“Yeah,” Austin said. “That kind.”
Mia glanced out the window and saw movement. She held her breath as she leaned over for a better look. She did an admirable job of hiding the quick intake of air, but Austin noticed. He glanced back at her, despite all eyes being on him. Her eyes were wide with urgency. He took a step back and followed her gaze.
He had a harder time hiding his surprise, “Fuck.”
But no one seemed to notice, as Chang distracted them by saying, “Dude, haven’t you heard, if it’s yellow, let it mellow—”
Austin’s mind raced. Was he seeing things? He didn’t think so. Then how was this possible? The man standing beneath the window, only five feet from the front porch, was the same man they’d seen slaughtered the night before. He was still fidgeting. Still panicking. And the wild eyed man seemed perfectly healthy despite being nearly naked and covered in caked-on blood.
And if he’s here, the killers that tracked him down might not be far behind.
Chang’s voice cut through his thoughts. “If it’s brown, flush it down.”
Austin snapped around, and hissed an angry, “No!”
But his voice was lost among the chuckles of the others.
“Chang!” He said, louder. “Stop!”
She turned to him. “What?” But his warning came too slow. She’d already flushed the toilet. Despite there being no running water, the toilet tank still held enough for one flush. The third floor toilet roared as water shot into the toilet bowl and flowed through the plumbing toward the basement.
Chang understood her mistake as soon as she saw his eyes. She cringed. “Sorry.”
“Tom,” Mia said, her voice a barely controlled whisper.
He moved back to the window and looked down. The panicked man had stopped in his tracks and was looking up at them. He met Austin’s eyes. The man’s stare rooted Austin in place and filled him with some kind of primal fear. But the stranger seemed just as afraid.
The fear-filled stare-down was broken when the man whipped his head to the left. He looked up again and mouthed a single word. “Run.” Then, he ran.
Tom turned to the others. “Pack up. We’re leaving now.”
Garbarino stood. “Why? What’s—”
The sound of breaking glass silenced him.
“That was downstairs,” Paul said.
Austin threw on his backpack and drew his weapon. “They’re coming through the windows.”
“Fuck,” Vanderwarf said. She stood, backpack on and weapon at the ready a moment later. The rest of the group quickly followed.
Garbarino, Austin, Mia and White ran for the pool table blocking the fire exit door. They had it moved out of the way in seconds. Garbarino reached for the deadbolt. Just as he was turning it, Austin’s hand slapped over his, stopping him.
“Wait,” Austin urged.
Garbarino’s eyes were wide. “Fuck that!” He tried turning the lock again, but Austin held it tight.
“Wait,” Austin repeated.
Garbarino glared at him for a moment. “For what?”
“If there’s more than one, we want to give them all time to get inside, so we can get out. And as soon as we open that door, the ten of us need to run down two flights of stairs. They won’t have to go as far. The only chance we have at a head start is if they’re—”
The door at the bottom of the third floor staircase shook as several fists pounded against it. Austin removed his hand from Garbarino’s. “Go!”
The locks flew open and Garbarino launched himself out onto the small landing. The morning sun warmed him, and he saw no danger. He took the stairs two at a time, leading the line of survivors down the side of the house. Dead grass crunched beneath his feet when he reached the bottom and knelt in a firing stance. He checked both directions. “All clear,” he whispered as the others joined him.
Austin was the last one down. When he reached the bottom, he noticed the banging inside the house had stopped.
The killers were coming.
Austin waved them toward the backyard where a line of trees marked the beginning of a large patch of wilderness. “Into the woods!”
The backyard was a wide open patch of dead grass. Other than a swing set and a candy cane-shaped septic system vent, there was nothing to hide behind. They were totally exposed. But there was no choice. They had to run.
The group moved as one, like flocking birds, crouch-running across the grass. But a child’s toy tripped Vanderwarf and sent her to the ground only five feet from the back of the house. White turned around and stopped. He reached down to pick her up. With his head down, he heard the dull thuds of someone running inside the house. Thinking he had at least ten seconds before the person reached the barricaded back door and perhaps another minute after that, he didn’t bother raising his weapon.
When the window exploded from the inside out, he was totally unprepared for it. A woman flew through the air, shards of glass covering her face, arms and naked upper torso. White and the woman hit the ground a second later and before anyone, including White, who had the wind knocked out of him, could respond, the woman shouted, “I’m sorry! I don’t want to—” She drove her rigid fingers into his throat with unnatural strength. Her fingers disappeared into his neck up to the third knuckle.
White twitched beneath her.
Vanderwarf screamed and kicked away from the woman and her now dead lover.
The woman wailed, as though wounded.
A single gunshot silenced her.
Austin.
The bullet struck the woman’s forehead and sent her flailing backwards.
“Vanderwarf!” Austin shouted. “Move!”
Though horrified, Vanderwarf’s instincts and training kicked in. She climbed to her feet and ran toward the others. Glass exploded again as a second body emerged from the house. It was a man. Nearly naked. His body charged like a killing machine on speed. But his face was twisted with agony. The expression locked solid as Austin fired a second shot, piercing the man’s brain and sending him to the ground.
The silence that followed lasted only a moment.
Voices—a sea of them—rose up in the distance.
“The woods,” Austin growled. “Now!”
There was no pause. No looking back.
They ran like prey.
Like the man killed in the driveway the night before.
The same man who followed them now.
Unlike the others, he looked back, eyeing the bodies on the grass—watching their eyes—and then followed the group into the darkness of the dead woods.
22
Three hours and five miles later, the group stopped to rest. The forest seemed endless, stretching on with no sign of life since they’d left the suburban sprawl. Modern man, it seemed, had yet to subdivide or pave this stretch of wilderness. No one complained about it. The dead woods were preferable to any living thing they had come across thus far.
Sitting on their backpacks, the group ate energy bars and drank bottled water. Their survival packs held enough food and water for two days, maybe three if they stretched it. The food taken from the house might keep them going for another day. But food wasn’t the issue so much as water. Without water, they could only last three days.
But they were on foot. And sweating a lot. Austin gave them five days at best, without restocking their supplies. If they were going to make it to the northern woods of New England, they would need a lot more.
They ate in silence, catching their breath. When Chang laid down and closed her eyes, Mia nudged her leg with her foot. “Uh-uh. Your legs will cramp up.”
“Already cramped up,” Chang said with a huff. But she stood again and stretched instead.
Mia knew that if they rested too long, getting started again would be nearly impossible. Judging by the position of the sun, noon had already come and gone. They needed to find a place to spend the night, not because it would get cold, but because they needed a defensible position to sleep in.
&
nbsp; Austin had whispered that suggestion to her as they walked. He still wanted her to be in charge despite him being the best man for the job. If ever people needed to bury their own personal hang-ups, it was now. But she knew that wouldn’t happen. Life and death situation be damned, people would always act like people—selfishly.
Except for me, of course. She nearly laughed at the thought.
In fact, she was being selfish. The more people who survived this mess, the more there would be to protect Liz. To populate a future world where her niece wouldn’t be alone.
Is that selfish? She wondered. To want the best for my family?
She looked over at Liz sitting next to Mark who was, at her request, reading to her from the Bible again. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her small body leaned against Mark’s arm. Her head tilted toward the small page.
Mark’s voice offered soothing words, but she couldn’t make them out. She suspected he was reading from the Psalms. She thought those were comforting, but wasn’t really sure. Whatever he read, it definitely had a calming effect on Liz.
But Mia wouldn’t feel calm until they were all safe. “Two minutes,” she announced. “Then we’re heading out.”
She received a series of grunts in reply. No one was happy about it, but no one argued, either. She looked at Austin and he gave her a subtle nod that said, “You’re doing good.”
Garbarino stood, repacked his supplies and began stretching. After touching his toes, he began wandering around the group, watching the woods. He stopped behind Mark, and Mia could tell he was eavesdropping. Mia watched his face. Was Garbarino interested in finding God?
When she saw his face twist with disgust, she knew the answer was “no.”
Garbarino snatched the book out of Mark’s hands.
“Hey!” Mark protested, but Garbarino was already walking away.
A moment later, he read the passage aloud. “‘The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur.” Garbarino shook his head, but kept reading. “The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.’” He paused reading again, appeared shaken up for a moment, but then set his jaw and continued reading, this time laying on a thick southern accent. “‘A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.’ This is bullshit you know?”
“Just give it back,” Mark said, reaching out his hand.
“You were reading that to a kid?” Chang asked.
“I like it,” Liz said.
Garbarino started his preacher impersonation again, reading the next verses. “‘The rest of mankind that survived these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.” He closed the book and threw it at Mark.
The Bible bounced off the priest’s chest and fell to the leaf littered forest floor. Liz knelt down and picked it up, handing it to Mark.
“That what you think happened?” Garbarino asked, and then laughed. “Looks like God got his math wrong. A lot more than one third of the population is dead.”
“Joe,” Austin said, his voice serious.
“We don’t know that,” Mark said.
Garbarino scoffed and threw his hands up in the air. “Look around you, man. Everything is dead. Everything!”
“Garbarino...” Austin’s voice was nearly a growl.
Chang frowned. “There were people—”
“They’re all crazy. Gone cannibal or something!”
The metal chink of a round being loaded caught Garbarino’s attention. He turned and found Austin’s sidearm aimed at his face. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” Austin said.
Garbarino stared at him. A mixture of surprise and anger flashed across his face.
Mia’s hand came to rest on the weapon, pushing it toward the ground. “I think what Tom is trying to say, Joe, is that your voice is giving away our position and if you’re not quiet we may find ourselves overrun by the very cannibals that you so kindly reminded us about.”
The tension in Garbarino’s face dissolved. He spoke in a whisper, pointing at Mark. “He shouldn’t be reading that to her. To anyone.”
Mia agreed. If she had known exactly what Mark had been reading she would have kept Liz away from it. She knew some parts of the Bible taught things like love, patience and kindness, but so much of the rest was doom and gloom. And there seemed to be enough of that in the world already. “Please keep that book to yourself,” she said to Mark.
He said nothing, but looked sad as he put the Bible in his pocket and packed his bag.
“Pack up,” Mia said. “We’re leaving.”
Collins, who sat twenty feet away from the others stood slowly and slung his backpack over his shoulder with a grunt. When Mia walked past with Liz in tow, he said, “You should have been in politics.”
“I’ve been thinking a career in the Marines might have been better.”
“You’d probably be dead if that were the case.”
Mia looked at the former president. His statement struck a chord. Matt had been a Marine. “Well, if the Grim Reaper ever retires, I’m sure you could easily fill his shoes.”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she realized she blamed him, in part, for what had happened. If he’d handled the Russian accusations better, this could have been avoided. If he hadn’t returned fire with everything in the United States arsenal there might still be a human race—a place for Liz to grow up.
Collins seethed. “If your fiancé hadn’t been caught, none of this would have happened.”
Mia turned toward him, determined to not lose her cool like Garbarino. “Caught? He wasn’t caught. He was captured. And tortured. And in case you’re wondering, I blame that on you as well.”
Collins just stared at her, a breath away from blurting out a reply, but years of political coaching taught him to hold his tongue when angry. He’d already said too much. Any more might turn all of them against him, because everything was his fault. Luckily, everyone else who knew the truth was dead. If he could keep his secret, there was nothing to worry about.
But if the truth got out, that Matthew Brenton was indeed an assassin ordered to kill the Russian president, he doubted he’d have long to live.
Mia turned and stormed away, pulling Liz behind her.
Collins watched her go, remembering that she was a reporter. If she thought on it too much, she might realize what his use of the word “caught” implied. And while no newspapers or pundits remained to tell the tale, it wouldn’t be hard to inform what was left of human society. If it came to that, he thought, feeling the cold metal of his shotgun, things could get complicated.
23
They came across the cabin before the sun set on their second day back on Earth. The cabin looked quaint, but the bank auction sign on the front door, dated two years previous suggested the interior would be neglected. The white paint covering the outside looked like dry skin, peeling and flaking away. A fridge sat on the now dead, overgrown lawn that encircled the home and reached out to the wall of dead trees surrounding the clearing. The cloudless sky above turned a deep purple as the sun began to descend.
“I’ve seen this movie,” Mark said as the group stood in front of the cabin. “It doesn’t end well for the people inside.”’
No one argued. The cabin was straight out of a B-grade slasher flick.
“We could follow the driveway,” Paul said. The dirt driveway twisted into the woods, disappearing in the distance. “There might be someplace better to hole up.”
“No,” Austin said. “This is good. Nice and solitary. If someone appro
aches through the woods, we’ll hear them coming.” The endless rows of dead trees had carpeted the forest floor in so many dry branches that it was impossible to walk without stepping on them. Anyone approaching the cabin would sound like they had a string of lit firecrackers tied to their feet.
“Unless they come up the driveway,” Garbarino said.
“We’ll take shifts watching,” Austin said with a nod. “Pair up, one agent to one civilian.”
“Pair up with one of them?” Garbarino said. He motioned to the others. “No offense, but they’re liable to get me killed.”
“Would you prefer to have two of them on watch while you slept?”
Garbarino pursed his lip. There was no arguing that. “What about her?” he asked, pointing to Vanderwarf, who had been quiet all day. She stood at the back of the group, arms crossed head down. “She’s useless now.”
“Vanderwarf!” Austin snapped.
She went rigid and looked up, eyes wide. “Sir.”
“Are you with us?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. Her training, which had taken a backseat while she adjusted to the horrors of the new world, was the best in the world. She set her mind to the task at hand, but her lower lip never quite stopped quivering.
Austin turned to Garbarino, “She’ll sleep first and take the last shift with Paul. She’ll be fine.”
“Sorry to point this out,” Mark said, “but the ratio of agent to civilian isn’t one to one. How will we all go on watch?”
“Not everyone will,” Austin said. “Paul is with Vanderwarf, last shift.” The pair looked at each other and nodded.
“Mia, you and Garbarino take second shift.” Neither looked happy, but they didn’t complain.
Austin looked Mark in the eyes. “And you’re with me, starting now.”
Mark sighed. They had walked all day, covering fifteen miles. They stopped only to eat and use the bathroom, which was whatever dead tree they could hide behind. His legs were sore and his eyes heavy. If he lay down, sleep would come in seconds.
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