Scavengers

by Christopher Fulbright

  Some things never go away, he thought. They just rattle around like pebbles in a plastic tire till the wheel stops turning and you’re all done. Well, maybe I don’t have much longer to go, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna take it lying down.

  Leaning back on the blow-up Corona chair, he took the last swallow of beer and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  When they woke up Sunday, Dejah started formulating a plan like some kind of goddamn new-age Rommel.

  “Why would you want to go and leave the Bocadomart, girl? We’re safe in here. There’s food, water, plumbing, electricity. Way I figure, we might even be able to ride out the sickness in here until the government sends some sort of help for the uninfected,” Frank said from his vinyl chair in the corner.

  “What makes you think the government will send help?” Shaun asked, genuinely curious.

  Dejah looked at Frank. “That’s a good question. Especially to Bocadomart.”

  “Well, why wouldn’t they? If we’re immune to the illness, we’re not going to spread it to anyone. I’d imagine some sort of special team would be sent to round up all the Sickies and corral them somewhere for scientific purposes.”

  “That’s optimistic,” Dejah said. “But, I don’t have time to sit around and hope the federal government comes up with a plan. You saw how the plan went during Hurricane Katrina. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Frank shrugged. “Well, I think it’s foolish to leave the store before we need to. But, I can’t stop you or the boy from going if that’s what you want to do.”

  Shaun stopped working his puzzle. “She has to get to her daughter, Mr. Baum.”

  “I understand that. I’m just not sure it’s the best idea to leave right now. You’ve said yourself that your little girl is safe with her father and grandparents. Seems to make more sense for you to stay safe, too, until the time comes when y’all can be reunited without such risk.”

  “I don’t know if she’s safe,” Dejah said. “The last time I spoke with my husband was last Monday morning. He and Selah were turned away by the military at a roadblock. Last I heard they were headed back to his parents’ house.”

  “Greenville’s not that big of a town,” Frank said. “I’m sure they made it safely back.”

  “I don’t know that for certain.”

  “Okay, well, say you and Shaun go on and start for Greenville. Are you going to just continue to car-hop the way you did to get here?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t see any other options, so, yeah, that’s the plan. We need a big vehicle capable of moving smaller cars out of the way and durable enough to survive driving over medians and through ditches. We thought about a Semi, but I can’t handle that much vehicle and it would be too big. Not to mention the gas situation.” Dejah munched on a microwave burrito as she spoke.

  “That’s why we stopped for the Hummer,” Shaun interjected.

  “Hummer ain’t leaving without me,” Frank said.

  Dejah nodded. “That’s right. And we wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind. We need your expertise. You know the roads in this area better than I do. My guess is you’ve got more than enough fire and nails left in you to make it through this alive. You’re not doing anything but waiting to die, sitting here.”

  Shaun laughed. “You’ve got enough ammo and guns back in the storage room to reenact the Alamo.”

  “I hit a sporting goods store on my way through town, after I stopped off at the Hummer dealership,” Frank said with a wry smile. He paused and studied Dejah. Damn determined woman, he thought. “I got all the gas out of those cars out there.” Frank thumbed toward the parking lot. “Figured I’d siphon it off before one of those damn Sickies found a way to drive or set things on fire.”

  “I’m just asking you to think about it. We could use your help.” Dejah got up to throw the burrito wrapper in the trashcan.

  “Why don’t you go on and leave the boy here with me. Be safer. No sense risking him on your suicide mission.”

  “I go where Dejah goes,” Shaun said.

  Frank frowned. “What do you know? You’re a kid.”

  “He’s been through a lot, Frank.” Dejah came to Shaun’s defense. “We’ve all been through a goddamn lot.”

  Frank got out of his chair and reached into the shelf behind the busted plastic for a new pack of cigarettes. With a tired look, he lit one and wandered over to the magazines to smoke. The smoke tasted good. Penetrated deep, curled in blue whorls around his head. He squinted and watched them drift to the ceiling. Felt the nicotine hit his blood, surge his pulse, and give him a nice little calming buzz while he mulled it all over. After a few minutes, he said: “You try calling your husband lately?”

  “Called from the phone by the register about fifteen minutes ago. No answer.”

  “Did you get a tone?”

  “Yeah, but no ringing on the other end. Just a damn busy signal.” Dejah picked at a thread on her sleeve. Her brow furrowed with deep lines over troubled eyes.

  “That’s all I get too.” Frank took another drag from the cigarette.

  “Come with us, Frank,” Dejah said, a pleading tone in her voice. “We need you. You’re not doing anyone any good holed-up here. We both know the government is going to let this shit run its course and that could be for who-knows-how-long.” She threw up her hands in exasperation.

  “You really think they’ll just lock down the state lines and leave us to the Sickies?” Shaun asked, fear edging into his voice. Frank smiled sadly at Shaun’s adoption of his phrase.

  Dejah took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  “That sucks.”

  Frank laughed. “Ain’t that the truth, son. But, ain’t that the U.S. gov’ment?” He crushed his cigarette on the counter top and dropped the butt in an empty fruit can on top of the trashcan. “Well, kiddies, I’m an old man, and old men take naps. So I’ll be in the back if you need me.”

  * * *

  Frank had only been napping a few minutes while Dejah was staring at the wall, a soap opera magazine, in Spanish, open in her lap. She’d been looking at the photos, but nothing would deter her thoughts from Selah. Suddenly the distance between here and Greenville seemed very far indeed. Too many miles, too many obstacles, no way to get through on the phone. She was totally isolated from her little girl, unable to quell the visions of potential horror. The snap flash memory of Carrie Revis, face slick with her father’s blood came back to her time and again. She shook her head and closed her eyes, remembering back, years ago, to when she still could hold Selah in her arms, cradle her as a toddler, seeing her shining eyes and crinkled button nose as she laughed in her memory. It was bittersweet. She’d always feared losing her daughter – it was the most dreadful fear lurking in the back of every parent’s mind. And now, not knowing anything was ripping her up inside. The distance yet to travel seemed so much greater than ever before.

  She recognized the feeling as creeping hopelessness. It edged around her resolve, seeped in through the cracks in her determination.

  Shaun grunted something in incoherent adolescent speak, working his crossword puzzle. “What’s a three letter word for noise?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Three letter word for noise?”

  “Uhm—din.”

  “Thanks, teach.”

  “Hey, Shaun?”

  “What?”

  “You think we should leave soon? Or do you think Frank’s right? That we should stay here and wait it out?”

  Shaun stopped writing. “Well, you want to get to Selah, right?”

  “More than anything.”

  “Well, I don’t know … I mean, it’s not easy out there, and not safe, we know that. But what are the choices, right? Stay here and wait on something that might never happen, or make something happen ourselves. I guess it’s like, if I knew I had anyone left …” Shaun’s eyes misted with tears, but his voice was even when he continued, “I’d want to get to them, no matter what.”

  Dejah wiped tears f
rom her eyes. “No matter what,” she said with a note of deep weariness.

  You can’t lose hope, now. You keep it burning. Keep it alive. As long as you can draw breath, there’s always hope.

  “I think we should talk to Frank one more time when he wakes up and, no matter what he says, we should go tomorrow night. It’s nice to have food and drinks, but I can’t stay holed up in here much longer before I start going crazy.”

  Dejah rubbed her eyes with her hands. “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

  “Maybe. He seems like he’s going a little crazy here by himself, too, and he wants to find out about his own daughter. He can’t get any info locked in here.”

  “Yeah.” Dejah got up to get a soda. “Want something?”

  “Hand me one of those lemonades, please?”

  “Such good manners,” Dejah said with a laugh and tossed him a lemonade.

  “Yeah, well, since the old man is gone, I’m gonna sit in his chair.” Shaun stood, stretched, went behind the counter, and plopped down in Frank’s cat hair covered seat.

  Dejah turned on the television, trying in vain to pick up a channel. Shaun propped his leg up on the chair edge and used his thigh as a desk, continuing his puzzle. He listened as Dejah fiddled with the dial, and then he listened to something else.

  “Dejah?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You hear that?” Shaun sat frozen in the chair.

  “I hear a helluva a lot of nothin’ but static—”

  “Ssh. Turn that thing off. Listen.” Shaun put the crossword puzzle book on the counter, but sat riveted with the blue pen and chain still dangling from his clenched fist.

  A low moan emanated from above.

  CHAPTER 17

  Dejah and Shaun looked upward, holding their breath. Something in the ceiling scraped around like cinder blocks over cardboard. Whatever was up there, above the water-stained tiles, was a lot bigger than a rat.

  One of the brownish ceiling tiles sagged under weight.

  “How’d it get in?” Shaun whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Dejah scanned the room for something to use as a weapon. Frank had all the guns in the back room where he was sleeping. From the sounds of his snoring, a freight train could barrel through the Bocadomart and he’d never hear it.

  Shaun inched toward the broom propped in the corner and wrapped his fingers around the stick. Dejah nodded. Nearby a metal display stand was stuck between plastic packages of toilet paper. She grabbed it and turned it over. Two metal prongs stuck out vertically. She smiled. Shaun gave her a weak thumbs-up.

  The next moan they heard was followed closely by hoarse gagging: a sound like a cat trying to rid itself of one massive, phlegm-engorged hairball. The raspy choking-cough rattled the ceiling tile. Dust and bits of insulation peppered the floor beneath.

  Shaun’s eyes widened as the ceiling tile bent further. The underneath side began to split. Dejah gripped the metal sign with new intensity.

  With a burst of dust and a cloud of pink and yellow insulation, a gore-smeared zombie sprawled from the ceiling in a heavy thud. Decades of rat turds and debris rained from the space, leaving Dejah and Shaun sputtering to maintain a defensive position.

  The thing scrambled onto all fours. It shoved itself from the floor, snarling and snapping like some rabid beast. It scraped the air with broken fingernails, gray and jagged. Thick, globular saliva trailed from its mouth, over its chest. Blood, bits of flesh, and thick, congealing brain matter coated the infected zombie’s face and arms.

  It walked toward Shaun, mumbling incoherently in something akin to Spanish, but slurred, muddled. Dejah paced slowly, not wanting to alarm the fiend, not wanting it to propel itself forward onto Shaun. She snatched a candy bar from the shelf and pegged the bastard in the back of the head. “Hey, over here!”

  It gave a low, pained noise and spun toward Dejah.

  Shaun took a swing at the zombie’s head, using the broomstick like a baseball bat. The broom handle struck its mark, but bounced from the back of the thing’s head like it was made of rubber.

  “Damn!” Shaun shouted.

  The zombie jumped Dejah, knocking her backward. She worked the metal prongs of the sign up toward the zombie’s face, but the monster was too strong. Wrapping its ashen fingers around the metal, the sign was yanked from Dejah’s grasp and slung across the store. The thing hovered over Dejah’s face, slobber drooling over her hair and head. She pushed at its chest, but her hands only slipped and slid in the caked-on remnants of someone’s innards. The smell of shit and rotting meat clung to the zombie’s clothes. Dejah gagged.

  “Uhhhhhhhhhh,” the thing moaned, teeth only centimeters from Dejah’s face.

  She vomited. Vomited in an upward exploding fountain of Snickers, Doritos, and brown soda. The force of the vomit splashed against the face of the zombie and the infected man awkwardly pulled himself up using the metal shelving beside him as an anchor. It went berserk as if it were suddenly caged, trying to wipe the puke from its eyes and nose.

  “Get out of the way!” It was Frank. He stood in the doorway of the backroom, shotgun ready for action.

  Dejah used her legs to push herself backward along the vomit-slicked floor. She grabbed the same shelving the zombie had used, and scrambled to her feet, slipping in her regurgitated meal, finally getting to the other side of the store.

  The zombie wailed, smearing vomit and gore around on its face.

  Boom! Boom!

  The room reverberated with cannon blasts as Frank unloaded the shotgun into the face of the zombie.

  “Fucking Sickie!” Frank racked the gun and fired off one more shell.

  The thing dropped like a bag of sand, landing on the floor a few feet from Shaun.

  Everyone was quiet. All that could be heard was a dull ringing from the gunshots and their heavy breathing as they stood there processing what just happened. Frank stood with the gun smoking in his hand, looking at Dejah with an expression of anger and disgust. Behind his eyes the dream of drinking beer in Bocadomart till the National Guard showed up just died. His face said it all: the place wasn’t the virtual fortress he imagined it to be.

  “Get yerself cleaned up. Me and the boy will start packing supplies. If one of those fuckers got in, more of them will follow. There might already be more up there for all we know.”

  Frank looked into the dark cavity above them.

  Dejah grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt like the ones Shaun wore and hurried to the restroom. She locked herself inside. She leaned against the door, head back, wiping her hair away from her face. Chunks of partially digested food clung to her fingers. She looked sideways into the cracked mirror hanging askance above the sink that stuck out too far from the plastered wall. “Oh, God,” she moaned, peeling off her clothes. She tossed them into a heap in the corner and used a wad of paper towels to sponge herself. Sticking her head as far under the grimy tap as she could, she let the warm water run over her hair and face. It felt good. Refreshing. Using the hand soap as shampoo, she squirted the green stuff into her hands and scrubbed the vomit and zombie spit from her hair.

  When she’d done all she could, she turned off the creaky spigot. A beach towel hung from the hook on the back of the door, and she wrapped it around her wet hair. Already she felt better as she tugged on the sweatpants and shirt.

  Someone rapped on the outside of the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “You ‘bout done in there?” It was Frank.

  “Yeah,” she said, opening the door.

  “We’ve packed up the ammo, moved the guns and gas cans to the front of the store. We’ve packed up food and water in boxes we found in the backroom. It’s all ready to be loaded into the Hummer.”

  Dejah looked over at Shaun who was chugging a root beer, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “That was fast,” she said.

  “We’re not packing for Prom night, sister,” Frank said with a grin.

  “
Suppose not,” Dejah said, returning the grin. She held out Shaun’s socks, now dried. “Here’s your socks. You’ll need to put your tennis shoes back on. Can’t run far in flip flops.”

  Shaun took the socks. “Hope I don’t have to do much running.”

  Frank frowned. “Me either, son. I’m afraid I don’t have much get up and go left in these old legs.”

  “I’m assuming you have a plan?” Dejah hoped Frank had figured out how to manage their escape while she was washing in the restroom.

  Shaun was watching the surveillance monitor with a new interest. “Uhm, guys, we’ve got more company.”

  “Damn,” Dejah and Frank said in unison.

  Lumbering Sickies gathered around the front of the store.

  “Must have heard the shotgun,” Shaun offered.

  “Yeah, figured they might,” Frank replied.

  Dejah watched the grainy black and white of the monitor closely. “Maybe we can outwait them.”

  “No. It’s time to go. It was nice while it lasted, but the Bocadomart honeymoon’s come to an end. I think our best bet is for me to back the Hummer up to the front door. Get in as tight as I can. We’ll load the stuff up through the back of the vehicle. That way none of those bastards can get to us while we’re loading.”

  “But what about while you’re running out there to get into the Hummer?” Dejah said.

  “It’s right there. I’ll be in and turned around in a few seconds. Y’all stand ready to open this security door when you hear me backing up.”

  “Okay,” Dejah said, a scowl on her face. “You’re going under a crack in the metal door to get outside?”

  “Well, I ain’t doin’ the Limbo, but yeah, I’ll go under the door and run to the Hummer.”

  Frank loaded a Glock and stuck it in the front of his pants. He fished his car keys from his pocket and waited for Dejah to get ready to open the security doors.