The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (6 page)

Peter's face was pale as he turned away from the window. His gaze fell to Josh and Rochelle before he looked helplessly back at Al. He read the understanding in the teacher's gaze but even still the man shook his head. "They're not distracted," he said in a low whisper. "Not anymore."

Al frowned at him before hurrying to the window. Rising up on his toes he peered out of the small pane of glass. On the right, he could see the mob clustered by the house at the end of the road. From this angle though, on the left, he could also see a new mass of them spilling out of the woods and into the road. A low curse escaped him as he dropped away from the window and backed away.

"Get the keys for the vehicles," he instructed.

"We can't go out there," Peter said at the same time Rochelle blurted, "We can't leave the others behind!"

"Shh," Mary Ellen said as she wrapped her arm around her daughter and pulled Rochelle against her chest.

"She's right, I'm not leaving my friends," Bobby stated.

Al glanced back at the door and then at them. "Right now we don't have a choice, we're stuck here, but we're going to need those keys if we get the opportunity to escape."

"We can't leave," Rochelle said firmly.

"Absolutely not," Bobby agreed.

Al took a deep breath, he wasn't irritated with them, he completely understood where they were coming from, but their words only served to remind him of the people he was opting to leave behind. People that he would have sacrificed himself for, but he couldn't sacrifice the children. Although Riley, Xander and John weren't that much older than Josh and Rochelle. They would understand though, he knew they would, and he knew that Carl would have made the same decision had he been the one still standing in this house.

"They could be dead already, and if they're not, do you think they're going to make it down this street with those people out there?" he asked. "We need the keys, and we need to start preparing ourselves for those things in case they come in here. The most important thing is that we keep you kids safe, the others are extremely capable of taking care of themselves."

Mary Ellen hurried from the room and returned with the two sets of keys, a notepad and a pen. Peter took the car keys and slid them into his pocket as Mary Ellen handed Al the pad, pen, and truck keys. "You know how to get to the cabin in New York," she said.

Al nodded and began to scribble down instructions for how to get to the cabin. "Mr. Dade..." Josh started to protest.

"They're right, we can't stay here," Peter interjected.

The reassurance didn't make Al feel any better as he jotted a sorry at the end of the note that he knew completely failed to convey the true depth of how sorry he was.
Forgive me
, he added and placed the pad on the coffee table.

With a heavy heart and a much heavier gate, he returned to the front door. He'd made many difficult decisions in his life, some he hadn't been proud of, but this was by far the worst. "We will look for them," he vowed.

He was about to rise up to look back out the window again when he heard the distinct thud of a boot hitting the porch. For a second his heart soared as he recalled the heavy work boots Carl and John had been wearing the last time he'd seen them, but even as the thought crossed his mind he knew it was wrong. They wouldn't be strolling up to the front door amongst that crowd out there.

Gesturing the others back, he moved away from the door and plastered his back against the wall next to it. The dull thud of the boots sounded across the porch to the bordered up window where they paused before turning away and walking back across the porch. Al held his breath as he heard the distinct thud of more footsteps climbing the stairs. Mary Ellen pushed Rochelle further behind her and toward the kitchen.

Peter closed his eyes as he remained next to the door and Bobby pushed Josh behind him as he nodded toward the kitchen and Rochelle. The boots sounded over the porch again, stopping outside the front door. Al wasn't so sure his old ticker could take much more. It hit his ribcage with a thud so forceful he was certain they could hear it outside as the knob began to rattle.

Xander,

He tried to push Riley's hands away but she was as persistent as a dog digging for a bone as she tugged at the bandages wrapped around his leg. The fresh blood staining the inside of the wrap didn't startle him as he'd already felt it seeping from the injury. Tossing the bandages aside, she sat back on her heels and focused on the two strangers still hovering in the doorway.

"You," she said and thrust her index finger at the girl. "Go to the bathroom and see if you can find me some clean bandages, if not I need towels and tape. Antiseptic of some kind would be good too."

A wolf with a bone
, he decided over her protective and commanding attitude. Though the girl had begun to silently cry, she didn't question the command as she turned on her heel and rushed from the room.

"I'll be fine," he assured her.

Her eyes narrowed upon him and for a second he thought she might actually punch him again. "You're a stubborn ass."

She didn't seem at all pleased or calmed by the smile he gave her, one that had made other girls melt but only made her glower more fiercely. "Well it takes one to know one," he replied.

"John, give me a hand with the chair," Carl commanded from the door.

John placed his gun down on the end table by the couch and hurried to help Carl. They lifted the recliner from the corner by the fireplace and carried it down the stairs to block the front door. They both hurried back up the stairs.

"Is there another way out of here?" the man inquired from the doorway to the kitchen.

"Do we look like the family in the picture?" John retorted as he gestured to the family portrait of a mother, father, and two boys over the mantle.

"John," Carl said in a low tone and shook his head.

John pulled the curtains framing the picture window aside and peered out. "It's calm out there; maybe they won't come after us."

"They'll come," the girl whispered in a forlorn voice. Xander hadn't realized that she'd returned until she spoke. In one hand she was holding a towel, a box of cloth bandages and an ace ankle wrap. In the other she possessed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and one of peroxide. "They always come, they will always
keep
coming."

"Yeah well they're in for a fight when they get here," Riley said as she snatched the supplies out of the girl's hand.

The girl didn't seem to notice Riley though as her gaze remained focused on the window. "There is no escape," she whispered.

There was a blank look about her that concerned him, but his attention was torn from the girl as Riley knelt before him. She twisted the cap off the alcohol and unceremoniously began to pour it on his leg. His hands clenched on the couch and his breath hissed in through his teeth. She didn't give him a chance to protest before she began to pour some of the peroxide onto the wound too. Foaming bubbles enveloped his leg and slid down toward his sock.

"Kitchen table," Carl said and nodded for John to follow him from the room.

Riley opened the box and pulled the bandage free. "This looks awful," she muttered as she gently dabbed at the cut with the towel and wiped the excess liquid from his leg.

He took hold of her hands before she could start to wrap his leg again. He was shocked to find her hands trembling within his. "It will be fine," he assured her.

She took a steadying breath and nodded. He squeezed her hands, briefly savoring in their warmth before releasing her. Her shoulders stiffened as she bowed her head and approached the injury with a lot more care and caution. He heard the thud of the kitchen table being placed against the backdoor.

"They're going to just keep coming and coming and..."

"No, they won't," Riley interrupted the girl briskly.

"Debra," the man said calmingly and rested his hand on the girl's shoulder.

"We should check out the basement," Carl said as he and John reentered the living room.

Riley finished taping the bandage and sat back on her heels. She rested her hands on her knees before rising to her feet and grabbing her gun from where she'd left it on the coffee table. He'd always known she was tough, always known there was a steel rod within her, but staring at her now she reminded him of an Amazon woman. Her chin jutted proudly out and she held the gun with far more comfort than she had the one he'd handed her in the den of the police officer's house. His heart skipped a beat as her eyes slid to him. He was struck by just how beautiful she was and just how much she had changed since he'd last seen her.

I killed Lee
, the words, spoken so bluntly by her in the grocery store had rendered him speechless, but it had been the look in her eyes that had robbed the breath from his lungs when she'd said them. She had killed one of his best friends and as she stared at him now he knew that it had broken a piece of her. It had damaged her, but it was damage that could be repaired and healed given enough time and understanding.

He rose awkwardly to his feet and balanced on his good leg as Carl and John thumped down the stairs to the basement. "You should rest," Riley protested. "We might have to run again, soon."

He grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her against him. "I love you Riley Lennox," he whispered in her ear. "I always have, I always will."

She remained unmoving in his embrace before her arms wrapped around him and she hugged him back. The feel of her was better than the smell of freshly cut grass or a cold beer on a hot August day. It was better than anything he'd ever experienced before. He hadn't even realized just how broken and fractured he was until now, and she helped to fix those broken pieces.

"I love you too Xander Noland." His heart soared with joy as he pressed her closer. Her fingers dug into his back, she turned her mouth into his neck and kissed him. "But I'm not dying in this damn house and I'm not carrying you so sit down, please."

He laughed as he hugged her against him once more and released her. Though she was right, he wasn't willing to sit on the couch again. He felt much too vulnerable when he was sitting down. Riley moved to the curtain and used the tip of her gun to pull it back so that she could look out. Resting his hand on her shoulder, he stared at the silent street over top of her head.

He looked over the half wall that separated the living room from the double stairway of the split level ranch. Carl was leaning over the recliner pressed against the front door to peer out the window. "What's downstairs?" Xander asked.

"Just the basement," Carl answered. "There's a way out through the bulkhead if we have to take it and a door into the garage. No vehicle though."

"Of course not," Xander muttered.

He looked back to the window as a small shiver ran through Riley. "The back door," she said and spun away from him.

She pushed by the man and woman still standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Xander hurried forward as the man turned to go with her. The girl was still silently weeping; her head was bowed over her hands and her shoulders shook from the force of her sobs. Xander wanted to stop and comfort her, but he didn't like the idea of Riley out of his view with a stranger.

The man was standing by the window over the kitchen sink as Riley peered out of the glass in the backdoor. "I don't see anything," Riley murmured.

Xander stepped into the kitchen and glanced down the hall. The door at the end was open to reveal the posters covering one of the walls. The irresistible urge to shut the door seized him and he hurried down the hall to the room with rock bands and women lining the walls. The room reminded him of his own when he'd been fourteen and he couldn't help but smile a little as he shut the door on the memory.

He closed the other doors along the hall as he made his way back toward the others. Carl and John had climbed the stairs and were standing by the front window. The young woman was still crying but now she was murmuring words that he couldn't quite make out due to her bowed head and broken voice.

Apprehension gnawed at him, he glanced at the others but none of them seemed to have noticed this new development. He didn't think they could hear her words, but she made the hair on the nape of his neck rise as she continued to talk to herself. He rested his hand on the young woman's shoulder and squeezed it.

"Everything will be alright, Debra," he assured her.

She lifted her head and looked up at him from under strands of straggling brown hair. His hand fell limply back to his side as she pinned him with her green eyes, but though she was looking at him he felt as if she was staring right through him. There were panes of glass that weren't as transparent as he felt right now.

Cuckoo
, ran through his mind and he couldn't help but take a step away from her as tears continued to spill down her face and words tumbled more stridently from her lips.

"I looked and there before me was a pale horse," she stated.

That was enough to make his skin crawl like a thousand spiders were creeping over him as he stared at her in complete confusion. "Excuse me?" he asked.

Over Debra's shoulder he could see Riley frowning as she turned away from the door and the man took a step away from the window. "Debra?" the man inquired.

"Its rider was named Death," Debra said.

"Isn't that a song?" John asked. Xander felt a small spurt of hope. It was still weird, but if she was trying to comfort herself by recalling a song then he could live with that, maybe.

Debra continued on as if none of them were even present. "And Hades was following close behind him."

"No seriously, didn't someone sing that?" John demanded.

"Not quite that version of it," Carl answered. Xander didn't think Carl even realized that he had an unlit cigarette between his lips.

"They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth," Debra continued.

Carl was ashen as he stepped away from the window. It was the look on his face that caused Xander to take another step away from Debra and more to the side. He met Riley's gaze as she and the man guardedly approached Debra from behind.

"What does that mean? What is she talking about?" Riley whispered.

"Revelation," Carl answered. "It's about the four horsemen of the apocalypse."

The color drained so fast from John's face that Xander was amazed he was still standing afterward. John took a step back and rested his hand against the wall behind him as his shoulders slumped. "Horses again," John whispered.

Again?
Xander thought as Carl shot John a look that clearly said he thought the kid might have lost his mind. "Again?" Carl asked.

John shook his head in response and held up his hand. "Nothing," he said.

"There's no war," Riley whispered. "There is
no
war
."

"This whole event has been nothing but a battle for survival," Carl responded.

Xander was growing increasingly convinced that John was going to pass out as he rested his shoulder against the wall now. Riley shook her head but her eyes were pleading as they met his. He wasn't even sure what they were talking about. "What's going on?" he asked.

"There was this guy before we entered Sturbridge..." Carl started to explain. "WHOA!"

Xander fell back as Debra lifted her hands to reveal the gun within them. It took him only a second to realize that she had no intention of shooting any of them, but even as he was lurching toward her he knew it was already too late as she turned the gun on herself. The world seemed to slow as he reached forward to try and stop her. His hand was almost to her arm when a gunshot reverberated through the house. Blood splattered over Riley and the other man when Debra's head snapped back. A piercing scream escaped Riley as Debra's body slumped to the ground. Debra's fingers continued to twitch but it was only due to the last bit of neurons that had still been firing within her body.

Riley slapped her hands over her mouth, her nostrils flared over top of her hands as she continued to scream against her palms. The gunshot seemed to still be echoing through the house but he knew it was just the ringing in his ears that was creating the noise. He could barely breathe, his mind spun in revulsion as his gaze remained riveted upon the lifeless body. He'd seen people die, he'd even been the cause of it, but he had never expected to see anything like
this
.

Edging his way around Debra's body he moved over to Riley. Her eyes were crazed as they settled upon him; she had stopped screaming but she was almost sobbing against her palm. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her head into his shoulder. Muted cries continued to escape her as she shook against him.

John was plastered against the wall, his mouth gaping. Carl's mouth had dropped; the cigarette was barely dangling at the edge of his bottom lip as his stunned eyes came up to meet Xander's.

The man took a step back and spun toward the sink. Turning the water on, he pushed the sleeves of his shirt up before frantically washing his face and arms. Xander nudged Riley toward the sink as the man's skin began to take on the shade of a lobster from the scrub part of the sponge he was running over his arms and face.