Eaters: Resurrection

by Michelle DePaepe

  Jordan returned with cups of water. After Vinnie and Erik downed them, Aidan narrowed his eye and focused it on Vinnie. “Can we have a word with you…in private?”

  “Sure. Okay. No problem.” He looked over to Erik. “You don’t mind, do you buddy? I’ll just talk to them for a minute and then we’ll all be peachy.”

  Erik grunted in reply, kicked back, and closed his eyes.

  Aidan glanced at Zach and Diego, giving them a silent order to keep an eye on their guest.

  Cheryl knew the we included her, so after Aidan and Vinnie got up and walked towards the hallway, she rose and went with them. They went to the storage room, and when the three of them were inside, Aidan shut the door behind them.

  Before Aidan could say anything, Cheryl let loose. “You brought a O.N.E. soldier here? Are you out of your mind?”

  Vinnie seemed surprised by the accusation. “I really think he’s cool. I spent a couple of days with him. He was really irate about how he’d been treated when he was on the O.N.E. force.” He laughed. “Hah! He called them the One New Earwigs. Said they were always trying to implant thoughts in his head through their mind control signals in the barracks. He said he’d had enough of it and would join any group that had food, water, and a plan to resist them.”

  “An RT sympathizer? You really believe that?” Aidan asked.

  Vinnie shrugged. “I have no reason not to. He seems sincere.”

  Cheryl wasn’t convinced. “Why would he have just turned you in back in Sedona when he could come here and pick up the two of us for an extra reward?”

  “He doesn’t know we were in the Resistance. I never told him.”

  “You really didn’t tell him?” she asked.

  “Nooo…come on…I’m not that stupid.”

  “So, what if he finds out while he’s here?” Aidan asked. “You’d still trust him then?”

  Vinnie paused for a moment, running a hand over his beard. “Yeah. I think I would. My impression is that he’s a good guy on the inside. He didn’t want that O.N.E. gig. He was sucked into it. I’m a good judge of character. I was a good judge of you two, wasn’t I? I risked my life and the whole RT operation by taking a chance on you. Didn’t I?”

  Cheryl had to give him that. He’d taken Aidan and her in with little more than his gut feeling. The guy had to have some sort of intuition. Still…there was a nagging feeling that he’d fallen in with Erik simply out of necessity during a crisis, not because he had any legitimate reason to trust the guy.

  After they talked for a few more minutes, Aidan asked Vinnie to step out. He left and Aidan asked her, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know if I trust Erik,” she said. “But, he already knows where we are, so he might as well stay for the day. Maybe he can prove himself by helping to get rid of some of those corpses outside. Then, once we figure out where we’re going next, we can decide if he goes with us.”

  “It’s two more mouths to feed.”

  “It’s two more men to fight during an attack, two more men to hunt, and if we’re not staying here anyway…”

  “I’m not totally comfortable with the idea, but I don’t know what else to do. I’m not keen on just tossing him out then not knowing where he is or what he’s doing. It might be better to keep him here where we can keep an eye on him and make him an ally rather than risk him running back to Sedona and bringing a whole fleet of soldiers back with him.”

  So, it was decided that…for now…Erik could stay. They had made the decision without consulting the other men, so after they returned to the sanctuary, Cheryl called Zach, Diego, Kai, and Jordan back to the storage room to make sure they were in agreement before breaking the news to Vinnie and Erik. There was some dissent from Zach and Diego, but they finally conceded that now that Erik knew where they were, it was better to keep him around where he could be monitored. They also decided that all of the guns needed to be hidden and the van needed to be moved to a spot where it couldn’t be seen from the road.

  When the news was broken to Vinnie and Erik, Vinnie seemed happy, but Erik didn’t seem to take the news with much elation. He simply said, “Where else am I going to go? I’d be Beast meat if I had to go it alone for long.”

  “A simple thank you would be nice,” Cheryl told him.

  “Thank you,” he said, bringing his hands together and bowing his head. “I’m sorry for not seeming more grateful. I’m just tired. And hungry.”

  They shared the rations of their remaining sunflower seeds with him and Vinnie. After making sure the door to Jeremiah’s lab was firmly shut and invisible, they let him go to the bedroom and lie down for a little while they talked.

  A short while later it was time to get busy with the remaining corpse removal. Zach told them that he expected Erik would find some excuse not to help, but after they woke him, he seemed to have had new spark plugs inserted into him. He took off his black shirt, revealing a white sleeveless undershirt underneath and seemed eager to help with the task. They all wore bandanas or rags tied over their noses doused with some peppermint oil from Hannah’s stash of essential oils to add a layer of scent between them and the corpses that had been rotting in the sun.

  Kai, Cheryl, and Jordan stayed inside Divine Sundaes to work on more mundane tasks like moving a couple of the pews to the storage room to increase their communal space and scrounging around in the cellar to try to figure out what they could all have for a meal later that evening.

  It took most of the rest of the day to do all the work; it was nearly dark before the men finished the body removal and returned, sweaty, dirty, and hungry. As they poured into the building, joking and back-slapping, Cheryl marveled at how Vinnie and Erik seemed to have fit right in with the rest of them as if they’d been a part of the group for weeks instead of hours.

  Everyone headed towards the bathroom down the hallway to wash up with the water saved in the tub, but Erik came into the kitchen, stood beside her and looked into the pot as she stirred a soup made from dried potato peels, onions, and wild lamb’s quarters over a portable stove that was hooked up to a generator.

  “Mmmm…it smells good,” Erik said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve walked into a kitchen to find someone cooking me a meal.”

  She gave him a polite smile, and decided not to ask if the last person to have cooked him a meal had been his mother or his wife before the infection began.

  “Where can I wash up?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard the others say they were going to clean up in the bathroom.

  “You can use that tub there, next to the table.” She pointed to a metal basin filled with dingy water and the heap of rags next to it.

  He took off his sweaty shirt and began to sponge the grime from his arms and chest. “I have to say…that was dirty work, but I’d rather move dead bodies than create them.”

  She found herself sneaking a peak at his bare back and muscular arms as he bathed, thinking that at the moment he seemed like a fairly regular guy, maybe even a fairly handsome one. What a shame he’d fallen in with the O.N.E. soldier. She wondered if his last statement was an admission that he’d killed people as a O.N.E. guard. She guessed she’d be surprised if he hadn’t. Crowd control and a willingness to inflict death upon usurpers would be part of the job description. Did having a sense of humor about what he used to do earn him points? Her jury was still out.

  Aidan appeared in the kitchen doorway, and caught her staring at Erik. He glared at her. She went back to stirring the soup, not knowing if his death stare was an accusation for fraternizing with their unproven guest…or if it was because he thought she had been flirting with him.

  “It’s almost ready,” she called out to the group in the sanctuary a few minutes later.

  “Weed soup again?” Zach asked with a chuckle that only sounded half in jest.

  “It was either that or rock soup seasoned with a little rat meat.”

  “I’ll take the weeds,” Erik said with a grin.

  When the bowls of
soup were passed around, no one wondered aloud if the ingredients were safe to eat or complained that there was a bit of grit in the liquid, because the water she had used had come from the bottom of a rain barrel with a broken lid that had allowed a layer of sand and dust to accumulate inside.

  In between bites, Aidan said, “With those bodies gone, maybe we have a few more days to hang around and figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  Cheryl bristled at the idea of resting and kicking back. “I don’t ever assume we can sit on our laurels—”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m just saying we can take a little time to get a plan together; we don’t have to pack our bags and bail out of here yet.”

  She knew that’s what he meant. Why was she being snippy with him? Instead of apologizing she ate the rest of her soup. After she finished, she got up and helped Kai and Jordan gather the dishes, deciding to help them wash even though it wasn’t her turn that night.

  Aidan cornered her later in the back bedroom, blocking her exit. “What’s with you and Erik?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve seen how he looks at you. And you two seemed awfully chatty in the kitchen.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like you, I just met the guy today; I haven’t seen him looking at me, and I was just being polite earlier when we were talking.”

  He held his stance in the doorway, staring down at her like he was either waiting for some other line of interrogation to come to him or for her to backtrack and admit that she had some kind of a thing going on with Erik. “I still don’t trust him,” he said after the awkward pause.

  “I’m warming up to him a little bit,” she said. “But not in the way you’re worried about. I think we’d be wise to get to know him a little better before we make him a permanent part of our group. You agree with that, right? We can’t get to know him if we don’t talk to him.”

  Aidan grimaced. “I guess you’re right. It’s better to find out what we can about him before we pass final judgement.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’m glad we agree. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m tired, and I’d like to get this bedding distributed.”

  He moved to let her pass. Instead of following her back to the sanctuary, he remained standing in the hallway like he had more to mull over before he could rejoin the group.

  When she returned to the sanctuary, she ended up putting the stack of blankets and pillows on the end of one of the pews to save for later, because everyone was gathered around Erik. He had his black shirt on again, casually un-tucked and open in the front, and his body was askew across the pew as he talked to the group around him. She was curious about what he was telling them and decided to sit some distance away, but where she could still hear. When it became apparent that he was regaling them with stories from his time in Sedona, it peaked her interest even more, so she inched closer on the pew behind him, and figured that Aidan could just get over his insecurity if she saw her again within a couple feet of this tall, enigmatic stranger.

  “Then there was that damn voice in my head from Cyclops or whatever the fuck it was. “Kill them. Kill them…” We trained with it, you know. Before that godforsaken machine went live, they drilled us with audio recordings, night and day. You couldn’t have a thought of your own. If there had been any chance of quitting the force, I’d have done it long ago. But, once you’re in…you’re in. There’s no going back. A buddy of mine took off a few weeks ago, and they caught him. No trial, no jail time. They just stripped off his uniform and fed him to the Beasts like a piece of meat. After that, my unit all behaved like good little soldiers, doing whatever they told us to do. We might as well have been turned into one of their nasty, puppet-like Beasts they programmed with the EM boxes.”

  “I don’t know how you could stand it,” Zach said. I was never in the city, but I’ve heard plenty about what went down there from Cheryl and Aidan. I think if it had been me, I would have had a hard time behaving myself, even if obeying was a life or death matter.”

  “It was harder for me than some of the men in my unit,” Erik said. “After hearing enough talk about the paradise that One New Earth was trying to create, they started to believe some of that crap, you know? They actually believed the Beasts would do all the dirty jobs; society would be better under O.N.E.’s absolute control, and we’d all eventually get to this utopia if we could just get all of the surviving civilians on board with the program.”

  “Ahhh…I never bought any of that bologna when I was there,” Vinnie said.

  Cheryl shot him a hard glance. Shut up, Vinnie. She still feared he was going to let Erik on to the fact that they’d been in the resistance movement. That was all in the past, and there was no need to bring it up.

  Erik didn’t seem to be interested in Vinnie’s statement. His pale blue eyes were far off like he was still back in some memory. “I met the big guy once.”

  “God?” Diego asked with a guffaw.

  “No. Luke Marshall.”

  “Oh yeah…the head honcho in Sedona.” Kai affirmed, having heard about him from Cheryl and Aidan.

  “Not just Sedona,” Erik said. “He’s the man. The one over it all.”

  Cheryl perked up at this news. In Sedona, she had always thought he was just the local tyrant. Now, knowing that he was the apex of One New Earth, she really hoped Luke Marshall had been killed in the explosion at the pyramid. The idea that she and Aidan could have been instrumental in taking out the evil bastard that had orchestrated the apocalypse warmed her heart like nothing had in much of the last year. The thought cause her mind to wander: Without Marshall’s leadership in the O.N.E. organization, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe Jeremiah, Hannah, and Cassie would still be alive. Maybe her father…

  Her hands clenched into fists as Erik continued to talk about Luke Marshall and One New Earth’s plan to create a more enlightened civilization now that they’d drastically reduced the population. His tone was one of disbelief, more than disdain, but she was reacting with increased agitation as he went on.

  “They have kinks in their programming. Not all the Beasts are controllable one hundred percent of the time. I don’t know how they really believed it would be possible to rewire all the neurons in dead brain tissue. A fantastic concept but—”

  “If Jeremiah was here, he might be able to explain it to us.” Cheryl said,

  “Jeremiah?” Erik asked. “Who’s he? What did he know?”

  “He used to work for XCGen.” Was she saying too much? No…Jeremiah never had anything to do with the RT.

  “Oh…yeah yeah. The lab. We heard about that in training. They created the virus and the vaccine. Any of you vaccinated?”

  “I was,” Cheryl said.

  “You worked for O.N.E. in Sedona then?”

  Aidan gave her a be careful look. “No. Fort San Manuel. They had rations of vaccine that they doled out to some of the staff.”

  “What did you do there?”

  “Patrol duty. On the outside of the building and the perimeter of the fort.”

  “A lady who knows how to use a gun then. Good…very good.”

  He asked more questions about her training in firearms and combatives, and about her experiences with O.N.E. in Sedona. She almost began to wonder if he was trying to recruit her for a job with the dark side. When she made a jest about it, he said, “No offense, ma’am. It’s just that since the epidemic started, I haven’t met many women with the kind of training you have. There were no women on the O.N.E. security force. So, I really mean it as a compliment.”

  She gave him a half-hearted thank you for his praise, and unfortunately, he took that as a queue to ask her more questions about her background—where she grew up, how she’d come to Arizona. She quickly grew weary. “I think it’s my turn,” she said. “I’ve got a few questions for you.”

  Erik stretched his arms out wide and yawned. Okay. That’s fair. But, I’m gett
ing tired. I’ll tell you anything you want tomorrow.” Following the lead of the others who were starting to divvy up the blankets and pillows, he got up, grabbed some bedding for himself, and began setting up a spot to sleep next to the pulpit.

  Cheryl stood there for a moment, not sure where she wanted to go. Aidan, still seated on a pew, sat there watching her with that same look he’d had in the kitchen. His attitude annoyed her. She and Erik had just been having a friendly conversation right in front of him and the others. There was nothing flirtatious about it, nothing underhanded. Besides…did he think that he owned her? Sure, they were sort of a pair. They’d come through months of life and death situations together, saving each other’s lives multiple times. And yes…they’d slept together. A few times. But, that was all. They weren’t married. She was no more married to Aidan than she had ever been to Mark who had once given her a ring.

  After staring back at him and thinking all that, she didn’t reach for a pillow and a blanket. Instead, she decided to go to the back bedroom. It would be awkward to sleep in there, knowing it was Jeremiah and Hannah’s bed…and that Clarissa had spent her last living moments there, but she felt like she needed a little space. Space from Aidan? Perhaps space from everyone…and everything. Just for a night.

  Diego had the night watch. He had a gun; Zach had one in the sanctuary, and she had retrieved one for herself when she’d gotten the bedding. She was confident that Diego would keep them all safe for the night by watching through the windows and taking an occasional peek from the roof to make sure they weren’t surprised by a horde of Eaters. Knowing that he was at the helm of the ship, she figured she could sleep peacefully in a bed down the hall instead of on the hard floor with the others. Although, she didn’t want to think about it, there was another reason for isolating herself—any one of the group could turn during the night and attack the others. Don’t think about it, or you won’t sleep at all.

  Back in the bedroom, she set her candle and her gun down on the nightstand. Then, she yanked the sheets and blankets from the bed and put fresh ones on that she found in the cedar chest. The sheets had lace trim and were embroidered with a ribbon design. They were so crisp they felt like they’d never been used. She told herself to enjoy that fact instead of feeling guilty about the fact that they were Hannah’s treasures. Then, unavoidable guilt slammed her in the face when she stepped on one of Cassie’s cloth dolls near the foot of the bed. Instead of kicking it underneath so she wouldn’t have to see it, she picked it up and set it on the pillow next to hers. Remembering how strong a faith Jeremiah and Hannah had, she hoped that there was a heaven. And if there was, she hoped it was a place that accepted little girls even little girls who were infected with a disease that caused them to hunger for human flesh.