The Host (The Host #1)(36)

And if whoever lived here became one of us, I assured her, then they left this place. Only a human would live this way.… I trailed off, suddenly afraid, too.

What? She reacted strongly to my fright, freezing us in place. She scanned my thoughts, looking for something I’d seen to upset me.

But I’d seen nothing new. Melanie, what if there are humans out here—not Uncle Jeb and Jared and Jamie? What if someone else found us?

She absorbed the idea slowly, thinking it through. You’re right. They’d kill us immediately. Of course.

I tried to swallow, to wash the taste of terror from my dry mouth.

There won’t be anyone else. How could there be? she reasoned. Your kind are far too thorough. Only someone already in hiding would have had a chance. So let’s go check it out—you’re sure there are none of you, and I’m sure there are none of me. Maybe we can find something helpful, something we can use as a weapon.

I shuddered at her thoughts of sharp knives and long metal tools that could be turned into clubs. No weapons.

Ugh. How did such spineless creatures beat us?

Stealth and superior numbers. Any one of you, even your young, is a hundred times as dangerous as one of us. But you’re like one termite in an anthill. There are millions of us, all working together in perfect harmony toward our goal.

Again, as I described the unity, I felt the dragging sense of panic and disorientation. Who was I?

We kept to the creosote as we approached the little structure. It looked to be a house, just a small shack beside the road, with no hint at all of any other purpose. The reason for its location here was a mystery—this spot had nothing to offer but emptiness and heat.

There was no sign of recent habitation. The door frame gaped, doorless, and only a few shards of glass clung to the empty window frames. Dust gathered on the threshold and spilled inside. The gray weathered walls seemed to lean away from the wind, as if it always blew from the same direction here.

I was able to contain my anxiety as I walked hesitantly to the vacant door frame; we must be just as alone here as we had been all day and all yesterday.

The shade the dark entry promised drew me forward, trumping my fears with its appeal. I still listened intently, but my feet moved ahead with swift, sure steps. I darted through the doorway, moving quickly to one side so as to have a wall at my back. This was instinctual, a product of Melanie’s scavenging days. I stood frozen there, unnerved by my blindness, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

The little shack was empty, as we’d known it would be. There were no more signs of occupation inside than out. A broken table slanted down from its two good legs in the middle of the room, with one rusted metal chair beside it. Patches of concrete showed through big holes in the worn, grimy carpet. A kitchenette lined the wall with a rusted sink, a row of cabinets—some doorless—and a waist-high refrigerator that hung open, revealing its moldy black insides. A couch frame sat against the far wall, all the cushions gone. Still mounted above the couch, only a little crooked, was a framed print of dogs playing poker.

Homey, Melanie thought, relieved enough to be sarcastic. It’s got more decor than your apartment.

I was already moving for the sink.

Dream on, Melanie added helpfully.

Of course it would be wasteful to have water running to this secluded place; the souls managed details like that better than to leave such an anomaly behind. I still had to twist the ancient knobs. One broke off in my hand, rusted through.

I turned to the cupboards next, kneeling on the nasty carpet to peek carefully inside. I leaned away as I opened the door, afraid I might be disturbing one of the venomous desert animals in its lair.

The first was empty, backless, so that I could see the wooden slats of the outside wall. The next had no door, but there was a stack of antique newspapers inside, covered with dust. I pulled one out, curious, shaking the dirt to the dirtier floor, and read the date.

From human times, I noted. Not that I needed a date to tell me that.

“Man Burns Three-Year-Old Daughter to Death,” the headline screamed at me, accompanied by a picture of an angelic blond child. This wasn’t the front page. The horror detailed here was not so hideous as to rate priority coverage. Beneath this was the face of a man wanted for the murders of his wife and two children two years before the print date; the story was about a possible sighting of the man in Mexico. Two people killed and three injured in a drunk-driving accident. A fraud and murder investigation into the alleged suicide of a prominent local banker. A suppressed confession setting an admitted child molester free. House pets found slaughtered in a trash bin.

I cringed, shoving the paper away from me, back into the dark cupboard.

Those were the exceptions, not the norm, Melanie thought quietly, trying to keep the fresh horror of my reaction from seeping into her memories of those years and recoloring them.

Can you see how we thought we might be able to do better, though? How we could have supposed that maybe you didn’t deserve all the excellent things of this world?

Her answer was acidic. If you wanted to cleanse the planet, you could have blown it up.

Despite what your science fiction writers dream, we simply don’t have the technology.

She didn’t think my joke was funny.

Besides, I added, that would have been such a waste. It’s a lovely planet. This unspeakable desert excepted, of course.

That’s how we realized you were here, you know, she said, thinking of the sickening news headlines again. When the evening news was nothing but inspiring human-interest stories, when pedophiles and junkies were lining up at the hospitals to turn themselves in, when everything morphed into Mayberry, that’s when you tipped your hand.