Donners of the Dead

“Jake,” I said after we’d been walking for a few hours. My legs were stiff and my feet were cold. The snow was lessening as we went down, but there was still enough to make things both difficult and pretty.

“Mhmm” he grunted, his voice strained. He was feeling it too.

“What if there are more?” I asked.

“More?” he repeated without turning around.

“More of them. What if there are too many? What if they discover River Bend and the rest of the country? What happens then?”

“I reckon we should worry about that once we’re done worrying about ourselves.”

I tugged on his jacket sleeve until he stopped and looked at me. He raised up the brim of his hat and I could see sweat gathered at his temples.

“But what if?”

He sighed and looked up at the trees. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d like to think they’ll stay here and die here.”

“But this is the only trail over to California. The wagons going westward, they have to go up to Oregon in order to reach the Pacific. More and more people will go through here and more and more people will…turn.”

“Turn?”

“Turn into them. Become addicted to human flesh, to the power it gives.”

He chewed on his lip. “You know, I’d kill someone for a cigar right now. Look, I hear what you are saying. But we can’t do anything about that at this moment. I promised to keep you safe just as you promised to keep yourself safe. If we happen across them, we’ll kill them best we can, even if they wave the white flag and surrender. But for now, we can only worry about each other.”

I nodded. I knew what he was saying, but that didn’t erase the fear. I didn’t think anything could. Every heavy step we took through the forest, surviving on snow water and the last of the raccoon meat, was a step of dread. I feared every shadow, every smell, every sound. We were on foot, and despite our weaponry, we were still at the mercy of God or luck or the mountain or something beyond our control.

We went onwards though, because to stop was to die. We trudged through the snow—step by step by step—and we lived in the constant anxiety that nothing was safe except for each other.

As the sky turned purple with dusk and cast a lilac glow on the snowy trail, we’d been walking for eight hours and I couldn’t go another step. Everything was painful, everything burned—my legs and feet felt foreign to me; I never knew they could hurt so much.

Jake, determined to reach the nearest cabin, picked me up and threw me over his bad shoulder. I wanted to protest, to fight it, to keep walking, but there was nothing I could do. I was all out of strength.

I put my faith in him and let him carry me, all while trying to keep conscious. My view was the wet-looking snow on the ground, and it was too awkward to raise my head and look at anything else so I concentrated on the sounds and smells. I expected to come across the putrid smell of them at any minute, rendering our escape futile, but it didn’t come. Instead, we found the cabin. We found shelter.

“This is a sight for sore eyes,” Jake said. I could hear the exhaustion in his voice, none made easier by carrying my frame.

We went inside and he gently lay me down beside the blackened fire pit. I sat up and looked around while he took off his pack and fumbled for matches. It was late afternoon and there was enough light coming in through the one working window door to illuminate things. It wasn’t as cold either, and I had hoped the snowbanks between the cabin and the outhouse had melted some.

At that thought, a pitter patter began to sound on the thin roof. Rain.

Jake cocked a tired eye to the ceiling. “Looks like the snow is over for now. We’re that much closer to River Bend.” That filled me with a dangerous spark of hope—we had a chance. Unfortunately it all hinged on whether we could make it through the night. I wanted to keep going, but I knew that neither of us had it in us.

He turned over the logs in the pit until he got a few that weren’t charred and started a fire. Soon the cabin was warm and toasty while the rain fell heavier, dripping through the roof in some places. There was something almost romantic about the scenario, like a scene from a romantic poem, but even though my heart and body yearned for Jake with a startling ferocity, the fear and exhaustion was too much.

My stomach growled noisily. I eyed Jake in embarrassment.

He smiled wearily. “I wish we had something more to eat. I’m famished too.” He looked to the window. “Not sure what I can scrounge up in this weather. I think most animals are taking shelter.”

“Don’t go,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.” The need to have him close to me outweighed my empty stomach.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t think I can handle being alone,” I said. “I don’t think I can handle much of anything anymore.” Heat pricked behind my eyes, and before I knew it, tears were falling down my cheeks, salty on my lips. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried and yet I was suddenly doing so in front of Jake.

“Hey, now,” Jake said softly. He got up and sat beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He gently brushed my tears away with his thumb and then kissed the wet trails they’d left behind. His lips were so warm and soft and made my heart flutter with gratitude and hope.

“Sorry,” I sniffled.

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry about,” he said, kissing the corner of my mouth. He tucked my hair behind my ears. “You’ve been dealt a rotten hand in life, Eve. There’s plenty to cry about.”

“So have you,” I said.

“I have,” he said in a low voice, giving me a nod. “But that’s only more the reason why I wouldn’t leave your side. I need you too. I reckon that might seem silly to hear from a grown man, but the truth is that I need you very much. In this short time, you’ve given me purpose. To love you. To protect you.”

To love me? I stared at him in shock. He loved me? How could that be?

He only smiled at my expression. “I think we all need a chance to cry sometimes, don’t you?”

My heart was still beating over the word love. “Have you cried?”

He nodded. “I’m done crying though. I reckon your pretty tears are enough for the both of us.” He unraveled the animal hides and spread them out on the ground. “Here, lie down and rest. I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll keep you safe.”

I don’t even think I got a chance to say thank you before I promptly fell asleep.

Chapter Thirteen

I was back at River Bend, sleeping in Uncle Pat’s hayloft. It was dark outside—dark as sin, and the sound of crickets filled the air.

I slowly got to my feet and breathed in the familiar smell of hay and wood and manure. It felt good to be back, as if I’d never gone anywhere, as if it had all been a realistic dream about blood, snow and a man.

Monsters.

I was about to head down the ladder when a strange sound caught my attention.

I walked to the edge of the hayloft and looked over the edge.

All the animals in the pens were gone. The house was completely black. My mother stood with her back to me in the middle of the paddock, muttering the same phrase over and over again.

She was speaking!

I tried to call after her but my throat froze, keeping my voice inside. Now I was the mute one.

I found my way through the dark, climbing down the ladder, and stealthily made my way towards my mother. I didn’t want to scare her, and yet something deep inside told me to approach with caution. Perhaps it was the strange, sour smell that was growing more pungent by the moment.

When I was close to her I finally began to make out what she was saying.

“You need to find it,” she whispered. “What’s out there.”

“You need to go. You need to find it. What’s out there.”

“What’s out there.”

“What’s out there.”

She kept repeating this over and over again in ragged little whispers.

Finally I found my voice.

“What’s out there?” I asked.

My mother stiffened and fell silent. The straps of her bonnet blew in the breeze. I stared at her back then down at her hands. They were paler than snow and dripping with blood.

“Mother?”

“You know what’s out there.”

I shook my head, wanting to reach out for her but being too afraid. That horrible aroma was growing stronger and there was something so terribly wrong about all of this.

I eyed the dark house. “Where is Uncle Pat?”

“They’re all gone.”

“Where did they go?”

“They were consumed.”

I nervously wrung my hands together. I’d lost all feeling in them. “They got consumption?” I asked carefully.

She shook her head. “No,” she said.

She turned around to face me. Her eyes were blue and blank, her skin pale grey. Blood was smeared around her mouth. “I consumed them.”

She smiled, and instead of having teeth, there was a row of gleaming eyeballs like bulging white grapes.

I woke up with a jerk and had to gasp for my breath. It was dusk, with only a faint, grainy light before me. I heard a faint dripping sound and Jake’s steady breathing, and had to take a few moments to bring myself back to the present.

It was a shame the present wasn’t much better than my dream had been.

I rolled onto my back, feeling the ache throughout my body and stared up at the ceiling. We could have only been sleeping for about an hour since there was a bit of natural light left. As scary as the dream was, I felt sleep pulling me back under, my body and mind aching for solitude. I could only hope that I would find it in a dreamless state.

I was in a half-asleep limbo when I smelled it. I couldn’t figure out whether the odor was in my dreams or in real life, but from the way my skin prickled with gooseflesh, the way the hairs stood up and my chest felt full of ice, I knew to trust my body. It knew the difference between the dangers that were real and the dangers that weren’t.

The danger was real.

I swallowed hard and gently nudged Jake. He awoke quickly but fell silent the moment he breathed in. He could smell it too.

We looked at each other, our eyes shining in the waning light. He slowly sat up and reached for the axe that was beside him. I went for the rifle that was nearby, my fingers grasping the cold steel. We got up to a crouch and then waited.

At first there was only the smell, slowly growing stronger until my eyes watered and it was painful to breathe it in.

Then came the sounds.

Scratching on the walls of the cabin. A shadow passing by the window.

Faint snarls, conjuring images in my head of wet saliva and sharp teeth bared by pulled back lips.

The thin line between man and animal.

I started to shake with fear, the rifle jangling in my hands. Jake put his hand on my arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. His eyes told me everything was going to be all right.

His eyes were lying.

We were surrounded by the living dead—how ever could we be all right?

We waited. It felt like forever.

The scratching continued, nails being run up and down the cabin walls. I wondered why on earth they were doing that, why they didn’t just come in and take us. Were they trying to frighten us? Were they too weak, gone too long without human meat, and this was the best they could do?

It was driving me mad. The scratching, those depraved moans and snaps from drooling mouths. Jake and I were trapped, completely surrounded, and we never knew when they were going to attack.

Then finally something happened.

The door to the cabin slowly swung open. We couldn’t see who or what had opened it. There was a thump.

A pale, spindly arm reached through the open door, long clawlike nails dragging on the dirt floor.

I gasped as another arm followed suit. Together they pulled along the ground until a torso came into view. It carried the face of death—hollow cheeks, pronounced bones stretched across wrinkled skin, thinning white hair, and frozen eyes. It turned its head, staring blankly at us. It opened its mouth to show just a few teeth and let out a terrible cry that went straight through me like a slick blade.

I raised the rifle at it and took aim.

“Blow its head off,” Jake said gruffly.

I pulled the trigger.

The bullet shot out in a black puff, the force rocking me back, but I had prepared for it this time. It struck the monster right in the head, and at that close range, it practically turned his brains into mud—red mud that splattered on the walls behind us and plopped down onto the floor.

“Nice shot,” Jake commented, one brow cocked. “I knew you were a natural.”

I smiled uneasily but there was no time to take pride in it. Though the scratching and moans stopped momentarily after the gunshot, they quickly started up again, louder this time and more menacing.

I looked at Jake, wishing I had more courage. “I have a feeling that the others won’t be so easy.”

“Well they obviously know we’re in here. What do you want to do? I don’t reckon we can hide in here forever. Something’s got to give. I’ve been in enough standoffs to know that.” He took the rifle from me and quickly began to reload the muzzle.

My body felt numb with fear. I wanted to close my eyes and wish the situation away. I wanted to be anywhere else but in this cabin, surrounded by creatures who wanted a taste of my flesh for their own attempt at immortality. I thought about Isaac and wondered if it had been worth it. If it had been worth it to kill Tim and eat him in hopes of living forever. It hadn’t worked for him—he hadn’t eaten enough of the stew to become fully monstrous even though he had been a monster to begin with. I wondered about the beasts outside, if they had all turned because they wanted a chance of survival, or if they were like Hank and Isaac and wanted a chance of being something more than human. Something completely inhuman.