Rise the Phoenix

by Ely Page

  Once everybody was ready to go, Greg started the bus up and headed due west toward the Mississippi River.

  The mood on the bus was a lot better than the day before. The task of removing and burying all the bodies was a little further away in their minds. Someone started singing, and the rest of the bus joined in.

  By the early afternoon it was obvious it had become the brightest day yet. They could clearly see where the sun was behind the ever-present haze in the gray sky. Andy speculated that the sun would break free of the clouds within a matter of days, not months or years, as most thought it would take. Dylan thought about how much happier they would all feel with the sun out, especially Leah.

  As the day progressed and the bus crawled through Memphis, Dylan thought about the dream he’d had about Leah. He didn’t know what to make of it. Was it a premonition of what was to come? Or was it really just a graphic dream and nothing more?

  The bus stopped as it approached the bridge going over the Mississippi River. From the looks of things ahead, they were going to be there a while.

  “It’s completely packed with cars and semis. I don’t know if there is any way of us going over it,” Greg made his observation known to Frank.

  “Let’s just stop here, have some lunch, and think about what to do next,” Frank said as he surveyed the road ahead. “We shall relax while we eat; it makes it all go down better,” he always said.

  After the quick meal from their rapidly depleting food supply, Frank, Dylan, and Porter walked down the interstate’s westbound lanes to see how bad the situation was. Greg, Andy, and Ben went down the eastbound lanes with the same goal. Moving all the cars would be almost impossible, the way Dylan saw it.

  “There are just too many. If we moved everything to one side, would it even give us enough room for the bus?” he asked no one in particular. He was answered when all three of them stopped just feet away from the edge of the bridge.

  “I think you got your answer, Dylan,” Porter said as he, Dylan, and Frank looked straight down into the river. An entire section, maybe twenty feet or so, was missing, making the bridge unusable.

  “Oh, that’s not good,” yelled Andy from the eastbound lanes. He was the one of the three from the other side to see the gaping hole in the bridge. Greg and Ben quickly ran over to him to see what he was talking about.

  “Well, I guess we won’t be going that way,” Greg exclaimed.

  “No, but I think that you have a solution over there on your side,” Frank said before turning back to the bus. The rest of the guys followed.

  Once they got back, Frank told everyone on the bus that they would have to stay where they were for the night. He asked for volunteers to start moving cars on the eastbound bridge.

  “It will take until the sky darkens, and maybe even into the next day, to clear enough of a lane for the bus to get through,” he said. “It will be hard work, so let’s get to it. Those of you who are up to it, that is.”

  More than half of the tribe went out on the bridge and started clearing the cars. There was a part of the bridge’s side missing, and it was just big enough that they could push a few cars through it and down into the river.

  With the hard work of the day behind them, the tribe all made it back to the bus. The sky had darkened and the sun was no longer above the clouds. Andy, Ben, and Dylan all sat by each other on the bus. None of them felt like eating, so they just grabbed something to drink and went to relax. After moving so many cars, the guys were exhausted but not ready to sleep just yet.

  “What do you guys think about Becca?” Andy asked, looking back and forth between Ben and Dylan.

  “What do you mean, what do we think about her?” Ben asked, not following Andy’s question.

  “I’m thinking about asking her out, or to date, hang out, whatever it is that we do these days,” Andy said excitedly. This quickly became a two-person conversation, as Dylan started to focus on Leah.

  He looked at her beauty. She herself was in a conversation with some of the girls their age up toward the front of the bus. She put a strand of hair behind her ear, and that simple motion made Dylan’s heart skip a beat. He didn’t know if he should try to pursue a relationship with her. He didn’t know if she liked him like that or not. Dylan had always been bad with girls; he never knew what to say or even how to act around them, but Leah was different. She was the first girl he’d ever met that he ever had feelings for.

  Chapter 3

  Dylan looked around to see if there was anything he could do to help get ready for another night on the bus, but he couldn’t find anything to do. He started to walk around near the bus. Then he spotted Porter sitting on the hood of a car by himself. Dylan approached Porter nonchalantly.

  “Hey kid, what are you doing?” Porter said, startling Dylan. Dylan didn’t think Porter had seen him coming, but he was wrong.

  “Just—just walking around.” Dylan turned to walk away, feeling embarrassed.

  “Where you going, kid? Come back over and have a seat,” Porter said in a relaxed tone.

  Porter slid over to one side of the hood and Dylan got up, albeit awkwardly, on the hood next to him.

  “What are you thinking?” Porter asked after Dylan got settled on the hood.

  “I don’t know.” It was an honest answer.

  “Do you want to know how I felt about life before all this happened?” Porter asked, but he didn’t wait for Dylan to answer. “I used to think life was like a Band-Aid. Do you pull it off slow so it won’t hurt as bad, but will take longer? Or do you rip it off fast and have it hurt like hell, but only for a short time?”

  Dylan had no idea what Porter meant by anything he said.

  “I was living my life the rip-it-off-fast way.” Porter looked down at his lap for a moment, soaking in Dylan’s silence. “Ever since this all happened, the last thought I have at night and the first thought I have in the morning is, why am I here?”

  Dylan wanted to respond to Porter with his own thoughts, but he was struggling to come up with the right words to say.

  “I hurt a lot of people.” That comment from Porter shocked Dylan. Porter seemed like such a stand-up kind of guy. “I lived life fast and hard. It’s not that I ever wanted to hurt anyone, it’s just that I hated who I was and what I was, and that I made others pay for it.”

  “Why?” Dylan asked, breaking his silence.

  Porter seemed stunned by the question.

  “Why did you take your misery out on others?” Dylan asked again, looking straight in Porter’s eyes.

  “I don’t know why. I don’t why I hurt the women I could have loved; I don’t why I abandoned my best friend at the lowest point of his life; I don’t why I ran from everything and everyone when things got too real for me.”

  Dylan slid off the hood of the car. “Maybe that is why you are here,” he said, looking back at Porter.

  “What do you mean?” Porter asked, confused but staying seated on the hood.

  “You can’t run away now; you have to stay and fight. There is nowhere for you to run away to.”

  Frank had a very uneasy feeling about spending the night in town; he always felt safer in the more rural areas. When the light from the sun faded in the sky above, he ordered that all the shades be pulled down over the bus’s widows.

  “I will not keep my uneasiness about this location from you,” Frank said as he started speaking to the tribe. “I had hoped that we’d make it to the other side of the river before night fell, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.”

  Frank continued to clamp the bus down, locking all the windows and the door, and turning all the lights off. He ordered everyone to have their firearms ready.

  “Didn’t you say we weren’t going to run into anybody until we got to the new city?” Charlie one of the older men in the group asked Frank, sounding a little more than concerned. Charlie was th
e last to understand most of the things that were going on.

  “What I said, Charlie,” Frank was trying hard not to lose his temper, “was that we would not see any more humans until we got to the new city.” Frank looked at a covered window. “What is out there is not human.”

  Three hours after falling asleep, Dylan woke up in a cold sweat. Something was wrong.

  “They’re here.” Frank’s voice came from Dylan’s right, but it was impossible to see Frank in the darkness.

  “Who are they?” Dylan asked, already fully alert.

  “Who they are I cannot answer, but what they are, that is simple. They used to be human and now they are members of the army of pure hate and evil. Their sole purpose is to destroy all the humans that have survived.” Frank paused for a few moments, then spoke just before Dylan could ask another question. “It is my job to make sure they do not succeed,” Frank said with pure conviction.

  Dylan started shaking; his mind was racing.

  “Clear your mind, Dylan.” Frank could sense Dylan’s nervousness. “Grab your gun, say a prayer, and get ready. It is about to get real nasty.” Frank’s voice got sharper with each word spoken.

  By the way he sounded, Dylan knew Frank was ready to fight and ready to die. Dylan didn’t think he felt the same way, but he did what Frank told him to do. He cleared his mind and he said a small prayer. The prayer was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering toward the middle of the bus—the attack had begun.

  “Everybody, grab your weapons and start shooting out the windows,” Frank shouted the order.

  To Dylan’s surprise, nobody was screaming. In fact, everyone looked like they knew what to do, like they had all been in a battle before and lived another day.

  A few lanterns were lit and placed on the floor not to give direct light, but to help with weapon control. Guns quickly started to be fired out the already broken glass, but as the bus got brighter, their ability to see what was attacking them diminished.

  Rocks continued to be thrown at the glass, and arms were coming through trying to grab anyone they could. Luckily for everyone, all they had grabbed were handfuls of shirts.

  Dylan quickly realized that it was too bright on the bus; the lights were reflecting off of the glass that remained unbroken. “Turn those lanterns off, NOW!” Dylan barked the order. “Those with flashlights, point them out the windows at the attackers!”

  Dylan overstepped Frank, but he had noticed that when those things out there got in the light, they cringed and moved quickly into the shadows, like vampires. Dylan moved over next to Andy, who had taped his flashlight to the barrel of his rifle.

  “See if you can get your light to point at one of them in the face. I want to see what they look like,” Dylan said.

  Andy nodded his acknowledgement. “I will see what I can do.”

  Dylan began to tape his own flashlight to the barrel of his shotgun.

  Finally, Dylan got a good look and saw what the attackers looked like. One had crossed in Andy’s light as Dylan happened to glance up from reloading his shotgun. It all seemed like slow motion. The creature was hideous; its flesh was burned charred black and broken up with blood-red lines where its skin cracked open. Dylan stared at the creature for a long time without blinking. The creature stared back at him. Andy fired his gun and the creature disappeared from view. By this time, shooting had slowed down.

  It had seemed to be a short attack. Nobody really knew how many of those creatures were out there or what they were capable of.

  Just as some on the bus began to relax, a new window crashed open and a scream came from up front. All the lights pointed in that direction just in time to see Alice being grabbed by several burned hands from the outside. Before anyone could even take a breath, Alice was ripped away.

  “No!” Frank shouted as he reached out the window after his beloved wife. Dylan, who by this time had run to the front, and Ben grabbed Frank from falling out of the bus and possibly being taken too. They pulled him back in.

  The faint gray sky was slowly growing brighter, and the shock of what happened was setting in. Damage assessment had started. There were many cuts and bruises, but Alice was the only missing person and possibly the only casualty.

  The tribe huddled in the middle of the bus. Like one giant hug, Leah, Becca, and Jenny surrounded Frank, who was very distraught, and understandably so.

  Dylan, Ben, Andy, Will, Greg, Dave, and Porter went outside at what they considered first light to search for Alice and to assess the damage to the bus. There was blood surrounding the entire bus but there were no bodies to be seen.

  “Let’s split up. Ben and Andy, come with me. Greg, Will, Dave and Porter, take the south side and eastbound lanes. Only go a hundred yards each direction then come back here,” Dylan ordered without even thinking about it.

  “Got it,” Greg answered, then he Dave, Will, and Porter went on their way.

  Dylan watched as they left before turning to the bus. “Wow,” Dylan said looking over the damage. The tires were slashed, all the windows were busted, and somehow the things that had attacked them had piled up a bunch of cars in front of and behind the bus, making it impossible to move either way.

  “Let’s head out west and search for Alice. Maybe we can find a body of one of the creatures. We had to have killed at least one of them,” Dylan said as he started walking. Andy and Ben followed close behind.

  “Dylan, over here!” Porter shouted from the eastbound lanes, about seventy-five yards the other way. Dylan, Ben, and Andy ran as fast as they could to where the others were standing behind a car. Nobody spoke for five minutes, they just stood there looking at what appeared to be Alice’s remains. Dylan’s heart sank and his head spun; it was like he’d lost his mother.

  When he regained some composure, Dylan focused on the task at hand. “Let’s pick her up, move her to the shoulder, and prepare to bury her.” Tears fell from Dylan’s eyes. “I will go and tell Frank we found her.”

  Leah stopped Dylan before he could climb on the bus. “We found her,” he told her, and from the way he looked and the way he said it, Leah knew what that meant. Alice was dead.

  Leah looked Dylan in the eyes then gave him a big hug. “We’ll tell him together,” she said, grabbing his hand as they climbed on the bus together.

  Dylan fell down on his knees when he approached Frank, who was sitting at the back of the bus. Frank slowly raised his head; Dylan could tell Frank had been crying when he saw Frank’s bloodshot eyes. There where fresh teardrops on the bible Frank was holding. Leah stood over Dylan, resting her left hand on his left shoulder. She gave him a squeeze just before he opened his mouth.

  “We found Alice . . .” Dylan could not speak another word. He got up and stood as tall as he could.

  “I want to see her,” Frank said with a shaky voice.

  “Come with us. We will take you there,” Dylan said. He and Leah walked to the front of the bus and waited for Frank to join them.

  No words were spoken as the three of them made their way to the road shoulder where Alice’s body now lay. A couple of the guys were digging a grave for her. When Frank arrived, Andy stopped shoveling then tapped Greg on the shoulder to do the same. They walked away from the burial site to give Frank some space. Frank fell to both knees over the remains of his wife and broke down in tears, but the tears stopped when he gripped the bible tighter and held it to his chest. Frank eyes were closed and his lips were moving as if he were speaking, but it was so soft no one could hear a word.

  Frank rose to his feet. Even though he never took his eyes off of Alice, a new sense of conviction came over him. “Leah, could you tell everyone to come here?” he asked in a shaky voice. “It is time we give Alice a ceremony and lay her to rest.”

  Leah took off at a brisk pace toward the bus, where most of the tribe had gathered. Just a few moments later the entire tribe surrou
nded what would be Alice’s final resting place. Ollie gave the eulogy; Frank was too broken up to speak. Before Greg, Andy, and Ben started to cover Alice up, Frank slipped off his wedding ring and placed it in Alice’s open hand, then closed her fingers around it.

  Once dirt had covered his wife for eternity, Frank turned to address the tribe. “We need to pack up all we can. We must be far from this city before nightfall. We don’t need any more losses.”

  Everybody but Andy, Ben, and Greg went back to the bus. Those three stayed behind to finish burying Alice.

  Back at the bus, Leah quickly took charge of gathering what they would need to take with them on foot. By the time Andy, Ben, and Greg returned from the gravesite, the tribe was ready to start the long walk west. Jenny gave the guys some water, and Leah had some granola bars for them. Nothing more than simple thank-yous were said; nobody felt like talking. Everybody was tired from the early morning attack, and they all felt some hurt after losing someone who was so caring and important to the entire tribe. It was without a doubt the most difficult part of their journey.

  As they crossed high over the Mississippi River, some felt that it was a good thing to leave what happened on the east side of the massive river and start anew as they slowly closed in on their mysterious destination.

  Leah tried to hold Dylan’s hand as they walked, but Dylan was not receptive to that. When she went for it, all she got in response was a cold touch and a slight pull away. Dylan didn’t think it was the time or place to be close to anyone.

  The tribe had finally reached the outskirts of West Memphis. There were a few hours before it would get too dark and dangerous to move. Dylan noticed that Greg was walking way over on the outside shoulder of the interstate while everyone else was walking down the middle. Greg kept looking below the road level and out a short distance. Dylan broke off from the pack and moved next to Greg.

  Chapter 4

  “What are you looking for?” Dylan asked Greg as soon as he was next to him.