The Phoenix Trilogy (Book 1): World On Fire (10 page)

    
After several minutes of silent and tense traveling,
BJ gave the signal to stop. Like clockwork, each man raised their rifle and
scanned the surrounding area. They were still in the woods, though Natalie
could barely
make out another neighborhood ahead, as
well as the one they had just left behind. They were close enough that every so
often she could catch a sound coming from the zombie house. It made her shiver,
but in some deep place at the back of her mind, she felt a twinge of
excitement.

    
Grunting to himself, BJ lowered his rifle
and nodded his head. Rico and Marco matched his movements, agreeing that for
the moment they were safe. Natalie questioned their actions, but held enough
faith in them to trust what they were doing. In her mind, they were in a very
precarious position, and this was definitely not a good place to take a
breather.

    While
it was true that they had spent more than a few minutes traversing the
greenbelt, the going had been excruciatingly slow, and so they remained
uncomfortably close to the hostiles behind them. The careful pace was a
frustration that Natalie understood, even if it did go against every instinct
she had.

    As
much as sprinting pell-mell into the woods and away from danger had seemed like
a good idea at the time, the reality was that crunching leaves and breaking
branches would be more than noisy enough to alert any unwanted visitors to
their location. In light of that, they had taken painstaking efforts to avoid
or at least dampen as much of their sound as possible. If it wasn't for the
several lightly used trails that ran between neighborhoods, it would have
likely been impossible for them to remain undetected. It was a blessing Natalie
reminded herself to be thankful for.

    After
another minute of silence
, it
looked like whatever motivation the men had for stopping was about to reveal
itself. BJ had turned to settle his attention on Natalie, and while the cousins
continued to scan the surrounding area, the group crouched low and shifted
closer together.

    “
We're going to wait here for a minute to
see if that racket will draw any more targets out into the open.” His voice
came out in a low whisper, but Natalie suspected there was another reason they
were pausing.

    “
Explain to me the reasoning behind
everything we've been doing.” BJ's demand came as a shock. She glanced at Rico
for confirmation, but he was focused on his watch duty.

    “
Don't look at him, he's busy. I asked you
a question. Look at me.” The tone was one of absolute demand, the kind that
brooked no hesitation. Natalie suddenly felt like she was on trial, but she
refused to back down. She had promised herself she wouldn't be a burden, and
for better or for worse, she kept her promises. Facing BJ, she thought back
over everything that happened. Slowly, she spoke.

    “
We've been sticking to the woods instead
of the roads. The woods risk making more noise but give you more cover, where
the roads are the other way around...” she paused, realizing that that didn't
make enough sense. She was missing something.

    “
And... the zombies would make more noise
in the woods, so it would be easier to avoid them or hear them coming.” Natalie
looked to BJ for approval, but his face was devoid of emotion.

    She
wasn't going to get her grade until after the test, it seemed. Unconsciously,
her hands fidgeted with the straps on her pack. She considered waiting out the
clock, knowing that soon the group would be satisfied that any lurkers in the
area were preoccupied and it was safe to move forward. Shaking her head to
clear the tension, she couldn't help but feel that doing so would be considered
a failure on her part.

    “
We... hid under cars.”
Under cars, not beside them or in them.
“We did that because if we had been
leaning against them, we would have risked being spotted by the biters that
came out to investigate the noise.” Natalie smiled to herself at the term
“biters,”
but quickly let it go on realizing that
this probably wasn't the time for coming up with cute nicknames. Everything
about this felt like she was in a job interview, but she had no idea what she
was applying for.

    “
We could have hidden inside for extra
defense, but it would be more likely we'd be spotted and if we were seen, we'd
basically have been canned food.” Another joke she didn't mean to tell, and
Natalie blushed. It was a knee-jerk habit for her. She'd have felt more
self-conscious about it, but she suddenly remembered that this is the group
that decided to take Marco. She couldn't be that bad, by comparison.

    “
The only other thing I can think of was
throwing the rock as a distraction. You targeted a window to make the most
noise, and to lure them into a boxed area where their vision would be
compromised.” It wasn't the kind of phrasing she would normally use, but after
everything else she'd said, Natalie wanted to end on a more professional note.

    “
Plus, considering how many enemies there
actually were, if we had engaged the target in the open we would probably have
been killed.” Satisfied that she'd said everything she could, she nodded at BJ.
He growled a short reply.

    “
Finished?”

    
Natalie fought back another wave of test
anxiety. She'd said what she knew. Panicking about it now wasn't going to help
her. With a small gulp of suspense, she nodded again. “Finished.”

    
They sat in silence for a couple minutes
more, the sound of distant crashing still emanating from the
house behind them. Then, without another word, BJ signaled for the
group to continue moving.

    
Natalie wasn't sure what to think. In most
cases, being casually dismissed wasn't a good thing. Then again, BJ didn't
strike her as the kind of person to gush their approval over a job well done,
either. With nothing else to do, she simply followed behind Rico as they made
their way into another neighborhood.

    
Time passed relatively uneventfully. The
party rarely spoke to each other, save for Rico whispering a reminder to
Natalie that she needed to eat from time to time. They encountered a handful of
zeds, but each was dealt with in the same way: hide low, throw something, wait,
move, wait. The consistency in their actions made Natalie realize something.

    
There was no denying that the zombies were
a threat, and she recognized that the only reason they had been able to handle
them so easily was mostly due to lucky circumstances. Even thinking about that,
she found her fear ebbing away. They were monsters, but they still had patterns
that could be manipulated. They weren't unstoppable or invincible. All you
needed to survive was to know how they'd react. It was a subtle epiphany, but
it stuck at the back of her mind; a comforting warmth against the feeling of
cold terror that she had known for so long.

    
Eventually they began to run out of
greenery to travel through, and as they got closer to more urban settings BJ
called for them to take shelter in a nearby gas station. The men grew notably
more tense as they neared their destination, and it wasn't hard for Natalie to
realize why.

    
If there were creeps inside the building,
they wouldn't be able to trick them into leaving. They were going to have to deal
with them directly. Natalie was reminded of the day before, when she had been
forced to fight for the first time. To her surprise, she felt that same grim
determination forcing its way into her heart. This wasn't going to be a simple
cut-and-dry procedure, even if they did have training for handling it, but it
was something she was going to have to get used to.
Or die trying.

    
The fatalistic thought made her smirk, and
when BJ glanced back to see if they were ready to get started, he noticed it.
Before Natalie had time to wonder if she'd be judged for her brevity at a time
like this, BJ's lips cracked into the nearest thing she'd seen to a smile yet.

    
The appearance of the gas station put a
dent in their moment. Natalie's smirk faded as she saw the broken glass
surrounding the double doors that lead inside. There was dried blood
everywhere, an impossible amount. Worse were the tracks left in the decaying
muck, a mess of shoes and hands that reminded Natalie more of a macabre dancing
pattern than evidence of a mass slaughter. Bullet holes were scattered
haphazardly across the walls, a testament to desperation that people would have
fired their guns so near to the gas pumps.

    The
closer they got, the more the smell of rot and decay seemed to permeate the
air, wafting from the building in waves. Even
after donning
her
mouth
wrap, it was nauseating. Natalie had to
bite her tongue to force her attention back to the task at hand.

    
Resorting to nearly a crawl, BJ and Marco
took up position next to one side of the shattered doors while Rico and Natalie
crouched at the opposite end. Gesturing for Natalie to keep her head down, Rico
rose up just high enough to look through the window. BJ was scanning what he
could through the door, and Marco was vigilant as ever, ensuring that nobody
would startle them while they worked. Natalie was briefly thankful for the
gloomy weather, if for no other reason than the slight darkness it provided
them.

    
Satisfied that there weren't any immediate
threats, BJ and Rico exchanged a nod before setting down to remove the rest of
the glass from the lower door panes. Piece by piece they gently set aside the
shards, slowly creating a small entryway into the building. Natalie paused to
consider what the purpose of that was, before Rico pointed to a small bell tied
to the inside of the door handle.

    If
they'd just slid the doors open it would have jingled, and any hopes for a
stealthy approach would have been lost. Natalie chastised herself for not
paying attention, disappointed that she hadn't been more observant. Mistakes
like that weren't easily forgiven, and if she had been leading, it may very
well have gotten her group killed. Resolving to learn more from Rico and the
others, Natalie found herself surprised at her own motivation.

    
She had never fancied herself a leader.
Yet here she was, frustrated more at the fact that she could have made a
decision that would have put other people in danger than she was at the very
real risk of harm to herself. It was an unusual thought for Natalie,
and one that was quickly swept under the mental rug. Considering
the idea of leadership made her anxious, and quite frankly she didn't have time
for that.

    
Making her point for her, Rico and BJ had
finished their work and were prepared to enter the station. It was time to
move. The whole building seemed eerily quiet, an uncomfortable blanket of
silence that suggested impending danger more than serenity. Natalie hoped it
was just her nerves running wild, but she couldn't shake the feeling that her
survival instincts were picking up on something too subtle for her waking
senses to detect.

    
Every step inside was measured, BJ and
Rico in front while Natalie and Marco mirrored their movements in tandem. There
was a counter in front of a back room to their immediate left, while four
aisles divided the rest of the building to their right. Directly ahead of them
was another entryway, this one blocked by a car that seemed to have been parked
there intentionally.

    
Approaching the first aisle, Natalie felt
the silence continue to press down on her. Her breathing was too loud, and her
heartbeat seemed so noisy that it was sure to give her away. She looked to
Marco, expecting his usual cocky swagger, but was taken back by the pale gleam
in his eyes. Catching sight of BJ as he glanced over his shoulder, she saw the
same thing. They may be trained, but they were still uncomfortable with all of
this. It was a bittersweet revelation, but Natalie took comfort in knowing that
she wasn't alone in feeling nervous.
    As Rico swept his rifle down to clear the aisle, BJ
kept his focus ahead while Marco watched the counter. Natalie
glanced around, trying to find something she could do to help. The place was a
mess, and most of her attention was on making sure she didn't step on something
that would give her away.

    Nearly
all of the shelves had been ransacked, and the floor was littered with garbage
left behind. Candy wrappers, bottles, and bullet casings were everywhere, caked
down with dry blood. All of the clutter made navigating the floor somewhat more
challenging than she would have normally expected.

    
Flashing the all-clear, Rico continued to
the second aisle. His face blanched, and Natalie thought they were going to be
in for a fight. Her fingers tightened around her shotgun as she dug it deeper
into her shoulder. Instead, Rico signaled another all-clear, quickly moving to
the third aisle ahead. Natalie briefly considered following after him without
examining what had made him sick, but her curiosity won out. She quickly wished
it hadn't.