The Scavengers

by Gen Griffin

  Chapter 17

  The stress of the last three days caught up to me while the moon was still high in the night sky. Not wanting to wake Jeb, I stumbled away from the dwindling fire. My body was dripping with sweat and my lungs were struggling to breathe as I fought off the nightmare I'd just woken from. Images of my mother screaming my name as she was fed to a horde of angry zombies were freshly engraved on the backs of my eyelids.

  The cool night air offered only mild relief as I made it to the tree line that separated the riverbank from the surrounding woods. I flung myself onto my knees in the brush and gagged. My stomach churned and heaved until nothing was left in it except yellow bile. My throat burned from the retching. Hot tears were streaming down my cheeks as I continued to gag long after I'd finished throwing up.

  The wind was blowing harder now that it had been earlier. I could hear branches popping and cracking all around me as I laid down in the dirt and wondered why I’d ever thought joining the Scavengers would be an improvement over working in the hospital ward. I was still surrounded by death. Being a Scavenger just meant that the likelihood of it being my own death were significantly higher than when I’d been nursing the mildly-ill back to full health.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been laying on the ground when I realized that the cracking noises coming from the wood were getting louder but the breeze wasn’t increasing. It took me a minute to notice that someone was walking through the woods towards us. I needed to get back to Jeb. I needed to wake him up and warn him that we were no longer alone. I sat up and felt woozy. I couldn’t stand, so I started to crawl back towards Jeb and the fire.

  The sound of Drake’s voice made me freeze right as I was about to leave the safety of the trees for the exposure of the riverbank.

  “Jeb. Wake up.”

  “Humph.”

  “Jeb.” I heard a thump, as if Drake had kicked him. I took the risk of crawling 10 feet to my left, finding cover in the leaves of a large, scruffy flowering bush. I had a fairly clear view as Drake kicked Jeb in the ribs for a second time.

  “Ow. Shit. Stop.” Jeb sat up blinking. His blonde hair was ruffled and he had dark circles under his eyes. He held his arms up to defend himself as he slid backwards until he was touching the boulder. “Drake?”

  “I see you got us a radiator,” Drake said. His shirt was torn in multiple places and I could see long scratches under each of the tears. His pant leg had a long rip down one side.

  “Yeah. I did what you told me to.” Jeb squinted in the darkness.

  “You set the bridge on fire too?”

  Jeb hesitated for only a fraction of the second. “Of course I did. Those zombies were climbing, man. We couldn’t risk them getting across the tracks. You and Shayla had already made it to safety. I set the bridge on fire and then swam across the river.”

  “And decided to take a nap?” Drake gestured to the spot on the ground where Jeb had been sleeping.

  “Swimming across the river with the radiator took all my strength,” Jeb explained. “I was freezing cold and it was dark. I didn’t think I could find my way back to the bus in the dark, so I decided to wait here until daylight.”

  Drake considered Jeb’s words and then nodded. “You were coming to find us in the morning.”

  “Of course.” Jeb used the side of the boulder to pull himself upright. “Are you okay?”

  “Me?” Drake frowned at him.

  “You look pale,” Jeb said.

  “I’ve been better,” Drake admitted. There was something dark and sticky covering his clothes.

  “Where’s Shayla?” Jeb asked.

  “We had a disagreement after we got back to the bus,” Drake said. “She told me this hunt has gone too far south to be salvaged. Said she thought her luck would be better in Ra Shet then it would in the Cube.”

  “You mean she went to find a radiator?” Jeb asked.

  “No. I mean she took a long walk off a short bridge.” Drake gestured to the rips in his shirt. “You don’t really think I would let a second member of my team just up and walk away from me, do you?”

  “What did you do to her?” Jeb’s dawning horror was clear in his eyes.

  “She betrayed me. She betrayed us. She betrayed the Scavengers.” Drake snarled as he spoke. “She’s been with me since the beginning and today she just turns around and says she’s had enough. She said she was tired of living in fear of what would happen when we ran out of cans. She said she was tired of worrying about being eaten by zombies when she could disfigure herself and never have to be afraid again. She said Kennedy had done right when he’d run off last night. She said she wished he’d have told her he was going so that she could go with him.”

  “Drake?” Jeb took a step backwards, intentionally putting distance between himself and Drake. “What happened to Shayla?”

  “She tried to run. I chased her down and slit her throat.” Drake gestured down at the stains that were covering his clothes. “She bled out while I watched.”

  “You-you killed Shayla?” Jeb stuttered.

  “I had no choice, Jeb. She made me kill her. She knew I couldn’t let her walk away. Not after Conner died and Kennedy betrayed us. If your brother saw her in Ra Shet, he’d kill her for being there and me for letting her go.”

  “My brother?” Jeb frowned at Drake. “Bud knows about Ra Shet?”

  “Of course he does. He’s the one who makes the runs from the Cube into the city. You know that.”

  “I know Bud leaves the Cube from time-to-time, but he’s never told me where he went. He’s just said it was Cube business and I’d find out when I was older.” Jeb reached for his pants, pulling them off the top of the boulder and slipping his bony legs into them.

  “Oh. Well, I guess you’re older now.” Drake shook his head at Jeb and smiled bitterly. “I’m trusting Bud did tell you that you’re supposed to take my place as the captain of the Scavengers.”

  “He said you wanted to retire. He said you would train me to take over.” Jeb buckled his weapons belt back around his waist. He took another step away from Drake as he did it.

  I crouched even further down into the bush and tried not to breathe too loudly. If Drake had killed Shayla then none of us were safe.

  “Damn right I want to retire,” Drake said. “I bought my house last year. Its pure white. The color of bones that have been left out in the sun for years and years. It has windows all over it. Huge windows that look down over the city and at the bottom of the view, you can see the bluest lake you’ve ever laid eyes on. It has 13 rooms. Thirteen rooms and no one else lives there but me. I love being alone, Jeb. Its heaven, being alone.”

  “You bought a house?” Jeb sounded just as baffled as I felt.

  “Technically, the Powers That Be bought me a house. They’ll buy you one too. Any house you want. All you have to do is keep the façade of the Scavengers alive for a few years. The price of peace is five years of staring 7,000 people in the eyes while you pretend to care about how many cans you’ve brought back to the Cube. While you pretend like you’re doing anything except fattening them all up for slaughter.”

  “What?” Jeb jerked back away from Drake. “Fattening them up for slaughter? What are you talking about?

  “Aw, damn it to hell. Bud didn’t tell you anything, did he?” Drake slammed his fist down into the boulder. “He left all the dirty work to me. Just like he always does.”

  “I don’t know-,” Jeb started and then changed tactics mid-sentence. “I didn’t want to be a Scavenger. I thought going ass deep in zombies to collect a bunch of disgusting canned slop was stupid. When Bud offered to make me the captain, I told him I didn’t want the job. I told him that the Scavengers’ survival rate is too low for my tastes. You want to know what he told me?”

  “I can think of a few replies that would have been appropriate,” Drake chuckled darkly. “Considering that I had to kill six other candidates to get the same job you were offered clean and turned down.”

 
“You killed for this job?” Jeb was now more than six feet from Drake and trying to increase the distance. His feet were nearly in the fire itself.

  “Not everyone can take their luck for granted the way you can. I was born in Block C. You know what happens to kids from Block C?”

  Jeb shrugged. “I never thought much about it. Isn’t Block C zoned to work dining service?”

  “You're damn right it is. Before I joined the Scavengers, my job was to operate a hand-twist can opener. Can opener number 17, to be exact. I spent 8 hours every day peeling the metal lids off canned goods. I was so bored I thought I’d go insane. And then my name came up on the Scavengers list and everything changed for me. I went from being can opener number 17 to being a hero. I’d kill a hundred people before I’d open one more can. You can stake your life on that, Jeb Moon.”

  “No one would ever expect you to go back to opening cans.” The hesitation was clear in Jeb's voice.

  “You'd be amazed at what people will expect you to do,” Drake replied with a snarl. “You think its been easy to spend every waking day of your life living a lie?”

  “I don't understand,” Jeb said. “What lies are you living?”

  “Everything you've ever heard about me is a lie,” Drake said bluntly. “I'm not a hero. I'm not a god. I've betrayed almost everyone who has ever trusted me.”

  “You mean like how you dropped Cya into a horde of zombies today?” There was no mistaking the anger in Jeb's words. He had one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Or are you talking about how you snuck up behind Kennedy in the woods last night and chopped his head off?”

  “You scared of me?” Drake laughed bitterly. “Kennedy betrayed us. He deserved to be hunted down like the dog he was.”

  “I liked how you pretended to be surprised when you woke up this morning and found him missing. I would have believed you were truly upset if I hadn't been with you when you killed him,” Jeb said bitterly. He made no move to release his sword. “From where I'm standing, four Scavengers have died this trip. You killed three of them. I'm not exactly feeling the love from you.”

  Drake grinned at him through the darkness. “Leading the Scavengers is an ugly job. Personally, I don't think you have what it takes to be a Scavenger. I think you're too soft. Too spoiled. Too lazy. Too stupid.”

  “I don't have the stomach to kill people just because they want to leave the Cube,” Jeb said. “They should have a right to choose.”

  “And what would happen if everyone chose to leave?” Drake countered.

  “I don't know,” Jeb admitted with a shrug. “I guess we wouldn't have to worry about hunting down canned goods anymore.”

  Drake laughed again. “Don't have to worry about hunting down canned goods. You still think this is about the cans?”

  “I don't know what this is about,” Jeb admitted.

  “Like I said, you're stupid. You can't even recognize the Cube for the meat factory it is.”

  “The what?”

  “Meat factory. Feed lot. The place where all the stupid little sheeple live until they're fat enough to be slaughtered and served up on the tables of all the rich people in Ra Shet.” Drake sneered at the shocked expression on Jeb's face.

  “Slaughtered and served?” Jeb whispered.

  I tightened my grip on the bush I was hiding behind. I couldn't breathe as Drake continued to speak.

  “The zombie virus is transmitted through food, Jeb.”

  “I know that. The contamination is the reason we eat cans.”

  “Cans taste like shit,” Drake said.

  “I know, but-.”

  “The upper class in Ra Shet doesn't want to eat cans. They want to eat fresh meat. Meat that hasn't been contaminated by the zombie virus. They'll pay good money for that meat, Jeb. Real good money. The kind of money that has made your family amazingly powerful in both the Cube and Ra Shet. You can stop pretending you don't know about the city, Jeb. I know you've been to the mansion. I saw you playing on the lawn there too many times when you were a child.”

  “I never said I didn't know about Ra Shet,” Jeb admitted reluctantly. “I like Ra Shet. It's a hell of a lot nicer than the Cube. I learned how to swim on the lake at Ra Shet. How do you think I made it across the river with that radiator?”

  “You ever stop to wonder what was on your dinner plate in Ra Shet?”

  “No. I didn't.” Jeb looked nauseous.

  “Well, maybe you should have,” Drake said pointedly. “Because Bud is a flesh broker.”

  “Bud is a what?”

  “Your brother sells people. For slaughter. He takes them out of the Cube and sells them at the meat market in Ra Shet.”

  “No.” Jeb shook his head. “No. Bud wouldn't.”

  “Bud would. He does.”

  “No.”

  My knees completely and totally collapsed underneath me. I was shaking all over as I watched Jeb stagger backwards and nearly fall over.

  “Yes,” Drake said. He closed the distance between himself and Jeb. “Why do you think we had to kill Pilar?”

  “What?” Jeb asked.

  I had to jam my own fist into my mouth to stop from gasping.

  “She did die today, didn't she?” Drake asked. “When I opened the gates between Mylon and the junkyard and let all the zombies in, Pilar died, didn't she?”

  “She-. You never said anything to me about killing Pilar.” Jeb looked around once, as if double checking to make sure I was no longer sleeping by the fire, and then seemed to pull himself together. “You let all those zombies into the junkyard? On purpose?”

  “I wanted it to look like an accident,” Drake said with a nod. “But yes, I let the zombies into the junkyard. I needed to kill a couple of people and I try not to get blood on my own hands if I don't have to. I'd rather let zombies do my dirty work.”

  “Why-why Pilar?”

  “Because she stood up in front of everyone in the entire Cube and asked some very valid questions about how her aging, decrepit parents could have possibly gotten through our top-notch security.”

  “So you killed her?” Jeb demanded.

  “Her father was already an issue. He'd asked too many questions too many times,” Drake said. “You may have been too busy spending summers on your family's yacht to notice George Augustus, but most of the nice folks who spend their days operating can openers knew his name. He'd been in the Cube since the beginning of the apocalypse. He refused to swallow the load of bullshit that the Powers That Be stuffs down all of our throats. He kept records of all the disappearances. He ran test runs for different methods of escaping the Cube. He knew there was no way out unless we let him out.”

  “Was he trying to escape?”

  “No. His wife was terrified of her own shadow. She was so afraid of zombies that she wouldn't even go out into the brickyard when it was still open. Bud said she was so hysterical with fear that she pissed herself and then fainted when they were carrying her out to the meat wagon.”

  “The meat wagon?” Jeb asked.

  “It’s our pet name for the truck Bud uses to carry the sheeple to slaughter. He keeps it parked just outside the view of the Cube. Can't have anyone looking out their window and seeing all the screaming little sheeple being loaded up the ramp to die.”

  “Jesus you're sick,” Jeb said as he turned away from Drake. “You are really, really sick.”

  “Sick or not, you're the one in line for my job.”

  “I don't want it,” Jeb said. “I won't. I can't. We don't slaughter and eat people.”

  “But they taste so good.” Drake closed his eyes and blissfully licked his lips as he taunted Jeb. “You'll never again be able to eat a steak without wondering who is on your plate.”

  “I'm going to be sick,” Jeb said.

  Drake laughed. “Be sick then. And hurry up with it. We have a bus to repair and a whole lot of cans to load before we go back to the Cube and report how all the other Scavengers were gobbled up by zombies during our noble quest to f
eed the masses.”

  “You want us to go find cans and then go back to the Cube?” Jeb asked with obvious disbelief.

  Drake shrugged his concerns off. “I'm not too worried about finding cans. We keep a few pallets hidden in a warehouse a couple miles north of the Cube especially for smoothing over situations just like this one. You and I will be going back to the Cube victorious. Two lone survivors who managed to come home with 5,000 cans despite the vicious attacks we endured. Heroes.”

  “I can't.”

  “You will. Unless you want die the same way Kennedy and Shayla did?” The threat was clear as Drake pulled a bloody knife out of his pocket.

  “Bud would kill you,” Jeb said flatly. “The entire time you've been standing here talking, I've been trying to figure out why you would tell me all of this. It's because of Bud. You won't kill me because Bud will kill you if you don't bring me home alive.”

  “Maybe you are smarter than I gave you credit for.” Drake smirked at him and put the blade back into his pocket. “You're right. Bud told me to bring you back alive or I'd never see my pretty white house on the hill again. He said I'd wind up on his plate as a rib-eye if you died in a hunt.”

  “Remind me never to eat dinner with Bud again,” Jeb said as he turned away from Drake. “We should go fix our bus. We have cans to haul.”

  “Now you're talking like a real Scavenger,” Drake said with a grin.

  “Right. Yeah. Sure. Let me go take a leak and then we'll head out.” Jeb gestured for Drake to look the other direction. When Drake turned towards the river, Jeb walked straight over to where I was hiding in the bushes. He unzipped his fly and stared straight ahead while he spoke through gritted teeth.

  “Run,” Jeb said to me. “Run.”