by Justin Clay
They’re not their guns; or weren’t originally. They looked like army issued guns; they must have taken them from dead soldiers, which leads me to think their ragtag band of brothers most likely has more like these…so we’ll need to be careful. Extra careful.
“I think we should go,” I tell Aidan, and he nods.
“Good idea.”
Back at the apartment, we tell them what we saw and what we were forced to do, to protect ourselves. None of them seem particularly stunned by the abrupt news, but Bear is conceivably upset.
“Did anyone follow you? Do they know where we are?”
Aidan rolls his eyes. “Come off it, you know me better than that,” he says. “I wouldn’t openly lead them here, no, and for the record, they don’t even know we’re here.”
“Maybe, not for now,” Bear says unhappily. “But once they go looking for these two dip-heads you killed, they’ll realize they were shot to death by other humans, because last time I checked, Infected are too dumb to use guns…Thankfully.”
“But still they don’t know it was us,” Aidan says. “They have no earthly way of figuring out who killed them.”
“I wonder who they are,” Bear says gruffly. “Where they came from…If we had some clue about this we might, might know how to deal with them…But regardless, this changes things…”
“What do you mean? Are we not going to hospital?” I ask blatantly. “What about Eli? Are you just going to give up on him?”
“No,” Bear replies. “It’s just, I’m worried about this newly arrived lot...They had to have gotten here somehow, and something tells me it wasn’t just on foot either…No…They most likely have a working vehicle; if we could somehow take it…But that could be too dangerous.”
“No,” Eli says, shaking his head. “You’d encounter the same amount of danger at the infested hospital as you would doing this…Maybe, less…”
“But at least the Infected are predictable, this lot…Who knows; we know nothing about them.”
“Not yet,” Aidan says confidently. “But we will.”
32
SCAVENGERS
I AM BACK AT the mountain village, Judas’s camp. Gray overcast clouds, bloated with the snow that’s falling, hide the sun. The snowfall is gentle, almost postcard worthy, the way the snow collects on the edges of the cabins nestled through the hills. But this is no such place. This was hell. I see smoke fleeing from the ground in the distance, and I find myself running. I’m sprinting, my face is flustered, and I see that there is woman standing with her back to me just ahead. Who…
Shocked, I realize who this woman is…She’s Lena. She’s alive! Oh my God, she’s alive!
“Lena! Lena you have to listen to me,” I tell her and I don’t even know why. My mouth is just moving. “You have to come with me; you’re in danger…You’re going to die!”
“PLEASE LENA! PLEASE!” I’m screaming now and tears are bursting from my eyes. I try to grab her shoulder but my hand doesn’t reach. I know she’s close enough to touch but every time I try, I cannot.
“Rian, you should go,” she tells me without turning around. “It isn’t safe here…You need to leave.”
“NO! I won’t! I’m not leaving you this time! Please, don’t make me!”
“It’s not your choice to decide, Rian,” she says. “We all have to die sometime.”
“But…But I don’t want you to die…Not now…You can’t.”
“That isn’t for you to decide,” she says, and I still cannot see her face. “I won’t tell you again Rian…Leave!”
“NO!” I scream and I fling myself onto her, snatching at her shoulder, and yes! I manage to finally turn her around, and horrified, I witness that Lena has no face. I’m stare into emptiness, a swirling black hole, and I scream. That’s when I begin to fall. I feel myself falling to my death and I hear Lena speak to me, “Rian, you need to wake up now; it’s time to wake up.”
Startled my eyes flicker open and huff, my face on fire. I can already feel my forehead is drenched with sweat and my hair is plastered there annoyingly.
“Pss, Rian…Rian…are you up?” I hear someone whispering.
“What? What’s going on? Who’s there?” I mutter in the darkness, blinking.
“It’s me, Aidan,” he says, and focusing I recognize the faintly shadowed face looming over me. I wave him off, sitting myself up, clutching at my stomach, wincing. Damn, that was a horrible dream.
“Are you okay?” he asks me softly.
I look at him strangely from where I’m sitting on the mound of harlequin blankets Bear found for my sister and I to sleep on for the night. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“M’kay,” he says smirking.
My brow wrinkles. “Wait…What are you doing up? Where are you going?”
“I need your help,” he tells me.
Something tells me whatever this plan is…it’s going to be a risky one. “With what?”
“I need you to be my lookout,” he says. “Will you do it?”
“For what, Aidan?”
“I’m going to go spy on our new friends,” he tells me quietly.
“You’re going to do what!?” I say, stunned.
He leers at me, his eyes wide open. “Shh, not so loud!”
There’s a rustling of movement from Eli’s log position on the couch, but he continues snoring. My sister June remains as still as a rock. I hear Aidan sigh in relief.
“I need you to be my lookout just in case things go wrong,” he says, “which they shouldn’t…But still; it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“What do you mean lookout?”
“I’ll show you, but I need to know, are you in?”
At first I don’t say anything; I remain quiet, thinking. “Come on, Rian,” he badgers me. “It’s really our only time to have a chance at doing this…While they are asleep. No harm.”
“Oh, alright,” I say, giving in. “It’s not if I don’t go, you won’t.”
“Now we’re talking,” he says, very chipper. “I’ll be right back.”
While Aidan has silently disappeared into the shadows, I quickly slip on my boots and lace up the strings, tying them tightly. I’m finished by the time he returns; he’s carrying a hefty sniper rifle. Oh my God.
“How’s your aim?”
“Decent enough,” I tell him. “With a bow or pistol.”
“Well, this is really the same thing…Just a bit more deadly; and you’ll be able to be further away, not in danger.”
“Okay, but do you even know where they are?”
“I’ve got a good hunch,” he tells me.
“Alright,” I say. “Give it here.”
The rifle weighs more than I think it will, and my arms kind of sink as he hands it over. “Geez,” I say, grimacing. “You make it look easy.”
He snorts. “I’ve carried this thing around a few times.”
“I can see.”
“Okay, let’s go, before anyone knows we’re gone,” he tells me, and Aidan leads the way.
Outside, the night is cool, and the air moist. The feeling is the feeling before rain. I look to the heavens and see I’m not mistaken. The dark clouds are conflicted, drifting, threatening overhead. I turn to Aidan.
“So where to?”
“This way,” he says. “We got to move fast and quiet; the Infected prefer the night.”
I nod, and I’m fast on his heels. We dart through the alleyway, around a large building, down three blocks, when Aidan stops me. “Wait,” he says, motioning with his head again. “There’s Infected…Just over there.”
Squinting, I see the huddled group of Infected passing through the intersection just ahead. They seem confused as to where they’re going. Odd. Some mope this way, others diverge another way. “Stay in the shadows; we should be fine.”
“Got it.”
...
I realize Aidan is taking me to tallest building in the city. It’s an ominous building, massive and cement gray, soaring at
least seven stories high. We slip through the door-less opening into the lobby of the hotel and I brace myself for the worst. Oddly enough, there are no Infected inside; it’s just creepy as hell. The darkness lurking here is different. Menacing and cruelly shaped in the shadows that pass from the moonlight flickering from the outside. As expected, the lobby is trashed. Tables upturned. The concierge counter stained with who knows what. Wallpaper torn. Corpses piled in corners releasing a God awful odor.
We push through, and begin our ascent.
Up we go, taking the stairs. Past the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, sixth — I have to catch a breather at this point — past the eleventh and twelth floor until we have reached the top, and climbed our way through the ceiling latch. Once outside again, the frigid air hits me and shivers chill my skin; my hair rises. The air here is incredibly thin, and fully standing, the feeling is a bit disorienting.
“Now then,” Aidan says, “can I see the sniper rifle?”
Sighing, I lend it over to him, and watch what he does. Aidan patrols the guard rail from where we emerged, circling the entire area, before halting. He standing to my left, raising the rifle, and peering through the scope.
“Gotcha,” he says; and I think it’s to himself.
“Hey, Rian, come over here and take a look.”
I hurry over and he hands me the rifle. I fumble as I lift the gun, focusing my vision through the lens. “Look just there, past the hospital a few blocks…You see them? They have a fire lit…The idiots.”
The zoomed-in scenery blurs as I move the gun, searching. Finally, spotting something resembling a human figure, I pause. There is one, no two figures sitting on a building that overlooks a grassy area, where there is — sure enough, a blazing fire lit and its encircled with about eight people, I think. They’re about the size of my pinky from this distance, close enough to shoot with lethality.
“Where are they?” I ask Aidan.
“They’re at the Middle school,” he tells me. “There’s a fence in place, there, so naturally that’s where they’d take to…It makes sense…Okay…I’m going to go.”
“Wait, Aidan,” I say, anxious. He pauses, glancing at me. “Now that you know where they are, can’t we just go tomorrow, together?”
He shakes his head. “No, they may be gone by that point…I need to know what they’re up to.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“I’ll be okay…We didn’t just climb eight stories for nothing, Rian…I have my flashlight, I’ll flash you when I’m ready.”
Sighing, I shake my head. “Okay, whatever…Do what you feel is best.”
“Thanks,” he tells me, and that’s the last I see of him. Now…the waiting begins.
What feels like a half an hour passes before I finally see a blinking light in the general direction of where the new inhabitants are. It’s Aidan; he’s on the move. I keep my scope hovering over the boy as he sprints, very swiftly through the roadway. I think he’s going to stop behind the four wrecked cars on the sidewalk, but he doesn’t. He keeps going.
Why are you getting so close Aidan? You dummy. They’ll see you.
At last Aidan sits; he’s chosen a spot hidden in an outcropping of bushes and trees, about twenty yards from the school grounds. Okay, Aidan, hear your fill. And hear it fast. This is making me too damn nervous. I look for their scouts, positioned on top of the nearest building, and keep the sniper rifle aimed. A sudden flashback of Lena crosses my mind, of her doing this exact thing. I suck in air, trying to forget.
I toggle between looking at the massive group and then the scouts for about ten minutes. And still Aidan hasn’t moved. Why is he still there? Move it!
I hear a distant commotion that makes me for whatever turn my gun to find it. My heart almost stops, when my scope lands on a moving herd of Infected. The firelight and voices are attracted. Oh no. This isn’t good. What to do…What to do. They’re heading straight for the Middle school.
“Dammit,” I curse. How can I get his attention?
I decide on the only thing I can think of at moment. Shooting at Aidan. I don’t shoot him of course. I shoot close enough where he’ll notice. The only consequence that worries me is it’ll give his position away, but I think the Infected will cause much more of a distraction. I just have to wait for them to get close enough. Minutes drag by, as I observe the herd inching closer and closer. Until I can’t take it anymore. I fire.
There’s splitting BANG! And the gun’s recoil knocks me backward, breathless. Once I’ve stabled my vision, I search for where I last saw Aidan. But he’s no longer there. Oh no…There’s no way I can track him being so dark. I look for the scouts and they have stirred obviously from their fixed dazes, sitting. They’re spinning about, aiming their guns to find me, but that doesn’t last. Instead, they find the Infected first.
The gunshot have awoken the Infected from their bizarre zombified stasis. I hear their horrible screaming, and clambering, albeit faint from where I am. And the scouts are shooting at them; the crowd below them now in a upheaval, chaos everywhere.
I think an hour passes, and the din of noise from the Infected onslaught has diminished. And still no sign of Aidan. I gulp in air, my body shaking. I feel like I’m going to spill my guts.
“Aidan, I swear if you’re dead…I’m not going to look for you.”
“Well, good thing I’m not.”
I gasp, my heart fluttering, and I see him headed toward me. “Aidan!” I hiss. “Don’t do that! You scared the shit out of me! I thought you were dead…or worse…”
He laughs. “Well, I don’t think I am.”
Shaking my head, incredulous, I put the sniper rifle down. “So? Who are they?”
He frowns, like he did before we into the supermarket. “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way back…Let’s get out of here.”
33
GAME OF CHANCE
BEAR THINKS WE HAVE a good chance, although slim, of hijacking one of the Jeeps, Aidan saw last night. Bear didn’t seem very satisfied with Aidan’s escapade; he blamed himself for roping me into it, but he did find out some crucial information.
“They’re definitely Scavengers, alright,” Aidan says, his arms folded, standing across from the dining room table, of sorts. I say of sorts because I’m not sure you can really call it table from its shoddy looks. Eli is sitting in one of the chairs, June is occupying herself on the couch, and I’m somewhere in the middle of all of them. I watch Bear as he watches Aidan; he’s pondering intently.
“So they don’t really have a reason for being here, other than raiding the town,” Bear acknowledges, and Aidan nods.
“Yeah, they didn’t really seem that keen on anything in particular, other than locating the people who shot their men, although some of them I think were actually glad they had been killed…Nonetheless, they’re dangerous; I think some of them are cannibals to boot.”
“Great,” Bear breathes heavily. “Even more reason I want them the hell out of my town.”
“So what’s the plan?” I ask.
“I’m a’thinkin’,” Bear replies testy. “Give me a minute…You said they were at the Middle school right?”
“Yeah, so?” Aidan is confused. I think we all are.
“Okay; I’ll be right back,” Bear says disappearing, and reappears with his map. He unfurls it on the table, and places a couple of rocks to weigh down the curled edges. He starts tracing a big finger down the middle, scanning; his stare is intense.
“Alright…I think…I think I got it,” he says. “Now listen close; this is what we’re going to have to do if we want to make it out of this alive.”
...
Bear’s plan is simple enough. Aidan goes first to scout the area, to see if the Scavengers are still there, while the rest of us wait on his return. Aidan says he can move faster on his own, and Bear doesn’t seem to doubt him. We wait beneath the overhanging of a gas station; the shadows here waver slowly and the air is dry. Someone co
ughs. I sigh. Glancing around I watch Eli. He had the strength to come with us; he’s walking okay, well not great, but he manages. You can still see he’s in tremendous pain...And I don’t know when we’re going to the hospital. It seems these Scavengers have taken priority. And we’re getting there on foot; I’ve left Wind behind sadly, because should we get into any trouble today, I wanted to know that the horse would be okay.
It’s been awhile now; I don’t know how exactly long. I watch Bear as he turns the hands of his watch, or at least, I think that’s what he’s doing.
“How do you know when an hour’s past?” I ask him; he doesn’t look up when he answers.
