The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (28 page)

"Xander." At first he didn't look at her but when she said his name again his attention turned to her. "Thank you."

He clasped her cheeks in his hands as he rose up and pressed a kiss against her forehead. She thought he was going to pull away from her but instead his mouth brushed over her cheek before settling over hers. A small sigh escaped Riley as she wrapped her hands around his forearms and melted into the heat his mouth created against hers.

There was a minute when the rest of the world slid away and she was filled with him and
only
him. A minute when everything was right and she had found where she belonged. A groan of regret escaped her when Xander pulled away and rested his forehead against hers.

"There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you," he whispered against her mouth.

A smile tugged at her lips as she kissed him again. "I could say the same to you."

He sat back on his heels again and took hold of her wrists. "Good."

He finished wiping the scratches off but when he reached for the bandages she seized hold of his hand. "I don't think those are necessary."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded and released his arm. "The scratches aren't that deep and I'm ready to get out of this freak show of a bathroom."

"Green not your color?"

"I don't even think the Muppets would like this color."

"Probably not," Xander agreed and helped pull her to her feet.

Al and Bobby turned to look at them when they exited the room. "We'll get the food and find the others," Al said.

Riley didn't look at the woman again as she stepped over the body and made her way downstairs. She glanced at the library but she didn't return to it, the room had lost all the luster it had held for her upon first entering the house. Stepping back into the kitchen, she searched through the cabinets under the sink for some garbage bags.

She heard a door open and turned as Bobby looked into the basement. "Found them," he said and pulled a box of trash bags from the top step.

Al took a bag from him and opened it up for Xander to drop the spaghetti, sauce, canned food and chips into it. Riley stepped next to Bobby and peered down the stairs to the basement. "Should we go down there?" she asked.

"I don't think there's anything down there we have to see," Bobby answered.

"There could be supplies down there," Xander said.

She knew that was doubtful but if there was even a small chance that there was something useful in the basement then they couldn't leave here without looking first. She pulled her flashlight free and clicked it on as she took the first step down.

Shining the beam around the room, she searched for any hint of danger but all it revealed were stacks of boxes against the wall. Riley crept down the rest of the stairs and turned to search underneath them. Bobby remained close by her side as they moved through the shadows hugging the walls and boxes. She didn't bother to open the boxes as they were all labeled, most of them with the words pots and pans, Christmas, or photos. A jumble of stuffed animals in the corner caught and held her attention; she'd had the same exact pink Care Bear sitting in her closet at home.

It was a disconcerting realization but she didn't feel a pang of homesickness with it. There was no home to return to, she'd accepted that fact now. She would grieve her losses for the rest of her days, but she had to move on. She simply didn't have any other choice if she was going to keep on living.

"Riley." She turned to find Xander standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"It's all clear down here," she told him.

"We're ready to go."

She and Bobby followed him up the stairs and into the kitchen. Stepping out of the stairwell, Riley froze as she spotted Al standing by the kitchen sink. The color had vanished from Al's lined face; he appeared to have aged ten years as he turned to look at them. The feeling of a trap door opening beneath her feet descended over her as all the blood seemed to drain from her head. She had the disconcerting feeling that she was falling as the world around her focused on one central thing...

The four hideous faces within the doorway that led to the room with all the pots and pans.

It was impossible to tell what sex the people were as their blisters and sores had caused their skin to peel off of their distorted features. She didn't know how they had managed to get in here, but she wasn't about to investigate it either. Her gaze slid to Al, only four feet away from where the intruders stood in the doorway.

"Run." Xander grabbed hold of her arm and pushed her toward the dining room.

"No," she refused as she pulled her arm free of his grasp.

Lifting her gun, she aimed at the one closest to Al as it lurched toward the older man. The other three people rushed at them. Al tried to scramble out of the way but he wasn't fast enough to escape the person lunging at him. Though she knew she was supposed to avoid firing the gun, she had no other choice as the first person seized hold of Al's arms and opened its mouth wide.

Carl,

Carl had just stepped out the front door of the house when the second shot pierced the air. His gaze went rapidly back and forth between the two houses that the others had entered in order to search. He couldn't pinpoint the source of the gunfire until Mary Ellen and the others emerged from the house on the other side of the one in the middle.

"Get in the truck!" Carl barked at Rochelle.

"But..."

"No buts; get in the truck!"

Panic drove him as he ran across the porch, bypassing the steps he leapt over them to the sidewalk. John grabbed hold of the rail on the side of the porch and launched himself over top of it. Carl had expected him to break his ankle, but even though it must have jarred his ribs, John barely missed a step as he raced across the yard. John was ahead of Carl when they got to the porch of the middle house and lunged up the stairs toward the door. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Mary Ellen running at them but he waved her back.

"Stay with Rochelle!" he yelled at her as John grabbed hold of the knob and thrust the door open.

The third shot was much louder as it reverberated through the home. He glanced toward the room on his right but he couldn't see anyone amongst the shelves of books. John was already moving to the left when two more shots rent the air. Carl tried to catch John before he could enter the other room but his youth made him faster and more impetuous.

"John!" he shouted as his friend disappeared. "Let them know you're coming!"

John didn't glance back at him as Carl entered the dining room but he eased in his rush toward the room at the end. "I'm here!" John yelled. "I'm coming from the dining room!"

Carl glanced at the study to his right, but again he saw nothing moving within. He finally caught up to John before he plunged into what Carl assumed was the kitchen. "Don't shoot at us!" Carl called. He kept his gun raised before him as he tried to see into the other room without exposing too much of himself.

He wasn't sure if the others had heard them as another shot echoed through the house and loud grunts came from the room. The potent scent of blood and gunpowder filled the house and burned his nostrils. Adrenaline coursed through his body as concern for his friends made him yearn to plunge recklessly into the room. Common sense kept him where he was until he had a better idea of what was going on though.

He could still hear noises coming from the room, but he didn't hear any words from the others. A pain filled cry filled the air as something clattered and bounced across the floor. John was pressed against the other side of the door when Carl gestured for John to follow him. He stayed low as he swept into the kitchen with his gun raised and ready. The blood splattering the canary colored walls seemed completely out of place in the hideously vibrant room. Cookbooks and a garbage bag were tossed amongst the mess littering the white tiled floor.

Two bodies were sprawled face down on the floor; a growing puddle of blood seeped out around them. For a second his heart leapt into his throat at the thought that one of those bodies was one of his friends. The tattered clothing on the bodies, and their dirt streaked, purplish red skin made him realize that neither of them were his friends.

His attention moved from the bodies to the doorway on the other side of the room. Riley was watching him from the other side of the archway, beyond her seemed to be a room full of tables. Her lips were compressed into a thin line as she met his gaze. "There's still two of them," she whispered. "I have to stay here to make sure they don't try and circle around behind us."

"Stay with her," Carl instructed John as they stepped over the debris on the floor.

John nodded as he walked over to the door and positioned himself across from Riley. Carl didn't look back at them as he cautiously approached Xander and Bobby. They were standing by a door that went into what appeared to be a greenhouse. Carl stopped beside Al standing against a wall in the middle of the room. Al's hair was spiked up and Carl could already see murky bruises forming on his upper arms but he appeared otherwise unharmed.

"We don't know where they went," Xander said in a low voice.

Carl glanced over the tables lined with pots and pans and then at the doorway beyond. "The noise might have frightened them off," Carl suggested.

"We should retreat. We can't stay here, not anymore. There's no reason to go after them and risk getting injured," Al said.

"He's right," Carl said. "And we should get out of here before more come. They might not like loud noises but they know that
we're
the ones making them."

Bobby and Xander stepped away from the doorway and edged cautiously toward him and Al. Even as they began to retreat though a sound from the greenhouse froze all of them in place. It took Carl only a second to recognize the increasingly familiar sound of breaking glass. It was followed by what sounded like the scrambling sounds of one of those things trying to flee the building.

"Let's go," Carl said.

A sense of growing urgency was beginning to fill him as he took another step toward the kitchen. Those things had just been a little too loud for his liking. He knew how stealthy they could be, how covert. He couldn't shake the feeling that the creatures were simply toying with them. Holding his hand up, he gestured for the others to stop as he strained to hear anything more. Riley and John moved closer but he waved them back.

Raising the gun, he spun back toward the pots and pans room as one of the sick humans burst into the room from the greenhouse. Carl tried to follow it with his gun but even as he tracked it, it was scooting underneath one of the tables and into the shadows. Fear caused the hair on the nape of his neck to stand up as a strange hiss issued from beneath the table.

He wasn't so much worried about that one, at least he knew where it was, but the other
sneakier
one was of far more concern to him. Carl gestured to the rest of the group to fall back. He wasn't going to get caught in a bottleneck if they all tried to get through the doors at the same time.

Grabbing hold of the handle on the door, he pulled it closed behind them. Riley snagged the garbage bag from the floor and kept hold of it as she backed toward the dining room. Donald was already in the dining room when they entered it. His gaze darted between them and the front door as they edged toward him.

"We have to get out of here," John informed him briskly.

Donald nodded and moved toward the door. Carl couldn't tear his gaze away from what he could still see of the kitchen as he walked backward through the room. He was almost past the dining room table when a head poked around the corner of the doorframe. Cracked and bloody lips skimmed back to reveal gaps between the teeth that remained. Carl didn't even have a chance to squeeze the trigger before the head pulled away from the doorway and feet pounded over the tile floor of the kitchen.

His heart raced like a runaway locomotive in his chest as his mouth went completely dry. All of this just seemed so wrong, like they were the mice being batted around by a cat. These things were taunting them, or perhaps even getting ready to bat them around in order to tenderize their meat. His gaze went past the kitchen to the windows in the backdoor, he saw nothing out there but he knew they were coming.

"Run," he breathed.

"What?" John asked in a choked voice.

"Run!" Carl shouted as he turned toward them.

They were already rushing through the dining room door when he broke into a run after them. He glanced behind him and almost fired a warning shot but there was nothing pursuing them and he couldn't waste the bullet. The echoing slapping of their feet resonating through the front hall caused Carl to wince. The noise they were making would cover the sound of any possible pursuit, but there was no help for it.

Riley slipped through the front door first but Donald and Bobby got caught up on each other. John was unable to stop his forward momentum in time to stop himself from plowing into them. The force of John's body knocked the other two through the doorway and onto the porch. Bobby was able to catch himself before falling over, but Donald wasn't as lucky as he sprawled on the porch in an inelegant heap. Bobby grabbed hold of his arm and helped to pull him back to his feet. Xander and Al were still ahead of him, but Xander held back in order to let Al through the door without incident.

Rochelle, Mary Ellen, Josh, and Peter stood in the front yard near the Cadillac. Carl's anger spiked when he spotted the teacher. The man loved to run his mouth, and argue about everything, but he was never anywhere to be found when help was needed.

"Get in the vehicles!" he called.

"Is everyone ok?" Mary Ellen demanded.

Carl didn't answer her as he glanced back at the house. Even as his attention was turning toward the building, his eyes were settling on the yards behind the homes. There were plenty of times when he'd been afraid, most of those times had occurred within the past couple of weeks, but they all paled in comparison to right now. His heart seemed to stop beating as he caught sight of what was coming toward them from behind the houses.

A low curse escaped him; he hadn't realized his legs could move as fast as they did now as at least two dozen of those sick humans honed in on them. The people were still a good hundred feet away, but it was far too close for Carl's liking as the vehicles were almost a hundred feet away from
them
.

"Get in the vehicles!" he shouted at the other four again.

Rochelle pulled away from Mary Ellen and ran toward the truck. Mary Ellen followed behind her though, staying close on her heels until Rochelle was in the truck. Slamming the door closed behind her daughter, she turned to go back to the car but Carl waved her back. Mary Ellen did a strange little stutter step before opening the door again and jumping into the truck beside her daughter.

"You'll have to get in the back," Carl panted to John. He labored to catch his breath as they ran and he swore that he would quit smoking after this, but even as he thought it, he knew that wouldn't happen.

"On it," John assured him.

Something streaked across the yard with more speed than any of them could have exhibited. For a disconcerting second, Carl had no idea what it was and thought some monstrous new threat had been unleashed upon them. Then he recognized the cat as it bounded into the still open backseat of the car. The loud blaring of a horn sounded from the truck as Mary Ellen leaned across the front seat to press on it relentlessly. Some of the people let out a squeal and stumbled back with their hands over their ears, but it didn't deter the others.

Carl wanted to yell at her to stop, the noise would only bring more, but he didn't think they had enough time for all of them to make it to the vehicles without those people catching up to them. They could fight off some of them, but they wouldn't be able to fight off
all
of them.

Carl lifted his gun and shot at the one closest to him. The shot hit into the ground two feet before the approaching... man? But it didn't deter him. Taking the time to turn and steady himself, Carl fired again, this time it hit the man in the shoulder and knocked him back a few feet. More gunshots exploded around him but most of the bullets missed their intended targets than actually hit the mark.

Another one of the sick people went down. Carl grabbed hold of Al's arm when the older man faltered and nearly fell beside him. He kept hold of Al's arm as he rushed him toward the vehicles. Carl didn't think Al had enough left in him to make it all the way to the car in front of the truck.

"Open the back doors!" he shouted at John.

John skid to a halt behind the truck, his hands fumbled over the lock on the doors before he flung them open and lifted himself into the bed. A startled cry from behind him caused Carl to turn before they made it to the truck.

"Bobby!" Riley screamed as she spun away from the car that she was only feet away from.

Carl swore as he spotted Bobby sprawled across the lawn. Donald grabbed hold of Bobby's arm and tried to propel him to his feet. Even as Bobby was rising, one of those things was descending upon him. "Bobby!" Riley shrieked again.

Xander turned back and ran toward his friend but Carl didn't think he was going to be able to get to him in time. Carl heard Riley's footsteps behind him; releasing Al, he swung to grab her before she could throw herself back into the fray. "Get in the car!" he commanded.

Riley struggled within his grasp but he pushed her backward. Al grabbed hold of her arms and pulled her away from Carl. "Easy," Al said soothingly. "The best way for you to help them is to get the car started. It's the only way we'll all get out of here."

Riley's eyes were turbulent, her nostrils flared but Al's reasoning seemed to reach her as she gave a brief nod and spun away. Carl raised his gun as Donald was knocked aside by the human clinging to Bobby and another one of the sick ones honed in on Xander. The person on Bobby tore at the back of Bobby's shirt as it sought to get at the tender flesh below. Xander spun and shot at another person bearing down on him, he was close enough that he was able to hit the woman in the forehead. The woman's head snapped back as she was knocked onto her back beside the car.

Carl took up a stance and carefully aimed at the person still tearing at Bobby's back. An awful howl escaped Bobby as the person bent down and sank their teeth into Bobby's shoulder. Bobby slapped at the person over his back, but they grabbed hold of Bobby's head and bounced it off the sidewalk. The loud crack of Bobby's skull against concrete reverberated through the air. Carl found he much preferred the howling to the silence that followed the violent blow.