Drifters
Also by J. A. Santos
Elias
Defeated
Black Hole Hell
Drifters
J. A. Santos
Drifters: is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by J. A. Santos
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Edition: 2014
Vassago’s Book Company
Levittown Lakes c/ Ramon Morla HN20
Toa Baja, Puerto Rico 00949
https://www.facebook.com/pages/J-A-Santos/216040425205001
Ordering Information:
Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, educators, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.
To my lovely children.
Thank you.
Without you, I would have never achieved my dream.
Drift·er ˈdriftər/ noun: drifter; plural noun: drifters 1. A person who is continually moving from place to place, without any fixed home or job. Synonyms: wanderer, traveler, transient, roamer, itinerant, tramp, vagabond, vagrant, hobo, bum "a lonesome drifter who had come from parts unknown".
Drifters
Chapter One
The silence of the still night is welcoming. No sound of the critters of the night squirming around. Just silence. The road is deserted and the wind hits my red hair making it dance to its invisible fingers. I feel so well today. No hunger churning my stomach, no rare occurrences around me, just the lonely road and this still night.
I may be alone on the road, but that is what it needs to be done. What I am is not some weird creature that like its loneliness, I am as I have to be.
I look to the stars twinkling, remembering the song Blaze of Glory by Jon Bon Jovi. I can see myself with the cowboy hat and mounted on the iron horse as it took me away to another adventure in another place, another town. I smile to the idea.
You see, I’m a drifter, no home, no job, no real family. I sleep wherever the night catches me. My head gently resting in a hard rock or a bunch of leaves, or even my shirt tucked away underneath it while I lay bare chested on the ground. It really doesn’t matter, you’ll understand later.
My blanket, always the night’s air, if cold or hot it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I get tracked by those chasing me and I have to run. Other times I can stay for months, weeks or several days and work to have money to drift, to run to the next town or state.
As I walk this lonely road at night I started to remember the first time I escaped that place, why I ran from it never looking back. I was fifteen stuck in a laboratory for some disease they said I had, no recollection of anything before that. It seemed as if I had just woken at age fifteen. The sickness I had I never felt until several days later after waking in that tiny room. The hunger, that’s what they called it, it was so intense my mind went to a state of confusion, no words could reach me. After I came too and they showed me the video. I was scared of myself. I looked as a mindless Zombie ravaging the body of a nurse who came inside just to trickle more blood from my arms. The sight was terrifying my red short hair, at the time, was glowing red from all the blood. My eyes went blank and rolled inside. I did not remember anything from the moment, as I saw the video. I could see my face had no expression as my arms flew to the nurses neck twisting his head to the right, my mouth opening wide bearing teeth as a wolf do when protecting his area. The sound coming out of my mouth was more like a deeper watery growl with a deeper me in the voice. I heard the screams as my mouth closed on his neck, blood spattered on the floor, walls, bed sheets, and pillow. As someone hit the pause button, in the screen his face, a static silent scream, eyes open wide filled with terror stared at me from the TV set as I watched the paused video in silence, it was something I could never forget, the picture stayed in my mind for as long as my life went and is going. It was the first time ever saw the hunger, the other side of me.
My mind cleared as soon as the nurse was dead and the hunger satisfied. They never tried to stop me. They never tried to hold me back, they just watched from what I know now was not a mirror, and as I came to, the sight was even worse. The mangled twisted body of the nurse under a pool of its own blood, my red mouth still oozing the heavy and copper metallic tasting liquid from it, my hands that tore through his torso was covered in a glove of red, same I had in my mouth. I looked left and right, up and down my body, trying to understand what had just happened. My breasts bloodied with the frenzy the hunger brought, but now was satisfied, I screamed. I screamed from the horrible site and for them to come inside, to help the nurse on the floor, but he was already dead and they never came.
The body of the nurse stayed with me in that small room for about three days, for me seemed more than a years’ worth of the horrible sight. The wretched smell of his body starting to putrefy was covering every inch of the small room. It stuck to my flesh and my clothes when on the third day I heard a gurgling sound, like a scream filled with water, which came from the body. My hands still had the bloody gloves, but now darker and sticky like molasses. I was in a corner, crying, murmuring me to sleep, but I never could. I felt horrible for what I have done, when I heard the sound, my knees were tucked deep in my chest, arms around them holding tight, my face buried in them as the ostriches do when they bury their heads in dirt. I tore my face away from my hole and looked up, when I saw the body of the nurse twitch like if it was been shot electrical shocks over its body. The sound came again. That’s when the door busted open, a man tall like a skyscraper appeared with a military uniform and shot him on the head. The shot echoed in the small room so loud I put my hands over my ears.
After the incident he explains the hunger, more over what I was or am. You see I’m not just another human like you, I have something extra. Something in my blood that makes people come back as mindless animals, as if I can activate the lizard brain we all have deep inside. My body is not weak I’m stronger than a bear now. As he explain, if infected by the hunger, if you were alive, your consciousness will falter away slowly; the hunger will carry you to the next meat source, human or animal and satisfy its needs. If dead, the huger would bring you back, able to see what you are doing, but unable to control your actions, one would be able to speak, to feel the satisfactions of eating the hunger driving you mad. I am the carrier of a terrible fate for anyone to suffer. They were, where I was held, trying to duplicate me in a sense. The perfect soldier, dead, hungry and only way to stop it, was severing the communication signals from the brain, in other words destroy the reasoning of men.
I am the only one who can still carry my mind as much as the will to keep the hunger at bay. I struggle with the hunger as much as I could, I sometimes would even speak to it as if it were a person in front of me.
On that same year, and after the nurse’s incident they started letting me go outside, take some air, feel the warm sun on my skin. I guessed that whatever this disease was could only be transmitted by my blood or from some secretions from my mouth like the bacteria infected mouth of a Komodo dragon. I was glad because now I could find a way to escape the lab. Every day they would come inside; pinch me with needles as they took samples of blood, always covered in blue plastic suits, like astronauts. One day I found, to the north of the lab, the fence had a loos corner and tugging at it I made a crevice big enough for me to squeeze outside. I thought of going to my room gather some clothes and put them on a back pack
and my ID, which was how I learned my name, Sara Garber, and only thing I had from my past life, or so I thought.
I did not gather some cloths, I squeezed outside and I just ran. I ran for as long as I could and I still do.
Now at thirty-three, many things had happened in those twelve years drifting. I had found many people that I could care about, I found myself doing things that would horrify many, but some humans deserve such horrible fates. I never could stay too long at any giving place. The longest I stayed in one single state was about four months. In those months I met Med and her murderer. I just did what needed to be done and moved away fast.
I spent a year completely away, deep in a forest that I didn’t know exactly where it was. I was looking for a way to stop myself from consuming mindlessly; suppressing the hunger that does not involved me killing myself. My name is Sara and as many people would tell me, since I am a woman, and woman seldom chose to be drifters, not that I chose to be one. I have to be one.
They would say; be careful outside you never know what monster lurks in the shadows. To which I would always nod and smile at them. If only they knew what I now know.
This night I’m walking on Route 66, the mother road, a piece of nostalgic American history straight to Flagstaff through Winona. I came from a small town just a little more to the west called Canyon Diablo where I had to run cause of a little problem I crossed. I looked remembering the fire on the small barn and I see headlights in the distance. I looked forward and up again. The still night was just ending, clouds started gathering fast, the sound of thunder startled the silence I was enjoying. Wind picks up blowing harder, grabbing my hair making a tangle mess of it now, not softly as it did earlier. I grab my hair and pull it off my face and I knew that a small storm was coming. I looked back again, the headlights were getting closer and I could make the color of the car, it was a bright yellow. I stopped walking and extended my hand forward holding my thumb up and waited. The car came closer and I could sense something wrong. I did not know what, but something was definitely wrong.
Chapter Two
The car stopped several feet away, the windshield dropped and young man was on the driver seat. I moved closer to the window and see that there are three men inside. The one in the back was the one that came odd to me since his smell was copper metallic, a smell I know to well; he was looking down resting his body to the black upholster panel of the car holding his stomach.
“Hello boys, where are you heading?”
“We are going to Flagstaff for the weekend.”
“Great.”
“What’s your name and where are you headed Miss?”
“My name is Sara,” I said, “Just wherever will do.”
“We can do that, Miss Sara.” said the man in the driver seat as he twisted his body and moving his hand to unlock and open the door behind him from inside.
Ha pushed the door and I grab it letting myself inside the car, the odd man at my side with the metallic smell just barley looks at me, as I moved myself jumping between the two front seats looking at both of them and through the rearview mirror in the windshield, I can see the odd one behind me, glaring, his eyes red and a small patch of black around its sockets. I moved my gaze from him.
“So, tell me, where are you guys from?” I said as the first drops of rain started hitting the windshield of the car with a big thump, big heavy drops.
“Well I am from Highland Michigan,” said the driver.
“I’m from Amarillo Texas,” said the guy on the passenger seat.
They were all wearing the same type of cloths, red long pants with brown belts and shoes, white long sleeved shirt all rolled to their elbows. The car inside was clean; the upholstery was black with beige trims. The roaring sound of the car is heard over the silence as the driver started to move the car away from where it had stopped alongside the road.
“And you?” I said turning my waist left and looking over my shoulder to the man who had taken his gaze away from me and now was looking back down.
“None of your damn business.” he said without looking up.
“Hey Alex,” said the driver, “be cool man.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Alex you jerk, what did we told you when we picked you up?” said the passenger.
“I know, I know.” He said looking up. I could better see his face now and he had droplets of sweat over his face and his eyes were almost looking like the number three ball on a pool table, red. There was something oddly familiar in them and I could not put my finger in what it was.
“So, Alex I presume, since that’s what they called you. Are you okay you looked a little pale?”
“Yes, just stop asking me question, get those chatter boxes over there to talk to you and leave me alone.” He said looking down again.
I mouthed the word ‘okay’ and looked forward when the sign for flagstaff appeared in front of the head lights in a blurry view. I guessed I was close, but not this close.
“Almost there guys.” said the driver with glee on his voice as if he had everything planned for the weekend.
The smell of metallic copper started to get strong and I looked back at Alex he was holding his position, close to the panel and looking down, holding his stomach as if in pain. I sat and patted him on the back; he flinched and struck my hand away.
“Geez and one is trying to help.” I said rolling my eyes and I moved to the other side of the back seat crossing my hands over my breasts. The rain is falling harder and the metallic sounds of the drops sounds like someone hitting the roof of the car with its palm, big thumps. Silence has fallen inside the car.
I didn’t ask for their names because I could see them on their shirts, they were embroidered on them. Jane and Max, whom Max I presumed was short for Maxwell. The first letter of their names was arched on a fancy swirl at the upper end, probably a club or from a fraternity. I never have been to collage, but during my trips I’d stopped in one or two campuses.
“Um, Max is it?”
“Yes, how did you know my name?”
“It’s on your shirt.” I said.
“Oh,” he said as he hit the brakes slowing the car down as the night outside was filled with blue strobes of light. Cops were to the left stopping traffic and I asked myself what might have happened. Max drives slowly to where a cop with a yellow poncho, drenched from the rain waves him to a stop.
“Good night fellows,” he said as Max finished rolling the window.
“Good night officer what seem to be the problem?”
“Nothing to worry about, just looking for someone, nothing to worry about.” he said as I became alert. I drove myself as deeper as the seat would take me. I tried to stay away from the cops light as he waves it inside putting in the face of everyone in the car.
It can’t be them, not now, after several weeks without hearing or seeing any of them, why here? I know I had covered my tracks quit well and I never knew where I would definitely stop.
“Hello miss,” he said tilting his black cap saluting me.
“Hi.” I said shyly.
“Well guys have a great trip and drive safely the road is wet.” he said as he straightens tapping the hood of the car and shutting the light off. He tilted his hat at Max and I let out a breath of air I was holding.
“Now, that was weird.”
“I hope you aren’t the one they are looking for?” said Jane tilting his head backwards and letting out snort laughter that made him sound like a pig.
“I’m not.” I said a little too fast and my voice cracking a little.
“Hey I did not want to offend you, sorry” he said.
They drove into town; silence filled the car once more, as we entered the exit and down the ramp. They drove straight to a hotel, which I presumed they had reservations, and stopped the car in the parking lot next door. We said our goodbyes and I was hoping not to see them again and to disappear; if they were here I had to leave and right now.
Chapter Three
> With my head down and eyes moving everywhere trying to get a view of everyone in front of me, I walked unnoticed. I left the lot not looking back and putting my hands inside my black jeans pockets. As several hours had passed and I walked away from this place not even getting a good look at the town, I started thinking; if they were here they need a command center, but where? Where would they put that green tent I hated so much? Doesn’t matter I just needed to leave and fast.
Behind me I heard the screeching of tires and I turned, to my surprise the same yellow car the three boys drove me here came hurriedly down the street, behind it several cop cars rushing towards it. I just left those guys several hours ago. What had happened? Were they the ones they were looking for and not me?
As the car came closer I got a glimpse of the man now driving, Alex. He was on the driver seat blood on his face and smiling like if satisfied after eating a big meal and I knew then and there, he is just like me, he lives also with the hunger deep inside of him.
As the car passes in front of me and as it did, Alex turns his head and looks straight at me. I look in to his eyes and he was enjoying the surge of extra adrenalin from the chase. Was Alex all this time the one they were looking for and not me? Does Alex even know there is another one like him? I needed the answers because Alex could be a time bomb. I had never encountered any other like me. And where are the bodies of his friends if they were dead. I turned around and started walking towards the hotel where they left me, and I was hoping not to see these men again. Since the cops saw me with them, they were surely going to start looking for me. I had no choice, risk it, I told myself. I had to; maybe they were not here anyway.
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