Eaters (Book 2): The Resistance by Michelle DePaepe

her mouth?
    A shadow loomed behind the door. She recognized the silhouette—the towering height, the broad shoulders…
    "Mark…I thought—"
    He lunged for her, falling into the triangle of light in the doorway. She saw the mottled flesh peeling from his cheeks and the slick, red coating on his teeth that glistened as it reflected the fluorescent light from the fixture in the hallway.
    She took a step backwards and fired.
    The sound of the gunshot woke her up.
    Her head popped up from the cool floor. In one swift motion, she hopped to her feet and scrambled for her gun. Once it was in her hands, her eyes darted towards the closed door. Seeing it shut and no traces of blood in the room or on her body, she whipped around.
    Mark was still in the bed, sound asleep.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 5
     
    Every Friday, Cheryl took a shift in the garden at Fort San Manuel. On most of those days, the skies were as clear as crystal with a bright sun warming the rows of raised beds in a section of the courtyard that was fenced and locked to protect the crops from theft or damage. Today, it was cloudy, and the heavens were beige like mushroom soup, but it was still bright and warm enough that she had on a straw hat to shield her eyes and a yellow bandana around her forehead to soak up the sweat.
    She enjoyed digging in the dirt, smelling its earthy aroma and feeling the different textures of the leafy, green plants. But, best of all…it was peaceful there. She could sometimes enjoy the tingle of sunlight on her skin while shutting out the chatter of the other workers and people strolling by who gawked at anything in bloom or loudly commented on failures (like the heap of brown stems from a zucchini plant that looked like a dead octopus—the result of an early planting trial). She tried not to hear any of it, because in those rare Zen like moments in the garden, she could momentarily forget how dire things looked.
    Even when soaking up those moments of bliss, she never forgot that this job was just as necessary as her time on patrol duty.  Since safaris into Tucson and Phoenix were producing less and less food, it was important to grow as much as they could. The harsh climate and limited space made it challenging. There wasn't enough room to grow enough beans and corn for serious sustenance to help the thousand plus inhabitants survive, but any fresh produce they harvested provided some vitamin C, lessening the number of cases of scurvy that popped up when residents were fed too much canned food and processed grains.
    Cheryl shuddered to think what would happen in the fort if the food supplies ran too low. She'd heard rumors that there was an underground area where they were keeping a few rats in cages to breed for protein. There had also been talk about filling the moat with water and setting up a tilapia fish farming system, but with so many of the infected making it over the fence line, it would be difficult to keep it from becoming contaminated.
    At worst, she feared that during a famine, the occupants would turn on each other. If that happened, it wouldn't take turning into Eaters for them to go all Donner Party on each other.
    That morning, she and five other people helped to clear what was left of the winter lettuce crop that had gone to seed. The crumbly plants with tall stalks were shaken over buckets to collect the seeds that would be saved for a late fall planting. When that task was done, the group grabbed water buckets and went to tend the young pepper and tomato seedlings that had been transplanted the week before.
    As Cheryl surveyed a row of chili peppers and the taller tomato plants behind them, Gloria, the Master Gardener who supervised the volunteer workers, approached. She had tawny skin and a generous smile that created deep furrows along the far corners of her eyes and cheeks. She walked up just as Cheryl started to pour water on some thirsty plants that were beginning to wilt. "Just a little around the roots. We've