The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (13 page)

Before she could decide what to do, Xander
stepped up next to Donald on the stairs. Riley forgot all about
Peter as she pushed past Nancy and flung herself into his arms. He
grunted from the force of her impact but his arms wrapped around
her and his hands pressed firmly into her upper back as he hugged
her closer.

"Don't do that again," she ordered. She
kissed his mouth, then his cheek and finally buried her face in his
neck.

"I'll try not to," he promised her.

She leaned back to look at him and grabbed
hold of both of his cheeks. The gold and green flecks in his
bloodshot, and swollen hazel eyes, were some of the most beautiful
things she'd ever seen. "Are you ok?" she demanded.

He nodded and kissed the tip of her nose.
"I'm all good, Dumbo."

She glowered at him. "You're an ass."

"I know but I much prefer you angry to
worried."

Riley shook her head at him but she kissed
him again before releasing him. They had to get on the road and she
was itching to get out of this room. "We should go."

He kept hold of her hand as he turned and
led her over to the car. "You need some sleep," she told him. She
took the keys from him and slid into the driver's seat. Nancy and
Al got into the back and she turned to see Josh, Freddie, and Jim
climbing into the bed of the truck. Carl closed and locked the
doors behind them. Spooky hopped out of Nancy's lap and settled
onto the console in the middle of the car. Riley absently scratched
behind the cat's ears before starting the car and putting it into
drive.

Pulling out of the parking lot, she spotted
a group of sick people by the front door of the department store.
She could almost feel the hunger radiating from them as they began
to move toward the vehicles. Driving down the road, relief filled
her when she turned onto the highway again. She didn't see anymore
sick people once they got back on the interstate, but she sensed
them lurking within the shadows of the woods along the side of the
road.

"Please let us get there today."

She hadn't realized she'd spoken the words
until Al spoke from the backseat, "It's a good possibility."

A part of her almost shouted with joy but
she was scared to get too far ahead of herself. Instead, she
focused on the road as they drove around a bend and began to climb
higher into the mountains. Xander's head dropped against the
window, minutes later he began to snore. Finding comfort in the
noise, Riley began to zone out. Without thinking, she leaned over
and turned the radio on.

Static squelched through the speakers before
she hurriedly turned it back off. The sudden silence was almost
more than she could stand but the static had served as a stark
reminder that there was little left out there.

Riley slowed the car as they came across a
large jumble of vehicles in the road. She drove into the grass of
the median and onto the other side of the highway. The car was
almost onto the pavement when she spotted the people in the
shadows, watching them from the woods. At first she assumed it was
the rabid ones, but when they remained unmoving she realized it was
The Lost Souls standing within the trees. Her foot eased on the gas
pedal so that she could watch, as the people remained unmoving.

She almost pulled over to see if perhaps
they could take one of these people for the L-Dopa experiment, but
there were too many of them within the shadows. These sick ones had
never displayed any hostility before, but she didn't want to take
the chance that they might now. There were at least fifty of them
gathered within the shadows of the forest, a number that was far
higher than she was willing to deal with right now.

Her eyes slid over their bony shoulders and
sunken cheeks. Most of them weren't even wearing clothes anymore.
The ones that were wearing clothing could almost be considered
naked; the scraps still hanging off them barely covered them
anymore. They weren't picking at their skin and hair but the
absolute stillness of them was even more unnerving as she drove by
person after person standing as still as stone. Riley shuddered and
tore her eyes away from the tree line.

The going was time-consuming on the highway.
A rockslide at one point forced them to double back to the last
exit they had passed. Riley's joy over possibly arriving at the
cabin today began to dwindle as the sun rose higher into the sky
and they were still trying to find their way back to the highway.
It was hours later before they finally returned to the interstate
after driving through a cluster of small towns and back roads.

"Take this exit," Al told her.

She had no idea what exit it was, she
couldn't read the green exit sign lying on the side of the road
when she made the turn. She studied the nearly empty parking lot of
the large mall on their right as they drove up the ramp, but she
had absolutely no interest in getting off of the highway to
explore.

"Where are we?" she asked quietly as Xander
and Nancy were both soundly sleeping.

"This is Middletown; we're only about thirty
miles away now," Al answered.

So close, and yet so far, she realized as
the sun steadily dipped lower in the sky. They were about five
miles away from Middletown when she pulled to the side of the road
to stretch her legs, grab some food, and refill the car. She didn't
know if they were going to make it much further before nightfall,
but they certainly weren't going to be able to drive any further if
they didn't stop for gas soon.

Riley climbed out of the car and tilted her
head back to take in the pink sky. The air felt fresher here, less
oppressive as she inhaled a deep breath.
Mountain air
, she thought and closed the car door,
but she knew it was more than that. The air had become clearer, the
red was bleeding out of the sky, and she couldn't help but think
that the blue would be returning for good soon.

The others were gathering near the back of
the truck as she eyed the woods. The pressure in her bladder was
more than she could stand anymore. "I'll be right back. Nature
calls," she said to Xander as he rubbed at his eyes and yawned.

"You shouldn't go alone," he told her.

"We're not that close Xander."

He gave her a lopsided grin that caused her
heart to melt. "Believe me, it's not my idea of a good time with
you either. That will come later."

Her mouth dropped when he winked at her. She
hated the heat that crept into her cheeks as she turned away from
him, but she couldn't stop it. "Jackass," she muttered.

His chuckle did nothing to soothe her
irritation with him as she walked into the forest. She heard his
feet crunching on the leaves and sticks behind her, but he stopped
walking when she ducked behind a tree. She did what she had to do
and stepped out from behind the tree. She was about to rejoin
Xander when some movement in the trees caught her attention. Her
hand went to her gun as she scanned the thick foliage surrounding
them.

The sight of a deer head popping up over top
of a mountain laurel made her smile. The last thing she wanted was
to eat Bambi, but the deer was proof that there was food here; that
it would be possible to survive and sustain life in these
mountains. She was turning away from the deer when something else
caught her attention. Through the swaying trees, she could see a
distant house on the horizon.

The deer darted away when she walked toward
the house. "What are you doing?" Xander hissed from behind her.

She waved her hand at him and continued
through the trees. Reaching the edge of the wood line, she stopped
to stare at the small blue farmhouse in the distance. "What are you
doing?" Xander demanded again as he stepped beside her.

The mound at the far side of the pasture
drew her attention. Her stomach twisted as she realized that it was
another strange heap of horses. The already bizarre scene seemed
even more disturbing with the luscious green grass growing in the
pasture around them.

"There's people living in that house," she
said.

"What makes you say that?" he inquired.

She pointed to where a deer was hanging from
a hook off of the barn. "That deer hasn't been there for long."

"No it hasn't," he agreed.

The snap of a stick behind them brought both
of their heads around. Carl and John were fifteen feet away and
moving through the woods toward them. "What's up?" Carl
inquired.

"There's a home," Riley answered.

Carl stepped up to her other side and looked
down. "More mounds," he said.

"More mounds," she confirmed. "The people in
the house are alive though."

"So strange," he murmured as he rubbed at
the stubble on his chin. She believed that to be the understatement
of the year as she turned her attention back to the mound of dead
animals. "I think it would be best if we found somewhere to settle
in for the night," Carl said but his voice was hushed. "We're not
going to make it to the cabin today."

"Should we check out the house?" Riley
inquired.

Carl pondered this before shaking his head.
"I don't see any reason to risk a confrontation."

"And I've had enough of people pointing guns
at me," Xander said.

John nodded as he shifted from foot to foot.
"I have to agree with that."

"I don't think staying on the roadside is a
good idea either, not after that mob we saw yesterday. We should
try and find shelter," Carl said as he lit a cigarette.

Riley agreed with him. "Let's get moving
then."

They made their way back through the woods
to where they'd left the others. Donald, Jim, Nancy, and Al were
moving through the sparse vehicles abandoned beside the roadway
searching for supplies and gas. Freddie, Rochelle, and Josh had
gathered near the car. They weren't much younger than she was but
she suddenly felt ancient as she stared at their bowed heads.

Her gaze drifted to Peter as he moved
through another set of vehicles in search of something. He acted
completely normal, but the look she'd seen in his eyes earlier
still haunted her. With a sigh, she followed Xander down the
embankment to the roadside.

Climbing into the car, she waited for the
others to join her. Al settled in beside her and pointed down the
road. "The towns were all small through here; it shouldn't be
difficult to find a remote home or store to stay in. I hope," he
added in a mutter.

Riley really hoped so too as she shifted the
car into drive. Her gaze scanned the tranquil roadway. She saw
nothing out there but she knew the unseen was often more
frightening than the seen.

Carl,

Carl stood on the side of the door to the
farmhouse and nodded to Xander to push it open. Xander turned the
knob and ducked back to press himself against the wall across the
way. Carl held his breath as he waited for something to come
charging at them from inside. They'd discovered the house after
leaving the highway and entering the next town. It was the first
one they'd come across that hadn't had its windows broken out or
its front door hanging open.

Carl counted to fifty before poking his head
around the corner of the doorway. The shadowed interior kept all of
its secrets until he flicked his flashlight on and shone the beam
around the small hallway. The beam revealed racks of coats and
shoes on one side and nothing but a forest green wall on the other.
The light bounced off the glass of the closed door across from him.
The scent of mildew and age permeated the hall and caused his nose
to wrinkle.

"Mudroom," Riley said from beside him.

He realized that she was right as he stepped
inside. He crept across to the other door and shone the light
through the window to aim it around the inside of the house. He
could see the open door of the fridge, and the blue linoleum floor,
but the beam didn't go much further than the kitchen. Carl grabbed
hold of the knob and pulled the door open.

The stench of rotten food, or at least he
hoped it was only rotten food, hit him hard. He recoiled from the
potent aroma and threw his hand up in a useless attempt to block
the smell but it had already been seared into his nostrils. Carl
edged his way into the kitchen, the open fridge door directly to
his right blocked most of his view of the room. He pushed the door
of the fridge closed so he could get a better look around the
interior of the room.

Food and containers littered almost every
inch of the floor. Most of it was moldy, and decayed beyond
recognition, but it looked as if someone had been eating it. He
prayed that it hadn't been recently. There were fingermarks in the
sugar and flour that had been dumped on the floor.

"Oh ugh," Riley said from behind him and
threw her arm over her nose. Her blue eyes watered as she stared at
him over top of her arm.

"Maybe this isn't a good place to stay for
the night," John muttered.

A clattering noise from somewhere deeper in
the house brought all of their heads around. Carl couldn't tell if
it had come from upstairs or down. "I don't think that's a cat,"
Xander said in a low whisper.

"Maybe we should find somewhere
else
to stay," John said more
forcefully.

"It's too late to be driving around looking
for other places," Carl told him. He brought his gun up before him
as he stepped from the kitchen and into the dining room. "Plus this
is a pretty rural area. There might not be a whole lot of other
options around here."

"We'll check upstairs," Jim said and pointed
to Josh, Mary Ellen, and Nancy to follow him to the stairs leading
upward from the dining room.

"Be careful," Carl said before continuing on
to the den and finally the living room. His beam played over the
photographs lining the walls and the furniture filling the rooms
but he didn't see anyone amongst the belongings of the home. He was
turning away from the living room when he detected an odd rubbing
sound.