“Are you all right?” Mia asked.
Jacob brushed her off with a wave of his hand. “I’ll live,” he said and then laughed to himself. “A little while longer anyway.” He moved closer to the fire, still laughing.
His skin was the color of burnt copper, something akin to old leather pulled tight over the bones in his face. His pure white hair hung down over his shoulders, some of the stands braided all the way up to the sides of his head. Bushy, unkempt eyebrows hung low, nearly blocking his baby blue eyes from the piece of wood he was focusing his attention on. His odd patchwork of clothing appeared as bizarre and out of place as the old man was in the city.
Jacob remained fixated on his task. He sharpened both ends of the stick and then laid it down, picking up another one from a pile by his side. Mia and Rowan kept quiet, neither sure if the old man would help them. There was a silent question lingering between the two of them as to whether or not they knew what kind of help they needed. Rowan was more interested on where he could find a safe place away from the tribes, but he knew Mia’s heart belonged to the Cheyenne people and, more important, her brother.
“Where did you used to go?” There was an uncomfortable silence as Jacob continued his work, ignoring Mia’s question. She coughed in her hand and repeated it. “Where did you used to go?”
The old man looked up, lowering his knife and stick to his lap. “All over,” he said. “I reckon I’ve walked damn near across the country.” He thought about it. “It used to be a country, a collection of states.” He frowned at the lack of recognition from his audience. “Doesn’t matter.” He started back whittling on his stick. “I started in California.”
Both Rowan and Mia’s ears perked up. Mia’s eyes opened wide with excitement. Her love of history was written on her face.
“We’ve heard of the California Tribe,” she said. “In the old world, it was called the great west.”
Jacob stopped, surprised by her response. “Yes, along the coast.” He sat up and made eye contact. “That was a long time ago, right after the infection spread.”
“Are you part of the California Tribe?” Rowan asked.
“Well no, not really,” Jacob said and then thought about it. “That’s where we ended up when everything went to hell. There’s a small island off the coast, called Catalina. That’s where we—”
“We?”
Mia’s interruption froze him midsentence. His mouth hung open as his mind processed what she’d said.
“My sister.”
He said it and turned his eyes toward the fire. The intense sadness made Mia lean into Rowan as if she knew she’d touched on a terrible thing.
“The compound didn’t last,” he continued. “I was on my own after that.”
“You’ve seen them gathering?” Rowan asked. “The infected?”
“They’ve been gathering for years.”
“Not like this,” Rowan insisted. He hesitated and then tried to sit up. Mia helped him, and he was able to keep himself upright. “There’s more than I’ve ever seen before and they were,” he stumbled over the words as he tried to think of the right one, “invading.”
Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen that too.”
“Where?”
“It’s happened several times.” Jacob shifted uneasily. “It’s the beginning of the end for the city.”
“How so?” Mia asked, her tone more frightened now than curious.
“It happens in pockets, everywhere,” he explained. “The infected evolve, some more than others. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what it’s like east of the Rockies. We’re a dying breed, my friend.”
Rowan wasn’t sure he understood what the old man was saying.
“Will they come after the tribe?” Mia asked.
“It’s only a matter of time,” Jacob said. “Probably too late,” he added without much consideration.
Rowan felt Mia tremble. She looked around the darkening space like a trapped animal.
“We need to warn them,” she said, desperately. “I have to tell my father.”
Mia stood up and Rowan fell back, slapping his head on the rolled coat by chance. “Mia, hold on.” She was walking away, trying to escape. “Come here and give me a hand.”
Jacob watched them but didn’t interfere.
“We have to tell them,” she insisted, pausing for a moment. “We have to let them know what’s coming.”
Rowan waited until he was sure he had her attention. “We tried that already, remember?” She held still, crossing her arms and nervously tapping her foot. “Your father saw it with his own eyes,” he reminded her.
“They didn’t understand what it was,” she said. “How could they?”
“What makes you think they’ll believe you now?”
Mia’s head shot up like a lightning bolt, extending a finger toward Jacob. “They’ll believe him.”
Rowan turned to the old man, and Jacob was already shaking his head.
“Not my problem,” he said. “It’s time for me to move on.”
Mia stomped back into the firelight. “Move on?” She glared at him. “And what will happen to our tribe? Don’t you care?”
Jacob got to his feet before responding. “No,” he said plainly, and then he began to slide his sharpened sticks into a large backpack lying on the ground behind him. “I gave up my concern for this world long ago.”
“What?” Mia asked, shocked by his indifference.
“You’re free to go whenever you like,” he said.
Rowan and Mia watched him in silence as he gathered the last of his things and slowly slipped his pack in place. He laid the radio down on the ground on the other side of the fire and turned to leave.
“We have to warn them.”
Mia’s statement sounded more like a question. It took Rowan a moment to realize what was happening. Jacob took another deep breath. His eyes softened as he forced himself to look directly at the young couple.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve seen where the world is going. I’ve walked across this God forsaken country longer than you’ve been alive. The infected have been evolving for decades. They grew a tolerance to the light, they learned how to communicate with one another.” He paused. “And they’ve figured out how to keep their food source alive. There’s no stopping this.”
He turned his back on them and started a slow walk into the shadows.
“And what will happen to us?” Mia asked, her voice cracking from the hopelessness of his words. “What will happen to the tribe?”
Jacob never stopped walking. “They’ll all be dead.” He disappeared into the darkness. “Or they’ll wish they were.”
Rowan and Mia stared at the shadows for a long time, neither breaking the silence. It wasn’t until Rowan wanted to test his strength that he uttered a sound.
“Give me your hand.”
The change in focus helped them brush off Jacob’s ominous statements. Rowan was standing on shaky legs, but he was confident he could move. Mia helped him circle the room a few times, and the small amount of exertion took the remainder of what little energy he had. She helped him sit down near the fire and then turned her attention to what was gnawing at her gut.
“You’re going to need another day or two at best,” she said. “And we’re out of food.”
“I’ll manage,” he lied. “I know where your head’s at and you’re right.”
She glanced at him absentmindedly, still lost somewhere on the idea of how to get some food in their stomachs. Mia nodded, but it was obvious she wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying. He decided to take a more direct approach.
“You need to convince your father.”
It took a moment for Mia to react, but when she did, her movements were animated. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Rowan insisted. “You heard Jacob as clear as I did. I can’t say I understand everything he was saying, but it’s pretty clear he’s se
en this before. And more important, he knows what happens next.”
Mia slowly nodded. She was looking at him, but her mind was elsewhere. “I can’t—”
“You have to leave me here,” Rowan said. “There’s no other way.”
“My father will never let me out of his sight again,” she said.
“Tell him I’m dead.”
The sound of it shook her. He could see her mind racing. The desperation on her face spoke volumes about her indecision, unable to bring herself to leave him. He used the only thing he knew would break the standoff in her mind.
“You can’t leave Jonah out there alone.”
She stared back at him. Mia knew what he was doing, but she also knew he was right. She swore under her breath for allowing herself to forget about her brother, if only for a moment.
“I won’t be gone long,” she said, suddenly bursting into action. “I’ll go back and speak to Chief Orin.”
“How will you make him listen?” Rowan asked. He was looking for the most comfortable position to set himself up in. Mia handed him the can Jacob was eating from. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know but…” She thought about it, looking into the bottom of the container. “It will keep you alive for now.”
“Tell them we spoke to Jacob,” Rowan suggested. “Tell them the infected are rising everywhere.”
Mia was nodding, but her eyes were on a small pack Jacob left behind. She rummaged through it and began separating the contents. She grinned as she removed several wraps of dried meat and laid them on the ground. She reached back toward the other side of the fire and revealed the long knife the old man used to whittle.
“I guess he’s not as heartless as I thought,” she said more to herself. “I’ll make them understand,” she said as she got to her feet. “I have to.”
“What about your father?”
The question froze her in place. “I’ll make him understand.” She said it as if she knew she was lying. “He has to.”
Mia looked around the dirty, dark space in a last effort to find something of use. Rowan watched her shoulders fall as the weight of the moment pressed down on her all at once. Her eyes slid across the floor until they reached Rowan, and for a moment he thought she might cry. Mia closed her eyes briefly and then slipped the bag over her shoulders and got down on her knees in front of him. Rowan wanted to say something profound, he wanted to say something that expressed how he felt about her, but he couldn’t find the words.
“You better be here when I get back,” she said.
Rowan smiled at her and then laughed. “This isn’t the last time we’re ever going to see each other,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he said it, but the sound of it scared him. “Hurry back.”
Mia leaned in and he held the sides of her face as they kissed. The embrace lasted only a few seconds, but Rowan thought he would remember it above all of the other moments they’d ever had together. Mia was up and moving, making a point not to look back at him. Rowan watched her wipe at her eyes, but he didn’t want to see her face.
“I love you.”
It was the first time either of them had ever said it, and the sound of it shook Rowan to the core. His tongue swelled in his throat. He tried to spit out a reply, but Mia never stopped moving. She waved at him over her shoulder and pushed into the shadows before he could speak. Rowan finally found his breath, but she was long gone.
“I love you, too.”
8
The sun rapidly made its descent and the dead city came alive with echoing sounds. Mia peered out at the street beyond the building she, Rowan, and Jacob had been holing up in for nearly a week. The roadway was clear, but the fast-approaching darkness made it difficult to see into the alleyways between the buildings. The guttural growls drifting on the wind told her that her trek to the tribe’s buildings would be a dangerous one.
She slid out into the open and started south at a slow trot. Mia’s mind was torn. She knew her father would never allow Rowan back into the tribe now that he’d managed to banish him. She’d kept certain details of the council’s decision to herself. Mia listened to her father’s description of what they saw at the edge of the city. He told them that Rowan’s uprising was no different from the small hordes of infected the tribe had seen for years.
Mia bit her lip. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Rowan the truth. Moreover, she had no idea how she was going to convince the council to act. She’d have to call her father a liar in the process. The thought of it brought her an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. There was something in Jacob’s coarse description of the tribe’s future that gnawed at her. As much as she wanted to tell herself that he didn’t know what he was talking about, she couldn’t. Her thoughts sped up her feet.
The shadows of the buildings loomed across the street, running into one another. The last of the light would soon be gone and Mia’s relative safety would be gone with it. She couldn’t ignore the rising sounds. A chill ran down the back of her neck as the first of the dead-speak cleared the surrounding structures. She dropped down to a knee and edged forward behind the shell of a rusty vehicle.
The clatter that followed came in a series of waves. The echo grew with great intensity until Mia felt her heart beating in tune with it. She pushed herself away from the car, her eyes locked on the crossroads ahead. She stood up without thinking, backing toward an access road between two rows of smaller buildings. She stood near the edge of a building, her face pressed up against the cold stone exterior.
The sound changed as it renewed, rising in volume to a roar. The dead-speak was in unison, louder than anything she’d ever heard before. Her eyes bulged as the first of them broke from beyond the buildings. They moved in step, covering the street from one side to the other. There were more infected than she’d ever seen at once, row after row racing toward the crossroad. Their chorus stung her ears, the slithering words crawling over her skin like a bug. Mia turned to run when something else caught her eye. The large formation moved as one, but it was not complete. The configuration splintered at every walkway, alley, and side street. Smaller groups broke away from the main body as if on cue, exploring, leaving no crevice unchecked.
Her legs couldn’t carry her fast enough. She was unsure of her direction, but the fear clinging to her heart wouldn’t allow her to stop. The light disappeared, leaving Mia shrouded in darkness. A low-lying blanket of clouds blocked out the moon, allowing only slivers of glowing light to guide her. The sound of the infected pierced everything. They were coming, pushing down every street, and through every building. Panic consumed Mia, a dread for what this meant to the tribe, a dread for Rowan’s safety, and a dread for how she would survive the night.
She was down on her knees, edging toward the corner of a building. Mia slid her eye out to the bend and examined the street, turning her head to get the view from both directions. The road was clear, but the ever present dead-speak told her it wouldn’t stay that way for long. She shot out from behind her cover and reached the center of the road before movement caught her eye. Mia didn’t have to look to know what was coming, the roar of the crowd painted a picture nearly beyond comprehension.
The chorus of wails rose to a deafening volume as the blood lust pushed the infected into a feeding frenzy. Mia reached the sidewalk and kept moving, pushing herself faster than she thought possible. Experience told her that she had to control her energy or the relentless infected would catch her, but at the moment, her rational-self had no control over her actions. Her heart beat every time her feet hit the ground, and the pace quickened for both by the second.
Mia didn’t bother to pull her knife. If the pack caught up to her, they’d rip her apart before she ever got in a swing. She reached the next cross streets and turned east. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was trying to guide herself home. She made a series of quick turns, never bothering to look and see what was behind her. The sounds grew more distant, but she didn’t dare to hope she’d lost her pursuers. The i
nfected had an amazing sense of smell, something akin to a hunting dog. Her only real hope was getting enough buildings between herself and them that they would lose her scent before they caught up to her. The brief moment of optimism was sucked out of her when she raced out of a parking lot and was forced to a stop.
They were dead, all of them, a pack so dense, they were practically standing on top of one another. Mia shivered as she scanned up one side of the road and down the other. The dead stood in both directions, silent as the grave, all focused on her. She couldn’t understand why they weren’t moving toward her until a familiar sound reached her ears. The dead-speak carried across the parking lot, smacking Mia square in the face, and she knew at once what was happening.
The dead were there to contain her. The realization of what that meant slurped the courage from her heart in an instant. The infected had such control that they’d managed to create the flesh-eating barrier while they were on the run. The idea of it was too terrifying to believe. If they had the ability to do that, Jacob was right: they were more than capable of stomping the Cheyenne Tribe out of existence.
Mia’s focus turned to the building across from the lot. The entryway was buried beneath a pile of rubble. She spun back toward the lot, forcing herself to face what would surely be her death. She backed away, slipping her knife out from under her belt. She reached the front side of the building and pressed her back up against the brick wall.
A terrible silence fell over the open space. Mia scanned the lot from one line of the dead at the end of the street to the opposing line. The first of the infected stepped out into the light, but they didn’t rush after her nor did they let out their dreadful cries. Several pale-skinned figures walked calmly to the edge of the lot. The sight of their self-control was unlike anything Mia had ever seen, and it was more horrible than she could have imagined. The group looked at her, their hate-filled eyes unnaturally wide. Most of their limbs jerked and twitched sporadically, fighting to contain themselves.
The Decaying World Saga Box Set [Prequel #1-#2 & Books #1-#2] Page 50
