The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (11 page)

Riley leaned forward and kissed his cheek before hurrying over to him and John by the door. Bobby walked over to join them also. Carl pushed the door open and stepped into the still night. He strained to hear anything but the only sound was the forlorn breeze of the wind moving through the looming trees surrounding them. The trees creaked and the leaves rustled within the boughs as they swayed back and forth.

Even though he was a landscaper he'd always hated a lot of noise. Slapping on his earmuffs and firing up the mower was a way to lose himself, and zone out for awhile, but horns blaring and people screaming in the city had always set his teeth on edge. Now he'd give anything to hear some noise, to have someone curse him out and blare a horn, to hear the loud wail of a siren. To hear even a cricket chirrup would have made his whole day.

This hush only served to reinforce the strange feeling that they were the only people left on this broken planet.

The lock popping on the back of the truck sounded like a gunshot and he couldn't help but look around for something to jump out at them. His gaze searched the woods to see if anything had been drawn forward by the noise but the woods remained as unmoving as a corpse. John and Bobby leapt into the back of the truck and began to gather food and drinks to bring back into the building with them. Riley's gaze remained riveted on the treetops as she stood beside him. Carl felt his own eyes drawn to the tops of the trees as he recalled the monkey like agility the rabid-like sick ones exhibited.

Bobby and John were moving supplies into a smaller bag when Al appeared next to Riley. She jumped a little when she spotted him. "Shit," she hissed. "This isn't exactly the best time to be sneaking up on people when they have a gun."

Al smiled at her and looked into the back of the truck. "We still have a fair amount of supplies."

Carl eyed the mound in the truck. "It won't last eleven people long though."

"No, it won't," Al agreed.

"This cabin of yours, do you think it will be safe and will we be able to get food?" Bobby asked as he walked over holding two jugs of water in his hands.

Al shrugged as he shook his head. "I don't know. When this all started I thought it was the perfect place to go. I still think it will be safer than many other places, but I also thought we'd be able to fish and hunt there, now I'm not so sure."

"That doesn't seem all that likely now," John said as he dropped a small bag of junk food at the end of the truck bed.

"The mountains might have sustained the quakes better." Riley grabbed the bag off the truck and placed it on the ground before turning back to them. "If that's the case then it really could be safe and we really could survive there for awhile."

John handed the last bag out of the truck and jumped down. Bobby hopped out beside him. Gathering the supplies they made their way tiredly back toward the building. Even the promise of some much needed food in his grumbling stomach couldn't get his feet to move any faster. The promise of sleep seemed much more enticing right now than eating but it was going to be awhile before he got the chance to close his eyes, if he even got it tonight.

Three cans of soda had been salvaged from the vending machine and gathered in the center of the room. The glass had been pushed into a corner and most of the others were already settled onto the floor. Xander and Peter were the only ones that remained standing. Rochelle leapt to her feet and hurried over to John.

John handed the bag of food over to her. Rochelle dug into the bag and pulled out the Twizzlers. "I'm sure these are for you," she said as she thrust them at John.

He gave her a weary smile as he took the bag from her. "You know me so well."

Rochelle turned away and began to place the food in the center of the room. "We can't keep surviving on junk food," Al said from beside him.

"No, we can't," Carl agreed. "Do you think we should still try and get to your cabin or should we try something else?"

Al rubbed at his chin as he watched the others divide the food. "Unless you can think of something better, or somewhere else to go, I don't have any other ideas."

That was the problem, he didn't have any other ideas either. Perhaps Riley was right and the mountains had withstood the quakes better. He really didn't like the idea of going anywhere near more highly populated areas, but maybe that was the wrong choice. Maybe the higher populated areas are where they would find safety, food, and stable shelter.

They'd probably find a lot more sick people too which was the last thing he wanted to do.

"I don't," he admitted. "We'll just have to keep scrounging for supplies as we go. It's all we've been able to do so far and we're still alive. We'll ask the others what they think after they've eaten though."

Al nodded. "And if they would prefer something different?"

Carl didn't like the idea of it, even if they went through supplies faster by having more people around there was safety in numbers, but if people chose to go their own way he wasn't going to stop them. "Then we'll have to say goodbye."

Carl didn't miss the relief that filled Al's face as he nodded. Apparently Carl wasn't the only one that hadn't changed his mind about not going into more populated areas. "Are you guys going to eat?" Rochelle asked around a mouthful of chips.

"Of course," Al said as he strode forward.

Carl stayed back as they eagerly dug into their dinner. His stomach rumbled but he retreated to the door to keep watch. He glanced over at Xander, who was leaning against the other door, his eyes on Riley and the others as they ate. Carl turned away but he couldn't see two feet beyond the glass in front of him.

Al,

"Do we have a choice?" Peter asked in a harsh, challenging tone.

"Why wouldn't you?" Carl had been staring out the glass doors but now his head turned and his brow furrowed as he looked to Peter.

Al hadn't known Carl for long but he heard something in his tone that caught his attention and made the sleepiness clinging to him fade away. Everyone was tired, hungry, beaten and on edge and though he didn't think Carl was reckless or even volatile, he was protective. If he even remotely thought Peter might become a threat, Carl would do something about it.

Donald had gone into the office earlier and returned with a notebook and pen. The man had been writing something but at Peter and Carl's words the pen stopped moving and his head came up. Al wiped at his eyes and sat up straighter against the closed office door as he turned toward the middle-aged teacher.

"Well we can't just walk out of here," Peter retorted.

"If you would prefer to go your own way, or if you have a better plan for all of us, just say so. That's why we're having this discussion," Carl told him.

Peter glanced around the room but Al knew what he would see, a ragtag bunch of survivors who looked like they'd not only been run over by a bus, but the bus had been followed up by a Mac truck and then a train. At least that's the way his body felt and his mind was just as brutalized. He pushed his glasses up and rubbed at his eyes to try and clear the blurriness from them, but when he dropped the glasses back into place things were still a little wavy.

There had been a time, before he'd gotten glasses as a child, that he had thought the world was supposed to be a bunch of blurs and blobs. He'd been fine with it then but he wasn't fine with it now as his tired eyes finally managed to blink the others into focus.

"I'm just saying that even if some of us decided to try and go into a city or in a different direction, we can't walk there without any supplies," Peter said. "It would be a suicide mission and I doubt any of
you
would part with anything useful."

Carl lifted an eyebrow at the teacher as a muscle in his cheek began to twitch. Slowly turning away from Peter, he glanced at the others, but it was Al that gave him a subtle nod. Carl studied him for a second before his shoulders slumped and his eyes drifted back to Peter. "If any of you decide to leave then we'll give you a car and two days worth of supplies. If you don't want to stay we're not going to force you to, and we're not going to turn you away with nothing."

Peter remained unmoving, his jaw was clenched as he held Carl's steely stare. "Does anyone else think we should head for a city?" Peter inquired without looking away from Carl.

"I don't want to go anywhere near a place where there were a lot of people before," Riley informed him. She had retreated to Xander and was sitting on the floor by his feet as he continued to watch out the backdoor. The remaining bag of chips she'd brought him was in his hand but he seemed to have forgotten about it as his gaze drifted down to her. "I don't care if this cabin is a pile of rubble, I don't care if we can't even make it into the mountains because there are rocks in the way, or if we get there only to find the lake is lava and there's absolutely nothing to eat. I am
not
going anywhere near higher populated areas that will..."

"The sickness may not be in the cities, we have no idea what has caused it or how it is passed," Peter finally looked away from Carl to all of them. "For all we know it could have only been in Mass. If we go to Hartford or New York City there may only be
healthy
people."

"You don't understand," Riley told him. "I'd prefer not to be around
any
other people. The healthy ones are just as dangerous, if not more so, than the sick ones. At least we know what the sick ones want, we have no idea what the healthy people are going to do."

Sadness crept through Al as Riley folded her arms over her chest. Though she tried to hide it, a vulnerable expression briefly filtered over her features. Al was tempted to hug her, or at least squeeze her hand, but she was ten feet away and if the set of her chin was any indication she wouldn't welcome any comfort right now.

"I'm not sure I agree with that," Peter said.

"Then you haven't run into enough of them," Riley retorted. Al had seen darts that weren't as sharply pointed as Riley's gaze when it slid back to Peter. "You don't even know who is sick and who isn't. One of us could be, right now, and we wouldn't even know until they were curled up in the back of a car or trying to tear us open." Her hands flickered to her stomach as she relentlessly held Peter's gaze. "Do you really want to go somewhere that there are even more ticking time bombs just walking around waiting to go off?"

Peter didn't seem to be able to meet her gaze as he looked beyond her. "Yes, I do. This whole staying to back roads and avoiding people hasn't really gotten us anywhere. We should try something different."

"It's kept us alive, which is more than we can say for a whole lot of the population right now."

"Does no one else want to try a city or even a bigger town?" Peter demanded.

"I'll go with you Mr. Dade," Josh volunteered.

"I had enough with Foxboro," Mary Ellen told him. "I'm not letting Rochelle anywhere near any of the confusion and distrust that comes from being with a large group of people. Plus, there were so many people trying to escape the stadium that we barely made it out of there alive. I understand safety in numbers but there's also a thing as
too
many numbers."

"What about you?" Peter looked to John, who was sitting with his back against the wall in between both of the bathrooms.

John stared back at him as if Peter had just started singing a show tune. "Maybe there is a lovey dovey lala land of refuge out there, but I highly doubt it with people becoming sick, people trying to eat other people, and people trying to
shoot
people for
no
reason whatsoever. There is
no
way I'm getting back on that crazy train anytime soon."

Carl met Peter's look with one of stony silence as he folded his arms over his chest. Xander simply shook his head. Peter didn't even bother to look at him before turning his attention to Donald. "This is a bit of peace to me after everything else that has happened, I'm not ready to plunge back into the insanity," Donald told him.

Peter threw his hands up as he shook his head. He turned away from them and paced to the wall before coming back. There was an agitated look in his eyes as his gaze swept the room. "There could be insanity a half a mile down the road from here."

"There could, but for now, I'm staying." Donald didn't look at him again as he bent his head and put pen to paper once more.

Peter looked tempted to stomp his foot as he stared at everyone gathered in the room. "I think you're wrong."

"You can take one of the cars; we'll give you enough food for two days," Carl reminded him.

"And gas?"

Carl looked torn as Al placed his hand against the office door and used it to help him rise. "We'll fill whatever car you choose with gas but you'll be on your own for finding more gas cans and tubing," Al informed them. He agreed with sending them with supplies, but it would be their choice to leave and he wasn't willing to part with something they would desperately need in the future. "We can only give you so much help if you choose to do this. You'll have to learn to be on your own anyway."

Peter's face was red as his gaze drifted toward the windows. "Take the night," Al continued. "Think it over. You can't go out there now anyway. If you change your mind and stay that's fine but if you would still like to go then so be it, you can strike out on your own in the morning."

Al moved away from the office door and into the bathroom. He didn't really have to go, he just needed some time to himself to stretch his legs and wash his face. Turning on the cold water, he stuck his hand under the faucet and let the water pool within his good hand. Splashing it up, he wiped it over his face as he sought, and failed, to rejuvenate himself a little.

Grasping hold of the sink, he looked down at the hand he had wrapped around the basin. Sometimes he still didn't recognize his own hands, sometimes he still expected to look down and see the hands of his youth. Hands that had been strong and unlined, hands that had at one time carved some of the finest furniture in New England. Hands that had been covered in nicks and Band-Aids, but they had been steady and competent.

Now, his knuckles were almost twice their younger size and age spots marked the backs of hands that had once only been marked by an occasional freckle or two. Where had all the time gone and just how much of it did he have left? He lifted his head to meet his eyes in the mirror. The man staring back at him was someone he'd gotten used to seeing over the years, but there were times he still expected to see the man of his youth. A man with wavy brown hair instead of gray, an unlined face, and who still had perfect hearing. The man Nellie had fallen in love with.

What would Nellie think about him sending a teenage kid and a teacher packing in the morning without a fight?

He could try and talk Peter out of it, and perhaps if the man still planned to leave tomorrow, he would attempt it, but he thought he'd give the teacher some time to think it over first. He seemed like a reasonable enough man, he was just frightened right now and frightened people didn't always make the best choices.

But then maybe he was the wrong one. Maybe they would make it to the cabin and realize it had been the worst decision they could have possibly made. Meanwhile Peter and Josh would be safely ensconced in some refuge in the city with plenty of food, water and shelter.

That thought made him look down at the water coming from the tap again. He almost laughed out loud as he realized that it was clear and smelled fresh and crisp like the water he had always known. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, the water in Foxboro had been fine but he'd still been anticipating something different from this sink. Maybe he'd been anticipating lava, or perhaps even sulfur straight from the depths of Hell itself.

Instead, it continued to run clear and as he stuck his hand under it again, it remained cold. He didn't know what had happened to the animals along the shore, except for the dogs, he knew what had happened to those dogs. Those dogs plummeting over the cliff was an image that would haunt him for the rest of his days. He didn't recall seeing any animals in Foxboro or for much of their journey, but there had been coyotes in Sturbridge.

With a trembling hand he shut the water off. The water near Newport had been hot enough to kill the fish within it, the sky offered no promise of normal daylight, but the more he thought about it the more he realized there was promise still out there. The further from the ocean they got, the more promise there was.

He was turning away from the sink, eager to talk with the others when a flash of something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. An icy chill slid down his spine as the muted plop of water dripping into the sink sounded abnormally loud in his suddenly hypersensitive ears. At the other end of the room was a small rectangular window carved high into the yellow concrete wall. There was no way that a grown man could fit through it, even a child would have a tough time of squeezing through. He didn't consider it an access point but as he strained to see through the bits of brown and cobwebs clogging the screen he realized it was a way for them to see out.

Or for something else to see
in
.

Two ruby red, disembodied eyes were gleaming in the dim illumination of the flashlight he'd placed on the corner of the sink. There were many things that had frightened him throughout his life; the loss of his siblings, Nellie's sickness, the death of too many friends, this whole awful mess that they were fighting to survive through, but those eyes, floating through the dust-clogged screen evoked a whole new level of fear. There was a tightening in his gut that unnerved him as the hair on his arms stood on end and a chill slid down his spine.

He grabbed hold of the sink as those eyes seemed to meet and hold his stare. The room had suddenly become a giant vacuum that all of the air had been sucked out of, making it difficult to breathe.

Not human,
those eyes couldn't possibly be human.

Even this thought couldn't ease the accelerated beat of his heart as he grabbed the light and flashed it at the eyes. The raccoon, illuminated by the splash of light, scurried away from the beam. Al pressed his hand against his chest, over the place where his heart beat so rapidly. Good health or not, his old ticker was beating faster than a teenager on a snare drum.

He wanted to curse the animal at the same time he wanted to jump for joy at this further sign of continued life. Either way, he had to wash his face again in order to pull himself together enough to leave the room. Carl and Xander were still standing watch by the two doors. Riley had her head against Xander's leg and though her chest rose and fell in an even rhythm, Al had the feeling that she was still awake. John held a gun before him, but instead of staring out the door with Carl, his gaze was focused upon where Peter had retreated to stand by one of the vending machines.

Al had never seen that look on John's face before. It wasn't callous, it wasn't cold, it was simply a look that was resolved to do whatever had to be done. They would let Peter and Josh go, they would give them supplies, but if they chose to leave they could also become a threat. John wasn't a fighter by nature, but for the first time Al truly saw in him the determination to do whatever it took to keep them all safe.