Eaters (Book 2): The Resistance (12 page)

Chip went rigid. "He could be dead by then!"

Jake wasn't easily pushed into panic. "He could be dead
now
.  You want to walk into a group of N.E.U.s and get eaten just like him?"

"And…if they're that close to us, you just want to lie down and go to sleep?"

That question seemed to make everyone squirm and look back over their shoulders.

"Maybe he just fell and hurt his leg or something. If he's alive, he'll be back soon. If not…then there's no sense in risking all of our lives in the—"

Chip interrupted, voice cracking into a high pitch. "I want to go to look for Patrick!"

Jake stood firm. "We'll wait until dawn."

Chip stewed on that, biting down on his lower lip like he was contemplating disobeying a direct order from his superior.

"That truck…the driver didn't see you, did he?"

"I'm sure he didn't. I was too high up in the shadows."

"Good. Because, chances are…it wasn't anyone friendly."

Frightened looks passed through the camp.

"Before we look for Patrick, I guess it's time we all had a discussion about the unfriendlies in the area. Jake gave Mark a sorrowful look. "You want to tell them…?"

Chapter 9

Mark took a breath then said, "Because I know
firsthand
this epidemic started back in Afghanistan, and vaccines were handed out to the troops there, I've always suspected that none of this happened by chance."

When he paused to let that sink in, and Cheryl saw the expressions around her, she knew this was news to most them who'd bought the canned statements they'd heard in the fort. They had believed that it was sheer luck that a vaccine had been manufactured so quickly after the epidemic started as a freak event of nature.

"I think releasing it there was just a test. The Afghans were just the first guinea pigs for a planned apocalypse. "There's something bigger going on now—something on a scale we can't even imagine."

Zach did a mock cough into his hand. "That's a bunch of conspiracy bullshit. I've heard every rumor you can—"

Mark raised his hand to stop him. Then, he crossed his arms, patting one like he was hitting himself, forcing the words up into his throat. His hands and voice were rigid as he went on. "Fort San Manuel was attacked tonight…and not just by N.E.U.s. There were men inside gunning down soldiers…civilians…anyone they saw."

Edmond gasped as Chip sunk down to his knees, cradling his gun. Jasmine put her arm around him and put her head on his shoulder. The others had blank stares.

"They weren't from the fort. They had on gas masks and protective suits."

"I saw a couple of them," Kai said.

"Me too," Jordan said, raising his hand.  "They had on chain mail…you know…like shark suits. I just thought they were our guys, and they were panicking, shooting at anything that moved."

"None of our losses were by accident. Those guys came in with a mission—to take down the fort."

There was silence all around.

"Now, you may have heard that we've had some pretty hairy attacks lately, but the fort didn't fall to the N.E.U.s because they overran our defenses."

Cheryl remembered what she'd seen from the helicopter. "There were ramps…"

"Yes. This group also set the baiting stations on fire to shut them down then they led an army of N.E.U.s straight to the fort…and helped them get in."

"Why?" Jasmine asked, suddenly finding her voice. "Why would
anyone
want to do that to us? Was it terrorists?"

Zach balled his hands into fists. "Al-Qaeda?"

Everyone looked towards Mark, waiting for him to confirm that war had been added to their misery on top of the plague.

"I can't rule that out or that it was some domestic militant group that just wanted to take the fort for themselves, but I have reason to believe that it's someone connected with the lab that was doing genetic experimentation and may have purposely unleashed the virus. I believe it was all part of a planned effort towards population reduction."

"They shot at us," Ben said. "I can't believe they fucking shot us down!"

The hush over the group this time was complete. Only the wind whispering through the long-needled pines dared to continue its sorrowful moan.

Covering her face with her hands, Cheryl tried in vain to shut out the images that were flashing in her head: the men, women, and children that she had seen running from the fort. They hadn't just stumbled and fallen as they ran.
They had been shot
. There was a bitter, sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach like it was filling with bile. She'd rather face a battalion of Eaters than a group of savages that could be so heartless.

Edmond asked what she was already wondering. "If they were shooting at anyone who was trying to leave…what if they come after us up here?"

"Come after us? Oh God!" Jasmine cried.

"That's why we're staying quiet tonight," Jake said, trying to reassure her. "I can't imagine anyone risking breaking their neck trying to trek up here while it's dark, but we might not be as safe here after daylight. In the meantime, we're going to keep trying the other choppers on the radio."

Jordan fiddled with the handheld, making another attempt to make contact, but heard nothing but static in reply to his pleas.

Instead of quieting down, Jasmine broke into a wail. Her sobs seemed to increase in intensity after each blubbery inhale.

Jake gave Ben a harsh stare. "Please try to calm her down. She's not helping anyone by getting hysterical, and we need to keep quiet."

"Honey…" Ben implored. "It's going to be okay. We're going to be fine. If we can't find a way to get a hold of one of the other pilots and get him to fly us to Omaha, we'll look for a shelter that's closer. There's bound to be a house or building around here. If it comes to that, it wouldn't be all that bad. You always said you hated it in the fort anyway. You said it was too crowded, and it was too—"

"Shut up," she said, stifling her flood of tears. "You're treating me like a child."

"Then stop acting like one." He squeezed her harder after that, trying to apologize for the harsh words.

They were all so tired and banged up from the crash, the conversations about who might be behind the apocalypse trickled off as they hovered between consciousness and the haze of fatigue. Everyone huddled closer together as the air turned sharply cooler, prickling up the hairs on their bare arms. Only Kai, Jasmine, and Edmond slept. The rest of them stayed alert, ready to defend themselves against anything that moved in the shadows. Since Cheryl had given up the M-16 that she'd borrowed from Private Kelly's dead fingers, she kept a few rocks by her side to use as weapons in addition to the knife that she kept clutched in one hand.

Hours later, as soon as the first mauve light crept over the ridge of the mountain, Chip began to rouse everyone who'd managed to fall asleep and tried to goad them into forming a search party for Patrick.

When he shook Cheryl's shoulder, startling her into an upright position, it was obvious that he hadn't slept at all. His dark eyelashes were still covered with dew-like dampness from tears, and his bloodshot eyes were ringed by puffy, bruised semi-circles. She suspected that he'd made at least one foray into the woods by himself overnight to look for his friend then had gotten cold feet and come back to camp to wait until the others could accompany him.

There was little chatter as the MRE's were passed out. Everyone took what was handed to them without complaint. For breakfast they ate pouches of things like spaghetti, beans and rice, or a barbecue chicken sandwich. Then, one by one…they trotted off to relieve themselves in the brush. Cheryl found a new area to squat, far from the rotting thigh bone she'd seen earlier. Jasmine stayed closer to camp, risking indecency rather than anything more harrowing.

When they returned, Chip urged them all to pack up, so they could get on with the search. Minutes later, they began what felt like a funeral march over the rocky, uneven ground. Every dense clump of junipers or oaks made them slow down with guns pointed, until they were sure no one was hiding behind them.

They'd only gone about a hundred yards when they heard the sound of barking and stopped.

"Coyotes?" Mark asked.

"No," Jake said. "It sounds like dogs. A lot of them."

Ben turned in a circle, trying to get a fix on the origin. "I think it's lower down. The sound is carrying up the mountainside."

"It could be a wild pack," Cheryl offered. "A lot of domestics banded together after their owners died or abandoned them."

"Yeah." Jake adjusted the bag on his shoulder. "That's probably it. Hopefully, they don't come up this way. We don't need to add wolves or wild dogs to our list of dangers."

They continued walking, and the sound of barking grew fainter. Moments later…Chip, who was in the lead, stopped in his tracks. He grabbed a scrap of tan cloth from the bark on a pinyon tree. "This is Patrick's! It's from his shirt."

No one remarked on the blood stain on one corner.

"Okay. At least we know he came through this way," Chip said, grasping for some shred of optimism.

Jordan came beside him and looked at the cloth. "He might have just been running and smacked into the tree on accident."

"Oh yeah," Chip said with a snarl. "That really explains why he didn't come back last night. He ran into a tree like a fucking idiot and just passed out."

Jordan hung his head, and they kept going.

They hadn't gone much further when they heard two explosions in the distance, almost back to back. They stopped, speculating what they were.

"The fort?" Kai asked?

"No," Jake said. "It was closer."

"The chopper?"

"Not ours."

They continued hiking, and a few minutes later they came to a ridge that overlooked the valley below. The remains of two of the other Black Hawks that had evacuated from the fort were burning in the sand. Their blades were mangled, making them look like crooked windmills resting on their sides as their charred bodies crackled with orange flames.

"That was Crowley and Shipman. They hit the air just a few seconds after us. I lost sight of them early on and wondered what happened to them.

"Gas tanks blew?" Zach said, stepping up on a rock and gazing at the carnage with awe struck eyes.

Jake shook his head. "If it happened from gunfire, it would have happened in the air, and if it happened from the impact, they'd have blown when they hit the ground. I think someone blew them up...just now."

"To make sure they were put out of commission." Mark finished.

"The dogs…" Ben wondered out loud.

Jasmine brightened. "Maybe they were searching for survivors."

Frowning, Jake countered, "Probably not for any benevolent reason."

In the distance, Cheryl could see Fort San Manuel. It looked like some tiny sand castle, and there were still plumes of smoke wafting above it and the baiting stations around it. They all stood, speechless for a few seconds, as if viewing the aftermath of a battlefield. The desolate scene emphasized their new homeless status, reinforcing the fact that they couldn't go back…and weren't sure where they were headed next.

"Let's go," Chip said, urging them on. "We're wasting time."

They continued their search, covering hundreds of yards of uneven terrain over the next hour. Complaints mounted as the rest of them tried to keep pace with Chip who remained in the lead, well ahead of them.

After climbing over a log, he stopped, looked up at the tree tops and turned around to face them. "Did you hear that?"

As they all shook their heads, the wind brought the mournful sound of moans.

"Eaters!" Cheryl gasped, panning around with alarm. The others did the same, searching for any signs of movement in the forest. When they saw none, they proceeded with more caution, trying to be quiet, but finding it impossible to silence the crunching pine needles and leaves underfoot or prevent the occasional snapping of a twig.

Eventually, they came over a ridge, and halted in their tracks.

Below them, twenty yards ahead, they saw Patrick tied to a pine tree with his back against the trunk. His head hung down with his chin resting on his neck. From their distance, it was hard to tell if he was alive or dead, but there was a bloody corpse on the ground in front of him. It was a shirtless male with an emaciated torso and shreds of jeans remaining on its lower half, though there was little left above the neck with recognizable features. Somehow, Patrick had managed to kick the Eater down and smash its head with his boot.

Chip started to run downhill towards him. "Patrick!"

"Wait…" Jake said, holding him back with his hand. "I don't like this. It could be a trap."

Chip paused, heeding the warning. Then, he crept backwards, rejoining the group. They stayed in the shadows, as Patrick's head jerked up. His eyes searched frantically, but they were reddened and wet, not seeming to see them behind the camouflage of the trees.

There was movement a few yards to the rear of him. Leaves rustled and a figure emerged.

It was a woman…or something that used to be. Her gray skin was stretched thin, as cracked and flaky as tree bark. And, her eyes were so decayed, they weren't solid any more. The yellowed orbs jiggled like egg yolks, threatening to ooze out of the sockets with every step. Her blouse was torn, revealing one flaccid breast hanging like an empty sack, and her mouth opened into a black cave ringed with red tinged teeth. She moaned and held out gnarled fingers as she came towards Patrick.

Chip bolted in front of the group and fired his gun, but his hands were shaking so much he missed. His second shot grazed the Eater's shoulder, but it failed to slow her down. She was just six feet away from Patrick when Jake felled her with a shot to the temple.

Chip ran to his friend. "You okay, man?"

Tears streamed down Patrick's cheeks. "I am now that you're here...they left me out here for bait!"

Patrick's wrists were bloodied from trying to escape from the rope. Chip tried to calm him down as he worked on cutting through the fibers. The others stood guard, watching for any sign of movement around them. "Who?" he asked as he worked. "Who did this to you?"

"I don't know. Just some rogue gang I think. There were seven or eight of them. Maybe more. It was so dark…"