Ravenous (The Ravening #1)(41)
Author: Erica Stevens

At least it was downhill from here.

Jenna began to cry again. “My parents,” she whimpered. I tore my attention away from the endless garbage. It was the first time she’d mentioned them in awhile. There was so much sorrow in her voice, so much misery in her small body. Sadness ripped through my heart, my throat burned with tears. “They’re probably dead.”

We had also lost our mother but Abby, Aiden, and I had survived such a loss before. It didn’t make the loss any easier, but we were better prepared to deal with it than Jenna or Bret. Now Jenna’s shock over this whole situation was wearing off, and in the middle of a massive pile of crap she was beginning to fall apart. She was starting to accept reality, and her grief was threatening to consume her. Unfortunately her breakdown threatened all of our lives.

“Shh Jenna, shush now, its ok,” Cade comforted.

“It’s not ok!” she wailed. “It will never be ok again!”

I gave Cade credit for the fact that he didn’t argue with Jenna, didn’t try to lie to her and tell her that it would be ok. Instead, Cade continued to calm her as we strained through the sucking, heaping, rotten mess beneath us. Abby made her way over to me and slid her hand into mine. Jenna was weeping, her head buried against Cade’s chest as they made their way forward. He looked about as happy with this fact as he would to drink lemon juice, but he didn’t push her away.

I missed our mother and wished that we had been able to save her. I wished that we would have the chance to lay her to rest, and grieve for her the way that we’d been able to grieve for our father. I couldn’t think about her remaining trapped beneath that rubble forever, it was too painful. But even more, I wished that Jenna didn’t have to know what it felt like to be tossed about in the sea of mourning and anguish that opened upon losing a parent. We had never really liked each other, but the sorrow she was going through now wasn’t something I would wish on my most hated enemy, even if I had one.

“One day Jenna, it will not hurt so bad.” Cade’s eyes met mine over top of Jenna’s head. They were not the same words he had uttered to me on that long ago day, but they were along the same lines. “One day the agony will not be so consuming.”

The words were true, but they didn’t hint at the gaping hole that the loss would leave behind.

I tried to use my shirt to cover my nose, it helped a little but the annoyance it caused wasn’t worth the little aid it provided. “Awful,” Abby whispered.

I completely agreed but I felt awful didn’t quite describe this dismal experience. The pile began to even out, leveling across the ground. The end to the sea of crap seemed to finally be in view, though I was certain we would never escape the smell. I could taste its awfulness on my tongue. This place would haunt my memories until the end of my days. I shuddered and drew strength from Abby’s slender frame as we picked our way through the smaller layer of trash.

I glanced toward the sky, surprised by the lack of seagulls and crows in the air. They always circled the dump, cawing and diving for food. In fact, even though we had trudged through a veritable mountain of waste, I was stunned to realize that we hadn’t encountered any creatures. No birds, no rodents, not even a few stray cats or dogs were hanging around looking to be fed.

I froze as I scanned rapidly over the heaping mounds stretching around us. The birds had been singing this morning, and now…

And now there was nothing again.

I pulled Abby back, stopping her before she continued onward. “Bethany!” she hissed.

I shook my head at her as I scanned the pristine sky again. It was hot; maybe the animals were seeking the sanctuary of the shade. But all of them? It seemed not only unlikely but nearly impossible.

“Bethy come on, I want to get out of here!”

“Shh Abby!”

Cade and Jenna had stopped walking; they were staring at me with confusion and impatience. “Come on Bethany.”

“Something’s not right,” I muttered.

“No kidding!” Jenna retorted.

I didn’t rise to her snippy attitude; instead I released Abby and headed back the way we had come. “Bethany!”

I held up a hand to forestall Cade’s words. One of the greatest things I had experienced in the past day was finally making the descent down this veritable mountain of crap, and now I was crazily clawing my way back up it. The trash skidded and slipped out from underneath me, making the climb even more difficult. My legs ached, my lungs were beginning to burn again, but finally I made it to a small peak in the rubble.

I rose slowly as I scanned over the hills spanning out before me. I glanced back toward the sky, but there was still nothing there. Across the tons of trash I spotted movement on the far side of the heap. I strained my eyes to make out what was across the way. The heat, and waves of decomposition rising off of the pile, made whatever it was blurry and difficult to discern. It could be anything, it could be the missing animals, it could be more people, but a crushing sense of impending doom began to descend over me.

Trepidation worked its way through my body; I didn’t have to see what was coming to know that it wasn’t going to be good. I slipped and slid, skidded and tripped through the disgusting mess as I fled back down the heap. My feet skidded out from under me, I cried out as I lost complete control of my body. I plummeted, rolled, and bounced jarringly through the filth.

Hands grasped hold of my arms, rescuing me from being buried within the mound as they pulled me from the filth cascading upon me. Crap was pulled off of me, brushed away, thrown to the ground in a useless attempt to clean me a little. “What is it?” Cade demanded his hands surprisingly gentle on my skin as his gaze trailed back up the mountain. “Bethany, what is it?”

“I don’t know,” I panted, trying not to think about the filth and bugs that I had just rolled and squished through. “It’s not good though. I think they’re still tracking us.”

Cade grabbed hold of my arm, running and jumping through the trash as we tried to move as quickly as we could through the pile of calf high rubbish. We reached Abby and Jenna but Cade didn’t release me as he continued to drag me forward. I seized hold of Abby’s hand, tugging her along with me. My heart was racing faster than a NASCAR as the garbage seemed to suck and pull at us even more than it had before. We were never going to escape; the refuse was never going to let us go. It was going to mire us down until those things were upon us, until we were nothing more than useless bodies added to the decomposing debris scattered around us.