Running Away - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 4) (15 page)

She was wearing dark blue jeans and a T-shirt that looked surprisingly clean compared to our wardrobes. I also noticed that she looked healthy. She wasn’t skin and bones. It seemed as though she had been well fed.

“Oh… oh dear. Why…,” she said crossing her arms and rubbing herself as if she was freezing.

She looked to be close in age to us, but what was she doing living out in the middle of nowhere alone? Then I realized she hadn’t been alone. The bodies downstairs had probably been her parents.

“Why are you in our house?” she said looking at Penn and then at me. “Did my dad let you in?”

P
enn looked at her
. It appeared as though something about her confused him. He looked down at his feet for a second and then made his way over to the small window. The girl watched him as he gazed down at the yard, which I assumed was still covered with dog-beasts.

“When was the last time you talked to your dad?” Penn asked squinting, but it wasn’t that bright outside.

She started to fidget, “You killed him didn’t you? Oh fiddlesticks, I just knew it when I heard all those noises.”

The girl tried to hold her face still, but it slowly scrunched up and quivered until she started sobbing into her hands. Penn looked at me with wide eyes and nodded towards her. I narrowed my eyes at him when I realized he wanted me to explain to her.

“We didn’t kill your dad, or your mom, the dogs did.”

“My mom’s dead too?” She let out a howl as she clawed at her chest. “I should have known something was wrong when they didn’t come up to see me.”

I looked out her bedroom door, “You don’t go downstairs?”

“Dad didn’t allow it… safer up here. I’ve been up here since the world ended,” she said between whimpers.

“I killed the dogs that killed your parents,” Penn blurted out as if he was afraid she still thought that we had come into her home and murdered her parents. She stopped crying to look at him with her wet eyes. Her eyelashes stuck together forming dark triangles as she blinked at him repeatedly. “I’m going to go downstairs now. Maybe Carter and I can get the dogs out the front door or something.”

I rolled my eyes at this excuse. For some reason Penn was unable to communicate effectively or compassionately with this poor, isolated girl. She had no idea what hell was waiting down those stairs for her.

“What’s your name?” I asked taking a step back. While she seemed harmless, I couldn’t trust her enough to take my eyes off of her for more than a second.

“Lucy. What’s yours?” she asked with a tiny smile showing mostly in her eyes.

“Ros.”

“What’s your friend’s name?” she asked looking at her fingers.

“Penn,” I said shifting my weight from one leg to the other. “You really haven’t been outside since this all started?”

She shook her head side-to-side and smiled with her hands folded into her lap. I started to think that she hadn’t been out much at all even before everything was destroyed.

“How did your family survive everything? It looks like you all did very well for yourselves,” I said looking at her again. She was tall and had at least twenty pounds on me. It wasn’t at all that she was overweight, she was normal weight and I was far too underweight. Her hair was shiny and perfectly combed, and she smelled like soap and flowers.

She stood up and took an excited step towards me, but when I recoiled she put her palms up to show she had nothing. It was as if she realized she was coming on too strong. She flashed me a thin-lipped smile.

“My dad always said something like this would happen. You should see our basement!” she said as she hopped up and down quickly. She was far too energized. It was like she was on fast forward while the rest of the world was stuck on play, or maybe even pause. “Oh and those dogs… my dad was storing them in the barn out back in case we ran out of food. We were going to eat them!”

“Oh crap!” I said stepping back against the wall. Dean must have heard me hit the wall because he stepped inside the room holding his gun up towards the girl. “Did
you
eat any of them?”

“No, not yet. That was a backup plan. But looks like they all got out,” she said with a small frown as she looked out the window. “You guys can have one. There is no way I’ll be able to eat all those dogs by myself.”

I shook my head and looked into her eyes as if she was slow, “Do not eat the dogs. Never eat the dogs.”

“Well, why on earth not? Times are tough,” she said squeezing her eyebrows together.

“Poison.” The only word that I was able to get out of my mouth. I didn’t know how to make it any clearer than that. There was no way any one of us would ever risk eating the dog-beasts.

“Well, we have other stuff downstairs… I guess I could share, since it’s just me now. I worried about this day. The day I’d be alone. Of course I thought it wouldn’t happen until my parents were much older,” she sniffed and the tears started rolling down her cheeks again.

I walked over to the door to stand by Dean. The room was starting to feel a little stuffy, and I wanted to get downstairs. This girl, although nice, didn’t seem entirely normal.

“Why did you think this would happen?” I asked almost not wanting to hear the answer.

“Mom and dad would fight about those dogs all the time. He wanted to keep as many as we could and they just kept coming! It was like they were looking for the missing and they’d send more. After my dad filled the one barn he started on the other one over there,” she said pointing out towards a smaller building that looked like maybe it had been a stable. “But mom said we had enough and that he needed to stop taking them in. We could hear them growling at night… they were angry, fighting one another and I’m pretty sure they’d eat one another too, but dad told me I had a good imagination.”

I shivered just thinking about all those horrid dog-beasts clustered inside of the barn. It wasn’t the least bit surprising that they broke free and attacked her parents.

“Then the other day, they were fighting again, my parents that is, and I heard a banging noise followed by a loud crash. My mom stopped shouting at him after that. I called out to her, but she didn’t answer, neither did my dad. After that, I heard the back door open and moments later another loud noise, and then the growls from the dogs. I ran to the window to see the dogs flooding out of the barn. They had broken free. I knew mom must have been so angry,” she said twisting her fingers and scraping the tip of her shoe against the floor.

The only thing I could think about was how I was pretty sure based on what she’d just told me that her dad had killed her mom, but this girl was so innocent her mind hadn’t even gone to that dark place. I felt bad for her.

In my mind I could see her dad dragging the mother’s body out to the backyard, as he ran back towards the house, only he didn’t make it. He hadn’t even been able to close the door before the dogs got him.

“Every so often I heard the back door open and close, so I thought my dad was still down there, but he wouldn’t ever talk to me. I guess, thinking back, that was a little weird.” She shrugged and then wiped away a stray tear from the corner of her eye.

“May have been the wind… or the dogs. Because he was gone when we got here,” I said looking at her clean shoes.

“Guess so,” she said but then she started smiling. I widened my eyes, surprised at the sudden change of her expression. “Can I go downstairs?”

I looked at Dean. She’d probably freak out if she saw the dog-beasts laying dead on the floor. I wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle seeing all the blood.

“I’ll go see if they are ready for us,” Dean said stepping to the side. He paused and looked at me and then the girl. It seemed as though he was nervous to leave me alone. I was pretty sure I’d be OK unless she had an older brother that would pop out after Dean left, but that was probably pretty unlikely. I would have heard the floorboards moving somewhere by now.

Lucy and I looked at each other awkwardly as we waited for Dean to return. I couldn’t think of anything else to ask her that she’d know the answer to. It seemed as though she was pretty oblivious to everything that had been going on around her.

It felt as though Dean was taking forever. I kept looking at the doorway hoping he’d appear.

“Are your parents dead too?” she asked looking at me as she laced her fingers together.

“I think so. After the storms I never saw my mom again,” I started to look around her plain room to see if I could learn anything about her. I didn’t want to talk about my mom with this strange girl. I didn’t want to talk about her at all. There wasn’t any point in talking about all that I had lost.

“What about your dad?”

“They were divorced. I barely ever saw him.”

“Sorry to hear that,” she said looking as though she wished she wouldn’t have asked.

“Don’t be. None of that matters anymore,” I said using a tone that I hoped would convey my lack of interest in this conversation.

I was relieved when I heard someone coming up the stairs. I looked out the door and saw Dean heading towards us.

He stopped when he saw me looking at him, “You guys can come down now.”

“Finally,” I muttered and gestured for Lucy to follow me. She hopped and skipped as if I was taking her on a field trip. I was pretty sure once she saw the bloodstained carpet her mood would probably change.

When we got downstairs, and she saw all the others, she hid behind me shyly. I guess we should have warned her that it wasn’t just the three of us.

“That’s Carter, Sienna and Alice over there on the sofa,” I said pointing them out as I said their names. “This is Dean and I’m sure you remember Penn.”

She just smiled. I figured it would probably take her a while to get used to all of us and learn our names. As long as she let us stay in her house, that was… although I wagered she would let us stay as long as we wanted. I didn’t think she’d want to be left alone.

“Everyone, this is Lucy,” I said trying to take a step to the side so they could see her, but she followed me. I saw her hand shoot up and give a little wave.

“Hi,” she whispered quickly, but it was only loud enough for me to hear. I sighed and walked over to the tell Penn about what she’d said about the supplies downstairs… she followed me like a lost puppy.

He turned to go check the basement, and I grabbed him by the arm. I handed him my gun, and he looked at me like I was crazy.

“No,” he said firmly.

“Just switch.” I shook the gun at him and shot him a look that hopefully conveyed that I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He groaned, but he took the gun and handed me his.

For all we knew it was some kind of trap. Maybe they stored more dog-beasts in the basement. Any kind of evil could be down there waiting. Clearly it was better for him to take the gun that had more bullets.

Penn gestured at Dean and Carter and they followed him down the stairs. Lucy and I went back to the living room where Alice was moving around on the sofa trying to get comfortable. Sienna was slouched in a chair looking more miserable than she had when I had left her to go upstairs.

I didn’t know if the illness was hitting her fast or if she had given up on pretending it wasn’t affecting her. Alice had been miserable as well. Maybe now that we were at Lucy’s they could catch up on some much needed rest.

“Are they OK?” Lucy asked softly, not wanting them to hear her voice.

“They’re sick,” I said watching as Sienna leaned her head back and rested her forearm over her eyes.

“There are beds upstairs…,” Lucy said looking sad. But then her eyes lit up. “We have medicine! My dad put it up high in the kitchen. I’ll show you!”

She pulled me along. If she noticed the bloodstains she didn’t comment on them. I couldn’t tell but it looked as though she was forcing the smile to stay on her face. When her lip quivered, I knew she was trying to stay strong.

“Up there,” she said pointing as she pulled one of the kitchen table chairs across the floor. We both jumped when there was a loud bang at the back door and then another at the window.

I saw the dog-beasts showing their teeth and growling at us as if we were food. They were still hungry.

I took a breath and walked right up to the window and closed the curtain, and then did the same to the one on the back door. They still growled, but at least I couldn’t see them looking at me any more.

“Up here?” I said adjusting the chair.

“Yes ma’am,” she said, her voice as sweet and gooey as honey.

“Ros.”

“Right. Ros.”

I wasn’t quite tall enough to see everything in the cabinet, but off to the side was an array of cold and allergy medicines. I stood on my tip-toes and took out the liquid cold medicine. Before I brought it out to the living room I checked the dosing and measured out the first little cup. I handed the liquid to Sienna first and then, after she drank it all down, I poured out Alice’s dose. It probably wouldn’t matter if they shared the same little cup since they both had the same sickness.

“Thanks,” Sienna said as she released a breath. She turned to curl up in the recliner.

I brought Alice her medicine, and she nodded her thanks as she closed her eyes. It was probably just as well to keep them down here so we were all together. At least until we figured out our plan.

“What happened to your arm?” Lucy whispered trying to be careful not to disturb Sienna and Alice from their rest.

“I got burned in a fire,” I said rubbing at the bandage lightly. The bandage was in pretty sad shape and definitely needed to be replaced. It had a blood stain and all kinds of little threads were starting to fall out. Hopefully, we could find something around here that we could use to fix it. Perhaps there was a first aid kit somewhere.

Lucy looked scared. I wasn’t sure she would ever be able to comprehend the world outside of the safe zone her parents had created for her. She wouldn’t have that same safety any more because now she was all alone.

If her dad wouldn’t have collected the dog-beasts for backup food, maybe none of this would have happened. Well, except for the part where her dad likely killed her mom, that might have still happened. But probably under different circumstances.

The boys came pounding up the stairs breaking my train of thought. Dean came up first and looked at me, shaking his head, “You aren’t going to believe this.”