Eaters (Book 2): The Resistance (2 page)

She stopped in the hall in front of the silent, black screen mounted to the wall. Until recently, televisions throughout the complex had blared jaw-dropping scenes of heroic military rescues and news from shelters scattered around the country, but most of the screens were dark now, supposedly because they had been unplugged to conserve electricity. There were a few still running, but someone in the hierarchy had decided that no news was better than broadcasting more of the chaos and bleakness around the world, so they simply showed nature films—twittering birds, rabbits hopping through the brush, a lizard sunning itself on a rock.

Where to go now?
She had another patrol shift starting at ten p.m.—quite a few hours away.  She could go to the cafeteria and try to eat some lunch while there was food left. Or…she could visit her dad in the ICU. She decided on the latter, because after such an adrenaline-pumping attack and seeing the various states of all of those bodies, she really wasn't hungry.

"S'up, Cheryl?" the guard asked at the door.

"Just visiting my dad."

"He any better?"

"The same."

"Chin up, kid."

"You say that every day, Frank."

He shrugged. "Just doing my job as the happy greeter. You know like the old dudes who used to work at Walmart."

"Those old dudes didn't pack a loaded AR-15."

"Point taken," he said with a grin. Then, he tipped his cap to her and opened the door.

She made her way to her father's bed towards the back of the room. When she got to the curtain partition, she paused, looking in on the sleeping form with tubes coming out of his wrist and nose.  He looked like a wax dummy, some shrunken image of the boisterous man she used to know—the one that she'd traveled hundreds of miles from Colorado to find and save.

"Creepy."

A young nurse appeared from the other side of the curtain. "What?"

"I meant…
crepey
," Cheryl whispered to her.  "His skin is so thin and papery, like a mummy. I just don't get it. Why can't he gain any weight?"

After checking her father's pulse, the dark-haired girl with a pony tail and purple half-moons underneath her eyes pulled her aside.

"With some of them, it's nothing medical. It's more like PTSD. They just can't snap back after going through what they did."

"But, the IV…it should be helping his body with water and nutrients, right?"

"Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be helping much. He's so severely dehydrated; it's like he just can't absorb anything." Not having anything more encouraging to say, the nurse gave her a sympathetic smile and a quick squeeze on her shoulder then went to check on a patient in the next bed.

Oh, Daddy. Please get better.
He'd been in the ICU now for months and was still so frail, just leather and bones. She'd started sneaking some of her rations in for him, worried that he wasn’t getting a fair share, but even though there were some days when he was sitting upright and able to eat, it didn't seem to help. On one of those rare occasions that he was awake when she visited, his eyes stared at her, unblinking—a testament to the horrors he'd witnessed. He'd only spoken raspy fragments about how he'd survived hidden in his Tucson home, living on nothing but beetles and dust after seeing his neighbors torn to pieces and devoured by Eaters.

Cheryl jumped as her father gripped her hand with fingers that felt like crab claws.
He's still listening. Still here in some way.

She stayed, holding his hand for almost half an hour, talking to him and trying to say any positive thing she could think of without any mention of the attack that the fort had just undergone. Then, feeling pain in her back from hunching over, she said, "I've got to go, Dad. I've got duty." She squeezed his hand and pulled away, feeling the inevitable pang of guilt, the payment for her lie. His rapidly shifting eyeballs under his closed lids seemed to be dreaming of the unspeakable things had brought him to this state
. I know, Dad. Really. I know…

She almost wished that her father had succumbed to the disease and had been put down quickly. Wouldn't that have been preferable to such prolonged suffering?

After pausing at the foot of his bed, she said, "I'll be back soon."

She walked out of the ICU and stood for a moment in the hallway, wondering where Frank had gone. She took in a deep breath of air, then immediately regretted it because of the foulness in the air that had followed her out.

She jumped when a gunshot rang out behind her.

Another one had turned.

Her steps quickened as she hurried away.

Chapter 2

Cheryl detoured through the market hall, because a little shopping always took her mind off of more serious things.  With any luck, she hoped to find something suitable for a birthday gift for Mark, her fiancé. Though, she didn't have her hopes up. Some days there were big hauls of loot from Tucson, and occasionally Phoenix, but most of the time, it was random sundries and mundane paraphernalia like clothing, linens, toiletries, books, and toys. She'd given up on finding a new pair of combat boots in Mark's size or a hunting knife like the one he brought back from Afghanistan and used to take camping. There were just two days left before his birthday, so she was running out of time to be picky. A few weeks ago, he'd have been thrilled to receive something as simple as a carton of cigarettes, but he'd quit after an Eater nearly caught him during a perimeter patrol. He said that if he couldn't outrun a dead piece of meat, it was time to give up the cancer sticks.
So,
m
aybe a Grisham novel or a couple bottles of Corona would have to do.

She passed by a new shop that sold baby clothes and formula, and another with kitschy décor to make rooms look less dormitory-like: paintings, faux window scenes, battery-operated candles, and all sorts of knick-knacks.  Then, she slowed at a sight of another new store that sold towels, blankets, and comforters. She and Mark were still using the gray flannel bed spread that had been in his room when she'd moved in—it was itchy and still had burn holes from previous smoking accidents. This place was worth a look because she knew there were nicer quilts to be had for a gift to herself if not to Mark who could probably care less about sprucing up their living quarters.

"Hi there."

Cheryl nodded
hello
to the clerk who had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, wispy bangs covering one eye, and a narrow head that looked like it had been squeezed between two metal plates.

"Looking for something?" he said, glancing at her with slanted eyes like a wolf ogling prey.

"New comforter."

"Twin?"

"Full," she said, knowing that saying you slept in a full-sized bed meant that you were either high-ranking enough to deserve one or had a significant other that you bunked with. It was as good as flashing a not-good-enough-for-you sign or her engagement ring.

His gaze tore away from her and went straight to a stack of bedding on a folding table. "What about this?" he asked, holding up a peach blanket with a floral print.

She shook her head.
Too girly.

"This?"

She nixed that one too. It was masculine enough, but with its blue camouflage print, it looked like something for an eight year old's room.

"No thanks," she said, starting to walk away.

"Wait! I got more in this morning. Haven't unpacked yet."

She stopped, though she figured she was wasting her time.

The man stooped below the makeshift counter made out of particle board and cinder blocks and pulled out a black plastic trash bag. She shook her head as he showed her two more comforters then stepped back into the crowded hallway.

"There's one more," he called after her. "What about this?"

A glance back made her pause. The quilt was a patchwork of bright-colored fabrics and cream-colored burlap sacks that said,
Costa Rica Coffee Haus.
It was gaudy as hell, but it looked familiar. She'd seen it before in her Aunt Donna's house in Tucson. Her aunt had gone to Costa Rica on her honeymoon in 1999 and come back with hundreds of photos of palm trees, parrots, giant spiders, monkeys, and a fifty pound sack of java beans. That sack had become part of the memory quilt she'd made to commemorate the trip.  Cheryl saw her name on the deceased list shortly after arriving at the fort. She never found out exactly how she'd died.

"Where did you get that?" she asked, walking back into the shop.

He shrugged. "Where we get most of them.  Probably some abandoned old lady's house. The broad who quilted it must've bit it just like the rest of them losers who didn't bail out of town when the shit hit the fan."

It took major restraint for Cheryl to keep from punching him in the jaw and refrain from saying, "
That old lady was my aunt, you bastard
." Getting sent to the pokey and losing work credits just wasn't worth it.

"How much?"

"Eighty credits."

"Will you take sixty-five?"

"Seventy."

"Fine," she said, handing him her ration card and at least feeling better that she hadn't paid him full price for something that was worth less to anyone else but priceless to her.

After he completed the transaction and rolled up the quilt, she cradled it under arm and left without bothering to thank him. Clutching what felt like a piece of her aunt, Cheryl put mental blinders on through the rest of the market area and made a beeline for her quarters. She couldn't wait to tell Mark about her find.

When she opened the door to their shared room, she found it empty.

"Uggh…Mark…" she said out loud. "You're supposed to be here."

She laid the quilt down on the bed and looked around the room, hoping that he'd somehow shrunk his six-foot frame and was hiding somewhere, waiting to jump out and surprise her. It was truly a fantasy, given the dimensions of this
jail cell
mostly filled by the bed. The place was nothing like her old apartment in Golden, Colorado where she'd had a fireplace, a queen-sized bed, and a balcony with spectacular view of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. She'd done her best to make this place seem like some sort of home, though.  She'd put curtains on the brick wall to mimic the concept of having a window, hung up a drawing  of purple and yellow flowers that she'd purchased from a child in the fort, and even decorated for Christmas a few months ago by decorating a small cactus with red buttons and strands of silver tinsel.

It was a simple room, but it was functional. In addition to the bed, there was a laptop computer and other basic necessities. A wood dowel hanging from two large hooks held their clothes which consisted of little more than their work uniforms, a couple of t-shirts and jeans, and one dressier outfit for each of them. They did laundry infrequently, waiting for a turn at the sink in the communal bathroom then letting them drip dry.

She rubbed her eyes, looking at her reflection in the cracked hand mirror hanging on the wall. Then, she ran her fingers through her shoulder-length ash-blonde hair, wondering if her comb had really been stolen a couple of days ago or if she'd just misplaced it. Staring at her mussed-up hair, she considered if she should chop it all off again like she'd done before arriving here, because she'd found out the hard way that long hair was a hazard around the grubby fingers of hungry Eaters.

"Don't cut it again."

She whipped around and saw Mark just as he slipped his arms around her.

"How did you—" Of course he knew what she was thinking. He'd had some sort of strange sporadic mind meld with her ever since he'd been infected with the virus and had miraculously recovered. It was weird and downright uncomfortable sometimes to have his voice talking inside her head, but if it wasn't for his encouraging words in her ears all along her perilous route down here, she didn't know if she'd have had the strength to keep going.

He leaned his head on her shoulder. "Are you okay? That attack this morning—"

"You were working during the attack?" she asked, wondering why he had on his tan ACU. It was rare to see him in anything else but his tan army combat uniform, but today was supposed to be his day off from duty. "I figured you were here, sleeping through the whole thing."

"I was called up to help defend the south station shortly after you left."

Her voice squeaked up an octave. "You were at a baiting station?" Cheryl closed her eyes for a second, remembering her first mandatory visit to one after her stint in quarantine was up. Knowing that the scent of human flesh would lure the infected towards the fort, the builders had established baiting stations at every cardinal point. Loud rock music blared from speakers on the top corners of the building and corpses dangled from tall wooden crosses in the open center of the building. From a distance, the place looked like some grotesque Golgotha, buzzing with vultures and flies.

Lately, a lot of the Eaters had been bypassing the stations and heading straight for the fort instead. So, two weeks ago, those in charge tried substituting live goats and cows, hoping that live bait would be a more enticing lure. It helped for a few days, but word got out at the fort that the animals were suspended in cages in the hot sun, bleating and moaning in agony.  Protests were staged in the cafeteria, so the practice of using live bait was abandoned.

There was only one entry point to each station, and once inside, the Eaters were herded like cattle into narrow passageways where steel bolts shot out of the walls, puncturing their skulls. 'Stickers' were ready to dispatch any Eaters that managed to wander through with their diseased brains still intact. Thankfully, Mark had never worked as a Sticker, but guarding a baiting station was dangerous too. The stations were on the outskirts of the compound and not as well fortified as the fort. From rooftop positions, sharpshooters worked as guards, ready to thin the numbers if they entered the station in herds too thick to dispatch in an orderly fashion inside. There was always a chance that a baiting station could be overwhelmed and guards on top could be trapped with no way to get down and escape.

"The load was thick. They needed the help."

Cheryl un-wrapped his scarred hands from her waist and turned around to face him looking past the craggy scars on his face and up into his blue eyes. "Every time you do a shift at a station, I never know if you're coming back."

"I could say the same for you, at least today. I heard it got pretty hairy in the moat."

She flashed back to her last minutes of the battle. Bodies piled upon bodies, and the bloody, snarling faces and clawing fingers just inches away from her ledge—if they had breached it, she couldn't say for sure if she'd have been able to get back inside the building fast enough to prevent getting eaten alive. "Yeah, it did. I've never seen so many incoming at once. There were hundreds of them."

"I'm going to a meeting tomorrow about how to fortify the building better."

"What else can they do? They thought this place was impenetrable, but after today…"

"They're talking about building more baiting stations, adding bayonets to the rifles, making the moat deeper, or surrounding the entire fort with thicker rolls of razor wire to slow them down."

"Slow them down? That won't help much if the bullets run out. They're giving me less and less ammo each week. I was down to my last magazine today."

"You should go to a Combatives refresher. You haven't been to one in a couple of months."

"It definitely wouldn’t hurt."

New recruits to the patrol units were taught Combatives before they were allowed to move on to rifle training. She'd been through the program twice. In each class they had to master submission techniques such as chokeholds, preventing and escaping mounts, and most importantly—how to avoid getting bitten. That sort of muscle memory could be critical if a weapon failed. Like all patrol volunteers she'd received a rationed vaccine dose before training commenced, but it wasn't one hundred percent effective, and it was useless once an Eater latched on to you and started gnawing off parts of your body. Mark hadn't taken the vaccine back in Afghanistan when it was offered to him in the experimental stage, and after he'd contracted the virus, he'd gotten it too late to prevent the necrotizing effects on his skin. She still loved him though, pockmarks and all, and remembered daily how lucky she was that he was still alive.

"You know what I wish?"

"What?" she asked as he pulled her down to the bed.

"I wish you'd get off of patrol duty all together and find a job inside. You could teach or work in one of the shops…"

"Boring."

"Full time in the garden?"

She shook her head. "They don't need as much help in the gardens now, because they've had to scale back the crops due to the water shortage."

"What about working in the kitchen? You always were a good cook."

"Thanks. But actually…I'm thinking about keeping my current job and going on another
safari
."

"What? He said, running his fingers through her hair. "Why?"

"A safari pays a thousand work credits, and it beats sitting around between patrol shifts.

"Jeez…Cheryl. I don't want you to go into town. It's too dangerous."

"My decision."

"I think you've got a death wish."

"No." Her bottom lip quivered as she buried her face in her hands. "I really don't.  I just want—"

"Oh…here we go." A spark seemed to flare up in his eyes. "You're one woman. You can't change the state of the world. So, it's about time you stopped trying!"

"I know," she whined. "I just don't want to sit on my butt around here, waiting for the worst. When I go on a raid, it's helping. And let's just say it's fulfilling my female scavenging instinct, kind of like going to the grocery store…like in the old days." And if…in the process… she could do her part to clean up a part of the city and work towards her dream of living in a house, raising a family, living a normal life…