The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (30 page)

"Let me finish with it."

"No more alcohol."

"No more," Carl promised. He screwed the top
back on and placed it on the ground.

Xander jumped out of the truck and headed
toward him with a small sewing kit. "Found it," he said.

"That's not going to be any help here, we
won't be able to stitch it," Carl told him.

"I'll bring it to Riley."

Xander turned and walked around the back of
the truck to wherever Riley stood with Josh. He didn't like the
idea that he couldn't see them, or the car from here, but he
couldn't be in a position where the bungalows were blocked either.
Less blood came away when he dabbed at John's hand with the towel.
He grabbed the peroxide again.

"Ready?" he asked.

John took a deep breath before nodding. Carl
kept hold of John's hand as he poured the liquid over it. The
bubbles fizzled up and slipped over the side of John's hand in
pinkish trails that plopped onto the ground. "Just leave it for a
little bit." Carl's knees popped loudly when he bent to dig through
the bandages and ointment that Riley had handed him.

"You sound like a Rice Krispie," John
muttered.

"Apparently someone else believed you were
the treat," Carl retorted.

Rising to his feet again, John gave him the
finger before allowing Carl to wipe the peroxide away. He liberally
dabbed the antibiotic ointment on the wound and around it. Blood
still rose up but it was far slower than it had been.

"Do you really think this is going to keep
me from getting sick?" John asked.

Carl stared at the white bandages as he
wrapped them carefully around John's hand and tried to think of an
answer. He knew what he
wanted
to
have happen but he also wanted his old life back and that wasn't
going to happen either. He kept reminding himself that they weren't
dealing with zombies here but every horror flick he'd ever seen
with zombies in it flashed through his mind. When watching those
movies, he would always yell at the stupid people who took one of
the infected with them in the anticipation that somehow,
miraculously, this person would be the one to make it through. He'd
always felt some kind of ridiculous sense of vindication when the
bitten person inevitably turned and ate the idiots who had insisted
it wouldn't happen to them.

He lifted his head and met John's troubled
brown eyes head on. "I do."

If John turned on him and ate him he would
deserve it, but he couldn't bring himself to admit there was a
chance that he was going to die, and he couldn't say it to John. He
couldn't take all hope away from John, or tie him up, and he
definitely couldn't leave him on the side of the road. But if he
showed any sign of becoming what those people were, what Lee had
become
, he also wouldn't hesitate
to put a bullet in his head.

They may not be dealing with zombies but it
could be some kind of encephalitis, some form of rabies that was
transmitted by a bite. Or it could be something else entirely, he
reminded himself as he taped the bandage down. They had no way of
knowing, not yet anyway, but between John and Josh he had a feeling
they were about to find out.

Carl handed John a couple of aspirin and a
bottle of water. "Should help to keep the swelling down," he
said.

He stepped away from John, gathered up the
supplies and put them on the front seat of the truck. He closed the
door and walked around the hood. Riley knelt before Josh as she
worked on taping a bandage to the bite in his shoulder. Xander
stood behind her with his gun in one hand and a bottle of peroxide
in the other.

"How's it going?" Carl asked. He turned his
back on them in order to keep an eye on the road, bungalows, and
power lines.

"Ok," Riley muttered as the sound of tape
ripping reached him. John walked to the front of the truck and sat
on the bumper. His shoulders slumped forward, his head bowed. "I
can't sew it shut."

"Neither could I," Carl informed her.

"The bleeding is pretty much stopped. How's
John?"

John turned and lifted his left hand in the
air. The white bandage had some pink staining on it but it looked
to be holding up relatively well. "Looking good."

"That's a first," Riley quipped but her
voice sounded strained.

"I heard that," John called back to her.

"You were supposed to," she replied. Carl
glanced over his shoulder at her as she rose to her feet and wiped
her knees off. Their eyes locked when she looked up at him and he
saw the same worry reflected in her gaze that was growing within
him. "There was a pharmacy, at that intersection when we turned off
the road from Walmart. There might be some medicine still in
there."

"No." John rose to his feet and walked over
to stand beside Carl in order to face Riley. "We're not going back
that way. Did you see how many of those things were back
there?"

"Not all of us would go," Riley said. "But
two of us could take the car back, park off of one of the side
roads and try to walk into the town. Two people would be a lot less
noticeable. I'd be willing to go."

"No," John said again.

"There could be medicine there," Riley
insisted.

John slapped his good hand on the hood of
the truck. "There's no way to know what's left in that pharmacy; it
could be a suicide mission and a useless one at that."

"But if there is some of the supplies that
helped Xander…"

"
If
is a
pretty big word to risk lives on, and not just yours. These
supplies have to get back to the camp. If you don't come back, and
whoever stays here with us ends up having to kill us because we
become rabid freakoids, or if
we
end up killing
them
then what? Even
if they do survive, they won't make it back to the camp on their
own, and the people at that camp need someone to come back. The
children
need someone to come back.
We'll be fine, right Josh?"

The teen was deathly pale when he lifted his
head to take them in. His eyes darted rapidly between all of them
before landing on Riley.
Don't say it
kid
, Carl pleaded silently as Riley looked helplessly
back at him. John was right, they all
knew
John was right but if Josh asked her to go,
Carl knew she would. Xander would either go with her, or he would
tie her down and make her stay. It would turn into a fight but Carl
would help him do it.

Josh continued to stare at Riley for a
minute before nodding. "John's right, we'll be fine," he finally
said.

"Thank God," John muttered and turned
away.

Carl silently agreed as Xander heaved a
breath of relief and dumped the supplies into the backseat of the
car. Carl's attention was drawn to the smoke rising high over the
treetops; the store must have been fully engulfed by now. He
wondered if the fire would draw those things in or if it would push
them further away.

"How are you both feeling?" Xander
asked.

"I feel fine," John answered. "A little
lighter without part of my hand, a little nauseous from being
someone's idea of a chicken wing, but I do feel fine."

"Josh?" Xander asked.

"I'd have to agree with John, on all
accounts."

"The infection hit me pretty hard but we
weren't able to clean the bite right away. You might avoid that
completely considering we got you cleaned up pretty quick."

Carl appreciated the fact that Xander had
referred to the infection as the only cause for him getting sick.
He turned away from the front of the truck and walked to the
passenger side door. He retrieved the map from the dashboard of the
truck. "I'm going to try and figure out where we are," he said.

He glanced over at Josh as the boy rose to
his feet and wobbled unsteadily. The bandage that Riley had taped
to his shoulder could be seen clearly beneath the jagged tear that
had been ripped into his bloodstained t-shirt. Josh walked to the
front of the truck and sat on the bumper beside John. Carl placed
the map on the hood of the truck and unfolded it to take a look but
he couldn't tear his eyes away from the two of them sitting on the
bumper.

He really didn't want to have to kill either
one of them.

"Do you think we should stay here for the
night?" Riley asked from beside him. "Maybe we could make it back
to the camp."

Carl glanced at the darkening sky. "Let's
see where we are first."

"Ok, I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be
right back."

"Do you have your gun?"

"Yes."

"Xander…"

She shook her head and glanced at where
Xander stood by John and Josh. "Keep him with you. I know if they
get sick it will take time to show, but just keep him with you."
Carl opened his mouth to argue with her but she swiftly cut him
off. "There are some things I'd prefer to do on my own."

He lit a cigarette and nodded his agreement.
"Don't go far."

"I never do."

He watched as she retrieved a roll of toilet
paper from the back of the truck and vanished into the woods. He
turned back to the map and ran his fingers over the roads on it. It
wasn't difficult to figure out where they were but it was going to
be a convoluted trip back to the camp. He glanced at the sky again,
then at John and Josh before returning his attention to the map.
Xander appeared at his side and glanced around him.

"Where's Riley?" he inquired.

"Went to the bathroom."

He didn't look at all pleased with that
answer but he didn't comment on it as he studied the map. Carl
glanced at the bungalow colony and then behind him to the power
lines, but everything remained relatively clear. "There's a chance
we could make it to the camp tonight. If the roads aren't too
blocked we may be able to do it, or at the very least get closer to
it. I'm going to have to navigate, can you drive this truck and
I'll ride with Riley?"

"I can," Xander said. "Let's get ready to
go."

Carl turned away from the map and stepped
around to the front of the truck. "We're going to try and get back
to the camp."

"Is that possible?" John inquired.

"We'll find out," Carl answered. "At the
very least we'll be able to make it to the racetrack tonight. Let's
go."

The two of them climbed off the bumper and
walked with slumped shoulders in between the vehicles. They had to
make it back, Carl thought as he pulled the map from the hood of
the truck. He was about to open the passenger side door when two
men stepped from the woods. At first Carl assumed they were some of
the sick ones, but then he saw the raised rifles gleaming in their
hands.

Al,

A sick feeling twisted through Al's stomach
as he stared down at the wreckage of the body the others had just
savagely killed. His gaze lifted to search the trees but he didn't
see anything moving through the thick foliage. He grabbed hold of
Mary Ellen's arm when she went to take a step forward on the stand.
"Wait," he whispered.

"They're heading for the camp." Her eyes
were wild as they met his, her arm rigid in his grasp. "The
children
."

Al continued to study the woods, he saw
nothing moving amongst the trees and underbrush but he couldn't
shake the feeling that there were eyes upon them. Those sick people
were too smart. He knew he could be letting the group of them
approach the camp, knew he could be putting the others at risk, but
he still didn't move. All of his years of hunting had taught him
one thing, even if you couldn't see the deer, that didn't mean they
couldn't see you and it didn't mean they weren't there.

A chill ran up his spine, he had to make a
decision. If he was wrong then the children were in danger, but if
he was right then they would be stepping into a trap. "Al…" Mary
Ellen said in a pleading tone of voice.

"If we get onto that ladder and they're
still out there, we'll be vulnerable," he told her.

"
Every
one at
the camp is vulnerable," she whispered frantically.

He gave a brief nod, she was right. Even if
those things were hiding within the trees, they couldn't stay on
this stand. Not if there was a chance the sick were heading toward
the camp and the children. "Ok but we have to get off of the ladder
as fast as we can."

"Yes, yes," she said and went to turn
away.

He pulled her back toward him. "Even if
they're not waiting for us out there, we can't go directly to the
camp behind them. We have to circle around to the other side."

"What? Why?" she demanded.

"If Claire, Nancy and the children start
shooting at those things there are going to be a lot of stray
bullets," Al explained. "There's a good chance we could be hit by
one of them if we come up behind those things."

Mary Ellen chewed nervously on her bottom
lip but she nodded in agreement. He could feel her anxiety and the
desire to get to her daughter coming off of her in waves. All he
could do was hope that she didn't do anything foolish enough to get
herself killed. "You have to keep your head," he told her.

There was still no color in her face and her
hands shook but her eyes didn't hesitate to meet his. "I will," she
vowed.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded and turned
away from her. Donald stopped him when he went to grab hold of the
ladder. "I'll be able to get off the ladder faster and give you
guys some cover."

Al stepped back; Donald grabbed hold of the
ladder and swung himself onto it. He didn't take a single breath as
he watched Donald rapidly descend. Donald was three quarters of the
way down when he leapt off the ladder and landed agilely upon the
ground. He remained crouched for a minute, watching the woods
intently before rising to his feet. Al grabbed hold of the ladder
and climbed down as rapidly as his old legs would allow him but
they certainly weren't going to allow him to jump off the ladder
like Donald had.