A Glimpse of Decay (Book 3): Lost in Twilight (24 page)

“My parents let Allister stay with us,” Hannah added.  “He didn’t have anywhere else to go.”  She reached over to boyfriend, taking his hand into hers.

“Yeah, if it wasn’t for her family, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.”  He looked at James and continued his story.  “So they have the town locked down…I’m talking like a prisoner of war camp.  Then one night, the army—or something like that—comes marching into Rome and a big battle breaks out.  I mean like tanks and machine guns and things you see in the movies.”

“It was terrible,” Hannah said.  She trembled as she remembered the ugly event.

“Yeah, people were getting killed all over the place,” Donnie said to James.  “The town police and the local guard fought back.  I don’t know where they got them from, but them boys had rocket launchers…and they knew how to use them.  They ambushed a bunch of the other guys in downtown…right in the middle of Broad Street.  There was burning tanks and trucks and bodies all over the place.  And then the dead started coming back to life and they started going after everyone.”

“We tried to make it out…with my parents,” Hannah said as she began to sob.  “But someone shot up our car with a machine gun.  My parents were killed and we had to leave them behind…”—she began to stammer and sob—“and we don’t know if…we don’t know if they…if they came back or not!”  Horrified at the possibility of her parents returning from the dead, she began to scream out loud.  Michelle jumped up and leaned down over the hysterical girl, taking her into her arms.

“There, there, get it all out,” Michelle whispered into Hannah’s ear.  “You’re safe here.  You can grieve now, my child.”  She continued to rock the crying girl in her arms.  She then found herself thinking of her own mother—and of Jerry.

Wiping his tears away from his face, Donnie picked up his sister’s tale.  “We made it back home, so we packed what we could, got three of my dad’s hunting rifles and we set out on foot.  We saw a couple of people still there in town, but almost everyone else has been turned into those things.”

“Yeah, I think most of the town folk are zombies now…or those crazy things that run real fast,” Allister said.

“And what about the guys who attacked the town?” James asked Allister.  He wasn’t too sure about revealing to him that he had been working with the same people who might have been responsible for the death of his girlfriend’s parents.  “Did any of them make it?”

“I don’t think so.  We were right there in downtown when the big fight started.  It was terrible and confusing and I’m not sure if those guys made it.  What really sucks is that no one even knew why they attacked Rome.”

“Maybe they were trying to free it?” Michelle suggested as she eyed James.  She realized that he wasn’t going to divulge the fact that they had known about the attack—she winked her eye at him to confirm that his secret was safe with her.

“We left in such a hurry that we didn’t pack enough food, so we ran out like maybe three days ago,” Donnie said.  “We shot a squirrel, but that didn’t last long.”

“So, have you seen anyone else since you’ve been out here?” Benjie asked.

Finally being able to calm herself down, Hannah looked up at Michelle and said, “Thank you.”  She rubbed away her tears and snot on her shirt sleeve and she looked over at Benjie.  “We haven’t seen anyone else since we left town.”

“But we have run into a few of those things,” Donnie added.  “I don’t know how they got out here, but they’re out here alright.  Not many of them, but enough to cause trouble if they got around this cabin.’

A sinking feeling immediately overwhelmed James as he heard Donnie’s last statement.   He shook his head in despair and asked, “When was the last time you saw any of them?”

“I guess maybe three days ago,” Donnie replied.  “About the same time we ran out of food.  Maybe about five miles away from here…back towards the road that comes up here.”

Sitting back down at the table, Michelle asked Hannah, “And how did you find us?”

“We smelled your fire.”  She pointed to the hearth.  “We’ve been trying to track it down from the moment we smelled it.  That was yesterday…or the day before…I think.”

“When you were back in town, did you guys here of any news from outside of Rome?” Michelle asked the three.

Donnie ran his hand over his dark flat top and said, “Well, there was this neighbor who had a Ham radio…he was communicating with some other people across the country.  He said that things were real bad and everything had fallen apart.  He also said that Atlanta was a ‘dead town’ and that there was no communication with them anymore.”

“Yeah, but he also said that he had picked up some stuff from San Antonio,” Allister noted, “and that it sounded like an army base there was trying to work on a cure for this damn disease…or whatever it is.”

“Whoa, did you say ‘San Antonio?’ ” James asked.

“Yeah, if I think I heard right, he said, ‘San Antonio.’ ”

“I heard someone else saying something about that,” James said, again not wanting to divulge that he had been working with the National Guard.  “I wonder how true that is.”

“That’s right,” Benjie remembered, “you have family near Houston…down in Texas.”

“Yep,” James said.  “Maybe a little closer to Galveston, but yeah…in that general area.”  He fell silent for a moment as he contemplated the possibility of traveling to Texas.  He knew that the odds would be stacked against him, but then again, he knew that in the world they were now living in, the odds would never be in his favor—no matter what he did.  He glanced down at Rhino and snapped his finger, calling the dog to him.  Excited, Rhino pranced over to him and James began to pet the top of his head.

“What else did your neighbor say?” Michelle asked, trying to hide the excitement inside of her.  Although she was sad for the young trio and the situation that they were in, she was elated at the fact that she was finally getting some kind of information from the outside world.  “Did he say if anyone else was trying to stop the disease?”

“No,” Donnie said, “he just said that it sounded like the government was no longer around and that the big cities were all gone.”

“All gone?” Benjie asked.

“That’s what he said,” Donnie muttered as he shrugged.

“And that’s how we ended up here,” Allister said in a neutral tone as he stared down at his bowl.  James could tell that the young man had grown weary of recounting their fright-filled journey.

“Well, you kids are more than welcome to stay here,” Michelle said.  Benjie looked over at her with an expression of uncertainty on his face.  He wished that she would have at least conferred with James and him before making the offer to the kids.  Not wanting the newcomers to pick up on his displeasure, he stood up and walked over to the window that looked out over the front porch.

Sensing Benjie’s dissension, James looked over at Michelle and smiled.  He too would have preferred to have discussed any decision made in regards to the three kids, but he also knew that he was just a guest in Michelle’s cabin.  She was the landlord and he was a tenant.

“So, have you all been here since this all started?” Hannah asked Michelle.

“We came up here a few days after everything started happening,” she said.  She coughed and cleared her voice as she tried to avoid becoming emotional.  “My husband—Jerry—went out to try to find my mom and he never returned.  I stayed there at the house for several days and then Benjie came over.  My daddy had this cabin built before he died, so we decided to come up here and that’s when we met James.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your husband,” Hannah said in a hushed voice.

“It’s okay.  I’d like to think that he’s still alive out there, but I know better.”

“So, you aren’t from Rome?” Donnie asked.

“No, Benjie and I are from Cartersville.”  Looking over at James, she said, “And he’s from Floyd.”

“Ah, so you’re pretty much from Rome,” Allister said.  James glanced back at him but didn’t reply.

Sensing that the conversation was growing stale, Michelle decided to change directions.  “Finish up your food so none of it goes to waste.  You can sleep here in the front room with James and Rhino…I’m sure they won’t mind.”

James, deep in thought, didn’t hear what Michelle had just said.  He was thinking about Texas.  He was thinking about his cousins.  He was thinking about heading out west.

***

James stood on the front porch and leaned back against the railing, looking through the open front door at the three slumbering youngsters.  They were in their sleeping bags—the couch moved to one corner with them sprawled out across the floor.  Curiously, Rhino was curled up next to Hannah.

Michelle, sitting next to Benjie on a porch swing, looked up and saw that James was staring at something beyond the cabin walls.  She could tell that he was deep in thought.  “What are you thinking of?”

“Ahhh,” James groaned, “I don’t know.”  He rubbed the palms of his hands on the front of his pants.  “I guess I’m thinking of all kinds of things.”

“Like what?” she asked him.

“I guess I was just thinking about how much the world has changed in the past month.”  He took a deep breath.  “Isn’t it crazy how so much has changed in such a short amount of time?  I thought the world was…I don’t know…maybe tougher than that.  You know, like too tough to be turned upside down so quickly.  It just blows my mind.”

“What do you mean?” Benjie asked.

“Well, we got all this technology…all this modern science and state-of-the-art health care…computers and communication, and none of it made a difference.  And now we’re gonna have to change the way we live…the way we interact with other people.  Lord knows we can never trust anyone again.  Sooner or later, it’s going to be every man for himself…if it isn’t like that already.”  James looked down and shook his head.  With a deep sigh he said, “It’s like…I don’t know…like darkness is coming to the world and we’re lost in the twilight…not knowing what to do or where to go.”

“Well, maybe this is something that Man just can’t figure out…or wasn’t meant to figure out,” Michelle said.

“How so?” James asked.

“Maybe this is bigger than Man.”

Sensing that Michelle was about to go off on a religious tangent, Benjie moaned, “Oh Lord, here we go again.”

“No, really,” she said in an agitated tone as she jabbed at Benjie with her elbow.  “I’m being serious.  Benjie thinks I’m crazy, but I’m not.”

“So then explain to me what you’re trying to say.”  James crossed his arms and looked into her eyes.

“I just think that maybe God planned this out.  Kind of like a rapture or something.”

“Uh, I don’t know if I believe in God that much,” James said with a frown.

“Now-a-days, many people don’t, and that’s why it’s so hard for them, and for you, to understand what’s going on.  He’s a lot more powerful than any technology around.  Believe me, if He wants to change things up, He’s going to.”

“I’m not buying it,” James said dismissively.  “It’s not that simple.  You can’t just write this off as something spiritual.”

“It’s beyond spiritual…it’s beyond Biblical.  It’s God’s will.  I think He saw that it was time to bring his flock back into line.  We had strayed too far away from Him.”

“Damn girl, you were never this religious in the past!” Benjie exclaimed.

“No, I wasn’t.  Me and Jerry never even went to church.  But now that this has all happened, it’s helped me to see what’s going on…to make sense out of what’s going on.”

“Well, I still don’t buy it,” James said in a flat tone.  “I don’t mean to insult you, but I think you’re using spirituality as a coping mechanism to help you get through all this craziness, and if it works, then good for you.” 

“I’m not trying to make you to think the way I do, but when the time comes, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Growing weary of the religious conversation, James decided to shift gears and change the topic.  “Well, one thing I hope I’ve seen the last of is political correctness.  I don’t think they’ll be any room for that type of stuff in this kind of world.  People aren’t going to have the time to decide what’s polite and what’s rude.  Now everyone’s concern will simply be to make it from one day to the next.”

“I’m with you on that one,” Benjie agreed.  I hope that we’ve seen the end of politics all together.”

Running with the topic, Michelle added, “And no more hype about people and their lives.  Who cares about who miss so-and-so is dating or what mister so-and-so is up to?”

“I know I never did,” James said in agreement.

“You know what I’m really going to miss?” Benjie posed.

“Why don’t you go ahead and tell us,” Michelle said.

“Well damn, girl, I guess I’m not important enough for you to try and guess,” he said, slightly offended.

“I just don’t have the time to guess,” she said as she sighed.

“I’m gonna miss fast food drive-throughs.”

“Yeah, I guess me too,” James said.

“And what about you, James?” Benjie asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what about you?’ ”

“You’ve never really said much about yourself.  Maybe a little bit about your family in Texas, but not much about yourself.”