“Not worth it. Not when vehicles are basically free for the taking.” He reached in the console and pulled out an oatmeal cream pie. The wrapper rattled as he opened it and took a bite. “If I had known this was going to happen, I probably would have bought more weapons and ammo instead of making truck payments.”
She just stared at him.
“What? You want one?” he offered.
“Yeah…but why do you have all these?” she questioned. He fumbled around in the console and she heard a suspiciously large number of plastic wrappers.
“Emergency supplies.”
She opened hers and took a bite. The frosting inside was melty and she didn’t really want to think about how old these might be exactly. She just enjoyed the sugar while she could.
“Did you hear about that family that bought a bunch of stuff on credit back before 2012?” she asked after chewing.
“Is this a joke?”
“No. They spent thousands of dollars on credit on furniture and stuff. They didn’t have to make payments for one year. They thought the world was going to end in 2012 and they'd get all of it for free. I wonder if they went bankrupt in 2013?”
“Huh. They weren’t too far off,” he said.
They finished their little picnic and Jared looked at his truck one last time before they drove off.
“We’ll come back and get it some time,” she said.
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound like that was going to happen.
◆◆◆
They were close to the supposedly overrun community now. Much like Oak Grove, it consisted of a cluster of houses, a church, and a gas station. Unlike Oak Grove, this place also had a small country restaurant, a little grocery store, and a small branch of a community bank.
It also didn’t have any barricades or signs of life.
“Do you think Sten was telling the truth?”
“About the draugar here?” Jared asked.
She nodded.
“He had no reason to lie about it. I don’t think he wants us dead.”
They looked at the seemingly empty buildings. The windows were dark in the gloomy light of the storm. It had lessened in intensity a little. Some of the windows were broken, leaving jagged shards of glass protruding. The atmosphere was depressing and ominous, and the lingering storm only made it worse.
“I think it would be extremely dangerous to assume that this place is empty. We would probably get a nasty surprise,” he said.
She tucked her bangs behind her ear and rested her hand on the bat handle by her knee. “And I’ve had enough surprises for one day, thank you very much.”
“So, no stopping for Aunt Mollie’s famous pecan pie?” he asked, pointing to a hand painted sign promising a fresh slice. She looked at it dubiously. The sign looked as it had been offering a fresh slice for about fifty years now.
“I’ll make you a pecan pie if you drive a little faster,” she offered.
“No can do. I don’t want to come up on something blocking the road and not have time to stop. The roads get congested through here.” He glanced at her. “Will five more miles per hour get me a pie?”
“I guess. At least the windows on this thing aren’t broken. In the truck I always felt like something was going to reach in and grab me.”
“Don’t worry. If something breaks in and tried to grab you, I’ll deal with it,” he promised.
“By throwing oatmeal pies at it?”
“Yes. That is exactly what I was planning to do.”
They drove through the intersection and saw the bank on the corner. The building was an old limestone structure. The bank itself occupied the bottom floor. The top floor was a mystery. The small rectangular windows were reminiscent of arrow slits on a castle. A white sheet flapped out of one.
“Doesn’t that mean someone inside needs help?” she asked.
“Yeah. Do you see anyone?”
She looked hard but saw no movement at the window. Should they try to help? Could she live with herself if someone were trapped in there and she just left? She bit her lip as she thought it through.
“What if we honk the horn?” she asked. “If someone is in there then we’d see them.”
“Yeah, but that would also probably be the very last thing we saw," he saw wryly.
The top floor of the tiny bank was only one floor up. It was likely that someone could jump down without hurting themselves too much, especially if they hung from the window first. Perhaps they couldn’t get down through the stairs inside, but why hadn’t they gone through the window?
“Please, Jared?”
“Alright, but we don’t stay long after.”
He honked the horn twice. The loud blast of sound in the gloomy silence was startling and went against everything they had learned about survival since the plague started. Noise could get them killed.
Immediately, a straggling draug lurched around the corner. Its tall, skinny body looked so emaciated that she was surprised that it could move around at all. It wasn’t a threat yet.
“At least it’s a normal one.”
“I still don’t see anyone,” she worried.
“Anna—”
“I know. Please? One more time?”
Jared honked again and she watched desperately for any sign of life as the creature got closer. There was nothing.
“They’re behind us!” Jared shouted, and accelerated. She looked back and saw a small group sprinting toward them, their clothing ragged and almost indistinguishable. They were faster than the lone wolf draug stalking them from the front.
As they passed the corner of the bank she gasped. “Oh shit!”
A crowd of the sick seethed madly in a huge cluster. Steam from the rapidly evaporating rain rose on the pavement and ascended through the bodies.
These must be the residents.
She saw rage and fury flash on their faces as they violently twitched. Their slit-pupiled eyes gleamed with an alien intelligence. Gory wounds marked some of their torsos, and they dripped a tarry substance. The smell was sickening. The stench of decay and gangrenous pus filtered in through the vents. She gagged and covered her mouth.
They passed them by just as the first runners reached the intersection. They were so close they could reach out and touch the vehicle. Some did. One of the fastest ones reached her side of the SUV. She scooted away from the window quickly. Horror rolled through her as she saw a deep gash on the feral biter’s shoulder. Maggots writhed indolently inside the wound and trickled out onto the pavement with every jolting step.
She heard the screeching of sharp nails rake down the side of the truck and shivers wracked her spine. The draug collided with the back end violently. She watched as its leg was brutally mangled by the back tire.
“I think we just hit Aunt Mollie,” Jared said.
She gritted her teeth and glanced back at the bank window. She didn’t have a good vantage point anymore, but she didn’t think anyone was there. Maybe they hadn’t been there for a long time.
Would there come a time when they stopped trying to help people? She hoped not.
“That went well.”
“That was horrible,” she said.
“Do I still get a pecan pie? You are the one who wanted to stop, you know.”
◆◆◆
“I wonder if scientists are studying those things somewhere, those and the other ones.”
“Trust me, there are scientists somewhere that know all about those things,” he said. His jaw flexed with anger and she realized that he thought the crazies were created on purpose.
“You think they meant to make everyone sick?” she asked. Would they really want to do that? When it would destroy the world?
It seemed a little hard to believe, a little fantastical, like a science fiction novel.
“I think they were messing with DNA. I think they engineered those things, maybe to study them. I think someone somewhere wanted to release it. Or maybe it really was an accidental explosion. Or a coverup
attempt. Who knows? What they made goes against nature.”
“I wonder if those things know what they are now?”
“I think they know. Why do you think they are so angry?” he said with a grim set to his face.
She hadn’t considered that.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Thompsonville
As they drove toward the outskirts of Thompsonville, the first thing they saw was the black smoke rolling in the distance. Something big was burning. Several somethings.
The small highway had gone from practically empty, to overcrowded in a matter of seconds. Empty vehicles lined the sides of the roads as far as they could see. Some had their doors smashed backward from the impact of a large vehicle. Others had large gashes in the metal, right down the sides. Glass littered the ground like ice. The center of the road was clear.
There were no living things in sight.
She looked down the slight hill as they drove on. Jared slowed to a crawl. Thankfully, the abandoned vehicles would provide a barrier against anything attacking from the treeline beyond. They would have some warning at least, as there were open fields on either side.
Wildflowers bloomed in a riot of color and it would have been beautiful at any other time. Now it was oddly incompatible with the destruction just a short distance away. It was a jarring contrast, the beauty of nature versus the destruction of man.
On the fringes of town, the buildings were burned out. Large holes gaped in the facades, the brick crumbled and destroyed. Some buildings had collapsed completely.
He slowed as much as he dared. As far as they saw, structures had been decimated. She saw objects glittering, golden in the newly reappearing sun, but she couldn’t make them out.
“What is that?” she asked, squinting to get a better look.
“Brass.”
Bullets?
“Looks like they had a major battle here. No wonder…the population is probably triple the size of home,” he added.
“Do you think this happened after Stewart and Bradley got here?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
Blackened corpses, barely recognizable as such, littered the insides of the burned out buildings. There was no way to tell if they had been bodies of the sick or the healthy. So many deaths. Everywhere she looked, buildings were utterly destroyed. Vehicles had been abandoned, some smashed, some wrecked. Oddly, one place —a liquor store— was practically untouched.
Jared looked around at the carnage. “Wow, these Yankees really know how to party.”
Anna gave him a WTF look. “Jared. We’re only an hour north of home.”
“Yeah, but anything north of where we live is Yankee territory,” he said nonsensically.
“So, if we move north, the Mason-Dixon line moves with us?” she asked for clarification.
He stared at her and wrinkled his forehead. “Obviously.”
“Don’t think it works that way. And anyway, you shouldn't make jokes. A lot of people died here.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
He side-eyed her as they drove, but she pretended that she didn’t see it.
The town was silent and as still as a grave. Out of the thousands of people that had lived here before, they saw nothing. It scared her. It was what they couldn’t see that worried her.
“Shouldn’t the military be here?” she asked.
“Well. They were here. Maybe they moved on. We’ll see when we get there.”
She crossed her fingers and toes that they would find their friends, and Kate, at the armory.
“There’s the road to the armory,” he said, and pointed to a highway off to the right.
The road was partially blocked by concrete barricades topped with rolled concertina wire. Makeshift fencing lined the sides. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to try to secure that route.
As they got closer, she saw that the entrance to the road barred by a large military vehicle.
“What is that?”
The machine was massive and looked like it belonged in a desert somewhere. The bottom had suspicious rust-colored stains dried around it. Brass casings littered the ground, sometimes so deep she couldn’t see the pavement underneath.
“I’ve seen one before. I don’t remember the name. The bottom is armored against IEDs,” he told her.
“Hmmm.”
“Looks like we’ll have to walk from here,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked uncertainly. It seemed like a horrible place to get out and walk.
“Unless you want to try to move that behemoth…” he offered.
She sighed. “What do we carry with us?”
“As much ammo and water as we can. Pull out whatever clothes you have in that bag and load up. Take one of those MRE’s from that box.”
She dumped her clothing and hygiene supplies out, again, and left only the female necessities. She probably wouldn’t need them for several more days, but she didn’t want to risk being without.
She put in as much water as she could, packing at least a gallon. She stuffed ammo in until she couldn’t possibly fit anymore. In the large side pocket, she stuffed in one MRE.
Vegetarian tacos?
She wrinkled her nose as she considered exactly what would constitute a military meal called vegetarian tacos. They really didn’t need to spare the time for her to find a more palatable option. They needed to find Kate and get home.
“Ready?” he asked before locking the door.
“Yep, let’s get this over with.”
She carried her pistol in her right hand. Her grip was getting sweaty, and she had to wipe her palms every few minutes. The rain hadn’t done much to cool the air. If anything, it was now even more humid.
The bat bounced irritatingly against her side as she walked. The backpack was extremely heavy on her shoulders. She hoped the straps held under the weight. She wouldn’t be doing any sprinting while carrying it, that was for sure. Jared looked around constantly as they sidled in between the fencing and the monstrous military vehicle.
Steel plates lined the bottom, and the hot metal burned her legs as she squeezed through the space. It was twice her height probably, and just as wide. It made a highly effective barrier. Only a tank would be getting through this thing. Maybe.
The draugs could still squeeze through the sides though, and that kind of worried her.
The other side of the barricade was mercifully empty. She was amped up and alert for the smallest noise, any hint of a scuff of feet against the road or the rumbling growl of a runner. Or, God forbid, more than one.
The makeshift barricades continued along the streets to the armory a block away. They could see the gate closed, and likely locked, in the distance. Wicked-looking loops of wire graced the top. They would have to figure a way in somehow.
They walked carefully along, feeling a bit more secure because of the barriers on the sides. It must have taken a massive amount of manpower to construct these while the city was under siege by the sick. As they got closer, the armory gate loomed. It was locked, as she had suspected.
“How will we get in without shredding ourselves to pieces?” she asked.
“I’m more concerned about getting shot.” He never took his eyes off the armory and he nodded to the roof.
She followed his gaze and squinted in the sunlight. Mounds arched up from the roof, and as she watched, she saw minor movements. It wasn’t the frenzied twitching of the sick. It was calm and purposeful. She shaded her eyes.
Yep, there were soldiers calmly and purposefully pointing machine guns at them.
That makes twice today that she had a gun pointed toward her. It was getting old.
She raised her arms. Nearby, Jared did the same. Only, he was waving a white cloth in his hand. Where the heck did he pull that from?
“Jared! We aren’t surrendering at Appomattox!”
“It seemed appropriate,” he said with a grin.
“They are going to shoot us because of your shenanigans; wait and see!” she said, incensed.
“Nah, they won’t. I hope.”
As they watched, the front door opened, and four men came out. They were fully armed and wearing body armor. The only undisguised parts of their bodies were their noses. It was a little disconcerting to be treated as a threat.
“We don’t look threatening, do we?” she murmured as the men came closer.
Their rifles were pointed at the ground, but she had a feeling that all it would take is one twitch and they would become swiss cheese.
“We don’t look cute and cuddly,” he said, looking doubtfully at their stained, sweaty clothes and her blood-stained bat.
The men approached the fence and one unlocked it.
“Keep your hands up,” another advised.
They filed through and surrounded them. “What is your business here?” one of the quadruplets asked.
“We’re looking for my sister. We think she was brought here from Collier Stadium in Kennedy.”
The soldiers looked at each other, but she couldn’t decipher it. Their eyes were hidden behind black glasses.
“Follow me. You may keep your weapons holstered.”
She didn’t think it sounded like a suggestion. She made sure to keep her hands far away from her weapons, bat and pistol. Jared motioned her to go first, and she saw one of the soldiers looking down at her bat. She probably should have tried to scrape it off. She didn’t really think of it before now. Jared had kind of wiped it in the dew-damp grass that first evening after she had bludgeoned his mom’s neighbor.
She hoped they didn’t get the wrong idea.
They walked into the building, still following the man in charge of the little quartet. This armory was much like the last one. Governmental-chic cinder block walls lined the hallways and grubby floors echoed under their shoes. Nobody had polished the floors here in quite some time.
He led them to an office nearby. They entered and were shown to two chairs in front of a desk. They sat and looked around. Two men remained with them, presumably to guard them. She looked at Jared in the quiet room, but she couldn’t talk without the soldiers overhearing.
The Salvation Plague | Book 1 |The Turning Page 23