by Angel Lawson
“It’s a general landing point, but we’ve been a little aimless for a couple of weeks now.”
It’s not like I can say much. I’m headed straight to the city in a quarantined state to find my sister. It’s a dumb move. But sometimes it’s the only move we have left. The boys cheer and we look over to see the tube filled with an amber liquid. Once started the process is fast and we’re climbing back to our seats in the truck, Wyatt at the wheel.
“He’s some sort of survival genius,” I say once we start moving.
Wyatt’s jaw tenses. “Oh yeah?”
“That’s what she said.”
We pass a convenience store, glass broken on all the windows. Shelves bare through the window. A couple of miles down the road the next shop looks a little better and I ask, “What about that one?”
Wyatt grunts, shaking his head.
Okay then.
We go to one across the street. A half diner-half store. The windows are broken but at this point we’re about out of the small town. As we exit the truck, weapons loaded and ready, I realize this will be our test. Do we trust Cole and Chloe or not? I jut out my chin and stand taller and follow Wyatt around the building. It’s a brave new world. I’ve just got to fake the brave part.
Chapter Thirty-Two
~Before~
Five Weeks Earlier
We leave at dusk, tired of being cooped up in the shed. Even in the fading daylight my eyes hurt from being in the dark room. Again we stick to backyards and alleys until complete nightfall. It’s time to make some progress and leave the safety of our neighborhood behind. The tug to go back home is strong and I fight it with everything I have.
“We’ve got the entire commercial strip to deal with before we can get back into the next residential area,” I say as though my mother is less familiar with the area than I am. “Then we can stop at the elementary school on Harper Avenue. According to the last news report I saw that entire area was cleared and moved to the evacuation center.”
“How many miles is that from here?”
“Three. We can definitely get there before daybreak.”
It’s so quiet that the only sound I hear is my heart, thundering like a drum in my ears. More than once I start to take my mother’s hand, just to feel something close. Something alive, but I don’t because I’m not a child. Not anymore. I’m an adult, whether I want to be or not.
The silence is broken by the intense bark of a dog. I stop and Mom stops next to me. “Where is that coming from?” she whispers.
Dogs and other animals are an unknown in our alternate universe. So far none have attacked people. They seem immune to the parasite but that seems unrealistic. We assume everything is a carrier. Beyond that, a barking dog means it’s seen something—heard something. It may be us or it may be something else.
“Over there?” I question. The dogs bark echoes off the empty streets. I can’t tell if it’s inside or out. There’s a small apartment complex to our right, the parking lot about half full. The muggy air smells like garbage and something rotten. I’d hoped we could skirt past it quickly but now I’m afraid to get out of the shadows.
My mother steps forward and scans the area. Finally she points toward the second floor. I follow her finger and sure enough, a medium sized dog has its snout pressed against the window, barking frantically. “What do we do?”
“One step at a time,” I answer, relieved he’s inside and not out. “Let’s just get to the school.”
We dart car to car, our packs bouncing against our backs. We’re close to the edge of the parking lot when the dog’s barking intensifies. He must have seen us, I think ducking behind a Toyota SUV. My mom’s feet shuffle loudly behind me and I turn with a finger to my lips.
“Shhh—” My eyes flick upwards, over her head.
“Mom…”
“What?” she whispers.
“Run.”
She looks back just as the Eater screams. His voice immediately echoed by another, setting off a chilling chorus of howls. It’s the first time I’ve seen one up close, not the secondhand, fuzzy online videos removed as fast as they go up or with a barrier between us at Liza’s house. This one is here. Alive. Hungry.
His face is pale, thoughtless other than rage. Anger lights his spidery eyes and his teeth gnash like an animal.
The barking dog snaps me out of my stupor and I run, dragging my mom by her arm. My pounding footsteps join my heart as the prevailing noise in my ears. For the first time in my life, I consider we may truly, actually die out here.
I bump into a car and over the curb leading away from the complex parking lot, following a sidewalk around back. Even in the dark I see their bodies, coming fast in our direction. Three, maybe four. Movements jerky but quick. It would be better if they were truly dead but underneath the parasite and the hunger, they’re alive and their bodies and muscle memory react as such.
“Come on,” I yell, heading past a wrought iron gate and to the back of the complex. I slam the door shut and latch the gate. A blue-green pool of water sits in the middle of a concrete pad. There has to be somewhere to hide back here.
“Wait,” Mom says, grabbing a lounge chair. She drags it over to the gate and wedges the feet in the slats. She jumps back as the Eater’s bang into the fence, rattling against it violently. There are more now, ten or so. Maybe a dozen. I run around the pool and try the handle on a small storage closet. Locked.
“Where do we go?” Mom asks. All I’ve done is corner us, wedged tight behind the apartments. The Eater’s climb the fence, or try to, using one another for leverage. God, why did they have to have brains?
I’ve wrapped my hand tight around the hatchet I found in Liza’s backyard. A shadow moves near the building. They’ve made it in the gate. “Mom, get out the gun.”
“What? No. I’m not ready.”
“Get ready,” I tell her. “This is it.”
By the fence, bodies fall over the edge, crashing to the ground. The impact only affects them for a moment and they lurch to their feet. From the corner of my eye I see my mother raise the gun with an unsteady hand.
The first Eater up howls with rage. The gun jumps in my mother’s hands, firing with a loud, ear-splitting bang. His body jerks backwards—somehow she hit him.
“I didn’t mean to…” she cries.
“Yes,” I say. “You did.”
She sobs next to me and I lift my hatchet. The other Eaters are on their feet and charging. I position the hatchet, ready to make my move and…I freeze. Black spidery eyes narrow down on me. I can’t do it. I’m going to die. We’re going to die.
“Alex!” Mom yells and I jolt, hands tightening around the wooden hatchet handle. But it’s too late, the Eater is on me, hands grabbing, jaw snapping. A loud, mechanical click echoes off the pool deck.
“Get down!” A voice demands. A male voice. I fall backwards, blade lashing. I nick the Eater in the chin, dark blood pours down the wound. A shot to the head jerks and incapacitates the one near me. Three more shots pelt the night air. Three more heaps on the ground. “Get up! Let’s go!”
I scramble up following the voice. My mother is already there, choking back sobs. The figure is shrouded in the shadows and a flicker of concern washes over me as he leads us through a door. The roar of the Eater’s pushing against our backs.
The man bolts and barricades the door, pushing a metal desk in front of it. His gun lies on top of the desk. I stop to catch my breath, check on my mom, and settle my frayed nerves. “Thank you,” I say finally seeing his face.
He looks to be in his late twenties. If I had to guess I’d assume mixed race—possibly Asian or Hispanic. I’m sure it doesn’t matter, but my mind wants to focus on something other than the banging on the outside door.
“You’re welcome. Come on, they won’t quiet down if they can hear us.”
He picks up a flashlight and I start to follow him down the narrow hall. Mom grabs my hand and holds me back.
“We can’t just go w
ith him, Alex. What if he’s dangerous,” she whispers.
“He just saved our lives, Mom.”
“That doesn’t mean he may not try to kill us…” The look of panic washes over her face. “Or worse.”
“Everything okay?” he says realizing that we didn’t follow him.
“Yeah, just give us a minute okay?”
He nods and disappears into the dark hallway.
I sigh. She’s right, but I’m tired and just glad to be inside. “Look, we both have weapons. We can protect ourselves.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
“Seriously, we can,” I say. “This is our reality now. We have to adapt.”
She lifts her gun and nods. God, she’ll probably blow one of our heads off with that thing. I catch up to the guy and he leads us to a series of small offices, complete with a break room and a running refrigerator. The lights are off but I make out the space by the ever moving beam of his flashlight. “I’m Paul, by the way.”
“Alex. This is my mother Sarah.”
At the end of the hallway he enters a room and flips on a light switch. My first guess is that it’s a storage room more than an office. There are no windows but it looks like Paul moved a couch into the room at some point. I tighten my grip on the hatchet. Mom’s right, this guy could be a psycho but we’re not really in the position to go back out on our own right now.
A sleeping bag lies across the cushions and food wrappers fill the trash can. I notice several electronic devices plugged in the walls. We’ve only been on the road for twenty-four hours but I can already tell it’s not a terrible set up.
“You may want to shut the door. I can’t decide how much of the light filters out there or exactly how much it aggravates them.”
“Is there a bathroom?” Mom asks.
“Two doors down.”
“Alex, why don’t you come with me?” she suggests.
“I’ll be okay.” She doesn’t look pleased at this but I’m tired. And tired of being next to her. “Seriously, I’ll be okay.”
She drops her bag but I grab her by the arm. It takes me a minute to find my flashlight. I give it to her and say, “Take your bag and your gun.”
She nods silently and disappears.
I close the door with a small click and press my back against it and hang my hatchet in my belt loop. I’m still trying to get used to this thing.
“Again, thanks for saving our asses,” I say trying to gain control of my breathing. “That was our first real encounter with the Eaters.”
“Mine too,” he says. “If the military is right this infection and disease is going to be around for a while.”
“How do you know what the military is saying?”
He points to an iPad and laptop and then I notice a small box with a walkie-talkie. “I found them in the maintenance closet. Took me a while to hack into the frequency but they’re out there.”
“You have power?”
“Sometimes.”
“What did you hear?”?”
“Just that they want us all in the evacuation shelters. Sounds like they’ve got some sort of processing situation going on. Like, they can test people for the infection and then separate them from there.”
“Do they have a cure?” I ask hopefully. Maybe this will be over soon. Maybe my father figured it out.
“No, not that I’ve heard.”
“Oh.” I try not to show my disappointment. “Why haven’t you gone to one of the shelters?”
He runs a hand over his short hair. “I work—well worked—here, part time while I’m getting my graduate degree. The whole complex had been evacuated about a week ago. I was on my way to the evacuation center when I thought about a couple of things I’d left in my desk. My iPad, some books, those kinds of thing. And when I got in here I just sort of couldn’t make myself leave.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
He shrugs. “I’ve got food in the kitchen, a couch, and electricity. I figured at some point if I had to, I could go upstairs and look for supplies.”
“You haven’t yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not convinced everyone left and I’m not convinced that everyone who stayed isn’t infected.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste.
“What makes you think that?”
“Just a hunch.” Again he shrugs. “What about you?”
“We’re trying to get to some family outside of the city,” I reply evenly.
“You’re walking?” he asks incredulously.
“That’s the current plan. Although, to be fair, the current plan did not involve anything that happened tonight. Cars are too risky with the roads being caught in a never ending traffic jam. Plus the military and police are rounding everyone up.”
“Yeah nothing is predictable anymore.”
“How’d you get so good with a gun?” I ask sliding down to sit on the floor. My feet are killing me. My back aches from the weight of the pack. Paul sits on the couch facing me.
“Weekends hunting with my family. This is North Carolina.”
I must look skeptical, which is totally racist of me because I’m definitely finding it strange that an Asian dude hunts.
He narrows his eyes at me and says, “What? Korean’s can hunt.”
“I didn’t say that.” But okay, yes, I was thinking it.
“My dad grew up on a farm outside of Burlington. His dad had an American dream. So yeah, my family is totally country, even though I just wanted to sit inside and watch TV. I’ll admit though, taking down that Eater was mostly luck.”
“At least you could do it. I panicked.”
“Why do you think I’ve been living here? I found a safe spot and claimed it. God knows what will happen if and when I need to leave. At least you have a plan of some sort.”
“Tonight was a pretty big sign of how unprepared we are,” I admit. The confession makes me uncomfortable and I start to fidget with the ring on my finger.
Paul shook his head and says, “No one is prepared for this, Alex.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
~Now~
Wyatt and I go around the back of the diner while Cole and Chloe hit the front.
“Let me see your cut,” I say, finally getting a moment alone with him.
He pauses and lifts up his shirt and I peel back the bandage. The cut looks ugly, red, and painful. I have no idea if it will get infected but at least we can try to manage it.
“Here,” I say, digging through my bag. I locate the aspirin and some antibiotic cream, handing it over. He swallows the pills dry, gritting his teeth as he chokes them down. Next he tucks his shirt under his chin and spreads the ointment over the cut, wincing from the pain. I cover the edges of the bandage with fresh tape.
“Make sure you keep it covered,” I say.
“What are you, a nurse?”
“No, but I don’t want that to get nasty and then we’ll have all kinds of other apocalypse stuff on our hands. I don’t need another page in my diary titled “Had to kill another traveling companion today because he let his wound get infected.”
He squints and drops his shirt. “You have a diary?”
“Shut up.”
I hold back as he taps on the back door in an attempt to rouse any Eaters inside. He waits to the count of five and takes a deep step back before slamming a boot clad foot into the metal door.
His foot bounces back so he tries again, this time the veins on his neck and forehead bulging. “Mother f-er,” he grunts. He’s about to wind up to do it again when the door swings open, revealing a crossbow and a mop of short blonde hair.
“Need some help?” Cole asks.
“Thank God, I thought Wyatt was going to hemorrhage or something,” I say pushing past him.
We enter the kitchen, welcomed by flies and the undeniable, suffocating stench of rotting food. Stale, shriveled hotdogs lie skewered on the counter top, their machine no longer rotating. And
a rat skitters out of the buffet warming pan with a chunk of fried chicken in its mouth.
Chloe walks up, waving her hand in front of her face. “Ugh, the flies.”
“Let’s make this quick,” Wyatt says going straight for the non-perishables, plucking cans stacked high on metal shelves and dropping them into his bag.
We each take a corner of the diner, lit by the wide glass front window. Cole goes for the water bottles, while also filling our canteens from the sink. Chloe picks through the small stash of packaged food on the racks by the register.
“Get jerky,” Cole tells his sister. She grunts and even in the barely lit room I see her roll her eyes. Her action doesn’t stop him. “And some of those packaged cheese snacks. We need protein.”
I turn to look for Wyatt and spot the back of his head disappearing into another room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask. Even I can hear the shrill tone.
“What the hell, Alex, I’m just looking in the back to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
“We have one rule, Wyatt. One. Rule.”
“Not this again.” His voice is loud. “What’s the big freaking deal? I’m still here—just in another room. And it’s not even like you’re alone!”
I react fast, moving with speed I didn’t know I had and a level of anger I’m unfamiliar with. My hatchet is out, blade close to Wyatt’s neck. He stands still but it’s not fear I see in his eyes. It’s annoyance.
“Alex, I swear to God,” he says, eyes flicking behind me.
I’m acutely aware of Cole watching me from his spot next to sink. I don’t care.
“You never go out of sight. Do it again and you may have a blade to the head, not just to the throat.”
“Come on, Alex, drop the hatchet,” Cole says.
Wyatt cuts his eyes in Cole’s direction. “Stay out of this, man.”
The visibility in the room dims, cloaking us almost in complete darkness. I instinctively look to the ceiling—for the lights but a banging noise draws my attention to the front of the diner. Hands and faces press into the glass, enough to block out the sun.