At once she realized what had woken her. Frank was still in the driver’s seat but he had brought the SUV to a standstill. He was debating with Lu over the course to take.
“…the most direct path to Olympia,” Lu was saying. “We can run down most of them. If any decide to latch on I’ll cut them off.”
“I don’t know,” Frank said hesitantly. “Maybe we should consult the map. There may be another road we can take to go around them.”
“There can’t be more than a few dozen,” Lu said, moving restlessly in his seat. “I can kill a few dozen by myself. I could use some action. Life in this car has been worse than slow torture.”
Frank’s eyes caught Taylor’s movement from the rearview mirror. “Hey, good morning. Well, afternoon,” he said. “Did you catch all of that?”
“I did,” Taylor said, stretching tired muscles in her seat. “How far are we now?”
“If we go through, we’ll be there tonight.”
“Is there another way?”
“We’d have to backtrack to find one,” Frank admitted. “There may be another route, maybe not.”
Taylor squinted through the maze of cars and Dread in front of them. The humans infected by the Dread hadn’t noticed them yet. It was only a matter of time. As soon as they did Taylor knew they would not hesitate to attack. The only real danger would be if they came in force.
“This is the fastest way,” Lu said. “Come on, Glow Hands, you and I can see us safely through. Besides, you could use the practice before the big game. Who knows what we’re going to find at the Vault? Whatever it is, it would be nice to know you’re proficient with your new abilities.”
As much as she hated to admit it, Lu was right. She had only used her powers briefly. It would be wise to practice with her evolving strengths before they were needed in a life or death situation. Besides, she hated being cooped up.
“All right,” Taylor said. “We go slow. I’ll take the front and clear a path. You bring up the rear and make sure we don’t pick up any hitchhikers.”
“Now you’re talking,” Lu said with a mischievous smile. “I think you’re more like me than you’d like to admit.”
Taylor and Lu exited the SUV. Lu dropped back to tell Melissa and Jason the plan before taking up his position at the rear of their truck.
Taylor rolled her neck from shoulder to shoulder. She stretched her arms like she had a million times before a workout at the gym. However, this was no gym. The road stretched out in front of her for miles. To each side mountains and trees hid any lurking foes that might attack from the flanks.
Frank rolled down the driver’s side window. “Are you ready for this?” he asked. “We don’t have to do this. We can wait until we have a better idea of your powers.”
Jumping up and down on her toes like a boxer Taylor said, “Lu’s right. I need as much practice as I can get before we reach the Vault. Let’s do this.”
Taylor took point, moving forward at a light jog. Frank drove the truck behind her slowly, with Lu bringing up the rear.
Taylor pulled her jacket tight, ignoring the cold that sought to send shivers up her spine. In minutes she would be sweating. All around her the Earth was quiet. A random bird call was the only thing she could hear until the first Dread caught sight of her. He was a portly man with a thick beard. Black matter dripped from his eyes and nose.
Taylor picked up speed and lifted from the ground. Apparently she had not lost her power to hover in the air. It wasn’t quite flying but she was able to move forward a few feet off the ground. The act was straining. She kept at it only looking toward her first target.
The man came running to meet her with a car bumper he had torn off a rusting sedan. The bumper skidded across the asphalt making a grinding sound that overpowered anything else.
Extending her right hand, Taylor allowed the explosive white energy to build and released it. It caught the man square in the face. Everything from his neck up evaporated. The headless body that remained fell quivering to the ground.
It seemed her powers had evolved to something far deadlier than the use of telekinesis. Taylor couldn’t tell which she preferred but there was no denying that her abilities now ended any threat much faster.
She continued forward, shooting energy from both palms as those infected by the Dread came at her. With two vehicles rolling forward it was obvious to any Dread in the area that violence was to be had.
Most came running with open hands and clicking teeth. Some searched for primitive weapons like they had done at the Ark. To some capacity or another they were gaining knowledge. That idea alone was enough to send a shiver of fear down Taylor’s spine.
She pressed on, chancing a quick look behind her as the convoy delved deeper into the maze of cars and Dread. Lu was jogging behind the truck, his saber out, dealing death. He moved quickly from side to side, every swipe of his blade intentional. He was too far away to see his teeth, but Taylor saw his eyes. Bright yellow lanterns burning with a rage she didn’t understand.
Frank yelled something too late. Taylor was so caught up in looking behind her at what Lu was doing that she failed to see a Dread with a broken foot crawling toward her. Before she could take action the member of the Dread wrapped its jaws around her right leg and bit down hard.
Taylor had a flashback to when she had first been infected. She remembered like it was yesterday: her daring rooftop escape, the jump to the helicopter, and the Dread that had latched on to her, ultimately infecting her.
She waited to feel the pain brought on by the bite. Instead of any uncomfortable sensation, she heard a cracking sound. The Dread below her was breaking its teeth on her skin, which had stood up to the attack like steel. Taylor had never heard what breaking teeth sounded like and she fervently hoped she never would again. With one hand she reached down and lifted the Dread off the ground. With more strength than she knew she possessed, she threw the creature through the air. The Dread sailed past the first line of trees and became lost in the forest.
Apparently, along with her impenetrable skin and explosive energy from her hands, Taylor’s strength had amplified. She ran to a four-door sedan and lifted it into the air. The car skidded sideways off the road as though it were a tricycle. Looking back, Taylor caught Frank and Cidney staring out the windshield of the SUV, shock clear on their faces.
Taylor bullied vehicles of all shapes and sizes off the road while dispatching any Dread that approached. Lu kept up his end of the bargain and covered the rear as they maneuvered through the congested highway.
Hours passed this way. Fatigue began to set in when Taylor moved a black truck off the road and onto the shoulder of the highway. The sun was nearly lost to the skyline in front of them. While weariness wasn’t enough to stop Taylor, the sign on the side of the road was.
Making sure they were in no immediate threat Taylor called a halt. In front of her on a green sign with white letters read, New Olympia, Pop. Dread.
The other members of the party exited the vehicles and joined Taylor at the sign. A moment of silence passed over the group. They had made it despite the odds stacked against them.
“So,” Melissa said without taking her eyes off the sign. “What now?”
Frank gripped his rifle close and looked around uneasily. “I don’t think whoever was in the Vault sending those messages is here anymore.” Taylor’s heart had dropped when she first saw the sign. If Olympia was under the Dread control, had they made the journey in vain? Was Frank right? Had they traveled all this way only to be met with another army of Dread?
“We should still go and check,” Jason said.
Taylor looked over at her friend. It didn’t appear sleep had done him any good. If anything he looked worse. The trip had taken a toll on all of them but it seemed Jason was faring the worst.
“I’m going into the city,” Lu said. “Vault or no Vault. I was never after a ghost transmission anyway. The Reckoners sold slaves to the Dread in Olympia. I’m going to find them a
nd kill them. Nothing’s changed for me.”
“We should wait until we have a plan,” Jason said. “We can’t go in there guns blazing. We don’t know what we might be walking into.”
“When I need your advice I’ll ask for it,” Lu growled. “I’m going in.”
“Wait,” Taylor said with a heavy sigh. “It looks like the Dread have taken over Olympia. Although the likelihood of whoever sent those transmissions from the Vault still being alive is slim, but we have come too far to not see for ourselves. The sun’s almost down now. Lu and I will go in and see what’s become of the city.”
“I knew you were going to say that.” Cidney kicked at the asphalt with the toe of her shoe. “I would argue to come with—”
“Except you know this time it wouldn’t do any good,” Taylor said with a tired smile. “Stay in the SUV, all of you. If we aren’t back by daybreak then you need to turn around and get back to the captain.”
“We aren’t going to leave you in there,” Melissa said, actually offended by the thought.
“Yeah,” Frank agreed with a sideways glance at Melissa. “We’d come for you.”
“No,” Taylor snapped. She traded her sympathetic tone for one more suited for the task. “You will go back. If something happens to Lu and me there would be nothing the rest of you could do about it. We’d be past the help of bullets.”
There were a few grumbles of consent. Taylor noticed Cidney looking off into the woods that lined either side of the road without so much as a head nod.
Taylor knew it was the best she was going to get out of them at the moment.
Chapter 11
Taylor and Lu set off over the rough terrain for New Olympia, walking through the foliage on the right side of the highway. The dark was consuming.
The moon and stars were partially hidden, making eyesight all but nonexistent. Taylor relied on her other senses to tell her if danger was close. The woods around them were quiet, the only sound coming from their feet and the frigid air that exited their lungs.
Lu didn’t seem to have a problem with the dark. He strode forward in front of her without pause, his long ponytail barely visible in the night.
Taylor’s mind was returning to her four friends she had left in the SUV. They were pulled off the road deep enough into the forest that they couldn’t be seen from the highway. Armed with automatic weapons they would be fine. At least that was what she was trying to convince herself of when she bumped into Lu.
“Shhh…” Lu said, bending to a crouch.
“Sorry,” Taylor whispered, kneeling down beside him. She followed his line of sight toward the first buildings marking the beginning of what had once been Olympia, Washington.
All was quiet. No lights shone from any of the structures but they could see a faint glow coming from somewhere deeper in the city.
“What do you think?” Lu asked without taking his eyes from the scene. “A trap?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“Now you’re talking.” Holding his crouched position Lu ran forward, clearing the last trees in the woods and pressing his back against the first building. Taylor followed his lead, her heart pounding less from fear and more from the idea of some kind of conflict soon approaching.
Taylor peeked around the corner. Only the abandoned city opened in front of her. Empty shops with broken doors and bashed in windows, cars parked on the street with cracked windshields. Trash littered the roads and sidewalks.
“Thoughts?” Lu asked.
“We have to get through this,” Taylor said, nodding toward their side of the sidewalk that was shrouded in shadow. “We’ll stay close to the buildings as we make our way deeper in. If we do see anything suspicious we can duck in one of these stores.”
“Let’s do it,” Lu said moving to take the lead. “You got to be point during today’s convoy, I want this one.”
Taylor nodded, although she wasn’t sure Lu would be able to see the motion in the darkness. Whether he noticed it or simply decided to go he began moving down the walkway with quick, smooth strides, one hand on his saber still sheathed at his back.
The two worked their way through the ghost town where once thousands of people had lived and enjoyed their lives. Taylor couldn’t shake the feeling that they shouldn’t be there. There were no dead bodies that she could see, yet it felt like some kind of tomb.
There was something very wrong about the deserted city. Exactly what it was Taylor couldn’t quite place. The glow she had seen before entering New Olympia was growing. It showed over the tops of the roofs, brighter and brighter with every step.
Voices, coming down the street.
Taylor and Lu ducked low behind an abandoned delivery truck. Whoever was walking down the road, there were two of them. Taylor could tell from the tones of their voices they hadn’t noticed their surprise visitors. By the very fact she was listening to them speak also meant they were not members of the Dread. Taylor checked herself. Life wasn’t that simple anymore. Dr. Valery Spear had been consumed by the Dread and she had carried out a conversation as eloquently as ever.
“How long do you think these new slaves will last?” a youthful male voice asked.
“Hopefully longer than the last ones or Cole’s going to have us doing the buildings and expanding of the wall,” came the nasal reply of a young male.
“Yeah, it’s bad enough we have shifts watching that god forsaken vault door every other day. I swear the way Cole talks about it, you’d think a thousand angels were going to knock down the vault, ready for war.”
The two men were so close now Taylor could hear their footsteps. She chanced a quick look over the hood of the delivery truck to witness two young men not older than their twenties strolling down the street.
The conversation droned onward but Taylor didn’t have time to pay attention. She needed to make a decision. They could surprise the two and use them for information or let them pass and maintain their secrecy.
“Lu,” Taylor said turning to the Elite. Lu was gone.
***
A gurgling noise like someone rinsing with mouthwash came from the opposite side of Taylor’s hiding spot, along with a heavy thud. Even before she saw what had happened Taylor knew Lu had taken it upon himself to move.
Already he was dragging the two dead forms of the guards off the street. There was just enough light to see the smear of blood traveling after their bodies, staining the pavement red.
“What are you doing?” Taylor tried to keep her anger in check. She already knew it was going to be near impossible under the circumstances. “This is not how we’re going to do things.”
“It’s how I do things,” Lu said, stacking the bodies inside a drugstore with blown out windows.
Taylor looked at the men he had killed, if one could call them men at all. They were boys younger than she had thought, maybe even in their late teens. Frank was this same age. “We aren’t going to do it this way,” Taylor said shaking her head. “Not like this.”
“I didn’t peg you for the sentimental type,” Lu said. He crouched down and began searching the two dead figures for information.
“Sentimentality has nothing to do with it,” Taylor said glancing up and down the street to make sure they were still alone. “A few years ago I may have agreed with your way of doing things. Not now. We owe them a chance to make the right decision. Human life is as valuable as ever. If we go around killing everyone, who is going to be left to fight the Dread?”
Lu shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m not trying to rehabilitate anyone. I’m going to kill them, Taylor. I’m going to kill them all.”
“Then we have a problem,” Taylor said. “I’m here to fight the Dread and the Dread only. If anyone else like the Reckoners get in my way I’m going to stop them but I’m not in this to ambush and murder teenagers.”
“What? You think they wouldn’t kill you in a moment’s notice?” Lu said. “You thin
k they wouldn’t do things, horrible things, to you if they had the chance? Our enemies don’t share the same code of conduct you do. And that’s why you’ll lose.”
“So what?” Taylor said. “We’re supposed to stoop to their level? If we do that we’ll become the monsters. If we do that then there’s nothing to fight for anymore. The Dread will have won and we can all run around slashing kids’ throats.”
“You send a monster to kill a monster,” Lu said, moving to the entrance of the store. “Listen, Glow, we clearly don’t see eye to eye on this and we don’t have to. This is where we part ways.”
Lu was right, if either of them were going to change their minds, it was going to have to be over the course of many conversations. There would be no unity tonight.
“Fine, go,” Taylor said, shaking her head. “Just stay out of my way.”
“I plan to,” Lu said. He walked away from the building. As if it was an afterthought he turned and tossed something toward Taylor. It was too dark to see what it was. The object fell at her feet with a dull thud. “I found this on one of the bodies. I doubt it’s his. Probably took it off one of the slaves after he beat her, or worse.”
Lu melded into the shadows. Within seconds he was gone, leaving Taylor alone. She crouched down. Her hand made contact with a piece of worn cloth. It was a dirty headband that at one time had been pink. Someone a very long time ago had taken the time to stitch a name into the fabric: Dixie.
Taylor stood in the darkness with the dead bodies, desperately trying to convince herself that Lu was wrong, that the solider had found the headband or that it had belonged to a relative. Any reason was better than the alternative Lu had suggested.
***
Taylor wasn’t sure which path Lu had taken. If she was honest with herself she didn’t care. He had made his choice. She couldn’t second guess her actions now. Deep down she knew she was doing the right thing. It was a feeling she wasn’t used to experiencing. Two years ago she was a Cleaner only worried about collecting a paycheck.
All The Broken People (The Dread Series Book 2) Page 11