Survival Ties (The Outbreak Chronicles Book 1) (6 page)

“Sorry my brother shot you.” He
apologized. “Woman was right. Bullet went straight through, I don’t think we’ll
have to do much to help it heal just bandage it and keep it clean. He’ll be
good as new soon.”

“Well then, you hungry?” Tone
asked Aaron after he finished getting Tone bandaged up.

“Yeah, been walking all night.”
Aaron answered and sat down at the table. He looked at Sawyer and me.

“I’m guessing you all know my
name how bout you tell me yours.” Aaron said and smiled at me.

“Well we got Daisy with the
green hair. Axel is right next to her.” I told him nodding in their direction.
“Angela is holding her brother Thomas. Tone you patched up, Sydney is the woman
standing by the doorway, and Sam.”

Aaron nodded and ate the food
Sydney put down in front of him. He was like an animal deciding what he thought
of us and how he should react. He seemed to calm down a bit when Sam took the
wheel and started driving the bus.

Tone was asleep in the
passenger seat next to him. I think he thought we were going to leave him out
there to fend for himself. I don’t think Sam could have done that. Even if
Aaron had been involved with what his brother was doing and not just a
bystander.

“How do you know the girls?”
Sydney asked him.

“They were friends with my
sister Emily. I used to give them rides everywhere they wanted.” Aaron
answered.

“You got a last name?” Sydney
asked him after he had cleared his plate.

“Yeah, Pierce.” Aaron answered.

“That sounds familiar. You ever
spend time in the drunk tank?” Sydney asked him.

“No, I didn’t but Wayne was a
regular there.” Aaron answered, a shadow of pain running across his eyes.

“I’m sorry about your brother,
we didn’t plan to hurt any of you, but he shot my partner, I reacted.” Sydney
told him.

“I think the shock is wearing
off a bit. You have to understand, it’s not like we were buds, it was mostly he
said jump, I asked how high to avoid a beating.” Aaron admitted.

Aaron sat at the dining room
table as the bus rumbled down the road. He seemed to be taking in his
surroundings and adapting to the new turns that had been taken.

“Ashlyn?” He asked.

“Yeah?” I responded.

“I see Battleship over there.
Want to play?” he asked me and I grabbed the game. We set up on the table and
started to play.

Aaron slept on the couch and was up
before any of us, making breakfast. The smell woke me and I followed my nose
out to the kitchen and sat at the dining room table watching Aaron. He had
shrimp cooking in a skillet as he chopped up mini sweet peppers. He had
supplies sitting on the counter next to him. He had a bottle of Ranch, a bottle
of Tabasco sauce, bacon, eggs, and shredded mozzarella cheese.

“Good morning.” He greeted me
as I watched him.

“Morning, what are you making?”
I asked him, watching as he cracked eggs open and poured them into another
skillet.

“I’m making Cajun eggs and
bacon. It’s a thank you for letting me stay with you guys.” Aaron answered as
he started to mix in the mozzarella, and the mini peppers into the skillet with
the eggs.

After stirring he added in the
shrimp, some ranch, and some tabasco sauce then he covered the skillet. He
threw the bacon on to the skillet he’d used for the shrimp.

“It smells great.” I told him
as Sawyer, Daisy, and Sydney joined us in the kitchen.

“I’ll say it does.” Sydney
agreed.

“It’s nothing. I just want to
be useful.” Aaron answered.

“What if you don’t like spicy
stuff?” Axel asked from behind Sydney. Angela and Thomas were standing with him
as he eyeballed the tabasco sauce.

“Don’t you worry; I didn’t add
enough in to make it spicy. Put in just enough to give it the flavor.” Aaron
answered as he started dishing out plates to everyone before getting his own
plate.

He even brought Sam and Tone
plates to the front of the bus. No one spoke much as they ate which says a lot
about what everyone thought of Aaron’s cooking. He was right that the eggs were
not spicy at all but had all the flavor of being so.

Sydney cleaned up the kitchen
when everyone was done eating. Aaron sat down on the living room floor to play
Life with Axel and Angela while Thomas watched. Sam had decided to take the
wheel since he wanted to get a move on. We were driving down the road again.
The ride was going smooth for about half an hour before Sam stopped.

“Damn it.” Was all he said.

“What’s going on?” Sydney asked
as she made her way to the front of the bus.

We all looked outside wondering
what was going on now. In front of us on the road were a bunch of abandoned
cars. A couple buses, an RV, a moving truck, and a semi-truck completely
blocking the road.

“Shit. What do we do?” Sydney
asked.

“I could back up and try
another way or we could go out and see if we can move them out of the way.” Sam
responded as he turned the bus off and sat there staring at the mess in front
of us.

“Hey I don’t know if this helps
or not, but Wayne’s group and I had a system we were using when we went out for
supplies.” Aaron said.

“What would that be?” Sam
asked.

“We’d spray paint a green x on
doors of buildings that were clear and a red x on buildings that had Red Eyes
in them. I could go through and start marking the cars that are clear or ones
that have bodies in them.” Aaron suggested.

“We don’t have paint.” Sam
said.

“I have cans in my bag.” Aaron
responded.

“You know it’s not a bad idea.
That way if the kids go out they know which cars to stay away from.” Sydney
agreed, patting Aaron on the shoulder.

I followed Aaron outside and
watched as he started going from vehicle to vehicle. He was putting x’s on the
windows. After I’d been watching him for a while he came back over to the bus.

“Do you want to help me with
this?” he asked, I noticed at least a couple cars have keys in them we can mark
those cars with two x’s.”

“Yeah I’ll help.” I agreed and
he handed me two cans of spray paint.

Soon we had every vehicle
marked, they were nineteen altogether. Eleven of them had red x’s and eight had
green ones. We were heading back to Sam when we started hearing a muffled
thumping noise. As we got closer to the noise we started hearing a voice.

“Is someone out there? Please
help me?” the voice called out.

“Where are you?” Aaron called
back.

“The trunk of the red Neon.”
The voice answered.

“Try the door, if its unlocked
pop the trunk and stay back till I say it’s safe.” Aaron directed me as we
stood by the Neon.

I walked to the front of the
car and did as I was told. The door was unlocked so I popped the trunk. I
looked at Aaron and he nodded at me.

“Come on over Ash, I may need
your help.” Aaron said as he knelt down looking into the trunk. I joined him
and found there was a black boy now sitting up.

“Thank you,” he said to us as
he accepted the water Aaron offered him.

“What’s your name and why were
you in the trunk?” Aaron asked him as soon as he stopped drinking.

“Micah. Micah Hender. My dad
locked me in here.” Micah explained to us, “We were trying to get to Phoenix.”

“Why?” Aaron asked.

“We were going to find my mom
and sisters but we ran into this road block.” Micah said, “Dad tried to turn
around but the people behind us panicked. They left their vehicles when a group
of monsters came through. I heard screaming.”

“How did you end up in the
truck?” I asked.

“Dad thought I’d be safe in the
trunk and had me get in with water and protein bars. He left me the key so I
could get out if he didn’t make it back but the batteries are dead so it
wouldn’t work.” Micah answered.

“How long have you been in
there?” I asked him, noticing that there were quite a few empty wrappers and
bottles and there was the smell of urine.

“I don’t know. Three days
maybe. I ran out of water last night and the protein bars yesterday.” Micah
answered as he tried to lift himself out of the trunk, Aaron caught him before
he fell.

“Whoa let’s get you cleaned up
and in some clean clothes dude, no offence but you reek.” Aaron told him. Micah
just nodded.

“Yeah, let’s see if you come
out looking your best after being stuck in a car trunk for three days.” He said
as he let Aaron help him back to the bus.

Sam met us about halfway and
went to the other side to help Micah. We got him on the bus and Sam took him
into the bathroom where he helped Micah shower. We all gathered in the living
room to wait for them to come out. I quickly explained to everyone what Micah
had told us and where we had found him.

“It’s good we grabbed those
clothes when we did. I hope something fits him.” Daisy said. She had already
grabbed a whole pile of clothes for Micah to try on. She even had shoes; I
didn’t remember us grabbing shoes, but of course she was the shoe girl.

Sam opened the bathroom door
and before he could even ask Daisy was pushing the clothes towards him. Sam
smiled at her and nodded then disappeared back into the bathroom. A few minutes
later they came out. Micah was leaning on Sam as his legs shook on the walk
over to the couch. Micah seemed to find clothes that fit; he was now wearing
blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt.

“Thank you for the clothes.” He
said as Sam helped him to the couch.

“No problem, you got lucky that
we grabbed a bunch when we were stocking up at Wal-Mart the other day.” Daisy
told him.

“It’s hard to think about how
much was going on while I was sitting in that trunk.” He said.

“Yeah, Ashlyn filled us in on
what happened to you.” Sawyer told him, “I’m Sawyer by the way.”

“Nice to meet you.” Micah told
her.

“Okay, we will have plenty of
time to get to know Micah after we figure out the cars outside.” Sam cut in
bringing us all back to the fact that we were stuck at the moment.

“Ash and I marked all the cars.
Double x’s for keys. Red equals bodies or gore while green is all clear.” Aaron
told Sam.

“Good, I want to get the cars
off the road. We’ll line up ones with keys for easy access on the side of the
road. If someone else comes this way and needs a vehicle they can take one. I
also don’t want to take any supplies out of them as someone else may need them
and we are pretty stocked up.” Sam directed us.

We got to work. Sydney, Aaron
and Sam moved cars with a red x on them while Daisy, Sawyer and I moved the
green ones.

Sam found a tow rope in a truck
that had keys. Aaron maneuvered a pickup truck around for us to attach the rope
to pull the cars that did not have keys. Sam directed Aaron to get cars that would
be easy to hot-wire, parked in a reachable area.

It took longer than it seemed
like it should to get the road cleared off. Especially since we wanted to go
back in the bus to talk to Micah.

“Looks like the only thing we
really can’t move is that semi-truck.” Aaron said, “Even if it had keys it’s
wedged into that ditch.”

He was pointing over to where
the semi was. I looked over to see what he was talking about. I noticed that
even though the trailer was straight on the road, the cab was in the ditch,
we’d need a tow truck to move it.

“Well, the way looks clear
enough to get the bus through and for anyone going this way to make it.” Sam
decided, “Let’s load up and get out of here.”

It was a relief to get back on
to the bus. Daisy and I both laid down on the floor in the living room while
Sawyer went and sat down next to Micah.

“How are your legs doing?” she
asked him.

“Getting better. Tone said I
should keep standing up and sitting back down to get them working normal
again.” He answered.

“That’s good. How are you
feeling other than that?” Sawyer asked.

“Pretty good. Tone got me some
food to eat, not much so I wouldn’t throw it all back up.” Micah answered,
“Sorry for the overshare but hell I got pulled in here covered in my own piss.”

“Its fine, I’m just glad we
found you.” Sawyer said and patted his hand.

“I’m glad you guys found me
too. Not just for the fact that I would have died but because if someone else
had, they may not have been a good group.” Micah said, babbling a little.

Sawyer had her head on Micah’s
shoulder. He was holding her hand, his thumb caressing hers.

They seemed to be comforting
each other. They really seemed to like each other’s company and were chatting
easily with each other. It’s the most I’d seen Sawyer interact with anyone
since Marie turned crazed. Even less so since Jenny sacrificed herself.

It was good to see her opening
up to someone, she was not someone who did well being withdrawn. Daisy poked my
shoulder and when I looked at her she pointed to Micah and Sawyer. She mimicked
kissing behind her hand where they couldn’t see.

I ended up choking on my
laughter as I wondered if she was right, if they were into each other that way.

“What are you laughing at?”
Sawyer asked me as she nudged me with the tip of her shoe.

“Nothing, Daisy was just making
faces.” I answered and Daisy tried to look innocent.

“Hey boys, looks like we have
teenagers actually acting like teenagers. We must be doing something right.”
Sydney called to Sam and Tone.

“Are we sure that’s a good
thing? If I remember correctly teenagers are troublemakers. I’m thinking we may
have to make them walk the rest of the way, what do you think Sam?” Tone asked.

“I don’t know Tone; how much
trouble are we talking here?” Sam asked.

“Ha ha you all are so funny.”
Daisy said as she threw a pillow that had fallen off the couch at Sydney.

“I’m hit!” Sydney called as she
pretended to fall over.

“Hey Ash, I wonder if she’s
ticklish?” Daisy said to me and winked.

“Let’s find out.” I said as we
both jumped over and grabbed Sydney. She squealed. She wiggled until she
managed to escape us. Sydney crawled away. Micah laughed drawing our attention
to him. His dark skin couldn’t hide his blush. Angela, Thomas, and Axel were
all laughing in the hallway. For a moment everyone on the bus forgot about the
chaos we were escaping from.