A moment later he was in the bay, running.
Trash for fire.
The voice was right—this bay had much more trash than the others. Kai ran around picking up as much as he could carry before returning to the second bay.
Moments later, he had a small fire burning. The heat felt marvelous on his fingers, his cheeks, his nose. The orange light pushed back the shadows and the darkness, made a place that was his in a way he couldn’t put into words.
Better. Yes. Collect more trash.
Kai did as he was told, checking the last bay and returning with another armful of trash, which he set in a pile near the fire.
Now sleep. I’ll watch you for danger.
The voice was horrible, but the words were reassuring, and they were growing clearer, less grating. Kai lay down, closed his eyes. He was so tired.
It would watch over him. How would it watch? Where were its eyes, Kai wondered?
He was drifting off, his front side warm, his back and feet still stiff with damp cold. The voice would watch over him.
Kai jolted upright, suddenly knowing whose voice it was.
I won’t hurt you.
They knew what you were thinking. But Kai had never heard of one speaking to someone. Never. Not on the news, not from anyone.
We can if we want.
It heard everything he thought. There was no way for Kai to stop thinking, no shelter from it. It was in his head. They could read your mind until you were a few miles away. Kai pressed one hand to the cold ground. He had to—
If you run, I will hurt you.
Kai froze, a trickle of dread running through him.
“Where are you?” he whispered.
Close.
Kai sat utterly frozen, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
Sleep.
3
Lila Easterlin
June 30, 2029. Savannah, Georgia.
Lila’s toothbrush was wet. She studied the other toothbrushes in the cup, trying to figure out who they might belong to in order to rule out suspects, running through all of the people who now used this bathroom, and trying to decide who was most likely to use someone else’s toothbrush.
None of the toothbrushes looked like it belonged to her cousin Alfe, the hick from West Virginia she had met a grand total of twice before he and his family showed up on their doorstep last month. Toothbrush in hand, Lila stormed through the house, skirting bedding and mats, piles of clothes and suitcases, until she found Alfe eating a bowl of Lucky Charms, her favorite cereal, which she’d been rationing for the past six months because it was probably the last box she’d ever have.
Lila held her toothbrush in front of Alfe’s nose. His beard looked dopier by the day, all patchy and scraggly on his narrow, hawklike face.
“Did you use this?” she asked.
He ate a spoonful of her Lucky Charms, studying the brush. “I might have.”
“This is my toothbrush.” She curled her lip. “I can’t think of anything more disgusting than brushing my teeth with a brush you just used to dislodge bits of food from your mouth.” She shook the toothbrush for emphasis. “This is mine. Don’t use it again.”
“But I don’t have one,” Alfe said, raising his shoulders.
“That’s not my problem,” she nearly shouted.
Her father appeared in the arch between the kitchen and living room, wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt. “What’s going on?”
Lila folded her arms defensively. “He used my toothbrush.”
Her father looked at Alfe, who said nothing, then back to Lila. “Okay. Alfe, I’ll find you a toothbrush. You—” He pointed at Lila.
“Don’t point at me. I didn’t do anything.”
He kept his finger poised an inch from her nose. “Don’t talk like that to Alfe.”
Lila sighed heavily, tempted to point out that Alfe was also eating her cereal, but she knew that would go nowhere.
“Is he a starfish?” Dad asked, pointing at Alfe.
Lila closed her eyes, willing herself to be calm. “No.” This was her dad’s favorite routine. We have to pull together, blah, blah, blah. She got it; she just didn’t want her toothbrush in Alfe’s mouth.
“Then he’s on your side.”
Lila nodded, knowing Dad would only belabor the point if she argued.
Dad smiled, satisfied. “I’ll find you a toothbrush,” he said to Alfe. Lila watched him walk off, disturbed by how skinny he looked, how little he resembled the stocky, jowly man Lila had known all her life.
“I don’t know how he can do what he does every day and still be so positive,” Alfe said, shaking his head in wonder as he watched Lila’s father walk away.
Lila studied Alfe for a moment, deciding whether she wanted to reply. She decided she didn’t really have a choice, given that he’d said something nice about her father.
“He’s always been like that. Three days after my mother left us to become a Fire Monk, he was helping me make a Halloween costume, and one for himself. Not that your wife leaving you to join a cult compares to disposing of thousands of bodies every day.” Lila used to be embarrassed by what her father did for a living, back when being a mortician was about applying eyeliner to corpses. Now that it was about finding locations for mass graves and collecting DNA samples so relatives might one day know where their loved ones were buried, she felt better about it. “Sometimes people ask me why he’s not fighting in the war.”
Alfe snorted. “That’s a pretty stupid question.”
“I know.” It was the first time she’d said more than hello to Alfe since he arrived, and now she felt shitty for making a big deal out of the toothbrush. He might be okay.
“Did you see your mother much?” Alfe asked.
Before the invasion, he meant. That went without saying. “Now and then. She’s too serene for me. Puts me to sleep talking to her.” She didn’t want to talk about her mother, so she thought of another topic. “Was it hard getting here from Blacksburg?”
Alfe nodded. “We had one really bad moment. We stopped at a lake to get water, and when we went down to the lake, there were two starfish standing in the water a hundred yards away, filling some of their weird sacks.”
Lila felt a crawling sensation. “Holy shit. What did they do?”
Alfe put his hand over his mouth, shook his head. “They turned and stared at us. They seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them, although we know that’s not likely.”
“What did you do?” Lila whispered, knowing she would have nightmares about this.
“We ran like hell back to our truck.”
“They didn’t chase you?”
Alfe shook his head. “All I can think is, they decided we weren’t worth the trouble. Or maybe it was because it was a mother and three kids. Because, you know, sometimes they leave the kids alone.” Lila nodded. She’d heard stories of Luyten letting children go. “But while we were running away, I just kept thinking, I’m about to die. Any second now I’m going to die.”
Lila studied Alfe’s face for a moment, then held out her toothbrush. “Here.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. Your dad said he’d get me one.”
She kept the toothbrush out. “If he does, you can give it back to me.”
Alfe took it and thanked her. Lila went off to see what her dad was up to.