Eaters (21 page)

Claire was starting to line the ceramic bowls up along the counter when one crashed to the floor and shattered at her feet. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

“Are you alright?” Cheryl asked, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Claire flinched and shook her off. “This is just not real. It’s crazy. I don’t believe that—”

Cheryl grabbed Claire’s wrist and spun her around. “Listen to me, Claire, this is real and—”

“You’re hurting me. Let go!”

Cheryl released her grip. “I’m sorry. It’s just…I’m afraid we’re going to need your help. You’ve got to believe this is serious. These people that get infected, they’re never the same afterwards. Once they get sick, they die, then they come back, and they attack people. A lot of people have died.”

Claire stomped away and went into the living room. Cheryl took the boiling pasta off the stove then followed her. In the living room, Claire sat next to Kyle, staring wide-eyed at the reporter on the television screen with wild hair and scorch marks on his windbreaker. A cloud of black smoke billowed out of a building behind him as he coughed and tried to deliver the rest of his report.

“…
police are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the infected. Chief Bryson has told us that ammunition stores at Denver police headquarters are running low, and in this unusual crisis, he is welcoming vigilante assistance from anyone with firepower.”

The picture cut to a video of a man stumbling in the middle of a downtown street. He had the telltale symptoms of the infection: skin the color of mushrooms and opaque filmy eyes that seemed sightless. The front of his orange Bronco’s jersey was saturated with blood. Off camera, a gun fired a bullet straight into his forehead, and he fell backwards onto the asphalt.

“
Citizens are reminded that confrontation with the infected should be avoided, but in such a situation, a direct headshot is recommended to halt their advance. A 6 p.m. curfew is in effect, and anyone on the streets after that hour is warned that they may be a target from friendly fire…”

Kyle glanced up at her, seeming to come out of a trance. “Where are the other guns?”

“I’m supposed to help Aidan bring them in. I’ll go check on him.”

She tore herself away from the newscast and found him in the garage, not gathering the guns and ammo, but kneeling next to his bike, sponging the grime and bugs off the headlight. The black fiberglass and chrome shone with a new sparkle. She relayed to him what the reporter had said while he continued to buff the metal with a soft cloth. She didn’t feel like she had his full attention. His mind seemed so far off.

“It’s going to be dark soon,” she tried. “Shouldn’t we get those guns in the house?”

Aidan looked up, almost as if noticing her for the first time. “Uh…yeah. You’re right. Let’s do that.” He took one more swipe across the seat with his rag then rose to his feet.

He took a duffle bag off a pegboard and she helped him put all of the guns and the ammunition in it. She was about to zip it closed when he stopped her.

“Wait…”

From the back of the workbench, he grabbed a folded plastic tarp, a coil of rope, a small hacksaw, and a large knife, and threw them into the bag.

“What’s all that?”

“Just some accessories.”

“That looks like gear for body disposal.”

He shrugged. “Always good to prepare for worst case scenario.”

She sucked in her breath.
Worst case scenario?
She didn’t want to imagine how much worse things could get, and she didn’t want to imagine her dead body wrapped in that tarp.

He walked towards the door with the bag in his hand, then turned around and pointed to a small red metal can on top of a plastic bin. “Bring that too.”

She grabbed the empty gas can, thinking that this didn’t sound like preparation for a very fun party.

Back inside the cabin, they found the couple still on the couch watching the television that had reverted back to static.

“What else did they say?” Cheryl asked.

Kyle raised his head from Claire’s cheek. “Not much. The reporter said they had to leave the area quickly, since too many infected were nearby.”

How many?
Cheryl wondered.
What percentage of the population in Denver was infected?
She didn’t want to ask out loud. Kyle and Claire already seemed traumatized enough.

She heard Aidan calling her name from the bathroom and went to him.

“Help me out here, will ya?” He held a pair of scissors and instructed her to cut off his hair, just like she’d done with her own. Then they took turns blotting the wounds on the back of their head with peroxide to disinfect them. As she applied the bubbling liquid to his head, it felt strange to her that they had so quickly become partners of a sort, strangers bonded in survival. She knew she was lucky to have met him as a matter of practicality, but as she stood close to his strong shoulders and stubbly cheeks, she felt ashamed to admit to herself that she found him somewhat attractive. It defiled the memory of Mark.

Shortly after they finished, they congregated in the kitchen to eat the food that Claire had made. The men stood while the ladies sat at the bar.

Aidan spoke with a mouthful of noodles. “Before it gets dark, we need to decide on watch duty. I’m thinking two on, two off. That way, we can watch both sides of the house, and we can each have a break to rest.”

“I can’t shoot a gun,” Claire said. “I don’t even want to try.”

“When it’s your shift, we’ll take turns backing you up.”

Kyle grimaced. “I haven’t actually shot a gun since I was twelve. Boy Scouts’ trip to a shooting range. I don’t know if I could hit—”

Aidan raised an eyebrow. “You might have mentioned that before we went into the woods. Well, regardless of your marksmanship, you’re better off with a gun than without one if we get attacked. If someone tries to break in, call for help then do your best to hit them.”

They washed down their pasta with water, and then Aidan brought out a bottle of whiskey and handed a shot glass to each of them, a gesture that seemed like a blatant effort to shore up their nerves.

Claire swallowed half of hers, coughed, and said, “Somebody needs to explain to me how all this started. How is it possible that everything could just break down so quickly?”

They discussed the mosquito theory.

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Aidan said. “Too many people got hit too fast for it to be carried by some insect. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something in the water, or maybe some kind of biological warfare.”

“I don’t know,” Kyle said. “Last weekend, Fourth of July, lots of people out camping and barbecuing when the mosquito population was at a peak. It was probably the biggest bug feast all summer. Anyone here who hasn’t been bit in the last week?”

No one raised a hand.

Cheryl folded her arms and started to tap her foot nervously on the floor. “I was camping last weekend. I got lots of bites.”
But of course, that wasn’t her only exposure
.
She could still remember the taste of the witch’s acrid blood in her mouth.
“You two probably did too. And Aidan, working construction outside.”

“That doesn’t mean any of us have the plague,” Aidan argued.

Kyle downed the last sip from his glass. “It might.”

“I know how it starts,” Cheryl said. “There’s a fever and a rash. Sometimes the skin starts to peel. Then the person keels over. When they come back, their skin turns gray and the…the abnormal hunger starts.”

Each person eyed the others as if looking for signs of infection.

Claire’s voice cracked. “You mean we might have to shoot each other?”

“I seriously doubt that’s going to be necessary,” Aidan laughed. “I think if any one of us had it, we’d be out there roaming the streets with the others right now, eating sludge and brains.”

But Cheryl knew that might not be true. In the movies it was, what, just a few minutes to an hour after a bitten person died then rose and began attacking? But that was in fiction. No one knew how long the incubation period was for this very real disease. She knew that someone could seem fine
for days
then simply keel over and revive as a flesh-eating monster.

Aidan took a quick swig from the whiskey bottle then placed it back in the cupboard.

“What are we going to do?” Claire asked in a high-pitched squeal. “We can’t just stay here forever.”

“Until we find out that it’s safe to go back to town, I’d say there’s really no other choice but to stay put.” Aidan leaned over the counter. “Right now, we got power, we got water. I’ve got a pantry filled with food and a few things in a root cellar behind the garage.”

“If there’s really so many of these Eaters out there, what’s to prevent them from just breaking in? Why didn’t we board up all the windows?”

Aidan shook his head. “I don’t have enough wood to cover all the windows, and I don’t want to be hammering all night. The sound might be a lure. The barbed wire usually keeps the bears out. These windows are all double paned too. If someone tries to break in, we’ll shoot them before they get very far.”

That didn’t make Cheryl feel better. Glass hadn’t been a deterrent in the sandwich shop, and she didn’t think that a dead person felt any pain, so the sharp barbed wire might not be very effective either.

“I honestly don’t think there’s that many infected up here. There’s many more in the city. If we have to shoot one or two that come around, so be it. With these guns, we should be fine.”

He’s just placating them.
Cheryl could see the fear in his eyes.

“Cheryl and I will take first shift. If everything stays quiet, then we’ll switch out.”

He showed Kyle and Claire the master bedroom and told them that they could rest there while they were waiting for their turn at watch. As they went in and shut the door, Cheryl envied them. She wished with every fiber of her being that Mark was still around to endure this nightmare with her, and keep her safe.

The voice in her ears startled her.
I am here with you. I’ll always be here with you…
She talked back in her head.
It’s not the same. Your ghost isn’t good enough.

In the living room, she saw that Aidan had pulled all the guns out of the duffel bag and laid them on the big pine coffee table. He was busy checking each one and loading it.

“You going to keep that shotgun, or you want the AK back?”

Mark’s gun. I want Mark’s gun back
. She held her hand out for the AK.

Aidan picked it up and bumped the magazine with the heel of his hand to make sure it was securely loaded then handed it to her.

“You know,” he said, pausing from his task, “I’ve always had this fantasy of living off the land up here. Winters would be rough. But I figure I could hunt and fish, grow a garden.” He looked up at her, locking her eyes. “If things go from bad to worse, you could stay here with me.”

She held his stare, unable to process what he was suggesting. She couldn’t just slip into a new life with another man
just like that
. Of course, she’d already exchanged her life for a stranger’s. Less than a week ago, she was working in an insurance office, daydreaming about her Caribbean honeymoon plans with Mark. Now, she was effectively widowed, holed up in a cabin with three strangers, wearing an oversized combat uniform and a butch hairdo, holding a powerful rifle, and mentally prepared to blow the fucking head off of anything that tried to harm her. Life had truly changed on a dime. But she wasn’t prepared to tell Aidan that she was ready to set up house with him. There was still her family in Arizona to think about.

“Thanks,” was all she could say. “I’ll think about that.”

He smiled then loaded a clip into a handgun. “That’s good enough for now.”

She remembered that he’d lost someone he’d loved too and that it probably helped him to imagine starting over. She realized that in some way, she was his life raft as much as he was hers.

A few minutes later, he showed her to her post, a rocking chair by the back window where she had a view of the clearing and the blackness of the trees beyond. He took his post by the front window where he could see if anyone came up the drive.

She watched the last bit of orange and pink sunlight over the treetops die off like the last coals in a fire pit.

Night
. She didn’t want night. In the daytime, it would be easier to see someone stumbling out of the trees with hungry dead eyes. In the dark, they could sneak up on you; one minute a shadow, the next, an army of teeth.

Aidan had told her that the nearest neighbor was two miles down the road. The cabin seemed so isolated; they might as well be in the middle of the wilderness.

Who would be around to help if the night turned against them?

Chapter Sixteen