“We’ll see,” Joel murmurs. “One thing at a time, huh?”
The Hummer rumbles down the concrete, then lurches heavily off the curb north onto Peterson Street. Pete’s truck behind them sticks close, taking the curb more carefully. Rachel watches it bounce on the asphalt, and she winces. She can hear the old vehicle creak from here, and she can even see the twins’ scared, wary expressions. Joel makes a wide turn west onto Oak, toward Mathews.
Rachel turns and looks after the other two vehicles, heading east on Oak in the direction of Riverside Avenue, and she catches a glimpse of Chrissy’s face plastered to the rear window, watching her. She thinks she’s giving a small wave, but she can’t be sure. Rachel wonders if she will ever see any of them again. She should’ve said better goodbyes. She feels a quick, sharp lump in her throat.
Shut up. You’ll see them again. Soon.
The radio squawks.
“—is Kevin, wanted to wish you guys good luck. Again. We’ll be listening, and we’ll be in touch. Be careful!” His voice breaks apart in a squawk, then returns. “I don’t think I said that before. Be careful. We’ve all been through too much for all this to end badly. Over.”
Joel has already grabbed the radio. He thumbs it now. “Roger that, and same back at you. Take care, over and out.”
And then the two vehicles in Mai’s group—Ron’s blue Subaru and what Rachel guesses is a late-model Chevy Malibu—are heading slowly east and out of view along the street from which the wave of corpses poured earlier in the day. She can see the evidence of the battle that took place here. There are large trees snapped into pale splinters, grass trampled to dirt, lumps of bodies scattered across the property—although she can’t make out any blood from a hundred yards away. The rain has mostly washed away the evidence of the bodies’ passage, but damage remains evident along the street, from uprooted trees to smashed and trampled mailboxes and mangled shrubs.
Then Rachel can no longer see that, as Joel makes the turn north toward Mountain. Scott and Kayla are watching the library recede, and she realizes that Kayla is probably also watching her home disappear into the distance. In the truck following behind them, Chloe and Zoe are also peering out through a hole in their busted-and-haphazardly-repaired rear window as if to bid farewell to this place. Rachel’s own thoughts return to one of her final moments there before sprinting out the doors to the vehicles.
At the edge of the line of corpses was Brian, gray and gone, and at the sight of him, Rachel had emitted an involuntary gasp. Mai, next to her, had said, “I know. I think he had a heart attack.” She sighed. “He had some nitro on him, and we gave him that, but … I don’t think he was conscious again after what happened.”
Even now, Rachel finds herself flashing back to the first time she saw Brian, guarding the library’s front doors when she first arrived, and shoving them closed behind her. He was pale, she remembers, unhealthy and bulky. She never had a chance to talk to him, really.
Just minutes ago, she had bent down and placed her open palm against Brian’s forehead and had thanked him. Another survivor, gone.
Felicia, huddled in the corner of the rear seat, is not looking back at the library. She’s looking straight at Rachel, and the look of uncertainty in her eyes has only grown more pronounced.
“You okay?” Rachel asks her.
A slow nod. “I think so.”
Beyond the steady downfall of strange rain, the darkening streets appear empty.
Rachel strains her eyes to make out any movement between homes, any bodies beneath the remaining upright trees, any suggestion of threat. And after what happened at the hospital, she watches for any danger—even from fellow survivors who might have an antagonistic bent. She’s at once wary of getting too close to her window and somewhat comforted by the presence of the rain, which, if she’s thinking optimistically, seems to be acting as some kind of cover.
To her left, the western skies are gloomy, but she can make out deep red flickering above roiling clouds. She realizes for the first time since it all began that the acrid smell of smoke no longer permeates everything. There’s still the ghost of it, but it has markedly diminished, thanks in no small part to this downpour.
It should feel cleansing, but all it feels is weird.
The occupants of the Hummer are wary and subdued as the vehicle rumbles over the wet streets.
“Pretty quiet out there,” Joel says.
“Do you see anything?” Scott asks from the back. “No bodies at all?”
“Nothing at all.”
“We’re not going west …? Or are you making a stop?” Scott says, staring straight ahead toward Old Town. There’s a note of misery in his voice, and Rachel notices that all of his snark is gone. He’s blank. Either from exhaustion or trauma or both, he’s an entirely different person. And yet Rachel has no doubt that given a full night’s sleep, he’d be back to his essential Scott-ness.
Joel glances back at him, as if he too doesn’t recognize the new tone.
“Yeah, we’ll be headed west—toward the foothills.” He’s still glancing all directions for any signs of movement. “But first we’re picking up another passenger. At least, we’re going to try.”
Joel navigates around a knot of vehicles. Most cars, in the wake of the event, still sit where they drifted against curbs, but in this case several ended up in the center of the road, head-ons that multiplied.
In minutes, they’re approaching an intersection that’s clear of collisions, making Rachel wonder idly how many other survivors might have cleared vehicles out of the way or even taken some of those cars. Which leads her to wonder again how many people did survive—and how many of those are still in Fort Collins. In the first hours of the event, she remembers seeing quite a few survivors, in chaos, going about their own paths, but those numbers have dwindled, for whatever reasons. How many have fled, and how many have died at the hands of these monsters?
She voices these thoughts to the other occupants of the car.
“Obviously the smart ones got out of town pretty quick,” Scott says.
“I don’t know about that,” says Joel in an even tone. “At least, I’d hope some smart ones stuck around.”
“For what?”
“To beat these fuckers.”
“Well,” says Rachel, “we’re still here, and we’re smarter than the average bear. I’d like to think so, anyway.”
“Plus,” says Joel, “we’ve got Kayla, and she’s probably the smartest of all of us.”
Kayla offers up a half-smile from between Scott and Felicia.
“Should be coming up on the right—a VW bus.” Joel leans forward, searching through the diminishing rain. “See anything?”
Rachel wipes at the fogged windshield on her side. “No …”
“I swear it was—wait, there,” he says, gesturing. “I think that’s it.”
Sure enough, something resembling a narrow VW bus emerges from the rainy murkiness as they draw closer. It is a non-descript, faded orange vehicle, and it is leaning against the curb as if a tire has blown out, in front of a small business that Rachel can’t identify.
Joel pulls up close to the vehicle and parks.
“Okay, Rachel and I talked about this earlier. When Mike and I went to the Co-Op yesterday, we spotted one of those things trapped in this bus right here. My plan is to turn it like we did Felicia here.”
“To what purpose?” Scott asks, more curious than anything.
“To save a life?” Rachel retorts.
“More than that, though,” Joel says. “We’re seeing that the turned bodies might be able to help us. Once they heal.”
Scott looks over at Felicia. “Wait, do you know something that I haven’t heard yet?” There’s eagerness in his voice. “Like, a vulnerability?”
Felicia rears to her left, wincing, closes her eyes. “I don’t know.”
Scott waits a beat, then turns back to Joel. “Are we confident in this plan?”
Joel considers his re
sponse, staring down at his service revolver, which he is checking to ensure that it’s loaded. “No, we’re not.” He looks up. “But it feels right. I want to do this and then see where we go from there. Is that good enough?”
Scott looks at Joel, then at the VW bus. “Good enough for me.”
The rain patters the roof of the Hummer, giving the evening a nervous soundtrack.
“Okay, ladies, keep an eye out for anyone or anything approaching.” He looks around warily. “No telling what’s gonna happen next, right?” He refocuses on the bus, then glances at Rachel. “Do you see any movement in the vehicle?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“All its doors are still closed, though. Still in there, I’d say.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“We need to get close enough to nail the body with the dart, and there’s no way one of those things can make it through a car window and hit its mark,” says Joel. “So we gotta open the door.”
“Fabulous,” says Rachel.
“Scott, you ready to be a hero?”
Scott takes a moment, then nods, seeming to weigh the question seriously.
Joel turns to the windshield. “It’s not coming down as hard as it was before, anyway.”
It’s true—the rain has calmed markedly. It is no longer driving but rather a steady, light shower. The clouds still flicker with unearthly purples and reds, but not with the same ferocity. Rachel would even say that the energy of the luminescence has been gradually diminishing since she first noticed it after sundown.
“I’m gonna step out and take a quick look in there, then come back,” says Joel. “Scott, you get that tranq rifle prepped and ready.”
Before they’d left the library, Scott—left without a clear task—took up the task of replenishing the tranq canisters with O-negative blood. Without the benefit of viable bags from the hospital, he was forced to draw blood from Mai, the first to volunteer for it. He’d had time to arrange nearly two dozen canisters with new blood and anti-coagulant.
Now, Scott takes the tranq rifle from the rear compartment behind him and digs out a single small blood canister from the small cooler. He shakes it to make sure the anticoagulant is still effective.
Joel has the Hummer in Park, and Rachel’s mag light is gripped in his left fist.
“Wish me luck,” Joel says, “and Scott? Watch my back.”
“You got it.”
Scott thumbs his window down and scans the area.
Joel ducks quickly out of the car, the door clicking shut behind him. A humid rush of air swirls through the Hummer’s cabin, along with the sour stink of smoke, which is stronger closer to Old Town.
While Scott scans the west side of the street, Rachel keeps her eyes peeled to the east, where Joel is now approaching the VW. The street is deserted. If anything is going to surprise him, it’s going to come from between the businesses beyond the bus. These former homes have large, open side yards from which a body might spring quickly and savagely. Rachel can see it happening far too easily in her mind’s eye.
The immediate threat, though, is supposedly in this vehicle, although even as Joel arrives at the driver’s window and directs the beam of light inside, Rachel can see nothing. He sweeps the interior quickly, and as he moves to the rear, he gives a little jerk, then stabilizes the light. He takes a long look into the back of the bus.
“What is it?” Rachel calls, but he either can’t hear her or is choosing to ignore her.
“Is someone in that car?” Kayla asks softly.
“I think so, honey.”
Joel points at Scott and gives a beckoning gesture.
Scott opens his door and hops down with the tranq rifle.
Fiercely protective of Kayla—and all too aware of what happened to the little boy, Danny, as they approached the library days ago—Rachel observes the street with paranoid eyes, her peripheral vision heightened, ultra-aware. Her insides lurch.
Scott closes his door without incident, and then he hurries to Joel’s side. Holding the tranq rifle upright in his fist, he peeks into the back of the bus. At that moment, Joel turns to Rachel and gives her a brief nod.
Directly behind Rachel, Felicia makes a small sound, a whimper.
Rachel barely makes note of it as Joel prepares to open the VW’s side door. He grasps the handle and gives it a turn. It’s locked. He shakes his head, pointing to the driver’s door.
“Rachel?” Kayla says softly behind her.
“Not now, sweetie.”
“Something’s wrong with—”
“Hmm? Wrong with what?”
Outside, Joel opens the driver’s door with some difficulty, and it scrapes open on a rusty hinge. The squawk of the metal is loud, and Rachel turns her head to scan the area again, as do the two men, to see if anyone or anything reacted to the sound.
When she glances behind her at Pete’s truck behind them, she notices that Felicia is staring out her window at the bus, her eyes large, her body tense.
“Something’s wrong with Felicia,” Kayla says.
“Felicia?” Rachel says, alarmed. “What’s the matter?”
Felicia’s eyes swivel in their sockets, and her jaw drops awkwardly, her mouth opening at a slant. “Wait,” she whispers.
“What is it?”
“That—that woman in there,” Felicia says in a rasp.
“Yeah?”
“I can—I can—sss—”
“You can see her? I can’t see anything. Where—”
Felicia is shaking her head. “No, no.”
Joel slowly reaches his hand around behind the driver’s seat to unlock the sliding rear door. Scott watches the rear of the bus, apparently for any sign of attack.
Pete calls something from the truck behind them, and Rachel can’t hear it clearly, but it sounds like, “Is it dead?”
Joel responds with something that ends with, “—count on it!”
The rain seems to be intensifying just as Rachel needs to see and hear what’s going on. Her stomach aches with foreboding. She feels the sudden urge to open her door and scream a warning.
“Felicia, it’s okay, settle down, they’re all right,” Rachel whispers.
The men huddle for a moment after Joel closes the bus’s driver’s door, and then Pete makes his heavy way toward the vehicle, casting long, searching glances into the distance with his own mag light, holding his rifle authoritatively in his big right hand. Rachel follows the path of his light. There’s still nothing out there. Very quiet, except for the patter of the rain.
Then there’s a clatter, and the rain is suddenly very loud, and Rachel is unsure what’s happening at first.
Felicia has opened her door and is stepping down into the rain.
“Felicia!” Rachel yells. “Wait! Kayla, stay there!”
Kayla clambers backward, away from the open door, making herself as small as possible.
Before Rachel has a chance to think about it, she’s stepping out of the Hummer herself, following Felicia.
“Wait!”
She feels the rain immediately, and there’s something about it that feels cold—the slightest bit stinging, despite the warmth of the evening. More than that, she’s now all too aware that she’s out in the open, and vulnerable. A tightness clutches at her chest.
“What are you doing?!” Joel shouts.
Rachel reaches Felicia and grabs hold of her arm, but the woman is resolute in her approach toward the bus.
“Hey … what’s wrong?” Rachel tries, being dragged. “Stop!”
“Guys!” Joel says, motioning for Pete and Scott to watch the street until it becomes clear what Felicia is up to. The two men fan out north and south, aiming their weapons into the semi-darkness.
Meanwhile, Felicia has reached the bus. She plants her hands against the window and stares inside.
“Felicia, what is it?” Rachel peers in, too, much more carefully.
There’s a body inside the bus, stretched out on its side,
and the first thing Rachel sees is the crimson glow pulsing at its neck. The sight sends a shiver of disgust through her.
“It’s not dead!” Rachel shouts. “We have to stay away from it!”
Felicia shakes her head slowly from side to side.
Before Rachel realizes anything is happening, the sliding door is opening. She spontaneously lets Felicia’s hand go and goes tumbling backward against the Hummer. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near this bus. She looks wildly behind her, making sure Kayla is safe, hunkered down inside.
Felicia bends into the bus, her hands touching the body.
Then Rachel pushes herself off the Hummer’s fender, grabbing at Felicia fearfully.
“Be careful, don’t touch the head, don’t get near—”
Felicia turns to Rachel, looks her in the eyes, and Rachel stops talking. Felicia’s eyes flash under the rain, a luminescence all their own that echoes that of the body in the bus. It’s so faint that Rachel doubts it’s actually there, as if her mind is playing tricks on her. But she feels immediately calmed under the drone of the rain, even as she becomes increasingly soaked from the droning precipitation.
Felicia doesn’t say anything for a moment, but her jaw works, almost crookedly.
“Okay,” Rachel says, even as she doesn’t know why she’s saying it.
“What is it?” Joel shouts. “What’s going on?”
Rachel shakes her head, watching.
Felicia turns to the body in the bus again and lays her hands on the thing’s shoulders. The body is thin, wasted away. It could be dead. Felicia pulls at it, as if curiously. The body doesn’t respond.
“What’s wrong with it?” Joel says.
“Is it pretending?” Pete calls from the rear end of the bus, peering in. “Just kill it!”
“No!” Felicia says now, forcefully.
Scott edges back, glancing in at the body as he circles the bus. “It’s been in there for, what, five days?” he shouts. “Without water, any kind of food. It’s no wonder it would be out of it.”
“I wouldn’t trust that thing as far as I could throw it,” Pete says.
Blood Dawn (Blood Trilogy Book 3) Page 17