Eaters (9 page)

She awoke what seemed like few minutes later to hands tightening around her throat.

Gasping for air, she opened her eyes and saw the smoking witch straddling her. The woman was obviously sick now. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin looked as dark as ash. Cheryl struggled in vain to push her off. With her throat constricted, she couldn’t even scream.

This is an even stupider end,
she thought as her head felt light from lack of oxygen. Then she noticed the carving knife on the floor and grabbed it, just a second too late. The woman knocked it out of her hand, sending it skittering out under the tent.

With no other means of defense, Cheryl stretched up and bit the woman’s hand before it returned to her throat.

The woman let out a shrill scream and slapped Cheryl across the face. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

Cheryl sat up, coughing and gagging. She threw the sheet open to get some air, causing a group of nearby refugees to stare.

As she slowly regained her breath, she realized that she could detect the metallic taste of blood in her mouth.
If she hadn’t been infected before, she certainly was now.

A few minutes later, Katherine and Morena returned.

“Five bucks a donut! Can you believe it?” Katherine took the paper towel off the top of the paper plate, revealing three glazed donuts and one with chocolate icing. “And look…they got mold on them!”

Before she had a chance to think about asking for one, paying them, or considering the quantity of mold, Cheryl snatched one off the plate and stuffed it into her mouth. It was truly stale and hard, but the sugary flavor was ecstasy in her mouth. She ate the whole thing with just a few chews.

The ladies stared at her.

Then, the embarrassment hit.
What did I just do? Am I sick? Why did I do that?
“I’m really sorry. I guess I was just really hungry. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

Morena shook her head then turned to Katherine. “Uhhh…you want one now?”

“No thanks. I’m still too queasy from the entry exam. I’ll save mine for later.”

Later that afternoon, they kicked her out of the tent. As she wandered around looking for another spot, she saw Morena talking to a man with a holstered gun and pointing to her.

Great. She was marked now.

She eventually resigned herself to a spot just a few feet away from the restroom. She was so dehydrated from sweating and the lack of water that she only had to venture in once. It was a quick, unpleasant trip, and she had to use the toilet as sick people lay around it.

As evening advanced and the light grew dimmer, the building got a little quieter. The dominant sounds were coughing and whimpering, instead of the frenzied voices from earlier. She leaned against the wall next to a pedestal topped with a vase of mums, and wrapped her arms around her knees. She closed her eyes for a moment and had just begun to wonder when or if she’d see Mark again when she heard a voice in front of her.

“Cheryl…”

Like she’d conjured him just by thinking about him, it was Mark.

“Hey…come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’ve got to get out of here.”

A piercing scream came from the direction of the bathroom, and she saw two men rush in with guns.

When she turned back to Mark, she saw him untying the laces on his boots.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer, just kept loosening the laces. Then he began unbuttoning his camouflage shirt that said
Breton
on the pocket. He handed it to her. “Put this on.”

“Why? It’s hot. I don’t want—”

“Just do it, Cheryl. I have my reasons.”

She took off her cotton blazer, and put it on over the camisole she had on underneath. It was stifling hot, and heavy, and the sleeves were several inches too long.

He began undoing his belt.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“You can’t wear that long skirt. I want you to put on my pants too.”

“Jeez. And, you’re going to just strip right here? Why are you doing this?”

He pulled her back into the shadow of a big wreath of flowers that she figured had been from a funeral at the church, probably a few days ago when such things were possible. Then he took off his pants and stood there in his boxers and t-shirt, waiting for her to finish dressing.

She felt like a rag doll in the oversized clothes. She wondered what was going on as he pulled her into his arms.

“You’re still healthy, aren’t you?”

She nodded into his chest, because she didn’t want to tell him that she thought she was infected.

“I’m not.” He stepped out into a ray of light from a lantern glowing on a nearby ledge, and she could see dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, and an angry rash on his bristled cheeks.

“Oh God, Mark. No…”

“Listen to me. You need to get out of this building. It’s not safe to stay.”

“But where are we going to go?”

“Not we, Cheryl—you.”

“She pulled back and hit him lightly on the chest. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“You have to. You can’t stay with me anyway. I’m done. I’m infected.”

She tossed her head from side to side. “No, you can’t be. You didn’t get bit. I’m the one who got bit. I’ve got the sickness.”

“What are you talking about? You look perfectly fine.”

“The mosquitoes…when we were camping…I was bit all over. That’s how it’s transmitted. You didn’t even put on bug spray…they didn’t even touch you.”

It suddenly dawned on her why.
Because he was already infected.

“No…no…no...no!”

“I didn’t tell you everything about the dogs and the sickness. None of the men in my unit got infected. That’s because we were guinea pigs for some sort of vaccine. But me, being the stubborn bastard that I am, I refused to take part. I guess it was my “inner rebel” or something that made me spit out the pill when no one was looking. Back then, I didn’t know what the hell they were trying to give us—no one did. I just didn’t want to be any part of a human experiment. I guess I got a little of it in my system, enough to lengthen the incubation period. I thought I’d beat it or I was just immune or something. I was fine…until just a few hours ago.”

“Mark, I’m sick too. Or, I will be. Even if I didn’t get it from the mosquitoes, I got it from biting that bitch from the sandwich shop.”

“What?”

“She attacked me, tried to strangle me, and I bit her. She was definitely sick.”

“Well you don’t know for sure that you have it, so there’s no point in assuming.”

“Why do I have to go anyway? I want to stay here with you.”

He sobbed into her shoulder. “You can’t stay with me. I don’t want to get sicker…and…and hurt you.”

“Well, I’m not going. What if you pull through, Mark? What if—”

“No, Cheryl. Go. Go anywhere. You’ve just got to get out.” He pointed towards a window high up on the wall. She could see a glowing orange light waving back and forth. It looked like a baseball bat, wrapped in cloth, and lit as a torch.

“There’s too many sick in here, and they don’t want them to get out. In a few minutes, they’re going to lock the doors and set the building on fire.”

Chapter Eight

He took her hand in an inescapable steel grip, forced her down a hall, and into the kitchen towards a side door. He held her in his arms tightly and kissed the top of her head. After he pulled away, he strapped his rifle onto her shoulder.

“You remember that day I took you hunting and showed you how to shoot?”

She remembered. She’d refused to aim at any live creatures and insisted on using cans as targets instead. She’d felt awkward and clumsy with the rifle but eventually managed to hit a few cans off a stump.

“There are extra magazines in the pants pockets.”

“I can’t do this, Mark.”

“Yes you can. And I want you to keep going as long as you can. Keep fighting until the end, you hear me?”

She nodded, upset that her tears were keeping her from getting one last clear look at his face. She put her hands over the rough stubble on his cheeks and held them.

How did she know that she wasn’t infected, and this was just a useless effort to try and survive when she was doomed anyway? With all their love making over the weekend, wasn’t it a given that he’d passed the infection on to her? A little voice in her head said
, maybe not…not without coming in direct contact with his blood.

“Go…they’re going to lock the doors any second. With that uniform on, you might be able to blend in for a few seconds in the dark, just enough time to get away.”

He didn’t give her another chance to refuse. He pushed her out the door, and she heard it lock behind her.

She found herself in a courtyard next to a garden. There was a group of soldiers near the left corner of the building, busily lighting more torches.

She walked slowly at first in the other direction with a determined stride as if she was heading towards some important task. But once she got past the garden bed and knew that the soldiers’ view was blocked by the tall sunflowers, she began to run.

Running. Running. Like a wild animal, she ran.
Probably towards greater dangers…

She kept going through an empty parking lot, past dark stores, and eventually houses as she found herself in a neighborhood.

Then, out of breath, with a painful stitch in her right side, she slowed to a walk. She’d only gone a few more yards and turned down an alley when she heard a growl behind her.

Please let it be a dog…a big stupid dog.

But when she stopped and looked…it wasn’t.

It was a man. Or at least something that used to be a man. Now, this shirtless fellow with stained shorts and peeling skin was a brainless eating machine, and there he stood on the sidewalk, looking at her like she was his next meal.

Adrenaline zipped through her, causing her heart and thoughts to race.

It wasn’t her life that flashed through her mind; it was Mark. She suddenly found herself remembering his proposal to her on the night before he left for Afghanistan. He’d taken her to dinner at a French restaurant downtown and sweet-talked her into ordering the escargot. When it came, she found the ring hidden inside a snail shell. She laughed and cried then they danced on the terrace beneath a swath of starry white lights as a violinist serenaded them from below.

The memory of that night made her angry.

This was not how her life was supposed to go. She was supposed to be looking forward to a lifetime with the man that she loved, not standing in some stinking alley with some stupid zombie about to rip out her entrails with its teeth.

Every atom of fear in her body turned to rage, and she unshouldered the rifle.

The Eater took a few shuffling steps towards her and growled again. She aimed.

“Eat this!”

Cheryl fired one round straight into his head. It exploded like a melon, splattering mashed red fruit all over the pavement.

She turned wordlessly and continued on in the same direction as before, trying to be a little quieter and blend into the night.

What else could she do but keep going until the last tiny shred of hope was gone? Not for herself, but for Mark. It was what he’d wanted her to do.

PART II:

DARK JOURNEY

Chapter Nine

Cheryl Malone had been running and hiding like a rat, weaving in and out of the yards in a strangely vacant neighborhood for hours. Spurts of adrenaline shot through her veins and made her skin tingle as she looked down at the body lying on the sidewalk under the amber glow of the street lamp.

She’d shot him.

Using Mark’s AK, she’d pelted his forehead with a spray of rounds that blasted his brain into an infected pile of goo that was now leaking out in a blackish-red puddle. The tall skinny kid with eyeballs like pearled onions and peeling gray cheeks had been covered in blood before the bullets hit. Now, he looked even more dead than he had when he’d popped out from behind a parked car and started shuffling towards her with a hollow walrus-like moan.

Was it murder to shoot someone who was already dead?

She heard a chorus of groans coming from the far end of the street, and she knew there wasn’t time to stay and ponder the fact that this was the second infected ghoul she’d shot on this hot July night.

Over a half dozen figures ambled across the front lawn of the house on the corner, coming towards her.

The gun still had some ammo in it, and she still had a couple of magazines in the cargo pockets of her borrowed camouflage pants, but it was a risk to think that she’d have time to reload if the Eaters caught up with her. If she had any chance of surviving, she figured that it needed to be a rule that she’d flee from any more than two.