The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (37 page)

Riley half expected a wave of ice to come
from its hands and rip the fence apart or maybe it would shoot a
wave of ice back at them to kill them all. She wasn't expecting for
a small tunnel of yellow light to materialize before Death reached
the fence, wasn't prepared for Death to vanish into the night as if
it had never been there in the first place.

The normal darkness of the night seemed
absolute after the light Death had brought with it. Her eyes
strained to see any details within the dark. The moon had provided
far more illumination when they'd walked over here, but now she
could barely detect any of its light. Blinking, she was finally
able to bring the centerfield into focus as sounds began to drift
into her ears once more.

The crickets began to chirrup again, in the
distance she could hear some of the luckier horses moving about in
the night. Finally tearing her gaze away from the fence, she looked
down at the pile of animals beneath them. The air stirred, a breeze
drifted over her flesh, but instead of chilling her further this
breeze breathed life back into her body. Finally free of her
strange paralysis, she looked down herself and was relieved to find
that she hadn't actually pissed herself.

The blood began to pulse through her veins
again, melting the ice that had encapsulated her. As she watched,
the ashes of the horse that had crumpled were picked up in the
breeze and spun around the track. She tried to follow their
progress through the air but she lost them almost immediately in
the dark.

Tears continued to burn her eyes as she
looked back at where Death had vanished. They'd been in the
presence of Death and they were still alive. They hadn't been
judged by it, of that much she was certain. If they'd been judged,
she knew she would have been found lacking. She'd killed a man
today, and not only did she not feel bad about it, but she would do
it again even if it meant Death would place its icy hand against
her face next. That man had gotten what he deserved, but murder was
a sin, where was what she deserved? She'd also killed Lee, she had
killed others and yet she still stood here.

How was it possible they'd looked Death in
the eye and yet remained?

"I dreamed of this," John murmured. "Weeks
ago, before we ever met Donald, I had a dream about my father and
me. The horsemen came to us in it. Tonight, I had a dream about a
voice, it brought me here." Riley turned to look at him; he was as
pale as Death had been. "The voice told me there was still beauty
in the world; we just had to look for it. I had to… I had
to
come here after that dream. I
had
to look."

"We understand," Carl assured him though she
knew that none of them did. Even with all the answers there were
still countless questions, but there always had been in the world.
Whenever one mystery was solved there was always another to figure
out, or some new thing to conquer.

"But what did it mean? Is there beauty in
Death, is that what it meant?" John demanded.

She wanted to tell him it was only a dream
but she couldn't. She knew better than that. "Some people have
feelings, some people have dreams," she whispered. "You're not
crazy." John's shoulders slumped in relief. "And as strange and
horrifying as seeing that was, it was also beautiful. In its own
way."

Xander rested his hand on her shoulder; she
grabbed hold of it, desperately needing the connection with him.
"It was," he agreed.

John nodded but dread still swirled through
his eyes as he turned toward the track. "Debra knew what was out
there. Knew that they would come for us."

"They didn't come for us," Carl said.

"One of them did," John said.

"No, it didn't come for us; it came for a
new ride."

"But why?" Riley's voice was hoarse; it felt
as if she hadn't had anything to drink in weeks as she turned to
look at them. "Why didn't it take us? Isn't that what Death is
supposed to do? Isn't it supposed to judge us and take us?"

Carl's eyes were troubled when they met
hers. "No. Death doesn't pick who it takes or when, that's for fate
to decide."

"Well why hasn't fate decided on
me
then? The things I've done,
Lee…" her voice trailed off, she couldn't finish the sentence.

"That's not the way it works," Carl
murmured. "If that was the way it worked no child would die from
cancer, only the good would survive, and there would be no evil in
the world, but that's not the way of the world, it never has been.
I don't even think God has a say over what happens, not once we're
set free upon this world. Medicine, technology, writing, learning,
nuclear bombs, GMO's, pollution, animal extinction, murder, and all
the other things that we've created are because we had the free
will to do so. There has been plenty of good and plenty of bad that
He never foresaw us creating because of free will."

Riley stood and stared at him, uncertain if
he was channeling the Dalai Lama or if the chain smoking landscaper
had always been so perceptive. Either way, he made her turn away to
look out at the field again as she contemplated his answer.

"Why now?" Xander asked. "Why would God
chose to end the world now, because that is what we're dealing
with, isn't it, the apocalypse?"

"Why
not
now?" Carl replied and lit a cigarette. "Let's be honest, we've all
been taking a giant crap on this planet, and each other, for
centuries. I know I was pretty sick and tired of turning on the
news every morning. It was never good."

"What do we do now?" John asked. "Is there
any point? Are they just going to keep coming until we're all
dead?"

"I think they're done, or almost done
anyway," Carl said. "The earth has been scourged, the plagues have
been unleashed, food is scarce, we're fighting a war for survival
every day, and people are dying at a rapid pace. They've
accomplished what they were sent here to accomplish. At least
that's what I'm going to believe because to believe anything else
is to accept death and give up. I haven't made it this freaking far
to give up now."

"Neither have I," Riley whispered.

"If we survive what is still out there we'll
repopulate the earth, the human race will continue, and the next
time this planet and its people need a smack down it will get one,"
Carl continued. "I think it's time to return to the truck. We're
leaving as soon as the sun breaks."

"Yes," Riley said but she had a difficult
time tearing her gaze away from the empty racetrack.

Finally, she turned away. Xander kept hold
of her hand and John took a staggering step to the side. Carl
grabbed hold of his arm to steady him. "You're burning up," Carl
muttered.

Riley's heart plummeted when she spotted the
sweat beading across John's brow. He managed a wan smile as he
shrugged and rubbed at his neck. "I've always been hot," he quipped
but there was no humor in the etched lines of his flushed face.

Carl,

Carl rested his arm against the barn as he
relieved himself. The cool concrete of the barn felt good against
his skin; it was the only cool thing around right now. Finished
with what he was doing, he zipped up his jeans. He surveyed the
woods on his right, searching for anything out of the ordinary in
the coming dawn.

He wasn't above admitting to himself that
the real reason he lingered here was because he was in no rush to
go back to the others. Because he needed just a few minutes to try
and sort through what they'd seen last night, to try and accept the
fact that John was kicking out more heat than his cherished
kerosene heater right now.

One of the four horsemen of the apocalypse,
Death itself, had stood before them. Carl shuddered as he recalled
the look on Death's face, the blank expression that had shown no
flicker of emotion about what it was doing. He could easily recall
those wintry eyes burning into his soul. They hadn't been judged
and approved by Death, nor had they been judged and found wanting,
Death didn't judge. Death was simply a given from the moment life
was created.

They had stood less than a hundred feet away
from the one thing all humans feared at one point in time in their
lives.

He didn't know how to feel about what had
just been revealed. Religion had never been a big thing in his
life; he didn't feel any more affinity to God than he had an hour
ago. He believed he should though. He'd just been handed proof that
everything that had occurred was because the apocalypse was
unraveling around them, or
had
unraveled.

It appeared as if the worst of the
apocalypse had ended as the sky was clear again, the sick seemed to
be dying, and he hadn't felt a quake in weeks. God had leveled the
world in order to allow them to rebuild it? It didn't make any
sense to him. Granted humankind hadn't been doing a bang up job of
taking care of the planet and each other, but destroying a good
chunk of the world and the human population to make a point seemed
a bit over dramatic to him.

God was a woman, he decided as he turned
away from the woods.

He didn't worry the remaining population
would be killed off. God had intended for there to be some
survivors or they all would have been struck dead at the beginning,
of that much he was certain. God had the ability to do so.

The last thing he wanted to do was die, even
if there was a God there to greet him afterward. He much preferred
this planet, as uncertain as it was, to some temperamental creature
in the sky or earth? Even after what had happened he had no idea
where God resided, perhaps it was on a completely different plane
of existence altogether.

Even with Death itself walking out of the
maintenance shed, he hadn't been overly frightened. The creature
had been unnerving with its paranormal quality and what it
represented but it hadn't been any more terrifying than
earthquakes, bridge collapses, lava, ravenous humans, or standing
on the receiving end of a rifle.

He'd been staring death in the face for a
couple of months now, to
actually
look it in the face had been no different than any other day.
Except this Death had given them answers as to what had uprooted
their lives and destroyed their friends and families. The answers
did nothing for him. All that remained was the same as what had
always been, survival.

Gathering his courage to do what he'd been
scared to face, more so than Death, he stepped away from the corner
of the building and looked toward where the others were gathered.
His gaze instantly found John in the darkness. His friend's back
was propped against the side of the barn, his hands were in his lap
and his head was bent forward so that his chin rested on his
chest.

Death hadn't frightened him. Standing
helplessly by and watching his best friend getting sicker terrified
him.

They could do nothing about what they'd
witnessed tonight. They
could
do
something for John if they were able to leave this place soon. He
just hoped it wasn't too late for him already.

John lifted his head as he approached. His
eyes were bloodshot; his lips compressed into a flat line, there
were lines around his mouth and eyes that hadn't been there just an
hour ago. Sweat beaded across his forehead and plastered his dark
hair to his skull. He was whiter than a Canadian in the middle of
January.

"Don't look at me like that," John grumbled
and bowed his head again.

"I'm not looking at you like anything," Carl
told him.

"You're looking at me like you already have
me buried. I ain't dead yet."

"I'm definitely not looking at you like
that. I would have to be the one to dig your grave and believe me
I've done enough digging over the past couple of weeks."

"I'm sure Josh would love to hear that,"
John said and waved his hand toward the truck.

Carl winced, with everything that had
happened tonight he'd forgotten about the young boy's body in the
back of the truck. Not knowing what to say, he turned away from his
friend and pretended to busy himself looking for something in the
truck. He pulled out a bottle of water and walked over to John with
it but he waved it away. "Drink some," Carl insisted.

"I'm not thirsty."

"I don't want to hear about wasting supplies
on you again, drink the water."

"I'm really not thirsty; I'd tell you if I
was."

Carl placed the bottle of water down beside
him before moving over to stand by the front of the barn. He stared
across the dark track. He could hear the chuffing and hooves of the
surviving horses in the night but he didn't see any of them moving
amongst the barns.

He had no idea how much time passed but no
one spoke and no one moved. He could feel them all awake behind
him, even John. "That really did just happen, right?" John asked
after awhile. "It wasn't another dream?"

"Yes that really happened," Carl
confirmed.

"Would you like some more aspirin?" Riley
knelt at John's side and held her hand out to him.

"I would."

Relief filled Carl when John took the
aspirin from her and drank them down with some water. At least he
hadn't given up completely. It wouldn't matter what time they got
out of here, if John wasn't willing to fight than it would be for
nothing. He turned his attention back to the night as Xander came
to stand beside him.

"That was crazy," Xander said.

"It was," Carl confirmed.

"Are we going to talk about it?" Riley
inquired. "Do we just pretend it didn't happen? Do we try and
figure it out on our own?"

"What is there to figure out?" Xander
inquired. "God got pissed, threw a temper tantrum, or just flat out
simply had enough and let us all know about it."