Scavengers. Part 27

David looked up at them, scanned the faces. They looked desperate. But for Evelyn, all of their eyes seemed to crave some hint of hope, proof of a miracle. They were hoping something wonderful had happened here. Something other than the very bad magic that had torn apart their world and left them all prisoners here on a farm in the middle of Timbuk-Texas. Dejah had been dead when she got thrown into the barn. They knew it, he knew it. Now, she was stirring again, alive. How did he explain the unbelievable? At this point, did he even need to? Maybe they all needed this. To see this miracle of life that bloomed here before them. To see that all was not lost. Because her regeneration meant something to him, too. Maybe not a G.o.d-thing per se...but then what? What does this mean to you? He flashed back on Shaun's words that he had no faith. But faith could be more than just a belief in G.o.d. It could be a belief in hope.

"Dejah," he said, "has a special gift."

"Special gift?" Evelyn mocked him. A few curious faces waited for his explanation.

"She ... comes back. I've seen it once before. She was ravaged. Dead. But she comes back. Regenerates."

"She what?" The woman was clearly not the brightest bulb in the box.

"Regenerates. Heals herself."

"Is this some kind of joke?" She looked around, hands on her hips, cackling. No one else broke a smile. "So, you telling me she can't be killed? That them b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out there can't eat and kill her?"

David's cheeks burned at the woman's demeanor. He really did want to hit the b.i.t.c.h, but he answered more for the benefit of the others in the barn. "It seems that way."

"So," and the hag half-turned, as if making an announcement to the others, "Bal Shem won't have to have his creepy kid heal her almost dead a.s.s when the infected eat her. She can do it all by her own d.a.m.n self!" Evelyn rolled her eyes. "Did this virus bring along some other self-healing freaks too, because it seems like a lot of magic fairies are landing here in our little circus camp."

One college-aged young woman giggled behind a self-conscious hand. Evelyn made eye contact with her and she was silent.

Dejah stirred. She blinked her eyes and looked around, refocusing.

"Careful," David whispered, coming to her side.

Dejah struggled to sit. "Creepy kid? What do you mean? Is she a girl? About nine?"

"Yeah, that's the brat. They got this whole place rigged out to keep them in food. They come in here, grab some of us, eat us, then they haul our almost dead a.s.ses back to Bal Shem's trailer of horrors and the girl heals you. Poof! All your s.h.i.t is new again. Then they haul your a.s.s back to the barn and you get to do it all over some other day."

Dejah tried to stand. David urged her to relax. "Not now. Now isn't the time. You're not strong enough yet. You need food."

Evelyn laughed. "Well, food comes in the form of canned goods, and never enough."

"Look, would you shut the f.u.c.k up? Don't you have some other inbred hayseed friends to terrorize?" David shouted at the woman.

Evelyn flung her stringy hair over her shoulder and marched toward the other end of the barn. The crowd dispersed. A lone teenager remained. She came cautiously into the stall and knelt next to them.

"Do you need any help?" the girl asked softly. "My name's Lauren."

"I've got it right now, but thanks." He covered Dejah with a blanket again. The rain had brought a damp chill. "So, what's that b.i.t.c.h's story?" David nodded toward the corner of the barn where Evelyn went, some of the people rallying around her in the shadows. Evelyn stayed across the room, eyeing them with apparent malice.

"Oh, her," Lauren said, and shrugged. "Before the virus, she waitressed at the truck stop on the way to Commerce. She likes to think she's in charge around here. Causes trouble any chance she gets. She's even caused problems with Bal Shem. I keep hoping they'll just eat her and actually let her die instead of healing her the way they do."

"Who is this Bal Shem guy?"

"One of the infected. Word has it he was the terrorist who blew up the plane over the county. He made everyone sick."

"And he's here?"

"Yeah. Before things got really crazy, I talked with one of the cops. He said that this Bal Shem escaped from custody the night of the explosion. I guess the guy couldn't get out of the county because of the lockdown. Anyway, he turned up sick in this camp. Right before the infected went nuts and killed everyone, they confirmed it was him."

"s.h.i.t."

"Yeah, when it rains, it pours, huh?" Lauren sighed.

"So, now he's running the place?"

Lauren leaned closer, trying not to disturb Dejah who had settled into sleep. "He calls the camp his Flesh Farm. He's got a whole system working now. Not all of the infected cooperate though. From what we've seen, some of the infected are just like mindless flesh eaters who gather at the edges of the camp. They just lean against the fences. The other ones we call the talkers - talking zombies. They're Bal Shem's henchmen. Bal Shem tells everyone what to do."

David shook his head in disbelief. "What do you mean by Flesh Farm?" He asked the question, but the dread pooling in his guts told him all he needed to know.

Lauren looked around to see who was listening. She shot a nervous look toward Evelyn's cronies. "Well, he has things set up so he's corralling us. Breeding, and harvesting humans. Children are in another part of the camp."

"What the f.u.c.k are they doing with the kids?"

"There's this one talker. His name's Joe. Sometimes he's actually almost normal, and he...uh, calls me pretty' and, well, I guess he has a thing for me. It's...weird, but I've tried to use it to get information. He tells me they don't really know how the breeding process is going to work. But, he and some other talkers think they'll hold us here long enough that babies will be born. Then Bal Shem will allow the adults to raise the children to a certain age, and then the infected will start eating as many adults as there are children to replace them."

"Holy s.h.i.t. I didn't know these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds could reason like this."

"Not all of them can," Lauren said.

"How many people are here, in the camp, I mean?"

"I heard some of the men saying there's a couple hundred healthy people. A lot of families were here with infected relatives." Lauren paused. "So, there's a lot."

"Evelyn said they feed us canned goods?"

"Once a day they drop off cans at the doors, and the bunk leader brings them in for distribution while one of talkers supervises."

"Bunk leader?" David asked.

Lauren looked toward Evelyn, who, sensing she was being discussed, narrowed her black eyes at them like a cobra.

"Evelyn," said the girl.

"I see," said David.

He watched Dejah sleep. Rain water patted into the hay a few feet away. He studied her face, felt his heart ache for her, for her daughter, for their loss, the absence of Shaun. He met the girl's eyes.

He calls me pretty.'

David lifted a rea.s.suring hand to her shoulder. Lauren gave him a weary smile.

The old doctor that rode in with them pushed through the scattered group and came into the stall, joining them.

Dr. Robbins looked about as good as the rest of them. His dirty clothes were shredded in spots, streaked with blood from surface scratches as they'd been restrained. He nodded firmly at David, then knelt next to Dejah and gingerly tended her remaining wounds.

Evelyn sat on a bale of hay. It poked her a.s.s, cutting through her skirt. She stared toward the horse stall where these newcomers, Dejah and David were. The other guys were huddled over in the corner, with the doctor coming and going between Dejah's stall and the two soldiers that came in with their group. Somehow the soldiers and the doctor managed to keep a duffle bag when they got tossed in here. Everyone was pretty curious about what the men had in the bag. Mostly they wondered if they had any food. The canned goods were coming less often than before, and panic was running high that the infected were running out of food to feed them.

f.u.c.king A. Healing herself. Coming back to life. What the f.u.c.k? 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 p.r.o.nounced 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. "d.a.m.n it you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, 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 G.o.d, or someone, to kill her. For she knew she would live only to endure the same horror again. And again. And again....

CHAPTER 40.

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 pa.s.sion 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 compa.s.sion. 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 rea.s.sured 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.