The First

Chapter 51

Why didn't I kill him?

He'd killed her males and put her mission in jeopardy.

Mission? Yes. There is a mission.

Savannah didn't know what the mission entailed, or why she needed to find the males. At some point, the truth would be revealed to her. Instinct had her headed west, toward the Oregon coast. Every step brought her closer to another male. Her heart ached for him. Pain in her chest grew as she closed the gap between them.

Grass bowed before her. Earth breathed between her toes. Downed trees launched her across canyons and over boulders. When she zipped across a street or came close to a highway, she avoided headlights. She'd seen the damage a car can inflict. Her goal had been to stay clear of vehicles and men with guns.

The tree line opened into a junkyard. Relics of dead automobiles dotted the landscape. Spindles of nettles prickled and danced along her spine, a passionate indicator of the imminent birth of another male.

Several thumps came from inside a trailer surrounded by chunks of metal. The rectangular box shimmered and seized as if hit by a pattern of mild earthquakes. Heart glows from inside decreased by one as the child's surrogate took her last breath. A man kicked the front door and stumbled down several metal steps. One hand held a can of beer. In the other, a butcher's knife. Sweet liquid dripped from the blade to the dirt below and thick globs of it decorated his coveralls.

Behind the man, through the open door, the infant's eyes reflected the porch light from under some cupboards. Any minute the young one would be enjoying his first meal.

Tiny haunches flexed.

Before he could take another step, the man's perplexed gaze at the weapon in his hand turned to unimaginable terror. His body lurched and fell face first into the dirt. Flesh, blood, and bone flew from him as the infant's claws tore deep. A bubble of blood popped inside the man's mouth. Tiny hands lifted his heart through the hole in his back. The new one sat and feasted. Strands of blood squirt from the heart with every bite the infant took.

Savannah jumped from her position and landed in front of the child and his fresh kill. He popped into her arms as if he'd never left.

"That's a good boy."

She cuddled the baby into her bosom.

"Let's find you some more food. There's still a lot of work to be done. You need to grow up big and strong."

Their best hope of finding an ample food source would be areas with dense populations. The boy trembled in the evening breeze. Her motherly instinct took over and she realized the infant had no clothes on. With the child in her arms, she stepped over the dead man's body and climbed into the trailer.

Hoarded newspapers lined one side of the unkempt trailer. Several plates caked with dried-up food sat in the fly-swarmed sink. A pan on the stove bubbled and splashed. At the end of a short hallway, a woman slumped against a soaked bed. Multiple stab wounds surrounded the carnage the baby made tearing his way out. Through the torture of the man stabbing her, she'd squeezed the placenta out, which now hung by a strand of flesh from her ripped and tattered inner thighs.

Surrogates bore no consequence to Savannah. She found a towel in a hall cupboard and dipped it in the boiling water. The male swatted at the fabric as she washed him clean. Inside a drawer, she found a blanket and wrapped him in it. He'd shed and grow soon.

They followed a dirt driveway until it turned to pavement. An internal radar pointed her toward the coast. That's where the next adult male would be. Others would join them as they traveled down the coastline. Even though she missed the males she'd lost, her gathering had just begun.

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