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

by Angela Scott

  I leaned against a pillar, watching him scratch behind the deer’s ears as he waited for my response. I sighed. “If it’s because I made things awkward, I don’t know what got into me. I told you I was sorry, and I really meant it. I know you have this whole no-touchy-no-feely rule, and I’m trying to respect that, but you have to admit that Old Spice has come a long way with its product line. Much better than some of the others, and after smelling lots of rotting food, baby poop, dirt and sweat, it was nice.” I looked at him. “You smelled really nice, and you weren’t wearing a shirt. It became a recipe for weirdness.”

  “Are you saying all of this was my fault? Are you victim shaming me?” He squinted at me.

  “No, I just … I didn’t…” He got me there. “I should’ve been better, and I’m sorry.”

  He patted the deer’s head and gave her a gentle shooing, which she heeded, leaving the two of us alone.

  “It’s not your grandpa’s Old Spice, I agree with that.” He stepped closer. “And maybe I should’ve worn a shirt. Not that what I wear or don’t wear gives anyone the right to sniff me.” He’d put on a shirt and wore long pajama bottoms. “But there’s something else,” he went on. “There’s this thing between us. More than just the smelling.”

  I stared at him. “A thing?”

  “Yeah, a thing. This undefinable, weird, sometimes kind, sometimes volatile thing between us, and it can get confusing.” He lowered his eyes for a moment before meeting mine once again. “For both of us.”

  I understood exactly what he meant. “I don’t want a confusing thing between us.”

  “Me, either.” He leaned against my same pillar, our shoulders brushing against each other. “But I don’t know what to do about it. I can only run so many laps and shoot so many baskets.”

  The laps referred to when we kissed—an accidental, but somewhat on purpose kiss—back at the abandoned mall when we tested out tents. That seemed so long ago, but I remembered it quite vividly. I’d never been kissed like that before. I’d never forget it.

  “I’m an adult. You’re a kid.”

  I nodded. “You remind me of that all time. I’ve spent enough time with you to know that there are situations when it feels like it’s the other way around.”

  He nodded.

  “And with you being my guardian angel and all, I can assume there are rules and regulations against fraternizing with the person you’re in charge of watching over.”

  He nodded again. “Wait, what did you say? Angel? You still on that kick?”

  I held up my wrist, the one with the leather bracelet on it, and pointed at it. “I don’t know, but things don’t quite add up.”

  He threw his hands in the air. “You know, I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you, trying to figure out what we should do about this ‘thing’ between us. Then you go and say something about angels, stuff I thought we were done with, and I’m quickly reminded just how young you are.”

  His words stung.

  “Forget it.” He started to walk away but stopped and turned around to look at me. “I’m going to treat you as if you were an annoying cousin and nothing more. No more sniffing me. No more of that misconstrued sexy stuff.” He took several steps and glanced back at me again. “No touchy. No feely.”

  Did I even want to be touchy-feely with him?

  Not when he was acting like this. Jeez.

  He stopped partway down the aisle and froze.

  I waited for him to turn and chastise me again, tell me what kind of a child I was, and how dumb I was being, but he didn’t. He just stood there.

  “Do you smell that?” he asked, his back to me.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “No, I’m not supposed to be smelling or sniffing anything, remember?”

  He turned his head side to side as if trying to figure something out. “You seriously don’t smell anything?” He waved me toward him.

  I reluctantly took several steps until I stood a foot or two behind him.

  “Breathe in,” he said. “Do you smell that?”

  Was he kidding me? He’d told me not to sniff him two seconds before, and now he was telling me to breathe in. What games was he—

  But I smelled it.

  I smelled exactly what he was smelling.

  Smoke.

  The faint tang of wood burning. Like a campfire. A really close campfire.

  “It’s coming from outside.” Cole turned slowly. “You smell it now?”

  I nodded. My heart sped up.

  And as if to prove him correct, gray tendrils of smoke began to seep in through the cracks around the skylights.

  Chapter 35

  Run for our lives. Run for our lives. Run for our lives.

  I was tired of that being my reality.

  Cole had warned me. He’d said those very words not more than a few minutes before the smoke appeared. In some ways, it seemed a little too coincidental.

  “Get Bob.” He turned to me, concern and total seriousness etched in his features. “Get him now.”

  Of course.

  Of course, I had to get him.

  Of course, we had to get out of here.

  Because wherever there was smoke, there was bound to be fire.

  But I couldn’t move.

  I wasn’t ready for this. I hadn’t finished preparing the stroller. We hadn’t developed a plan or detailed a route or anything. I wasn’t even sure the backpacks were ready to go. What if I’d missed packing something important? What if—

  “Get Bob! We’ll figure out the rest.”

  I took hold of the empty stroller and ran down the aisle toward the mini-home I’d created in the middle of Walmart. Bob stood in the playpen, holding onto the railing for support. His dark eyes were wide, as if knowing something wasn’t right, but he didn’t cry. He let go of the railing with one hand to reach for me.

  I scooped him into my arms. “I’ve got you. I’m here. We’re going to be okay.” I kissed the top of his head. “We’re totally okay.”

  Smoke filtered in through the skylights, just a trickle that seeped through the cracks, but it was enough.

  With him balanced on my hip, I turned around in search of Callie and the deer but couldn’t find them. Callie wasn’t sleeping along the back of the couch in her usual spot. Damn it.

  “Callie!” I whistled for her. Not sure if whistling was only a dog thing or if it would work on a cat, or a deer for that matter, but I tried. “Come on kitty, we’ve got to go!”

  Nothing. Crap.

  We didn’t have time for this, and there was no way I would leave them.

  I buckled Bob in the stroller, placing a blanket around him, and grabbed everything I could and shoved it in the basket below or tucked it around him in no order whatsoever. He didn’t seem to mind having formula and diapers crammed in next to him. He sucked his thumb, content to watch me. Such a good baby. I wished some of his calmness would rub off on me. My mind spiraled as I picked up one thing and then another, trying to decide if we needed it or not. Hell, we needed it all. We needed way more than we could possibly carry, and it was so frustrating not to have a moment to think and plan better.

  “Callie!” I tried whistling again. “Magical deer! Where are you guys?” We really should name the deer, and what was going on with Cole? Where was he?

  Again, nothing.

  Tuck and shove. Tuck and shove. I started grabbing stuff off nearby racks, whether it was useful or not, and jammed it into the stroller wherever I could. As Cole had said, we’d figure it out later.

  “I’ve got ‘em.” Cole ran down the aisle toward me, Callie in his arms. The deer trailed behind him. “Dang cat of yours was up on the top shelf, sitting on a pile of towels, meowing like crazy but making no attempt to save herself. I had to climb up there and yank her down, fireman style.” He thrust Callie into my arms “Thankfully, I walked away with no scratches, because so help me…” He stopped for a moment, looking at me and my cat. “I would’ve still saved her, but I woul
dn’t have been happy about it.”

  “You don’t sound all that happy about it now.”

  He ignored me. “We’ve got to get out of here, but I can’t leave wearing this.” He motioned to his pajamas, t-shirt, and bare feet. “I’ll die out there.”

  Before I could agree, Cole stripped down to his boxer briefs.

  In the time it took me to put Callie’s harness and leash on, Cole changed his clothes. Shirt, pants, boots, jacket.

  The deer shifted, moving her head side to side, her hooves clacking on the floor. Callie’s incessant meows with her high-pitched wailing sounded like a British ambulance. I’d never heard her make any noise before. It ratcheted my nerves up several notches. Animals knew stuff. Between the antsy deer and Callie’s meows, I was freaking out.

  Cole heaved his pack onto his back and held up mine, so I could slip it on. “We’ve taken too long. We’ve got to get out of here.” He didn’t wait for me to buckle the straps, taking Callie from my arms to shove her inside his jacket. “She better behave herself” he warned as he took hold of the stroller and ran toward the front of the store. “Come on!”

  I ran and worked the clasps at the same time, trying my best to keep up with Cole, the stroller, and the deer.

  I’d avoided going outside for weeks. Many weeks. I had chucked garbage and waste out one of the backdoors without ever stepping foot outside. All sorts of bizarre crap happened out there — tornados, wild winds, hail storms, intense heat, and crazy-ass bugs that settled only on the Walmart building and the adjacent parking lot, leaving the other buildings in the area completely alone. Totally unexplainable crap like that.

  Cole slid the glass doors open and ushered us all out. Out into the open. Out into the smoke-filled air. Out into the unknown. Out into the unexplainable crap.

  I hated it, but I had to do it. We had to go.

  I grabbed hold of the straps that ran over my shoulders with both hands, steadying my pack and myself as I followed Cole into the big, bad outside world I’d been avoiding.

  The deer bolted past us just as I thought she would, and strangely, I was totally okay with that. I couldn’t protect her, not in the same ways I could protect Callie, Bob, and even Cole. Deer were wild creatures full of animal instincts, and if she ran away, I couldn’t stop her. At least, she wasn’t trapped inside the building.

  But she ran to the edge of the parking lot and stopped. She turned and waited for us.

  Dead bugs crunched beneath our feet and under the wheels of the stroller as we ran toward the deer, who seemed to be leading the way.

  Gray haze filled the sky, obscuring the evening sun. I wanted to know where the fire was coming from. Everything we passed appeared perfectly fine. Not scorched. Not anything. The smell of campfire hung in the air, but since I’d never smelled a building on fire or anything but a campfire, I assumed it was the same.

  Apparently, Cole trusted the deer and followed her. She’d sprint a distance ahead of us, but she always stopped, turned, and waited for us to get within several yards of her before she sprinted again, as if making sure we were really following her.

  I’d follow her any time. I followed her once before and she’d saved me by bringing me safely to the town. I trusted my supernatural deer to lead us to safety again.

  Tiny flakes that looked like the beginning of a snowstorm floated down from the sky. I held my hand out, palm upward as I ran, catching several of them. They weren’t cold, and they didn’t melt. When I rubbed one of the flakes between my fingers, it disintegrated into a fine powder.

  If it weren’t for the smell of smoke and the grayness that clouded everything, it would almost seem dreamlike.

  Instead, it was frightening.

  Something burned. Something big. Something big enough to cause ash.

  Where is the fire coming from? What is going on?

  “Tess, what are you doing? You’re slowing down. Come on!” Cole yelled over his shoulder.

  I snapped out of it and picked up my pace to close the gap.

  Our feet pounded the ground in sync. We ran past the alleyway, the one where I found Bob in a shopping cart, but I didn’t look down the alley. I couldn’t. The old lady’s body could very well still be there. I didn’t want to see it. I kept my eyes on Cole’s back, pushing that image from my mind as I kept up with him.

  We ran by building after intact building, heading out of town in the opposite direction from which I had entered weeks before. The deer knew what to do and where to go. The air became less hazy and ash no longer fell from the sky, a blessing for our lungs. I didn’t know how much more we could run while breathing in the smoke-filled air.

  The deer kept right on sprinting as if our race to safety wasn’t over. She led us through the town and up a wrong-way exit ramp to the highway that stretched on endlessly no matter which direction we looked. The highway was completely empty. Empty in both directions. And the road was as perfect as a road could be, not filled with boulder-sized ruts or missing miles of sections, making it useless to drive on. Not at all like the roads I’d seen.

  No, this highway looked amazing.

  If only we had a car.

  I didn’t remember seeing any in town, but I hadn’t really been paying attention either. I’d been trying to keep up with Cole and the deer, and even though the deer kept running ahead and then waiting for us to catch up even now, I stopped and looked back.

  What if we could find a car? A car would be—

  I felt as though the pack I carried had increased its weight a hundred-fold. My shoulders sagged as my chest tightened, and my eyes took in the severity of the situation.

  No way. There’s no way this can be happening.

  Standing in the middle of the overpass, staring out over the town and beyond, there was no mistaking where the smoke came from. Going back to find a vehicle, any vehicle, wasn’t an option.

  The mountain glowed an angry orange and red hue. Dark clouds billowed above it, darkening the sky. The entire length of mountain was on fire. Not a section. Not several hundred acres. The whole thing.

  As frightening as it was to see an entire mountain ablaze, the rolling waves of fire, like a tsunami, heading toward the town, building in momentum, terrified me more.

  Cole gripped my hand and pulled. “We’re not done running, Tess.”

  I shook my head as he dragged me away. “It shouldn’t be able to do that. That’s not right. That’s impossible. There’s nothing out there to burn. There’s nothing—”

  “If we don’t get the hell out of here, it’s going to roll right over the top of us.”

  Chapter 36

  The prodigious hum at my back, the sweltering heat, and every smoke-filled breath propelled me forward.

  We’re not going to out run it.

  I glanced over my shoulder to watch the wall of fire consume everything in its path. Each structure succumbed, adding to the fire’s strength and momentum, as if feeding an unquenchable beast. It tore into the town without mercy.

  Walmart went up in flames.

  It’s moving too fast.

  Glass burst. Wood ignited. Propane tanks blew. Building after building caught on fire. Ash fell like a dirty Christmas snow, dusting everything.

  As the sky and air around me grew darker from the clouds of smoke that burned my lungs and stung my eyes, despite pulling the neck of my shirt up around my face, I stumbled around, hands forward.

  I could barely make out Cole’s figure as he ran ahead of me, pushing the stroller. He’d thrown a blanket over the top, hoping to protect Bob. The baby’s choked cries ripped at my heart. Bob hardly ever cried.

  We’re not going to make it.

  The deer whinnied. We followed her, trusting her to lead us to safety. As the air thickened and sweat poured down my face, I wondered if we’d asked too much of her.

  Maybe safety wasn’t ours to have. If vast miles of nothingness, the barren mudflats I swore I had crossed, couldn’t stop the fiery monster, then nothing would.
/>   Not even a fairy-like deer.

  Tears stung my eyes and ran down my soiled cheeks. Tears caused by a mixture of smoke and emotion.

  Keep going. Just keep going.

  Because I took up the rear, I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder again. Smoke engulfed everything. The miles of highway we’d crossed vanished into the murkiness, but the sounds of the low drone continued, letting me know it was still there.

  When I turned back around, determined to push myself harder, run faster, focus on what was in front of me and not what was behind, my chest tightened as my eyes widened.

  Cole had disappeared. The baby’s cries, the deer’s clacking hooves on the pavement — gone. I strained to see and strained even more to hear. Only the sounds of my rapid heartbeat and struggled breathing rang in my ears.

  Had I slowed down too much? Lost them? They had been there just a few seconds before!

  “Cole!”

  Walls of smoke surrounded me. I couldn’t make out a thing. I grew disoriented. I was no longer sure if I ran from the fire or straight into its mouth.

  “Cole!”

  I plucked along, though much slower with both hands outstretched, trying to bat the smoke away. The fire’s roar grew louder. The pavement beneath my feet hotter. Sweat dripped down my face, mixing with my tears. Darkness shrouded everything. Every breath suffocated me, as though breathing through a heavy quilt.

  Cole’s hand shot out from the nothingness and grabbed mine, startling me. He placed my hand on the stroller’s handle and tightly covered it with his own. “Don’t let go!”

  I had no plans to.

  And we ran. We ran hard.

  We had no time to drop backpacks or remove Bob from the stroller. Those were precious seconds we couldn’t afford to lose. We could only keep putting one foot in front of the other, to not stumble or fall.

  We’re not going to make it.

  “Yes, we are!” Cole jutted to the right, following the sound of the deer’s hooves.

  No longer on the smooth pavement of the highway, we slid down the embankment, still holding onto the stroller, running parallel to the road that was now above us. It didn’t make sense to get off the highway. The gravel made it more difficult to run, to really get our footing, and push the stroller. The wheels balked at the idea, but Cole’s determination made it work.