Eaters (Book 2): The Resistance (21 page)

It wasn't hard to put together a story of what had happened. On the south side, the former inhabitants had done a relatively good job of hiding an old Chevy with rusted trim underneath a pile of branches. The flat rear tire had probably been the reason they'd landed in this spot. Unable to fix it or replace it, they'd decided to stay for the night. After stringing up some blankets to block the north wind, they dug a pit and built a fire. Then…
something happened
. There was an open can of beans and a bowl of dried macaroni next to the pit, both abandoned before the spoons were even dipped in.

Aidan kicked the can. The beans inside were cemented together, so none fell out. "It's been a while since they left, at least a couple of days…maybe more."

"What do you think? Run off by Eaters or rounded up by O.N.E.?" Cheryl asked him.

"Hard to say. Could be either."

One of the Vultures, a short man with a scraggly beard and a blue bandana tied around his head, spat on the ground while looking at the car.  "Any gas in that heap?"

"No. They were running on fumes when their tire blew." He pointed to a few unopened cans strewn about the site. "There's not a drop around here unless you want to eat some of them beans and produce some for us."

"Shit!" The man said, kicking the dirt. "My damn bike's on empty."

"We'll have to do another swap, but we're all getting low. We'd better find something soon or we're going to be footing it to Utah."

While they were talking, Jake and a few of the other guys paced the perimeter of the area. They found a couple of things on the ground that seemed to have been accidently dropped by the campers, a Swiss Army knife, some coins, and a tennis shoe. Jordan pocketed the coins and Kai bargained for the knife, saying that its utensils would be a useful addition to his medical supplies.

But, it was Edmond that found the most horrific clue to the fate of the campers. It was a swath of dried blood in the dirt that seemed to indicate a bleeding body had been dragged towards the road. It stopped next to a pair of tire tracks that looked like they belonged to some heavy duty vehicle. "You think they got a ride?" he asked.

Mark grimaced. "A ride to hell most likely."

Cheryl envisioned a couple different scenarios. Either they'd been taken by force, or been attacked by Eaters then loaded up after they'd turned. Nothing else seemed to make sense.

The bearded chap was still grumbling about gas and shifting his weight from boot to boot like he couldn't stand around for another minute. "How far ahead is the next town?"

"We're pretty close to Payson," Aidan said. "We could pull in there and scout for gas. There's got to be some around there, even if we have to go into a residential area and bust into some garages."

That seemed to appease the man, but he didn't stop cussing until he got a donation of gas from a couple of the other bikes. After that, they scavenged the canned food and a few more things from the car like some bottled water, matches, and cigarettes then they hit the road again.

***

Payson, in the heart of the state, had once been a small town of about 13,000 inhabitants, but they only had to ride a little way into town past a sign saying that it was the home of the
world's oldest continuous rodeo
to see that its glory days were long over. Cheryl's optimism fell as she saw the proverbial ghost town with tumbleweed and litter blowing down its historic Main Street, the sight of the windows in every building smashed out, doors hanging on their hinges, and random corpses and body parts strewn everywhere she looked. She didn't know why she'd had a sliver of hope that this town, the largest she'd been in since going on safaris in Tucson, would still have some semblance of civilization. Like everywhere else she'd been, the plague had caused total destruction here.

After a short powwow, they decided to break into teams to look for gas, food, and water. Only Jordon objected.

"I don't like this. We should stay together. Remember what happened with Patrick? When he didn't come back…"

Diego crossed his arms, looking down for a second. "Yeah…still real sorry about that."

Jake reassured him. "No one goes alone. We stay in groups."

"We'll meet back at the town center in two hours," Aidan said. "If you're not back by then…
good luck
…because we're not sending out a search party."

Cheryl stuck with Mark, Jake, and the men that remained from their original group: Jordan, Zach, Kai, and Edmond. A couple of the Vultures tagged along with them, and the rest split into two groups with Aidan leading one and Diego leading the other.

While the rest headed towards residential areas, Cheryl's group checked the abandoned vehicles and the businesses on the main drag first, including a couple of gas stations. It quickly became apparent that there was no gas to be found. Without electricity, the gas station pumps didn’t work and every vehicle tank had nothing to siphon. They hoped to find a car to drive with a full tank of gas, but even if they did, it probably wouldn't have run anyway—the tires on every car, truck, van, and SUV were slashed. Food was also a bust. There wasn't a single can or box of food in any of the buildings, not even the restaurants.
The town had been stripped clean
.

"Unbelievable," Mark said. "It's like they've sucked the life out. Like a giant vacuum."

"It could have been the survivors," Kai said. "Maybe there's a shelter nearby—"

The glares cut him off. No one bought Kai's hopefulness.

"No," Mark said. "This place looks systematically fucked. Did you notice how many buildings are burnt down? There are bullet holes in the doors, and I saw a few grenade pins on the sidewalk. O.N.E. definitely came through here and played some war games."

Edmond, who had been turned away from them, staring off in the distance, suddenly animated. "I know we're running out of time before we have to meet up with the rest of the group, but there's one place we haven't checked. I saw a sign down the road that looked like it could be a grocery store."

Zach let out a big guffaw. "That's a good one, amigo!" he said, slapping his knee then giving Edmond a whack on the back that was a little harder than a friendly pat.

"Why leave a stone unturned. If there's even one can of food, a bottle of water, a dropped gun…"

"You're right," Mark said. "We've got a little time left. We should give it a look."

As Edmond triumphantly led them in the direction of the store, Zach kept to the rear of the group, but couldn't resist one last dig. "Your pansy ass better not be leading us into trouble, or I'm holding you accountable."

A few minutes later, they arrived at
Lobos Mart
. There was a kitschy sign in the parking lot with a red circle around it and smiling wolf's head in the middle. From the outside, the prospects of finding what they were looking for looked dim. There were fifteen to twenty abandoned cars, most with doors and back hatches wide open, slashed tires, and broken windows. There were also numerous bodies, and because they'd been baking in the hot sun for too long, they were far too gone to tell if they had been put down because they had turned into Eaters, or if O.N.E. had done in healthy specimens.

Jake, who'd been silent through most of their search, stepped up and gave an order. "Zach, why don't you check the cars for gas, and we'll go inside to look for supplies."

With a grunt, Zach complied as the rest of them headed towards the open doors.

Unlike the other buildings that were completely dark, there were a few flickering fluorescent lights on inside the store likely powered by a generator. It was a sign that someone had been holing up in the place, at least until somewhat recently.

Cheryl held her breath and covered her mouth with one hand while stepping through the doorway and heard Edmond let out an audible sigh of despair as he surveyed the chaos. No divine miracle had spared Lobos Mart from what had transpired in the parking lot and the rest of the town. Streaks and splatters of dried blood painted the white tiled floor in a mosaic worthy of a macabre art gallery. There were corpses strewn about like tossed refuge. Unlike the desiccated victims outside, some of these were fresher, still bloated and covered with flies—the obvious source of the top note of stink in the building.

Talking through his fingers that were covering his nose, Mark turned back to her and said, "Looks like some survivors were in here not that long ago."

"Yes," she said, thinking that even though they were now dead, it was marginally uplifting to know there had recently been pockets of people still hanging on in the area.

Then she realized that the shelves weren't completely barren. Though they had been nearly cleaned out, there were still some cans, boxes, and bottles here and there. After glancing up at the hanging sign above each aisle, Cheryl knew exactly which one she wanted to check out. After months of limited rations at Fort San Manuel and days spent living off of everything from smoked rattlesnake to squirrel meat, she rushed towards the baking aisle.

"Hey!" Edmond said, trotting behind her. "Where are you going?"

She glanced back, uncovering her mouth just long enough to give him a mischievous smile. Three seconds later, she found the jackpot. Amongst the few boxes of cake mixes, cooking oil, and flour, there were enough sugary treats to indulge the entire team.

Realizing that they had nothing to carry their goodies in, she asked Edmond to run up front and grab some of the tote bags she'd seen by the registers.

"Okay."

"By the way…" she said as he started to walk away.

"Thanks."

He smiled then took off, hopping over a body surrounded by sacks of sugar like it was simply a bump in the road.

While he was gone, she started making a pile in the middle of the floor: marshmallows, chocolate syrup, brownie mix, candy sprinkles, fruit filling, and the like. She was so mesmerized with her task, she forgot about the stench and used two hands to grab things and even dared stepping over a nasty mess of a corpse to reach a top shelf that had one container of vanilla frosting.

When Edmond returned, with the bags, he wasn't alone. Somehow…Aidan and his group had found them, and they were starting to load up on goods too. A few minutes later, Cheryl witnessed Zach and Diego tossing a coin over a bag of Doritos, instead of duking it out and Mark loading up on canned ham and tuna. Once everyone filled a couple of bags, they gathered outside the store where the air was better.

Jake, who'd only scrounged some beef jerky, Gatorade, and a few Power Bars was the first voice of rationality. "We can't carry all that stuff on the bikes."

With a mouth full of cookies, Aidan said, "Then, we'll have to eat what we can now."

"You know…" Zach said, letting the Twizzler dangle out of his mouth. "We could spend the night in Payson. Fill our bellies and move out again tomorrow night after dark."

"Anyone object?" Aidan asked.

There were a number of naysayers worried about the number of stinking dead bodies around the town who felt like it was bad karma to spend too much time amongst them, likening it to a big graveyard. But, they were finally seduced into the idea by the promise of a full belly and a good night's sleep. Jake was the last holdout, because he wanted to press on and not waste a night of travel time. He was eventually convinced once Mark laid into him.

"Where then?" Cheryl asked.

"How about there?" Zach pointed to a building detached from the rest of the strip mall. There was a red and blue sign on the front:
Mesa Fitness
.

"A gym?"

"Why not? It'll have enough space for us to stretch out and sleep."

"I'm game," Diego said, displaying a curled bicep with a fist.

That elicited a lot of eye rolls. No one wanted to spend the evening watching Zach and Diego try to one up each other with sets of dumbbells, so the gym was vetoed.

"There's a big house about three blocks from here," Aidan said. "We checked it out. It's been stripped like all the others, but there's enough space for us to stretch out, and it's built on a hill so we'd have a good view if anyone came."

"Sounds good," Cheryl said as the others nodded in agreement.

A few minutes later, most of them rumbled into the driveway of the house on their bikes. Not long after that, the rest of their group appeared with shopping carts full of the food and drink they'd hauled from the store.

At least from the outside appearance, Cheryl was pleased with the choice of lodging. The adobe house was two stories tall and had all of its windows intact. There was a large terra cotta sun medallion adorning the front wall between two upper windows, and a pretty assortment of perennial flowers in the bed out front that seemed to be thriving on neglect. Inside, the house was neat and tidy. It was like the family, an attractive gaggle of six from the looks of the photos on the walls, had just up and left. She wondered if they'd gone down to Fort San Manuel, thinking for just a moment how comforting it was to imagine they had made it. Then, she remembered that the fort had fallen—that was why she was here in these strangers' house.

When several people, including Kai and Edmond started looking through the kitchen cupboards, the Vultures who'd been to the house earlier told them not to bother because the cupboards were bare. They also said they'd already checked the garage and there were no cars in it.