ANYONE ELSE?: (ANYONE Series Book 2) A post-apocalypic survival novel

by Angela Scott

My second worry, Marco said he could hear the stream, which was a good thing. Only, I had no idea whether to walk in the same direction the stream flowed or if I should walk against it. Either I walked toward Marco or I was walking farther away from him. So, I went with my gut and chose to walk against it, hoping Marco was upstream.

  I had counted to three hundred, give or take a few numbers, and stopped. I unhooked the walkie-talkie from my belt loop and pressed the button. “Marco?”

  “Yes! Yes, I’m here! Are you here? I don’t see you.” Panic and desperation coated his words. “Where are you?”

  Geez. He probably hadn’t turned his walkie-talkie off the entire time. Also, how had he expected me to walk several miles in only three hundred counts? Even if I ran, I couldn’t do that.

  “I’m getting closer,” I told him, which I assumed was true. Though I’d been walking for at least three hundred counts, the line of trees still seemed far away. So very far away. If I’d made progress, I hadn’t made all that much. I decided to keep that bit of information to myself. No need to panic him more.

  Even though he’d probably kept his walkie-talkie on and wasted precious battery life, at least he answered. The idea of switching mine on to find nothing but endless static and knowing I’d have to retrace my steps and start over would’ve been disheartening. It took all my strength to make it as far as I had. At least, at this point, I seemed to be heading in the right direction.

  “How much longer? I mean, are you close? Will you get here by nightfall?”

  The sun hung a little low in the sky. I supposed it was mid-afternoon, but I had no idea where I was heading or how long it would take to get there. He’d asked a question I had no real answer to give. I pressed my button, “I hope so,” I said.

  “I hope so, too.” He let out a long hard breath. “Tess?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I … I can’t feel my legs anymore.”

  “Are you still tied to your tree?”

  “Yes.”

  Sometimes I felt as though I were talking with a child. “Use your knife and cut the rope. That should help. The winds have stopped so you don’t need to be tied up anymore.”

  He pressed his button, but didn’t speak for a minute, though I could hear him breathe. “I can’t reach my backpack, and if I could I don’t think it would help.”

  “You need to get the ropes off to get the circulation going again. If you can’t reach your backpack, then you need to try and untie yourself. Get it loose.”

  “If you think that will help, I’ll try.”

  “I think that will help a lot.” Holy moly ! “Marco, I’m going to turn my walkie-talkie off now. You need to do the same to save the battery, because if you don’t I won’t be able to find you … as easy.” I tossed in the last two words to soften the blow without getting him too upset. “We’ll talk again in three hundred counts, okay?”

  “Tess?”

  He was really pushing the limits of my patience. “Yes?”

  “Could you bring me some water? I’m really thirsty.”

  “Of course. Now try and get your rope off and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Tess?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Marco.” I turned off my walkie-talkie. If I let him, he’d keep right on talking, but if I had any chance at all to make it to him before it grew dark, I had to be the one to disconnect.

  “You thirsty?” I asked Callie. If she heard me at all, she made no indication.

  Having found freedom outside of my backpack, she took full advantage of it by frolicking through the blades of grass and leaping from one thick pile to another, tangling her leash around my legs in the process. She’d become a completely different cat from the one that wanted to claw my eyes out earlier.

  I’d been thirsty from the moment I’d found myself lying face down in the field, but I had pushed aside my thirst. It wasn’t the best thing to do, but once I’d made it to my feet, the thought of kneeling on the ground to filter and gather water sounded a lot worse than suffering from dehydration.

  Marco needed water, I needed water, and Callie probably needed some, too. I untangled the leash from my legs and cut a path through the grass to the stream.

  Callie bounded through the blades, a happy and content kitty, but when we drew closer to the sounds of the running water, she pulled on the leash and meowed. Yep, totally thirsty.

  I held her back, not letting her get too close, because the last thing I needed was a cat with diarrhea. Her peeing on my supplies was bad enough. Maybe her stomach could handle unfiltered water, but I wasn’t about to take that risk. No one really knew how safe the water was anymore. As much as Callie drove me crazy, I still loved her enough to protect her.

  I tied the end of her leash to a wisp of a tree, several feet from the water. The tree wasn’t much and if Callie tugged hard enough, she’d free herself. Fortunately, she didn’t even try.

  With as much care as possible, I eased myself to the ground and tried not to kneel on my left knee. I’d bandaged it, stopping the blood from soaking through the material of my pants. It hurt like a mother.

  I sat on my bum, my legs angled to the side, and undid my backpack. With my bottle in one hand and the filter in the other, I lowered one hose into the stream and placed the other into the mouth of my water bottle. Usually, it took two people to do this. Well, maybe it only took one, but I’d never quite got the hang of it. Dad or Toby always helped. Now, I had to balance the bottle and keep the hose in it while pumping the small contraption and hoping the stream wouldn’t whisk the whole thing away. Eventually, I placed the bottle between my legs and held it tight with my thighs so I could focus all my efforts on moving the handle up and down. Water trickled from the end of the hose and began to fill my bottle.

  Callie meowed louder than her usual self, but I ignored her. The crazy impatient cat. I was thirsty, too. As much as I wanted to lift the partially filled bottle to my lips, I didn’t. I had restraint and self-control.

  But Callie screeched her pathetic kitty howls, and when I lifted my head to swear at my cat and tell her to knock it off, my words became lost in my throat.

  Oh. My. Goodness.

  The young deer on the opposite bank watched me, its dark eyes flicking from me to Callie. Its little puff of a tail wiggled back and forth.

  My cat had never seen another animal in her short life. She went berserk, but not enough to rip her leash from the tiny tree-like bush, thank goodness. Animal instinct made her crazy. The deer didn’t seem fazed— more curious than anything.

  I sat frozen, watching the most beautiful deer I’d ever seen take several steps into the stream. It glanced from me to Callie and then lowered its sleek head to drink the flowing water. It raised its head again. Water lapped against its long legs as it watched us.

  Was it the same deer as the one I’d seen on the video, or was it a completely different deer? I had no idea. Live, in color, and in all its glory, it was much different than a black and white recording.

  Watching the deer was incredible. Miraculous, even. I didn’t dare move. I didn’t dare blink.

  I feared that one wrong move and the deer would become nothing more than a hallucination and disappear in a puff of white. In that moment, should it have disappeared, I couldn’t have handled it. I needed this deer and all it represented — hope, change, and possibilities.

  Maybe things were changing. A real live deer in the woods, drinking water from a stream and not keeling over dead, was all the optimism I needed. The meteors, the chemical chain reaction to the earth, the crazy environmental impact it had on life seemed to have settled. Things were getting better. It wasn’t perfect since I’d just lived through nightmarish winds, but the deer proved that everything was getting better, fixing and mending itself.

  It gave me hope. If we could live through the wild winds and whatever else nature tossed at us, then maybe we could rebuild and live a normal life again. />
  Something I never even considered.

  As long as Dad and Toby were okay, we could start fresh.

  That was what the deer meant to me — a lot of pressure to put on one animal, but necessary to my mental salvation.

  The deer took a few more steps toward me and stopped. I lifted my hand slowly, so I wouldn’t spook it, and ran my fingers down the length of its silky neck.

  This is really happening!

  It stiffened, unsure of my touch. When I withdrew my hand, the deer stepped forward and bumped its nose against my fingers. She wanted more, and I was more than willing to supply it. Up and down the length of its long nose and sleek neck, I ran my fingers, feeling its pulse beneath my fingertips.

  I’d never experienced anything like this in my entire life but knew this had to be exactly what a Disney princess felt like.

  Chapter 12

  The trees lying on their sides like toppled dominos let me know I was walking in the right direction, but the aftermath of the winds and the apparent destruction threatened to destroy any sense of hope I’d once felt from petting the deer.

  The base of large trees, and their roots the same size and circumference of semi trucks, flanked me on either side. I wove between them and their massive branches which created a puzzle to step over and crouch through without becoming tangled and entrapped.

  Bushes and rocks, ripped from the places in which they’d probably sat for decades, were shoved against the fallen trees, forming a dam of sorts. Large mounds of impassable wreckage piled at least two stories high forced me away from the stream, my only sense of direction in the chaotic mess, and I had to walk quite a way around it before meeting up with the stream again. Climbing over any of it wasn’t an option. Not because I was physically incapable with my bruises and broken ribs, but for anyone. Even the best athletic person wouldn’t be able to climb it.

  The once natural coolness of the mountainside disappeared and gave way to stifling heat and humidity the further I went into the thicket of dense trees. Sweat lined my forehead and dripped along the base of my neck. There was no reason for the Florida-like temperatures in higher elevations of the western mountains. Since the chaos of the apocalypse started, I’d learned that trying to make sense of the insensible was nothing more than a waste of time. Tornados, high winds, debilitating heat, hail the size of softballs, and a blanket of humidity seemed the way the world worked now. The earth had been forever changed. To expect anything different would only cause disappointment and frustration.

  Any semblance of the path we’d once followed through the mountainside earlier that morning had long since been obliterated. And as much as Callie wanted to walk, it had become impossible. I’d picked her up and held her, but soon that too became difficult. I needed my hands and arms free to push through tight spaces and move branches out of the way to keep from tripping. I put her back inside my backpack — an adventure in itself — but kept the top partly unzipped and her leash short. She seemed content enough to ride if she could poke her head out and watch, though she meowed whenever I accidentally knocked the backpack on a branch. I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t the best at eye-balling distance or navigating through a minefield of downed trees.

  Several times I glanced behind me, searching for the deer which followed at a safe distance like a large and eager puppy. Just knowing it was there lifted my spirits and made the long walk palatable. When I’d approached the area of flattened grasses and tumbled trees, the deer’s appearance became sparser and the space between us wider. The labyrinth of fallen trees hindered it. I had two legs to figure out how to maneuver through the disaster, while the deer had four. Still, I needed that deer. I really needed that deer and the hope it brought with it.

  When I could no longer see it, my heart sank.

  Perhaps the foreboding atmosphere affected the deer as it had affected me. I continued to hope that maybe, just maybe, the deer hadn’t completely left.

  It’ll be okay. Just get to Marco.

  I bent at the waist, wrapped one arm around my sore ribs, and used the other to push away thin, wispy branches. The atmosphere felt more like a jungle safari than a hike.

  When the branches cleared enough that I could straighten, I took a moment to lean against a tree. My ribs hurt. Each breath threatened to crack me open. A few ribs had to be broken, or if not, they had been deeply bruised. The intense pain grew worse the more I moved. The ace bandage I’d wrapped around myself to provide support didn’t help much. I wasn’t sure how much good I’d be to Marco, not in my current condition. Maybe together we’d find a way to help each other out of our horrible predicament and find the others.

  Thinking of him, I pulled the walkie-talkie from the front pocket of my backpack and pressed the button. “Marco?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m here!”

  I didn’t respond. I could’ve sworn I’d heard his voice coming from the right of me, like a two second delayed echo. I turned in that direction and pressed the button. “Say something again.”

  “What?” His one word wasn’t enough to be certain of anything.

  “Marco, say something more. I think I might be getting closer.”

  “Oh, okay. I’m just sitting here, waiting for you and really hoping you’ve brought water, because my mouth is super dry and I’m sweating buckets. Did you notice how hot it is? Man, it’s hot. I’m not sure….”

  I stopped hearing anything he said. I’d asked for him to say more than one word, my fault really, and boy did he deliver.

  Sure enough, as his words came through the walkie-talkie, I could hear the same words not that far off. A smile spread across my lips.

  I’m almost there.

  I couldn’t believe I’d found him. With the pain I tried to ignore, it hadn’t seemed possible when I’d first told him I’d try.

  I took a few steps in the direction his rambling words came from. I had to stop again when something brushed across the top of my head, snagging my hair and pulling it tight.

  Dang it!

  Callie meowed, but I disregarded her as I tried to reach upward and grab hold of whatever had trapped me. Only it hurt to raise either of my arms higher than my chest. After a moment of trying one arm, I’d try the other without much luck.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  It wasn’t that long ago when Richard had straddled me and pushed a tube into my chest, and now my ribs had been knocked around in my incredible flight through the mountains. Everything hurt—my chest, my knee, the front of my head, the back of my head, everything—and now a branch had tangled my hair, stopping me. Really? A freakin’ branch would be my downfall after everything I’d gone through!

  All the while I struggled to release myself, Marco kept right on talking and talking. He hadn’t taken his finger off the button to even see if I was still listening. Go figure.

  Because lifting either of my arms for any length of time was out of the question, I bit my lip and yanked my head forward. I twisted and turned, determined to free myself. After a moment of thrashing, I came loose, leaving a nice chunk of hair behind, my head stinging and pounding in the wake of it.

  Jeez!

  I turned to see how much hair had been ripped out, feeling somewhat scalped. I stumbled backwards, my mouth open. No words escaped my lips. Oh, no, no, no!

  Large strands of my hair dangled from the dead man’s hand, caught between portions of twisted and broken bones and the crushed wedding band on what remained of the ring finger.

  Real fingers. Real human fingers.

  My eyes locked on the mangled body that hung upside down from the branches by one leg. The head, concaved on one side, and the neck tilted at an obtuse angle made the whole thing seem more Halloween-ish than real. Seemingly dismantled and put back together again, the face was unrecognizable. I scrambled to remember what Dad had been wearing the last I’d seen him.

  Brown plaid? Did he wear a brown plaid shirt? Think, Tess. Think!

  It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him.
It just couldn’t.

  But I couldn’t remember what he wore. I’d seen him that morning. How could I have forgotten? It wasn’t as if days had passed, though it certainly felt like it. Only hours had gone by, but I couldn’t remember anything.

  Maybe it was Dale. The wind had carried him off and smashed him into a tree. Yeah, it had to be Dale. As much as I wanted to pass the body off as his, a crushing reality settled in the pit of my stomach — Dale was a much bigger man.

  It had to be someone else. Someone else’s body hung from the tree.

  Not Dad, it can’t be Dad.

  But Dad wore a wedding band. Even after years had passed since Mom’s death, he wore it. He wore it all the time. A gold band with an infinity symbol etched into it. An inscription on the inside read: Together as One for Always.

  My hair clung from the dead man’s wedding band.

  The pain in my chest grew. Each breath threatened to rip me apart and toss my heart on the ground. My lungs didn’t want to expand.

  “It is so hot. Can you believe how hot it has gotten? It’s incredible. I still can’t see you. I know you said you were close, so I keep looking, but….” Marco’s voice filled in the silence where the incredible pounding of my heart left off.

  Not only had crashing into trees done a number on the body, but the heat and humidity added its own distortion and nastiness to it as well. Swollen and bloated—it seemed so unreal.

  As much as I wanted to walk away, forget everything about my hair being ripped out of my head by a corpse, I couldn’t leave.

  Not without knowing.

  I wrung my hands together, trying to calm their trembling, and took one long, but shallow breath. Just do it. Get it over with.

  Somewhat numb in feelings, and braver than I thought I could be, I approached the hanging body. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t give myself a chance to hesitate. I grabbed the cold stiff hand and flipped it around, searching for the infinity sign.

  There wasn’t one.

  I dropped the hand back into place and got the hell out of there.

  “I see you! I see you!” Marco’s voice boomed through the hand-held radio but carried over the distance as well.