“Don’t borrow trouble, Z. You don’t know anything for sure yet.”
Jake’s voice brought me back to where we stood, just off the road in the destroyed front yard of what was meant to be our safe place. Despite my worries, a smile crossed my face. At least I still had some of my family left. I honestly didn’t believe I could function without Jake or Rex there to help me.
“We should get back to Shanti and the others to let them know what we found,” I said.
Rex held up a hand. “Wait. There was another house they planned to set up to make things less crowded. The one over there,”—he pointed to the left where another house was visible beyond the tree line—“Do you think they had time to get it done yet?”
“It’s possible,” I said. “We should go check it out.”
The boys agreed. They walked toward the road, and headed toward the other house. With one last glance over my shoulder at our wrecked attempt at a safe house, I jogged to catch up.
“Wait!” I stopped them. “We don’t know if there’s an ambush waiting. We should approach carefully.”
I pointed toward the tree line near the other house. “We should stay behind that, and try to get as close as possible before we allow ourselves to be seen.”
The tree line didn’t go quite far enough to cover our full approach to the other house, but it would get us close. We’d be able to get a decent look at the property without too much risk.
“I’m still not sensing any of the infected,” I told them. “But I really don’t think they’re the ones behind this.”
Jake frowned, but nodded. “Yeah. If the creatures had attacked, there would be remains left behind. Our friends wouldn’t go down without a fight.”
“Well… I mean, the fence was pretty torn up,” Rex argued softly. “Do you honestly think the guards would have done that?”
I took a breath to answer, but huffed it out a moment later. “Honestly? I doubt it.”
My fingers tapped on the hilt of my sword as I talked through what we knew. “Siren was free. All the animals are missing—which to me indicates they knew trouble was coming. The cart and quite a few supplies are missing from the house. The fence is torn apart, and all our friends are missing.”
My gaze darted between my two companions. “Does that about cover everything we know?”
Rex gripped his gun tightly. “Yeah. I think it does.”
Jake nodded. “I believe our friends either escaped, or some guard patrol happened to locate them…”
“And capture them,” I finished. “Which means it’s possible one of the experiments is back in the hands of the people behind everything.”
Rex frowned. “Yeah. If you’re right and Mike is actually one of you.”
I tilted my head in acknowledgment. “True. I can’t be certain. Not yet.”
Jake held up a hand to silence us. “We’re nearly there,” he whispered.
The first glimpse at the secondary house showed an overgrown lawn, a barn with ivy crawling up almost an entire side, and a two story house with weed-infested flower gardens around the side and back. No people. No animals.
I motioned for the boys to stay behind while I crept forward. I used the shadows and outbuildings to hide behind as much as possible. When I reached the side of the house with no response, I gave a nod toward the woods.
Rex and Jake came forward slowly, weapons held at the ready. Even with no reaction to my presence, they wouldn’t assume safety.
“I don’t hear anything,” I whispered when they reached me.
We walked around to the front and saw supplies gathered to make a fence. Wire and wood posts were on the ground in neat piles.
“Guess that answers our question,” Rex said. “They didn’t have this place set up, but they were working on it.”
My shoulders slumped and I let out a sigh. “I guess we might as well check inside to make sure.”
We split up to check the house. A quick look around the main level showed signs that someone had been there to clean up and to get supplies ready, but no personal items were there.
I leaned against the wall near the door, tapping my foot impatiently as Rex and Jake finished checking the rest of the house. We needed to get back to the others and see if we could figure out some way to find our missing friends. This house was clearly empty, and the search now felt like a waste of valuable time.
Soft footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I saw Jake come down. Soon after, Rex’s slightly faster steps came up from the basement level.
“There are several storage rooms full of supplies down there. Too bad we don’t have a way to transport it right now.”
I opened the door and held it as the guys walked through. “We don’t have anything bigger than a wagon to carry it in anyway. And no safe house to keep it.”
Rex nodded, a somber look on his face.
“There’s nothing upstairs,” Jake reported. “Looks dusty and unused. The beds are made, but I would guess they’re just how the owners left them. I don’t think our friends spent much time preparing this place.”
Rex huffed. “Or they didn’t have time. We have no idea how long ago this happened. For all we know, they could have left the same day as us.”
“I doubt it,” I said thoughtfully. “I think… maybe if they were that close behind us, they might have caught up to us on our route to Ground Zero.”
Jake tapped his leg, eyes narrowed. “If they were captured by the guards, which direction would they most likely go?”
“Toward the main headquarters, I would guess,” I answered. “But since we don’t know where that is, it doesn’t exactly help us.”
The location of the guards’ main headquarters was a highly kept secret. One only a guard… or a former guard would know.
“Kate!” We all said together.
We turned as one and, now knowing the coast was clear, we walked on the road back toward the house where we’d left Kate, Shanti, and the others.
A few minutes into our walk, I held up a hand and stopped. Next to me, Rex and Jake froze in place. The back of my neck tingled. Only familiarity allowed me to block out the instinctual shudder at the sensation. It still felt unsettling to know when one of the creatures was near.
A zombie. Not a word I enjoyed using, since it still almost made me giggle to use it. However, I felt I had to use it more frequently, now that I realized we had more than one enemy. Being specific could help save lives.
I waved the others off to the side of the road and focused on the creature. Why it was by itself I couldn’t tell. What I could tell was it was headed our direction. It would be easier to let it continue than to force it to turn around. Especially since I didn’t want to run into it again later.
I ducked behind a tree next to Rex, and we waited. Jake was to the other side of Rex. The slow shuffle became audible as the creature drew near. The scuff of old shoes rubbed on the pavement. It shouldn’t have been an eerie sound, yet it sent shivers down my spine. More so when the sound stopped directly in front of where we hid.
Despite my desire to simply take it out, I decided to push a bit instead. My mental will versus the broken hive mind of this single enemy.
The boys remained quiet. As usual, they trusted I would let them know if I needed them. They knew I could handle a single creature without a problem. Usually, at least. This one seemed a bit stubborn.
It was hard to describe what it felt like to connect to the mind of a zombie. The things didn’t think like a normal human. There were tiny little tendrils that seemed to encompass every creature in some way. Those tendrils apparently drew them together. It could explain why the creatures became a large horde in so many areas.
In order to hijack the signal, my mind had to connect to the center of the hive… or the connection point between however many creatures there were. In this case, it was a bit easier, since I only had to influence the hive instinct of one. I could touch one little part of their mind and make it think its instincts want
ed it to go in the opposite direction they were actually headed.
I thought of it as a rotten spider web. Not exactly pretty, but definitely intricate. Whether the web was what the creators had intended to happen or not, I couldn’t tell. Their motives escaped me, and I had no clue as to their endgame.
My mind connected with the single zombie and I decided to work with the instinct that told it to continue to move forward.
The slow shuffle started up again. Within a few minutes the sound had faded and we all breathed a sigh of relief. It was only one creature, but a shot could have drawn the attention of anything in or around the woods.
“We need to go,” I said. I stood and brushed my hands off on my pants. “The longer we wait, the further ahead they get.”
Chapter Six
We jogged the rest of the way. My nerves were strung tight, and I couldn’t help feeling like something was about to happen. Or something had already happened and we were about to walk into a huge mess.
My urgency seemed to rub off on the boys, and they ran in grim silence. The reason for my nerves soon became clear. “A horde,” I gasped. The incessant buzzing in my mind urged me forward at a greater speed.
I didn’t think the zombies had reached the others yet, but what felt like a huge horde was heading right toward them. We sprinted the last quarter mile or so of the mile between our farm, and where we’d left our friends. Unfortunately, I noticed the creatures had beat us there. And I was unhappy to note that they knew our friends were there.
On a slightly happier note, our friends had noticed them as well. Shanti looked out from an upstairs window and shot toward the creatures. With the size of the horde, even a bad shot was likely to hit something. Other shooting erupted from the opposite side of the house. Most likely Kate protecting the flank. I doubted Alex or Ali would be up for fighting, but I wondered why they weren’t forcing them back.
“We need an opening, Z!” Jake shouted beside me.
Some of the creatures turned toward me as we approached. With the worry about our missing friends, and the fear of the deadly creatures in front of us, it didn’t take much for me to allow the emotions to overwhelm me.
I made sure to aim toward the bulk of the horde before I screamed. Every ounce of my will went into pushing them away from my friends, and the attempt to get them to stay gone.
My scream seemed to echo across the whole area. When I opened tear-filled eyes, the creatures were in full retreat. Some of them let out guttural screams as they fled.
“We need to leave,” I said. “I don’t know how long they’ll stay gone.”
Shanti, Kate, Alex, and Ali came downstairs and ran to meet us. “Thank goodness! I didn’t think we’d be able to hold out for long,” Shanti said.
Honestly, it was probably the most excited she’d ever been to see me. She even tried to throw her arms around me until I held up a hand to warn her away. Wet tears still dripped down my face.
“Right,”—she threw her arms up and backed away, a grin still on her face—“can’t face the ‘tears of death’ after surviving that horde.”
I giggled through the strong emotion. “True. Give me a minute. Get the rest of the supplies packed. We need to get out of here before they come back. I’ll clean myself up real quick.”
She gave me a thumbs up and ran to get everything ready to go. I motioned for Jake and Rex to go with her while I entered the house to find some way of cleaning my face.
Left alone, my grin fell. While it was nice to have Shanti happy to see me, I worried for the others. Kane, Mike, Kristy, Caleb, Tony, Case, Quinn, Ben, Aly and especially little Prati. The smallest and youngest of all of us. Along with Scout and Kate’s other companions who had also been with them. The adults might have been able to protect the children, but where could they have gone? Kate might know the location of the guard post, but we couldn’t even be certain that was where they were headed. They still could have run away; we could search forever and never find them.
I gripped the hilt of my sword and squeezed my lips together to stop the appearance of more tears. The whole reason for me going into the house was to clean up. Not to worry myself needlessly over things I had no way to control.
Days like this made the B-grade zombie flick my life had become into a true horror film. There was always risk, of course, but with the others around I could sometimes fool myself into thinking things weren’t as bad as they first appeared. Now that I had no way to know if any of my friends were hurt, or even whether they were still alive? This, I couldn’t pass off as a cheap horror trick. My mouth felt dry and I rubbed suddenly damp palms on my jeans.
Time to distract myself. I looked around the main floor of the house. Most of the usable material had already been removed. I did spot one dish towel flung carelessly over the sink, as if the owners had simply tossed it there with the expectation they would be back to clean up after themselves later.
It wasn’t the cleanest thing ever, but it would suffice to wash my face.
“Z?” Jake stepped through the back door. He held out a bottle of water. “Shanti told me the water doesn’t run in here. So use this to wash up, okay?”
I took it from him, careful to avoid contact with his hand. After the scream, I had used my hands to rub my face. Not a great idea with my particular issues, but it was a habit I’d had forever. I couldn’t allow tears to fall freely without at least an attempt to stop them.
I quickly washed my hands and face. As I wiped my face dry, I looked up and out the window. The threat hovered at the edge of my perception. Nothing was visible, but we were about to overstay our welcome. I let the towel drop to the floor and ran outside.
“The horde is just about to turn back,” I warned.
“Ali, Alex, Shanti; we need to focus on pushing them away from us while we make our escape. Kate?”
The woman stepped forward, her face creased into a deep frown. “I need you to lead us to the guard’s central command location. We think it’s possible the others are being taken there.”
The woman glanced down, her hair swung to cover her face. It gave the normally hard-edged woman a softer, more approachable look.
“I suppose it’s possible they might take Scout there as well,” she agreed. “Scout always warned us to stay far away once we abandoned our duties. They don’t take kindly to people who go AWOL. He always said if we just disappeared, they would assume we were either turned or killed.”
She shuddered and looked up at Jake, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. “I’m scared to go there. What they do to the guards who run away… it’s part of why I left with Scout to begin with.”
Jake reached out and gripped her shoulder. “I’m glad you did. Now you’re here to help us get our friends back. And to protect these kids from people who would abuse their abilities.”
The tingle in my mind became almost painful. “They’re almost here! We need to get moving.”
We rushed to the front of the house and saw several of the creatures headed our direction.
We froze when Kate stopped us and shook her head.
“What’s the problem?” I asked. “We need to leave.”
The woman winced as she answered. “They’re blocking where we need to go.”
I considered our options and gave a sharp nod. “Right. Then we’ll have to go through them.”
Chapter Seven
My friends practically exploded at my declaration. I held out a hand. “Guys…”—they continued arguing loudly—I spoke up a bit louder. “Guys! I think with the four of us concentrating on keeping the horde away from us, we should be able to part them right down the middle.”
Jake raised an eyebrow, and Kate’s mouth hung open. “You seriously want us to march through one of the largest hordes I’ve ever seen?” she asked.
Meeting her gaze steadily, I answered. “I seriously want everyone to trust that our connection to these things can keep us safe. We all need to concentrate on keeping them from noticing us. Then we shou
ld get through just fine. If you can’t fully trust that… then I guess have your weapons ready, and I’ll be ready with another scream to push them away if necessary.”
It would be hard to accept our ability to push the creatures if I hadn’t already seen it in action. The others had witnessed it too, although they may not have realized what they were seeing. The zombies milling around outside the compound at Ground Zero had been kept at bay by Alex and Ali. Once I added my influence, I’d been able to direct them. It was more than simply a push in an alternate direction.
Instead, it had felt like—if I’d wanted to push—I could have directed every move they made. There was only a moment when I felt that much in control, but I suspected I would be able to reproduce it now that there were four of us who could connect.
Either way, we didn’t have much choice. If we wanted to find our friends, our best bet was to go through the horde.
I gave the others a moment to consider the options before I tilted my head. “Well?”
Kate cringed, but nodded. Jake and Rex seemed a bit drawn, but they gave tight smiles and nodded. Shanti, Alex, and Ali exchanged an uncertain look. Eyes crinkled with concern and full of silent questions.
Finally Shanti nodded. “We’re in. We need to find our friends.”
“And save Scout,” Kate added. Her uncertainty seemed to dissolve. “If they realize who he is, they’ll almost definitely take him to the guard base.”
I smiled. Even if the rest of our friends weren’t there, it was likely Scout would be. At least it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.
“Good,” I said. I clapped my hands together. “Time to go, folks. The enemy is closing in, and we need focus in order to do what needs doing. Shanti, Alex, Ali, focus on me and the horde and how you want them to ignore us. I’ll focus on you and the creatures and direct them around us. Jake—”
Countdown to Zero (Patient Zero Book 2) Page 3
