The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (16 page)

"Can you get us there?" Bobby asked.

"I can navigate, I'm just not sure what we're going to encounter along the way."

"What else is new?" John asked with a snort.

Carl looked like he was tempted to elbow him in the ribs, but he fought the impulse as his attention returned to the map before Al. "The area of the state we'll be driving through is pretty populated," Al continued. "But then so was most of what we just came through in Mass."

"We just have to keep moving, keep surviving," Riley said.

"Well let's go then, is the truck loaded?" Carl asked.

"All set," Bobby answered.

Riley turned to head back to the car but Mary Ellen stopped her before she could even take a step. "Wait," she said.

Riley looked at Mary Ellen over her shoulder and put her raised foot back down. Mary Ellen glanced over to where Peter and Josh were standing by the Cadillac. Riley hadn't even realized that they had retreated to the car until now. "I'd like it if Rochelle rode with you guys in the truck."

"Wait, why?" Rochelle asked nervously.

"I just think it would be better if you are in a bigger vehicle if we're going to be entering more populated areas again," Mary Ellen played with Rochelle's hair as she answered her question.

Riley folded her arms over her chest as she glanced between Mary Ellen and the guys by the car. Though it sounded like a plausible excuse, she didn't buy it for a minute. There was something off, she wasn't sure what it was, but with the look that Carl and John exchanged she knew that something was wrong. She didn't know Peter and Josh that well, and the teacher had seemed more than a little agitated last night, but she'd thought things had been smoothed over this morning.

She was beginning to realize she'd been wrong.

"What's going on?" Rochelle demanded.

"Nothing..."

"Don't nothing me. Something's not right."

Mary Ellen sighed and stopped fiddling with her daughter's hair as her shoulders slumped. "I just think it would be best if you weren't in the car right now."

"Maybe you shouldn't be in the car either," Carl said.

"I don't think four of us are going to fit in the truck, and besides I'm hoping Peter will let me drive, some sleep will do him good."

"Maybe, but if it doesn't..."

"I'll be driving the car at least, hopefully," Mary Ellen added with a backward glance at the others.

"Am I missing something here?" Riley asked. "I thought Peter seemed like a nice enough guy."

"He is," Xander said.

"I don't trust him," Carl said flatly. "And apparently I'm not the only one. Josh has been a little on edge too."

"It's not that I don't trust him," Mary Ellen hedged. "I just think he needs some rest."

"He needs something," Donald muttered.

"And I think Josh is just frightened," Mary Ellen continued. "It might be good if Rochelle rode with you guys for a bit, if you don't mind?"

"Not at all," Carl said. "But it would probably be best if I rode in the car and you rode with John and Rochelle."

Rochelle perked up at this suggestion but Mary Ellen shook her head. "I'll be fine," she insisted. "I'm not afraid of him."

"I'll be there too," Donald said.

"See," Mary Ellen said. "We'll be fine."

Riley found she couldn't tear her gaze away from Peter and Josh. She still wasn't sure there was anything for them to be wary of with them, but apparently more than a few people within the group were. "If that's what you want," Al said.

"It is," she said forcefully.

Al nodded and pulled the map off the back of the truck. "Let's get going then. Maybe we can get a lot of ground covered before we're forced to stop."

Riley didn't hold out much confidence in that. Returning to the back roads and towns most likely meant that they were going to be slowed down, a lot. She stopped by the truck and gathered more ammo from Carl before climbing into the backseat of the car with Xander. Bobby slid behind the wheel as Al sat in the passenger seat and opened the map again.

"Do you think there's something wrong with Peter?" she asked as Bobby started the car.

"Probably nothing some sleep can't fix," Al answered absently.

Riley turned in her seat and was relieved to see Mary Ellen behind the wheel of the car. "Let's hope so," she said.

Her concerns over Peter and Josh faded as Al directed Bobby to take the next exit off the highway. A knot began to form in her chest, her hand slid into Xander's as they returned to small town America, and all the dreadful secrets she knew it was hiding.

Carl,

Using the butt end of the rifle, Carl broke out the window in the door of the sporting goods store. He put his hand inside and searched for the lock on the other side of the door. He found the one on the handle with ease but it took a few seconds of fumbling around before he uncovered the deadbolt. Finally locating the lock, he turned it to the side and pushed the door open.

"Let's just get in and get out as fast as possible." He knew he didn't have to tell them that, but he said it anyway. The tranquility of this new town was beginning to grate on his nerves a little.

He flicked on his flashlight and shone the beam around the store. He wasn't sure if there would be any guns in the store, but he wasn't about to turn down some tents, fishing equipment, sleeping bags and coolers if it had them. It was a small little gold mine, or at least he'd thought it was going to be until his beam revealed the wreckage of the store.

"Looks like we're a little late to the party," Peter muttered.

Carl would have preferred that Peter hadn't been invited to the party at all, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. He kicked aside a broken lantern as he walked further into the store. The gun was reassuring in his hand but after seeing the way that thing in the RV had moved, he knew he'd have to be fast with the weapon in order to avoid shooting up the store.

"There has to be some stuff we can still use," Riley said.

He glanced over at her as she brushed past Peter and through the door. Xander and John followed behind her. Carl nodded toward the back of the store and though he didn't say anything, Riley seemed to understand what he was implying as she went the other way. John fell into step behind him as he began a search of the aisles. Donald and Peter remained by the front door, surveying what was left within the store. Al had stayed by the vehicles with Mary Ellen, Rochelle, Bobby and Josh to keep watch of the serene town.

Riley and Xander were making the turn around the aisle at the end of the store when Carl discovered the broken back door. He stepped forward, nudged the door open with his toe and poked his head into the alley behind the store. Pieces of paper skittered past him and caught in the chain link fence that blocked the back alley from the main street.

He glanced in the other direction, but the area behind the stores lining the street remained empty. Stepping back inside, he grabbed hold of the door and pulled it closed. His fingers slid into the hole that had been created by the knob being busted out of the door as he held it closed. "See if you can find me some..."

John thrust a thin strand of rope into his face before Carl could finish speaking. "I think we're spending a little too much time together," he told him as he took the rope from John.

"Ouch," John retorted.

Carl chuckled as he slipped the rope through the hole and looped it around the latch side of the door. He took both ends of the rope and tied them to a stuffed black bear propped at the edge of a display campsite that had been set up next to the door. If they didn't find any other tents in the store, there was at least a popup they could steal by the bear.

He wiped his hands off as Xander and Riley reappeared after finishing the sweep of the store. "There are definitely some things we can salvage," Xander said and tossed a bag of trail mix to John. "I'm guessing someone was allergic to peanuts."

"Good," John said as he tore open the bag and shook some out before handing it over to Carl.

Carl popped a handful into his mouth as he wandered back down the aisle toward the front of the store. Donald was standing by the cash register, searching for something under the shelves. Peter remained by the door, one foot in the store and the other outside of it. "Any bags back there?" Carl's voice was harsher than he had intended as he directed the question to Donald.

Donald glanced up at him and shook his head. "No."

"We'll search the backroom, there may be some boxes or bags back there," Xander volunteered.

"We'll go with you," Carl told him around a mouthful of dried cranberry and nuts.

He dropped the bag of trail mix on the front counter and followed them to the swinging door that hid the back of the store from the front. He got his gun ready with Riley as Xander pressed his foot against the door and pushed it open. John's light bounced off of half a dozen boxes stacked neatly against the back wall. A small kitchenette, nineteen eighties style card table, and four chairs that didn't look like they would support the weight of a five year old rounded out the rest of the room.

"I wouldn't open that fridge," Xander said as John moved toward it.

John switched direction and headed for the cabinets. The doors clanked and clicked as John began to open and close the cabinets. He pulled down a container of coffee and some filters, a box full of plastic utensils, but other than that the cabinets were bare. "Old Mother Hubbard," Carl said under his breath.

Riley glanced at him over her shoulder but no one else gave any indication they had heard him. John grabbed the trashcan beside the fridge and turned it upside down to empty it of the couple of pizza boxes and napkins inside. He dropped the coffee and filters into the bottom and handed the trashcan over to Xander.

"Let's see what's in these boxes." John pulled out some plastic knives and gave one to each of them as he headed toward the boxes stacked in the back.

Carl knelt and slit the tape on the first box; pulling it back he discovered boxes of golf balls. He turned the box upside down and dumped the contents onto the floor before grabbing hold of the next one. When they were done they had six empty boxes and a pile of useless goods scattered around their feet. He pushed back into the main store and began to gather whatever supplies he could find that would be of some use.

He grabbed two fishing poles, and a couple packages of hooks, from the back of the store. He tossed some bobbers and lures into his box but there was little else of use in his area. Returning to the front of the store, he placed his box down with the others and surveyed the others supplies. There were two small popup tents still in boxes, and Donald had dismantled the one in the campsite and stuffed it into the trashcan. Carl was glad they had the tents but he'd prefer not to have to sleep outside if they could help it; that seemed like something that was almost guaranteed to get someone eaten. It was a little disheartening to see that out of the six boxes only four of them were full, but it was more than they had come in here with.

"I found some water purification tablets," Riley said as she tossed a sleeping bag onto two of the boxes.

"Those will come in handy," Carl said.

"We should get going, we have to find a place to stay tonight," Peter said from the doorway, where he hadn't moved a foot one way or the other since Carl had last seen him.

Annoyance spurted through him, but he lifted the box and pushed by Peter to get out the door. They weren't going to make it out of this town before the early nightfall set in, but there had to be a safer place to stay than the camping store. His gaze slid up and down the street as he searched for someplace that might be a little more protected, but there wasn't much. A pizza/bait shop across the street piqued his curiosity simply because he would have liked to have seen the people that had actually ordered pizza from that place.

"I hope one of the special toppings wasn't worms," Riley murmured from beside him.

"Just minnows and anchovies," John told her.

Riley's face scrunched up as she shook her head. "Yuck."

Al's hands were in his pockets as he approached them. "How about the library?" he suggested.

"The library?" John inquired.

"It's the building that houses the books," Carl informed him flatly.

John gave him a look that would have shot daggers through his heart if it could have. "I
know
what the library is, but why would we stay there?"

"I'm hoping there might be some answers there, maybe not for what caused the earthquakes but for the sickness. Maybe we can find something that will help us understand what is going on," Al explained.

"I'm all for a few answers," Xander said. "And honestly I don't see anywhere else in this town that looks or sounds any more appealing."

"Library it is then," Carl said as Bobby opened the backdoors of the truck.

They loaded the boxes and trashcan inside, retreated to their vehicles and headed back toward the brick fronted building they had passed on their way into town. Carl drove back by the streets and deserted home fronts. There wasn't even any movement behind the windows like he had seen in the other towns. This empty town had an air of time having forgotten about it. If it hadn't been for the broken door and the ransacked sporting goods store, he would have been certain that everyone in this town had just vanished, but then he supposed it could have been someone from outside of the town that had looted the store. He didn't know what had happened to the people of this town, where they had all gone, and he wasn't going to look for the answers either.

"It's so quiet," Rochelle whispered.

"Too quiet," Carl agreed.

"Maybe they were evacuated," John suggested. "I mean this town seems to be in relatively good shape, maybe they were taken somewhere else."

John was right about that. Though some of the trees had toppled, and a few homes had been damaged by the quakes, there wasn't the outright destruction here that they had experienced in Massachusetts. The cities in Connecticut might not be as bad as Boston was, but he wasn't willing to risk trying to get through those cities in order to find out.

Carl drove past the front doors of the library and around to the side of the building. There was another parking lot for the building set down a gravelly hill. The tires crunched on the rocks as he drove down the hill and parked the truck outside of the glass side doors.

Stepping from the truck, he grabbed the keys and locked his door. He studied the two story building that was only slightly larger than a normal sized house. "I don't think they have a lot of books in there," John said.

Carl agreed with him, but he knew there would be plenty of places for something to hide within the building. The others gathered around him as he tried the side doors only to find them locked. Stepping back, he eyed the glass doors but because of the noise it would make, the last thing he wanted to do was break them in order to get in.

"We'll check the front," Xander volunteered. Riley, Xander and Bobby climbed up the side hill and around to the front of the building. Carl studied the darkening sky as he counted the seconds and waited for them to return.

Bobby reappeared and skidded down the path that had been worn into the grass. "One of the front doors is open."

Relief filled Carl at the same time alarm trickled down his spine. It was such a disconcerting effect that he didn't know how to react to it at first.

They wouldn't have to break the glass of the doors, but there could be one of the sick humans inside; there could be
dozens
of them inside just waiting for unsuspecting people to enter. Both those thoughts warred incessantly inside of him as he tried to figure out what they should do. There were so many places to hide in a library, so many places those things could be slinking around, and far too many shelves that they could climb on top of and leap off of.

There could also be answers inside, they might be able to find something that could help them, or help the people that had been affected by the sickness. There could also be hundreds of death traps just waiting to spring on them. He was still debating what to do when Riley and Xander appeared at the top of the hill. Xander slid down to meet them while Riley remained above.

"The front door was open, but there's an inner door that is still locked," Xander informed them.

"Why is one door open and not the other?" Al asked.

"It looks like the lock on the outer door was broken, probably during one of the quakes. The inner door is glass; we can break through it and barricade the heavier outer door once inside. It looks like it will be safe, or at least just as safe as anywhere else around here."

That much was true. Carl nodded and followed him back up the hill to join Riley before walking over to the front door. She pulled the heavy metal outer door open and walked over to the glass inner doors. "I can't see much inside, but it looks clear," she told them.

"So did the RV," John commented.

"True," she said as she flashed her beam into the building.

Carl stepped up to the glass doors and peered inside. The edges of the numerous stacks appeared from the darkness. The building was small, but they had crammed more shelves than he had expected into it. He spotted the outline of books and a table with some chairs lining it. Riley's beam moved toward the ceiling, but other than some cobwebs he saw nothing amongst the wooden rafters of the old building.

"Let's just go inside," Peter said impatiently.

Carl's fingers slid over the grip of his gun as he turned toward the teacher. It seemed sleep hadn't helped the man as much as Mary Ellen had expected. Carl forced a smile to his face as he gestured toward the doors. "After you."

Peter's gaze slid toward him.
No, sleep hadn't helped him at all
, Carl decided. Like a pit of snakes, Carl was certain there was something twisting around within that mind. Was the sickness maybe starting to take hold of him, or was this something else entirely? Was this a madness that had taken root with the loss of everything that Peter had always known and the pressure of the constant fear of death?