"Scorpion!"
While she stomped around on the ground, gesticulating wildly because she wasn't sure if she'd rid herself of the thing, Mark peered down at the ground with a flashlight he'd found at Lobos Mart. "It's only a spider."
She sighed a breath of relief.
"There's another one on your shoulder." He flicked it off before she could scream.
Not ashamed to admit that she was more afraid of creepy crawlies than other dangers, she offered an alternative travel plan a few seconds later after she calmed down. "Since we're away from the road, couldn't we travel by day when it would be easier to spot things like snakes, scorpions, and Eaters? Then, while it's still light out, we could find a house or something where it's safe to spend the night."
There were murmurs of agreement as Deanna and some of the men moved away from the trees, checking their clothing.
Mark shrugged. "I guess we could. As long as it's not too hot, because if it heats up, we'd sweat too much and drink up our water supplies too quickly. What do the rest of you think?"
"I'm in favor," Edmond said first.
The other agreements came in nods and grunts.
Cheryl felt emboldened to make another suggestion. "Okay…that's settled. How about somewhere less spidery to spend the rest of tonight then?"
All were in agreement after Diego flicked a spider off his head with a very girly yelp.
After walking another mile without seeing any sort of building, they found the remnants of a horse corral. They stayed away from the barn and leaned against the fence posts where the brush was sparse enough to prevent too many insects from hanging out.
When dawn came, they scattered in different directions to relieve themselves. Jordan came back reporting there was a stream a few yards to the west. They all followed him to it and used the crisp water to wash their faces and refill empty water bottles. Then, after a quick meal from whatever goodies they each had in their packs, they began to walk again.
By late morning, the sun was high and it was warm enough to cause them to shed a few layers of clothing. They'd only gone another three miles, because of the difficulty navigating through the prickly scrub and tall grasses. Cheryl preferred the daytime travel but was beginning to doubt their choice to stay away from the main road, because they were trekking through some pretty tough terrain. They were all walking with their heads down, trying to avoid getting stabbed by yuccas and prickly pear. Then, something flashed ahead of them, causing them to look up.
Twenty yards ahead, there were railroad tracks, gleaming bright silver in the sunlight. Without a word, they all veered off their course and started heading towards them.
After they leapt up the ridge to the tracks, Jake said, "They're heading northwest. We should follow them."
"Sweet," Edmond said. "When a train comes, we can hitch a ride. My feet are in so much bloody pain."
"If you had some real shoes, instead of those girly loafers…"
Edmond opened his mouth to return Zach's volley, but Cheryl cut him off. "Boys…"
They bowed their heads like scolded children and shut up.
Mark disavowed anyone of the notion that the tracks denoted any sort of rescue. "There's no train coming, so you all might as well give up on that fantasy."
"Well, at least it's nicer walking along them than through all the prickles." Edmond patted Cheryl on the shoulder. "And we might not have noticed them if we were still walking at night. So, points for you."
"Thanks," she said. "It's nicer walking in the sunshine. Kicks my depression down a notch."
"Mine too."
He walked along with a loopy grin after that making Cheryl think about some old saying about mad dogs and Englishmen, and the midday sun. Sometimes, she had to remind herself that Edmond wasn't really British—he just wished he was.
As they walked, she kept her eyes on the horizon, alert to any sign of movement that could signal danger. As far as she could see, there was nothing but oaks, pines, cactus and scrub. The beautiful scenery and endless blue sky above made her wonder what it was like over a hundred fifty years ago when she might have been scanning for Apaches, herds of buffalo, or wild horses instead of hordes of flesh-eating dead or men with automatic weapons who wanted to kill them. She figured she would have liked living in those golden times. As wild as the west was then, it was even wilder and more hazardous now.
By early afternoon, they were hot and sweaty and ready for a rest. They plopped down on the tracks to have some food and water. Before they finished eating, Diego stood up and stepped a few feet away from the group. They all watched as he stood completely still, eyes closed. The guy, who Cheryl always thought looked grungy and rough around the edges, seemed to take on a more peaceful expression as he became a statue. His long blond hair with dark roots drooped down over his leathery cheeks, and his face relaxed, producing a look of total serenity.
"What's up with him?" Kai asked.
"Just watch," Aidan said.
Diego's hands and arms began to move from side to side as if he was swishing the air, controlling it with his movements. Then, as he sliced diagonally with an imaginary sword to the left and the right, his chunky limbs and fingers became pure grace, moving as light and fluid as butterfly wings.
Edmond's eyebrows rose up to his hair line. "What in the world is he doing?"
"Looks like "Tai Chi", Cheryl said.
Zach watched with a scowl. "Ballerina…"
"Pretty impressive, actually." Edmond said. "He's got a lot of weight to move around like it was nothing."
A few minutes later, Diego finished his routine and held his hands up in the air before taking a bow. "It's good for stress reduction and focus. You should all learn it."
There was a round of chuckles. Zach guffawed the loudest, making Cheryl think that he was actually jealous of Diego's performance.
"My older brother taught me. He was into a lot of Eastern stuff. He even turned me on to Sun Tzu before he was killed in a bar room brawl."
"What's that?" Kai asked before taking another sip of warm soda.
"Not what…who. Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general around 500 B.C. A very wise man in the philosophy of war."
Zach made a fake yawn.
Diego ignored him. "I wish now that I'd been less of a chump back than and had paid more attention to what he taught me. There are probably a lot of things I've forgotten that would help us deal with this O.N.E. group."
"Like what?" Zach asked.
"Like…tips on asymmetrical warfare." He took a stick and drew a small circle and a large circle in the dirt. He was the one who said, 'All warfare is based on deception.'"
Mark jumped in. "He's right. A lot of U.S. military tactics go back to his ideas."
"Another thing…he was very good at using the terrain and the environment to his advantage. He was observant of any condition or small event that could turn a battle in his favor."
"For example?"
"Well…for instance…see that flock of sparrows settling down in that oak over there?" He pointed to a large tree in the distance. "Because they're calm and resting, it means we're safe here for the moment. If they were to startle and scatter, it would mean someone was coming.
"They could scatter for any reason, though. There could just be a stray—"
The birds they were looking at suddenly took off in mass, flying high in the sky.
"Ha!" Zach said. "Like I was say—"
Jake dropped to the ground and put his ear on one of the rails. "There's a train coming."
By then, they had all stopped and turned around to look behind them, because they could feel the vibration on the track and hear the rumble in the distance.
"That's not possible!" Mark yelped. "There hasn't been a plane or train running in this country for months."
Aidan shrugged. "Well…there's one coming now. Hide!"
They hid behind the clumps of mesquite and palo verde on the east side of the tracks, and a few minutes later, they watched
the train wind into view. The engine was pulling a long load of cars behind it that went as far as the eye could see.
Zach spat on the ground. An insane grin bloomed across his face. "Maybe it's a good sign."
"Depends on who's running it," Mark replied.
The engine approached, roaring like some great beast. It was as bright red as a fire truck and looked as if it was freshly painted, but the first two dozen cars behind it were the standard, steel box cars, rusty and ancient, covered with panoramas of colorful graffiti.
The sun reflected off the engine's windshield and side windows, so they couldn't see the conductor.
"What's it hauling?"
One of the older Vultures grunted. "It's a black snake. See the coal bins?"
"It's not hauling coal."
Some of the cars rolling past had open tops, and one came into view with hands sticking up, flapping about like dirty rags in the wind. Their sooty color obviously didn't come from coal or ash. It was grey, dead skin, mottled, and flaking off. Some were nothing but boney fingers like skeletons waving in some macabre parade.
Diego crossed himself. "Santa Maria…"
But Zach's eyes lit up. "I want to know where it's going."
"Hmmm…" Edmond scoffed. "I don't think we can run fast enough to follow it. You know…Christmas before last, I got me one of them Magic Eight Ball things. Maybe we could—"
"I’m really tired of your mouth, Milkman."
Mark threw up his hands. "There's only one way we're going to find out where that thing is headed, and that's to follow it."
"I've got a better idea," Jake said. "It's heading north, and we want to head that way anyway. Why don't we hitch a ride?"
Jaws dropped.
"Are you serious?" Cheryl asked.
"Dead serious."
"Poor choice of words." Zach grumbled.
"Sorry."
"But, it's going too fast," Aidan said. "It'd be suicide to try to—"
"We'll have to wait until it slows down. In the meantime, let's get our butts in gear and move!"
The protests were numerous, but everyone leapt to their feet, grabbed their packs, and started jogging along behind the train. Jake and Jordan took the lead, maintaining a comfortable stride. They all kept pace for about a mile before some of them started dropping back from exhaustion.
"We can't keep this up," Cheryl said. "We're losing people."
Mark looked back and saw the stragglers then he summoned a burst of energy and caught up with Jake. He had to yell, so he could be heard over the noise of the train. "Hey…we can't keep up! We're going to have to stop!"
Jake kept going for a few more seconds before slowing his pace. "Damnit!" he said through heavy breath as he slowed to a walk.
Everyone behind him followed course. There were sighs of relief as some of them stopped altogether, doubling over and looking like they were either going to puke or pass out. The train sped on by and finally disappeared over a ridge.
Once they were all together again, Jake barked like a drill sergeant. "Okay people, we're going to keep following the tracks."
"I thought that's what we were doing," Edmond said, with a lilt of sarcasm.
"We are…" Jake shot back. "As long as they head north. I just wish we could have caught that train. It might have saved us a hell of a lot of walking."
Kai tried to offer them all some optimism. "Maybe there'll be another one, a slower one anyway."
"I'm not really sure hopping on that thing would have been a good idea," Cheryl said. "It was probably headed towards a O.N.E. camp. And I thought we were trying to avoid being seen."
Mark stopped and leaned down to pick some burrs off the cuffs of his pants. When he rose back up, he said, "Of course, if we'd have caught it, we'd have had to hop off before it reached its destination."
"That would be a gamble." Zach said.
Jake shook his head. "It might be more of a gamble to think we're going to safely walk all the way to Provo. Hitching a ride at least part of the way makes sense."
They walked another few miles, encountering several Eaters wandering alone. Cheryl wondered if they had escaped from the train. They didn't have black boxes on their heads, so there was no telling for sure. She was just glad they were able to knock them out before anyone got hurt.
Late in the day when the shadows were long and thin, and mentions of tired feet made some of them suggest making camp for the night, Edmond split off from the group to find a tree to sprinkle. A few seconds later, he came running back with his fly unzipped, pointing to the ridge where he'd just come from. "Check it out…check it out!"
They all came running, guns ready, shouting questions about what he had seen.
Edmond pointed over the edge, his face shining like a man who caught the prize-winning fish. "Shh…shh! Look down there! Right there!"
It was a rail yard, and sitting right below them was the train they had been chasing earlier—the same one for certain because of the yellow caboose with the red O.N.E. triangle painted on its side and the distinct swirls of graffiti.
"That's our chariot right there." Jake rubbed his hands together. "It's got empty cars. We just have to find one we can hop on without being seen, and we'll save ourselves miles of walking."
"I suppose you were a hobo in your first life and you've done this before?" Zach asked.
"Hopped a ride? No. But, it can't be rocket science when the thing's just sitting there."
"Well…" Aidan said. "If we're going to do this, let's get down there before it starts moving again."
They began to work their way down the ridge, keeping low and quiet, except for a couple of times when one of them accidently triggered a small rock slide. By the time they reached the edge of the rail yard, the sky had turned shades of purple and navy. There was movement between the tracks, individual workers and slower moving groups that looked like Eaters shuffling along behind someone leading them.
"All right…there might be a Bull patrolling. So, be careful. See that open box car?" Jake pointed to one with open doors near the rear of the train. "When it's clear that way, we make a run for it."
Less than two minutes later, they were sprinting across the tracks.
Jake made it first then paused by the car, urging the others to start hopping up as he kept a lookout for anyone that might have noticed them. "Hurry up. Go!"
After she hoisted herself up, Cheryl gave Edmond a hand. Then, she reached down to help Kai. As she pulled him up, she heard a moan behind her to the right.
The car wasn't empty.
She whipped around and strained to see what was moving in the darkness. It looked like there were eight or nine Eaters in the corner. Their legs were chained together at their ankles, and they were lunging towards her, but at least one of them was hooked to the wall, so they couldn't move very far. Their fetid breath and cumulative stink overwhelmed her to the point of nausea.
"Ummm…guys?...guys!"
No one could hear her over the roar of the train on the adjacent tracks that had just started moving. Fine. Then, no one will hear the gunfire either.
She barked an order. "Get down!"
Everyone who had made it on board scrunched down near the closest wall, covering their head with their hands and burying their ears in their armpits. One by one, she put each Eater down with a bullet to the head, wincing every time she heard the CLINK of a shell hitting the metal car, because the acoustics amplified the sound of the gunfire, and because she was worried about the possibility of ricochet.
"You all right?" she asked them when it looked like she'd hit them all.
They nodded.
"Okay, help the others up."
Cheryl reached for Deanna's hand next, pulling her on board and getting a mumbled thanks in response.
Just a few seconds later, Zach was the last one up. "Whew!" he said, covering his nose. "This place reeks."
She pointed to the garbage heap in the back corner, and he gave a nod of understanding.
They pressed themselves to the wall, trying to ignore the fact that it was sticky as a group of O.N.E. guards approached. The men were leading a chained group of Eaters down the track, luring them along with a big hunk of meat on a stick.
"We have to get off!" Edmond gasped. "They could be loading them in here!"
Zach craned his head towards the door, watching the approaching figures, and whispered, "I could take them."
"No," Jake told him. "Any commotion could just bring more."
Breathless, they waited, trigger fingers ready…and eventually they heard the snorting, moaning group stumble past their car. Then, they relaxed a little, except for Edmond, who had to poke his head out of the car to vomit.
After another half hour with no other immediate threats, they sat crouched on the floor, heads buried in hands and sleeves to filter out some of the foul smell. Then, a triangular beam of a flashlight wobbled into view on the tracks.
Diego whispered, "Somebody's coming!"
Jake waylaid them a raised hand. "Shhh…"
The flashlight shined inside the boxcar, panning from right to left. They were outside of its beam as it highlighted the blood stains and goo splattered all over the floor and walls, and panned across the heap of Eaters. If the guard noticed they were dead, he didn’t mention it when he spoke into a handheld radio. "Car UTLX3487 has space."
When he moved on Edmond whimpered again. "They're going to bring more. We'll be trapped!"
"We'll deal with it if it happens," Cheryl reassured him.
It was a great relief a few minutes later when the guard came back and slammed the sliding door shut without seeing them or loading more Eaters on board, but Cheryl felt a surge of panic like she'd just been entombed in a coffin. Seeming to sense her uneasiness, Mark clicked on a flashlight, cutting a swath of light through the void around them and shined it in the corner where the heap of dead Eaters lay. Then, he panned it around their faces. The fear in everyone's eyes was white hot.
Eaters (Book 2): The Resistance Page 21
