The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (2 page)

Riley and Al were sitting at the table with their heads bent close together. Riley's hand was enfolded in Al's as he pat it soothingly and said something John couldn't hear. They both looked up at him and managed listless smiles as he leaned against the wall. The windows in the kitchen, and on the back door, had already been covered by what he could only assume was broken pieces of furniture.

"Where are the others?" he inquired.

"Mary Ellen, Rochelle, Josh and Bobby are upstairs. I think Peter is with Carl and Xander now," Riley answered.

He grabbed hold of a chair and glanced questioningly at them. Riley nodded as she unfolded her hands from Al's. "You guys are ok with staying here?" John asked as he settled in across from them.

"We won't be getting far without any gas so I don't think we have a choice," Riley answered.

John leaned back in his chair, he glanced down the hall toward where he could hear the others talking discreetly. "We've been going this entire time, it feels so weird to stop and sit; I don't like it."

"Neither do I," Al admitted. "But we don't have a choice, not right now."

Riley leaned back in the chair and folded her arms over her chest. "That stadium was awful, but I have to admit I am a little curious to see if something has been established in this town."

"So am I," John agreed.

"I'm really not all that thrilled by the prospect," Al said. "The last thing I want to do is see or be around any more people."

"Have you seen anymore of
those
people?" John inquired.

"Not since yesterday," Riley glanced nervously over his shoulder as the hammering stopped but she relaxed when it began again seconds later. He frowned at her in confusion, she'd been so happy last night but now her hands were shaking as she tore small pieces off of a napkin. "I don't want to know what they're thinking, plotting."

"You think they're capable of that?" John asked as Al eased the napkin from Riley's hand and placed it on the table.

Color filtered across Riley's cheeks as she fisted her hands before her. "Don't you?" she asked.

He didn't really like thinking about it, but when he did, he had to admit that all he could picture was them getting together and plotting in some way that only their disease-infested brains would understand. The hair on his neck stood on end as he glanced at the covered windows.

"Don't you think they'll notice the boards?" he asked.

"I do," Riley said. "But the curtains and blinds have been placed in front of the boards so it looks like someone simply closed the blinds. It doesn't mean that will keep them out, but neither will not boarding up the windows."

"Mary Ellen and Xander said some of them don't like bright lights and noise, so that's helpful," Al told him.

John nodded as he leaned back in his chair. "Are we going to try and make it to your cabin?" he asked Al.

Al nodded. "If you plan to stay with us, I think that's our next step."

They had talked about Al's cabin last night but they hadn't made any real plans. He had no intention of splitting off and going a different way if he and Carl were welcome amongst them. These people had become his friends, they were the only family he had left, and he didn't want to lose them.

"As long as you're still willing to put up with Carl, I'm in," he said with a grin.

Riley chuckled as she unclenched her hands and began to pick at the napkin pieces again. "I think that's possible," she told him.

"So do I," Al agreed.

The hammering stopped and he leaned back to watch Carl walk down the hall with Xander limping behind him. Peter remained in the living room, watching out the small window in the door. "We're going to go in search of supplies, who wants to go with us?" Xander asked.

"Your leg," Riley protested.

Xander rolled his shoulders. "It's feeling better and a lot of the swelling has gone down."

Her fingers curled around the napkin pieces as she nodded. "I'm coming with you then."

"Ok," Carl agreed.

"Wait..." Xander started.

"I'm good with a gun and I'm faster than you are now," she briskly interrupted Xander.

"She's right on both counts," Carl said. Xander frowned at them both, but didn't protest further as Riley stood up.

"I'll go too." It was the last thing John felt like doing, but he also didn't feel like sitting here and waiting for them to return.

"That should be enough, we have to leave some people here too," Carl said.

"Are we taking the truck?" John asked.

Carl shook his head. "The car. It has more gas left in it and if something should happen it's the vehicle that we can stand to lose."

John nodded and took the gun from Carl that he'd been using, but had placed on the coffee table last night. "Happy birthday," Carl told him.

John was surprised he had remembered but it felt good to have someone else acknowledge it. "Thanks."

"Oh, happy birthday," Riley said as she slapped him on the shoulder. "Maybe we can find you a cake or something."

"I would prefer a beer," John told her as Carl cautiously opened the backdoor and peeped out.

"We can do that," Carl promised as he stepped into the overly vivid day beyond. John took a deep breath before following him out the door.

Mary Ellen,

It was hours before Mary Ellen could pry herself away from Rochelle's slumbering form. She'd gotten little sleep as she hadn't been able to stop watching her daughter. She couldn't believe the miracle that had been granted to her, couldn't believe that somehow Al and the others had managed to find Rochelle in this crazy messed up world. She was scared that it was all just a dream and she would wake up to discover her daughter gone. She was scared that if she looked away for just a second Rochelle would disappear.

Hunger eventually won out as she climbed off the bed and left the room they had shared. She placed her feet carefully around Bobby as he slept on the floor in the hall. He'd started out lying against the wall but sometime during the night he'd sprawled across the entire hallway. The three bedroom house wasn't big enough for all of them and more than a couple of them had ended up sleeping on the floor. She dodged a flopping arm as Bobby released a muted snore and turned back over. His shaggy brown hair was plastered against his face.

She spotted Josh sleeping in the room at the end of the hall before she crept down the stairs. She nodded to Peter standing by the small window in the front door. He nodded back but didn't take his eyes off of the outside world. She didn't know much about the good looking teacher, but she did know that the bags under his eyes hadn't been there yesterday.

She'd heard the hammer but even still she was staggered by the amount of wood covering the lower windows and the shadows that enshrouded the room. It was night again down here and for a disconcerting second she felt as if the world had ceased to exist outside of those boards. She shook her head to clear it of her thoughts.

"If you want to get some sleep I can keep watch," she offered.

He gave her a wan smile as he shook his head and rubbed at the thickening hair lining his jaw before running his fingers over his mustache. His brown eyes were bloodshot, his short brown hair stood on end from running his fingers through it. "I'm fine right now, maybe in a couple of hours."

"I'll be here," she assured him.

She turned away from him and made her way into the kitchen. Al was the only one sitting at the table with a mug clutched between his hands and a bowl of fruit that was already starting to brown. She couldn't help but smile as she took him in. The lines in his face were deeper than the last time she'd seen him and his hand was bandaged, but he was a welcome sight for sore eyes.

"Where is everyone?" she asked.

"They went to look for more supplies."

"
Xander
went with them?" she blurted.

Al frowned at her as he placed his mug on the table and sat back in his chair. "He'll be fine."

"He almost died. I was certain he
was
going to die, or become one of
them
. He shouldn't be out there right now."

Al's forehead furrowed over the bridge of his nose as he studied her. "What happened to him?"

Mary Ellen sighed as she pulled out her chair and sat down. She picked through the bowl of fruit before pulling out an apple that wasn't as badly bruised as the others. "He was bitten by some of those sick people and his leg became badly infected. He was incredibly sick for a while and just regained full consciousness yesterday morning."

Al frowned as he studied the back door. "Are you sure it was because his leg became infected that he was so sick?"

"What else could it have been?"

"You said he was bitten. What if he was actually infected by one of those people? What if he was sick with whatever is making these people something less than human?"

"He's fine Al. He hasn't tried to eat any of us and he hasn't started aimlessly wandering into things. If he'd been infected I'm pretty sure his brain would have been fried by now and that we would know."

"Maybe, maybe not," he muttered. He glanced up as Peter appeared in the doorway and leaned against it. "Everything ok?"

"It's fine," Peter assured him. "There's nothing out there right now."

Mary Ellen focused her attention back on Al. "What do you mean maybe, maybe not?"

Al pushed the bowl aside as he leaned across the table toward her. "I mean when I was a kid my siblings and I all contracted influenza. Though they were older and stronger they both died but I somehow managed to survive. Xander may very well have contracted whatever it is that those people have, but unlike them, and Lee, his body was able to fight it off."

Mary Ellen remembered the handsome surfer looking guy from their brief time at the stadium. They'd been informed last night that Lee hadn't made it, but no other details about the young man's untimely death had been given.

"Lee became infected?" she asked.

Al gave a brisk nod. "He did."

"And it killed him?"

"It did." There was a flicker in Al's eyes and though he never looked away from her, she sensed something more behind his words.

She didn't press him further though; they'd all seen and done things none of them were proud of. She imagined that whatever had happened to Lee, one of them had been the person to intervene, like Xander had with Molly. "I've seen what that sickness does to people, I'm not sure anyone can survive it," she muttered.

"We have no idea what is going on, no idea what is causing this sickness, but odds are there would be people that could survive it," Peter said. "If Xander is one of those people than that presents us with two interesting possibilities."

"Which are?" Mary Ellen asked.

"One, Xander could possibly help to beat whatever this sickness is. If we could get him to a doctor or an immunologist they may be able to find a cure, or even a vaccine derived from his blood. Two, if it was the sickness he beat then the rest of us could still become infected by a bite and become one of
those
things."

A shiver slid down her spine as her mouth went dry. "It does kind of remind me of rabies," Al said.

"They should know about this. They're out there..."

"They know that getting bit by one of those things isn't good," Peter said. "Even if Xander never contracted the sickness that was a nasty infection, and he was lucky to survive it. We might not be so lucky if it were to happen to someone else. It could also be the combination of antibiotics and steroids we used on Xander that pulled him through, so we should try and remember exactly what we gave him."

"I know what he took," Mary Ellen said. "We'll have to find some more of it though, if we can."

"Medical supplies are on their list of things to try and find," Al assured her.

"But they're out there and they don't know that it could possibly start with a bite..."

"They know to stay away," Al assured her. "Believe me Mary Ellen we've had more than a few close encounters with those things. Carl and Riley have been nearly torn open by them. The last thing any of them want to be is within a hundred feet of those sick people if they can help it. I wish we could tell them to be extra careful, but I don't think it's necessary and I wouldn't even know where to start looking for them."

Mary Ellen glanced nervously at the kitchen door again. It was taking everything she had not to go after them, but Al was right, she didn't even know where to begin to look. They could be anywhere in this town, and running out there after them would probably only get someone killed.

She rose from the table and paced over to the backdoor. Her fingers rested against the board as she bowed her head and took a deep breath. "Though we still don't know if it can be spread by a bite, it definitely isn't spread by a scratch," Al said. "Carl and Riley have both sustained a fair amount of scratches and scrapes at the hands of those people... things?"

Mary Ellen wasn't entirely sure what they were anymore either. "But they're both healthy and never got sick. Their wounds didn't even get infected," Al continued.

Mary Ellen shuddered. She wished she could see through the boards to the strange world beyond. At the same time she was grateful to have this brief reprieve from the destruction and violence that had been waged upon the earth.

"The human mouth is full of bacteria and germs under the best of circumstances and I highly doubt those things are brushing and flossing," Peter said.

Mary Ellen couldn't help but release a small snort of laughter. "I doubt they are too."

"I'm going to go check the window again." Peter turned and hurried back down the hall to the front door.

Al smiled at her as she took a bite of her apple and walked over to take her seat again. "It's good to see you," he said.

"You too. Thank you for keeping Rochelle safe."

He reached over and squeezed her hand. "It was my pleasure. She's a good kid, tough, and very capable of taking care of herself."

"I still can't believe all of you found each other." Mary Ellen wiped a tear from her eye as her thoughts returned to her amazingly good fortune. "I thought I'd lost her."

"I thought we were all lost for a little while there," he admitted.

"And now?"

"Well now I realize that the world is a large and crazy place, but I think we can make it through. We've made it this far, knock on wood." He tapped his knuckles on the table as he pushed his mug aside. "But we're going to have to be tougher and we're going to have to get some place safer, with less people."

She nodded as she glanced around the kitchen. "I could almost believe that we were safe here, almost believe that we could stay and that someone will come to save us, but no one's coming."

"No, they're not," he agreed.

"The only people capable of saving us are us, though it does feel good to just sit for a bit."

"That it does."

Mary Ellen couldn't help but recall the kindly neighbor that had been her only companion before all of this had started as he smiled at her, but that wasn't the same man sitting across from her now. Behind the sparkle in his blue eyes she sensed something different about her neighbor. Something harder and more resilient, but then Al had proven tougher than she'd ever thought he could be when they'd been fleeing Newport in search of Rochelle.

What had he gone through out there
?

Her daughter had said very little about their journey to get here. Rochelle had been more focused on talking about the friendships she'd forged over the past few days, the people she had come to care for and that had helped her when she had needed them most. Though, Mary Ellen hadn't shared any of
her
stories with her daughter either as she'd prefer to protect her daughter. However, looking and listening to Al she was beginning to realize that there wasn't much left to protect her daughter from.

"She's seen it all already hasn't she?"

"Not all, but enough. She's tough Mary Ellen, there was more that I tried to protect her from but in the end we can't, not anymore, and she can handle it."

"She's always been older than her years."

"No matter how we try to protect our children they always see things we don't want them too," he said kindly.

Heat crept into her cheeks as she bowed her head. She hadn't thought of Larry in awhile, she hadn't wanted to give her dead husband any more time in her life, but Al's words reminded her of the fact that she hadn't kept her daughter as protected as she'd tried to from his abuse.

"He wasn't a good man," she whispered.

"I didn't think he was."

"But he gave me an amazing daughter."

"He really did," Al agreed as he drank from his mug again.

"What do you have in there?" she asked.

"Tea. It's cold, but the caffeine boost is amazing."

Cold or not, she wanted some too. Rising, she dug through the cabinets and pulled down the box of tea. Filling a mug with water she dropped the teabag in and turned back to the table. She found herself looking forward to the cup of cold tea as she placed it on the table and sat back down in her chair.

Peter appeared in the doorway again. "You should come see this."

Mary Ellen glanced wistfully at her tea mug but left it on the table as she followed him into the living room. He stepped aside to let her look out the small window. She frowned as she searched the broken front yards before her but she saw nothing different from yesterday. Then she saw what had caught Peter's attention as she spotted the dogs creeping through the backyard across the street. Except, they weren't the domestic dogs that she was used to as she couldn't quite identify the breed.

"What are they?" she asked as she stepped aside.

Al peered out the window before dropping back down. "Coyotes," he muttered as he walked over and picked up the gun sitting on the table.

"They won't bother us, will they?" she asked nervously.

Al shook his head. "I doubt it but they're probably just as disrupted, out of sorts and hungry as we are. I'm not taking any chances."

"There
are
still animals out there," she breathed as a sense of relief filled her. They may be dangerous animals, but they were the first animals she'd seen in awhile.