The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (8 page)

Nancy sat up with Al to peer over Xander's
shoulder as they drove around to the back of the building. Xander
parked next to a set of two concrete steps that led to a closed,
metal blue door. "I'll check it," Riley volunteered.

"Wait!" Xander grabbed hold of Riley's arm
before she could jump out of the car. "You're not going alone, just
slow down."

Something flickered through Riley's eyes,
she glanced at the building before focusing on Xander again and
nodding. "Stay with the car, I'll go with her," Al offered and
opened the backdoor. Riley climbed out beside him. "Are you doing
alright?" he asked her.

She glanced inside at Xander before closing
her door and stepping away from the vehicle. "Did you ever get the
feeling that your time is running out?" she inquired in a voice so
low it barely carried to him.

"I'm seventy-two years old, of course I
have."

Riley released a small chuckle. "Yeah, I
guess you have."

Al grabbed hold of her arm when she went to
turn away from him. Her eyes were troubled; her amusement had
vanished when she looked at him again. "It's not running out for
you Riley. We've made it this far, we'll make it to the end. You're
not Bobby."

"I think Bobby knew," she whispered.

Al released her arm. "Maybe he did. Is that
what's bothering you? Do you believe that you know?"

She bit into her bottom lip, her forehead
furrowed. "No, I don't," she finally said. "But I'm not going to
stand by and watch someone else die, not again. I will
not
lose another one of my friends.
Not if there's something I can do to stop it."

Al felt like he'd been punched in the gut as
she uttered those words. He grabbed hold of her arm with a lot more
urgency when she went to turn away from him again. "Take it from
me; there are plenty of things in this life that you're not going
to want to see or do. No one wants to be the one left behind, or to
be the one wondering why not them, or why did
they
survive? Believe me when I tell you that
there is
no
answer to the question.
There is only a black hole of despair and a heavy burden that will
swallow you whole if you let it. I understand your desire to make
sure the others stay safe, but if you die because you rush into
something you shouldn't have, you will only shift that burden onto
someone else." He glanced pointedly toward Xander.

"I'm not going to be careless or reckless."
When he continued to stare at her, she wrapped her hand around his.
"I'm really not Al. I'm just going to do everything I can to make
sure that everyone stays alive."

He wanted to question her further but she
released his hand and stepped away from him. Al watched her as she
walked over to join John by Carl's window. He believed her words,
but he also wasn't willing to see her get killed because she was
bound and determined not to lose any more people. She was too young
to understand that life would continue to be a series of losses if
she continued to outlive her friends and family.

Al joined them as Xander stepped out of the
driver's side of the car and Donald appeared. "John, would you mind
staying with the car?" Xander inquired.

John frowned at him before shrugging and
walking over to the car. "Everything ok?"

"Fine," Xander replied though Al didn't miss
his glance at Riley.

"Let's check this place out," Donald
said.

Al walked with the others toward the narrow
back stairs. Xander was almost to the backdoor when it swung open
and bounced against the wall of the building. Al had a brief
glimpse of a man before a shotgun was pointed directly at Xander's
chest. "Xander!" Riley cried.

Donald lurched forward and grabbed hold of
her arm when she made a move to bolt toward the door. Donald jerked
her back as Al swung his arm up to point his gun at the burly man
standing in the doorway. When he heard the word flower shop, this
man was the farthest thing from his mind. His shoulders took up the
entire doorway, his head almost touched the top of the frame, and
his gut hung so far over his waistband that the suspenders holding
up his pants were stretched to capacity. No, this man most
certainly was not some delicate flower, but more like a prickly
cactus with one
extremely
deadly
spine.

"What do you want?" the man demanded in a
slightly slurred voice. It wasn't until he spit something on the
ground that Al realized he was chewing dip.

Xander held his hands up as he took a small
step back. "We were just looking for a place to rest for the
night," Xander said.

"Stop moving!" the man barked.

Riley had been struggling against Donald's
hold but she went completely still at the man's command. "How many
people are with you?" he demanded.

"Eleven."

The man's gaze ran over the vehicles before
focusing on Xander again. "Do you have food?"

Al stepped forward when Xander glanced
questioningly back at him. He understood Xander's hesitancy to
answer but they had to say something. Making a split-second
decision, Al decided to go with the truth. This man couldn't take
them all down and they needed a place to stay. "We do," Al
answered. "How many people are inside with you?"

The man glanced behind him. "Two."

Al didn't know if the man was lying or not
but he doubted there were many more than two people inside. If
there were a lot of people in there, they could have already come
out to try and overpower them. Al glanced at both sides of the
building to make sure no one had slipped out the front, but he
didn't see any movement.

The man was going on trust with them, they
were going to have to do the same in order to get out of the open
before more sick humans found them, or the ones from the bridge
made their way here. This wasn't the ideal situation but he didn't
see what other choice they had. They'd only make it so far before
their headlights drew a swarm, they got stuck somewhere, or they
hit something. He glanced at the woods surrounding them, he saw
nothing moving through the trees but those sick people were out
there somewhere.

"We can share some food." Al hadn't heard
Carl's approach until he spoke the words from just behind him. "If
you'll give us a place to stay for the night." The man spit on the
ground again as he surveyed them. Carl took a couple of steps
closer. "It will only be for tonight and then we'll be on our
way."

"Let me see the food," the man said.

"John get a day's worth of food out for
three people." Carl kept his gaze leveled on the man but when he
said three people, the man didn't argue with him. A sense of relief
filled him; someone could still get hurt, but it would be a lot
easier to subdue three people rather than four or five. "And
water."

From the corner of his eye, Al saw Peter
open the door of the Caddy and climb out of the vehicle. A sinking
sensation filled his stomach as Peter approached John at the back
of the truck. He heard hissed words exchanged before Peter turned
toward them. "I'll gag that man if I have to," Carl muttered.

"I'll go talk to him," Al volunteered.

"He could shoot Xander if you move," Riley
said in a rushed whisper out of the side of her mouth. "I'll kill
Peter myself if he causes something to go wrong."

Al quirked an eyebrow at that, apparently
Riley's intention of making sure everyone stayed alive didn't
extend to Peter. "What's going on back there?" the man in the
doorway inquired.

"I'm sure it's fine," Carl placated. Even as
he was speaking the words, Peter was turning toward them.

Josh stepped out of the car and hurried to
the back of the truck. "Hey now," the man in the doorway said
around his mouthful of dip. He swung the gun toward Carl when he
took another step forward. "Stop, stop or I'll shoot."

"No!" Riley cried. She jerked her arm free
of Donald's hold and tossed her gun aside. Al winced as the weapon
clattered on the pavement but he kept his attention focused on the
man in the doorway. Riley put her hands in the air as she stepped
closer. "Don't shoot him! Peter probably doesn't like the idea of
giving up the supplies but it's not up to him. This is
our
choice and I'm telling you that
my friends and I are
not
a threat
to you. I'll walk in there right now if that will help prove it to
you."

"Riley," Xander hissed.

"Please sir," Riley pleaded. "We simply need
a place to stay for the night. A place where those
things
can't find us."

The man studied her before glancing at the
others by the truck. "I'll come with her," Xander offered.

"As will I," Donald volunteered.

Al's heart lumbered in his chest as he
glanced over at the woods again. Heaving a deep breath, the man
spit another wad of chew on the ground before finally lowering his
shotgun. "Just bring the food in," he ordered.

"Thank you," Riley breathed as her hands
dropped to her sides.

Xander pulled her close and kissed her
forehead. "You might want to retrieve your gun," the man told Riley
as she approached. "You never know when there might be
trouble."

Al bent to retrieve it from the ground. He
tried to hand the gun to her but instead of taking the gun back she
moved closer to him, wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged
him. "It's not a burden to be left behind, to wonder why," she
whispered. "That's just the way things are. It's a gift to still be
here, no matter how awful it is."

She was his height, and yet she felt small
and childlike within his arms as he hugged her back. "Yes,
sometimes it is," he agreed.

Riley stepped away from him and took back
her gun as John approached with the bag of supplies. "How much of a
problem is Peter going to be?" Al inquired.

John shrugged and shifted the bag in his
hand. "Not much of one. Josh got him to agree that finding shelter
was more important than food right now."

"Well that's a relief," Riley said.

Riley turned and followed Xander and Donald
into the floral store. Al waited for Nancy to gather Spooky from
the car before following behind them.

Xander,

Xander took hold of Riley's hand as she
stepped into the shadowed interior of the store. The heady scent of
the flowers caused his nose to wrinkle as he took in the dead and
wilted bouquets still gathered on the counter, the walk-in coolers,
and hanging in the front windows. Stalks drooped, brown petals
littered the floor, and in the other room he could see large plants
that had fallen over and were lying on the ground.

Beneath the counter was a single flashlight
that was pointing up at the underside of the shelf. Its dim beam
barely illuminated the woman, and a boy about Rochelle's age, that
were standing behind the counter. A rifle sat on the counter, the
woman's hand rested upon the barrel but she made no move to lift
it. The woman had a rounded figure with ample breasts. Her graying
dark brown hair had been pulled into a loose bun at the nape of her
neck. Her hazel eyes were troubled as she watched them filter into
the room. She kept her arm locked around the slender boy's chest.
The boy's hazel eyes were nearly the same color as the woman's, his
brown hair was a shaggy mop that curled at the nape of his
neck.

The large man remained in the doorway until
Mary Ellen stepped inside with Rochelle. He quietly closed and
locked the door behind them. The man's gaze ran over all of them
before settling on the bag in John's hand. John held the bag out to
him and the man snatched it away. He opened the bag to peer peered
inside before giving it to the woman.

"I'm Jim," he introduced. "That's my wife,
Claire and our son, Freddie."

Carl extended his hand to the man and shook
it before introducing all of them. Xander watched Freddie as the
boy tore into a granola bar from the bag. Claire and Jim had to be
hungry too, but neither of them touched the food, they simply
watched their son eat. "Do you own this store?" Al inquired.

Jim shook his head as he glanced around the
florist shop. "No. Our home was about a mile down the road but it
went up in flames during the quakes. We came to this area in search
of help, or some answers. In the beginning there was rescue
personnel that helped to keep everyone organized and under control.
We were staying in the motel with a bunch of other survivors, but
then the sickness began to spread and all control was lost."

"When the ones with the sickness started to
turn on us, we fled, but this was as far as we got. There were so
many of them and just the three of us. We hid in the first place we
could find. In the beginning we had some supplies, but we ran out
yesterday. Jim was going to go out tomorrow to try and find
something but…" Claire's words trailed off as her gaze went past
them to the backdoor.

"We hear them out there," Jim said. "Moving
around at night, hunting."

"Killing," Freddie whispered.

Claire took hold of the bag. She removed a
couple more granola bars and two bottles of water before placing
the bag under the counter. "We don't know what's going on out there
anymore." Jim's voice was hushed as his gaze turned to the glass
front windows with the curtains pulled over them. "We haven't seen
anyone that wasn't sick in a couple of weeks. I'd begun to think
that maybe we were the last ones left."

Riley shuddered beside him; wrapping her
hand around his arm, she took a step closer to him. Xander couldn't
imagine the loneliness and confusion these three people had to have
been going through while hiding in here. "What is it like out there
now?" Claire asked.

"Better than the area that we came from,"
John answered. "But those sick ones, they're getting more
aggressive."