Chapter Two

 

The tunnel sloped downward and as we followed our tiny line-leader, I felt the chill of the earth wrap around me. The cold air shook me from my stupor and cleared some of the haze in my head. I moved closer to Haley, feeling the very sudden need to be near her. Page walked at her side and as I kept step with them, I couldn’t shake the nerves butterflying in my stomach.

“Do you have a name?” Tyler asked the little boy. When he didn’t respond, she tried her impeccable Spanish, “Nombre?”

He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “Luis.”

“Luis, me llama Tyler.”

He shrugged and faced forward again. Apparently he didn’t care what our names were. It suddenly seemed odd that he approached us with water.

I wondered if Luis got many visitors down here? Maybe people stumbled through that door often? Because he did not seem surprised to see us.

And why hadn’t he handed over his canteen yet?

I swallowed around a swollen tongue and fiery throat. Just the thought of water could cripple me. My knees trembled with weakness.

We turned a corner and entered a large, high-ceilinged cavern. I flinched when the noxious smell of bats hit hard. My entire database of bats could be whittled down to two important facts. One: they smelled horrible. Two: they carried rabies.

My heartbeat picked up again.

Luis ran ahead of us and disappeared along the shadowed walls. We stood huddled together near the entrance, ready to flee at any moment.

Slowly I took in my surroundings, struggling through the dark, my fear and my hunger, to take in as much as I could.

Men, women and children began to move toward us. The numbers appeared to be about thirty of them, but that didn’t mean they were all present and accounted for.

Not one of them held a weapon in hand, but again, that didn’t mean there weren’t any. I had no doubts that these people had weapons; they just weren’t ready to show all of their cards yet.

A hard body bumped against my back and I jumped, barely stifling a scream. Hendrix’s chest became familiar ground in the next second and I closed my eyes in relief.

“Hola,” a middle-aged man greeted us. There was a big fire across the room that brought a significant amount of warmth with it. The firelight danced across faces and dirt-packed ground teasing the room with almost enough light, but not quite.

The longer we stayed in this place, the more smells sifted through the air. The bats let off the most potent scent, but something burned on the undercurrent. It reminded me of what my room used to smell like after I used a blow dryer.

No, worse than that.

Singed hair. The room smelled like burnt hair.

These people must not know better than to stand away from the fire. Were they so desperate for warmth? My heart squeezed sympathetically for their struggles.

“Hola,” Vaughan returned.

The man held up another canteen that sloshed enticingly, “Agua?”

“Si,” Vaughan sighed.

The man grinned at us, revealing rows of chipped teeth. I didn’t want to compare him to a Feeder, but that was what his creepy smile reminded me of. I pictured black pus running down his chin and red eyes gleaming in the dark. But when I blinked he became a man again.

I needed food. Like right now.

The man turned his head and spit out quick Spanish that we could not understand. Adela made a squeak of surprise. I whirled around and watched her face as she took in all of the details.

“Agua,” she whispered when she caught me looking at her. Her nose wrinkled with something I didn’t understand. “Agua,” she repeated again as if convincing herself.

Another man stepped forward. He wore a big cowboy hat that concealed his face. His clothes were frayed and dirty like the boy’s, but that seemed to be part of his style. Shiny gold jewelry glinted from his fingers and throat.

He walked from the room and beckoned us to follow with a tilt of his head. We did, again unquestioningly. It wasn’t as though we were headed into this situation blindly, but they hadn’t made any move to hurt us yet. As long as we stayed together we would be fine.

Down another dark tunnel with only the stranger’s handheld flashlight to guide our way, we walked in tense silence. I didn’t know whether to hope for something extraordinary or if this was the end of us.

Frankly, it felt like the end.

When we turned another corner the swishing sound I’d been hearing for a few minutes finally made sense. We entered another cavern with smooth walls and a tall ceiling. Sunlight poked through holes in the rocky roof and shined down on a thin babbling brook sent by the gods.

I looked at my friends, but they all stared in awe at the stream of water that bubbled through the cavern. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How? No wonder these people risked living with bats. I would too if Zombies were afraid to come into my home and I had a water source.

But was it clean enough to drink?

The stranger grinned at us and gestured to the water. When nobody moved, he laughed at our mesmerized reluctance. He bent down low and scooped handfuls of the delicious looking water into his mouth. He swallowed greedily, allowing it to splash on the front of his shirt.

“Good,” he said in a heavily accented voice when he’d stood up again. “Drink.”

“Is it worth dysentery?” Tyler whispered. It should be said that “dysentery” was Tyler’s fancy word for uncontrollable diarrhea.

The kind that happened before you could do anything about it.

We had all had dysentery at one point or another. Or multiple times.

As a word of advice, don’t try to eat oranges that have been lying on the ground past their prime. No matter how hungry you are.

Texas taught us many things.

“Hell, yes,” Harrison piped up. “I’ll take bloody shits for this.”

“Oh, god,” I groaned.

“Cuss jar!” Page declared. “You owe twice for being so disgusting.”

“Agreed,” Vaughan put in.

Harrison grinned over his shoulder before kneeling down and washing his hands. After deciding that they were clean enough, he made a cup with them and lifted it to his lips. His throat worked hungrily as he brought the water to his mouth over and over again.

When he didn’t spontaneously combust, we decided it might be okay for the rest of us to drink.

We spread out along the line of the creek and kneeled down. I groaned at the first taste of the cold liquid. It cleansed my mouth and relieved my tongue and throat so instantly I could have wept.

It wasn’t exactly sanitary as we all drank downstream from each other and we were all filthy, but we were too thirsty to care. I brought my hands to my lips over and over and over again. I drank until my empty stomach made sloshing noises when I moved. I drank until my head didn’t feel quite so fuzzy and I didn’t have quite the intense misery that hogged most of my thoughts.

Amazingly that little bit of water quickly restored hope.

We had been near death before this, seconds from giving up on this horrific world and throwing in the towel.

I had been seconds away.

What was the point of surviving when you couldn’t even survive survival?

I wanted to quit. I wanted to end this incessant suffering and find something better.

Even if that meant death.

But then this happened. My hope was restored, my desire to live revived.

I took another cooling drink before looking to my left. Page knelt beside me with her whole face in the water. She popped back out and her wet hair sprinkled water on everyone near her. She threw her head back and laughed a beautiful tinkling sound I would always treasure… because it was rare, but also because it was so very precious.

Haley also drank. The baby that still grew in her belly had nourishment for once. I imagined a puckered raisin of a baby coming slowly back to life with the water she fed him.

I didn’t know these people, but I owed them our lives.

I thought that again because it was so profound. I hadn’t owed my life to another person since I met Hendrix and his brothers.

I could make an argument for Kane because I still had feelings for him, but if I were truly honest with myself I would have to say that he caused all of the problems that he saved me from.

Everyone else we had met along this agonizing journey had set out to harm us in some way.

Except the Parkers. And now these Mexican strangers.

I turned my head to face the man who had led us here and replayed that thought in my head. I owed this man, these people my life.

That thought would follow me for many years.

It would haunt me.

It would visit me in the darkest moments of the night and bring the sadistic nightmares that would always chase these thoughts viciously at their heels.

“Gracias,” I said to the man in the cowboy hat.

He blinked at me, surprised that I had spoken to him. A pang of regret for the world we had become hit me in the chest just before he smiled at me.

Only it wasn’t a normal smile. It wasn’t sweet or kind or generous.

It was sick.

It was malicious.

It was laced with evil and insane intentions.

It was so frustratingly familiar that I instantly wanted to weep.

His ominous cackle came next. I had just enough time to suck in a breath and try to figure out if the water was poisoned or what exactly he planned to do to us when the sharpest pain I had ever felt exploded across the back of my head.

My vision doubled, then tripled, then became so dizzy I pitched forward into the stream. I accepted the realization that I was about to drown in a three inch stream and that these people had not set out to save us… but to kill us.

I had this slow come-to-Jesus moment where I found perfect clarity in the midst of my death.

Perfect, but furious clarity.

I mentally said goodbye to my loved ones and I wondered if I died while having murderous thoughts for many people would mean that I was going to go to hell.

I didn’t get an answer. Everything went black instead and I lost the ability to think or remain conscious.

 

----

 

Contrary to popular belief, aka my belief, I did not die there. I did not drown. My brain did not erupt out of the back of my skull.

I had been knocked unconscious.

I came to with a splitting headache and my face shoved in the dirt, not water. My arms ached like a son of a bitch and it took me a little bit to figure out that it was because they were tied behind my back. I didn’t open my eyes until I had assured myself that my clothes were all intact and properly in place- or as in place as filthy clothes could be when you were a prisoner again and had been knocked around a bit.

The point was nobody had torn them off and left me naked.

Whew.

I leveraged my already dirt face in the ground and tucked my legs beneath me so I could lean back on my heels and survey my surroundings.

I spit out the dirt that caked my lips and stupidly wished I could have another drink of water. I should never want to drink water again after that happened.

My friends lay in heaps of awkwardly tossed bodies around me. I quickly counted them to make sure they were all there. Eleven was our number with the addition of Adela, but after this I was going to be a little reluctant to call her a friend.

Voices could be heard from outside the small, square space we had been tossed into. They laughed and conversed loudly in a different language as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

It actually sounded like a party. I tried to wrap my head around people celebrating, for any reason, and couldn’t. I honestly could not picture a scenario in which people could talk and laugh like these people.

This should not happen even if they had managed to dispatch someone to find Matthias.

I was just not that big of a deal. People seriously needed to get over this untold wealth thing.

Finally, my head stopped swimming long enough for some of my senses to clear. The pain in the back of my head was nearly debilitating. It blinded me to rational thought and action. The dizziness was so strong that I could barely think beyond it.

Most of my friends were still unconscious. They lay unmoving around me. I counted all of their wrists to make sure they were tied. Dead people didn’t need to have their hands tied, I reminded myself, and it was the only reason I could keep from screaming and panicking.

“Reagan,” Page whispered from a few feet away. She sat cross-legged on the floor and her vision seemed clear so I had to believe that they had spared her from getting hit over the head. “What are they going to do to us?”

I met that little girl’s eyes and I gave her the only truth I knew didn’t sound as scary as all of the rest of the truths, “They probably sent someone to find Matthias.”

Her shoulders relaxed at that and my stomach churned. Matthias had become safer to us than any other scenario. That should tell you something about our dire circumstances!

Also, Matthias still seemed far away. If we were truly being held until Matthias could arrive, that meant we had plenty of time to hatch a plan and figure a way out of here. We could survive this like all of the other times-

“No,” Adela whispered fiercely. “They did not send someone to find this Matthias man.”

I whipped my head around to look at her. “You speak English?” I hissed. She could have said this sooner. I wouldn’t have had to make a fool out of myself by gesturing like an idiot to her throughout the night!

“Did you hear me?” she demanded. “They do not want to give you to Matthias. I am not sure they even know who he is.”

This gave me both hope and more despair. There were new pros and new cons to this situation now. Maybe we could survive yet.

“That’s good news,” I told her.

She shook her head quickly, her long black hair bouncing around her shoulders in big curls. She looked tiny from where she sat, curled up between two big Parker brothers. I could see why Diego wanted her.

In his world of crime and killing, she would be set apart from every single other thing because she was so very beautiful.

“No, Reagan,” she stressed, pulling out the syllables of my name. “It is not good. No bueno. Do you understand?”

“Why, Adela? Why is it bad?”

Her frightened eyes danced to the doorway and then back to mine. Unlike the other two rooms we had been in, this one was not naturally made. This was a manmade room in the style of the tunnels. Wooden support beams stood imbedded in the hard packed dirt and beams crossed over each other on the ceiling.

There was an actual door to this room, but it was shut for now. I frantically glanced around the room looking for someone who did not belong with us, but in the darkness, with only a soft light from the hall creeping in through the cracks in the door, I couldn’t make out everything.

The room smelled like Zombies though. Not strongly. And not enough for me to be concerned they were hidden somewhere in the shadows. But the unearthly, rotten decay smell lingered in this place and stung my nostrils. They had been here before.

When Adela didn’t explain, I refocused on her and scooted toward her on my bent knees. “Please. You have to tell me what we’re up against so we can figure out how to get out of here. I need all of the information I can get.” When she stared at me, I pleaded with my broken Spanish, “Por favor, Adela. Muy por favor.” That wasn’t right, but I didn’t care right now. “Informacion. Por favor.”

Not bad for two years of unfinished high school Spanish.

Oh, geez. I so should have paid better attention.

“Reagan, I speak English. You can stop.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t exactly a linguistic expert. “Just tell me what’s going on. Make this easier on all of us.”

“But it is not easier,” she insisted. “It is very, very, very bad.”

“Who are they? More cartel? A different territory?”

She shook her head.

“Mexican military perhaps? Old law enforcement?”

“No,” she spit.

“Human traffickers? Black market thugs? Ex-cons?”

Her voice trembled when she declared, “Worse.”

“Who, Adela? Tell me?”

By this time, Vaughan and Hendrix had been stirred awake by our conversation. Slowly the rest of the group sat up, quiet and attentive.

In fact, when she finally told the truth, they were all alert enough to hear her perfectly.

“Cannibals,” she whispered. “They are cannibals.”

“This can’t be happening,” Hendrix bit out. “This cannot be happening.”

“Yes,” Adela assured him. “It is happening. They are cannibals. The very worst kind.”

“What do you mean the worst kind?” Vaughan demanded. “What other kind is there?”

“They will eat anything,” she told us. “Anything.”

“Zombies?” My voice was a whisper that seemed to scream through the room. She nodded frantically. “That’s why those Feeders were afraid to cross the shadow.”

She confirmed with another wild shake of her head. “I thought they were only rumors, meant to scare us into staying where we were. I thought Diego used… used their myth as another way to keep me hostage. But it is true.”

“I smell it,” Haley squeaked. “I smell the Zombies that were here before us.”

I did too.

“What have you heard them say?” Vaughan stumbled to his feet and glanced around desperately.

“They are pleased with how many there are,” Adela explained. “This is a very big group. We will feed them for a while.”

“Oh, my god.” This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

“I think I want my dad,” Miller declared.

“I think I’d rather deal with your dad too,” Nelson grunted.

Adela ignored us and went on with her explanation, “This is why they are so happy. They are celebrating. They are preparing their great feast.”

“With one of us?” King nearly shouted. His brothers all shushed him, but his horrified look said he would not be calming down anytime soon.

“With one of us,” Adela replied softly.

“Who?” Hendrix demanded. “Have they said who they wanted to eat first?” We collectively groaned at Hendrix’s choice of words.

Adela shook her head, “No. But I think I will get to live for a while. I think they will kill you first. And they will let Haley live.”

Our attention spun to Haley. “Why her?” Nelson demanded.

Adela’s voice shook as she explained, “They want the baby. It will be a special prize for them when the baby is born.”

Nobody said anything to that. We couldn’t. There were no words that could adequately explain our revulsion and hatred for something as despicable as eating a baby.

It was vile.

They were vile.

I wiggled around until I could sit on the ground with my legs crossed in front of me. “Mexico was such a stupid idea,” I winced. “My absolute worst idea.”

Nobody argued.

“I’m sorry, guys.”

Nobody offered forgiveness.

Shit.

I had to hope that before they took us to be roasted over the open flame, my friends would grant me absolution. I could not live or die with these many people pissed at me.

“This is a mess,” Hendrix laughed. “This is a goddamn mess.”

“And to top it off, I have the headache of the century,” Tyler stated.

Vaughan’s attention went back to Adela, “Did they knock us out at the same time?”

She nodded again, “They waited until you were all at the water. And when you sat up, they hit you.”

“But they did not hit you?” he pressed.

“No,” she whispered. “They wanted me to see what happened so that I could tell you.”

“They might be cannibals,” Haley teased, “But they’re thoughtful cannibals. You got to give them that.”

“I don’t,” Nelson growled. “I don’t have to give them anything. And you’re not going to either. We’re going to get out of here, Hales. I promise you that.” His head bent down to kiss the top of hers sweetly.

I silently agreed with him. No matter what.

We had to get out of this.

“No one comes here, right?” I asked Adela, racking my brain for a plan I didn’t have. “If the Zombies are scared, I bet any nearby territories are also scared.”

“Yes, that is correct,” Adela answered. “I should have realized it when I first saw that the Dead would not come near us. I should have told you about them before we left Diego.”

Harrison cut a look at her, “It’s probably better that you didn’t tell us actually. We might still be stuck with him if we hadn’t decided to walk across the width of Mexico.”

“What’s most shocking is that you speak English,” King directed at Adela. “Thanks for the heads up earlier.”

She tilted her chin and said, “I did not know if I could trust you.”

“It was smart,” Vaughan reassured her. “You should not trust anybody.”

“Not even for water,” I sighed.

Haley sat up and I felt her presence intensify, “Did we have another choice? We could have stayed out there and been eaten by Zombies instead. Would that have been better?”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “Kind of. At this point, Zombies are starting to feel like misbehaving pets that don’t know any better. These people know better. It should be human instinct not to eat other people. That should be at the very top of our In Case of Emergency, Do not Do lists. What is wrong with them?”

“It’s the wilderness,” Adela explained. “They have nothing else to eat. And now… now they are like the… the… Los Muertos.” She shook her head and said sadly, “Like the Zombies.” Her pronunciation was vastly different than ours. Her O stretched long and her B settled softly. I had begun to hate Mexico with a lava-like fury. The rage burned in my belly like acid and sulfur.

And then there was Adela- somehow separate from this great emotion. She was gentle where Mexico had been harsh. She was kind when everyone else had been murderous and evil. She was a guide to safety when every other place had been an outpost in a maze to hell.

I didn’t know what to think of her or if I could trust her, but she had managed to pick away at some of the armor around my heart.

I wouldn’t let her in, I decided. I wouldn’t feel compassion for her or regret if she died. I would move on. I couldn’t afford to care for anyone else, especially this stranger.

We would get out of this cannibalism situation somehow, but if she didn’t make it…

A joyous shout echoed down the corridor towards our prison. Another deep voice followed the first, then footsteps echoed loudly over the rocky ground. Vaughan started moving toward the door.

“What are you doing?” Hendrix bit out.

Vaughan chuckled darkly, “Making myself look yummy.”

“No.” The command came from half the room.

Vaughan’s teeth glinted in the streaks of light seeping in from the door, “Try to stop me.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Nelson muttered.

“Take a number.” Vaughan settled in next to the door. He would be the very first person the men stumbled upon when it opened. “This is my duty, folks. At least I know there’s not an undead afterlife in it for me.”

“Vaughan,” Tyler gasped, clearly beside herself.

Panic set in as the sound of footsteps grew closer.

“It should be me,” I shouted. “Everyone wants me dead! Just let me go first. That will solve so many problems for you all.”

“Reagan, I swear to God,” Hendrix ordered in the fiercest voice I had ever heard. “Sit down.”

Unfortunately for him, I was really good at ignoring him by now. I started scooting over on my butt towards Vaughan. I heard several people bite out curse words and Adela seemed to have started praying in Spanish.

Good luck, Hermana. I had to have run out of lives by now anyway.

Hendrix’s foot slammed down over mine- his attempt at grabbing me without the use of his hands. “Reagan,” he begged. “Stop this.”

“What are our options?” I hissed at him. “Who should die instead of me? This is all my fault. All of it! I’m the reason we’re here. I’m the reason we’re in freaking Mexico! I’m the reason that Matthias is chasing us. I’m the reason that Kane died. I’m even the reason you had to leave your home! It’s all my fault. All of it. Let me do this!”

Hendrix jerked back, his leg limp and heavy over mine but not holding. “Our home?”

A sob caught in my chest, “When we first met you. I’m the reason the Zombies found you even back then. Think of everything you’ve given up for me. I’ve ruined your lives. And now you’re all going to die. Because of me.”

I watched Hendrix’s face, watched it flinch and pale. Of course, I couldn’t see it pale in this lighting, but I knew him well enough to recognize the shock and horror that turned his expression.

He knew that I was right. He probably should have realized it a long time ago, but he hadn’t. Clarity had finally found him after all this time and he saw the truth.

He saw how toxic I was.

A pandemic had destroyed the world in which we lived. Infection ran rampant and poisoned everything living that it could get its greedy hands on. But I was just as bad.

I left imprints of death on everything that I touched; marking them for an unseen reaper that followed me everywhere I went.

Both of us were plagues of Biblical proportions. The Feeders were the locusts that devoured the land, gnawing at flesh and bone until the ground had been razed by their sweeping conquest.

I was the firstborn death.

I flitted from family to family, taking meaningful life and destroying entire family lines. You could not hide from me. You could not protect yourself from me.

You could only wait for me to strike. To take. To kill.

“It should be me,” I told the room. “Me.”

The door swung open in the next moment. Two hulking men filled the frame and blocked the suddenly bright light. The door bumped against Vaughan’s toe until they pushed it by, scraping the rough wood across the dirt.

Their dark eyes surveyed the room, landing on Vaughan first and then me. I had not done my duty to get Vaughan out of their sight. Hendrix’s leg still lay over mine, but it did not even twitch while we waited for them to decide.

Someone would die tonight; you could see it in their wide grins. They could not wait to kill.

I sat up straighter and tilted my head towards them. Please let it be me. Please don’t let them take one of my friends. Please. Please. Please. Please.

Seconds ticked by, the weight of all time pressing down on us. My eyes closed without my permission; the intensity of this moment was too much to witness first hand.

Finally, they chose their feast.

It was not Vaughan. And it was not me.

Harrison and King were plucked from the room while we all watched in frozen horror.

“No!” I screamed when my body finally caught up to my mind. “No!”

The Parkers moved into action at once, attacking the feet of the two men that thought they had a chance at besting us. Harrison and King thrashed uncontrollably in their arms, but the men tossed them over their shoulders like they had been through this a hundred times already.

Vaughan threw his body through the doorway to keep them from locking us back in. Our quiet sanctuary bellowed with rage as we shouted, screamed and wrestled our constricted bodies to fight for those two boys.

They kicked at Vaughan’s head until he was forced back into the room and then the door slammed closed.