The Last Outbreak (Book 1): Awakening (25 page)
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
He attempted to convince the girl he wasn’t there to do her any harm. The pain slowly lifted as he knelt in the thick underbrush and studied the girl for signs of injury. Extending his hand, she craned her neck from behind the tree and slid forward. “My mother… they took her. They took her. Please help me find her.”
Her eyes darting side to side, she moved from behind the tree, still uncertain of her next move. She reached back behind the tree, dragging out her backpack and a pair of badly worn running shoes, obviously left behind by the woman pulled from the forest moments ago.
If they were going to survive the storm clawing at their backs, they’d need to get moving. His original destination, and most likely her home, District Two wasn’t much more than a mile south. As rapidly as the temperature would drop in the next hour, his main concern was finding them shelter.
Not more than seven or eight years old, her shoulder length sandy brown hair and peaches and cream complexion were flawless. She wasn’t damaged enough for someone that’d been living on the road for any length of time, and the fact that she wasn’t a walking skeleton told him she’d been fed on a regular schedule. The District he assumed she was migrating from was close. A tear began to form in her eye as she stepped out from the shadows afforded by the low-hanging branches and into the light of day.
For the first time in twenty-one days, the sun touched the earth. He hadn’t the slightest idea how long this would last and although the heavy flakes continued to fall, he was mesmerized by the depth of her blue eyes. For as long as he could remember, everything through the tinted frames of the goggles he wore turned to grey. Today, her eyes were a reminder of the world he lived in as a child, a place before everything died. As blue as the ocean he remembered, they possessed hope.
He extended his arm. “Sweetheart, my name is Rath. I can help you.”
He forced his own emotions down as she ran the short distance to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her moist face into his jacket. She cried hard and her body heaved as he hugged her back. Finally pulling away and looking into her eyes, slivers of red moving across the whites, he brushed the hair away that began to freeze to her face. “What’s your name?”
She let out a delayed sigh. “My name is Chloe. Those men took my mom; there is no one left. They took them all this time.”
He told himself she was in shock, partially from what had just happened and also from the rapidly decreasing temperature. “Chloe, we need to get going. It’s going to get very cold soon, and once night comes… well we just need to get inside soon.”
He helped Chloe gather her things and toss them into her backpack. Turning back toward the tracks, something caught his eye, and as he moved closer it became clear. One of the men who’d exited the transport drone must have returned without his weapon. Rath clutched the baton and was surprised at the weight. For something with only half the mass of his pipe, the power it packed was something that would be useful in getting back to his wife.
Moving back to the scout drone alongside the tracks, Rath returned to finish what he’d begun minutes before. Removing the remaining pieces that shielded what he was after, he unlatched the device and depressed the unit, watching it spring from its home. With the intricate piece of technology still illuminated, he wrapped it in a dry cloth and carefully placed it between the items at the top of his pack. Scanning the area for anything he may have missed, he called to the girl now sitting at the base of the bridge. “Let’s go.”
The rigidity he’d felt upon waking along the tracks began to dissipate with each step. The sun disappeared as fast as it had come and he squinted through the snowfall, expecting to see their destination off in the distance. He torqued his neck side to side and moved both arms in circles, slowly flushing the stiffness from his wrecked muscles. He smiled through the soreness as he watched the girl, now five paces ahead, begin to mimic his movements. They followed the tracks for what he felt was much more than a mile, and every few minutes Chloe turned to look back the way they’d come.
Rath assumed his internal odometer was off and increased his pace. Catching and overtaking Chloe, he nodded in the direction of the upcoming bridge and began to jog. She followed his lead and as they continued to move, their pace quickened with each passing minute. His lungs began to burn, although it had nothing to do with the exertion they were under. Familiar black smoke lifted above the distant treeline as the reality of their situation began to take shape.
She recognized the outcropping of scorched trees and the downed gate a hundred yards ahead. Chloe stopped running and yelled something into the storm as Rath began to sprint, withdrawing his weapon as he stepped over the fallen oak branches. Stopping at what was left of the entrance to District Two, Rath turned to find he’d lost his co-pilot.
She sat along the narrow path between two large oaks with her head in her hands. As he made his way back to her, she was already wiping the tears away and brushing the frozen mist off of her sleeves. She took his hand, stood and without either saying a word, made a wide arc around the front of the deserted village.
Weapon in one hand and Chloe holding tight to the other, Rath lead them through the gates and into the interior. The events that took place here couldn’t compete with the realization of what this meant. The resources and people that lived behind these walls were the intended target of the transport drone that also had taken his wife and the mother of the child holding his hand.
Then it hit him. This was her home.
Fifty feet in and the District’s main building sat in ruins, the devastation more than anything he’d yet witnessed in the two weeks he’d spent on the road with Sarah. The usually well-maintained city streets that indicated District uniformity were today littered with the bodies of those who’d fought to save their loved ones from abduction. The glow of spot fires dotted the backdrop, casting an ominous glow over the area as the pair continued on to the far end of town.
He already knew the number, although he counted as they walked, and of the twelve structures that lined the main road through town, only one stood untouched. Everyone in the area was either captured, killed, or…
Rath stopped and knelt next to the girl. “Chloe, you lived here…” He framed his words as a statement more than a question.
She was confused. “Yes?”
Even in her abbreviated answer, he could sense she wanted to tell him more. He continued, “Is this where you were running from? Were you here when they came?”
“Yes.”
He began to form his next question, when the all-too-familiar sound came from outside the District walls. The pair turned to one another, confirming what they both knew was already happening.
Gripping her hand tight and glancing back at the fallen gate, Rath said, “They’re coming… we have to hide.”
