The Burning World (Warm Bodies #2)(70)

How will you file this? he asks us as he buries his face in bloody flesh. This moment, me and this bad person, this thing I had to do. Higher or Lower? Will people read it and learn from it, or will you lock it away?

We want to tell the boy he doesn’t understand. We are not a librarian; we are the books. But even if we broke our silence now, he wouldn’t listen. He is busy.

He peels the man layer by layer, siphoning the life into his own starved cells. He has fought the hunger for a very long time, trying to hold his precarious balance, but there are limits. He can feel the cure circling in his head, tickling his eyes, showing him secret truths while it knocks on his soul, but he keeps the door barred. He is angry. He is not ready to talk.

He eats until he’s full and then sits in the sand, staring at the red mess. Most of the man is gone, but the sinews that remain begin to twitch. The boy didn’t touch the brain. This man’s brain is toxic waste bubbling in the barrel of his skull, and it must be disposed of. The boy pulls the knife out of the messenger bag and removes the head from its neck. The eyes blink open, now gray. They watch him as he digs a hole in the sand. They watch him as he drops the head into the hole, and they continue to watch until he scoops sand over them. A little mound remains, so he builds a little castle, then he crawls out of the jungle gym.

He doesn’t take the knife, or the gun, or the bike. His objective is not survival or advancement. He is simply searching. But he does take the sunglasses. He puts them on, covering the gleaming evidence of the struggle inside him. He walks back to the highway while the man he hoped was good smolders in the fire, tendrils of greasy smoke rising toward the stars.





I


THE FORESTS OF MONTANA are familiar to me. I look at the trees, and my hands and feet relive the sensation of climbing. The jagged bark of Douglas firs, the fine sandpaper of aspens, the twisted trunks of the whitebark pines, ancient and full of secrets.

The rumble of our idling bikes barely disturbs the silence as we creep down the shadowy hillside, all brakes, no throttle. I know Julie could go a lot faster, but she holds back, letting me set the pace, so we proceed like kids on training wheels until we emerge onto the gravel road, then the country road, then the highway. I breathe a sigh of relief as I crank the throttle and the bike lunges away from those haunted woods.

By the time we get back to the airport, the sun has vanished, leaving only a murky pink streak on the flat horizon. Nora and M are leaning against the plane’s front wheel, arms crossed, frowning.

“What the fuck, Jules?” Nora says, her hands springing out like question marks.

Apparently Abram beat us here by more than a few minutes, because the cargo ramp is down and his bike is secured inside. Julie gives Nora a weary don’t ask head shake and drives up the ramp. I follow her in and we begin fastening the tie-downs.

“We thought he was trying to take the plane,” Nora says as she and M march up the ramp. “I almost shot him.”

“The plane’s worthless without him,” Julie mutters.

“Just in the leg. Maybe the dick.”

The four massive engines whir to life, filling the cargo bay with swirling dust. Julie slams a fist against the door-close button.

“So what happened?” Nora asks as we climb the stairs to the upper deck.

“He . . . changed his mind,” Julie says, and the dazed uncertainty in her voice tells Nora enough to let it go.

? ? ?

Our second takeoff is significantly less harrowing than our first. The only sign that we’re not on a real flight by a real airline is the lack of calming platitudes from the captain. We even have a flight attendant. Once we reach cruising altitude, Sprout walks down the aisle with a tray of Carbtein cubes.

“Do you want a snack?” she asks Nora in the row across from us.

“No thanks,” Nora says.

“Do you want a snack?” Sprout asks M.

M takes one and rotates it in his hand, studying it like a Rubik’s cube, then takes a bite.

“Do you want a snack?” Sprout asks Julie.

Julie takes a cube. “Thank you, Sprout. Excellent service.”

“Daddy said I should do it.”

Julie looks at me. “Really. Well, that was nice of him.”

“I think he feels bad,” Sprout says. “For being mean. Do you want a snack?” She shoves the tray toward me.

I take a cube. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She turns and continues down the aisle.

“Where’s she going?” Julie wonders, then I hear a door slide open and Sprout’s voice from the rear of the plane:

“Do you want a snack?”

I jump to my feet, tensing to run—

“You’re welcome.”

Sprout reappears, striding up the aisle like a seasoned professional, her tray empty, a big smile on her face. She returns to the cockpit to resume her copilot duties.

I sit down. Julie takes a bite of her cube. “What do you think, R?” she muses while she chews. “She can do this a few more years to save for college, then get her degree and move into architecture. Maybe Joan and Alex can be her apprentices.”

I peer into my cube’s chalky white lunar landscape and feel a localized hunger pang, as if just a few inches of my stomach have woken up. I take a bite and chew, grimacing at the dry texture and inscrutable flavor, like a four-course meal blended into a smoothie.