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

"Let's hope the zoos held up, I really don't feel like encountering a tiger," Peter said.

"Or a hyena," Mary Ellen said with a shudder.

Those hideous animals had always creeped her out. She stepped back to the window as another coyote stalked across the front yard. The hair on her neck stood on end as shadows slipped through the forest at the edge of the woods across the street. These shadows were too tall to be coyotes, and as much as she hated them, they were too ominous to be hyenas.

A smaller coyote, one that didn't appear as old as the others, paused to sit on the lawn across the street. She knew it was impossible, but she was certain it realized they were in the house as its head tilted to the side and it studied the house with a raised ear. She'd never seen a coyote but it wasn't as ugly or frightening as she had pictured after some of the stories she'd heard about them. In fact, she found it kind of cute, even as it yawned to reveal a mouthful of razor sharp teeth.

A shadow fell across the coyote and before she could blink, or even issue a sound of warning- something that would have been exceptionally foolhardy for her to do- some of the larger shadows from the woods were upon the animal. Knowledge of what was happening coursed through her mind and she slapped her hands over her mouth to silence her cry. The animal's neck was broken and the two men- and what she could only tell was a woman because of her long hair, and even then she couldn't be sure- pounced upon the coyote with a savagery that would have made a hyena proud.

Mary Ellen dropped away from the door and took a step back. Al stared questioningly at her before returning to the window. "Well I guess we're not their only source of food," he said so quietly that she could barely hear him.

"For some reason I don't find that comforting." She glanced at the window again but there was no way she was looking out there again. "They just took down a wild, deadly animal."

"Humans are the most dangerous animal there is," Peter said.

"I can't wait to get out of this town and find somewhere with a lot less people," she muttered.

Peter stepped up to the window again. His upper lip curled in a sneer as he shook his head. "Disgusting."

"We'll get out of here as soon as we can," Al assured her.

She felt a lot better when he walked over and pulled a rifle and another gun from the bag they had placed in the hall closet last night. "Can you use a rifle?" Al asked Peter.

The teacher shook his head as he stepped away from the door. "I've never shot a gun before."

Al nodded as he pulled out a smaller rifle and hastily showed him how to use it. "There's not as much kick to this one, it won't dislocate your shoulder but it might not stop them with one shot either."

"It's better than nothing," Peter told him as he took the gun.

Mary Ellen's eyes went to the ceiling above her. "I'll be back."

"Here."

Al pressed a gun into her hand before she fled the room. She tried to be as noiseless as possible as she hurried up the stairs, but every step seemed as loud as a gunshot in her ears. Bobby was still sprawled out in the hall, but he was on his back now with his mouth open and a trail of drool on his chin. Mary Ellen shook her head but stepped over him in order to enter the room she'd left Rochelle in.

Her daughter wasn't much more elegant than Bobby as she snored loudly. It never failed to amaze her how much Rochelle looked like her with her dark hair, freckles, and eyes that she knew were a warm brown color and sparkled when she was happy. Mary Ellen was tempted to cover Rochelle's mouth but she doubted the snores were as loud as they seemed to her right now. She crept toward the window and pulled a slat in the blinds down a little. Taking a deep breath, she braced herself before moving closer to the window and peering out.

The three that had taken down the coyote were still feasting on their meal. Behind them though, in the shadows of the forest, more people were creeping forth and spreading out as they walked through the backyards. Mary Ellen's breath froze in her chest; she'd never been so hot and yet so cold in her life. She almost instinctively jerked down on the blind but managed to stop herself in time. She couldn't have been more frightened if she had come face to face with a full on poltergeist.

She glanced over her shoulder but thankfully Rochelle remained sleeping soundly as the first person stepped onto their front yard. They could all know how to use the guns downstairs and they still wouldn't be able to stop the tide spilling out of the woods and coming toward them. She couldn't take her eyes off of her daughter as she was suddenly gripped with the certainty that she had just gotten Rochelle back only to lose her again.

Riley,

Following Xander's directions Riley navigated through the broken roads of the town. The car creaked and groaned as it bounced over a pothole. "I hate this car," John stated from the back. His knees were practically in his chest as he glowered out the window. His brown hair curled around his ears and the nape of his neck, his brown eyes were narrowed as he watched the scenery passing by. His pointed chin was covered in stubble and a bruise marred one of his high cheekbones.

Riley ignored him as she made a left onto another road and navigated through the ditches, cars, and debris that littered the road. "Where is everyone?" Carl asked.

She'd been wondering the same thing as they crept through empty neighborhood after empty neighborhood. She couldn't take her eyes off the road for more than a second at a time as this area of the town had taken a pounding during the quakes. She'd be astounded if the grocery store was still even standing, but as she turned onto another road the destruction leveled out and by the time she was three blocks farther down the street it seemed as if the town hadn't been touched at all.

"Freaking twilight zone around here, I swear," John muttered.

She couldn't help but agree with John as they passed standing house after standing house. Some of the homes still had potted plants sitting prettily on the banisters of their porches. Just an hour ago she'd been glad they were going to get a chance to stay in one place for a little bit, to have some time to recuperate and plan for the next step in their journey, now she wanted out of this town in the worst possible way.

"Take the next left," Xander instructed.

Riley made the turn and the sign for the grocery store came into view. There were half a dozen cars in the parking lot; she assumed they belonged to the employees and shoppers who had been taken off guard by the quakes and fled the mayhem on foot. They rolled by the large glass windows but the dim interior gave no hint as to what may be inside.

She stopped the car outside of the front door. "It doesn't look as if it's been looted yet, maybe we should have brought the truck."

"If it's safe, and there is more stuff in there than we'd expected, we'll bring the truck back before we leave. For now let's just see what we have going on in there," Carl said.

Riley shifted the car into park and turned to Xander. Though she wasn't looking forward to having to tell him about Lee, he was still the most wonderful thing she'd seen since all of this had started. There were shadows under his gold-flecked hazel eyes, and stubble lining his normally clean-shaven jaw and cheeks, but he was still handsome. Especially when he smiled at her in that crooked little way that revealed the dimple in his left cheek. His dark blonde hair was disheveled in such a way that her fingers itched to run through it.

"Maybe you should stay in the car," she suggested as her gaze traveled to his bandaged leg.

"I'm fine, really." He took hold of her hand and squeezed it between both of his.

"You may feel fine, but if this is anything like the last time we entered a store, you're going to need two good legs," John said as he opened the back passenger door. John's eyes widened and he leapt from the car as Carl shot him a look that would have scared off a grizzly bear and Riley felt the color drain from her face.

"What happened last time?" Xander inquired.

"A trigger happy lunatic with a fully functioning brain, or at least it wasn't a rotting cannibalistic brain like those sick people. John nearly shit his pants," Carl informed Xander when words failed her.

John was scowling as he reappeared in the door. "I saved both
your
asses," he retorted.

"You just keep telling yourself that," Carl said as he opened his door.

Riley could feel Xander's eyes burning into her as she turned back to him. "It wasn't fun," she managed to choke out. "But we survived because we could move fast."

"I can still move fast and you're going to need more arms and eyes in there than just the three of you," he replied.

"Someone should watch the car."

"It's not like it's a fortified building, we can keep watch well enough from inside."

She started to protest more but Carl intervened, "He's right and we're wasting time, let's go."

Cursing, Riley pulled the keys from the ignition and climbed out after Xander. Carl held his hand up and she tossed him the keys. He snatched them out of the air, unlocked the trunk, and pulled the empty gas cans and tubing from inside. "Let's see if there's still gas in these cars before we go in."

She knew that Carl had intended to make sure the others had something sturdy to drive, and enough supplies to get them through in case they didn't return when he'd left the rack body dump truck behind, but it really would have come in handy now.

"Are you going to tell me what happened in that store?" Xander asked as he stepped beside her.

She found herself barely able to meet his gaze again as she took the can from him. "Yes."

"I did some things I'm not proud of too Ri, we all have."

"I know." She wondered if what he'd done could possibly have been worse than putting a bullet in Lee's head, but she wasn't about to get into that now. She took the can from his hands and turned away as Carl began to draw gas from the first car.

Twenty minutes later, Carl had the gas cans filled off of two cars and tucked back into the trunk of their car. Riley's palms were sweating as she shifted the gun between her hands and eyed the dark grocery store warily. She'd seen nothing to indicate there were people inside, nothing to make her suspect that someone was just waiting to open fire at them, but she couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom as they approached the building.

John put his gun down on the brick sill under the window and cupped his hands around his face as he pressed them to the glass. "Do you see anything?" Carl asked.

"Registers and lanes, some shelves," John answered.

Riley placed her gun down on the bricks also and looking much like John, she pressed her face to the glass and peered inside. It was difficult to discern anything but she saw no movement amongst the lanes and the first few feet of the shelves that she could see.

"It doesn't look like anything has been touched?" She hadn't meant for it to be a question but it came out sounding like one.

"No, it doesn't," John agreed.

"How is that possible?" Xander asked as he stepped away from the window. "I figured this would be one of the first places people would come."

Riley stepped away from the glass and looked toward Carl who was leaning against the wall as he smoked a cigarette. "This whole fucking town doesn't make sense," he said. "But there could be gas in there that has kept people out."

"What kind of gas?" Xander asked.

Riley informed him of the pockets of gas they'd encountered that could turn a human body into something resembling gooey soup with bone and sinew. Xander rubbed at his chin as he nodded. "We ran across something like that after we escaped the stadium. You think that could be what happened in there?"

"Only one way to find out," Carl said as he walked over to the first door.

Riley stepped to the other side of the door as he stuck his foot out and pushed the door open with it. The door only moved an inch before sliding closed again. "Get me the trashcan," he said.

John grabbed hold of the trashcan at the end of the metal divider between the entrance and exit doors, and handed it to Carl. Xander stepped forward to help him push the door open and wedged the can in to keep it open. Xander and Carl's faces were both red from holding their breaths as they stepped away from the door. Riley held her breath as she stepped closer and strained to see if anything moved within.

"I think it's safe to go in," Riley said.

Carl nodded, pulled the can out and pushed his way into the store. John followed behind him and she and Xander took up the rear. She pulled her shirt over her nose as the rancid smell of rotting meat and spoiled milk caused her to take a step back. She had to force herself not to gag as the odor assaulted her senses. Breathing through her mouth only made her taste it too so she snapped her mouth closed.

"We'll sweep through and make sure it's safe before we start gathering supplies. From the looks of things we can at least bag stuff up and set it aside to make it quicker for us when we come back." Carl spoke with assurance but he was starting to look a little green around the gills by the time he was done.

Riley glanced out the window, past the car and to the town beyond. The street remained just as serene as it had when they'd driven through it. From here, it almost seemed as if it had all been a dream, and the world was just the same as it had been Monday morning. A shiver slid down her spine and despite the sauna-like heat of the day, she couldn't suppress a shudder as an ominous feeling settled over her.

"What about the car?" she asked.

"It will be ok, they're not going to get far without the keys," Carl reminded her.

She still felt uncomfortable leaving it unguarded though. She couldn't shake the feeling that someone would be in there waiting to pounce on them when they returned. "Nobody would want to steal that hunk of junk anyway," John said.

"It's gotten us this far," she reminded him.

John shrugged and glanced out the window at it. "True, but it won't get us much further if we don't have something other than chips and jerky to fuel
us
."

Riley nodded and turned away from the window. If someone was waiting for them then they had better be faster and stronger than a bullet. She winced as John's sneaker squeaked on the linoleum; it was gratingly loud in the hushed store. Walking to the first row they split off as Carl and John went all the way to the end while she and Xander stayed at the top. Keeping pace with each other they walked down the rows as they searched for someone hiding amongst the aisles.

A few of the rows had goods lying in the middle of them and dark stains on the floor, but in the dim illumination she couldn't tell what the stains were. There were carriages discarded amongst the aisles like old relics of a time forgotten. She wondered if in a thousand years, if there was even still something of the human race left, if they would uncover these artifacts and put them in a museum like humans did with lost civilizations now.

One carriage still had a purse in the front of it, its owner having run out in a panic after the initial quakes started.
Why hadn't they taken their cars?
Her step faltered as the thought blazed through her mind. There were no people in here, no bodies so far, but there had been cars in the parking lot outside.

Maybe they all hopped into a vehicle or two together.
It wasn't the best answer but it was the only one she could come up with. Staying together, being with people they knew, would have been a natural instinct for the people that left here and one that she would have shared.

She could feel every beat of her heart in her ears as on each new row she kept expecting to find some hideous creature, but the store remained strangely empty up until the last row. Her hands fell back to her sides as she lowered the gun. A small tremor shook her hand as unreasonable dread held her firmly within its relentless grasp.

"I don't like this," she said to Xander.

"Neither do I."

Carl held up his hand and gestured toward something they couldn't see in between the deli counter and the back row of refrigerated goods that was now stinking up the air. "Bathroom," he called in a hushed whisper.

He gestured to John and then disappeared down the hall that they couldn't see. John glanced nervously at them before focusing his attention on wherever Carl had gone. Riley didn't have to go to the bathroom but even so she felt like she was doing the pee pee dance as she shifted from foot to foot.

She heaved an audible breath of relief when Carl reemerged from the bathroom. He gave them a thumbs up sign before heading down the back aisle again. John hurried after him. Riley and Xander followed them along the front of the rows until they spotted Carl standing in the middle of the store by a set of black swinging doors.

Riley's heart plummeted and then shot into her throat. Those doors seemed like a yawning abyss straight into the devil's belly.
God has forsaken us,
ran through her mind as she flashed back to the man outside of the church.

"Carl," the name came out of her in a croak that didn't travel past her or Xander as Carl cautiously pushed the door open. Her shoulders hunched as she braced herself for demons, or hell hounds, or even Satan himself to come bursting through the door.

The store remained so still that she could hear the faint drop of something dripping onto the floor. She wasn't breathing as Carl stepped through the door and disappeared. John grabbed the door before it could swing completely shut and poked his head inside.

Riley had to force her head to turn as she looked toward the fifteen-foot high glass windows at the front. The glare of the sun gleamed on the glass and made it difficult to see the car from this angle. She didn't care about the car right now though, she was simply looking for a distraction from the fact that Carl hadn't reemerged yet.