Chapter 22: Cue and the Never-Ending Road Trip pt 1

Cue scrambled from beam to beam in an abandoned skyscraper not far from the park. She was scavenging, but being this close to the park, the place was empty. She climbed toward the glassless windows and looked down five stories to where Trigger sat on the tank as Gunner drove it down the cluttered streets at a snail's pace.

She glared at the big metal beast, disdaining it for how slow it is. If it hadn’t been towing the supplies, Cue would have voted to leave it behind. Already it had been a whole day, and she could still see the park if she squinted.

“Find anything good up there?” Trigger calls from below.

“Skeletons and rats!” I shout back down. Rat gives me a little chuff of annoyance at my feet. “Lesser, dirtier rats than you, buddy,” I tell him, scratching him behind the ears before parkouring down the side of the building and landing on top of the tank. Shortly thereafter, Rat leaps from a hanging beam and lands on my shoulders, stretching out in the burning heat of the day and panting.

Cue takes off her patchwork jacket now that she’s out of the building, where she could get scraped or scratched and get some awful disease, and ties it around her waist. She’s dripping with sweat, but it’s better than getting sick and dying from a puncture wound.

“Can't this go any faster?” She asked, crouching next to Trigger and staring at her engorged belly.

“Yes, it can,” Trigger said seriously, then a slow smile crept on her face. “This beast can climb over and crush the cars underneath it, going so fast it would be impossible to sit up here safely, but,” she drew the word for dramatic effect, “The noise alone would draw every zombie from all the dark, dingy corners around us. Then we get swarmed, and even if we kill them all, the bodies would be so piled high that we would get stuck in guts and bones and not be able to move the tank at all.”

She elbowed Cue playfully, “Don't ask how I know that!”

Cue frowned, staring around at the abandoned city. The further they got from the park, the greener everything was getting. Several minutes after Cue descended the building, she saw a fern for the first time, and then moss. She’d never dared venture out this far, and seeing just how vast the city was made her feel incredibly small.

“Why was my home so desolate when everything out here looks like a rainforest?” she asked, her voice withdrawn.

“‘Salt the Earth,’” Trigger said. “Gunner told me that’s what the Cretins began doing long before your people settled in the park. Back when there were still trees. They burned the forest down and salted the earth, making sure nothing would ever grow there again.

“It was a way to draw out people to feed their hordes; the zombies start eating each other to survive.”

“How are there even so many now if they need to eat to survive?” Cue asked, bewildered. There were no humans left besides these two and the Scrapers, so how did they live?

Trigger shrugged. “Rats, maybe?”

Cue grabbed Rat and hugged him in her arms defensively. “That’s wrong!”

“Babe, you’re the only person I've ever met who has kept their dinner as a pet. And a fat pet at that!” She poked the rat in the belly.

Cue pointedly looked at Trigger’s belly, and Trigger laughed hard. “Unless he has both genders like some of the mutants we've seen, he’s not carrying another life inside him. I have an excuse. What’s his?”

“He likes peaches…” Cue mumbled.

“Canned peaches?” Trigger erupted in laughter again, but this time, Gunner banged on the roof of the tank to remind them to keep quiet. “No wonder he’s so fat,” she finishes conspiratorially.

Cue frowned, stroking her Rat until his fur looked shiny. “Is there anything special I can get for you while I’m out searching?”

“Tinned fish. Literally, any kind, but I like salmon the most.”

“What is a fish anyway?” Cue asked, wrinkling her nose. She hated the smell of the stuff whenever she found it and very often gave it away to the Scrapers.

“Jeeze, you’re making me hungry!” She pulls out a strip of dried meat and starts slowly chewing. “Fish are creatures that live in water; they have fins and swim around. But the fish in the waters around here are all mutants that look like they suffered radiation poisoning and grew a new head or two bodies or a billion eyes. You never can tell with fish these days.”

“I’ve never seen more than a bucket of water at once, you’re telling me there's some deep enough to swim in?” Cue asked, shocked.

“Girl, did you ever leave that dome?” Trigger barked a laugh. “How old are you anyway, Tiny?”

“Twenty-five, I think,” she tells her, and then eyes the meat while she continues. “I never left the dome except to scavenge, and I never went too far that I couldn't come back by nightfall. I could always see my dome; it was the only safe way.”

Trigger sees her looking at the food and holds it out in offering.

“What is it?” Cue asked, holding Rat just a little bit tighter.

“Oh, calm down, it’s just wild boar.”

Cue took some gingerly and started to gnaw on the hard meat as best she could. “Will we sleep in the tank tonight?” She asks.

“No, there’s a brick house not far from here that we stayed in before we got to you. We will stay there tonight and head out to look more tomorrow.” Trigger stretched her long legs, wiggling her feet in her boots. “My feet are swelling, so we really need to get me somewhere where I can elevate them for the night.”