The Scavengers

by Gen Griffin

  Chapter 14

  The railroad tresses were made of rotting wood. The entire structure shook under our feet as we picked our way across the fragile, broken boards. I wasn't particularly afraid of heights but the 30 foot drop from the railroad tracks to the jagged, partially submerged rocks below had made my mouth go dry and my palms start to sweat as we crossed the bridge.

  Shayla was in the lead as we arrived on the Mylon side of the river. I was three or four feet behind her. Drake was hot on my heels with Cya still snugged against his broad chest as if she were precious cargo. Her face was hidden against the fabric of his leather jacket. Her blonde hair was still covered in dirt from where he'd dropped her on the ground earlier. Jeb was at our rear, watching the opposite bank in the unlikely event that a zombie had the coordination to make it across the tracks and attack us from behind.

  Personally, I thought we were probably in more danger from the bridge than we were from the zombies. My legs were shaking as Drake set Cya down on the edge of the bridge. He set down his backpack and pulled out a long yellow coil of rope. It didn't look nearly as sturdy as I wanted it to. Drake began tapping on the beams that supported the bridge we were standing on, searching for one that would be strong enough to support our weight.

  “Try the one on the far left,” Shayla suggested. She pointed to a beam near the edge of the bridge.

  Drake looked over at the beam in question, nodded and moved to it. He quickly and deftly tied the rope off. He dropped the end of the rope down into the junkyard below. “Who wants to go first?”

  The only sound to be heard was that of the wind blowing through the beams of the bridge.

  “I'll go,” Jeb said after a second of hesitation. His face was incredibly pale as he sat down on the edge of the bridge and grabbed hold of the rope with both hands.

  “Get your weapon ready,” Drake told him. He gestured for Jeb to pull the knife off his belt.

  “I can't hold it and slide down,” Jeb said.

  “Put it in between your teeth,” Shayla instructed him. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a burlap sack almost identical to the one Drake had shown me last night when he'd been explaining what rock candy was. She upended the bag and several of the green crystals fell into her hand. She knelt down beside Jeb. “Open your mouth.”

  Jeb did as he was told and Shayla popped one of the crystals into his mouth. She smiled as she placed a second crystal in between her own lips and then passed the bag over to Drake. “Conner's stash,” she explained.

  “I'll see you guys on the ground.” Jeb put his knife between his teeth and then slid down the rope. We all watched as he landed solo on the ground below.

  “Four crystals,” Drake said quietly. He took one of the crystals himself and then rolled the bag in his fist. He gestured for me to hold out my hand and then placed a single green crystal in my palm. He tucked the burlap bag back into his own pocket. “Hold it under your tongue.”

  I hesitated, holding the pokey little stone in my sweaty hand. My countless hours in the hospital ward had given me intimate familiarity with what could happen if you took the wrong drug or reacted badly to the right drug. I swallowed and took a deep breath. I started to open my mouth to tell Drake thanks but I would pass when Cya spoke.

  “Where's mine?” She asked. Her voice was quavering.

  Drake snorted back a short, bitter laugh. “You don't get candy.”

  “Drake, please. I'm already weak,” she begged. “It will help with the pain. I might be able to run.”

  “I guess you should have thought about that before you complained about us to the Powers That Be,” Drake told her. He grabbed hold of the rope and pressed it into her hands. “Time for you to go.”

  “Please, no. I'm not ready.” She purposefully splayed her fingers out, refusing to grab the rope.

  “Take the rope or I'll throw you down without it,” Shayla hissed at her.

  “I'll go,” I said. I popped the rock candy crystal Drake had given me into my mouth, stuck it under my tongue and reached out to take the rope from Cya. “I want to go.”

  Drake raised one eyebrow at me and then passed the rope over. “Hold on tight and use your feet to control your descent. Wrap the toe of your boot in the rope.”

  I did as he said, terrified to go down into the junkyard but unwilling to watch someone I'd spent so much time idolizing torture a frightened, hurt girl who he was supposed to protect. I felt nauseous as I slid off the side of the bridge and immediately got blown to the left by the wind. I skidded down the rope too fast, unable to create enough friction with my feet to slow my descent. I landed hard on the ground below with my hands burning from rope burn. The impact sent shocks of pain all the way through my back and I gasped with the pain.

  “You okay?” Jeb asked.

  “Fine,” I lied.

  “Get your machete out,” Jeb told me. “There are zombies thirty yards to our left.”

  I nodded and used my throbbing, bleeding fingers to free the machete from underneath my belt. My hands shook as I held it out. “Do we need to kill them?”

  “I don't know,” he admitted. He looked up at the three members of our team who were still on the bridge. His blonde hair was thin and I could see the pink scalp underneath. “Drake's told me that attacking one zombie when others are nearby can alert the others to your presence. He thinks they can smell the blood.”

  “Oh.” I hadn't known that.

  “Shayla says kill everything I see.”

  I frowned and looked to our left. I could see one zombie rattling around in what appeared to be a box of junked, rusting vehicles. A car had fallen off of one stack and blocked the zombie's path of exit. If it wanted to get to us, it would have to climb. “Can zombies climb?”

  “I don't think so.” Jeb frowned. “What's taking them so long up there?”

  “Cya doesn't want to come down here,” I explained.

  Jeb sighed. He ran one hand through his hair. “I don't blame her. She's not going to be able to protect herself and I don't think Drake's going to go out of his way for her. Shayla told me they both want her dead because she got Conner killed.”

  “I volunteered to come down here because I couldn't stomach listening to her beg anymore,” I admitted.

  A loud wail echoed from above. I could see Drake forcibly wrapping the rope around Cya's midsection. The zombie to the left of us looked up.

  “I don't want to watch her die,” I confessed to Jeb. Cya's wails were turning to screams.

  “Maybe we should just start trying to find a radiator. Kennedy showed me what we were looking for yesterday. I've helped my Dad with the generators in the Cube for years. I'm sure I can get the radiator out of whatever vehicle we find it in without Drake's help. So long as you can watch my back.” The look in Jeb's eyes was almost pleading.

  “We can do it,” I confirmed. “I've killed a lot of zombies in the hospital. It can't be that different out here, right?”

  “Shouldn't be,” Jeb agreed. We both cast another glance upward. Cya was clinging to the railroad bridge with both hands while Drake attempted to shove her off. She was making a lot of noise doing it. More zombies were starting to approach from the south of us, undoubtedly attracted by the racket.

  Jeb grabbed me by the elbow as Cya let out another earsplitting wail. The horror in his eyes was real as we walked rapidly to the north, clambering up a tall pile of rusted and busted cars so that we could survey the entire junkyard. The view was horrifying. Miles of rusted cars being eternally patrolled by dozens of drooling, rotting monsters.

  “I'm scared,” I whispered. Jeb squeezed my arm reassuringly.

  “Just look for something big. A bus. A big truck. Something with a big motor.” He swallowed visibly as he scanned the tangled masses of metal surrounding us.

  “All I see are zombies.” It was the truth.

  “We're not on high enough ground yet.” Jeb gestured for me to follow him across the tops of several broken cars. The metal was gri
tty and malleable underfoot but I supposed it was preferable to walking on the ground itself. I focused on making my way from vehicle to vehicle. One foot in front of the other. Right foot landing exactly in the places where Jeb's left foot had just vacated. Left foot hood. Right foot windowsill. Left foot roof. Right foot roof. Left foot trunk. Right foot trunk. Jump to next car. Left foot seat. Right foot door. I felt like I had when I was a child playing hopscotch with Julie in the corridors of Block D during exercise hour. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

  Jeb stopped. I stopped with him. He turned to face me but I felt like he was moving in slow motion. He pointed at a truck roughly 20 feet away from us. Three zombies were between us and the truck. Two men and a woman whose head appeared to be permanently bent to the left. “There,” he said.

  I nodded. “We're to have to jump down and make a run for it.”

  “We're going to have to kill the zombies.” Jeb tucked his knife back into his pocket and removed a short sword from a sheath underneath his shirt.

  “You've been carrying that on your back?” I stared at the sword in shock.

  “It was a gift from my Dad when I joined the Scavengers,” Jeb winked at me. “We all have our secrets, Pilar.”

  I thought of the gun that was still carefully stowed in the secret hidey-hole Seth had created for it. We certainly did have our secrets and I wasn't about to tell mine to a guy who was slated to become a member of the Powers That Be. Possession of an illegal weapon carried a harsh punishment in the Cube.

  Jeb jumped off the roof of the pick-up truck we were standing on and landed hard in the dirt. The zombies turned as one to face him. I closed my eyes and jumped.

  I should have been terrified as my feet hit the ground but I wasn't. The zombies were moving impossibly slowly as Jeb and I walked up to them. Jeb swung his sword and neatly beheaded one male zombie. The head rolled across the ground and tripped the second zombie. All I saw were blank eyes and gnashing teeth as the creature fell towards me. I swung my own blade, but I didn't do it hard enough. The machete got stuck in the zombie's shoulder blade. I squealed and pulled my blade loose, swinging it a second time as the zombie fell the rest of the way to the ground. She tried to grab my ankle and I cut her arm off out of sheer reflex. The hand twitched for a second and then died.

  Jeb cut down the second zombie, slicing it rather cleanly in half. I spun back around and finally managed to chop the head off my own zombie. It took nine strokes but I did it. I felt stupidly proud of myself as I joined Jeb at the grill of the big truck he'd noticed.

  “You got my back?” He asked as he pried the vehicle's hood open with a squeal of hinges.

  “You're safe,” I promised. “But how are you going to get the radiator out without tools.”

  “Who said I didn't have tools?” Jeb asked. He dug a thick knife-like multi-tool out of his pocket. It was roughly 6 inches long and had multiple blades that could be extracted from it. He winked at me, flicked a pair of pliers out of the multi-tool and began working at getting the bolts on the radiator loose while I stood guard.

  The sky was the most perfect, clear blue that I'd seen in a year. The light breeze that was blowing kept the rotting smell of zombies away. I could smell the murky water of the river several hundred feet to our left. I had time to appreciate that it was a beautiful day, despite our task.

  I could remember that I'd been upset recently but right this minute I couldn't recall why I'd been feeling so much angst.

  Two more zombies came stumbling around the nearest corner. They perked up when they saw me standing in their path. I raised my machete and smiled. Zombies were scary but not that scary. After all, they couldn't think very well and they had fairly limited physical capabilities. I was well armed against such painfully slow moving opponents.

  The zombies were taking forever to reach me. I got bored waiting for them and met them halfway. Thwack, thwack, thwack! Six swings with my machete and they were motionless on the ground. Four hits for the one that had been an old man before he died. Two hits for the petite woman.

  “This is kind of neat,” I mused out loud. I wondered if there were any other zombies nearby that I could kill. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  “Having fun, are you?”

  I turned to my right and saw Seth leaning against the side of a severely smashed van. His ruined white eye practically shone in the sunlight and I could see the molars on his lower jaw clearly through the side of his face. “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “Think you're hot stuff?”

  “I killed those zombies.” I pointed to the dead zombies near his feet.

  “They were weak. They're trapped inside this junkyard. Haven't fed in years.” Seth shrugged at me. “No real challenge in killing them.”

  “How can you know that they haven't fed?” I demanded, partially insulted by how easily he brushed aside my triumph and partially curious how he could possibly know when a zombie had last eaten.

  “They didn't bleed.” He gestured at the corpses. “Zombies dry up when they can't feed. The sunlight leeches all the moisture out of them as the days pass.”

  I stared down at the corpses. He was right. They hadn't bled. I scowled at him. “Are you just here because you enjoy mocking me or did you show up for a reason?”

  “You really think I'm stupid enough to leave Scavengers wandering around unsupervised in my valley?” He asked. He had a sword in his left hand. It was similar to the one Jeb was carrying except it was half as thick and twice as long. There was blood on the blade.

  I blinked at him as the realization set in. “You've been following us this whole time?”

  “Not just me,” he said. “But you're never alone, Pilar. Never.”

  “Guess life outside the Cube isn't that different from life inside the Cube after all,” I complained sullenly.

  Seth laughed. “Life outside the Cube is very different from life inside the Cube.”

  “How would you know?” I asked. “I bet you've never been inside the Cube.”

  “I've heard pretty vivid descriptions of what life in there is like,” Seth said. “Communal dining. Communal bathing. Apartments that started life as prison cells. The Powers That Be watching every move you make. Not enough food. Not enough water. I have to be honest with you, the entire lifestyle sounds abhorrent.”

  “It's safe,” I said.

  “You don't really believe that,” Seth countered.

  I was about to argue with him but then I hesitated. “How do you know what I think?”

  “Why would you leave the Cube if you were happy living inside it?”

  “I never said I was happy.” I brushed my thick hair back up into the ponytail I'd trapped it in. It was easier to fight without all those curls in my eyes. Four more zombies appeared from behind a stack of cars on our immediate right. I lifted my machete and then turned and smiled at Seth. “Can you even fight?”

  “Can I fight?” He seemed to be both insulted and amused by the question.

  “I heard that you don't have to worry about being attacked by zombies because they aren't interested in eating one of their own kind. I figure that means you're probably really out of practice.” I had no idea why I was taunting him or why it felt so good to do it.

  “You don't think I can fight?” Seth stepped in between me and the approaching zombies. Two of them were huge. They had been thick bodied men when they were alive and one still had most of his muscle. The other had a big chunk missing out of his shoulder but was still making rather impressive progress as he bore down on us with drool frothing from his lips. The two following on that one's heels were smaller but just as ugly. The one on the right was wearing a red shirt and kept snapping its jaws at me.

  “Let's just say I'm not counting on you to save me,” I told Seth.

  He shook his head at me with obvious disbelief. “Stand back.”

  “And watch you get eaten?”

  He jerked his chin at the zombies and bared his teeth in a lo
ok that barely passed for a smile. “Keep your eyes open, little lamb. You might miss something if you blink.”

  “I'm waiting,” I said as I crossed my arms over my breasts.

  Seth was downright graceful as he turned to face down the zombies. He lifted the sword high into the air and then spun so fast that I could barely keep track of the trajectory of the blade as he took two steps forward and decapitated the first zombie. The muscled monster man lunged for him but Seth ducked neatly underneath the zombie's outstretched arms and then brought his blade cleanly upwards through the center of the undead man. It had never occurred to me to cut a zombie lengthwise but I supposed it was just as effective as I watched Seth's sword come up through the top of the skull. He pulled it loose with a twist of his wrist, kicked a third zombie to the ground and cut its spine loose of its body before the fourth zombie could get halfway to him. The fourth zombie was the smallest of the pack but it was also the quickest. Not that speed did the creature any favors. Seth beheaded it the second it got within range of the sword. It crumpled to the ground beside its counterparts.

  Seth wiped the blade of his sword on what was left of the zombie's red shirt. He smiled as he approached me but didn't speak until his nose was only inches from mine. “Did you really think that the high priest of the Church of Chaos would be weak?”

  I blinked up at him. “I think there's a zombie behind you.”

  It wasn't a lie. It was a woman who had clearly been fat in life. Her massive bulk was preventing her from moving easily through the gap between two of the cars. In fact, the zombie appeared to have gotten herself wedged in between the hood of one car and the trunk of another.

  “Kill it,” Seth told me. His words were clearly meant as a challenge. I stepped around him, adjusted my grip on the machete and approached the struggling zombie. I raised the blade of the machete and prepared to strike. Seth grabbed my wrist.

  “Hey!”

  “You're holding your weapon incorrectly,” Seth informed me. He slid his arm down the length of mine and grabbed the handle of my blade. His arm looked amazingly pale, almost translucent, when pressed against my own tanned limb. “Strike upwards, not downwards. And slide your hand closer to the top of the handle.”

  “Why?”

  The stuck zombie hissed angrily at us and tried to bite.

  “It'll give you better force for your blow.” Seth physically took my hand in his and slid it up the old wooden handle. With my fingers stuck under his, he drew my arm back and then thrust the machete forward and up into the zombie's throat. Her head came off much more cleanly than those of my previous kills.

  I looked sideways at Seth. I was eye level with the hole in his jawline. “I should swing the blade upwards?” I tried another practice swing at the air. Seth's hand was still on top of mine.

  “Yes.” He released me and then demonstrated the gesture for me. “And keep your hand near the hilt of your weapon. You'll have better control that way. You'll be less likely to drop your blade if a strike doesn't go as intended.” He tilted his head at me curiously. “Didn't Drake teach you how to fight?”

  “He said he didn't have to teach me. I work- I mean worked – in the hospital ward at the Cube. I've been decapitating zombies for the last 3 years.” I practiced the swing again. The machete did feel a lot sturdier in my hand when I held it as Seth had instructed.

  “You didn't have to fight zombies in a hospital ward,” Seth said flatly.

  “No, I didn't. But it’s not that different.” I wasn't sure why the tone Seth had used to ask the question was bothering me so much.

  “Do you know how to defend yourself against a zombie?” Seth asked.

  “Sure. The hospital ward trained us extensively. Curl into a ball and expose your least important body parts first. Don't let it access your neck, head or chest because none of those can be amputated to save your life after the attack.”

  “Not the worst advice I've ever heard but that's not going to do you any good in battle.” Seth was frowning now. He twirled his sword through the air several times and then slid it back into the holster that crossed over his shoulder. “I thought all the Scavengers were supposed to go through basic combat training before they ever left the Cube.”

  “I was an exception to the rule.” I knew I sounded just a little bit smug but I didn't care. I felt pretty good about myself right this minute.

  “You were an exception to the rule?” Seth asked.

  I nodded and smiled at him. I wondered if he was impressed.

  “Why?” Seth asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Your hospital training wasn't extensive enough to justify skipping your combat training. Why didn't they teach you how to fight before they brought you out here?” Seth leaned back against the side of the car beside us. “You should have received at least a month of training when you signed up.”

  “I never signed up,” I told him.

  “What?” He furrowed his eyebrows and scowled.

  “I didn't sign up to become a Scavenger. I was invited to join. All the usual training requirements were waived for me so that I could start hunting immediately. Drake told me we'd make up my training later.” I shrugged at Seth. “I guess I just have talent.”

  “I don't think so,” Seth shook his head at me. “Drake invited you to become a Scavenger?”

  “I already said that.”

  “Why does Drake care if you're a Scavenger?”

  “Maybe he thinks I'm special.” I decided now wasn't the time to admit that I'd kind of wondered the same thing.

  “No one is special to Drake Bledsoe except Drake Bledsoe,” Seth said flatly. “Tell me why he wanted you.”

  I intentionally diverted my eyes away from Seth's disturbing one-eyed gaze. “Tell me why you keep following me around?”

  Seth hesitated for a minute and then shrugged. “You intrigue me.”

  “Me?” I frowned at him.

  “Most Cube girls run away screaming the first time they see me or someone like me. You confronted me. You didn't even try to hide behind Drake.”

  “I don't hide,” I said flatly. “I wasn't raised to hide.”

  “Which makes me all the more curious how you were raised,” Seth countered. “You're carrying weapons you don't know how to use. You're fighting a war you don't understand. You tell me Drake wanted you and yet I can't see any advantage in him having you.”

  “Maybe you just don't know me well enough.” I debated throwing my machete at his head. I wondered if I could hit the streak of white hair in the middle of his skull. I was debating my odds when I realized how unlike me the thought was. How wrong it was. I dropped the machete and stared at him. “What's wrong with me?”

  “You're misunderstanding me. I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with you. I'm just confused as to why you would be valuable enough to Drake that he'd bring you out untrained-.”

  “No. I don't mean-.” I blinked frantically and tried to clear my head. Suddenly everything around me felt overwhelmingly fuzzy. I slid down to my knees in the dirt beside my machete. “Seth, please. I don't feel right.”

  He closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. His hands were warm as he took my face into his palms and tilted my head up. “Tell me what you feel.”

  “Homicidal.” I blurted out the truth before I could think better of it. “It’s not me. I help people. When people are sick with fever, I wipe their faces down with cold cloths. I bring them painkillers in the night when they cry out. I don't enjoy blood, Seth. I don't enjoy pain.”

  “And yet?” His tone was surprisingly gentle as he knelt down in front of me. I kept my eyes closed so that I didn't have to look at him.

  “I want to kill you,” I whispered.

  “Well, I'm not very likeable.” Seth's hands were gentle against my skin.

  “No. No, you don't understand. It took me two years to stop crying when I had to give a patient stitches or a shot without using a numbing agent because I couldn't stomach listeni
ng to them scream. I still cry when I know my patients are suffering but I can't bring them any relief from the pain and the agony because we don't have any pain medication left or the doctors don't feel the patients’ injuries are bad enough to justify using the meds.” I tried to turn my face away from him but he held on to me. “I've watched so many people suffer and I can't stand it. I left the hospital ward because I didn't want to see any more death. Why do I suddenly want to see blood? What's wrong with me?”

  “Ah.” Seth stroked one hand down the side of my cheek. “Drake fed you some rock candy, didn't he?”

  I nodded, not sure what the rock candy had to do with my sudden and unexplained desire to commit cold blooded murder.

  “Now you're having fantasies about killing me?” He sounded quite calm about it.

  “I'm not like this,” I whispered.

  “It's the rock candy,” Seth explained. “It has side-effects. Don't worry, they pass.”

  “What?” I stared at him in total disbelief. “The rock candy is making me want to kill you?”

  “The rock candy is making you want to kill everything,” Seth clarified. “I just happen to be the only living thing around at the moment so you're focusing on me. Don't worry, if you're noticing that you're not behaving like yourself then the effects are already starting to wear off. You'll be back to yourself in a couple of hours.”

  “I don't have a couple of hours,” I whimpered as my world spun in circles before my eyes. The strength rushed out of me and I collapsed forward. Seth wrapped his arms around me and held me against his chest. I wanted to fight against him. I knew I should fight against him. I tried to push myself upwards and away from him but the entire world dropped out from underneath me and went dark.

  A memory tugged at my mind as I felt myself dropping down into a dark abyss within my own mind. I had taken the rock candy for a reason. I had made a promise. A promise that had been important. I had been doing something important before I'd found myself here, cradled against the chest of a terrifying monster who insisted on being ridiculously kind to me even when I told him I wanted to watch him bleed. “No, I can't.”

  “Lay down little lamb, you're going to be okay.” Seth's voice was like a bright light driving away my fear.

  I had a sudden moment of clarity as I opened my eyes abruptly. “Jeb,” I gasped and struggled to sit up. “I told him I'd protect him.”

  “He's fine.” Seth pushed me back down into his lap.

  “No, I promised!” I succeeded at sitting up only to fall back down. The sunlight was burning into my eyes and I felt hot all over.

  “I'll protect him. Trust me.” Seth put his hand over my eyes and pushed me back down.

  “I don't trust you,” I said as I folded into him and lost all consciousness.