Scavengers. Part 22

She looked around, trying to see if her grandmother was in the tent. Her dad told her she wasn't allowed to come to this part of the camp, but they hadn't been able to get any information about Grandma from the people in charge. This seemed like the best way. She'd look in all of the tents, and be back before her dad returned from helping dig graves for the dead.

The man saw her. Just as she started to drop the tent edge, he lifted his head.

"h.e.l.lo, little one," his voice was raspy like he had a dry throat, and he talked funny. Different somehow.

Selah wasn't sure what to do. She crouched, motionless, tent edge still clasped in her hand.

"What are you doing here?" the man asked.

"I'm looking for my Grandma," she replied. "But I have to hurry. My dad's afraid I'll get sick if I talk with her. I'm not supposed to leave our tent."

"What does your grandmother look like?"

Selah lifted the tent edge and crawled under. Hesitantly she made her way to the man's side. Close up, he looked sicker. She eyed his restraints suspiciously. No harm telling him, she guessed. "She's short, little. She's smaller than my mom." Selah studied the man. His black hair and bronze skin looked almost Mexican, but his voice had a different accent. She thought maybe he was Middle Eastern, like her friend Amira from school.

"Maybe I can help you find her?"

"Maybe. Are you sick?" Selah asked.

"No. I was asleep and they put these straps on me by mistake. They said they'd come back and undo them when they weren't busy," the man said with a smile. "But, now that you're here, you can help me so they can take care of the sick people."

"You look sick."

"I'm just cold. No heat in the tent." He looked around, and shot a glance toward the tent door. "What's your name?"

"Selah. What's your's?" She wondered if she'd get in trouble for talking with a stranger, but her dad wouldn't really know because she'd get back to their tent before he returned.

"Shem."

"That's a funny name."

"My home is far away. I was teaching at the college." Bal Shem smiled again.

Selah knew a bunch of her grandparents' friends were professors at the state college in Commerce, not too far from Greenville. She'd been there lots of times.

"Can you help me unbuckle these straps?"

"I don't know." She took a cautious step back. "I should ask the doctor first. You look really sick."

Bal Shem frowned, but quickly replaced the harsh expression with a smile. "You want to find your grandma, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Help me remove the straps and we'll go find her. I know where all the tents are. We can probably find her pretty fast."

Selah looked around the empty tent and then back at Shem. He lay on the cot, smiling. He did look like a teacher. She moved to his legs and unbuckled the fat strap. "What do you teach at the college?" she asked.

He muttered something incoherent, and struggled with words that couldn't seem to formulate on his tongue. He laid his head on the cot and closed his eyes, as if trying to clear the webs from his mind.

When her hand brushed against the bare flesh of his arm, Bal Shem felt tingles surge over his skin. Tingles similar to the sensation felt when the body experienced pins and needles.

Her hands worked the tight buckle over his chest.

"You've almost got it," he said, voice heavy with encouragement.

"It's stuck, I think."

"Wiggle it to the right a little more."

Selah moved the black strap to the right and slid it from the buckle.

He was free.

Bal Shem clasped her hand in a gesture of thanks.

When he wrapped his fingers around the small bones of her fist, a current of power coursed through the receptors in the sensory neurons of his skin, neural transmitters surged to interneurons. Overcharged signals rocketed through the core of his spine. An electric heat rushed through his being like raw electricity. It gave him a momentary sense of elation, of power. Of strength.

He released her hand, shocked.

The little girl stood motionless before him, watching him.

Bal Shem felt his brain returning to normal. In a supernatural moment of heightened self awareness, he imagined he could feel the dendrites of neural cells in his brain begin to branch out again where they had begun to wither, could sense the somatic processing of his thoughts fire heightened impulses down the axons of billions of neural cells reawakened. Thoughts formed and stuck where, before, he kept forgetting what he was thinking.

He touched her arms with his hands. She stared into his face, trembling, but didn't make a sound.

Strength washed over him as he felt the rejuvenation of aching bones and eroding muscles on an almost molecular level. He brushed her face with his hand, gently, so as not to scare her too much. Another wave of warmth and energy bathed his frazzled nerves, soothed the chaos in his mind. What was it about this child that gave him strength and rationale where minutes before he only had weakness and confusion?

"Are-are you okay?" she managed to ask.

"Yes, yes, little one. I am only so very thankful for ... your help." He hoped his voice sounded comforting, friendly. He let her go. She started to take a step backward, when he reached and grasped her hand once more. As a test.

The potency of her effect on him was immediate. Energy spiked through him, emboldened him, made him feel well again.

He heard footsteps pa.s.sing outside the tent.

"Are you still going to help me find Grandma?"

Bal Shem looked at her with his dark brown eyes, his dusky lips curling into a smile. "Why, of course, little one."

His thoughts rushed like water over a spillway now. Clarity returned and, with it, his purpose was renewed. He needed to get out of this camp. He'd been here too long and with the military and police presence, even in this time of insanity, someone might spot him again. On the other hand, he was sick. Despite his momentary rejuvenation, he felt it fading already, like the effects of a narcotic as it gave you back to your pain.

Yes. Despite what he'd just felt, this amazing surge of vigor, he was sure that he was still sick. And even as he realized it, his moment of lucidity was also fading fast. Suddenly, he struggled to formulate the next words he would say.

Until he touched this child.

He looked at Selah. Each brush against her flesh renewed his health, sent surging power and strength through his body. Was he so far gone, so sick and delusional that his mind was imagining these physical and mental effects?

He let her hand drop. She grabbed her hand protectively, eyeing the tent door. "I have to hurry. My dad told me not to come here. He's afraid I'll get sick. Can we go look for her now?"

"Certainly." Bal Shem stood. His legs felt like old wicker, rickety and unsure, but when he placed his hand on Selah's shoulder for support, the power shot through him again, and his legs felt renewed.

He saw the tans and browns of Army fatigues on a man pa.s.sing in front of his tent. "Stay here just for a moment. Don't leave. There are ... too many sick people. I'll be right back."

Quickly, Bal Shem darted outside. The Army reservist didn't see him sneak up from behind; he didn't see whose hands twisted and snapped his neck.

The man's body dropped into the dry dirt with a thud. Bal Shem seized the man's pistol, and slung the man's rifle over his shoulder. Straightening his rumpled, dirty white dress s.h.i.+rt, he calmly re-entered the tent.

Selah stared with wide eyes. "Where'd you get those?" She pointed at the guns.

"Oh, they give these to people when they're going wandering around the camp. Can't have you out there with those sick patients unprotected. Shall we go?" Bal Shem smiled deceptively and held the tent flap open for Selah. She eagerly stepped outside.

Together they walked along the dirt path between the double rows of tents for the sick. The clinic trailer lay at the end of the path. The forest ran to the edge of the property here, thick with brush and trees. Behind the clinic trailer loomed the remnant of an ancient barn that even in its heyday probably wasn't impressive. But it was functional. That's what he respected about these Texans. They got the job done without bells and frills. Bal Shem continued to take in the lay of the land. Selah walked quietly beside him, casting a longing glance back the rows of tents.

"Hey mister? Sorry, but I think-"

"Shh," he said.

Next to the clinic trailer stood another trailer being used for office s.p.a.ce. A police officer stood on creaking metal stairs smoking a cigarette. The big man watched them as they neared the clinic. Bal Shem remained calm. Slowly, he reached down and took Selah's hand in a familiar, fatherly way. She looked questioningly up at him. He smiled at her.

The police officer's eyes narrowed at them. He did a back-and-forth glance between him and the girl. He stomped out his cigarette and came down the stairs.

"Hey," said the cop. "You there."

Bal Shem slipped an arm under Selah's arms, across her chest, yanking her from her feet. She screamed.

"Hold it right there, mister," the officer ordered, drawing his gun from his holster.

Bal Shem kept Selah in front of him, using her as a s.h.i.+eld, shoved past the cop and stomped up the metal stairs, throwing open the door to the clinic. The lights were off inside. The trailer was empty. He slammed the flimsy door, and turned the deadbolt.

Selah was still screaming. Roughly, he tossed her to the carpeted floor, and then peered cautiously around the window frame, through the gla.s.s, outside. The police officer had gathered the few remaining military and other cops around the exterior of the clinic. No one was shooting. And they wouldn't, because he had the child.

Selah sat on the floor, crying. She rubbed her knee where it impacted the floor when he dropped her. "Why did you do that? We didn't find Grandma. You lied! I want my dad!"

Bal Shem scowled. "Be silent."

"I want to go. You can't keep me here!" Selah jumped up, running for the door.

Bal Shem growled, white saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth. He wiped the gluey moisture away with his filthy s.h.i.+rtsleeve. His mind felt muddled. Confusion was settling in. He moved his tongue to speak, but suddenly the muscle felt stiff.

Lunging for the girl, he seized her arm. Immediately, a surge of coherency and strength filled his core, and the fog in his mind cleared.

One touch of this child.... It settled over him that he could not sacrifice her. He needed her, not just as a bargaining chip, but as a lifeline to the world of coherent thought.

"Sit down," he said.

Selah trembled, but, sensing the danger of her immediate situation, did as she was told. As she whimpered against the fake wood paneled wall next to a desk, Bal Shem peered between the flimsy curtains.

A flurry of motion outside was followed by rapid gunfire, but the gunshots weren't directed toward the clinic. Three tents down the path, on the left side, a mob of infected swarmed the handful of officers and military personnel. A frenzy of shouts, incoherent grunts and primal noise rose along with more gunfire. Dust rose in the sudden melee. A mob of infected dragged the officers to the dirt, ripping the fabric of their uniforms away with jagged teeth and broken fingernails.

Bal Shem ran to a different window for a new angle on the unfolding scene. In the trailer beside the clinic, he saw a crowd of infected dragging a doctor and two other men over the metal stairs. One fat man in overalls bit down on the doctor's arm. The doctor flailed, but was unsuccessful in shaking the sick man. Blood poured from the fresh wounds. Raw craters of blood opened as the fat man tore away a mouthful of stringy muscle and veined flesh. The young doctor barely had time to scream before his attacker went in for another bite.

The scent of warm blood drew more infected toward the cl.u.s.ter of confusion outside the office. Bal Shem ran to the other side of the trailer looking out the kitchen window. Along the fence, where orderlies had tied dozens of infected for want of cots and restraints, the "patients" were tearing free of their ropes, seemingly gathering strength. Even more curious, the ones that weren't able to escape on their own were getting help from other infected individuals.

As if they're seeking revenge for what's been done to them, he thought. Imprisoned, sedated, and now left to die.

Together, the group of infected left behind broken fragments of rope and shambled toward the growing ma.s.s of slaughtered staff members. Several uninfected people, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, rounded the corner of the trailer and were immediately set upon by the wild band of infected. In a matter of minutes, the men and women were reduced to stark, blood-streaked visions of death. The creatures for surely he could think of no better term now that they had lost all sense of humanity ripped into soft midsections, chewed open necks and tore muscles with their teeth. In minutes, the new victims were glistening piles of carnage. The infected crouched in the gore, wallowing in it and fighting over b.l.o.o.d.y pieces of human meat. They hoisted arms with jagged white splintered bones. Meaty thighs were held by k.n.o.bby femurs. Soft, loopy strands of intestines full of s.h.i.+t were flung about, internal organs gnawed with starved fury.

Bal Shem sat on a gold-speckled orange chair breathing heavily. The effects of the girl's power seemed to last longer every time he touched her, but was starting to wear off. He looked to the refrigerator, opened it, and found a soda.

With a lurching gait, he crossed the trailer and handed the cold can to the girl. His hand met hers and another jolt of renewal blasted through his body. He exhaled, relieved.

Clutching the can, Selah said, "I want my dad."

Bal Shem said nothing.

Selah began to cry.

CHAPTER 33.

Choking back tears, Selah struggled with the can until she got it open. Bal Shem watched her drink the soda, dividing his attention between the happenings outside and the curious development that was this child. She sniffled, wiping her nose on the back of her arm.

"It's good, yes?"

She nodded. "Mommy doesn't let me drink sodas. Grandma does though. Grape's my favorite."

Bal Shem smiled. "Is your mommy here?"

"No, she's at home. My Dad brought me and Grandma here after Grandpa died." She looked at the floor, a mixture of sorrow and fear on her face. Selah turned the soda can, wet with condensation, in her hands, watching the bubbles form around the mouth of the can.

"Was he sick?" Bal Shem moved to the other window, and looked out.

"Yeah." Selah lay on the carpet. "I don't feel good."

Panic struck Bal Shem. Was she getting sick? He didn't know what it was about this child that helped him, but he didn't want to lose her. He knew he was infected, and if there was a cure or vaccine, they didn't have access to it here, otherwise these people would have treated before things got out of hand. Possibly, it was incurable. He could only guess that the doctors were powerless to treat the sickness on a large scale, evident by their sedating instead of medicating the camp's patients. Sedating ... buying time, probably until they could find a way to treat the scourge.

So far, this girl's touch was the only thing that had improved his general state. She hadn't healed the infection raging within him, it seemed, but she was able to slow the effects of the physical deterioration and provide moments of lucidity. "Are you sick?"

Selah sniffed. "I don't think so. I'm just tired."

Gunshots filled the air outside. Selah screamed, but she didn't move from her curled position on the floor. Bal Shem ran to the front window, and parted the curtains.