Drifters

by Santos, J. A.

  “But Max is not strong, how can that be.”

  I am guessing the hunger affects you all different you have strength, he cannot die, Alex well he is as strong as you as I said before and the other thing is he turns people faster only in mere hours. Not like you that takes three days, Sara.”

  “O my God, that is why all 20 people were already turned when we got there, to the fertilizer plant.”

  “Exactly.”

  I looked at Max He was looking down and smiling he did not let Jeremy see his smile but I did and with a great deal of glee that I could see in his eyes. He knew that all in all Alex was going to win.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In the dead of the morning while Jeremy spoke. I was in utter disbelief of his account of where I came from. A red hair woman with freckles on her faces alone in the world, and a monster of sorts came from two embracing corpses.

  Max was pacing now, his strides long and determined, his hand grasping his chin as if it was about to fall and holding it was making it stay in place. His face a serene calm persona stayed focused on his inner thoughts. I wanted to tell Jeremy that this whole ordeal was just a revenge type of thing, which he was part of it all, but if I said so then Max would be brought to a cage and dealt like the criminal he was, yet his motivations were twisted by Alex and his desire to kill me. On the other hand Jeremy talked about maybe another Original since the DNA markers were different and not from theirs, maybe.

  What happened on that island so many years ago, were they really my parents, the corpses Jeremy talked about. Was Max even aware of the danger he was in now that he was needed to be verified to see if he was one of their experiments?

  “Max, what are you thinking?”

  “About something Alex said once.”

  “What about it?”

  “It strikes me as odd that is all, Miss Sara.”

  “Please boy, share it with us.” Jeremy said and walked towards him. Max raised his hands as to say not any closer and Jeremy stopped.

  “He said once that where he came from was way up north and ended in Florida by chance, that a man brought him here in a hood that he could not see anything.”

  “So how did he know it was way north?”

  “He said that he could feel the climate change around him during the trip, after that he did not say much of his past until we crossed you and he devised the plan to… you know Miss Sara.” He said as Jeremy looked at me with concern eyes. He knew I was holding something back.

  “Were could he had gone now.”

  “Miss Sara he is obsessed with you I doubt he would go far, but he is probably more alert.”

  “Well at least you have to tell me you guys put a tracker on him, you couldn’t be this stupid.” I said standing up from the bench and walking towards Jeremy looking straight in to his eyes looking for that little twinkle in his eyes that said I was right.

  “God, how can you be this smart and so stupid.”

  “Sara we had no chance to get the tracker in him. He broke the cage as soon as the first sample was taken.” He said almost frustrated that he was telling me how moronic their actions have been in the last few days. I sat again on the bench putting my hands on my knees inhaling deeply getting the warm mornings air inside my lungs.

  “You guys still surprise me every time. It does not matter now, does it?

  “I guess not.” He said

  “We need to find him and if I am correct, Miss Sara, the guys in the camp are in trouble.” Max said.

  “O, now you want to help?” I blurted out and felt angry my emotional desperation for safety of the human race was so intense that I started shaking from anger alone.

  “Miss Sara,” he said tilting his head to the side, “what you said last night was touching, I would have to say that I even felt my heart skip a beat, you are a gorgeous woman and I love your body, and we know that intimacy between you and me will bring no effect against you and Marino if you ever had such a thing.”

  Jeremy looked at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “O, just that Miss Sara speaks in her sleep. Sorry, but I woke and heard you say, Marino, I love you still.” He said and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and I looked down.

  “Max, that is a lie.” I said as soon as I met Jeremy’s eyes. But he knew he was not lying.

  “Anyway that does not matter; I will help you because I do like you Miss Sara. And Alex might be wrong after all. I will say that I am sorry for what happened last night and the….” I stood fast and ran to him putting my hand over his mouth. He could not say he killed a cop last night. Not without Jeremy feeling the pressure of doing the right thing even I was between doing the right thing that would be dispose of Max and Alex but inside me there was no hope of me doing that. Although they were created in labs and put out in the world I felt they were like brothers, family or even a lover I had to protect.

  Max stood still for some moment still his hand under his chin, Jeremy to my left glaring angrily at Max for defiling his little baby daughter, still the story of the island spooked me, but I wanted to learn more.

  “Jeremy after this is all over we will have to talk about my past. You know that right?”

  “I know Sara, it is long overdue.” He said and turned around, walking away, slow and steady strides like if a tired man had just left his work and his feet hurts. I turned around to meet Max’s eyes.

  “What the fuck were you thinking; you were going to tell Jeremy about last night.” I almost screamed at him my brow arched downward.

  “Wow, Miss Sara, Chill.”

  “Shut up.” I said and turned around. The wind picked up and my hair flew backwards as the light hit it. I looked as my head had just been lit on fire, I missed step and almost fell if not for Max being there I would have hit hard on the benches edge. Our eyes locked and he helped me stand, his touch was warm and I could feel the pump of his heart in his arm. He lifted me to a standing position

  “Be careful Miss Sara. Not like you would be coming back like me.” He said with a smile so tight that his eyes closed.

  “Explain to me how is that you can come back still like yourself.”

  “I really couldn’t say, Alex said that it had to do with how they made me and with that I really never got to talk about it at all he said was that it was all cause of you that we are what we are and definitely you would have to die.” I turned ignoring his remark I will not die that is for sure.

  We walked around town for several hours, thinking were Alex could be he surely would not be at the fertilizer plant unless he had a plan of some sort. Then I recalled that he had called Marino Boss, then Max had said that he was brought to Florida from the north, that he felt the climate change around him as they took the trip, what struck me like odd, a man. Not a lab technician, not that he had escaped. I tried to make a connection between those two events but none came. I stopped in front of a store and looked at my reflection. I, a dirty woman with a red mess of hair, dirty clothes with mud on her knees and shirt, heavy brownish stains; old blood that needed to be cleaned before it started to reek in the air.

  I see the reflection of Max standing beside me and I look at him. He was really handsome that is for sure; his chiseled chin, his black hair gleaming with the sun, strong build and almost my height. I felt the urge to kiss him, but why would I? He is trying to kill me, why would I even consider the thought of any type of intimacy with this man; he who had killed with a vengeance in his mind. I nodded the thought away as he looks my way removing his gaze from the windows reflection and kisses me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was surprised by his action; my feelings for Marino are still fresh in my still heart. Yet I let Max kiss me, and I even returned his savory sweet action to him. Our tongues curled and twisted inside each other’s mouth, our bodies locked in a tight embrace. When Max stopped.

  “What?” I asked panting for air as we separated.

  “This is wrong Miss Sara. I am not supposed to have these feeling
s for you. I am supposed to kill you, consume you, and take you away from this wretched earth and curse.”

  “You can still try Max, but it won’t be that easy.” I said and turned around rage starting to feel inside, rage because I was stupid, I should have never let it happen. Now, what will I feel when the time came to end this. This is wrong so wrong.

  The idea of having any type of relationship with any type of being is out of the question, but he was right about not affecting him. Max had not been a trustworthy man as from last night, why in the world did I let him kiss me, even more why did I kiss him back? So wrong, this is so wrong.

  “Miss Sara, I am sorry ‘bout that, but you know that Alex is still out there.

  “Yea, I know, but you know it is just a weird feeling.”

  “What?”

  “This, now.”

  “What, you mean this?” He said bending down and kissing me again. I have not felt the lips of a man for so long not since my younger days outside the lab.

  When I escaped, so long ago, I remember, at seventeen when I met Kevin, a nice boy. I was young and naïve on what the huger really was. I thought that a kiss or even sex would not affect as my bite. I was wrong. It happened in a far off place I do not want to go back, let’s say that it was a state west and north from where I am right now. Anyway, Kevin and I were just in his room talking about the event that involved Med. Med was an old lady that let me stay with her for several months when someone killed her and I went after her, but that is another story, one where I lost all my innocence with the hunger.

  Anyways, Kevin and I were talking, as I was saying at first, when he bent down and kissed me, I felt the running of blood filling my cheeks, not the way you think. We separated and I smiled at him I liked him, was not in love with him, my heart still belonged to Marino, that ungrateful bastard.

  At the time, Kevin and I talked for a long time, all the day and nights. He thought I was just visiting my grandmother, which was obviously a lie. Med was kind enough bringing me in after she found me wondering the streets, or more over consuming a possum in the skirts of the road. I already had been drifting for two years now and the hunger I had found a way to somewhat control it, so I knew there was no problem staying with her. Kevin came the next day after the kiss and one looked at him told me something was wrong, his eyes were bloodshot, red little veins coming from the sides of his eyes on to the center circle like if an invasion had started in his body. I knew, I was scared and asked him to go to the doctor, he said no ‘it’s just the flu’. I knew a doctor wouldn’t do a thing for him; I needed to make an excuse to take him out of the woman’s house and do what needed to be done, but I had never dealt with a rising before.

  Kevin would always find a way to steal another kiss from my lips and I would always push him away. He would ask what and I would just nod my head. After the second day came he was feverish, first time I saw a turning on a living person, and would walk erratically, like a drunken men getting out of the bar, tumbling left and right, if he fell he would put his hands on the floor and drop face flat. I felt sorry for him yet I did not have the courage to do to him what I had to do. My emotions felt conflicted as the search for Med’s murderer continued. I let the hunger get him; I spent as much time I could with him as I could. On the third day a higher fever took hold of him, he could barely walk. Kevin was bed ridden. I had to help him go the bathroom from his bed, and I remember having his arm around my neck he turning his head with his smile.

  “Sara Garber, will you…” and that was it. He was gone. In three days he would return, stronger, the hunger driving him mad and relentlessly looking for meat and blood. I had to stay with his body and I tried. I held its lifeless hand waiting for that electrical twitch that would give me the sign that it was starting. At seventeen what would I be expected to do?

  Once at the morgue they separated us, I tried everything to go to the back and be ready safeguarding any one, I did not wanted to be known for death of millions if it got out of control. I could not count on Targus since it was an entity of devilish purposes and they could easily be using me, or so I thought at the time. I had to wait outside after three days I heard the yelling and screaming of someone and I ran. I ran inside to the room with all the drawers, but one closed. The door had flown from its heavy hinges straight to the wall making a big hole in the plaster. Kevin was on top of what I thought was the mortician, pieces of flesh in his mouth, one hand inside the guys belly, it was ripped open, the other was putting pieces of the man’s or woman intestines inside his mouth chewing at every mouth full, I could not see since the face was covered with what I presume was a white apron that had flown back as Kevin attacked her/him. I looked at him and it saddened me to do what I had to do. I looked around as soon as Kevin noticed me his face moving upward as the intestines of the nurse were dangling from his mouth. I found what looked like a small pick ax. I grabbed it as he started standing growling bearing crimson teeth; I said I was sorry as tear streaked down my cheek and with the power I had I dealt a hard blow to his head opening a big hole. Besides Kevin being my first kiss, he was also my first human kill.

  Now here with Max I knew that could not happen to him. He was like me, and somewhat of an immortal, but no one is immortal I know there is way to actually kill him. I looked too his black eyes and saw the black from Alex’s eyes starting to flower in his.

  “Max, did you get to see Alex’s eyes?”

  “What that black thing?”

  “Yea, what’s it about I mean the black around his eyes?”

  “That is just something he does, I don’t know what it’s actually for.”

  “You got the same thing around yours.”

  “Really?”

  “Yea look.” I said and pointed at the store window where we were standing. He turned and put his hands to his cheeks pulling down and his eyeball was clearly seen.

  “I don’t see anything.” He said moving his head from side to side, pulling each cheek.

  “It is small not like Alex’s, look closer I still can see it.”

  “Miss Sara, even if I have the black around my eyes, I told you that is Alex’s thing.”

  “Exactly, what if Alex can also infect our kind.” I said as my thought’s went from past to present with more urgent matter.

  “Alex cannot infect us, it’s just ridiculous and even if it were true Miss Sara, why would he infect me?”

  “Don’t know”

  We started walking again as Max grabs my hand and squeezed. I looked at him and gave him a worried look, even after he dealing that smack on my cheek last night and acting like crazy I did not wanted to deal him a death blow and if the time merits it, I would surely will have to decide if to deal one or not.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Like a wolf after it’s pray, we walked silently and slowly towards the dead fertilizer plant. There was only one place for Alex to be in this town we know of and he already had done a massacre in the hotel then turning a lost group of hikers, barricading in it and waiting for us to come. He could probably be there again.

  I turned my head from time to time at Max as we walked and he just smiled as he walked by my side. After everything right now, I was wondering what in hell he is thinking. Why did he turned and kissed me. I also was wondering what the whole black thing in the eyes was?

  Max stumbles as soon as we got to the fertilizer plant and I got my hands and steadied his posture. He said nothing only put his hand over his head and rapidly moved it to each side, like saying no to a question never asked. We kept walking; treading the forest to the abandoned and rotting structure. Max still was not speaking and the silence was getting to me I had to say something.

  “Max, are you okay?”

  “Yes Miss Sara, I am. Why you ask?”

  “Okay, first stop with the Miss Sara thing, it’s really annoying. Second your eyes are getting darker around and I can see that you are stumbling while walking.”

  “Please Miss…, okay Sara, sorry. I am o
kay really.”

  We kept the trail in the forest till we got to the plant it was crowded with agents, people in black suits walking all around, only thought, Marino.

  They had machines plugged to a huge truck; coming from the truck was a rumbling noise like a tractor with engine problems. Max and I walked towards them as if we were part of the team. A man holding what looked like a scanner stepped in front of use while putting the electronic device to our faces then he let us pass.

  “Marino?” I said as soon as I got to the side of the truck and saw him issuing some orders.

  “O, Sara glad you’re here.”

  “Where’s Jeremy?”

  “He is inside sweeping the building.”

  “What is all this?” I said as I looked around. Marino was glad for the question, his eyes opened wide and glee came to his face. The Idea of him explaining this was going to bring a joy in him that only a boy could feel when Santa gave him the toys he wanted. “On second thought just forget it.” His face turned sad if I just had scolded that same little boy for a wrong doing.

  Max walked forward looking straight to the top window of the building and pointing. “He is right there.” He said. His tone turned somber and serious, “there is something wrong?” and turned to Marino rushing to him, “what did you do!” he screamed grabbing Marino by his collar and starting to bare teeth.

  “Max wait.” the strong sound of Alex’s voice came from top the building just where Max had pointed earlier, he turned his head up as I did the same and from the window I could see whom I presume was Alex, he now had a ski mask on which in turn did make no sense, yet the voice was almost the same. He was holding Jeremy by the neck, the whole body of Jeremy outside his feet flapping forward trying to grab the wall to take the hold on his neck with less pressure. “Now, let’s have a conversation.” He screamed.