The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (23 page)

The leaves and sticks crunched beneath his
feet as they strode through the thick woods. This journey had been
easier when he'd been younger, but he still made it over the fallen
trees and rocks without slowing the others down. There were more
freshly toppled trees in the woods due to the quakes, but the going
was still relatively easy despite the added obstacles. Soft moss
and bark fell apart beneath his palms as he rested them on an old
pine caught up within a large maple.

He peered over top of the pine before
ducking down to crouch walk under it to the other side. "So, you
and Nancy," Mary Ellen said to Donald as she scrambled under the
tree.

"We're just friends," Donald replied. "She's
had a rough go of it. I'm not sure how she's going to come out of
all of this in the end, but she has to know that I'm there for her
and that she has friends in this world."

Mary Ellen leaned against an old oak and
took a sip of water. "I'm sure she knows she has friends in all of
us. She'll get through the best she can, like the rest of us."

Donald shook his head. "She's not like the
rest of us. Some people just aren't equipped to handle certain
things. We can all experience the same exact thing, but it will be
different to all of us because we process it in different ways.
Some people are more capable of picking themselves up and
continuing on than others. Some simply can't do it."

"You don't think she's going to do something
to hurt herself, do you?" Mary Ellen asked in a disbelieving
tone.

Al didn't find the idea that unbelievable,
the notion had crossed his mind more than once. He'd already
prepared himself for discovering Nancy's body one day, or for her
to disappear into the woods. "Some people rise up and some people
fall," Donald said. "I don't want her to fall."

Mary Ellen stared at him as if he'd just
said he could lay eggs. "We left the children and Claire back there
with her."

"She won't hurt them and she won't abandon
them. I'm sure of that," Donald assured her.

"How can you be so sure?" Mary Ellen
demanded.

"I just am."

"That's not reassuring."

Al took hold of Mary Ellen's arm when she
spun toward the camp. "He's right, it's when Nancy's alone that I
would be concerned about her most, but she's not a threat to anyone
else and I don't believe she'll abandon them."

"You don't look surprised by what he's
saying," Mary Ellen said.

"You know you've considered it too, it's
just frightening to hear it confirmed," Al told her. "Come on, we
have to get a move on if we're going to get back to the cabin
before dark."

"Rochelle…"

"Will be fine."

Mary Ellen looked about to protest further.
She glanced behind her, but the cabin was no longer in view. With a
resigned sigh, she bowed her head. "Are you sure she won't hurt
them?"

"I'm positive," Donald said.

"Alright, let's get this over with," Mary
Ellen relented and started into the woods behind them again. "How
do we stop her from doing something to herself?"

"I'm not sure we can. We don't know what she
experienced before meeting us. It could have been ten times worse
than anything we've been through," Al said as he stepped over a
rotten tree stump. "All we can do is listen if she wants to talk,
does she?" he asked Donald.

"No," Donald admitted.

Al nodded as he tilted his head back to
examine the tops of the trees again. He saw nothing above him
except for a bird and a squirrel's nest. A squirrel dashed across
one of the tree limbs and let out a little squeal as it leapt from
one branch to another. A single blue jay took flight with a
displeased screech.

They'd seen more wildlife since making it
into the mountains but there weren't as many birds as there used to
be. The quakes had effected them here also, they'd found many of
their decomposing skeletons around the cabin, and in the woods. It
was a relief to see that not all of the birds had plummeted to
their deaths.

The cabin that Carl, John, Xander and Riley
had already searched came into view when he stepped around an
outcropping of rocks. Al eyed the cabin for a minute but it
appeared just as they'd described, untouched with boards over its
windows. He nodded toward the others and slipped back into the
woods to edge around the cabin and toward the next one.

"Do you think Nancy will kill herself?" Mary
Ellen inquired.

"I don't know," Donald admitted. "But I'm
going to do my best to make sure she doesn't."

Al tilted his head back to search the
treetops again. Within the thick boughs of an oak he spotted a
hunting stand nestled amongst the leaves. The boards leading up to
the four foot by four foot stand were all intact. He contemplated
climbing up there to take a look but he doubted he would see
anything through the leaves of the trees. Keeping his gun down by
his side, he walked further through the woods.

The woods gave way to reveal a home nestled
within the center of a clearing. The cabin that had sat on this
property had belonged to the McDonald's the last time he'd been
here. He didn't know if they had sold it over the years, but the
small cabin he remembered standing here had either been remodeled
or completely torn down. A second story and a sunporch had been
added to it and the outside was now a cheerful yellow instead of
red.

He doubted the property was still owned by
Gale McDonald as Gale had used the cabin only as a place to get
away, not a place to spend an extended period of time. Gale had
also been cheap. He'd stopped by numerous times every year to ask
Al if he could borrow ammunition, fishing poles, bait, wood, and
numerous other things. At first, Al had assumed that Gale hadn't
had the money for those things, but then one year Gale had arrived
in a brand new BMW instead of his old pickup. Al had never given
him anything again after that.

Now, he stood at the edge of the woods
studying a house that he didn't recognize. None of the windows were
boarded over and he could see the hint of curtains beyond the
glass. This was no longer someone's hunting cabin but someone's
summer home, or perhaps even their year round home.

"This might be a better place to stay," Mary
Ellen suggested. "It's bigger anyway."

Al continued to study the home before
gesturing to the backpack Donald was carrying. "It would probably
be better if we dropped that here. At least until we know what
we'll find in there."

Donald nodded and shrugged out of the
straps. He placed the bag against the trunk of a tree before
following Al around the cabin to the other side. There was a
backdoor on this home where none had been before, it was closed and
the curtains had been pulled over the window.

"Front or back?" Al inquired when they made
it to the opposite side of the home. From here, he could just
barely make out their cabin across the lake, and it was more the
cleared area in front of the cabin he saw than the actual
building.

"Front," Donald and Mary Ellen said
together.

Al nodded and clasping his gun before him,
stepped out of the shelter of the tree line. He crouched low as he
hurried to the farmer's porch that now took up the entire front
side of the cabin. Stepping cautiously onto the first step of the
porch, the creak beneath his feet caused him to wince but the door
remained closed and nothing came flying out at them.

Mary Ellen's breath tickled his neck as he
climbed the three remaining stairs to the porch. Al peered into one
of the windows and searched the shadowed interior of the home. He
nodded the ok to Donald when he saw no movement within. Donald took
a deep breath and turned the knob, the door swung easily open to
reveal the stairs directly across the entryway.

Al followed behind him as Donald entered.
His gaze went to the sunken living room on his left, the room that
he'd been looking through the window at, and then the kitchen
beyond. On his right was another living room and a small hall that
Donald was already moving down. Al remained where he was; his gaze
on the stairs and living room as Donald disappeared into a room off
of the hall. Al listened to the shuffling sounds of Donald's feet
and of closet doors opening before Donald reappeared a few minutes
later.

"Just a bedroom," Donald whispered and
walked into another room. He quickly reemerged. "Bathroom."

"Keep watch down here," Al instructed Mary
Ellen.

She nodded and he began to creep up the
stairs across from him with Donald on his heels. The hallway above
was lined with photos of a family with three daughters. The
pictures further confirmed his suspicion that this had become
someone's full time home. He opened the first door on his right and
peered into a little pink room with two twin beds. Trophies lined
the wall above both of the beds and a colorful array of red,
orange, green, yellow, and blue ribbons filled another wall. As he
moved further into the room, he noted that some of the trophies
were for basketball and softball while others were for dance.

He closed the door again and Donald nudged
the partially open door across the way open with his toe. It was
another girl's room but this one was painted a deep purple color.
Famous quotes that he recognized from Robert Frost, Emily
Dickinson, and Walt Whitman were painted in white, yellow, orange,
and red on the walls. A set of built in bookshelves took up the
entire left hand wall and were filled from top to bottom with
books.

The
introvert
, Al realized as he knelt to look under the
bed.

He left the room and stepped back into the
hall. They moved rapidly through the bathroom and opened the door
on the bedroom at the end. The parent's room, he decided as he
moved past the dark wood furniture and the California King bed. He
and Donald searched the room and the adjoining master bath before
retreating to the hallway.

Mary Ellen still stood by the front door
when they returned to the entryway. They took the steps to the
sunken living room and moved on to the kitchen. All of the cabinets
were already open and most of them were empty. Al inspected the
supplies that had been left behind but they were only spices, an
open bag of flour, and half a bottle of vanilla. Mary Ellen opened
the fridge and shook her head.

"Nothing," she muttered and closed it
again.

"This place has been raided already," Donald
said.

"By the people that lived here or by someone
else?" Al walked over to the backdoor and pulled aside the curtain
to look out at the empty backyard.

"You don't think we're alone on this lake?"
Mary Ellen asked apprehensively.

"It's possible we're not," Al told her as he
made his way to the front of the house. He stepped onto the porch
to study the cabin next door. It was about a half a mile away and
almost directly across the lake from where his cabin was located.
From here, he could also see the three other cabins that circled
the lake. He saw no movement on their distant shores, but he
couldn't see any movement at his cabin either, not from this
distance.

"I don't see anyone," Mary Ellen whispered
from beside him.

"I'm not sure we would either," he replied.
"Come on let's check the shed."

He stepped off the porch and made his way to
the backyard and the shed. Donald held his gun at the ready as Al
pulled the door open and stepped to the side. He poked his head
around when Donald gave a brisk nod to signal it was all clear.
Most of the stuff within had been picked over, but Al found some
rope hanging from a hook and Donald took hold of a hatchet before
closing the doors.

"We can tear the shed apart for the wood,
but we'll wait for the others and return for it," Al said.

Al was turning back to where they'd left the
backpack when an explosion of birds burst from the trees about
forty feet away and to their right. His mouth went dry as the birds
screeched and whirled in a circle into the sky. A chill crept over
his skin, a feeling of foreboding slid through him.

"Run," he whispered.

"What?" Donald asked and turned to look at
him in confusion.

"Run," he said again.

He turned on his heel and fled toward where
they had left the backpack in the shelter of the woods. Mary Ellen
and Donald were close by his side. Maniacal laughter drifted from
the woods behind them before they'd even made it to the
backpack.

Xander,

Xander stepped out of the Ford in the
Walmart parking lot and surveyed the stores in what he assumed was
the downtown area. He turned away from the Walmart and stared down
the hill toward the back of a fast food restaurant. Across the road
were even more stores that would come in handy if they got a chance
to explore them today. He didn't think that would be likely as the
sun was already descending from its peak.

He searched for any sign of life along the
road, and stores, but since they'd left the camp, he hadn't seen
another human, sick or otherwise. They had to be around here
somewhere. The gas station hadn't been completely raided but
supplies had been taken from it. They'd managed to salvage some
more chips from the store, a couple bottles of water, and
cigarettes, but for the most part they'd walked away with little.
They'd contemplated going to the other gas stations in the area, or
the diner and pizza place, but they'd decided to check out what
other stores there were in the area that Al had marked first.

"Dunkin Donuts," John moaned. "If we have
time we're going in there to get more coffee."

"There will be coffee in Walmart," Carl told
him.

"It's not the same," John replied.

Carl lifted an eyebrow at him. "It's not
like they have magic beans."