The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide (32 page)

He broke off, his head tilted back as he held his breath. There was a scratching against the roof, a distinct nails on chalkboard sound that set his teeth on edge. "Tree branch," Carl muttered.

"I didn't see any trees out there."

"There were still a couple standing behind the building. The wind is picking up."

"Awesome we're going to wake up in a dust bowl tomorrow, or a raging hurricane the way these past couple of days have gone," John said.

A wistful smile played over Riley's mouth as she studied the loft. "I used to think it would be cool to live on a farm and play in a hayloft as a kid. It seemed like such a great place to escape to."

"Escape from what?" Carl inquired.

She shrugged and leaned her head against the wall. "I don't know, my parents pestering me to do my homework or go to school. You know, those awful things we have to go through as children."

John chuckled. "Rethinking the qualities of the loft now?"

"I am. Now it just seems creepy."

His attention turned to the hooks and other strange instruments over them. They had tried to take a few of them down, but without a ladder they were unable to reach most of them. They seemed to be firmly mounted and though he could hear the wind rattling over the boards, they weren't swaying… yet.

His gaze fell to Riley again. He didn't think she was going to sprout a snout and come charging after them anytime soon, but he was still wary of her, still concerned that she might become sick. That she would curl up into a ball and bury herself under a shirt as her body succumbed to whatever was raging out there in the world. However, she looked better than he felt considering everything that had gone down today.

They couldn't lose anyone else. They were all holding up, they were all surviving through this deadly new world and the constant threat of impending death. He didn't think they would continue to do so if they lost more people. He shuddered at the thought and bowed his head as he twisted his hands before him.

There was only so much they would be able to take. They had each other to rely on now, but he didn't think any of them would be able to forge on if they were to end up completely alone. There was only so much the human body and spirit could take. He never would have thought that he could have endured the loss of everything he'd ever known and carry on. Never would have thought the human body could withstand the terror of these past few days and still keep going.

Even now, with the sporadic scrape of the branch on the roof, his heart didn't leap and adrenaline didn't pulse through his veins anymore. His body had already adapted to the circumstances of this new situation, something he never would have thought possible Monday morning when he'd been standing in that field eager to get the day over with.

"It's funny how life works, how
we
work," he mused aloud.

Carl lifted his head again and squinted one eye at him. "Are you getting deep on me?"

John snorted as he shook his head. "Hardly. It's just strange, all of it."

"That's for sure," Riley said. "I didn't know I could ever survive something like this, ever be this scared, and…" she broke off as she shook her head. "I never thought I'd kill a person, let alone two."

She hastily wiped away a single tear and launched to her feet. Her shoulders were rigid as she stalked into the corner of the large structure. "I guess there are always parts of ourselves that we never knew existed until we're put to the test," Carl said.

Riley's face was half hidden in shadow as she turned toward them. "I suppose there are," she agreed.

Carl rose to his feet and stretched his back. He didn't approach Riley but moved toward the massive door to inspect the bar they had slid through the metal circles on the door and walls. They had dummy locked the end of the bar with the padlock that had been hooked onto it. Without the key they couldn't lock it, but it would keep the door closed. They had already inspected every inch of the barn earlier but even so John rose to help Carl as he moved around the building.

The hair on his arms began to stand up as he moved through the shadows. Apparently his body hadn't adapted as much as he'd deluded himself into believing as his heartbeat picked up. He was tempted to click on the flashlight but Rochelle and Al had managed to find a small sliver of peace and he wasn't about to take it away from them.

Stretching his hand out, he connected with the back wall. He crept forward till he reached the corner and made the turn. Wind tickled over his skin as it blew in through the small crevices between the boards.

Images of the dustbowl filled his mind at the same time he recalled the hurricane that had hit the Cape four years ago. They'd gone a few days without electricity and cable and he'd nearly lost his mind when he hadn't been able to play his games and watch his shows. His reaction to those days seemed absolutely ridiculous to him now.

He doubted that if a hurricane was coming at them it would be as small an inconvenience as that hurricane had been. Mother Nature was
pissed.
She wasn't going to throw a category one or two at them but a full forced category five that would make everything else look like peanuts compared to it.

He was getting ahead of himself though; this was Massachusetts the wind blew all the time. It blew
everywhere
all the time. That didn't mean the land was going to turn into a giant wasteland, or that an immense storm was bearing down upon them. The world had become one endless ride on the crazy train but he didn't think the fertile land outside could become a desert overnight, but then he'd never expected lava to creep down the streets either.

He shuddered at the thought as a particularly strong gust howled through the boards.

Turning away from the walls, he fell back as a strangled cry escaped him. A darker shadow amongst the gloom enshrouding the barn honed in on him with deadly, flesh eating purpose. It was bigger than him as it reared up to loom over him. His heart leapt into his throat as it pressed closer.

He fumbled for his gun and had to look down to find it. Pulling it free he jerked it up before him, but the shadow was gone. Pointing the gun in front of him, his arms shook as he searched the recesses for the hungry shadow.

"What's wrong?" Carl hissed.

John blinked again and swallowed heavily, his throat was uncomfortably dry as he continued to hunt for the elusive man. "There's someone here," he whispered.

"There's no one here," Carl told him.

"I know what I saw Carl. He was standing before me, he was
here
."

"What did he look like?"

"I wasn't checking him out!" John retorted. "He was just there, a darker shadow before me."

"Black dog," Carl muttered.

John spun toward his friend. "Are you not hearing what I said? It was a
man
not a
dog
."

Carl came toward him cautiously and wrapped his hand around John's gun. Carl gently pushed his hands down and eased the gun from his slackened grasp. "The black dog is an old British folklore but truckers also talk about it. When you're overtired you can start to hallucinate, I've had it happen to me after a few nights of partying. You have to get some rest."

"Thanks for telling me something I already knew," John retorted.

"Someone gets cranky when he's sleepy."

John briefly wished he still had the gun. "You've gotten just as much sleep as me."

"I'm not hallucinating, yet. The last thing we need is you trying to shoot at shadows though."

John knew he was right but the idea of closing his eyes and being vulnerable right now made his skin crawl. He rubbed at his eyes and turned away from Carl. The building seemed even larger as he made his way back toward the spot he had vacated.

There wasn't any way he was going to fall asleep with all the creaking and groaning going on around him, but maybe if he just sat for a bit his body would get some of the rest it so desperately craved.

He woke later with a start. He blinked against the gritty sand caked in the corners of his eyes. The distant memory of his mother wiping the "sleepy's" from his eyes and telling him that the sandman had visited drifted across his memory. An ache spread through him, he was horrified by the realization that he was about to start crying as tears swelled in his eyes.

Then he heard it, a dull thud that must have been what had woken him in the first place. The tears vanished; his breath was trapped in his chest as he strained to figure out where the thud was coming from. His badly abused heart lurched, but where panic had assailed him in the beginning of all the chaos, a cold sense of knowing descended over him now.

This wasn't the innocent tree branch scraping against the roof. This was something more, something deeper and more incessant as the thump resounded more forcefully through the building. "Carl?"

"Shh." He couldn't see Carl but the harsh whisper had come from near the door.

Al and Rochelle were still sleeping but Riley was blinking as she looked around dazedly. He saw the instant when realization crashed over her as her shoulders slumped. She had the dejected look of someone that had not only been kicked while down, but also rolled through some mud, tossed into garbage, and spit on. She hunched into herself and then the thud sounded again.

Her head shot up and spun toward the large doors as she located the source of the sound far quicker than he had. The broken look left her face as she grabbed the gun beside her and lurched to her feet. Her jaw clenched and her eyes burned as they met his.

He was hit with the realization that she was someone that he did
not
want to piss off. She may not like killing anyone, may in fact hate it, but for the first time he was struck with the realization that she was the one amongst them that wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger. Not anymore.

He wasn't ashamed to admit he felt safer with her as they made their way between the vehicles toward the front of the building. Carl held out John's gun to him and nodded toward the door as it slid down a little before coming to a halt.

"Wind?" John inquired on a bare breath as he shifted the gun in his grasp.

Carl shook his head; he held up his fingers and waved them before pointing toward the door. John hadn't known what Carl's finger thing meant, but he quickly figured it out as the door slid open a little again.

This time a set of fingers slid in and fumbled around the door. Dirt caked the cuts that marred the flesh on the hand, flesh that was beginning to resemble a peach that had been left in a bowl for months. Large red sores marred the skin and though John had been uncomfortably aware of his stench earlier, it was nothing compared to the odor that came with that hand. He lifted his shirt over his nose and eagerly inhaled his own scent.

The fingers scrabbled upward; the broken and ragged areas where fingernails had once protected vulnerable skin were caked with dried blood and dirt. If he looked closer he would probably be able to discern what was making the flesh around those missing fingernails move, but there was no way he was looking any closer. He'd seen enough gross things over the past couple of days; he was perfectly fine with not seeing anymore.

The fingers slid up and hit the bar; they pushed at it until it caught on the top of the metal circle that was keeping the pole in place. It made a small clinking noise but that wasn't what had woken him up either. His brow furrowed as the fingers pushed harder at the pipe.

The hand retreated and then the door was shoved at more forcefully.
That
was what had caused the thumping noise that had awoken him. The door shut with more force than it had when the wind had been blowing it open.

He remained silent as he waited for it to start again but the door remained closed. The wind howled around the building and for the first time he noticed that it had become strong enough to cause the metal death traps above them to sway.

Great
, he thought.
A monster outside and weapons above, talk about a rock and a hard place.

Then, a new sound caught his attention. He frowned as he glanced back toward the door, but it remained completely still as something screeched across the roof.
Had the wind increased the contact of the trees against the roof
?

He was about to tilt his head back when Carl grabbed hold of his arm. He pointed toward the door and then the roof. "They've been up there once already."

John didn't know if he was more disturbed by the fact that Carl had said,
they
, or the fact that they had been on the roof once before and he had slept through it. He'd thought the fact that the building was windowless was strange before. Now he was grateful for the fact there was no glass that these humans/super monkeys could break in through.

"How many?" Riley whispered.

Carl shook his head in response. All of their heads tilted back as the roof rattled and screeched again. "I'm going to check on Al and Rochelle," John told them.

Carl nodded but didn't look at him as he turned away and made his way through the vehicles. The howling wind was a lonesome sound that caused his teeth to grate as the walls and instruments above him rattled with renewed vigor.

He was going to be really pissed if he survived everything else to be taken out by some psycho's idea of a man cave.

Al was already on his feet when John stepped around the back of the truck but Rochelle was still sleeping. Al's head lowered from the ceiling. The eyes behind his glasses were red rimmed and swollen but they were still shrewd and assessing as they met John's gaze.

"How many?"

"I don't know," John told him. "More than one."

Al nodded and glanced toward Rochelle. "Children, they can sleep through a bomb."

A loud thud sounded on the roof as Carl appeared. "Do you think they know we're in here?" John whispered.

Carl shook his head. "If they have any ability to reason left than yes they realize someone has locked the door…"

"That one at the hotel, I swear he smelled me through the door," Riley said.

John hadn't seen her standing in between the truck and car until she spoke. "Then they probably know we're here," John said.