The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (7 page)

His muscles eased a little when the metal
roof above them ended. A small breath escaped him as the car in
front made it to the freedom of solid road once more; he followed
closely behind them only seconds afterward. He tried to relax but
his muscles remained rigid.

Riley pulled the car over to the side of the
road after a few hundred feet. Xander rested his hand on her
shoulder as her head bowed in relief; Carl knew exactly how she
felt as his trembling hand slid the truck into park. His heart
continued to pound out a rapid staccato against his ribs as Donald
parked the Caddy behind them.

Carl was a little concerned his legs might
not support him as he opened the truck door and stood up. A pack of
cigarettes might not be enough to get him to calm down right now,
but even still, he didn't grab for his pack. He needed to move
about for a few minutes and try to shake off the lingering tension
in his muscles first. He walked to the middle of the road before
turning back to the others. They were grouping together near the
truck; their heads bent close together as they slapped each other
on the back and exchanged words that he assumed were
encouragement.

He stretched his shoulders out before
walking over to join them. They had made a lot of headway today,
more than they'd made on any other day since this had started, but
the sun was now lower in the darkening sky. "How much further?" he
asked Al.

"Normally about forty-five minutes to an
hour. If we make as good of time tomorrow as we did today than we
should be there by sunset."

"No more sleeping on roadsides or in
abandoned houses," Rochelle said dreamily.

"If all goes well," Mary Ellen said and
squeezed her daughter's shoulder reassuringly.

"We're going to have to figure out a place
to stay for tonight," Carl said. "We can get off and try to find
somewhere, or we can stay on the side of the highway again."

"I'm good with sleeping roadside," John said
as he eyed the sparse woods beside them.

"This area was fairly well populated," Al
said. "Getting off the road might not be the best idea, and I think
we should try and go a little further away from here."

Carl didn't like the look in Al's eyes and
he didn't like the buildings and roadways branching off of the
highway they were on. There was too much development in this area
for his liking and with more development came more people. "Ok,
let's top the tanks off and go," Carl said. "If we get caught up in
something the truck doesn't have enough gas to carry us far."

"We'll see if any of these vehicles have any
gas left in them." Xander volunteered.

John opened the backdoors of the truck and
pulled out two of the full cans. He passed them to Carl before
grabbing hold of the empty cans. He gave one to Xander before
seizing the tubing. Carl watched them walk over to the nearby
vehicles on the road before taking the full cans over to the
truck's gas tank.

Lifting the can, he fit the nozzle into the
tank and lifted it so that the gas poured inside. He glanced around
in order to keep an eye on his surroundings as he watched for some
hint of approaching danger. The woods remained still, and so did
the roadways around them, but he couldn't shake the feeling of
impending doom.

John, Riley, and Xander stood by a blue car,
siphoning gas into one of the cans. John smiled as he propped an
arm on the roof of the car and spoke with them. The others were
gathered by the front of the truck where Mary Ellen handed out
bottles of water. He finished with the can and lifted the other one
to the truck as the minutes steadily ticked by. They'd only been
there for about a half an hour but it felt like hours as the last
of the gas from the can dripped into the truck.

He turned toward the bridge, and the back of
the truck, but even as his eyes were taking in movement, Riley was
stepping away from the car. "What is
that
?" she demanded.

Carl didn't have to ask what the
that
she was talking about was. On
the bridge, a couple hundred feet from the end, figures had begun
to appear. He remained immobile, staring as the figures became an
encroaching wave of people moving relentlessly forward. He squinted
and frowned as he looked at the figure's hands and tried to process
what it was they were holding onto.

Revulsion curdled within him like sour milk
when he realized they were holding other people's legs. It took the
figures moving closer for him to realize that the garbled sounds he
heard coming from them were cries and moans from the people they
were dragging across the ground. His eyes focused on the rolling
wave of creatures moving in their direction. Even from this
distance, he could see their blistered, peeling, and disfigured
faces.

"We have to go," Al said in a rigid voice
from behind him. John and Xander stepped away from the car and
moved closer to Riley.

"Now!" Carl barked at them. "We have to go
now!"

He tossed the empty cans into the back of
the truck. John and Xander ran awkwardly across the median with
their full cans of gas bouncing against their legs. He waited for
John and Xander to place the full cans into the back before
slamming the doors closed. He didn't want to look back but his eyes
were inexorably drawn behind him as the moans of the people being
dragged became louder and the horde of at least fifty continued
their approach.

"What are they doing?" John inquired
breathlessly from beside him.

"Nothing good," Carl answered. "Let's
go."

He spun on his heel and ran for the driver's
side door. Throwing the door open, he glanced in the side mirror as
the first wave of sick people stepped off the bridge with their
victims still in tow.

Al,

Al turned in the backseat of the car to
stare out the window. At first he couldn't see anything other than
the truck behind them, but then Carl moved to the side and he could
once again see the crush of people stepping off the bridge. The
first wave of them released their prey and bolted forward as the
vehicles began to pull away from the side of the road. The fact
that the people they released rolled to the side, but didn't climb
to their feet, led Al to believe they were Lost Souls and not fully
functioning human beings.

He didn't know why, but for some reason that
seemed like an even more cannibalistic action to him. The Lost
Souls, and the hungrier ones, were both sick. Each with something
that was affecting them in different ways, but none of them had
control over their bodies anymore. He tried to turn away from the
window, but he found his hand pressed against the glass like a
child waving goodbye to their best friend before moving out of town
forever.

The second surge of the hungrier sick humans
stepped over, and sometimes
onto
,
the Lost Souls that had been left upon the ground. No humanity
existed anymore within the people rushing at them, at least not
within the ones that were volatile and ferocious. He was glad Riley
didn't have her sights set on trying to help one of them in some
way; there was no helping them, of that much he was certain.

Watching the scene, the feeling that the
world was ending swamped him, even more so than when lava had been
rushing toward them in that hotel room. It was as if the bowels of
Hell itself had opened up and spewed forth a horde of demons upon
the earth. Al shook his head at the idea; he knew it wasn't true.
He'd seen firsthand the devastating effects of the illness that had
spread across the earth when it had taken over Lee's body and
turned him into a monster. Even still, he couldn't shake the notion
of the devil's minions coming for them as the first wave continued
to run for the Cadillac at the back of their line of vehicles.

They would never be able to catch the car
but even still, Al held his breath until the sick ones began to
falter and the car was well out of their reach. He found himself
staring out the window long after the bridge and horde of sick
people had faded from view. Reluctantly, he finally turned back
around in his seat.

Nancy's bi-colored eyes were troubled; she
chewed on her bottom lip as she studied Al. "What's wrong with
them?" she whispered.

Al took a deep breath before revealing to
her what they all suspected was wrong with them. Nancy kept her
eyes fixed raptly upon him as he spoke, but her attention shifted
to Riley when she turned in the passenger seat. "We're hoping that
maybe we can help the ones that just wander around aimlessly,"
Riley said.

"The ones that have become the new favorite
meal for the others," Xander expanded.

Nancy tugged at her tangled hair hard enough
that Al became concerned she might actually pull it out. "Do you
really think you could help them?" she inquired.

"I think we have to give it a shot," Riley
answered.

Nancy's hand dropped to Spooky in her lap as
she turned to look out the window. "Yeah, I guess you do."

Riley glanced at Al but he didn't know what
to do to calm Nancy right now. He was tempted to touch her arm, but
he didn't think she'd accept the gesture of comfort. His hand slid
to his gun as he studied the woman. She'd been a lot calmer since
they'd left the police building, but he didn't trust her and there
was something a little off about her. Whatever she'd been through
had left her more than a little damaged and he'd be damned if she
injured anyone in this car. She acted docile, and pleasant enough,
as her hand continued to stroke over the purring cat, but people
had said the same thing about Ted Bundy before they'd uncovered the
truth about him too.

Al reluctantly turned his attention away
from Nancy and to the night pressing closer against the windows.
Xander hunched over the steering wheel. From behind, Al could see
the dim lights of the Cadillac as they automatically turned on. "We
have to get off the road," Xander said.

Lifting his glasses, Al rubbed at his
strained and tired eyes. "Do you think we're far enough from the
bridge?" Riley asked.

"We don't have much of a choice. There's an
exit ramp ahead."

"Take it," Al told him. Xander's eyes met
his in the rearview mirror. "We've put some distance between us and
the bridge, but those things are fast and I'd prefer not to be on
this highway if their plan is to keep coming this way. They
probably have a home base closer to where we just were, but I'm not
willing to take the chance."

"Neither am I," Xander said and switched on
the blinker.

He crept down the exit ramp and stopped at
the end to study the signs. To the right were a Best Western and a
Pop's Pizza; to the left were a handful of gas stations, a motel,
and a couple of restaurants. Xander pulled out and went to the
right but he only made it a few feet before almost crashing into
the telephone pole blocking the road.

Jarred forward when Xander hit the brakes
hard, Al barely managed to brace his hand against the back of
Riley's chair before crashing into it. Xander cursed loudly, the
truck halted so closely on their rear end that Al heard the metal
bumpers kiss against each other. The Cadillac remained at the
intersection, unable to make the turn with the truck and car
blocking the way.

"We better find someplace before we all kill
each other," Xander muttered. He shifted into reverse as the truck
pulled off of his bumper and turned around.

Al hadn't wanted to go to the left,
something Xander seemed to have agreed with, but they were now
forced to drive into the area with the heavier number of
businesses. A feeling of dread slid through him as he glanced back
at the fallen pole. He couldn't see it anymore. There were
thousands of downed poles around the world; he'd seen more than a
couple dozen of them himself. This one wasn't special, he told
himself, but he wasn't sure he believed it.

"I have to turn on the headlights," Xander
muttered. "I can't see anything anymore."

Al tensed as the headlights clicked on and
spilled across the roadway. He felt as if the clouds themselves had
parted and a giant spotlight blazed down upon them painting them
with a great big bullseye.

The first motel they passed looked much like
the one where they'd spent the night with Lee. Lee had woken up
sick in that motel and things had spiraled even further out of
control from that point on.

Riley's thoughts must have traveled along
the same line as his, she seized Xander's arm when he went to turn
into the motel parking lot. "Not that one," she said.

Xander glanced at her before nodding and
driving past the motel. A fast food restaurant went by on their
right, followed by a country store and a pharmacy. All of them
would be good places to search, in the light of day, but now they
all appeared as threatening as the darkness enshrouding them.

Every one of the shadows could be hiding
something menacing and ominous. He couldn't shake the image of
those creatures dragging their helpless victims behind them from
his mind. A shudder racked through him, his hand tightened around
the gun in his lap.

"Pull in there," Riley said and pointed to
the small building ahead of them.

Al frowned as he tried to bring the words on
the side of the building into focus. It wasn't until they were next
to the building that he realized the words were nothing but a
smiley face and some intricate symbols spray-painted onto it.
Xander drove around the front of the building and Al spotted the
florist sign hanging outside. There were also a few barrels by the
front door with brown and wilted flowers drooping over the sides.
The windows and doors in the front were intact. Xander parked
adjacent to the stairs.

"I doubt it's a store anyone has tried to
raid," Riley said. "Circle around to the back, there's probably
another door there."