Radiation Point

Twenty One

We walked in silence as we neared the town. The crunch of our boots and the chirping of birds a strange contrast to the angry silence that seemed to build up around us. Bubba and Jackson each moved to a side of the path like before, with Tyler in the middle. I kept an eye on the tail end of the trail, making sure to stay close to the men this time.
Jackson gave a low whistle, and motioned for Tyler. I tensed up, remembering last time Jackson had pointed something out. When Tyler reached Jackson's side, he surprised me by not lifting his bow, simply peering into the forest with narrowed eyes. He nodded at Jackson before turning to Bubba and I.
"The town is up ahead," Tyler said, his voice all business. "Bubba and Nessa, you guys scout the road leading into the town. Jackson and I are going to move up through the brush and see if we can get a glimpse of the town itself."
"Why are we splitting up?" The words came unbidden from my lips, and I regretted them as I took in the scowling faces around me. Tyler was the only one who looked the least bit patient, and that was stretching it.
"Don't you know what scouting means?" Bubba asked, sounding disgusted. "You go into everything half cocked?"
Not giving me a chance to answer, Tyler continued, "Meet back here when you guys have the all clear. If you run into problems, give us a whistle and we'll try to get to you."
I nodded my understanding, not looking at Bubba as I headed up to the road. He grabbed me by the arm, surprising me with his firm grip.
"What do ya think you're doing? You follow me now," he said.
I was tempted to tell him I knew what I was doing and to back off. But one look at his cruel face stopped me. He hadn't been asking, he was telling me. I had a sinking feeling that if I didn't listen to him, he would gut me like he had threatened earlier. I swallowed my words and nodded at Bubba.
Satisfied with that response, he moved forward slowly in the brush. His eyes scanned the road ahead of us, before he motioned for us to move up to the pavement.
The road was eerily quiet. Several cars sat empty on the road, some with shattered windshields and others looking almost new. The pavement gave way to an old wooden toll bridge that looked like it belonged in another time period.
There were no bodies or contaminated in sight. The only signs of trouble were the abandoned cars and the smear of dried blood that trailed off at the edge of the woods. Bubba moved quickly to each car, motioning for me to follow him. After a quick look inside each car, he moved towards the toll bridge.
The bridge itself looked pristine with no blood or cars. It was simply deserted. Bubba seemed to relax perceptibly. He walked to the railing and leaned over it, taking a deep breath as he looked down at the bubbling stream under it. He looked years younger, the wrinkles in his face smoothing out and his scowling face relaxing into a smirk. Not quite a smile, but not his typical angry face either.
I walked to the other ledge and breathed in the air. It seemed to have a calming effect on me, too. It was nice just listening to the water bubbling softly below us. The shuffle of rocks reminding me of walks on the shore that I used to take with my family. Then like a knife pierced me, my shoulders stiffened. Rocks don't shuffle on their own, the thought flitted to my mind ominously.
I leaned over the railing as far as I could without falling, and peered under the bridge. There sat a single contaminated gnawing on a bloody corpse. The contaminated looked older than the others that I had seen. This one used to be a girl, with clumps of long hair and small patches of burnt, bubbled looking skin. The rest of her body was rotting, brownish pink sinew poking out. Her movements were slow and jerky as she ripped into the body.
I gasped at the horror of her. I had seen contaminated. I had killed them. I knew I shouldn't have been shocked by the sight of her, but to see how very little was left of her was nauseating. Her head snapped up at the sound of my gasp and she looked up to the bridge, a soft moan escaping her lips at the sight of me. Then I saw her face and my hands slipped off the railings. One of her eyes was gone, the other eye looked sharp-almost intelligent.
Strong hands on my waist caught me as I began the fall towards the embankment.
"You got a death wish?" Bubba asked. Then peering over the rail himself, "What'd you see down there anyway?"
"Just a c-contaminated," I stuttered, clamping my eyes shut and trying to get the image out of my head.
"One contaminated?"
I nodded.
"You got yer panties in a bunch over one damned contaminated?"
I would have argued, but I felt sick. There was something about those sharp eyes that was different than the other contaminated. Different in a dangerous way. I'd never seen a contaminated that so far gone from the radiation. Normally the contaminated went through a cycle that either ended with a shot to the head or body parts falling off until time took what was left of the contaminated. Not this one. This one seemed to have evolved despite the ravages of time.
"Oh for Christs sake," Bubba said, spitting on the bridge next to me. "You gonna talk or you gonna keep looking at me like a fish I snared?"
I turned my gaze back to Bubba then, taking solace in his familiar angry face. He was brutal and cruel, but he knew a thing or two about the contaminated. Perhaps he had come across the intelligent looking ones before. Maybe he had some explanation, albeit a back water, hillbilly one.
"This one is different from the others I've killed," I said, slowly forming my words. "Farther into the change than I've ever seen, and yet her eyes were different-sharper somehow. It was like she knew what she was doing."
Bubba's scowl deepened, "What are you jabbering about? A contaminated is a contaminated. You kill them, that's it. Ain't no contaminated I've ever seen had any sense."
Then without warning, he shifted his weight over the rail and jumped down to the waters edge.
"Well, don't just stand there. Cover me," he said with a sneer. Then he turned and the sneer slid from his face. In an instant, his face shifted from cocky to utterly shocked.