August Burning (Book 2): Survival (6 page)

“I still think about it, and how much I miss hearing it…but this is it… you found it.”

He rose and shut the single door. The candles continued to flicker. He sat close to her, so she could feel the heat radiating from him. Aside from that, they didn’t touch, but it was enough. Adira let the volume roll over her, taking her to another time and place entire. Her mind raced and swayed, so long had it been bereft of dreaming. She gorged on it, feeling her heart sweeping as the music played. In an instant she remembered all the times she had been moved by a song, by a film, by a vista, by a touch. She opened her eyes slightly in a final moment of self-consciousness, to peer at Jaxton. His eyes were clamped shut, and he clenched her hand. Overjoyed, she closed her eyes once more. The music had never been more pure, more powerful. Her spine tingled its excited retort, and she felt overjoyed. Never in her whole life, had her own heart been more stirred.

Chapter Five

Tessa sized Adira up as she approached. The girl had a dark leather jacket on, and like the rest of them had shin guards and rough gloves on to protect against any bites. There was a knife strapped to her thigh, and she had a rifle slung across her back. The two of them had begun a strong, if mildly awkward, friendship. A younger man, Wilder, hurried along at Adira’s side. His gait was not casual in the slightest, though he aimed for it to be. There was a light dusting of hair growing along his chin-line.

“Really uppin the douche-factor there, Wilder. With those chin straps, I mean.” Tessa teased, walking across the little bridge towards them.

Wilder beamed, and aimed to manufacture a cocky manner. “I’d say it’s more prominent than Duke’s, which, is all that matters.”

Duke shouted from the opposite bank, his chubby form heaving as he loaded another boulder into a wheelbarrow. “I’m standing, literally right here. I can actually hear everything you’re saying, just so you’re aware.”

Wilder waved his hand, shifting his own rifle to a scarred hand with mottled flesh. The burn marks extended up his arm, and disappeared under his own heavy shirt. Tessa felt a wave of empathy sweep through her chest.

“The leaves are dying.” Adira said mournfully, eyeing the streaks of reds and browns that surrounded them. Dead leaves crunched beneath their feet. Tessa had sunk into a deep depression of sorts for a few days when she learned Jaxton had been with the dark-eyed girl standing before her, but to her own surprise it had evaporated swiftly. In its place, she felt relief. There was no one to impress. Who fucking cared? And little by little, Tessa began to regret she had ever cared in the first place.

“C’mon, we’re not doing this today. I found something, and I need all your help to bring it back here,” Tessa beamed.

The four of them crossed the river on the new footbridge, a series of wooden beams and logs rammed into the riverbed in front of the dam. The river gurgled and bubbled a strong course through the rock dam. Looking over her shoulder, Tessa could spy the old Field House through the foliage. The fishing pond was a short distance from the school itself. She bounded across the footbridge, noting with pleasure the four feet of water that was building up behind their dam. As they leapt over a colonial style fence into an overgrown backyard, Tessa eyed the burn marks again.

“Wilder, will you tell us about your arm?”

“That’s a fairly private question,” he said, eyeing the collage of autumn colors around them warily.

“Have we not all bonded over the last three weeks, day in and day out building that god damn dam?”

Wilder chuckled lightly, and then indicated his buddy, Duke. “He can tell you.”

Duke cringed behind them and shrugged elaborately. Tessa liked him, because he never complained, and he never lost his cool. “I certainly can, but it’s not the type of story you want to hear over a meal.” Duke hefted a hatchet in his right hand, something he always had on him.

“Luckily I don’t see any food.”

“Very well. As you wish,” he chuckled. He cleared his throat elaborately, as Tessa and Adira hurried him along, impatient.

“Wilder here and me, well we had just made it across the Bridge.”

“The GW? Out of New York?”

“Same one. Before they blew it. You probably saw it on TV. There were thousands of people. I mean, it was beyond anything I had ever seen. Packed like seething animals, for miles in any direction, struggling in the dark. They had abandoned their cars in all directions, and most of them didn’t even work because of that EMP. The Army was sending us south in trucks, so we boarded up, made it to Camden. They had a massive refugee camp set up in these warehouses outside the city, and for a few days everything was dandy.”

Duke paused to kick a lawn ornament at a house. He raised his arms in triumph as it crashed through a window.

“
Its good
! But anyways then the infected broke through the Guard’s lines in Jersey. There was some huge rout, all along the Delaware. A bunch of refugee camps were overwhelmed because of it, I learned after. Anyways, the army totally panicked. Abandoned the center. Rushed tons of troops back across the Delaware. Left us behind. The first time me and Wilder saw them was crossing the bridges into Philly. The crowd started to swell and press. People got trampled, just a screaming, pushing mass of bodies. Bodies all over the road. We were trampling on them. No one cared. Me and Wilder jumped into the river. Made it to the other side and watched. There were hundreds of them, just a wall of the infected eating their way through the crowd. The people could barely move, so they were eaten to death where they stood. And the ones that survived, well they started to turn too. That’s when we ran. The Air force, I guess, started dropping firebombs.”

Duke picked a brown apple off the long grass and took a bite. Shrugging, he continued. “Young Wilder’s got the burns all up that one side of his body. We were in a subway station. The flames still came down the manholes.” He nodded his head, pleased with the fruity meal. He jumped atop an abandoned Honda Civic that had crashed against a telephone pole.

Tessa looked to Adira, who stared in concern, her mouth open in shock.

“That pretty much cover it, Wilder?” Duke tossed the apple and jumped down.

“That pretty much covers it, Duke.” Wilder stared at the ground as he walked.

“Why did you come here, to Pennsylvania?” Adira asked.

“Had to get west. We saw that signal fire one night. Bennett’s.”

“Where are your families?”

Duke shrugged, “laying up on a beach in Cancun, or dead. I spend a little time every day working to forget them.”

“Admirable.” Tessa said, pausing to rummage through a pile of luggage left on someone’s front lawn, long overdue for a proper mowing.

Adira shot a glance back to Wilder, who’s juvenile confidence was all gone.

“They’re just ahead,” Tessa whispered, breaking into a trot across a field lined with maple trees.

“They?” The others followed, curious.

A giant barn sat in the midst of the field, tall grass masking it from the road. The paint was peeling off its rusted doors. Duke grinned, “oh boy.”

When Tessa slid open the door, it screeched in protest. A wave of decay hit them like a wall.

Among the stalls and open bays, there were massive piles of rotting hay. Five horses lounged about, munching on it and standing in piles of their own excrement. Their coats were shaggy and overgrown, and their eyes were wild. Tessa herded them to the rear of the stables, where there was another door. Nodding, she flung it open and the horses burst out, neighing in a frenzy. The beasts broke into excited gallops, feeling the cool wind kissing their matted hair. When one of them approached the wooden fence enclosing them in the space, it balked and turned, eager to charge across the open ground to the other side. In the distance, one of the ridges surrounding the town rose high, coated in an unbroken collage of fierce reds, proud yellows, and somber browns. Against this background, the horses charged across the field with glee in their hearts such as they had never imagined, extending their proud muscles until they swelled with blood. Duke mounted the wooden fence and whooped crazily, cheering the scene. Tessa smiled, and saw Adira marveling as well. She looked to Wilder, who stood with trembling lips. His proud eyes welled with tears, and he smiled.

….

“I’m getting a team together, and we’re going. Spare me the chivalry.”

Jaxton sputtered. “I’m being selfish. Let the other team go. Is it so crazy I don’t want to sit here and wonder if you’re going to be ambushed? The infected are still in the valley. The runners find them on almost every mission. It won’t be safe till we clear it and control the gorges.”

Adira buckled the backpack on, feeling it tight across her boyish chest. “We’re going past the old factory, through the Cathedral, down into the Backwoods.”

Jaxton tapped a finger on the massive map that lay sprawled out on the table in front of him. It had been drawn on giant sheets, reflective of buildings that had already been inspected. “That area hasn’t been swept yet. Choose another.”

“Of course it hasn’t been swept yet. It’s the only area we haven’t raided. There’s no more food, is there?”

Jaxton grimaced, thumping the oak lightly with his dry knuckles, “We’re running low, yes.”

Adira crossed to him and touched his hand, softening her gaze. “Then that’s where I have to go.”

He stood straight. “I’ll come with.”

She laughed softly, and shook her head. “No, you won’t. I haven’t done one of these in the 4 months we’ve been here. I’ve got a team, and I’m taking them in and out.”

Jaxton exhaled sharply, feeling his stomach grumble. Two cans of cubed ham rumble around in his belly. He knew he was losing weight.

Already knowing the decision had been made, he drew her close. “We still have some batteries left.” A heavy, military grade hand-radio was placed into her slender grip. “Do not hesitate to call. I’ll be ready.”

…

Adira stalked out into the makeshift garage area outside the brick science wing, where the others had gathered. Wilder and Duke grasped their rifles nervously, making sure to nod when they saw her. She restrained herself from responding too vigorously. She was in command here. Of them all, Tessa looked the most relaxed. The girl squatted atop an ATV, filing her nails with a worn sniper rifle slung across her back. Elvis stared straight ahead. Adira’s eyes lingered on his shotgun. It was Bennett’s, she knew.

“How’s the fuel?”

“We’ve got enough.” Tessa carefully packaged the filer, and twisted the key. The ATV’s engine coughed and roared in response. “Wilder, with me. Get on.”

Wilder’s blemished, youthful skin stretched into a sheepish grin as he mounted behind her, manhandling his bulky rifle. Tessa suggested that he sling it over his back, and handed him a pistol.

Adira took the Minivan with the sliding door. Duke and Elvis entered and left it ajar, weapons at the ready. She grasped the wheel, feeling her heart pounding. She had never been on a food run. But she couldn’t fall behind. “Past the factory. Through the cathedral. Hit three or four houses in the Backwoods. In and out,” she whispered to herself. She heard hooting from the others. Unable to contain herself, she whooped in nervous excitement and dropped the steel to the floorboard.

…

“He doesn’t say much, does he?”

Tessa peered across the field at the stalking figure, as the wind whipped the wheat grass.

Adira nodded agreement. “He used to.”

“I heard he froze up. With Bennett and the others at the bridge. That kid got killed cause of him,” Wilder eyed her with rueful eyes.

Elvis stalked through the waist-high grass like a predator a stone’s throw away, with bloodshot eyes and his small hands clutching a shotgun. “I heard that too…” Tessa responded quietly.

“Luckily I’m here. So there’s no real need to worry,” Wilder tossed Tessa a casual wink and gave her a grope.

She shooed him away. “Have some respect! Why don’t you?”

Tessa felt she didn’t need anyone, but it sure felt nice. She had surrendered to the cocky boy’s juvenile but good-hearted attempts at courtship a few days before. She had know him, what, a month? Tessa shrugged to herself. “I was a bad girl. I slept with you and the only name I know you have is Wilder. What kinda name is that anyways? Did your parents give you that?”