The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (30 page)

Al knew Peter's meltdown was imminent, and he suspected the big blowout would be with Carl but it couldn't happen now. "This isn't the time," he said quietly as he tried to step in between them. Peter nudged him out of the way though as he moved closer to Carl.

"You're an asshole," Peter grated.

"You have no idea just how much of an asshole I can be," Carl assured him. "But you keep pushing me and you'll find out."

John appeared from around the back of the truck, his mouth was moving as he began to speak but Al didn't catch his words before John came to an abrupt halt and his mouth clamped shut. His hand went to the gun at his side but Carl waved his hand away. The silence stretched onward until Al was certain it would never end.

It wasn't one of them that spoke first though, but rather it was Riley. "There's no need to fight."

Al was uneasy about tearing his eyes away from the two men but he couldn't resist as something in her tone had caught his attention. Tears shimmered in her vivid blue eyes but only one slid through the dirt on her cheeks. Xander remained kneeling beside Bobby, his head bowed and his arm resting upon his knee. Al couldn't see Xander's face but the small tremor of his shoulders gave away his sorrow.

"There's no need for anything, not for Bobby, not anymore. Some of us only make it so far." Riley's lower lip trembled as more tears spilled from her eyes.

Al realized that her words echoed the haunting conversation she and Bobby had shared in the car.
"I didn't think I'd survive it either," Bobby had told them. "Glad you were wrong about that," Riley had said. "So far," Bobby had replied.

Tears burned Al's eyes as he turned away from the boy's broken body. Had Bobby somehow known, or at least suspected, that his time was coming to an end? It was a disconcerting thought but one that he couldn't shake as that conversation continued to replay in his mind.

Carl cursed, his hand slammed down on the bed of the truck with enough force to rattle the sideboards. Riley jumped at the action and wrapped her arms around her middle as a small sob escaped her. Carl spun away from the truck and paced a few feet away. Al didn't know what to say as Riley straightened herself up and wiped the tears away. She was trying to appear strong but the broken air surrounding her made Al long to hug her. Mary Ellen didn't say a word as she walked over to embrace a silently crying Rochelle.

"We should get him out of the back of the truck," Peter stated. "We can put him..."

"I'm not leaving him," Riley whispered.

The last thing Al wanted was to side with Peter, but the man was right. "We can't keep a dead body with the supplies, Riley," he said kindly.

"I know that." She met his gaze. "But I can't just
leave
another one of my friends in the middle of nowhere. Bobby deserves better."

Xander rose to his feet and approached them. His eyes were bloodshot but he had wiped the tears away from his face. "You mean to dig a grave with what? Our
hands
?" Peter inquired.

Al was even tempted to shoot Peter over that comment. "Shut up," Riley snarled at him. "Just shut up for once! We are not leaving him on the side of the road like a piece of garbage!"

Xander rested his hands on her shoulders and pulled her against his chest. Carl stepped forward as Peter seemed to be gearing up for more protests. "She's right." Carl held up his hand to forestall any further argument. "We'll find somewhere to put him, somewhere better than this. He deserves better, we will
all
deserve better when our time comes. He can't stay back there for long though."

"He won't," Xander promised.

"We should get on the road," Carl said.

Carl closed and locked the doors after Riley, Mary Ellen, and Xander jumped down from the truck. Al rubbed at his chest in an attempt to ease the ache deep within his heart. A single tear slid free as he walked toward the car that would now only be carrying the three of them.

Xander,

Xander sat forward with his hand on Riley's shoulder as she followed Al's directions down the road. She had insisted upon driving and Xander hadn't been in the mood to argue with her, not right now. Every breath he took was a struggle as he fought against the constriction in his chest that was threatening to choke the air from his lungs. He looked at the map over Al's shoulder in an attempt to distract himself but it did nothing to ease his sorrow.

He couldn't shake the memory of that dream he'd had with Carol now. The image of Bobby and Lee walking along that pathway and Carol sitting beside him haunted him. Had he suspected that Bobby's time was coming to an end or had it simply been his subconscious at work? He didn't think there would ever be an answer to that question but he was extremely grateful that no one else had been in the dream.

Night had been approaching before they'd started entering the houses, now little illumination pierced through the thickening clouds overhead. Under normal conditions, the headlights would be on, but Riley had kept them off. Her eyes were narrowed, her shoulders hunched as she leaned over the steering wheel. In the side mirror, he could see the running lights of the truck and the dim beams of the Cadillac that had turned on automatically.

"I can barely see the map anymore," Al muttered. Xander hadn't spotted any of those things in awhile but he couldn't see much in the woods beside them, not anymore. "We're going to have to find a place to stay soon."

She eased her foot off the gas as they rounded a turn and an extensive stonewall came into view. It was like so many of the other stacked gray and blue stonewalls that could be seen throughout the northeast. The different sizes, colors, and the amount of time it must have taken for people to stack them, had always fascinated him. He found no fascination in the wall now as only an odd emptiness resided within him.

"We can camp on the side of the road for all I care. I'm not much in the mood for searching another house today," Riley said as the road became obscured by the encroaching night in such a way that it reminded Xander of the fog rolling in off the ocean.

"I think it may be our only option," Al said.

Riley stopped the car as they came to a break within the rock wall. "Is this cemetery on the map?" Riley inquired.

Xander craned his head to look up at the wrought iron sign arcing over the road to the cemetery.
Peaceful Meadows
was intricately spelled out in the iron. "It is," Al answered.

"Is there another way out of it?"

The map was almost touching Al's nose; he lifted his glasses as he squinted at it. "Two others," he said.

"Then I think we've found our place for the night and a place for..." her voice broke, she hitched in a shuddery breath. "For Bobby. It may not be the safest place to sleep but if we stay close to the vehicles..."

Al wrapped his hand around her forearm and squeezed it. "I think it's the best place for us tonight and it will be a wonderful resting place for Bobby."

That awful tightness constricted Xander's chest again and he struggled to fill his lungs with air. "Maybe one day we'd even be able to come back and find him, to do it right," Riley whispered.

"Maybe one day," Al assured her.

Riley eased off the brake and turned into the cemetery. The road split in two directions as they drove beneath the archway. Riley kept to the road on the right. She drove past a large building that had once been the old cemetery keeper's residence but Xander assumed it was probably used for storage now. He thought they might be able to stay in there tonight but he found he actually preferred the idea of being out in the open.

The road wound up a hill past thousands of headstones neatly set up in rows. Most of the older stones, and a few of the new ones had toppled over, but for the most part the cemetery had held up well beneath the onslaught of the quakes. A pond came into view when they broke over top of the hill. Riley drove toward it and pulled onto the grass ten feet away from the pond. Though there were a few benches set up before the pond, there weren't any headstones on this side of the road.

"This is it," she said softly.

Xander stared at the still surface of the water before he opened the door and climbed out beside Riley. Carl, John, and Rochelle stepped out of the truck but he couldn't see the others in the car behind it. "This will be a good place for Bobby," Al explained as he walked over to join the group by the truck. Xander was grateful for his words; he wasn't up to speaking right now. He wrapped his arm around Riley's waist and pulled her against his side. Though his grief didn't ease, the feel of her gave him some comfort as she rested her head and hand against his chest. "And we're not going to find anywhere else to stay."

"You want to stay
in
the cemetery?" John inquired as he nervously glanced around.

Carl elbowed him in the side sharply. John grunted and rubbed his ribs but he didn't say anything more. "This is a perfect spot," Carl agreed.

"I'll be back," Riley pat Xander's chest and slipped away from his grasp.

He watched as she hurried to one of the gravestones and bent down to tug a fake flower from a bouquet. She rested her hand briefly upon the stone, bowed her head, and whispered something that he couldn't hear. When she returned to him, she was clutching a faded red rose in her hand.

Carl and John already had the doors of the truck open when he took hold of Riley's hand and walked over to join them. Carl was in the bed of the truck; Peter, Mary Ellen, Al, Donald, Josh, and Rochelle were standing by the Cadillac. John went to jump into the truck but Xander grabbed hold of his arm and shook his head. "I'll do this."

"Are you sure?" John asked in surprise.

Xander nodded and climbed up to join Carl. Bobby's arms were still warm when he slid his hands under his friend's armpits and lifted him from the bed. Bobby's head fell back, his shaggy brown hair fell across his pale face, and his half-open brown eyes seemed to meet Xander's in the night.

Memories of their childhood crashed through his mind. In vivid detail he recalled the first day that they'd met, they'd been so young and carefree. He recalled the first drink they'd shared at Lee's house in the ninth grade. He remembered all the nights they'd snuck out of their homes to go to the stadium. He could hear Bobby's voice as they talked about comic books, movies, sports and video games before talk of girls had taken up most of their time. There had been so many laughs over the years, some tears, a few fights, and a couple of punches, but they'd come out of it all stronger and closer.

They'd grown apart when he'd gone away to college but he'd always known that, no matter what, Bobby would have his back. He'd always known that when they sat down together again the ease of their friendship would flow effortlessly between them. Bobby had always been there for him, Xander should have been there to stop this from happening.

A garbled sound escaped him. Carl lifted his hand as he took a step toward him but Xander shook his head. Tears burned his eyes, he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep hold of Bobby's body but he was able to regain control of himself. He'd done everything he could to save his friend, and to second-guess himself now would only open up a bottomless abyss of despair. That was an abyss he wasn't willing to crawl into, not now, not ever.

He walked with Carl to the edge of the truck. John took Bobby's arms from him and Riley took his feet from Carl. Xander jumped out of the truck and reclaimed his hold on Bobby. Carl went to take his feet back but Riley shook her head and kept hold of Bobby's lower body.

Taking a step back, Carl relented to her but he stayed beside her as she walked toward a bench facing the pond. "I wish we could bury him," she murmured.

"He would like this," Xander assured her.

"The animals..."

"Riley, don't. There might not be many animals left around here."

Even though night had completely descended, he could clearly see the blue of her eyes as they met his. She didn't have to speak for him to know the next thought running through her mind, the
people
. He didn't think the people were going to be a worry either though, from what he'd seen they preferred their meals on the run but he wasn't going to tell her that right now.

Riley stopped behind the bench and lowered Bobby's feet to the ground. Xander gradually placed his shoulders down but his hands lingered upon Bobby's lifeless form. His eyes were still half-open, Xander stretched his hand forward and slid the lids the rest of the way closed. Mary Ellen handed him a blanket that had been taken from the RV. Riley stepped beside him as Xander draped it over his body.

"Goodbye friend," he whispered before covering his face.

Riley bent beside Bobby and placed the flower on top of him. "Maybe we could put his name on something."

Xander glanced around the cemetery. He might be able to scratch Bobby's name into a piece of wood, or a stone, or
something
. He was at least going to give it a try. "I'll see what I can do about that," he promised her.

"Should we say something?" Rochelle asked quietly.

There were hundreds of words running through his head but Xander didn't know what to say. "You were a great friend who made me laugh every day, and made me a better person. You will be missed... so much," Riley choked out.

Xander slid his arm around Riley's waist and pulled her against his side. Al stepped forward and made the sign of the cross. "Rest in peace, friend."

Xander shuddered at the finality of those words. Rochelle had tears streaking down her cheeks when she stepped forward and placed a fake white rose on the blanket. Some of the others stepped forward to drop a colorful array of flowers upon the blanket. Peter was the first to retreat back to the Caddy, the farthest vehicle from the body. The others drifted away as time went by but he and Riley remained standing by Bobby's side well into the night.

"We're going to make it for Bobby, for Carol and Lee, for our parents. We're going to make it and people will
know
their names," Riley said forcefully.

Xander turned his head into her hair and kissed her tenderly. The scent of her wasn't fruity and sweet anymore but as sweaty and dirty as the rest of them. It didn't matter though; he would never get enough of her. "Come on, I'm going to make something for him before we leave."

Her feet remained planted, but he was able to nudge her away from the body and toward the others. "Where are Peter, Josh, and Rochelle?" he asked.

The remaining group, gathered around two flashlights, looked up at him. Carl and John froze in the middle of passing a water bottle between them. There were two small piles of food set up in the empty spaces between John and Donald. Xander settled in beside Donald and Riley beside him and then John. Riley bit into her bottom lip, grabbed for the food, and then pulled her hand back. He was about to say something when she took hold of a package of peanut butter crackers and opened it. Xander knew how she felt, the last thing he felt like doing was eating, but not eating would only make them weaker. The cracker tasted like sawdust in his mouth but he continued to chew it.

"Peter and Josh are asleep in the car, Rochelle's in the truck," Al answered.

Xander swallowed heavily and fished another cracker out of the package. Before he had finished eating, Carl approached him with a piece of tree and a screwdriver. The tree was a sliver of oak left behind from a tree that had been cut down. "I found it in the woods," he explained. "I thought you could carve his name into it."

"Thank you." Xander took the sliver and the screwdriver from him and set it on the ground beside him. He didn't know what he was going to write but then he thought he'd only be able to fit
Bobby
onto the piece of wood anyway. Though he wished he could say more, just having Bobby's name to mark him was important.

Xander managed to force the rest of the food down his throat before he picked up the log and screwdriver. Twisting it in his hands, he stared at the now browning piece of wood. Beside him, Donald opened up the notebook and began to write again.

The only sounds filling the night were the scratch of the screwdriver against the wood and the pen as it moved rapidly over the paper. Xander found the sounds, and the work, strangely comforting as the night progressed. The screwdriver slipped, Xander swore as he stuck his finger in his mouth to stop the flow of blood. His gaze settled on Donald as he continued to write at a pace that made Xander think he was racing a clock.

Then again, perhaps he was.

Xander continued to watch him as he sucked on his offended finger. Curiosity finally drove him to ask what he knew they were all thinking. "What are you writing?" Donald didn't answer him; Xander didn't think it was because he was being rude, but rather because Donald was so engrossed in his words that he hadn't heard him. "Donald?"

The man continued to write a few more lines before Xander's words finally seemed to pierce his concentration. Donald blinked as he looked around the circle, and then at him. "Did you say something?"

"I asked what you were writing?"

Donald glanced at the notebook and shrugged. "All of it."

Xander frowned at him. "All of what?"