Strays Read online

  STRAYS

  J.D.P. Morgan

  Strays

  Book One

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2016 by J.D.P. Morgan

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or otherwise, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover photo copyright by Konradbak | Dreamstime.com - Dancing ballet dancer with dust in the background.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  STRAYS

  P A R T

  O N E

  One

  Max

  ●

  We learned to do things quietly.

  We learned to walk without sound. We learned to eat without making too much noise. We even learned to cry silently.

  Max’s feet struggled to keep up with her mind. It raced at a billion thoughts per minute. It was the time right between autumn and winter when the days were warm, but the nights were cold. She had decided to put on the only pair of shorts she owned, despite the spikes of black hair spurting up from her legs. There weren’t many opportunities to shave these days. And why was she thinking about shaving?

  What she needed to focus on was getting inside, somewhere safe, somewhere where there was light. Normally, she wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t run blindly out into the night like this, but wherever they had gone to take a break she had fallen and hit her head. When she had woken up, her group was gone and she had no idea where she was. Still, that was no excuse to be stupid. She was supposed to stay hidden. If the Strays spotted her they would undoubtedly rip her limb from limb. She needed to find somewhere to sleep tonight and resurface in the morning, well-rested and warm. She didn’t even know in which direction she should run.

  Her right leg caught on to something sharp, protruding from a car and it ripped into her within a second, drawing blood. That was absolutely the last thing she needed. Strays would smell her coming from a mile away now. Their sense of smell wasn’t as strong as their hearing, but it did the job. She knew that if one caught on to her scent, the others would follow. She couldn’t take that chance. Although the pain crippled her, she had to keep running. A burning sensation was intensified by the bitter cold.

  The world wasn’t always this way.

  She wasn’t safe in the open. She had to get inside. Her old school, Lincoln Academy, was up ahead. She hadn’t stepped foot on its tiled floors since the start of eleventh grade. That was over a year ago. The deep snarl of something that sounded like an aggravated dog brought her back to reality, but before she could react to the growl, her body was thrown face down and something hard stomped on her back. It knocked the breath out of her and made her drop her gun. It slid across the pavement, just out of her reach. Still, she reached for it. Even though they didn’t shoot guns at night, it was nothing like being protected, knowing she had that option and that she was in control. She didn’t know where the Stray had gone—many of them moved faster than others—but she wasn’t about to investigate. With eyes wide open, and her entire body overcome by trembling, she rolled beneath a nearby truck.

  The blood rolling from her leg tickled her. She kept her ears open. She had become a better listener over the course of a year and her ears had become stronger. She listened to the quiet. She listened. This area, because of the automatic street lamps, was usually void of Stray activity. Maybe one had smelled her and had taken a chance with the light. The thing wasn’t too bright, was it?

  Max pressed her hands to her chest and felt her heart pump violently against them. She closed her eyes and remembered. It happened in the early morning. She was woken by sirens coming in through her window. Initially, she had thought it was some test of the weather system or that there was a storm coming. It was Monday, the night after her first day of school. She remembered complaining to her mother about how awful it had been and how she wanted to go to another school, the same school her best friend had transferred to last year. It was early fall and her bare feet were cold when she climbed out of bed. She had been dressed in only shorts and a t-shirt, hardly enough to protect her from the chilling weather. Her mom had burst through the door and yelled at her to put on pants. She had quickly dressed in her school uniform pants, a sweatshirt and boots. It had been a mistake to not wear socks, but Max hadn’t had the time to find any. Her parents had yanked her and her brother, Eric, out of there so fast that they could barely process it all.

  Max opened her eyes. The bed of the pick-up truck she had scooted under stooped so low that it pressed against the toes of her boots. She didn’t know where the Stray had gone, if he was still there or not, but she stayed under the truck anyway. She heard him breathing somewhere. Close. He was close. She would have to make a run for it. She would have to run straight for the school, which wasn’t guaranteed to be Stray-free and even if it was, she wasn’t certain it would be any sort of refuge for her. Chances. It all came down to chances. She closed her eyes again and sucked in a deep breath.

  As dangerous as our world has become, it’s a quiet one.

  But that day, before the sun came up, before Max’s father dressed to head to work, before breakfast, their lives as they knew them had ended. They called them Strays on the news. They had appeared first in Europe and no one knew where they had come from. At first there were rumors about a virus, but Strays were nothing that had spread or made anyone sick. It was like one day they were just there. Max’s theory was that they had been there all along, just waiting for their day of reckoning. Initially, everyone thought they were like vampires, the mythical creatures teenage chicks had become fonder of than afraid. Their mouths were full of two rows of claw sharp teeth. They were scary to look at, mainly because their eye sockets held two white balls of blank. They were blind. Their noses were smashed into their pale faces like someone had tried to construct them using play dough.

  Max saw them for the first time the day her parents rushed them all into the car. Her dad had on sweat clothes. It was the first time she had ever seen him dressed that way outside of his suit. He hadn’t talked much, hadn’t answered many of their questions. “Dad?” her own voice rang through her head. “Dad. Dad!”

  When she opened her eyes she couldn’t take a second to pause. She crawled from beneath the truck, jumped to her feet and ran. All she needed to do was run. Run. Run. The snarling grew louder behind her. The wind whipped into her eyes, stinging and drying them. The snarling beast knocked her to the ground and she didn’t know how she managed to get on her back, but she did. Then she was staring at the thing, where its eyes should have been. Where did they come from? It couldn’t look at her, but it tilted its head so that it could hear her breathe. Where did they come from? Then it turned its face back to her and opened its mouth wide to release a mind quivering roar. Where? Where? Its breath smelled metallic like it had been sucking down blood for days.

  Max’s hand had been searching the ground for something to grab, but she only met gravel. Instinctively, and just in time before the thing clawed at her neck, she slammed the thenar of her palm into its flat nose. It stumbled back enough that she could scoot from under it. She heard it sneeze as she found her footing again and again took off for the school. The middle double doors were broken off, which meant that anyone could
enter, which meant that anything could be in there. Flickering, wavering yellow lights emerged in the distance.

  The Stray’s snarling turned into screeching and it was after her again. Max felt the cut on her leg screaming for relief, but she couldn’t stop now. She saw, as she got closer that the flickering lights were tall, white candlesticks, as wide as her arm. They lined the doorway of the school. There were two things she knew: one, Strays were afraid of fire and two, someone occupied the building, but it wasn’t Strays. Good. She had a chance to be safe. The Stray pulled the hood of her jacket, yanking Max back, but she freed herself easily, leaving the jacket behind. It had been a gift from her boyfriend. He was gone now. She flew through the doors and tried to jump over the candlesticks, but she was too tired and knocked the middle two over with her. Their flames died when they hit the floor.

  Her feet gave out on her almost instantly once she was inside and she stumbled forward. She landed on something pointed, a piece of scrap metal, probably left behind by someone who had fought to survive earlier on. Max couldn’t contain her scream. The thing was small, but it hurt like hell. She slapped her hand over her mouth and tried to catch her breath. From the corner of her eye, she saw the Stray lingering in the doorway, screeching and shooting its head this-and-that way, sniffing her out. After a while, it ran off, back into the darkness.

  For a long time, Max stayed right there, on the tiled floor of the main hall, surrounded by the protection of the candlelight. Someone had placed them there, but she didn’t have time to think about whom. The place was quiet. Water dripped somewhere. She wouldn’t investigate. She managed, after a while, to stand up. Limping, she found her way to the second floor, looking over her shoulder and all around her. She had lost her gun out there, and the only weapon she had was a knife given to her by her father. He was gone too.

  All she had left—she thought, as she slowly pushed open the door of a classroom—was her brother. The nameplate on the wall beside the doorway read Mr. Karnac. Rest in peace, Mr. Karnac. She scoped the quiet room quickly. The floor was covered in filth, but she had been living in filth for a year. The desks had been pushed to one side of the room, far away from the windows. The teacher’s desk had been turned over and looked like it had been used for cover once upon a time. After assessing that the room was empty she stepped in and closed the door behind her. She needed to get back to her group, but she would sleep first. She needed to sleep first.

  She limped to the teacher’s desk and took up the space between it and the wall. Holding her breath and a yelp, she pulled the piece of scrap from her leg. She let out the breath she’d been holding and, without covering her wounds, drifted to sleep.

  When it started, not many people had been killed immediately. A lot of people had gotten away. The killing came later, when everyone was separated. Deep in night when Max’s family huddled up in the basement of someone’s long forgotten home, so close that they could smell the days old stench of each other, the desperate screams for help and pleas for mercy filled the skies, a sorrowful musical no one could shut off.

  We learned to do things quietly.

  No one screamed at night anymore. The world was silent when the sun set.

  Two

  Max

  ●

  I’m on a train. I don’t know where it’s going, but it’s taking me far away from here. I want to close my eyes and just feel the motion, feel the train carry me away from this place, but Strays are all around me. Their snarls keep me frozen in my seat. If I close my eyes…

  Vampires and Strays were different. When vampires were discovered, humans were able to live side-by-side with them, although equality laws hadn’t been established well yet. Strays were something different altogether. Not even the vampires had been prepared for them. For the most part, vampires and humans faced them together, but there were still some vampires who preferred to fight alongside them.

  Strays were creatures of the night, so anyone caught outside at night was torn to cubes of meat. Max saw—many times—that sometimes they would kill one and share him like a family of lions. She thought it would be a terrible fate to live like that. Her eyes opened wide and she had to take some time to adjust to the bright lights that floated in through the windows. Her navy blue eyes weren’t as sensitive to the light as they had been when she was a child, when her father used to remind her to cover her eyes from the sun with her hand.

  Can you see me, daddy?

  She sat up slowly and all the aches and pains from last night came into her all at once. Her entire body was sore from head-to-toe. Eric was probably worried sick about her. He probably thought she was dead by now. Slowly, she turned her leg to see the cut. The blood had dried over the slit in a welt of maroon overnight. As for the wound inflicted by the piece of metal… well, at least it wasn’t gushing out blood anymore. She couldn’t believe how incredibly bruised she was. Purple and black bruises covered her arms and legs in places she hadn’t even known she was hit. Sighing, she ran her fingers through her greasy, black hair.

  She had a knife, but her gun was still out there somewhere. Thank God for sunlight. She had some time to find it. It was chillier this morning than previous mornings and although her wounds made her legs feel hot, the rest of her was cold. That Stray had gotten off with her jacket, too. Slowly, so that she didn’t open up anymore unknown wounds, she climbed to her hands and knees first, and then her feet. There was only one other thing that plagued her: those candles. Last night, they looked fresh, which meant someone had to have lit them. Who?

  Hopefully, she could get out of there without finding out. Sometimes it wasn’t always a good thing to run into other people. Many of them acted more like animals than humans. Max had lost faith in humanity a long time ago, before Strays.

  She wished she had something to cover her arms, but she would suffice with what she had. She limped to the door and opened it. She wasn’t in good shape to be going anywhere, but she had to get back to her brother and her group. It was simple. She would just go in the direction she had run from. She looked to the right of her. She had chosen a classroom closest to the doors that led out into the stairwell. She was about to go through them before a raspy voice, from someone who smoked too many cigarettes, stopped her.

  Reflexively, Max turned around, though everything in her screamed for her to run.

  “We thought you might’ve been dead,” the woman, whose blond hair had dreaded and locked over time, said, chuckling. She stood at the water fountain in the center of the hall and filled a canteen. “The water’s warm, but this is the only building in this whole town that still has running water.” Her mint green eyes met Max’s. She had a gold piercing in her nose, and one in her bottom lip that moved mechanically with it like she had been born with it. “Might be filled with chemicals, too, but who cares?” She closed the top on the canteen, put it between her knees and attempted to put her hair in a neat ponytail. She tied it with an old, dirty brown rubber band and grabbed her canteen. “I’m Reagan.” Then she waited.

  Max didn’t know what to do or say. What she wanted was to turn around and walk away from this chick. As weak as she was now, she doubted she could go against her in a fight. That Stray had taken all of her energy.

  Reagan nodded. She looked Max up and down. “You run fast. We saw everything from the fifth floor. Dakota didn’t think you’d get this far. I mean—after the pick-up bit. That Stray was literally on your ankles, dude.”

  Max watched her. She was clean, looked clean, except for a few set in stains on her blue jeans. Her black sweater was old and dingy, but her cargo jacket was far from rags. It looked new. She moved the canteen to her lips, but Max’s eyes stayed on her hands, which were covered in tattoos, none of which she could make out from where she stood.

  Reagan swallowed hard and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Then she held the canteen out for Max. “Thirsty?”

  Max shook her head quickly. She didn’t know this woman and had no reason to trust her. Of c
ourse she was thirsty, but she wasn’t going to drink anything from that canteen.

  “Anything poison in here is from our own government, Baby Doll. We don’t have those kinds of resources.”

  “I don’t want any.”

  “She speaks! Was beginning to think you were mute. What’s your name?”

  Max took two steps away from her. She doubted she had anything to fear from this Reagan chick, but she wasn’t entirely sure how well manipulators manipulated. She pressed her back to the closed door.

  “That one doesn’t work. It’s chained from the other side. This place was full of Strays when we found it and once we got them out we wanted to keep them out. Only one door works on each floor. And I got to tell you, Baby Doll, you didn’t pick the safest floor to be on.”

  “Maxxy.” Because she wanted her to stop calling her Baby Doll. “My name’s Maxxy Twillish.”

  “Nice to meet you, Maxxy. We’ve got food downstairs and more… trustworthy water… if you want to join us.”

  Did she have a choice? If she was going to go she needed to have a full stomach, and she wouldn’t mind some cleaner clothes either. Cautiously, a few steps behind her, she followed the Reagan chick. She was surprised of how cordial the woman was and how she didn’t look over her shoulder to see if Max was following her or not. She followed her up the stairs of the main stairwell to the fifth floor. Before they made it to the door, Max saw that the dark hall was candlelit. Reagan threw the door open to reveal that the walls were covered with homemade sconces, and people had written their names and stories in permanent marker and pen on the walls. Combinations of sloppy and neat penmanship covered them in red, black and blue ink. Black construction and cardstock paper on the windows blocked the outside world.