by D. Laine
Dylan pushed open his door and climbed out, forcing me to follow. While he filled the others in on the plan, I stared at the cavernous hole in the front of the building. I couldn’t see beyond the first step inside.
The absolute darkness unnerved me. Anything could be hiding within those walls. I had the sense that we were walking into a trap. Any other building would be better than this one. Any other building.
“So who’s going to stay?” Marcus inquired, snapping me back to the conversation going on around me.
I felt eyes on me, and glanced up to find Dylan looking at me expectantly.
“We need somebody to honk the horn if tags show up,” he informed me. “Just sit in the car. You’ll be safer than anyone.”
I peered into the vast darkness blanketing the parking lot behind Dylan, and shook my head. I wasn’t scared to stay out here alone, but no way was I about to let him and Jake out of my sight. He should know that by now. When my eyes met his, he nodded once.
“Right. Together,” he murmured. “What was I thinking?”
Jake tried. “Thea, really—”
“I’ll stay,” Robbie volunteered. When everyone turned toward her, she shrugged. “I’m the oddball here. I’m not connected to anyone like the rest of you are. If you all want to go to watch your partners’ backs, I’m fine with that. I’ll stay in the car.”
Jake turned to Robbie with a nod. “Two long beeps if you see anything you don’t like,” he told her. “We’ll make it fast.”
Sadie retrieved two flashlights and handed one to Dylan. Basked in their bright glow, we trampled through the shattered glass and crossed the threshold into the cavernous store.
Despite the overwhelming sense of abandonment within its walls, my shoulders tensed under a nauseating wave of claustrophobia. Perhaps it was being surrounded by darkness that made me anxious. Or maybe it was the uncertainty of what could be lurking out of sight that terrified me.
I took a step closer to Dylan, readjusted the grip on my gun, and reminded myself that I had been in scarier situations. I had endured worse. I could handle a dark, vacant store long enough to gather whatever we could find to eat and drink.
I could survive the apocalypse.
We filed through the checkout aisles one at a time, each of us stopping only long enough to swipe a plastic bag—the things I had once thought would destroy the planet. Before “Lucifer” and “Watchers” and “apocalypse” were added to my vocabulary.
I shook out my non-biodegradable death trap, hoping I would find enough food and water to fill it. Keeping eight people alive wasn’t easy in these conditions. Even eating and drinking the minimum, we went through our rations quickly.
I wasn’t naïve enough to not realize the long-term problems we faced. If this battle against Lucifer and the Watchers didn’t end soon, and we didn’t find a way to recover from the devastation they left behind, we would eventually starve. But stopping Lucifer and the Watchers was only the beginning.
Long-term survival—let alone prosperity—seemed like a long shot at this point. Nothing would ever be the same after this.
“West Wendover,” Jake suddenly called out from the neighboring checkout lane. Dylan stopped to sweep a flashlight in his direction, and Jake picked up a book of coupons to point out the store address. “We’re in Wendover.”
“You’re kidding me,” Dylan muttered.
“We drove that far?” Marcus asked.
“Apparently.” Jake tossed the coupons onto the inoperable conveyer belt, and gave Dylan a sympathetic grimace before continuing.
In front of me, Dylan swiped the last two candy bars from the shelf that bordered the checkout lane. Though he expressed his glee with finding something that consisted mostly of sugar, I saw through the charade.
“What’s wrong with Wendover?” I asked quietly over his shoulder.
“Nothing.” He stopped, sweeping the flashlight left, and then right, to reveal a dozen aisles laid out before us. Then, with a sigh, he explained, “We’re a mile from the Utah border.”
“Oh. We did drive far.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I knew Dylan was from Utah—near Salt Lake City to be exact. I also knew he had bad memories associated with the area, and wasn’t fond of returning. Seeing your parents murdered, and your sister abducted, could do that to a kid.
The rigidness of Dylan’s jaw as he peered into the vast supermarket and waited for the rest of our group to join us confirmed my suspicion that he wasn’t thrilled to be this close to his home state. He dodged my searching gaze, letting me know that he didn’t want to talk about it.
Not that now was the best time for a therapy session anyway.
“Do we want to split up? Or . . .” Jake’s whisper faded once he caught the horror-stricken look on my face.
Split up? Had he never seen a scary movie before? That was the last thing you did in situations like this. Not unless you wanted to die a gory death.
“Right.” Jake shared a brief grin with Dylan. “Together it is.”
As if there was an alternative.
With Dylan and Sadie leading the way with the flashlights, we hurried past the first few aisles to escape the stench of rotting fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. The next aisle appeared promising—once I was able to overlook the dead bodies littering the floor. Six humans lay in a grave of Froot Loops and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
“Grab anything you can,” Jake instructed the group.
Tiptoeing around two corpses, I grabbed a full, undisturbed box of Pop-Tarts and gingerly placed it in my bag. Dylan found two more that had been knocked on the floor but were in good condition. A few unbusted boxes of cereal were claimed by others in the group before we moved on.
Each aisle we crossed looked identical—nearly cleared shelves and decaying bodies on the floor. Though I did my best not to look closely, I suspected they were all human.
“First aid supplies are all gone,” Ewing announced unnecessarily as we gazed at the barren shelves.
“No shit,” Dylan muttered under his breath.
“There are a few toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste left over here,” Marcus volunteered. “God knows some of us need help in that department.”
“How about deodorant?” Maria asked. “I could sleep better if I didn’t have to smell you stinky boys.”
“Deodorant.” Jack plucked a pack of three from the shelf. “Check.”
Looking pointedly at me, Dylan said, “Razors. You know why.”
“You just worry about that chin curtain on your face,” I fired back.
“It’s kind of growing on me.” He rubbed at the whiskers covering his jaw with a frown. “You don’t like it?”
I shrugged like I didn’t care as I surveyed the assortment of razors on the shelf. “I would probably kiss you more often if—”
“Say no more.” Dylan reached past me to swipe several packs. He tossed them into his bag with a wink.
It wasn’t wasting precious space. It was obvious at this point that we weren’t going to find enough food and water to fill the bags. Besides, even if it was the apocalypse, we were still human. We were used to certain human comforts, and they were hard to break.
But all the soap and mouthwash in the world wouldn’t matter if we didn’t survive, and our prospects looked bleaker by the minute. The shelves that once contained the bottled water had been wiped clear. All we managed to salvage from the sticky floor was a two-liter bottle of generic ginger ale.
The storage room we found in the back of the store didn’t have anything additional to offer us. Everything but the crates of rotting fruits and vegetables had been taken from there. All that remained were several dead bodies on the floor. What little we carried in our bags would have to be enough.
“Wait a minute,” Dylan called out as the group shifted toward the door. I turned to find him kneeling down beside one of the bodies. “These are recent kills.”
“How old?” Marcus asked.
�
��A few hours,” Dylan answered.
“Are they human or . . .” Jake wondered.
Dylan’s brows furrowed when he glanced up. “They’re tags.”
No one made a sound as the realization washed over each of us. It started off as a gentle ripple of confusion before rolling into a giant wave of elation.
“There are survivors,” I breathed, relishing the sound of those words tumbling out of my mouth.
But how many? Where were they hiding? And how had they managed to survive this long?
“Enough of them to take out”—Jake’s head bobbed as he counted the number of bodies strewn throughout in the room—“seven tags.”
“With precision,” Dylan added as he pushed to a stand. I recognized the calculating look in his eyes. He wanted to know who could have done this.
The entire fleet of assassins had been set up by Lucifer and massacred less than a week ago. Only the four in this room remained. Five, if you counted me—which I didn’t. Not only did I lack the level of training they had received, but I was something else entirely now. I carried the blood of a Watcher and a demon in my veins.
“Could it be the Preppers?” I worried out loud.
While they were very much anti-tag and anti-demon, they also had a vendetta against the surviving assassins because they were the last remaining vessels that could be used by the Watchers. The Preppers would do anything to prevent an Armageddon-worthy showdown between Lucifer and the Watchers, including eliminating my brother and my boyfriend as prospective players.
Though my blood made me like them, I did not consider myself a Prepper. I was my own person, with my own objective: save the ones I love while saving the world from more devastation.
“It could be them. If it is, we need to get out—” Dylan stopped suddenly, and swept the flashlight over the group with a deepening frown. “Where’s my sister?”
“She—” I turned to where Sadie had been standing beside Ewing—they were both gone. “They were right here a minute ago.”
“Something’s wrong.” Dylan raced by me on his way out of the storage room.
“Slow down, Dylan,” Jake coached as he followed. “Use your connection.”
“I am, and she’s scared. Sadie!”
I spotted her flashlight shining from the next aisle over, and grabbed Dylan’s arm. Once I had his attention, I directed him to it. He took off toward the bouncing light, calling her name again. Steps from turning into the aisle, Sadie ran into him, forcing him to a skidded stop.
The light reflected off the tears that streamed down her face. “I can’t find Matt.”
“Where did you go?” Dylan demanded.
“Nowhere. I turned around and Matt was gone. I don’t know—”
Dylan pulled her to him suddenly, cutting off the rest of her statement with a fierce hug. “Don’t do that again.”
“We need to find Matt.” Even with her face pressed into Dylan’s shoulder, I could hear her desperation.
I stepped closer to them since they held both flashlights, and cast a troubled glance over my shoulder. The shadows filling the rest of the store appeared darker to me now, and crept closer to the perimeter of my safe bubble within the group. Anxiety clawed at my throat, making it more difficult to breathe.
Jake moved to my side instantly and slipped a comforting arm around my shoulders. “He can’t be far,” he said. “He doesn’t have a flashlight.”
Dylan finally released Sadie and swung his light around. I quickly counted five heads creating a tight circle alongside me. Everyone was accounted for, minus Ewing. Jake stepped forward to take the other flashlight from Sadie’s trembling hands. I turned to follow the direction of his light.
The beam glanced off a looming dark form as it stepped out of the shadows behind me, causing a piercing scream to rip from my throat. My hand squeezed the gun I was holding. Fortunately, my finger wasn’t near the trigger.
Because the perceived threat was only Ewing. Not a tag. Not a Prepper. Not any of the threats and enemies we were forced to evade these days.
Behind me, safeties clicked, assassins grumbled—and one slung a particularly colorful choice of words into the air. While Dylan took his frustration out on the empty cardboard potato chip display in the corner, Maria lurched forward to jab a stiff finger into Ewing’s sternum.
“You idiot. You almost got your pretty face shot off,” she snapped.
“What the hell?” Ewing threw his hands up defensively. Seconds later, Sadie lunged at him, prompting him to slip his arms around her waist. Over her head, he inquired, “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” Dylan seethed. “You disappeared, that’s what.”
“I couldn’t find you,” Sadie told him. “Where did you go?”
“I was right there.” He gestured over his shoulder. “There’s a pharmacy. I managed to find a few medications that might come in handy down the road.”
I stared at the half wall he indicated. Visible on the other side were rows of prescription medication. The entrance was ten steps from the door to the storage room. He had literally been right there.
“Someone already cleared out most of it,” Ewing continued cautiously, “but I thought it might be beneficial . . .” He trailed off to clear his throat. “Clearly, I was wrong.”
“We stick together,” Dylan reminded him coolly.
He nodded once. “Understood. It won’t happen again.”
“There’s another party in the area. They cleared out the storage room and left behind a few dead tags,” Jake informed him. “Whoever it is has some skill so we had better move.”
“It’s not the Preppers,” Ewing stated confidently.
Dylan had already turned to lead the way toward the front of the store. At Ewing’s words, he abruptly stopped. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because they—we—have several years’ worth of provisions stored away,” he answered. “Probably more now, since I’m sure they salvaged what they could from the agency. They have no reason to scavenge random supermarkets, least of all in western Utah.”
“Technically, we’re still in Nevada,” Dylan said between clenched teeth.
“Even farther from our camp.” Ewing shrugged. “Trust me, it wasn’t them.”
Dylan’s hard gaze slid from Ewing to Sadie, and he lifted a brow. She nodded.
“Fine,” Dylan relented. “It might not be the Preppers, but we still—”
A car horn sliced through the building, cutting Dylan off and forcing everyone into action. It wasn’t the two beeps Jake had instructed Robbie to use to signal trouble, but one long, never-ending wail that grew louder and shriller with every step I took toward the source. We moved fast, but cautiously, as we hurried toward the exit.
I expected to hit resistance—from either tags or Preppers or the unknown group in the area—but we met nothing. Slipping out the door, I saw . . . nothing. Not even Robbie.
Jake yanked open the car door, and the horn abruptly cut off. His voice, when he yelled, carried a ring of panic I had never heard from my brother. “I need some help!”
Dylan reached him first, and he leaned inside the car beside Jake. The lights in both of their hands bounced around aimlessly, and I couldn’t see a damn thing. One dropped to the ground, spinning on the pavement in front of me. I bent down to pick it up, and pointed it at their backs as they withdrew a lifeless Robbie from the vehicle.
“What happened?” Sadie cried.
Maria and Marcus had already taken defensive positions around us. Both darted concerned glances over their shoulders while watching the dark perimeter for whatever danger lurked out of sight.
“That horn probably drew some attention,” Maria warned.
I ignored her unsubtle hint to hurry up, and focused the light on Jake and Dylan as they lay Robbie on the ground.
“She’s breathing,” Dylan announced. “Pulse is weak, but it’s there.”
“There’s no blood.” Jake ran a shaky hand through his hair.
“I can’t find a wound. Nothing . . .”
“She’s burning up,” Dylan added.
The first shrill screech drifted out of the night and peppered my skin with the telltale goosebumps that announced the arrival of tags. I swept the flashlight over the parking lot, searching for red eyes. None yet. Another wail in the distance assured me that they were coming.
“Put her in the car,” Maria ordered. “We need to go.”
“Here.” Ewing rushed forward to take a hold of Robbie’s limp legs. “I’ll help.”
Sadie came to a stand beside me, holding the other flashlight. We alternated between sweeping the parking lot with the light and assisting the guys as they wrestled Robbie into the back seat. The moment her feet were clear, Jake crawled in with her.
He tossed the car keys to Dylan. “You drive. I’ll sit with Robbie.”
Dylan promptly turned to grab my elbow. He started to guide me toward the door, then stopped to look down at his sister.
“I’ll be fine in the other car, Dylan,” Sadie assured him.
“We just need to find somewhere safe to stop,” he told her.
A chorus of hair-raising shrieks sounded nearby, reminding us that we were not safe here. Not for much longer.
“There’s a lot of them,” Maria said impatiently.
“We’re going. Everybody in,” Dylan ordered.
Like a well-oiled machine, we fell into place. I slid into the passenger seat opposite Dylan and tossed a concerned glance over my shoulder into the back seat, where Jake cradled Robbie’s head on his lap.
His eyes, when they met mine, said it all. He didn’t know what was wrong with her, and he was worried.
We all were worried.
When the tags broke through the shadows in their race toward us, their angry snarls and blood-stained mouths illuminated in the headlights, they were the least of our concerns. For the first time, we had something more pressing to be alarmed about.
3
DYLAN
To say I was unhappy to find myself back in Utah after ten years of avoiding the state was an understatement. I was fucking pissed. At the coincidence. At the string of events that led me back here. At myself for looking too deeply into something I had no control over.