Eaters

by Michelle DePaepe

  She fell deep below the water and dreamed of Mark. His warm naked body lay next to her in the tent, hip to hip, curled together like one body with four legs. A twig snapped outside the tent. She knew that it was probably a bear, or maybe a raccoon foraging for food. Mark was snoring now, flinching from time to time like he was reliving his days of roadside bombs and sniper attacks. She felt for the rifle on the other side of him as she heard the sound of feet crunching through dry leaves. She propped herself up and listened. Crickets played their violin wings. The wind came in raspy waves through the trees. And someone took another step into the leaves. She didn’t wake Mark, because of course it had to be a deer. That was the most obvious choice. Reaching over Mark’s fluff of blond hair, she grabbed the tent zipper. In one quick motion, she pulled it up and looked outside. Her eyes went to the bare feet, up the bloody clothing, straight to the face with peeling gray flesh, dangling like parasitic worms, then to the filmy white eyes. Her father…

  When her scream woke her up, Cheryl didn’t know if she’d made it out loud or if the shriek was some phantasmal remnant of her nightmare.

  She sat up and opened her eyes, trying to get a fix on where she was. There was a second of panic when she saw the soft hues of early morning light, the cobwebbed stones in front of her, the motorcycle, and the trees beyond it. Why wasn’t she in her bed? Where was Mark? In a flash of groggy amnesia, she thought she’d been kidnapped.

  Reality hit hard as a gunshot sounded just yards away.

  Jumping up, her helmet connected with the low ceiling. Pain rattled through her skull. Mark…no…Aidan. Something was wrong. There would only be gunfire if—

  She ran out of the troll house, shuffled through the pile of leaves and spun around. There was nothing but forest on all sides. She twirled again and threw her hands up in the air. “Aidan!”

  There was no response. She stood still and listened, hearing nothing but a barrage of chatter from a flock of birds in a massive conifer.

  A few seconds later, another gunshot rang out a little closer to their camp. Her heart thumped like a piston in a high-octane engine as she crashed back into the building and grabbed her rifle. She came back out and pointed it in one direction then the next, twirling in a lopsided circle as she listened for any indication of where Aidan was. She had no clue, because the sound had reverberated off the mountains and seemed to have come from all directions at once.

  Stay put, Cheryl.

  Angel Mark was back, her ethereal tour guide to this new hell on earth.

  Okay. She decided she’d listen. His supernatural guidance hadn’t steered her wrong yet, but she wasn’t going to just sit and whittle a stick while she waited for Aidan to return. There was another nagging voice in the back of her head that told her that the gunshot might have been someone shooting Aidan. Or, he might have only gotten one shot off before he was attacked.

  Still on high alert, she took a couple of steps closer to the motorcycle. The keys were still dangling from it. That was good, but she wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she knew how to start it without choking it. Riding it on her own would be a challenge too. She wasn’t even sure she could get it back down to the road, but if Aidan needed her help she knew she’d have to try.

  Her hand was on the leather seat when she paused. She’d heard something. Not a bird. Not the wind. A whistle?

  A dark shape emerged from behind a truck-sized boulder far off in the trees. Something about it didn’t look right. If it was Aidan, he wasn’t walking like normal. The figure moved with a shuffle and a limp on the right side.

  She tightened her grip on the gun and checked to make sure that the safety was off. Suddenly, trying to operate Aidan’s motorcycle didn’t seem like a good idea. If she needed to leave in a hurry, she figured she’d be better off running towards the road and following it until someone came along to pick her up or she found somewhere else for temporary refuge.

  The figure came closer, weaving a crooked path in and out of trees. She raised the gun. “Aidan, is that you?”

  The reply was a grunt, a sound that made her put her finger on the trigger.

  He was closer now, and she could tell that he was carrying something, some long pale thing by his side. She imagined it was a human leg, and this lolloping creature was coming to fetch one of hers to match.

  “Cheryl!” he yelled. “Put the gun down. It’s me.”

  Of course it was Aidan. She lowered the gun, feeling both stupid and thankful that she hadn’t shot him.

  A few seconds later, as he hobbled towards her, she could see that the human leg was actually a couple of dead rabbits. He tossed them on the ground near her feet.

  “You scared me, and I bet anyone within ten miles of here heard those gunshots.”

  “Sorry. I woke up feeling hungry, and your arm was looking pretty tasty.”

  She glared at him, not liking the joke.

  “I’d just planned on shooting one, but I spotted the smaller one on my way back. We can cook them both, eat one now, and pack the other one with us for later. “Who knows when we’ll run across food again?”

  She looked down at the furry creatures. The head of one of them was gone. He’d taken it off with one shot. She was impressed and more than a little grossed out.

  He dropped one of the rabbits and leaned down to get it then stopped and yelped as he clutched his leg.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I tripped over a tree root and smashed my knee on a rock.”

  “Let me have a look”

  “No. It’s just bruised or something. I’ll be alright.”

  “You don’t look alright. You can’t even walk straight.”

  “I’m fine, dammit.”

  She let it go. There was no point in taunting a bear with a thorn in his paw. She just hoped that his sheer will would overcome any damage that had been done to his knee, because they didn’t have any first aid supplies with them; they hadn’t expected to leave his cabin in such a hurry.

  He hobbled over to the troll’s hut and tossed the rabbits onto a pile of leaves.

  “How are we going to cook them?”

  “This great new invention…it’s called fire.”

  “Are you always such a smart ass in the morning?”

  He took a knife out of his jeans pocket and did a slow squat to the ground. “Maria used to say I was. She knew better than to talk to me until my second cup o’ joe.”

  “Coffee. God, what I wouldn’t give.”

  “You still got that lighter, right?”

  She fumbled in the breast pocket of her shirt.

  “We’re just going to have ourselves a quick breakfast then bail out of here, hopefully before the wind carries the smoke and the scent too far.”

  He sat down on a stump and made an incision near the rabbit’s flank then he pulled the skin off in an upward motion. When that was removed, he cut off what was left of the head. After all the violence and gore she’d seen over the last few days, it seemed odd to her that she had to look away as he slit down its middle and began to remove the creature’s innards. She’d never had rabbit meat before, but she figured that it must taste a lot better than the charbroiled beef hockey puck that she’d had at Barry’s house which had probably contained burnt maggots and fly dung.

  “Maybe we should take them down the road a ways and then cook them. I’m a little nervous that the gunshots might have drawn unwanted guests.”

  “Nope. I need to rest my leg. I’m not up for riding at the moment. We’ll have a quick meal then go on our merry way.”

  Go where? She decided that it might be better to discuss things with him after he’d had some food in him.

  She cleared a circle in the dirt then mounded some twigs and leaves to start a fire. The tinder was still slightly damp from the recent rain, but it smoked a bit and caught fire after a few seconds.

  Aidan paused from his task and looked up with approval.

  “I’ve always had fantasies about roughing it in th
e wilderness, but this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. I pictured living in my cabin, hunting and gardening, not running for my life with nowhere to call home.”

  Home. She wondered what had become of her apartment building. Was it vacant, with a fine layer of dust already settling over the top of her furniture and countertops? Were there survivors barricaded inside, trying to ration out their last servings of water, canned beans, and Cheerios? Or were the hallways and balconies splattered with blood while Eaters roamed freely in and out, stumbling over the remains of dead bodies? She shuddered at the thought.

  Aidan finished prepping the rabbits then told her to get some branches to make a spit. As she watched him skewer the first one, she said, “I don’t know if I can eat that.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  A short time later, the scent of the cooked rabbit made her salivate. Even so, she was hesitant to take the first greasy glop of meat that Aidan held out to her. After a second, she stretched out her hand.

  “It’s a little gamy,” she said after the first bite.

  “I’d prefer elk or deer, but this’ll do. Not much meat though.”

  He was right. They stuffed chunks of the cooked flesh in their mouths, devouring the entire thing in a matter of minutes. Afterwards, all that was left was a stretch of petite bones with a few scraps of flesh and tendons remaining. They cooked the second rabbit on the spit and ate it just as quickly, saving none for later.

  When they were done, Aidan rolled up the sleeves on his leather jacket and tossed handfuls of dirt onto the glowing embers in the pit. She looked at the tattoo on his left arm, the skull on top of an open book.

  “What’s it mean?” she asked, pointing to it.

  “This?” He paused from his task and looked at his arm. “You only stop learning when you die. Got it in the Navy. It was a reminder that I wasn’t too old to go back to school after I got out.”

  “And?”

  “Never made it. I was dishonorably discharged and never got the dough.”

  She was silent for a moment, wondering if it was appropriate to ask why.

  “I’m not a very good rule follower. Marching in straight lines and all that crap. I don’t know why I even signed up…probably just to get away from my folks.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Don’t know. Haven’t spoken to them in years. Probably somewhere up in Cheyenne on their ranch, lying on the ground, half-eaten.”

  She winced at the visual and didn’t press him further. Aidan was so different from Mark. Her fiancée had been a straight line kind of guy. Crew cuts. Football. Golf. Apple pie. Always ate the food on his plate in a clockwise path, starting with the meat and finishing with the vegetables. Predictable. But she’d loved that about him. She never worried about his fidelity when he was away in Afghanistan. He was safe…comfortable.

  As she bowed her head and ate, she looked at Aidan’s citrine eyes in her peripheral vision. She had to admit that he was handsome in a rough sort of way, but she didn’t trust him. There was the stink of a rebel all over him, and rebels weren’t reliable. They were self-interested wildcats that followed the winds of their whims. Even though fate had made them traveling survivors, they weren’t really a team. They’d saved each other’s butts more than once, but they owed no real allegiance to each other. It was not unthinkable that she could wake up tomorrow morning and find him gone. She didn’t know how he was going to respond when she told him where she wanted to go.

  “Should we bury the bones?”

  “Nah. Some raccoon or fox will enjoy them. We need to get going.”

  She looked at him. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Keep going west, I guess. Further into the mountains, there’s got to be some people in a safe place with a good stock of food and weapons. We’ve just got to find them.”

  “How about southwest?”

  He winced as he tried to rise to his feet. “Why?”

  “I want to head towards Tucson. That’s where my dad and my aunt live. I want to try to find them.”

  “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

  She held his gaze for a second then shook her head. “Where else have you got to go? Doesn’t sound like Cheyenne is in your plans. Your cabin is gone…your girlfriend…”

  He looked away and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re serious? That’s hundreds of fucking miles from here. Crossing over the Rockies? And the chances that we’d find enough gas along the way—”

  “I know, but the last thing I want to do is sit in some makeshift shelter with a bunch of strangers, just waiting for it all to end. Been there.” There was no turning back life to what it had been just a few days ago. If she was going to die, she wanted to be with her family.

  He walked the few steps over to her, favoring his good leg, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know where I want to go.” He seemed to change his mind about being so close to her and he pulled away, pacing a circle with a limp. “I’ve romanticized the idea of being a lone wolf out here. But honestly, it’s not safe without a perpetual supply of food and ammo, and winter could suck even if we found an abandoned cabin. Right now, we need to find someplace to regroup and get our heads together. I don’t want to spend another night out in the open if we don’t have to. It’s too dangerous, and I don’t want to sound like a pussy, but my bones hurt this morning from the chill.”

  At least he didn’t say ‘no’. Cheryl knew it was a long shot that he’d go for her idea to head towards Tucson, but she figured that she had nothing to lose by throwing it out there. She hadn’t decided if she’d try to head that way on her own if he refused to go with her. There was always the possibility that she could hook up with someone else headed that way, but after her experience with Barry the rock star, she figured that the enemy she knew was better than the one she didn’t. It might be a mistake to trade Aidan in for someone else.

  “So for now, we keep heading west?”

  “Might as well. There’s no point in turning around and heading back the way we came. We already know what’s behind us.”

  She felt that she could see the gears turning in his mind as they packed up their things.

  “There’s no highway straight to Arizona,” Aidan said as he kicked some more dirt over the embers of the fire. “We’d be taking a lot of mountain roads. We’d need a map, a shitload of luck, and some—”

  The intruding noise of a deep, reverberating hum interrupted him. It was hard to tell which direction it was coming from and they swung their heads from side to side, attempting to locate the source.

  “What is that?”

  Aidan remained frozen with a wild, frightened look in his eyes. His disturbed appearance scared her more than the sound, causing a chill to snake down her spine.

  “What the hell is that?” she said again.

  “Get the guns.”

  She took a step backwards, the heel of her boot crunching into a pile of leaves and reached down to grab their guns.

  After taking his gun, Aidan took a few quick steps towards the motorcycle then his knee wobbled and he winced in pain. “Go to the bike!”

  She hesitated. The noise didn’t sound like anything she’d ever heard before. Could it be tanks, helicopters? There was a brief flash of hope.

  “Go!”

  There was ice-cold fear in his eyes, not any sort of optimism.

  She ran to the motorcycle and hopped on the back. He hobbled over to the duffel bag, threw the strap over his shoulder then limped towards her. “Not the back, the front.”

  “What?” He couldn’t mean for her—

  “I can’t drive. My knee is too fucked up.”

  The blood drained from her head, making her feel faint. Mark’s voice growled in her ear. It wasn’t anything coherent; it was more of a guttural battle cry. She closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and saw him as clear as if he was standing in front of her. He wore his fatigues and had black stripes of paint under his sparkling blue eyes. His
hands were on his hips, and he was barking at her like a drill sergeant. The image infused her with his warrior spirit. You can do this.

  The strange sound was clearer now. It wasn’t any sort of machinery. There was no doubt that it was a chorus of voices, a mix of echoing alto moans and soprano screeches—the desperate sounds of hungry walking corpses.

  “What do I do?” she asked as she slid forward and grasped the handles.

  “Turn the key, pull the clutch back to put it in neutral, then hit the start button.”

  She tried to replay every syllable he said, focusing her mind on this one task as he hoisted himself onto the back of the bike with a grimace.

  The motor rumbled to life, and she was surprised to find herself exhilarated being at the reigns of so much power. If she could just get it down the slope and onto the road.

  “Alright, remember the way we came up? Head that way. Watch for trees and rocks.”

  The discordant moans were upon them now. She glanced back and saw the trees move. No more time for a riding lesson.

  A jaw-dropping number of them emerged from the trees. They looked like cadavers or the synthetic version, extras from a horror movie that had spent hours in the makeup chair having layers of latex and corn syrup blood applied to make them look as gory as possible.

  But this wasn’t a movie.

  It was real.

  As Cheryl eased off the clutch and rolled forward, they lumbered towards them in an awkward mass all at once like one big amoeba made up of necrotic tissue. She’d only gone a few feet when a few suddenly broke ranks and charged towards the fire pit. They hobbled straight to the rabbit carcasses with outstretched arms. A woman in a tattered uniform from a local pub with bloodstains on her apron reached one first, but another woman with torn flesh curving the corners of her mouth into an oversized grin like the Joker from Batman quickly snatched it away. They began to fight for it, grabbing at ribs, breaking them in two like wishbones and swallowing them. One laggard, an elderly man with one eyeball hanging out of its socket and whipping around like a tetherball, found one of the rabbit skins a few feet away. As he reached for it, a boy with gelatinous eyes the color of curdled milk snagged the rabbit’s ear. It became a tug of war, each of them pulling and snapping at the skin with their teeth. The boy won and began to devour it, stuffing the fur into his mouth. Others piled on him like a pack of hyenas.