When exactly had Diana started thinking in those terms of weakness and vulnerability? When had Diana stopped feeling she had some duty to Gaia and begun to think of ways to stop her?
Gaia had slung the cooked arm over her shoulder. The bicep was mostly consumed, as was the tender meat of most of the fingers. The thumb still remained untouched.
Diana knew the taste of human flesh. That was the terrible crime for which she had been punished by a God who could see even into the FAYZ. Gaia was that punishment, the curse that now mocked her mother’s horror at cannibalism with jaunty, careless amorality.
“Why won’t you let me go to a doctor?” the red-haired man moaned.
/> “There’s no doctor,” Diana said. “Where do you think you are?”
“She . . . oh, my God!” the man cried.
“You’ll be better off if you don’t spend too much time thinking about it,” Diana said. “The wound isn’t bleeding any—”
“She’s eating my arm!”
Diana spotted a long stick, an umbrella pole, she thought, part of the wicker mess from the train, perhaps. She hefted it experimentally. It was about six feet long and not too heavy, broken jagged and sharp at one end, brass-bound at the other. A very nice walking stick.
“Stab her with it!” the man hissed.
Diana almost laughed. “You don’t want to attack her.”
“She’s a monster!”
“Yeah. We have monsters here. She’s one. The worst. But you won’t kill her with a stick.”
His face was gray, the look of a man in terrible pain and shock. The look of a man who had lost a lot of blood. But the wound had been cauterized, if not really healed. Gaia didn’t care much about cosmetic things; she hadn’t even completely healed her own face. He would live long enough to feed her again. That’s all Gaia cared about.
“I have a knife in my pack.”
This time, Diana did laugh. “Go ahead: give it a try.”
That hard, cynical laugh brought him up short.
“Are you . . . like her?”
“I’m her mother,” Diana said.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, we haven’t seen him around here much.” Diana liked the stick. It helped her plow ahead through the sand, following in Gaia’s footsteps.
“Who are you people?” It was like he’d been in too much shock to ask these basic questions before now.
“My name is Diana. She’s Gaia. She’s . . .” How to explain Gaia? “Well, not exactly what she looks like. Less girly. More Satan-like. What’s your name?”
“Alex. Alex Mayle. I feel like I’m going crazy. I don’t know what—”
“What were you doing out there?”
“Just trying to get some cool video. You know. YouTubes.”
“Still have your camera?”
“My phone! I have my phone.” With his one hand he managed to draw his iPhone from his pocket. He dialed a number.
“911? Seriously?” Diana laughed.
“There’s no signal.”