You and Me against the World: The Creepers Saga Book 1 (29 page)

“I know,” Bob said and stood up.

“Where?”

“She’s headed toward the Escalade.”

“Why?” Pam asked.

Bob shook his head and said, “No idea, but I’ll ask when I catch up to her.”

He turned back to the women.

“Modified plan,” he said and picked up the holster and pistols.

“You three follow the original plan. Go to the dining hall, and then one of you check the lab for Dr. Thorn. I’m gonna go get Blue Eyes. We’ll grab the Escalade and then check the garage. We meet back here in twenty minutes. Pam, in twenty-five minutes, you’re gone, got it.”

“I got it,” Pam said.

Bob leaned over and kissed her.

“For real, sweetheart, twenty-five minutes and then you’re gone. Remember that store we found out on Route 7, about fifteen miles from here.”

She nodded.

“You get the children there, wait one day and then—”

“Let’s not worry about tomorrow,” Pam said and kissed him again.

One step forward, two steps back

They had the wrong plan from the start. She cursed herself for not telling them, but words were still beyond her. She tried but whatever connected her inside voice to the outside world remained hidden behind a dark shadowy wall. Whenever she approached that place and tried to speak, things began to shut off in her mind until the world swam in a dark mist. Sometimes she could see things in that mist, and it scared her. She was not afraid of all the things she saw—no, some of them were from a place that had once been happy. She could sometimes see her stepdad, her mom, her dog, and her friends, but they were like ghosts. She wanted to see those things, but within that dark mist, there was a closet door; there was blood, and the darkness there could cut her open. The ghosts made her want to cry, and she knew that once the tears started, they would never stop. She would drown in that sorrow, so she pushed it down deep; she turned away from that dark mist’s happiness and despair, and as she turned, her words were lost.

Now things were a mess. The Escalade was the key. The Escalade could take her back, and back was where the weapons waited. No one had thought of it, and there had been no way for her to tell them, so she had waited and she had hoped her brother’s plan would work. It hadn’t worked, and now the rest were about to make things worse by running back into the fort. She didn’t know if she had enough time, but she had to try.

The rain began to fall through the dense trees in a light mist. She reached into her front pocket and pulled out her dad’s iPod. She stopped the music and removed the ear buds. The Escalade would be close, but she had to move with caution. She was outside, and outside meant Creepers. She also considered that Bart’s men might be moving through the woods to find them. She needed her ears.

She moved through the woods like one of the ghosts in the dark mist. The rain brought the woods alive with sounds. She moved from tree to tree and looked to all sides. At the edge of the tree line, she found the access road again. Wet, green grass outlined the road on both sides, and about hundred feet away, she saw the black Escalade parked on the grass. There were three men standing near it, smoking cigarettes and talking. One of them faced in her direction, and the other two faced the other way. They had rifles slung across their backs like a group of friends out on a hunting trip. The problem was crossing the hundred feet without being noticed. She had a handgun and a knife, but chances were good that without the element of surprise, one of the men would shoot her.

The man facing her turned toward the Escalade’s door. He opened it and leaned in. Goldie broke for the woods on the other side. When she crossed the pavement and was again on the grass, she went down on her knees, leaned back, and slid across the wet grass into the overgrown brush. It was not her best softball slide, but it worked. She listened for any sounds that indicated they had seen her. A few minutes passed, and the men continued to talk, their voices muffled under the sound of the rain. On this side of the road, the SUV blocked her line of sight, and she could no longer see the men. She drew out her knife. It was a six-inch double-sided blade. Pam would have liked it. She drew her .38 in her other hand. She had one shot at this, and she considered that it would probably not work, but time was of the essence, and she could not wait for the ideal conditions.

She put her ear buds back in and turned on the music. She and Adele were both rolling in the deep now. She broke out of the woods and went into a full sprint, her legs pumped with all she had. She stayed near the wood’s edge for most of the distance and then broke left and turned on the speed just twenty feet from the men. She closed the distance, and they still hadn’t noticed her. Just five feet away, she screamed. It was not a little girl sound; it was an animal sound filled with months of rage and anguish. The men turned around, the expressions of fear and surprise filled her with satisfaction. She dropped to her knees and slid across the wet grass, the final few feet between two of the men. Her knife cut one across the belly, and he yelled and fell back. She popped up in front of the man who had faced her direction. She brought the .38 up under his chin and pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell with the sound of a loud click. She pulled it again, and there was a second click. The gun was empty. She turned the gun around and hit the man in the nose with the grip. Blood sprayed but he grabbed her wrist and held on tight. The second man grabbed her other wrist and twisted it until the knife fell from her hand. She screamed her animal scream again, but they shoved her hard into the side of the Escalade. The man on the ground was bleeding out, and he pleaded with the other two to get him some help.

“Shut the fuck up, Mac,” the man on her left said. “We’ll get you some help in a minute.”

“You fucking little animal,” the man on her right yelled. It had a funny sound because she had broken his nose. “I’m gonna kill you, you stupid bitch.”

Broken Nose grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the side of the SUV. She turned her head and saved her own nose.

“Yeah, I got another idea first,” the one on her left said. “She’s kinda cute, don’t you think?”

The guy on the ground yelled, “Fuck, guys, get me a doctor!”

“Shut up, Mac, we got some business to take care of with this little spitfire.”

“John, she’s a fuckin’ child, and I’m dying here,” Mac said.

“Hey, she’s old enough to play with big-boy toys. She’s old enough for everything else,” John said and laughed.

“You should listen to your friend,” Bob called. He shot John in the back of the head.

Broken nose was quick. He spun around and took Goldie as a shield. He had a .45 in his hand, and he raised it to her head.

“Drop the guns, Bob,” he said, “or I’ll kill her right here.”

“Hadn’t figured you for a child killer, Carl,” Bob said and held his gun in front of him.

“I’m a survivor, Bob, that’s all, and Bart keeps me alive. Now quit screwing around and drop the gun.”

Golden looked at Bob and willed him to shoot. She saw in his eyes that he wasn’t going to do it. Bob dropped the gun on the ground and raised his hands.

“Just let her go, Carl,” Bob said.

“The other gun, Bob,” Carl said.

Bob reached for it and drew it slowly from the holster. He looked at Golden.

“I hope you’re as quick as I think you are, little one,” he said, and then he winked at her.

Bob tossed the gun underhand in Golden’s direction. The movement scared Carl, and he released her as he brought his own weapon to bear on Bob. Bob didn’t try to move; he just waited.

Golden slipped down and caught Bob’s gun in both hands. She rolled over on her back in the wet grass and shot Carl three times as his own gunfire exploded. Carl had a surprised look on his face and then fell over, dead.

Golden rolled to her feet and saw Bob lying on the ground. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. She went to him, knelt down, and looked at the wound.

“It’s okay, Blue Eyes, hurts like hell but not for long,” he said.

She looked at him and tears filled her eyes.

“I know, I know, it was probably a crazy move, but there wasn’t any time to waste.” Bob coughed, and blood dripped from his lips.

Golden looked around, trying to decide where to find help. Bob took her chin in his bloody hand and turned her to look at him.

“No. No saving me, Blue Eyes. Okay? I’ve been at this a long time, and trust me, even if you could find a doctor, it’s already too late. But …” he coughed harder this time and more blood sprayed from his mouth.

“Listen, I don’t know what your plan is, but you need to do it quick. Your … your friends don’t have much time.” He tried to smile, but it was more a wince.

“I wish …” He coughed again, and it made a wheezing broken sound in his chest. “Oh, Pammy,” he whispered, and then he took a thick breath.

“Blue Eyes, I need you to do me a favor.” He drifted off for a while, but she waited.

“Inside … my shirt, on the chain … is a key … take it,” he finally said.

Golden found the key and tried to find the clasp.

“Just yank it. It won’t hurt,” Bob said.

She did and the chain broke free in her hand.

“That key opens the front gate. Promise me that you’ll do me one favor, okay?”

She nodded.

His voice grew quiet, and she leaned in close so she could hear him. When he finished, she lifted her head and looked at him. He smiled.

“I know, very vindictive, but what the hell, right?”

She nodded and found a small smile for him.

“I wish you could talk,” he said. “I would have liked to hear the voice that goes along with the badass stare. No worries, though, sometimes the strong silent thing works out better,” he said and then smiled.

Golden leaned over next to his ear. She whispered something, and Bob said, “Thank you,” and then he inhaled his last breath.

Golden closed his eyes. She took the jacket off the dead guy named John and laid the jacket over Bob’s face. She collected the guns and put them in the Escalade. She didn’t know if the one she had knifed was dead or alive, but he was quiet, so she left him.

The keys were in the ignition, and she started the SUV. She had watched Adam use the GPS, and she turned it on and found what she needed. She put the SUV in gear and took off. Time was short, and this was their only real hope.

Chapter 16

The Queens of the Tarot

T
he Queen of Cups

At the gate, the three women paused. Soft rain fell from the gray sky, and the world seemed quieter than even the weeks following the Apocalypse. Humans adjusted quickly, and their time inside the fort had returned their expectations of a world filled with the sounds of human interactions. Outside the gate, they were reminded that their world was dead and that even in death, it was filled with danger. Perhaps thoughts of their own deaths occurred to them, perhaps they considered the fate of their lovers and friends, and perhaps in those few inconsequential and yet defining moments, they considered turning back. If any of that were true, they took those thoughts to their graves, for none was given voice in those final seconds before Annie pushed the gate open, and they took the steps that led each to their individual destinies.

Annie took the lead because she was the warrior among them and because she believed that she had the responsibility to fill the space her brother had filled for all these months. Caroline followed with Devin’s shotgun. She held it less like a weapon and more like a talisman. Her grip was tight, and her fingers started to ache, but somewhere deep beyond her educated mind was the belief that Devin was okay as long as she kept this piece of him, this reminder of him, safe from harm. Susan came through the gate last and closed it behind her as she had gently closed so many doors in the hospital’s pediatric wing. Russell Thorn had saved her life, then he had changed her life, and for her, there could be no thoughts of a tomorrow in a world where he no longer existed. She looked past Annie and
Caroline,
down the long alley, and she willed Russ to appear with his boyish smile firmly in place. With each step, his absence grew into something dark and heavy, and she felt the tears well up in her eyes. She shook it off and reminded herself to keep her shit together.

There was only one cross alley out to the main street before they reached the dining area. There were, however, several doors along the corridor and each had a window. Annie felt as if she performed some crazy dance as she walked, ducked beneath a window, stood, walked, and ducked again. She almost giggled at the thought of what they might look like to an observer. For some crazy reason, the “Oompa Loompa” song from Willy Wonka came to her, and her laughter threatened to explode. She reminded herself of what they might find at the end of the alley and that image dispelled her giggles.

As they passed the door to the underground tunnel, Annie looked back to see if Susan would keep her word. Annie wouldn’t try to stop Susan if she decided to go after the Doc, but she would be disappointed. Susan looked at the door only once and kept moving, and Annie sighed in relief. They would certainly be outgunned; she couldn’t imagine trying to take on Bart with just Caroline and the shotgun. Annie was quick with her blades but not quicker than bullets.

At the dining hall, she squatted below the window and listened. She could hear voices inside, but they were muffled, and they provided no clues. She imagined running in, her blades slicing the air only to find the room filled with people eating an early dinner. She popped up and looked through the small window. The kitchen was empty and did not confirm if the guys were inside. On the far side, she saw the open doorway to the dining area. At first, the dining area also appeared empty, and then she saw a man walk past. He carried a rifle.

“Okay,” she said, “this is it. I’m going through first. Come in fast behind me, but don’t shoot until you’re absolutely certain you have to.”

“What?” Caroline asked. Her face filled with uncertainty. “How the hell are we supposed to know that?”

Annie smiled and said, “When it’s clear that I can’t kill any more of them before they kill me.”

Caroline and Susan had no chance to respond. Annie pushed through the door, and they found themselves headed across the dark kitchen. Caroline had a final moment to try to recall if she had put a shell in the chamber. It was too late to do anything about it now. She couldn’t risk chambering a round until there was enough noise to cover the sound. She would just pull the trigger and pray when the time came.

Near the end of the kitchen, Annie broke into a sprint. She would have denied that she and her sister shared any similarities, but to see her move through the door in a low angry profile, her blonde ponytail bouncing with each step, one would have begged to differ. An almost exact replica had performed in a mirrorlike image just fifteen minutes earlier on an access road outside the fort. Annie turned a hard right when she cleared the doorway and poured on more speed. The blades began their deadly spin. The dexterity of it seemed impossible. The blades appeared a whirring extension of her arms. In another world, Annie could have been a world champion baton twirler. In this world, Caroline and Susan followed her into hell. Annie took out the first guard with a double swing of her blades. The first blade severed the man’s head from his body, and the second blade cut through mostly air and blood.

The man posted near the front door turned and aimed his rifle at the spinning Death Dancer. She continued forward, determined to dodge his bullets long enough to close the distance and strike. The man was an expert shooter, and he had already calculated Annie’s trajectory. He had not, however, calculated Caroline’s.

Caroline was a sweet girl, a patient girl, and an educated girl, and she was also a dedicated runner. What Annie won in style points, Caroline made up for in speed and athlete’s grace. She came in quick, directly behind Annie, almost crashed into her, but then shot around in the last second. The guard never saw her until the final moment, and her movement made him pause with surprise. Caroline pulled the trigger and prayed.

The gun exploded with more force than she had ever imagined. It shredded the guard’s chest and shoulder, and he fell back against the wall. Caroline fell in her own half-spin as she desperately tried to hold on in the bone-wrenching wake of the shotgun’s forceful kick. As she fell, she turned and saw a man come up behind Susan and thought,
Oh, shit
, a second before her head crashed against the floor hard enough to make her vision blur and her head spin.

Susan entered the dining room behind Caroline. There was no way that she could keep up with either of the other two girls. Caroline’s speed surprised her. Susan expected it from Annie, but Caroline didn’t seem like a girl who possessed such athleticism. Annie and Caroline were through the door and attacking before Susan made the doorway. When she came through, she saw the headless guard on the floor and then the one with the rifle. Caroline and Annie were charging him like a pair of angry lionesses. Susan also saw the third guard in the corner.

He stood behind the row of chairs the guys were bound to. The third guard brought his rifle around to shoot Caroline and Annie. His attention was on her friends, and he had not noticed her late arrival. His distraction gave her a precious few seconds to bring her rifle up and take aim. She pulled the trigger, and the first shot went wide and punched a hole in the wall next to the guard’s head. The thunder of Caroline’s twelve-gauge masked the sound and Susan had another chance to aim again. She worked the lever and loaded a second round. She aimed and fired again, but again, a bullet hole appeared in the wall, this time above the man’s head.

Damn it,
she thought,
I’m better than this!

She chambered a third round. The man had heard her second shot, and now his rifle swung in her direction. She took aim as the man got her in his own sights. Her rifle shook a bit, and she hoped that this would buy Annie a little time to kill the man. Susan was certain the guard would kill her before she could get off her last shot. A set of arms encircled her, and the hands came to rest on her own. Thorn whispered in her ear.

“Relax, Susan, and aim a bit lower,” he said and gently pushed the gun’s barrel down a quarter of an inch. She pulled the trigger, and a red mark appeared in the guard’s chest a second before he flew back against the wall.

Susan turned and hugged Thorn so hard she took the air right out of him.

“I love you too,” he said, “but we have to get these guys untied.”

Annie ran to Brad and worked the ropes from his wrists. Caroline got up, still a little stunned, and moved toward Devin. Devin looked angry. He was pushing hard against his chair and yelling, but her ears still buzzed from the shotgun blast, and she couldn’t make out his words.

She grew a little angry herself. She couldn’t understand how he could be so mad at her for saving his life. She saw that there was something wrong with his leg, but still he pushed furiously at the floor as if he was trying to knock himself over. Austin did the same, and for a moment, she thought that perhaps they were infected.

Austin gave a hard push and knocked himself over. He crashed into Devin’s chair, and the two of them fell over like a pair of dominoes as they went to the ground. Devin kicked at the floor and spun his overturned chair in a half turn. Caroline saw that he held something in his hand; it was black, and she had a second to realize it was a gun before he began to shoot. She dove out of the way but not before she saw Austin grab on to the back of Devin’s chair with his chin and pull it farther around. Someone yelled out, and she realized that her hearing had returned. The sound came from somewhere to her left. She turned and saw the man she had shot. He had gotten to his feet, and the rifle was again in his hand and pointed at her. One of the bullets from Devin’s gun caught him in the chest, and then another bullet caught the man in the stomach. For the second time, the guard fell to the floor, and this time he was dead.

Thorn rushed to Devin, and Susan helped Annie untie the rest of the guys. Adam pulled his own pistol from beneath his shirt and took position near the front door. Brad grabbed a rifle and went to the back door.

“Okay, easy now,” Thorn said, and Brandon and Nick helped raise Devin back into a sitting position.

“What happened, big guy?” Thorn asked.

Devin grimaced in pain. “Bart took a little batting practice with my knee.”

Caroline rushed over and kissed Devin. He winced again in pain.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live. Just get me untied, please.”

“Untie his arms, but let me take a look at this leg before we untie it,” Thorn said.

He touched Devin’s knee gently, and Devin almost came up out of his chair.

Thorn shook his head.

“There’s a lot of swelling, so I won’t know the full damage until I can get that taken care of. Susan can you see if there is any ice in the kitchen?”

Susan went to look.

“I thought I told you guys that after thirty minutes, you needed to leave?” Devin asked.

“Change of plan,” Caroline answered.

“Well, thanks,” Devin said, and it was sincere, “but we really need to go, and hey, where is Goldie?”

Caroline looked for Annie, but Annie was with Brad.

“Caroline, where’s my sister?”

“I don’t know, Dev. I’m sorry, she took off, and Bob went to find her.”

“Oh, shit,” Nick said.

“We’ll get her, Dev,” Austin said.

“Yep,” Brandon concurred. “I’m done with this shit.”

Nick nodded and then asked, “Where are the kids?”

“They’re still with the van. Pam is with them.”

Susan returned with the ice, and Thorn placed it on Devin’s knee.

“You really need to keep the ice on this for a while,” Thorn said.

“I don’t think we have a while,” Devin said. “How’d you make out in the lab?”

“All set, but took a little longer than I expected.”

“Trouble?” Nick asked.

“Sort of. Have you ever tried to kill a zombie with a chair? It’s a lot of work.”

They all laughed, and then a severed female head crashed through the window and rolled across the floor.

The Queen of Pentacles

Pam kept watch over the little ones. It wasn’t much of a job. They weren’t wild and unruly; in fact, they were unusually quiet for children, and that saddened her. She had seen the shallow smiles, the haunted eyes, and the sleepwalker movements in many towns where she had conducted operations for the CIA and for Special Ops. The faces of children that were worn by the horror of war and civil unrest. Children traumatized to a point of near silence. She knew it was the same survival mechanism observed in animals when peril was imminent. She had seen the expression on her own face a lifetime ago when her stepfather had conducted his reign of terror on her family. Her sadness became anger.