He made his bed in a small room, pressed up against a window wall overlooking the main street. The high-rise of his former tribe dominated the view, highlighted by the moon shinning bright on the soaring structures. Fires dotted every corner of the rooftops, the flames broken from time to time by figures moving along the edge. Rowan imagined what was happening, but the thought only made him feel worse. He was nearly lost in his sadness when a faint sound echoed from beyond the door leading back out into the hall.
He shook the haze from his mind and leapt to his feet. He approached the door with hesitant steps, his knife out in front of him at the ready. He’d only made a cursory sweep of the top floor and its open rooms, sure of his safety. He cursed himself for putting down his guard; he was trapped and he knew it. He’d have to fight his way back down the hall in order to get to the ground floor.
The knob for the door was long gone, leaving a circular hole and a line of sight out into the hallway. Rowan slowly got down on his knees and peered through the breach. The moonlight cascading in through the window wall provided enough illumination to see a few feet, but no more. If he was going to find out what was moving around, he’d have to go out and see for himself.
Rowan had half a mind to shove the remaining items in the room against the door and wait it out until morning. If the undead were stalking the hall, a small barricade and a prolonged silence would be enough to save him, but if some of the infected had gotten into the building, he’d be trapped and dead for sure. He got to his feet and slid the decaying chair he’d placed against the door out of the way. Every sound echoed out into the hall, each one causing a renewed thumping in his chest.
The door pulled inward, only opening a crack. Rowan pressed his face against the doorframe and tried desperately to see into the darkness. He struggled to slow his heartbeat, anticipating something jumping out at him. He held his stare for a long time, but the noise didn’t return. He’d nearly convinced himself that he was hearing things when a distinct sound of soft footsteps moved toward him.
The door trembled in front of his eye as his hand shook. His mind was incapable of deciding whether or not to close the door before whatever was out in the hall reached the light. He came to a solution a moment before he saw movement at the edge of the moonlight. He made out a face, but the recognition didn’t set in until he instinctively slammed the door.
“That’s not very nice.”
Mia’s voice came through loud and clear. Rowan pulled the door open and threw his arms around her.
“I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.” He yanked her into the room before she had a chance to respond. “What are you doing here?” He let her go, and light from the window revealed the damage to her face. Her eye was swollen shut and a deep shade of purple covered most of the skin from her eyebrow to her ear. “Oh no.”
He slid the tips of his fingers along the outline of the bruise. Mia grabbed his hand and squeezed.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Like hell,” Rowan countered, unable to hide his anger. The sight of her erased the fear that had nearly consumed him only a moment before. “It’s not all right.”
Mia started to defend her punishment, but the words got lost in her throat. She gave up and forced herself closer to him. Rowan put his arms around her and felt her give up most of her strength. He guided her to the ground and they sat quietly for a while as she cried, unable to look at him. Mia wiped at her eyes after a time and pulled her head from his chest.
“You can’t come back,” she said.
The sound of the proclamation was hard for Rowan to hear.
“He can’t do that,” he said. “He doesn’t have the power to banish someone on his own.” Even as he said it, Rowan knew Arkin had a strong enough following within the tribe’s council to convince them to do nearly anything. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he finally admitted.
Mia pulled her knees up close to her face. She leaned her head against Rowan’s shoulder as she focused her eyes out the window. Rowan could feel her trembling. He pulled himself around her and tried to get comfortable.
“He’s going to know where you went,” he said.
“I don’t care.” Her face shot around. “I’m not going back.”
“What? Don’t be crazy.” He brushed the idea off, trying not to laugh. “You have to.”
Mia pushed him back. “I don’t have to do anything, and why would you say that?”
The pale light highlighted the damage to her face. Rowan slowly shook his head.
“This isn’t a game,” he said. “I can’t protect you by myself. Darian was stronger than me and look what happened…” He lost the words as he stood up and walked to the window. “There’s something happening. I know what I saw.” He turned around to face her. “The infected are gathering.”
“But they’ve gathered before.”
Rowan shook his head. “Not like this.” He turned and looked down at the long-abandoned streets. “Nothing like this.”
Mia popped up with sudden excitement. “Then we’ll run away and get as far from here as we can.” She looked back at the door as if she was willing to start running at that very moment. “There’s nothing to keep us here now.”
Rowan kept quiet for a long time, before finally shaking his head again.
“Where would we go?” He shrugged. “We don’t even know if the other tribes are out there. The wanderers are the only other people we’ve seen in a long time.” He heard the air rush out of her lungs. She stared at him, her eyes red, filled with pain.
“I can’t leave Jonah.”
He already knew that. Rowan knew Mia’s place was with the tribe. If he let her leave with him, it would kill her inside.
“We have to do something,” Mia insisted.
Rowan’s brow rose as a memory flashed through his mind. He rummaged through the belt pouches laid out on the floor. A moment’s search produced the peculiar device he’d found in the field outside the city. Mia’s head cocked to the side.
“What about this?” Rowan asked, holding it up.
“What is it?”
Rowan shrugged. “I don’t know, but…” He paused as he thought about what he was going to say. “I think I heard it talk.”
He turned the device over and examined the crack along the side. He ran his finger over the split and found it was perfectly straight. A small groove down one side matched an extension on the opposite side. Rowan pressed on the clip, the entire side snapped into place along the groove, and the split disappeared.
A hushing sound emitted from the device, and the sudden clamor caused Rowan to drop it to the ground. Mia rushed toward the window, slipping in behind him. The two looked down at the gadget with a mixture of fear and bewilderment. The sound disappeared, but Rowan was hesitant to reach down and pick it up. Instead, he pushed his leg out and rotated the thing with his foot. A small red light stuck out in the dark from the top side of the device near the other buttons.
“Do you think one of the infected could have—”
Rowan held his hand up to cut her off. He started to give a half-concocted answer when another voice filled the room.
“Red two this is watchtower, over.”
Rowan felt Mia’s grip tighten on the back of his arms. The static hushing continued for another few seconds and then the device went silent.
“At least I know I’m not going crazy,” Rowan said.
“How can it talk?”
“I don’t think it is.” Rowan picked it up and looked at the buttons on top. “I think someone was using this to talk to the dead person we found in the grass.”
“Like the people of the old world?” she asked.
Rowan nodded but kept his focus on the device. There was something missing on the top of it beside the buttons. He tried to slip his finger into a small hole lined with circular edges. The history of the previous generations of man was not a forgotten subject. A number of t
he members of the tribe could read. Rowan and other young members had spent countless hours in a few of the rooms on the top floor of the Cheyenne Tribe’s central high-rise, learning from books of the old world. Arkin had been one of the key instructors for Rowan, Mia, and Darian.
Rowan finally nodded. “I think so.”
“But how could it still work?”
That was a good question, and Rowan had no idea how such a thing was possible. The wanderers were the only people he knew of who still had working devices from the past, and very few of them remained. He considered the question a while longer and something finally came to him.
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“How?”
“Last winter Darian and I found a water tower beyond the highway crossing,” he said.
“I remember.” Mia frowned. “You two were missing for three days and my father swore you were probably dead.” She shook her head. “I cried for a full night.”
“Sorry.” He cringed. “Well, we got lost. And we ran into—”
“The squatter?” she asked.
“He was a wanderer,” Rowan explained. “He was holing up for the winter before moving on.”
“There’s no way he’d still be there.”
“Maybe not, but he didn’t look so good. Darian and I both thought he was in no shape to travel.”
“Then he’s probably dead,” Mia said, bluntly. “He would have had to survive all this time by himself.”
Rowan knew she was most likely correct.
“Why bother anyway?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe this has something to do with the infected gathering.”
“You mean, maybe you can show my father that you were right.”
“He already saw that for himself.” He studied her face. “You should get back.”
“What? No way,” she said. “I want to help you.” She crossed her arms. “You can’t make me go.”
She was as stubborn as a mule and Rowan knew it. He tried another approach.
“What about Jonah?”
She glared at him. “He’s safe,” she said.
“And what about your father?”
“He can’t be any madder at me than he already is.”
Rowan doubted that.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do next.” He could see her going over it in her mind. “I’m not going to try to make you do anything.”
Mia let down her guard and came to him. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.
“I can’t lose you,” she whispered.
He forced her to look at him and then kissed her.
“You won’t have to.”
6
Rowan awoke before sunrise. He slept sounder than he thought possible. Mia stayed with him throughout the night, lying closer to one another than the two had ever spent in their lives. Rowan wanted to get moving; he knew Arkin would have a hunting party out looking for his daughter the moment he realized she was missing. Mia was convinced no one would know until she failed to start her morning chores, but Rowan wasn’t so sure.
“Hey, lazy.” He shoved her gently. “You going to get up today?”
She smiled, but didn’t open her eyes. “No.”
He pushed her again and then got to his feet. “Then I guess I’m leaving you here.”
“All right, I’m getting up.”
They gathered their things and shared an apple Mia brought with her. Their apparent lack of supplies was a glaring problem that neither of them wanted to admit. Food was a difficult thing to come across out in the dead city. The tribe had mastered the skill of growing the crops they needed in rooftop planting beds, but that luxury was no longer an option. The infected learned a long time ago that the easiest way to draw victims out was to destroy any food they came across. Hunger would drive people to risk anything to get their hands on something to eat.
Food and supplies were only a few of the growing concerns Rowan found tumbling around in his mind. He put on a smile for Mia. He was hopeful he could talk her into returning to the tribe, but the swelling on her face made it difficult to consider what her father might do to her. Mia was ready to go, and the duo pushed away the assortment of broken furniture they used to bar the door. The hallway was as quiet as the night before, but the streams of light flooding in from the open doorways made the trek appear less treacherous. Rowan started them off, and a few moments later they were down on the first floor scouting out the street in front of the building. He had a general idea about how to get to the water tower, but his memory was fuzzy on the details. Rowan assured himself that once they cleared the tallest of the dead city’s buildings, they would spot the tower and be able to guide themselves the rest of the way.
“How long will it take?”
Mia’s whispered question was the first words either of them spoke since they left the building. Rowan shrugged and then peered behind them. She wasn’t convinced on the plan to find the wanderer, but Rowan had nothing else. They reached an intersection beyond the first few buildings and had to run out into the open in order to get to the next block.
“Darian and I got turned around,” he said, keeping his eyes on the entrances of the buildings across from them. “If we can at least see the tower, we should reach it before dark.”
“Did you two run into trouble?”
The question was a particularly sticky one. The truth was that Darian had nearly gotten them killed. They’d stumbled across a large pack of infected. The group had tracked down a number of people trying to get across the city and trapped them. The scene wasn’t a pretty one. Darian convinced Rowan they had to try to help by getting some of the infected to follow them. The plan worked perfectly to a point. Most of the infected ran after Rowan, and he had to dash through a series of buildings to get away, nearly losing Darian in the process. They never did find out if the people they tried to help ever survived.
“We had our share,” he finally said, avoiding the specifics. “There’s no telling what the streets are like now.” He flipped his hand up, satisfied with the stillness around them. “Let’s go.”
They continued with the rush and wait pattern for a time and reached the center of the city as the sun rose to its highest point in the sky. The afternoon heat did little against an eastern blowing wind. There was enough crisp, cold air in the open streets to bring a cherry red highlight to exposed skin, a stark contrast to the day before. Adrenaline kept Rowan warm for a while, but any time spent standing in the shadows of the buildings produced shivers. He tried to keep his focus on the endless entrances and exits, but a growing roar from his stomach became impossible to ignore.
“The dead can hear that you know.”
Rowan wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up,” she flashed a smile, “we’re going to have to eat eventually.”
Rowan nodded. “I didn’t have time to pack for the trip.” Mia’s smile faded. “Let’s get to the water tower and see if there’s any sign of the wanderer.” He turned to face her. “We can reach the old gardens before sundown.”
Mia swallowed and then nodded. Rowan knew what she was thinking. The old gardens hadn’t actually been gardens since long before Rowan and Mia were born. The area was named after one of the last attempts of the living to reestablish a community. They’d managed to build a small, but sustainable town in the center of the decaying remains of Cheyenne. The tribe’s records called it one of the first accounts of the infected forming in groups, focused on a common purpose. It wasn’t an army by any means, but the infected came in waves. They drew the last of the living from one side of their fortification to the other. Smaller groups herded the dead into the openings left behind in the chaos. Once the infected got inside, the town was done for. Some believe the few people who escaped the fight were the
original members of the Cheyenne Tribe.
“Are you sure there’s enough time?” Mia asked.
Rowan peeked around the corner of the building, leaning out as far as he could without taking a step. “Come here,” he said. “Look.” Mia slid out behind him and followed his hand to the edge of a structure a few streets away. The side of the water tower was nearly hidden between a pair of high-rises. “He’ll either be there or he won’t.”
The water tower stood out on the horizon like a beacon the moment they crossed the street. They were a block away before Rowan finally came to stop. The entire base of the tower was comprised of a series of long, metal beams. The four structural beams were littered with decaying, dismembered bodies. The ground was burnt and blackened. Rowan’s eyes ran along the beams, finding the ladder entrance in shambles mid-way up the side. It appeared as if the door on top of the container had been torn apart. A smear of bloodstains around the entryway left little hope for survivors.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Mia said. “I can’t believe he’d survive up there very long by himself.”
“Who knows how long he’s been coming here.”
“Someone’s had to have seen him get in and out of there,” she said. “There’s more than the dead and infected to worry about around here.”
Her warning was an important reminder. The Cheyenne Tribe got its moniker from the long dead city, but they were far from the only living people claiming ownership of the land. Cheyenne was littered with small clans, most of which lived as scavengers, but others were as nefarious as the walking dead or the infected. Rowan started toward the base of the tower and Mia grabbed his shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“We have to check and see if he’s up there.”
“No, we don’t.” Her eyes ran up the side of the closest beam and settled on the top section. “We’ll have to figure out another way.” She shook her head.
“It won’t take me very long. Wait here and—”
The sound was low but out of place. Growing up in and around the decaying city had taught every member of the tribe how to listen for danger. The expanding size of Mia’s eyes validated the sudden pounding of Rowan’s heart. She already had her knife drawn and her legs spread for balance.
The Decaying World Saga Box Set [Prequel #1-#2 & Books #1-#2] Page 48