Not Just Cargo

by moriahmindless

Summary:

In a world where a deadly virus has destroyed most of humanity and turned people into monsters, 19-year-old Natalie Scatorccio does whatever it takes to survive. After being forced to kill her father when he becomes infected, she partners with Travis Martinez to scavenge for essentials and make a living in this brutal new world. But their latest job—delivering Lottie Matthews, a wealthy girl held for ransom by her father’s enemies—complicates everything. Tasked with getting Lottie to a safe zone, Natalie is initially resentful of Lottie’s pampered life, but when tragedy strikes and she’s left alone with Lottie, everything changes. As they make their way across the country, the two women form an unlikely bond. Through blood and loss, they’ll learn that survival means more than just staying alive.

Chapter 1: Prologue: Immunity

PROLOGUE. IMMUNITY.

The first time Natalie Scatorccio died, she was twelve years old. It was strange, really. Surprising and near impossible, even. She had expected to die much sooner than that, death and pain seemingly a constant looming threat behind every corner her whole life. After all, the world came crashing down when she was only three. The outbreak had spread like wildfire through North America, burning and eating through nearly 20% of the population in days. She couldn’t really remember the world before it was devoured. There was no point. Who could scrape their mind for the dregs of a memory with everything they had to worry about?

Her parents had kept her alive for 9 years in that world. Surviving. Her father’s gun collection hidden throughout their trailer long before anyone knew what was coming had given them a head start above the majority of people who were stranded in the chaos. But that wasn’t all. It was his cold demeanor, the way he turned a blind eye to morality when survival was at stake. The way he began to like it. They way they all did.

When the quarantine zones went up and the new government found new and impressive ways to oppress the people, her father became something else. Darker, more dangerous. A raider at first. Then a hunter.

Natalie watched it happen—whatever darkness had always lurked under him was now alight in his eyes, his humanity gone from them. He was a survivor. She and her mother were, too. They had to be.

He had joined a pack of other seedy men, some with families, too. By the time she was 6, Natalie and the other children had been trained in the fine art of bait. When it was her turn, her father would instruct her to scrape her knees up on the cement, and he would have her sit very still to land an angry, red palm print across her face. He’d put dirt in her hair, get her to cry, and put her where he wanted her. The men had successfully blocked off most ways in and out of the city except for one. If travelers came through, they’d find themselves on this road. That road was where Natalie would wait and cry. People running from the Boston QZ would pass through there sometimes, some on foot and others in vehicles. The adults had tried the sick and wounded act, but that got very little done. That was where Natalie and the others came in. The Spotter would run down from one of the high, decrepit buildings and tip off where the travelers were coming from, and how long everyone had to get into position. Her father would get her ready and plop her down, and everyone would take their places and hide for the ambush.

The first time Natalie was put out there, it was a woman who convinced the group to stop. Probably a mother, she thought now. Maybe someone who had lost someone. She broke from the group, approaching a crying Natalie cautiously, and picked her up. Shushed her, told her it was going to be okay, held her. The other’s glanced around for danger before inching in to see the strange little girl, too. When they did, her father and his hunters moved in. Natalie watched an arrow sink right into the woman’s eye through the back of her skull. The unseeing and uncomprehending look a second before her arms dropped Natalie on her feet. Natalie ran behind the cover her father had shown her, and bullets started flying. It was a group of about 7 people. They took their clothes, their shoes, their bags, supplies and weapons. The men would load them into a large wagon with dry-rotting wheels and the women would push them to the edge of town behind the hotel they resided in. The women would bury them. It wasn’t a nicety to the fallen. They could have no survivors, no witnesses to the slain, or Wiskayok, New Jersey would get a reputation. The bounty would stop coming.

So, the kids took turns every time the Spotter alerted them. There were only 3 of them. Natalie, Travis Martinez, and Kevyn Tan. Natalie seemed to draw more people into the center of the street where the hunters wanted them on account of being a girl, but the other two had decent pulls, too. Then one day, one of the hunter’s stepped on some broken glass behind his cover. The travelers' heads went up. 9 year old Kevyn Tan panicked and tried to run before the ambush, and some trigger-happy paranoid shot him between the shoulder blades. That only left Natalie and Travis.

At age 10, Natalie’s father gave her a switchblade he found on one of her bodies. He told her she’d be too old for bait duty in no time, and would need to learn how to defend herself. How to kill. How to fight. She sparred with Travis a lot. He was cute with his dark brown eyes and floppy brown hair, but he was intense and lethal, like her. It almost became a kind of sport. Her dad would train her, and his dad would train him, and then they’d make silent bets on which kid would win their fights. Travis won, a lot. Until Natalie figured out how fast and spry she could really be. She was getting better at dodging and countering, and striking at sensitive, hard to defend places. The rule for the blade was that it always had to be closed in sparring, but always in her hand. So one day, Travis lunged for her, arms up, and she slid beneath him to avoid them. Dust flew up under her boots, and she turned at the last second, jamming the closed switchblade into his armpit. Then she fell into a crouch, and swiped the handle across his Achilles tendon.

“DOWN!” Her father yelled, drinking from his stained cup of some kind of hooch. Travis screwed his face up in frustration. He lost for the first time when they were 11. And he kept losing. At first, he became withdrawn from her. He was angry and mean that a girl kept beating him. Eventually, he came around asking about how to pivot and slide like her. He became graceful at it, just never as fast. They were best friends, really. At 12, they started sneaking out of the hotel to travel around the town, explore abandoned buildings, and sometimes—kiss. They knew better, but they were 12 and after chores, they were bored.

Natalie died for the first time at twelve years old on one of these outings. They wandered a little too far, taking up residence in an abandoned house. Travis flopping onto the dusty couch and reading a worn comic book, and her sneaking up the stairs to look around. She opened a door, and it came out of nowhere—a runner. It slammed against her, grabbing her by her shoulders, and in her attempt to fight it off, she was bitten on the arm. Death sentence. No. No. No. Travis appeared, a lead pipe in his hand, and hit it over the head again and again until it stopped twitching. Natalie remained on the floor, her bite wound dripping under her hand trying to conceal it. She looked at him, thin layer of sweat, hair in disarray, panting. He suddenly looked really small to her, and for the first time in a long time, she remembered they were both just kids. She watched his eyes trail down to her arm, watched the realization sink in.

She would turn into one of them in a matter of hours. His eyes looked wet, like he was trying not to cry. Then he lifted the pipe over her, arms shaking, ready to kill. She looked up at him and let her tears fall. She knew he had to, but it didn’t stop the fear. She pleaded with her eyes, bottom lip trembling, blood warm through her fingers. No. Please. Then, he dropped the pipe, biting his lip to keep from crying, and backed up to the wall of the room away from her. He slid down it tiredly until he reached the floor, his arms on his knees.

“I—I won’t do it until you start twitching,” He mumbled. She nodded at him, snot running from her nose. “Do you want me to go get the comic book?’ He asked, his head gesturing toward the door. She nodded again.

“Yeah. Okay. Back up to the other wall.” He said. So she slid backward until her back hit it, and waited for him to come back. While he was gone, she looked into the dead eyes of the runner. Unseeing. She tried not to picture her eyes there, but it didn’t help.

He came through the door slowly and cautiously, kicking the body of the runner away, and took his seat. He started reading.

“Savage Starlight Book 13…” He mumbled, the pipe in his lap. She listened and let herself fall asleep soon after. While drifting off, it felt like dying. She was sure she would never wake up, that even if her body did, she would be gone. It was dreamless sleep, so she knew. She had died. She was gone and soon Travis would kill her body, too. This was her first death.

Until she woke. Travis was still awake, looking at her strangely. She looked at her arm, and found the bite already closing itself, strange scar tissue trying to form, blister-like pustules erupting from it. She flicked her gaze back to him desperately.

“I’m not turning!” She said urgently. He shook his head angrily, hands tightening around the pipe.

“We don’t know that!” He barked at her. The sun was coming up through the broken window, illuminating everything in a dreamy glow that felt at odds with the nightmarish situation she was trapped in.

“My dad will be looking for me soon. Do you want him to find out we snuck out together? That I snuck out with a boy?” She dared him. “Travis, you said you’d kill me when I start twitching. I’m not twitching. Please, let’s just go back!” She pleaded.

“And be the one who brought an infected into camp!?” He barked again. Is that all I am now? An infected?

“Just…give me your jacket. I’ll…I’ll hide it and you can let them kill me. You don’t have to be the one to do it. I know you don’t want to.” Just don’t fucking kill me, Travis.

After a tense while, Travis finally agreed. They slipped back into camp, the area surrounding the hotel, Natalie in Travis’s jacket. Travis never had to kill her. And as it turned out, neither did anyone else. Natalie never turned—and Travis never spilled her secret. They kept training. Natalie and Travis had become absolutely lethal—lethal enough for her to join in ambushes instead of joining her mother and the other women with their duties. Lethal enough to kill without remorse. Lethal enough to give herself a chemical burn over her bite-mark to hide the scar with more scarring. By 16, they were killing machines, and the hotel wine cellar was filled with all of their bounties. Shoes, food, clothes, weapons, medicine. Eventually, they had convinced the other hunter’s to send a weekly group out to scout and hunt instead of setting traps only in town. Natalie and Travis always lead. They killed and they pillaged. They were survivors. Right?

Chapter 2: Do You Ever Wonder?

Notes:

HIIIII GUYS. I am so sorry to have left this one hanging for so long :/ I fell into a bit of a slump and a really busy period of my life and have just gotten back into writing these for a bit. There is more to this chapter but it will have to be split because I don't currently have access to the file with the rest of it and I wanted to get a little of this out to you guys since I am working on a JackieNat fic at the moment and that felt kind of unfair. Sorry this is so short but I promise more is coming eventually, if not soon. Pls don't be mad at me :(

“Do you ever think what we do is kind of fucked up?” Travis asked one night while they were sneaking out. The moon was full and its light left a dreamy glaze on the few trees holding onto their leaves in late October. Natalie had her rifle strapped to her back, and a holster carrying a pistol enveloping the meat of her upper thigh. She looked over at him. His hair had gotten long, parted down the middle, giving him two curtains of dark hair on either side of his face. He looked forlorn, his eyes reflecting the little light available. She looked away.

“What do you mean?” She mumbled, continuing forward to their spot across town. They were 19 now, and had been off and on again lovers since 16, but always friends. But Travis could wear on her sometimes with his ideals, his sadness that lingered below the surface.

“I—I didn’t think much of it when we were on bait duty, but after Javi got old enough to do it…watching him lure those people to their deaths..he was so small. Like we were. And now that he’s 14, he’s been training with me to kill them himself.” He said softly. This was a reoccurring topic with Travis. Javi had been born 2 years after their camp was established in Wiskayok. Travis was 5. They had never really bonded, he and Natalie were too busy running bait and training and Javi was too small. His mom had managed to keep him off of bait duty until he turned 6, which was a luxury neither of them had ever gotten. Fucking six. We were 4 when we started. It hadn’t mattered much to Travis then, this was what was expected of the children. But then he and Nat got older, bigger, stronger, and scrawny Javi was still out there. Travis had begun getting moody about it, Nat guessed, when he was no longer a child and could see for the first time that Javi was. Nat rolled her eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about this again, Travis. This is how we survive. Javi has to learn sometime or someone kills him first. This is the world. There’s no use in getting all…feely and remorseful about it. This is who we are. Why are you trying to make us feel bad about it now?” She still wouldn’t look at him. She could hear the heels of his feet dragging in the dirt, and knew that he had dropped his shoulders, defeat making him slow and wimpish. She bit the inside of her cheek and reached out to hold his hand lightly. He let her and she was thankful for it. She knew he had a point—if this were a movie, they’d belong to a clan of villians. She understood they were the bad guys, but what else was there to be? If she wasn’t trapping and killing these people, wouldn’t there be people trapping and killing her? If she was out there, surviving by the skin of her teeth, and refusing to hurt anyone else to do so, then what? She’d either die of starvation, cold, infected, or some other clan of villians. Travis understood the world used to be different even if neither of them could remember, and she knew he was envious of it. She knew that when the frenzy and adrenaline wore off, Travis saw what they were. Murderers of the worst kind. But where would they—

“We could leave.” He said softly, clasping her hand tighter, stroking it with his thumb. She looked at him now, something hard softening at the earnestness on his face, his pouty full lips.

“And go where?” She asked as nicely as she could.

“Boston. We could just go do what everyone else is doing.”

“And what? Slave labor for 1/4th of what we get here? Getting hunted down by my dad for leaving with weapons and supplies? You know he’d never let me go.” She told him. It was true. Her dad had become something of the leader, the mayor of the encampment. He had perfected his distilling and making hooch. He was drunk a lot, and Natalie always had to take the brunt of his rage. She didn’t know why—she was one of his top earners. His fastest. His sneakiest. His most lethal. Still, it wasn’t enough. He had his suspicions about Travis and had resorted to not so subtle slut-shaming, sometimes slapping her. She didn’t know why she took it. He was drunk and getting older. She could kill him. But hadn’t she only had him to thank for her survival? Hadn’t he crafted her? Made her what she was? So, she let him. She pretended it didn’t hurt. She pretended it didn’t make her feel small and hated and she pretended that hunting wasn’t the only thing that made her feel powerful and useful. What a joke, she thought of herself often. The only time she didn’t feel either of these things was with Travis. With Travis, she was just Natalie.

“Yeah…” He sighed. She pulled his hand when the house came into view, making him jog to keep up.

“Come on. Let’s cheer you up.” She flashed a smile at him.

So they did what they always did. With her father’s newfound rage and disdain, they limited sneaking out to once a week. They never touched any other time. They were never alone any other time. This spot was all they had, one night a week to forget what they’d done, who they’d become. They unstrapped their weapons, laid Travis’s jacked on the old bed, and they just watched each other disappear into something natural and instinctual. Their sex was never like making love—it was more like erasing each other. No thoughts. Just a bit of pleasure. Just a bit of escape. Still though, it was the only thing that made it bearable. They were always working, always training, always killing. This way, they could be the ones to die a little.

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​They fell asleep. That didn’t usually happen, it wasn’t part of the plan, but Natalie woke up to her watch reading 0204.Travis was passed out with his head to the side, and she was naked except for her jeans and boots. After she had been bitten all those years ago, they had an agreement to keep these outings as brief as possible. She felt a dizzying panic to get up and leave, but Travis looked peaceful and wiped out. He was so rarely not frowning that it gave her a moment of pause. Do you ever think what we do is kind of fucked up? Nat sighed, and reached over to put a strand of his hair behind his ear. She would give herself this one moment of truth and honesty when no one could hear it.

​“I always thought it was fucked up, but no one gets rewarded for feeling remorseful.” She whispered to his sleeping form. She didn’t like the way that felt at all, in her bones, like admitting it was giving her an allergic reaction. Her senses flared in response to the vulnerability, immediately tuning in to the sounds and smells around her, as if getting ready for a hunt rather than allow a morsel of regret to form. She took her fingers from his hair and pushed his shoulder a little harder than she meant. His brows furrowed before his eyes shot open, hand reaching for hers with a sick quickness. He went rigid when his eyes met hers, and she stayed still while his drowsy brain put the picture together. Safe. Not being attacked.

​“We have to go.” She mumbled, and stood to dress. She buttoned up her flannel and put on her coat, strapping her rifle and thigh holster back on. Travis rubbed his eyes while she put her worn boots back on. The wind whispered through the house as he dressed himself and got his weapons ready. She carried a silenced military grade pistol, light-weight and lethal, and he carried a heavy revolver. She tried not to frown at it every time she saw it—it was loud, and loud sounds attracted infected. Luckily, they were both quick enough to mostly take out enemies with knives.

Still though, she hated that revolver. He had gotten it as a gift from his last time as bait, pulled off of one of the men they’d killed. The group was harder to corral than most, the men fighting back quicker and more attuned with the danger. The man had been quick to whip out the revolver, a swift aim for Travis’s father, when Travis at 12 slammed his palm to the man’s elbow and grabbed his wrist. He dropped the revolver, and Travis twisted his arm until it snapped, bringing the man to his knees. He kept hold of his wrist when he grabbed the revolver from the ground and shot the man point blank in the head. The sound rung out in the city, and infected ran out from their hiding spots in the city. They swept the abandoned buildings often and tried to clear them out, but they kept coming back. Natalie hated that day for many reasons—seeing Travis use brute, fatal force instead of his usual quick and graceful stealth for the first time, and watching a horde of about 20 infected attack all of their men. Yet, when Mr. Martinez gave Travis the revolver when it was all over, he kept it all that time. Doesn’t he think that’s kind of fucked up?

​