Scavengers

by Nate Southard

  He stared down at the thing that had once been an old man. Its jaw hung slack, exposing the blackened gums. Its eyes had drooped shut, and it almost looked peaceful. He could almost believe it was just a normal man who had died of old age. He thought of his father.

  He reached out and touched the thing’s forehead, slicking back the few strands of hair that remained.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, crying.

  ————————————

  “You want anything?” Holly asked. “I can get you a water or something.”

  He shook his head. His eyes remained on his father, mouth hanging open between violent breaths that were coming farther and farther apart. “Thanks, though.”

  “It’s okay.”

  No, it wasn’t. He looked for something that might possibly be considered okay and could only come up with one thing. His father had closed his eyes as the first reports of the plague aired. With any luck at all, the man had been too out of it to understand what the panicked newscaster was saying.

  So his father didn’t need to know why more painkillers weren’t available, why the hospice nurse whose name Blake hadn’t even bothered to learn hadn’t shown up in over a day. He just got to sleep through it, coming alive for nothing more than sips of water and drops of morphine, the occasional spoonful of codeine. He never opened his eyes, and he never had to see the images that played across the TV screen.

  Lucky him. All he had to worry about was a slow, agonizing death.

  Blake felt the tears come once again. He hadn’t cried in a few hours, and it felt like it was time once again. Holly wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, and the crying took control. Memories washed over him: birthdays and days spent on the banks of the Ohio, watching boat races. He remembered his father teaching him how to tie a necktie, how to drive a stick shift and change an engine’s oil. He remembered the rusted-out Mercury his dad had brought home only for the engine to never start again. The old man had sworn the vehicle was road-ready, but apparently nobody had ever thought to inform the Mercury.

  He remembered his dad’s smile and laughter and the way he used to ooh and ah whenever Brooke Shields appeared on the television. He recalled the way his eyebrow would arc upward whenever he saw a woman in tight shorts.

  And he remembered how much he loved his father, how he couldn’t remember the last time he’d said it before the man closed his eyes. That hurt more than anything else, more than the coughing or the shaking hands. He wanted his father to know his son loved him with all his heart, and he couldn’t remember if he’d told him.

  The sobs came, quaking through his body like tremors. Holly held on to him, whispering in his ear that it was all right and that she loved him. He squeezed his eyes shut and wailed, knowing nothing had ever hurt so much as what was happening to his father right now.

  I love you, Dad, he thought. I love you so much.

  “Blake?”

  The soft, almost warning tone of Holly’s voice chased his tears a way. He wiped his eyes and looked at his father, saw the jutting bones of the man’s shoulders and the pained look on his face. What he didn’t see was any breathing, and he knew from Holly’s single word that there hadn’t been any in awhile.

  He counted. He didn’t know what else to do.

  His father breathed again as he reached thirty-two, a long, shuddering breath that looked like it hurt more than any inhalation ever should. It left his lungs the same way it had entered, in a ragged, violent fashion.

  Blake stopped counting. He didn’t bother to check his father’s pulse, either. Surely, it had topped one hundred. He just sat at his father’s side and waited, looking at his father’s closed eyes and thinking about how much he loved the man.

  His father did not breathe again.

  After several long, silent moments, he stood and walked to his father’s side. He leaned down and kissed the man’s still warm forehead, then lifted the blanket one last time, pulling it over his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Holly said.

  “Me too.”

  “Are you okay?

  He shrugged. He didn’t know the answer.

  Holly appeared in his arms, then. She held him close and he could tell she was crying, trying to absorb his hurt into herself so he wouldn’t have to suffer. He squeezed her and gave her a tender kiss.

  “I love you, Holly.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Thank you for doing this.”

  “I wish neither one of us had to,” she said. “I’m just glad it got to happen here.”

  And she was right. He knew that. When the oncologist told him the chemo wasn’t working, that his father had maybe ten days left in him, they’d suggested taking the man directly to hospice. He’d watched his father’s face in that moment, and he knew the man was terrified. He wanted to go home at least one last time, not be sent to a facility to die. An hour of negotiations had resulted in his father coming home and receiving hospice care a few hours each day. Maybe it was a small mercy, but in such a horrible mess it was the best that could be provided.

  “You’re right,” Blake said. He stroked Holly’s hair. “You’re right.”

  “I always am,” she whispered.

  And then something hissed.

  He looked up, his heart jerking into his throat. No way on Earth could this really be happening. It had been minutes already, maybe as many as five. His father couldn’t really be making that sound. It just wasn’t possible.

  But something was moving beneath the blanket that covered the hospital bed. Something writhed slowly, moving back and forth as if testing its body, and if it wasn’t his father it couldn’t possibly be anything else.

  Thoughts jabbed at him, flashing through his brain before he dismissed them. It’s a miracle! No. It’s another stage of dying, something the doctors didn’t tell you. Not possible.

  It’s the plague.

  But the plague was spread by bites.

  You don’t know that! his mind screamed. That’s what they said on the news, but they don’t know either! Nobody knows what the fucking plague really is!

  “Get behind me,” he told Holly.

  “What’s happening?” she asked as she stared at the bed, but he could tell by the rising panic in her voice that she had reached the same conclusion. The plague. It wasn’t just those bitten that were coming back. It was the dead, every last one of them.

  He felt the sudden need to grab Holly and run, just get as far away from his father’s house as possible. But instead he could only stare as the blanket slowly fell from his father’s face.

  “Dad?”

  He’d opened his eyes, and his jaw worked the slightest bit, toothless gums coming together and then falling apart. Dry breath rasped past the man’s lips, and slowly his hands appeared from beneath the blanket, clawing weakly at the air.

  “Oh my god,” Blake said as he rushed forward. His father hadn’t turned into a killer. This wasn’t the plague or anything else. The man was still alive, and he was in pain. Oh, Jesus.

  “Holly, see if you can find any more morphine.”

  “Blake…”

  “Please.”

  “Blake, listen to me.”

  “Holly, he’s hurting.”

  “He’s not.” Her voice sounded sympathetic, but there was a patient tone in it he found condescending. She sounded like she was talking to a child, trying to explain something he couldn’t grasp.

  “Yes, he is! Jesus Christ. Holly, just look at him. Look at him! He’s in pain, goddammit!”

  “Blake, get away from him.”

  “Fuck you!”

  He spun away from her and leaned down to hold his father. He kept his touch gentle, afraid to squeeze the man’s fragile ribs.

  “I love you, Dad. I love you.” He felt so thankful he had the chance to say it. “I’ll find you some painkillers.”

  And then he felt it, the weak but hungry pressure of his father’s gums against his collarbone. He sucked in a breath and
held it. The pressure eased and returned, eased and returned, and he knew his father wasn’t trying to kiss him or say his last words. The man was trying to bite.

  He cried out as he leaped away from the hospital bed. The movement sent the whole works crashing to the floor. He took another step and then fell backwards onto his ass. Horrified, he couldn’t do anything but stare at the overturned bed, at the dead body struggling feebly to escape the blanket.

  The news had said something about the head. He’d thought it sounded like movie bullshit, but somehow he’d never doubted it was the truth. Everything had become too horrible for it to be anything but an absolute reality.

  But he couldn’t do that to his father, not after watching him die. He scooted backwards and pressed against Holly’s legs.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  Something I can’t. Something I won’t.

  His father escaped the linens and slowly dragged himself around the bed. Dead eyes stared at him, devoid of any emotion but pain, maybe hunger. The old man dug into the carpet with those weak fingers and came for him.

  He shoved his father away, but not before the man grabbed his leg with hands that barely contained any strength. The cooling touch destroyed his strength, and suddenly he couldn’t do anything but watch and sob as the dead man slowly crawled up his legs.

  “Dad, please.”

  His father kept coming, fingers now finding the fabric of his T-shirt and grabbing hold, pulling. A wheeze pushed past the man’s gums, and then his father was trying to bite him again, mouth closing around the meat of his thigh.

  Have to get them in the head. That’s what they said on the news. But he couldn’t do it. He could never do something like that to his father.

  He screamed until he felt something crack in his throat. Lights danced in his eyes and then gave way to a gray haze. He felt his eyes droop shut, and he welcomed the darkness. It had to be better than this.

  The world returned on the back of Holly’s scream. Her angry cry jerked him back to consciousness, and he shoved his father away a split second before he saw a cast iron skillet slam into the man’s forehead. Blake listened as the metallic sound of the impact rang through the living room for a moment, but the crunching sound of his father’s skull cut through the noise.

  His father slumped to the floor, eyes closed. The pained, sick expression disappeared, finally replaced by something like peace. He didn’t look angry or hungry or monstrous. Instead, he looked like the man Blake had always known.

  He jumped as the skillet slipped out of Holly’s hands and crashed to the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Her eyes were red and wet, and her lips quivered. She raised shaking hands to her face. “He was… attacking you, and I didn’t know what… Oh Jesus, Blake. I’m so sorry.”

  He wanted to say it was okay, that’s she’d done what he couldn’t. When he opened his mouth, however, nothing came out but a moan. A sob followed, and then he buried his face in his hands and cried like an infant, wailing and bubbling snot all over his palms. He missed his father, and he mourned the world he’d known. He couldn’t stand this new one. Maybe Holly was strong enough for it, but he wasn’t.

  As Holly slipped her arms around him and held him close, he wondered if he ever would be.

  ————————————

  Blake looked down at the ruined man splayed at the foot of the steps and found his fear rising once more. The hot pain in his leg supplied him with a mounting terror. The dead came back as they’d lived; he knew that. Even as a zombie his father had been weak and ravaged by cancer. The man would have suffered forever if Holly hadn’t put him out of his misery.

  But what if he died here? What if he came back as a zombie with a broken leg, unable to walk? Would he drag himself around like a broken lobster? Would he be trapped in this house until the world came to its bitter end? He couldn’t let that happen. Now more than ever, he needed to find a way back to Tandy’s and rescue.

  A groan escaped his lips, and he decided to take it as a good sign. It meant he’d managed to draw air into his lungs. He was still breathing, and that meant he was still alive. So he had to get thinking, had to find a way out of this mess.

  He pressed a hand to his forehead and wiped away the sweat there, and it made him feel a little better. He could do this. All he needed was time to think, to get moving again.

  He grabbed hold of the wall, gripping the corner tight with his fingers. Slowly, he worked his left leg beneath him. He breathed deep, and when he finally felt prepared he pulled at the wall as he rose to his feet.

  “Here we go,” he told the empty room. “Nothing to it, just one step at a time.”

  He held his breath and stepped away from the wall.

  In the second before he lost his balance and pitched forward, he screamed like a maniac. He landed on top of his leg, and another cry filled the room.

  The grinding agony in his broken leg became a beacon of pain, flashing on and off in a steady rhythm. How could he walk on this? How on earth was he going to reach the others now? Was he supposed to crawl across the road? No thanks and no way in hell. He’d managed to get this far without getting a bite taken out of his hide, but now he’d been hobbled. He couldn’t pull off a stunt like crossing the road without serious help.

  He pounded his fists against the carpet. Tears fell from his eyes as his screech climbed in volume, and he crammed one of his fists past his lips to block the sound. Dammit, the zombies had killed him just the same. They didn’t need to bite him. In the end, all they needed was to break his leg and leave him lying in an abandoned house.

  He rolled onto his stomach, sending a fresh burst of punishment rocketing from his leg all the way up to his head. A scream erupted from him. The cry tore at his throat, but he couldn’t stop. He moved, shrieking until his head swam and he had to stop and breathe before he passed out. Unsure where he might be going, he dragged himself forward on his elbows. He just wanted to move, to feel like he was doing something. Sweat ran into his eyes, mixing with his tears of pain and frustration. More perspiration slicked his arms, his back.

  His blurred vision sent a new wave of dizziness through him, and he had to stop for a second. He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed at them with his fingers. Stars burst and fizzled, but when he opened his eyes again he could see without problems.

  He collapsed in a pile of throbbing pain and began to take inventory of his situation. Broken leg, no walkie-talkie, and an empty shotgun in the middle of a town full of dead cannibals. Fact was, he probably wasn’t leaving this room, let alone the house. If three of the monsters had found their way to him before, it was only a matter of time before another stumbled into the house either through sheer luck or some predatory urge. And how would he defend himself? Simple. He couldn’t. Not like this, not broken and beaten.

  So fucking unfair.

  He closed his eyes and breathed deep, trying to reach past the anguish, fighting to ignore the reek of the broken and oozing corpse in the room. Instead, he tried to keep himself calm. There had to be a way to survive, some means of escape. He needed to decide if he was really going to die here.

  You promised me, a voice spoke in his head.

  “I know. Sorry about that.”

  You break promises now?

  “Don’t see much of an alternative. Nothing personal, right?”

  You’re giving up. Don’t do that.

  “That what this looks like? I thought I was just being honest about it all.”

  I’ve never given up on you. You know that. Don’t you dare make me regret it, not when I love you.

  He nodded. Right. Even if the voice wasn’t really Holly, it was right. Everything was worth at least one shot, but he had to make it happen. He owed it to her.

  He breathed deep as he considered climbing to his feet again.

  TWENTY

  Chris leaned against a metal shelf and waited for his body to stop hurting. That ignorant fuck had really done a number on
him. The back of his head throbbed, and he thought he might have cracked a rib. Something tickled his lip, and he touched it with his tongue. Blood. It was coming from his nose.

  “Fuck this,” he whispered as he wiped a hand across his face.

  The small of his back hurt more than the rest of his wounds. That big boy had given him all of his weight, and the surging ache on his spine told him he was lucky not to be paralyzed.

  He bent at the waist and tried to stretch out his back. The pain only increased.

  ————————————

  “Lay back, honey. It’s gonna be fine.” Chris looked down at his daughter. Danielle’s face had flamed red. Sweat glistened on her forehead.

  “My head hurts,” she whispered.

  He looked to their host.

  “I’ll get some aspirin,” the balding man said. He left the room, not running, but moving quickly enough.

  Chris pressed his palm to Danielle’s forehead. Her eyes fluttered shut, and he could see the pain stitched across her small features. He eyed the bite on her arm. It had swollen a little and the skin around it had grown a deep red. He touched it with gentle fingers, but Danielle gasped in sudden pain. Jerking away his hand, he thought about the word they’d used on the radio.

  Infected.

  But what did that mean? Danielle had obviously caught something from the woman who’d bitten her, but what? Was it fatal? Would Danielle end up like the woman with the bloody throat?

  He shook his head, trying to make the thoughts disappear. A shiver danced down his spine, and he had to turn away from Danielle and stare at the wall before he went insane. He stroked his daughter’s shoulder with his fingers and tried to keep his breathing from becoming a series of panicked gasps.

  Quick footfalls brought his eyes to the doorway a second before the Anthrax fan appeared. He carried a bottle of water, a dark brown plastic bottle Chris knew at once was hydrogen peroxide, and a ceramic mug with a spoon sticking out of it. A wet washrag hung from his forearm. “I wasn’t sure what all we needed, so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff.”