Man Eaters (21 page)

Roper leaned over to Dallas. “He had a little sister.”

Dallas nodded once, gently tapping Morgana’s haunches.

“You’re really not going to kill me?” Private Kennedy asked quietly.

“Don’t you think there’s been too much of that already? Unless you give us a reason, we’ll let you go the first safe place we come to.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I’m no ma’am. Call me Dallas. That’s Roper, Einstein, and Peanut.”

“Then would you mind calling me Luke? It feels like forever since anyone called me by my name.”

“Luke it is.”

They rode together for a while, sharing a few sentences here and there. The more they spoke, the more Luke loosened up.

“The brass is hoping to manage the city perimeters before the cleansing.” He paused. “That’s what the non-coms call it, anyway. I’m sure some knucklehead general has a fancier name for it.”

“This cleansing, means what? Surely they can’t really nuke the cities. It would make them uninhabitable.”

“So do zombies,” Luke said, “or whatever the hell they are. Rumor has it the bombs they’re going to drop destroy soft tissue only—it’s non-radioactive. It’ll kill everything with a skin but leave the farmland and water free of contamination.”

“Sounds like a weapon we’ve been sitting on.”

“It is. I think our scientists were trying to narrow it down more, to save animals, but so far it would be a Hiroshima-type blast, killing soft tissue while leaving the buildings and soil intact.”

“So people are expendable but infrastructure is not?”

“I don’t make the rules, ma’—Dallas.”

Roper glanced at Dallas. “How much time do we have?”

“Not long. A couple of days, maybe. We’ve not gotten the withdrawal message yet. As you probably know, sending intel back and forth is like the Pony Express now.”

“How do you do it?”

“We have campsites set up. A lotta the Hummers you see are used strictly for transmitting intel from one captain to the next. We had communications for the first few days, but then they reprogrammed all satellites for D.C. and the East Coast.” He shrugged. “The President and all.”

Roper and Dallas stared at each other, Butcher’s words about retreat hovered between them.

“So, the President is alive?” Einstein asked.

“To be honest, I don’t know who’s alive. I just know we’ve been trying to contain this thing and we’re losing that battle. We do what we’re told because the military is the safest place to be right now. We have food, water, weapons, and transportation. We’ve seen firsthand what it’s like out here for the rest of you folks. That makes it easier to follow hard-to-follow directives.”

“Have you lost many men?”

“Not too many. At first, when we were going door-to-door, a bunch of us from my squad were ambushed by those things but, truth to tell, more of us have been killed by the living than by the zombies.”

“We call them man eaters,” Einstein said. “Because they don’t seem to eat anything else.”

Luke thought about this a moment. “You know...you’re right. I’ve seen them stand right next to a cow and do nothing. Odd.”

Einstein said softly. “Maybe I am missing something, but the bombs you say they’re going to drop won’t work if the intent is to destroy soft living tissue: Their tissue is dead. That’s why they don’t eat each other. Something in them drives them to living human flesh. Live human flesh.”

This gave everyone pause for a moment before Luke continued, “Look, I’m only telling you folks what I heard. I have no reason to lie. I’m just trying to stay alive here, same as you.

“By killing citizens you’re supposed to protect?”

He gazed down and shrugged. “Trust me. You don’t want to hear the ‘needs of the many’ speech coming from the Capitol.”

Dallas was pretty certain she didn’t.

****

As they walked along the ridgeline, Roper pointed to a truck rambling down the road. It was a military transport vehicle obviously carrying a load by the way it maneuvered slowly around the curves. “What’s that?” she asked Luke.

“You don’t want to know,” Luke muttered.

Roper looked through the binoculars before handing them to Dallas.

When the truck was past them, she saw stacks of bodies crammed into it. It looked like something from the Holocaust.

“Oh...my. That’s...were those?”

“Corpses, yeah. They’re taking them to a burn site.”

Dallas slowly turned to him. “Burn site?”

“Yeah.”

“Like...during the many plagues and genocides in days gone by?”

He nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Human guinea pig corpses are what they are. Those are the folks who have been tested.”

Roper asked. “Wait. Guinea pigs? Are you saying they’re injecting humans with the vaccine in order to—”

Everyone waited for Luke to finish her sentence for her.

“No. Not the vaccine. They—” he shook his head and inhaled deeply. “What I’ve heard is…they’re...bitten.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“You have got to be kidding. You’re letting those things bite people?”

“Not me. The med crew. They say it’s the only way to test if the vaccine works. First they inject them with the vaccine. Then they let someone get bitten. If the person transforms then they administer the vaccine at various stages to see if they can catch it. Or stop it. ”

No one said a word for a very long time as they digested this new and equally gruesome information.

Finally, Dallas said softly, “By the looks of it, it doesn’t.” She shook her head in disgust. “I can’t believe this shit.”

“Desperate times, desperate measures. I have no excuses, Dallas. The med team is working overtime trying to save the rest of the living.”

“That would be easier to do if you guys weren’t out here killing us!”

“I know. I know how it looks, but if we don’t catch this thing soon…” Luke’s voice trailed off. “There are rumors of people who have been bitten and never transformed. Those poor folks are living in a human petri dish.”

“Where is this med unit?”

“Honestly? I can’t tell from these hills. Somewhere in that direction.” He waved his bound hands to the southeast; the same direction they were headed.

“So there are two facilities nearby? A med unit and a burning site?”

He nodded. “Somewhere in that direction. You’ll want to stay far away from there.”

“So that’s why there are so many Hummers and choppers in this area and why some of these towns have no one in them. They were collected, weren’t they?”

He nodded again. “We’ve done some huge sweeps out in the valley. Stay in the hills and you’ll be fine. We don’t go off roads in the Hummers. Only the chopper can spot you, so be careful there.”

Roper gave Dallas a ‘don’t be fooled’ look.

“So tell me, Luke, if you were us, what would you do with you?”

He let out a loud, deep breath. “Well, if I suspected you would send troops after me, I’d kill you and be done with it. But if I felt you were a person of your word, I’d leave you tied to a tree in the hills with a knife so you could at least get free and find your way back. No one’s coming after you. They are getting ready to shut down the collection center because so far, there have been no viable results.”

Roper agreed. “So, what’s your word worth, Private?”

“My word is all I have, ma’am. So yeah, I give my word I won’t tell anyone about you guys or how you got the Hummer. I swear. I can tell you’re good people just trying to stay alive like the rest of us.”

  Dallas shook her head. “Oh, Luke, you are so not like the rest of us. You are fed, clothed, and sleep well at night. Us? We’re being hunted by the walking dead, sleep with one eye open, and view trail mix as a major food group.”

Luke bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

“We don’t have time to be sorry, Luke. We have barely enough time to catch our breath before we have to move on to our next rest stop. If there’s anything you can tell us that will be of benefit, we’d be much obliged.”

Luke’s eyes rested on Butcher’s face as he answered. “If I think of anything, I’ll let you know, but I am as confused and frightened by this as you all are.”

They rode along for a little while longer before Roper and Dallas pulled far enough ahead to talk privately.

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” Roper asked.

Dallas shook her head. “No. I refuse to become a Neanderthal. He poses no threat.”

“Not right now he doesn’t, but you’re being awfully naïve if you think he won’t tell his commanding officer what happened to his buddies and the Hummer.”

Dallas slowed her horse. “I didn’t say I trusted him. He doesn’t know of our plans or what we’ve got going on. By the time he gets loose, we’ll be long gone from here. He seems sincere enough. I want to let him go. Do you have an issue with that?”

Roper shook her head slowly. “I figured as much. You may be a good leader, Dallas, but you’re no natural born killer. I say let’s wait until we get to a place that hides him from choppers and make sure we tie him up really well. We don’t need any of those on our tail”

“You got it.”

“And Dallas? I understand why you can’t kill him.”  

Dallas looked down at her hands resting on the horn if the saddle. “You know, a small part of me wishes I could, but I can’t. I just don’t have it in me to kill someone who poses no immediate threat to me.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that…unless they come after us. If that happens, there will be hell to pay with the others.”

“We’ll cross that bloody bridge when we get there.”

An hour later they came to a small grove of oak trees in a valley between two hills.

“There. That’s perfect. We can leave him down there.” said Dallas, pointing to the small ravine.

After telling Einstein and Peanut to stay on the hill beneath a tree, Roper and Dallas rode with Luke to the grove. Roper tied his hands behind his back. “The knife will be left at the base of that tree up there, along with a bottle of water.”

Luke nodded. “Thank you, ladies, for not killing me. I swear I’ll not say a word about you guys to anyone.”

“We’d really appreciate that, Luke. Best of luck to you getting back to your men.”

Mounting their horses, Roper and Dallas rode back up the hill, gathered Einstein and Peanut, and continued southeast in the afternoon sun, hoping like hell Luke was really a man of his word.

****

After about the first two hours back on the trail, they saw a reflection of some sort in the distance. It looked like someone was signaling with a mirror, but they were still too far away to see anything but the reflection with their binoculars.

“I say we steer clear of that,” Roper said.

Before anyone could reply, the sound of rotors beating the air could be heard.

“Fuck that soldier!” Roper yelled as they raced, kicking up dirt toward a group of trees. “God damn son-of-a-bitch, he burned us!” Just as they made cover, the chopper came up, hovered a moment and then cut away toward the reflection.

As they sat astride their puffing horses, they saw the muzzle flashes from the bay openings on the chopper.

“Did you see that?” She handed the binoculars to Roper.

Roper held the binoculars to her face and sucked in air. “Someone’s actually shooting at the chopper.” She handed the glasses back and yanked on the reins.

Five seconds later, the helicopter began smoking and corkscrewed to the ground.

Dallas kept the binoculars to her face. “Someone took that thing down. The question is, do we go around it or see if anyone needs help?”

Einstein shook his head. “We don’t need the hassle. I doubt they have anything we need, and if people are hurt, we don’t have the supplies to spare.”

Roper didn’t have to look at Dallas to know she’d already made up her mind.

“Oh Jesus Christ on a raft. Sally Softheart wants to go see if anyone needs help.”

Dallas shook her head. “I’d like to grab their weapons if we can. Those are some high-powered rifles with a lot of ammo. Einstein?”

He shrugged. “More ammo is never a bad thing, and their weapons would be superior to ours.”

As they came over the hill, they saw what could only be described as a gunfight between three soldiers and five civilians.

“Uh uh,” Roper said softly, gently pulling on Merlin’s reins. “Not our business. Let’s get the hell out of here before they bring their friends.”

Just as they turned to leave, two Hummers came barreling over the ridge.

They’d been spotted.

“Scatter!” Roper cried, spurring Merlin on. “Ride hard!”

Dallas pointed to Einstein to head south. “And don’t stop!”

Once Einstein and Peanut took off, Dallas urged Morgana on toward one of the Hummers coming right at them. Roper rode hard, managing to stay ahead of the Hummer, which lost traction on the ground, but she knew it was only a matter of time. Even leaping over a fence wouldn’t save her from the Hummer.

When the Hummer got closer, Roper grabbed her rope and whirled it over her head as she neared a tree with a low overhanging branch broken near the trunk.

As her rope whirled around and around, Roper knew she had but one chance. Letting it fly from her hand, she watched the lasso hit its target and, as Merlin rode under it, she was lifted up and off the saddle in an arc just high enough that she flew above the Hummer and swung back just as it passed beneath her. On the backswing, she released, landed hard on her feet, and rolled over twice before getting up and running parallel to Merlin, who had made a U-Turn until she could mount him on the run. It was a trick she’d practiced her whole life as a way of showing up boys, and that trick had suddenly been needed to save her life.

As she and Merlin rode hard toward a ravine, she felt something impact her right shoulder, nearly pushing her off the horse. “Jesus!” she cried, gritting her teeth as she spurred Merlin on. The ground beneath her began shimmering and the edges of darkness crept around her vision.

They’d shot her.

Urging Merlin on, Roper felt light-headed and woozy, and she knew it was just a matter of a few seconds before she could no longer stay in the saddle.