You and Me against the World: The Creepers Saga Book 1 (22 page)

“Same plan basically, but I want to replace that van, and I think we need to figure out ways to pop into larger towns and resupply. We just can’t carry as much as we had, and I don’t want to run out of food and water.”

“Yeah,” Thorn agreed, “or bullets.”

“Exactly.” Devin laughed.

“Do we have any idea where this road leads to?”

“Not yet. Adam is working through the maps and trying to navigate us back to civilization … well, to the place that civilization used to be. Neither of us wants to risk going back the way we came. Those cats are nasty.”

“Hmm, makes me wonder if they’re coming this way.”

“Me too. We came a pretty good distance, though, so I think we’re safe. Cats are lazy. I don’t think they are making a long hike when there are other things to eat.”

“Okay, so we stay a few days, we work out better details of our route, and then we hit the road,” Thorn said.

“That’s the plan.” Devin smiled, but it had a note of uncertainty.

“How’s Caroline holding up?” Thorn tested the source of that uncertain smile.

“She’s good. She’s strong, you know, really keeps her shit together. It’s one of the things I love about her. It’s Austin who has me worried.”

“Austin? What’s wrong with him?

Devin dropped his voice lower so the sound wouldn’t carry back to the house.

“Dr. Thorn, I need your discretion on this one.”

“Of course. What is it?”

“One of the cats scratched Austin.”

“What? He never mentioned it. I should take a look.” Thorn started to move toward the house, and Devin grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“I want to keep this on the down low for now. The only reason I know is Golden told me,” Devin said.

“I thought she didn’t talk.”

“She talks to me sometimes. A few words here and there are all.”

“Devin, if he’s infected, we need to help him.”

“Is there a cure?” It was a flat statement.

“I might be able to help,” Thorn said without conviction.

“I know and I’m counting on it. But I don’t want the others to know yet, and neither does he. He was pissed that I knew. He’d planned to keep it to himself.”

“Well, there’s still no reason to think that the scratch will … will …”

“Turn him. That’s what I’m hoping for. It’s been less than a day, but other than a fever, he seems okay.”

Thorn considered the situation. “Back at the hospital, fever wasn’t the issue. It presented as hypothermia. It may just be an infection, but that can be dangerous too. I want to examine him and then put him on some strong antibiotics.”

“Okay. But we need to do it under the radar. I don’t want anyone getting any ideas of leaving my brother behind or putting a mercy bullet in his head.”

Thorn placed a hand on Devin’s shoulder and said, “But we have to consider it may come to that.”

“I have, and if it needs to be done, I will be the one to do it. But until we know more, he is my responsibility, and I don’t want a committee on it.”

Thorn shook his head. More secrets to keep. In his experience, secrets had a way of undoing trust. It was the way secrets changed things, drew lines, and started the process of “us” and “them.”

“Do you disagree, Doc?”

“No. I don’t like it, but I don’t disagree.”

For once, it was a good plan, and Brandon got the little help he asked for, although he was never aware of it.

Connor awoke.

The warm earth surrounded him. He could feel the bright sky orb warming the earth. Here in the darkness, there were things to eat, small things that fed his ravenous metabolism. But the food did not quench his hunger. The hunger was something that burned inside him, and it was something more than the desire for flesh and blood. He struggled from his earthen hole as the others rose too. The bright orb warmed him further, and his cold muscles relaxed. He could hear their sounds in his head. All of them and there were many. In each town, more and more followed. They seemed connected to him in a way he no longer had the words to explain. It was the same way he was connected to the ones not like him. They were like a beacon, and that light shined brightly on his hunger. He needed them, he needed to find them, and he needed to consume them. He could sense that they had been here at this spot. It was not a smell, or a sight, but more like a low hum on the earth. The trail led north, and he would follow it, until he finally reached them. First, they must eat and replace their heat. There was a small house, and from it, he smelled the live, warm, blood-rich flesh. The others smelled it too, but they could not pinpoint it as he could. He would lead them. The smell was strongest from a loose board over the back door. They could pull that board off. They could get inside. And then they could feed.

Kevin Bradley prayed.

He knew God had him on a path. He knew he didn’t need all the details of the Lord’s plan, but right now … well, right now, he was a little concerned. They had suffered great losses fleeing north. He wondered if the Good Book told the entire story of Moses and the exodus. Had Moses lost half his people? Probably not, but then again Moses had a direct line to God, and he could part the seas. Kevin had a handful of horses, a few guns, and only two teenage boys to help him protect a group of women, kids, and seniors. And now they were at a dead end. Denver was impassable. The city still burned off in the distance, and the wind came down off the Rockies and swept east across the state. Kevin didn’t know much about nuclear fallout, but he knew that you didn’t want to be caught in the falling ash or the blowing poison winds. They didn’t have any option but to return south, move across Oklahoma, and then try getting north through central Kansas. Kansas seemed a safe enough distance from the nuclear disaster, which had once been Denver. He prayed for guidance. He tried to hear God’s answer. Was he doing the right thing, or was he leading the group to their deaths? His wife touched his shoulder, and he rose up from his knee and stood.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

“We’re going back south. We’ll find another way,” he answered but looked away so she couldn’t see the uncertainty in his eyes.

“It will be fine,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

She took his face and turned it to her.

“Kevin, have faith in God the way I have faith in you.”

“I do, but if only I had … I don’t know … some sign.”

“God speaks sometimes in our own words, husband. He’s already told you what to do.”

Kevin nodded. “We go south and then we go through central Kansas.”

And they did, and Brandon went two for two that day.

Chapter 14

Village of My Sweet Redemption

T
he City in the Woods

Devin sat on the porch steps and watched the sun set behind the trees. Thorn was with Austin, and Austin had asked Devin to wait outside. More secrets.

Devin watched Adam search the Escalade’s GPS. Adam had suddenly ended his quest for leadership. No ceremony, no long talk; just like that, Devin had felt the power struggle slip away. He didn’t know why the change had occurred. Perhaps it was the narrow escape the night they lost the C2 or the close call with the cats or the loss of the two girls. Most likely, though, it was just Adam being Adam. This would not have been the first time the “Adam fire” came and went, and hopefully it would not be the last. Hopefully. He didn’t mind disagreements with Adam; he liked his friend’s passionate opinions. He hoped they would have many more arguments. A lifetime’s worth. Hopefully. Nothing, however, was certain anymore, not even the certainty of another day. It was all gone like so many things in their new, dead world.

What remained was the weight that he carried every day and with every decision he made. He had fought the responsibility of leadership. He had pretended that he was doing nothing more than making some suggestions. It was a lie, of course. He remembered something he had once heard: many people believed they were leaders. They thought that because they were out front, that made it so. In truth, if no one followed, then that was not leadership; it was going for a walk.

Well, everyone was following him. That made him responsible for the roads he chose and for the things that happened to his friends on those roads. He accepted that now, although it was a heavy weight. He had already made too many bad decisions, and that had cost them friends. He couldn’t afford to make any more. Those mistakes may have already cost him his brother. Austin could die—probably would die—because he had taken the risky road back at the machine shop. They should have gone at the first sight of the cats, but he’d waited. He had gambled, he had pushed the odds, and now his brother would pay the price. That would not happen again. He couldn’t afford an optimistic outlook, or to believe that it would all be fine, and he could no longer risk going rogue while everyone’s lives were dependent on his decisions.

Leadership scared him. This wasn’t some game. No, it required a maturity that he was uncertain if he possessed. He would try, however, because his friends and his family’s lives depended on it, so he had no other choice. It seemed this was his fate. A fate sealed on the day he came upon that bloody hallway and realized the things that would no longer be. Sealed on the day he looked past the carnage of his old life and opened that closet door. The day he’d found his silent sister alone in the dark and the blood, and came face to face with the sacrifice love could require. He remembered what his father had told him once about fate.

Fate guides the willing man, and it drags the reluctant.

He missed that voice. He missed the advice his dad had always seemed reluctant to offer. He understood the reluctance. Most parents were happy to spew out proclamations, even those they had never followed in their own youth. His dad appeared unwilling to upset the normal learning curve young adults experienced. Devin remembered his father’s words.

You have to live with every decision. There’s always an outcome and usually a price. It’s better to pay for the mistakes you make on your own than those made following bad advice. A successful life, one truly worth living, comes from learning how to manage your own life and the decisions that come with it.

Thorn came outside and Devin turned to look at him. Thorn’s expression required no further words, but Devin asked anyway.

“How is he?”

Thorn looked toward the woods. Golden, Annie, and Brad were returning from a perimeter check. He looked back at Devin and studied him for a moment. He saw something different in the young man’s expression. It was something older, an expression filled with some terrible acceptance and one that required honesty.

“I think it’s fifty-fifty, Devin.”

Devin nodded.

“He has an infection, but no signs of ‘the’ infection, so that’s good.”

“Is he going to die?” Devin asked, and his voice hitched a little.

“I don’t know,” Thorn said and put his hand on Devin’s shoulder. “The kid is strong, and he is stubborn, so I think it comes down to the antibiotics.”

“Can he travel?”

Thorn laughed, but there was no joy in it.

“He’s already up and dressed. Yeah, he can travel. Look, I don’t want to give you false hope, but he might fight it off. Let’s just watch and see, okay?”

“Dev, come here real quick. I think I found something,” Adam called from inside the Escalade.

“What’s up?” Devin asked as he walked over to the open driver’s door. Adam lay across the center console and pressed buttons on the SUV’s GPS unit.

“Get in and take a look at this. I think I found a fort.”

Devin raised an eyebrow and went around the SUV to the passenger’s seat. Thorn got in the back and looked over the seat at the small illuminated screen.

“I was looking for a better place to hole up,” Adam said. “Something like the machine shop, but without the cats, of course. I found this on the Google Earth map. Take a look. I swear it’s like an old frontier fort.”

“In this part of Georgia?” Thorn asked. “That doesn’t seem likely. Most of the forts were built near ocean ports.”

“Hey, I don’t know, but have a look.”

Adam zoomed in. It looked like a fort. A rather large one with several structures enclosed by a wall.

“I tried street view and look at this.”

He pressed a button, and the screen switched to a street-level picture.

“That is one hell of a wall,” Devin said. “Pan up. I swear it looks over twenty feet high.”

“And made of wood,” Thorn noted.

Adam smiled, pleased with his discovery.

“I wish we had the Internet so we could research it,” Devin sighed.

“Here’s the best part.” Adam’s smile grew. “It is about ten miles from here.”

“No shit.”

“Perfect place to regroup and then scout out some new vehicles.”

Devin looked at Thorn. “What do you—?”

He stopped midsentence, the question left unfinished. He rubbed his cheek in contemplation.

“Okay, let’s consider our options here,” he said. “We all go together to check it out, or we send a scouting team ahead. Adam, what do you think?”

Adam was shocked that his opinion was sought. Then he noticed that same expression Thorn had observed moments earlier. He realized that in the span of a day, his friend had become someone new, someone who seemed older and more serious. A quiet part of him mourned the loss of his old friend.

“With the entire group in tow, we’re slower but all together,” Adam said. “A scout team can move quicker, but if it breaks bad and they die, we’re never gonna know, and there will be fewer of us.”

“Yep, no perfect plan,” Devin said and looked out the window at the growing dusk. “We stay together. United we stand, I guess. If it’s a bust, we roll on to the next place.”

Welcome to Fort America!

A historic recreation of the great frontier forts of American history

Tours daily on the hour starting at 8:00 a.m.

Museum hours: 7 days a week, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Deliveries please use service entrance

“It’s an amusement park,” Brandon said and laughed.

“Hey, any port in a storm,” Devin said and picked up the CB mic.

“Okay, the entrance is about a mile up this road. We have no idea what to expect, so stay alert and be ready to jet. If it breaks bad, keep your heads, and we get back to the house.”

He put the mic down and looked over the seat at Austin and Golden.

“Ready?” he asked.

They nodded.

The “fort” was amazing. The walls looked like the world’s largest picket fence, and they stretched over twenty feet high. They weren’t real wood, of course, but made of a prefabricated material molded and painted to appear as giant log posts. Two large doors were flanked by fifty yards of wall in each direction. The doors, when opened, would easily accommodate two vehicles side by side. In the center of one door was a smaller pedestrian entrance. If not for the asphalt parking lot and the wide cement walkway, it would have been easy to imagine this was an authentic frontier structure. Even the woods that surrounded its two sides gave the impression of deep wilderness. Above the walls came the soft, orange glow of firelight.

They got out of their vehicles and stared up at the large fortress. The children remained in the van in case a quick retreat was necessary.

“What do you think?” Brandon asked no one in particular.

“May we help you?” a voice called from atop the wall. The group looked up at the two shadowed heads that watched them from the top of wall.

“Didn’t mean to disturb you,” Devin called back. “We were just looking for a safe place to rest for a while. We’ll be on our way.”

Adam nudged him and whispered, “Not even gonna ask to go in?”

“No,” Devin said but didn’t explain any further.

A large candlepower flash scanned across the group. The light stopped on the van windows where a couple of the children peered out.

“You have some young ones with you,” the voice called.

“Yes,” Devin agreed. There were a few moments of silence.

“We can offer you a place to rest, if you’d like to come in. We are concerned, however, with the weapons you carry,” the voice called again.

“I understand,” Devin said, “but my priority is our safety. We can’t agree to put down our weapons. We won’t take any more of your time.”

He turned back to the SUV. Thorn gave an almost invisible nod as the others also turned back to the vehicles.

“We understand also,” a second voice called. “We … well, I didn’t think you would surrender your weapons. We’ll take it on faith that you have no bad intentions. You may enter, but for now please leave the vehicles—call it a little caution of our own.”

Devin considered the offer.

“Myself, Dr. Thorn, and my brother Austin will come in. The rest will stay here for the moment.” Devin said it more as instructions for his friends than for the benefit of the observers.