“Jesus Christ!”
The eyes were angry now, and I struggled again to keep my own open. Something touched my face, squeezing my cheeks, and then I felt something hard being pushed past my lips. I gagged, choking on the foreign lumps in my throat. My stomach twisted and pulled, and I gagged again.
I continued gagging, trying to spit, trying to gasp for air, but found I couldn’t. Something was blocking my mouth, something wasn’t going to let me breathe. My eyes widened, but the gathering tears only worsened my already blurry vision.
“Swallow,” the eyes said.
I did as the eyes asked, desperately trying to swallow in order to breathe. Finally the lumps slid down my throat. My first breath was more of a gasp, and then I greedily sucked down air as fast as I could.
Cold wetness touched my lips and a hand cupped my cheek, helping me to tilt my head. Rough fingers rubbed water over my dry lips, dripping it into my mouth and onto my tongue. The hand was gentle, caring even, despite the calloused fingers, and more tears burned my eyes. It had been so long since I’d felt a kind or caring touch. My father came to mind, his large hand wrapped around mine, protecting me, defending me. Dying for me.
I could still remember that last kind touch. My father’s soft brown eyes full of fear and sorrow. Now it was slipping away, changing, morphing into something else. Into someone else. Brown eyes darkened and hardened into black eyes full of rage.
I tried to cling to the image of my father, but couldn’t seem to make him out. He was a blur, a smear on a dying backdrop.
The world slipped away as darkness sucked at my memories and pulled me under.
• • •
It was my stomach that woke me. Rumbling loudly, it constricted painfully inside me. My eyelids fluttered open and I found Eagle hunched over me, fiddling with the cloth wrapping around my middle. He glanced up at my face and cocked an eyebrow. “Hungry?”
“Is it bad?” I asked, my voice nothing more than a hoarse rasp. For years I’d gone without speaking; with no one to speak to, what was the point? Although the words seemed to come easy enough, my voice still felt foreign to me.
“It’s better,” he said. “You’ll live.”
My stomach rumbled again, and there was no way to mask the noise. I hadn’t eaten anything substantial in a long time, even before I’d been dragged inside these gates. But he must have been giving me water; my throat didn’t feel dry.
The realization that this man, this man with evil eyes, had been caring for me for what must have been a while now, had me frowning. I had been on my own for so long, surviving, scavenging, and hiding, that the idea of having someone else here, helping me, doing the things I couldn’t do, felt wrong somehow.
And still, I wondered why he’d done it.
Eagle sat back on his haunches and stared at me. His face, strangely free of its usual scowl, gave me a rare glimpse of the man beneath the anger. I’d thought him terrifying and vicious, a vile man full of hate and anger. And although those things were all still there in his expression, there was something else as well. He’d definitely once been a handsome man, but I imagined he’d always been a little rough around the edges. Maybe he’d even been the kind of man who was so good-looking he made your stomach flutter. The sort of man who—
“What the fuck are you staring at?”
My thoughts disintegrated, but I didn’t look away. We continued staring at each other in silence for several long moments, his scowl once again twisting his features.
“I’m going to get some food,” he muttered. Standing, he straightened and headed from the room without looking back.
Curious, I watched him leave. He wore his mask well, but I’d seen it, a glimpse of the man beneath. The one who’d picked me up, a stranger lying in a field, and had since hidden me away and cared for me.
Chapter Eleven
Eagle
She snored.
The girl snored while she slept and not just any sort of snoring, but the kind of grating nasal impediment that could put a grown man to shame. Not only did she snore, but she twitched as well, as if her senses, even while sleeping, were on high alert, detecting even the slightest shift in the air and homing in on it.
Leaning forward in my chair, I inspected her closely with a clinical eye. Her skin was so fair, nearly glowing in the waning light of the bedroom, not one freckle to be found. But her hair and hands told a different story. Matted and starting to dread at the ends, her long brown hair hadn’t seen a brush in years. Callouses covered each of her fingertips, and her fingernails were broken, caked beneath with dirt and who knew what else. I shook my head, snorting softly. She would need a hundred more baths before she could actually be considered clean, but at least she didn’t smell like a worksite outhouse anymore.
Where the fuck had she been living all this time? In a goddamn ditch? And snoring like she did? It was a wonder she hadn’t been found and eaten by every rotter within a mile’s radius.
She hadn’t moved since I’d left her and gone to the market. Her hands still gripped the blanket tightly, her fingers curled around the edge as if her very life depended upon it. A small wrinkle had furrowed between her eyebrows upon my arrival, giving her an overall angry appearance. A determined little wild thing, I thought. But it was that determination that had probably kept her alive all this time.
If I had to guess her age, I’d place her somewhere between seventeen and twenty, which meant she’d been a damn kid when the infection had hit. Kids didn’t survive global catastrophes, not without help, at least, and from the looks of her, the way she’d been reacting to me, I knew she hadn’t had help. Not in a long time.
More than likely she’d watched her entire family torn to shreds; maybe she’d even been forced to take them out herself. And ever since she’d been alone.
Leaning back in my chair, I unwrapped the food I’d brought back and bit into it. Someone had managed to bag themselves a family of wild turkeys, and anyone who’d been lucky enough to have something worth trading was eating well tonight. For me, the meat had cost me a good many rounds of handgun ammunition, and ammunition was quickly growing scarce. It was the reason I hoarded anything of value, because one of these days the old-world supplies would run dry, and as much as I liked proving my point with my bare hands or with a well-honed blade, bullets were a far more efficient way of staying alive.
Improving ammunition production was quickly becoming a necessity, so Mensa needed to up his game in devising a working system to make that happen.
Tearing off another chunk of meat, I popped it into my mouth and chewed slowly, savoring the grease-soaked delicacy. It was rare that I ever experienced a semblance of peace and quiet these days, but as the hot food slid down my throat and into my stomach, filling it, something akin to contentment fell over me.
As I lifted the food, about to take another bite, my gaze fell on the girl. Awake now, her nostrils flaring, she was staring at the meat, her gaze wide-eyed and frantic.
“Hungry?” I asked dryly, and when she nodded vigorously I tossed what I still held in my hand into her lap. She scrambled onto her side, not yet able to fully sit up without pain, and grabbed for the turkey. Holding the meat in both hands she tore into it, her eyes closed as grease dripped down her chin.
“You’re going to puke if you don’t slow the fuck down,” I warned her.
As I figured she would, she ignored me. Rolling my eyes, I picked up what remained of the food, and with the exception of the girl’s ravenous and obnoxiously loud eating habits, we spent the rest of our meal in silence.
Soon all that was left was a pile of tiny bones and a grease-stained blanket. I was about to start cleaning up when the blare of the warning alarm wailed to life in the distance.
The girl’s eyes found mine, the hunger in her expression replaced with fear. “Me . . . ?” she whispered hoarsely.
“Doubt it,” I muttered, tossing aside the bones in my hand and getting to my feet. The guards had spent two days on her
and then called it quits. Everything had since returned to business as usual. “Probably rotters attacking the gates.”
I headed for the door and swiftly unlocked each lock, then stepped outside. I was far enough away from the center of the compound that the alarm wasn’t all I was able to hear. Alongside the trilling horn was the telltale popping of guns discharging. Sniffing the air, I confirmed my suspicions of rotters at the gates. The distinctly awful scent of crispy fried rotter flesh wafted in on the warm breeze, turning the turkey in my stomach to a ball of lead.
It wasn’t often that those dead bastards were able to catch us off guard. Our men constantly patrolled the surrounding area, taking out the strays on sight and always on the lookout for hordes. Usually we were able to shut down activity, bringing Purgatory to a silent standstill until they’d passed by.
The rotters relied on sound and smell to find their next meals, and we had a system in place to deprive them of both. Silence was key, as were the barrels of cleaning chemicals we dumped strategically around the perimeter of the gates. Most times, the rotters passed us by without a second glance. But sometimes, when we didn’t have ample time to prepare and they caught us off guard, they attacked.
“Fuck,” I spat out as I spun around and headed back inside.
Grabbing the rifle I kept beside the door, I turned toward the bedroom to find my jacket and stopped short. The girl was standing just outside my bedroom doorway, trembling so hard her teeth were chattering. A fresh pile of regurgitated turkey meat lay at her feet.
“What the fuck!” I shouted.
“B-biters . . .” she whispered, her words barely audible over the sound of her teeth chattering.
“They won’t get in,” I snapped. Grimacing at the mess of urine and puke on my floor, I opted to leave my denim jacket where it was, and instead scoured the room for my spare. Finding my leather coat beside a stack of boxes, I shrugged it on and started for the door.
“Clean this up!” I shouted. “It better be—”
I staggered sideways as she ran past me, catching me off guard. Dropping my rifle to the floor, I swung her back around, easily done with how little she weighed, before releasing her with just enough momentum to send her flying across the room. She slammed into a metal table leg with a pained grunt, followed by pathetic whimpering. Clutching her wounded side, she stared up at me with wild and angry tear-filled eyes.
“Don’t make a fucking sound,” I warned her. “And don’t you dare move. You step out of here and someone sees you, you’ll be shot on sight, and I’ll be in a world of shit that I don’t want to have to deal with.”
“B-b-but biters . . .” she whispered.
“Shut up!” I bellowed, then bent over to retrieve my shotgun and aim it in her direction. “You shut the fuck up, and you’ll be safe. Do you understand me?”
She let loose another flurry of whimpering before finally averting her eyes and giving me a jerky nod in response. I spun around and stalked outside, kicking the door shut behind me. After quickly locking up, effectively securing her inside, I jogged for the compound.
Much like I figured it would be, Purgatory was in chaos. Shouting men and women were bunched up at the east gate, which someone had thankfully switched off the power to, and were shooting, stabbing, and even pushing back at the decent-sized group of rotters piled on top of one another, trying to push, shove, and bite their way through the steel. The gates were holding for the time being, but were starting to lean preciously inward from all the pressure.
“Turn off the alarm!” someone screamed. “Turn it off, it’s attracting more!”
I scanned the crowd of the living, finding among the shooters a fallen woman, wailing as she cradled her arm. The limb had been shredded and was gushing blood, ribbons of flesh trailing from where the teeth of a rotter had sunk into her bicep. Several yards from her was the still body of a beheaded rotter, and next to it was a man lying on his back, oblivious to the people trampling over him to keep the gates from bending further. He was sweating and trembling, and I watched as his unseeing eyes clouded over.
Letting loose a string of curses, I shoved several people out of my way, pushing my way toward the man. One rotter inside these gates; that was all it took. One always became two, two become twenty, and so on and so on, and within an hour everything could fall.
“Adam!” I shouted, spotting him among the crowd. “Adam!”
I didn’t have time to see if he’d heard me. The man who only seconds ago had been in the throes of death was now snarling, snapping his teeth together as he lay on his back, reaching blindly for any of the legs surrounding him.
“Move!” I bellowed, shoving people aside. I dove forward and slammed the butt of my shotgun directly into the back of the newly infected man’s head just as his teeth locked onto the Achilles heel of a nearby man.
As the second man let out a shrill scream and crumpled to his feet, the skull of the new rotter shattered beneath the force of my blow, killing it instantly. Jumping to my feet, I pulled the fallen man up with me and slung his arm over my shoulders, balancing him at my side.
“I’m bit!” he screamed. “I’m bit! I’m bit! I’m bit!” His shouts stopped and began to sob, his body trembling.
“E!” Adam shouted, pushing several people out of his way. He glanced at the man I was holding, then back to me.
“My truck!” I jerked my chin in the direction of the garage. “Get my truck, remove the cap, and meet me at the main entrance!”
Without question, he simply nodded and took off running while I set my sights on the wailing woman still holding her arm. Dragging the injured man alongside me, I made my way to her.
“Get up!” I dropped my rifle and offered her my free hand. “Get the fuck up!”
Bloodshot, terrified eyes met mine. “I’m going to die!” she screamed. “I’m going to—”
The toe of my boot collided neatly with the side of her head, sending her sprawling onto her back in somewhat of a daze. Bending down as far as I could without releasing the sobbing man at my side, I grabbed a fistful of her hair and then, with a strained grunt, dragged her away from the crowd.
It was slow going toward the main gate as I attempted to haul two useless lumps of flesh along with me, the woman begging me to release her and the man still sobbing uncontrollably. Important minutes ticked by, leaving me worried about how the other gate was faring while I was struggling to pull off a spur-of-the-moment plan in hopes it worked.
The rumble of a familiar engine sounded from behind me, and as Adam pulled up beside our small group and jumped out of the driver’s seat, I thrust the woman at him. “Put her in the back,” I ordered.
He did as he was told and, after unloading the man, I followed them both up onto the bed of the pickup and demanded Adam start driving.
“Get us outside the gates,” I shouted, “and close to the rotters!”
Lucky for us there were only two men still stationed at the main gates, both of them quivering with the fear of not knowing what was happening on the other side of the compound. They were more than happy to open the gates for us without question.
Gravel kicked up from beneath the tires as Adam sped up, racing around the perimeter of the camp and sending the three of us in the truck bed sprawling on our backs. I righted myself quickly and freed my knife from my boot, then grabbed the person closest to me, the man, around his neck and yanked him forward.
“What are you doing?” he cried out but his voice was strained, his movements weaker now due to blood loss and the quickly spreading infection.
“Slow down!” I shouted, hoping Adam could hear me. “And turn her around! Lay on the fucking horn!”
The small horde was now in our sights. The gate was bent at a dangerous forty-five-degree angle, the screaming and shouting from the desperate crowd defending the gate now near deafening.
Adam pulled the truck to a mere crawl about fifty feet from the nearest rotter and did as I’d told him. The horn blazed loudly, cu
tting through the screams and shouts of the living, and attracting the attention of the closest rotters. When the man in my hold saw them start to hobble toward the waiting truck, he twisted in my grip, shrieking in earnest now.
“Don’t!” he pleaded. “Don’t, please don’t—”
I didn’t hesitate. Ignoring his pleas, I sank my blade into the soft, meaty center of the man’s gut and sliced straight across. His resulting scream alerted even more of the rotters, as did the smell of the spill of his intestines that came next.
Gritting my teeth, I sank my hand inside the gaping wound and helped drag out the rest of his guts to dump onto the ground. By now, most of the rotters were headed our way, the scent of fresh blood and meat all it took to turn them away from the falling gate.
Adam continued to drive off slowly, followed by the rotters who hadn’t dropped to their knees to scavenge the man’s innards. Finally, I relinquished the man’s now still and silent body, shoving him forward and onto the group. The rotters descended upon him like a swarm of ants would a fallen marshmallow, in a flood of flying limbs, tearing him to shreds in moments.
As I’d hoped they would, two more trucks had joined us outside the gates, the beds full of armed men who were now picking off the rotters in a flurry of bullets.
I turned with my hand on the keys attached to my belt, meaning to reach for the utility chest housed in the bed of the truck and grab my spare guns, when I was blindsided by a flash of flesh and hair flying toward me. Startled, I dropped my blade. The woman I’d stupidly forgotten about had turned, and was now nothing more than a mindless beast dead set on having me for dinner.
Falling backward in surprise, I quickly outstretched my arms, realizing belatedly I hadn’t put my gloves on, and that I was also about to allow her to chomp down on my most valuable body parts. With little choice, I readied myself for her incoming attack, hoping like hell she’d choose my left hand over my right, and that Adam would have enough sense to cut off the infected hand without hesitation.
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