I covered my nose with the back of my hand as I stepped into the small home. The house was spotless, but it smelled as though something in the kitchen must have been rotting.
The living room was to my right, and to my left was a hallway with four doors. We stood in the dining room surrounding the small, scratched-up wooden table.
“I’ll check the other rooms,” Nick said as he tightened his grip on his gun. He jerked his head toward Bronx, and he stepped out to follow Nick down the hall.
Jamie stared at me as we listened to the floorboards creaking underneath their weight. Blair stood there hugging herself, and Shannon and Monica were holding hands, all three of them wearing the same blank expression.
Maybe the look on my face had been the same, but it quickly changed when Nick yelled.
“Put your hands up!” Nick’s voice echoed down the narrow hallway.
My eyes widened, and I charged down the hall stopping myself by placing my hands on Bronx’s shoulders. I expected to see them in danger, but Nick and Bronx were both fine.
Nick lowered his gun and chuckled as he cupped his hand over his nose and mouth. “He’s dead. Thought I saw him move. God damn, I was wrong.”
I looked around him at the very large man lying in the bed. His head was turned to the side, but it didn’t take long to realize he’d suffered from the ailment caused by the red sky. The poison… the chemical… whatever it was.
The man’s head was turned toward the window. Maybe he hadn’t even tried to get out of the bed. He’d just laid there watching the sky as he suffered.
“Poor guy,” Bronx muttered.
“We’ll just, um, close the door,” Nick said with a cough as he ushered us out of the room.
“And the smell?” I asked when I realized it hadn’t been something rotting in the kitchen after all. The horrendous scent had been coming from the decaying man.
Nick shrugged. “We’ll just have to ignore it as best as we can while we’re here. Besides,” Nick said jabbing his elbow into me, “aren’t you used to it by now? I barely smell it.”
“You must be kidding. I’ll never get used to that smell,” I said shaking my head.
Bronx and I followed Nick back into the other room. It seemed as though Bronx didn’t even know I was there as he walked right by without even looking in my direction. He flopped down on the sofa and stretched his arms over his head. I tried not to notice his muscular abs peeking out from under his slightly raised shirt.
“This is going to be a quick stop, maybe fifteen minutes,” Nick announced pulling a snack out of his bag. “We should be able to get some more miles in yet today.”
“I’m going to get some air,” I said, but Nick grabbed my arm, pulling me to an abrupt stop.
“I don’t think so,” he said roughly.
My eyes didn’t blink as I stared back at him. “Just outside the door. It’s like two feet away.”
“No way,” Nick said shaking his head. I could feel that both Jamie and Bronx had their eyes on us.
My eyes were hot coals as I stared back at Nick. “I’m going outside. Nothing is going to happen. I can see in every direction.”
Nick loosened his grip not because of my words, but because of the look in my eyes.
I stepped back and moved closer to the door. “I’ll scream if I see anyone.”
I slammed the door behind me not even caring about how much noise it made. We hadn’t seen another soul in miles, and we were in the middle of nowhere. My fingers trembled as I lowered myself down onto the stoop.
I was right. Being around Nick and everyone else was going to drive me crazy. I didn’t know how I was going to manage to keep my sanity when I was constantly surrounded by people. There was no calm in which I could clear my thoughts.
Going from a life of near solitude to one with constant company was unbearable. At least for me. Nick seemed to thrive on everyone’s energy. It didn’t seem to bother Bronx, Blair, or any of the others, but it was stressing me out. It was a continuous noise I couldn’t quiet.
The door opened slowly, and I could tell by the two footsteps they’d taken exactly who was standing behind me. I crossed my arms and rubbed them with my palms, forcing my body to relax.
“Nick and Bronx are having an intense conversation,” Jamie said sitting down next to me.
“About what?”
“I’m not sure, but I couldn’t shake the feeling they didn’t want me in there,” Jamie said.
I turned to him, my forehead wrinkling as my eyes squeezed together. “I doubt that’s true.”
Jamie chuckled. “Your brother doesn’t like me.”
“Nonsense.”
“Oh no, it’s completely true.”
I shrugged and looked off at the horizon. “Well, if it’s true, you’re better off.”
There was a long pause before Jamie spoke.
“Should I ask about him? Or is it still too soon?”
“It’s too soon. It’ll probably always be too soon.” I shook my head. “It’s not like it matters.”
Jamie cocked his head to the side. “If he’s that bad, why are we still with him?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s because he’s still my brother.” A heavy sigh escaped from between my lips. “We share the same grandma. It isn’t like I can tell him he’s not allowed to go there.”
“Are you, or any of us for that matter, in danger with him around?”
I shook my head. “No. He was a good cop. Good at his job for the short amount of time he was on the force. Honestly, we’re all probably a little safer having him with us.”
“It pains you to say that?” Jamie asked bumping me lightly with his shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, it definitely does.”
“Well,” Jamie said placing his hand on my knee, “if there is anything I can do to help or whatever, just let me know.”
I smiled at him. “I appreciate that, I really do, but there isn’t anything anyone can do. What’s done is done.”
No amount of talking was going to change my mind about Nick. I would always blame him for my mother’s suicide. Nick had tried to explain, but that wasn’t enough. If he wouldn’t have spiraled out of control, she’d probably still be with us. Well, unless the poison of the red sky would have taken her away.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to him,” Jamie said.
The twitching nerves in my legs forced me to stand. I stepped over to the window and looked inside spotting Nick and Bronx deep in conversation.
“About what?” I asked unable to keep the coldness out of my tone.
“Us,” Jamie said.
“Us?” My eyes narrowed.
Jamie stood. “What I mean is, what happened between us in the grocery store.”
Shannon joined in the conversation with Nick and Bronx. Their expressions changed when she smiled at them and tossed her hair around like a flirty teenager. I swallowed my groan.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Jamie said. “No matter how hard I try.”
I glanced at him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of what was going on inside. Monica was walking over to them, and she kept bumping into Bronx playfully. His back was mostly to me, but I was sure he was smiling back at her.
All Bronx and I had was a kiss. I hated that I was feeling jealous… I shouldn’t have allowed myself to feel that way. It was better for all of us if I just let go of it all, even if it was hard to watch.
“Are you even listening to me?” Jamie asked stepping between me and the window. I turned to him and raised my brows. I knew he’d been speaking, but I couldn’t remember any of his words. “God, Gwen.”
He threw his hands into the air, and I reached out for him, but he stepped out of my reach.
“Jamie, I’m sorry,” I said my words mashing together. “I was distracted.”
He pressed his lips together as he lowered his head. A small snort escaped before he looked up at me for a second before disappearing into the house.
�
�Jamie!” I said, but the door had already closed.
I dropped heavily to my bottom and pressed my hands to my forehead. It wasn’t just Nick that made a mess of everything… apparently, it was something that ran in the family. But I think on some level, I already knew that.
The door opened, and I quickly turned desperate to apologize to Jamie, but it wasn’t him. It was Nick. He sat down next to me and kicked at the ground as he stared at the horizon.
“Trouble in paradise?” Nick asked.
I huffed heavily. “Look around, brother. There is no paradise.”
Nick chuckled. “He seemed upset when he came inside. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Right. Is it time to play the caring brother role?” I said pushing myself to my feet. “You know what, Nick? You can just go to hell.”
Maybe I was overreacting, but it was something I’d wanted to say him to him about a thousand times before but the words hadn’t been able to find their way out of my lips.
Nick shook his head and turned away. “I’m pretty sure I’m already there.” He lowered his head and ignored what I’d said. “Let’s get out of here. This place is putting everyone on edge.”
In minutes we were back on the road, and Monica was walking with Bronx. Her giggles made my stomach swirl. I turned away pretending not to notice. I didn’t want anyone to see that it bothered me.
It was around dinnertime when Nick started talking about finding a place to stay for the night. Even though he kept talking about it, he kept walking. There’d been several places we could have stopped, but we didn’t. He kept trying to eek in more and more miles before we ran out of light.
“What’s that?” Monica said pointing a shaking finger at something in the distance.
I followed her finger and squinted out in the distance. There was a thick blue fog rolling across the ground like a hungry desert dust storm.
My shoulders bobbed rapidly with each quickening breath. “Holy crap.”
Ten
The tall, dark blue-gray fog stretched from the bottom of the ground all the way to the top of the sky beyond the clouds. As it moved, it swallowed everything in its path causing it to completely vanish as if it hadn’t ever existed.
The wall cloud was moving toward us like a hungry, desperate beast. A chill ran down my spine as it crawled nearer and I realized just how massive it was. Not only did it reach higher than the clouds, it stretched outside to side for as far as I could see.
It was miles and miles of what looked like a deadly storm, angrily making its way toward us. The fog-like cloud moved as if it had unfinished business.
The fog moved over the ground, and everything disappeared from view. One minute a house was there, and the next it was gone.
“What do we do?” Blair asked taking a step back as if the small amount of distance she was putting between her and the fog would somehow help.
“What is it?” Danny mumbled, scrunching up his nose as he stared at the behemoth.
Everyone was nervous and that, of course, included me. Nick looked over his shoulder at me, as if he was searching for answers, but all I could offer him was a shrug.
“We should probably get some cover,” Nick finally suggested, his eyes moving around the area directly behind us.
After a brief moment, Nick waved us all along, but it felt like the fog was moving faster than we could run. It seemed as though it had covered a fair amount of ground just in the time between that moment and when we’d first discovered it.
“Okay everybody, let’s move!” Nick shouted skipping his feet together before kicking his movements into a run.
Bronx and Blair were ahead of us, but only by a few steps. The others were behind, but we were all running at nearly the same frantic speed.
After a few minutes, I spotted a gas station we’d passed not that long ago. I pointed, and Nick nodded.
“We’ll go inside the gas station,” Nick shouted as if he’d read my mind. Not that it mattered because it seemed as though everyone was already headed in that direction.
I glanced over my shoulder, and the fog-cloud was moving even faster than I had originally thought. In fact, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it inside the gas station before it overtook us, sucking us inside.
“Keep moving,” Nick said with a slight shakiness to his words.
My feet hadn’t pounded out more than ten steps when I heard labored breathing coming from behind me. I turned and met Jamie’s reddened, wide eyes for only a second when I knew something was wrong.
Monica was wearing a similar expression, but she kept moving as if her life depended on it.
“Go on,” Jamie said slowing his pace. “I’ll catch up.”
“What?” I said after a sharp breath.
“The hell you will,” Nick said as he slowed and dropped back to Jamie’s side. Nick met my eyes for a brief second. “Keep moving!”
I watched as Nick wrapped his arm underneath Jamie’s and used all his strength to haul him along with him. It surprised me, but Nick wasn’t going to leave him behind.
Bronx leaped over what was left of a blistered, decaying body and pulled open the gas station door. He circled his hand over and over again as though he were directing traffic.
I followed Blair inside. Danny and Shannon were right behind us.
I stepped up next to the big window with faded advertisements and pressed my palms against the dusty glass. The cloud was already devouring the gas pumps out front hiding them completely from view.
“Holy shit!” Blair said clutching the invisible pearls at her neck.
“Run!” I shouted as I pounded on the window with my fist. The cloud was right at the heels of Nick and Jamie.
As Nick pushed Jamie through the door, Monica tripped over the body lying on the ground near the door. She fell hard on the pavement, her face flopping forward and cracking against the hard concrete.
“Crap,” Danny said as he pushed past Nick and Jamie.
He stepped out just as the thick cloud wrapped itself around Monica’s feet. He hastily scooped his hands under her arms and pulled her into the gas station. Shannon quickly closed the door once they were both inside.
I stared out the window watching as the cloud encapsulated the building. Everything around us disappeared. It felt like everything had been wiped away… erased, and we were all that was left.
“I… can’t… breathe,” Jamie said lowering himself down to the ground.
“What is that shit?” Bronx said frantically flapping his hand at the window. He drew in a breath as if he were having trouble catching his breath after the narrow escape. His eyes widened. “Is this another attack?”
Nick’s eyes were on Jamie as he crouched down next to him. “Might just be the weather… fog.”
“That’s some thick ass fog,” Blair said crossing her arms. “Never seen anything like that before. Why was it making it hard to breathe?”
“Humidity can feel that way,” Nick said offering a shrug.
I shook my head as I looked at Jamie struggling to draw in each breath. “Humidity doesn’t do that.”
I knelt down next to Jamie and rubbed my hand on his back as if that would somehow help. He flashed me a weak smile.
“I’m starting to feel better already,” Jamie said, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Nick narrowed his eyes. “No, really I am.”
Jamie leaned back against one of the shelves, running his fingers through his hair with one hand and clutching his chest with the other.
“That was no fog. Not the regular kind anyway. Whatever that was, it was like some kind of poison,” Jamie said, his eyes shifting toward the door. “But it’s not seeping in through the cracks… almost like it’s too thick.”
Nick shook his head. “Why would they need to launch another attack? The last one practically wiped everything away.”
“Maybe their slate wasn’t clean enough,” Bronx said with a shrug. “There were still people left… animals�
�� who knows what they’re doing.”
“Maybe they’re testing their weapons, and somehow we’re just trapped in the middle,” Blair said.
“We can speculate all we want, but the truth is we may never know. Who is left out there to tell us?” Nick waited for a response, but no one answered. “That’s right, nobody. It’s just the other random survivors and us.”
Shannon sniffed as she hugged herself tightly. “Help could be out there. We don’t know.”
“Sure, maybe,” Nick said, but it didn’t sound even a little convincing.
There was tension in the room, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of what everyone was feeling or if it was because the hair was heavy with whatever the cloud was carrying.
After several minutes, Jamie tried to stand. Nick reached out to help, but Jamie held up his palm.
“I feel better,” Jamie said with a heavy breath. “But it still feels like it’s trying to get inside me. I hate to think what would have happened if I wouldn’t have gotten inside.”
Jamie’s eyes landed on Nick. There must have been something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen, but Nick gave him a nod.
“Maybe we should go in the back,” Nick said turning toward the door at the back of the room. “If it’s coming inside let’s make it harder for it to reach us.”
Jamie nodded.
Shannon and Bronx helped Monica to the back. She looked as though she was struggling just as much as Jamie had if not more.
Nick opened the door and gestured for the others to go inside. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side before I could pass.
When the others were inside, he finally spoke. “How do you feel?”
“Fine, I think,” I said swallowing hard. Maybe there was a minimal tightness in my chest but nothing that overly concerned me. It didn’t feel any different than it would have from walking through a thick patch of humidity filled fog. “How about you?”
“I’m fine,” Nick said letting go of my arm. “The only ones that seem affected are those that were touched by the cloud.”
“Jamie wasn’t touched,” I said.
Nick’s head bobbed up and down. “He was close, really, really close.”
The Red Sky Series (Book 2): Blue Cloud Page 6