Revenants Series (Book 2): Remnants

by Elisabeth, Lee

  I exchange awkward hellos with each of them. I haven’t met anyone new in several weeks…in fact, I can’t remember the last time I left camp, so it’s been a while since I’ve talked to anyone other than the guys. It feels strange to have other people in camp, but at the same time, exhilarating. If nothing else, getting to know them will provide a small distraction from the monotony of days without internet and television. Emily is petite, probably twenty-five at the most, with long blonde hair that somehow still looks salon-fresh seven months into the Apocalypse. Landon looks slightly older, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He’s handsome; tall and lean, with dark brown hair curling over his ears and shirt collar. They both have polished, smooth skin, and the look of people who were wealthy in the time before Revs...back when money still mattered. Their children both have dark red hair and pale skin covered by freckles. The girl could pass for twelve or thirteen, but the boy is young, maybe five years-old at most. They don't favor their parents at all. Maybe they’re adopted.

  I look at Daniel and raise an eyebrow.

  "We met them in Eden," he explains. "At the library."

  "The library?"

  "Long story. I'll tell you about it over dinner tonight," he says. "I want to hear more about that close call with the Revs, too. But let's get the truck unloaded first."

  "Okay. Well...it's nice to meet all of you," I say again. "You and your children can..."

  "They're not our children," Emily interrupts.

  Landon jumps down from the truck and stretches. "Not biologically, no. But we're all they have now," he says, glancing at the kids to make sure his statement didn't upset them.

  The young girl's blue eyes are wet, and her cheeks are flushed red, but the boy seems empty, like he's given up hope. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Landon and Emily’s remarks, or if he did, he doesn’t care. I wonder what happened to their real parents and how they found themselves in the care of two people who obviously don’t agree on the new responsibility of guardianship.

  Erek cracks his knuckles. "So, this is home. We only have four tents, but you can sleep in mine until we can find another one. It's big enough for all of you," he adds.

  "Where will you sleep?" I ask.

  He shrugs. "In Daniel's tent, or Wayne's."

  "Or mine," I suggest.

  "That's pretty bold, Princess. Even for you."

  My face turns an angry shade of red. "I…I didn't mean it like that,” I stutter. “I just meant I can sleep in Daniel's tent with him, so you can still have your own space. I mean, mine should be big enough for you, or I guess you could sleep wherever you want. Like you said," I finish awkwardly.

  "I'm guessing you must be Chloe," Landon says with a smile, saving me from embarrassing myself further.

  I return his smile, grateful. "That would be me."

  "Yes, sorry," Daniel says. "This is Chloe, my sister...the one I've been worried sick about for the past two days."

  "Family is important," Landon agrees. "That's why we need to be strong for Kate and Jax. Especially now, since..."

  Emily clears her throat. "Yes, but we can't be everything to everyone, darling. Can we?"

  "No, love. I suppose we can’t," Landon says, and goes silent.

  "So, is this it?" Emily asks, looking around the camp with a scowl. "I expected more...amenities."

  "There's an outhouse over there," Wayne says, pointing to the wooden structure.

  "Charming."

  "It's really not that bad once you get used to it," I say, trying to make her feel better about her new living arrangements. "And there's a nice pond nearby for bathing."

  "Darling, I'm not sure how this is better than the library," she says, ignoring me.

  Erek spits a stream of tobacco juice onto the dirt. "Look lady, we may not have private bathrooms here, but if I remember correctly, the library wasn't all that spectacular either."

  Anger flashes in her light blue eyes. "It was better than this."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Yes," she says.

  He tosses her the keys to the truck. "You're welcome to head on back,” he says. “I'll be sure to put a bullet in your head when I see you rambling down the road one day."

  "Erek!"

  He looks at me. "What? It's true. If she goes back to that library, she'll be dead or a Rev in a week, maybe less."

  Landon takes the keys from Emily's clenched fist and hands them back to Erek. "Please, let me apologize for the both of us. We truly appreciate everything you're doing for us. Right, Emily?" he asks, looking at his wife.

  Her eyes narrow, and the corner of her mouth draws up in a sneer. "Yes, darling," she spits out. “We’re incredibly grateful.”

  He smiles. “See? All better.”

  Emily turns on her heel and stalks off to the donated tent. She stands with her back to us, arms crossed. Landon shrugs as if saying, well there you have it, folks, while the rest of us look at each other as if asking, did that just happen?

  Erek nods. "Good,” he says, breaking the silence. “Now help us unload the truck, before I get moody."

  Chapter Five

  Chloe

  Emily and I watch in silence as the men prepare our dinner, using a box of rice they pulled from the truck. They didn’t unload the other supplies, which I thought was strange; maybe they’re leaving the task for after dinner.

  "I hope you like rice and wild game," I say to Emily, attempting conversation.

  "I should have never left Asheville," she says, then turns and walks away, leaving me standing alone.

  Nice talk.

  Erek approaches me, holding a small square box. "Here, put these on," he says, handing it to me.

  I look up at him, confused. "Pantyhose?"

  He nods. "Wear them under your pants. It'll help preserve body heat."

  "That would have been helpful the past two days," I mutter under my breath.

  He raises an eyebrow.

  "The fire went out and I couldn't get it started again," I say. My cheeks burn in shame; I hope he doesn’t notice how much that admission of failure cost me, or how badly I wish I could lie and say I let the fire go out on purpose.

  "Yeah, I was wondering about that," he says, looking at the blackened fire pit.

  I gesture at the wet ground. "Everything was wet," I explain.

  "So?"

  "So, I couldn't get the kindling to light," I say.

  He rolls his eyes. "Chloe, you've got to start remembering some of the stuff I've been trying to teach you."

  "I know! I tried to dry out the kindling, but nothing wor...."

  "Enough with the excuses!" he interrupts. "There are other things around the camp that can help you start a fire." He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. "We've been over this countless times.....at least twice before we set out for Eden."

  I hate him, but only because he's right. I haven't been taking my lessons as seriously as I should. I tried...I really did...but they last forever, and I have trouble staying focused, and I didn't think I would actually need any of the techniques he's been teaching me. That is, until I couldn't start a simple fire and nearly froze to death.

  That drove the lesson home.

  And that wasn’t the worst part. I was almost eaten by a pack of hungry Revs until God called down a bolt of lightning to smite them. Maybe Erek is right. Maybe I won’t last very long without his help…but he refuses to take me to Asheville, and I refuse to leave my parents behind until I know they’re dead…so I’ll have to start training harder.

  "At least it wasn't as cold as it could have been." He turns and spits a stream of tobacco onto the cold ground. "Was it painful?" he asks.

  I nod.

  "Good. You needed to feel that to finally understand how serious our situation is. Maybe now you'll start paying attention," he says. With that, he turns and walks toward the fire pit, leaving me with nothing but a box of pantyhose and the little bit of self-respect I have left.

  "Well, I don’t know about the cold, but th
at was pretty painful," Daniel says.

  I don't turn around. "I deserved it," I say.

  He throws an arm around my shoulder. "Maybe."

  I roll my eyes. He must sense that I'm upset, because he quickly adds, "Don't beat yourself up, Chloe. This is new to all of us. You can try harder…starting today, okay?"

  I don't respond. Instead, I watch Erek start a fire, despite the wet kindling, using a leftover piece of dryer lint we collected from some random house. I do a mental facepalm. I'm an idiot...an idiot who almost froze to death because I didn't pay attention during Starting Fires 101.

  * * *

  Daniel

  We serve a light dinner to our new roommates.

  Even though the supply run was bountiful, we now have four additional mouths to feed, and less places in the immediate area to pilfer, so we don’t cook our usual supply-day feast. Landon and Emily are seated to my left. Kate and Jax find a spot near the fire and eat their soup in silence.

  Chloe holds a bowl of soup on her lap, letting it cool. "So, tell me about the library," she says.

  I think back to everything that happened over the last two days. "Well, it was an interesting trip," I say. "We took the interstate to Eden, driving down the shoulder. Erek's idea," I explain. "It was awesome..."

  "Of course it was. I only have awesome ideas," Erek says.

  Chloe rolls her eyes. "Will you let him finish?"

  "You know, it might pay you to be this interested in your survival lessons, Princess."

  "Really? Why do you..."

  "Anyway," I say, cutting them off, "we hit pay dirt on the highway. That's where most of the supplies came from. Everything was going great. We were right on schedule, and we hadn’t seen a Rev since we left camp. We made it to Eden, looked through a few buildings, then decided to head back before it got too late."

  "We didn't get far," Wayne says.

  "No, we didn’t. We took the back roads on the way back, so we could see what kind of houses might pop up along the way,” I explain. “We didn’t find any houses, but we did run up on a herd of Revs…maybe 200, maybe more…blocking the road. I don’t know where they came from, or where they were heading, but…"

  “I think I have a good idea,” Chloe mutters.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing. Keep going.”

  “So, we turned around and headed back to Eden. Ended up at the Eden County Memorial Library, but it wasn’t empty.”

  "And that's where you met Landon and Emily?" Chloe asks.

  "Yeah. They were camped out on the second floor. Wayne nearly took Landon's head off when he popped out from behind a bookshelf."

  Wayne shrugs and takes a bite of soup. "Man shouldn't sneak up on another man in the dark."

  "The power was out," Landon says.

  "Still ain't a good idea."

  "Anyway, we planned to leave out the next morning, but when we woke up, another herd of Revs was walking past the library like some crazy parade of the dead."

  “How do you know it wasn’t the same herd you saw the day before?” Chloe asks.

  I shrug. “Can’t be completely sure, obviously, but this herd was walking in from the opposite direction.”

  I don't tell her about the man I saw standing in the window of a building across the street, who just happened to be watching the same parade of souls...or how excited he got when a Rev dressed in pin-striped pajamas stumbled into view.

  Chapter Six

  Daniel

  Landon and Emily are arguing.

  Again.

  She's not happy with our small camp. Apparently, it's too primitive for her taste, even though we found them in a dark community library with clogged toilets and emptied vending machines. I look at her now, standing in front of Landon with her arms crossed and her face balled into a hateful fist, and I can’t help but think we made a huge mistake bringing her back with us. I hate to be the one to break the news to her, but her country club days are over. Here there’s only alive and dead, and very little else matters. I shake my head and start walking toward the edge of the camp. I need to be alone for a while. I need to be far enough away that I can’t hear her unsolicited complaints.

  I pass by Kate and Jax. They haven't said more than two words since they climbed out of the box truck yesterday; they just sit beside the fire, staring at us but saying nothing. It’s a little strange, but it’s better than them being loud and drawing unnecessary attention our way. I nod hello to them and keep walking.

  Chloe and Wayne are cleaning up after lunch. I watch Chloe hand Wayne an empty can before turning to the makeshift wash station beside the fire. She works slowly, washing the dishes we dirtied during our meal. She’s humming quietly while she works, but her brow is turned down and she seems bothered. She’s probably still thinking about the days she was alone. We talked briefly about it after dinner last night. I could have died when she got to the part about being trapped in the tree. She walked me to the edge of camp and pointed to the place where the supernatural lightning struck her enemies down. It looked like a hundred Revs, or more, scattered about the forest floor. As much as I don’t want to admit it, her God-theory may be the only explanation for how she survived such an encounter.

  I look at her again. Erek is right. She’s delicate. Weak, even. Chloe thinks he's picking on her, but he's not. He's trying to keep her alive, but she doesn’t make it easy. A month ago, I really believed she would try to learn as much as she could from him, and in the beginning, she did. But as the weeks wore on, she got distracted...and frustrated...and she all but stopped listening during our daily lessons. I'm not sure if she got overwhelmed, or if she really believes we'll survive a trip to Asheville on nothing more than hope and prayer.

  Whatever the reason, it doesn't bode well for our continued survival.

  Erek convinced me to leave her at the camp alone to make her see we didn’t need to split up the group; safety in numbers, and all that. We hadn’t had a perimeter breach in over a week, and even then, it was one very old Rev that didn’t put up much of a fight. We thought they were slowly drying up in this part of the state…benefits of a low population before the world ended. It should have been safe. He was convinced it was the only way she would finally admit she couldn’t survive on her own.

  His point was made.

  But she could have died.

  Erek and I discussed Chloe's short attention span and the growing futility of our situation while we were trapped in the library, which eventually turned into talks about foregoing Asheville altogether, especially since it's overrun with Revs, and because my parents are likely long gone. Believing I might be abandoning them to a fate worse than death fills me with an emotion I can't fully describe, but imagining Chloe being murdered by a herd of Revs while searching for them nearly paralyzes me. She's the only family I have left. My only real family.

  I can't lose her, too.

  My thoughts circle around to Meredith. I think about her at least once every day; or nine or ten times…a hundred even. She's the mystery I'll never solve. The regret I'll carry around in my heart for as long as I live.

  I hope she's okay.

  I hope she thinks of me as often as I think of her.

  I take a seat beneath a large oak tree. What would I do if Meredith suddenly reappeared like the prodigal son? Would I be angry? Would I yell at her for abandoning us...me...without saying goodbye? Would I demand to know where she's been the last two months? Or, would I just be happy to have her home...even if home is only a random campsite on the outskirts of a small, middle-of-nowhere North Carolina town?

  Would I kiss her?

  Would she let me?

  I sigh and lean against the tree. I shouldn't be so far away from the others this close to dusk, but I needed time to myself. I needed to recharge. I needed to time to calm my nerves after spending two days imagining all the ways Chloe could have been killed. I needed time to clear my head.

  And to dream of a girl I still love.


  * * *

  Meredith

  Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had never married Nelson.

  I know it's illogical to ponder such things, because you can't reverse time or bad decisions, but sometimes I try to imagine a life without guilt and regret, and how light I would feel if I could shed even a few pounds of the sin I’ve accumulated over the years. I’m tired of hauling it around, and it’s so incredibly heavy, but I’ve accepted that it’s my penance for all the wrong I’ve allowed.

  There are other times, late at night, when I try to trace the origin of my sin back to this event or that, but I always come to the same conclusion. While my sin may have started small…a stolen glance here, a forbidden touch there…it grew and expanded until I couldn’t hide it anymore, and once it was full-grown it raised its bony finger and pointed straight at Nelson.

  God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.[1]

  I was so young...still a child, really…when I said "I do" at the tender age of twenty-two, to a forty-seven-year-old man. It seemed wise at the time. It seemed perfect. He was refined and respected...and rich. My father never approved. I used to think it was because Nelson was one of his frat brothers from college, but maybe it was because he knew what kind of man Nelson really was behind all the suits and ties and perfectly polished shoes.

  The Nelson I didn’t see until it was too late.

  When I finally glimpsed him, there was no turning back. I couldn't break away, and my father couldn't protect me.

  No one could.

  I called the police once, after an especially brutal exchange. And by exchange, I mean Nelson’s fists for my tears. But I couldn't press charges. It would have ruined Nelson's career. His spotless reputation. So, I lied and told the police I had been drinking, and that I made a mistake in calling them; I said I hit my face when I stumbled and fell.