Eaters

by Michelle DePaepe

  Cheryl heard the gate begin to creak and groan from the weight of so many bodies pressing against it, and she grew more desperate for an escape plan. Not knowing how many more of them she might face until she got somewhere safe, she didn’t want to use up all of her ammunition on this group. Gunfire might also draw more. So, she finally decided that there really was only one option; she was going to have to make her way to the opposite fence, climb over it, and run like hell. It was risky, since there was no way of knowing if there were more Eaters near that side of the house, and she didn’t know how fast the ones at the gate could travel once they saw her go over. But it was far riskier to stay put. Even if the group didn’t crash through the gate soon, the fire would probably jump to it, and burn them an entry, or burn her into ashes. Her eyebrows were already starting to singe from the heat.

  From crouching so long, her legs were numb. Needles pricked them, and she moved them from side to side to try to get the blood flowing. As she psyched herself up to make a run for it, she noticed how bright it had gotten, not just from the flames. Through the waves of black smoke, the sky was a periwinkle blue now. She was pissed that life on earth had turned topsy-turvy, but dawn had arrived right on time, just like it did every day. She could have used a little more time to get away in the dark.

  She reached around and double-knotted the laces on her oversized combat boots. She didn’t want to trip and meet her doom due to a loose shoelace when she went barreling down the street like a giant ham on legs in broad daylight.

  With her bag firmly over her shoulder, she checked her gun again for reassurance that it was properly loaded. At that moment, she heard a piece of wood crack near the gate, and knew that it was time to go.

  There was no point in trying to sneak away by crawling. She’d be in plain view, no matter how she went. So she bolted from her hiding place with one big thrust, but she stumbled on the second step when her knees gave out. A loud chorus of moans sounded as they spotted her. She ran to the fence on the opposite side of the house, not daring to look back at their dead faces and outstretched hands.

  “Hail Mary,” she said when she saw piles of boxes against the fence with stacks of newspapers spilling out. She would be able to use them to climb up and get over the six-foot high fence. On her first attempt to mount the small hill, her feet skidded on the papers, causing her to slide backwards, but once she regained her foothold, she was able to see over the top of the fence.

  The side yard and the street looked empty on that side, save for a body lying in the middle of the road that hadn’t been there earlier. From the looks of the tattered head, the purplish flesh and the ribs sticking out from the bare torso, she guessed that one of the Eaters had turned on another. There was no time to think about it or to cheer…she had to go.

  She was up and over in one quick jump, but she landed hard, twisting an ankle. Ignoring the pain, she began a run-hop to the left. It was going east, back the way she had come and not the way she wanted to go, but there was no other choice at the moment. She was three houses down, legs pumping like a windmill, running through the dewy grass and skirting a birdbath when she heard what sounded like a bark behind her. A glance back confirmed her worst fear—she’d been spotted. It was a man with stringy gray skin wearing an open shirt that had once been blue but was now completely red with blood. He wasn’t pointing at her, but his grunt-bark seemed like a call to the others. Before she turned back around, she saw him raise one mangled hand forward and begin to hobble towards her as dozens of legs came into view from the west side of the house.

  Desperately looking around, she discovered that every bloody house had a privacy fence. She couldn’t cut through backyards and didn’t want to pause long enough to try to climb over any of them, especially knowing that she could be jumping into a pen of Eaters. So she kept going straight down the sidewalk, overruling her screaming lungs, her jackhammer heart, and the pain in her ankle.

  She didn’t know where she was headed as she rounded the corner and turned north. Anywhere but here. After hearing the comforting voices on the radio, she considered trying to get to downtown Denver, but she got a horrible image in her head of the city infested with Eaters, and a tall building with a radio tower, surrounded by hungry Eaters, with the DJ’s stranded on the top floor. Downtown was too far away, anyway. She was on the west side, once called Golden, but maybe now called The Dead Zone, for all she knew. Just beam me to Arizona, Scotty. That’s where my family is, and hopefully still alive.

  Cheryl huffed and puffed along, going up the next block, past more vacant looking houses and corpses in the gutters, wishing that she’d made it into the garage at Barry’s house, found a car with a full tank of gas, and taken it. It definitely would have been handy at the moment.

  She thought about her own car. It was presumably still parked outside the insurance agency where she worked. Of course, even if she could get back to it, she’d forgotten her purse in the hurry to leave Subs & Such, so she didn’t have the keys. The thought of returning to the sandwich shop and then making her way back to the car was nauseating. Even if the Eaters in that area were long gone, it would be dreadful to wade through the broken glass and blood amidst the stench of any rotting meat still there. It would be even worse if she had to pass by the church to get there. That was the last place she’d seen Mark alive, and if she saw it, she’d never be able to get the visual of the charred rubble containing his ashes out of her head.

  She rounded two more blocks before she slowed and looked back over her shoulder. She didn’t know if she’d lost them or if they were still hunting her like a pack of bloodhounds. She wondered how long they would search for her before they gave up. She supposed it might be indefinitely, or until they found a distraction like something rotten to chew on in one of the houses…or another victim.

  Knowing that she shouldn’t let down her guard, she began to jog. The sun was now a soft yellow light, and birds chirped in the spruce and aspen trees as she passed by. It was Thursday morning. Normally, she’d be sitting at her computer at work, sipping on a latte, processing (or denying) claims based on the thick book of insurance rules considered to be her company’s bible. She had never really enjoyed her job, but as she jogged past a severed human leg lying in the middle of the road, and more houses with broken windows and charred roofs, she realized that she’d give anything to be back at her desk fielding claims from weeping and irate customers.

  She didn’t want to keep going northeast, which was just going to lead her into Arvada, a more densely populated area that could have even greater numbers of infected people. She suddenly remembered that she’d picked up a cell phone at Barry’s house. Keeping her rifle firmly over her shoulder, she fumbled in the bag for it. When she flipped it open, the signal was weak. She figured there was no use in dialing 911, since no one had answered that number a few days ago. So, the first number she tried was her father’s in Tucson.

  “We’re sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please hang up and try your call again later.”

  She tried calling her friend, Lisa, who lived in Longmont, and got the same recorded message. Then, with little hope, she tried dialing 911. This time, it actually rang…and rang…and rang. But no one picked up. That was even scarier than the recorded message. Did that mean no one was there? Had everyone at the 911 office gone home to be with their families? Or worse—been eaten? She threw the useless device back into the bag.

  By now, she’d gained a few more blocks and was nearing the big painted boulder at the entrance of the neighborhood that read Prairie Rock in big, white, carved letters. The main street adjacent to it was Tablesworth Boulevard, and she could see across it to the businesses on the other side. There was a gas station, a veterinary office, a small shopping center, and a jumble of town homes a little further down. They all looked completely abandoned. There wasn’t a soul—well, a live soul—anywhere to be seen. At the gas station, there was a corpse slumped down next to a large blue SUV with a gas nozzle still in his hand
. There was a horse trailer parked in front of the vet office. It was wide open, and she could see hooves sticking out, draped over the taillights.

  She left the neighborhood and turned south along the main road, intending to double back west after she got a few blocks further. Walking along, she avoided being out in the open as much as possible, weaving in and out of abandoned cars as she went. Every few yards, she passed by another body. Most weren’t intact; they were missing part of their head, or limbs, or torso. It was little comfort to realize that she should be thankful to see so many dead. It meant that not everyone had been infected and reanimated. The thought of these half-eaten bodies coming after her made her shudder.

  Any survivors were obviously in hiding somewhere and not hanging out on the street. It dismayed her to see not even a single police car or ambulance anywhere. It seemed that even the law and the government had been toppled. Was it bioterrorism? If Mark’s explanation for the beginning of this was correct, then it seemed possible that some malevolent group could have had a hand in it.

  She found herself wandering onto a brick road that led to a commons area. It was Lookout Mall, an outdoor shopping and entertainment center that had restaurants, clothing stores, gift shops, and a movie theater.

  She stopped and did a one-hundred-eighty degree survey, looking for movement, any sign at all of danger. The place looked deserted. Newspapers blew down the main pedestrian artery like tumbleweeds. The parking area on her right had cars and trucks with smashed windows, and there were corpses and partial corpses scattered all over, some of them slumped in front of shop doors, some hanging out of vehicles. Flies buzzed around some of them, flitting from body to body.

  She’d been to this same location just a couple of weeks ago when she’d visited a ski and outdoor gear store to find some supplies for her camping trip with Mark. She had bought several things, including a pair of binoculars, something she wished that she had with her right now, because they’d be good to scout ahead for trouble.

  Now, despite its empty appearance, the outdoor mall area seemed like a less safe place to be than the neighborhood she’d just left. Unlike a residential block where she could see up and down the entire street in one straight shot, there were too many nooks and crannies here where someone could be hiding. There were alleys bisecting the main thoroughfare, numerous shops with wide brick columns out front, a large artistic mound of boulders off to the right for kids to play on, and a tall circular stone fountain in the center. She could see that many of the shop windows were busted out too. There was no telling who could be lurking inside them.

  She reminded herself, though, that cutting through would be the shortest route to get to the foothills. The place looked like it had been abandoned for a few days. Maybe any Eaters were long gone in search of fresh (or dead) meat elsewhere.

  The wind kicked up, blowing papers towards her, and one landed at her feet. She looked down at the neon green sheet—a flyer for a rock band called Coyote Rain. They were scheduled to play at a nearby pub on Saturday night. She imagined the notice posted on the pub’s door: Concert cancelled due to sudden increase in flesh eating citizens.

  She looked at the quiet fountain, no longer sending out a shimmering spray of water from the top tier as it normally did all summer long, and thought about water. She hadn’t realized how dry her mouth was until now. A drink would really be a good idea before she trekked any farther, sparing her from drinking up the supplies in her bag.

  With her hands tight on the rifle and a finger perched on the trigger, she moved towards the fountain with slow steps, aiming first right then left to make sure no movement escaped her peripheral vision. She wondered if her voice would bounce off the stone buildings and the brick walkway, echoing back to her, if she yelled out a loud ‘hallo’—something she didn’t dare do.

  When she reached the fountain, she stopped at the edge and looked down at the scattering of coins at the bottom of the still water, reflecting the sunlight like shiny dead fish. She lowered her gun, sat on the edge of the stone rim and dipped her hand in the cool water. Then she splashed some of it on her face and took gulps of it into her mouth. The chlorine made it taste bitter, but it was refreshing, since she’d had little to eat or drink in the last couple of days, and it was already getting uncomfortably warm.

  After another minute of enjoying the water, she decided to toss her camouflage shirt in to wash some of the blood off of it and to make it feel cooler on her body.

  Now just wearing Barry’s mom’s gym t-shirt and the camouflage pants, she stood and watched it float. The name, Breton, on the pocket rippled as dark clots of blood and tissue lifted off the fabric and fouled the water, turning it pink with dark squiggles like tadpoles that hovered then sank to the bottom.

  Suddenly, her knees felt weak. She was tired…so very tired. Of course she was. It was what…Thursday morning? She hadn’t slept at all last night and very little since this mess started. She felt nauseous, then dizzy. The sky swirled down to her feet, and the bricks of the plaza became a ceiling. She sat on the edge of the fountain and tried to steady herself, but it became a Ferris wheel, spinning her round and round.

  Afraid she might fall into the fountain and drown, she scooted down to the ground and leaned back against the stone rim. She sat there, watching the world become a kaleidoscope. Swirling patterns of blue sky, red brick, and white light danced, then, all the colors turned to black as she lost consciousness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Cheryl woke, she felt someone poking at her head with a stick. For a moment, she thought she was still inside her dream. The cannibals on the island were checking her to see if they’d fattened her up enough on coconuts to put her on a spit and roast her for the celebration of the marriage of their new king. She grabbed the stick and shoved it away, before letting out a short scream that sounded more like a hiccup. When she opened her eyes, she saw not a dark- skinned tribesman with a bone through his nose and crazed bloodshot eyes, but a man in a helmet, leaning over her with the bright sun behind him ringing his head with a halo. He had tanned skin, citrine green eyes, long brown hair, and a short goatee. He wasn’t poking her with a stick—he was nudging her with the barrel of a rifle, shoving it into her ear and along the side of her cheek.

  She bolted upright and inched backwards, slamming her head into the base of the fountain. “Stop!”

  “Ooh! She speaks. She lives.” He kept the gun trained on her, the muzzle just inches from her face. “What’s a pretty gal like you doing out here? Not exactly the best place to do your laundry and take a nap.”

  Her heart pounded with her efforts to snap back into reality and study her sarcastic inquisitor. He wore a leather motorcycle jacket and jeans, and had a tattered canvas backpack over his back. He looked a few years older than her and was not altogether unhandsome in a rough sort of way. His Harley was parked a few feet behind him. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t woken when it approached, and she had no idea if he was friend or foe.

  “I wasn’t doing laundry…” She didn’t want to tell him that she’d felt sick and passed out. He might decide to do her a favor and save her the misery of turning into an Eater if he thought she was sick. “I was just exhausted. I must have dozed off.”

  “Out here in the open? You’re lucky you didn’t wake up to find a Dead Dog gnawing off your leg.”

  “Dead Dog?”

  “Zombie. Walking Dead. Whatever the hell you want to call them.”

  “Eaters.”

  He shrugged. “I guess that’ll do. Devil’s Minions might be more accurate. Trash Compacters. How about Recyclers?” He took a step backwards and cocked his head to the right. “You infected? You got blood all over you.”

  “The blood’s not mine.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  She figured that she looked sick, even if she wasn’t. Any benefit of the brief shower was surely gone. Dried blood splatters covered her from head to toe, mottling her skin and making her loo
k like a walking germ fest. Her hair was a rats’ nest of tangles, and her fingernails were crusty black, probably from holding the lamp base when it had been slick with Barry’s mother’s blood. “I’d ask you if I look infected, but I doubt I’d win any sort of beauty contest right now.”

  She watched him study her. There were fine crinkles around his eyes, and she guessed he was in his early thirties. He held the gun in his left hand, and on that forearm there was a tattoo of a skull on top of an open book. There was a sharp edge to him, but it was tempered by weariness. She figured the slight tremor in his hand could be from stress or too many caffeine-filled nights on watch duty or fighting for his life.

  “I guess you might be alright. Dead Dogs usually don’t take the time to wash their clothes. They’d be too busy looking for the next brain buffet.”

  She glanced back at the shirt floating in the water, a ghostly thing, like a half a man who’d lost his will to live, then all of his substance. She choked off the memory of Mark and turned to look at the motorcycle man again.

  “What about you? Are you infected? The only thing that would scare me more than an Eater, is a man about to turn into one, holding a gun.”

  He rubbed his hand across his mouth then over his cheek. “Not last time I checked.”

  “Why’d you stop?”

  “Honestly? Your pretty mop of blonde hair caught my eye, but I figured you were dead. Then I saw your bag and wondered what was in it. I’m heading for the mountains and looking for supplies in case I don’t make it to my cabin tonight. I’ve been trying to stay out of the buildings. It’s just too easy to get cornered in them.”

  “So, you were going to steal from me?”

  “Look,” he said, lowering the gun and throwing the other hand up into the air, “right now, old rules don’t apply. Finders-keepers is the lay of the law. Besides, I thought you were dead.”