Forsaken World (Book 1): Innocence Lost (9 page)

Holding up the keys to the truck, Lance said, “Let’s go then,” and Ian opened the door into the garage.

“Shotgun,” he said, running for the passenger door.

Walking around to the driver’s door, Lance started feeling woozy. As he climbed in, he saw the three girls in the back. Closing his door, Lance lifted up Doug’s radio. “Doug, we’re ready.”

A few seconds went by. “Give me a minute,” Doug answered, sounding out of breath. “Okay, pull out, and drive slowly over and stop at the end of the driveway like I told you.”

Taking a deep breath, Lance turned the key and saw the dash light up. Twisting the key more, he heard the starter whine, and the engine roared to life. “We are driving your dad’s truck with his permission,” Ian laughed, drumming his fist on the dash.

“Shh,” Lance said, stretching his toes out to touch the pedals.

“Move your seat up, Lance. Your dad is like a foot taller than you are,” Jennifer said behind him.

“Hey, no backseat drivers,” Lance said, dropping his hand and moving the seat up. “Ian, hit the remote, and thank my dad for having battery backup for the garage doors.”

The door slowly rolled up as Lance pressed the brake and pulled the lever down to D like his dad had taught him. Feeling the truck pitch as it shifted, Lance’s foot came off the brake, and the truck lurched forward as the garage door was still going up.

Lance stomped on the brake, throwing everyone forward. “Hey, you said you have driven before,” Jennifer said, grabbing her seatbelt.

“No talking from the backseat,” Lance snapped as Jennifer reached over, buckling up the girls.

When the door was up, Lance took his foot off the brake and said a thank you to his dad for always backing into the garage. The truck moved out slowly without Lance even touching the gas pedal, and he was totally fine with that. “That’s a good pace, Lance,” Doug said over the radio, making Lance jump.

Reaching the road, Lance turned right but did it too sharp, making the back wheel bounce over the curb. “Man, the stinkers come out, and Doug makes them take a nap,” Ian said, watching the infected around the area as their heads exploded.

Driving over bodies that Doug had shot, Lance had both hands on the steering wheel, concentrating like he was driving in NASCAR instead of a slow, idling roll down the road. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw movement but didn’t turn in case the road moved. “I bet Doug’s shot like two hundred infected,” Ian said in wonder, looking around as Lance pulled into the driveway and stopped.

“We are getting closer to the house, right?” Jennifer asked, looking out her window and seeing a woman’s head explode.

“Uncle Doug said park here,” Lance said, pushing the brake and shifting up to park.

“Get inside,” Doug said over the radio.

They all jumped out and walked to the door. When they closed the doors, they heard footsteps upstairs and soon heard the footfalls on the stairs. The massive form of Doug came around the corner carrying an AR and wearing a vest with magazines stacked across his body. “Keys,” Doug said, holding out his hand.

Lance held out the keys, and Doug took them. “When I tell you, open the first garage door,” he said, walking outside.

Lance and Ian ran to the kitchen and opened the door to the garage then walked into the empty bay. In the next bay was a brand new black Corvette, and in the next bay that used to house Doug’s RV was a black H1 Alpha Hummer wagon connected to an enclosed trailer.

Outside the door, they heard the truck backing up and stop next to the door. “Open the garage door, and unload it on the floor, but make sure we can close the door,” Doug called over the radio in Lance’s hand.

Ian hit the button, and the door slowly rolled up. They both jumped upon seeing the back of the truck was less than an inch away. As soon as the door was high enough, Ian dropped the tailgate, hearing Doug shooting. “His gun doesn’t sound right,” Jennifer said, grabbing an armload.

“It has a suppressor or what some people call a silencer,” Ian said as Lance jumped up in the bed and started passing stuff back in a flurry of movement. Even Allie and Carrie carried what they could lift and stacked it in a pile. In less than ten minutes, the only thing left were the ice chests.

With a lot of cussing and effort, they got them out and just slid them across the floor. “We’re done, Uncle Doug,” Lance called out softly. Doug casually walked in the garage and hit the button, lowering the door.

“Ran out of targets ten minutes ago,” he said, waiting on the garage door to close.

“How many do you think you got out there?” Ian asked, grinning.

“Close to three hundred, I’m sure,” Doug said as the door touched down on the floor. “Ian and Lance, stay close while I talk.”

“What about me, Uncle Doug?” Allie asked, running over and grabbing his hand.

Doug looked down, smiling, as Carrie ran over and stood beside Allie. “Little ladybugs, you can come, but let me talk, okay? I’m hurt, and I don’t have long, but I got you two something,” Doug said with a wink and walked inside.

They followed him, and Lance noticed boxes stacked in the dining room that weren’t there earlier. Doug stopped at the counter in the kitchen and pulled two boxes down, handing them to the girls. “Camouflage like I wear hunting and playing paintball,” he said, grinning. The girls squealed and took the boxes, running to the living room.

Doug stepped up to the boys and became serious. “Boys, listen. I have a list here that you need to load on the trailer and in the Hummer. Be done by tonight so you can rest then go over the route I have laid out. I have the GPS unit already programmed in the Hummer, but you need to know it. Understand so far?”

Ian looked down at Doug’s pants. “You act like you aren’t coming.”

“I’m not; I’m going to be with my mother at the end,” Doug said.

“Can’t you come with us a little ways then go see your mom?” Ian asked.

“Ian, I can’t be near any of you soon. I’m going to die, and when I do, I’ll get up sick like those outside,” Doug told them, making them jump and Jennifer gasp. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes many times in the last forty-eight hours. If you’re bit, you just come back faster. If you’re around someone who’s been bit and they go to sleep, shoot them in the head. They never wake up normal; they wake up sick.”

“Zombies?” Ian moaned.

“For lack of a better word, yes. They have more reasoning power than you see in the movies and move a little faster. But it doesn’t matter how you die; you always come back like them. I’ve seen scores shot, and none of them were bitten, but they all got back up. I’ve seen a natural death, and she came back. It doesn’t matter how you go—you come back.”

“This is bullshit,” Lance snapped.

“I’m not arguing,” Doug said as his eyes started getting heavy. Knowing what was coming, Lance stepped back as Doug hit his belly several times and wobbled on his feet. “Enough on that. Listen, you will leave tomorrow night, following the route. You will stop for nobody. Is that understood? I mean it. If a woman steps out holding a baby in her arms, you run her ass over,” he snapped, and they all jumped back.

“But—” Lance started, and Doug raised his hand.

“You have mobility, safety, and a safe haven you’re going to. People will kill you now for less,” Doug said and bent over, looking at the three at eye level. “I’ve seen girls younger than Allie and Carrie in there raped in the last forty-eight hours. If you try and trust the wrong person, you two will watch them raped and beaten as you lay dying, but you’re young enough I’m sure the trash out there now will just rape you as well.”

Horrid images flooded Lance’s mind as his mouth went dry. “We kill anyone that gets in the way,” Lance said, grabbing Ian’s arm.

“We’ll run them over and back over them,” Ian said with wide eyes.

“Good,” Doug said, straightening up with a grimace. “Don’t think; just run them over. The route you’re taking shouldn’t have road blocks, but you don’t even stop for cops. The Hummer is bullet resistant but not proof. You go around the roadblock fast, holding your guns out the windows, pulling your trigger as fast as you can. You treat cops the same. They try and stop you, kill them. They will take what you have just as fast. All the real cops are dead or running with their families.”

“Okay,” Lance nodded. “Can’t you come just a little ways? We might need gas.”

Reaching back, Doug pulled out his wallet and handed it to Lance then turned around. “Follow.”

Holding the wallet out in front of him, Lance followed with Ian behind him. Getting freaked out, Jennifer went to the living room with the girls. “I can’t risk staying around you much longer, Lance. I’m sorry,” Doug said, moving behind his desk. He took a picture off the wall, exposing a safe. “The cabin is armed, so when you get there, don’t touch any part of the cabin that’s metal, or you will die. Nothing’s happened to it since my last trip up?” Doug said, twisting the dial on the safe.

“How do you know it’s okay at the cabin, and what the hell can the cabin do that has you and our dads freaking out?” Ian asked.

“Look at my laptop on the desk,” Doug said, grabbing the handle of the safe, turning it and opening the door. They looked at the laptop screen and saw it was divided in many squares, showing different images.

“Holy shit, that’s inside the cabin,” Lance said, pointing at the top frame.

“That’s the front yard,” Ian said, pointing at another.

Lance looked up as Doug turned around. “Is this in real time?”

“Yes. What good would pictures of the cabin do us?” Doug asked, holding out a 5x7 laminated card. “This is my passwords, pin numbers, and combinations to everything I have. You have my wallet and credit cards. The Hummer’s gas tanks are full, so it has a range of just over six hundred miles. You only have to travel two hundred and eighty, give or take.”

Looking down at the wallet in his hands, Lance mumbled, “Dad said the cabin was only a hundred and fifty miles away.”

“It is in a straight line, Lance, and the route we usually take is a hundred and ninety,” Doug said, still holding out the card. Without looking up, Lance held out his hand, and Doug put the card in it.

“Doug, I’m not questioning you or our parents, but we’ve been to the cabin many times,” Ian said, throwing his hands up. “Yes, it has some cans of food in the pantry and power, but we have more than that here now at your house.”

“Follow,” Doug said, walking around his desk. “There are hidden rooms, and if you think this house is safe, then the cabin is a vault. Your dads and I built it for a retreat if things went bad. Since none of us could actually stay there and keep it safe, we built it strong, and if someone broke in just looking to steal, we left it looking like a hunting cabin. The small gun safe, bows hanging on the walls, hunting clothes, and ATVs are just to keep a cover for the place,” he explained, leading them upstairs.

“In the basement on the west wall with the bookshelves, do you remember an electrical outlet mounted chest high?” he asked, stepping into another room. It was full of metal shelves along the wall and two in the middle of the floor, making aisles.

“Chest high to you maybe,” Lance said.

“Yeah, it’s a four-plug outlet, and a lamp is plugged in it,” Ian said.

“That’s the one,” Doug said, walking down one wall. “If you turn the screw in the middle of the plug halfway to the right, the outlet swings open, exposing a keypad. You type in 753159, and the bookshelf unlocks and swings into a room that’s bigger than the bottom floor of the cabin. In the back right corner is another bookshelf that slides down the wall, exposing storage areas.”

“We had James Bond stuff and didn’t even know it!” Lance cried out as Doug handed several items to him.

“That was the idea. We figured if you two couldn’t find it, nobody could,” Doug laughed. “This summer, I was going to take you two out and show you what the area was really meant for. We didn’t tell you sooner because we didn’t want you to tell others about it.”

“We wouldn’t have said anything,” Ian protested as Doug shoved stuff in his arms.

Feeling utterly drained, Doug looked down at the two young boys. He had moved into the neighborhood and first met them five years ago when they came over and asked if they could climb a tree in his backyard. He told them he had to talk with their dads first. The two eight-year-olds took off and literally dragged their dads over by the hands. The dads sat and talked with Doug the entire day, and the start of a great friendship was born.

Doug went hunting with them that year and said he was thinking about getting a hunting cabin nearby to hunt from, but if a disaster happened, it would be a place he could lay low. The dads liked the idea, and the three talked about it for a few months and then got Ian’s mom, Mary, to use her real estate business to start looking. It started small and blossomed into the cabin.

“Boys, it’s not that we didn’t trust you, but you’re young and might have slipped up. In the event something happened to your dads, they were to leave instructions for you and your mothers. I have to say, you two have brought me a lot of joy in the last five years. I never wanted to be a dad until I met you two,” Doug said, reaching out and putting a hand on each one’s shoulder.

“Uncle Doug,” Lance mumbled, cutting his eyes at Ian. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he admitted in a soft, quiet voice, “I’m scared.”