My stomach growled impatiently, and I tore into a piece of jerky while I waited, gnawing greedily as the full bite of my hunger hit me. The food I had now was good for a couple days, but I needed a long-term strategy for feeding myself. What was I supposed to do? Hunt?
The thought of trying to kill a squirrel for dinner was both laughable and sobering. It was ridiculous to think I would be able to hunt when I’d never used a weapon before and didn’t even have the proper tools. Greyson had included fishing line and hooks with our supplies, but he had fished many times with his father before he died; I had never bothered to learn from my dad, and now I never would.
Thinking about my lack of wilderness survival skills, I put away the rest of the food and resolved to spread the jerky, nuts, and fruit out for my lunches over the next few days. I ate what I had cooked and ignored the growls of my stomach demanding more food. I boiled a bottle of water for drinking instead and warmed my hands over the fire.
Huddled in my sleeping bag after dinner, it occurred to me how awful I smelled with four days’ worth of sweat soaked into my clothes. I had bits of leaves in my hair and dirt under my nails. It was definitely a mistake to miss showering at my parents’ house when I had the chance.
My parents. They were gone. It was no longer their house. I didn’t have a house anymore either.
Tired, cold, and feeling sorry for myself, I pulled the edge of the tarp over my head to block the wind. With my hunger mostly satiated and my muscles throbbing from the run, I fell asleep almost instantly.
I awoke to the sound of chirruping birds overhead. Stiffness in my bones from sleeping on the hard-packed dirt kept me from drifting back to sleep, so I got up, drained my water bottle and fetched some more for boiling. I allowed myself a cup of rice and a few nuts to ease my gurgling stomach before rolling up my sleeping bag to start the day. The air was still cold, but the sun felt warm on my skin. It seemed as good a time as any to clean up a bit.
The trickling creek water was freezing, but I was filthy, and this could be the last time I would have enough running water for a bath. I brought my spare set of clothes down to the water and stripped and washed half of my body at a time to stay warm. I raked my fingers through my matted hair and used my canteen to pour a stream of icy water over my head.
I didn’t have a towel, but I was already beginning to dry in the moisture-wicking athletic fabric of my clean clothes. I scrubbed my dirty shirt and leggings in the deepest part of the stream and, hesitating slightly at the early morning chill in the air, dunked my sweaty jacket in as well.
Laying my wet clothes out on the tarp to dry, I warmed my hands by the fire and pulled my hair into a ponytail to get the chill off my neck. I leaned back against the tree and felt my eyes growing heavy. Even a full night of sleep did not mean a restful one on the cold, uneven ground.
As I nodded off against the warmth emanating from the fire, I heard the crack of a branch a few yards off. I sat up straight. Then I heard it again. Leaves crunched nearby, and I held my breath as the sounds got closer. I could definitely discern footsteps.
Paralyzed, I considered my options. I didn’t dare run; the footsteps were too close. I would never escape undetected. Moving with absolute care, I pulled my pack onto my shoulder, abandoning my drying clothes. Slowly, deliberately, I crawled on my hands and knees away from the fire toward a cluster of large maple trees.
Trying to move in silence, I listened intently for the sound of voices. I heard none.
Instead, the sound of low, gravelly breaths caught my ear. It was a throaty, wet intake of air that sounded like a death rattle. I recognized the sound instantly, and the icy feeling of dread laced through my chest.
Concealed by the maple tree, I peered through the darkness for a look at the intruder. Intruders. There were three of them.
There was no mistaking the look of their pale, sunken faces and dead-looking eyes. Carriers. The expressions they wore betrayed a vacancy of emotion. The light was out, and no one was home.
These carriers appeared to be recently infected — only a few months along, by the looks of it. They did not have the revolting, oozing sores or the rabid slobbering mouths like the ones on TV. These monsters were merely feverish, disoriented, and weak — still very human in their appearance, but without a doubt beginning their horrific transformation.
I watched as one approached my fire, breath shallow in my throat. He was just yards away, and I could see the dark hollows of his eyes. I was much too close. If I could stay out of sight, it was possible they would keep moving. But I knew once they saw my fire and clothes, they would be on the lookout for me.
During my desperate train of thought, I had lost sight of one of the carriers. The two I could see had noticed the fire. One was ambling over to where I had left my things, examining my wet clothes. I immediately wished I’d had more clothes to lay out so they would think they were outnumbered. Now they knew I was traveling alone.
To my left, I heard it again: the deep-throated raspy breathing that made my heartbeat throb in my ears. I heard the crunch of leaves behind me too late to move or scream. My breath caught in my chest as a pair of cold arms grabbed me around the shoulders.
I heard a chilling scream echo through the trees and realized it belonged to me. The carrier didn’t bother to clasp a hand around my mouth to muffle my scream. It didn’t matter. There was no one to hear me, no one to care.
I felt a shock to the back of my head — almost like a sudden blow of heat — and my vision went black.
CHAPTER SIX
Somewhere far away, I could hear the crackling of a fire. At least it seemed far away. I was much too cold and damp to feel the warmth. And everything seemed so very, very distant.
I awoke slowly, fighting the splitting sensation in the back of my head to gain consciousness. I opened my eyes and peeled my face away from where it rested against rough tree bark, squinting in the bright light. I was slumped on the ground against a large tree, although I had no recollection of moving there.
What was wrong with my head? The back felt cold, and my hair was matted to my skull with . . . blood?
I tried to feel it, but my arms wouldn’t move. They were wrapped uncomfortably around the trunk of the tree behind me, and my wrists were bound together with two loops of hard plastic that I could not see. They cut into my skin painfully.
The panic broke like a dam in my chest and rushed through my entire body. What was going on?
My head pounded, and I worried I had sustained brain damage. The wound was so wet and fresh, I could feel the blood trickling down the nape of my neck.
Tears of fear and confusion welled up in my eyes, and I held back the desperate, choking sobs burning in my throat.
The carriers, I thought suddenly. Where were they?
A few yards away, my campfire was still burning. The fire was larger than before. Whoever had made it wasn’t worried about attracting unwanted attention. Then, my vision focused in on the lumpy shapes around the fire. As my mind cleared, an idea of the likely scenario unfolded slowly. They had grabbed me, struck me on the head, and tied me up.
I hadn’t spotted them at first because they were so wild and dirty from living in the woods that they blended right in with the leaves and trees. They were sleeping around the fire, their dark, dead eyes tucked back into their skulls.
My food packages were strewn around them, now completely empty, as though the carriers had binged and fallen asleep after Thanksgiving dinner. There were four of them. How had I miscounted them before?
How had one subdued me on his own? Their bodies weakened by the virus, carriers weren’t supposed to be very strong. What made them dangerous was their overwhelming numbers and a complete lack of human emotions. The fourth must have been lurking in the trees and struck me on the back of the head so the others could grab me.
I had never seen carriers before, except on the news. They wore raggedy scraps of clothing so filthy they were barely recognizable. One of them was dr
aped in the remains of an Orlando Magic basketball jersey. Another, clearly female, wore a torn pink sweatshirt with Greek letters and dirty, ripped jeans.
Their skin had a pale, sickly yellow pallor, and they were bald except for a few patches of downy fluff. Their mouths looked chapped — red and raw — but there were no signs yet of the oozing sores carriers developed around their mouths. Some people said it was an infection from feeding on the raw, rotting flesh of dead animals, but scientists seemed to agree it was a symptom of the disease itself.
Carriers were not cannibals, but they nearly always killed their victims. That was what bothered me most: Why hadn’t they killed me yet? Carriers didn’t take hostages; they ripped apart any living thing they came in contact with.
The scientific community only spoke to the press about carriers in hedged language with a liberal use of “we believe” statements because no one had found any scientific proof of what caused the disease or how it worked. It was widely accepted that the virus ate away at the part of the brain that allows humans to feel empathy and control their impulses.
Greyson said uncontrolled killing was just a survival technique. Significantly weaker than humans and hunted by the PMC, carriers moved in groups and treated all humans as a threat. They were unregulated and unstoppable in large packs. Almost no one ever survived a carrier attack.
No one ever survived.
It took a moment for that fact to wash over me. Was this how I was going to die? A brutal murder? A long, slow torture to the death? Maybe they would eat me — cook me slowly over the fire and cut out my eyes for dessert. If the carriers couldn’t find any animals to feed on, why wouldn’t they resort to cannibalism?
I slumped back against the tree, my self-pity and terror competing for dominance. How had this happened? I was just a college student going about my life. I was documented. I followed the law . . . mostly. How had I ended up an orphan on the run, in the woods and about to be killed by a gang of monsters?
I’d never given much thought to how I would die, but I’d always imagined I would have an opportunity to say goodbye to the people I loved — to make some final grand statement about the meaning of life and what I had stood for.
There was no chance of that. My parents weren’t alive to mourn my loss, and Greyson would probably die in prison without ever knowing I was trying to save him. He would probably think I had made it out west with my dad and was living happily without him.
Maybe that wasn’t so bad.
I let my head fall back against the tree, overwhelmed by thoughts of my own mortality. My blood-matted hair stuck to the rough bark, causing a searing pain that rippled down my shoulders to my fingertips.
Is this really it? I thought, utterly disgusted with myself. Is this how I am going to die? Tied to a tree, waiting for it to happen?
I imagined what my dad would think if he saw me tied up like this, waiting to be killed. Surely he would berate me for being so unobservant. They weren’t quiet in their approach by any means — I should have heard them coming. After all my precautions, all my worrying, I still hadn’t been alert when it counted.
My mom would cry over my predicament, but my dad would expect me to come up with some way to get out of this. I could practically hear his words: You got yourself into this mess. You better get yourself out of it.
Greyson would. He would do something bold and unexpected. They wouldn’t know what hit them. But me? I was the planner. I should be able to come up with some kind of plan to escape.
Maybe that was my downfall. As soon as my original plans fell apart, I was helpless to adapt. I had no plan B. The plan had been simple: avoid the carriers. That was my survival strategy with the PMC, too. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Avoid attracting attention, avoid getting caught helping Greyson, avoid death. My strategy wasn’t panning out too well.
Why was I going to just sit there and let them kill me? I couldn’t accept it. I had to try to fight back — to free myself — something. My death would be just as horrible if I died trying to fight against it.
I twisted my wrist in the restraints, gauging the tightness of my bonds. I could feel my hand stopped by the plastic near the lower knuckle of my thumb. It was tight, but ripping my own hand off still seemed better than being their prisoner, and much better than being their next kill.
I tried my other hand. It seemed even tighter. Desperately, I looked around for my knife. Of course, it was nowhere within reach. That would be too easy. Maybe carriers were smarter than I gave them credit for.
Taking a deep breath, I yanked both of my hands at once. This accomplished nothing but the painful scraping of the plastic against my skin. I pulled, eyes watering.
I must have made a noise — a slight whimper or a rustle of leaves — because the carriers stirred, looked around, and one made a move to get up. I froze, watching them watch me.
They looked at each other. The big one who seemed to be the leader made an eerie gargling sound in his throat, and they turned their backs to me.
I sighed with relief. I would have to be more careful. If they decided I was a flight risk, they might speed up whatever they were planning and kill me instantly.
Maybe if I waited long enough, one would leave to get water or go to the bathroom. Surely they wouldn’t all leave at once, but if even one or two of them were gone, I might be able to fend off the others. The ratio of humans to carriers that would be an even match wasn’t a sure thing, but I knew for certain I wouldn’t be able to defend myself against four.
I hesitated to try to break free again. Every move I made caused the leaves under me to crunch loudly. I sat there, mind racing, as the sun rose in the sky. The warmth of the noon sun should have been comforting after the cold night, but I felt myself break into an anxious sweat.
What were they waiting for? At this rate, my best guess was that they were planning to cook me for dinner, but that didn’t fit what I knew about carriers. They foraged in abandoned houses for food, fed from dumpsters, and ate roadkill when they were pushed out of cities. But why else would they wait to kill me?
As the sun beat down, they started to move more slowly, as if they were getting lethargic. Then, as if the unseasonably hot sun were my own personal gift, they began to fall asleep.
This was my chance — probably the only chance I would have to break free without attracting their attention. As quietly as I could, I shifted to try to free my hands once again, but the bonds were as tight and unyielding as ever. No matter how I twisted my wrists and pulled, I could not squeeze free.
Perhaps it required more finesse. I tried to push my hands together instead, in hopes of slackening the plastic bonds like a Chinese finger trap. This accomplished nothing except to wear on my quickly diminishing hopes of escape.
I decided to focus on the hand with the loosest restraint. I pulled to the point of excruciating pain. My eyes watered, and I felt the coolness of the wind on blood and knew I had cut my wrist open. The blood trickled down my hand, and I suddenly had an idea. It was gruesome, but much better than the alternative.
I pulled again, pain throbbing in my wrist and pulsating up my arm. The blood was pounding in my head, and I could feel the fresh wound at the back from all my exertion. Tears were streaming down my face, but I pulled and pulled until the blood flowed freely.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out, I chanted in my head. Fight the pain.
If I could just slide one hand through . . .
I continued to pull, twisting my wrists in the bonds until blood coated the plastic. I felt a heavy throbbing of blood rushing to the wounds. The pain was excruciating. The zip tie moved a quarter of an inch up my hand. If I could just pull a little farther . . .
Suddenly, my hand was free. I felt a rush of gratitude and relief so strong I wanted to cry from joy.
Examining my wrists, I could see the cuts were pretty bad — especially on the one I had freed — but there was no time to worry about first aid. I wiped my wrist hastily on my shirt. It was throbbing, bu
t I still had full motor function in my hand.
Positive my heavy breathing would wake my captors, I got to my feet as quietly as I could. I stepped slowly toward the fire, one foot at a time. Even taking great care, each step resulted in a loud crunch of leaves. There was nothing to do but move quickly and hope I could get away.
Most of my belongings were still lying where I had left them. My canteen was within reach next to my pack, and Greyson’s knife glinted near a sleeping carrier. My flint starter still hung from my keychain.
Carefully, I retrieved any food the carriers hadn’t touched and backed slowly away from the campsite. I left all my extra clothes and the supplies that were laid out, but there was nothing to be done. At least I was armed and could still start a fire.
As soon as I was on the trail out of earshot, I broke into a run to put as much distance as possible between me and the band of carriers. The bloody zip ties still hung from my less injured wrist, but I didn’t want to bother sawing off the one that was still attached until I was farther away. With any luck, they would take a long nap, and I would have a few hours before they noticed I was gone.
Adrenalin pumped through my veins, and I felt a rush of energy from the sheer joy of being alive. I had survived a carrier attack! If I made it to Sector X and back alive, I would be telling my grandchildren about this one day.
After I had put about a half a mile between me and the carriers, I began to feel dizzy. I stopped to saw off the bloody plastic restraint and splash some clean water over the cuts on my wrists, but I wasn’t sure how to bandage them. My shirt and jacket were made of the same tough synthetic material, and I hadn’t thought to bring a first aid kit along. My sweaty sock would have to do.
The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) Page 5