“I don’t know,” Alma says. “I could ask you the same thing about you and Thorn.”
“Hardly.” I took the invitation to drop the subject. She had lost Travis just before we left for the mountains from Eden’s farm. He had been infected during the raid on the compound. I suspected it was when he plowed his truck through the horde of zombies with his driver’s side window down.
She took it well when it happened, staying by his side for days as he slowly deteriorated. In the end, she was the one who took him down.
When we round the path into a clearing, I hear a crack of a branch from within the tree line up ahead. Ezekiel holds up a fist to signal us to stop.
I suppress the urge to point out his folly. If we hear their movements, they have already been watching us for some time. If we hear a branch breaking, it’s because they want us to hear it.
The three of us step into the middle of the clearing. I keep my arms slightly elevated, palms forward. The weight of my crossbow gives me some comfort.
Following my cue, Ezekiel and Alma do the same, keeping a small distance between us. I watch the shadows, searching for movement. They appear slowly, molding out of the shadows, each of them carrying a bladed weapon, knives, axes.
They step forward until we are surrounded by about thirty of them, still completely silent. They had gotten good at this.
Just in front of me, she appears. Again, she stands with confidence, even though she is the only one without a weapon in hand. Though I do notice the large Bowie knife strapped to her hip in the white leather holster.
Her pristine white pants and crisp white tee shirt accent the petiteness of her frame. She keeps her hands to her side except to gesture for the others to lower their weapons. I step forward, keeping my eyes steady on her.
“Hello Fairlight,” I say.
“Ash Donovan,” she says with a purposeful grin. “We meet again.”
Five
“There’s no reason for all these theatrics, y’all,” she calls to the people around her, speaking in her signature southern accent. “She is an invited guest, after all. Come on, let’s get y’all back to camp. I bet you’re ready for somethin’ to eat.”
Alma nods. “I could eat.”
We walk for another two miles or so into a complex maze of chasms, traveling in silence. It quickly becomes clear they chose this area because of the difficulty of the terrain, to keep hidden what remained of their tribe. Briefly, we stop at a creek’s edge to refill our canteens.
“We must be getting close,” I say. “I smell roasting meat.”
“That would be us. Camp is about a quarter mile down the creek a ways. Thought we’d break out the finery since we’re embarking on a truce and all.”
“Well, I’m starving,” Alma says. She takes a swig of her water.
“Yep,” Ezekiel says. “We’re not far now.”
Just under ten minutes later, we round the corner to the camp. We had followed the stream into the natural enclosure of the box canyon.
The water flows into an underground tunnel, and the area is surrounded on three sides by towering stone walls smoothed over by time and erosion. Here and there, the rocks are dotted with fauna.
Up ahead, a large bonfire blazed, sending a plume of smoke up the center of the canyon. I noticed the depth of the camp was such that the smoke dissipated enough by the time it reached the top, keeping the camp well-hidden from both humans and non-humans alike.
However, the succulent wild turkey roasting in the edge of the flames did little to divert any wild animals that might be in the area. My mouth waters at the tempting aroma.
“Since we found this place, we’ve fared well,” Fairlight said, as she steps alongside of me. “Do you see the armed lookouts at the tops there?”
I peer upwards to the top of the canyon, where she gestures on both sides. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Exactly.” She smirks. “Y’all can wash up in the stream there, but be careful of the current. It gets stronger closer to the canyon wall.”
“Of course,” I reply.
“Make yourself at home. We’ll eat shortly.”
I glance around, silently counting the number of people left in the camp, doing a mental comparison to the larger group we saw last year.
No more than twelve, a scraggle of people. Each of them carrying a weight of sadness in their eyes and shoulders. I cannot imagine the loss they must have experienced. Now and then, someone catches my gaze, glancing away quickly with an unmistakable excitement, a spark of hope flickering against the darkness of the palpable sadness.
I make my way to the water’s edge, taking a moment to splash the cool liquid onto my arms and face to refresh from the day’s hike. It feels good and cold against my skin, and I lower the lip of my canteen to fill it up. Deciding that the ground here looks even enough, mostly rock, some grass and pebbles, I pull off my shoes and dip my sore feet into the running water.
Alma approaches and sits down next to me. “Good idea,” she says, as she lowers her bare feet into the water. “Aah! That feels so good and cold!” She lay back against the grassy shore.
As I splash the water over my forearms, I take a moment to examine the gaping hole leading to the underground cave. I do not particularly prefer to be this close to it, but I want to get a good look before moving away. Though the diameter is not more than three feet, there is enough space for someone to crawl through as long as they did not care to get wet. I cannot help but imagine the darkness permeating the depths of the underground caverns.
“Food’s on!” one of the others calls from close to the fire.
“Oh, blessed be! I’m starving,” Alma mutters.
The food is parceled out by one of the members cutting up the meat, having transferred the steaming bird to the clean tree stump to carve it into manageable slices. These are then wrapped into an edible leaf, dandelion by the looks of it, to guard our fingertips against the heat. Portions are passed around to everyone. I wait for the others to begin before I tuck into mine. As much as I hate to wait, I figure it is only polite.
The three of us, Alma, Ezekiel, and I, sit cross-legged next to Fairlight. She quickly finishes her small portion before standing to address those gathered.
“For those of you who don’t know yet,” she began to speak in her quiet, yet fierce, voice, “we have some guests with us I’d like to introduce to everyone. You already know Ezekiel of course. He’s managed to find the one he’s told us about. She and her companion have come to help us. This is Alma, and this,” she gestures towards me, “is Ash Donovan. The one they called Baby A. Ash, would you like to say a few words?”
“Are you all the one’s who will bring our people back?” a woman speaks from the gathering shadows. I seek her out, finding a disheveled woman with dirty blonde hair practically clinging to the man next to her, equally disheveled. I realize her question prompted all eyes towards me, including Fairlight. To my surprise, even she held a flicker of a question in her eyes.
I stand up to be able to address them better. “I, um…” Being on the spot like this, I struggle with what to say. They all peer at me with these wide, desperate eyes, the losses of their family members hanging palpable in the air. “I don’t know what I can do to bring them back,” I say. “But I’ll do everything I can to stop what’s been happening. Perhaps it would help me if some of you could tell me a little bit about it.”
“Our daughter,” the woman said. “She was the one most recently taken, before we found this canyon. It hasn’t happened since we found this place.”
The man next to her turns away, his jaw muscles working to suppress his emotions. The woman fumbled with a locket around her neck, flipping it open and handing it forward to me.
The picture inside is hand-drawn but quite clear. The image depicts a little blonde girl with a unique, crooked smile.
Fairlight approaches, placing her hand on my arm. “The last few months have been hard on all of us,” she says, speaking to everyone. “Baby A is sp
ecial. She has promised to help as well as she can.”
“Ash,” I say.
“What?”
“You keep calling me Baby A. My name is Ash.”
“Of course,” she says with deference. “Ash.”
“What does it mean anyway? Baby A.”
“It means you were the first.”
Ezekiel leans in toward me, just slightly. “Does that mean there are others like you? Is there a Baby B and so on?”
I don’t answer right away, but my mind flickers back to the conversation between me and Marcus that night in the forest. How close I came to losing him. I return to my seat, picking up my food again, forcing myself to eat.
At least, at the very least, we make it through the majority of our meal before it happens. At first, I don’t even realize… but there is a sound, just a whisper of a growl, emanating from deep within the ground. I feel certain no one else can hear it. Just me and my heightened senses, what Fairlight considers “special.”
“What’s wrong?” Alma asks, peering intently at my face.
“I don’t know. Something is close by. The tunnel.”
She turns her gaze to the opening where the stream flows into the wall. “It can’t be,” she whispers, shaking her head ever so slightly.
“What is it?” Fairlight approaches, seeing the exchange between us. I extend my mental reach, trying to see if I can connect with whatever it is under the ground. It’s one of them for sure, but there is something different about the feeling of it. Considering these are sentient enough to kidnap a child, either they still have some shred of active mental capacity or Dr. Donovan has cracked the code in controlling them.
“Get everyone north,” I say. “Out of the canyon if possible.”
“But--”
“Now!” The headache hits me, like a spike through my temple, about three seconds before the zombie erupts out of the tunnel.
Fairlight speaks in a calm but serious tone, speaking over the screams, and directing the panicked crowd away from the threat. “Just move normally, but quickly. Head for the grove of trees at the canyon’s edge.”
The headache puts me under. I feel useless, utterly useless. I plant the ball of my hand against my forehead, wincing at the sudden pain.
The sun had already dipped well below the high walls of the canyon, but even the remaining twilight felt like a dagger through my eyes. I collapse forward onto all fours and vomit onto the ground before everything goes black.
When I come to, the pain has stopped. Ezekiel had killed the zombie, and the two of them had pulled it from the tunnel.
The pain, though gone, had left behind a strange euphoria. I felt as if I could barely move.
“Let me see it,” I say.
“You need to lie down,” Alma says. “You don’t need to be looking at anything right now.”
“I want to see it.” I pull myself up to sitting.
“Let her see it,” Ezekiel says, returning to our location. He and I exchange a glance. For the most part, the two of us have nothing short of animosity for each other, but in that brief moment, I feel an inkling of respect for him. Very few people could handle the presence of an actual zombie.
He holds his hand out to me, pulling me to my feet. I feel badly for tarnishing their camp, but already some of the women are wringing a cloth over the sick I had left.
The creature appears rather water-logged, exposed arms covered in swollen yellowish skin, peeling and split with black ooze seeping from within. This one had been underground for a good while.
“Pull the knife out,” I say.
“Ash.”
“Bring it out here. I want to see it.”
He hesitates, but watches my expression for several seconds. He motions toward one of the camp members and together they each took an arm, leveraging the creature out of the tunnel. Fairlight approaches, carefully observing the three of us.
“Has this happened before?” I say.
“Not here,” she replies.
“Do you think this is one of the fast ones?”
“Without a doubt. You may not have seen it, but it was pushing itself through the tunnel, climbing out with intentional movements, pushing against the side of the walls.”
The zombie looked like he used to be a regular person. He wore a tee shirt and jeans, mainly rotted away from the exposure to the underground alkaline water. The ground sways just a bit and Fairlight takes my arm.
“Maybe I do need to lie down,” I say.
She leads me to a small inlet within the stone wall of the canyon where they had laid out makeshift beds for us, a leather pallet laid over a parcel of clean hay spread on the ground. She tucks me in, pulling the tanned animal hide over me.
All I want is to lie still and close my eyes, but I spot Alma a few feet away, dampening a cloth with a plastic bottle of water. She glances my way with a crease of worry around her eyes. I wave her over.
“You okay?” she says.
“I will be. I just need to close my eyes for a bit.” She does not appear convinced, but she places the cool cloth on my forehead. “I’m sorry I lost it back there,” I say.
“Yeah, what happened there? Did that thing get in your head?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I mean, you’ve seen me around them before. You saw how it was at Eden’s farm when we went up to clear the fence?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“It’s always been unpleasant, but nothing like this.”
She adjusts the cloth, pulling it down over my eyes. “Try and get some rest,” she says. “We’ll need you alert when the time comes. They’re fortifying the entrance, but I heard them say something about moving camp tomorrow.”
“Probably not a bad idea,” I mumble, feeling the pull of sleep already overtaking my body.
“I’ll be over there if you need anything. Just give me a shout, okay?”
“Okay, I will.” By the time she steps away, the post-migraine euphoria has kicked into overdrive. I know the others are staying up to talk, but within seconds I can no longer hear them.
Six
The following week remains largely uneventful, which allows me to gain a layout of the landscape. The mornings consist of venturing out to explore.
Most of the time I go alone, but on occasion I like to trail along with the hunting group. The first three days after the incident we spent relocating camp to another area within the canyons. This one held a small trickle of water coursing down from the rocks. It did not appear as secure as the box canyon, but at least we had one curved wall as a source of protection.
We set up a scheduled watch on the remaining three sides of the camp. This gave me plenty of time to take up my crossbow once more. Even during my time at SeaHaven, I did not let myself grow lax in my discipline. I never know when I’ll need it. But other than the incident with the zombie from under the mountain, I don’t see any more of them.
But I feel them.
They are here, somewhere just out of sight. Around the bend, over the horizon. That sensation of my skin crawling, of something scratching inside me to get out, I had almost forgotten what it felt like.
Ezekiel shows me the best hunting areas. With me along, he decides to leave his shotgun behind on most days. He prefers knives, I think, because of the potential for close combat. He likes the risk. Also, they are quite useful for skinning badgers, and sometimes, if we get really lucky, a deer.
Through this time, we forged a bit of a tentative friendship. I see in his eyes he still does not fully trust me. Perhaps he never will, but he shows me how to fashion a bow and arrow out of the reeds at the water’s edge.
In turn, I teach him the variety of available plant life in the area. Each day we circle a little bit further out, away from the camp, only speaking when necessary. It is on one of these hunting trips when he asks me a question.
“So, what’s the plan?” he says.
We are lying on our stomachs, weapons at the ready, at the top of a ridge line looki
ng out over a meadow. The deer liked to go there during the dusk hours. We hoped to bring at least one back with us.
“What plan?” I reply, keeping my eye steady on the scope.
“You know. The plan. Now that you’re here, what’s the next step? What will you do?”
It takes me a minute to figure out how to respond to him without scaring off any potential kills hiding at the edge of the meadow. I take a breath, steadying my heart rate before I answer. “We need to move the camp. It’s only a matter of time before there’s another breech.”
“Where do you think we should move them?” he asks.
I glance sideways toward him. “Back to your parents' place.”
The edge of his jawline tenses up. He blinks his eyes rapidly. “Out of the question.”
“Ezekiel, we’re exposed where we are, and you know it. Your place has water, and we can fortify the fencing. It’s the only place we can keep the rest of them safe.”
He closes his eyes, resting his forehead on the slight, inclined lift of the ground beneath him. “I don’t know if I can go back there, Ash.”
Ah, there it is. I give him a minute. The truth is, I’ve wondered the same about myself.
“I get it,” I reply. “But I’ll be honest with you. You brought me here to help stop what’s been happening to the tribe. Right now, that’s the closest place.”
Ezekiel’s demeanor changes. His body tenses up as his arms pull tension into his bow. I turn and see the buck stepping tentatively into the field, and I immediately steady my crossbow up to aim.
Before I have a chance to focus my scope onto the deer, I hear the zing snap as Ezekiel’s arrow flies to the mark.
“Got him,” he whispers with an edge of excitement in his voice. “Let’s go skin that sumbitch!”
We stand up, both of us stomping out the tingling in our legs before we head out across the field. At least the victory of the hunt did well to distract Ezekiel from the matter at hand.
We make quick work of the deer, Ezekiel taking the lead on pulling out the stomach before we hack the rest of it into pieces, tying them into a manageable satchel to carry back to the camp. We would all eat well tonight.
The Rising Ash Saga | Book 2 | Falling Embers Page 4