Adaptation

Prologue

A hint of the song played somewhere deep in her mind, and with it came the memories that were both a blessing and a curse. They only came when she slept and always with a whisper of the song that Jody had played on the school’s piano.

No one else was around, and she certainly should not have been roaming the school halls after hours. But the quiet peacefulness of school was comforting when there was no one else around. She preferred the quiet, which caused people to think she was shy when she was actually a loner.

In some ways it was good that she had never needed people around.

Carmella followed the faint tinkling of the piano keys, liking the melody.

Later, Jody would explain that it was a song called "Arpeggi" by a group called Radio Head. But that would be a future—one that she would have liked to keep frozen and permanent.

Carmella stared through the glass of the closed door and watched the teen’s fingers as they moved across the keys. She recognized him but hadn’t known that he’d had a talent for more than reading books and making good grades. In a word, he was a nerd—but it was still one step up from being a loner.

The dream-Carmella watched the pale skinny boy with the strikingly black hair through the glass of the door, and she longed to throw open that door and fling herself at him.

But the dream-her didn’t know him yet, and the real-her had lost him a long time ago.

Chapter 1

~Maggie~

Carmella blinked her eyes but didn’t otherwise move. For a moment the memory of Jody was so fresh it sent a sharp pain right to the center of her chest. She stared at the ceiling until she could breathe. It always took her a moment to push the memories back into a place where they did not drive her mad. And perhaps there would come a day when they would no longer retreat neatly back to that special place where she kept her memories, and then she truly would be mad.

Carmella leaped to her feet as she remembered what day it was. It was Sunday, and there was a lot to do. She used the slop bucket, and as she carried it outside she paused on the back porch and scanned the yard.

Yard?

Yes, she considered the acres upon acres of farmland to be her yard. Her yard didn’t stop at the end of the farm. Carmella’s land ran as far as the eye could see to the Ohio River and beyond.

She began the arduous task of pumping and hauling water back to the house and heating it on her wood cook stove for her bath.

Sunday she could luxuriate in the bath. Heating the water and filling the big tub was too much of a task to do every day, so for the rest of the week she used a washbasin to clean herself. But on Sundays she allowed herself this small luxury. She sang old songs but only the parts she could remember. And as the water heated she tended to the bread. Her kitchen always had a pleasant, fresh-baked smell because of the starter dough that sat on the counter. Every morning she fired up her cook stove, baked her bread, milked the cow, and collected eggs. Her breakfast was usually scrambled eggs, bread with fresh butter, and milk still warm from its source.

It took nearly two hours to fill the tub. She had timed it long ago. Carmella lit several candles and situated them in her large bathroom, and then she tested the water and found it was bearable. She kept one bucket of hot water in the corner to heat the bath as it cooled. Carmella stepped into the tub with a sigh of pleasure. The most expensive bath beads that she could find in Macy’s in downtown Cincinnati colored the water sea foam green and exuded a fresh ocean aroma. She picked up a book, a paperback imprinted with the image of two white people on the cover, which promised an interesting romantic journey. She had several hundred paperbacks that neatly filled one room. Sometimes she picked them because the cover made her remember something she had long forgotten, like cell phones. How could she have forgotten cell phones?

But after so long a cell phone was the last thing worth remembering …

Carmella lost track of time in the bath. She had the book half-read and the water was tepid by the time she stepped out. She padded into the bedroom naked and dried off while standing in front of her mirror. She had no interest in the way she looked, but if she bothered to glance into the mirror she would see a thirty-eight-year-old woman with medium brown skin and long dreadlocks that ran down her back to her buttocks. She stood 5-9, and though more thickly built than thin, she was almost pure muscle. Her face was unpleasant, not because she was unattractive, but because her eyes fluctuated between a look of wild desperation and lost confusion. Her eyes rose momentarily and took in the sight of the wild thatch of black hair that nestled under her arms and between her thighs.

When I was back at home I used to trim that, she said dispassionately before dressing in a pretty blue dress that still had the price tag on it: $1,799.99. She examined it before ripping off the tag with a cackle. "That one fucking penny! Always that one fucking penny!"

By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, Carmella had tears in her eyes from laughing so hard. When she reached her neat kitchen, Carmella put the chicken in the oven. She’d slaughtered it yesterday and got it ready so she wouldn’t have to spill blood on Sunday. Once a week she sacrificed a chicken to Sunday dinner, but there were enough chickens left that she would never have to worry about it. There were probably more chickens in the world than there were humans.

She knew this to be true, because she was the last person on Earth.

Not that she’d walked the entire Earth. But the last time she’d seen a person was eight years ago. Maggie. Maggie was mad, the crazy kind of mad—though she was angry too, which was why they couldn’t continue to live together. So yeah … two people on Earth.

Carmella and a crazy white woman named Maggie.

In the beginning Carmella had roamed. She felt that it was her job to find others. She had been raised in the Cleveland suburbs and had kept to them for several years. There were so many houses to live in. At first, living in the large, luxury homes made her feel good, but soon living in the homes of dead people and seeing the evidence of a life long gone began to haunt her. She began to seek out hotels, which were impersonal and without history. But the solitude began to eat at her even more, so she decided to put being a Midwestern girl to use and began searching for a farm where she could keep animals and plant fresh vegetables instead of living off the canned goods she found in abandoned stores.

That was when she found the old lady living in a rambling old farmhouse that had seen better days. The wolves drove her to the house. She’d forgotten about the wild animals when she had decided on this journey. Animals had taken over the manmade communities, but they were domesticated animals that used to be kept as pets or ones hunted as food and not ones Carmella would run from. It was Cleveland, after all, and she would never think of lions and tigers … perhaps bears—even if all of the animals in the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo had been released during the end of days. And even if they were now roaming the streets, there surely wouldn’t be enough of them to be concerned with.

But she’d forgotten about the wolves.

Carmella had adopted a motorcycle that allowed her easy access to regular and dirt roads alike. She knew how to unlock the pumps at gas stations, and when there was no working back-up generator, she knew how to siphon gas from underground tanks using a two-way rotary hand pump and two eight-foot fuel hoses. The gas found in abandoned cars was no longer good. She didn’t know why. She thought gasoline lasted forever, but evidently it didn’t. The only gasoline still somewhat usable was hidden away in tanks under gas stations.

She had been riding for hours when she decided to stop and pee. Driving down I-71 through Ohio was tedious, nothing but straight road and decaying, rotting corn and soybean fields as far as the eye could see. But she didn’t want to live so near the highway. The image of the endless people in buses and trucks being carted away was still imprinted on her memory. That was a long time ago …

She had ventured off the highway southeast of Columbus and had found overgrown roads to explore. The sun was hot and beat down on her relentlessly until Carmella spotted a clearing where she could stretch her legs and rest a while under an oak tree. After relieving herself, she pulled out beef jerky and a can of Coca-Cola for a quick snack. Maybe they had been tracking her for a while. There were four of them, and she smelled them before she had ever seen them. They had surrounded her before she even realized it.

They knew the moment she realized their presence because her scent changed even to her own nose. She smelled the acrid funk of her own terror as the two wolves in front began a slow advance, head low and teeth bared. They were skinny, half-starved, and mangy. She had a rifle secured to the bike, but they would be on her tearing her flesh before she could reach it. There was a pistol in the satchel that sat next to her.

Carmella’s throat went dry, and she nearly choked on the jerky. Sweat rolled down her scalp as she reached into the jerky bag and grabbed a handful. One of the wolves seemed to dislike her movement and growled as he advanced, his growl a signal for the others to move in. Carmella flung the jerky at them while leaping to her feet. The two wolves in front scrambled for the jerky, which gave her enough time to dig into the satchel for her gun. She gripped the cool steel in her right hand when something hit her hard in her left shoulder and a second wolf clamped down onto her left calf. Though the pain was horrible, she squeezed the trigger and shot wildly through the satchel.

The explosive sound caused the wolves to retreat a few feet. Carmella backed against the tree while her shoulder and leg exploded in pain as the wolves advanced again. She didn’t have time to aim and pulled the trigger again, clipping the closest wolf in the neck, causing it to cry out before scurrying away.

Two others followed the hurt wolf, but a third had Carmella’s blood on its mouth and wanted more. He jumped at her, and Carmella screamed and shot repeatedly, the animal landing on her in a death spasm. She pushed its emaciated body away and clamped her hand on her bleeding shoulder. It was bad, but it hadn’t gotten her artery. Still too much blood …

Her heart pounded in her chest and she could barely catch enough breath to fuel her movements. She stumbled to her feet and saw her bike, but somehow it seemed to move further and further from her. She was going to black out … God no. And then she fell and panted while she lay on the grass. I am dead. After all of this, I am dead.

When Carmella’s eyes opened, she was met by a stench of such magnitude that it must have been like smelling salts to her system. Her eyes blinked and she tried to focus. There was the face of a woman hovering above her, and it took Carmella a long moment to understand why this was so strange.

Hers was the first face she had seen in about two years.

The woman seemed just as intrigued as they stared at each other, and then the woman’s lips parted to expose the source of much of the funk. Her breath smelled of decay because she had a mouthful of rotten teeth.

She was old, her hair was completely gray, and it didn’t appear to have been combed in months … or longer. She was too thin but had lively blue eyes set in a face that smiled easily.

Wolves got you good, the woman said in a surprisingly strong voice. Took a chunk out of your shoulder.

Carmella’s stomach turned at the rankness of her breath. She reached up and touched her shoulder, surprised to feel that it was bandaged heavily.

I stopped the bleeding. Had to take a hot knife to it. It’ll be ugly, but you’ll live. The woman moved away.

Carmella looked at the filthy, trash-strewn bed where she lay and then at house that was a hoarder’s dream. There was so much stuff Carmella couldn’t see the floor except for a narrow path that led out of the room.

The woman returned with a filthy mug, with food smeared along the lip. Here. She offered the mug to Carmella.

Carmella struggled to sit up.

It’s soup, Campbell’s chicken noodle. It’s good for you.

Carmella was happy the soup helped to mask the other smells, and she tried to take it, but her shoulder screamed in pain and she gasped.

The woman held the mug up to her lips.

Thank you, but I don’t think I can drink any right now.

No? The woman prodded her lips with the dirty mug as if she was an insolent child.

No. Thank you, no.

The woman slurped the soup. Good stuff. She eyed Carmella. I heard your gunfire. I didn’t know what it was at first. It’s been so long … The woman’s eyes hazed over before clearing and refocusing. What’s your name? I’m Maggie.

Carmella tried to look at her shoulder. The bandages appeared clean. She needed to remove them to see the damage, but she was tired and it hurt too bad to move much. She looked at the woman. Carmella Washington. Thank you for rescuing me.

You would have been wolf food if I hadn’t. Get some rest, Carmella. We’ll talk in the morning. I broke a pain capsule open into some water and spooned it into you. You’ll be sleepy for a while, but maybe you’ll sleep through some of the pain. I had to sew your leg up, but it only took six stitches, one on each puncture. The old woman smiled ruefully.

Carmella considered the likelihood of a staph infection. Maybe it was the mention of the painkillers or the trauma of her attack, but Carmella fell asleep.

When she awoke, Carmella’s bladder felt as if it would explode. She slid off the bed gingerly, and as she stood, her leg nearly buckled when pain flared in her calf. She sat and pulled up her pants leg to examine the wound. Although covered in a clean bandage, it had begun to seep. She carefully pried the tape away exposing an angry wound, the uninjured flesh ringed with iodine. Relieved, she secured the bandage. Maggie might have been dirty, but she knew to keep a wound clean.

Carmella stood and stumbled out of the room on the narrow path through the trash, careful not to topple towers of junk rising to the ceiling on either side of her. Maggie?

She came to a landing with a stairwell leading down. Boxes stacked to the ceiling lined the corridor, and Carmella tried not to lean against them as she limped to the stairs. How had that skinny old woman managed to get her up these stairs?

Carmella eased down the stairs and looked around. What should have been a living room on her right was a mess of chaos. At least upstairs there was some semblance of order. It was as if someone had flung trash into the room. Another room to her left was in a similar state. Rotting food, opened cans, and human and animal waste littered the floor.

Grimacing, Carmella made her way outside. Maggie?

A cat came scurrying out the door and almost made Carmella fall.

Carmella, Maggie called. Come down around the side. I’m picking tomatoes. There’s a patch of poison ivy so leave it be. Leaves of three, leave it be.

Carmella followed the voice and saw the woman tending to a small garden. Maggie had a basket filled with fresh lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes, and Carmella’s stomach groaned in hunger.

Good morning, sleepyhead. Maggie smiled.

Good morning. Um, where can I …

Pee? Anywhere you want. You gotta poop, there’s toilet tissue in the spare room upstairs.

Anywhere? Carmella looked around.

God don’t care and neither do I.

Later they ate a salad dressed in vinegar and oil.

Have you seen any people come through here? Carmella asked as they sat on the porch.

Maggie speared a slice of tomato and plunged it into her mouth. No. She chewed. Not since the Blobs carried the people away on the trucks. I’d hear the trucks morning noon and night for months. And then it just stopped. Maggie stopped chewing and stared off into the distance. I hid. They come through here looking. But they couldn’t find me. I guess they thought the place was abandoned. They ain’t been back. Didn’t have the manpower to check a place twice. Man power. She laughed. Why didn’t you go with them?

How could she even ask that? She stared at the old woman. Because I’m a human and this is my home. And no fucking alien is going to come down and force me away from it! She placed her hand on her belly and thought about Micah and Jody. They were buried here on earth, and here is where she would stay.

Micah …

Her breath hitched in her chest. They’d killed her baby, and the rest of them could believe their lies but she wouldn’t. She knew their purpose had been to take the humans. It had been their plan all along. The Blobs. That name was a kindness they didn’t deserve. They were a scourge that brought the ultimate genocide against the entire human race. And after the mass death and suicides, what was left was carried away to Earth 2.

But there was no Earth 2. There was only Earth! The other was only an alien world, and she would kill anyone or anything that tried to take her from her world!

She stayed with Maggie while she healed and was expected to stay on. It was unsaid. Humans who had found each other would naturally gravitate to each other. Maggie, however, could not tolerate having her things touched. She had allowed Carmella to stay but hadn’t given her a space. When she had tried to move some things into the hallway and out of a spare bedroom, Maggie had gone into a tirade.

Where is my cat? I can’t find my cat! Maggie searched hours for Kitty, the cat that Carmella had inadvertently allowed to escape the week before. Carmella carried her gun and went out searching for the cat, not wanting to admit to what she’d done. And despite being deathly afraid of wolves, she searched for hours, never finding Kitty.

When she had gone back to the farmhouse, all of the items that Carmella had moved out of the spare bedroom had been returned—and more.

"I can’t find anything when you move shit around! Maggie screamed. Just leave it all alone! Don’t touch my things!"

Carmella had said nothing, and the next day Maggie had calmed although still distraught about the missing cat. She left a can of tuna sitting out on the front porch and wrung her hands.

Kitty will be all right, Maggie, Carmella said. Animals adapt to the wild, even when they’re domesticated.

Maggie picked at the lice in her hair sullenly.

Maggie, Carmella said, broaching a subject she knew had to be discussed. When was the last time you bathed? Honey, your hair needs a good scrubbing. You have things living in it.

Fuck you, Maggie said, turning cold eyes on her. You let my cat out, didn’t you? Admit it! You let her out!

She—I didn’t know you had a cat and—

Maggie flew at her with her hands clawed, going for her face. If Carmella hadn’t fallen the woman would have gouged out her eyes.

Bitch! Maggie screamed. Bitch! You let my baby get away!

Maggie was stronger than she looked, and it took all that she had to keep Maggie’s gnarled hands from her face. Carmella had to knee Maggie in the stomach to end the attack.

You’re crazy! Carmella screamed. I didn’t mean it! It was an accident!

She ran into the house and grabbed her satchel. She didn’t want the clothes because they were probably infested with lice, but she needed her satchel and her guns. She hurried down the stairs where Maggie was waiting for her with a knife.

You’re insane. Carmella raised her hands to show that she wasn’t holding a weapon. I’m leaving, okay? Don’t worry. I’ll be out of your hair.

You’re not leaving me, too! You’re staying!

Carmella’s heart began to pound in her chest. I’m not a pet, Maggie. You can’t keep me locked in the house like I’m some damned animal!

Maggie looked confused, dropped the knife, and shook her head. I’m—no no no. You can stay. I won’t …

Carmella relaxed. I can’t live like this. I’m sorry. She rushed past the woman, who grabbed for her with strong hands, but Carmella easily shook her loose. She ran for her bike, tossing her satchel over her shoulder. She had to kick-start it with her injured leg, and it would hurt but she soon forgot about that when she saw Maggie come rushing out of the house holding the knife and yelling like a wild woman.

Carmella cursed and kick-started the bike. She