"Now did you go into the courthouse," he said, taunting them, "or did you disappear off into the park? Decisions, decisions."
His footsteps started up again, but they were slow and leisurely. "Now, I certainly wouldn't imagine that you would be hiding in that fountain there. That would just be the stupidest thing you could do. You don't strike me as the brightest lady, but I'm going to give you a little more credit than that."
Sarah quietly reached her hand underneath David and closed her hand around the grip of the pistol, shimmying it out. In that moment, she was so intent on watching the lip of the fountain wall above her, that she hadn't even noticed David shut his eyes tightly, concentrating.
"I'm sorry for all that shooting before," the bandit said. As he crept toward the fountain, he put the gun back in his holster and pulled out a long hunting knife. "I really do prefer knives. They're a lot more intimate, I think. You really get to know the animal you're killing when you use one.
"I don't know if you remember me, love," he continued, "but I had a good go at you when you first showed up last night. And believe me, that's nothing compared to what Jericho is going to do to you when he gets his hands on you. Now, if I had my way, I'd let you go right now, no harm done. You seem like a nice lady. But the boss? Jericho likes his ladies. He's a bit of a horn dog, if I say so, myself. Don't tell him I said that though; he doesn't really like us talking about him behind his back. The last one of us who did that didn't turn out too well. So me? I do what the boss says. I don't cross him, and I get a little piece of the action here and there."
His footsteps crept closer and closer. They were just outside the fountain, and Sarah's heart pounded as she pointed the gun up toward the lip of the fountain.
"Works well enough for me," he said. "Now the boss wants you taken alive if I can help it. Your son, too. There's no hard feelings, but the man wants what he wants. So I'm not gonna kill you, but I'm afraid I will have to hurt you a little, love."
He rushed up to the fountain and Sarah aimed at his head. He was too fast and easily pulled the gun out of her hand before she could shoot. His motion was smooth and gentle, almost as if he was doing it in slow motion.
"Now, now, love. You don't want to be doing that." He tossed the gun away behind him on the ground as he continued talking to her, gesturing with his knife.
She scurried to the other side of the fountain and pressed herself up against the wall, holding David to her. She cowered as he stepped over the short wall and into the fountain with them.
"I was going to make it nice and quick, but you just disrespected me, and I don't like being disrespected. I'm going to have to take my time now, and pick you apart bit by bit, nice and slow." He closed the last gap between them and kneeled down, grabbing her by the shoulder as she let out a cry. He raised the knife and looked down at David.
"What's his problem?" he asked Sarah.
She noticed that David's eyes were shut tight, and that he didn't look scared, but like he was concentrating.
A quick rush of footsteps came from behind the bandit. He stood up and wheeled around, holding his knife out uselessly as the first zombie dove over the side of the fountain and tackled him. He bounced off the centerpiece and fell to the other side of the fountain as more zombies piled in.
Sarah and David shot up to their feet and climbed out of the fountain. She scrambled over and picked up her Glock that he tossed away, then they continued to run for the park.
The zombies ripped the bandit's flesh from his bones as his body convulsed. The knife fell out of his grip and clattered on the ground as his fingers twitched and made clawing motions. His whole body wiggled like a fish out of water as his blood ran everywhere. Blood gurgled in his throat until a zombie bent down and started chewing it. Then he got real quiet.
Sarah and David made their way through the park and darted through some more commercial properties on the other side. When Sarah was convinced that they were far enough away and had lost the bandits, she took David inside an unassuming office building, going up a flight of stairs to the second floor. They nestled into a little office at the front of the building overlooking the street and closed the door behind them, moving a desk up against it. Sarah checked the room quickly and made sure there was nothing else in there and that they were safe. She found a moldy piece of linen in the closet that she used to cover her and David for the night as they huddled together in a corner.
They stared out the window in front of them at the town of Durham outside. They had made it into the city, but she had no idea where Noah's Ark was, if it was even there at all. The night was quiet for a while, until finally, somewhere off in the distance she could hear a voice. She knew that slimy, perverted voice. It haunted her dreams after the first time she heard it, and it haunted her dreams again that night as she tried to sleep. It was Jericho calling out in the night.
"You'll never get to Noah's Ark!" he yelled. "You'll have to come through me! And when I find you, I'll send you straight to Hell!"
21
Confessions
"I don't see it," David said.
"Neither do I," Sarah replied, defeated.
The two of them sat at the top of a clock tower overlooking the city. They were near the edge of the city, and it looked like they had led the lone bandit far away from the rest of his ilk the night before. It was just after dawn, and they woke up a little bit before the sun came up and ate the few cans of food that Sarah had stuffed in her pockets that they pilfered from the bridge. They talked about hiding out for a few days, even a couple of weeks if that's what it took in order to wait out the bandits so they would forget about them and they could find Noah's Ark unhindered. But in the few houses and stores they ducked in that morning, there were no supplies to be found. The scroungers picked everything clean and had slowly given it to the bandits over time. So it was now or never; if they didn't make a last-ditch effort to get to Noah's Ark, they would starve to death.
"Isn't it supposed to be a big place?" David asked.
"I don't know."
Sarah didn't want to admit it to him, but she was starting to worry that Noah's Ark didn't exist after all. Maybe Jericho was telling the truth. But she knew he lied about David being dead, so what would stop him from lying about Noah's Ark? She also had a hard time reconciling the idea that such a paradise could exist in a city controlled by the bandits. But Jericho had goaded them in the night, saying he would make sure they didn't get there, suggesting that maybe it did exist.
In either case, she knew David was right; if it was there, they should be able to see it. The clock tower they were in had to have been at least forty feet in the air and gave a good vantage of most of the city. Aside from the bandits prowling the streets off in the distance below, there didn't seem to be much of any activity. They were on the outskirts of Duke University and could see the downtown core off in the distance. There was one bandit up in a water tower off to the east, looking for the two of them with a pair of bulky binoculars. More bandits were in the streets near the tower, which was situated at the edge of the residential area of town.
Sarah found this curious. They didn't appear to be covering a wide berth all over the city, nor were they concentrated in the downtown core, where Sarah would perhaps expect them to be; they seemed to be covering a fairly tight, specific part of town. She scanned the area all around them, but none of it made sense. She could see the stadium and a couple of baseball diamonds that were part of the University, some wooded areas, an old cemetery, and an abandoned carnival.
The two of them could see the occasional wandering pack of zombies dragging their clubbed feet through the streets and parks of the city. Tiny echoes of longing moans came out in the distance, but there hadn't yet been any clashes between zombies and bandits that they saw.
Sarah and David retreated back behind the walls next to them and each sat in a corner facing each other. She groaned, every part of her aching. Everything she'd been through had really taken its toll on her, a
nd the only thing that kept her going was the sweet little boy sitting in front of her. Her fingers ran along the necklace that he made her, her thumb and forefinger spinning each bead, then putting it back in place.
She stared at him and smiled.
"What is it?" David asked.
"No, it's nothing," she said. "I'm just proud of you, kiddo."
"Why?"
"Because if it wasn't for you, we would still be in those townhouses."
He lowered his head. "I know," he said with remorse.
"Don't be upset," she said. "You made the right choice."
"I did? But we didn't even make it there."
"We'll make it," she said, scanning the city. "I know it's out there, and we'll find it. And we couldn't have done it if it wasn't for you. You're the one who dragged us out of those townhouses in the first place, and I'm the one who was always looking for an excuse to go back. Every single time we had a setback, it was like it didn't bother you, like it didn't matter. But I mean that in a good way. Like you always knew that no matter what happened, we could make it. I've struggled for a long time with that, thinking that there was no hope, thinking that I wasn't good enough to raise you... but you've changed my mind."
"But you got hurt so bad, Mom. It wasn't worth it. I would do anything to make you not have to hurt."
"And that's what I love about you. You're always so selfless, always trying to help other people. You're positive to a fault, and no amount of hell can take that away from you. We've both been through things we'll never forget, but like you said, we're both still here. We're both still alive. Whatever got us all the way here, it's still giving us a chance to keep going, to go that final bit of distance and make it there. I tried to give up a long time ago on all of this, but you made sure I didn't. You taught me that there's more to life than just surviving. No matter how dangerous it gets, there's always something that's worth fighting for.
"I never told you this before," she continued, "but I gave up all hope that there could ever be anything good in this world again when your father died. God, I wish you could have met him. You would've loved him so much. I see a lot of him in you. Every time you smile, I see him smile. He died to protect you, and in a way, you always sort of carried on his spirit. I always felt lost without him, and there were so many times when I had no idea what I was doing raising you. I suppose no one would blame me, but I felt like I had no purpose anymore. You're always such a sweet boy, and I just wanted to give you the life you deserve, but I never knew how. I wanted to keep you safe at all costs, but I was slowly killing you."
"You weren't, Mom. I just... wasn't happy. I knew you weren't happy, and I wanted to go somewhere better. I know that you were always sad because my dad was gone, and I just wanted to make you happy. But I didn't know how. And then I got sad, too. I wanted to go somewhere else, but I didn't know where. When Herb told us about Noah's Ark, it sounded like a place I always wanted to go. But I didn't know it would be this dangerous."
"You couldn't have," Sarah said. "I kept you locked up all the time, even when I was out doing the simplest things. You hardly ever even saw another person."
"That's okay," he said. "I know you're keeping me safe."
"Did I ever tell you that your name was supposed to be Kevin?"
He shook his head.
"Your dad and I spent such a long time trying to decide on your name. We went back and forth on it up until the night you were born. I remember lying in bed that morning before he went to work, bouncing names back and forth. We had a few that we liked, and we eventually settled on Kevin. We were a bit late even doing that, because you were supposed to be born a week earlier. Maybe you refused to be born until you had a name," she said with a chuckle. "Your dad went off to work and I was thinking about that name all day. I liked the way it sounded, and then I went into labor when your dad came home, and he drove us off to the hospital. I remember asking him if we were going to call you Kevin one last time, just to be sure. And I'll never forget the look in his eyes and the way he squeezed my hand when he said yes, he was sure. And after everything happened that night, I didn't even think about your name for a few days. It wasn't until that old couple took us into their home, saved our lives, and asked me what your name was. I was about to say Kevin, but then I stopped myself. All I could think about was your dad and how he wasn't there with us. I thought about how much he loved you, and how much he wanted to meet you, and I just said David. That's how you got your name."
"My dad sounds like a nice man."
"He was."
"You think he's up there?"
"Up where?"
"In Heaven. Do you think he's looking down on us?"
Sarah thought about the vision she had of her husband dressed all in white with the otherworldly glow surrounding him, walking hand-in-hand with David on the bridge. A smile crossed her face at the thought.
"Yeah, he is. I saw him, you know."
"You did? When?"
"When I was locked up on the bridge and you saved me. I saw him beside you, walking with you the whole way."
"You did?"
"Yeah, I think he was guiding you and helping you, so you could save my life. I can't believe you made it through there without anyone else seeing you. I think he was watching over you and keeping you safe."
"Then he was watching over you, too," David said.
The idea hadn't crossed her mind. "I guess you're right." The thought warmed her and made her realize that her husband wasn't totally gone this whole time. While it would never be the same again, a part of him lived on through their son. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"I don't think I ever thanked you yet. Thank you for saving my life. If it wasn't for you, I would be dead."
"Thank you, too."
"For what?"
"For saving my life," he said. "You saved me a lot. I know you're always looking out for me and taking care of me, and I just want you to know that you're a good mom."
She teared up and placed a hand over her mouth. She was so exhausted and malnourished and just about at the end of her rope, and yet she couldn't believe that she had such an amazing son through it all. She really couldn't ask for more. She crawled across the brick floor of the clock tower and hugged her son. Her knees were still sore from the bruises she got from sitting on the concrete bridge, but she didn't care. She pulled him into her and wrapped her arms around him, running her fingers through his hair as she kissed his forehead.
She held him at arm's length and looked into his eyes. "We're going to make it to Noah's Ark," she said. "I know your dad is taking care of us and he's going to make sure we get there."
"But I still don't see it."
"Well, we'll keep searching until we find it. Whatever it takes. I'm never giving up."
He smiled. He was glad to hear her say that. "I really wish I could've seen that before the zombies came," he said, leaning out and looking at something in the distance.
"Seen what?" she asked.
"That carnival," he said. "All those rides look fun."
The empty carnival sat just beyond the areas where the bandits were prowling. They could see a few of the rides from up in the clock tower, including a little roller coaster, a Ferris wheel, and a big boat that looked like it swung back and forth.
"Yeah?" she said. "I used to love going to the carnival when I was younger. But I wouldn't go on the roller coasters; those were too scary for me."
"It doesn't look scary," he said. "It looks fun!"
"Oh, not for me! But your dad liked them, though."
"What kind of rides did you like?"
"That Ferris wheel looks like it's more my speed."
"What about that boat? What does that one do?" He squinted his eyes at it, trying to discern its function. It was a ride made out to look like a big brown boat that hung from a fulcrum above it, no doubt swinging back and forth like a pendulum. There were long sections of wood on either side of the boat that were painted blue to look li
ke waves.
"Oh my God," she said. "David... that's it."
"What?"
"That's Noah's Ark."
"Where?" he asked, sitting up high and craning his neck, trying to find where she was looking.
"That boat," she said, pointing. She pulled out the crumpled paper card from her pocket and flattened it out. "Look! This is it."
They compared the drawing of the brown boat sitting on blue waves on the card to the ride in the carnival. It was a definite match.
"But I don't see anybody there," he said.
"We can only see a fraction of it from up here," she said. "I bet there are people on the ground there that we can't see from up here."
"So we found it?" he asked, getting excited.
"We found it."
They both looked at the boat in the distance, both not quite believing that they were actually laying their eyes on the promised land, the safe haven that they had come through Hell and back to find.
"There's just one problem," she said.
"The bandits," he answered.
"Yes."
The bandits were prowling the area between the two of them and the carnival. It made so much sense now, and she couldn't believe that she didn't realize it before; she knew Jericho was trying to head them off, but she didn't know that they would be directly in front of it, leading them right to it, if only they had the eyes to see.
"How do we get past them?" he asked.
"We're going to need a diversion."
"A what?"
"A distraction."
"Like what?"
A noise came from the street below them. It sounded like something striking a piece of glass, but not breaking it; that hollow, reverberating sound. Then it happened again.
They crawled to the edge of the clock tower and looked down at the street.
A lone zombie was down at the base of the clock tower on the other side of the street. They watched as it tried to walk into a store, bumping into a window over and over again, apparently not understanding the concept of what a window was. It groaned gently and slapped its hands on the glass. Eventually, it gave up and moved a few feet to the right and started walking into a different window.
Zombie Apocalypse Series Books 1-3 (Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set) Page 20
