The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide (22 page)

"Was it?" Xander was astonished that he could actually find words instead of screaming or smashing the pipe against something as he was itching to do. "Was it?"

"Xander…"

Xander turned away from the warm brown eyes of his friend. Bobby was right, he knew that. Something was extremely wrong with Molly; she would have attacked and perhaps killed one of them if she'd been given the chance. But he would never get the sound or feel of her skull collapsing out of his memory. The urge to scrub himself clean seized hold of him, but that wasn't an option and neither was standing here staring at the remains of the dead girl.

He glanced back at the window and the faces pressed against it. Their hands were flattened to the glass as they began to slap at it. A rattle against the door alerted him to their presence there too. Josh threw himself at the garage door as it lifted an inch. He stepped onto the handle, using all of his weight to keep the door down as he seized the lock in the center of the door. He attempted to twist it but it didn't move beneath his hand.

The door shook even harder as those things began to slap against it. Fingers dug under the dirt outside as they tried to get a better grasp on the door. Josh made an inarticulate sound as Xander lurched forward, but there was nothing for him to grab, nothing to help Josh keep the door down as it jerked up a couple of inches again.

"Get the car started!" he shouted as he grabbed Josh's shoulders and pushed him back to the ground. He wrapped his hand around Josh's on the lock, stepped on his foot and leaned his weight against it as the door jerked again.

Peter leapt into the driver's seat and started the car. Bobby ran over to him but Xander shook his head and nodded to the car. "Get in!"

The door jerked up again, lifting them a few inches off the ground. Blackened and filthy hands scrabbled beneath them on the floor. Most of their fingernails were gone and what remained of them resembled rotten fungus and didn't smell any better. Xander's heart raced as he lifted his leg away from them and leaned more forcefully against the lock. He had to be crushing Josh's foot but Josh didn't offer any complaint as he leaned against the door with Xander.

Xander kicked down forcefully as a head appeared beneath them. His foot connected with the back of the skull and bounced the woman's face off of the concrete floor. He heard something break but he didn't care as he lifted his foot and stomped down on one of the hands. Bobby appeared from the shadows of the garage with the pipe Xander had used to kill Molly with.

Bobby swung out; connecting with three of them he forced them back. Xander was knocked back slightly as the door crashed to the floor again. Except it didn't quite make it all the way to the floor as the woman he had kicked in the head was trapped beneath it. The door had caught her in her upper back, pinning her to the floor as she flailed about trying to free herself.

An inhuman howl erupted from her. Xander's foot danced like a man walking on hot coals as he tried to avoid the snapping teeth and flailing hands of the woman under him. She was trying to turn herself over as more hands appeared. Josh let out a low curse beside him as the door began to lift up again.

"Get in the car!" Peter shouted.

"Hurry!" Mary Ellen yelled.

Xander's hand clenched on Josh's as they were heaved up again. The woman scrambled forward a few more inches, but she wasn't moving as quickly as she had before the door fell on her. Xander maneuvered Josh's hand out from under his. "Go!" he urged.

"You can't hold them off on your own," Josh protested.

"We can't hold them off together." Josh frowned, his nearly black eyes focused on the growing space beneath them as the woman managed to wiggle in up to her waist. "Go!"

The door lifted up a few more inches as Josh leapt off the handle. Xander grabbed hold of the lock with both hands and pressed down as forcefully as he could. "Xander!"

"Get back Bobby!" he shouted as his friend tried to come at him again.

Bobby froze, trapped like a deer in the headlights as he stared at Xander and then the group trying to shove themselves under the door.
Bobby
go
, he pleaded silently. There was no reason for both of them to be trapped here. Bobby had the look of someone who had just seen their dog run over as he took a step back.

Xander nearly lost his balance as the door lurched up again and a hand seized hold of his ankle. He kicked backwards with his other foot as he tried to knock free the surprisingly tenacious grasp. His heart lurched into his throat; he could feel the blood pulsing in his temples as he forcefully pushed down on the door again.

"Get in the car!" Peter shouted. Xander looked up as Peter grabbed Bobby's arms and pushed him toward the Caddy. "Drive!"

Peter grabbed the pole from Bobby and raced at him as Xander's leg was ripped off of its tenuous perch on the handle. He drove his foot downward in a hopeful attempt to catch hold of someone but all he caught was the concrete floor. His ankle screamed in protest at the impact and his teeth clamped down as pain shot through his abused foot. The hand jerked on his leg as it tried to pull him under the door.

"Hold on!" Peter panted.

Just what did Peter think he was doing? Peter swung the pipe down on the wrist of the hand holding him but instead of releasing him, the hand only clamped down harder and yanked forcefully. A fingernail was torn off as Xander lost his grasp on the handle. An
oopmh
of air rushed out of him as he fell backward and crashed onto the ground.

Someone screamed; he knew it wasn't him simply because he still couldn't get air into his lungs. He managed to regain enough control of himself to slam his right foot into the door in order to stop himself from being pulled from the garage. The door rattled, metal bent, but he pressed against it as he tried to push himself back into the building. A human body wasn't supposed to bend in this way, or at least his wasn't, but he ignored the pain that lanced through his legs and into his groin.

Peter lifted the pipe back up, but there was nothing for him to hit. The hand holding Xander was now safely on the other side of the door. Peter knocked two more back before dropping the pipe and grabbing Xander under his armpits. He gave a mighty heave backward but his feet slipped out from underneath him and they both crashed inelegantly to the floor.

Three more people were trying to squirm their way under the door when Josh and Bobby arrived. Josh grabbed hold of the pipe and began to batter people back as Bobby seized Xander's leg and tried to pull it back into the garage. Xander could feel other hands scrabbling over his leg, seeking purchase as he was pulled further out the door. A low groan escaped him; the leg planted against the door was bent at an even more unnatural angle.

The bones were going to break, or every muscle in his leg was going to give out. He was so focused on trying to stay inside that it stunned him even more when a stabbing pain tore up his left leg with enough force to rob him of his breath. He went limp in Peter's grasp, his other leg almost fell off the door as he bit back a scream and his vision blurred. He didn't know what they were doing out there but it felt as if the skin was being flayed from his leg.

Bobby must have seen something in his face as all the color drained from his and his mouth parted. "Xander…"

The rest of his words were drowned out as the headlights of the car blazed to life and Mary Ellen laid on the horn with enough force to wake the dead. Xander grit his teeth, it was the worst thing she ever could have done, it would only attract more attention, only bring more of them here. There would be no escaping now.

But even as he thought it, two of the ones trying to climb under the door threw their arms over their eyes and recoiled from the flashing brights. Another one threw their hands over their ears and began to scream. Peter and Bobby toppled back again as Xander was released. Xander grabbed the pipe and tried to get back, but the leg they'd had a hold on wouldn't cooperate and the other one had been strained to the point of near uselessness.

He still managed to drag himself back a few feet before Peter threw his arm around Peter's shoulders, helped him to his feet and hobbled him toward the car. Peter slid him into the passenger seat as Josh fell into the back. "Are you ok?" Josh demanded.

Xander wasn't entirely sure what he was right now, but at least he wasn't pinned against a freaking garage door anymore. Bobby scooted into the middle of the seat beside him, followed by Peter. "What about the door?" Josh asked.

"Lay off the horn and light," Peter instructed Mary Ellen.

She eased off the horn and turned off the lights as Peter and Josh slammed and locked their doors. It took a few seconds but eventually hands began to appear under the door again. Xander held his breath as it rattled up a few feet and then crashed back down. Finally, they managed to get a good hold on it and lift it up. "Turn on the lights," Xander said.

Mary Ellen threw on the high beams and slammed on the horn. Three of them stumbled back but two of them kept on coming as she shifted into drive. She tried to avoid running them over, but in the end, she didn't have a choice as one of them ran at the car with a gaping mouth and a face full of weeping sores. Mary Ellen didn't so much as hit the man as he threw himself onto the hood of the car and began to smash his hands into the glass.

She let out a startled cry and Josh fell against Bobby as the other one began to beat on his window. Leaning over Mary Ellen, Xander laid on the horn again as she turned on the windshield wipers. Xander actually would have found it amusing, might have even laughed if this had been a movie, or if it had been happening at any other point in his life.

Instead he could only watch as the wipers slapped against the man's face before he grabbed hold of one and tore it from the car. Xander blinked and threw his arm up as the car broke out of the garage and into the day. Xander had expected to be mobbed by hundreds of people, but there were only a handful more of them and most were stumbling back from the car with their arms over their eyes or their hands over their ears.

The one on the hood showed no sign of disembarking anytime soon as he began to slap his hand against the glass again. "I can't see!" Mary Ellen cried.

The minute she laid off the horn more of them started coming at the car again. "You have to keep pressing the horn," he told her. "Go in a circle."

"Circle what?" she demanded.

"The garage, just circle the garage!"

Mary Ellen crept around the garage as he hit the button and rolled the window down. The man looked up at him, his eyes rolled in his head as his mouth opened to reveal a gaping maw of black. There were red patches on the man's arms, and his flesh seemed to be in the later stages of necrosis.

Xander couldn't tell if he had gangrene or was simply decomposing, and he didn't care as he grasped hold of the window and pulled himself halfway out. His strained right leg was starting to feel better, but his left one throbbed and was difficult to maneuver as he leveled himself onto the window. He felt hands seize hold of his shirt and waist as he lifted the pipe above his head and brought it down.

It should have caught the man dead center in the back of his head, but he was quicker than Xander had anticipated given the state of his body. He dodged back as he managed to avoid what would have been a crushing blow. A low hiss escaped Xander; he nearly lost his grasp on the pipe as the jolt of the missed hit traveled from the pipe to his hands and up his arms.

Mary Ellen cried out as the glass fractured and the immense spider web in the middle spread across the windshield. Xander yanked the pipe back up. The man, not expecting him to react so quickly, lunged forward as Xander swung the pipe and caught him across his cheek.

The man was knocked back but still managed to keep his grasp on the car. Adjusting his hold on the pipe, Xander drove it straight into the man's back before swinging it up and smacking him under the jaw. A guttural sound escaped the man as he finally tumbled off the hood of the car. Xander slid quickly back inside and rolled up his window.

He bent forward, inhaling deeply as he tried to ease the roadrunner pace of his heart. Sitting back he leaned forcefully against the seat as he stared out the window. There were still people coming at them but nowhere near as many as Mary Ellen went back to leaning on the horn. Mary Ellen found the road they'd entered on and drove down it. She didn't ease off of the horn until they made it back to the main road.

Xander didn't have any words right now. He was content to just sit there and numbly stare out the window right now. He dropped the pipe down by his side and rested his head against the headrest.

Whatever pretenses he'd had that the new day would bring better things were completely gone. There were no better things out there anymore.

"I think we should try and find as many back roads as we can to Sturbridge," Peter said after awhile.

"They'll be more likely to be blocked," Bobby said.

"But they'll also be less likely to have a horde of hungry psycho's."

Xander didn't know which was worse, being trapped somewhere, or being swarmed by a mob of those things. He clasped his hands before him as he leaned forward and tried to think through the pounding in his head. At least his heart was finally slowing down.

"They don't seem to like noise or bright light though," Josh said.

"It didn't work on all of them. There could be thousands upon thousands more of them in the populated areas. Even if it worked on three quarters of them…"

"We'd still be overrun," Xander murmured.

All he wanted was to get to Sturbridge as quickly as possible and to hold Riley, to know that she was safe, and to touch her just one more time. He rubbed at his temples as he tried to sort through this mess.

"But if we get stuck somewhere we could still be overrun if we're cornered by them," Bobby said.

Xander sat up and blinked against the harsh sun. "There will also be obstacles in cities and more populated areas, perhaps even more of them," he said. "It will take longer but we'll stick to the back roads."