Scavengers (28 page)

Fucking A. Healing herself. Coming back to life. What the fuck?
Evelyn thought. She propped her elbows on her knees, chin in her hands, lost in thought. She had to find a way to use this woman to her advantage. She wanted out of here. This Dejah broad might just be the bargaining chip she’d been waiting for. If Bal Shem had Dejah, he wouldn’t need the girl to heal so many eaten. The infected could eat Dejah, let her heal, and eat her again, thus reducing the number of other people needing to be eaten at any given time.

And, if she was the one to tell Bal Shem about this new development, maybe he’d let her walk out of here. She’d take her chances with the feral infected on the road into town.  Better than sitting here, waiting her turn to die.

Evelyn made her way to the big barn doors. There was a broken plank of wood that swiveled on a nail when you moved it. She’d used it to talk to the infected posted as guards before, and planned on doing the same now. She pushed the wood slat away. Rain-scented cold air rushed in.

“Psst,” she hissed through the hole, catching the attention of the guard.

“Go away.”

“No, listen. I need to see Bal Shem.”

“No.”

“I know something that will make him very happy. You’ll get a reward. That’s how happy he’ll be.”

Silence.

Evelyn tried to keep her voice even-tempered, forcing the anger to go flat. “You still out there?”

“Yes,” the guard said.

“I want to talk to Bal Shem,” Evelyn hissed louder, trying not to attract the attention of her fellow barn-dwellers.

“You’ll tell him I helped with this…thing making him happy?”

“Yes, now take me to him.” Evelyn waited for the infected guard to open the door. The barn door shuddered open and the emaciated zombie snatched at her arm. Some of those in the barn who saw the door open instinctively receded into the shadows. She made a big show of fighting the guard, and then the barn door slammed behind her. The morning sun had broken through the rain clouds. It shone warm on her face as the guard roughly hauled her to Bal Shem’s trailer.

The guard opened the door and a rancid smell wafted out.  Inside, all the curtains were drawn, filtering a dingy light.  Huge brackish smears had dried on the floor. She wrinkled her nose against the foul odors.

She was yanked into a large room at one end of the trailer and brought before a desk. The nearby corner was shrouded with gloom where a large cage sat. A small shape within, dressed in rags, lay curled like a sleeping dog against one wall of the makeshift prison. Bal Shem sat behind the desk, listing in a leather office chair, looking sideways at a closed window as if in deep thought.  When they entered, he stiffened with irritation. The shadows of the room pooled deeply in the sockets of his face, hung in his shallow cheeks. His nose arrowed down like a hawk’s beak as he regarded the unannounced visitors. “What is this?” he asked.

“This woman says she knows something to make you happy,” the guard relayed.

Bal Shem looked doubtful. “Let’s have it then.”

“First,” said Evelyn, a slight tremor in her voice, “I want your promise that you’ll let me leave here. You’ll let me walk to the road and leave.”

“If your knowledge is worth my time, and truly does ‘make me happy’, then, by all means.” Bal Shem smiled a crooked smile.

Evelyn shook the guard’s hand from her arm, confident that she had the edge now. “The corpse your boys brought into the barn last night, the one with the other men and soldiers?” she paused. “Well, she’s not dead anymore.”

“What do you mean,
anymore
?” Bal Shem squinted his eyes, suspicious of the troublesome woman’s tale.

“Apparently she has some sort of super powers or something. Guy she was with says she can’t be killed.” Evelyn stared at the glowering Bal Shem.  She blinked at him. “Don’t you get it?  You and your ghouls can eat her over and over again, and she’ll come back to life. Sort of like what your kid over there does, only this gal does it to herself.” Evelyn shot a glance in the direction of Selah, crouched now in a large cage made of chicken wire and barbed metal fencing.  The whites of her eyes shone in her dirty face.

“You’ve seen this…
healing
…with your own eyes?”

“Yep. Dead as a doornail. That man with her kept her covered up all night, like he was waiting for something, then, come morning, she sits up:
alive
.”

“Interesting development.”  He pronounced the last word haltingly, like it gave him some trouble.

“Now, let me go. You gave me your word,” Evelyn wasted no tact on the leader of the infected.

Bal Shem looked toward a group of five or six infected who gathered near the front door, and nonchalantly waved his hand in her direction. They approached with hungry expressions.

Evelyn stiffened and backed away. “Damn it you bastard, you said I could leave!”

Bal Shem laughed.

They attacked her. They tore muscle from bone, drank her blood, and gorged themselves on her aged flesh in a pernicious frenzy. The sounds of their sloppy feast were like pigs at a trough. They picked her bones clean in some places. When they were finished, muscle hung from her limbs like bloated slugs. Entrails showed through holes ripped in her wrinkled torso.  Despite this, she wasn’t dead yet. A raspy groan escaped her lips.

He gave the command to stop, and the infected stepped away from her broken body. Eyes fluttering, breath struggling to abandon her body, blood flooding from her remains, and with her heart fading with each weakening beat, Bal Shem grabbed Evelyn’s hair and dragged her to Selah’s cage. The girl, with her hand tied to one of the crossbars, could do nothing but touch Evelyn’s blood-splattered forehead.

Evelyn convulsed at Selah’s touch.

And so it began for her.  Her just reward. 

Throughout the course of the day, Evelyn’s flesh returned to her bones, knitting new ligaments, sinew, veins and muscle, new skin growing and covering wounds. Bal Shem watched with a grim fascination as the hours stretched into evening.

Evelyn came back to life in the middle of the night, praying for God, or someone, to kill her.  For she knew she would live only to endure the same horror again. And again. And again….

Dejah felt much improved after sleeping. Miraculously, most of the people in the barn left her alone. Either to mull over the strangeness they’d witnessed by her regeneration, or because it was no more strange or horrific than their new existences had become. She was vaguely aware that David had kept everyone at bay, fielding questions now and then. The teenage girl, Lauren, ran interference too, fending off the curious when David reached the end of his tether and finally had to sleep.

Dejah stood, brushing the hay from her clothes and skin, working her stuff joints.  She knelt at David’s side. He looked weary, older, dirty, but not even the horror of their recent days could erase the handsome lines of his face.  She brushed her fingers lightly through his hair, remembering their hurried lovemaking at H-Systems.  She was struck again with the distant pang of guilt, blended with the thrill of desire. Funny how after all these years, she’d been awakened so deep inside by passion in the midst of chaos.

“David,” she whispered.  He stirred, blinking bloodshot eyes at her.

With a racket of creaking wood and rusted nails straining, the tall doors were shoved open.  Light flooded the barn.  A group of Bal Shem’s guards stood were silhouetted against the daylight.  Clouds quickly covered it again, and the wind that rushed into the place was ripe with the scent of rain – the wet mud scent of all that had come before, and the promise of more to come.  The lurching minions brought back a group of freshly-healed, previously eaten people. They were tossed inside like bags of meat.  The doors closed behind them.

The others in the barn quickly tended to them, providing blankets and food immediately. It was clear that the barn full of people had learned to depend on each other for comfort and basic human compassion. Dejah stood, wanting to help, but it seemed their system was an efficient one, and everyone had the situation covered. Still, Dejah wandered over to see how the others were.  She was treated with a fair amount of mistrust, but a few reassured her that everything was under control.

Feeling unexpected emotional pain at her exclusion from the rest of her fellow-prisoners, she walked around the barn to keep warm, peering through cracks in the walls, trying to see what was going on outside. No feral infected pressed against the walls or tried to break into the barn. Bal Shem was running a tight ship. She’d heard that he killed any infected who failed to follow his orders. Finally, she went back to sit next to David.

Lauren brought over a cup of water mixed with some pear juice.

“It’s not coffee, but it’s better than rain water,” she said. “The infected brought the hose inside for a few minutes. We were able to fill several buckets.”

“Kind of them,” Dejah said, sarcasm heavy in her voice.

“Dejah!” a man’s voice cried.

Dejah turned toward the sound of her name. Her heart pounded.
Thomas
? A man pushed though the crowd toward the stall where she, David, and Lauren sat. It
was
Thomas.

“God in heaven,” she whispered. “Thomas.”

David eyed the approaching man warily.

Thomas was gaunt and unshaven, his eyes mere sockets blackened with pain. Dejah barely recognized him, but
it was him
. He approached her, not with outstretched arms, but with a strange look, like he had something to hide.

“Oh God, Thomas. Selah…where is she?  Tell me she’s with you, Thomas.”

He looked at the dirty straw-strewn ground, his face reflecting a struggle of emotions.

Dejah’s hopes sank. “Where is she? Where’s my baby?” Lauren sidled up to her, softly touching her elbow, comforting her. Dejah trembled.

Thomas only stood there, blinking.

“Thomas, damn you!
Where is she
?” Dejah stood and grabbed him, violently shaking him. David reached from behind and grabbed her arms. She whirled around, burying her face in David’s chest.

Thomas and David exchanged loaded looks.

“I-I don’t
know
where she is, Dejah.” Thomas wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I
think
she might be with Bal Shem. There are rumors that there’s a child that’s healing the people being eaten. I – god Dejah, they took me a couple of nights ago, and they….” He choked on a deep sob that wracked his body.  He pulled himself together and looked at her with eyes so red they might bleed. “My god, Dejah,
they ate me
.  I still remember the teeth, the blood, screaming and then… I-I was out. I blacked out. And then, when I woke up again, I was in a tent. I didn’t see Selah or anyone else other than the infected guards and the others…the other people who were eaten with me. We’d been healed. But I don’t know if she’s up there.  I don’t remember seeing her…and I don’t know where she went.”  His voice broke again and his anguish was laid bare for all to see.

Dejah gasped, and looked at Thomas. “How can you
not know
? Didn’t you stay with her?”

“We got separated during the uprising. I told her to stay at our tent when I had to go help dig graves for the dead. There were guards.  I thought she’d be safe, but, well, you know Selah. She had her own ideas and went looking for my mom. That’s the last anyone saw of her.”

“She
has
to be the child everyone is talking about. The healer. You know that, don’t you?”

Thomas nodded slowly, reluctantly. He sniffled and blinked away tears. “I don’t want to believe it but…it makes sense. I just—”

“Of course it makes sense!” Dejah’s voice grew louder. “Do you seriously mean to tell me that you completely lost track of her, and now you suspect that she’s up there in that trailer with that
monster
, and you haven’t done a goddamn thing about it?”

“I don’t know if you’ve looked around at what’s happening here,
sweetheart
,” Thomas’s voice took on a sudden edge that turned the term of endearment into an expression of loathing. “But we’re pretty much sitting-fucking-ducks around here.  They’re armed, they’re feral; we’re surrounded.  We are completely at their mercy, Dejah. Do you understand that?
There’s nothing we can do
.”

Dejah separated herself from David, yanking her arms free. Her cheeks flushed red as she moved closer to Thomas. “Nothing we can do about it? Have you even tried? Have you done
anything
at all, Thomas? Or have you just sat in here wallowing in self-pity, while your daughter, your flesh and blood, is being used as some kind of sick pawn in this Bal Shem’s game? God only knows
what else
is being done to her!”

They were attracting a crowd. They blinked at the altercation like gathered birds on a wire. “And the rest of you. How long are you just going to cower in here like sheep? Getting eaten and revived and thrown back for another day? How long are you willing to let the infected treat you like fucking hamburger?”

“If we try anything, they’ll kill us,” one bookwormish woman said. Her tone of voice assumed she was dead already.

“Would you rather go on living like this for the rest of your lives? Waiting, day in and day out, for one of those freaks to come haul you out of here and eat you? Is that how you want to live?” Dejah was shouting.

“Ssh,” Lauren said, “They’ll hear us and come in to investigate.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Dr. Robbins.  He pushed through the huddled group, a figure of strength in a crowd of the defeated.

Dejah turned to him, hopeful.

“I’m a doctor. Working with a few members of the military, I’ve been trying to come up with a toxin-antidote serum to neutralize the infection. The serum, when injected into the body of an infected, promotes antibodies to neutralize viral cells present in the body. It’s worked in almost all of our test cases at the hospital. We were bringing this batch out here for Josh – Dr. Gutierrez.  Unfortunately, we were too late to help him, and his crew and…the rest of you.  But we’re here now,” Dr. Robbins said. “And I have some syringes of the serum.”

“How the hell did you manage to get in here with that bag?” David asked.

“They may be able to talk, and they do appear more advanced than the average infected, but in the end it seems they ain’t too bright, son,” Robbins said. “It wasn’t a gun, and I didn’t fight against them, so they didn’t bother me much.  I had it strapped to my back.  They threw me in here, medical supplies and all.”

“How much of that stuff do you have with you, doc?” David asked. “Is it in the bag?”

“I have about twenty doses. Some of my supply got destroyed in the scuffle before they brought us here.”

“This is crazy!” Thomas said. “You—you’re talking about getting close enough to Bal Shem to
inject
him?”

“What are you willing to do for your daughter, Thomas? How far are you willing to go?” Dejah said with angry resolve. “Because, for me, I’m willing to
die
for her. I’ll gladly give my life if she can go free.”

“Easy for you to say, lady,” someone in the crowd said. “You come back to life when you get eaten.”

Thomas looked at her inquisitively. “What does he mean?”

She shook her head. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down.  She was coming at Thomas tooth and nail, and it wasn’t fair to him, no matter how much of a jerk he’d been to her in the past. If it hadn’t been for him deciding to take Selah with him for their agreed-upon break from each other, none of this would have happened to them. But it didn’t matter now. It was done, and she had to back off.  The energy she’d bottled inside, all the anxiety worrying about Selah, was coming out as blasts of anger at Thomas when they needed composure. She needed to relax. 
Breathe, Dejah.  Just breathe.
“It’s a long story.”

David looked around at the people standing elbow to elbow. “We have to act together. If some of us revolt, everyone will face reprisals anyway, so it’s best if we put on a unified front and act as one cohesive unit.”

“No fucking way,” someone said, voice trailing away.

“I’m not getting involved!” a woman screeched from the back of the group.

Thomas shook his head. “It’s just not a good idea.”

“I’ll help,” Lauren said, voice eager, a look of determination on her face. “I’ll fight. I’d rather be dead than keep on being their prisoner.”

Private Brooks joined the group. “I’ve got hand-to-hand combat skills, so does Abbott and the doc. He served too. Anyone else here have any special skills, maybe served in one of the branches of the military?”

Tired faces stared at the young private, but no one spoke up. The crowd began to disperse. No one wanted to discuss a rebellion.

Thomas wouldn’t look Dejah in the eye. A tense moment passed between them in which she felt a growing sense of revulsion for the man before her. What were petty thoughts in the face of their challenges rushed back to her…all the times he turned away from her when she needed him, the long nights he left her alone and aching for the sound of his voice. How many years had it been since he’d spoken to her with a word of kindness, or given her an affectionate touch in passing?  She couldn’t remember.  She couldn’t recall him ever being concerned for her or for anything other than himself, and occasionally Selah. Yes, they were petty thoughts, but she couldn’t help having them.  Feeling the hurt of his neglect, and the rage that now filled her to realize that when she needed him the most, when
Selah
needed him most, he was content to hide in the shadows and save his own ass rather than stand at her side and risk it all for their daughter. The situation that now faced them all revealed the true nature of all of their characters, and his was cowardly, self-centered, pitiful.

Easy, girl.  Easy.  There’s too much at stake.  Remember to breathe. These things aren’t important now.

Still, she turned her back to Thomas and willed him to go away.

David stood in the horse stall, talking to Dr. Robbins and the private.  He looked over at her, his eyes reflecting the tumult of emotions he must be feeling inside. She ached for him, for them, for their uncertain future, but most of all, her immediate concern was for Selah.  She still dared to hope.

One way or the other she
would
set her child free from the clutches of Bal Shem.