The Scavengers

by Gen Griffin

Chapter 1

  “Pilar! Pilar, wake up!”

  I jerked awake on my rock-hard prison cot. My mother's chocolate brown eyes shone with a worry that was comfortingly familiar as she hovered over my bed.

  “Mom?” I gasped and flung my arms around her rounded shoulders. Her hair smelled vaguely of coffee. I pressed my nose into her shoulder.

  “Pilar, what's wrong?” Mom rubbed both her hands through my hair, soothing me as she smoothed down my unruly curls. “You look frightened.”

  “I don't know.” My heart was pounding in my chest. I wanted to cling to my mother and never let go, but I couldn't remember why I felt this way. It wasn't very mature behavior for a girl who was just a few days shy of her sixteenth birthday.

  “You don't know what's frightening you?” Mom pushed several wayward strands of hair away from my eyes.

  “I guess I had bad dream.” I managed a shaky smile as I reluctantly released my death grip on Mom. “I'm fine.”

  Mom looked as if she didn't believe me. She gave my shoulders one last gentle squeeze and then stood up. “I'm sorry for waking you up. I need your help shutting the door.”

  “Why do we need to shut the door?” I frowned at the heavy metal barred door that separated our apartment from its neighbors. The Cube had been a prison before it had been turned into long-term housing for survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Most of the apartments still had cell doors. No one ever closed them.

  “I don't know. The alert came through the intercom system a few minutes ago. I didn't want to wake you but that rusty old door won't budge.” Mom looked at me apologetically. I could see the slightest hint of fear in her dark eyes. “I'm scared. The last time we had to close the doors it was because some fool down in cell block G got sick and died in his cell rather than going to the hospital ward. He turned into a zombie and killed four people before they were able to stop him. I'm afraid it must have happened again.”

  “I'm sure we're fine, Mom.” I pushed my favorite worn-soft blue blanket off of my legs and stood up.

  “We probably are, but you know me. I worry.” She shivered. I put my hand on her arm.

  “We'll be fine. Let's get this door shut.” I walked over to the heavy cell door. The concrete floor was chilly under my bare feet. I had to slide my mother's bookshelf out of the way before I could even grasp the door by its hinges. I began to shove at the door, leaning my full weight against it and grunting. The rusted metal creaked and groaned with protest. I slammed my hip into the very edge of the door and was rewarded by it moving all of two inches.

  “Pilar, let me help.” Mom was hovering and wringing her hands together a few feet to my left.

  “I've got it. You don't need to hurt your back or your knee again.” I slammed my hip into the door a second time. This time it moved six inches. I'd have a bruise tomorrow but I was making progress.

  “Aaaaaah! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” A girl screamed from the end of the hallway. “Help me! Someone please help me! Aaaah!”

  I should have shoved the door the rest of the way closed but I didn't. The girl screamed again as I slid through the foot-wide gap that remained between the heavy door and the wall.

  “Pilar, no!” Mom called out behind me. “Don't go. It's not safe.”

  “Someone needs help,” I said.

  “Pilar! You can't save everyone.”

  “I have to try. I love you. I'll be right back.”

  Another scream echoed through the air. I ran down the hallway towards the sound of her screams.

  I rounded the corner just in time to see a thin girl with blonde hair clinging to the door frame that separated Block D from the main corridor. Something was yanking her backwards as she screamed. I ran towards her. I had almost reached her when whatever was pulling on her succeeded at ripping her hands free of the door frame. The girl disappeared into the main corridor with a soul-piercing scream of agony. The thick metal door slammed shut behind her. Her screams abruptly stopped.

  I stared at the freshly closed door in horror. The smart thing to do would be to go back to our apartment and hide. The Cube's guards had been trained to handle loose zombies. I hadn't.

  Against my better judgment, I crossed the last ten feet between myself and the door to the main corridor. I was well aware that I didn't have any weapons as I pulled the door open. The corridor was covered in blood. Bloody hand prints covered the front of the door and the walls. I could see bright red drag marks leading down the hallway.

  “Get back to your apartment!” Three members of the guard came rushing past me from the direction of Block E.

  “What's happening?” I demanded as I gestured to the blood. “There was a girl. She was screaming.”

  “You can't save her.” One of the guards stopped in front of me while the other two kept running ahead. The guard was a thin older man with a bushy gray mustache and small tufts of hair sticking out of his ears. “Go back to your cell, child. Lock the door behind you and stay away from the bars.”

  “Is there a zombie?” I asked.

  “A zombie?” He made a bitter, snorting noise. “Darlin', there must be a thousand of them. The garage bays are open and they're pouring into the cafeteria. We've already lost Block B and the cafeteria. They're all dead.”

  “No,” I gasped, horrified by his words.

  “Get to safety,” the guard told me. “Get to safety and start praying. It's all you can do.”

  I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing as the guard nodded to me one last time. He took off jogging in the same direction as his contemporaries had gone. After a second's hesitation, I turned the opposite direction and headed for the hospital ward.

  If there was an emergency, Dr. Zeb would need all the nursing staff to help treat the wounded. I might only be 15, but I take my job seriously. I have to take it seriously if I want to keep it. The hospital ward is considered one of the more desirable work wards, especially for teenagers. If I showed anything less than total dedication and willingness to work, I could be demoted onto one of the cleaning crews and someone else would get my job. That wasn't about to happen, zombies or no zombies.

  I hurried through the familiar corridors and then ducked into the seldom used stairwell that was my customary shortcut between my family's apartment in Block D and the front doors of the hospital ward. I didn't see any other people or any more blood as I jogged barefoot down three flights of stairs. I could hear people yelling when I reached the second floor of the Cube. It didn't sound particularly scary, just noisier than usual. I pushed my way out through the door and into mass chaos.

  The corridor that lead to the hospital ward was wall-to-wall with people. Men and women were shoving and pushing at one another as they headed for the main stairway that would lead them back to the upper cell blocks.

  I needed to go in the opposite way from the direction traffic was flowing. I slid out the doorway and began easing my way down the hallway. I periodically had to duck or flatten myself against the wall to avoid being trampled. I was just congratulating myself on having made it through the front door of the hospital ward when I saw the zombies.

  All the patients in the hundred bed ward had turned into zombies.

  Approximately half of the zombies had been attached to the bed restraints before they had turned. It was standard procedure to restrain anyone we thought was on the verge of death. Someone had tried to do their job. Approximately sixty zombies were in various stages of trying to escape their restraints. Zombies in nearly every bed were yanking, gnawing, pulling and chewing on leather straps and metal chains. The one nearest to the door had actually succeed in getting one leg loose from his chains by chewing his foot off at the ankle.

  Roughly a dozen zombies were completely loose. Fortunately for me, their attention was focused on the boy who was standing in the center of the room. He was tall, lean, muscular and holding a very bloody sword. He looked like he was a few years older than me. His jet black hair had a strange white streak running straight through the center
of it. A pile of decapitated zombie corpses were laying on the ground near his feet. Another dozen headless zombies were chained to the beds closest to him.

  One of the zombies charged him. He swung the sword neatly over his head and spun so that the charging zombie impaled itself on the blade. He drew the sword upwards through the zombie, slicing it in half.

  Another zombie came up behind him, snapping its jaws next to his ear. He didn't flinch as he elbowed the zombie in its throat and smashed it backwards. Two new zombies fell on the fallen one, ripping it to shreds as they attempted to get the black-haired boy.

  He was good with the sword but I didn't think he was good enough to fight his way out of the horde of zombies that were rapidly beginning to surround him. Several more of the restrained zombies had broken loose.

  I suddenly had a zombie in my face. Its hot breath coated my skin as its teeth snapped together less than a foot from the end of my nose.

  I screamed, took a step backwards and accidentally knocked into a tray of surgical equipment that should not have been left in the middle of the walkway. Someone was going to get in trouble for leaving it there. Assuming they hadn't already been eaten.

  Eaten the way I was about to be.

  The tray fell to the ground with a metallic clank. The zombie swooped down towards me, blood dripping from its teeth. It had chewed its own arm off to escape its restraints.

  “Stop!” I screamed. “Get away!”

  The zombie stopped mid-motion. It stared at me through glazed, confused eyes as it took two steps backwards and snapped its teeth again.

  The black-haired boy stopped fighting the zombies. He turned around and saw me sitting on the floor less than three feet away from the zombie that had just inexplicably stopped attacking me less than two seconds before it would have ripped my throat out.

  The black-haired boy grinned at me. His left eye was dead and white. A chunk of flesh was missing from his jaw. I could see his jawbone and his teeth through the hole that it had left behind. “Pilar,” he said.

  I screamed.

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