The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (7 page)

Xander grabbed hold of the man's hand to stop him before he began to rip the flesh from his own bones. The man stared at him before releasing the sponge and stepping aside. His chest heaved and his eyes rolled but he seemed to be regaining control of himself. "Is it still on my face?" he choked out.

Xander shook his head as Riley stuck her hands beneath the faucet. With his chest pressed against her back, he stretched around to help her wash the blood from her arms. She was still shaking but she had finally stopped gasping for breath. Xander stepped out from behind her, grabbed a dishtowel and wet it in the water. Her lower lip trembled as he gently washed the blood from her face and neck.

"Why?" she whispered.

He shook his head. "There's no answer for that Riley. Unfortunately, there never is."

The sound of a boot falling on the kitchen floor brought his head up as Carl stepped around Debra's body. At least the hideous twitching had finally stopped. "Where did she get the gun?" Carl asked as he stuck his foot on top of the weapon and pulled it away from the growing puddle of blood.

"It..." John broke off as he swallowed. "It was mine. I put it on the table when I went to help you move the chair."

Carl thrust his gun at him and bent to pick up the one on the floor. "We have to get out of this house, that gunshot is going to bring them here," Carl said.

Xander nodded but it was Riley that turned the water off. She inhaled a shuddery breath and grabbed another dishtowel from the cabinet in front of her. She dried her arms and face before turning away from the sink.

The young man remained where he was as Carl and John pulled aside the curtain over the back window. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said to the man. "But we have to go."

The man's gaze moved from Debra's motionless figure to him. "I didn't know her before three days ago."

"That's almost a lifetime," Riley whispered.

The man's rust brown eyes studied her before he nodded and took a step away from the sink. "It is a lifetime," he agreed.

Carl and John lifted the table away from the door. "You ok?" John asked Riley.

"Not really, you?"

"Not particularly."

Carl shoved the curtain aside and peered out the window again before flipping the locks and opening the door. Xander took hold of Riley's hand as they stepped out the door and into the open. He didn't like feeling so exposed but as he ran alongside Riley he found he was grateful to be away from that house, and the hideous memory of what had just occurred that would forever haunt him.

His leg had been rewrapped but it still throbbed like a son of a bitch as they ran through backyards. He tried to keep his gait as steady as possible so that Riley wouldn't worry but by the time they made it to the next street he was beginning to limp again. He knew they were making their way in the general direction of his grandmother's house but it would take them forever to get there by foot.

"A car," Carl said and nodded toward a silver Toyota sitting in a driveway.

"Let's just get it and get out of this godforsaken town," John said.

Xander seconded that notion as they moved in on the car. John got to it first and pulled the driver's side door open. He slid into the seat and searched for the keys to the car but came up with nothing. "Inside," Riley said and ran up the porch steps of the home.

Thoughts of the last time he'd entered a house in search of keys propelled him up the steps far faster than he would have thought possible a minute ago. Riley had gone through enough today; she didn't need to see more bodies if they were in there. Xander stepped to the side as she thrust the door open and moved hastily out of the way.

Carl went in first, his gun raised as he hurried through the kitchen and into the dining room. Xander and Riley followed him into the house with John and the other guy close on their heels. Riley found the keys hanging from a hook on a cabinet in the kitchen. They jingled as she held them up.

"We've got wheels again," she said with a strained smile.

Xander kissed her forehead. "Good, let's get back to my grandmother's house. It's time to move on from this town."

"We can't," the man said from the backdoor.

Xander lifted his head and spotted the group of people moving across the backyard as the man silently closed the door. The click of the lock sliding into place sounded like a nail in a coffin to him.

John,

The click of the lock stopped him in midstride in the dining room behind Carl. He strained to hear anything but after the click the house had a tomb like silence enshrouding it. He shuddered at the thought and he couldn't help but feel as if this house may just become his crypt.

He turned to look behind him but from here he couldn't see the kitchen or Riley, Xander, and the stranger anymore. A thousand awful scenarios crashed through his mind as his heart beat loudly in his ears, making it even more difficult to hear anything within the home. They didn't know that man; they
never
should have left Riley and Xander alone with him. Even as that thought went through his mind he knew that it was wrong. They may not know that man, he may in fact be dangerous, but Xander and Riley could handle themselves. That man couldn't have gotten the upper hand on them both and Riley wouldn't hesitate to shoot if it became necessary.

No, the heavy hush after the lock had nothing to do with the stranger amongst them. John took a step back toward the doorway as Riley slid around the corner with Xander right behind her. "What's...?"

"They're coming," Riley whispered. That was
not
at all what he wanted to hear. His gaze shifted to the window across the way. There was little he could see of the street beyond the curtains but it appeared to be deserted. "I have the keys," Riley held them up before slipping them into her pocket. "If we can get out..."

The sound of glass shattering cut her off. He adjusted the gun in his hand as Carl moved around the dining room table and into the front hall. A thud resounded through the house followed by some loud bangs as the backdoor began to rattle in its frame. It didn't matter what was outside the front door, what was outside the backdoor was going to come in and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Wood splintered as the backdoor gave way with a crash that rocked the house and shook the windows in their frames. Carl threw the front door open and ran out onto the porch and down the steps. The street still appeared to be empty but John knew that wouldn't last as the heavy thud of feet reverberating through the house reached him.

His legs were moving faster than he'd thought possible as he darted across the porch and down the steps. He was about to jump off of the stairs when a heavy weight fell upon his back and shoved him forward. A startled cry escaped him as his knees hit the ground and hands curled into the back of his shirt. The collar of his shirt dug into his neck and cut into his windpipe as his air supply was choked off. The force of the impact would have knocked the gun from his hand if it hadn't been for the fact that he was holding it as firmly as a safe held money. After what had happened in the other house he didn't think he'd ever put the weapon down again.

His fingers tugged the collar at his neck as he tried to ease the choking. He beat at whoever held him with the gun as he tried and failed to knock them off. Stars burst before his eyes, he gagged loudly before even that noise was effectively cut off. Carl spun back toward him as Xander's shoes appeared beside him and a gunshot fired.

Xander seized hold of his arm and pulled him out from under the woman that slid to the side and fell upon the ground beside him. Her eyes, staring blindly ahead, reminded him of the horror that had just occurred with Debra. Gasping for air, John grabbed at his wounded throat as he scrambled back to his feet and chanced a glance at the roof of the house. More people were crawling over the top of it toward them.

Did these people have no fear?
John wondered in astonishment as they moved with the speed and assurance of a squirrel on the pitched shingles.

He got his answer to that question as one of them leapt off the roof of the house instead of climbing down to the porch roof above them. They may not have any fear, but their bones still broke as the man's legs gave way with a loud crack. John winced at the sound and sight, he took a step back from the man that was still trying to come at them but failing miserably with his ruined legs.

"Car," Riley panted. "Let's get to the car."

The car was only fifteen feet away but even as Carl started toward it, John could see more people flowing around from the back of the house toward them. Carl shot the woman in the lead through the head but it did little good as three more rose up to take her place. Accuracy still wasn't something John could rely on, and it wasn't something he was striving for now as he fired uncontrollably into the crowd in an attempt to make them at least hesitate in their onward rush.

No, they had no fear at all,
John decided as they kept coming despite the bullets flying at them and the other people falling around them.

Even during the worst times of his life, when he'd been fighting with his parents, when he'd been dumped and had his heart broken he had never contemplated suicide. Even with the world falling apart around him now, he would fight until the bitter end. He would never understand what had driven Debra to do what she had done, but the thought of those things getting their filthy, rotten hands on him was enough to make him want to slit his own throat. Something he may just have to do, he was sure he was running out of bullets as he continued to shoot into the crowd as he ran.

Riley made it to the car first and flung open the driver's side door. Carl didn't even bother to attempt to run around the car as he jumped onto the hood and ran across the top of it. Carl jumped off on the other side as the stranger threw open the door on Riley's side and scrambled across the backseat. John was right behind him. He hadn't looked to see where Xander was, but he felt Xander shoving in behind him before the door slammed shut.

Riley must have already had the car in gear as she hit the gas as soon as the door closed. The tires squealed, stones flew up against the side and pinged along the undercarriage as the car lurched out of the drive. The momentum threw him against the backseat before he was thrust forward. He didn't have time to get his hand braced before he was thrown against the seat again like a ragdoll.

His arms and legs were tangled up with Xander's and the other guy's. It was almost impossible to right himself in the seat as Riley squealed around a corner and hit a pothole that bounced them all into the air. His teeth clattered together so forcefully that he was afraid he'd broken them. The stranger, taller than him and Xander, banged his head off the roof. Xander grunted beside him and tugged at his leg as he tried to pull it out from under John.

"Watch out!" Carl shouted.

John couldn't see what it was that Carl was yelling about but the car maneuvered sharply to the right. Pushing himself off the shoulder of Riley's seat, he finally managed to free his leg from the stranger and get his hand braced against the back of Carl's seat. "I forgot what a lunatic you were behind the wheel," he muttered as Riley made another turn that made it seem as if the car's wheels were coming off the ground.

Riley didn't take her eyes off the road as she made a left hand turn that caused all of them to lean to the side. He was squished up against the stranger as Xander's weight was thrust against him. He was feeling a little too up close and personal to someone he didn't even know right now, but he couldn't push himself away from the guy as Riley was still making the turn. Just when he thought the door wouldn't be able to take their weight anymore, and they were going to sprawl out in the street, she finally straightened out the car.

John managed to sit up enough to see through the windshield in time for Riley to run over a woman with gray hair wearing a tattered red bathrobe smeared with dirt. The elderly woman reminded him of Mrs. Claus, if Mrs. Claus was from a land where zombie-like people made toys at the North Pole instead of the elves. The woman spun up over the hood of the car but instead of going over the roof like he'd expected, she fell over the side and under the back wheels.

An enormous crater loomed before them that caused Riley to leave the road in order to avoid it. She plowed through a small white picket fence and into someone's front yard. "This car can't take hitting much," Carl told her.

"Do you have a better route to take?" she demanded.

"No, you're doing good, just letting you know."

John had a brief glimpse of a tree before something slammed into the side of the car. A startled cry escaped John. Xander threw his hands over his head and ducked away from the man clinging to the window beside him. Watching the man, John was reminded of the wall crawlers he used to get from the machines at the exit of the grocery store when he was a kid. He'd spend hours throwing the crawlers at the wall and watching them walk down the surface.

"Holy shit!" the stranger shouted as yellowed eyes peered in at them. They were so yellow that John could barely discern the fact that they had once been blue. The man's face moved over the window as he appeared to be sniffing at the glass.

"Hold on," Riley grated through clenched teeth.

Carl made a strangled sound and braced his hand against the dash as she aimed at a tree. "What are you doing!?" John yelled.

His hands fell to his side but it was too late, there was no time to get a seatbelt on and even if he did he didn't think it would do him any good. He threw his arms up and slammed his foot against the console in front of him to brace for impact, but she veered off at the last second. The driver's side mirror slammed against her window and caused a spider web of fractures to spread through the glass.

The tree crashed into the man with a sickening thunk that made his stomach turn. John's head whipped around as the man was torn from the car and tumbled across the yard. Disbelief and amazement filled him as he turned back around to face Riley. "Who taught you how to drive?" he demanded.

Riley eased off the gas as she maneuvered the car around a large hole in the road. "My dad, but he definitely wasn't around when Carol and I went four wheeling down the power lines."

"Jesus," Xander muttered.

"You know you did it too," she said to him.

Xander just shook his head as John lowered his foot from the console that now sported a boot-like indention where his foot had been. He glanced out the windows and noticed that they had finally lost the mass of people who'd been pursuing them since they'd left the house.

"Where are we Xander?" Riley asked.

Xander took a deep breath as he studied the area around them. "We're heading back toward the grocery store."

"Let's not do that," the stranger said.

"We have to," Xander told him. "It's the only way back to my grandmother's house without taking a lot of back roads."

"Grocery store it is then," Carl said. He took his hat off and pushed the hair back from his face before shoving the brutalized hat back on.

John didn't like either one of those options, but he had to admit the grocery store was a better choice than being stuck on a back road with these things. He glanced at where the man had been hanging onto the car. "Only a honey badger should be as fearless as they are," John said.

"Well a honey badger would come in handy right about now as our extra bullets are in the car. We have more ammo in the truck but that's not going to do us any good right now," Carl said.

John turned the gun over in his hand as he studied the weapon. Days ago he never would have touched the thing. Now he didn't know what he would do without it. Images of Debra's last minutes filled his head. He'd watched Riley kill Lee, but he never thought he'd see something like what had happened with Debra, and he never thought he'd hear someone utter the words that she had spoken.

There before me was a pale horse
, John shuddered at the memory of his dream that her words had conjured. He'd never really been around horses before or had any real desire to do so, but he'd rode the ponies at the fair as a kid and that had been fun enough. Now though, he'd run in the other direction if he even remotely heard the sound of hoof beats or saw a horse in the distance.

He took a deep breath in order to try and calm himself. He'd had the dream because they had been talking about the apocalypse before he'd fallen asleep. Debra had clearly been out of her mind, no one in the right frame of mind would kill themselves. Or perhaps
they
were the crazy ones for continuing to try and fight in a world that he was growing increasingly convinced was seeking to destroy him. He wasn't entirely sure it was Mother Nature looking to do the destroying anymore either.

Now
that
thought was crazy.

But even as he tried to reassure himself that such a notion was nuts, he couldn't shake the approaching hoof beats of his dream from his mind. He really wished he had managed to find a beer from somewhere as he could really use one right now. A sinking sensation filled his stomach when he recognized the road that Riley turned onto.

He'd never planned to see that grocery store again, but his gaze was pulled toward the massive front windows. "We could try and get the car," Riley said in a low voice.

"I don't think that's a good idea," John told her.

"The gas though."

"They set a trap in that store; I wouldn't be at all surprised to find one around that car somewhere too."

Her gaze remained riveted on the car though as they approached the store. "He's right Ri," Xander said. "Stopping at that place again is a
bad
idea."