The Scavengers

by Gen Griffin

  Chapter 7

  It was raining when the sun came up. The weather was doing absolutely nothing to improve anyone's lousy mood. I was exhausted as I zipped my jacket up and wrestled my frizzy, tangled hair into a somewhat manageable braid that ran down the center of my back. I kept sneaking glances across the bus at Drake, wondering if he would be as affectionate this morning as he had been last night on the roof of the bus. So far, aside from a wink he'd shot me as he'd handed me half a can of creamed corn for breakfast, he was acting like last night had never happened.

  I wished I could act like last night had never happened. Drake had been telling the truth when he'd said what he told me would change the way I viewed the world.

  “We need to try to find a working radiator for our bus today,” Drake announced as I scraped the last of my cold, miserable meal off the walls of its corroded can. “I want to split up into groups of two. We have three experienced hunters and three newbies so I'm thinking we'll split up by experience. I'll take Pilar with me since this is her first time out of the Cube.”

  “I'm not taking that girl,” Shayla announced loudly. She pointed to where Cya was huddled in a shivering lump against the side of the bus. Her thin, fragile clothes were providing her with no protection at all against the steady drizzle of rain. I'd assumed she would have brought a jacket in her bag, but if she had then she wasn't making any move to go get it and put it on.

  “Me neither,” Kennedy said. “Don't even think about sticking me with her, Drake. I'll have to pull a radiator if I find one. I can't lug it and her back here. If I have to choose between carrying a radiator and carrying a recruit who can't carry her own weight, I'm fixing our bus.”

  Cya let out a low moan as she tried to stand up. It was clear that she couldn't put any weight on her leg. “Just leave me here.”

  Drake scowled. “No one gets to stay here. We have to go out on foot then we all have to go out on foot. No one gets special treatment in the Scavengers.”

  “I can't-can't walk.” She pushed out her swollen, purple ankle so that we could all see it. She'd used a knife to cut the leg off of her thin pants. Her foot had swollen along with her ankle and her little shoe had been discarded.

  “Too damn bad,” Drake said. “You're walking. We're all walking.”

  “She's not walking with me,” Shayla reiterated.

  “Or me.”

  “Fine,” Drake snarled. “How do you two want to split up?”

  “We have to stick to one experienced hunter and one newbie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me and Jeb. Kennedy can take the other girl, Pilar.” Shayla stood up and crossed her arms over the front of the thick black shirt she was wearing. “You can take the cripple.”

  “Fine,” Drake snapped even though his tone clearly said that it wasn't. “Let's get moving. The sooner we get a radiator, the sooner we can get on with our real hunt.”

  With that decided, I now found myself trudging out into the wet, cold woods with Kennedy approximately an hour after the sun had come up. Kennedy wasn't talkative so I found myself with plenty of time to think about what Drake had told me the night before.

  Canned food was gross. The older it got, the grosser it was. When I had worked in the hospital ward, we'd made a game of looking at the expiration dates on the cans we fed our patients. Whoever found the oldest can won the right to give it to the least pleasant patient we had. Some of the food was so disintegrated it was impossible to match the image on the wrapper with the contents. A lot of the cans didn't even have wrappers anymore, making guess the vegetable-meat-soup game another hospital ward favorite.

  I wasn't in nearly as good of physical shape as Kennedy was and my poorly fitting gear wasn't helping. The too big boots were rubbing blisters on my heels by the time we came across our first abandoned house thirty minutes into the walk.

  Kennedy was carrying a massive backpack and had insisted I do the same. He said that even if we didn't find anything that could be used to fix the bus, we might find something that had some trade value in Ra Shet.

  Drake had provided Jeb and Cya with the short explanation about Ra Shet this morning during breakfast. He'd left out the part where eating any food that wasn't canned would turn you into a zombie. He hadn't mentioned Seth at all. I wondered if Kennedy and Shayla would be upset if they knew about Seth coming to the bus last night. I suspected they would.

  The first house we searched was full of moldy clothing, sagging furniture and rats. The second house netted us a handful of canned green beans and Kennedy picked up a tool box he apparently thought was worth lugging the weight. The third and fourth houses yielded more of nothing. I was really starting to see what Drake had been talking about when he'd told me everything had already been picked over by scavengers. I got lucky on the fifth house though. There were faded pictures hanging throughout the hallways and living room walls. Most of them depicted three teenage girls with slanted green eyes and red hair. The oldest was a little wider around the middle than I was but both of the younger girls looked to be almost the same size as me.

  I was halfway through raiding their closets when I heard a door open behind me. “Don't come in here, I found some clothes,” I called out, not wanting Kennedy to see me half-naked. I had my back to the door as I yanked my new jeans the rest of the way over my hips and hurriedly buttoned the fly.

  Someone laughed from behind me and I froze with one foot half-way into a cowboy boot that was a whole lot closer to the right size than Dad's hunting boots had been.

  I'd heard Kennedy laugh yesterday when he and Conner had been working on the engine. His laugh was a high pitched bray, not the low chuckle that had just come from the other side of the room.

  My machete was laying on the bed, still attached to my belt. I knew there was no way I could reach it in time as I turned to face Seth.

  He was leaning against the chest of drawers next to the bedroom door and watching me with an amused smirk on his face. In the dim light of the rainy morning I could see that his skin was too pale to be considered normal and his hair, except for where the scar cut into his skull, was blacker than night. I slid my hand into the pocket of my wet jacket, glad I hadn't gotten around to taking off the damp leather yet. The grip of the gun was comforting in my hand.

  “How did you get in here?” I demanded as I yanked the gun out of my pocket and pointed the barrel at him.

  Seth eyed the gun impassively. “Good morning to you too, little lamb.”

  “Where's Kennedy?” I asked. “What did you do to him?”

  “Kennedy? I didn't do anything to him. He's in the garage of a house three doors down from this one trying to figure out how to crank a motorcycle that doesn't have a carburetor on it,” Seth replied. He appeared completely unconcerned by the weapon, which made me even more concerned.

  “He left me?” I jammed my foot down into the boot and it immediately tried to fold in half. I stumbled and nearly fell over. I would have hit the ground if Seth hadn't caught my arm and pulled me back up right.

  “Kennedy likes motors better than he likes people.” His touch was surprisingly warm on my arm. I'd assumed he would feel as cold and dead as he looked. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest as I pulled away from him, trying my best to make sure I didn't accidentally look him in the eyes. I was staring at the floor as I took a hurried step backwards. My shin caught the edge of a small box I hadn't noticed sitting at the end of the bed and I lost my balance. I tried to grab the edge of the wall but the gun in my hand was too clunky. I missed and landed with a thump on the bed. On top of the machete.

  “Ouch!” I yelped and jumped back up, dropping the gun in the process. The boot folded over for a second time and next thing I knew I was on my butt on the floor.

  Seth started laughing again as he bent down and picked up the gun. He examined it for a moment and then gently laid it down on a small table that was next to the bed. He held out his hand to me. He had what my Dad called musician's hands. Lon
g, slender fingers with short, neatly kept fingernails. Scars crisscrossed his knuckles and palms in all directions. There was a scar straight down the inside of his middle finger that looked like he'd run it down the tip of an extremely sharp blade.

  I didn't want to touch him again so I ignored his hand. Instead I grabbed the edge of the box I had tripped over as I kicked off the offending boot and scooted my knees underneath me. A moment later I was on my feet again and oops, accidentally looking directly at Seth's disfigured jaw.

  I could almost see his teeth from the outside of his skin through the quarter sized hole in the side of his face. The blank, mottled eye blinked at me once and then I forced myself to focus both of my eyes on his good eye before I lost my creamed corn all over his heavy duty black lace-up combat boots.

  “You're a zombie,” I spoke without even realizing I'd said the words out loud.

  “Am not.” Seth crossed his arms over his chest and very purposely scowled down at me.

  “Are too,” I told him. Much to my surprise, his left eye, the blue one, wasn't all that scary to look at. There were little flecks of gold mixed in with the blue that surrounded his pupil. His lashes were far longer and darker than my own. Really too pretty for a boy. Especially one who was scaring the shit out of me.

  “Am. Not.” He shook his head at me and suddenly I realized that he was enjoying scaring the shit out of me. There was something in his demeanor that was intimately familiar.

  “Are. Too.” Maybe it was the way he kept cocking his head at me when I kept tripping over my own two feet. Or the causal way he was invading my personal space. Or maybe it was the smirk that just barely showed at the edge of his narrow lips that reminded me so much of my Dad when he was teasing me.

  “Not.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. Jesus Christ did this monster really remind me of my Dad?

  “You're missing a chunk of your face,” I pointed out as I forced myself to really look at Seth. To look at him without looking at him, screaming zombie and running away.

  “Shit happens.” Seth shrugged his shoulders and smirked. “You just sat on a machete.”

  “That wouldn't have happened if you hadn't snuck up on me.” I had been right last night. He wasn't nearly as muscular or as broad across the shoulders and chest as Drake was. He was lean almost to the point of too skinny under the nubby-textured long-sleeved cotton shirt he was wearing. The cross bow was absent from his wardrobe today but he still had the weapons belt slung low against his slim hips.

  “How was I supposed to know you were running around in here naked?” he asked. I guessed he was easily over 6 feet tall and most of the height was in his legs. His hips were easily six inches above mine.

  “You knew.”

  “Not the naked part,” he said. “That was a lucky bonus. Nice underwear.”

  “Ugh.” I was surprised to realize that at some point in the last three minutes I had quit being afraid of Seth. I was still wary of him and I definitely didn't like him much, but he wasn't going to hurt me or he already would have done it. He'd had all the opportunity in the world to kill me in between my dropping the gun and my less than graceful landing on the machete.

  “Maybe we should start over,” he suggested, holding out his hand to me. “I'm Seth.”

  “I know.” I glared down at the cowboy boot that had tripped me twice in less than ten minutes. I needed new boots but not at the expense of my life. If Seth had been a real zombie I would have been dead.

  “I was being polite,” he clarified. “I didn't catch your name last night.”

  “Maybe I'm not sure you need to know it.”

  “Fine,” he eyed me for a moment. “If you won't tell me your name, I'll have to give you a new one.”

  “Oh, this ought to be good.” I decided it was safe enough to turn my back on him as I headed back to the closet. The cowboy boots weren't going to work for me, but maybe I could find another pair of shoes that would. My toes were freezing after slogging through mud puddles in Dad's leaking boots all morning.

  I could feel Seth's cold, dead eye on me as I pushed hangers of clothing out of the way of the shoe rack that hung next to the door.

  “You look Hispanic,” Seth decided from behind me. I knew he was taking in my tan skin, short, stocky build and long brown hair.

  “I am Hispanic. My Mom was from Mexico.” Some girl had really loved her high heels that was for sure. And it did me no good.

  “You look like a Carolina,” he used the ethnic pronunciation.

  “No,” I whispered, frozen in place with chills running down my spine and shoes forgotten. He'd said Carolina exactly the same way my Dad always had when he was teasing my Mom.

  “No?” he asked.

  “My name is Pilar,” I told him, shaken to the core as I turned back to face him. “Carolina is my Mom's name.”

  “Oh.” I could tell by the sound of his voice he knew he'd said something wrong. The air was charged between us for a moment and then he broke the silence. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Pilar.”

  “That's a lie,” I muttered.

  “Is not.” Seth approached the closet and pulled out a pair of lace up boots I hadn't noticed because there was laundry kicked over beside them. “Try these,” he told me. “They're made well and they won't slip around like the ones you've been wearing.”

  “How do you know my boots have been slipping?” I argued with him for the sake of arguing as I took the boots he handed me. I didn't want him to be right about anything.

  “Your feet are rubbed raw,” he looked purposely down at my toes. There were bright red patches of skin next to both heels and on the edges of my big toe.

  I couldn't argue with that, so instead I sat down on the edge of the bed and began untying the laces on the boots so I could try them on. A pair of socks were sitting next to me on the bed so I pulled them onto my feet and purposely ignored Seth as he rattled around in the closet while I put the boots on.

  Five minutes later I finally had to admit he'd managed to pick a pair of boots that fit me well. He handed me a neat looking pink backpack that had the appearance of being stuffed to the point of bursting the zipper.

  “What is this?” I asked him.

  “Practical clothes,” he replied. “I took the liberty of going through the closet and packing up everything I thought you would be able to use.”

  “That was,” I paused and considered him carefully. His shaggy black hair was falling across his good eye and I thought I saw a hint of apology in his expression. Had he realized how much his calling me Carolina had disturbed me? I thought he had, because the bag of clothes seemed like a kind of apology. “Nice of you,” I finished. “Thanks.”

  “You're welcome.” He held out a second item to me. It took me a minute to realize it was a medium-thick light brown canvas jacket. “Take this too.”

  “I like mine,” I said as I shook my head. Dad's jacket still smelled like him. Wearing it was as close as I could get to feeling like I was back safe in my Dad's arms. I wasn't willing to part with that feeling yet.

  “It’s too bulky. It’s going to get snagged on something at the worst possible moment. You could get hurt,” he said. He thrust the other jacket at me. “Don't get yourself killed for a stupid reason.”

  “Why do you care?” I couldn't stop myself from blurting out the question that was now weighing heavily on my mind. Seth had been easier to understand when I'd thought he wanted to hurt me. Now it was obvious that he didn't and I had no idea why he was still around.

  “I like you.” He returned my bluntness with some of his own. “You have guts.”

  “Guts?” I asked. I rubbed my hands down the outside of Dad's jacket once more and reluctantly realized Seth was right. It was too much fabric. I slipped it down off my shoulders and laid it gently on the bed.

  “Courage. Spirit. Whatever. You're smart and you're brave. I like that.” Seth held the new jacket out to me again. This time I took it.

  “Drak
e hates you.” I wasn't sure why I kept opening my mouth and blurting out things that were better kept to myself.

  “Don't trust Drake.”

  “Drake's a hero, why wouldn't I trust him?”

  “You only think he's a hero because you think you're in love with him,” Seth countered. I nearly choked on my own spit. I didn't know which part of that comment I wanted to argue with him about first.

  “Drake is a hero and I am in love with him,” I finally managed after I stopped coughing.

  “Liar.” Seth shook his head at me. “You're not in love with him. You’re in love with the person he's supposed to be.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  Seth opened his mouth to answer but before he could the door downstairs banged open loudly.

  “Pilar! You ready yet?” Kennedy called up the stairs. “Ain't nothing here that we can use.”

  “Just a minute!” I called out quickly. I expected Seth to try to bolt out the door or duck into the closet but instead he took a step towards the table he'd set the gun on.

  “Hey!” I hissed at him. “Don't you dare...”

  He stuffed the gun into the pocket of the jacket he'd just made me put on. I was surprised to find it slid all the way in to the pocket and slipped past the lining into a hiding place deep in the depths of the quilting. I blinked up at Seth as I realized he’d modified the jacket to fit the gun before he'd handed it to me.

  “Oh,” I breathed out softly. He winked at me with his dead eye. It was a distinctly disturbing gesture but I didn't have time to think much about it.

  Kennedy came stomping into the open doorway without knocking and let out a yelp of surprise when he saw Seth standing in the middle of the room with me.

  I'd expected Kennedy to react to Seth the same way Drake had. I stood nervously next to the bed, waiting for scrawny little Kennedy to pull one of his knives and attack Seth the way I had sensed Drake had wanted to the night before.

  It didn't happen.

  Instead Kennedy grinned and walked the rest of the way into the room. “I wondered if you were around here somewhere,” he said to Seth. “I saw the tracks from your chopper in the mud outside.”

  Seth shrugged. “Just having a look around.”

  “Your stomping grounds,” Kennedy said with notable deference. “Fine by me.”

  I noticed Kennedy wasn't looking Seth in the face. It suddenly occurred to me that there probably weren't too many people who were willing to look into that cold, dead eye, regardless of how pretty the opposite iris might be.

  “You know you're not going to find a radiator big enough for that bus just laying around out here, right?” Seth asked.

  I slipped my hand back into the depths of the jacket and felt the gun resting snugly against my mid-section. Seth had done a hell of a job creating a hiding place for it. I was willing to give credit where it was due on that. Dad would have respected Seth's quick thinking.

  “I know that. You know that. Damn Drake is just wasting our time making us slog around in the mud when I've already told him we're not going to get that lucky.” Kennedy sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I'd bet my best pair of boots that the real reason he wanted us all to leave was so that he'd be alone with that slutty little blonde bitch.”

  I tensed, hoping like hell Kennedy was just joking around. He didn't laugh. In fact, he looked pissed off. Seth shot me a quick, pointed glance and then turned his attention back to Kennedy. “Drake still screwing everything he can get his dick in?”

  “Hell yeah. You know how he is,” Kennedy seemed completely unaware that he was taking the last part of my girlish innocence and smashing it into tiny little shards of broken glass. “You should have seen Shayla yesterday while we were working on that engine. Crazy bitch was taking off her dang top and messing with herself just to get his attention. She played like it was for Conner but I know it was Drake she was after.”

  “Fun for everyone.”

  “Man, I wouldn't touch that nasty hoe with a ten foot pole and your dick.”

  I choked on my own saliva again and Kennedy suddenly blushed bright pink. “Aw, shit. Sorry Pilar. I don't guess you wanted to hear that.”

  “It's fine,” I told him even though it wasn't. Suddenly all I could remember was the minty taste of Drake's tongue in my mouth. I purposely avoided looking at Seth. I felt like a completely fool, especially since I'd just wasted entirely too much of my breath arguing with him about how much I loved Drake.

  I hoped like hell Kennedy was wrong about Drake and Cya, but I knew he was telling the truth about Shayla. I'd seen that spectacle with my own eyes.

  I bit my tongue and tried to swallow my own hurt pride as I forced myself to focus on what Kennedy was saying now.

  “Been meaning to get up with you,” Kennedy was saying to Seth.

  “I don't have a radiator for that bus. Maybe in the Mylon Junkyard but that place is so damn full of zombies it’s not worth walking in to. I'd get a new bus, if I were you.” Seth was fiddling with a box on the dresser and he almost had the lid open when Kennedy shook his head no.

  “I wasn't meaning about the radiator,” Kennedy clarified. “I was wondering if y'all were still wanting a mechanic?”

  Seth paused, visibly surprised. He nodded. “We could always use another mechanic. You thinking about retiring?” He put heavy sarcasm on the last word.

  “Conner got ate yesterday.” Kennedy frowned down at his feet. “It wasn't worth dying for. Stupid girl who was supposed to be on watch was too busy staring at Drake without his shirt on and didn't notice the dang zombie coming until it was right on us.”

  “It’s never worth it,” Seth replied. He pursed his lips for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “You know my rules. You want to play by 'em, you're in.”

  “I haven't decided for sure yet. I still got family in the Cube, ya know?”

  “You know where to go when you make up your mind,” Seth told him.

  Kennedy nodded. “Thanks man, I appreciate that.”

  “Nothing to it,” Seth replied. “You've earned it.”

  Kennedy turned to face me. “We need to get headed back to the bus.”

  “Okay.” I had to force myself to move. My new boots felt like they were glued to the floor. I didn't know what to make of anything that had happened in this house today. None of it made any sense, especially not when it was combined with what Drake had confided in me last night. I wondered if Drake had been lying to me after all.

  I wondered if Seth was lying to me now.

  I didn't have the chance to ask him as Kennedy gestured for me to follow him out the door of the room and into the hall, but as Seth began to walk past me he leaned in so close that his jaw was nearly resting in my shoulder.

  “Don't ever let Drake know you have that gun,” he said. “It's worth more than your life.”