Wanderer (Book 2): Hunters

by Lincoln, James

  “Ok, why aren’t other species affected?” California asked.

  “Not all viruses, bacteria, or parasites affect different species the same way. It’s possible that it could mutate in the future, but we aren’t there yet.”

  “That’s good news, I guess,” Charlie said.

  “Something to look forward to,” I added.

  “Where did it come from then?” California asked.

  “China,” Charlie said.

  “Kind of,” Emily corrected. “What we do know is that patient zero came back to the states from a business trip in China, but the infection didn’t spread there first, it was here.” She paused for a moment and then continued. “Our initial tests showed a makeup of Toxoplasma gondii, which caused Toxoplasmosis, but as we dug further, we realized it was only because our instruments weren’t able to distinguish the intricacies of the organism.”

  “So, at first, the virus is one thing, then another?” I asked.

  “Again, not a virus.”

  “Sorry. So how can an organism be two different parasites?”

  “Possibly man made,” Emily said.

  That shocked us all.

  “By taking the mind control characteristics of the Leucochloridium worm and giving it the reproductive speed of Toxoplasma gondii, you could have something dangerous on your hands.” Emily said.

  “Is that possible?” California asked.

  “In nature? Yes.” Emily said. “It’s called a Chimera. Humans, however, are not very good at it. It was actually the basis for the plot of Mission: Impossible 2.”

  “Terrible movie,” Charlie said.

  “Yes,” Emily said. “The fact remains that it is not unheard of. In that movie they had a cure for it. We do not.

  “So how do we kill it?” I asked.

  “Well, unfortunately with examples like the Leucochlordium worm, the parasite is fulminating, meaning it has fast onset symptoms, and there is no cure once infected. The parasite has completely taken over the host. Hence the traditional zombie behavior, but it is possible to inoculate people before they are infected. But until someone can isolate it and perform the necessary tests to find a vaccine?”

  I nodded.

  “You have the answer in your hands, Captain,” she said, looking at the rifle I was holding.

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  “Have you ever seen a smart one, Captain?” California said, breaking the silence.

  “Once,” I said. “But somehow you’re still here.”

  We all laughed. California threw a piece of rehydrated biscuit at me.

  “So, what’s your story, Emily?” California asked her.

  She produced a serious look on her face.

  “Well, I was working at Berkeley when they first started closing the borders. And then when the shit really hit here my parents said they were coming to get me to bring me home. They never showed up.”

  “Where’s home?” I asked.

  “About six hours south of here.”

  “Any siblings?” Charlie asked. The first words out of his mouth all night that weren’t harassing.

  “One. A brother. I remember before I left, I gave him this dog. He named her Salamander, I think. Hyper as hell. That was the last time I saw any of them.”

  We didn’t say anything after that.

  The next morning, I was awoken to Charlie shaking my shoulder. “You need to see this,” he said.

  I got up and followed Charlie to the tree line. He led me through the trees up to a ridgeline. Five hundred feet below us and about a mile away was a small town. I could only see dirt roads leading into the town and it was filled with hundreds of what looked like mobile homes. Normally, this wouldn’t concern any of us. It was just another empty town, like the other millions of empty towns and cities that were left after everything ended. What was troublesome was the amount of traffic happening in the town.

  “You have your binoculars?” I asked.

  A second later I had them in my hands and I was peering down on the town below. They seemed to be doing something very similar to what we were doing. Trying to survive. Everyone was doing their part. Various crops were grown on the outskirts of the town. What looked like a blacksmith was in the center of town. A machine shop. There was probably an armory down there. And the trucks. Parked around a large garage were seven APC’s, similar to what we were currently driving.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Scavengers?” Charlie asked.

  “Look at the trucks,” I said handing him the binoculars. He peered into them. He hadn’t noticed them before, and he now shared the same feeling.

  “Where are they getting these things?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Not even we can handle that kind of fire power.”

  “I know. We need to get out of here. Don’t tell beardy, he might try to alert them.”

  We rushed back to the camp and woke everyone else up. We would explain everything once we were on the road again.

  Smoke had started to rise from the other side of the ridge as we loaded our small amount of gear into the APC.

  Declan hopped into the driver seat and started the engine.

  I threw a small gear bag into the rear cabin, passed the bearded scavenger who was standing in the doorway, eagerly watching the smoke approach. I pushed him back in. “Sit down,” I commanded as I shut the rear doors.

  I hadn’t even sat in my seat before the APC was moving again.

  For reasons I didn’t fully understand yet I kept mulling over Declan’s reaction at the airport again and again in my head. It was strange, something was off. It needed to be addressed. I pounded twice on the partition and it opened. “Let’s rest for a bit,” I said. Declan brought the APC to a stop. California opened up the back hatch. “See if you can wrangle up some food,” I told him.

  “Yep,” he said.

  “What about me?” Emily said.

  “You can come out this time,” I said jumping out of the APC. “But stay with California.”

  She smiled.

  I caught Charlie by his elbow as he was walking by. “Let’s talk.” We headed away from the APC.

  “Does Declan seem strange to you?” I asked Charlie when I thought we were far enough away.

  “You all do.”

  “I meant at the airport.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I guess,” he said simply.

  “Has he said anything to you?”

  “No, why?”

  “I just figured he may have vented to you since you’ve been up front with him the whole time.”

  “He hasn’t mentioned anything, although he didn’t speak to me at all after we left the airport. You think he’s up to something?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He’s acting different, guarded or something.”

  “Excuse me,” Emily said butting in. We both turned to look at her. “I don’t mean to be eavesdropping, but I feel I should tell you something.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Back at the airport, when he was looking in the engine compartment, he said the flight computer was fried, but I looked and there was no flight computer.”

  “How do you know that?” Charlie asked her.

  “My dad was a pilot. He used to take me and my brother flying when we were little. I grew up around that stuff.”

  “Is there anything you haven’t done?” Charlie asked her.

  “Do you think he took it, or it was never there?” I asked.

  “That I don’t know,” she said.

  I digested that for a moment.

  “All right,” I said. “I’m going to find out what I can, but for now this stays between the three of us. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Charlie said.

  Emily nodded.

  “I’m going to try and find out some info from our passenger.”

  I left Charlie and Emily standing there as I headed for the APC.

  The scavenger hadn’t s
aid anything since our last conversation, much like Declan.

  I grabbed something out of one of the compartments that ran along the ceiling and sat in the seat across from him. He just stared at me.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions,” I said. “If I like what I hear I’ll leave this mask and gag out of it.” I said holding up what was in my hand. “If I don’t like it, I’m going to shove the gag in your mouth, and I’ll tape the bag on, and it won’t come off. Understood?”

  He could only nod.

  “What were you doing out here?” I asked.

  He seemed reluctant to talk to me at first, but realized that there wasn’t much choice.

  “Trying to make our way south,” he said.

  “Why south?”

  He shrugged. “We hear radio reports from a camp.”

  He was referring to the radio broadcasts we sometimes put out looking for other survivors. It was a dangerous action, as you didn’t know who you were attracting, but it was worth it if you could save just one person.

  “So why our camp?” I continued.

  “Nothing personal, we were just under orders.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Charlie said.

  I turned and saw Charlie, California, and Emily who were now standing in the doorway to the APC. I held my hand up to Charlie to get him to stop.

  “Orders from who?”

  The scavenger just stared at me and I realized I probably wouldn’t get it out of him.

  “Were you planning on using this?” I said and held up the bag of C-4.

  “That’s what we do,” he said.

  “Murder innocent people, that’s what you do?”

  “Look around you man. The world has changed. We do what we have to do, and you do what you have to do.”

  “You don’t have to do any of this.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Look at you with your fucking straight edge moral compass, I bet you haven’t had to make any sacrifices through this whole thing. You’ll go back to your wife and kids, your family, friends, and you’ll laugh at the dinner table.”

  I cut him off before he could go any farther. “Go back to the families you killed? Don’t you talk to me about sacrifice. We’ve all sacrificed. Every one of us. My moral compass means I will make bigger sacrifices than you ever will. Just like whoever it was you killed to get these trucks.”

  “We didn’t kill anyone for these trucks.”

  I was caught off guard by that comment because I knew he was telling the truth.

  “Then how did you get them? From the same people who gave you your orders?”

  He shrugged. “We’ve had them since this thing started. After the outbreak everything was abandoned. Some people fled to the mountains, others went to the desert, and some went to army bases.”

  “And the C-4?”

  “Bases aren’t just used for storing armored trucks.”

  He was aggravating the hell out of me, but I believed he was telling the truth, if not all of it. I gave him one final glare before I got up and left the APC.

  Outside it was getting colder. Winter would fully be here in a couple of weeks and I only had the slightest bit of an idea where we were.

  “Are we staying here?” California asked.

  “Yeah, get us some food, will you?”

  “You got it,” he said and headed off.

  California had brought back another deer. While he was gone, I had built and started a small fire. It was getting colder and I would’ve preferred to have a larger fire, but being in such close proximity to that town a ways back, I didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention.

  I had found my spot up against the rear tire of the APC, Charlie and Declan were to my left, and California and Emily were sitting next to each other on my right. The scavenger was left in the APC.

  “Why are we still carting the piece of shit around?” Charlie asked.

  “Because I don’t have any answers yet,” I said.

  “And you think he’s going to tell you?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll keep him around until I’m sure.”

  “Well I’m glad you’ve become so close with the fucker that murdered our entire camp.”

  “He will get his. I promise you.”

  Charlie was itching to get rid of this guy. We all kind of were. After all, it was one of the purposes of our team. And keeping him around went against everything that we stood for. But what did we stand for anymore? Up until a few days ago everything was black and white. Now shades of grey were nosing their way in. I didn’t have the energy or patience to get into it then. If our new guest wasn’t going to divulge anything then perhaps our other one would.

  “So, Emily, how did you end up here?” I asked.

  “Well,” she started. “Like I said, I was actually working at the college when this all started. I didn’t pay too much attention to it when it was going on. I was too involved in my studies and I just thought it was just another avian or swine flu scare. None of us thought it was that bad, we were just researching it.”

  Unfortunately, a lot of people thought the same way, including myself.

  “My father was a little paranoid anyway and he loaded the house with all kinds of survival stuff. Food, flashlights, whatever he thought was useful. My brother would call every once and a make fun of whatever new thing my dad had brought home.

  “When the outbreak happened at the hospital a few of my lab mates and I were in the cafeteria watching the news coverage. I remember the way they poured out of the hospital in waves. We could only see what the news choppers would show us, but I remember thinking it looked like the hospital had sprung a leak, and the people were just waves of death.”

  A wave that never broke to recede into the ocean.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “I was so captivated by the footage that I didn’t noticed that my father had called seventeen times. When I finally got a hold of him, he told me that he was with my mother and they were on their way to pick up my brother at the house and then the three of them were coming to get me.” She paused for a moment to collect herself. “That was the last time I ever heard his voice. The phone lines went down shortly after that.”

  We all know what happened after that. It didn’t take long for humanity to lose its grip on everything.

  “How did you survive all this time?” California asked.

  “Several people in my lab had the foresight to barricade the doors and locked us in there. Two of them were boy scouts, I think, because they were always getting food for us. We just lived day by day, doing what research we could, until they showed up.” She was referring to the scavenger in the APC. “We had seen people like them before, but they always looked like hillbillies. These guys seemed trained or something. There were only four of us left by the time they had showed up, so we didn’t stand much chance, not that we would’ve if there were more of us.”

  “What happened to the rest of them?” I asked reluctantly.

  “The two guys were killed trying to fight them off. They were jocks when this thing started, but had wasted away to scrawny little things over the years, they couldn’t do anything. There was another girl, Lindsey. They separated us and I never saw her again after they put me in the back of that thing.”

  “I’m sure her suffering was far less worse than what you would’ve gone through if we hadn’t have found you,” Charlie said.

  “What do you mean?” Emily asked.

  “While we differ on the means, both parties are interested in the preservation of the human race.”

  “Is that why you hunt them?”

  I think we were all a little surprised by the question.

  “How did you,” I didn’t get to finish

  “I heard him screaming when you found me,” Emily said.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” I said.

  “And the other ones? The good ones, I mean, people.”

  “We offer to bring them to our camp.”

/>   “What if they don’t want to come?”

  “This whole thing has changed people. It’s harder to trust other people. As long as they’re not hostile then we will let them be.”

  “How did you all come to be here?”

  Charlie answered for all of us. “That is a question for another time. We should get some rest.” He got up and grabbed his rifle. “I’m on watch,” he said and set off to patrol the perimeter.

  I didn’t sleep well that night. California and Emily didn’t sleep either, they stayed up late swapping stories, against Charlie’s request.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning, we arrived at some unnamed coastal town. We had been to San Francisco and it looked nothing like this. This town had started to be reclaimed by the earth, but instead of trees and foliage, it was sand. It looked as though buildings and homes were pushing their way up through the sand. We had to stay more inland as the sand had become too treacherous the closer we got to sea.

  Outside the wind blew eerily through the streets, occasionally whipping up a dust devil that would wander through the back alleys.

  California and I took point in front of the APC as we drove down the main drag. We were looking for anything useful, supplies, and more importantly, food. Most of the shops consisted of antique stores, dry cleaners, restaurants, a comic book shop, but nothing that would yield anything of true value. Until we came to a small corner store. It appeared to have once been a tourist shop.

  I held up my hand, signaling Declan to stop and the APC’s brakes squeaked until it did so. Then I motioned toward the shop. Charlie opened his door and got out to take watch.

  California and I cautiously approached the main entrance, guns at the ready. He had opted for the M-16 this time.

  Inside the shop it looked just like any other, completely looted. The glass front refrigerators that normally held beverages and small perishable food items were smashed and the doors hung open. There was glass on the floor from whoever had busted in. The cash register drawer was open. I’m sure that money did a whole lot of good to whoever took it. A rack of postcards still remained. I pulled one off the rack. It said, “Wish you were here” along the top then underneath it in big bold playful letters “Morro Bay.” We could finally get a bearing on our location.