Drifters

by Santos, J. A.

  “Miss Sara.” Max said as he brought me back from the memories I was running like film in my head.

  “What do you want?

  ”I, I…”

  “Let it out.” I blurted and he spoke

  “Why are you keeping me alive?”

  “You know why.”

  “I really do?” he said arching his back upward almost straight and pushing me forward I pushed harder and thought I had broken his back.

  “Yes and shut up. I still need to think what I am going to do with you two when this is over.” I really needed to know what to do I could not let them stay with Jeremy or Marino they were the bad guys weren’t they, again, this two monkeys were trying to kill me for making them what they were and that was not my fault.

  “Do you really blame me for what Marino did to you?”

  “I do not, Alex does.”

  I sat in silence I looked up thinking as I started humming the tune again, that tune that had stayed inside my head for as long as I could remember and never knew where it came from.

  “Miss Sara, what is that beautiful tune you keep humming?”

  “I don’t know.” I answered and continued to hum.

  The night was still throwing cold needles to my body, the wind blowing through the leaves as invisible birds flew above. The bushes swayed with the wind and I did neither feel nor hear the man coming from our left. He was dress in hunting gear, camouflage vest, brown boots and a rifle in his hands, I did not move.

  “Hi there.” He said.

  “Hi.”

  “What are you two doing here?”

  “We are resting sir” said Max still his hands tied to his back. “You see we are drifters and we are just passing by.”

  “Okay, just be careful. Just heard over the radio there’s a fugitive around the woods. They say he killed Officer Jefferson, about three clicks from where we are right now.” He said and that word ‘clicks’ stuck in my mind, military.

  “Excuse me, but do you have a map of the area.” I said without moving, and he fumbled with some pockets of his vest and I felt Max turn his head next to my ear.

  “You better untie me, if he gets any closer he will see me bound and going to start asking question.” Max said and he was right, still I was reluctant, but I did it anyway. I put my right hand under my back and undid the knot with one hand.

  The man came closer with a map in his right hand and a flashlight in his left.

  “Here, you can have it. I have another at camp.”

  “May I ask you what are you doing out here at this hour.”

  “Well we are a group of about forty people back at the camp or more over were.” He said with a sad face.

  He kneeled down next to me as I finished untying Max from his binds.

  “See here, this is the spot we are.” He said pointing at the map. “The group was here about two days ago and we separated here at the ravine to make track of the area, we made it to where we pointed we were going to meet they didn’t.” he said still with a sad look.

  “Wait you said you divided here right?”

  “Yes” he said and I trailed my finger to the fertilizer plant and the twenty missing were right in its path.” They must have seen Alex somehow and he turned them all. I wanted to say something to him but I could not, not without jeopardizing who we really are.

  “We take rounds searching for them before we have to go back.”

  “I see, sorry to hear that,” I said to him as Max stood and stretched.

  “Well, Miss Sara I think we should be going now, long road ahead of us.” He said and spoke as he was before gentle, polite not crazy and rambling like when he killed the cop. I gave him a small angry look.

  “Yea Max, a long road, a long road for both of us.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  As the innocence of a child robbed while being abuse, he or her confidence dwindles so low, trusting again takes too much time to even consider doing ever again. I sense Max was a two sided road; either one plays along to his nice persona or I call upon his bluff and maintain his bound once this man leaves us. The man is still crouching down pointing to where his fellow comrades went missing he added.

  “We were communication on the radio when they talked about a strange man with black sunken eyes glaring at them from about ten feet. He had three men in chains. They said when they got closer; the man was like growling and the men in chains wailing for food, that they were hungry. Then we heard screams and communications went down. We are preparing to go there tomorrow. Three days is just too long.”

  “No need.” Said Max walking around in long steady strides till he was at the man’s back. I glared an angry look at him one more time and he put his hands up in defeat and walks around again coming to my right side.

  “Why is that?” the man asks.

  “Yea, why is that.” I said turning again to Max and my hair hits the man’s face. I turned around and said sorry, while turning again slowly.

  “But, Miss Sara you were there weren’t you?”

  The man looked from me to Max and then back at me. “Is he crazy or what?” he asked while putting his hand to the ground and pushing himself up to a standing position. He grunts as if some old age pain was throbbing. The map lifted from my hands a little as he finished standing.

  “Just a little.” I said looking up.

  “Well, maybe,” he said, “you know I can hear you, right.”

  I glared at him harder than before and bared my teeth for his looking and to let him know to stop whatever he was planning. He raised his hands again.

  “All I am saying is no need for you to go look for them; maybe they are backtracking to where you split. That is all, nothing more Miss Sara.” I turned around as the man had put his hand under his chin and looked as if he was pondering the idea, of the other group walking back. Adventurers get lost every time in the forest, like every 20% from 100% are armatures looking for the outside menacing and creepy night, out of the comfort of their four wall houses. For me the whole world was my house. I don’t use planes, but boats to go where I want to be. I was more astute then Max and this men both put together on living in the forest. I had lived on the forest for more than ten years now.

  “Na, they would not do that, besides we all need to see why the yelling.”

  “Sir, may I ask you why?”

  “My wife was on that group, he had a bit of a fall out before the group split, and so she went with the other.”

  “Umm,” I said looking at Max and he just nudges his shoulder up with the palms of his hands looking to the black sky and he was tilting his head to the left smiling, mocking me. I folded the map and left it hanging on my right leg, hand still holding the edge of the waxy paper where it was printed on.

  “Well, better be going,” said the man, “Now you two stay safe, watch out for the fugitive out there. Okay.”

  “Thank you for the map.” I said and raised my hand with the folded map. I looked at Max he was fallowing the man in the dark with his eyes.

  “Max, sit,” I said as if to remember what happen earlier.

  “Miss Sara, please, I will not leave you, although you give me the heebie jeebies, right now.”

  “Good, now sit.” He walked slowly almost like skipping one step and upward his body went; second step and again his body moved up. When he was close to me he let himself dropped to the ground. As he was falling his legs were crossing left over right and he rested his head on my shoulder. I pushed it away, Feeling distaste for his mannerism. A big humph escaped my mouth and he made a sad face, lips moving downward like that of a clown, eyes of a puppy and all I wanted to do is punch him or even take a small bite so he would stop his stupid act.

  “Miss Sara doesn’t like me no more.” He said.

  “Max shut up and rest, we meet Jeremy in the morning.”

  Now fear started to appear on his face, his wide eyes moving from side to side, a trickle of sweat appeared on his forehead and I watched it moved downward, the
shaking of his body from time to time as if he saw something in his mind he did not wanted to see or maybe he was feeling something he did not wanted to feel, like fear, I was glad to see it. “Are you going to leave me with him?” He asked as he put his knees deep in is chest, his arms around his legs and twisting his head slowly as he looked at me. Maybe the prospect of him being locked with his partner in crime, Alex, would not be so bad. I thought to myself less innocent blood to deal with later.

  My eyes and his locked and for whatever reason I did not had at the moment or understood, as I turned my eyes away from him, I said. “No.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  An inevitable situation felt crawling down my spine. One of the two will cease to exist. I knew deep down that it was going to be me; under my hand and under my judgment, but who and why? Who am I to make the call? Both were ruthless, Alex had killed more than twenty-six and as the body count grew here in Flagstaff and maybe with the help from Max, I still wasn’t sure if that was the case.

  Max, still sitting after the man left and I with my back to him again, back to back any movement, I would know. The cold of the night was not affecting me, as my emotions ran as cold as the night itself, or was I lying to myself? The events here were so disturbing in me, that in my mind I felt I was destined to be here all along. Yet again if you recount everything, they were fallowing me since Canyon Diablo’s. How did I miss them? I recalled everything trying to see if by chance I did one of them and just abandoned their faces as I abandoned the place.

  During my recollection of those events I saw a glimpse, or thought I did of Max with a white shirt and black jeans, but was not sure it was actually him.

  “Max, why would you do something so heinous to those people and me?”

  “Miss Sara it is not what you think.”

  “It is not?”

  “No.”

  “Then explain.”

  “You see, Miss Sara, when I found Alex or more over when he found me I was a mess, a little brat that was only looking to have fun. When I killed my friend in the hunting trip, the only who understood how I felt was Alex. Not even my adopted father could understand why I was acting so far off. Not that I could actually tell him what had happened, you know; the weird brat who just had eaten his best friend on the hunting trip.” He said and chuckled a little then his voice turned more somber and gloomy, sad even. “He was a good kid, my friend; he did not deserve what I did to him.” He sniffed and I turned around.

  “You couldn’t help it; you did not know nor understood what you were at the moment.”

  “True, yet again, he was my friend. I still can hear his screams in my head as my teeth drew deeper in to his flesh.” He stretched his leg forward and putting his arms high in the sky letting out a groan of relief from the position he had held for almost an hour now.

  “Well any way that is the past now, and to answer that question, of why, well because I despised what I have become. I hated the hunger for a long time as Alex taught me how to control it; I did not want to be this creature I am. One night he told me everything about you, I hated you for turning us to these, things. That was till we met you in the car. One look at you and I knew you were not a bad person.”

  “Then why keep going with Alex’s plan.”

  “Because,” he said as I feel his stare go down and he falls silent, thinking, his mind wondering to something I would like to see, but I am not him, “because he is my friend, he said at the hotel that if I did not helped him I would have to deal with the consequences then he started the killing and broke my neck letting me watch his terrorizing act. He hates you so much.” He finished letting out a sigh in to the air so inaudible that it felt more like if he just opened his mouth grabbing the chilly night like a drink of water.

  “I don’t get it?” I said as I stood extending my hand so he could grab it and stand.

  “Thanks, Miss Sara.” He said grabbing and standing on his two feet.

  We walked for several hours letting the chilly night around our bodies as cold embrace. I put my hands to both my shoulders crossing them left over right and I shuddered. The idea of someone despising me as I am was overwhelming. I did not want to understand, but I do. I was like Alex one time. I despised myself; being the creature I am, not living, not dead, a ravenous hunger that sometimes is so hard to make go away. I once wanted to kill myself, but then I remembered I had no heart beat and thought of what would happen to my body if I did. With a still heart, the one thing I could never have, I would probably raise again but this time the hunger at full control and me only a speck of dust in the back of my mind. I let myself accustomed to that idea when in the end I was, what I am and would be nothing more. In my mind the beats of Max’s heart made me warm inside and I let go of my shoulders and grabbed Max hand turning my head locking my eyes to his.

  “Max, why not stay with me, forget Alex’s plan. Let’s drift together. He is already in custody and there is nothing we could do about him right now.”

  “No, Miss Sara; he is my friend he has to be free.”

  “After all he had done about thirty people turned and dead?”

  “He is still my friend.” He said looking at the ground.

  #

  Dawn came as we walked looking at the map from time to time trying to get out of the woods; there was a meet with Jeremy that had to be done in the park. We were close the edge of the forest when in the distance shots were heard, we both looked back and the echoing of those bullets were close. I looked to Max’s eyes he nodded a big no and we kept on. Jeremy was waiting for us. I remembered what I had said to him to come with me, what was I thinking, I would say my heart skipped but that was a really understatement. We walked for what seem like days just to get to the park; we had gotten out of the woods about eight miles away from the carved tree with the heart. After several more hours we finally got to the park and Jeremy was sitting on the same bench and as soon as we got to his side he scooted over and patted his side, I sat down.

  “How was your night Sara?” he asked as soon I was comfortable.

  “With no event.” I said as he looked down. His hands, a bunch of twisted fingers forming a ball, he was trembling.

  “I got bad news Sara and listen, I am sorry.”

  “Come on, you said I would be free.”

  “It is not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “There has to be another original out there. We ran a background check on Alex’s prints and DNA. His real names Alexander Voskove. He was part of our; things. But something is wrong with his marker.”

  “Wait, what, I don’t understand.”

  “Okay let me put it this way, I found you in and island under to corpses, they were rotten and they were embracing you like if you were their daughter.

  “Why have you not said anything before?”

  “I did not want you to think you were weird.”

  “You, the one man that poked needles in me for almost thirteen years, did not want me to feel weird. Great job on that, I felt weird all my life under your care.”

  “Anyway there are two things Marino wants from you?”

  “And they are?”

  “First he wants you to deliver Max to him. He needs to check his marker to see if he is one of ours, or is there really another out there.”

  “What marker?”

  “The geneticist Marino was working with said he implanted a marker in the DNA code during the experiment, he says that it was like a bar code that would tell us who is who on the project.”

  “And what if I don’t agree.”

  “What happened to Alex?” all of a sudden Max said and we were caught by surprise, at least I forgot he had been there all the time standing behind me listening to every word we were saying. We looked up to see his worried face as he knew something bad had happened, like if he felt it on his bones.

  “That is the other thing,” Jeremy said as he stood from the bench twisting his waist from side to side, his white hair glisten with the su
n looking like if he had a silvery cap on.

  “What other thing?”

  “He escaped late last night after we took the samples. He is as strong as or maybe stronger than you.”