Weapons were laid out on the kitchen table and benches after Easton pulled them all out. Alex strapped on her normal bowie knife and 9 mm. She handed a second bowie knife to Easton, telling him to be careful and explaining that the temple was the best place to stab if the problem arose. He opted to strap on the knife, but also took his bat as well. Alex mentally made a note to create some sort of scabbard for the bat, so his hands were free of it until he needed to swing it.
The RV door swung open, allowing the hot desert air to fill the inside. Despite the heat, Alex took a deep breath of the fresh air. Being stuck in the RV for long periods of time with four children had its downfalls. And the smell was just one of them. She stepped carefully out onto the asphalt, checking their surroundings. Seeing nothing moving, she moved toward the cars cautiously, glancing back to find Easton and Henry following her. Henry was practically bouncing with excitement to be out of the RV. And in his mind, he was on a special mission with his new friend and his mother.
Alex reached the first car and looked inside. There was blood on the seat, but no body. She walked around the wreck and didn’t see any bodies to accompany the clear damage done to someone. Showing Easton, he agreed that it was strange, and they both started looking around and even under the cars. Nothing seemed to be moving, and they continued scavenging through the cars.
The car that flipped over had its trunk opened and two suitcases were on the pavement below. One was still closed, and Alex popped it to reveal clothing that was mainly pink, purple and black. Assuming this was a girl’s case, she put it off to the side for Candace to check sizes. Nothing else was useful in the turned over car, so Alex walked to the other side of the wreck to check the car that was still on its wheels.
Behind her, a cry of alarm grabbed her attention back. Her heart hammered and then skipped, when she saw the infected stumble up from the ravine, between Easton, Henry and the RV. Henry was the one that shrieked, and the noise drew the infected directly at him. Alex was too far away to take a safe shot, and she pulled her bowie and began to run.
The infected was a middle-aged man. His left arm hung at an awkward angle, which told the story of a broken collarbone or shoulder. It flapped against his side, as his infected body tried to tell it to reach out to grab its meal. His right arm seemed to get the message, because the hand was up and ready to claw into the fresh food that had stumbled across its path. Alex assumed he was someone from the cars they were looking through, and somehow he had gotten into the ravine. He probably stayed down there until he heard them pull up, a dinner bell rung in his head.
“Henry….” Alex began to call out to him, to tell him to run. Suddenly the bat wielding Easton was there. He threw his left arm around Henry, pulling his back flush against his body. Henry seemed to be stiff with fear, but Easton did not let him go, just held him tightly against him. The infected struggled toward them, with its ungainly steps and broken shoulder. Behind the infected, another head began to rise from the ravine, and Alex quickened her pace to get back to the boys.
As the bat swung and made purchase on the side of the first infected’s head, Alex stepped up with her bowie knife. The blow knocked the infected down, and Easton was not done, as he raised the bat again for a deathblow. He kept Henry against him the whole time, protecting him from anything that was to come. After the first dead was dispatched, Alex rushed forward and took care of the second before it could get out of the ravine. At the edge of the slope, she checked for more infected, but saw nothing else moving.
Turning, she went to console Henry who was whimpering, but when Alex turned, she saw that Henry was in Easton’s arms. Easton held him tightly with one arm, and had the bat at the ready with the other. Alex watched him as he swung from side to side, slowly making his way back to the RV, taking no chances with Henry. When he got to the door, it swung open on its own, and a wide-eyed Candace filled the doorway. She immediately took Henry from Easton and held him close, stepping back as Easton closed the door to safety for them.
Easton caught Alex watching him, and he straightened his shoulders, looking strong and determined. For a sixteen-year-old boy, he was developing an old soul, and Alex could not decide if she felt sorrow or relief for that. She watched him protect her son, something she thought she was on her own with. The teen kids showed great character in the last 24 hours, and this event was just another reason she was so thankful to have them with her.
“You are really good with that bat,” Alex said.
“I’ve played baseball most of my life, was on my high school varsity team,” Easton replied, taking a batter’s stance and swinging a few practice swings.
“Thank you,” Alex said, sincerely feeling it to her bones.
“It’s what we do, right? Watch out for each other?” Easton said with a shrug.
“Yes, it’s what everyone should do. But our little group, yes we do that for each other.”
“Well I will do my part in our survival. And that includes looking out for those in the group,” Easton said with confidence.
“That’s good to know,” Alex said with a smile.
The pair continued to go through the second car, appreciative when they found two cases of water in the trunk. They placed both in the RV and Alex checked on Henry. He was a little shaken, but also very impressed with his friend Easton. Alex knew that story would be retold many times, and it would grow to something fictional by the end of the next day. Candace went through the clothes in the suitcase, finding a few things that would fit her. Easton was still without extra clothes. Nothing was large enough in the cars, so Alex made a mental note that they would have to enter a big store when one was found.
Alex and Easton maneuvered the one car still on its wheels, to one side of the road, so the RV could squeeze by. The scraping sound as they went by told Alex they made just enough room. Easton sat in the back of the RV with the kids, which left Alex alone with her musing and plans. And her plans were getting extensive, as was her to do list.
A few more miles down the road and billboards began to announce the coming of a small town. One billboard boasted a mercantile, and Alex decided it would be a place to check for clothing and supplies. It would probably be small, and possibly looted already. However, Easton was a big kid, so maybe his sized items would still be laying around. And there was always the back storeroom areas. Mitch always said that the average person would forget about those rooms, Alex hoped he was right.
Alex pulled the RV off the highway, and slowed as she swerved to dodge stopped cars. As she pulled next to a few bad crashes, she looked into the cars. Blood splashed the interiors, windows were broken, doors left ajar. Each vehicle painted a new but familiar horror for the people trying to flee the plague. A few of the vehicles had bodies in them, bodies that had been feasted on, but then someone had dispatched the infected. The crashed cars were a silent grotesque graveyard.
A red suv caught her attention and she slowed to a halt next to it. Peering through the windows, she felt sadness grip her, as she remembered Bill, Libby and Jimmy from the Costco in Las Vegas. They had apparently gone out of the town the same way she was, as they probably couldn’t get through the military blockades in town with all of the infected around. The SUV was badly smashed in the front, where it had rear-ended another vehicle. The doors stood open, and there was dried pools of blood on the ground. She put her forehead on the steering wheel, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. She wished she had done more for the family. Sighing deeply, she continued into the small town.
The mercantile store, brutalized on the outside, windows and door broken out. Alex circled the building looking all around for hidden infected. The back door was closed, which posed as a good sign for Alex and her hopes for the storeroom. She decided to leave the RV in the back, and use the backdoor as their exit. She rather load things through the back, to stay out of the sight of other possible infected or people roaming the area. She had seen a population sign for the town, and it only housed just over one thousand pe
ople before the plague. They could be anywhere, healthy or infected.
The sound of her checking and rechecking her 9 mm echoed through the RV. Easton joined her at the table, and strapped on his own bowie knife. Alex acknowledged him with a nod and turned toward the three other children. She hugged her kids, and looked Candace in the eyes, trying to see beyond her grief and worry. Wondering if she would hold out under pressure if it came to looking out for the younger children.
“I know this has been a long couple of days for you. I just ask that you keep an eye on the little two, is that ok?” Alex said.
“Yes. Of course. I will take care of them. You guys won’t take a long time right?” Candace asked, her fear lacing her words.
“Yes. It shouldn’t take long to check through the store.”
Easton took a moment to hug Candace, and then gave Henry a high five. Alex led the way, slowly exiting the RV, checking the area, in case any infected had wandered in. She motioned to Easton to follow once she was sure they were fine. He was quickly at her side, the RV door quietly shut behind them. Alex used silent motions with her hands, to signal Easton of their direction and to keep their movements quiet. Knives out, they ran to the corner of the building, and Alex motioned for Easton to flatten himself against the wall. He followed instructions perfectly, mimicking every move Alex made.
Once they circled around to the broken storefront, Alex hid to the side and peered into the building. She could see shapes inside that were moving in an uncoordinated fashion, the telltale sign of an infected. Three fingers on her hand gave Easton a rough guess of the infected inside. He nodded to her, motioning with his knife that he was ready.
Alex took a deep breath, and then used the handle of her knife on the metal window frame. The clang of the metal echoed through the broken building, and the infected heads swung in her direction. In a way that reminded her of a choreographed monster movie, all three of the infected she saw swung their direction, and a deep growl seemed to rise from them. Alex did not wait for them to get to her, instead she used the distance to her advantage, to quickly close on the first one and slam her knife into its temple.
The crunch of glass directly behind her signaled that Easton had followed, but he did not attack. She glanced back at him, and saw he was hesitating. Alex had predicted this, and wanted him to try to snap out of it. He was very good when he had his bat, but it took too much time and strength to take the infected out in that manner. He needed to learn different methods, and needed to be good at them.
“The temples,” Alex said in a low voice. “The temples are the softest spot. They can’t keep up with quick movements, so move fast to the side and stab.” He nodded without looking at her, keeping his eyes on the infected they could see coming their way.
The second infected near Alex was a middle-aged man, with a retro trucker hat on. She had seen a semi in the gas station parking lot across the way. Looking at the hat it seemed he had transported some sort of electronics. Nothing that could help them now and certainly not something that helped him. From the look and smell of him, she assumed he had been infected for at least three days. His shirt was in shreds and his internal organs showed through the missing skin on his chest and stomach. Those organs were black, and oozing down what was left of the man’s body.
Motioning to Easton to watch her, she moved quickly to the infected’s left side, and stabbed through the soft spot on the temple. The man’s body fell at Alex’s feet, now truly dead. She turned to watch the last infected trying to shamble toward Easton, but continually caught up on fallen items on the ground. Easton watched it, and held his knife at the ready. But he didn’t move toward it. Nervous that he wouldn’t do what was needed, Alex moved to his side to wait.
The infected was within arm’s reach when Alex stepped in and dispatched it. Easton’s knife hand went down and he studied the ground. Alex cleaned off her knife on the infected’s clothes and surveyed the outside through the broken windows. She then turned to Easton and touched his arm to get his attention.
“It's ok. It doesn’t come naturally. And that’s a good thing. You are a human being, with a human heart. The idea of killing anything is hard,” she said. He just nodded and started pushing around items on the ground, seeing if anything was usable.
Alex moved through the store, not seeing anything of value in the front. She decided to move through the rubble toward the back of the store, and access the storeroom. She grabbed two road atlas books when she saw them, shoving them in her backpack. She knew her general direction to get to the compound, but she wanted to be prepared for anything. Finding a rack of work gloves, she grabbed two of each size. She could hear Easton moving around behind her, so she continued to move to the storeroom.
The storeroom door stood closed, and locked. Alex pulled the crowbar she had put in the strap of her backpack. She pried the door open, and waited for any noise to come. Hearing nothing that sounded like an infected, she took out her flashlight and flicked it on. She smiled when she saw all of the undisturbed boxes in the room. The first few boxes were food items, and she stacked those near the backdoor so they could put them in the RV. Walking through the room, she found boxes of logoed clothing for the small city and she began to go through it.
A pile of extra-large, medium and small shirts, sweatshirts and sweats were on the ground next to her. Sweats weren’t her first choice in clothing, but while they were in the RV, or in the evening, it would give everyone something to change into. As Alex contemplated the uses for the clothing she was finding, a noise from further in the storeroom caught her attention. Before she could react the growl of an infected came from in front of her, behind a large stack of boxes. The infected, not having the thought process to go around, decided to try to go through to get to Alex, and the entire tower fell forward on top of her.
In the store, Easton heard the scream from Alex right before the loud crash in the storeroom. Dropping the items he was sorting through he ran to the storeroom. At first, it was too dark for him to see anything in the windowless room. He quickly pulled off his pack, and found the light Alex had given him. Turning it on he saw boxes everywhere on the floor. He didn’t see Alex at first, and he began to panic when he realized there was an infected trying to crawl over the boxes.
“Alex!” Easton yelled.
“Here,” Alex’s muffled reply came. He saw her hand shoot through some boxes, not ten feet from the infected trying to get to her.
Alex pushed and pulled, but it was no use, she couldn’t get out. She pushed the box holding her chest down, off her with a grunt. And she looked into the face of an infected, looking to make her dinner. She was stuck, and the infected’s weight was putting more pressure on the box on her legs. As she fought to get loose, she looked back to see Easton frozen in his spot, but what she saw behind him made the blood freeze in her veins. Through the open storeroom door, she was able to see the front of the store, and it was filling up with infected people.
Chapter 13
The sound the infected were making was inhuman, hungry and terrifying. The scream that tore from Alex’s throat was lost in the overall noise from the store. Easton swung around and saw what was coming, his eyes wide when he turned back to Alex. She didn’t know what trapped her leg under the boxes, but she could not get free, no matter how hard she struggled.
“Easton, run! Backdoor!” Alex screamed at him. He seemed frozen in time, and Alex’s fears were coming alive in front of her eyes. If Easton didn’t get back to the RV, there would be no one to protect the kids. “Easton! Move!” She screamed at him again.
Easton looked down at the knife in his hand, and the bat in the other. He sheathed the knife, making a decision. He slammed the door to the store, turning the lock. Taking the bat in two hands, he stepped into his batter's stance and swung for the stars. The infected that was attempting to crawl through boxes to Alex flew backwards, the side of its head caved in. It did not move again from the spot it fell. Using the bat, Easton pushed boxes away
from Alex’s body. She watched him, but continued to watch the door to the store.
“Easton the door. They will get through. You need to go!” Alex cried.
“No,” Easton replied simply.
The noise on the other side of the door was from a pack of wild animals. Scratching, growling and banging to get to their meal. The infected knew they were there, and didn’t want to give up on the fresh meat. Alex continued to struggle from the floor, but her left leg was trapped. Her thigh was on fire, screaming in pain, and she had lost feeling below her knee. She prayed it was just circulation, and not broken or worse.
Easton moved the last few boxes from her legs, and he found a rack that held the boxes before they tumbled. Somehow, it had crashed down on Alex’s left thigh, trapping her leg underneath. Alex tried to lift but the rack was too heavy for her. She cried out in pain as she fell back to the cement. Easton put his bat down, and bent to lift. He strained and only lifted it a few inches before it crashed back down. Alex’s pained cry made him wince.
“Please Easton, you need to go,” Alex said again through gritted teeth.
“No. I can’t leave you here.”
“Yes you can. You have to. Go, get the kids out of here. I need you to do that for me,” Alex said.
“No, I’ll get you out of here,” he said. As he spoke, he looked around the room. “I just need leverage to lift a little higher.” He searched through the room, until he found a metal beam. Sliding a metal stool next to the rack, Easton then slid the metal beam under the rack. Using the stool as a fulcrum, he pushed down on the beam, raising the rack a few inches. The pain in Alex’s leg intensified as the blood quickly tried to circulate down.
“Can….you….slide out?” Easton asked through gritted teeth and exertion.
Using her arms, Alex pulled herself backwards, until she was free of the rack. It fell with a loud crash after she signaled. She had pins and needles flying through her leg that felt as if she was being stabbed repeatedly. She reached down and rubbed hard down her leg encouraging the blood to move.
Sundown Series (Book 1): Prepared Page 12