Degenerates (Badlands 5)

We kept going, passing cars that had been left behind on the streets, now ravished by the elements.

Houses, churches, and old businesses that all looked like something straight out of a horror movie. Their roofs were caving in, and they’d been significantly vandalized.

There were electric poles with their wires dangling down the length of them having nothing left to power—lone stop signs no longer serving a purpose.

Light moving over a little girl’s doll, I wondered what happened to all the people that used to live in this place. There was a lingering sadness here, an echo of broken dreams and lost hope.

“There are at least six bodies in there,” Nyx announced when we passed a supermarket that didn’t have a single window left intact.

She aimed her light in its general direction,and sure enough, I could see the husks of human remains just inside.

A much fresher body leaned up against the storefront, the face of whoever it once was smashed in and rotting with a tiny mouse hanging from its eye socket. There was a faint odor of death, but not enough to overpower my sense of smell.

I paused momentarily outside of an old cemetery, studying the graves. They’d all shifted and dropped along with the earth beneath them.

“Not even the dead can rest here,” Annie remarked.

I looked away and continued to walk, as I did my rebellious thoughts decided now was the most opportune time to revisit the enigma that had cornered me on that narrow trail.

I’d be lying if I said the Venom faction never once crossed my mind. I didn’t fixate on it

as other girls did, and I couldn’t understand why my brain wanted to now. It mattered none anyway at the end of the day.

That man was nothing but a stranger to me, a violent daydream I needed to stop conjuring.

I stared up at the massive decrepit high-school sprawling out in two different directions. Vines were crawling all over its brick exterior, slowly consuming it.

Not a sound could be heard from within, but, there was light shining in three different windows.

“Creepiest building in the whole damn town,” Cameron observed.

I seconded that statement. Part of me was screaming not to go inside.

The other was more than ready for whatever might be lurking within, blood lust beginning to take root.

“Come on,” Luce said, walking past me and starting up the first set of stairs.

We all followed, careful to keep an eye on everything around us. There wasn’t a quiet way to enter the front doors.

They were so rusted they’d become the color of a dirty penny, groaning loudly when Luce pushed them inward.

We spilled into an atrium that split in three different directions at the end.

“Look, someone was expecting our arrival,” Luce joked, aiming his light at the writing on the wall right in front of us. Welcome to hell had been spray painted with the number 666 beneath it. A set of arrows pointing horizontally sat beside it.

“Lovely,” Cameron lilted.

We passed it without incident, heading straight. The air had a mildew like smell to it, debris and layers of old paint covered the broken up linoleum. If not for our flashlights we’d be completely in the dark. That I didn’t mind, the dark had never bothered me, but there was something inherently creepy about being in an abandoned school.

“A lot of people died in here, someone recent,” Nyx stated.

I was a second away from flipping out when she added, “Not one of ours.”

I didn’t know how she could tell the difference, but she’d never been wrong before. While her observation didn’t make me feel ecstatic, I mean, sucked for them. It did give me hope for Lil, Sam, and Bella. I could give two fucks about Jesse at this point.

A sudden bang sounded from behind us, causing me to jump out of my damn skin.

“What the fuck was that?” Butcher asked as we all twisted around, lights shining back the way we’d come.