Sleepers

by Jacqueline Druga

  As fast as he came for us, that was how fast Alex pulled out his gun, lifted the weapon and fired. A single gunshot to the head and the man blasted back and down.

  “So much for normal,” Alex reached behind the counter for a handful of keys. He turned back around toward me about the same time I huffed out. “What?” he asked.

  “This is a fantasy for you. This is your perfect life.”

  He shook his head and walked out of the office.

  I of course followed. “Really. Perfect Alex-world. No questions. Just shoot to kill.”

  Outside, in front of the others, Alex stopped walking and spun around to me. “The man was a Sleeper. How many questions do you think he was gonna answer? How about this. Next time, I’ll make damn sure they wanna rip my head off before I shoot. How’s that?”

  I folded my arms, stared and said nothing.

  He laughed once. “I cannot believe you’re giving me shit about this.”

  I raised my hand. “I’m not giving you shit. Really, I’m not. I was just being sarcastic, that’s all. This just seems all too natural for you.”

  Alex sighed out. “Maybe. Maybe you’re right. Who knows? Maybe right now is the whole reason I was born.” He moistened his lips, prepared to say something else, but his attention was caught like mine by the squeaky-wheel noise that drew closer.

  Beck motioned his head to the maid who was wheeling her way toward us. “You wanna ask her if she’s a Sleeper first?”

  How stupid we must have all looked, not that it mattered all that much to the older maid. She didn’t came for us full speed, but she wheeled our way nonetheless. And we stood there in a long line, all just watching her.

  She pushed the cart at an incredibly slow speed. Her lifeless eyes stared at us.

  Beck exhaled. “Someone want to tell me why we’re just standing here watching her?”

  Alex asked. “Anyone want to handle this?”

  “You’re the expert.” Beck replied.

  With a nod, almost nonchalantly Alex took long strides toward the maid peering back at us intermittently, his gun behind his back as he made it about two feet from her. “Ma’am,” he said as he leaned to her. “Ma’am.”

  At first she just reacted, slowly turned her head toward Alex and she stared at him. Just stared at him. Then without warning she widened her mouth, snarled and lunged.

  Alex stepped back and shot her.

  There were no other Sleepers around, at least none that we could see. But even this little place, not even big enough to be a dot on the map, wasn’t spared from what happened.

  That told me that nowhere was safe from what was happening to the world.

  Nowhere.

  My poor Jessie.

  We didn’t see a Sleeper the rest of the evening, which really surprised me. I expected we would. A gunshot carried for miles. Perhaps they just didn’t have the perception needed to follow. We had supper by a small fire which we quickly extinguished after the meal.

  I had to use powdered formula mixed with bottled water to feed Phoenix, but I didn’t need to warm it. The nights were almost as hot as the days.

  Both Beck and Alex went to sleep in Room 12, each taking a bed in the deluxe family room. They went to sleep early, just after the sun set. I stayed up for a while taking watch with Randy, not that I could do all that much. I still didn’t want to put Phoenix down, but I knew eventually I would have to or else the child wouldn’t know how to sleep anywhere other than in a pair of arms.

  Randy was good to hang out with. He was optimistic and realistic at the same time. I asked him how he was doing about Missy and he said, like the rest of us he was sad but not surprised. He knew she wouldn’t be on the journey long. He just knew.

  He didn’t blame her and he reminded me that death was his plan as well until he met us.

  A plan.

  We’d leave at first light and stay on the highway.

  That was the plan.

  The only plan. Getting to Seattle to find Jessie was it. No one talked about what would occur beyond that. Would we all go our separate ways, stay together? Maybe even civilization wasn’t that bad the further west we went.

  No one knew because we had no way to communicate.

  There wasn’t a radio signal at Bucky’s motel. We’d stop on the road and try again, but we hadn’t had any luck since speaking to the man in California before we left the Survival Haven.

  Admittedly, the lack of a long-term plan started weighing heavily on my mind. But honestly, how could I think of a long term plan for my life when I didn’t know what had happened to a huge part of my life . . . Jessie.

  She was the entire reason we’d packed up and were heading west. She was my focus to move forward and on. Yes, I had Danny, but I needed and wanted my daughter too.

  But with each passing day, each passing hour that I didn’t speak to her, I grew fearful of what I would find when I arrived in Seattle.

  I only hoped it was the ‘not knowing’ that was causing my fear and not my maternal instincts.

  22. Almost there

  Was it really over? Had the world ended and civilization was well on its way to extinction? I truly had to ask that. For all the hopefulness I’d carried at the beginning of the journey that was how much despair I took with me as we neared the state of Washington.

  A simple trip, pre-Event, across country would have taken three days and that was driving and stopping for two nights. Insane people drove straight through.

  But in the post-Event world it wasn’t simple. Without the use of GPS, we relied on the old-fashioned map method. Beck charted routes that would keep us furthest from civilization. While there were no more physical obstacles like the Great Divide, we had little obstacles that added up.

  Fueling, for example, wasn’t as simple as pulling up to the pump. It took a while; we had to open the reserves, lower the pump, fire up the generator, pump out gas and transfer it to the vehicles.

  Twice we ran into Sleeper problems, both times at night. But nothing major and nothing that Beck and Alex couldn’t handle.

  The further west we went, the more civilization grew invisible. We found remnants of refugee centers and leftover military trucks. No one held post, although it appeared they held their post longer than out east.

  We managed to make contact with some guy named Carl in Nevada. He said it was barren there and they were working hard to pull people together. They were dealing with Sleepers, but for the moment, they were under control. He gave us coordinates and invited us to join them after our search. The only hope for continuing civilization was if everyone pulled together. He and about twenty others were preparing an underground place at on old military installation. I couldn’t help but think of Area 51.

  One week.

  It had been one week since it all started. Since Jeremy passed away, since Daniel transformed. Since everything went to hell.

  One week.

  We were on, at least we believed we were on, the last stop before finding Jessie.

  It wasn’t as easy as one would think to find a place for the night. Sleepers increasingly seemed more predominant at night and they sensed us. That’s how it seemed.

  I couldn’t agree more with Beck and Alex when they stated again that, after we found Jessie, we had to plan on hunkering down somewhere. Staying put, cleaning house, something long term. While nothing was even remotely close to being a firm plan, it was finally some talk about the future.

  If that what it was called.

  Unspoken rules for traveling and spending the nights started to surface, things that grew evident with each passing night before we pulled over.

  It had to be remote and away from civilization, although Beck argued a top floor apartment would do the same.

  Two exits.

  Windows that weren’t easily accessible.

  The structure had to be strong and the vehicles had to be somewhat hidden.

  The motel was an easy hideaway. The next night we stayed at a house, in
a small town, at the far end of a one-way street. No Sleepers were in sight when we pulled up. But by two in the morning we were bombarded and we had to pack up and go, spending the rest of the night in a nearby tunnel.

  Beck figured it was a smoke signal. We were grilling that night. Easy enough.

  The next night, wise enough from the evening before that we didn’t even cook. The meal was cold; we stayed inside, brought only the minimum in with us.

  That night was a hardware store.

  Again by two or three in the morning, the Sleepers arrived.

  What was the reason there? The lights, we figured. We had a lot of battery-operated lanterns going.

  In a dark world, we were no less than beacons to follow. But we couldn’t keep going, we had to stop and rest.

  A few hours before finding our next stop, we located a discount department store. Alex ran in for dark fabric. He ran out with two spools and five or six Sleepers following him.

  He said he would have shot them but wanted to conserve ammo. However, in the future he’d devise a plan to get rid of them, large groups at a time.

  But until we found Jessie, it was one at a time.

  Just across the Washington state border, we followed the signs to Hilltop Christian Church. Bill saw the sign on the highway and said it sounded like it would be the right place to go.

  Coming from Bill I knew it wasn’t some praise and prayer reference. I suppose we followed Bill’s hunch and as we pulled up the winding road, I too felt it in my gut.

  It was the right place.

  A quaint stone building with the sign that read ‘built in 1892’ and six concrete steps in need of repair led to the red double wooden doors. There weren’t many windows and they were stained glass. The stone was darkened gray, but otherwise the building was well maintained. There was a small bell tower on top; immediately I thought of how that would be our watch tower.

  Bill was somewhat argumentative about having to go inside with Alex and Randy to check for Sleepers. Danny volunteered to go, but I quickly slapped that down.

  But the truth was Beck and Alex were the strong guns of the group. Both of them couldn’t be inside at the same time anymore.

  So Bill went.

  It didn’t take them long. They gave it a clean sweep. The building was one main room and a back area that had an office and a lounge. The basement was one room as well with a cafeteria style kitchen. Probably used for church dinner or rented for the occasional baby shower.

  We pulled the vehicles to the back, parking closely to the back door of the building and again, bringing only minimum supplies with us.

  There was something different about the church when we entered. Easily pinpointed … the smell. There was none. No smell of death, dust, or simple emptiness. Before the event I would never have believed emptiness carried a smell, but it did.

  The church, however, did not.

  Beck’s first comment inside the doors, once again, reiterated my own.

  “Someone has been here and not long ago.”

  I thought that too.

  Some remnants of dust carried in the last of the light beaming through the stained glass windows. There were two rows of beautiful wooden pews before a simple altar. The walls were white and the ceiling was higher with wooden beams.

  I thought it beautiful, simple, but beautiful.

  Randy stopped midway up the aisle and commented. “It’s God’s house. I’m willing to bet many people stopped by here.” He exhaled and slid into a pew. “Peaceful.”

  Bill said, “Doesn’t make sense, though.”

  Danny asked. “What doesn’t?”

  “An empty church,” Bill said. “During the apocalypse. And one, mind you, people think that God did. If I believed in God, I may flock to a church. I’d expect it to be full.”

  Danny nodded. “That makes sense. But it is far out here. Maybe people just didn’t want to take the trip. Or maybe it’s just an old church that’s more of a tourist attraction.”

  Bill shrugged. “It’s maintained well, like a church would be for services.” He reached into a pew. “Look, the hymnals are modern.”

  Randy’s shhh rang out. “If you don’t mind, I’m trying to get a prayer in here. It’s respectful to keep your voices down.”

  Bill laughed. “Like a library? Didn’t know there were rules.”

  I shook my head with a roll of my eyes. “Let him go. Let him pray. Randy doesn’t bother anyone.

  “I didn’t mean anything . . .” Bill quickly lowered his voice when I gave a scolding look. He then whispered, “I didn’t mean anything. He actually is reiterating my point. He immediately prays. Why aren’t others here praying?”

  Danny said, “Maybe they’re all dead.”

  Beck added. “Or Sleepers.”

  Suddenly Alex’s voice echoed through the hollows of the church as he came from behind the altar. “Well, someone has been here.”

  At the same time we all hushed him with a unison ‘shh’.

  “What?” He asked. “Is this a library? I didn’t know there were fucking rules about how loud . . .”

  Beck raised a hand and I could see the cringe on his face. “Whoa. Hey. It’s a church.”

  “Whoops.” Alex hunched, spun to the cross and looked up. “Sorry.” He then faced us speaking softly as he walked. “Someone has been here. Recently, too. Found cooked food remnants in the garbage.” He held up the particle no bigger than two inches. “Spam. Fried.” He sniffed it. “Fresh. Maybe two hours.”

  I snorted a laugh at how ridiculous he sounded giving examination results of Spam as if he were a coroner at a death scene. “I’m sorry.” I covered my mouth and tried to swipe away my laugh. “You know how fresh or old cooked Spam is?”

  “Uh, yeah. I love Spam.”

  Bill nodded at me.”We knew that, Mera. Remember his cabinets?”

  “Not to mention,” Danny added, “what he brought with us.”

  Beck laughed. Probably the first one I heard in a while.

  “What?” Alex asked. “Wait. Nothing is wrong with Spam. Great food for the apocalypse.” He looked once more at the little piece of meat in his hand then placed it down on the railing just before the altar.

  As if he had committed some carnal sin everyone reacted in offended shock.

  “Whoa. Geez.” He grabbed the meat and stuck it in his pocket. “I'll throw it out later. Man, people get weird in churches.”

  He stepped closer and filled us in on his find. Alex told of the blanket on the back office couch and the food downstairs. How things had been cooked, he felt, as recent as today.

  But, yet, there was no one around. Even he commented on the lack of people in a church. He then added he was embarrassed to admit he was fearful that we’d open the doors and be pelted with people who came to pray, turned to Sleepers and were just waiting for release.

  The day was drawing to an end, and if we wanted to have light in the church then the windows had to be covered. I was in charge of cutting the fabric and the men would hang them over the windows.

  When I finished the cutting I checked on Phoenix. He was fast asleep and comfortable in the wicker basket. I slid him closer to Beck trusting him with the care of the baby and to keep an ear out while I sought out something for a meal.

  Our supplies were near the entrance of the church; with my luck Alex probably grabbed spam. I was just about to open the food box when the strange voice called out.

  “No need to hang those, they won’t come here.”

  A male voice.

  Everyone stopped making noise and I spun around. He came from the altar, stepping toward us. He was probably in his late thirties, though it was hard to tell with the shoulder length brown hair and beard.

  Alex said, “I locked that back door.”

  “I have a key.” He smiled and held it up. When he did that, I noticed what he was wearing. Black pants, black shirt. The white collar portion hung open at his neck, but it was there, clearly enough to let us all kno
w he was some sort of man of the cloth. “Michael Lawford.” He extended his hand to Alex, the first person he approached.

  Randy walked immediately to him with a firm handshake and introduction “Father. I’m Randy. We’re sorry for intruding.”

  “No,” Michael shook his head. “I’m reverend. Not a priest. And no intrusion. This is God’s house, right?”

  Randy nodded. “It is. I expected people to be here praying.”

  “They did at first,” He replied. “Then after a day or so, nothing. No one.” We all gathered close to him. He walked to each of us, greeting us with a handshake. I was last. When he arrived at me, he laid a hand on my shoulder as he gripped my hand. “Welcome.”

  He was tired, his face drawn.

  With a sigh, he turned around and said, “Please, just relax. I’ll make some food. I have plenty. But you needn’t hang those to cover the windows, they won’t come.”

  Bill asked. “Who won’t come? The Sleepers?”

  Michael tilted his head, “I’m not familiar with that term.”

  Beck explained. “The ones that were infected with the virus. They wander, attack . . .”

  “Ah, yes.” Michael nodded. “Them. That’s who I am talking about. I never gave them a name. But the … Sleepers won’t come.”

  “Begging your pardon, padre,” said Alex. “But they show up everywhere.”

  “Yeah, they do,” Michael replied. “They tend to seek life. They flock, attack. At first I thought they could just sense life. But then I figured out a few days ago, it was just signs of life they sought. Lights. Smells. That sort of thing. But one tends to follow another. That’s why I give them a path.”

  He must have noticed our confused looks, because after a brief pause he explained. “If one heads to the light, the others follow; the more that are at one place, the more that show up. I set up a house about three miles from here. Lit lanterns all through it; put on music. Once full dark hits, they’ll head for that house and never come here. Trust me. Worked the last three nights.”

  Alex asked. “You set up a decoy?”