The Reaper

by S E Lunsford

  “Dani?” Chris’ voice brought me back into the now. “What are you thinking about?”

  “People.”

  He nodded, staring at me so intensely it seemed like he was trying to reach into my mind and grasp my thoughts with his own.

  “We’ve heard of a place,” I started out slowly before tapering off. Squeezing my hand, he urged me to continue. My heart began to hammer in my chest as I considered telling him about Sanctuary, but it felt like the right thing to do. “A place, that has been able to survive and keep the creepers out. I don’t know about the other things. That’s where we were going to go if my aunt.” I stopped as the memory of her came rushing back to me.

  Internally I cringed as I thought about what had happened to her, and what her last thoughts might have been before she was bit and changed. How much pain she must have gone through, along with the terror of knowing that she wasn’t going to be eaten, but that she going to do the eating. My aunt becoming a creeper was almost unthinkable especially since she had been filled with gentleness, kindness and love, a woman who hated to even kill a spider. She’d make me take them outside rather than smash them with a shoe, which is what I really wanted to do. She would be horrified to know that she was killing and eating people. My eyes welled up, angrily I wiped away the tears that escaped down my cheeks.

  Chris watched me silently as I struggled to regain myself. Taking a deep breath, I straightened up pulling my hand out of his.

  “Sanctuary,” I whispered. “We’re heading to Sanctuary.”

  “Funny thing,” he said, his eyes lighting up and a smile playing on his lips. “I’m heading there too.”

  “What do you know about it?” I choked out in surprise.

  “Enough,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper as he looked over at the cement wall on the far side of the room. “They’ve managed to live among the creepers.”

  “What do you mean among the creepers?” I asked.

  “They not only have a fortified place, but some of them can walk out among the creepers, and the creepers ignore them. So, they’ve been able to make a life for themselves there.”

  I barely heard his last words as I thought of people who could walk around the creepers and not trigger the blood lust that the rest of us did.

  “Not all of them are like that, but some of them are.”

  “How do you think they do it?” I asked.

  He shrugged, his eyes skittering away from me, which told me he knew more than he was saying. After a moment or two of total silence, he focused on me for such a long time that my heart began to beat erratically. Then I was the one glancing away. He reached out knowing exactly where my hand was, grasping it with his and threading our fingers together. He pulled my arm over to his until our forearms were fully flush with each other making my skin tingle where it met his warmth. Looking back at me, he smiled shyly.

  “I have something that you might want,” he said, watching me closely.

  My eyes widened, and his smile grew as he shook his head at me. “Not like that,” he said.

  Heat rushed into my face, and I knew my skin had instantly gone through multiple shades of red.

  “I didn’t,” I stammered, trying to pull my hand away but he gripped it tightly.

  “Don’t,” he said. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, there are times when I forget…..” his words trailed off infused with a sadness that I didn’t quite understand.

  “Forget what?” I asked.

  “How men treat women and how dangerous a world like this for you.”

  I nodded mutely, my mind going to the times when Cassie and I had near miss encounters with men.

  Taking a deep breath, he reached into the pocket of his shirt pulling out a long leather cord with my aunt’s ring hanging from its bottom. Opening my hand, he placed it gently into my palm and closed my fingers around it. “You need to keep this with you from now on.”

  Gripping onto it tightly I could feel the warmth of it as tears began to well up in my eyes. I blinked to try and get rid of them only to have them spill over. Chris reached over and wiped them away.

  “Let’s get this on you,” he quietly said.

  Nodding, I opened my hand, and he took the necklace placing it carefully around my neck. Wiping at the residual wetness on my cheeks, I waited until the ring was settled on my shirt before reaching down and dropping it inside of it, feeling its warmth on my chest.

  “Good,” he said approvingly. “You know Dani,” he began when a screeching from outside in the hallway made us both jump up and face the door.

  He reached for a knife that I barely had time to think about how he’d gotten as I stood wondering what I could use as a weapon. Looking over, I saw a board to my left. I lunged for it, grabbing it with both hands, and swung around to face the door where Chris stood stock still, his head cocked to one side listening to whatever was coming down the corridor.

  Taking a deep breath, I smelled the air which was stale but clear, missing the telltale scent of rotten flesh that told me it wasn’t creepers making the racket. But, with all of Chris’ talk about different kinds of beings out there, I wasn’t sure what could be making such a horrible noise.

  The door pushed in quickly and every muscle in my body tightened up, relaxing only slightly as the four siblings came rushing in pushing a dilapidated old cart complete with rusty wheels that screeched as it limped along.

  Silence blanketed the room as they saw Chris and I ready to attack whatever came through the door. They froze where they stood as they glanced at each of us.

  “Wow, touchy are we?” Edward asked into the silence.

  “You need to be quiet, no matter where you are,” Chris couldn't hide his irritation. I wondered if he even tried to as he shut the door behind them managing to close it with an almost silent click.

  “We’re safe here,” Edward’s voice rose up at the end.

  “We're not safe anywhere,” was Chris’ response. “And, what in the world is this?”

  All eyes in the room focused on the cart.

  “We don’t have any weapons because your cousin took them away from us, we thought this might come in handy,” Carlisle glared at Chris.

  “What were you going to do kick someone down and roll over them to death?” I asked, putting my board next to my cot.

  “Na,” Edward said. “We thought we’d hit them over the head with your board first.”

  I began to laugh at the thought of him hitting a rabid creeper over the head with a two by four then rolling it over with the rusty cart its wheels squeaking loudly, which would only bring more creepers. Then all of us were laughing so hard that Carlisle bent over, tears running down his face. Even Chris couldn't help himself at the thought, his body shaking with the sound of his silent laughter.

  “Okay, okay,” he said as our laughter subsided. “Dani and I were just talking about what to do next.”

  “Leave,” was Carlisle’s short answer as he sat on a cot, Edward flopping down across from him. Rosalie came towards me, settling herself on my cot, while Jasper didn't seem to quite know what to do. So he stood near the doo, his face determined as he listened to the silence in hallway.

  “It’s okay Jasper, you can sit down,” Chris said as he settled down on his cot. The boy shook his head once before going back to listening at the door. Watching him for a moment, Chris ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly looking as if a weight had settled on him. Sighing deeply, he turned back to the rest of us. “I talked with John and he thinks Cassie should be ready to leave sooner than we thought. She seems to be healing well.”

  “How long?” I asked, sensing Rosalie squirm next to me as I settled down next to her.

  “A day, two tops,” Chris leaned against the wall. “So, what we need to do is decide what we’re doing. Where we’re going.”

  “North,” Carlisle interrupted him. “We’re heading North.”

  Both Chris and I stared at him. “Go on,” Chris raised an
eyebrow at him.

  “Well, we’ve heard of this place,”

  “Sanctuary,” I finished for him. He looked over at me, clearly surprised.

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “That’s where Cassie and were going to head to for plan B, and well, it’s plan B now.”

  He nodded as if he understood. “What about you?” He asked Chris who nodded.

  “I think it’s as good as place as any.”

  “We were talking about it before you came in,” I started out slowly. “Chris said they can walk among the creepers without worrying about being attacked.”

  Edward cast a quick glance over at Jasper who still stood listening.

  “What are you listening for Jasper?” I said quietly.

  Looking over his gray eyes met mine, before skittering away as he shrugged.

  “He can hear them,” Rosalie piped up.

  “What do you mean?” I looked over at her.

  “He can hear them before we can smell them,” she answered.

  “Rosalie,” Edward admonished her with just her name.

  “They have to know, if we’re going to travel with them,” she said her chin jutting out as her gaze clashed with her brothers.

  “We don’t know if we’re travelling with them yet,” Edward ground out.

  “Yes, we do Edward,” Carlisle said. “It’s pretty obvious actually.”

  “Unless of course you intend to bring the cart, then maybe not so much,” Chris said, his eyes crinkling up in a smile before his mouth did.

  I couldn't help but smile either, glancing down I saw that Rosalie was smiling too.

  “Oh Edward,” she said, her smile breaking out into a full-fledged giggle.

  Chapter 5

  “Dani?” The voice interrupted my sleep, which was more sound than I liked to admit. Shaking my head as I woke, I quickly cleared out the remnants of sleep that tried to cling in the corners of my mind.

  The outline of a dark figure stood in front of me that was just a shade darker than the rest of the room. The snoring of the boys told me they were too sound asleep to notice there was someone standing among us.

  “It’s just me,” Rosie's voice drifted over from the darkness, and I realized that it was her standing in front of me. Sitting up, I leaned forward carefully breathing in.

  “Do I smell like myself?” she whispered.

  “Yeah you do, what's going on?”

  “I think we need to leave tomorrow,” she said coming closer, her rose like scent coming with her. A random thought came across my mind that she did indeed smell like the flower that her name was taken from. Closing my eyes, I pushed the thought away, but it was insistent and I realized that she had the rose scent the whole time we’d been with them, I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

  “You mean today?” I whispered back sliding my feet into my shoes.

  “Yes.”

  “We can’t Cassie’s not…,” my voice trailed off into the darkness.

  “I know, that’s why I woke you up,” she came even closer to me. “We need to go down to see her, she needs to be better by tomorrow, today, either way she needs to be good enough to travel.”

  “You want to heal her?”

  “Yes,” she said her voice blending with the darkness around us.

  “Why Rosalie? What’s going on?”

  She sighed in the darkness her rose scent becoming even thicker.

  “We just need to go.”

  Not much later, after throwing on my clothes and shoes, I was pulling my hair into a braid we were making our way around the corner to the clinic.

  A thin light shone from under the door. Rosalie was close behind me, her small hand clutching my shirt as we stopped. Voices seeped underneath the door, a man and a woman were talking quietly. Shifting my weight slightly forward, I tried to make out the words, but couldn’t.

  Rosalie tugged on my shirt. I turned around irritation filtering through my body. Her mouth was set in a straight line, her jaw muscles tight.

  “Is she the only one in there?” She asked not in the least bit affected by my reaction.

  “I think so. The only patient that is,” I clarified.

  “If you get me in there, I can get her healed and then we can get out.”

  I looked down at her wondering how in the world I could get her in there without making some sort of ruckus, which is something I didn’t want to do. There were too many people in this bunker that would shoot first and ask questions later.

  I pushed her back more deeply into the shadows as the voices came closer to the door. There wasn’t anywhere we could truly hide, just a long hallway with lights flickering on and off intermittently down the center of the ceiling. If they came out and turned our way they would see us, but if they turned the other way it was entirely possible that the lights above us would be off and we would seem like nothing more than shadows. I said a silent prayer and held my breath as the doorknob began to turn. I could hear Rosalie holding her breath too.

  A man and woman I didn’t recognize came out, their eyes fixed on one another as the light above Rosalie and I turned off. They turned their backs to us, walking towards the stairway at the far end of the hallway. We stood frozen as we watched them walk slowly, arms intertwined with one another until they got to the door, walked through it and disappeared inside.

  We stood for what seemed like an eternity to make sure they didn’t return before we made our way towards the clinic door, slipping quietly inside.

  “Through here,” I said, quickly walking towards the door to the hospital ward when Rosalie pulled me back. “What?” I asked irritation plain in my voice.

  She didn’t answer just pointed up to a closed-circuit camera that was pointed at the door of the hospital wing. It was slowly beginning to turn in our direction. Looking around the room, I grabbed Rosalie’s hand pulling her behind me so that we were under the camera without being seen by it. I wondered who would put it there, and if it had been there earlier. I had been so concerned with seeing Cassie that I hadn't taken the time to notice.

  With our backs to the wall, we stood still as the camera made its way to the other side of the room until it was focused on the door that led to the hallway. Quickly we hurried to the hospital wing door sliding through without being seen. We’d barely made it through before Rosalie went over to Cassie who was fast asleep. Staying near the door to keep watch, I looked over as she put her hands on Cassie’s back and closed her eyes, her blond hair falling in a sheet over her face as she bent her neck and leaned slightly forward.

  The camera was almost back looking at the door, so I closed it enough that the door didn’t click closed but it would look like it was closed. Hearing a deep sigh behind me, I looked over to see that Rosalie had gone white and dark purplish circles were forming under her eyes. Glancing up at me, she nodded with a slight smile before taking her hands off of Cassie’s back looking as if she was staying upright by sheer will. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I ran over to her and wrapped my arm around her, so she was leaning on me as we began to move. Her head slowly flopped into my side as we made our way slowly across the room her feet starting to drag.

  “You think you can make it?” I whispered.

  She nodded even as her face grew more pale, a smile trying to make its way through her exhaustion.

  “I did it,” she whispered.

  “I know,” I hugged her closer. “Now we just need to get out..” a noise in the next room stopped the words in my throat. Voices interrupted my thoughts about escape, as first the woman’s voice then the man’s were muffled by the door. Freezing in place I listened intently, feeling the muscles in my back tighten as I tried to keep Rosalie still and hear what the couple were saying. The voices came closer to the door as Rosalie tugged on my shirt. She pointed to the bed next to Cassie.

  “Brilliant,” I said as I all but picked her up and moved her to the bed sliding her under the blanket just as the door opened be
hind me.

  “What are you doing in here?” The woman’s voice cracked over me like a whip.

  “She’s not well,” I said, glancing over at Rosalie who didn’t have to fake being exhausted and pale. Healing Cassie had taken a lot out of her.

  “What’s wrong with her?” The woman bustled over laying her hand on Rosalie’s forehead as the man replaced her in the doorway.

  “She just got really tired and pale all of a sudden,” I said. “I brought her down here, but there wasn’t anyone around. So, I put her in one of the beds.”

  “She’s really cold, get me more blankets,” she said to the man who immediately went back into the office and brought back blankets. “How are you feeling Honey?” The woman tucked the blankets in around Rosalie who lay with her eyes closed waiting a few beats before fluttering them open. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, turning instead to look over at Cassie. A slight movement of her left ring finger as she opened her eyes just slightly, told me she was awake and more than paying attention. I answered with my own half smile, a signal system we had developed not long after we were on our own and found ourselves in need of some sort of signal that would let the other know that we were alive and well no matter what it looked like.

  “I just need to rest for a while,” Rosalie whispered to the woman.

  “Are you sure?” The man’s voice was loud in the room. I turned to find him looking at me, then turning his gaze to Rosalie who trained her blue eyes on him and nodded.

  “Well, I guess it’s okay, usually we don’t keep people here unless there’s some discernable illness or injury,” the woman said crossing her arms across her chest. “But, what do you think Caleb?” She asked turning to him. He shrugged.

  “I don’t see the harm, it’s only a few hours until morning and it’s not like these beds are needed for anything else,” he answered.