At ten minutes past midnight, she gave up. Tracy had thrown a bundle of bedclothes at her and indicated she should sleep in the corner. She folded back the flannel sheet and sat up on the pallet she had made from the thin comforter. Tracey and Marilyn shared the queen-sized bed. Sonya detected no movement from them. She stood, waiting for someone to ask her what she was doing, but no query came. She gathered the sheet and the make-shift pillow (Tracey’s t-shirt stuffed with Sonya’s cleanest clothes), silently stood, took the three steps to the door, and slipped out into the dark hallway. She made her way to a sofa in the big front room, and, under the sheet, curled into the smallest ball she could make. This was what she did when her father was gone and she couldn’t sleep. Something about being on the sofa, not being comfortable, distracted her enough from her problems to allow her to fall into a shallow, restless sleep.
For the next several hours, she moved in and out of sleep so seamlessly that she was hardly aware of the passage of time. She started awake when the small box above the door beeped. The door opened, and it took her a moment to understand where she was and what was going on. She almost panicked, but had enough sense to lie completely still as someone entered. A moment more, and she realized it was the Chief returning from watch. She tried to quiet her breathing. She did not want him to know she was out here.
The creak of a chair, a sigh, then the thud of a boot and another. She waited for him to get up and go back to his room, but he continued sitting in the darkness. When she heard bare feet padding from the hallway, she knew someone else was up. “Dad?” she heard Tracey whisper.
“Yes. Just me.”
“Are many more coming?” Tracey stopped in the hallway.
“I didn’t see any more tonight. There may be more tomorrow. You should get some more sleep. We’ll be running a full-time guard for the next few days. Teach Marilyn well. From what Chase has told me she knows enough to be very effective. She’ll just need to become familiar with the weaponry we have.”
“I like her, Dad. She jumped right in for dinner and helped. What about Chase? Is he what we are looking for?” Sonya caught the hopeful tone in her voice.
“He seems to be, so far. He’s a young man, and he has much to learn, but I think he has everything he needs to become what we want.” He paused. “There may be one problem. Their attachment to the other one.”
“To Sonya? Why is that a problem?”
“I may be making too much of it. We have ample resources to keep her around for a while. We can work on building their attachment to us and pushing her out when more suitable people arrive.”
When Tracey spoke again, Sonya heard the hopefulness in her voice. “Marilyn told me she doesn’t want to stay, Dad. We can just let her go.”
“It may not be that easy. They are protective of her. She may pull one or both when she goes. I don’t think she’ll make it past Paducah if she tries to leave, and that’s no great loss, but if they try to go with her, we’ll have to stop them somehow.”
“What are we going to do?”
Sonya heard again the creak of the chair as the Chief stood, and then the Chief’s footsteps as he crossed the room. She couldn’t make out his response. She heard Tracey’s door close, and then the solid thunk of his door closing at the end of the hall, the sound of a bolt being thrown to lock the door.
She lay awake in the darkness.
Sonya had barely become aware of light creeping through the single, high-set window on the flat wall of the big front room when she heard Tracey and Marilyn up and moving about. She heard them first in the bedroom, moving about, speaking in hushed voices. They thought she was still on her pallet. She heard Marilyn tell Tracey that the bathroom light would be enough for her to find her stuff and get ready so the overhead light wouldn’t disturb Sonya. Then she heard them in the kitchen. They didn’t talk much. Tracey offered Marilyn a breakfast bar and coffee. Marilyn accepted the breakfast bar. Marilyn asked if they should wake Sonya. Sonya was unsurprised when Tracey said no. As soon as they left, Sonya jumped up and dressed. The idea of being alone in the house with the Chief and vulnerable in any way scared Sonya more than the memory of her first creeper.
Through the day, Sonya tried to stay out of the others’ way. They bustled around, relocating ammo, cleaning weapons, stashing weapons, making sure they had plenty of food. Chase and Marilyn seemed so eager to help that they forgot about her, so she just found out of the way places to spend her time.
She had wandered the compound until she noticed one of the smaller storage buildings on the opposite side of the compound from the gate had a ladder up the side. She climbed this, and found the roof had a low parapet all the way around. When she looked across the compound, she could see the roof of the gatehouse, and Tracey and Marilyn. She looked out across the open field surrounding the compound. The creek meandered down the valley. Above the compound, on the hill, an old barn sat. She wondered what was up there. Twin tracks from the compound traced parallel lines in that direction.
The crack of a rifle pulled her attention back to the gatehouse. She could see Marilyn aiming back toward the forest through which they had travelled to get to this valley, Tracey standing next to her. Another gunshot and Marilyn put the rifle down. Tracey pointed out something on the rifle to Marilyn, and then mimed a shooting stance. Marilyn nodded. Sonya watched for a while, and when nothing more happened she went back to staring across the open field. She was a little chilly, but as the sun rose, she warmed. When it was warm enough, she dozed.
She didn’t sleep long. Another shot rang out, and then two close together. She looked around. She guessed she had slept for an hour, maybe two. The sun was well up, and she thought it could be getting close to noon. With just her head over the edge of the parapet, she saw that Marilyn was alone on the gatehouse, and Chase and the Chief were in the compound. As she watched, an overhead door on the shop building rolled up and Sparky pulled out in his pick-up. Chase and the Chief climbed in, Chase in the middle, and they pulled up to the gate, which opened at their approach.
Once outside the compound, they stopped at the creek. They all climbed out of the truck. As the Chief directed them, Chase and Sparky put on heavy duty rubber gloves and picked up several of the motionless creepers lying around. The Chief got in the truck on the driver’s side. Chase and Sparky stood on the rear bumper, clutching the tailgate. The truck crossed the creek, and they stepped off and picked up the remainder of the creepers. They climbed back in the cab of the truck, which then disappeared back up the driveway into the forest. Moments later, the crash of a series of shots rolled down the hillside. Sonya waited for more, but then came the sound of the motor again as the truck struggled up the steep driveway. When that receded, there was silence in the valley.
While Marilyn and Tracey peered up the hill, Sonya descended the ladder and made a beeline for the shop. All her gear should still be in the Suburban, except for the clothes she had on when she arrived. She had the beginnings of a plan, and in order for it to work, she had to be able to get to her gear quickly. Entering the shop, she went to the rear of the Suburban and peered through the back window. There was her bag. She opened the door and put the bag just inside the small door. She looked around and Chase’s rumpled sleeping bag lying on a stack of boxes caught her eye. She walked over and put her hand on it. She wished he were going with her. As annoying as he could be, he was company. And there was a kindness there, too, that she would miss.
When the men returned, Sonya was in the compound standing near the gate. Rather than remaining unseen for the rest of the day, she had decided to make presence very obvious. Marilyn remained on top of the gatehouse, but once the gate closed, Tracey climbed down. Chase greeted Sonya first, and the concerned look Tracey wore made Sonya happy. Chase smelled of oily smoke, diesel and something else. When he told Sonya they had burned the creeper bodies, she backed away. The smell had gone from off-putting to horrifying.
“What else are we going to do? Leave them lay? Bury them?�
� Chase explained. “There are going to be a lot of bodies. Burning them is going to be easiest, I’m afraid. We picked off five more creepers on the road. Eventually, we’ll have to do something with all of them, once we start rebuilding and moving outward.”
“We?” Sonya asked.
Chase smiled. “They. Maybe we. Sonya, think about it. If we grow, if we become a last bastion of civilization….”
“The Chief’s words?” Sonya scoffed.
“Yeah, the Chief’s words. But he’s right. If we don’t put something together, the creepers win. Chaos wins. I imagine there’s going to be lots of places like this. I hope there are. But we found this one first. And we can put word out for your dad. If he’s alive, if he’s looking for you, he’s got a better shot of finding you in a place like this than he would if you’re both just out wandering around.”
Sonya looked at him. She could tell he cared about that, about her and her dad reuniting. He really did. He wasn’t just saying it to make her stay. And it made sense. But he hadn’t heard what the Chief had said last night. If she told him, it might make him leave. He and Marilyn would be safe here. If she didn’t find another place like this, with better people, she could look for her dad alone. In the big scheme of things, it didn’t matter. “You’re right,” she said to him, looking directly into his eyes. “Let’s stay here.”
At dinner, the Chief assigned the shifts for guard duty. The boys were on early evening watch, dinner to midnight. Then the Chief would be on midnight to dawn, keeping one of the boys up there with him but letting him sleep unless an extra gun was needed. Then the girls would be on again at dawn. After clean up, showers, and all the evening stuff that happens in a group of people getting ready for night, Sonya told Tracey and Marilyn she was going to stay out on the couch for a bit and read. They both looked exhausted from sitting all day keeping watch, and barely acknowledged her. The Chief looked at her, and she looked back steadily. He shrugged, and went back to his room. Sonya wondered how long it would be before anyone noticed she was gone.
Chapter 28 – Chase
Chase avoided Marilyn’s questioning look. It wasn’t his fault, it couldn’t be his fault. But somehow it was. He was the organizer, he was the one in charge, he was the decision maker, and he was responsible. For everything. For everyone. And Sonya was gone.
“Chase, it’s not,” Marilyn said. Chase cringed. Of course it was. “It’s my fault. She told me she was leaving. I was going to go with her.”
Chase looked up, stung. “You guys were going to leave me?”
It was Marilyn’s turn to avoid Chase’s look. He wanted to be angry at her, but he couldn’t. She looked too scared, too worried. “She was going to go. You know it’s all about her dad, right? And we thought you liked it here. I wasn’t sure. I’m still not. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m leaving now to go look for her, and I won’t be back.”
Chase looked around. They had climbed to the roof Sonya had been on yesterday and were scanning the surrounding fields for any sign of her. No one else was near enough to hear. Tracey was manning the gatehouse roof, the Chief was in Main Quarters, and Sparky was putting gasoline into the pick-up. Chase nodded.
He understood what Marilyn was saying. They had noticed Sonya gone at breakfast. They called for her and she didn’t answer. That led to a frantic search of all the unlocked buildings in the compound. Then they realized Honey was missing, too. And Sonya’s bag. Chase had felt the whole time they were looking that the Chief, Sparky, and Tracey were just going through the motions. There was an acceptance of Sonya’s disappearance that Chase didn’t understand. How could they be so complacent about a fifteen year old girl wandering around outside the fence with this big creeper movement about to happen?
“If you go, I go,” Chase told Marilyn. “I’m not sure it’s the best move. We’re safe here. But there is something about these people, this place, that I’m just not getting. And it’s creeping me out a little.”
“Like what?” Marilyn asked. “I’m not saying I don’t feel it, too. I just want to compare notes.”
Chase thought. He couldn’t decide if he should tell Marilyn what Sparky had said on guard duty one night, or what the Chief had told him so far. If she knew that, she would wonder why he hadn’t acted sooner. She might not understand that he thought he could protect them, somehow work from inside to make the place less creepy. He looked at Marilyn’s open, honest face. And lied.
“Just…the whole set-up, I guess. Sparky sleeping in the shop. Them treating him like a servant. Some of the things the Chief has said.” He looked away.
“Yeah,” she said. “Every time I pray or mention God he gives me a funny look. I can live with that. But Tracey has let it slip a few times that you are ‘for’ her.” Marilyn flashed a humorless smile. “I thought it was just a crush at first, but then she said something about her dad assigning you to her.”
Chase winced. The Chief had been giving hints about something like that. He hadn’t done it in a joking manner, but had laid out the plan in a matter of fact voice: it was going to happen. The Chief had said that if Chase was fond of Marilyn, of course that was okay, too. Chase had ignored it. The Chief had used the term “eugenics” as well. He had said that Sparky would “dilute” Marilyn’s genetic potential, but certain mental weaknesses (Chase was pretty sure the Chief had been talking about Marilyn’s belief) put her below Chase and Tracey. Chase could never mention that one-sided conversation to Marilyn. He changed the subject. “The important thing now is to find Sonya. Once we find her, we’ll leave out.”
Marilyn nodded. “Would she really have left on foot? All the vehicles are accounted for.”
“I doubt it. She knew what she was up against with the creepers out in force. She could probably find one pretty easy once she got to the main road, though.” He thought back. “You know, Sparky and the Chief did go out last night before they came back and relieved me. Said they were going up to scout the driveway, set the creeper trap, see about making it harder for creepers to get around the gate, or if there was any more creeper traffic than there had been. Thought it was a little strange they were doing it in the middle of the night.”
Chase didn’t want to believe that the Chief had anything to do with Sonya’s disappearance. And for other reasons, he didn’t want Sparky to have had anything to do with it. He had noticed Sparky watching Sonya. He had seen Sparky stare at Sonya when she wasn’t looking. Marilyn must not have picked up on the same thing, though, because she said, “We need to go ask Sparky, then. If the Chief was in on it, we won’t learn anything from him. But Sparky might give something away.”
Sparky wouldn’t look at them. He denied seeing Sonya after dinner, but the way he looked everywhere except at the two of them when he answered scared Chase. It also made him angry.
“Sparky, you’re lying. I can see right through you. You know a hell of a lot more than you’re telling us, and if it’s what I think it is, it’s not just me you’re going to deal with. I’m telling the Chief, and then you’ll be out there when all the creepers come calling. On your own. No weapons.” Chase felt Marilyn tense beside him. He wasn’t sure if it was because his anger scared her or if she was finally understanding and was just as angry. Chase’s anger turned to confusion, though, when Sparky smiled.
“I think that’s a great idea. Let’s tell the Chief,” Sparky said. Chase had been about to grab Sparky, throw him down and start kicking, but he stopped himself. Despite the weird feeling he had about the whole Chief situation, Chase didn’t believe the Chief would be okay with Sonya being raped. If Sparky wanted to tell the Chief, there were two reasons. Either he really didn’t know, or there was something more going on.
Chase felt Marilyn’s hand on his arm. He turned to look at her, and her eyes begged him to stop. She jerked her head towards the door, and Chase caught on that she wanted to talk away from Sparky. They stepped outside and far enough from the shop that there was no way Sparky would overhear anything. Marilyn said, “W
e need to go. Now. It’s all three of them, I think. We get in the Suburban now, crash the gate if we have to, and we are gone.”
Chase shook his head. “I don’t like it. Everything is telling me that Sonya is gone. She may have left on her own, or they may have done something with her. But if we leave and she’s still here, locked up somewhere, we’d never get back in. Those guns, those fences, everything about this place is about keeping people out that want in. Once we step outside, we’re done here. There’s no turning back. And if she’s still here, or they know something, then that’s lost forever.”
Marilyn made a noise in the back of her throat, a growl of frustration. Before Marilyn turned away and dropped her head, Chase noticed that she had tears standing in her eyes. He reached out to her, touched her shoulder. “Marilyn, if we can do anything to help her, we will. I think we messed up coming here, but we couldn’t have known. I think we messed up staying here as long as we did, but we can’t take a lot of blame for that, either. But I also think we can fix this, and get out of here, but we have to be smart. If she’s still okay, we can get out of here, and we can keep on heading to Florida. I don’t really care where we go, but we have to take care of each other, and that’s where she wants to go. So let’s be smart. Let’s make a plan. And let’s all go to Disney World.”
Chase forced himself to smile and made Marilyn look at him. She started really crying then, eyes full of tears, sniffling, big choking sobs. Chase felt like crap.
After Everything Else (Book 1): Creeper Rise Page 16