Eaters

by Michelle DePaepe

  “Why don’t we bury it then?”

  Aidan shook his head. “With the hard-packed soil and all the tree roots around here, that would take hours. It would be dark before we finished, and I don’t think we want to be outside at night. I’ve got a freezer in the garage. We could put it in there, but we’d have to chop it up first.

  Cheryl closed her eyes for a moment, wincing at the thought of butchering the animal. “That would be a lot of blood. The smell—” She still believed that the Eaters smelled their prey.

  “You’re right. We should just leave it, but maybe drag it further away from the cabin back into the woods. As soon as we finish with the window, we’ll do it.”

  She saw Kyle turn a lighter shade of pale at Aidan’s suggestion when he glanced back towards the deer. She didn’t blame him. The body lay in dappled sunlight, and the woods beyond were pitch black. It was easy to imagine rotting, bony hands waiting in the shadows to grab the first living creature that came near. Whoever took a bite out of that deer might still be nearby.

  “We’ll be alright,” Aidan said. “Why don’t you check on Claire and see if you can perk her up?”

  Cheryl went back to the living room, where she found Claire staring at the static on the television. She sat down beside her, not sure what to say to comfort her that wouldn’t ring hollow.

  Still staring straight ahead, Claire said, “I’ve…I’ve never seen anyone shot before.”

  “Me neither, before a few days ago.” Cheryl reached out to touch her arm, but Claire flinched and turned away with a look of disgust.

  “You shot those guys like they were nothing.”

  “Given the chance, they would have killed all of us!” How could she make Claire understand the situation without her having seen an Eater murder someone by tearing them apart one mouthful at time? Was this how Mark had felt when he tried to get the crew in the sandwich shop to realize the danger? Mark’s ghost whispered in her ear. Yeah, babe. You’re starting to get it.

  “This is going to be over soon, right? Then, we can go back to town. Who’s gonna feed my cats? My sister is probably worried about me, since we were supposed to be back this afternoon. She was watering my garden. I need to call her, but there’s no dial tone on the phone. Kyle’s cell doesn’t work now, either. I really should…”

  As she talked, all Cheryl could think about was the fact that she hadn’t peed in half a day. She desperately wanted to go to the bathroom. “I’ll be back,” she said, and walked away while Claire kept rambling.

  After she shut the bathroom door and laid her gun against the back of it, she sat on the toilet and tried to go. She hadn’t realized how dehydrated she was until only a trickle of orange came out. After days of little to eat or drink, it was amazing that she didn’t feel very hungry or thirsty. Apparently, she had been living on adrenaline.

  When she finished, she flushed and looked at herself in the mirror. With the dark circles under her eyes, her wild hair, and her crusty fingernails, she figured it would be easy for someone to mistake her for an Eater. If another National Guard tank came along, they might shoot her on sight.

  There was still a dull ache at the back of her neck where the hair had been ripped out during the charge through the horde. She felt the spot with her fingers and found them sticky with dark blood when she looked at them. She was less concerned about the cosmetic effect of the hole in her scalp than the fact that her long blonde locks could have gotten her killed. The ghoul that had grabbed her hair from behind could have pulled her right off the motorcycle. If he’d succeeded, there’d be nothing left of her now but a pile of bones and red matted hair in the middle of that mountain road.

  It had been stupid to drive right through the middle of so many Eaters, but she reminded herself that they really had no other choice. She wondered if Mark would have done the same thing, and after a moment of thinking about it, she decided that he would have. He would have done anything it took to keep fighting and keep them alive.

  She stared into her weary eyes in the mirror. They looked like a kaleidoscope of brown and yellow flecks with bloodshot streaks of lightning marring the white. She splashed cool water on her face then gulped mouthfuls of it. After drying her hands on the towel next to the sink, she began searching through drawers.

  A few minutes later, she came out of the bathroom and saw that Claire was no longer on the couch. She found her in the kitchen rummaging through cupboards. When Cheryl walked in, she jumped.

  “I thought I might fix something to eat. You hungry?”

  Yesterday, all she’d had was a moldy donut and a charred burger. She should be starving. “Sure.”

  “I found some canned beans. Maybe some pasta would be—”

  Cheryl noticed that the window was boarded up and cut her off. “Where are the guys?”

  “Out back, moving the deer.”

  Cheryl rushed out of the kitchen and went to the back door, knowing that they couldn’t both move the deer and keep their fingers on a trigger at the same time. When she looked out, the clearing was empty with no sign of man or beast.

  Oh God…how far back into the woods did they go?

  She waited a few seconds, hoping they’d appear. When they didn’t, she stepped outside. The sun was past its afternoon peak and was starting its slow decline in a hazy glow over the conical tips of the trees, shrouding them in darker shadows.

  She was halfway across the clearing when she stopped. What exactly was she planning to do? There was no chance that she was going into the forest to look for them. She propped one foot on top of a stump and waited. After a couple of excruciatingly long minutes, she heard the crunching of leaves and snapping of twigs coming towards her. She aimed her gun.

  Aidan and Kyle appeared. Their guns were slung over their shoulders and they were laughing. They seemed startled when they saw her.

  “Cheryl?” Aidan said. What are you doing?”

  “Watching your ass,” she said. “Why didn’t you wait for me to cover you?”

  “We’re fine. We dragged the deer about twenty yards back. Hopefully, that’s far enough away from the cabin to not draw anything too near.”

  Kyle had a smug look on his face like he’d just completed a serious mission and found his manhood for the first time. Damn lucky, she thought. Any one of those trees could have come alive and grabbed them before they knew what hit them.

  “What did you do to your hair?”

  She rubbed her hand over the short spikes, thinking that Aidan’s question smacked of disapproval. “Cut off the scalp handles. I figured, next time, it’ll give them a little less to grab onto.”

  Aidan felt for the remaining long strands of his own hair at the nape of his neck, just above the raw bare spot, seeming to remember his own close call when they barged through the crowd on his motorcycle. “Guess it wouldn’t hurt to lose the rest of this.”

  They both glanced at Kyle’s stubbly brown hair. Cheryl thought his main weakness wasn’t his thick glasses or his nerdy personality. It was the timid way that he just followed Aidan around, not taking any lead himself. But then again, he hadn’t seen the horrors that they had seen. A man (or a woman) could shore up real quick, tempering their inner mettle, if confronted with the battering ram of constant danger.

  On the way back in, she showed them the tipped over trashcan on the side of the cabin. Aidan righted it. “There’s nothing else in it. Maybe the creep just lost an ear when he was coming out of the smashed window.”

  “I didn’t see any sign of where he went. There’s no blood trail.”

  “Hopefully, that means he’s long gone.”

  When they got back inside, they found Claire boiling fettuccine noodles on the stove. She seemed lost in the bliss of the steam over the pot and didn’t look up to acknowledge their entrance. Kyle walked over to her and put his arms around her from behind, lay his head on her shoulder and whispered something in her ear.

  Aidan looked away as if the sight of such affection was too pain
ful for him. Cheryl stared, remembering Mark’s gentle touch, the way he used to sneak up on her from behind, that last morning together in the shower.

  “I’m going out to the garage. Can you come help me in a few minutes? I want to get all the guns in here.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m going to help Claire, then, I’ll be out.”

  After Aidan went out and Claire and Kyle parted, she helped Claire find some bowls and forks while Kyle returned to the living room.

  Claire was starting to line the ceramic bowls up along the counter when one crashed to the floor and shattered at her feet. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

  “Are you alright?” Cheryl asked, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Claire flinched and shook her off. “This is just not real. It’s crazy. I don’t believe that—”

  Cheryl grabbed Claire’s wrist and spun her around. “Listen to me, Claire, this is real and—”

  “You’re hurting me. Let go!”

  Cheryl released her grip. “I’m sorry. It’s just…I’m afraid we’re going to need your help. You’ve got to believe this is serious. These people that get infected, they’re never the same afterwards. Once they get sick, they die, then they come back, and they attack people. A lot of people have died.”

  Claire stomped away and went into the living room. Cheryl took the boiling pasta off the stove then followed her. In the living room, Claire sat next to Kyle, staring wide-eyed at the reporter on the television screen with wild hair and scorch marks on his windbreaker. A cloud of black smoke billowed out of a building behind him as he coughed and tried to deliver the rest of his report.

  “…police are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the infected. Chief Bryson has told us that ammunition stores at Denver police headquarters are running low, and in this unusual crisis, he is welcoming vigilante assistance from anyone with firepower.”

  The picture cut to a video of a man stumbling in the middle of a downtown street. He had the telltale symptoms of the infection: skin the color of mushrooms and opaque filmy eyes that seemed sightless. The front of his orange Bronco’s jersey was saturated with blood. Off camera, a gun fired a bullet straight into his forehead, and he fell backwards onto the asphalt.

  “Citizens are reminded that confrontation with the infected should be avoided, but in such a situation, a direct headshot is recommended to halt their advance. A 6 p.m. curfew is in effect, and anyone on the streets after that hour is warned that they may be a target from friendly fire…”

  Kyle glanced up at her, seeming to come out of a trance. “Where are the other guns?”

  “I’m supposed to help Aidan bring them in. I’ll go check on him.”

  She tore herself away from the newscast and found him in the garage, not gathering the guns and ammo, but kneeling next to his bike, sponging the grime and bugs off the headlight. The black fiberglass and chrome shone with a new sparkle. She relayed to him what the reporter had said while he continued to buff the metal with a soft cloth. She didn’t feel like she had his full attention. His mind seemed so far off.

  “It’s going to be dark soon,” she tried. “Shouldn’t we get those guns in the house?”

  Aidan looked up, almost as if noticing her for the first time. “Uh…yeah. You’re right. Let’s do that.” He took one more swipe across the seat with his rag then rose to his feet.

  He took a duffle bag off a pegboard and she helped him put all of the guns and the ammunition in it. She was about to zip it closed when he stopped her.

  “Wait…”

  From the back of the workbench, he grabbed a folded plastic tarp, a coil of rope, a small hacksaw, and a large knife, and threw them into the bag.

  “What’s all that?”

  “Just some accessories.”

  “That looks like gear for body disposal.”

  He shrugged. “Always good to prepare for worst case scenario.”

  She sucked in her breath. Worst case scenario? She didn’t want to imagine how much worse things could get, and she didn’t want to imagine her dead body wrapped in that tarp.

  He walked towards the door with the bag in his hand, then turned around and pointed to a small red metal can on top of a plastic bin. “Bring that too.”

  She grabbed the empty gas can, thinking that this didn’t sound like preparation for a very fun party.

  Back inside the cabin, they found the couple still on the couch watching the television that had reverted back to static.

  “What else did they say?” Cheryl asked.

  Kyle raised his head from Claire’s cheek. “Not much. The reporter said they had to leave the area quickly, since too many infected were nearby.”

  How many? Cheryl wondered. What percentage of the population in Denver was infected? She didn’t want to ask out loud. Kyle and Claire already seemed traumatized enough.

  She heard Aidan calling her name from the bathroom and went to him.

  “Help me out here, will ya?” He held a pair of scissors and instructed her to cut off his hair, just like she’d done with her own. Then they took turns blotting the wounds on the back of their head with peroxide to disinfect them. As she applied the bubbling liquid to his head, it felt strange to her that they had so quickly become partners of a sort, strangers bonded in survival. She knew she was lucky to have met him as a matter of practicality, but as she stood close to his strong shoulders and stubbly cheeks, she felt ashamed to admit to herself that she found him somewhat attractive. It defiled the memory of Mark.

  Shortly after they finished, they congregated in the kitchen to eat the food that Claire had made. The men stood while the ladies sat at the bar.

  Aidan spoke with a mouthful of noodles. “Before it gets dark, we need to decide on watch duty. I’m thinking two on, two off. That way, we can watch both sides of the house, and we can each have a break to rest.”

  “I can’t shoot a gun,” Claire said. “I don’t even want to try.”

  “When it’s your shift, we’ll take turns backing you up.”

  Kyle grimaced. “I haven’t actually shot a gun since I was twelve. Boy Scouts’ trip to a shooting range. I don’t know if I could hit—”

  Aidan raised an eyebrow. “You might have mentioned that before we went into the woods. Well, regardless of your marksmanship, you’re better off with a gun than without one if we get attacked. If someone tries to break in, call for help then do your best to hit them.”

  They washed down their pasta with water, and then Aidan brought out a bottle of whiskey and handed a shot glass to each of them, a gesture that seemed like a blatant effort to shore up their nerves.

  Claire swallowed half of hers, coughed, and said, “Somebody needs to explain to me how all this started. How is it possible that everything could just break down so quickly?”

  They discussed the mosquito theory.

  “Sounds like bullshit to me,” Aidan said. “Too many people got hit too fast for it to be carried by some insect. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something in the water, or maybe some kind of biological warfare.”

  “I don’t know,” Kyle said. “Last weekend, Fourth of July, lots of people out camping and barbecuing when the mosquito population was at a peak. It was probably the biggest bug feast all summer. Anyone here who hasn’t been bit in the last week?”

  No one raised a hand.

  Cheryl folded her arms and started to tap her foot nervously on the floor. “I was camping last weekend. I got lots of bites.” But of course, that wasn’t her only exposure. She could still remember the taste of the witch’s acrid blood in her mouth. “You two probably did too. And Aidan, working construction outside.”

  “That doesn’t mean any of us have the plague,” Aidan argued.

  Kyle downed the last sip from his glass. “It might.”

  “I know how it starts,” Cheryl said. “There’s a fever and a rash. Sometimes the skin starts to peel. Then the person keels over. When they come back, their skin turns gray
and the…the abnormal hunger starts.”

  Each person eyed the others as if looking for signs of infection.

  Claire’s voice cracked. “You mean we might have to shoot each other?”

  “I seriously doubt that’s going to be necessary,” Aidan laughed. “I think if any one of us had it, we’d be out there roaming the streets with the others right now, eating sludge and brains.”

  But Cheryl knew that might not be true. In the movies it was, what, just a few minutes to an hour after a bitten person died then rose and began attacking? But that was in fiction. No one knew how long the incubation period was for this very real disease. She knew that someone could seem fine for days then simply keel over and revive as a flesh-eating monster.

  Aidan took a quick swig from the whiskey bottle then placed it back in the cupboard.

  “What are we going to do?” Claire asked in a high-pitched squeal. “We can’t just stay here forever.”

  “Until we find out that it’s safe to go back to town, I’d say there’s really no other choice but to stay put.” Aidan leaned over the counter. “Right now, we got power, we got water. I’ve got a pantry filled with food and a few things in a root cellar behind the garage.”

  “If there’s really so many of these Eaters out there, what’s to prevent them from just breaking in? Why didn’t we board up all the windows?”

  Aidan shook his head. “I don’t have enough wood to cover all the windows, and I don’t want to be hammering all night. The sound might be a lure. The barbed wire usually keeps the bears out. These windows are all double paned too. If someone tries to break in, we’ll shoot them before they get very far.”

  That didn’t make Cheryl feel better. Glass hadn’t been a deterrent in the sandwich shop, and she didn’t think that a dead person felt any pain, so the sharp barbed wire might not be very effective either.

  “I honestly don’t think there’s that many infected up here. There’s many more in the city. If we have to shoot one or two that come around, so be it. With these guns, we should be fine.”

  He’s just placating them. Cheryl could see the fear in his eyes.