Eaters

by Michelle DePaepe

  Her uniform was a tan camouflage set of shorts with a matching button-down shirt. The bicycle helmet looked like a hat from an African safari, but it had a solid steel plate underneath and extensions that could be pulled down on the sides and back to protect the neck. The holster around her hips had a loaded revolver on each side, and a third pocket held a twelve-inch piece of iron that looked like a mini crowbar. It was a back up to the guns. If they jammed or she ran out of ammo, it could inflict a fatal blow to a skull and slide out easily to hit another. There was other equipment too: a hand held radio, binoculars, and a special canister. It was no bigger than an old plastic film case, and was only to be used as a last resort. In an unfortunate situation where she was surrounded by too many of the infected, she was told that she could pull off the cap and throw it towards them. The canister contained a concentrated scent, a distillation of the foulest garbage and muck from decomposing corpses. The horde of infected would be temporarily drawn to it, allowing a short window of opportunity for escape. For a truly hopeless situation, they taught her to use the gun on herself, reminding her and the trainees that taking your own life was preferable to being eaten alive.

  Much of her training was reinforcement for what she had learned by the seat of her pants during her journey from Colorado to Arizona. Nevertheless, she reminded herself to never let her guard down. Just because she was in what seemed to be the safest possible place at the moment, didn’t mean there was any less danger. The residents of the fort took the ongoing risk very seriously, and she intended to help them keep it as secure as possible.

  * * *

  It took longer than a week for her to be called up to join a detail into Tucson. The day finally came on August 4th, almost a month after the apocalypse began. Cheryl dismally packed her gear. It seemed sure that she was just going to find her father’s remains, or his empty house, where there would be no clues as to his fate.

  The group’s mission on this day was to go to St. Joseph’s Hospital to pick up some medical supplies, but she had gotten special permission to detach with a couple of soldiers to go to her father’s house.

  Before they departed, they had to sit through an hour-long security briefing that included an outline of their mission and its timeline. One of the rules was that no one was allowed to go it alone. Everyone had to stay in groups of at least three. Cheryl hung on every word, fully intending to get in and out alive—with her father, if she found him.

  After the briefing, she was informed that new members of the team were required to wear the maximum security gear. Compared to her patrol duds, the uniform was unbearably heavy and hot. It had long pants and long sleeves, and the thick cotton had three layers, including a steel mesh woven inside that made penetration by teeth nearly impossible. A collar flap of the same fabric connected to the steel helmet and protected the neck. She also had to wear gloves, the same kind that divers used to protect their hands from sharks.

  All were issued weapons that included steel pikes that dangled from holsters at their sides and semi-automatic rifles with special hollow point bullets that increased brain tissue damage, thus reducing the need for a double tap.

  They rode in a caravan of Hummers and Jeeps with lattices of metal caging across the windshield and windows that were custom made to keep hands and teeth from reaching them and still allow guns to shoot in a three hundred sixty degree arc around the vehicle.

  Her companions were Private First Class Jameson and Corporal Specialist Reiser. They were quiet as they departed from the fort and didn’t seem very friendly during the ride.

  Jameson, the driver, was the first one to speak to her. “Who’d you blow to get this excursion?”

  She didn’t dignify the accusation with a response. She knew they probably disliked her because she was both a woman and a civilian. And if she’d gotten lucky enough to score a field trip, well, that was her business.

  “Musta been some top brass. Was it the old Pump and Dump?”

  Reiser chuckled.

  They ignored her after that, bantering back and forth about everything from encounters with N.E.U.s to their latest score in the sack. She tuned them out as they got closer to town.

  Since she and Aidan had skirted around Flagstaff and Phoenix, this was the largest city she’d encountered since the epidemic began. The first visuals were not promising.

  Trash and tumbleweeds blew across the roads. Stores and office buildings had smashed windows and doors dangling from their hinges. She could see bloody handprints and streaks on the walls. The only sign of life she saw were vultures and the random hunchbacked Eater shuffling down a sidewalk. For a few minutes, she thought she was going to be sick. It seemed far too late in the game for her to have any hope of finding her father alive. As it looked worse and worse, it seemed futile to hold on to any optimism.

  It’ll be okay, Cheryl.

  Mark’s voice echoed in her head. It didn’t give her any comfort. Please stop hovering over me. You’re a false prophet and I’m so tired of hearing that everything is going to be okay…

  The caravan stopped and gunfire sounded from the vehicle in the lead. A minute later, she and the two soldiers with her were also shooting out the Jeep windows at the monsters lumbering by them.

  Once things calmed down, the caravan started moving again. They were about five miles away from the hospital when Jameson stopped on East Speedway Boulevard and let the other vehicles pass them.

  “Right on Pentaño?”

  “Yes.” Numbness overcame her entire body.

  They drove north into a residential area, and it was apparent that the plague did not have any sort of urban boundary. The houses were just as forlorn as the office buildings, stores, and restaurants they had passed in the city. And, they had to drive around objects in the road—things like backpacks, televisions, and lumps of bloody clothing. Every few seconds, there was the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire coming from random directions.

  Reiser tapped Cheryl’s shoulder from behind. “You’re looking for your dad, right?”

  She looked back at him and nodded.

  “Which house?”

  She realized that Jameson had come to a stop. They were on Mission Street.

  It wasn’t possible. This wasn’t her dad’s street. It couldn’t be…

  She’d been here less than a year ago for Christmas. During that holiday, just as on many others, Jack Malone’s humor had come out to play in full force. He’d decorated the cacti in his front yard to look like spiky snowmen, complete with Santa caps and carrots for noses. The neighbors had followed suit, and it became a festive competition.

  Now, the street looked like a bomb had gone off.

  There was green cactus pulp everywhere. Windows were smashed and doors hung from hinges. A suitcase lay open in the middle of the road with clothes scattered around it.

  “Third one on the left…” she choked, barely able to breathe.

  They passed by Mrs. Higgins’ house. She was the neighbor Cheryl had always heard was stealing her dad’s figs and his Sunday newspaper. Next to the chiminea in her front yard, there was a fluff of white and red, the remains of her yippy poodle, Poquito.

  When they pulled into the driveway of 1352 Mission Street, the rest of the air left Cheryl’s lungs. The screen door she’d helped him install last summer lay on the front lawn. It was mangled and covered with splatters of dried blood, and the front door was wide open.

  Jameson parked the Jeep and left it running.

  She couldn’t move. When he put a hand on her shoulder and said, “You alright, ma’am?” she was unable to respond. She felt like she was drowning. Her nose and eyes were filled with water causing a stinging sensation.

  “We’d better check it out,” Reiser said. “We can’t stay long. We have to meet the rest of the detail at the hospital.”

  Jameson stepped out and looked back at the both of them. “Stay frosty.”

  She’d picked up some of the military slang and knew that wasn’t a sarcastic remark. He
was warning her to stay alert.

  Underwater. That’s where she was. She felt like she was swimming as her body floated out of the Jeep. The two soldiers paddled up beside her, holding harpoons as their eyes darted from side to side, looking for sharks.

  Reiser took the lead as they approached the gaping doorway. She followed him into the front hallway. Her feet crunched on glass and she looked down. Staring back up at her was her own face, a photograph that had been taken five years ago on a vacation to the Grand Canyon.

  “What’s his name?” Jameson asked.

  She turned at looked at him, not sure if she’d heard the question right. After all, it was hard to hear under water. “Jack,” she said. “Jack Malone.”

  He started shouting. “Mr. Malone!”

  Every cupboard in the kitchen was open. Trash littered the floor, and there was a fork stuck in the stucco ceiling. In the living room, the cracked television lay on its side and books covered the floor. Guns at the ready, they crept down the hallway towards the bedroom.

  Cheryl motioned for Reiser to wait. Whatever had happened to her father, she wanted to be the first to get the news and not have it delivered to her secondhand. She stepped around him and into the room.

  Unlike the rest of the house, this room wasn’t in disarray. The twin bed was neatly made; there was a Louis L’Amour book on the nightstand with a folded paper napkin for a bookmark, and there were eyeglasses and keys on top of the dresser.

  Then she looked down and saw bloody footprints, which crisscrossed the room in multiple directions.

  “I’m sorry,” Reiser said. “There’s no one here.”

  She inhaled a lungful of water and felt herself sinking. They took him, she thought. Cornered him in here then carried him off like a side of beef. She ran a finger across the thin layer of dust on the nightstand. It had probably happened weeks ago.

  Jameson lingered in the doorway and Reiser said something to her, but it came out warbled under the water. The words dribbled out like tiny air bubbles.

  “I said, let’s go!”

  She felt a clamp on her arm and let it drag her towards the door. One foot after the other, following the dark brown pattern of feet that blemished the tile.

  They were halfway down the hall when she heard something. It was faint and raspy like the sound a leaf makes as it slides across the ground.

  Not now, Mark. I need to be alone.

  Then, she stopped.

  Reiser dug his fingers deeper into her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She held her hand up. “Wait…”

  She heard it again. “Sheh…”

  Her heart sank. It was just the wind, a soft breeze blowing through the papery aspen leaves outside.

  There aren’t any aspens here.

  She realized that the sound was coming from the bedroom.

  “Shehl…”

  It sounded like more of a croak this time.

  “I heard something,” she said. “Just give me a minute.”

  Reiser released his grip and followed her back to the bedroom. Inside, she heard the sound for a third time and realized that it was coming from underneath the bed. She got down on her knees and looked underneath.

  Nothing.

  A pair of sandals. A crumpled tissue. And dust.

  She took her time rising back to her feet. This house was all that was left of Jack Malone’s life, and she was sure that she’d never see it again after this day.

  “We’ve got orders to get back to the hospital.” Reiser motioned toward the door with his head and his gun.

  It wasn’t more than a whisper again. “Shhe…”

  Her head whipped around. She ran back to the bed and pulled it away from the wall with one hand, seeing nothing but a vent with a metal grate screwed over it.

  “Here…” the papery leaves sighed from inside.

  She pulled a flashlight out of her holster and shined it inside.

  Two brown eyes stared back out at her.

  Like a diver rising too fast in the water and getting the bends, she felt a giant air bubble rise in her chest and threaten to burst. “He’s in here!” she screamed. “He’s in here…”

  She pried the grate off with her crowbar and found a nearly mummified version of her father inside. His skin was taught and papery thin, and his mouth was a slit with sandpaper lips that seemed barely able to move. Somehow, he’d managed to crawl in there and screw the grate back on from the inside. Eventually, he’d grown too weak from lack of food and water to get himself back out. Any normal person would have died a couple of weeks back, but Jack Malone was too stubborn to let that happen. She found out later that he’d eaten silverfish and beetles and slept as much as he could, hoping for a rescuer to eventually find him.

  Cheryl heard Jameson on the walkie-talkie. “…that’s right…we’re bringing a survivor back. He’s going to need immediate medical attention.”

  “Yeah. Him and a few thousand other people,” Reiser mumbled as he helped Cheryl pull the skeletal man out of the hole.

  She ignored him as her father raised a shaky hand up to her cheek and forced a smile.

  Jameson carried him out to the Jeep, and she sat in the back with him as they drove to the hospital where she hoped they’d find any intravenous supplies needed to revive his weakened body. She held his hand on the way and decided that maybe she did believe there was a god. If she’d found her father just one more day later, they might be on the way to a baiting station to dump his body.

  Maybe some benevolent entity was looking out for her (and her father) after all.

  That belief was bolstered when she discovered that the day had further surprises in store for her.

  * * *

  Her patrol was thankfully uneventful that night, because her emotions were volatile after checking her father into the fort’s triage unit where he was given a red tag to indicate the need for immediate attention.

  When she went off duty, she decided to visit the all night cafeteria that was just for those who had earned the navy blue cards. Patrols were lonely, so after getting her tray, she scanned the room for someone to eat with. She saw Yvonne in the line and took two steps toward her then paused, remembering that she’d been such a Chatty Cathy, it was hard to get a word in between her monologues.

  She panned the room again and noticed a tall man with shaggy blond hair in an Army uniform, hunched over the buffet, heaping mounds of mango and pineapple onto his plate. She hadn’t seen him before and was sure that she would remember if she had, because of his odd appearance. One shoulder was arched higher than the other giving him a crooked stance, and as he moved down the line he walked with a limp. She found herself staring, wondering if it was someone she’d met during the induction that had been wounded since then.

  He grabbed a bottle of water at the end of the line and flashed his navy blue card to the attendant then walked towards the tables at the far end of the room. He settled at a solitary table in the corner—the furthest one away from the rest of the diners. After tossing a pack of cigarettes on the table next to him, he sat down on the bench with his back to her.

  Cheryl moved in that direction. As she approached from behind, his face was bowed low over the plate. He began to eat ravenously, working clockwise around the plate. The hand that held the fork had a sickly pale color with pink scars raked through it like it had been through a meat grinder. His appearance and his voracious appetite startled her enough to make her pause and glance down at her gun.

  His plate was nearly clean by the time she rounded the far end of the table and came to stand diagonally from him about four yards away.

  When he turned around, she saw his face. One eyebrow was higher than the other, and his skin was pockmarked with long vertical scars.

  His blue eyes locked into hers.

  Her fingers suddenly turned into jelly, and her plate crashed to the floor.

  Mark?

  Chapter Twenty Six

  He licked a dribble of juice off
of his chin. Then his bottom lip began to quiver as he stared at her. She rushed around to him and collided into his arms. He held her and sobbed into her hair with a raspy voice. “Cheryl…my God…”

  Every word she could think of remained balled up in the lump in her throat as a rush of tears flooded her cheeks.

  They stayed locked together for several minutes, ignoring the murmurs around them. Then, he pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I’m so sorry…”

  Sorry? Sorry for what?

  Her mind flashed back to the instant that he’d shoved her out the church door, pushing her into the infected world to brave it alone. She wasn’t angry, but she had a hell of a lot of questions, especially considering the fact that his broken body seemed to be scarred from infection but not from flames. Her first words came out sounding stiffer than she’d intended.

  “You lied to me.”

  “I had to,” he said, shaking his head. “You would have died there.”

  She realized that one of the military trucks that had passed her and Aidan on the road probably had him in it, and the thought made her sick.

  He explained that he hadn’t gotten enough vaccine back in Afghanistan to prevent him from coming down with the infection, but it had been enough to slow the progression and allow a second dose, begged from a sympathetic soldier bearing a torch, to do some good.

  They talked into the wee hours of the morning, long after a cleanup crew came by and mopped up the mess from her spilled tray.

  “Someone said it was mosquitoes but in the movie the sergeant said—”