The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide (4 page)

"We can fit through there," Bobby said.

Xander bent down and peered into the darkened interior. "Is it safe?" Mary Ellen asked.

"Probably not," Xander muttered as he sat back on his heels and stared at the rubble surrounding them. "I'll go in, you two stay out here in case something happens."

"I'm not letting you do this on your own," Bobby protested.

"You have to stay here with Marry Ellen, just in case someone else heard them and decides to come here. We have to keep that car Bobby, and unless they have weapons, you are going to have to defend it."

"I can do that."

Xander grabbed hold of Bobby's arm and squeezed. "I mean it Bobby, we can't lose that car. It's all we have right now, and we may not be able to find another one. Just don't do anything stupid."

"I'll take care of it Xander. We'll be fine."

"Do you have a light of some kind?" Mary Ellen asked.

Xander shook his head as he turned back to the darkened recesses of the building. "No, do you?"

"No. Maybe you shouldn't go in there."

"I'm just going to take a look around, see if there is anything we can do, or if we'll have to find another way into the building. We might not even be able to do anything for them." Mary Ellen shuddered at the thought. "I won't be gone long."

He squeezed Bobby's arm again and wiggled his way into the building. His feet hit the ground and he rose up before them, his waist even with the windowsill. She'd been expecting a drop down, a basement or something like that, and it took her a minute to realize he was in a classroom as he stepped away from the window.

Mary Ellen nervously glanced around; she wondered how many people had heard their call over the radio. It may be only a matter of time before someone else arrived here. A low curse drew her attention back to Xander as he shuffled further into the darkened room. She watched until the shadows swallowed him whole.

CHAPTER 3

Riley

Franklin, Mass.

Even though Riley closed the door on the small convenience store, the smell continued to adhere to her like a leech. Wrinkling her nose, she went to block her nostrils with her arm, but it was pointless. The odor had seeped into her clothes, skin and hair. "Another shower would be amazing," she muttered.

"There they are." She followed Carl's nod to where Al was waving at them from the doorway of Dunkin' Donuts. "Of course John would go after some freaking coffee. The kid's an addict."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black." Carl grinned as Riley pointed at the cigarette hanging from his mouth.

"Point taken." He pulled the butt from his mouth and stomped on it. "Maybe we can find a hotel or something to hole up in for a bit."

She wanted to keep going to Sturbridge and Xander, but she had to admit that the prospect of a bed and shower was one of the most tempting things she'd ever heard. "Just as long as it's on the first floor," Lee said.

"First floor?" Carl inquired.

Riley shook her head. "Bad situation at the stadium."

"Enough said. We'll make sure it's a motel then. Ready to raid the pharmacy?"

Riley was just starting to nod her agreement when the screaming started. She nearly gave herself whiplash as her jaw dropped and the bag in her hand slid from her limp grasp. Rochelle's high pitched shrieks echoed down the street and reverberated off the buildings in endless waves.

"What the…"

Lee's voice trailed off as John began to yell loudly and at a pitch that Riley hadn't thought a guy could attain unless they'd been kicked in the nuts. Carl cursed loudly, dropped his bag and bolted across the street with Riley and Lee right behind him.

A tinkling bell sounded as Carl threw the door open and plunged into the store with his gun at the ready. Riley staggered into the building behind him. She jerked her gun around the store as she searched for the threat that still had Rochelle shrieking like an irate squirrel, and John sounding like a teenage girl. She'd expected people, expected a threat, but she saw nothing as Al grabbed hold of Rochelle and they both stumbled back from the counter.

Rochelle stopped screaming only long enough to look at the half eaten coffee roll in her hand, before throwing it away as if it were a poisonous snake. More towards the back of the store, John was sitting on a metal counter with his feet pulled up and a puddle of coffee around him. His loud shouts were beginning to sound more like a squawking baby bird.

"What the hell is
wrong
!?" Carl bellowed.

Lee slid his hand over Rochelle's mouth and pulled her against him. Her eyes rolled in her head as she continued to scream against his palm, but the sound was blessedly muffled now. With Rochelle's screams stifled, and John's yells quieting, another sound began to sink in. Riley frowned, her hand constricted on the gun as she tried to make out what the new noise was, and what could possibly be making it.

It wasn't a snake, though it somewhat reminded her of one as it almost slithered, but no, not slithered. It slopped or slushed maybe? Was there a leak somewhere? But a leak wouldn't have caused this kind of reaction from Rochelle and John.

Though her shoulders and chest still heaved, and her nostrils flared wildly, Rochelle was beginning to calm down. John kicked out, and tried to push himself further back on the counter as his mouth opened and closed but no sound emerged. He was so pale that his high cheekbones and narrow chin appeared to stand out starkly against his skin and brown hair.

Goose bumps broke out on Riley's flesh as John's brown eyes remained riveted upon the ground before him. Her hand clenched around the gun as she met Lee's appalled eyes over top of Rochelle's head.

"No more screaming." Rochelle nodded as Lee cautiously removed his hand from her mouth.

Al exchanged a troubled look with Carl but neither of them moved as another new sound arose. It took Riley a few seconds to realize that it was a low, guttural moan. She couldn't breathe as everything in the store went deathly silent. She could almost feel the cold hand of death brushing against the back of her neck as the hair on it rose and the sweat cooled on her body.

Even John was immobile now with his knees pulled up against his chest. Carl kept his gun ready as he cautiously approached the counter and stood on his tip toes to lean over. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost; his body went rigid for a minute before he lowered himself back to the ground. His throat worked furiously as he struggled to find words.

"Is that what I think it is?" he finally croaked out. John managed a nod. "Can you get off that counter?"

"Are you… out of your freaking mind!?" John's voice was raw and he had to pause to swallow in between you and out.

Riley's curiosity urged her to see what had caused two guys, that had stood up to three men with guns, look like they were about to toss their cookies all over the floor. She didn't want to look but like rubbernecking on a highway, she felt
compelled
to see as she cautiously approached the register.

Carl noticed her as she was leaning over the counter. He went to grab for her but it was too late, she'd already spotted the pinkish worm/caterpillar/blob on the ground. Riley frowned in confusion. Was it a piece of the insulation? Had it fallen from the ceiling?

Even as her gaze shot upward she knew that she was wrong. Insulation didn't wear sneakers and belts. But who wore a belt and no pants? That would be insane. Unless they were wearing some kind of new fashion that made pants pink and fleshy looking.

She found she preferred the insanity to the light bulb that was going off in her head. Carl seized hold of her arm and pulled her back.

Riley's head spun as she turned to meet Carl's unwavering stare. She could feel him willing her to understand, almost sense him begging her not to freak out and start screaming like a lunatic. She was on the verge of throwing up and bolting down the street with absolutely no intention of looking back.

Then she thought of Al and the silent challenge that he'd offered her before.
Help with the tree or help them protect the others?
She'd chosen to be a protector then, and though this wasn't the same situation, it was one she couldn't back away from either. This wasn't a world where running and hiding from the ugliness was even an option. This was a world where every second was a fight to survive and she was going to survive.

She didn't realize Lee had approached until she felt him against her shoulder as he leaned over the counter. His body went rigid against hers, his hand on the counter trembled as he lowered himself back beside her. "Help."

Riley nearly jumped out of her skin as the guttural word was groaned from the floor.
Fight, fight, fight.
The word became a mantra in her head that she had to grasp hold of in order to keep her cool.

"Help me."

She didn't even know how to begin to help, didn't even know how to attempt to fix the damage that had been done. "John get off the counter," Carl said calmly.

John's face was as white as a sheet as he gaped at Carl. "What if it's a zombie or something?"

"It's not a zombie."

Riley thought she might actually prefer a zombie, she would know what to do with that, but this… Well how did anyone deal with this? What
was
this exactly?

"What if it's some kind of creature from the pinkish red lagoon?"

"Get off the counter!" Carl ordered in exasperation.

John glanced at the person on the floor before sliding through the spilled coffee toward the end of the counter. He jumped off and scurried as quickly as he could away from the person on the floor. Carl shook his head as he heaved a sigh. "I don't think it's much of a threat."

"It has a surprisingly strong grip," John retorted.

"
It
is a human being," Riley reminded them. "I think."

John swallowed heavily. "It's human," he confirmed. "But I don't know if it's male or female, and I don't think there's much we can do to help it."

She wanted to tell him to stop referring to it as an
it
, but she didn't know what else to call it either. "We don't know that," she managed to choke out.

John took a step closer and pitched his hoarse voice even lower. "I was this close to it." He held his thumb and index finger just centimeters apart. "Even if there was a fully functional hospital next door, there is nothing they could do to help."

Riley swallowed heavily and glanced behind the counter as a small moan issued again. She couldn't see the person, not anymore, but she'd never get the image from her mind. "We should still try."

They exchanged looks with each other, but no one moved. "There may be something in the pharmacy across the street," Rochelle suggested.

John shook his head forcefully. "It won't help."

"We can't just do nothing and leave here!" Riley gathered whatever courage she had left and hurried around the counter before she couldn't. She came to an abrupt halt as the person on the floor lifted its head, opened what remained of its mouth and stretched toward her.

"Help."

It took everything she had not to scream and run away. She saw immediately what John had meant. There was no way to tell what sex this pitiful person was, no way to know what color their hair had once been; no way to identify it. Whatever features it had once possessed were completely gone, now it was just a hideous skull with lumpy flesh sticking to it.

Flashes of Kelly filled her mind as she recalled how her friend had appeared to be boiled on the street when all of this had first started. Kelly had at least mercifully perished quickly from her injuries, but this poor person was still clinging to its last dregs of life, no matter how miserable.

John was right, no pharmacy or hospital was going to help with this. "What do we do?" she whispered.

The person groaned and its fingers clicked on the tile as it pulled itself slightly forward. Its fingers were nothing but bone from the knuckles to the tips, and raw muscle and flesh back to where the hands met the wrist. Bits of its shirt still clung to it, but not much remained, and the tatters only revealed more bloody flesh.

Riley's hand tightened around the gun, her jaw clenched as she had the overwhelming urge to walk up, press the muzzle against its forehead, and end its torment. Even as the thought hit her, she knew she couldn't do it. She couldn't be the cause of two deaths today, even if this one was a compassionate one. She became acutely aware of the fact that its opaque eyes were focused on the gun in her hand as it made a sound that tore at her heart, and caused a single tear to fall.

"I can't," she breathed and took a step back.

Frustration seemed to fill the person as its head dropped to the floor and what was left of its shoulders began to heave. Al came around the corner, grabbed hold of her arms and turned her away. "Take Rochelle outside."

She stared blankly at him until realization sank in. "It's not fair to you," she whispered.

"I'm a lot older than you Riley; I'll have a lot less time to live with this."

"It's the right thing to do," she tried to assure him.

"I know, go on now."

Riley wanted to protest further but she couldn't. She wasn't capable of being the one to do this, and she couldn't be here when it was done. Being determined to survive was one thing, but witnessing atrocities that she didn't have to witness was an entirely different matter. Besides, she was fairly certain there would be plenty more awful things to see soon enough.

She grabbed hold of Rochelle's shoulders, and pulling the young girl against her side, hurried her toward the door of the coffee shop. Rochelle's thin shoulders were still heaving, but she remained calm as the bell rang above them. Riley's lip curled, she'd never heard a sound she hated more. It was far too cheerful under these hideous circumstances. Without thinking she grabbed hold of the thing and yanked down on it with all of her might. Plaster rained down around her as she tore it from the wall, and tossed it aside.

The sound of it clattering across the floor didn't give her the sense of satisfaction she'd thought it would. She pulled the door shut behind her and hurried Rochelle toward the truck. Her shoulders were hunched as Riley braced herself for the shot she knew was coming. Even so, she still flinched and Rochelle let out a small moan as the shot echoed down the still street.