stringy dark hair.

McNair’s words from the day we found the eastern creature slithered into my ears:
They’re losing the war, and they need infantry. So they commissioned these things. Strong. Brutal. Easier for us naturals to kill because of their lack of abilities, but good for mass-producing.

No care was given to this creature’s appearance. He wasn’t designed to impress. He was designed to kill.

I began to pull myself up from the ground, knowing the only chance we had of surviving was to run, but Robert held me firmly in place. He gave a tight shake of his head.

The monster lifted his head back, howling into the night sky. That’s when I saw the teeth. I gasped. Razor sharp and uneven, they gleamed with saliva, chomping into the night air. I reached a trembling hand toward my sister, placing it over Lockwood’s, ensuring that she wouldn’t see what was about to happen next.

With a raspy, wet howl, the creature brought his teeth down onto the man’s neck. Nothing more than an effortless tug and the monster brought his head back up, ripping out the man’s throat. The man who had run toward danger to help us.

Blood splattered across the creature’s face, and as it landed on his lips, he licked at it hungrily. The taste of blood only increased his frenzy, and he brought his teeth back down onto the man’s body. I couldn’t watch anymore. I closed my eyes and pressed my head against the dirt.

“Their sight and hearing aren’t that great. If we just lay here and don’t move, he won’t see us,” Robert whispered to me.

“How many of them are there?” Lockwood asked.

“I reckon a dozen.”

“Couldn’t you take it out?” Lockwood asked, his voice hitching at the end. He had always been a farmer; he didn’t want to be a solider. He only became one to help his friends.

“I don’t want…” Robert’s voice trailed off. He didn’t want to leave us. He could have saved my father’s solider, but that meant leaving us vulnerable, attracting the other creatures with the noise. No matter what he was created for, he didn’t want to be a solider, either. He had wanted a wife and a child. He had wanted a family. Louisa and I were all he had left of that dream.

The pounding of my heart mixed with the noise of the fallen soldier’s muscles being ripped apart and devoured by the creature created by the council. This was no way for anyone to die.

“Tess!”

My head popped up. I couldn’t keep my eyes shut any longer. I knew that voice calling my name—it was Henry, and he was searching for me. Headed straight in the direction of the monster that wanted to feast on his insides.

“Robert!” I begged, pointing to Henry, who barreled toward us without a thought to his own safety. Unlike the others, Henry had always wanted this war.

Louisa shrieked. I whipped my head around to find a creature’s hand clamped around her ankle. In the quickest of seconds, Robert flipped himself around, crashing right into my sister’s attacker. Both chosen ones, devil and savior, fell to the ground, fists flying so fast and furious it was hard to make out whose limbs belonged to whom.

I turned away, trusting that Robert could handle taking out the second creature. I had to trust that he could do it.

I reached down and pulled the knife I knew Lockwood had hidden in his boot. I had watched as he distracted a female solider earlier at dinner with his lame attempts at humor, swiping her dagger when she wasn’t looking. I didn’t say anything to him at the time. I knew he took it in case something like this happened. Something like this always seemed to happen.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lockwood grunted, towering over my sister like a shield. Sweat covered his brow as he turned back and forth between Robert fighting the creature and Henry running toward us, failing to see through the darkness the creature before us.

As I clutched the knife in my hand, pulling myself up onto my knees, I knew what I was going to do. I knew what I was going to risk. I saw it all. Every bad thing that had happened in my life. Things that seemed out of my control. Things I had let happen to me. The chosen ones taking my father away, my mother committing suicide, losing Emma. Helping cover up the death of a young girl at Templeton, a girl I knew nothing about except that she was a servant like me, forced to pay for the sins of others. Burying the young chosen ones that Henry and his girlfriend had murdered, losing James over and over again. That’s why the world was the way it was. My parents, their parents, all the generations before me—they had just sat back. A chain reaction.

I couldn’t be the victim. Not anymore. It was stupid, but sometimes the stupid thing and the right thing seemed to be one and the same. These things were strong but not clever. Feral but not imperious.

“Tess!” Henry screamed toward us again. At the sound, the creature stopped feeding and slowly twisted his body around. He was hungry for seconds.

I looked back at Robert. While he had quickly and efficiently dispatched of the creature, three more had appeared. I would have to do this on my own. I had one chance. I looked down at my sister, forcing back the tears that pooled in my eyes. “Keep her safe until I come back,” I spat out to Lockwood.

I had every intention of surviving.

I wasn’t going out of the world like this.

The creature crouched, growling at Henry, who skidded to a stop, his eyes wide with fear. The monster began to stalk toward his prey, and I knew that this was it. I bolted, holding onto the knife until the handle dug into my skin. Melding with the weapon. With a wild scream, I flung myself onto the back of the creature. The abomination barely registered my weight, briefly staggering as he moved toward Henry. He thought I was weak. Insignificant. He had been programmed to take out the larger target first. He would deal with me later.

My enemy, the tool of the council, brought his fist down onto Henry’s head before he could even lift a hand in defense. Henry toppled to the ground, knocked unconscious. I reached back and jutted the knife into the side of the creature’s neck. With a roar, the monster threw me over his shoulder onto the ground. He fumbled for the knife that was still lodged in the side of his neck. Every bone in my body tingled and vibrated with the pain of being smashed onto the ground. I couldn’t move. I could only watch as the thing before me yanked the knife from his neck, dark, angry blood spurting out.

The creature’s nostrils flared as he reached down, grabbing my by the shirt. As he pulled me toward him, ready to tear me limb from limb, one thought crossed my mind: I was happy. I wouldn’t die a victim. I would die fighting. Maybe Henry could still escape, and maybe he couldn’t. But I would die fighting.

“Tessie!”

The monster turned his head in the direction of my father’s voice, and I knew the distraction awarded me a second chance at taking the thing down. I balled my hand into a fist, pulled it back, and let it land right in the monster’s throat. There was no way the hit would do any damage, but it was enough to startle him.

He dropped me onto the ground. As I frantically scrambled to my knees in an attempt to escape, I heard the shot. One shot. Loud. Clear. Perfect. The creature fell to the ground next to me.

As a pair of feet ran toward me, I knew one thing for certain:

My father had just saved my life.

“What the hell were you thinking?” my father barked, crouching down and examining me for any damage. With the exception of a few bruises from being pummeled to the ground, I was fine.

“Just go back to your soldiers. They need you more than I do,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest and looking toward my father’s army, who sat huddled against the fire where the bodies of six chosen ones sat burning, the smell of decaying flesh burning my nose and making my eyes water. It wasn’t the first time I had come in contact with the smell, but that didn’t mean it got any less horrifying. When Eric had asked why we were wasting time burning the bodies, when my father certainly had no time to bury McNair, he replied that it was what his men needed. It was what they had earned.