“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie in green pastures….” Marilyn calmed herself by saying the Lord ’s Prayer over and over again. She often began meditation the same way. For a short while, she went into her meditation state. When she woke, she immediately felt the pain descend on her again, but the step back away from the pain had allowed her some perspective. She felt like she had lost everything, but there was still a sick little boy upstairs. She had to take care of him.
She went to the kitchen and searched the pantry. She found a can of tomato soup. She thought it might be too acidic, but he hadn’t complained of an upset stomach. And he needed food. He was so thin. The Obermanns had a gas stove, so she was able to heat the soup. She would have liked to use milk to make the soup creamier, and maybe a little less acidic, but she was afraid to open the refrigerator. She didn’t know how long the power had been off. As she went about each task, she would have a thought related to what she was doing. Mama always made me chicken broth when I was sick. But your mama’s dead, said a voice inside her that seemed intent on keeping the pain fresh and near the surface. Daddy always ate soup with a table spoon. He won’t ever do it again. The boys begged Mama for oyster crackers instead of saltines. Your brothers will never grow up.
Marilyn kept the pain in check. Honey followed her around with what appeared to be concern. Marilyn tried to feed the dog some tuna, but Honey ignored the food and instead sat on her haunches and whined at Marilyn. She followed Marilyn closely, keeping her side pressed to Marilyn’s leg while she walked. All the way through the dining room, through the living room, and to the base of the stairs. When Marilyn got to the base of the stairs, Honey growled at her. Marilyn looked down at Honey over the edge of the tray she was carrying. Honey was wagging her tail, but she was baring her teeth at Marilyn. Marilyn carefully set the tray on a table in the entryway and reached out to Honey. Honey licked Marilyn’s hand.
“What’s the matter, girl?” Marilyn knelt and began petting the dog. Honey submitted to the petting, but Marilyn could feel her shivering, could feel the tenseness of the animal. Something was very wrong. Marilyn thought that perhaps there were some of the Sick Ones close to the house outside. She walked to all the doors and windows on the ground floor and made sure they were closed, and then returned to the entryway and the tray. Honey was still visibly upset, but she allowed Marilyn to mount the stairs while she stayed at the bottom, staring at the door to the outside.
Seth was still sleeping. Marilyn carefully set the tray on his night-stand. She noticed a book lying half under his bed. Where The Wild Things Are. She knew the book well. She had read it to Seth many times. She thought he had outgrown it, but she also remembered the line, “And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.” She could imagine Max reading that in his tent, wishing he could be back in a world that made sense.
She put the book on the nightstand next to the soup, planning on leaving and letting Seth sleep a bit longer. The soup would get cold, but she could reheat it when he woke. In the dimming light of his room, she reached out to Seth and brushed his hair back to feel his forehead. His forehead was no longer hot. It wasn’t warm at all.
Chapter 10 – Sonya
Sonya drove slowly, keeping a careful eye on the buildings and the road. Sunshine baked the asphalt, and she was fairly sure the creepers would be in for the day, but not positive. She had seen them walking in daylight now, in the shadows, but moving about, nonetheless. Things were changing, but she didn’t know why.
They had finally made the decision to enter a town, and it had to be a town of some size. The smaller towns they had gone through or skirted had convenience stores, maybe a restaurant, but no army surplus, and no sporting goods stores. The goal was survival gear and an atlas. They had armed themselves to a degree, but more weapons and supplies were needed. They still needed a means to cook and a first aid kit. Ideally, they would also find some means of cooling things. Sonya’s dad had a cooler that plugged into the lighter in his truck. She had never realized how much she had taken cool drinks for granted. But the map was crucial. She wanted to be able to check alternative routes in the event they wanted to avoid a city, or a pile-up.
Chase was awake and helping her navigate. The highway had grown crowded with cars, and she weaved in and out, sometimes driving down into the median or off the shoulder of the road. The going was very slow, and she was getting tired and irritable. She had managed the interchange and junction of highways 67 and 60 by leaving 67 via the down ramp, crossing four lanes of stalled traffic, and then driving back up on to 67. Chase had talked her through it, at times getting out and standing on top of the Suburban, looking for gaps between cars and the gentlest slopes when she had been forced to leave the road. She may have loved the sound of his voice yesterday, but today she was growing tired of it. She was almost ready for him to drive.
Except she didn’t really want his duty, either. They had claimed a rifle from the gun rack of a pick-up truck at a convenience store when they had left the highway to find water a few miles back. Chase had said it was a 30-.06, and he had shot one just like it when a friend’s father had taken him deer hunting. There had been a box of ammunition in the truck as well. They had agreed that if any of the creepers approached, he would shoot, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to do that. Even if she did, she wasn’t sure she would be able to hit anything. She had never fired a rifle in her life. She hadn’t been very good with the pistol, either.
Sonya carefully edged between an old grandma car, a white Buick or something, and a cargo van with D’Arpino’s in green lettering on the side. Once she cleared the gap, it looked like there was a long stretch of open road ahead of her. She relaxed a little and pushed the Suburban up to 45. In too short a time, she came upon another bunch of cars and trucks in the road. This time she knew she would have to leave the highway. There was a big rig which straddled both lanes of the southbound side, and a jumble of cars on the northbound side. In the median, an RV had rolled, and there was no room around the entire mess. Trees crowded both sides of the highway, but through the trees on her right she could see down to a small outer road. The bank was very steep. She pulled to the right and stopped the Suburban. She looked at Chase but didn’t say anything. He opened the door and stepped out. He walked to the edge of the embankment, and then walked up and down, looking for a large enough gap in the trees. At last he returned, although he didn’t look very happy. He walked to her side of the vehicle and she rolled down the window.
“Well, I guess we can backtrack.” He leaned in against the door, hooking one arm over the side-view mirror. Sonya thought back to the last place she knew they would be able to leave the highway for sure.
“Man, that’s really going to eat up some time. Isn’t there any way down at all?” She gestured for him to move back and she opened the door to get out and go look.
“Maybe you know more about it than I do.” Chase sounded frustrated. Sonya doubted she did know more than he did. She didn’t even have a license, just a permit. And she didn’t know what four wheel drives were capable of.
Sonya walked over to the side and looked it over. The embankment was steep, with only one obvious way down. “What about this gap here?”
Chase walked to her side. He looked at it then looked at her. “Maybe. But I’m a little scared of ‘maybe.’ Straight down. I think I’d prefer it if it were a little bit of an angle. See that bed of rocks at the bottom? There’s a small culvert coming out right there. If we got stuck there, I don’t know if we could get out. If we did, we might do some damage to the Suburban.” He looked back down the highway. Sonya followed his gaze. The shadows of the trees behind them had almost crossed the southbound lane. Soon, the creepers would be out.
“We’re going down. Worst case, we get stuck and the creepers pound on the car all night while we sweat and argue Miracle Whip or mayonnaise. Best case, we get off the highway and find someplace a
little more remote and we can crack the windows while we argue. Now the only question: are you driving or am I?”
Chase slowly nosed over the side of the embankment. Sonya grabbed the door with one hand and braced herself against the dash with the other. She was wearing a seat belt, and she became very aware of it as the front of the Suburban dropped. Chase rolled forward, stopped. Rolled forward a bit more then stopped again. He was driving Sonya crazy, but she didn’t want to say anything to him right now. She just wanted him to get it over with. But as soon as the rear wheels were over the edge, she understood why he had been so cautious.
He applied the brakes, and the Suburban slid forward and slightly to the right before it finally stopped. His knuckles stood out, bloodless and white, against the black leather of the steering wheel. His right knee was locked, his foot pressing the brake down as far as it would go. She watched as he shifted his weight and unlocked that leg, slowly letting the brake come up. Once the Suburban began moving again, he locked the knee. They slid much further than the first time, and again to the right. Sonya cringed as a small tree raked its branches against her door. When they came to a stop again, the trunk of the tree was pressed against the rear fender.
Chase turned his head to look at her. She could almost hear the tendons in his neck creaking, he was so tense. “I’m going to have to just let it roll down. I’ll tap the brakes to slow us. I’ve got it in the lowest gear. But I can’t risk trying to stop again. We’ll end up sideways against a tree or rolling the truck.” Sonya nodded once, quickly.
The Suburban began moving, picking up speed. Chase pumped the brakes, but when the vehicle started sliding, he would let off quickly. As they neared the bottom, Chase rose up in his seat in an effort to see the culvert, to try to span it with the wheels. By the time they neared the bottom, Sonya guessed they were going about twenty miles an hour. She never thought twenty could be so fast. The Suburban hit the bottom, shuddered as the front struts bottomed out and then bounced out onto the road and almost all the way across before Chase managed to get it shut down. They turned and looked at each other. Then Chase started laughing and pounding the steering wheel.
“That…was…awesome!” He whooped, and Sonya couldn’t help but smile. She felt the adrenalin as well.
“Let’s get out and look and make sure we’re all in one piece.” She tried to open the door but it stuck a little. When she pushed harder it came open. She stepped out and surveyed the damage. The passenger side had a crease down it, but the Suburban had seen better days, anyway. New less than a week ago, it had several dents and scratches.
She looked across the hood at Chase. “Well, it looks okay over here,” he said, before disappearing downward. “It seems to be fine, but I can’t tell because there’s a lot of grass hung up underneath. We’ll find out soon enough when we start down the road if everything is still okay as far as the axles and wheels and everything go.” He stood.
Sonya looked around. The shadows were growing longer, and she couldn’t see the sun behind the trees to the west. She listened, but all she could hear was the idling engine of the Suburban. She looked up the embankment, but could no longer see the highway. Then she saw the culvert. There was enough light to see a darker shadow, and white eyes in the darkness. Then the creeper started emerging.
It had been a young girl. She may have been Sonya’s age when she turned, but it was hard to tell now. The hair, which was long, blonde, and thick might once have been her pride and joy, but now was full of dirt, cobwebs, and rot. She had been wearing a tank top and shorts, exposing skin that was beginning to sag, stretch and tear, showing the rotting muscle and meat underneath. She had a greenish stain all over her body that looked like mold. Sonya caught her breath. She tried to warn Chase. She looked at him, but he was looking down the road in the direction they needed to go. Instead of a warning, all that escaped her was a low moan. Chase looked at her, and she pointed.
The creeper was rising to its feet. Chase shouted, and the creeper jerked around and faced him. He lunged into the Suburban and came out with the rifle. He pointed it at the creeper, but as it lunged forward, it fell onto the rocks. Sonya saw the rocks tear the skin on its hands and knees like wet paper, but it never stopped moving in their direction, climbing again to its feet. Chase sighted with the scope on the rifle.
“Sonya,” he said in a low voice. “Get in.” She moved toward the door, and the creeper jerked again and faced her this time. Its unsteady steps had brought it within a few feet of the pavement, and within a few yards of Sonya. Sonya got into the Suburban and pulled at the door, but it didn’t move. She pulled harder, and with a metallic groan, the door slammed closed. This caused the creeper to lunge forward faster. Chase walked toward the rear of the Suburban, circling outward but still toward the creeper, which now seemed to have lost interest in him.
“Chase, get in the car! Let’s just go!” The creature terrified her, but the look on Chase’s face disturbed her more. His face was full of disgust, and fear, and anger. Sonya knew he was circling to try for a good shot. “Chase, let’s go! You don’t have to shoot it!”
Chase didn’t seem to be hearing her. The creeper was approaching Sonya’s door, and was nearly there. Sonya turned in her seat to watch Chase. He was almost directly behind her. She saw him put the scope to his eye. He relaxed his shoulders. At the same time, the creeper had reached Sonya’s window. Sonya turned to look at it. Those white eyes were within inches of her own. There was no humanity in them. Sonya saw this, and then there was the explosion of the gunshot and the creature twitched and dropped out of sight.
Sonya turned and looked at Chase. He was standing where he had been, the rifle lowered, and he was expressionless. He appeared almost as inhuman as the creeper had, but only for a moment. With a look of intense interest he began walking forward, looking at the ground just outside her window. Sonya slid across the seat to the driver’s side and opened the door. She stepped out and walked to the back of the vehicle. When she rounded the rear bumper Chase was standing over the creeper, rifle up and pointed at the body on the ground, but it wasn’t moving.
“Look at that,” Chase said, pointing the rifle barrel at the creeper’s head. Reluctantly, Sonya looked. The bullet had struck the creeper just over the left ear and exited over the right ear, making a much bigger hole. Sonya looked for splattered brain matter, something, but there didn’t seem to be nearly as much as she would have expected. There was black and greenish ichor, the scattered bone fragments, and the rotted flesh peeled back (which was bad enough and made Sonya slightly queasy), but very little brain that she could see. She had dissected a dead cat in biology and she thought she knew what brain would look like if it had been present. The smell was overwhelming. There was rot, but something under that as well. She remembered a neighbor in their old house who would bag his grass clippings in plastic garbage bags and then leave them in a corner of the backyard for weeks. It was that smell, or something close.
Sonya turned and walked to the edge of the road. She thought she might throw up. She bent over at the waist, taking deep breaths. After a few moments, her stomach settled down. When she stood, Chase was still standing over the creeper, his head down. Sonya felt a wave of anger sweep through her. “Why did you shoot it? You could have just got in the Suburban and we could have driven away,” she shouted at him. He turned, and the anger went out of her. The look on his face killed any thought of remonstration.
“You call the creeper ‘it.’ And I guess that’s right. But I bet two weeks ago, or whatever, this was a girl. She might have been a cheerleader, or maybe she liked to read, or maybe she had a boyfriend. Can you imagine her up every night texting back and forth? Because I just barely can. Look at her. This thing was alive. The whole world was alive. And now there’s just this. And you and me. And no offense, but I think I need more than just you and me.” He walked around the Suburban and slipped into the driver’s seat and closed the door. Sonya walked to the passenger door, and after a short strug
gle, managed to open the door. When she climbed in, she reached across and pulled one of his hands from the steering wheel and held it. The awful look on his face was gone, and he was just looking out the windshield with one of the saddest expressions she had seen on anyone except her father.
“Is that why you shot it?” she asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He continued staring down the road. He pulled his hand away from her, put the Suburban in reverse and backed up, cutting the wheel to the right to straighten them out on the small outer road. The body of the creeper was then on the ground in front and to the right. He put the car in gear and swerved to the far side of the road to avoid it. “It’s just wrong, Sonya. This whole creeper thing is just wrong. It’s a bad joke. You know, I always thought everyone on earth would die in my lifetime. Since we were kids, there’ve been stories written and movies made. Did you ever read The Road by Cormac McCarthy? Or that story by Ray Bradbury about the house? I did a report on that story. About how everyone back when it was written was all worried about the atomic bomb. Everyone dying, that makes sense to me. But dead people getting up and walking around? That’s insane. It shouldn’t even work.” He turned the headlights on. Dusk was falling. The day’s light was almost gone.
“I don’t think about it. It just is. Things change.” Sonya curled into her sleeping position, back against the passenger door, knees up to her chest, feet on the seat. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she was exhausted. She yawned, and her jaw popped. “You know, my mom died when I was ten. It seems like one day there was the world before my mom then there was the world after. That’s kind of how this is.”
After Everything Else (Book 1): Creeper Rise Page 7