The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (23 page)

"The sky is blue," he hadn't realized Riley was awake until she spoke.

His gaze drifted to the patch of blue sky on the horizon. It had been such a normal scene throughout most of his life, now it filled him with awe. Hope coursed through him as he kept his eye on that small patch of blue. "It is," he agreed.

"It's beautiful." He'd been so focused on the sky that he hadn't heard Riley approach. She stood beside him now.

"It is."

He kept his gaze on the sky as the sun rose higher and the blue faded away to be replaced with the hideous red he'd become accustomed to. He glanced at Riley and was astonished to see tears running down her face. She looked bashfully at him and hastily wiped the tears away.

"That's a good sign," she said.

"Yes." He squeezed her arm reassuringly and nodded toward the barn. "I'm going to check it out before we leave."

"I'll come with you."

Carl nodded and made his way to the small barn next to the house. He grabbed hold of the door and slid it open as Riley braced herself with her gun. The scents of hay, straw, manure, animal, and leather drifted over him. It wasn't unpleasant but it wasn't something he was overly familiar with either.

He tilted his head back to study the rafters. Thankfully there wasn't a loft in this barn and he didn't see anything moving through the beams that ran across the ceiling either. Riley stepped to the side and peered into the first stall while he moved to the one on the left. Hay and straw were stacked inside of it as well as at least fifteen bags of oats. He opened the small door next to the feed room to reveal a room filled with saddles and bridles.

Riley was at the end of the other row of stalls and was turning back toward him when he closed the door again. He lifted the lid on a trunk and peered inside at the brushes and blankets stacked neatly within. Riley appeared at his side as he close the lid. "There are some oats that we should probably take with us," he told her. "I'll go get the truck."

"Ok," she said as she lifted the lid on the trunk and peered inside.

Xander was making his way toward the barn when he went back outside. "She's inside," Carl told him.

"Thanks." Xander tugged tiredly at his disordered hair as he made his way by.

John climbed down the porch steps and hurried toward him. Donald must have already retreated inside as the porch was vacated. "Where you going?" John asked around a yawn.

"There's some oats in the barn we should take with us."

John looked at him as if he'd just informed him that there were hitchhiking aliens in the barn that he planned to drive to San Diego. "You want us to eat horse food?"

"No, but I also don't want us to starve. We're not exactly in the position to be choosy."

"True."

John hopped into the passenger seat. Carl drove over to the barn and backed the truck up to it. Riley and Xander had already pulled some bags out of the room and were waiting for them when Carl climbed out and opened the back doors on the rack body. John climbed into the back and began to push things to the side.

"Toss out some waters," Carl said to him.

John handed three bottles out to them and took hold of the first bag Xander dropped in the truck. A shadow fell over the front of the barn, drawing his attention toward where Mary Ellen stood with Rochelle at her side. "Do you need our help with anything?" she asked.

"You can start packing up the food inside, that would help," Carl told her as he tossed another bag into the back of the truck.

She nodded and turned Rochelle around with her to head back into the house. "The sky was blue this morning, briefly, but it was blue again," Riley said. Xander and John stopped moving to stare at her. "It was beautiful."

"It sounds like it," Xander said.

Carl glanced out at the red sky spread out before him. This farm was almost a trip back into normalcy and yet he couldn't wait to get on the road again. There was something about this normalcy that bothered him now. His gaze returned to the pile of horses in the corner, he planned to be as far from here as they could be by nightfall.

Al,

"Jesus," Al whispered.

"We're not going through that, are we?" Riley's voice sounded like she had a lump stuck in her throat. Her fingers had stopped their movement on the cat in her lap.

Xander shook his head. "I don't think it's possible."

Even as he said the words the truck was pulling up beside them. John already had his window down and was leaning out toward them. "Is there a way around it?"

Al stared at the river in front of them before dropping his head back to the map book in his lap. There was no river through the middle of this town in the book, but then the geography of this land was no longer the same. "How is that possible?" Bobby demanded from the backseat with Riley.

"The quakes, they opened up a pathway from another river or lake," Al muttered as he studied the roads in the book. "There are a couple of back roads we can try but if they don't work out we're going to have to get onto the highway again."

"They have to work," Riley said.

"Follow us," Al said to John who turned to speak with Carl.

Xander put the car in reverse and followed Al's directions as they drove parallel to the river for half a mile before turning into the heart of the town. The fire station and police station had crumbled; the signs outside of them were the only things that identified the remains of the brick buildings. A few stores had also crumbled but the church and movie theatre in the center of town remained standing. He turned his attention back to the map as Xander made a right.

"People."

Al's head lifted at Xander's word. A tendril of dread twisted within his belly at the people shuffling aimlessly down the road. The Lost Souls barely turned to acknowledge the vehicles as they drove past. "So lost," Al murmured.

"There are so many," Bobby whispered. "Why are there so many more here than in Mass?"

"The sickness spread through here but the quakes didn't cause as much damage, and they didn't kill as many people," Al answered.

The thud of a woman bouncing off the front of the car made him shudder. "They have to be eating and drinking something, they simply have to be," Riley said. "They'd be dead if they weren't."

"Their own hair," Bobby muttered.

"There's still thought enough there to keep themselves going," Riley said.

"There is," Al agreed. He knew she needed the possibility within those words, but he didn't agree with them. Maybe there was a chance they could save these people but he wasn't going to put much faith into that chance. He wondered if The Lost Souls would continue on, if they would inhabit this earth with them for the rest of existence or if they would eventually die out. He wondered if
they
would eventually die out too. They'd made it this far but there was no guarantee, not anymore.

Al shook his head and turned away from the window. One thing he did know for sure was that morose thoughts would get him absolutely nowhere. Every day he woke up was another battle that had been won and that was all that mattered now.

"Take your next left," Al instructed.

They were barely going five miles an hour; Xander had to nudge some of the wanderers out of the way with the nose of the car in order to make the turn. "Shit," Bobby said. "Just shit."

Al met the eyes of a woman beside the car but though she was staring straight at him there was no recognition in her eyes, no flicker of acknowledgement. He was staring into nothing and nothing was staring straight back at him.

Was this what limbo was? Was that what these people were trapped in, a permanent state of limbo? Then what were he and the others trapped in, Hell? He tore his attention away from the woman at the thought.

"Where are the angrier ones?" Riley inquired.

"I don't know but let's just be happy that they're not here right now," Xander muttered as he nudged a young boy out of the way with the bumper of the car.

In the mirror Al saw a few people stagger in front of the truck. Carl braked abruptly and had to back up in order to maneuver around them before continuing. "If they show up now..." Bobby's voice trailed off.

There was no need to finish that statement, they all knew what would happen if those things showed up now. Xander drove around another large group and the road opened up before them. Al breathed a sigh of relief as he turned his attention back to the map. "You're going to make your next right and hopefully there's not a river in the middle of the road."

Riley's hand curled around the back of Al's seat as she sat forward, he could feel her breath on the nape of his neck but instead of being put off by the sensation he found it oddly comforting to have another human being so close to him. Without thinking, he rested his hand against hers as they turned onto another road that remained blessedly clear of water.

"Keep going straight," Al instructed.

Riley squeezed his hand and settled back in her seat again. "Wal-Mart," Xander said as they entered a more business district area.

Riley and Bobby sat forward again as Xander pulled into the parking lot of the immense store. There were at least a dozen cars still sitting in the lot, just waiting for owners that would most likely never return to them. "Do you think there's any food left in there?" Riley asked.

Unlike most of the other stores they'd encountered, the front windows remained intact and the door was not hanging open. "Someone has to have raided the place by now," Bobby said.

"I'm sure they have," Al agreed. "They just didn't feel the need to destroy it after."

Xander pulled up next to a Jeep Cherokee and parked the car. "That would be a better ride if it still has the keys in it."

"What do you think the odds of that are?" Riley asked.

Xander shrugged and climbed out. "Slim to none, but hopefully no one has siphoned the gas from these vehicles."

Carl and John were climbing out of the truck when Al exited the car. He eyed the building as the others gathered the gas cans. Xander tried for the door on the Jeep but it was locked. "So much for trading up," he muttered as he walked over to the gas can.

"Newer vehicle," Carl said. "It probably has an anti-siphoning feature anyway."

Xander scowled at the Jeep before turning away. Al had been steadily approaching the store, his gun in hand as he neared one of the windows. Riley stayed close by his side. "They usually have pharmacies in them," she whispered. "I bet no one would think to grab L-Dopa from it."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't realized just how much expectation she was putting on finding that medicine and trying to use it on someone. "It might not work," he said.

"I know, but it could."

Al started to tell her not to put so much confidence into it, but he closed his mouth. She had every right to cling to this, to look forward to it, to have something else to focus on and keep her going. Who was he to take that away from her?

He turned his attention back to the windows as he stepped up to the glass and shaded his eyes in order to look inside. He couldn't see anything beyond the glass. Stepping back, he blinked as he stared at the window. It took him a second to realize that the windows were covered in something, most likely paint.

"What the..."

He grabbed Riley's arm and pressed his finger against his lips as he pulled her back a few steps. "They're living in there," he said. "Or at least someone is, probably a lot of someone's."

"How do we know they're still alive?" she asked as she eyed the windows.

"We don't, but do you propose to walk in there blind to find out?"

"Not even a little bit," she admitted. "Great place to hole up for awhile though."

"Yeah, until someone else comes along and takes it from them." Al had been unaware that Peter was listening to their conversation until he spoke.

"I don't think anyone is going to take that chance," Al said. Peter stared at him and then the gun in Al's hand.

"Well maybe not you..."

"You?" he interrupted sharply.

"I'll go in," Peter said flatly.

"If you want to kill yourself just put the gun to your head, but I don't think anyone else is going to be pulling that trigger with you," Al told him.

Carl lifted his head from where he had been sucking on the tubing he'd slipped inside the gas tank of a small Honda. Carl's eyebrows were drawn together over top of his nose; he held the hose out to John and stepped around the car to approach them. His eyes remained on Peter as he stopped beside Al. "What's going on?" he asked.

"The windows are painted, we think there are people in there," Al told him.

Carl glanced at the store and then back at them. "We'll get the gas and get out of here."

"I think we should go in," Peter said.

Carl shook his head and pushed the brim of his hat up. "That would be a bad idea. We have no idea what they have for weapons. We could be killed before we even made it two feet in the door. If they're holed up in there I doubt there's anything they'd be willing to give us."

"So we'll take it from them."

"You won't make it in there," Carl said.

Riley's jaw was set as she stepped closer. A stone settled in Al's stomach before she even spoke. "Maybe they'll give us something they don't want and is completely useless to them."

"Riley, we don't even know if they have a pharmacy in there," Al said.

She pointed at the building. Al followed her finger to the word Pharmacy painted across the top of it. He scowled at the word written in large block letters, and though he knew it was crazy, all he could think was that the word was a traitor. "They'll give it to us, if we ask," she said softly.

She had more faith in the human race than he did, but looking at her he couldn't help but hope that maybe she was right. "I don't care if they're willing to give it to us or not," Peter said.

"We're not going to go in there looking for a fight," Riley said from between clenched teeth.

"Go in where?" Xander demanded as he and Bobby returned from searching the nearby vehicles.

"The store," Riley answered.

Xander glanced at the building. "Has it been raided?"

"We're pretty sure there are people living in there, they have painted over the windows to keep someone or something from seeing inside," Al told him. "Riley would like to try to get some L-Dopa from them if they have it and Peter thinks we should try and take it over."

"That is a very bad idea," Bobby said as he tugged at his shaggy brown hair.

"I just want to ask them..."

"There is no asking," Peter broke in. "We could just shoot out the windows."

"If there are any of those things in the area, they'll be drawn here by the noise. Besides the people in there could have far more ammo and weapons than us. I'm not about to turn this parking lot into some kind of O.K. Corral shoot out," Carl said briskly. "No supply is worth that."

"We can't just ask them," Peter insisted.

"Yes we can," Riley insisted in return. "And I'm going to do it. It's only a question. If they say no, they say no, but we can't walk away from here without trying." Al glanced back at the painted windows of the store. "
I
can't walk away from here without trying."

"What is it that you're asking for?" Peter demanded.

Al's hand tightened on his gun as Riley unwaveringly met Peter's gaze. "L-Dopa."

The teacher's eyes widened, his gaze drifted over all of them before settling on her again. "Are you out of your mind?" he hissed.

"I think we may have all gone a little mad," she informed him. "But I'm still getting that drug."

A sinking sensation settled in Al's stomach, he wanted to pull Riley away from the teacher but he thought it was Xander that was the bigger threat. The young man eyed Peter as he brought his gun before him. "Back off," Xander said to Peter in a low voice that barely reached Al.

Peter stared at him for a minute before glancing at the rest of them. He seemed to realize he was outnumbered as he took a step back. "You'll go in there for something that won't do anyone any good but you won't take what it is that we
need
from them?" Peter demanded.

"If we start having that attitude we'll be no better than the sick humans haunting this earth now," Riley told him.

"Your attitude will get you killed, you have to learn how to survive in this world," Peter told her before turning away. Mary Ellen pulled Rochelle out of his path as Donald took a step closer to the rest of them.

"He's going to have to be dealt with," Carl muttered.

"He backed off, he may just continue to do so," Mary Ellen said.

Xander rubbed tiredly at his forehead before turning to Riley. "You're not going to be the one that asks them."

"I think they'd hesitate to kill a woman and be a little less distrustful of me than you."

"And you may be the only woman they've seen in awhile or may see again for some time."

Riley folded her arms over her chest. "You could be putting us all at risk if you do this," Bobby said.