The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (40 page)

"It was a cleansing." Al turned to find Mary
Ellen and Donald standing to the left of him. Mary Ellen had spoken
the words.

"I'm not a very good guard tonight," he said
with a laugh.

"I don't think any of us would be, not after
today." They both walked around to the front of the boulders and
climbed up beside him.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" he
asked her.

"I think it's what we're all thinking." She
slid her hand into his and squeezed it as Donald settled on the
other side of her. "How could we think about anything else right
now?"

"That's a good question."

"I guess the Good Lord finally had enough of
our crap," Donald said.

"So it seems, but then I'd had enough of
most human's crap before the Good Lord did," Al replied.

Mary Ellen laughed as her hand tightened
around his. "So did I but I have a lot more tolerance for people
now."

Al released a low chuckle. "Because there's
less of them."

"Because even though we've seen the worst of
them, we've also seen the best. We've all stumbled, we've all
fallen, we've been divided but somehow we're still standing. We
were forsaken by something that we weren't even sure existed before
today. We've encountered hells we never imagined, we've gotten
tougher, but we've kept our humanity throughout it all," she
replied.

"That we have," Al murmured.

"I don't know about you guys but I have
closer bonds now, with all of you, than I ever had throughout my
life," Donald said.

Mary Ellen took hold of Donald's hand too
and held it in her lap. Al understood what Donald had meant by
that. He loved everyone he'd made this journey with deeply, he
would die for any one of them, but there had been a lot of love in
his life over the years and many close bonds. The lack of those
ties throughout Donald's life made his heart ache for him but
Donald had found a home with them now. Al wished he could take hold
of his hand too; he was too far away from him.

"We're all a family now," Mary Ellen
said.

"I couldn't have said it any better myself,"
Al agreed.

Mary Ellen and Donald both smiled at him
before turning to look at the lake. "Is Rusty to be trusted?"
Donald asked.

"I believe so," Al answered. "And having
more people with us will be helpful when Carl and the others
return."

"Do you think they'll return?" Mary Ellen
asked anxiously. "After what Rusty said…"

"They'll return," Donald interrupted with
certainty.

"What makes you so sure?"

"They're smart, they're fast, and they're
harder to take down than a four hundred pound sumo wrestler,"
Donald assured her.

"That's pretty hard," Al agreed.

"It is," Mary Ellen said.

Al turned his gaze back to the lake. A
feeling of peace began to steal through him as he held hands with
his friend and watched the moon's light shift over the rippling
water.

The sun was rising over the lake when his
chin came up off of his chest. He'd taken turns with the others,
and managed to doze off here and there throughout the night, but he
was determined to be awake to watch the sunrise. Donald and Mary
Ellen sat silently beside him as the sky came alive with pinks,
oranges and yellows. The sun poked its head over the trees and rose
steadily higher into the sky.

It didn't matter what Rusty had told them,
there was still no certainty after this life. They could end up in
Hell for all he knew. All they had was the here and now. He was
determined to make their time last for as long as possible and to
enjoy as many things as he could in this brutal world.

The sound of squeaking and bouncing turned
his attention away from the lake and toward the dust rising up in
the drive. "It's them," Mary Ellen breathed as she rose to her
feet.

Excitement and relief filled him, despite
his sore and cramped muscles he hurried down the boulder. His
forehead furrowed, he frowned when he spotted the white trailer
attached to the truck. His attention shifted to the car behind the
truck as he walked around the boulder.

"They got so many supplies they had to take
a trailer!" Mary Ellen said eagerly.

Al spotted John sleeping in the front seat
as the truck lurched to a stop before them but a piercing bang
against the side of the trailer caused his eyes to shoot to it.
"What's back there?" he muttered.

Carl thrust open the door and hopped out of
the truck. "We need whatever combination of medicine it was that
you gave to Xander and we need it now!" Carl barked at them.

"What?" Mary Ellen asked in confusion. She
was still smiling at their return, but then the color drained from
her face and she took a step away from the truck. "Is there a sick
one in the trailer?"

"Of course not," Carl said briskly as he
came around the front of the truck. "John brought back a present
for Rochelle."

"A what?" Mary Ellen asked.

"You brought back a horse!" Al blurted as
realization sank in.

Carl gave a brisk nod. "We did."

"Carl, the horses, you don't know what comes
for them," Mary Ellen gushed out.

Carl's hand was on the handle of the
passenger door when he glanced back at them. The haunted look in
his eyes made Al's breath catch. "We know," he said.

Had they also seen War
out there
? Al wondered as Carl opened the passenger side
door and John slumped out. Carl caught him and adjusted him in his
grasp so that he could lift him out of the truck.

"What happened?" Mary Ellen cried as she
rushed forward.

Al hadn't noticed Xander and Riley approach
until Xander grabbed hold of John's feet. He helped Carl to lift
him out; Riley slammed the door closed. The three of them looked
like they'd been through hell. Dirt and blood stained their clothes
and skin, their faces were haggard, and there was a frantic air
about them that made Al's heart race.

Al's gaze fell to John's flushed face; his
hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat and dirt. He finally
noticed the pink stained bandage wrapped around his hand. A sinking
sensation filled the pit of his stomach as Riley grasped hold of
Mary Ellen's hands and nudged her back. "Mary Ellen you
have
to get the medicine and give
to John whatever it was you gave to Xander. More of it if you
can!"

Mary Ellen hesitated before turning on her
heel and running toward the cabin. Xander and Carl hurried forward
with John caught up between them and Riley close on their heels.
Rusty was coming down the steps of the cabin when Al realized
something or rather some
one
was
missing.

Apparently so did Donald as he inquired,
"Where's Josh?"

"Was he bit?" Rusty's eyes were locked on
John as Carl and Xander approached him.

"Who are you?" Carl demanded instead.

"Rusty's an old friend," Al told him.

Rusty's eyes bulged from his head as he
stared at John and stepped in front of Carl. "You don't understand;
he'll turn into one of them!" Rusty blurted.

"Get out of my way!" Carl snarled at him and
nudged him aside with his shoulder.

Realizing that the situation was rapidly
escalating, Al moved to intercept them but Rusty's hand was already
falling to his gun. "Wait!" Al cried.

The look in Riley's eyes when she stepped
forward froze Al in his place as she placed her gun against Rusty's
temple. Her jaw was locked, her nostrils flared, as she stared
ruthlessly at Rusty. Rusty released his gun; his hands went slowly
up in a gesture of surrender.

"The last strangers we encountered killed
one of our friends and then
I
killed one of
them
." Al's heart
sank as he realized she was talking about Josh. "And Xander there,"
she nodded toward Xander. "Killed the other. If you don't get out
of their way, I'm going to kill
you
too. I don't give a rat's ass about you, but I do for John and
we're not giving up on him. Now
move
!"

Rusty stepped hastily aside. Carl and Xander
didn't even pause before rushing up the steps after Mary Ellen. "If
it's too late for the medicine he'll turn on you," Rusty
whispered.

Riley lowered her gun. "That won't be the
first time and if it happens I'll take care of it again if I have
to." She looked over at Al and Donald. "Are you two ok out here,
with him?"

"We're fine," Al assured her.

Riley glanced at Rusty again before running
up the stairs behind the others. The silence that descended was
shattered by the horse kicking the side of the trailer again.

Xander,

"What happened out there?" Al asked from
beside him.

Xander glanced down at him but his attention
was drawn back to Riley as she began to crush up the pills Mary
Ellen had given her. Riley wiped the crushed pills into her hand
and dropped them into a glass that wasn't even a quarter of the way
full of water. Mary Ellen opened another bottle up, shook some
pills out and handed them to Riley.

He nodded toward the kitchen and nudged Al
in that direction. He wasn't going to talk in front of everyone.
"Who are these people?" he asked when they were pressed close to
the fridge. His gaze drifted over the people in the cabin he didn't
recognize. His hand remained wrapped around his gun as he watched
them with a distrustful eye.

"That's Rusty," Al said and nodded to the
older man that had tried to stop Carl.

Rusty had been certain John would turn on
them, but he'd still followed them into the cabin. The look in his
eyes said he believed John was as good as dead. Xander refused to
believe that. They'd lost too much since the beginning of all of
this. They weren't righteous men and women, they'd done some
regrettable things over the course of their lives, but they were
fighters and they were all still alive because of that, including
John.

He wasn't going to give up on anything, or
anyone, not now.

"And Rusty is?" he prodded.

"A neighbor, we used to hunt together. I've
known him for years. That's his son R.J., and his daughters Phoebe
and Leah."

"Are you sure you trust them?"

Al hesitated before nodding. "Enough. We
were attacked here yesterday; we might have suffered losses if they
hadn't arrived to help us. Rusty was a good man when I knew him,
with a good family, and they appear to be that way still. I don't
know everything they've been through but they've also suffered
losses and they need more people than what they have."

Xander nodded his head in understanding but
his hand remained clenched on his gun as his gaze ran over them
continuously. It would take a long time before he trusted someone
new, and a lot of mutual support, but there were too many threats
out there now to deny every human they came across again. Even if
he didn't like it, there was strength in numbers and they needed
more numbers if they were going to continue to survive.

Carl stared at Rusty's family as if he were
convinced they might try to jump them. He remained standing
protectively by John's head. Riley was still focused on the
medicine but her gun was close at hand and he knew she could grab
it in a second. "What happened out there?" Al inquired again.

"Nothing good." Xander filled him in on
everything that had happened. "It was
Death,
Al."

Instead of looking horrified or disbelieving
Al simply nodded. "They saw him too," he said with a nod to Rusty
and his family. "Not Death, but the horseman War instead."

Xander shuddered. He still didn't know how
to process everything that had happened yesterday and last night,
he didn't think he ever would. "That means the other two are out
there."

"Most likely," Al agreed. "And from
everything we've seen I would say Pestilence is riding the white
horse."

"And the other is Famine."

It hadn't been a question but Al answered it
anyway, "Yes. Did you see where it went when it left the
track?"

Xander shook his head. "It just vanished
into a glowing light."

"Well that's different," Al said and rubbed
at his nose. "Rusty said War disappeared over a hillside and
continued on into the night."

Xander absorbed this knowledge as he stared
at Rusty and his family. "Maybe Death went back to where it came
from when we saw it; maybe they're all going back to wherever they
came from."

"One can hope," Al said. "I'd prefer not to
share my planet with them."

"So would I," Xander said.

His attention was turned from Al when Riley
rose to her feet. With tender care, Mary Ellen tilted John's head
back and Riley placed the glass against his lips. John choked on
the liquid, his hands twitched, but he didn't have the strength to
try and fight them off.

It had been a couple of months but Xander
could vividly recall the awful weakness that had encompassed his
body. Vividly recall the horrible feeling of being completely out
of control of his body, of not knowing what was going on or what he
was going to become. For a short time he'd lived with the awful
certainty that something alien was creeping through his system,
trying to take him over as it held him hostage.

"I made it through this, and so will he," he
murmured. He had to believe it; he wasn't willing to lose any more
friends.

"When was he bitten?" Phoebe inquired.

"Yesterday afternoon," Xander answered. "He
and Josh were bitten at the same time when we were in Walmart."

"How long ago?" Al asked him.

"About fourteen hours."

"You have twenty-four hours after an initial
bite to stop rabies," Riley said again as she succeeded in pouring
the rest of the liquid down John's throat. Mary Ellen closed his
mouth and forced him to swallow it.