by David Wood
She and Peter rolled away in opposite directions as the Echo fell forward, splashing its soupy insides all over the cabbage. She winced as her flexing abs stressed the stitches in her gut even further. She’d felt a few of them tear her skin earlier, but most were still intact. Laying on her back, she picked up her head and looked back at the armored truck. Jakob stood behind the smoking machine gun, eyes wide and frozen on the carnage he’d wrought. When Peter sat up, the boy’s focus shifted.
“Are you okay?” the boy shouted.
His father gave a thumbs up. “Nice shooting.”
Ella agreed. Jakob had saved them both and proven her fears about him wrong, but there wasn’t time to say so. She climbed to her feet, clutching her stomach. “Anything living within a few miles is already headed in our direction. Once they smell the blood...”
A clank of metal announced the opening of the church’s front door. Anne leaned out. “The first floor is clear. C’mon!” She disappeared inside, letting the door swing shut.
Peter gave a nod and shouted to Jakob. “Take what you can. Get inside.”
As the boy set to work, taking supplies from the back of the pickup, Peter turned to her. Pointed to her stomach. “How bad is it?”
“Just a few stitches. It can wait.” She peeled off her shirt, which was covered in her blood and the Echo’s, oblivious to her naked torso.
Peter, on the other hand, noticed. “What are you doing?”
“Anything that finds this body with its nose will have no trouble sniffing us out, too, especially if we smell like a recent meal. We need to ditch the clothes. Leave them with the body.
Peter sighed, but stripped. He turned to his son, who was already averting his eyes as he walked past carrying a box of supplies. “We need to change. We’ll be in soon.”
Ella tried to give Peter the same privacy that his son was granting them both, but her eyes wandered as he removed his pants. He was in the same staggering shape she remembered, muscles twitching just beneath the skin. She often wondered what life would have been like if he had stayed, but she always got hung up on the idea of being a home-wrecker. In the long run, he’d made the right choice, morally, for his wife and his son, but that didn’t stop her from wishing he hadn’t.
Peter glanced up and looked surprised, caught in the act of peeking, but then he squinted, no doubt realizing she’d already been watching him. She deflected attention from her wandering eyes by saying, “Your boxers look clean.”
“Yours too,” he said. She was wearing women’s boxer briefs that ended just below her butt. Not exactly sexy, but not hiding any curves. Stepping away from the giant corpse, the two put on fresh clothes. Peter put on cargo shorts and a T-shirt while Ella dressed in jeans, but held her T-shirt. Both shirts were black, but the blue jeans and beige shorts wouldn’t do much to conceal them.
Partially dressed and carrying bloodied boots, Ella said, “We need water.”
Peter led her to the truck and took out two sealed gallons of water. She popped the cap and handed it to him. “Pour it over my head. We need all the blood off.”
She leaned forward and Peter slowly poured the water over her head. She scrubbed her bristly bald head, thankful that her hair wasn’t long. Washing the blood out would have been impossible. She rubbed her hands over her face and finished by washing the blood from her hands. She then took the gallon and poured water over the boots, rinsing away the blood. When she was done, she said, “Your turn.” Peter repeated the steps, washing himself and then his boots.
Free of the creature’s blood and its scent, Ella said, “Duct tape?”
Peter grinned. “Of course.”
He fetched the roll from the storage crate and handed her the black tape. As he held it out, she noticed his hand shaking. She took hold of his hand, steadying it. “You get used to it.”
“I know.”
“Sorry, I sometimes forget who you were.”
“Still am,” he said. “Just a little rusty.” He turned his hand over, depositing the tape in her fingers. The connection was brief, but it let her feel human again, for a moment. But just a moment. What she was about to do would require all the toughness she’d developed over the past years.
She peeled off strips of tape, gently sticking them one at a time to the side of the truck bed. When she had ten five-inch strips, she put the tape down and peeled off the now blood-soaked gauze Peter had placed over her wound. She tossed the red square away, picked up a gallon of water.
“Here,” Peter said, holding out a bandana. She took it, soaked it, and wiped her stomach clean. Blood continued to seep through the opened stitches, but not fast, and in a moment, it wouldn’t matter.
“Let me do it,” Peter said.
Ella scoured the area around them, looking for motion. She had a clear view, nearly to the horizon in most directions. She saw nothing. That didn’t mean they were alone, just that she couldn’t see what was there. Still, she thought they had time. “Be quick.”
“First time you said that,” Peter said, getting a laugh that would have been more forceful if it didn’t pull at the stitches. She lay down on the open truck bed hatch, aware of her nakedness, but uncaring. Peter had seen her naked before. Not quite so skinny and muscle toned, but under much more romantic circumstances. True to form, Peter was all business, peeling the duct tape from the truck, pinching her skin together and then sealing it with the tape. Once the open stitches were back in place, he attacked the rest, layering and wrapping her stomach with an armored plate of duct tape.
“It’s going to hurt like hell when it comes off,” he said, stepping away, “but it won’t need to come off until it’s healed...or if infection sets in. And if you feel that—”
“I’ll tell you, doctor. Thanks.” She sat up and put on her shirt. She hopped down from the truck, trying to look stronger than she felt. She wanted to fall into his arms. To be supported. But she’d learned that the only person she could rely on was herself. Relaxing that rule could lead to mistakes, and mistakes to death—hers or Anne’s. “Now comes the fun part. Have a bucket?”
He squinted at her, but climbed into the truck bed, rummaged through the storage crate and pulled out a bucket full of tools.
“Ditch the tools.”
He did as she asked and stepped back down with an empty five gallon bucket. By the time he rejoined her, she’d already torn three heads of cabbage out of the ground and put them aside.
“You’re not planning on eating those?”
She didn’t justify the stupid question with a reply. Instead, she dug her hands into the soil, lifted up two heaping handfuls and smeared it around on the front of her shirt.
“Ahh,” he said, dropping to his knees, following her lead. He dug his hands into the dirt and slathered his body. While they weren’t covered in blood anymore, they still smelled like themselves, like human animals. To survive, to remain undetected by whatever heightened senses the next predator had, they would have to smell like the land itself.
After Peter finished coating his body, Ella rubbed some dirt between her fingers and applied it to his cheeks. Her hands stopped, and for a moment, she just held him.
“We should head in,” Peter whispered after a moment.
Ella sniffed and turned away, her cheeks turning red. She dug more dirt and flung it into the bucket. “For the kids,” she said, and Peter helped her. With the bucket filled, Peter stood and helped Ella to her feet. Standing once more, Ella felt exposed and did a scan of the area once more.
Nothing.
After all that noise, nothing.
She wasn’t buying it. The world wasn’t yet that devoid of life. Moving in silence, it was possible to avoid other living things for weeks, but after that racket... She was expecting dinner guests. And since there wasn’t any sign of them yet, that meant one of two things—they were small or they were smart—and she knew from experience that neither were good things.
“Let’s get inside,” she said. “The sun is going
down.”
Chapter 21
Anne pushed on the church’s metal front door. The green paint still looked new, and the white-painted wood around it hadn’t yet started to show signs of chipping. She slipped inside, pursued by yet another trumpet blast from the Echo. Part of her felt guilty for fleeing into the church while the others faced the creature, but she knew there was nothing she could do to help, and that one way or the other, she had to determine whether the building was safe. So while the others struggled with the Echo, she stepped into the dim foyer and let the door close behind her.
She glanced back at the window beside the door, seeing movement through the sheer shade, but she didn’t move toward it. She hoped they survived, but if they didn’t, she didn’t want to see it. The prospect of living without them horrified her, but her mother had been preparing her for that potential fate for months. After all, she was important. She had to survive.
“Even if it means leaving you behind?” she’d asked Ella two months ago.
Her mother had put her hands on Anne’s cheeks, fire in her eyes. “If things look bad, you leave me behind. No goodbyes. No tears. You have to be strong. If I survive, I’ll find you. If not, you know what to do.”
And she did know what to do, but that didn’t make it easy. Since that time, they had had several close calls, but nothing like this, nothing leading her to take her mother’s advice and leave her behind. Not that she was going far, but she was acutely aware that her mother was facing death outside, while she was safe inside the church.
But how safe was she?
If the others died, would the Echo come for her? Would it remember seeing her enter the church?
Be brave, she told herself. Be smart. Find someplace secure. Someplace to hide. For everyone. They’re going to survive. They have to.
The sunlight streaking through the foyer windows cast her shadow on the thin, blue industrial carpet, while revealing swirls of dust kicked up by her entrance. Two separate double doors blocked the way ahead. To the left was a winding staircase leading up and down. And to the right, men and women’s bathrooms.
The basement was her goal, and her eyes lingered on the steps leading down, but heading down there before checking the rest of the church could be a deadly mistake. ‘Know your surroundings first,’ her mother had taught her. ‘Then settle in. Even if you’re wounded. Sleeping in a predator’s den is a quick way to die.’
So she checked the bathrooms first, ignoring the muffled trumpet blast outside. She opened the doors a crack, peeking inside. Both were immaculate, smelling faintly of ancient sanitary chemicals. She moved to the double doors next, pushing through into a wide open sanctuary. Two rows of long wooden pews separated by an aisle stretched down the room to a small stage. There was no podium, but there was a collection of dusty musical instruments and microphone stands.
She moved silently over the ruby red rug lining the aisle. She’d never been in a church before, and she knew very little about the concept of God taught in them. She knew her mother staunchly opposed any kind of religion, though, so she moved to the back of the room without any kind of emotional response besides fearing what might lurk behind the next door, which was to the left of the stage.
She paused at the door, her hand on the knob. Please be empty. The knob spun without a sound, but a sudden thunderous roar made her jump, yanking her hand back. It took a moment for her to recognize the sound. Gunfire. A lot of it. And loud. The machine gun on the truck.
They killed it, she thought. The Echo was certainly dead, but who was left alive? Spurred by the question, she shoved the door open and found an empty office lined with shelves of thick books. The only decoration on the wall was a framed poster of footprints in the sand. A heavy wooden desk held a lone book, left open.
Glancing back at the sanctuary, she stepped inside the room and looked at the book. At the top of the page, it said LUKE. She recognized the book as the one her mother always read, but never let her look at. The forbidden fruit nearly proved too much to resist. She wanted to read that book, mostly because her mother didn’t want her to, but it could wait. She retreated from the office and ran back through the sanctuary.
Back in the foyer, she shoved the front door open and was relieved to see a dead Echo and her mother alive—Jakob and Peter, too. “The first floor is clear,” she shouted to the group. “C’mon!”
She ducked back inside the foyer, once again on the lookout for trouble inside the building. But knowing she’d soon have company, she waited. Jakob arrived two minutes later, a box in his hands full of supplies, including a small propane stove. “As much as I like hot food,” she said, “heating it up makes it smell stronger. Attracts attention.”
“Right,” The boy said, looking a little shell shocked and dejected. “No more hot food. Great.”
“Haven’t been outside much?” she asked.
“Try not at all.”
Anne felt simultaneously sorry for and envious of Jakob. He’d lived in safety for the past two years, but it had left him unprepared for life outside, where ExoGenetic predators lurked. “Life out here, on the run, it sucks. But you’ll get used to it.”
“If I don’t get us killed first,” he said.
“Hey.” She gripped his arm hard, garnering his unwavering attention. “You got us away from the Stalkers and avoided hitting that Swine. That wasn’t easy. I couldn’t have done it, and I doubt my mother could have, either. And you just saved both our parents. Killed an Apex on your first try. So you don’t know all the tricks of surviving out here. Big deal. I do.”
He grinned. “You going to teach me?”
“Everything I know,” she said. “Well, not everything. You’re not that smart.”
Jakob laughed. “Okay, kid. So tell me, what next?”
She looked at the ceiling. “Next we clear the second floor. And then the basement.”
“Lead the way, Master Yoda.”
“Master who?” she asked.
Jakob looked as confused as Anne felt, but answered, “Star Wars. It’s a movie. A bunch of movies. But I guess you’re too young to remember. Or something.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “Or something. I’ve never even seen a movie.”
“Geez. Well, that sucks. Of course, there isn’t much that doesn’t suck anymore. But still...no Star Wars?” Jakob said, heading for the stairs, taking the lead after all. “So, what should I look for? To clear the floor? Aside from things trying to eat my face, I mean.”
“Best way to tell if you’re not alone is smell, especially in a place like this, which is pretty much odor-free. If you smell anything animal, fecal or earthy, you’re probably not alone.”
Jakob started up the rugged stairs. “Fecal, huh?”
“Shit,” she said.
“I know what it is. It’s just a weird way for a twelve year old to say it.” Jakob paused on the top step, looking into a hallway with two doors on the right side. Large windows lined the walls, giving them clear views of the nursery and the Sunday School rooms that were conjoined by a doorway. Despite being empty, Jakob led the way inside the Sunday School room. Anne followed him in, taking in the array of brightly colored objects that she knew were designed for children, but with which she had no experience. A round table sat in the middle of the floor. Small chairs surrounded it. A large picture of a wooden boat, full of animals was tacked to the wall. A man stood on the boat, holding a dove that clutched a small green plant in its mouth. The man was smiling. A rainbow arched up over the scene. In each line of the rainbow were words. She read them aloud. “Never again will I punish the Earth for the sinful things its people do. All of them have evil thoughts from the time they are young, but I will never destroy everything that breathes, as I did this time. As long as the Earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat; winter and summer, day and night.”
“Well,” Jakob said, standing at the window looking out at the road. “He got the planting and harvest part right. Not so much with not dest
roying everything.”
“Who did?” she asked.
“God.”
“Was he a teacher?”
Jakob chuckled. “Some people think so. Part of him, anyway. But for this story, God is the...guy or whatever, who created the Earth. The whole universe. And everyone in it.”
“God didn’t make me. I came from my mother” Anne said, revolted by the idea that some strange person might have made her. Someone who had once destroyed ‘everything that breathes.’ “But...if it were true, then you’d be wrong to blame him for killing everyone this time. My mother did that, too.”
“I suppose,” Jakob said, and he opened the window’s curtain a little further. “What are they doing?”
Anne joined him at the window. Their parents knelt by the road, rubbing dirt over their bodies. “Hiding their scent. Don’t worry, they’ll bring some dirt for us, too.”
Jakob shook his head. “Never had any doubt.”
Anne sensed he was about to leave. “Is your father a nice man?”
“Nicest I know,” Jakob said with a smirk, then added, “But yeah, he’s a good guy. Trustworthy.”
“Are you sure?” Anne asked.
Jakob turned from the window, looking at Anne. “Why?”
“Just want to be sure my mother chose the right person.”
“For what?”
Anne was quiet for a moment. She wasn’t sure how to answer that question. It was complicated. There were layers. Too many. So she said, “Look at them.”
Outside the window, framed by an armored Dodge Ram and a dead ExoGenetic Apex predator, Ella rubbed dirt on Peter’s cheek. Her hands moved in gentle circles while the pair stared into each other’s eyes.