The Survivors (Book 2): Autumn

by Dreyer, V. L.

“Okies,” Priya whispered, though she was obviously very frightened. I set Maddy back on her feet beside the older girl. As soon as she realised that Madeline was younger than she was, something protective came out in my little foundling. She took Maddy’s hand without any further instruction, and led the little girl to hide in the gloom behind the truck, where they were out of sight.

  Once the children were safe, I turned back to stare at the fire. I could see the silhouettes of my friends rushing back and forth, and heard the hiss of fire extinguishers and hoses running, but the smoke was thick and black. I remembered from my school days that smoke killed faster than fire ever did. If the doctor was unconscious in there, then we had to get him out before it was too late.

  The motel’s thick glass doors hung open, with only the faintest trickle of smoke oozing out of the ground floor. I hesitated for a second, then reached into the front seat of the truck and pulled out my backpack. I snatched out a singlet and a bottle of water, soaking the fabric thoroughly before I tied it over my nose and mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Michael’s voice startled me; I hadn’t realised that he was there until he spoke. I glanced back and found him watching me with concern, his face and arms already smudged with soot.

  “Doc’s in there,” I told him. “I’m going to get him out before it’s too late, so either help me or get out of my way.”

  He didn’t even bother to reply. In a single smooth movement, he slid his t-shirt up over his head and pulled it off, then grabbed the bottle of water from my hands. He followed me as I turned and ran back towards the burning building, my feet splashing through the puddles left by the rain and Hemi’s attempts to fight the fire.

  I heard Hemi shouting at us as we ducked through the open door, but I didn’t stop to see what he was saying. Every single one of my senses was screaming at me, warning me that what I was doing was dangerous – potentially even lethal – but if I didn’t do it then someone was guaranteed to die. Michael was a footstep behind me, forced to run in a half-crouch to keep his head clear of the smoke; his bulk was a hindrance in a situation like that.

  There were no flames in the foyer, but the smoke hung thick and heavy in the air. I burst out into the central courtyard, where I could see that the flames had originated from the kitchen and crept up the inside of the building to engulf Skylar’s bedroom and the roof above. The back end of the building was still untouched, but the smoke had saturated the area, filling the building in a deadly, billowing black miasma.

  Careful to keep my head clear of the smoke as much as possible, I hurried across the garden. I could feel my feet crushing our precious baby plants, but I didn’t care. The plants could be replaced; our friend couldn’t.

  “Where is he?” Michael’s shout sounded like it came from miles away, even though he was right behind me. The noise of the flames was deafening, overwhelming all of my senses.

  “Maddy said he was here. She said he was in the garden!” I shouted back, staring around frantically. Our doctor was not a small man, he shouldn’t have been that hard to find. “I don’t see him. You check the hydroponics room; I’ll check the storage room.”

  I heard a vague grunt of agreement, and footsteps retreating behind me as I hurried in the direction of the room where we kept our spare supplies. The smoke was particularly thick in the doorway, and it took me a second to spot the human figure on the ground in the flickering half-light. I screamed for Michael as I dropped to my knees beside him. Stewart was half-conscious, but he moved weakly when he realised I was there.

  “Turn it off.” He coughed pathetically, and pointed at the wall. I suddenly realised that he had been trying to reach the main switchboard for the power, on the wall above our supplies. Understanding came a moment later; now that the power had come back on, it had the potential to keep feeding the fire far beyond our control. I leapt up and flicked the rows of switches into the off position as fast as I could.

  By the time I was done, Michael had found us, and was already gathering the doctor over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The doctor was struggling though, frantically trying to tell me something.

  “Gas!” he grated, his voice so hoarse I could barely make out what he was saying. “Use that!”

  Suddenly I realised that he was pointing at something, something half-hidden beneath the stacks of goods. I followed his finger and realised he was pointing at a huge fire extinguisher, one of the strange ones used for fighting special kinds of fire. I couldn’t remember which kind, but I trusted him to know. Whether he was delirious or not, the doctor was a brilliant man. I took the hint, grabbed the extinguisher, then rushed after Michael as he hurried to get the doctor to safety.

  In the courtyard, we parted ways. He headed for the exit, while I went for the kitchen. Yanking the safety clip out of the nozzle, I closed to within a few metres of the edge of the flame and pulled the trigger. A spray of thick powder exploded from the tip of the hose, and struck low at the base of the nearest flames. They retreated a few centimetres, and I advanced a few centimetres, focusing my efforts on one step at a time.

  I could vaguely see the stove through the inferno, and wondered if that was the source of the fire. It was too hot to tell, though. Everything was melting. Sweat dripped down my skin, and occasionally I had to dance away to avoid getting burned.

  Suddenly, a hand grabbed me from behind and pulled me back. I found the extinguisher snatched from my hand by a pair of strong, dark-haired youths, their faces wrapped in cloth just as mine was. It took a second for me to realise that it was Tane and his brother, who had come to take over from me. Iorangi gave me a shove towards the exit and shouted something that I couldn’t make out, but I didn’t need to hear it. The gesture was enough.

  They’d stripped me of my means to do any good anyway, so I ran for the exit. The smoke had started to thin out, just a little bit enough to be significant. Beyond the exit, I saw Hemi bracing himself against the power of the fire hose he had aimed at our roof. I rushed to help him, but he shooed me away.

  “We’ve got this. Go find your sister!” he yelled over the endless blast of water and the roar of the flames.

  I had nothing to say to that.

  I turned and ran back towards the Hilux, where I could see shadowy figures crouched around one another on the ground. As I got closer, I could see the two little girls and Michael kneeling beside the doctor, who was struggling to talk around a terrible, hacking cough. He was gesturing towards the north, but by the time I reached them he had lost the ability to speak.

  It didn’t seem to matter, Michael had heard enough. As soon as he heard me coming, he rose to his feet and turned to me to relay the tale. “He said that two men came wanting to trade this evening. They came from the north, and said they wanted to trade for food, but it was late so

  Doc tried to send them away.

  “One of them panicked and hit him; he’s not sure which one. He fell down and passed out for a minute, and when he woke up he heard Skye screaming at the men. Then there was a terrible crash and everyone started yelling. He managed to get into the garden before he passed out. Maddy said she saw the men carry Skylar away.”

  “So wherever she is, she’s alive,” I said, my voice husky from the smoke and exertion.

  “Yes,” he answered, but I could see the look in his eyes, and knew he was as concerned as I was. With good reason. These men could be anyone. They had set fire to our home and kidnapped my sister. They were dangerous. I felt my hands clench up, and I knew that the only way I’d be able to relax was when Skye was safely back home where I could protect her.

  “Get your gun. We’re going to get her back,” I told Michael. My voice came out strangely, ice cold even though the anger I felt was red hot. Without waiting for his response, I discarded my makeshift mask, and dove into the Hilux to find the shotgun. Michael was a second behind me, grabbing his assault rifle out of the back seat. He let out a sharp whistle to call his dog to heel, and then he was a step behind me was I raced of
f towards the north.

  “What are we going to do when we find them?” Michael’s voice was urgent and concerned. “We don’t know how many there are, or how well armed they are. They could have us outnumbered.”

  “First, we find them,” I answered breathlessly, flicking my hair back out of my face, “and when we do, we’ll improvise.”

  There was a grunt that told me he didn’t quite care for my plan, but he had no choice. I was going whether he liked it or not, so his only option was whether or not he was going to help me. Adrenaline thrummed through my veins as I picked up the pace, my path illuminated by the glow of the fire, and the moon overhead. It was almost full, and its silvery glow cast our world in a strange mixture of black, white, and flame-orange.

  Behind me, I heard Michael’s feet on the asphalt and the panting of his dog beside him. In just a few minutes, we had passed the run-down old shops that flanked the northern edge of town, and were out in the wild countryside. The noise and smoke from the fire diminished until the only sounds I heard were our own footsteps and harsh breathing. How far had the strangers come? I could only guess – but to my surprise, the dog told us.

  Just as we were passing a stand of dense bush, Alfred skidded to a stop and froze, sniffing the air sharply. Michael halted a second later, and the sound of his change in pace alerted me that something was out of place. By the time I returned to them, Michael was kneeling beside the dog and talking to him in the half-gibberish talk that humans instinctively used when talking to animals.

  Taking the hint, I slipped the safety off my shotgun and approached the edge of the forest, examining it as best I could in the dim light of the moon. Even with my very human senses, I could see that there was an obvious trail leading deeper into the gloom. Several people had come this way; it was too dark to tell how many or how recently.

  Suddenly, a voice pierced the darkness, a female voice raised in a blood-curdling shriek. It wasn’t the sound of my sister in pain, though; it was the sound of an unknown woman screaming in fury. She was too far away for me to make out her words, but her anger gave us a fix on their location. I glanced at Michael and nodded; he returned the gesture, then fell in beside me as we crept deeper into the gloom.

  Our stealth was unnecessary. The woman was still screaming, yelling abuse at someone that we couldn’t see. As we rounded a bend in the narrow pathway, we could see the distant flicker of a camp fire, illuminating a small clearing amongst the trees. I held up a hand to halt Michael, then beckoned for him to follow me as I melted into the shadows beside the path. Together, we inched forward until we crouched between the ferns. Carefully, we parted the fronds so that we could see the scene unfolding in the clearing without being detected.

  The woman was starvation thin and furious, with a shock of frizzy brunette hair and weather-worn skin that made it difficult to estimate her age. I couldn’t make out the details of her face in the semi-darkness, but it was obvious the target of her ire was a man. She smacked him hard and yelled at him incoherently, then turned away holding her head in her hands.

  “You were only supposed to trade!” she wailed, tugging at her hair. The man she’d struck cringed, and backed away. He was tall, but just as skinny as she was, with olive skin and dark hair; his face bore an expression of guilt. A teenage boy stood behind him, looking terrified.

  I glanced across the clearing and saw three younger children of different ages huddled together, all looking equally frightened. Between the children and the adults lay a body slumped unconscious on the grass. Even from afar, I recognised the form as Skylar’s. Her curly blonde hair fanned out across the grass, but she didn’t seem to be restrained in any way.

  “I swear, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” the man protested, holding his hands up in defence.

  “I sent you up there to trade for food,” the woman yelled, rounding on her husband with fury, “not to set their home on fire and steal their women!”

  “It was an accident!” The man backed away, as though fearing another blow. “We panicked when they said no. We just wanted to grab something and run, but she surprised us and the gas cooker she was using got knocked over. What was I supposed to do? Leave her to burn to death?”

  “It’s my fault,” the teenager spoke up suddenly, looking for all the world like he was about to cry. “I hit the old man. I… I was just so hungry, when he said no… I’m sorry, Mum…”

  “Old man?” The woman spun around to face the teenager. “There was an old man? And you left him in there?”

  “We couldn’t find him.” The man jumped to the teenager’s defence, though the woman looked so weak from starvation that she probably couldn’t have hurt either of them even if she’d wanted to. “We tried, but the smoke was getting too thick and he wasn’t where we’d left him.”

  I glanced to my left at Michael, and saw an expression on his face that looked just the way I felt. This was not what we had expected. These people were not vicious, heartless marauders, but a starving family that had been looking for food. Whether we believed that it was an accident or not, it made sense. Then, suddenly, the dog began to growl.

  The fight in the clearing continued unabated, and none of them seemed to have heard the growl. I glanced at Alfred and then at Michael, lifting a brow to ask the silent question. Michael shrugged, but I could just barely see the tension in his shoulders. The dog had heard or smelt something that it didn’t like. When I reached out to touch the canine, I found his back was up and he was ready for a fight.

  A second later, we heard the shriek.

  It was a terrible, blood-curdling screech that froze me to the core, and halted the argument in a heartbeat. It was a noise both Michael and I had heard before, and we both knew very well what it meant. This was a moment that we had dreaded, but now it was here. The predatory dead had come south.

  In a split second, we were presented with a choice. We could either grab my sister and run, leaving these people as a human sacrifice to buy us time, or we could try to save the very same people that had almost burnt our home to the ground. None of them had anything that even remotely resembled a weapon. They were completely helpless.

  I glanced at the three tiny children, the youngest no older than four. The look on those little faces made the decision for me. If I wanted to save my species, it had to begin with the very thing that makes us human: our ability to cooperate and work together.

  Michael was right beside me as I surged to my feet and lunged into the clearing, just as a second and third screech reverberated all around us. The teenager shouted in surprise when he saw us coming, but the noise only attracted the creatures to him. I saw a flicker of movement in the bushes on the opposite side of the clearing; a moment later, I levelled my shotgun and fired from the hip into the brush. A terrible howl told me that the buckshot had struck home.

  “Get the kids behind us,” I ordered sharply, catching the woman’s eye. Without hesitation, she grabbed her son and husband, dragging them over to protect the children. I leapt over my sister’s prone form and crouched on the far side of her, staring into the bushes, waiting for the creatures to come.

  They didn’t come. In fact, they did something far worse. They stayed hidden, screeching their horrifying noises, without exposing themselves. It was too dark for us to spot them in the undergrowth, unless we got lucky. They could flank us from any direction and our only warning would be if they howled.

  “We need to retreat before they get behind us,” I told the family. “Grab anything you can’t live without – and I expect one of you to carry my sister if you want to live out the night. Do you understand?”

  There was a chorus of agreement, followed by a flurry of activity. The people had almost nothing except a couple of small bags of things for the children. I heard a grunt as someone lifted Skye up, but I didn’t dare to look away from the forest’s edge.

  “Michael,” I called, waiting until I heard his response before I issued another command. “I want you to lead off. I’ll
cover the rear. Take them back to town. We’ll work things out there.”

  There was another noise of agreement, and then I heard the sound of his footsteps retreating. I waited until I heard the others hurry off as well, then I back-pedalled after them, keeping an eye on the trees all around us and my ears alert for danger. As soon as I was out of the clearing, I turned and ran as hard as I could.

  I caught up with the group a few moments later. With the children slowing them down, they had barely reached the road. There was another shriek, but it was further away now, which gave me a brief flash of hope. In the glow of the moonlight, I dimly saw the man carrying my sister just in front of me, casting fearful glances over his shoulder. I saw the woman stoop and pick up the smallest child. Michael shouldered his rifle and gathered up the next youngest.

  We ran as hard as we could, with me in the rear to make sure no one got lost. The sound of harsh breathing and footsteps pounding over the asphalt drowned out everything else. For all our differences, there was one thing that united us, and it was the pure, animal terror of the beast we couldn’t see, waiting to devour us if we stopped for a moment to catch our breath. Even the children seemed to understand that to lag behind was to die a horrible death.

  Somehow, we made it back to the township. The screeches had faded further and further away, moving off in another direction. By some freak of fate, we had been spared to fight another day. Eventually, we drew to a ragged halt near the Hilux, where the raging fire lit our faces in a devilish glow.

  Only then did I have a second to think about what we’d done, and who we had just saved. A heartbeat later, I made up my mind about what to do. The next step to going beyond survival was to find a way to forgive those who had wronged against us. Now was the time to practice what I hoped to one day preach.

  “Put the little ones in the truck where we can protect them,” I told Michael. He nodded and hurried to obey, opening the door to the rear cab so he could place the little child he was carrying safely inside. The woman hesitated for a moment, and then passed the toddler to him as well. Soon, all five children, including Priyanka and Maddy, were safely inside.