Wounded and down on the ground, rain pelted Riley’s face as an army of footsteps came her way. For a heartbeat, she thought of Jackson. Then she rolled over and fired at will. The bullet that shattered her left wrist instantly caused her to drop her nine.
Numbness washed over her now, a sense of failing consciousness. As blood seeped from her wounds, her forty slipped from her other hand. The metal clanked on the cement as she fought and lost. Subconsciously, she heard Eric say, “Promise me you’ll leave tonight.”
Through the darkness, a child’s voice penetrated the storm. “Riley, get up!”
Then the rain stopped and the darkness turned darker. A crack of thunder roared overhead. She could see only the brooding outline of the hooded man. She never felt him kick her.
TWO
CURRENT DAY FALL 2016
The girl, no more than 12 years old, wrapped her fingers around the small human bundle protectively, hugging it close to her body for warmth. There was a slight shudder and then stillness. The movement of the dirty blanket beneath her hand became even rhythms of breath. Utah closed her eyes listening to the sounds of the storm outside. Thunder rolled through the heavens above and finished with a slap of lightning that shook the walls of the old school. Predicting the next round, she estimated the distance by sound.
Tonight the storm was out for revenge, but she and her baby sister were safe from its fury. Her thin body shivered slightly, but she forced herself to control it. Not wanting to wake her sister, Utah clamped her small fingers around the edge of the blanket and pulled it close into them. This was her last attempt to entrap all their warmness in one small area.
“Utah, where is your sister?” The voice said. The words floated through the crevices into the hollow gymnasium and then moved towards her as they echoed off the walls. Her mother called to Utah from overhead. “Utah, go find your sister.”
“I have her mama. She’s with me,” She whispered. There was no answer only the sound of the rain pouring down on the old weathered roof. Blackness should terrify a child, but Utah braved its wicked deception with courage. She had to. She’d used her last candle.
The pitch-black room lent no comfort to the 12-year girl and her 7-year-old sister. The darkness was cruel punishment for anyone. Creatures seemed to build themselves drafted by her mind and the abyss of the gym added to ugly details she could not see, but could imagine. She guessed the monsters to be as big as the ceiling. Others were small and wickedly fast. They crept, crawled and slithered through the room towards them deceptively smart. Utah could feel them. She felt the air as they slipped past. Utah squeezed her eyes shut forcing the images from her mind.
“There’s nothing there Utah. See!” Her mother opened the closet door exposing only darkness. She stood with one hand on her hip and pointed at the closet. Utah opened her eyes wider trying to see into the darkness.
“I can see them. Why can’t you?” she cried.
Utah had lived in extreme protective mode long before the shock of witnessing mama’s death. It was obvious that neither she, nor her sister Megan, would survive to see adulthood unless the monster living with them, their stepfather Steven was dead. The abuse had been brutal especially when mama was at work, but Utah knew she’d no choice but to leave them with Steven. He’d tried to hurt them, belittle them, and grab at them striking them when they made too much noise. Steven had touched Utah in ways that she knew was wrong, but she’d kept that secret. Utah’s adolescent churned like an angry river and as many times as she’d played it out in her mind, the outcome remained the same.
Mama worked hard at the hospital. The day Steven killed her; he’d ripped a leg off a kitchen chair and slammed it over her mother’s head. His reason, Mama had been late coming home from the store. Utah and Megan had been with her that early morning. Utah remembered why mama had been delayed. They were in line waiting to pay for their groceries when the craziness started.
“Sixty-nine dollars,” The clerk muttered to a customer.
“That’s highway robbery!” The man yelled. “What did I buy that would cost that ridiculous amount of money?”
Utah remembered the man. He’d reached in his pocket to pay the bill, but he was angry. He withdrew a wad of money. More money than her mama would ever see. “I have three bags here!”
The checker stood there. “You put them in your basket. I don’t make the prices mister.”
“You may not make the prices buddy! By the look on your face, you don’t give a dam.”
The man stuffed the wad of money back into his pocket. His brown hair was turning shiny black and beads of perspiration had gathered on his brow. It was as if Mama knew something was about to happen. Utah had felt it too something was very different today. Then mama pulled them off their feet toward an end cap and hid them behind the Snickers Bars. The man withdrew a knife from somewhere under his sweatshirt and that’s when the shouting started and things crashed to the floor. There had been so much screaming for Utah, it felt like it went on for an eternity.
Men and women lunged past them at the knife wielding man. Through the multitude of items hanging in front of Utah, she saw the people take the bad guy to the ground. Then another person joined in and then another. Items crashed to the floor and grunts of agony filled the air that had turned almost electric. Mama grabbed both of them and flew from the store leaving the groceries behind.
In some ways, for Utah, the entire chain of events seemed more like a movie than real life. When they got home those minutes passed so swiftly, Utah wished she could’ve seen it happen before it did. Maybe, just maybe then, she could’ve saved her mother.
“Where the fuck are the groceries Amy?” Steven screamed. He flailed around like a wild man. “Jesus, can’t you do anything right? I’m hungry!” He grabbed Mama and pushed her against the wall. She landed with a thud breaking the drywall behind her.
Utah grabbed Megan, hiding her in the hall closet. “Don’t open this door. Understand?”
Megan shook her head. Her body trembled, her fingers clinging to one of mama’s coats.
Her memories went dark when she felt Megan stir under her hold. The little girl mumbled something in her sleep. Utah protectively pulled her closer feeling her sister’s heartbeat. Megan’s life depended on her. Somewhere deep in her troubled and scared mind, Utah fell asleep. Both sisters swallowed up by the blanket of darkness, by coldness, and hunger.
THREE
Riley kept to the shoulder of the road, one hand resting and holding the strap of her heavy backpack while the other held a pistol. As she walked off the hill, she headed toward the abandoned town of Langlois, Oregon not expecting to see a world she’d left behind months ago. To say the least, she was not at all surprised to see no one. Trotting behind her was Max, a stubborn and often time feisty grey tabby cat who often acted more human than feline. Nearly a year old, Max doted on Riley as if she were his mother. He never strayed too far. Now, he pussyfooted through the wet grass keeping to a clearer path but just far enough that he could still see her.
The smell of last night’s rain lingered in the air, heavy musky with a dampness that never seemed to dissipate. Battered from a night of running from skeletons in her closet chasing her in merciless dreams, Riley packed her things and said goodbye to hell on the hill. For all she knew, the only thing left alive was her memories of what she had been running from. For all she knew everyone could be dead, including her brother. However, Eric was capable of survival. It’d taken time for her to remember what happened the night she was trying to leave the city. Five bullet wounds and a few surgeries later the memories of that full moon night trickled back like one of her many nightmares that haunted her. By the time she’d been transferred to the third hospital, she’d at least remembered her name. She had no recollection of the stranger who saved her. Hearing only rumors of the why the Manic Shift occurred and where it came from fell to a handful of unspecified theories. It earned a name but this time, cause remained unknown.
W
hen the hospital fell under hostile attack, Riley ran for safer ground. The day she escaped, all power had failed including water. Doctors and nurses, what was left of them, were fleeing without forethought or afterthought to those left behind, the sick, innocent and the dying. The infected infiltrated the hospital with a violent hunger. Like wolves, they attacked the weak and wounded prey. Only the ones able to run escaped.
Riley was one of the lucky ones. She’d run until she was out of breath, stole a Dodge Neon sitting in a parking lot and never looked back. The car came with keys, a half a tank of gas, a car seat, and a six-pack of diet Coke. With the windows down and the heat turned up to keep her warm, she left the fallen city with only the clothes on her back. It was that day; Riley saw the repercussions of the Manic Shift. At first, she’d had no clue where she was but after stealing clothing from a second hand store a block away, she realized she wasn’t in Sacramento any longer, but rather in a small elusive California coastal town not far from the Oregon border. Abandoned, brown splatters stained sidewalks; shattered remains of windows did little to cover up the dried blood and debris, which acted like a carpet in the streets. Cars and buses lay in heaps, some burned into twisted metal others bashed beyond recognition.
The first bodies, outside of the hospital, Riley encountered was in the women’s section of the store she was looking to loot. There were three and one was a child. Their bodies stuck to the aged carpet imprinted for eternity. Once a fish and game officer, she’d encountered dead things, animals not people. The distinct overpowering smell permeated the air. Calmly, she’d smearing Vic’s Vapor under her nose covering the bodies the best she could and then shopped fast for clothes. Scoring big that day, she found a case of water in the back room, a bag of unopened chips and, oh yeah, a canned deodorizer for the car. She got what she needed and then got out. The conditions in each town she passed through reflected the same. She saw nothing, but remnants of violence and destruction especially in the isolated cities.
Bundled in someone else’s thermals and a faded American Fighter Hoodie and brandishing a stolen gun or two, she followed the 101 along the coastline toward the very place she was supposed to meet her brother so many months back. When the Neon died, Riley replaced it with an ancient Oldsmobile. It was the only one drivable she could find. The tuna boat, as she later referred to it, started without a stutter but only after doing body removal of the decomposing man petrified in place near the front bumper. She said a silent prayer and then threw up.
Treasures had been abundant that day, finding cigarettes, a sealed bottle of wine, and some cash. All but one cigarette she tossed, drank the wine, stashed the cash, and started toward Bandon to Eric’s cabin, which she found abandoned and virtually destroyed. He’d either left or he’d never made it, both were equally disappointing.
Now with memories almost intact, the only place left to go was Arizona. If Eric wasn’t here, he was there. A town called Prescott where he’d made his home after she’d married Mark.
Here in Oregon, the Manic Shift wasn’t the only thing drowning out these now abandoned towns. Time, weather, and invasion of a little badass weed called Gorse had gobbled up the land along with blackberry bushes eating buildings and driveways one by one. Keeping her thoughts at bay, she started singing words to a song she’d almost forgotten. It always seemed to calm her, but then one couldn’t go very far without being reminded. The red mass of a tangled SUV looked like something out of horror flick, staged and surreal. The decomposed body hung partially outside the driver’s door window still held in place by the seatbelt. An arm missing a hand, bleached from sun and stripped by rain, hung from the side window.
“How’d I miss that one?” She mumbled about to turn away when she caught sight of a flicker of metal. Trotting to the opposite side of the road, she brushed the dead leaves away with her foot. “About time.”
If the road going through Langlois was any indication of what was ahead of her, than she was going to need a truck. What had once been a cranberry farmer’s home was now free for the taking. Overlooking the yard, two windows resembling eyes turned inward at such an angle, a feeling of trepidation became Riley’s first impression. How could it not be when a swing, hanging by one chain, screeched to the movement of the wind? People once lived here, now there was only death. To the left was a two-car garage. Both doors were open and both stalls were empty.
“No car.”
Considering the buildings, Riley scrutinized the scattered items in the yard. “Disconnect and take what you need. Go to the house.”
The wooden steps sounded hollow while the four-inch crack in the door ignited her fears. The hinges creaked as the obscurity combined with natural light summoned her forward. Once inside, she attempted to adjust to the contrast of dark and light slightly distracted by the silence humming taunting tunes. Emptiness swallowed her. Tugging at her bandana, she covered her mouth and nose to keep out mold particles. Liberating the abyss, she pulled the curtains back causing dust fly. Beams of natural light flooded through. Now visible, the small specks of dust rose dancing midair by an unknown breeze disturbing the undisturbed. Old school ranch décor layered in a black pungent mold was exposed. With the slightest movement, particles took flight. The spores were the only life left in the house. Everything else had been dead a long time.
When the dust settled, the fresh footsteps leading toward the kitchen became visible. Her heart thumped listening for movement, a breath, or a hiccup in the silence of the day, but all was quiet. She followed the trail. The footprints small, one set smaller than the other was. Opened cupboards revealed bare to the bone shelves and the dust covered counter tops held evidence of children at play.
“Messy little thieves.”
The sudden movement of a bag of dog food next to the back door caught my interest. Without warning, a living creature poked a hole in the side and dog food fell through the opening sending several mutant sized mice tumbling to the floor squealing in protest. She watched with some humor as they scurried in all directions trying to escape the falling kibbles. Dust crept through her bandana and she fought off the urge to sneeze.
“Keys?” She moved towards the hallway.
Several coats, several worn out baseball caps, and an umbrella hung on a coat rack on the foyer wall. When she grabbed the first jacket, more dust rose. Fishing through pockets, she found a wad of bills, a pack of gum and an old tissue. “Please let there be keys?” She said pulling both jackets off the hooks. “Bingo,” she smiled bringing out a ring of keys between her fingers.
As if sensing hope, the wind pressed through the house catching the door resulting in a long drawn out creak that could wake the dead. Goosebumps slid across her skin raising the fine hairs on her arms and neck. Somewhere in the depth of the abandoned home, where the departed rested eternally, Rile felt as though she were being watched and they wanted her gone.
Another push of wind and the front door clicked close. Hurry up. Picking through the wallet, she took the wad of cash leaving the credit cards in their slots. Death was all around her, she could feel it. There was much more to this story than she wanted or needed to know. The voices of the past trickled through the air once voice at a time. Riley forced her way to the bathroom hoping to find supplies for the first aid kit. The smells grew rancid, pungent and violent. Unable to switch off concern, she nearly dropped to the floor when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her heart fluttered. How can one ever endure the things she’s seen without living in constant fear?
Thick dirt covered every space in the bathroom. Another creak sounded, but this time longer and louder. She did a clean swipe of the medicine cabinet letting all prescriptions drop into her bag. Then she began to hurry.
She found the Browning 12-gauge shotgun lying at the base of the stairs nearly tripped over it getting to the back door. She grabbed it up despite its rusted barrel and stepped out into the open air. A crow squawked nosily above adding the already creepy mystery enveloping the house. Suddenly a
s if summoned by some unknown entity, hundreds of crows swooped around the electrical lines and gathered on the edge of the roof. The horrendous squawking wracked her already failing nerves to bits as she ran towards the outside buildings.
FOUR
Jack Colton was never a social butterfly. He didn’t need to be around many people, because he kept his family and friends close. He didn’t have a woman in his life, nor was he looking for one. Hard to live with and even harder to love for any, he was once married and then widowed. Trying to save the world, or at least his town, he’d served ten years in the United States Marine Corps. Spent eight of them in a special ops unit and then came home to the chaos of the Manic Shift. Not even a few days after the initial onslaught of violence, Jack and his brother, Ryan formed their own paramilitary group in hopes to salvage at least their town. Now at 36 years of age, Jack’s social network and career, other than his family and the ranch, were a handpicked team of men and women with intriguing skills. Survivors all around Prescott, Arizona revered the Colton men and their team who were responsible for regaining control of smaller cities, highways, and ranches within a three hundred mile radius.
News of Jack’s recovery methods had already started to reach others and it was encouraging people to look for resolutions to restore order. Law needed to be reformed, changes needed to be made, they were, thanks to men, and women people had begun calling, “fighters.” The catastrophic event itself became known as the “Manic Shift.” Some believed it had been brought on by the rare (once every 125 years) Honey Moon, which had ironically fallen on a Friday the 13th, but Jack believed that to be horseshit. His words exactly.
The Fighter Series (Book 1): Not Alone (The Beginning) Page 2