Read The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen Online

Authors: Erica Stevens

Tags: #horror, #scifi, #suspense, #adventure, #mystery, #action, #death, #chaos, #apocalyptic, #apocalyptic fiction end of the world

The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (2 page)

BOOK: The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen
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The police came and spoke with me but I was
able to avoid jail this time, as I'd had no drugs on me. One of the
officers already knew me, and I saw by the look in his eyes he
already considered me as good as dead, today just hadn't been my
day. It was a look I knew well as I'd seen it on countless faces
before. I stared at my three toes and wondered why I couldn't have
just died. Why was I, a person that had never contributed much to
this world, still alive? Why was I still breathing when good men,
women, and children were dying every day?

Those questions ran through my mind a
thousand times and when I walked out of that hospital, I was
determined to find the answers to them. Unfortunately, I don't
think there is an answer for those questions. Some of us simply
continue to live when others don't; even those of us who have done
more harm than good throughout our lives. I don't know why, it is
simply the way of a world that I'd spent my entire life trying to
escape from.

So I went to the NA meetings, I listened to
the stories that the others told, but I didn't share my own. I know
it's an important step, but I just couldn't bring myself to stand
in front of those people and tell them my sob story. Maybe it was
shame; maybe it was the fact that I didn't want pity. Though I knew
they wouldn't pity me, why would they? Their stories were no better
than mine, and some were even worse. They were there for support, I
simply wasn't looking for support, I was looking for the reason I
was still alive and none of those people knew why any more than I
did.

Over the seven months that followed my
death, I would lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling in the
halfway house, and fighting the compulsion to get up and find the
one thing that I had truly loved in my life. In those hours it
wasn't answers I wished for, it wasn't even escape into the haze
heroin had given me; it was simply to have not woken up in that ER.
I didn't want to be on this planet anymore, alone and lost, and
fighting against the demons relentlessly pursuing me.

Every day I would wake up, go to my job at
the grocery store, slice meat and go to a NA meeting after. Every
day I would do what had to be done, and I would stay away from the
temptation I knew was only three short miles down the road. Every
day I would continue to fight but I never understood why, not when
I felt as zombie-like as I'd felt every time I pushed that plunger
on the needle down.

The only things that kept me going were the
facts that the way of life I'd had before my death in the ER hadn't
been working for me, and the expectation that I would somehow find
answers in this
new
way of life. So
I continued resolutely on until the day of the earthquakes.

Standing behind that counter, running ham
through the slicer, I hadn't realized just what those quakes would
represent, or how much they would change my life. How
much
of a life they would give to
me even when millions if not
billions
of others were losing theirs. In the
chaos that followed, I had no idea where to go or what would become
of me. No idea what was going on in the world. I found others, and
we hid together, but like so often in my life there had been no
answers to be found and no way to escape.

Then we went back into that grocery store. I
was given a chance to meet the others, people who were willing to
fight and die for each other. Things began to change for me after
that. It was the first time since it had all started that I
knew
my life would never be the
same. I'd been going through the quakes, and the events following
them, in the same way I'd gone about everything in my life, in a
fog with my head stuck in the sand. I wasn't going to do that
anymore. I'm not proud of the man I was, I will never claim to be,
but I'm not that man anymore and I never will be again.

I don't want pity; I don't expect it. Nor do
I want condemnation, I wasn't a good man but I won't be weighed
down by my past sins, not anymore. It took the world as I knew it
coming to an end for me to find where I belong, and to realize that
there aren't always answers to be found. Sometimes life in itself
is simply the answer. I woke up in that ER because I was supposed
to be here. For some reason fate, or some greater being, had chosen
me to stay upon this earth and that was a knowledge I found myself
content to live with now.

The world as we all knew it had come to an
end and the strangest thing was that
I
was finally coming to life. I picked up a
notebook and pen again. Not because I wanted to retreat into the
world of writing I had hidden in before, but because I was
determined to tell a story of survival. Because I was going to show
the good and bad of humanity when everything we'd always known was
stripped away from us. To show that even at the worst of times,
there is good in and among us. There is also bad, and the story of
the good cannot be told without the bad. The story of the world
that we had known, and this new world we were learning more about
every day had to be put on paper before it was all forgotten.

Why am I writing about me now, you'll
probably ask. It is simply to give you a brief background of me,
and because I finally have something about me I want to tell. Al
had said that some of us would fall but that others will rise up to
become better people. My name is Donald, and I may have been one of
the fallen before, but I
will
become one of the risen.

CHAPTER 1

John,

John almost kissed the blue "
New York, Welcome to the Empire State"
sign and
not because he was trying to -though he actually did have the
impulse to kiss it- but because he tripped over the broken piece of
metal post sticking out of the ground as he approached the sign. He
caught himself before he fell onto the sign and managed to fall
onto the grass surrounding it. The crisp edges of the browning
grass were rough against his fingers but he noticed that at the
bottom of each blade of grass there was a dark shade of healthy
green beginning to appear. He almost felt like crying at the sight
of that sign of fresh growth and renewal. He hadn't taken the time
to notice the grass over the past couple of days, but he'd never
been so happy to be so up close and personal with it.

Carl stuck his hand out to help him up but
he waved it away. "I meant to do that."

"Yeah," Carl snorted and walked away shaking
his head. John pushed himself back to his feet and walked over to
where Carl stood. Carl's gray eyes were attentive as he rubbed the
brim of his stained and faded Red Sox hat. His brown hair, longer
than John had ever seen it, curled around the edges of his hat and
the collar of his shirt. But then, John knew his own hair was the
longest it had been since his junior year of high school as it
tickled at the corners of his eyes. "I
never
thought I'd be so happy to be in New
York."

"Me either," Xander agreed.

John had been concerned that there wouldn't
be any happiness to be found after Bobby's death two days ago, but
he actually saw smiles on the tired faces of the people surrounding
him. Those smiles had been absent ever since they'd left the
graveyard behind. However, he hadn't been doing any smiling either.
He still couldn't get over how fast it had all happened. One minute
Bobby had been there talking and fighting with them, and the next
he was gone. He knew how fragile life was but he'd been living with
a false sense of security ever since Lee's death.

He'd wrongly assumed the worst was behind
them, that since they hadn't gotten sick they would be able to
fight off the sick ones, and they'd be able to make it. The worst
wasn't behind them though and he wasn't sure it ever would be. He
lifted his head to study the highway winding through the mountains
on either side of the road. They had hooked back up with the
interstate less than a mile back, just outside of Danbury. He saw
no homes around him but vehicles were scattered across the roadway
and in the grass median.

"How far is it to the cabin from here?" Carl
asked Al.

"Normally about an hour, hour and a half,
but there are a couple of bridges between here and there that could
be a problem," Al answered.

"I'm sure there will be more than bridges in
between that will be a problem," Josh muttered.

John silently agreed with him as he stared
at the rocks lining the mountains on each side of them. "We should
have known about the bridges," Peter grumbled.

John released a low groan that caused Carl
to shoot him a look. Peter hadn't said much since Bobby's death but
every time he did open his mouth, John had to fight the impulse to
punch him in his face. He didn't know what would happen if they did
make it to the cabin and they had to live with the guy for an
extended period of time. It wasn't a pleasant proposition.

He didn't understand why Bobby had lost his
life, while this guy was still alive and being a dick every chance
he got. Life wasn't fair, he knew, but he would have traded Peter
in a heartbeat for Bobby. Unfortunately, that wasn't a
possibility.

"We're going to run into obstacles
everywhere we go," Carl said. "Bridges may be the least of our
worries. Let's get back on the road."

John turned and followed him to the rack
body truck. Rochelle walked by his side, her head bowed as she
stared at the grass that crunched beneath her feet. "We're almost
there kid," he assured her.

"Are we?" she asked.

That was an excellent question but he didn't
have the answer for her. "Just have to take it one mile at a
time."

She gave him a wan smile before focusing on
her feet again. John draped his arm around her shoulders. He'd
noticed a change in her since Bobby's death. He kept hoping she was
just in a funk, or as much as he didn't want to think about it,
maybe it was even hormones.

He knew Rochelle was trying to sort through
things on her own, but he kept expecting her to snap out of it.
Worry that she might not began to fill him. How could she just
bounce back to that stubborn and resilient girl they'd encountered
on the road after everything she'd endured?

Don't leave me
kid
, he pleaded silently but he didn't know what to do
to keep that from happening.

She leaned against his side as he opened the
door and gestured for her to jump in. John went to climb in beside
her but he felt a hand wrap around his arm. He turned to find Mary
Ellen standing next to him. She nodded to the back of the
truck.

"What's wrong?' he asked when they were away
from the others.

Mary Ellen glanced at where they'd left
Rochelle before turning back to him. She kept her voice pitched low
while she spoke. "I know Rochelle really likes you…"

"I think of her like a little sister!" he
gushed out.

A small smile curved Mary Ellen's mouth as
she shook her head. "I know, I didn't mean anything like that. I'm
not saying she has a crush on you or anything, but that she simply
likes you. She looks up to you and she sees you and Carl as
friends. I think she thinks of you like brothers too. You make her
laugh. Besides, if I thought you were looking at her in that way,
I'd kill you."

John almost laughed at the matter of fact
way she stated that, but the fierce look in Mary Ellen's eyes and
her fisted hands made him change his mind. He may be stronger than
her, but he had no doubt Mary Ellen would kill him, or anyone else,
that tried to hurt her daughter. He had to respect and admire her
for that but he knew he would do the same thing.

"She hasn't been doing a lot of laughing or
smiling lately," he said.

Mary Ellen rang her hands before her, her
brown eyes were pleading as they held his. Her dark brown hair had
been pulled into a ponytail that highlighted the planes of her
broad face. Even dirty and disheveled, with that strained look upon
her face, she was still hot. John shook his head to clear it of
that
notion, now wasn't exactly the
time.

"No, she's not," Mary Ellen agreed. "I've
tried talking to her but she won't open up to me."

"Do you want to ride in the truck with
her?"

Mary Ellen looked torn as she glanced
between him and Rochelle again. He hated the idea of riding in the
car with Peter, and a shudder went through him at the idea of
taking Bobby's place in the car. He would ride with Riley, Xander,
and Al if Mary Ellen said she would prefer to stay with her
daughter.

"No," she finally said. "No, she won't talk
to me and she needs someone to talk to right now. Bobby's death
really hurt her."

"It really hurt all of us." John went to run
his fingers through his hair but then he remembered that it had
been a couple of days since he'd been able to do anything about
cleaning it. The idea of touching it right now made his upper lip
curl. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he shoved them into
his pockets and hunched his shoulders up. "I'm not so sure I'm the
best person for her to talk to."

"You're not the worst either," she said.

"I'm not good with words."

"You can speak them can't you?"

He couldn't help but grin at her. "They're
not always the right ones. Are you sure it's not just hormones
bothering her?" he mumbled and shifted awkwardly.

Mary Ellen's eyes widened before she
released a small chuckle. It was good to hear someone laugh, at
least a little, again. "No, not this time at least."

"What makes you think she'll talk to
me?"

"She has to open up to someone, you're
closer in age to her than I am and she trusts you." John wasn't
entirely sure what he was supposed to say or do for Rochelle, but
Mary Ellen took hold of his arm and squeezed it. "If you'd prefer
not to, I'd understand."

BOOK: The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen
7.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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