The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (17 page)

Carl didn't much care about the answer to that, he cared more about trying to get the gun back from the teacher before he completely spiraled out of control.

John eyed Peter like he was a deadly scorpion as he turned sideways to get past the man and out the front door. Carl was unwilling to take his eyes off Peter until John returned with a rock the size of a man's head. "Stand back," John said as he pulled his arm back and heaved the rock at the door.

The glass spider webbed but held firm. Retrieving the rock, John heaved it forward again. Most of the glass fell inside the building but a few pieces fell about John's feet. It crunched beneath him as he pulled out his flashlight and stepped through the door. Carl followed behind him.

The smell of books, worn, used and comforting instantly brought Carl back to memories of his childhood, when he would go to the library with his mother. From the time he was able to read, he would go into the children's section and lose himself amongst the Berenstain Bears and later the Hardy Boys. Then, when he'd turned twelve, he'd finally been allowed into the adult section upstairs where he'd devoured Tolkien before discovering King and losing himself to fantasy and horror. He'd stopped reading as much when he'd hit his teens and discovered girls, drugs, and alcohol but the comfort of those younger years, and the solace he'd found amongst the stacks had stayed with him over the years.

Now, standing amongst the rows of the written word, with the familiar scent washing over him he didn't find comfort, he didn't see adventures, mysteries, and mystical lands just waiting to be discovered. He only saw hundreds of places for monsters to hide and stalk them from, hundreds of places from where eyes could be watching them even now.

John cursed as his beam played over the stacks, computers, and tables pushed to the side for reading. The librarian's desk was on their right hand side, a computer, and a few returned books were the only things cluttering the desk. "Desk first," Carl said.

He made his way over to the desk and crept around it. He bent over to look underneath it, but the only thing he saw were the wheels of the roller chair. The door of the office behind the desk was ajar, the blinds over the window drawn. He stood to the side as he pressed his fingers against the door.

"Nothing good comes from opening doors," John muttered behind him.

"I don't think we have a choice this time," Carl told him as he pushed the door open.

John stopped breathing and Carl worried the kid might just start shooting even if nothing exploded from the room. The door silently slid open to reveal a neatly organized room with piles of books stacked against the back wall, and on the floor next to one of the desks. Carl hurried through the room but he discovered nothing threatening within it and nowhere for a ravenous human to hide.

He stepped back into the main room and closed the door behind him. Donald, Xander and Bobby had carried a table and some chairs over to the front doors to barricade them against opening. They would have to get some rope out of the truck when they made it downstairs again to tie everything into place.

His eyes drifted over the thirty or so stacks filling the room and blocking the back half of the room from view.
If they made it downstairs again
, he thought with an inward groan.

"This is not going to be fun," John said from beside him.

"Not even a little bit," Carl agreed as Riley, Bobby, and Xander gathered around him. He glanced back at the door. He didn't like leaving the others with Peter, but they had little choice. Peter would become a threat, he was growing increasingly convinced of that, but there may be even larger threats looming within the shadows of the building. "But let's get it over with."

He shifted the light in his hand and raised it to eyelevel as he moved cautiously into the first stack with John at his heels.

Al,

Though he didn't much feel like walking into the stacks with them, he also refused to stand idly by as the others searched the library for any threat. "I'm going with them," he said to Mary Ellen.

She pushed back a strand of straggling brown hair from her eyes as she turned toward him. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," he told her.

"I'll go with you," Donald volunteered.

Al glanced back at the group still standing by the door before nodding. Though he understood Mary Ellen's concern for Peter earlier, he didn't think the man would become a threat. They were all more than a little on edge with everything that was going on. He turned away from the group and began to walk forward with Donald at his side.

"I'll go with Xander and Riley, if you'll join Carl and John," he suggested.

"Sounds good," Donald agreed as they split up to follow their separate groups.

Xander turned his head to look back at him, but Riley remained focused on the ceiling and the tops of the shelves as she searched for a threat from up above. They waited for him to catch up to them before continuing forward.

The hush of the library was something he'd always appreciated over the years, but now he found it oppressive. The familiar squeak of a library cart, or the muffled turning of pages was something he would have greatly appreciated right now. Instead, all he heard was the inhale and exhale of those closest to him as they moved out of the row and toward the left while Carl, John, and Donald went to the right.

The beams from the flashlights carried by the others as they moved farther away, was the only indication Al had that they weren't completely alone within the disturbingly still building. It was confirmation that the others within their group hadn't simply disappeared, as it seemed that much of this town had.

It wasn't until they passed the next row of books that a strange sound began to penetrate the intense focus he'd had while searching each row. Xander stopped before him and tilted his head to the side to listen. Riley's brow furrowed, her mouth pursed as she turned toward them.

"What is that?" she whispered.

Al shook his head as Xander moved by her. Xander's flashlight bounced back and forth as he tried to locate the source of the noise. "It's coming from up ahead," Xander said as he continued onward.

Al and Riley stayed close on his heels as they continued to search through the stacks. Al kept expecting to come across the source of the noise, or some other threat, but each row they walked by revealed nothing. Al's certainty that they were going to be attacked at any second grew as they moved down the rows and the noise became louder.

"Is that
water
?" Riley asked.

Al started to shake his head no, but now that she had suggested the idea of water, he found himself agreeing that it did sound like a running water faucet. Stepping around the last stack, he was finally able to spot where the sound was coming from as the men's and women's bathrooms came into view.

They moved cautiously as they approached the bathrooms. "It's coming from the men's room," Xander said.

Riley stepped to the side and lifted her gun as Xander pushed the door open with his left hand and flashed his light around the room. Al spotted a urinal inside, but it was difficult for him to see much more over Xander's shoulder. Al stuck his hand against the door to hold it open as Xander stepped further into the room. The glow of Xander's flashlight illuminated another urinal and a small stall as Al followed him into the room.

The small yellow sink, that had been ugly even before it went out of style in the eighties, was set next to the urinal. Xander stepped forward and turned off the hot and cold water that had been running into the basin. Xander's reflection was ashen, his eyes shadowed as he met Al's gaze in the mirror over the sink. Though no one spoke, Al recognized the same realization in Xander's eyes that was stealing through him as well.

Someone was here
.

Al's attention turned to the closed stall door as Xander knelt down and shone his flashlight under it. Riley looked at them before stepping forward and pushing against the door, it silently slid open to reveal the empty stall. The door clinked against the metal wall before creaking back toward them. Xander took a step back as Riley's beam shot toward the ceiling, but there were no strange creatures lurking above them.

Al flashed the beam around the room and landed upon the window at the other end of it. He brushed past the others as he walked to the square window that was large enough for him to fit through. He grabbed hold of the latch on the unlocked window and lifted it up. Shining his flashlight up, he was able to make out what looked like a small alley and the brick wall of another building next to them.

He soundlessly closed the window and slid the latch into place. "Do you think they left?" Riley asked nervously.

"I don't know but we have to inform the others," Al told her.

"We should probably search the women's room first."

Leaving the men's room, Riley was the one to prop open the door of the women's room while Xander stood behind her with his gun raised. The beam of his light revealed two stalls in the bubblegum colored room. The two pink sinks were silent and the wall at the end of the room was completely windowless. Walking inside, Al realized that the first stall door was open and empty; Xander pushed open the second door to reveal another empty stall.

Al was really beginning to dislike bathrooms as they made their way out of the room and into the library. They hurried by the rows they had already searched and walked rapidly toward the other group. The others were just getting to the end of the stacks they had been searching. "Carl," Riley said in a low hiss.

Their flashlight beams swung up as they turned toward her. Al threw his hand up to protect his eyes but it was already too late. All he could see for a few seconds were bright stars behind his closed lids. "What's wrong?" Carl demanded.

"There's someone in here, or at least there was," Riley told them in a rush. "The sink in the men's room was on, the window unlatched."

"Wonderful," John said as he turned away from them to search the shadows of the stairwell before him.

"Did you tell the others?" Carl asked.

Riley shook her head and glanced toward the front of the library. "I'll let them know," Donald volunteered. "Just finish searching the building, and be careful."

Al watched Donald until he disappeared amongst the rows of books. Taking a deep breath, Al turned to the stairway that led to the lower floor. If there was still someone in this building, there was only one place left for them to be hiding. Carl took the first step down and leaned over the stairway railing. He shone his flashlight onto the flight of stairs below the one he was standing on. Al leaned over the rail beside him and peered into the darkness, but he didn't see anything stirring below them.

Sneakers squeaked on the non-slip rubber mats lining the stairs as Carl led the way to the first floor. The open entryway they stepped into revealed the glass doors they had first peered through upon arriving at the library. He could see the outline of the vehicles in the parking lot, but the early night had completely descended already.

He turned his light in the other direction to explore the rest of the library. There was a handicapped bathroom directly in front of them, but the entry hall had a wall on their right and another on their left, instead of an open space like the one above. A half wall, with glass on top of it that reached to the ceiling, was on their right; the other wall was made of solid brick and had a closed door.

Shining his beam through the glass on the right hand wall, Al spotted beanbag chairs, tiny tables and chairs, stuffed animals, and scattered toys on a rainbow colored rug. Though he could see the outline of shelves, he didn't have to see the shelves to know they would be lined with children's and middle school aged books.

Xander went to the brick wall on their left and grabbed hold of the handle on the closed door. Pushing it down, he took a step back as he shoved the door open. Nothing came screaming out at them, but Xander approached the open door as if it were about to sprout legs and run at him. Al shone his light around the twenty or so desks gathered within, and the computers sitting on top of them.

There weren't as many hiding spots in this room, but even so the idea of bending down to check all the spaces beneath the desks was less than appealing to him. Taking a deep breath, he moved into the room behind Carl and John. Grabbing hold of one of the rolling chairs, he pulled it out of the way before kneeling down to peer beneath the first desk. Cobwebs lingered in the far corners but other than that there was nothing to be found.

His knees popped as he pushed aside the chair of the second desk and looked underneath. Riley stayed close to him as they searched through the first row of desks. John got to the end of the line and rose back to standing after inspecting under the last desk. "There's no one here," he announced.

Al was relieved to escape the room full of computers and desks and get back to the more familiar and comforting smell of the books that he knew so well. He waited by the door to the children's section as Xander and Carl checked the handicapped bathroom. Under normal conditions the toys, stuffed bears, and the colorful tiny chairs wouldn't have unnerved him to such a degree. Now it gave him a cold chill and he found he dreaded stepping foot in there.

Al pushed down on the door handle as Carl and Xander joined him. The door slid open on well-oiled hinges to reveal the rest of the room beyond. He'd spent a lot of time in rooms just like this one when his children had been young. He and Nellie had often brought the kids to the library on Saturdays for story hour with the librarian. It had been a wonderful chance to impart his and his wife's love of reading to their children.

Memories of those long ago days assaulted him as the familiar scent of aged paper and ink washed over him. He could almost hear his children's laughter as they regaled him with some new adventure. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he recalled holding his children on his lap and bouncing them on his knee. He could almost smell their baby shampoo, almost feel their sticky fingers against his cheeks as they pushed his lips out into a fish face and giggled. There were many things he had missed over the years as his children had grown, but those special story hours had been near the top of the list.

He was torn from that distant time by Xander accidentally kicking one of the chairs. Xander cursed as it skittered a few inches into the dark recesses of the room. For one collective moment everyone held their breaths as they waited to see if the noise would draw the attention of some unwanted enemy.

Finally breathing a sigh of relief, Carl and John moved further into the shadows closer to the books, while he, Xander and Riley moved towards the librarian's desk. Xander pulled the librarian's chair out of the way as he knelt to search beneath the desk. Rising back to his feet, he looked to Riley and shook his head. Their attention shifted to the office behind the desk. It was smaller than the office upstairs that Carl and John had first searched.

Al stood to the side as he waited for Riley to open the door. He moved into the room but the small space didn't allow for many hiding places as he crept through it. He turned sideways to move by the desk and caught the corner of a book that had been resting on it. The clattering noise it created as it hit the floor caused the three of them to jump. Riley spun her gun in his direction but thankfully, she didn't shoot it.

Bending down, Al picked up the book and turned it over in his hand to inspect it. It was a copy of Where the Red Fern Grows, a book he knew well as he'd once read it with his oldest son for a school book report. Determined not to get lost in the memories again, Al placed the book back on the desk, tapped it with his finger, and left the room.

"There's no one in here. Maybe one of the quakes turned the water on," John suggested.

"It turned on only one sink in this whole place?" Carl inquired doubtfully.

John shrugged as his gaze drifted helplessly around the room. "I don't know, maybe whoever it was ran away when they heard us break-in?"

"That's a possibility," Xander said.

"No matter what it was, they're not here now, and that's all that matters," Al inserted.

"We should gather some supplies from the truck. We need to get back upstairs and let them know that we're okay," Carl said.

"I'll go up and let them know," Al told them. "Besides I'd like to start looking for some reference books that might possibly help us."

"We'll keep our fingers crossed," Riley said. "And I'll come up with you."

She stood on her tip toes to give Xander a kiss on the cheek before squeezing Al's arm and nodding toward the open doorway. She silently walked up the stairs beside him and into the main room. They had left the others gathered by the front door but they had branched out already. Bobby was still standing by the barricade but he was leaning against the wall with his gun before him. Josh and Donald looked asleep on their feet by the librarian's desk and Mary Ellen and Rochelle were already sitting at one of the long tables.

Mary Ellen rose to her feet when she spotted them but Rochelle remained seated. "Where's Peter?" Riley asked.