Eaters: The Beginning

by Michelle DePaepe

  Mark pushed to the lead with Gary on his heels. “Grab anything you can to take as a weapon. If an Eater messes with you, aim for the head. And…for God sakes, stick together. If you get separated, we’re not coming to look for you.”

  Cheryl ran behind the counter. She’d seen a gleam of metal underneath some shelves and was elated to find out that it was a knife. But, when she reached down and pulled it out, her optimism disappeared. It was a bread knife with a long serrated blade and a dull rounded tip. It would only do her some good if an attacker would be kind enough to stand still while she slowly sawed off an appendage.

  The woman next to her in the sundress didn’t seem to see the problem. “Lucky!” Then, she grabbed a thin metal skewer off the counter, pulled the card off that said, “Today’s Special—Turkey Swiss Melt on Rye” and held the pointed end out like a sword.

  The sound of breaking glass told Cheryl that there was no more time to search for a more suitable weapon. Pandemonium broke out as the group lunged forward. Using elbows and fingernails, she had begun inching towards the back of the store, trying to find Mark, when she felt a sharp poke in her back.

  “Hey…Pixie!”

  She turned around. It was the foul-mouthed witch that she’d tussled with earlier, and there was a long carving knife in her hand.

  “Don’t worry…I got your back,” she said with snarled lips.

  Cheryl ignored her. There was no time for vendettas, so she pushed on. When she reached Mark and Gary, at the back door, her face fell as she realized there were no windows in the back—no way to tell if there was a hoard of Eaters waiting in the alley for them to emerge.

  Mark’s hand trembled on the door handle. He took a deep breath like he was steeling himself to open it. The nudge he needed came from more sounds of breaking glass from the front of the shop.

  “Let’s go…”

  Cheryl held on to the back of his shirt as he pushed the door open a crack and peered outside. At the same time, she looked back, wondering how many seconds they had before the Eaters were at their heels. She hoped they’d be stalled at the decaying meat in the cooler.

  “It’s clear,” Mark said as he pushed the door open the rest of the way.

  They tiptoed at first, but then the people in the rear got anxious and started pushing, causing them to fall out into the alley. She and Mark crashed over the top of a metal trashcan that was lying on its side behind the door.

  So much for a quiet exit.

  “Where’s the church?” she said as they picked themselves up and the rest of the group barreled out.

  “Not far. I know where it is,” Mark said.

  She continued to cling to him as they made their way down the alley. After being locked up with the spoiled meat, the fresh air was refreshing. It gave her hope. She couldn’t wait to get somewhere safe where, hopefully, she could have a shower, a change of clothes, and a decent night’s sleep.

  But, her optimism didn’t last as she looked down the alley ahead of them and saw that it was covered with trash. There were boxes, empty soda bottles, pieces of paper dancing in circular eddies of wind. It looked like they’d walked out into a ghost town.

  Loud grunts and yells came out of the shop behind them, then the sound of more glass breaking.

  “Come on,” Mark said as he motioned the group to follow him.

  As they began to walk down the alley, Cheryl thought they must look more like an angry mob than a band of refugees. Some of them wielded knives, metal baking sheets, or broken wooden chair legs that looked ready to stake the nearest vampire.

  They ran over the tops of bodies and…even more disgusting…body parts…strewn about. But, there was no time to dwell on the horror of it—they had to get to the shelter before the hoard of Eaters from the park discovered them out in the open.

  One block away, they saw a few of the infected lying in front of a grocery store that had broken windows. They were moaning, but not moving, and Cheryl figured that they were either in the early stages of the disease…or an advanced stage…and near temporary death.

  They were one more block down when an old woman ran up beside her—not someone from her group. Her dress was splayed open, and her flat bony chest was roadmap of gore. She hissed, “They’re like sin eaters, you know. They eat the blackest parts of people—the parts hidden inside.”

  The woman tried to grab her, but Cheryl shook her off, choking down the scream that lodged in her throat.

  But, the scream threatened to escape when she noticed a dark speck two blocks back that multiplied into two, then three, then ten, then a hundred…

  It was a hoard of Eaters on their tail…and they were closing fast.

  Chapter 7

  As they rounded the corner onto Taylor Street, the sight of armed guards with guns outside First Savior Church was the most heart-warming sight that Cheryl thought she’d ever seen, but the warmth abruptly ended as the gun barrels pointed at them.

  Mark held up his hands, and the group mimicked him as they slowed down to a walk.

  “We’re clean. There’s infected coming right behind us. Let us in, please!”

  The head guard, a man in Army fatigues, similar to Mark’s motioned for the group to join the line behind them near the entrance.

  Mark grabbed Cheryl’s face in his hands and kissed her. Then, he un-shouldered his rifle. “You go in. I’m going to stay out here and help.”

  “No…” she begged. She didn’t want to leave him for a mass of strangers.

  “I’ll find you soon. I promise…”

  They parted as the gunfire began. Mark joined the ranks of soldiers and armed civilians that had begun mowing down the dozens and dozens of Eaters that had followed them, and she headed for the line near the door.

  She nudged the man in front of her with a mop of straw-colored hair and a Hawaiian shirt, tapping his toe to the sound of the gunfire. “Hey,” she yelled. “What’s taking so long to get in?”

  He grinned a toothy smile as he turned around and gave her a quick up and down with his crinkled eyes. “It’s a test everyone has to pass to get inside.”

  She could smell the ganja now on his breath. She imagined that he must have had one last fat one before giving up the attempt to make it on his own. She hoped for his sake that the test wasn’t any sort of drug test.

  “What kind of test? I hope it isn’t something I was supposed to study for.”

  The guy laughed at her joke…and laughed...and laughed. For a minute, he doubled over and smacked his knee. Musta been some good ganja, she thought as he tried to compose himself, which took a few more seconds.

  “They’ve got a bucket with raw ground beef in it—seven days old.”

  He was dead serious now—not joking.

  “Gross,” she said, making a face.

  He turned back around and began humming a song to himself, slapping his knee to keep time.

  As the line moved up a few feet, she saw a couple of armed guards leading a teenaged boy away. His head was hung low with stringy dark hair covering his cheeks, mostly hiding a drooling sneer underneath. They disappeared around the backside of the building. Then, there were two quick gunshots, and the guards came back alone.

  Cheryl tried to choke back the sadness of what she knew had just happened.

  When she reached the front of the line, the stench from the bucket thrust in her face, made her gag. She covered her mouth to hold back the urge to vomit. Seeing her reaction, the guard waved her through.

  The inside of the church was wall-to-wall people. They covered the aisles, the pews, and the stage. There were crying babies, and lots of screaming and shouting. Cheryl’s first thought was that it was much worse than the sandwich shop refuge. But, this building had few windows, so it was safer. There were a few rectangles of clear glass near the ceiling, but the only other windows were thin vertical panes of colorful stained glass. Overall, with the armed men outside—it was the closest thing to a haven that she could imagine, given the situation. />
  She felt a tug on her sleeve and turned to find the woman in the sundress from the sandwich shop. “We made it, hunh?”

  Cheryl smiled. “Yeah. I guess we did.”

  “I’m Katherine, by the way.”

  Cheryl took her outstretched hand. “Cheryl. Nice to meet you.”

  “Where do we bunk? It doesn’t look like there’s any room.”

  She looked around. “How about over there?” She pointed towards a three-by-three foot area near the restrooms.

  A woman next to them with long jet black hair, graying at the temples, shook her head. “Oh…I wouldn’t go there,” she said as she fingered the gold cross on her neck. “When people get sick, it’s the first place they go. That’s why there’s no one near the doors.”

  Then, she squinted and looked at them, wrinkling her nose. “You two healthy?”

  “Yes,” they both said in unison.

  “There’s a small space behind the pulpit. You won’t have any legroom, but it’s better than standing all the time.”

  They nodded and followed her, stepping over blankets and coolers, heads and feet, until they reached the stage area. The woman led them to the center where she’d made a tent out of a bedsheet attached to the tall wooden structure.

  As they crawled underneath, the woman turned to Cheryl.

  “You should put on something else. That blood will make people uneasy.”

  Cheryl looked down at her skirt. The stain that she’d gotten from falling on the sidewalk seemed to have spread and looked highly obvious against the light blue cotton.

  “My name is Morena. I’m a parishioner here.” She fumbled in a duffel bag then pulled out a long skirt, a paisley quilted patchwork that looked like it was homemade. “Put this on.”

  There was no sense in clinging to modesty or fashion snobbery, so Cheryl took the skirt and exchanged it for her dirty one.

  When she finished, Katherine asked, “So what do you know about what’s going on?”

  Morena hesitated then said, “We’ve got a few hundred packed inside here. There’s water, but very little food. You’re lucky that you came when you did, because I think they’re going to stop taking people after today. There’s just no more room.”

  “What about out there?” Cheryl asked. “Is there anyone starting to round up the Eaters?”

  “The what?”

  “The Eaters. That’s what my fiancée calls them.” She almost went into his story about the dogs and infected in Afghanistan, but stopped herself, thinking that it might not be wise to say too much.

  “We just call them, The Sick. Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on outside. Whatever is happening out there is God’s will.”

  The flap of the tent flipped up and the face of an older woman with short, cropped silver hair peeked in. “Tell them what I told you.”

  “No,” Morena said. “You’ve got no proof.”

  “I know what I heard, and I believe it. It makes sense.”

  “Fine, Gail. Tell them then. They aren’t going to believe you anyway.”

  Gail scooted under the sheet and crammed her way in. “There’s a rumor going around about how this all spread.”

  Cheryl and Katherine held their breath.

  “It usually takes a while for viruses to proliferate with all the sneezing and skin contact and whatnot. This all happened so fast…some people are saying it’s spread by mosquitoes.”

  Cheryl felt an electric ripple of fear down her spine. Her mouth went dry, and she felt her face flush.

  “Mosquitoes?” Katherine said. “I’ve heard of them spreading malaria and West Nile virus, but never anything else.”

  “Think about it. Millions of people outside for Fourth of July. Then, wham bam! All of a sudden, everyone’s getting sick. I’m telling you…it’s no coincidence. I bet mosquitoes all over the country had a blood feast this past weekend, and a lot of them were carrying this disease.

  Cheryl started twisting her diamond engagement ring back and forth on her finger. How many times had she been bit on the camping trip? She hadn’t even thought about it until now. With all the adrenaline coursing through her for the past couple of days, she hadn’t noticed the bites. But now, she could feel the itchy welts all over her body. Thank goodness they were hidden by her long sleeved jacket and the long skirt. She realized that at some point, she was going to start feeling sick, and was going to die once, then a second time when she was shot in the head. Oh…what a horrible way to go. It was so unfair! She didn’t deserve it. She wanted this nightmare to end. She and Mark were going to be married next year…and take a cruise to Jamaica…and—

  Wait. The mosquitoes never touched him. If this epidemic ended and life returned to normal…he was going to survive…

  “Cheryl? You all right?”

  She looked over at Katherine in her ‘pretty as a picture’ sundress. Who was this woman…and why did she get to live? Why did any of them…and not her?

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” she lied. No sense in sounding an alarm to say, ‘kill me now…I might be infected’. “I could really use some rest though. I’m tired.”

  Morena let her use the duffel bag as a pillow when she regretfully realized that she’d left her purse behind at the sandwich shop. Then, the three of them left to see if they could bargain for some food or water.

  As Cheryl lay there, she felt like she was getting a fever. But, she told herself that it was just hot and was probably her imagination. She tried to relax despite the cacophony around her. Eventually, fatigue took over, and she fell asleep.

  A few minutes later, she woke with hands tightening around her throat. Gasping for air, she opened her eyes and saw the smoking witch straddling her. The woman was obviously sick now. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin looked as dark as ash. Cheryl struggled to push her off without success. With her throat constricted, she couldn’t even scream.

  This is an even stupider end, she thought as her head felt light from lack of oxygen. But then, she noticed the carving knife on the floor. She grabbed it, just a second too late. The woman saw and knocked it out of her hand, sending it skittering out under the tent.

  With no other means of defense, Cheryl stretched up and bit the woman’s hand before it returned to her throat.

  The woman let out a shrill scream then slapped Cheryl across the face.

  Then…in the blink of an eye…she was gone.

  Cheryl sat up and started coughing and gagging. She threw the sheet open to get some air, causing a slew of nearby campers to stare.

  As she slowly started to breathe again, she realized that there was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth. If she hadn’t been infected before, she certainly was now.

  A few minutes later, Katherine and Morena came back.

  “Five bucks a donut! Can you believe it?” Katherine took the paper towel off the top of the paper plate, revealing three glazed donuts and one with chocolate icing. “And look…they got mold on them!”

  Before she had a chance to think about asking or paying them or consider the type and quantity of mold, Cheryl snatched one off the plate and stuffed it into her mouth. It was truly stale and hard, but the sugary flavor was ecstasy in her mouth. She ate the whole thing with just a few chews.

  The ladies stared at her.

  Then, the embarrassment hit. What did I just do? Am I sick? Why did I do that? “I’m really sorry. I guess I was just really hungry. I’ll pay you back later. I promise.”

  Morena shook her head then turned to Katherine. “Uhhh…you want one now?”

  “No thanks. I’m still too queasy from the entry exam. I’ll save mine for later.”

  Later that afternoon, they kicked her out of the tent. As she wandered around looking for another spot, she saw Morena talking to a man with a holstered gun and pointing to her.

  Great. She was marked now.

  She eventually resigned herself to a spot just a few feet away from the restroom. She was so dehydrated from sweating and the lack of wate
r that she only had to venture in once. It was a quick unpleasant trip, and she had to use the toilet as sick people lay around it.

  As evening advanced and the light grew dimmer, the building got a little quieter. The dominant sounds were coughing and whimpering, instead of the frenzied voices from earlier. She leaned against the wall, next to a pedestal topped with a vase of mums, and wrapped her arms around her knees. She closed her eyes for a moment and had just begun to wonder when or if she’d see Mark again when she heard a voice in front of her.

  “Cheryl…”

  Like she’d conjured him just by thinking about him…it was him.

  “Hey…come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’ve got to get out of here.”

  A piercing scream came from the direction of the bathroom, and she saw two men rush in with guns.

  When she turned back to Mark, she saw him untying the laces on his boots.

  “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer. He just kept loosening the laces. Then, he began unbuttoning his camouflage shirt that said Breton on the pocket. He handed it to her. “Put this on.”

  “Why? It’s hot. I don’t want—”

  “Just do it, Cheryl. I have my reasons.”

  She took off her light cotton blazer, and put it on over the camisole she had on underneath. It was stifling hot, and heavy, and the sleeves were several inches too long.

  He began undoing his belt.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “You can’t wear that long skirt. I want you to put on my pants too.”

  “Jeez. And, you’re going to just strip right here? Why are you doing this?”

  He pulled her back into the shadow of a big wreath of mums that she figured had been from a funeral at the church…a few days ago when such things were possible. Then, he took off his pants and stood there in his boxers and t-shirt, waiting for her to finish dressing.

  She felt like a rag doll in the oversized clothes. She wondered what was going on as he pulled her into his arms.

  “You’re healthy, aren’t you?”

  She nodded into his chest, because she didn’t want to tell him that she thought she was infected.