by S E Lunsford
Glaring at me for a moment, he looked over the edge again. Small dark shapes in the sky told me the angels would be here soon, as a sound like engines rose up from the ground.
“Over there,” Rosalie said, pointing towards the road behind the smoking creeper piles.
My eyes following in that direction. I squinted, eventually seeing what she was pointing at. Converted SUV’s making their way towards us. In more than one, individual's stood up through the sunroofs, rifles at the ready. As I continued to watch, one of them began to look like someone I recognized.
Stray creepers were attracted to the noise, moaning and making their way over. The vehicles came next to the building as people on the rooftop began to move to what looked like predetermined spots at the roof’s edge.
“It’s Edward,” Rosalie said, looking at the vehicle that was headed our way, relief washing through her words.
“Your brother?” Cassie whispered a tone in her voice that I hadn’t heard for a very long time. Glancing over at her, she looked over at me. Shaking my head at her, I grinned.
“Okay,” Chris said, our attention turning to him. “When it comes, when our vehicle comes, we have to climb down to it fast using a rope, one after the other, which means we’ll all be on the rope at the same time. Make sure to avoid the windows that are on the upper floors.”
“Why?” I leaned over seeing that there were just a few windows dotted on this side of the building.
“You have to ask?”
Before I could answer the vehicle had stopped, and Edward had started to pick off creepers as they made their way toward it. Other vehicles stopped next to the building too, their shooters doing exactly the same thing as Edward. The sound was causing more creepers to move into the area. Chris dropped the rope. A hand reaching up through the sunroof caught it.
“You first,” he said to me as I swung over just catching sight of Chris swinging Rosalie on his back as I made my way down. Cassie came next, almost kicking me in the face in her haste to get down. The rope tightened as Chris and Rosalie swung onto it. I could almost feel their weight on me if they fell, pushing me down into the growing crowd of creepers their moans and stench rising to meet me as I made my way further down.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see that there were other ropes with people on them quickly climbing down into their own vehicles, the constant thrum of pounding hands never letting up as I made my way down.
Suddenly I saw a window to my left flex as the man on the rope near it slipped, flailing to right himself causing his rope to sway back and forth in wide arcs nearly touching the edge of the window. Blinking my eyes to clear my vision, I was sure I was seeing things. When I looked again at the window it was as still as could be.
“Keep going,” Chris yelled down at me.
Glancing up, I saw Cassie was almost on top of me and Chris and Rosalie weren’t much farther up when the man to my left careened out of control, his rope swaying so far that he knocked into me just as the window crashed outwards. Three creepers pushed out through the jagged remains of glass vying for purchase on the window sill as shards rained down on those below. The man grabbed onto me as his rope began to swing back. A body fell off his rope, and one of the creepers managed to climb over the others and fall down after it. The smack of soft flesh on the concrete below made me shudder, even as I began to be pulled towards the window the man acting as a weight pulling us all over.
The creepers eyed us hungrily, their moans growing louder and their movements becoming more frantic the closer we got to them. Chris was yelling something I couldn’t understand as Cassie tried with all her might to hold onto anything to stop the movement. I pulled back on the man trying to bring us up higher so that we didn’t swing right in front of the window.
“I'm shooting ‘em,” yelled Edward, as he took controlled, specific shots at the creepers in the window who toppled out hitting the ground with soft thuds, resting there for a moment before trying to stand on their broken legs and arms.
“Climb on my back,” I gasped at the man.
Nodding, he grasped my back and shifted his weight letting go of his rope. My hands slid on my own rope as his weight dragged me down, but I managed to steady myself. I began to slide down fast, feeling the burn on my palms and praying that the rope would hold at the top.
Shaking my head I cleared my head of thoughts of falling, focusing instead on the sunroof and Edward who had tied a lime green bandana around his head.
Hands with flesh hanging in strips off their bones reached up from around the vehicle for me and the man on my back as we slid down to the vehicle. Healthy hands pulled me into the interior as Cassie and Chris and Rosalie followed. Slapping and pushing on the windows caused the vehicle to rock, while sounds of shots rang out over the enclosed area. Settling into the backseat I saw that Robert was driving and half wondered if he was going to go with us all the way to Sanctuary.
“Ready?” He called out, not even waiting for an answer as he gunned it, causing us to all fly backwards in the overstuffed interior. He ran over creepers that got in his way making the bumpy ride even bumper. Edward plopped down next to me grinning from ear to ear.
“I love doing that,” he said enthusiastically as Carlisle closed the sunroof.
“I don’t,” muttered the man next to me, before looking up. “Thank you,” he said to me.
I shrugged, “What’s your name?”
“Tony,” he said, “That rope caught on my foot and I, well I overreacted. I hope the others are okay,” he commented more to himself than anyone else before turning to look outside.
For what seemed like a nanosecond we were on the ramp, narrowly avoiding the burning creeper pile before we were on the highway and plunging into the forest, Robert blazing his own trail.
I lost sight of the other vehicles as we made our way into the forest, seeing just enough to know that not all of them came into the tree dense area with us. After an hour or so, Robert slowed the vehicle, stopping as it idled. Turning around he did a sight check that all of us were there before turning to Chris.
“Where to?” He asked.
“Scott’s Valley,” Chris said.
“What?” I said surprised to hear the croak that my voice had become.
“Scott’s Valley,” he repeated, meeting my questioning eyes with his own.
Chapter 6
“Scott’s Valley?” Cassie burst out. “Since when do you think it’s even in California at all?”
“Since I talked with John about it,” Chris replied calmly.
Robert nodded in agreement. “We’ve been in contact with them. Turns out the whole north west thing was a ruse so the angels wouldn’t figure it out.” He shrugged.
“Do you think they still don’t know where it is?” Carlisle asked.
Glancing around at all of them, the lines of surprise and stress were evident on their faces. I took a deep breath smelling the acidity of their fear that what we all thought about where Sanctuary was turned out not to be the reality of it at all.
“Can we trust that John’s info. is correct?” I asked.
“It’s right,” Robert answered his lips pursing into a thin line as he narrowed his eyes at me. “We did reconnaissance not too long ago, and they’re there.”
“Did you talk with them? What were they like? Could they walk among the creepers without causing a feeding frenzy?” The questions ran rapid fire out of me.
“No, no and yes,” was his only reply as he turned around and looked out the windshield of the vehicle. “We’ve got to get moving if we want to gain ground before dark. Everybody’s packs are in the back.”
“Packs?” Cassie asked.
“Yeah,” Chris said. “We’re going to have to walk from here. Taking the vehicle will be too noticeable from the air, and they’re going to be trying to find us.”
Carlisle nodded, reaching to the back and handing us each of a pack in turn, except Tony. Even Rosalie had a small one packed just for her.
“Sorry man,” Robert said shrugging to Tony, who just shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s not like I ended up in the right vehicle,” Tony replied. “But, this vehicle is better than being left behind dead.”
“Damn straight,” Cassie said.
Ignoring the tone of her voice, I took my pack and rifled through it, letting out a relieved sigh when I saw a handgun and ammunition among the granola bars, beef jerky and water. Glancing over I saw Cassie take her gun out of her pack, weighing it in her hand to get the feel of it.
“If your mom could see you now,” I said wryly. She smiled back at me, before pushing her hair out of her face.
“Remember when Scott took us out target shooting and my mom found out?”
I nodded. Cassie had been grounded for weeks after we went with her sort of boyfriend out to the desert flats, lining up cans, bottles and whatever else we could find to target shoot. Cassie had been reluctant at first because her mom was so anti-gun, telling everyone who would listen that firearms would be the downfall of our country. Cassie had swung between being afraid of what would happen if her mom found out, and looking like a putz in front of Scott. Saving face had made her decision, but somehow her mom had found out and she had definitely paid the price.
In a bizarre twist of fate, it was what we learned that day that ultimately ended up saving us when we came across a stash of guns and ammo not long after everything went down. They were in the master bedroom closet of a house we went into to try and replenish our supplies, when we were still trying to figure out how to get out of the mess that was Phoenix.
Wrinkling my nose, I could still smell the creepers as they decayed in the heat when they were first wandering around. Before they even began to decay in earnest, they just looked like they were sick, in need of help. It wasn’t long though before we figured out that they weren’t just wandering around aimlessly, they were wandering around until they came across food of the human variety.
It took Cassie and I just a few hours to find each other in the mess. Our cell phones had died, but we had a treehouse fort, a plank in the y of a tree in the cemetery next to our neighborhood. We’d built it when we were kids, and whenever something crazy happened or we were upset, we knew that we’d find the other one there. It had been years since we’d used it, but when my parents didn’t come home from the meeting the angels had arranged, I knew there was something desperately wrong.
My mom hadn’t trusted the angels from the time they first showed up espousing beautiful ideas about how they were there to save mankind from themselves. It was my dad who said everything would be okay. When the meeting had been announced, and it was made clear that everyone was required to go, my parents had argued about taking me. My mom had won that argument and because of it I was alive.
Crushing my eyes closed, I tried not to remember her hugging me tightly and telling me that if they didn’t come back in a couple of hours, I had to leave, get out of Phoenix and try to get to my aunt’s house. That she of all people would figure out how to survive. That she would take care of me, help me.
“Get water. Get long lasting food. Get out,” my mom had said, my dad rolling his eyes in the background.
“Don’t worry honey,” he said kissing the top of my head. “We’ll be home before you know it.”
“Beans,” my mom called out, giving me one last kiss and a “I love you.” “Beans,” she repeated, as I gave her a confused look. “Beans will keep you alive.”
After they left, the time had passed slowly as the rock in my stomach grew to a full-fledged boulder the longer they were gone. I stayed at the house longer than I probably should have, perched frozen on the edge of my bed plucking at the tassels on my blue and white bedspread. Ultimately it was the noise that got me moving more than anything else. Wailing rose up into the night air before rolling out over the city blanketing every corner with its cacophony. The wails stopped in an abrupt silence that was only broken by odd shuffling and a rank smell that I would more than understand not too much later.
When I finally got myself moving, I stepped into the darkness at the back of my house, knowing I had to go to the cemetery to see if Cassie was there before I ran like my mom told me to.
“Dani?” Cassie’s voice interrupted my thoughts as she gently touched my arm.
Opening my eyes, I focused on the car before turning to see the thick trees we were settled in.
“We have to go,” she said quietly. The others eyes skittered between the trees and my face as I nodded.
“Let’s go,” I croaked, opening the door and taking a deep breath. Relief washed over me as I smelt the deep tang of the evergreens, the mustiness of the soil and nothing else.
“There’s a bunker a ways ahead,” Robert said. “We need to get to it by nightfall.”
“This is where I head off,” Tony said.
“Head off?” Chris asked, giving him a look I couldn’t decipher. “You sure about that?”
“Yeah man,” Tony said. “We all have different rendezvous points, and, no offense but I’d like to get back to my group.”
Robert nodded in agreement reaching out to shake Tony’s hand. “God speed with you until we meet again,” he said. Tony nodded as he reached out and shook the big man’s hand.
“Here,” Chris said rummaging around in his pack until he came up with a gun, ammo., water and jerky. “Take these with you.”
“Thanks man,” Tony replied in a low voice as he took them, tucking the items in his pockets.
Turning to the rest of us, he nodded again, then was gone in the dense forest before we could say a word.
“Let’s go,” Chris said.
Swinging our packs on our backs, Robert and Chris took the lead. Edward and I took the rear and everyone else straggled in between as we made our way through the deep undergrowth.
The evergreen scent remained the same as we tramped through the forest our feet kicking up the loamy, mustiness of the soil as shadows lengthened around us. I glanced up every once in a while to see if there was anything coming from above. I knew we’d been walking for quite a while when my stomach began to growl.
“I always know when it’s time to stop, because Dani’s stomach tells us to,” Cassie said, turning back to towards Edward and I with a laugh.
“What do you think?” Chris looked over at Robert who was looking straight up at the top of the tree he was standing close to. He nodded.
“As good a place as any, but we’ve got to be quick, we do not want to be in these woods when it gets dark.”
Settling in, none of us made a comment about what Robert said, but I certainly thought of a lot of fairy tale references I would have popped off sarcastically before the end of the world as we knew it. Now, though, his words were more than too real to all of us as we sat slowly chewing our granola bars trying to make them last as long as we could.
“You know there’s something that's really is odd about the creepers,” Carlisle said after he took a swig of water washing down the last of his granola bar.
“Other than the fact that they smell rancid, are dripping flesh and really, really want to eat us alive,” Edward snorted.
“That’s just it,” Carlisle glared at his brother. “Why do they eat some of us, and just bite others.”
His question settled on us, causing those of us who were still eating to chew even more slowly.
“I never even thought about that,” I said, swallowing and sitting up straighter feeling my muscles stretch and pop.
“I think it’s just opportunity,” said Chris packing his water bottle into his backpack and zipping it up. “They’re so controlled by their hunger and underlying that the virus' need to find a new host, that if something fresh gets their attention even as they’re biting something fresh right in front of them, they just bite the first then go for the second, and, well, you know how fast the disease progresses.”
“So, you think it’s a disease?” Jasper asked.
; Surprise to hear him actually speak, I looked over to find he was staring at Chris with an intensity I hadn’t seen before. Rosalie sat quietly next to him, carefully glancing between he and Chris before settling her attention on Chris.
“Yes, yes, I do. It’s a disease and so much more,” Chris sighed looking up at the darkening sky.
“Why?” Carlisle asked.
“Hate to interrupt but we need to get going,” Robert said, stretching and shaking out his legs as he stood. “Just a couple more hours.”
Jasper’s question and Chris’s answer burned in my mind as we walked. I had always thought it was a foregone conclusion that the creepers were affected by a disease, one that infected them quickly and made them what they are. It bothered me that some of them, especially the newer ones, clung to their jewelry even if the hand or arm or leg the jewelry sat on was peeling off around it. The image of my Aunt’s face, her earrings still glittering in her ears came to mind making me shiver. Pulling up the zipper on my hoodie, I rearranged the pack on my back.
“What?” Cassie asked.
“You ever thought about that?”
“About what?”
“What Jasper asked about it being a disease,” I nodded up at Jasper who was walking close to Chris their bodies close as they spoke quietly.
“You’d have thought we would have talked about it by now,” she said with a short laugh. “But, oh wait, we’ve always been too busy trying not to get eaten or bit.”
I nodded, my eyes settling first on Jasper then on Rosalie who seemed to sense my gaze and turned around. She slowed her pace a bit, so we soon caught up with her. Both Edward and Carlisle glanced back to make sure she was okay before continuing on. Even so, I couldn’t help but notice that both of them slowed a bit so that they’d be able to get to their sister quickly if they needed to.
“We tried you know,” Rosalie said after settling in walking between Cassie and I.
“What?” I looked down at her.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she looked far off into the forest. “If it’s a disease it should be curable, it should be,” she took a deep breath. “I should be able to help.”