Eaters (25 page)

They were a good five miles or so away from the cabin before Aidan let off the throttle and yelled back to her, “You’re on fire!”

She realized that he was right as she saw that her right sleeve had a bright yellow flame curling around the cuff. She smacked it on her knee and smothered it out.

Where were they going? She had no idea. She wasn’t even sure what direction they were headed. Aidan just seemed bent on full steam ahead.

The sky cracked open as a lightning bolt flashed and briefly turned the sky a pale lavender. Then a light rain started, making the road damp and slick, a dangerous situation that added the threat of tossing them off the side of the mountain if they hydroplaned or lost control. As before, Cheryl could do nothing but trust in Aidan’s skills, and she leaned along with him and the bike to keep them propelling forward.

Soaking wet, cold, and bone weary, she felt like a third world refugee running from a war zone, holding on to Aidan with one hand around his waist, and the other clinging to the strap of the AK. Like refugees, they were traveling light, having nothing but the motorcycle, the bag of guns, and hell of a lot of luck for luggage. It was hard to believe that this was all there was now. There was nothing left of her former life.

Survival
was all it came down to. Nothing else mattered. Yet, there were plenty of times since this all began that she wondered if it was worth going on. What did she have left to live for if Mark was dead, and it turned out that her family in Arizona was too? She’d promised Mark that she’d keep going, that she wouldn’t give up. She realized that she was going to have to keep reminding herself of that every day from here on out and not be afraid to take risks if it increased her chances of surviving.

Even so, she knew that she couldn’t keep running forever. There had to be somewhere safe to go, some destination where people had figured out how to keep this infected army at bay and have normal lives without living every second in fear.

How far would they have to go to reach that hypothetical Shangri-La? And, could she stay strong enough to fight and hold out until they did?

With Aidan at her side, she felt that she could.

Part III:

DESTINATION

Chapter Nineteen

Cheryl looked up at the stone building, ten yards off the side of the road, barely visible between the tall pines except for the shaft of moonlight illuminating its roof. It wasn’t much bigger than an outhouse and looked like some decrepit remnant of a mining operation from a couple hundred years back when silver mines in the Rocky Mountains were bustling with activity. It seemed to be the sort of dwelling that a troll might favor, or worse—an
Eater
who’d enjoy having her brains for a snack.

“I’m not going in there.”

Aidan glanced back over his shoulder, down the dark winding road behind them. “It’s a place to spend the night.”

She shook her head. “We need to get up somewhere high…a tree…a tower…”

“We can’t sleep on a tree branch.”

“But we could get trapped in there.” She didn’t tell him that the small building was probably filled with spiders, and the thought of lying in sticky webs was almost as frightening as the thought of waking up in the middle of the night with an Eater gouging out a hole in her brain with its teeth.

He stood there for a moment as if contemplating her plea, then killed the motor on his Harley and took his helmet off. “I’m tired. We’re staying there.”

“Fine.” She didn’t have the energy to argue. It was very late, and she was exhausted. They’d been careening around mountainside curves for over an hour, putting distance between them and his cabin.

“Take this,” he said, handing her the duffle bag that contained the rest of their guns and a few other supplies.

She took it, forgiving his grouchiness. Aidan began to push the motorcycle up the hillside, bumping over boulders and fallen tree limbs. Despite the fact that she’d known him for less than twenty-four hours, he was her only friend in this new, dark world.

When they reached the building, Aidan parked the motorcycle in front. He put a finger to his lips and motioned for her to stay back while he checked the building out. She set the bag down and clicked the safety off of her gun, thinking it wouldn’t be surprising to find a squatter.

“Hello?” Aidan called out. “Anybody in here?” After a couple of seconds without a reply, he put his hand on the jagged board—the remnant of a door—hanging across the opening. The rusted hinge broke, and it fell off.

“Nice,” she said, thinking that the building was now officially door-less.

After a couple of seconds when he seemed sure that nothing was going to burst out and attack, he poked his head in and looked from left to right. When he came out, he said, “It’s not exactly the Hilton, but it’ll do.”

Even a few hours of sleep on a spidery bed of leaves on a mountainside sounded like a vacation from the unbelievable horrors she’d witnessed over the last week. They could get up before dawn and keep heading west.
Southwest, actually
. Tomorrow morning she’d talk to Aidan about her desire to find her father and aunt.

“I think we ought to set up a warning system.”

“How?” she asked, conjuring up images of trip wires and wind chimes in her head.

“We can mound up some dried leaves around the opening. If anyone steps on them, we’ll hear them.”

She agreed it was a good idea, even if it wasn’t foolproof. She helped him scoop up piles of leaves and pine needles to make a wide arc around the front of the building. When they were done, she looked at it and wished that the leaves hid a pit for a trap underneath, because the sound of crunching leaves might not be loud enough to wake them. If they did manage to fall asleep tonight, it was going to be the sleep of the dead—they were that exhausted—although she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to sleep at all. Every little sound might make her jump: the wind rustling the leaves, an owl hooting in a tree, another rainstorm kicking up. Then there was another worry…

“What if I have to pee in the middle of the night?”

“You’d better wake me first, ‘cause if I hear anything, I’ll just start shooting. You shouldn’t go out alone anyway.”

The thought of venturing into the dark silhouettes of the trees on her own made butterflies start a mob dance in her stomach. It was a feeling she was getting used to, though. Just as many seasoned actors never completely lost their stage fright, many zombie killers probably never lost that oily black fear deep in the pit of their gut when faced with a horde of the walking dead. Keeping that razor sharp edge of terror had probably helped to keep her alive by reminding her to never let her guard down.

Aidan reached up to unbuckle the strap on his helmet.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?” he asked as he slipped the helmet off of his head.

She put a hand on the back of her helmet; she’d come to think of it as part of her body just like her gun had become an extension of her arm. “I’m not taking mine off, and you’re not either.”

He raised his rifle up in the air. “This is going to protect my brains a lot better than a piece of fiberglass.”

“Be stupid then. I’m keeping mine on.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, propping his helmet on the back of the motorcycle.

They were bickering now, like a couple that had known each other for years instead of hours. She’d laugh at the absurdity of it, if it were any more absurd than any of the other events that she’d witnessed recently.

Aidan stretched, seeming to enjoy the brisk mountain air now flowing over his sweaty head. The moonlight added shadows and angles to his face, making it look pale and gray. One second, he had a handsome and chiseled look like a character in a cartoon, and the next his beard’s rough texture reminded her of flaking skin. She knew he was fine now, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t have to turn their guns on each other at some point.

“If you knew me better,” Aidan said, “you’d know I get really cranky when I’m tired and I’ve had a bad day. Today pretty much sucked…nearly getting killed, more than once.”

Bad day?
Cheryl thought about Kyle and Claire. Who’d had a worse day than them? There was probably nothing left of either of them but a pile of charred bones.

“It’s not going to get any better without some sleep,” she said. She rubbed her arms. “I wish we could have a fire. It’s so cold.”

“That wouldn’t be too smart. We need to stay quiet and invisible.”

“You’re probably right.” She was freezing, though. It might have been a ninety-degree summer day on the plains, but up in the mountains, temperatures dropped fast at night.

Soldier up.

Mark again, whispering from beyond the grave. Sometimes it was comforting, and other times it was downright creepy.

“Alright, let’s get the guns inside. We can use the duffel bag as a pillow.”

“And your helmet?”

He turned and gave her a look, the kind that implies an eye roll without actually doing one.

“You’re no good to me without your brains.”

“And I thought you just liked me for my brawn.”

She suddenly remembered the kiss back in the bathroom at his cabin. It might have been a good luck kiss or a farewell kiss, since he was about to go head first into the dark night, not knowing how many Eaters could be waiting for him. She hadn’t read anything more into it during that adrenaline-laced moment. Now, she didn’t know if he was just being a smart ass or if something else was going on. Every time she started to imagine something happening between them, she got an image of Mark in her head. It was a hazy angelic version of him with his spiky blond hair and his soft blue eyes, not the sallow-skinned sick look he’d had when she last saw him.

Aidan grabbed his helmet. “Alright, Maria. If it will help you sleep better, I’ll keep it next to me.”

Maria?
She didn’t correct him. She knew that he was as exhausted as she was. Accidentally calling her by the name of his dead girlfriend was an easily forgivable mistake. She wondered if he heard Maria’s voice in his head like she heard Mark’s.

He tossed the duffel bag inside the building, and they squatted down and leaned back on it. She felt a tickle on her face and brushed it away, thinking it would be quite ironic if she were finally done in by something as mundane as a spider bite.

“You’re shivering. Come here.”

He draped part of his leather jacket over her torso as she leaned into him, feeling the rough stubble on his cheek. He was warm, almost too warm. She wondered if he had a fever. In contrast, her body was shaking so much that she wondered if she had the chills.

Through the small door-less opening, she could see the silver glint of chrome on the Harley like some great metal beast slumbering near them. She looked up at the milky clouds. The volatile sky that had doused them earlier seemed to be quieting down. If it did rain during the night, she wondered if their leaf mound alarm system would be rendered useless. With her eyes already lowering to half-mast, she tried to distract herself with another topic.

“Why would someone go to all the trouble to build this little shack?”

“It’s probably all that’s left of a larger building, a shack where miners lived. There’s probably a mineshaft around here somewhere.”

She decided that he was right. As her eyes focused on the lumps and bumps of the terrain outside, she could see rectangular stones poking up here and there between tree stumps and mounds of leaf litter. She didn’t like the idea of a mineshaft nearby. It made her imagine the possibility of a group of Eaters spending their days in a dark cavern, huddled together like blind bats, and then coming out at night to feed.

In her haze of dwindling consciousness, she wondered how safe she was with Aidan. She worried about the wound on his hand. He told her it wasn’t a bite, but if he was wrong (or lying) there was a chance he could turn in the middle of the night and attack her. She realized that she was too bloody tired to care at the moment.
Que sera sera
. She yawned, and her eyes fluttered shut.

Within seconds, she heard Aidan snoring beside her and found herself slowly sinking into a black pool of water at the bottom of a well. She floated on the murky surface in a hypnagogic state, pondering her own chances of infection. It could have spread to her from various means. So, what if it was Aidan that should be afraid of her? Maybe
she’d
wake up in the middle of the night with the taste of his brains in her mouth. Well, maybe she should just say,
sorry
, in advance.

She fell deep below the water and dreamed of Mark. His warm naked body lay next to her in the tent, hip to hip, curled together like one body with four legs. A twig snapped outside the tent. She knew that it was probably a bear, or maybe a raccoon foraging for food. Mark was snoring now, flinching from time to time like he was reliving his days of roadside bombs and sniper attacks. She felt for the rifle on the other side of him as she heard the sound of feet crunching through dry leaves. She propped herself up and listened. Crickets played their violin wings. The wind came in raspy waves through the trees. And someone took another step into the leaves. She didn’t wake Mark, because of course it had to be a deer. That was the most obvious choice. Reaching over Mark’s fluff of blond hair, she grabbed the tent zipper. In one quick motion, she pulled it up and looked outside. Her eyes went to the bare feet, up the bloody clothing, straight to the face with peeling gray flesh, dangling like parasitic worms, then to the filmy white eyes.
Her father
…