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Authors: Erica Stevens

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The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide (5 page)

BOOK: The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide
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It was a horror movie, I'm actually living in a horror movie right now
, she realized. Except in this movie there was no slasher to fight, no monster to shoot, and no demon to exorcise. The only thing that would haunt them would be their conscience; she just hoped that their conscience didn't end up killing them in the end.

Rochelle's eyes were shadowed and red as they came back to Riley. "Why don't you sit in the truck?" she suggested.

Rochelle nodded and limply slid into the truck as the door to the coffee shop opened. Riley hated the broken air that seemed to envelop the four of them as they made their way to the truck. Al was the only that didn't have slumped shoulders. He wasn't walking proudly, but he didn't appear as if he wanted to crawl into the ground and never come out again either.

John's jeans were covered in coffee, but he didn't seem to notice as he stepped off the curb and walked past her toward the truck. "Where are you going?" Riley asked him.

"Anywhere but this freaking shit hole," he retorted.

"We still have to go in the pharmacy."

She was pretty sure she'd sprouted another head from the look he gave her. "Are you out of your mind!?"

Riley gulped as she met Al's gaze over top of John's head.
Fight or run, fight or run?
She'd made her choice, now it was time for them to start making theirs. "No. There are things in there that we're going to need, things that may one day save our lives, and we can't simply leave this town without going in there to see."

"There may be more of
those
people in there!"

"John," Carl said as he lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. "We can all hear you."

John took a deep breath and seemed to regain control of his unraveling composure. "We don't even know what caused that to happen, and I sure don't want it happening to any of us."

"I think I know what happened," Riley told them. Now it was everyone else's turn to look at her like she was a walking talking teddy bear. "Or at least I've seen something like it before."

They listened with hollow eyes and pale faces as she told them about what had happened with Kelly. "It must be some sort of gas," Al said as he rubbed his chin. "Something that the earth is releasing with the lava and the earthquakes."

"Oh awesome, just wonderful. More fun." John threw up his arms and paced toward the car before spinning and coming back.

"Yeah, and just like everything else we can't be sure when it's going to happen," Lee muttered.

"Well it definitely happened in this town so I say we cut and run," John said.

"We went into the coffee shop," Riley reminded him. "And we're fine. Beside's there were other customers that survived whatever happened in there this morning."

"Did your crystal ball tell you that?" John demanded.

"No, common sense did!" she retorted. "The quakes started after seven. What is Dunkin' Donuts normally like at that time of the morning?"

"A mad house." Carl tapped his finger against his chin as he eyed the coffee shop. "There should have been bodies all over the floor."

"And judging by the remains of the clothes, I'd say it was an employee in there. Maybe they were in the back room, or bathroom, or somewhere else when it occurred, but the others managed to escape before the gas destroyed them," Riley continued.

"Or something else may have happened to them. Maybe they were affected by the gas, but not as hindered by it as that poor soul was," Al contemplated. Riley frowned questioningly at Al, John stopped pacing, but Al began to relentlessly cover ground between the truck and back.

"What makes you say that?" Carl prodded.

Al continued to pace as his head came up and his attention became riveted upon the store they had already pilfered. "They blocked that door for a reason."

She didn't think she could take anymore. Just when she thought she'd seen it all, just when she thought there simply
could
not
be
one more shock, there was. She turned toward the door that she'd removed the barricade from. "So what are you saying? The survivors from the gas go crazy and try to kill people or something?" Lee demanded.

"No, not necessarily. Think about what you'd be like if you just received a lungful, or a face full of gas that apparently does some serious damage to the human body. They were probably frantic to escape, or just plain incoherent. The people in the store may have panicked and blocked the door after seeing what happened at the coffee shop."

"So they could still be around here somewhere?" Rochelle squeaked.

Riley glanced nervously up and down the street, but it remained still. "I don't think they're much of a threat if they are," Al assured her.

"I have seen
way
too many movies to think it's even remotely a good idea that we stay here," Lee said.

"And I've seen just as many that would make leaving that pharmacy untouched just as bad of an idea," Riley told him.

"There may be more of them in there. Do you want to see more of that?" John demanded.

"No, but I'm not talking just band aids and ace wraps, there are painkillers and antibiotics that no matter how we look at it will become a necessity. We can't leave this town without medical supplies."

Carl tossed his cigarette aside, reached into the truck and pulled a rifle from behind the bench seat. "No, we can't, but we're going to be better prepared before we step in there and we'll air it out first."

Riley eyed the gun as he stepped off the sidewalk. The last thing she would choose to do was come across more of those people, but even so she followed Carl and Al as they made their way across the street. She glanced at the truck and managed a wan smile as Lee, Rochelle, and John watched them from the other side of the road.

John cursed loudly and said something to Lee before jogging over to join them. "You guys are going to be the death of me," he grumbled.

"You don't have to come," Carl told him as he grabbed a trash can from the sidewalk and hefted it in his hands. Riley winced as its contents fell onto the sidewalk and scattered around their feet. Now wasn't exactly the time to worry about littering though.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just get this over with."

Riley braced herself as Carl swung back with the trashcan and smashed it into the window. Carl cursed, and shook his hands, as the can spun out of his grasp but the glass remained solidly intact. "It's a pharmacy!" Rochelle called from across the street. "It has extra security measures due to the fact that it has money and drugs! Besides, the door is probably open!"

They glanced sheepishly at each other before Al pushed the front door open.

 

CHAPTER 4

Carl

Franklin, Mass.

Carl opened the door and adjusted the metal rod at the top to keep it propped open. John, Riley, and Al were already at the inner glass door peering into the store when he finished. They turned to look at him when he stepped in between them. "How do we know it's safe?" John asked.

"We don't," Carl said. "But unless there's gas being constantly pumped in there we should be able to go in. The building's not exactly airtight."

John swallowed heavily. "What if there is gas being pumped in there?"

"I think we would have felt the effect already." Riley's nose nearly touched the glass, her breath left a small cloud on it.

"There's only one way to find out." Carl took a deep breath, braced himself, and pulled the door open. Their hands flew to their noses and mouths as they all jumped back. Carl waited breathlessly for his skin to start burning, or boiling, or whatever happened when that gas came into contact with human flesh.

He was acutely aware of the beat of his heart in his eardrums as the seconds seemed to stretch into hours. His lungs began to burn so badly that he was finally forced to inhale. The air rushed into his lungs and nose, and though it smelled like rotten eggs, rancid meat, methane, and decomposition all rolled into one, his flesh didn't melt off and his lungs didn't burst into flames.

His eyes stung but he nodded to the others as he made his way into the store. "Vicks first," Riley muttered as she nodded toward the cold medicine aisle.

"You have a cold?" John inquired.

"It's for the smell, you put it under your nose," Carl told him.

"Oh," John said dully. "Yeah, definitely Vick's first."

Carl crept around the checkout counter, and swallowing heavily, poked his head behind it. His shoulders sagged at the sight of the blessedly empty space there. Hurrying to the end, he grabbed the plastic bags and found some eco-friendly bags under the counter that he seized hold of.

He was coming around the counter when John tossed him a container of Vick's. "That's about as close to heaven as you're going to get."

"Ain't that the truth," Carl muttered as he unscrewed the top and rubbed some of the paste under his nose. His eyes watered, his nostrils burned, but he relished in the pungent menthol smell as he eagerly inhaled. It didn't completely block the odor of the store, but at least it dulled it enough that he didn't think he was going to vomit with every step.

Al and Riley were at the end of the store, checking every aisle as they made their way toward the prescription pickup counter. Carl thrust the Vicks into a bag and held it open for John to dump an armload of supplies into. He checked every aisle for people, but the store remained quiet, and there was no sign that anything like what had happened at the coffee shop had happened here.

Riley climbed onto the counter of the prescription area and walked down it as she strained to see up and down the convoluted aisles filled with bottle after bottle of pills. She glanced back at them, shrugged, and leapt off the counter to the other side. Carl handed her some of the cotton bags and pulled himself onto the counter to follow her.

"I don't even know what half this stuff is," she muttered.

"Well those are happy pills," John told her as he peered over her shoulder at the bottles.

Riley's head tilted as she stared at the bottles. "How do you know that?"

John grinned at her as he stepped to the shelf next to hers and started searching it. "I just do."

Carl turned away from them to search another shelf. He didn't know what a good chunk of the stuff was, but he knew what penicillin and amoxicillin were as he dumped handfuls of them into the bag. Al came over and grabbed one of the cotton bags from him. "I found the painkillers."

"Good."

Riley and John busied themselves with shoving the extra strength ointment creams into their bags. "I guess this was a good idea," John said.

"Rule number one for a happy life is don't ever argue with a woman, you'll always lose," Riley joked.

John snorted. "Yeah ok."

"It's true," Al agreed. "Happy wife, happy life."

"Why I stay single," Carl told him. "I can't lose a fight against myself."

John puffed out his chest. "Well I guess it's a good thing that the population just decreased, women won't be as picky and difficult now that I may be one of the few men left."

Riley chuckled as she shoved her bag into his chest. John grabbed hold of it before it fell to the floor. "Keep dreaming."

"Don't count on it slick," Carl said.

"You're just jealous because I'm a stud," John said.

"You're something alright." Carl hefted the bags full of supplies and put them on the counter as the others scrambled back over.

"There were shopping carts up front, I'll grab one," John volunteered.

"Where did everyone from in here go?" Riley's gaze moved over the dim store. "Where did everyone from this
town
go?"

"I'm not entirely sure I want to know," Carl told her as John returned with two shopping carts.

"It's like they all just disappeared, just vanished into thin air or something."

"Not all of them," John muttered.

Riley shuddered. "Yeah."

"John and I will start on that end of the store and we'll meet you guys in the middle," Carl said.

Al and Riley nodded agreement and headed to the other end of the store with a cart. Moving up and down the aisles with John, Carl filled the cart and bags full of supplies. He thought he should feel worse about stealing the things, but he didn't feel anything as he stuffed as much as he could into the cart. Perhaps he should be concerned about the numbness slipping through him, and maybe later, when he had a chance to sit and think, he would be. Right now though, all he cared about was making sure they had enough to survive.

"I feel like a criminal," John said. "Like we're going to turn on the TV tonight and see ourselves on the six o'clock news."

"I feel like there would be a much bigger story than us if the TV still worked."

"You know what I mean."

"I do," Carl muttered.

"This doesn't bother you?"

Carl stopped in the middle of the aisle. "Not as much as it should, not as much as it did three stores ago."

"It hasn't been a day yet Carl." John folded his hands behind his back as he glanced at the wall over Carl's shoulder. Carl turned and spotted the clock that John had focused on. It wasn't even five o'clock yet. This whole day had been nothing but one endless nightmare, and twelve hours hadn't even passed yet. His shoulders slumped, he felt like a kicked puppy as he turned back to John.

"It's been one shitty day though."

"Yeah. I never thought I'd see a person die, but I've seen more people die today than I can even remember," John shuddered. "That person, over there in the coffee…"

"It had to be done."

John wouldn't meet his gaze again as he focused on his work boots. "How much more is going to have to be done though?"

Carl knew how the kid felt, knew what he meant and what he was getting at, but he couldn't find it in himself to empathize, not right now. That was probably another thing he should worry about, later. "As much as needs to be done. Now come on, we have to find somewhere to stay before it gets dark out."

John studied him before nodding. "Yeah, you're right."

Carl pushed the cart forward, and muttered a curse as one of the wheels became twisted. Lifting it up, he crashed the cart back down to try and straighten it out. "One thing that hasn't changed is the crappy shopping carts."

BOOK: The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide
8.89Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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