Man Eaters

by Linda Kay Silva

  With the three of them sitting at the counter while Butcher cooked, they watched her in silence until the bells on the front door clanged.

  Whipping around, Roper had her hands on her rifle in half a second and pointed it directly at Dallas’s chest.

  Dallas?

  Roper blinked, unsure she was truly seeing who was standing at the door no one had thought to lock.

  “Smells like breakfast,” Dallas said, smiling at the stunned group. “Hope you haven’t started without us.”

  Letting her rifle fall from her hands, Roper ran to and crushed Dallas in a bear hug. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! We thought—” Then the floodgates opened and Roper wept, her face buried in Dallas’s neck. “I thought…I thought—”

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay, Roper,” Dallas said, gently easing out of Roper’s vise-like grip and gently tipping her chin up. “We’re all fine. It’s all good. No one got hurt. Well…none of us. Can’t say the same for the poor folks who took our Hummer.”

  “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

  When Dallas reached out to wipe Roper’s face, she understood the fear and sadness Roper must have been feeling. She’d been there once before and it sucked. Big time.

  “It’s all good, love. Everyone is fine.”

  “We saw the Hummer explode,” Butcher said, wiping her hands on a towel and embracing Dallas quickly. “We’ve been devastated.” She cut her eyes over to Roper, indicating the real we.

  Dallas suddenly saw Peanut and Zeus sitting at the counter. “Well, who do we have here?”

  Peanut excitedly launched into the tale of how they met and what fun it was to ride the horses. Dallas listened patiently, feeling Roper standing right next to her, nearly on top of her.

  “Well that sure does sound like fun, but you better eat those up before I do.”

  Once Tate and Coco joined them, Dallas explained the whole Hummer debacle while Butcher continued churning out pancakes, which were quickly devoured by the ravenous group. “Luckily, we saw the horses,” Dallas said, shoving a forkful of pancake into her mouth.

  Einstein shook his head. “Luck had nothing to do with it. When you guys didn’t show, we waited and waited until Dallas figured out you probably saw or heard the Hummer go up and thought the worst. We’ve been driving up and down the frontage road and freeway all day looking for you guys.”

  Roper tilted her head in a question. “Driving?”

  “Yeah. They left us a Tacoma pickup, and you know what we discovered? Most of the abandoned cars on the freeway had been shot at. I always thought the man eaters got to them, but not this time. It was just like the bridge. The military has been busy.”

  Roper squinted at Dallas. “Big risk to be out there during the day.”

  Dallas shrugged. “You’re worth it. We were going to find you—”

  “Or die trying,” Coco said. “As if any of us had a choice.”

  Dallas ignored her “We figured that after blowing up the Hummer, the chopper folks wouldn’t expect to see anyone else on the road and took off for greener pastures. It was a hedged bet.”

  “It was an insane risk!” Tate added.

  “What do you think happened? Why did they take the Hummer out?” Cue asked.

  “I think they came across the Hummer by accident, saw non-military people in it, and blew it to bits.”

  “I’d take that bet,” Butcher said as she flipped a pancake onto Peanuts’ plate. “It could have been you guys this time, but it wasn’t, so in the future, we need military gear, at least for Dallas and Einstein.”

  The room was quiet a moment.

  “Future?” two of them echoed.

  Butcher flipped another pancake onto a plate and moved it over to Tate. “We’re too big to move on foot. We only have four horses, so logic says we need another Hummer if we’re going to get out of California before the bombings begin.”

  A tense silence hung in the room.

  “Butcher’s right,” Dallas said. “We need transportation and we still need the horses.” She then addressed Cue-Ball, “Unless any of you would like to part ways now.”

  Roper followed Dallas’s lead and turned to Tate. “Any of you wishing to go on your own can take the truck.”

  “You trying to get rid of us?” Coco asked, fork in mid-air.

  Dallas shook her head. “Not at all, but I think we need to have better ground rules before we go on. We can’t operate well as a group if people continually second-guess our decisions. If any of you think you can make better choices for yourselves, then here are the keys.” She tossed the truck keys on a table. “Knock yourselves out, but Roper, Butcher, Einstein, and I have a plan and a way of getting us out of here. If you have a better one, share it now. Otherwise, let’s reduce the tension by keeping Monday morning quarterbacking to a minimum.” She looked hard at Cue-Ball and Tate as she said this. “The rest of you are guests among the four of us and I’d appreciate it if you’d comport yourselves accordingly. If you want to do things differently, no one is holding you here.”

  Roper nodded, though Tate and Coco just exchanged glances.

  Dallas stood directly in front of Tate, her pupils pinpricks. “And then next time one of us needs help and any of you just stand there watching, you best just walk away. Better yet, run like the wind because if that ever happens, I’ll shoot you myself. Is that understood?”

  “Why you looking at—”

  “Is that understood?”

  Tate closed his mouth and barely nodded.

  “Good. So now that we’ve cleared the air, does anyone have anything to add?”

  Peanut raised her little hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  Everyone chuckled and Butcher stopped pouring batter long enough to take her to the restroom.

  “Where’d you find her?” Dallas asked Roper, standing closer to her and trying to ignore the bloodshot eyes and red nose.

  “In the hills. I know the dog is a bad idea, but she wouldn’t have come without him and we couldn’t very well leave her there.”

  “A dog’s not a bad thing unless it barks at man eaters.” This came from Einstein. “If we were ever in a situation where we needed silence, a barking dog could be a detriment.”

  Dallas knelt down and patted the big dog. “Hi, big guy. He’s beautiful. My only fear with him is keeping him fed. Pretty soon, food is going to be an issue.”

  Einstein nodded and pushed his plate away. “Once everything spoils, canned food is our next option, but even that has a shelf life. Food and potable drinking water will become a huge hurdle for everyone still living.”

  “Which is why the desert is a stupid plan,” Cue-Ball added.

  All heads turned to him.

  “Look, I’m sorry for being the voice of reason here, but the desert is a temporary measure. You can’t grow the food you need. You can’t get water. Yes, it’s safe, but it doesn’t have the ecosystem you need to live longer than a few months, tops.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Boats.”

  “Boats?”

  He nodded. “I have a boat in New Orleans. Once I get my family, we’re heading down there and getting on it and leaving this hellhole. Think about it. We can fish. We can sleep at night unafraid of those things. Maybe we’ll just head to Jamaica, I don’t know. What I do know, though, is you can’t survive very long in the desert without food and water.” He shrugged. “It’s something to think about.”

  Coco leaned in to the conversation. “Oh wow, yeah. Think of the monster yachts we could take. It would be like a floating palace. I’m all in for a yacht.”

  “And we could do crops off the coast where it is sunny and have access to fresh fruits and vegetables,” Tate added. “I think it’s a great idea. I vote for boats.”

  Roper and Dallas waited for Einstein to weigh in, and when he didn’t, they excused themselves to go outside and tore him away from his pancakes.

  “What do you think?” Dallas asked him.
/>   Einstein pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “He has a good point. Being on the water would definitely be safer, but the notion of coming to land for fruits and vegetables? Remember, those things will always, always outwait us. He’s also forgetting that the military is shutting down all transportation. It’s a solid plan for much later, but not for now. He’ll get blown out of the water the moment that boat starts up. Right now, we need to lay low in a place few humans are. We can’t think end game right now. Right now, we just have to get out of harm’s way. Where there are few humans, there are fewer man eaters and hardly any military.” Einstein stopped when he saw Roper grinning at him. “What?”

  “I’m just so damn glad you’re alive.” Roper hugged him tightly. “I would have sure missed all this.”

  Dallas paced away and then came back. “You make a good point. It’s one thing to contain this in the states, but it truly will be an apocalypse if one of them gets out of the country.”

  “Exactly. What do you think the rest of the world is doing right now? My guess is, they are helping keep this inside our borders. Getting out or even thinking about getting out, comes later. Let’s keep to our plan for now and wait to see what the military decides to do. If they can’t contain it in the states—”

  “Which they can’t.”

  “Right. Then they’ll need to retreat and try to create a safe place to begin again.”

  “Where would that place be, kid?”

  “Well, two places: Hawaii, for obvious reasons, and Maine.”

  They waited for an explanation.

  “It has a Canadian border to one side, water to the other, and a relatively short border with New Hampshire. Landlocked states are out. Michigan would be a choice as well, because it is surrounded by water, but the borders are problematic. No, if the military pulls back to a defensive posture, Maine is the best choice.”

  “After Hawaii.”

  He nodded. “Hawaii would be the wisest choice to rebuild a population, but that would mean giving up on the remaining living here, and that’s not how it usually pans out. Also, any supplies would have to come from the mainland. By establishing a safe zone in the states they can give survivors a chance to keep the country.”

  “And make no mistake,” came Butcher’s voice from the doorway, “if we can’t keep the country, any number of our allies or enemies would love to pry it from our zombified hands.” She stepped all the way outside to join them. “And trust me, that’s what it will come down to. Our government will have to find a way to hold on to a nation overrun by man eaters. Once they realize they can’t contain it, they will do exactly what Einstein suggests. In war, when you are getting your ass kicked, you have to retreat and create a stronghold of defense. My guess is they are already doing so.” She grinned over at Einstein. “As usual, you are right on the money. We’ll probably be seeing less and less of our friends in the military as the days go on. But, that doesn’t mean we can be any less careful.”

  Einstein kicked a stone across the parking lot. “Too bad being right doesn’t make me feel any better. It just makes sense. They can’t contain it statewide, so they’ll need to do it across land borders. If this gets into Mexico or Canada—”

  They all shook their heads at the thought.

  “How are we moving everyone?” Roper asked.

  “We’ll have to walk the hills until we can grab another Hummer.”

  Roper ran her hand over her face. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

  “You guys have a better plan?”

  “We could use that truck at night, but who of us would want to be in the bed of the truck at night with those things out here?”

  Butcher’s eyes scanned the parking lot. “Then Hummer it is.”

  Dallas looked up at the sun. It was getting hotter and hotter every day. “We can do this, can’t we?”

  Butcher shrugged. “Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice.”

  Inside the diner, everyone finished eating and sat in silence in the faded pink booths collecting themselves for another day of survival.

  “Everyone ready?” Dallas asked, rising. “We’ve got a few more hours of daylight left. I say we make our way southeast across the hills until nightfall.”

  “We’re…walking?” Tate asked. “Coco can’t walk very far.”

  “She can ride most of the—”

  “No,” Butcher said. “She can walk like the rest of us. The exercise will do her good.”

  “What? You’ve got to be—”

  Butcher was in Tate’s face in one long stride. “Not up for debate. She’s pregnant, not handicapped. She’ll walk or you two can find some other plan that works for you.”

  The room was silent.

  “Good. Now get your shit. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

  As they started up the hill, Roper stopped to take a look back at the diner and what she saw chilled her to the bone and rendered her nearly speechless.

  Walking toward the diner, about one hundred yards away and coming from several different directions, came at least a hundred man eaters.

  “Umm…guys?”

  There came a collective gasp as everyone turned to see what she was looking at.

  “I told you,” Einstein said. “They’re after us. The only reason we’re safe in the hills is that they don’t know what to do with fences. They’ll just keep pounding on them or walking into them indefinitely. The barbed wire will fend them off until…well…until it doesn’t. We should be safe as long as we don’t stay in one place long, but make no mistake, they are hunting us.”

  “What does that mean? Will they keep coming?”

  Einstein shrugged. “I have no idea. For safety sake, we ought to assume they’ll keep coming unless they find someone else to go after.”

  “That gives me an idea.” Roper turned back. “Dallas, look.”

  Everyone watched in silence as the various groups of man eaters converging on the diner like ants on a cough drop.

  “I’ll take Merlin through them and to the other side of the hills. That will at least make them move in the opposite direction from us.”

  “No way.”

  Butcher intervened. “Wait, Dallas. She’s got a good idea. If they see her and follow her, we can sleep a little easier tonight. We are going to need the space or we’ll just have to keep moving.”

  “No. Not Roper.”

  Roper stood as close to Dallas as she could, their faces inches apart. “If you think, for one second that anyone else can do this, you’re crazy. I can do this and I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.” Her fingers touched Dallas’s. “And it will be the last time we separate, okay?”

  Before Dallas could reply, Butcher interjected, “You need a shooter, Roper…just in case they get too close.”

  Roper leapt up into the saddle and waited for Butcher to join her on Merlin, rifle in hand. “We’ll be right back. I promise. Keep everyone moving southeast along the ridgeline. We’ll be with you in no time.” With that, Roper and Butcher took off on Merlin back toward the diner and into the gaping jaws of the horde.

  Fighting off the overwhelming sense of dread as she watched the women ride toward the middle of the mob, Dallas grabbed Einstein’s hand and squeezed tightly.

  “She’s fearless, you know?”

  Dallas barely nodded. “That’s what worries me.”

  They watched in silent admiration as Merlin leapt over the first fence, then the second, and finally cleared a third barbed wire fence by three feet.

  “She’s very good,” Einstein murmured. “The way she handles that big beast…putty in her hands.”

  Dallas looked down at her booted feet, thinking that the horse wasn’t the only one.

  ****

  Dallas

  As they continued walking up and over the hill, Dallas kept turning around and looking at the group of man eaters as they altered their course in response to the riders’ presence. Once they changed their direction, they mi
ndlessly trudged away from Dallas’s group and after Merlin’s riders. Some walked right into the barbed wire and just kept moving their feet as if doing so would make the fence eventually give way. Others moved around it, falling over anything getting in their way. It creeped Dallas out watching them and their single-minded pursuit of human flesh.

  “Let’s pick it up, people.”

  It was almost an hour later when Dallas heard the familiar hoof beats approaching. Only then did she allow her shoulders to relax.

  “Keep going,” she said, waving everyone on.

  When Roper pulled Merlin up, Butcher hopped off and excused herself to join the rest of the group, leaving Roper and Dallas alone.

  “You’re bat shit crazy, you know that, right?” Dallas stood there wanting to draw her into an embrace she had no idea would be greeted with acceptance, so instead, she just stood there feeling like a middle school girl.

  Roper slid off the saddle in front of her and for a moment neither said a word. The energy between them palpable, the emotions like a thunderstorm of activity around them.

  Ever so slowly, Dallas reached out and tentatively touched her fingertips to Roper’s cheek. She half-expected Roper to back away. When she didn’t, Dallas laid her palm on Roper’s face and stared into her eyes. “I’ve never said this to another human being…probably because I never meant it…but…I need you. I know you’re fearless, and I know you carry the burden of protecting all of us, but—”

  “Not us. Not all of us. You. I came across that beam for you, Dallas, and once we started on this path, I knew I’d die before I let anything happen to you. You or the kid. You two are my priority.”

  Dallas nodded, her palm still on Roper’s cheek, her heart banging in her chest, her legs like liquid jello. “I know.”

  “When I saw that Hummer explode…” Roper’s eyes filled with tears. “I was…my heart broke.” She wiped her eyes. “Never had my heart broken by a woman before—ever.”

  Dallas slowly lowered her hand. She didn’t want to make what was a touching moment awkward or uncomfortable. That sentence told Dallas all she needed to know and though it smarted, at least she knew which team Roper played for. “I’m so sorry you thought I…we were killed in that blast.”