He was wearing all black and gray, but faded, like denim after it's been washed too much. A lot of jean and leather, but I could tell it had been ripped and patched up again. Imperfectly, like he'd done the repairs himself and didn't give a shit about how he looked. His cargo pants were baggy around the crotch but then tightened at the ankles, stuffed into a pair of black combat boots. There were far more pockets and extra straps than seemed necessary. His belt held a hunting knife on one side and a holster in the other. The gleam of metal told me he had a pistol in there.
He was wearing a black hood that kept his face in shadow, but I could tell he was young—less than twenty for sure. I could see the tips of his long dark hair poking out from beneath his chin. His hands and most of his arms were covered by what I suspected was a pair of socks with holes cut into them for his fingers, and he clutched a crossbow loosely at his side.
He brushed past me, ignoring my defensive stance and the rolling pin, and grabbed the arrow jutting out from the creature behind me. He twisted it out with a sharp pull and stuck it into the quiver on his back. The body twitched a leg. I shuddered.
He headed to the front door, which I could see was open.
"We've got to move," he said, gesturing behind him for me to follow.
I didn't budge. I was staring at the grotesque body behind me.
"What is this thing?" I asked. It was humanoid, but with leathery skin, almost no hair, and fingers like talons. Curved and edged with sharp, hard nails.
"Modifieds," the boy eyed me with surprise, "Have you been living in a cave your whole life?"
"Who are you?" I asked.
"The guy who just saved your life," he said. "Now shut the fuck up and stick behind me." He walked to the front door, raising his crossbow in front of him. The long grass and weeds of the front lawn came up to his knees, and shimmered like a wheat field in the moonlight as the boy crossed through them.
I hesitated on the front porch. I didn't want to leave the house. At least it was familiar. I followed him to the edge of the yard but stopped at the street. What if I was sleep walking or something? I didn't want to get run over. That's when I saw the cars. One had swerved into the curb just in front of Brett's house and crashed into a mailbox, which was bent downwards. The window was smashed in, and it looked like the driver had been dragged through the window and then left there. But all that was left of the driver was a skeleton, and some scraps of the clothes he'd been wearing. The bones of his left arm had been ripped off and fell a few feet away from the car.
That's when I noticed the figure in the passenger seat. From the strands of long hair still stuck to her gleaming white skull, and the remains of a purple dress, it was the remains of little girl. Her bony arms were still clutching a doll tightly, and the jawbone was unhinged and hanging at an awkward level. I felt bile rise up in my throat and stumbled back onto the lawn on my hands and knees, heaving.
The boy came up beside me. He smelled like pine trees, amber and musk. "Are you sick? I've got some meds back at my camp—"
I looked back at him, my brows knitted together.
"There's a dead guy, right there. And a little girl," my words caught in my throat and my eyes burned. "Can't you see them?"
"Yeah but that happened ages ago," he shrugged. "During the Modification. Those bodies will have been picked clean by now, nothing useful on them."
The world was spinning and I felt weak.
"Don't tell me you haven't seen a remnant before," he said. They're all over. In the city there are piles of them. Some people use them to make fences."
My lip curled in disgust. I couldn't tell if he was kidding, but if he was it was in poor taste. Those were people. I was getting so worked up I almost believed this was all really happening. It's just a dream, I told myself, sitting on the grass, my arms wrapped around me.
He frowned at me, casting looks in both direction. "Mods hunt in small groups, usually four or five at a time. That one wasn't alone, and the others will probably be here any second. So if you don't want to die, come with me. But if you do want to die, or you've gone crazy, I'm not going to risk my neck for you. You've got five seconds to make a choice."
He reached his hand down, towards me.
I didn't know what was going on, but something about the boy made me feel safe. And he had just saved me, right?
I reached up tentatively, and he grabbed my arm and hoisted me up.
"Now, unless you're attached to that rolling pin..." he said, grabbing the hunting knife on his belt and pulling out, "this might be more practical." He flipped it up in the air and caught it by the blade, holding the handle out towards me. My arm dipped as I took it from him. It was heavier than I expected. It felt so...solid. I ran a finger over the edge and cried out as I felt the blade bite into my skin. Blood welled up in the cut. I put my finger in my mouth and the blood was tangy and metallic against my tongue.
"This is... real." I said.
"Um, yeah," he said, frowning.
Just then I saw several more dark shapes materialize out of the trees, and heard another blood-curdling screech. But I also saw the pink flickers again, and smiled.
Finally.
***
I woke up gasping for breath, my eyes rolling. Everything was white, and I thought maybe I'd gone blind, but I blinked a few times and then I could see again.
I was back in Brett's room, but the lights were on. I'd never been happier to see a functioning lightbulb. Crys was crying and squeezing me with her arms. Brett's face was white, but he looked relieved.
"What happened?" I asked weakly.
"You passed out," Chrys said.
"I was just about to get my dad to drive you to the ER, or call 911," Brett said.
"I told you all, she was fine," Cody said, like he'd made this argument a dozen times.
"We checked your pulse," Chrys said. "We thought you were—that you might be... Do you feel OK?"
I sat up and looked around, suddenly aware of everybody's eyes on me.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry..."
"It's not your fault," Brett said, "Though we were really worried about you. I mean if anything happened..."
"We would have been busted," Cody interrupted, nodding his head. "Like, for real. We aren't even supposed to have this shit," he gestured to the plastic baggy, still on the floor. It had white sticker on it, with the Phylia Z5394A printed on it.
"And we didn't know if, maybe we were just being paranoid, you know. We're not in the right frame of mind to make emergency decisions. So I was going to get my dad, even though he would have killed me, but then... then you woke up," Brett said, running his hands through his hair in the way that I'd always found irresistible. I realized now that he did it when he was nervous.
I stood up. Chrys grabbed my arm but I wasn't dizzy or shaky. I saw the red model car on the shelf. Had I noticed that when I came in? I must have.
"We even looked it up," Chrys said, showing me the laptop on the desk. "We Googled passing out on weed and it's not unheard of... this guy says it's called 'pulling a whitey', which means you smoked too much too quickly and it made your blood pressure drop. But it isn't fatal, you're supposed to just stay calm and just ride it out."
I nodded, unsure if I should feel glad they looked it up or angry that they hadn't just gone for help. But then I was relieved they didn't. How much more of a loser would I be if I'd gotten everybody in trouble for smoking.
"Did you see white? That's what happens if your blood pressure drops too fast," Brett asked.
"I'm...I'm not sure." I saw pink, I thought. But I didn't say anything.
"How long was I out for?"
"Just 5 minutes or so, but it was really scary. I couldn't get you to wake up. I even tried slapping you," Crys said.
I put one hand up to my cheek. She'd slapped me and I hadn't felt anything?
"Well, anyway, I'm fine now. Just a little... weak."
"You guys should go home," Brett said. I looked at Chrys and she nodded.
There were even more people downstairs, the party was just getting started, and I was already leaving. Courtney was in the living room with her friends. When I passed near them on my way to the door, I heard her fake-cough and say, "slut." When I looked up, everybody was looking at me, and her friends were laughing. My cheeks burned.
Chrys strode up to Courtney and shoved her backwards. She grabbed two of her friends and held onto their arms as she tipped over the coffee table and landed hard on the ground, with half a dozen plastic cups and bottles falling on top of her, their contents soaking into her clothes. "Run," Chrys whispered, grabbing my arm and shoving me out the door. We raced to the car and jumped in, breathless. Chrys turned the key and revved the engine, then we peeled around the corner and took off. After we'd gone a couple blocks, we looked at each other and laughed.
"That's totally going to cost me," Chrys said.
"What do you think's going to happen?" I asked.
"I can't see us duking it out in the parking lot," Chrys said. "She wouldn't want to break a nail."
"I'd rather take a punch than be on her wrong side," I said. "Courtney could make your life miserable."
"It was worth it to see the expression on her face when she fell over the table," Chrys said, grinning. "And anyway, she's graduating at the end of the year. I don't care what she does."
Chrys pulled up my drive away and let me out.
"Sorry I ruined the party," I said.
"Are you kidding, I had a blast," she smiled. "Just kidding. Glad you're OK.
Apart from hating myself for blowing my one shot at Brett, I felt fine.
Except for one thing.
As the van pulled away, I held up my finger, which had been throbbing since my adventure. In the street lights I could see a very clean, but very real, cut on the tip of my finger.