by D. J. Molles
“Yeah.”
“He’s keeping watch.”
“How do you know that?”
“He hasn’t moved. Everyone else is gathering food, and he’s been standing on that car, looking back and forth the whole time.”
“Keeping watch,” LaRouche repeated, as though testing to see if the words made any sense. “What the hell are they keeping watch for?”
“Prey, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
Their answer came only a moment later when it suddenly let out an eerie, ululating cry unlike any Lee had heard come from the infected. At first Lee thought that they had been spotted up on their high overlook, but somehow knew that was not right. The noise from this infected was not a screech or a bark. It was a scream.
“The hell…?” LaRouche jumped back at the noise, but didn’t take his eyes off the scene unfolding.
All at once, the fifty infected gathered around the box truck began to stampede for the den. The ones carrying food dropped it to the concrete. Boxes and packages spilled out and were trampled underfoot, canned goods went rolling and scattering across the road. As each of the infected horde began to run, they echoed the cry from the watcher.
“What are they doing?” LaRouche looked like he wanted to run too. “Should we get the fuck out of here?”
“No!” Lee put a hand on his arm. “Stay put!”
“What are they running from?”
“I don’t…”
Any further words were cut off.
From a side street just behind the box truck burst three figures. None of them wore but the barest tatters of clothing and even from this distance Lee could see the lean, almost athletic musculature. Were they regular people? No…there was no mistaking that animal run, the sprinting form of a hunter. But it had been months since Lee had seen an infected that appeared so…
Well fed?
The truth hit him like a slap in the face.
“Holy shit,” he said out loud.
As the running horde of infected came abreast of Lee, he watched as two more of the larger infected loped around the corner directly across from them, cutting off a portion of the fleeing horde. The horde slowed partially as they began to try to squeeze by.
One of the first three that had attacked from behind, a powerful looking, dark-skinned man with wild tangles of black hair down to his shoulders, leapt straight forward and tackled a member of the horde from behind. The two of them tumbled across the asphalt, the victim lashing out like a cornered dog, biting and kicking and slashing viciously. But the dark-skinned infected was too large and too strong for it. It pinned its flailing prey to the ground and placed one of its massive hands on its head, and the other on its chest, and the muscles in its back rippled as it flexed, forcing the smaller infected to expose its jugular.
The hunter opened its mouth inhumanly wide and lunged.
In one quick twisting motion, it ripped its prey’s throat out.
***
The sun was a red ball hovering just above the horizon, a retreating source of heat, taking the relative warmth of the day with it. Cold dark approached from the east, doggedly born in on gusting winds that cut right through the fabric of Harper’s jacket and made him pull the collar up over his face and swear that he would find himself a fucking pair of gloves, or convince someone to make a pair for him.
The group of twenty volunteers stood, cold and tired from a day’s worth of exercises. Beside them, just inside the Camp Ryder gate, their vehicles ticked and cooled from the drive back. The smell of cookfires surrounded them, emanating from Marie’s kitchen, and from a few others strewn about the camp.
“Alright folks,” Harper jerked a thumb toward the Camp Ryder building. “Dinner should be ready in a little bit. We’re done for the day, but we’re doing it all again tomorrow. Make sure you get some sleep.”
The group began to disperse with quiet mumbles of “catch you later” and “see you in a bit.” Harper watched them disappear into the streams of people walking about, packing everything in for the day and setting up for another cold night. He adjusted the strap of his rifle, felt the cold metal on his fingertips, and turned towards the Camp Ryder building.
Devon’s words from earlier rolled through his head.
What was Jerry up to?
Sure, Jerry didn’t make a habit of leaving the gates—he was a bit of a pussy in Harper’s opinion—but that didn’t mean that he didn’t occasionally go out if he needed something. After all, everyone had to have something to trade nowadays. Perhaps Jerry just wanted to find himself a little creature comfort, or something he could trade up for it. Case in point, he’d gone through a lot of trouble just to get his mattress.
Harper hadn’t made a big deal about it when he spoke to the kid, because honestly he didn’t know what to make of it. But he thought he had better talk it over with Bus anyways. Bus would know what to do. The big guy didn’t give himself much credit for being a leader, but there was a reason that everyone in the Camp Ryder Hub deferred to his judgment.
Harper made his way into the building. It was warm inside to the point of stuffiness, and crowded, which didn’t help. Whatever Marie was cooking had a strong, robust smell to it. For some reason, it turned his stomach. Harper smiled and nodded at the people he recognized and quickly made his way upstairs.
As he walked, he realized why the smell cloyed at the back of his throat and soured in his gut.
It smelled like chili.
He stopped, halfway up the stairs, and looked down at all the people, milling about, getting in line for food. It was noisy, and busy, and underneath the scent of the food, a million other smells wafted. He breathed shallowly, as though he might escape the smell of the chili and thought to himself that this was a strange reaction, even as his tongue became suddenly dry and his knees felt weak.
Screaming.
Skin parting under a blade.
Panic.
The sensation of concrete, scraping the very tip of the bayonet as he ran the kid all the way through. The feeling in his hands of the rifle jumping as the young savage tried desperately to push the blade out of his belly. Wide, animal eyes, staring down at the mortal wound.
Screaming and blood.
“Hey!”
Harper jerked and grunted like he was being pulled back through some invisible membrane that separated the real world with the world of his memories. It had felt so real in that moment, he had the fleeting, maddening thought that everything he had experienced after that moment and up to the present had in fact been a jumble of daydreams, and that in reality he was still there, spiking a kid to the ground with the rusted blade at the end of an SKS.
“Huh?” Harper looked up the last few stairs and found Bus standing at the top, his bushy eyebrows narrowed as though he were suspicious of Harper. “Yeah?”
“You okay?” Bus asked.
Harper nodded, and felt sweat, cool and greasy, across his receding hairline. “Fine.”
Bus flicked his eyes out to the floor of the building. Then he jerked his head towards the office. “Come in and talk to me. I’ve got news.”
Bus retreated into the office without another word and Harper stamped up the last few risers, trying to shake that hollow, stretching feeling in his stomach, that sensation that had no name. Like a backlog of emotions that you just can’t process so you leave it in a dark corner, forgotten and spoiling as time passes, and you maintain your unwillingness to dissect it. The more wretched it becomes, the more you try to ignore it.
In the office, Bus collapsed into the chair behind the desk with a great huff.
Harper stepped up to the desk, trying to discreetly wipe the sweat from his head, but Bus took notice anyway. He gave Harper that same strange look he’d given him on the staircase.
“Everything okay with you?” he asked.
Harper nodded. “Yeah. Fine. What’s been going on with you?”
Bus shook his head. “Just the usual—every problem under the sun. Jenny’s r
unning low on antibiotics and this flu thing going around camp is ending with half the older folks getting pneumonia. Keith Jenkins misplaced that little .22 revolver he had and now he claims someone stole it, but who knows...”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “You call me up here to talk about antibiotics and missing revolvers?”
“Just venting.” Bus sighed and jabbed a finger at the radio. “Captain Harden just reported in.”
Harper wiped his moist fingers off on his pants. “Is everybody okay?”
Bus stroked his beard for a moment. “As far as our people go, yes. Everything is fine.”
Harper waited for him to continue.
“In fact,” Bus continued, folding his hands on the desk. “From Captain Harden’s recon on Sanford, it sounds like they’ll be able to clear the place sooner than expected.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Bus didn’t look happy. “He said there were approximately fifty infected in the horde, and no evidence of a larger group, at least on the northern side of the city. They located what they believe to be a den, but haven’t been able to get inside.”
“Only fifty?” Harper was taken aback.
Bus pointed. “Close the door.”
Harper stepped back and pushed the door closed. The rumble and scrabble of people moving and talking and laughing below them was suddenly diminished to a quiet background hum. Harper stood there, facing the door for a moment, feeling certain that he would not like what came next.
He turned back to the desk. “Where’d the others go?”
Bus looked at the map. “Eaten, it sounds like.”
“Eaten.” Harper took a breath, still too confused to truly have a strong reaction to the news. “They’re eating each other?”
“Yes and no.” Bus met his gaze. “According to the captain, he watched the horde of fifty that had managed to break into a box truck and they were taking food stuffs. Things like canned goods. And they were taking them to the den. Then in the middle of all of this, the horde was attacked by a small group of what the captain referred to as ‘hunters’. He described them as slightly larger and much more aggressive than the infected in the horde. He told me that they showed no signs of malnutrition.” Bus’s nose curled in disgust. “That they appeared well-fed.”
Harper stood very still and looked straight ahead.
Bus leaned forward. “We have multiple problems here, Harper. We’ve got these infected, not only scavenging our food, but they’re showing the intelligence to do so.”
“Frankly,” Harper swallowed against a dry throat. “I’m more concerned about the hunters.”
“Why? Let the infected eat each other. Save us all the problem of how to kill them.”
Harper finally took a seat in one of the folding chairs. “We don’t have the time to let them wipe each other out. It could take months, even years for that to happen. Besides, if they run out of other infected to hunt, who do you think they’re going to turn to? The infected are easier prey for them now because they’re undefended, and they can’t think like we can. But once that food source is gone, they’ll come after us. In the meantime, the hunters are getting stronger, and that creates a problem for me.”
Bus seemed confused. “Which is...”
Harper could feel himself getting flustered, and he couldn’t quite pin-point where it was coming from. His neck felt hot and his shoulders felt tense and his face and scalp prickled. He was getting pissed, but why?
He stood up out of his seat and put both palms against his eyes and groaned. “Because they were dying, Bus! All the infected we’ve seen over the last few months have been getting skinnier, and weaker, and more sickly. It was the light at the end of the tunnel that one day after a good, long, cold winter we’d wake up and they’d all be gone.” His voice hitched. He realized he was feeling the shock of crushing disappointment. Something so close to his grasp had just been ripped away. “This doesn’t mean that they’re going to wipe each other out! All it means is that they’re adapting!”
“But they’ve always hunted,” Bus stood up. “These packs aren’t anything new…”
“It’s not about the packs.” Harper turned to face him. “You heard what Jacob said about them. They might be fucking crazy, but their bodies haven’t changed. Their bodies can’t process all the crap they eat, he said.” Harper hung his hands on the back of his neck and shook his head. “That’s why he said they were skinny and always hungry. But if you’ve got these ones, these hunters, the ones that look ‘well-fed’, that means that they are changing. They are processing what they eat, and they are getting stronger.”
Bus seemed to realize that his friend was taking this news harder than he was, albeit for different reasons. His face softened and his head hung.
“There’s something else he mentioned. Something that bothers me.”
It just keeps getting better, Harper thought.
With a measure of exhaustion, he sighed. “What’s that, Bus?”
“He said that when the hunters attacked the horde, they ran back to the den, but stopped short of running inside. He said they just stood outside and turned back towards the hunters like they were ready to fight, but the hunters took their kills and disappeared.”
Harper forced himself to think about it at length.
He gave up after a moment. “Okay. Beats me what the hell they’re doing.”
“I think we should talk to Jacob.”
Harper nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
***
Jerry stood in the dinner line with the rest of the people. In his own mind this was a chance to rub elbows with the common man, a demonstration that he was just like everyone else. For him, being amongst everyone else was an act of good will on his part, despite the fact that he wouldn’t be fed if he wasn’t there.
While he smiled and laughed—or looked gravely concerned, depending on the conversation topic—he saw Harper and Bus slip out of the upstairs office and tread swiftly down the stairs. They glanced out at the people in line for dinner, but if they noticed Jerry there, they gave no indication.
Jerry had spent a lot of his lifetime being underhanded, and he was able to recognize it when he saw it. Old Bus and his lap dog Harper were up to something, sure as shit. Those were the expressions of men who were trying to keep a very wily cat inside its bag. And if they wanted it in, it stood to reason that it could benefit Jerry by letting it out.
“What do you think?”
Jerry refocused on the tall lady in front of him, and her rather short and stubby spouse. Interesting combination. Had they been married before the collapse or was this an arrangement of circumstance? More importantly, what the hell had they been talking about?
He took his cue from the couple’s intensely serious faces and affixed a somber look of contemplation to his features. “Hm,” he said, as though interested. “I think it’s something that bares consideration.”
They nodded, knowingly.
The man spoke quietly, leaning in so that Jerry could smell his breath, sharp and sour. “We appreciate that you actually take the time to think, and don’t just shout out whatever answers you think people want to hear. You know we’re behind you, Jerry. Anything you need.”
Jerry smiled. “Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.”
He reached the folding table where Marie was dishing out some thick reddish stew or chili, made with some unknown meat, a bit of corn, a bit of beans.
“This looks delightful, Marie.” Jerry smiled as the woman dished him a bowl of the stuff.
In truth, he resented how Marie couldn’t make shit except stews, soups, and chilis. He understood that there were nearly a hundred mouths to feed, but it certainly wasn’t the five thousand, and even that had come with a fish option. He looked down into the pot of ruddy mush and tried hard not to sneer.
Marie pushed the bowl into his hands and smiled, syrupy sweet to the point of being a little sarcastic. “Anything fo
r you, Jerry. I’m just glad I could please you.”
His smile became wooden. “Yes. That’s very nice of you. Thanks again.”
He stuck his spoon into the chili/stew/mush and turned toward the open area inside the building, all the tents and huts thrown up on top of the grease-stained floor where trucks used to park and mechanics would tune them up. Still, underneath all the smells of the food and the stink of the people and the little bit of smoke from the cookfires and candles, he could still smell that little tinge of eau de grease monkey. His father had been a mechanic, and the smell still gave him a hollow feeling in his gut.
On the other side of the little indoor shantytown, there were a number of folding tables and chairs, as well as crates and buckets and anything else you could sit your ass on. This was where the community came together and shared their evening meals in the company of their peers, and a quiet conversation off to the side could go unnoticed amongst the rabble.
Jerry took a bite of the food as he made his way over. The same mystery-meat-and-beans taste as every other dish Marie made. Would it kill her to make a fucking steak every now and then? Couldn’t you make steaks with deer meat? He had to admit, prior to surviving the collapse, he’d never eaten venison, but it was just a meat like every other four-legged animal. He was sure you could make steaks out of it. Or, Christ, at the very least some hamburgers.
A man with a dirty old Yankees hat was waiting for him in the corner.
“Jerry.” He nodded and spooned up a mouthful of chili.
“Greg. How’s the kid?”
“He’s doin’ alright.” Greg glanced under the bill of his cap at the people closest to them, but they were all lost in loud conversations. “You talk to White today?”
“This morning.” Jerry pushed his food around. “He’s in.”
“He’s worthless.”
“He gives us a majority.”
Greg smirked. “Who’s gonna train them how to use those weapons?”
