The Salvation Plague | Book 1 |The Turning

by Masters, A. L.

  “Why can’t I go? We shouldn’t split up.”

  “It’s too dangerous. If we both go then someone could steal our truck, or they could surround us, and we would be stuck inside the house. If you stay here, at least you can give me some warning.”

  “Okay. Please hurry,” she urged.

  “I will.” He shifted to leave but turned back once more. “If I don’t come back out in ten minutes, I want you to leave. Go back to the highway and turn left down the small, paved road right after Rolling Hills. Follow that road until you see a mailbox with a thirty-six on it. That’s mine. You can stay there. It should be safe.”

  “I’m not leaving you here!” she protested. She didn’t like him making plans for his death.

  He gritted his teeth. “I don’t plan to stay, but if something happens to me you need to leave. Promise me!”

  “Fine. I promise.” She didn’t mean it, but he nodded anyway. She didn’t want to keep him from checking on his mother any longer.

  “I’ll be back,” he said and left the truck quietly.

  He didn’t slam the door but shut it with barely a sound. She didn’t like being exposed by the overhead light that came on and sunk further down in her seat until it went off. Her hand was sweaty as she clutched the baseball bat with nervous fingers. She wished she had Jared’s pistol.

  Jared’s mom’s house was a basic two-story craftsman style, white with black shutters, and two dormer windows. She wasn’t sure if it was a good thing the lights were on inside or not. She noted that the door was unlocked. He gave one final glance back before he stepped inside and shut the door. She watched hard, scanning everywhere that she could see.

  Her eyes kept going to the clock nervously. The minutes stretched out infinitely. She cracked the window a little to hear better. She heard a dog barking somewhere, the rustle of a breeze through the ornamental maples in the yard, and underneath that she heard the deep rumble of the industrial park in town.

  Evening birds chirped; their cries incongruous with the apocalyptic situation surrounding them.

  Six minutes left.

  She idly jiggled her leg up and down while watching the surrounding homes. What if his mom or sister was one of those things? Could he shoot them? She bit the inside of her cheek. She should have gone in with him. She saw curtains twitch in one of the upper windows of a house down the street. It was completely dark.

  People.

  It made her feel a bit less alone.

  At four minutes left, she heard a loud boom and saw sparks in the distance back toward town. At that moment, the world outside the truck went dark. Oppressive silence pushed in, and the neighborhood suddenly didn’t look so okay anymore. Surely Jared would come back out now.

  If he could.

  It was much harder to keep watch now, and she felt more conspicuous sitting in the running truck now that there were no other lights around. She was worried the glow of the dash was giving her away to anything that might be out there. They could be running for her even now, ready to smash themselves into her window. Through her window.

  She licked her lips nervously and made a decision.

  If Jared didn’t come out in the next two minutes, she was going in after him.

  Her eyes flickered from the clock to the house, to her surroundings, and back again. Her hands trembled violently. She rested one on the door handle, deciding to leave the truck running in case she needed to drive away fast.

  Like if Jared was dead.

  She wiped her free hand on her jeans and grasped the handle of the bat firmly.

  Three…

  Two…

  One…

  She edged the door open and cursed when she forgot the overhead light. She quickly got out and shut the door enough that the light would go off. She crouched next to the passenger door, looking out over the houses across the street. Did she see something moving behind the opened blinds? She duck-walked to the front of the truck and peeked around slowly. Jared’s mom’s house was still. She saw no sign of him, nor anything else.

  She blew out a gust of air and stood up. She needed to stop being such a pansy ass and cross the open lawn for the front door. Jared sure as hell wouldn’t cower back here if he thought she needed help. Her own mother probably wouldn’t have either.

  So she went.

  She walked swiftly across the plush grass to the sidewalk. The porch was wide and dark now. The front door was closed, and she supposed he did that to make sure nothing got in behind him. She hoped he hadn’t locked it too.

  She was about to go in when she heard a scuffle off to the right. It sounded like a shoe on pavement, and it froze her on the spot. It couldn’t possibly be Jared. It sounded like it came from the neighbor’s drive.

  She leaned forward, unconsciously holding her breath. There.

  She saw a man wearing khaki chinos and a t-shirt. He walked into his driveway and stood, looking at the truck. It was dark, but he looked normal!

  She watched, wanting to call out, or get his attention somehow, but she resisted the urge. He turned toward her, unerring in the dark, and she gasped at the ruin that used to be the right side of his face. His skin was missing around his eye and mouth, leaving bone glistening through the blood and muscle. His jaw and teeth were a gruesome parody of a grin, and they shined obscenely white in the dark. His right eye was obliterated, leaving a gash from the corner of his cracked eye socket to his temple. It made her sick to look at it.

  She muffled her moan of despair with her left hand and clenched the bat tighter with her right. She held as still as she could and locked her muscles into place.

  It didn’t work.

  The harder she tried to control herself the more she trembled. She was shaking like a leaf and she was sure that if her heart pounded any faster, she would drop dead of a heart attack right there on the porch.

  Her silence and immobility made no difference. He pulled his lips back in a snarl, exposing all of his teeth. She heard the low rumble in his chest from across the yard, and she knew that she was out of luck.

  His body twitched violently, jerking his head to the side, but his eyes never left hers. The slim pupil of his remaining eye tracked her every breath, her every move.

  Less than a second later he sprinted toward her. His stride ate the distance fast. She was less than two seconds from being ripped apart by this monster. She didn’t want to move, but she forced herself to leave the false safety of the porch. It was that or die.

  She didn’t want to die.

  She ran out to the yard to meet him. At least out there she had space to swing the bat.

  She stopped and time seemed to mercifully slow as she bent her knees and reared back with the bat. She waited until his head was within striking distance and kept her eye on the ball.

  It was the only thing she could remember her old man teaching her, and it was ironic that it came back to her at this moment.

  He killed his drug dealer with a metal pipe before taking his merchandise and selling it to some undercover cops.

  She blocked out the snarling visage, the dripping gore and blood from the ruined side of his face, and the stench of loose bowels and decay that surrounded him. Sweat stung her eyes and ran down her back.

  Now.

  She blinked and swung hard, harder than she had ever attempted to hit anything before. The bat connected solidly with its head, and she heard a loud, dull thump. The force of the hit reverberated through her arms and she felt a searing pain in her shoulder.

  The thing dropped immediately. Its face planted into the grass. She expected it to be either dead, or knocked out cold, like a normal person would be.

  She was wrong. Again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Temporary Haven

  The body twitched in the grass. It writhed uncannily like a freshly killed snake. She couldn’t tell if the movement was purposeful or just the nerves being stimulated by electric impulses. She hit it again just in case, over and over. She felt small flecks hit
her face and arms, and finally realized that its head was no longer recognizable as such.

  She stopped and backed away, breathing heavily. Heaving sobs ripping painfully through her chest as she crept. Her fingers ached on the bat and she found she couldn’t uncurl them from the handle. Her shoulder spasmed. She didn’t turn around.

  And that was a mistake.

  She collided with something that should not have been there.

  Strong hands gripped her arms and pulled her backward. She screamed hoarsely and threw herself to the side, desperate to bring the bat up to swing again.

  “Anna! Stop!” Jared said. He snatched the bat and jerked it out of her hand.

  She wheezed in a breath and forced down her panic and terror. Her eyes widened in the dark as she saw Jared’s face inches from hers. His face was pale in the dark, and his eyes reflected her fear.

  “Jared!”

  She threw herself against his chest, grasping his shirt in her fists. She had thought for sure that he was dead somewhere in that house.

  He clutched her against him with one arm and half-dragged, half-carried her up the steps. He pulled her through the doorway and shut the door before leaning up against it. He dropped the bat and hugged her hard with both arms, his face buried in her hair. She finally began to settle.

  When she calmed down a little, he released her so he could see her face. “What were you thinking!” he said.

  “I thought you were dead!” she said, perhaps too loudly.

  “Then you should have left like I told you!” he said. He was livid. She realized that she had never seen him angry before.

  “I wasn’t going to leave here without you…without knowing.”

  “You could have died!” he said, gesturing out toward the front yard. He shook his head and whirled away from her. He put his hands on his hips and hung his head.

  She waited a moment to give him time to calm down before putting her hand on his back. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t leave. I just couldn’t.”

  He exhaled, turned, and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?” His voice was more composed now.

  “I’m fine,” she said, hoping it was true.

  He nodded and sighed. “Look at you. I bring you home to my mother and you go and eight-six one of her friends, first thing.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “Come on. Let’s go before the rest of the neighborhood shows up...whatever is left of it anyway.”

  He picked up the filthy bat and handed it to her. “Here you go, Slugger.”

  She was not amused. In fact, she felt queasy.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “I’ll tell you in the truck.”

  They got back in the truck without seeing anyone else, crazy or otherwise. He took a drink of water and sat for a moment. She saw him looking at the body of the man she had bludgeoned to death a few minutes ago. It wasn’t moving now, thank God.

  “Mom left. She left me a note. She and my sister went with a few of the neighbors to an emergency shelter in town. She said one of them, a cop, told her they were going to try to set up a makeshift camp there with armed guards.” He shook his head. “She can’t have been gone too long. If only we could have gotten here sooner!”

  “She’s with other people. I’m sure that she and your sister are fine. Plus, they have armed guards, right? We can go find them.”

  “Yeah. Not in the dark though. It’s too dangerous. We need to rest first and plan. I don’t like going back to town. I wish she would have just gone to my house!” He slammed a hand on the steering wheel in frustration.

  “Maybe she thought you wouldn’t be able to get home and would go to the shelter?”

  “She should know better.”

  She didn’t say anything, but rested her hand on his, providing what comfort she could. He took it in his and squeezed it gently.

  They left.

  The streetlights were useless now, and no longer kept the oppressive darkness at bay. It forced Jared to turn on the headlights to see. It seemed to be overcast; no moonlight filtered through the thick cloud cover that had rolled in. No hints of starlight. It was lonely and scary. She comforted herself that at least most of the crazies were probably back in town and not wandering the woods.

  Yet.

  Who knew when, or if, they would work their way to the more rural areas? By that time, she hoped she and Jared would be holed up somewhere safe, along with his mother and sister. She had a quick thought and turned on the radio. She scanned the stations. Most were white noise. Some still played music. One though…one had an announcement!

  “…within Collier Stadium. Federal Emergency Management workers, with the support of the National Guard, have set up an aid center there for all civilians. People are strongly encouraged to make their way to Collier Stadium, where safety, food, and shelter are being provided. Medical personnel are also on site within Collier Stadium. Federal Emergency Management workers, with the support of the National Guard, have set up…”

  “Is that a recording?” Anna asked, turning down the volume a little after the third repetition.

  “Sounds like it. We’ll check again later when we get settled in. We’re almost there,” he said, and gestured to the upper-middle class neighborhood on the right.

  Anna looked and saw that the entrance to the neighborhood had been blocked by a delivery truck. She didn’t see any people, but she supposed they could be out there, hidden.

  Jared slowed the truck and turned left onto a narrow, paved side road. The woods were thicker here and the houses they passed weren’t so close together. It was a good thing, she supposed. He turned onto a gravel driveway and followed it through the trees for about a quarter of a mile. At the end was a cabin.

  “Still have electricity,” he mentioned.

  There was a light shining through one of the windows, and she could see an attached garage on the right. Several smaller outbuildings littered the clearing behind the house. Jared pushed the button and the garage door opened. He backed in, shut off the truck, and closed the garage door.

  She sighed with the sudden sense of safety; the weight of the day lifted from her chest. She could rest now. She realized that she hadn’t eaten all day, or used the bathroom, and she needed one desperately.

  “Stay here and let me turn on a light so you don’t get hurt,” he said before opening his door and getting out.

  A moment later the garage lit up and she could see tools lining one wall. A cluttered workbench took up the back, and various metal lockers and shelving covered the rest of the available space.

  She got out and grabbed her backpack and tote bag first. The canned food and stuff could wait. Jared pulled out his weapons and ammo bags and led her into the house. The first thing he did was go to the window and close the curtains tightly. He turned on the range light and turned off the overhead.

  “It’s probably okay to have a light on, but I don’t want to take any chances. It’s best if nobody knows we’re here.”

  “I agree.”

  He showed her the layout and she was struck by how cozy it was. It was outfitted like a hunting lodge. A comfortable and luxurious one. She idly wondered who the decorator was, she was ninety-nine percent sure that it wasn’t Jared.

  She didn’t have that feeling of awkwardness, of being an outsider, that she usually would have had going into someone else’s house. It felt like…home.

  The living room had a wood burning fireplace, overstuffed furniture, and braided rugs on the floor. The kitchen and dining room were combined and featured excellent appliances and a small dining set.

  She decided that she never wanted to leave.

  “There is the spare bedroom. There is no attached bathroom, but this is the guest bathroom here. It’s yours. Make yourself at home.” He went and flipped on a small lamp on the nightstand, and she saw that the bedroom was just as welcoming as the rest of the house.

  “The blinds are closed, and the cur
tains are blackout, so it should be okay to use the lamp if you really need it,” he said, lingering in the doorway.

  She set her bags on the top of the dresser and turned back to him. “This is great. Thanks for letting me stay here, and for everything else. I don’t know if I would have made it today if you hadn’t been there,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “I’m sure you would have made it. You’re strong and smart, and hey, you’ve got fifty-two cases of beans out there,” he said, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

  “It’s better that we’re together though.” He ran a hand through his messy hair. “Are you hungry? I’m not sure how long the power will be on and I’ve got steaks in the fridge that need to be eaten…”

  “Sure, that sounds great. I’m going to get cleaned up first, if you don’t mind,” she said, toeing off her shoes and standing.

  “Yeah, go ahead. There are towels and things in the bathroom. I’ll ah…I’ll just get cleaned up and meet you in the kitchen.” He backed out after giving her a small nod.

  She grabbed her tote of bathroom supplies and left the room.

  The shower was heavenly. She scrubbed herself clean with her favorite soap. The hot water was relaxing, and she wanted nothing more than to lay down and go to sleep... preferably for two days.

  When she was washing her hair, her fingers scraped across something hard. She felt around it and pinched it between her fingers. She pulled it from her hair.

  When she realized what it was, she gagged. A bone fragment. She swallowed back the disgust, washed her hair again, and concentrated on calculating her odds of surviving this thing.

  Tallying up her supplies helped settle her stomach. Jared was exaggerating about her kidney beans, of course. She only had twenty cases.

  Maybe twenty-five. Give or take a few. Possibly thirty.

  She didn’t like passing up sales.

  Eventually she had to get out and help Jared. She felt guilty making him do all the cooking when he was probably just as tired as she was, if not more so.