And Then There Were Goblins
Chapter 19:
“Vernita…” I said, trying to sound calm, “…put the gun down.”
The waver in my voice was obvious to me, but I had plenty of experience speaking to people in situations of crisis, and so I hoped that it came across as ‘soothing’ instead of ‘terrified for my life’.
“I’m sorry, Drew,” she said. Her voice had an equal mix of calm and terror—for some reason, this made me feel better.
“Put it down,” Whip echoed—I turned to face the small Asian woman, expecting to see her holding a gun on Vernita, but to my surprise she was just standing there, calmly facing her commanding officer.
“I wish I could,” she said with a sigh. “But surely you can see that this is what has to happen.”
My mouth opened to ask a question, but no question sprang to mind. It remained open as I tried to think, but the same thoughts just kept running through my brain over and over again:
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die, and the New Queen will die too.
Before I could process these thoughts and come up with a question, Whip spoke.
“We have to try, V.”
“We have tried,” Vernita said softly. She continued to stare straight at me, even as she answered Whip. “We’ve tried, and we’ve failed. Now…she’s got two of the finest soldiers I ever knew. If we let her take us as well, do you know what we’re doing?”
“What?”
“We’re attacking ourselves. We’re providing the enemy with troops—damn fine troops.
“This is what we’ve got to do.”
As Vernita steeled herself to do what she had to do, I realized what the soldiers were talking about.
“Wait!” I yelped.
Vernita’s face did nothing to hide her sadness.
“What is it, kid?”
“I know you’re worried about goblins with guns, or goblins with my knowledge, or goblins with…everything Whip can do. But…—“
“But what?” Vernita interrupted. “You think we can continue on a hope and a prayer?”
“We have more than that,” I said, taking a step forward. “I’m immune.”
Vernita’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“It’s not just the musk. My…my mother’s experiments left me completely immune. I can’t be turned. I couldn’t be turned, even if I wanted to.
“We’ve lost Beatrice, and we’ve probably lost Cameron as well. But if the three of us stick together, we might be able to find a vehicle—a bus, or a motorbike. We might be able to get home, and this…her…”
I gestured at the swaddled goblin Queen in my arms.
“This is the most incredible thing we’ve ever found. This could be the trick to winning the war.”
I saw the black woman hesitate. And then, to my great relief, she began to lower her gun.
“Okay,” she said simply. “You’re safe. But you need protection.”
“As long as I have you, and…”
I looked around. At some point during my speech, Whip had disappeared.
The two of us looked around in silence.
“Just me,” Vernita said shortly.
She glanced down at the New Queen. I could see the hatred in her eyes. I could tell what she was imagining—strangling her, shooting her, cutting her up. But I could also tell that she wouldn’t.
At least, not for now.
I held onto the tightly-bound New Queen with one hand, and slipped the other into my pocket. The pistol that Beatrice had given me was still there, cool and comforting in my hand.
Whip had spent her childhood running. Running and hiding.
Her mother had only been in the USA for two years when the Goblins took over. She didn’t believe the reports, she didn’t trust the orders bellowed at her by the police forces…and then later, the soldiers. It hadn’t helped that she barely spoke English, and it certainly hadn’t helped that shortly after the city’s demands that they leave, her husband and two sons had succumbed to a mysterious illness.
And so Whip had spent much of her early childhood in a midwest ghost town—without a huge population of humans to overtake, no goblin Queen had ever tried to infect it, and so the city’s only inhabitants were stubborn foreigners like her mother, three or four small gangs…
…and uncontrolled goblins. Goblins which had escaped their Queen’s range, or goblins whose Queen had been killed. Unlike most hive creatures, the goblins didn’t have backup Queens and they didn’t slowly die out—instead, they would roam the city until they were gunned down by a gang or picked up by a Queen on her way to another city.
They still reproduced—they couldn’t help it. They would emit their musk, attract their victims, and turn them. Whip had quickly learned that she couldn’t rely on anyone or anything but herself. Her mother had died less than a year after the city was abandoned, and so Whip had grown accustomed to being alone.
She survived by learning how to hide, and so when the army had returned to search for male survivors, she had been surprised by how quickly they’d found her.
Despite not being male, they’d taken pity on her—a ten-year old girl, fending for herself in a gang-ridden city—and brought her to an army base on the West Coast.
Since then, she’d trained, eaten, and slept with soldiers. She’d slowly learned to trust others, the advantage of working on a team…and methods of stealth which she could never have dreamed up on her own.
She’d even managed to make a few friends, people she would die for.
Cameron had been one of those friends. Vernita was not. But Drew…
Whip couldn’t help but see something of herself in Drew. She so clearly wanted to be one of the team. Where Whip had managed to hide her loneliness, Drew wore hers on her sleeve.
She felt for her. But more importantly, she knew what a vulnerability it was.
The New Queen’s goblins knew everything that she knew. They knew where she was, they knew who was with her.
But Whip knew that if she could stay in the shadows, hide herself even from her allies…she might be able to remain one step ahead.