Drifters

by Santos, J. A.

  The walk to the hotel was completely eventless, but once there I can the cops flooding the entrance of the hotel. In the lot beside it, where I climbed out of the yellow car, was crawling also with cops, like ants on a piece of candy. I came as close as I could and watched. There was a cop in a black suit shouting orders to two uniformed that ran as fast as they could to a car at the end of a long line. Then in to frame came the cop that had stopped us on the road block. I started to walk backwards when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Sara, we need your help.”

  I stopped cold, they were here looking for me. I was so stupid, I scolded myself. I turned around and yes there he was Jeremy Garber, Director of the lab I escaped so long ago.

  He moved fast and grabbed my arms.

  “Let me go.” I said and wiggled around like a worm to try and be free of his hold, but his grip was hard and his fingernails were digging in my skin as little scalpels. I did not show my strength since he is a mere human.

  “I am not here to take you back.”

  “Then why are you here”

  “You saw him, right?”

  “Saw who?” He let go of the hold and looked up to the scene in the hotel.

  “Him he said as he pointed to the hotel”

  “Him? Who?” I asked again as I was about to slap some sense on him since he was making none.

  “Listen Sara this chase has been long going. To many years after you, we get you, you escape again I am old and weary. I want you to work for us.”

  “Just like that you want me to work for you, what is wrong in your head.”

  “Listen Sara this way you can stop being a drifter.”

  “I like being a drifter I get to meet new people.”

  He looks at me with a concern eyes then moves backwards a little inhaling deeply. He turns around and looks at a bench and sits, he patted the other end signaling me to sit beside him. He bends forward putting his forearm on his knees and balling up his hands in front of him. He exhales.

  “Sara, we found more like you. You are not the only one.”

  “What?”

  “We found out there are others that carry the disease some are stable and inactive. Others, well, you see right there what they can do.” He said as his head moved towards the hotel.

  “What do you mean inactive?” I asked thinking the worst of him as I always did. But his face changed all of a sudden, gloomy, sadness appeared in his eyes as they watered. A time when I cared so much for him caught me by surprise, but I pushed the feeling away.

  “I am sorry Sara for everything I have done to you; I really am, but your kind…”

  “Okay let me get this straight and I am going on a limb here. You want me to come to work for you, maybe tracking other like me and you think a fucking sorry will make things right between us?” I said and burst of the chair completely infuriated, my hands making hard balls. He put the palms of his hands to his knees and pushed himself to a standing position.

  I turned again so he was facing my back; I was thinking what he wanted from me and end this chase. The wind blew up and my hair danced away from my face. The chills crawled on my skin as he stayed silent at my back. The sights of the body bags now coming out of the hotel were like omens of things starting to get worse for me if I said no. I was about to turn when he spoke.

  “I don’t have much time left Sara; I want to leave you with a gift of freedom if you work for us.”

  “What freedom would I have? I bet you would put some tracker on me and “my kind” just to make yourself save from us?”

  “You are wrong the division that I am creating, where I want you to be part off, would be yours to control. You do as you see fit under the circumstances.”

  “No more chasing me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will do what I want.”

  “Yes.”

  I turned looked into his eyes and they were still sad, droopy if you may. I was about to say yes when he said “Just one thing.”

  “I knew there was a catch.”

  “Don’t get me wrong it’s just a safeguard for your family.”

  “I don’t have a family.”

  “Well your kind then.”

  “What is it?”

  “We need you to give us samples from each and every one of your kind you can find.”

  “I knew it, for tagging, then the answer is no. I don’t care you chasing me or the others. All I want is to be left alone and in peace.” I said as his brow arched downward and his lips tighten.

  Chapter Four

  I looked back at the hotel and it was still lit with strobes of the cop’s cars red and blue lights. People were gathering outside as the black body bags were coming out, how many did Alex attacked? I thought, and only I knew at the moment the danger that would unfold in just a matter of days, if things are not taken care off now. I looked at Jeremy still with the arched brow and tight lips glaring at me.

  “Sara you know what will happen.” He said as he moved to my side, his suit flapping to the winds song, his back straight, tight, and his arms to it embracing the lower part. “If it were not a matter of urgency I would not offer this. There are two others we could identify. God knows how many others are out there.”

  I looked forward and embrace myself remembering the first time I watched one come back, one of my victims, the nurse. Then I heard the shot coming from the back of a locked memory and Jeremy with his military uniform glaring down at the corpse. I jumped as it echoed all over again in my head. Then I moved my head down looking at the asphalt under my feet then forward again.

  “Just this once,” I said knowing that this time things are different. There are others like me out there and I would have to protect them from him, I know he is planning something else. I know that since I am not unique as before all he had to do was catch one of us so he can do his experiments all over again. But again, what if the others are just that, experiments that they knowingly have unleashed to the world and the danger they possessed.

  I turned around without saying any other word to him he only screamed to the nights wind were to meet the next day as I walked away. The wind distorted his words, but I understood where to go. I walked with no intention of stopping anywhere, just move forward with no actual direction. I went north through Gregory Street and then back south going towards the forest. I don’t know why I had the urge to go there, maybe because I always have found the solitude of the forest welcoming. At the edge of the forest I looked left and back. My trail is spotless no one had fallowed me; there was no one behind a tree, a car or any other place they could use to hide. I moved inside the forest beside a tree with its trunk carved with a heart and two letters ‘G’ and ‘C’ with a plus sign, I put my finger to the bark of the tree and traced each curve the carving made. I felt that it was just nothing interesting at the time.

  I walked on a small grassy path for several minutes inside the forest with the night chilly as it was and rustling of night creatures around. I lay on a clearing I found and listened. The night creatures were moving all around me; the flapping of wings was heard in the sky. The wind whistling its magical sonnet with the trees leaves, howling of wolves far in the distance that sounded more like a plea for something I could not understand and the stomping of some large animals which I did not knew what kind they were. With those sounds inside my ears I put my hands behind my neck and drifted to a worried night sleep.

  #

  I woke early in the morning; leaves were covering my body as they fell during the night. The morning dew on my skin felt refreshing. I sat grabbing my knees pulling them close to my chest and remembering where Jeremy wanted me to meet him. I heard rustling to my left and turned my head. When a man weighing no more than an old TV set from 20th century, a piece of technology where the screen was made from a glassed vacuumed tube, came staggering towards me.

  “Please help me.” he said his voice quivering

  I stood up and ran towards him. My only thought was, if he was b
itten by Alex, the source of my new adventure. Where was he? I thought and knelt down besides the man where he was.

  “Please he is still out there?” he said

  “Who?”

  “That man, he, he had blood all over and was growling like a deranged animal, please help me he was chasing me.”

  “Where was this” I said as the hunger started speaking to me. I looked up to the rising sun.

  “Please do you have a phone?”

  “No.” I said looking from where he had appeared some seconds ago.

  “What are you doing?” he said his face distorted with fear and weirdness as he looks as I stood and started walking towards the bushes he had appeared some moments ago.

  “You’ll be okay” I said as I knew he was not bitten and I disappeared in the bushes tracking Alex not minding the meet with Jeremy. I did not care I had to find Alex fast and then deal with the corpses he had left behind if Jeremy had not done away with them by now.

  I heard the screams of the man from the clearing I had left telling me I was crazy, this man was not human he had screamed, If only he knew.

  I walked for hours looking for the place this man had come from but found nothing. I backed tracked back to the clearing when the faint smell of metal caught my nostrils and I stopped. I looked left and right as the smell came closer. I traded the trail carefully, the idea of been surprised by Alex was overwhelming me. How strong is he? I thought. Another rustling in the bushes this one to my right, the bushes moved, swayed left and right, up and down. The silence was over this new place in the forest, no flapping of wings in the sky no chirping of birds and it was weird the forest is always covered in sound, yet this silence was unnatural for me. I waited. Holding my breath from time to time when in front of me jumped a fawn, a small animal with its brownish fur coat. He looked at me and moved its head down. I let out a breath of relief.

  Extending my hand I lured him towards me. It reluctantly came slowly and liked my hand. The hunger started churning inside, growling telling me it’s time for a meal. I looked down towards my stomach and up at the fawn. It blinked with those black beady eyes telling me he was not scared.

  “I’m Sorry” I said as I lunged forward sticking my teeth to its necked the blood flowed from my mouth down my throat and the feeling of satisfaction started rising in me. I grabbed the animal by its neck pushing him down, I fought the animal as he kicked and tried to get away, yet there was no sound coming from it. I tore the flesh and in hand full put them in my mouth, eating its meat on a frenzy of satisfaction. I have not taken any flesh for a while now, not since Canyon Diablo. I thought about my last time in Oregon where I had taken down a cult of murderers for a god they believed in as my meal ticket to let the hunger subside.

  The baby deer didn’t moved anymore, it took four seconds for its death to come and I ate. The hunger does not affect animals as it does humans, only monkeys, chimps seemed affected by it and I guessed it was cause of the similar genetics we possessed, still I had to make sure he would not come back, just in case. I tore the head of the animal and put my hand inside from its neck moving inside, like a worm to get to its brain. When I grabbed it in my hand it was a small thing almost as big as my baseball. I clasped my finger and yanked it out. I stood up relief, in satisfaction that I had a meal and I would not have to fight the hunger for a time now. I was all covered in the fawns’ blood. I needed to get clean and meet Jeremy, but how was I going to get clothes since the events of Canyon Diablo left me with only what I had on. I knew there had to be a river close by yet I had no time to spend. I turned around after covering the fawn’s body with leaves and broken branches. I knelt down and said a small prayer.

  I walked for another hour in the forest looking around as the blood dried on my cloths. I knew if someone saw me I would look like a murderer that had just finished an evil deed and was going back for another victim. When I had an idea, I looked at the ground were the morning dew had created a wet floor. I grabbed mud and put it all over my body, over the blood stained cloths to hide the crimson red that was turning brown. The metal smell arose in the air as I put the mud and I looked up. The birds now were chirping the music of the forest had just started all over again. I looked left when Alex appeared.

  “Well, well. I see you have the lust for blood and meat too.” he said with glean on his face

  “Alex, you don’t understand.”

  “O, but I do.”

  “No you don’t.” I said and stood up.

  “Well then explain it to me.” he said still smiling showing stained red teeth.

  “You and I are alike, we both have the hunger crawling at us and fighting it takes a toll.” I said looking at his face when his brow arched downward his eyes sliced and his smile disappeared.

  “But I like eating.” he said and lunged forward hands open trying to grab me by the throat. I moved right and he missed.

  “Alex, fight it.”

  “I am hungry.”

  “You can fight the hunger.”

  “No.”

  I looked at him, he side steps left circling me like a predator does its victim, assessing when the best moment to attack is. He smiled again as he kept side stepping moving left with every stride, I stayed fallowing him with my eyes, turning my head and body as he kept moving and waiting for his next attack. He turned around and started running away from me. I ran after him trying to catch up, but he was faster and disappeared in the woods. I grabbed a hand full of my hair and made a bun of it and walked to the skirt of the forest, to the carved tree and towards the road.

  Chapter Five

  Outside the forest I walked to where Jeremy wanted me to meet him, a small park north of the hotel I see him on a bench. People that looked at me were whispering. I have mud all over my body and my hair red as it was tied on a bun on my head made me look like a hobo. I sure was a sight for them, but I am a drifter, mud and dirt is something I am accustomed to. When Jeremy saw me he smiles a little and as fast as it came he turned serious.

  “I see you had a meal already so no point in going to a diner for breakfast.”

  “I saw Alex.” I said not caring for his comment.

  “Who’s Alex?” he asked.

  “Isn’t he who you want me to get for you?”

  “So, the subject name is Alex.”

  “Stop it, he is not a subject of you experiments understand.” I said as he put his hands up crossing them on his chest.

  “Ok, were did you see him?”

  “In the forest just some hours ago, he ran away, couldn’t fallow him he was faster.”

  “Hum,” he said, “interesting.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  I sat beside him and we stayed in silence for a while. The sun was warm and good at my skin. I looked forward as people still were looking at me whispering about my appearance and I look left at Jeremy.

  “I need new cloths.”

  “Yes you do” he said

  “So?”

  “Okay, I’ll give you money so you can get new stuff.”

  “Thanks,” I said and looked forward not minding anymore the hushed whispers of the people around. I went to a clothing store accompany by Jeremy, they didn’t let me inside the store for the way I looked so Jeremy had to go inside and buy the cloths for me. I told him all I wanted was a pair of jeans, black preferably and a shirt, black also. He came out with four bags of clothing. When I looked inside there was a pack of underwear, three pair of jeans, a skirt, six shirts, and a white blouse. The teller busted out the store and gave him another bag; it was a backpack big enough to put everything inside. I eyed him but said nothing. We went to the same park where we were before. I used the public bathroom to put water on my face and hair, he wanted me to go to a hotel or motel but I did not wanted to be in a private place with him you never know what he would do. I put more water on my face again from the sink and it felt good, cold water. I unbutton the flannel shirt I had covered in mud and blood, I unhooked my
bra putting water on my breasts and then dabbed them with paper towels. I hooked my bra again and threw the shirt in the wastebasket. As I unbutton my pants there was a knock on the door.

  “Sara, hurry up” Jeremy said from the other side and I did not respond I kept taking my pants off throwing them on the wastebasket too. I took my panties and discarded them; a fresh pair would be nice, I thought to myself. I opened the pack and put one on, it felt well on my skin. I put one of the black jeans he had gotten me and one of the t-shirts. My sneakers were still in good condition that I did not have to discard them. I put them on and everything else went to the backpack. I moved out and Jeremy was still waiting, I thought he would get desperate and leave.

  “Ah, my sweet Sara, you look ravishing.” He said

  “You haven’t called me sweet Sara for a long time now.” I said

  “I know.” he said extending his arm inviting me to a hug. I pushed it away. What was he thinking after all this time he now wants to be the father figure he once was?

  “Have you taken care of the bodies?” I asked changing the subject to more important matters.

  “No.” he said

  “There’s only one day left. What are you waiting for?”

  “I have no team.”

  “What?”

  “Our budget was withdrawn. The organization is gone. Targus is dead, Sara.”

  I stayed mouthed open and not believing him so who are the ones looking for in this town?

  “You must be joking we hit a roadblock when we got here and the cop there said they were looking for someone.”

  “Yes they are here.”

  “Who are they? O, wait, right. Targus is dead.” I said happiness inside me.

  “Targus died, but he appointed me on seeking them and the cataloguing of your kind, only me.” He said as we walked side by side straight to the morgue.

  “Who’s He, why don’t you have a team and is that why you want me to work for you?”

  “Yes. For him I am not in liberty to say, yet.”