Scavengers

by Christopher Fulbright

  “Wait,” Dejah said, panic in her voice. “Let me try calling Thomas one more time.” Shaun and Frank stood there, silent, as she ran to the phone, and dialed the number. They waited for what they knew she knew she’d hear. Dejah put the receiver back onto the phone with a look of despair. She stared at the phone, and then said, quietly, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Dejah pulled up the security door, revealing a sliver of darkening twilight and concrete, while Frank scurried outside. She quickly closed the door as soon as he slipped out. Shaun monitored the surveillance screen. “Okay! He’s in!” They heard the rumble of the Hummer starting up outside, and Dejah listened for the sound of Frank backing the truck up against the door.

  Shaun shouted from the monitor. “Open the door!”

  With an upward thrust, Dejah let the security door roll. They yanked open the back door of the Hummer and began pushing the supplies inside. Frank had previously removed all but the front seat. Obviously, he’d thought of this before. The two of them handed things to Frank inside the Hummer and he arranged the gas toward the back with the food and ammo in the front. He left a hole for Shaun to sit and a small passage to squeeze through to get into the vehicle so no one would have to go outside the Hummer.

  As they packed, the moans of the infected could be heard coming closer. Finally, they heard fists pounding on the sides of the vehicle, and talon-like scratching on the Hummer’s exterior.

  “That’s it,” Dejah said. She cracked the top of a bottle of water and gulped it. “Last chance for a cold drink.”

  “Or hot coffee,” Frank said with a sorrowful laugh.

  Shaun rolled up a few crossword and comic books, tying them with the blue pen and chain, and tucked them under his arm. “Adios, Bocadomart!”

  Frank and Dejah crawled into the Hummer. Shaun jumped in after them, pulling the Hummer door closed.

  The Hummer rocked with the force of the gathering infected. Faces smashed against the windows, smearing mucous and blood around on the glass like mud from a rainstorm.

  “Oh god!” Dejah shrieked as a large man leapt toward the front grill of the Hummer.

  “Hold on to your hats!” Frank shouted and floored the gas. The Hummer’s tires screeched as it shot forward, sucking the snarling man under the front of the vehicle. The thud and bumps of several other zombies falling beneath the wheels were loud inside the cab, like tennis shoes thumping inside a clothes dryer.

  They tore out of the parking lot as the street lamps came on, illuminating the night in a white glow that showed the full extent of the neighborhood’s decay on every street corner. Dejah looked through the rear window, over the bouncing boxes of supplies, at the crowds of the infected that stirred at their vehicle’s passing. Shaun clutched the nearest box for stability, his eyes glued to the road in front. Their eyes met for an instant, full of fear, and grim determination.

  CHAPTER 18

  Frank drove the Hummer over a curb and around the three cars blocking the street. Carefully, he wedged between two trucks, pushing one slightly to the side to fit through. Vehicles were stalled everywhere. And, where there weren’t cars, there were bodies. Bodies of the ones fortunate enough to be immune from the infection, but unfortunate enough to have fallen victim to the infected. Gutted corpses lay face down with black puddles coagulated around sprawled limbs. Dismembered bodies lay belly up, hollowed cavities burrowed through tattered fragments of clothing where flesh and innards once were. Dogs gathered around the body of a hitchhiker, his guitar case still clutched in one rigid hand. Frank slowed the Hummer to a crawl as they observed the scene. The man was long since dead — whole sections of his legs already gnawed, one of his arms missing. The dogs were just cleaning up the scraps.

  “Those dogs don’t look infected,” Dejah said.

  “Probably not, but they still need to eat.” Frank resumed speed, swerving to miss the grisly congregation.

  They drove on for an interminable period of time. It was slow going, stretching into hours. Dejah felt as if her internal clock was slowed by the lurking sense of hopelessness that still tried to overtake her. Time crawled and tortured her with potential horrors. To make things worse, moonlight cast long shadows over the terrain before them, and the awful realization that they’d spent a whole night just getting from Duncanville through Lancaster weighted her heart. A drive that wouldn’t have taken any more than 20 minutes on a good day … now it had taken them all fucking night.

  This stretch of Interstate 20 was a mess, but nowhere near the congested impasse that Arlington had been. The road was navigable, especially with the Hummer, and that was blessing enough to tide her over. Still, there were a lot of the infected out among the wreckage. Presumably, they were busy cleaning the scraps among the gathered shadows of night.

  Occasionally a hoard of wandering Sickies would snap their heads in the direction of the moving Hummer, cognizant enough to realize that someone alive and uninfected must be driving the vehicle. A few of the Sickies would begin to trail after them, but were usually distracted by some other noise, meandering off other directions. One persistent zombie jogged along behind them at a pretty good clip. Obviously, this one had been an athlete before the infection hit. He ran with a determined pace, eyes fixated on the bumper of the Hummer, running until a big gray cat rummaging through wreckage caught his attention. The man stopped, turned to the cat, snatched it from the bench and bit into it like a pita sandwich. The cat screeched and shrieked, thrashing, making every attempt to escape the clutches of the zombie, but the fiend held fast. Two good bites and the furry pet went limp in the hands of the infected jogger. They drove onward, glancing back as the man buried his face in the shaggy blood-dripping feline.

  Dejah shivered. They were everywhere. She looked back toward Shaun. He was curled into a ball, a beach towel pulled over him, snoring softly. She returned her gaze to the road, which seemed a little less clogged with abandoned vehicles now. “Looks like the cars are thinning out.”

  “Yeah, hoping our luck holds out. Maybe they’re all at church.” He chuckled.

  Dejah frowned. “Church is probably over by now.”

  “Yep. You’re right. It’s a few minutes after midnight.”

  “It seems like it’s been a million years.” Dejah watched through the tinted window as buildings and empty sidewalks flashed beside them.

  “Funny how time moves when you don’t have the daily grind to remind you of schedules and routines.”

  “Or you’re separated from the ones you love.”

  Frank gave an ambiguous grunt. “You miss your husband?”

  “I miss my baby girl. I’m crazy with worry, Frank. It’s driving me nuts not knowing what’s going on with her. Only thing keeping me together is heading that direction. Getting a little closer.”

  “What about Thomas?” Frank asked. “That his name?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know about Thomas.” Dejah wasn’t lying. She didn’t know how she felt about Thomas. She wasn’t angry anymore. Too much had happened to put all that in perspective. All she cared about now was getting to Greenville and finding her child. Everything, everyone else was secondary.

  “Having problems?”

  “In our marriage?”

  “Well, I don’t mean to pry, but … well, hell, yeah I do. Figure it doesn’t matter much if I use my manners anymore. Not that I was ever good with them to begin with.”

  Dejah regarded his profile silhouetted against the driver side window. His eyes squinted into the night, deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and in the furrow of his brow making him almost handsome. She imagined him as a younger man and wondered how much his wife had loved him, and what their relationship was like to have lasted so long.

  “We’ve had our problems for a long time,” she said. “Part of it is me, I guess; part of it is him. I admit I could try to change, but he won’t tell me what it is that’s eating at him, and refuses to admit that he needs to change at all. It’s all me in his eyes. I tried for a while. I r
eally did. But you can only go on so long banging your head against a wall that doesn’t budge. I guess I came to the point where I realized nothing was going to change. And our problems, I just chose to ignore them. I guess I figured if I could ignore them long enough, they’d stop being factors working against me. Like I could drain them of their power. Then maybe they’d go away.”

  Frank laughed. “It never goes away, honey.”

  “Found that out the hard way. I guess I knew in my heart that nothing would change, but I stayed to maintain the status quo. I fooled myself into believing we were still a family that way, but really we were roommates passing in the hall.” Street lamps scanned the interior of the cab, beamed across her hands in her lap. “It really just goes cold that way. I swear I don’t have any feelings for him besides a dull kind of loathing. Like I can’t even bring myself to expend the energy to be angry anymore. Then there’s Selah. It’s not just about me and Thomas. I have to think about her. How everything will affect her.” Dejah leaned her head against the seat, shoulder slumping with exhaustion.

  “If you get a divorce, you mean?”

  “That and she has a … some special talents,” she said, thinking back to when Selah’s touch seemed to heal Reverend Forbes.

  Frank nodded in the dark.

  “Thomas and I never saw eye-to-eye on most things. It started out as small interests; things I liked irritated him, things he wanted to do sounded dull to me. That led into how the money was spent. In the beginning we had a good marriage. A good relationship. We’d started out as such good friends, I wanted to believe we could be one of those old couples together for half a century. That could finish each other’s sentences. That knew what the other was thinking before they thought it.”

  “That didn’t happen, eh?”

  Dejah shook her head. “No. Never. I kept thinking we just needed more time. But, we were never on the same page. We grew apart. It’s like, after all these years, I don’t know him anymore. And he doesn’t know me. And he never bothers to try. Like he doesn’t even have any interest. I swear he doesn’t even like me. I know that sounds so … I don’t know, immature, but … it went farther than that. He liked to see me hurt inside. He seemed to derive joy from leaving me alone when I yearned to have him home. That I yearned to hear a kind word from him, so all he gave me were clipped sentences and mild insults.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  Dejah sighed. “I know. More so for Selah than for us.”

  “He’s a good father?” Frank asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Dotes on Selah. He’s a good dad and a good son. He just sucks at being a husband.”

  “What are you going to do now? I mean, if you find him, after all this is over. Assuming of course, it’s ever over.”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t think about that right now.” Dejah brushed the hair from her face, poking stray strands back into the long ponytail behind her head. “I don’t know if I love him or not. I think that I don’t, but then, occasionally it seems to come back, but I don’t know if that’s just false hope or….”

  “If you have to think about it — if you have to ask yourself the question — then you don’t love him. Love don’t work like that. When you love someone, really love someone — you’d claw your way through Hell and back to get to that person. There’s no thinking involved in it.”

  “You’re probably right,” Dejah said.

  “No probably about it, girl,” Frank stated. “Look how old I am. I’m old as sedimentary rock.”

  Dejah laughed.

  “I’ve learned a few things. The most important thing is love. Having it, giving it. Life’s too short to hope for something better. Life’s too short to try to make something what it ain’t. Find your soul mate. Find the man that makes you claw your way through Hell to get to him. Just like you’re doing for your daughter,” Frank said. “Because, when you love someone, you don’t have to think about it and wonder if it’s true.”

  “Did you and Nanette have that?”

  “I loved her so much I was willing to shoot her if she came back a Sickie.”

  Dejah felt a pang of hurt for him.

  “To be truthful,” he said. “I can’t imagine living without her. I don’t even know where to start. I think that’s why I wanted to stay holed up back there in the Bocadomart.” Frank turned the Hummer sharply, veering from the road onto a shoulder to get around a wrecked Corvette and a Volkswagen Bug.

  They’d left Lancaster behind now. Hills thick with forest pressed in on both sides of the highway as it began to veer north, toward Mesquite. Dejah’s heart sped up anxiously, knowing they were closer.

  “You really think you would have stayed there had me and Shaun not come along?” Dejah asked, holding onto the armrest on the door as they bumped over a motorcycle on its side in their lane.

  “I really think I would have eaten a bullet sooner or later had you and Shaun not come along.”

  Dejah stared at Frank, illuminated by the soft white glow of the dashboard, her eyes growing a little wider. “It’s a good thing we came along then.”

  Frank jerked the Hummer to the left again, missing a pile of corpses. “Is it?”

  Before Dejah could answer, they came to a pile-up with cars stacked bumper to bumper. It was obvious cars had tried to squeeze past others, and only ended up getting wedged tighter against those attempting the same feat. There was no way around the pile-up.

  “Can we turn around?” she asked.

  Frank turned his head, shifting in the seat, and put the Hummer in reverse. The car moved backward slightly, and then Frank shook his head, changing his mind. He shifted back into Drive.

  “What are you doing?” Dejah asked.

  “I think we can just go over the tops of that Miata and that other little piece of foreign shit over there—” he pointed to a slick black convertible that looked like an oversized Barbie car.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should turn around and look for an exit or something.”

  “Naw, we can make it.” Frank slammed the truck into reverse again, speeding backward, then threw the gearshift into Drive once more, and raced toward the Miata, intending to ramp up and over the two diminutive vehicles. Dejah gripped the passenger’s roof handle. The bumper of the Hummer hit the top of the Miata, emitting a metallic crunch. The vehicle shuddered and wobbled.

  “Hold on!” Frank said, voice loud over the impact.

  The Hummer lurched forward, throwing Shaun against the back of Dejah’s seat, waking him from his slumber. “What’s happening?” His fingers clenched the leather seat. His head smacked the side of the cab. He groaned and his eyes rolled.

  “Shaun!” Dejah tried to grab onto Shaun’s bobbing head, but her seatbelt held her to her seat. Blood oozed over Shaun’s face, streaming from a cut at his temple.

  The Hummer shot into the air at an awkward angle, wheels spinning, motor revving.

  “Frank!” Dejah screamed, as the Hummer plunged sideways, rolled over a Jeep, and careened directly into the back of an eighteen-wheeler.

  CHAPTER 19

  A government trailer served as the main clinic in the new quarantine camp near the shoreline of Lake Tawakoni. Dr. Josh Gutierrez leaned against the rail of rickety stairs leading to its front door and gazed across the lake. The reflection of the moon was a mirage-like shimmer on the surface of the waves. The night wind was crisp.

  He lit a cigarette and deeply inhaled, letting the head rush come over him. Dr. Robbins would have his ass if he knew he was smoking in the camp, but Dr. Robbins wasn’t here. He was safe and warm back in his hospital lab working on an antidote for Toxin RE68. Gutierrez was the unfortunate sucker who got “promoted” to head the quarantine camp out here near H-Systems.

  Colonel Weir had trucked in Army surplus tents and a few FEMA type trailers for use as hospital wards and clinics out here on some rambling forested cattle farm owned by one of the hospital board members. The tents were already packed with patients. Ambulance workers were brin
ging in a handful of infected people as Gutierrez smoked his frowned-upon cigarette. It was a bad habit, he’d give Robbins that, but he’d been smoking since he was an undergrad and it was hard to quit. It was especially hard to quit now.

  Not that there was ever a good time to quit smoking.

  His phone rang. Gutierrez fumbled in his pockets for a moment, then palmed it to his ear. “Gutierrez.”

  “Josh, glad I caught you.” It was Robbins.

  “Did Weir manage to get any additional shipments of sedatives sent?”

  “That’s why I’m calling—” His tone didn’t sound promising.

  “Dr. Robbins, our supply is extremely low. Too low to give the entire camp their next dosage.”

  “I’m aware of —”

  “No.” Gutierrez cut him off. “I don’t think you are. I’ve got a couple hundred people — more now, the nurses can’t keep up with the influx of new infected patients arriving daily – who, unless they get another round of benzodiazepines soon, they’re going to come out of the stupors we’ve kept them in. Now, you might not be too concerned about this little catastrophe in the making, but I sure the hell am. There are thirty nurses, doctors, technicians and volunteers here — all of which will end up dinner entrees unless you or someone manages to get some shipments out here.”

  “Josh, calm down for a moment and listen to me,” Robbins began.

  “Calm down?” Gutierrez heard his own voice raise a couple octaves. “Have you really thought about what’s going to happen out here when the sedation wears off of all of these infected people?”

  “I’m not going to bullshit you, Josh. I’m not getting any help from the government. Colonel Weir has done everything he can, but basically, we’re all being hung out to dry. This infection is bigger than Texas, but to hear him tell it, Weir’s superiors are cutting him off from information as well. It’s like the goddamn government is trying to contain the spread of Toxin RE68 by quarantining infected states and leaving them to their own ends.”