The Scavengers (10 page)

The railroad tresses were made of rotting wood. The entire structure shook under our feet as we picked our way across the fragile, broken boards. I wasn't particularly afraid of heights but the 30 foot drop from the railroad tracks to the jagged, partially submerged rocks below had made my mouth go dry and my palms start to sweat as we crossed the bridge.

Shayla was in the lead as we arrived on the Mylon side of the river. I was three or four feet behind her. Drake was hot on my heels with Cya still snugged against his broad chest as if she were precious cargo. Her face was hidden against the fabric of his leather jacket. Her blonde hair was still covered in dirt from where he'd dropped her on the ground earlier. Jeb was at our rear, watching the opposite bank in the unlikely event that a zombie had the coordination to make it across the tracks and attack us from behind.

Personally, I thought we were probably in more danger from the bridge than we were from the zombies. My legs were shaking as Drake set Cya down on the edge of the bridge. He set down his backpack and pulled out a long yellow coil of rope. It didn't look nearly as sturdy as I wanted it to. Drake began tapping on the beams that supported the bridge we were standing on, searching for one that would be strong enough to support our weight.

“Try the one on the far left,” Shayla suggested. She pointed to a beam near the edge of the bridge.

Drake looked over at the beam in question, nodded and moved to it. He quickly and deftly tied the rope off. He dropped the end of the rope down into the junkyard below. “Who wants to go first?”

The only sound to be heard was that of the wind blowing through the beams of the bridge.

“I'll go,” Jeb said after a second of hesitation. His face was incredibly pale as he sat down on the edge of the bridge and grabbed hold of the rope with both hands.

“Get your weapon ready,” Drake told him. He gestured for Jeb to pull the knife off his belt.

“I can't hold it and slide down,” Jeb said.

“Put it in between your teeth,” Shayla instructed him. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a burlap sack almost identical to the one Drake had shown me last night when he'd been explaining what rock candy was. She upended the bag and several of the green crystals fell into her hand. She knelt down beside Jeb. “Open your mouth.”

Jeb did as he was told and Shayla popped one of the crystals into his mouth. She smiled as she placed a second crystal in between her own lips and then passed the bag over to Drake. “Conner's stash,” she explained.

“I'll see you guys on the ground.” Jeb put his knife between his teeth and then slid down the rope. We all watched as he landed solo on the ground below.

“Four crystals,” Drake said quietly. He took one of the crystals himself and then rolled the bag in his fist. He gestured for me to hold out my hand and then placed a single green crystal in my palm. He tucked the burlap bag back into his own pocket. “Hold it under your tongue.”

I hesitated, holding the pokey little stone in my sweaty hand. My countless hours in the hospital ward had given me intimate familiarity with what could happen if you took the wrong drug or reacted badly to the right drug. I swallowed and took a deep breath. I started to open my mouth to tell Drake thanks but I would pass when Cya spoke.

“Where's mine?” She asked. Her voice was quavering.

Drake snorted back a short, bitter laugh. “You don't get candy.”

“Drake, please. I'm already weak,” she begged. “It will help with the pain. I might be able to run.”

“I guess you should have thought about that before you complained about us to the Powers That Be,” Drake told her. He grabbed hold of the rope and pressed it into her hands. “Time for you to go.”

“Please, no. I'm not ready.” She purposefully splayed her fingers out, refusing to grab the rope.

“Take the rope or I'll throw you down without it,” Shayla hissed at her.

“I'll go,” I said. I popped the rock candy crystal Drake had given me into my mouth, stuck it under my tongue and reached out to take the rope from Cya. “I want to go.”

Drake raised one eyebrow at me and then passed the rope over. “Hold on tight and use your feet to control your descent. Wrap the toe of your boot in the rope.”

I did as he said, terrified to go down into the junkyard but unwilling to watch someone I'd spent so much time idolizing torture a frightened, hurt girl who he was supposed to protect. I felt nauseous as I slid off the side of the bridge and immediately got blown to the left by the wind. I skidded down the rope too fast, unable to create enough friction with my feet to slow my descent. I landed hard on the ground below with my hands burning from rope burn. The impact sent shocks of pain all the way through my back and I gasped with the pain.

“You okay?” Jeb asked.

“Fine,” I lied.

“Get your machete out,” Jeb told me. “There are zombies thirty yards to our left.”

I nodded and used my throbbing, bleeding fingers to free the machete from underneath my belt. My hands shook as I held it out. “Do we need to kill them?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. He looked up at the three members of our team who were still on the bridge. His blonde hair was thin and I could see the pink scalp underneath. “Drake's told me that attacking one zombie when others are nearby can alert the others to your presence. He thinks they can smell the blood.”

“Oh.” I hadn't known that.

“Shayla says kill everything I see.”

I frowned and looked to our left. I could see one zombie rattling around in what appeared to be a box of junked, rusting vehicles. A car had fallen off of one stack and blocked the zombie's path of exit. If it wanted to get to us, it would have to climb. “Can zombies climb?”

“I don't think so.” Jeb frowned. “What's taking them so long up there?”

“Cya doesn't want to come down here,” I explained.

Jeb sighed. He ran one hand through his hair. “I don't blame her. She's not going to be able to protect herself and I don't think Drake's going to go out of his way for her. Shayla told me they both want her dead because she got Conner killed.”

“I volunteered to come down here because I couldn't stomach listening to her beg anymore,” I admitted.

A loud wail echoed from above. I could see Drake forcibly wrapping the rope around Cya's midsection. The zombie to the left of us looked up.

“I don't want to watch her die,” I confessed to Jeb. Cya's wails were turning to screams.

“Maybe we should just start trying to find a radiator. Kennedy showed me what we were looking for yesterday. I've helped my Dad with the generators in the Cube for years. I'm sure I can get the radiator out of whatever vehicle we find it in without Drake's help. So long as you can watch my back.” The look in Jeb's eyes was almost pleading.

“We can do it,” I confirmed. “I've killed a lot of zombies in the hospital. It can't be that different out here, right?”

“Shouldn't be,” Jeb agreed. We both cast another glance upward. Cya was clinging to the railroad bridge with both hands while Drake attempted to shove her off. She was making a lot of noise doing it. More zombies were starting to approach from the south of us, undoubtedly attracted by the racket.

Jeb grabbed me by the elbow as Cya let out another earsplitting wail. The horror in his eyes was real as we walked rapidly to the north, clambering up a tall pile of rusted and busted cars so that we could survey the entire junkyard. The view was horrifying. Miles of rusted cars being eternally patrolled by dozens of drooling, rotting monsters.

“I'm scared,” I whispered. Jeb squeezed my arm reassuringly.

“Just look for something big. A bus. A big truck. Something with a big motor.” He swallowed visibly as he scanned the tangled masses of metal surrounding us.

“All I see are zombies.” It was the truth.

“We're not on high enough ground yet.” Jeb gestured for me to follow him across the tops of several broken cars. The metal was gritty and malleable underfoot but I supposed it was preferable to walking on the ground itself. I focused on making my way from vehicle to vehicle. One foot in front of the other. Right foot landing exactly in the places where Jeb's left foot had just vacated. Left foot hood. Right foot windowsill. Left foot roof. Right foot roof. Left foot trunk. Right foot trunk. Jump to next car. Left foot seat. Right foot door. I felt like I had when I was a child playing hopscotch with Julie in the corridors of Block D during exercise hour. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

Jeb stopped. I stopped with him. He turned to face me but I felt like he was moving in slow motion. He pointed at a truck roughly 20 feet away from us. Three zombies were between us and the truck. Two men and a woman whose head appeared to be permanently bent to the left. “There,” he said.

I nodded. “We're to have to jump down and make a run for it.”

“We're going to have to kill the zombies.” Jeb tucked his knife back into his pocket and removed a short sword from a sheath underneath his shirt.

“You've been carrying that on your back?” I stared at the sword in shock.

“It was a gift from my Dad when I joined the Scavengers,” Jeb winked at me. “We all have our secrets, Pilar.”

I thought of the gun that was still carefully stowed in the secret hidey-hole Seth had created for it. We certainly did have our secrets and I wasn't about to tell mine to a guy who was slated to become a member of the Powers That Be. Possession of an illegal weapon carried a harsh punishment in the Cube.

Jeb jumped off the roof of the pick-up truck we were standing on and landed hard in the dirt. The zombies turned as one to face him. I closed my eyes and jumped.

I should have been terrified as my feet hit the ground but I wasn't. The zombies were moving impossibly slowly as Jeb and I walked up to them. Jeb swung his sword and neatly beheaded one male zombie. The head rolled across the ground and tripped the second zombie. All I saw were blank eyes and gnashing teeth as the creature fell towards me. I swung my own blade, but I didn't do it hard enough. The machete got stuck in the zombie's shoulder blade. I squealed and pulled my blade loose, swinging it a second time as the zombie fell the rest of the way to the ground. She tried to grab my ankle and I cut her arm off out of sheer reflex. The hand twitched for a second and then died.

Jeb cut down the second zombie, slicing it rather cleanly in half. I spun back around and finally managed to chop the head off my own zombie. It took nine strokes but I did it. I felt stupidly proud of myself as I joined Jeb at the grill of the big truck he'd noticed.

“You got my back?” He asked as he pried the vehicle's hood open with a squeal of hinges.

“You're safe,” I promised. “But how are you going to get the radiator out without tools.”

“Who said I didn't have tools?” Jeb asked. He dug a thick knife-like multi-tool out of his pocket. It was roughly 6 inches long and had multiple blades that could be extracted from it. He winked at me, flicked a pair of pliers out of the multi-tool and began working at getting the bolts on the radiator loose while I stood guard.

The sky was the most perfect, clear blue that I'd seen in a year. The light breeze that was blowing kept the rotting smell of zombies away. I could smell the murky water of the river several hundred feet to our left. I had time to appreciate that it was a beautiful day, despite our task.

I could remember that I'd been upset recently but right this minute I couldn't recall why I'd been feeling so much angst.

Two more zombies came stumbling around the nearest corner. They perked up when they saw me standing in their path. I raised my machete and smiled. Zombies were scary but not that scary. After all, they couldn't think very well and they had fairly limited physical capabilities. I was well armed against such painfully slow moving opponents.

The zombies were taking forever to reach me. I got bored waiting for them and met them halfway. Thwack, thwack, thwack! Six swings with my machete and they were motionless on the ground. Four hits for the one that had been an old man before he died. Two hits for the petite woman.

“This is kind of neat,” I mused out loud. I wondered if there were any other zombies nearby that I could kill. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

“Having fun, are you?”

I turned to my right and saw Seth leaning against the side of a severely smashed van. His ruined white eye practically shone in the sunlight and I could see the molars on his lower jaw clearly through the side of his face. “Maybe,” I admitted.

“Think you're hot stuff?”

“I killed those zombies.” I pointed to the dead zombies near his feet.

“They were weak. They're trapped inside this junkyard. Haven't fed in years.” Seth shrugged at me. “No real challenge in killing them.”

“How can you know that they haven't fed?” I demanded, partially insulted by how easily he brushed aside my triumph and partially curious how he could possibly know when a zombie had last eaten.

“They didn't bleed.” He gestured at the corpses. “Zombies dry up when they can't feed. The sunlight leeches all the moisture out of them as the days pass.”

I stared down at the corpses. He was right. They hadn't bled. I scowled at him. “Are you just here because you enjoy mocking me or did you show up for a reason?”