“Guess it was nothing.” But I couldn’t shake the feeling. I opened the door to go back inside.
And stared into the barrel of a shotgun.
9
“Drop your weapons.” A blonde girl, about my age and height, spit the words at us through clenched teeth.
So much for it being a lucky day. I raised my gun higher and Adam followed my lead. “No.”
“I’ll shoot.”
“Yeah, so will we. And there are two of us. Even if you get one of us, the other will kill you. You lose.” Brave words. But an iron vise clamped around my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. It was a gamble. I hoped she wouldn’t pull the trigger. She was close enough she might get us both.
“What are your names?” She didn’t lower the shotgun, but it wavered.
The vise loosened its grip a fraction.
“I’m Adam. This is Val. What’s yours?”
“Are you one of them?”
“Raspers? No.”
She cocked her head to the side. Her straight hair fell past her shoulders. “Raspers?”
“It’s what I call them because of the way they breathe.” I tightened my grip on the gun.
She lowered the gun. Adam did too. I exhaled, but didn’t drop mine. “Your turn.”
The girl’s brown eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I need proof you’re not a Rasper before I put my gun down.” I steadied my aim.
Adam raised his weapon again.
She kept her gun at her side, but shrugged and appeared more confident than she should. “Suit yourself.”
The barrel of a gun jabbed me in the back. My insides clenched at the steel stabbing my spine. Son of a bitch. She wasn’t alone. How the hell had they gotten behind us? So much for better hearing.
“I suggest you drop your weapon before I’m forced to kill you and your friend.” The voice was deep and gruff.
I debated. I didn’t want to leave myself vulnerable, but I didn’t want a bullet to the back. I put the Glock in its holster and Adam jammed his gun in the back of his jeans. We then both raised our hands and turned.
A man who looked to be in his sixties, with a face lined from too many hours in the sun, aimed a shotgun at us. A younger, second guy who looked like he was in his mid-twenties pointed a pistol. He bore a slight resemblance to the girl. Maybe he was her older brother.
“All right, then.” He lowered the gun and shut the door behind him. “I’m John. You met my niece, Megan. This is her brother, Lucas.”
“I’m Adam.”
I licked my cracked lips. “Val.”
“Megan, please gather their guns from them.” She moved closer to Adam and held out her hand. He locked his gaze with mine, withdrew his gun, and handed it to the girl.
She turned to me. I stared at her open palm. No way. I wasn’t giving it up. Lucas jabbed his pistol into my arm. I took the Glock out of the holster and held it by the barrel. Megan snatched it from my grasp. It felt like my soul went with it.
Megan handed our guns to Lucas and he tucked them in the back of his jeans.
John inspected our skin and nodded. “Well, glad we got the pleasantries out of the way. Adam, Val, why don’t you two tell me what you’re doing here alive?”
Adam held his hands out, palms up, in front of his chest. “Sir, we apologize for entering your house, but we checked and thought the house was empty.”
“Well, it ain’t.”
“We’ll just go now.” I backed up a step toward the door.
“No.” Megan swung the shotgun back at me.
John ran his fingers across his stubbled chin. “Megan’s right. You’re not going anywhere. We need to know what y’all have seen. Come now, follow me.” He went to the door housing the pantry and opened it.
I gave Adam a what’s-the-guy-doing look. Was he counting his cans to see what we ate?
“Over here.” Megan motioned with the gun.
We went over and stood by her.
John reached up and pulled something in the corner of the closet. A creaking noise preceded a slow groan. The shelves slid to the right side of the wall.
I took a step closer to see what secrets the shelves concealed. I gaped in shock. It was a tunnel.
“This way.” John disappeared into the darkness.
I glanced at Adam. He returned my look, but followed John with Lucas on his heels. Once Adam entered the blackness, I turned to Megan. “If this is a trap, I’ll kill you.”
“Just go.” She waved the gun again, but she didn’t have a tight grip on it.
This was my chance. I could grab it from her. What if I missed? I had another gun in my bag, but not enough time to get it. What would they do to us? The consequences were too great. I bit my tongue instead and stepped into the blackness.
I stood in the dark waiting for my eyes to adjust and to my surprise, it took a lot less time than normal. Guess my vision skills accelerated faster than Adam’s had.
When Megan came in behind me, she latched the shelves back into place, and a row of bare lights on a string lit up, revealing a descending staircase.
The soup turned to granite in my stomach. I didn’t want to go down the stairs. Technically, it was a basement. My heart rate climber faster than a rocket leaving the atmosphere. A basement.
“Move.” Megan tapped the muzzle of her gun into my back.
My internal radar screamed for me to run, but I forced my lead-filled muscles down the stairs, Megan and her gun a breath behind. With each step, my pulse accelerated. I was swimming in a pool of terror. Step. My legs turned cold and numb. Step. My chest constricted, cutting off my oxygen. Step. I gasped for air. I was drowning.
Weight clamped on my shoulder. I struggled to the surface. “Val. Are you okay?”
Adam’s voice circled me like a life preserver, rescuing me from drowning in the nightmare of my memories. “Huh?”
He gave my shoulder a squeeze, then let go. “It’s okay. Come on.”
I focused. Breathed in for four seconds. Held my breath for seven. Exhaled for eight. Did it two more times. I calmed myself, but replaced the panic attack with the feeling of entering my grave.
John had led us into an underground bunker of sorts. Light shone from more bare bulbs on a string, and multi-colored rugs covered the dirt floors. Worn furniture lined the area in front of where we stood. Behind the couches, a table covered in mounds of radio equipment spanned the length of the back cement-block wall. A small kitchen filled the space to the right of the table and three doors stood closed on the left. It was an eerie resemblance of the floor plan upstairs.
“Please sit.” John motioned to the couches.
Adam sat on the faux leather one and I took the brown suede. The bank of glowing color TV monitors lining the wall grabbed my attention. They didn’t show programmed shows; the monitors showed the outside and inside of the cabin. My mouth went drier than a lizard’s skin. I scanned the images. Exhaled. None of them showed the bathroom.
Megan crossed to the first closed door and tapped the barrel of the rifle on it three times. The door opened with a creak. A man carrying a gun and a blonde girl slightly older than me came out. My fingers ached to grab my gun. But it wasn’t there. Instead, I balled my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms. I needed my gun back. We needed to get out of here. And pronto.
“What do we have here?” The man directed his question to John.
“This is Adam and Val. Adam is more cooperative, even if he’s wearing someone else’s shirt.”
Adam touched the name on his shirt.
“Val is currently plotting an escape route.” John chewed on the side of his thumbnail.
I glared at him. How did he know what I was thinking?
He spit something, I didn’t want to know what, on the floor, and then said, “It’s written on your face, darling.”
“Don’t call me darling.” I tried to sound menacing, but I’m pretty sure I came off as bitchy. Oh, well, that worked too.
“My apologies.” Jo
hn nodded.
“I’m Frank. This is my niece Bethany. You’ve met my daughter and son? This is my brother John’s place.” He stepped into Adam’s personal space and looked into his eyes. Adam didn’t flinch. Frank turned to me and I narrowed my eyes at his soul-searching stare. He smacked his lips together and bobbed his head up and down. Then he set his gun on the table. “Give them their weapons back. They’re good kids. I can tell.”
I snatched the Glock back from Lucas’s hand and suppressed my urge to kiss the barrel. I had it back. Dad’s gun. My gun. My lifeline.
“Let’s sit with our guests.”
The others, except Bethany who leaned against the kitchen counter, joined Adam and I on the couches. Lucas sat next to me and smiled a how-you-doing smile. I cringed and forced a smile back, but my attention went to Megan sitting closer than she needed to Adam. Prickles of anger poked my brain.
“Where are you two from?” Frank turned from Adam then to me.
“I’m from Houston and Val’s from…” Adam pulled at a loose thread on his shirt. “Alberdine.”
He didn’t know for sure where I was from, because I hadn’t told him. But he was right. Alberdine was the only place I’d ever lived. Goose bumps rippled across my arms, but they had nothing to do with the temperature. Rule Number One—trust no one—came back to life and roared to the forefront of my brain. I pulled the sleeve of my hoodie down and traced the rules with my index finger. I needed to rewrite them again. The shower had removed some of the marker and I hadn’t touched them up since just after I met Adam. A sure sign I did trust him, but the reality tasted acidic in my mouth. When I glanced up, I met Adam’s stare.
“We’re from Louisville, but when it all went bad, we moved up here to John’s safe house. Thank God he’s a paranoid SOB,” Frank said.
“Have you seen any other survivors?” Adam leaned forward.
Frank shook his head. “No, just the damn night-walkers. But only two here in the woods.”
“Night-walkers?” Did he mean the Raspers? Funny how we’d each come up with our own names for them.
“Val calls them Raspers,” Adam offered.
“I like it. We haven’t heard that one on the airwaves.” John stood.
“Wait. Airwaves? You can communicate with others?” Adam bounced in his seat. “How many are there?”
John held up his hands, palms out. “Hang on there, son. Do you mean to say you haven’t seen others between Houston, Texas and here?”
“I traveled with other people to just south of Tulsa, but the Raspers killed or took everyone over there. I made my way alone until I met Val.”
Lucas sat up straight. “Adam, you said the Raspers took the others over. What do you mean?”
“Hold on. Hold on.” Frank held up his hands and got to his feet. “We need to do this logically. The more we know about them, the better chance we have to survive.”
We all nodded in agreement. But I wasn’t spilling all my secrets if they didn’t give me any useful information. I traced Rule Number One again, but this time I used my nail.
Frank pulled a white board from behind the one couch. Mathematical problems covered the board. He flipped it over to the clean side. He wrote Great Discovery and four months ago on the top in neon orange marker. “Okay. The Great Discovery.”
Adam looked at me then turned back to Frank. “Something about oil.”
“Yes. Supposedly enough oil to power the United States for over a hundred years.” He added oil to his list. “The government kept it quiet until the day the deep sea rig was scheduled to puncture the ceiling of the oil chamber. All the major news networks were there on the platform. Video showed people cheering when the drill broke through.”
I hadn’t seen that on TV. “What does this have to do with the Raspers?”
“I’m not sure. Within minutes of the breach, the world lost contact with the platform. Then everything went to hell and Mother Nature unleashed her fury. The Raspers showed up while our friends and neighbors died.” Frank wrote Raspers and destruction on the board.
Was he a teacher or something? I ran my tongue back and forth on the roof of my mouth. “What makes you think these things are related?”
“Well, the Navy sent a search helicopter to find out what happened, but the platform was gone. Do you know how big one of those things are? They don’t just disappear. Then all we heard about were strange happenings all along the Gulf Coast. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Do either of you know why some people die and others turn into Raspers?” Megan inched a hair closer to Adam.
“No. Do you?”
“No. Seen anything else crazy?”
Adam’s gaze connected with mine. Either they didn’t know about the Bugs, or they were testing us. I nodded to him.
“The metal creatures.”
“They really exist?”
Adam bobbed his head. “We’ve seen them in groups, by themselves, and with Raspers.”
“One crawled out of a Rasper’s mouth when I shot him.” I worked hard at keeping my voice flat and not screechy.
“Holy…” Lucas slammed his fist against the arm of the couch. “Can they be killed?”
“Yes.” I ran my hand over my lips. Could I have a Bug inside me?
John pointed his thumb at the equipment. “Back before you all had cellular phones, gadgets and gizmos galore, us old timers talked to one another using radios. Ham radios.” He picked up a microphone that was attached to the radio equipment.
“My grandfather had one.” Adam got up and walked to John’s side.
John flipped some switches and spun a dial. “We only listen. No talking.”
“John has this theory that the Raspers are able to pick up on the radio transmissions and can pinpoint the origin.” Frank ran his palm across his retreating hairline. “In the beginning, we heard a lot of chatter. No so much anymore.”
John hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Before all this happened, I used to be able to talk to people pretty much anywhere. Now I run on solar power and batteries. Sometimes the radio doesn’t work, but it’s a connection.”
Adam moved closer, seemingly captivated by talking to others on the radio. He thumbed the button on the microphone.
“Stop! Let go of it.” John ripped the mike from Adam’s grip.
Adam backed up a step. “Sorry. My grandpa used to let me push the button. Sorry.”
I didn’t like the radio. There was no sure way to tell if the person on the other end was a Rasper or not. It wasn’t a clear signal and they could hide their raspy breathing.
“Val, you’ve been on your own?” Frank seesawed the marker between his fingers.
I watched the marker bob up and down. “Yeah.”
“Being by yourself for so long must have been hard on someone your age. What are you, sixteen or so?”
“Yeah.” Manners dictated I should give the guy more than one word answers, but I couldn’t bring myself to. And I wanted out of the basement.
“Megan’s sixteen, too, and Bethany’s seventeen.”
I nodded. I didn’t care. It wasn’t as if we were going to have a slumber party or something. Adam checked out the radio and I stared at his back. He needed to get over here. He was better than I was at chitchat. And I hadn’t been around this many people since my last day at school.
Lucas got up from the seat next to me and took Adam’s vacated spot. “Where are you guys headed?”
I exhaled and figured I should share something. “Adam found an address of sorts. We were going to try to figure out what it meant.”
Frank turned to Adam, who’d finally stopped salivating over the radio. “What do you mean, you found an address?”
Adam dug the map out of his pocket, walked over, and handed it to Frank. “Do you know what it means?”
Frank held the paper in his left hand and rubbed his right across his mouth. “Where did you get this?”
“At a house in the last town we were in. Why? What i
s it?” Adam leaned on the couch’s arm.
Frank stood and paced the room. We all watched in silence. “How religious are you?”
“Not much, sir.”
“Well, the anchor symbolizes hope. Hope in Christ, more specifically.”
Adam frowned. “I think the guy was a church pastor or something.”
“Makes sense. 300 Seed Plot.”
“And that means what?” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice, but failed. Adam looked over, but I glanced away from him.
“Seed Plot means nursery.”
Adam rubbed his temples. “As in babies?”
Frank stopped pacing. “It could also mean seminary.”
“So it’s not an address?” I knew it was nothing important.
“The Triad Theological Seminary isn’t too far away. The radio said people were starting a safe community there.”
“Why write it in a code?” Seemed to me like he was stretching.
“Well, now this is just a theory, but my thought is the Raspers are functioning off a collective computer-type mind.”
I sat up straight. The walls closed in, inch by inch. I blinked and forced myself to breathe. “A collective mind? Are you serious?”
“I think whatever information one gains is somehow transmitted to some central thing and it gets sent back to all of them. Maybe your pastor was trying to keep the community’s information from reaching their collective.”
“That’s beyond scary.” I couldn’t control my nerves and jumped up. I had to move. They shared information? I so didn’t want them to be able to access my thoughts.
“Do you know where the seminary is?” Adam directed his question at Frank.
Frank nodded, walked to a map on the wall. “Yes, come here.”
He pointed to a spot on the map. “We’re at the foot of Miller’s Mountain. The seminary is here.” He traced a line to the closest town to the east.
We stood on either side of Frank, looking at the spot he’d indicated. “We should go check it out. I bet they have resources.” Adam bounced on the balls of his feet.
John slapped his palm on his outer thigh. “You’re welcome to go, Sonny, but we’re staying here. This place is safer than most. I built it to be.”
The Colony Page 9