Glory (Book 5) (6 page)

Chapter 2

Adam walked to the library. His talk with Jane had been good, though it probably could have gone better. He could have been more supportive. Or at least given her some advice
.
The problem was that he didn't know what advice to give
.
He opened the library door and walked inside.

As he had expected, everyone was awake. They were sitting in a corner near the window, talking. Claire looked up as soon as he came in and ran over to him.

"Is everything okay?" she asked. "I saw you talking to Jane this morning."

"You did?"

"Yeah. When I woke up, I saw that you two weren't here. I looked around and saw the both of you outside. Did you tell her what we talked about?"

"Yes," Adam said. "She…" He closed his mouth. He had promised Jane that he wouldn't tell anyone until she was ready. And even though Claire was someone he trusted - and liked a lot - he decided not to tell her. "I talked with her."

"And?"

"And I think everything will be okay. She wants a little time to work things out. I said we'd talk to her if things got worse."

"Got worse? Did she tell you what was wrong?"

Adam didn't want to lie, but he didn't want to break Jane's trust, either. "Yes…but she asked me not to say anything about it."

"She did?"

Adam nodded.

"It's okay," Claire said. "I can understand that. You'd tell me if there was a serious problem though, right?"

"Right," Adam said, and immediately felt bad for saying it
.
Jane's proble
m
wa
s
serious.

Chapter 3

Jane walked into the library not long after Adam. Once she had seen her daughter up in the window, she hadn't wanted to stay at the playground any longer. She had to get inside, to be with the others.

She saw that Adam was talking to Claire and prayed that he wasn't telling her about their conversation
.
He had promised that he wouldn't say anything.

She moved farther into the room.

"Good morning," Charles said to her. He was sitting with Robert in his lap. They were reading a book. Shelly was beside them.

"Good morning," Robert added. He waved at her.

"Good morning," she said, smiling
.
It felt nice to have these people around. They cared about her. They truly did
.
She sat down beside them.

Adam and Claire walked over a few seconds later and sat down as well. Charles used several animated voices as he read his story. They clapped when he was finished.

"Again, again!" Robert shouted.

"You want another one?" Charles asked. He picked up a different book. "How about this one?"

"Yeah, that one!"

Charles opened it.

"Maybe we should leave them to it," Adam said.

Leave them to it
?
Jane wondered
.
Why?

"We should go upstairs," Adam explained, reading her thoughts.

Upstairs? Why
?
It didn't take Jane long to remember. The bodies from upstairs. Including the ones she had killed
.
The man who had attacked Adam. The two children and the janitor.

She thought of her daughter sitting beside them
.
Thump
.
Slamming the poor girl's head over and over against the ground
.
Thump, thump.

She couldn't hide her nervousness no matter how hard she tried.

Work through it
!
she commanded herself
.
You can!

"Sure, I'll come," she stuttered.

Adam turned to Claire. "You want to come too?"

"I don't want to," she replied. "But
I
wil
l
."

Shelly turned from the story book to look at Adam. "Why are you going upstairs? Are you going back on the roof?"

"No," Adam said. "We're not going back up on the roof. We're going to...well...to move some things out." He hadn't wanted to say that they were going to remove the dead bodies.

"Som
e
thing
s
? Like what?" Shelly wasn't trying to be difficult. She simply wanted to know.

"The things I told you about yesterday," he said. He had told her about the bodies before they had gone up to the roof. Warned her not to look at them them.

She had forgotten about them. "Oh, those," she said. "Can I help?"

Even though she had seen things like that before, he didn't want her to see them again unless it was necessary. "I don't think so," he said.

"Why not? I can help lift."

"I know you can. And I really do appreciate your offer. But I'd rather you stay down here."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to have to see those things."

"I've seen things like that before."

Adam opened his mouth. Charles spoke instead. "Why don't you come with Robert and me?" the old man asked Shelly."I was going to take Robert out to the swings. You could help me push." He put down the book he was holding and smiled.

Shelly smiled back. She wanted to go upstairs and help Adam. But she also knew that Adam wanted to keep it from her. And maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

"Okay," she said.

Robert raised his hands over his head and clapped. "Yay! We're going on the swings. I love the swings. Let's go, let's go!"

Everyone smiled at that. Except for Jane. She tried, but it wouldn't happen. She was going upstairs…and that was nothing to be happy about.

Chapter 4

Jane followed Adam and Claire up the stairs. She kept expecting to see her husband and daughter come out and attack her, kept expecting to hear their voices.

"Is everything okay?" Adam asked over his shoulder.

"It's fine," she said, the stutter still in her voice.

By the time they made it to the top, Jane's heart was beating rapidly. She didn't want to go into the hallway. Didn't want to see the dead bodies. Th
e
thing
s
that she had shot and killed.

More than that, she didn't want to see her dead husband and daughter.

But she had told Adam that she would try. And she knew that this was something that she had to do.

She had to be strong. She had to fight!

Adam went around the corner first. Then Claire. Then Jane.

Jane grabbed onto the wall for support. If she felt faint, she wanted to know that it was there to stop her fall.

"They're starting to smell," Claire said. It wasn't the pungent smell of a lot of the other corpses they had come across. Not yet.

"It's their…" He was about to sa
y
shit
.
One thing he had noticed was that a lot of the bodies he had seen had soiled themselves. Though he didn't have to point that out to Claire and Jane. They had seen it enough times themselves. "Come on."

He walked up to the janitor's corpse. "Let's start with him.”

They surrounded the body.

Jane tried her best not to look at it, but couldn't help herself. She had shot the janitor in the face. Had pulled the trigger and put that hole there. Half of his head was splattered on the wall behind him. His blood had coated the floor.

"Be careful," Adam said. "It's slippery."

All the bloo
d
.

Jane took one leg. Claire the other. Again, Adam took the shoulders.

As they lifted on the count of three, the janitor's head fell backward and a fresh burst of blood spilled out of it.

Adam jumped back to avoid the spray. Some splattered the bottom of his pants, got onto his shoes.

"Damn," he said, but then supposed that it didn't matter. He was already covered in so many disgusting things. It would dry. He could brush it off.

"You okay?" Claire asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "Let's get this thing out of here."

They walked back to the staircase. This time, it hadn't crossed any of their minds to throw it out the window. Not from the second storey. There would be something too disrespectful about that
.
Plu
s
, they thought
,
they didn't know if the bodies would burst ope
n
.

They came to the bottom of the stairs and walked to the exit. They stopped before they went out.

"I hope Shelly and Robert aren't looking this way," Adam said.

"Did you want to take it another way?" Claire asked. "We could."

Adam shook his head. "No, I think that it'll be okay. Let's just take him out here."

Adam opened the door. Charles was pushing Robert on the swing. Shelly was swinging on the one beside him. Neither of them were looking in their direction.

"Let's go," Adam said.

They rushed the body outside.

Chapter 5

It didn't take them long to remove all of the bodies from all of the rooms.

"That wasn't so bad," Adam said, wiping his hands on his pants.

"No," Jane said. Her voice was a little bit more steady than it had been. To her surprise, she hadn't heard or seen anything from her dead family. And that gave her hope. "Not at all."

They walked back to the playground to tell Charles and the others that they were done.

As Jane followed behind Adam and Claire, she could see that there was a difference in the two. She had noticed it a little bit earlier today, but now there was no mistaking it. Something was happening between them. Maybe just a crush. Maybe more.

Jane felt another pang of jealousy at that. Still not because she felt anything for Adam. But because she, herself, no longer had that type of thing in her life. Her husband had changed and had run away..
.
after having killed their daughter.

She was alone.

Yet, maybe that wasn't true. Like Adam had said, they were all like a family now. It wouldn't be the same as her family with Phil and Becky, but it could be close.

Jane continued to walk behind Adam and Claire. And continued to watch them.

As she did, she felt herself wanting to look up at the second storey window as well. To see if her daughter was there. To know if the little girl was looking down at her.

Though if she was, that would only mean that she was going more and more crazy.

Jane took a deep breath. And another.

Eventually her eyes drifted upward. She couldn't stop them.

She looked at the second storey window. And paused.

Nothing was there. It was empty. Her daughter was gone.

Jane couldn't believe it
.
Maybe her daughter had left her. Maybe she'd finished haunting her. Maybe her husband had too

She turned to look back at Adam and Claire. They were almost at the park now. She ran to catch up with them, a slight smile on her face.

Day 22

Chapter 1

A couple of days had passed and Jane hadn't heard or seen anything of her dead husband and daughter. She couldn't help but think that they had gone for good. Though she wasn't exactly sure why they would have left, she decided not to question it. She was happy with the way things were.

"Higher," Robert said. "I want to go higher!"

She was outside pushing the little boy on a swing. It was nearing night time. The sky was a bright orange and red.

"Yes, sir!" Jane said, laughing while she did.

"Higher, higher."

She pushed the little boy a little harder. He swung back and forth, kicking his legs out with the motion of the swing.

"Higher, higher!"

"This is high enough," Jane said. She wasn't going to risk hurting him.

"No, I can go higher!" Robert argued.

"This is high enough."

"Higher!"

"Sorry, Robert. I don't want you to get sick."

"I won't, "Robert pleaded. "I promise."

Jane pushed him once more. But, on his way back, she heard cough.

"You okay?" she asked.

He coughed again. This time, it sounded like he might be choking on something.

She grabbed hold of the chains and pulled against their momentum. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

Robert didn't reply. She saw him spit up something onto the gravel underneath them. It was a dark red.

"Robert!" Jane shouted. "What happened?"

She rushed around to the front of the little boy. His head was down and he was breathing heavily. She could see more of the blood had splattered across his legs and shoes.

"Robert, look at me." Jane put her fingers under the little boy's chin and lifted his face. "What's…"

She stopped and stared at the child in front of her. She shook her head in disbelief. It was no longer Robert on the swing, but her daughter.

Becky looked up at her mother, blood dripping from her mouth. She coughed again, spraying her white sun dress.

"What's wrong?" Becky asked, blood gurgling between the words. "Are you okay?"

Jane couldn't get herself to answer. She felt the urge to run, felt the urge to cry. "You're not real," she said softly.

"Not real? What do you mean?"

"You're not real!" Her daughter reached out to grab her hand. Jane pulled away. "Don't touch me! YOU'RE NOT REAL!"

More blood dripped from her daughter's lips. "What do you mean?"

"You're not real. You're not real! Now leave me alone!"

Jane stepped back from her daughter as Becky tried to grab her once more. Then she turned and started to run.

"Where are you going?" her daughter called after her. "Come back!"

Her first instinct was to get to the library to find Adam. He had said that he would help her, that she could come to him if her family bothered her again. She had no idea if he'd be able to do much to actually help, but she was sure that it had to be better than nothing.

She came upon the doorway and it swung open before her.

"Jane?" Her husband stood before her, a crooked grin on his face. "What's the matter?"

Jane stepped back. "Leave me alone," she shouted. "You're not real!"

Phil stepped forward. "Not real? What are you talking about?"

"Stand back! Leave me alone!"

Phil didn't listen. He took another step closer. A growling sound built in his throat.

As he reached out to touch her, Jane turned and ran. She could hear her husband calling out to her. She could hear her daughter as well. But she wasn't going to stop for them. She wasn't going to stop for anyone. She needed to get out of there
.
No
w
.

Her heart beat quickly. She was out of breath. Yet, even with all of that, she didn't stop.

She ran to the top of the small ditch out back of the school and, before she had a chance to realize what was happening, tumbled down it.

She found herself lying on the bodies that she and Adam had thrown there. The janitor. The librarian. The teachers. The children. Their eyes focused on her. And they all began to laugh.

"You're not real," she screamed. "You're not real!"

She pressed her hand against one of the bodies and tried to stand. The body underneath her moved. Its took hold of her. The gash in its throat started bleeding.

"You're not real!"

She felt a hand on her leg next. Then another. And another.

Panicked, she started to kick. She reached down and pulled their hands from her.

"Leave me alone!"

She broke free and jumped away from them.

"No," one of the bodies said. "You can't leave us!
"
The little girl she had sho
t
. Half of her face was missing, but she was still able to talk. "Stay with us. Stay!"

They all started chanting, "Stay, stay! You can't leave us! Stay!"

Once more, Jane ran.

She didn't know where she was headed. Though it didn't matter
.
All she needed to do was get away
.
She headed farther into the forest behind the school, trees tearing at her skin and clothes.

She could hear the bodies behind her, following. She could hear them rustling against the trees and leaves, breaking branches on the ground. More than that, she could hear their laughter.

Then a voice called to her
.
Her daughter
.
"Mommy," Becky said. "Come back, you silly goose. Please. You can't leave us!"

Jane kept going.

*

When she broke out of the forest, Jane saw that she was in a field. She didn't know how long she had been running. And she didn't care. She was out in the open, and there was no sign of the bodies chasing her.

She waited a moment to make sure.

Nothing.

They weren't after her anymore. Maybe they had given up
.
That idea didn't give her much encouragement. She knew that they'd come back to her sooner or later
.
They'd never give up.

She took a few deep breaths, not sure of what to do next
.
She could go back to the school. She could keep running
.
She didn't know.

Finally, Jane lowered herself to the ground. She rested her head on her arms and started to cry.

It was the only thing she could think of to do.