August Burning (Book 2): Survival (11 page)

Liam breathed a little easier with his large hands on the shotgun. He dropped to his stomach, and began to crawl. He could hear the others in the grass to his sides and rear. His sweatshirt and jeans became soiled, and soaked. Little stalks of grass flicked him in the face constantly as he advanced under the gray sky. He remembered the plan. He heard a hiss, and spun his pale face around. Bennett indicated the grass. Liam had dropped his shells. “Fuck,” he grumbled.

By the time Liam caught up to the others, they were in position. The leaders huddled around Jaxton, who crouched low in the brown tides of wet grass. He was whispering to Bennett. The others were fanning out to the left and right. Harley was nowhere to be seen.

There was the advance party, standing up. It was Bennett, Joseph clutching his bow, Leeroy, Duke, and Wilder. Terrence was at the fore, his hands still tied. The others spread out slightly, and prodded the brute forward with the barrels of their rifles. Liam could see the black, wet mass of trees ahead, just barely. Terrence was walking forward, towards the trees. The others were hanging back. Where was Jaxton?

He found himself counting the stalks in front of his face. What was going on? Liam looked to his left, and saw a girl armed with a huge revolver, its shiny frame glistening with water-droplets. She shrugged. Why the fuck was everyone so damn calm?

There. A voice. Terrence was yelling something, but his voice was not laced with panic. Liam got off his stomach, and braced his burning legs in an uncomfortable crouch. Cursing his own impatience, he risked a glance among the stalks. He could make out Terrence, a stone’s throw to his front. He was speaking at something in the tree line, but the rain muddled his words.

He came up, just a bit more. Just inside the tree line, the savages stood in a rigid line. There was something…off…about them, but Liam couldn’t put his finger on it. Their vacant-eyed women wore strange arrangements of worn, no doubt once-glorious dresses that now clung to their emaciated frames. Beside these creatures stood the men, bearded with heavy hands and limbs. These were people who had worked in the factory all their lives, and eked out a living here among the hills for generations. And yet they bore weapons; axes and mauls, hammers and shovels, all rusted to a dark red. Their slack-jawed expressions and empty eyes showed no comprehension of Terrence’s words, even as he drew within ten feet of them. They had to be infected.

Liam felt a wave of terror, and froze. One of them was looking at him. Straight at him. He was bearded man in his middle years with a wife beater that threatened to burst at the belly-line, where it was stained yellow.

The bearded man made no reaction. Suddenly a shot rang out at the fore, from someone in the advance party.

Liam wiped his eyes, and saw the woods-people were running into the field at full speed, straight towards him.

“Oh, Fuck.”

To his immediate left, Jaxton rose from the waist-high grass, his rifle at the ready. Liam stood too. As the rifles began to crack and snap all down the line, his eyes were drawn to motion before him. There was an altercation, a blur of moment, between Terrence and Bennett in the grass just ahead. They were down low, moving together. And suddenly Terrence was free, his hands, unbound. He turned straight around and bolted past Liam.

“Wait!” Liam managed to shout. But it was no use. When he turned back to the front, the savages were charging through the tempest. Liam raised his Moss-Berg as his heart pounded, pumping the intoxication of fear through him. The pot-bellied man was in his sights, his hatchet raised. Liam fired, knowing he would die like Tessa if he didn’t. The slug hit his target through the chest, blowing a hole six inches wide. Liam felt his heart would burst from shock. He saw Harley take careful aim with her sniper rifle and then heard it crack loudly. Looking to his left and right, he saw his friends doing the same, pumping round after round into the charging maniacs, who remained stubbornly silent as they were cut down. Within seconds however, they had changed tactics. They dropped low into the grass, and disappeared.

There was some yelling. Liam was hit on the shoulder. Jaxton was there, thumping on his chest. The numbness evaporated and his sense returned with renewed lucidity.  “FALL BACK!” They rolled back through the fields as th
e lightning snapped a mile skyward, little figures with boiling blood.

…

By the time the group had made it back to the vehicles, they were whooping and jeering, breathless with victory. Liam looked around in disgust. It had been a turkey shoot. A quick head count from Jaxton revealed everyone was alive, and uninjured. They crowded around him in congratulations, thrilled at their own performance. He had won more than a few followers today. Jaxton moved among them, nodding and offering encouragement.

Why had they ever doubted at all? Look where he had led them! Last night the camp inside the high school had been stricken, their words and movements laced with fear. Today they had met their fears head on, and prevailed. Harley threw her arms around Jaxton, her pretty face flushed with triumph. Wilder clasped his arm in silent thanks, his eyes filled with pride. It was the same everywhere Liam looked.

“What did I tell you? We had them on the run from the start,” Jaxton rapped Liam on the chest, to the latter’s annoyance.

“We never found out who they were.”

Jaxton threw up his hands. “They were a threat, Liam.”

“Who fired the first shot?”

Jaxton shrugged. “They must have attacked. And one of our boys acted.”

Liam shook his head. “I was watching. We shot first. One of the advance party shot first.”

“It was me.” Bennett was smiling with a strange, easy confidence that Liam had never seen before. “One of those bitches made a move just inside the tree-line. I put her down.”

Wilder threw his arm over Bennett’s shoulder, whooping his approval.

Liam frowned, locking eyes with that icy gaze. “I didn’t see any movement.”

“Of course not! You were hiding in the grass!” Bennett laughed easily, and the rest joined in.

“And where the fuck is Terrence?”

No one knew the answer. Was he among them? He was not. Jaxton began looking frantically, calling out and demanding others do the same. The brute was no-where to be found; he was gone. It only took them thirty seconds to realize one of the ATV’s was missing, the fastest among them. Adira was alone at the high school. And that was when Jaxton began to panic.

Chapter Nine

The water churned and pitched in the muddy banks, hurtling down towards the pond. It didn’t take long. The rock and sandbag dam broke down slowly at first, with little sluices of brown water, and then all at once. Whatever fish they had meticulously brought from other ponds in town were washed away in the torrent.

Adira looked at the field from atop the roof. The little ditches were filled with water, drowning what little cold-weather vegetables they had been able to grow. Her slumped form stood alone, outlined against the grey sky. And it was getting colder. When would the hunters start bringing back deer?

She stuffed her numbing fingers into the pockets of a fleece she had taken from the pile. The rain that still fell was almost painful. She turned to lift the metal access hatch in the roof, when she heard one of the ATVs gunning up the slick driveway that rose steadily from the road. That was quick, she thought.

Descending the stairs, she blew out several candles that were still burning in the old cafeteria; their supply was running low. She cringed at the piles of muddy, wet clothing that sat in musty piles. Empty cans of food and liquor bottles littered her path.

Her boots clacked loudly on the tile floors, passing row after row of blue lockers. Someone coughed. Adira peered into an old classroom. There were several disheveled cots with soiled linens. One was occupied.

“Lily, are you sick?”

A pasty, exhausted girl sat upright on her lumpy futon. She hacked another round of violent coughs and looked up at Adira with her wide eyes, their pupils dilated.

“It’s my chest.” She tried a deep breath, but failed in another chorus of coughs. Adira heard the wheezing. Her breaths came short and ragged.

“Did you talk to those girls? The two from nursing school?”

Lily nodded drearily as the rain pattered away on the second-story windows. “They say we’re out of antibiotics.”

Adira kneeled down beside her, and felt her skin. It was hot to the touch. “How long have you been like this?”

“Two weeks, or so.”

Adira muttered her disapproval and scanned the room. There were trophies everywhere, expensive jewelry and various antiques cast aside with ambivalence, no longer seated in places of honor in the homes of their former masters.

“Does someone make sure you have enough food to eat?”

Lily shrugged. “Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. Most people try to stay as far away as possible. They don’t want to get sick.”

“We’re going to get this sorted out for you, ok?”

Lily smiled, her hazy eyes struggling to lock with the sultry set opposite her. “Did Jaxton lead them? To attack the Hill-people?”

Adira’s mouth became a white line. “He did.”

Lily nodded, approving. “I always see him, making sure things are ok. I’m glad he’s here. The others won’t care. Tell him I’m sick, will you? He will help. Will you tell him I’m sick?” She pleaded.

Adira exhaled, only now noticing the stench of sickness and sweat that pervaded the room. “Of course I will. As soon as he gets back.”

Adira rose. “I’ll check on you later, I saw someone driving up, they must already be back with good news.”

Adira heard more murmuring, but she couldn’t bear that sickly sweet stench any longer. She closed the door behind her.

Who was back so soon? Had Jaxton sent a messenger? She felt an unnatural anxiety building in her breast as she jogged down the two flights of echoing stairs.

Rounding the corner in the lobby, she ran into a towering figure, wet to the touch. “Jesus, I didn’t see you-“ She stopped short.

There was a greedy grin plastered on the face of that 6 foot 3 inch towering mass of flesh. Adria screamed, and Terrence gripped her slender arms with both hands. There were vicious red marks on his wrists, and he stank like a wet cur. She wanted to vomit, and she knew her fists were slamming into Terrence’s thick chest, to no avail. He cuffed her roughly across the face and she screamed in pain. In a flash of panic she drove her left knee up into his crotch, with a sickening crunch.

She found herself tearing down the halls as the howling echoed all around her. Her mind was a blur, a mess of terror that blocked coherent thoughts from entering her throbbing cortex. One word finally burst through that hazy nebula: gun.

Lily stumbled out of the door in front of her. Adira hissed at her, spittle flying everywhere, and pushed her back into the room. “
Hide
.”

Loud footsteps smacked on the tiles as her limbs pumped. Her rifle was upstairs, in the classroom she and Jaxton shared as a bedroom. She should have had it on her. Fuck.

“STOP!” Terrence roared. She shot a glance over her shoulder. He was a stone’s throw away. Adira slammed into the double doors blocking the cafeteria and remembered the shiny revolver Jaxton kept in his map room.

The door was open, and the room… totally dark. She was inside, and it was too late to flee. The daylight that filtered into the cafeteria through tiny vertical windows barely illuminated this tiny annex. She fumbled around in the dark, bumping into the table and beginning to shake with the undeniable realization of the dead-end she had entered. She ran her hands over the crinkly paper stretched across it, and shuddered.

A shadow blocked the doorway. “You’re trapped. Don’t fight it.”

“What the fuck do you want?” She hissed, ducking back into the darkness behind her. She prayed he couldn’t see her.

He sidestepped, and instantly became invisible. Adira trembled, already considering the answer to her question.

“Your little lover had me humiliated in front of everyone.”

She couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, and forced her shaking legs to move.

“He had my hands tied, and beat me like a dog in front of all you. Now I’m going to take you here, and then I’m going to kill him. And you’ll carry the shame forever. Come here, you bitch.” His voice carried raspily, a husky tone fraught with terrifying excitement. Adira felt her shirt pulled from behind till it ripped, and she wailed. Her flailing limbs struck the bottom of the table as a hot, sweaty form pushed down on top of her body. With a single stroke he snapped the button on her jeans. She felt like crying. She was crying. Her little arms deflected off his flushed face, as if she were a child. It was pitch black under that oaken table and her only sensation was of touch. Touch from massive, greedy hands and a stench from an unwashed structure of flesh. In her desperation, as he dragged her pants off her quaking legs, she punched him right in the nose. He howled in pain, and his over-sized fist crashed into her face. Her eyes were watering, she knew. She could barely breath from the blood that now ran down her face. It tasted like metal. She felt detached as the pain washed over her, infected her mind and made her want to die. This wasn’t reality. Where was Jaxton? He had to save her. No. He did not. He couldn’t see her like this. She had to save herself. She felt his hands on her thighs for the first time, and then something else. Cold metal. Her hands, reaching up, on cold metal. With a scream of righteous fury that pierced her own ear-drums, she yanked the heavy .357 magnum from its tape under the table. It came crashing down into Terrence’s eye socket. He screeched like a delirious harpy and reeled in terror. There. There, pushing through the wave of pain that had already overwhelmed her, was a joy, a joy so complete and captivating it shook her hands as she held the pistol out in front of her. She was delirious with it, and she screamed again, in primal ecstasy.