The Scavengers (7 page)

“How do you know my boots have been slipping?” I argued with him for the sake of arguing as I took the boots he handed me. I didn't want him to be right about anything.

“Your feet are rubbed raw,” he looked purposely down at my toes. There were bright red patches of skin next to both heels and on the edges of my big toe.

I couldn't argue with that, so instead I sat down on the edge of the bed and began untying the laces on the boots so I could try them on. A pair of socks were sitting next to me on the bed so I pulled them onto my feet and purposely ignored Seth as he rattled around in the closet while I put the boots on.

Five minutes later I finally had to admit he'd managed to pick a pair of boots that fit me well. He handed me a neat looking pink backpack that had the appearance of being stuffed to the point of bursting the zipper.

“What is this?” I asked him.

“Practical clothes,” he replied. “I took the liberty of going through the closet and packing up everything I thought you would be able to use.”

“That was,” I paused and considered him carefully. His shaggy black hair was falling across his good eye and I thought I saw a hint of apology in his expression. Had he realized how much his calling me Carolina had disturbed me? I thought he had, because the bag of clothes seemed like a kind of apology. “Nice of you,” I finished. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome.” He held out a second item to me. It took me a minute to realize it was a medium-thick light brown canvas jacket. “Take this too.”

“I like mine,” I said as I shook my head. Dad's jacket still smelled like him. Wearing it was as close as I could get to feeling like I was back safe in my Dad's arms. I wasn't willing to part with that feeling yet.

“It’s too bulky. It’s going to get snagged on something at the worst possible moment. You could get hurt,” he said. He thrust the other jacket at me. “Don't get yourself killed for a stupid reason.”

“Why do you care?” I couldn't stop myself from blurting out the question that was now weighing heavily on my mind. Seth had been easier to understand when I'd thought he wanted to hurt me. Now it was obvious that he didn't and I had no idea why he was still around.

“I like you.” He returned my bluntness with some of his own. “You have guts.”

“Guts?” I asked. I rubbed my hands down the outside of Dad's jacket once more and reluctantly realized Seth was right. It was too much fabric. I slipped it down off my shoulders and laid it gently on the bed.

“Courage. Spirit. Whatever. You're smart and you're brave. I like that.” Seth held the new jacket out to me again. This time I took it.

“Drake hates you.” I wasn't sure why I kept opening my mouth and blurting out things that were better kept to myself.

“Don't trust Drake.”

“Drake's a hero, why wouldn't I trust him?”

“You only think he's a hero because you think you're in love with him,” Seth countered. I nearly choked on my own spit. I didn't know which part of that comment I wanted to argue with him about first.

“Drake is a hero and I am in love with him,” I finally managed after I stopped coughing.

“Liar.” Seth shook his head at me. “You're not in love with him. You’re in love with the person he's supposed to be.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

Seth opened his mouth to answer but before he could the door downstairs banged open loudly.

“Pilar! You ready yet?” Kennedy called up the stairs. “Ain't nothing here that we can use.”

“Just a minute!” I called out quickly. I expected Seth to try to bolt out the door or duck into the closet but instead he took a step towards the table he'd set the gun on.

“Hey!” I hissed at him. “Don't you dare...”

He stuffed the gun into the pocket of the jacket he'd just made me put on. I was surprised to find it slid all the way in to the pocket and slipped past the lining into a hiding place deep in the depths of the quilting. I blinked up at Seth as I realized he’d modified the jacket to fit the gun before he'd handed it to me.

“Oh,” I breathed out softly. He winked at me with his dead eye. It was a distinctly disturbing gesture but I didn't have time to think much about it.

Kennedy came stomping into the open doorway without knocking and let out a yelp of surprise when he saw Seth standing in the middle of the room with me.

I'd expected Kennedy to react to Seth the same way Drake had. I stood nervously next to the bed, waiting for scrawny little Kennedy to pull one of his knives and attack Seth the way I had sensed Drake had wanted to the night before.

It didn't happen.

Instead Kennedy grinned and walked the rest of the way into the room. “I wondered if you were around here somewhere,” he said to Seth. “I saw the tracks from your chopper in the mud outside.”

Seth shrugged. “Just having a look around.”

“Your stomping grounds,” Kennedy said with notable deference. “Fine by me.”

I noticed Kennedy wasn't looking Seth in the face. It suddenly occurred to me that there probably weren't too many people who were willing to look into that cold, dead eye, regardless of how pretty the opposite iris might be.

“You know you're not going to find a radiator big enough for that bus just laying around out here, right?” Seth asked.

I slipped my hand back into the depths of the jacket and felt the gun resting snugly against my mid-section. Seth had done a hell of a job creating a hiding place for it. I was willing to give credit where it was due on that. Dad would have respected Seth's quick thinking.

“I know that. You know that. Damn Drake is just wasting our time making us slog around in the mud when I've already told him we're not going to get that lucky.” Kennedy sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I'd bet my best pair of boots that the real reason he wanted us all to leave was so that he'd be alone with that slutty little blonde bitch.”

I tensed, hoping like hell Kennedy was just joking around. He didn't laugh. In fact, he looked pissed off. Seth shot me a quick, pointed glance and then turned his attention back to Kennedy. “Drake still screwing everything he can get his dick in?”

“Hell yeah. You know how he is,” Kennedy seemed completely unaware that he was taking the last part of my girlish innocence and smashing it into tiny little shards of broken glass. “You should have seen Shayla yesterday while we were working on that engine. Crazy bitch was taking off her dang top and messing with herself just to get his attention. She played like it was for Conner but I know it was Drake she was after.”

“Fun for everyone.”

“Man, I wouldn't touch that nasty hoe with a ten foot pole and
your
dick.”

I choked on my own saliva again and Kennedy suddenly blushed bright pink. “Aw, shit. Sorry Pilar. I don't guess you wanted to hear that.”

“It's fine,” I told him even though it wasn't. Suddenly all I could remember was the minty taste of Drake's tongue in my mouth. I purposely avoided looking at Seth. I felt like a completely fool, especially since I'd just wasted entirely too much of my breath arguing with him about how much I loved Drake.

I hoped like hell Kennedy was wrong about Drake and Cya, but I knew he was telling the truth about Shayla. I'd seen that spectacle with my own eyes.

I bit my tongue and tried to swallow my own hurt pride as I forced myself to focus on what Kennedy was saying now.

“Been meaning to get up with you,” Kennedy was saying to Seth.

“I don't have a radiator for that bus. Maybe in the Mylon Junkyard but that place is so damn full of zombies it’s not worth walking in to. I'd get a new bus, if I were you.” Seth was fiddling with a box on the dresser and he almost had the lid open when Kennedy shook his head no.

“I wasn't meaning about the radiator,” Kennedy clarified. “I was wondering if y'all were still wanting a mechanic?”

Seth paused, visibly surprised. He nodded. “We could always use another mechanic. You thinking about retiring?” He put heavy sarcasm on the last word.

“Conner got ate yesterday.” Kennedy frowned down at his feet. “It wasn't worth dying for. Stupid girl who was supposed to be on watch was too busy staring at Drake without his shirt on and didn't notice the dang zombie coming until it was right on us.”

“It’s never worth it,” Seth replied. He pursed his lips for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “You know my rules. You want to play by 'em, you're in.”

“I haven't decided for sure yet. I still got family in the Cube, ya know?”

“You know where to go when you make up your mind,” Seth told him.

Kennedy nodded. “Thanks man, I appreciate that.”

“Nothing to it,” Seth replied. “You've earned it.”

Kennedy turned to face me. “We need to get headed back to the bus.”

“Okay.” I had to force myself to move. My new boots felt like they were glued to the floor. I didn't know what to make of anything that had happened in this house today. None of it made any sense, especially not when it was combined with what Drake had confided in me last night. I wondered if Drake had been lying to me after all.

I wondered if Seth was lying to me now.

I didn't have the chance to ask him as Kennedy gestured for me to follow him out the door of the room and into the hall, but as Seth began to walk past me he leaned in so close that his jaw was nearly resting in my shoulder.

“Don't ever let Drake know you have that gun,” he said. “It's worth more than your life.”

Kennedy and I slogged down the wet clay road in awkward silence for a good 10 minutes before he broke the silence.

“You're smarter than Drake and Shayla are giving you credit for,” Kennedy informed me with a hint of bitter admiration in his voice.

I frowned, unsure how to take his compliment and downright confused about why he was giving it to me. “Is that so?” I asked, hoping to sound merely curious. I was afraid the hurt, anger and confusion in my heart would leak into my words.

Kennedy choked back a short, hard laugh. “It took you two days to figure out that being a Scavenger isn't the good deal everyone in the Cube makes it out to be. It's taken me damn near three years and a best friend.”

“I'm sorry,” I told him. His boyish face was a mask of frustration and anger.

“Conner wasn't my blood but he was my big brother,” Kennedy said, staring down at his boots as he continued to put one foot in front of the other on the roadway. “We shared an apartment. Dated the same girls. Went to the same parties. Played the same freaking games. I was trying to go to sleep last night and I wound up laying on my back counting the rivets in the ceiling and wondering who I was going to play chess with now that Conner was gone?”

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything at all. It didn't seem to matter if I replied or not. Kennedy was lost in his own world of memories and I was simply a sounding board for his emotions.

“Conner always talked about getting out of the Scavengers. He said all the secrets made him feel dirty. He wanted to jump ship and switch allegiances to the Church of Chaos pretty much from the first time we found out there was a world outside the Cube. He kept saying how the Powers That Be had a really short-sighted view of what survivors needed to do long-term compared to the way the Church operated.” Kennedy's voice cracked slightly.

The Church of Chaos wants too much
.

Drake's words from yesterday rang in my ears.

“When Jeremiah died and Seth took over as the head priest of the Church, I had to beg Conner to stay. He respected the hell out of Seth. Thought he was brilliant. He thought we'd have a real future if we left the Scavengers for the Church.”

“Seth is the leader of the Church of Chaos?” I couldn't stop myself from asking. I needed to clarify his position in my own head.

Kennedy nodded. “Conner and I had made a pact to stick together when we were kids. Now Conner is dead and it’s all my fault. He only agreed to stay with the Scavengers because I didn't want to just abandon my sisters, you know?” Kennedy ran one long fingered hand through his shaggy, strawberry blonde hair. I noticed his fingernails were dirty and chewed to the quick. “We were supposed to be figuring out a way to get my sisters out. We talked about it a lot and Conner even though he knew how to do it, but we never followed through. We always thought we'd have more time. God, I never thought Conner would go out that way. Eaten by a fucking loner zombie”

“Zombie attacks happen.” I shrugged my shoulders in a helpless gesture. My parents were gone and while I didn't think their disappearance was my fault, I understood his grief. I also knew there was absolutely nothing I could tell him that would alleviate the obvious misery he felt over the loss of his friend.

Kennedy frowned at me and shook his head. “If we'd have joined the Church when Conner wanted to, we would have been safe. I still remember the first night we ran into one of their patrols. It was so damned cold I could see my breath. My fingers were like chunks of ice and Hampton Block kept insisting that we tough it out until we'd collected 100 cans a piece,” Kennedy let out a disgusted huff. “Shit I wish I had known half the things I know now back then. I woulda walked. I woulda told Conner that being a Scavenger was bullshit, regardless of what we'd thought when we was kids talking about what we was going to do as grownups. Stupid fucking cans.” He shook his head. “A kid died that night. Her name was Lisa. We used to be friends. Her feet were too numb to run when the zombies came out and when she went to grab her sword her fingers were frozen and she dropped the blade right there at the zombie's feet. It ripped her face off. One minute she was Lisa. The next minute she was a bloody hump of meat surrounded by a giant red stain on the snow.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat but made no attempt to interrupt. In the back of my mind I heard my Dad talking about how being a good listener was worth three times as much as being a smooth talker.

“I was sure I was dead. I had on my jacket and Conner's, because he'd lied and told me he wasn't cold and that I should take it. I couldn't even get to the knife on my belt because there were too damn many layers of clothing blocking the holster. The stupid bag of cans was heavier than hell and when I tried to run away it put me off balance.” Kennedy shivered from the memory. I doubted he even realized I was still standing beside him.

“All of a sudden the zombie falls over in front of me and I'm looking up at a girl. A really pretty girl with curly blonde hair and she's got a fucking chain saw in her hands and she's grinning down at me. I thought I was hallucinating until she offered me her hand to help me up. That was when I saw her skin. It was all shredded looking like raw meat, but she was still using it like nothing was the matter. I started screaming and she smacked me in the face. Told me I'd better get my knife out if I was going to be howling like that and attracting more zombies.”

“She was like Seth,” I guessed. “Part zombie.”

“They all are. They do it to themselves on purpose.”

I gaped at him in surprise. “On purpose?” I asked disbelievingly. “I thought...Drake said they were turning into zombies because they eat food that’s been contaminated with the zombie virus.”

“Yeah, but your skin doesn't just start rotting or decaying without an injury,” Kennedy shrugged at me as if what he was telling me was common knowledge. “You have to have eaten enough of the virus that your immune system is infected, too.”

“Oh.” I supposed the explanation was scientifically possible from a medical standpoint. I wondered what Dr. Zeb would make of it.

“Yeah.” He shook his head again. “It’s creepy as fuck. Especially Seth's face. That eye of his gets to me.”

“It’s creepy,” I agreed, vaguely relieved I wasn't the only person who found the zombification repulsive. Of course, I was pretty sure Drake found it even more repulsive than I did. I wondered why he hadn't explained to me how it worked. Not that the process behind the effects really mattered much in the long run.

Or did it?

The pieces of the puzzle that had seemed to fit together rather neatly when I finished talking to Drake last night were beginning to get jumbled again. “You said they disfigure themselves on purpose?”

Kennedy nodded. “Conner wanted to do it. He thought it was worth it. I guess he was right. He'd be alive right now if I hadn't been such a freaking pansy about messing up my own sorry skin.” He choked on his own tongue as he visibly fought back a sob.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, my mind racing as I searched for the logical application of the information he was giving me. Kennedy clearly thought I knew more about life outside of the Cube than I did and I didn't want to lose his confidence by asking too many questions.

Instead I tried to focus on a logical reason why someone would want to be infected with the zombie virus. It surely wasn't to improve their looks. Zombies were everywhere and there were so few humans as is.

Holy Shit. The answer suddenly popped into my head like sunshine breaking through the clouds. “Zombies won't eat zombies,” I said in awe. It made perfect sense. “Zombies are only interested in fresh meat, not meat that has already been contaminated with the zombie virus.”

“Right.” Kennedy nodded, almost bored by the information. “The girl who saved me, Sierra, explained it all to Conner. I didn't really understand the medical part of it, I've never been smart except when it comes to machines, but turning yourself just a little bit zombie makes the real zombies lose all interest in eating you.”

“It’s really clever.” I was still in awe but a million questions were starting to surface in my mind. If there was a way to avoid being attacked by zombies then why were we all still living inside a fortress like the Cube? Turning a little bit zombie was unappealing but it would open up a world of other possibilities. A world where people could live in their own homes and not be constantly tripping all over one another because we were crammed into the Cube with no room to spare. A world where I wouldn't have been kicked out of my apartment within days of my parent's disappearance due to a waiting list for rooms.

It took all of my energy to focus my attention back onto Kennedy and away from the possibilities of a world without the fear of zombie attack. Kennedy was still talking and I was suddenly realizing that maybe I had a lot to gain from listening to him.

“I still thought the Scavengers were noble back then,” he was saying. “I didn't know about Ra-Shet and no one had ever said a word to me about the Church of Chaos. When Conner wanted to leave the Scavengers to join Seth's crew I told him he was taking too big of a risk. Hampton Block kept telling us how important it was for us to gather up all the cans we could to feed our families. I guess Drake still tells people that – though you knew better already, didn't you?”

I thought about the canned goods. Drake had made it seem like he and Seth were at war because of the limited amount of cans available and I'd believed him.

Had he been lying?

I felt more confused and betrayed than ever as I fingered the straps of my new pink backpack. I hadn't taken the time to open the bag yet but I was fairly certain I would find it full of practical, useful items similar to my new boots and jacket.

I changed the subject because I didn't have a good answer to give Kennedy. I hadn't known about the Church of Chaos before yesterday and, in all likelihood, it was plain old ignorant luck that had gotten me this far.

“You're really going to leave the Scavengers now?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think so,” Kennedy nodded, he didn't seem to have noticed that I'd shifted the conversation back to him. “It’s stupid how much I counted on having Conner around to watch my back when I never even realized it. Without him around, I'm just another piece of meat.”

“Isn't Drake going to be upset?” I asked. “I got the impression he doesn't exactly get along with Seth.”

Kennedy looked up at me in surprise. “I'm not stupid enough to tell Drake I'm leaving. Drake hates Seth with a passion,” he said. “He'd kill Seth in an instant if he ever got the upper hand on him. Hell, who am I kidding? Drake would kill Seth from behind in cold blood if he ever had the opportunity. He'd probably piss on the corpse.”

“Why?” I didn't understand the animosity between Drake and Seth, especially if Kennedy's scorn about the important of collecting canned goods was an indicator of their true worth. I didn't know who to trust, either.

“Hell if I know. The Church of Chaos and the Scavengers haven't ever been friends, exactly, but Jeremiah didn't fight with Hampton Block. The fighting started after Hampton died and Drake took over.” Kennedy leaned back against a tree on the side of the trail, his expression troubled.

“You're smarter than me, Pilar. You probably have better instincts about people than I do,” Kennedy was choosing his words carefully. “I can't tell you what to do with your life, but things outside the Cube aren't the way you think they are. Trust your own feelings and don't second guess yourself.” He met my eyes. “If I had been honest with myself, my best friend would still be alive right now.”