“Will you two shut up?” Lucas snapped, showing how on edge he was. “We’re wasting time! Allie, you know the way, right?” He motioned me down the tunnel. “After you.”
The sky was considerably darker when we crawled out of the drainage ditch into the open, gazing around warily. Overhead, slate-gray clouds massed together, and a flicker of lightning lit up the ground.
“There’s a storm coming,” Lucas muttered unnecessarily, as a growl of thunder followed his statement. I muttered a curse. Back in New Covington, the rain would fill the wells and cisterns of the sectors, but it also drew more things out into the open. “And the sun is going down. We have to do this now.”
“Come on,” I said, pushing through weeds and brush and chest-high grass to reach the top of the bank. They followed, scrambling up the ditch until we came to the edge and the tangled, empty ruins sprawled out before us, silent and menacing in the fading light.
Rat swore and Stick was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating. “I can’t do this,” he whispered, edging away toward the ditch. “I can’t go in there. I have to go back. Let me go back.”
“I knew it,” Rat sneered. “Pissing little coward. Totally useless. Let him run home, but he sure ain’t getting my share of the food.”
Lucas grabbed Stick’s arm before he could run away. “Rat’s right. You do this, don’t expect a share of anything we bring back.”
“I don’t care,” Stick panted, his eyes wide. “This is crazy. The sun is about to go down. You’re all going to be killed.”
“Stick,” I said, trying to be reasonable, “you don’t know the way back. Are you going to go through the tunnels in the dark? Alone?”
That seemed to get through to him. He stopped fighting Lucas and cast a fearful glance at the dark entrance to the sewers. Shoulders sagging, he looked up at me, pleading. “I don’t want to,” he whispered. “Let’s go back, Allie, please. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Rat made a disgusted noise, and my annoyance flared. “No,” I said flatly. “We keep moving. There’s still some light left. We’re not going back without that food.” I looked at Stick with an encouraging smile. “Wait till you see how much there is—it’ll be worth it.”
He still looked terrified but followed silently as we sprinted through the cracked, tangled streets, leaping over roots and weaving between rusty cars to beat the coming storm. A small herd of deer scattered before us as we hurried down the sidewalk, and a flock of crows took to the air with startled, screaming cries. But other than that, the ruins were still except for our footsteps pounding over the cement and our own raspy breathing.
As I led them through the overgrown yard to the crumbled shed, the first raindrops began to fall. By the time we had crowded into the tiny building, a deluge was drumming the tin roof and pouring in through the holes. I clicked on the flashlight as I descended the ladder into the basement, half-terrified that when we got there the food would be gone. But everything was as I had left it: a section of shelf lay broken on the cement, and cans were scattered everywhere, glinting in the flashlight beam.
“Holy shit.” Rat shoved past me, stumbling into the room. His mouth dropped open as he scanned the wall of tins, his eyes gleaming hungrily. “The bitch wasn’t kidding. Look at all this.”
“Is that…all food?” Stick asked timidly, picking up a can. And before I could reply, Rat shocked me with a wild, high-pitched laugh.
“It sure is, piss-wad!” Snatching the can from Stick’s fingers, he pried the top open and shoved it back at him. “Check that out! Tell me that’s not the greatest thing you’ve ever seen!” Stick blinked in astonishment, nearly dropping the opened can, but Rat didn’t seem to notice. Grabbing two more tins from the floor, he wrenched the tops away and started digging into them with long dirty fingers.
“We don’t really have time for this,” I cautioned, but not even Lucas was listening now, busy tugging the lid off his own can. Stick gave me an apologetic look before scooping out handfuls of beans, devouring them with as much gusto as Rat, whose face was now smeared with a slimy coating.
“Guys!” I tried again. “We can’t stand around stuffing our faces all night. We’re almost out of time.” But they were deaf to my arguments, drunk on the amount of food and the prospect of filling their stomachs. That’s what being Unregistered teaches you; when you find food, you eat as much of it as you can, because you don’t know when your next meal might be. Still, all I could think of was how they were fattening themselves up for the things that wanted to eat us.