I leaned against him and sighed. He reached over and wrapped one of his hands over mine. The sound of frogs croaking in the distance grew louder, threatening to lull me to sleep. I closed my eyes and nestled in against Gus, his warmth spreading through my whole body. My baby was calm for a change. I forced myself to let go of worry over Katie and Clark, but especially the fear I held that Abbey might not make it. Eventually I fell asleep.
***
A gut-wrenching scream woke me from a deep slumber. Gus reacted at the same time that I did, standing abruptly. My body was stiff, but I forced myself to move quickly. The inside of the small cavern was dark, but someone had lit a small fire near the entrance. The flames cast a dim flickering light that was disorienting.
“Who was that?” asked Gus quickly.
I quickly looked around to see who was, or was not, among us. Dan had fallen sleep with Abbey still propped on his lap. He tried to stand, but appeared to have a numb leg from sitting for too long. Hoot was standing near the entry to our hollow. Alice clung to her mother near the back wall. The scream pierced the silence of night again. It was a garbled cry of deep pain.
“That’s the rougarou,” said Megan with a crazed look on her face. “An evil creature that kills during the night.”
Gus ignored her and turned toward me. “Zoe? Feel anything?”
I shook my head side to side to indicate that I had no idea what we were hearing. It didn’t sound exactly human, or like one of the walking dead. My body was giving me no indication of the undead nearby, but my sixth sense was also no longer reliable.
“Any sign of Katie and Clark out there, Hoot?” asked Gus in a hushed voice. The man he had addressed was still at the rock face looking out into the dark of night.
“I can’t see worth shit,” he answered in a voice full of tension.
“We need to go help them.” It was Abbey’s voice, weak and strained.
“Abbey, go back to sleep,” soothed Danny.
“She’s calling for help. Can’t you hear her?” asked the teenager.
“You have a fever, Abs. No one’s calling for help,” he said.
Abbey struggled to sit up. Her skin was bright red from fever and she looked confused. “I hear Katie. She’s crying out for help.” She coughed hard before laying back down. “She needs help,” she mumbled as she fell back into a fitful sleep.
“What should we do?” I asked Gus, keeping my voice low so that only he could hear me.
“There’s nothing we can do till it’s light out.”
Another scream broke the night, sounding closer than the first two.
“I don’t like being stuck in here,” said Alice. “It’s not safe.”
Gus’ chest heaved as he took a deep breath. “She’s right.”
“We can’t move Abbey,” I said.
“Then leave her,” interrupted Megan.
“Have a heart,” said Danny, snapping at the half-crazy woman.
“Something’s out there,” said Hoot quickly. He kept his voice low, but it also held an urgency that demanded our attention.
“Talk to us, brother,” said Gus as he walked to join Hoot at the cavern entry.
Hoot knelt down and began dousing the fire with a nearby pile of dirt. “At ten o-clock. A figure. It’s crouching now, like it’s watching us.”
“I don’t see it,” whispered Gus.
Another scream, this time short and deep, made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
The small fire now extinguished, we were in near complete darkness. Only faint moonlight differentiated the outside of the rock shelter from the inside.
“Zoe, can you make your way up here?” asked Gus quietly.
“Yeah. Just a sec.”
I carefully chose my footsteps as I walked toward him. I stepped between the two men and looked out. I could make out the shapes of treetops and the sky, but that was about all.
“Let your eyes adjust, darlin’, and then tell me if you see anything. Or feel anything.”
As I watched the woods, I found that I could see the “ten o-clock” position better if I didn’t look directly at it. After a good couple of minutes of silence, it was the noon position where I noticed movement. Even in the dark, I knew who it was.
“It’s Katie,” I whispered. I could sense Hoot preparing to call out to her. “No,” I said quickly. “She’s not alone.”
“Who’s with her?” he asked in a whisper, as if I were crazy.
“The dead.”
I couldn’t sense the dead. My baby was quiet in my belly. My core was not unusually warm. My head didn’t buzz with their thoughts or visions. My hip was not aching. Nothing was unusual, yet I knew. I knew by how she was walking. I knew by how long she and Clark had been gone.
“Where are they?” asked Dan.
“I don’t know, but they’re out there.”
“Anyone?” came Katie’s frantic voice calling out from the valley just below us.
“Don’t answer,” I whispered. “If you answer they’ll find us.”
“We have to help her,” said Hoot as he whipped around to face the rest of us.
“We can’t, Hoot. We’ve seen them do this before. They’ll use her to find us. We don’t have weapons to fight them off,” said Gus firmly.
“Where’s Clark?” asked Alice.
Katie was sobbing down below now, her words choked off by her cries. Still looking with my peripheral vision, I could see three other forms flanking her. For the first time in days I could smell the stench of death.
“Stop it!” she begged. “Please, stop! Oh, God, no…”
It was hard to listen to her cries of agony. My baby was moving again, as if somehow now aware of the danger outside.
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it! Just stop hurting me! Hoot! Zoe! Help me!” she screamed.
She sounded so desperate. Behind me, Abbey moaned as she writhed with fever. Our situation seemed bleak. I wrapped my arms around the swell of my belly and closed my eyes. Katie’s pleas for help continued for what seemed an eternity. When they finally subsided, grunts of frustration and organized clicks took their place. Runners. I had assumed as much, but the communication between them made it certain. At one point, my eyes still shut tight, I reached a hand out and found Gus’. He wrapped me in his arms as the creatures outside began to snarl at one another. I clenched my hands into fists as I heard them ripping flesh, presumably from Katie’s body. She was no longer screaming or whimpering, and I could only hope she was dead and no longer feeling the wrath of the dead.
“They’re close,” I whispered to Gus. “Runners.”
“I know. Stay quiet, darlin’.”
I nodded into his chest. Abbey whimpered behind us again. It wasn’t safe to call out to Danny to try to keep her quiet. A rock tumbled nearby and soon we were met with the sound of footfalls landing on the rocky ground just outside the opening to the cavern.
I felt Gus’ warm breath on my neck, very close to my ear. “Don’t question me. We have to run, and we have to run now. They’re right outside and if we don’t get out of here, we’ll die.”
I shook my head back and forth. I knew he was asking me to run blindly, leaving the others behind.
“Listen. I have to get you out of here. Don’t let go of my hand.”
And with that, I felt him take my hand in his. His grip was firm. Clicking suddenly came from our left, at the cave entry. I could hear my own breathing and smell the dead. A commotion to my right caused my heart to stammer as Gus pulled me forward. I felt a whoosh of rotten smelling air directly behind me and the screams of someone caused me to resist Gus’ attempt to get me out of the cavity in the rock face. He tugged at my arm, refusing to let me fall behind.
“Run!” It was Hoot, already ahead of us.
“Mama!” I heard Alice scream. “Get off of her! Get off of her!”
“Gus, we can’t leave her!” I yelled as I struggled to get away from his grip.
“Don’t fight me!” he scr
eamed.
“Alice get out of here! Run Al, oh my God r..!” screamed Megan, her sentence suddenly cut short.
I could hear Danny huffing and struggling with what I could only guess was the Runner. Alice was sobbing pleadingly. I finally broke free of Gus’ hold and found my way back to the entrance to the shelter.
“Danny!” I called out.
The only answer I heard was several cracking blows, like stone-on-stone, along with the continued sobbing from Alice. I presumed her mother was dead.
“We need to help,” I yelled. “I think it killed Megan.”
“Danny?” called Gus. His tension was palpable. “You in there, son?”
“It’s dead,” came the young man’s shaky voice.
A blood-curdling scream emitted in the distance.
“Zoe get back in the cavern! Now!” Gus barked at me. “Hoot!”
“Down here!” he answered.
“Who was that?”
“No idea!”
“We’re out of options. All we can do now is fight them off.”
“How many are there?” asked Hoot quickly.
“Dan killed one. That leaves at least two more,” answered Gus.
“Well, let’s go get the fucks.”
“That’s suicide,” I muttered.
“No choice,” said Gus as he began guiding me back into the cavern.
The area reeked of blood, rot, sweat, and tears. I tried not to gag.
“Dan, son, keep her here.”
Danny, at sixteen, was already bigger than me. When Dan set his hands on my shoulders, I knew better than to try to follow Gus. It didn’t matter because Gus didn’t have a chance to leave. Hoot rushed past him, pulling him along.
“One’s coming, and it’s fucking fast.”
“Against the back wall, now!” yelled Gus. In a tangle of arms and legs, the still-crying Alice fell beside me. It was still too dark to see much, but her sobs were unmistakable. Hands guided me back upright. Whose, I had no idea. Once I felt the wall to my back, the crying girl clutched at me uncomfortably.
“Alice,” I whispered. “You have to be quiet.”
I heard her take a shuddering breath just before she stifled her own sobs.
“I’m to your right,” said Dan. “I hear it.”
The next few seconds were filled with the sound of running, and it was getting closer.
“Get ready,” said Gus.
My heart rate sped up and I held my breath. My belly contracted hard as the baby within moved uncomfortably. I slid down the rock wall until I was sitting on the hard ground. Drawing into my own world of pain, I listened half-heartedly as the three men at the cave entrance began to struggle with something. I heard the impact of a fist with flesh.
“Stop! It’s me, Clark!”
“Fucking A,” came Gus’ voice. “Where the hell did you come from, brother?”
“They got Katie.” Clark was breathless. “I tried to help her…”
“How many are there?”
“I only saw three,” huffed the older man. “I killed one down by the stream. Hacked the mother fucker’s head off with a fucking broken goddamned fucking tree branch.”
“Jesus,” mumbled Hoot. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah I think so. I didn’t give the fucker time to bite me.”
“I crushed one’s skull in,” said Danny. “It killed Megan.”
“There’s at least one left, then,” said Clark, stating the obvious.
My contraction wasn’t ending, and the pain was becoming unbearable. It didn’t feel like my labor with Molly. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure it was even a contraction at all.
“Gus,” I huffed through clenched teeth. “Something’s wrong with the baby.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said quickly.
I winced as the pain grew even stronger. Beside me, Abbey groaned. It wasn’t the same as the noises she’d been making in her fevered sleep. She sounded sicker.
“Gus, Abbey needs you,” said Danny. His voice was shaky. “She’s having trouble breathing,” he said through tears.
“Oh God,” I groaned as the pain in my abdomen grew even more intense. “Danny get back from her!” I yelled.
“She can’t breathe!” he cried out. “Abbey!”
“Gus!” I yelled. “Gus!”
My baby was pressing on my insides painfully and I felt like I was on fire. I scuttled back on my hands and knees, despite the pain in my abdomen. My wrist twisted on the uneven surface and a sharp pain traveled up my arm. My insides felt like they were on fire.
“Danny get away from her! Abbey’s turning!” I screamed.
“It’s not her!” Danny yelled back. “It’s not Abbey turning!”
Suddenly the rock walls were bathed in the white glow of a flashlight beam. I immediately looked to where Danny sat cradling Abbey, who was ashen and struggling to breathe. Movement from the right caught my eye. Alice was curled into a ball with her eyes clenched shut. She was covered in blood from her own mother, who was slowly pulling herself along the floor of the cavern. Her spine must have been broken, as her legs trailed limply behind her. Her face was pale white and her mouth had been torn open on one side, revealing a mouth full of white molars. Her progress toward Alice was blessedly slow. Her daughter kept calling out in a hushed yet high-pitched voice. “Mommy, no.” She was clearly too traumatized to move.
In a whirlwind of activity, Gus rushed to Abbey’s side and began tending to her. Hoot and Clark tag-teamed Megan. Clark lifted a rock in his hands and brought it down upon the newly risen dead woman’s head, crushing the top of her skull inward. Her head and chest lifted for a lingering moment before she collapsed to the ground with a loud thud. At last, the pain in my belly subsided.
Hoot went to Alice’s side and dragged her farther from the corpse of her mother. I turned my focus to Abbey. Gus laid her flat on the hard rock floor and was tilting her head back. Danny sat nearby, looking completely helpless and devastated.
“Dan, son, help me get her onto her side,” barked Gus.
The two of them turned her body to the side, and Gus began clapping her back with his hand. She looked terrible, and her struggle for breath resulted in a high-pitched wheeze. She vomited thin clear fluid mixed with white froth. Gus took his t-shirt off and used it to clear her mouth. Slowly, but surely, her breathing evened out.
CHAPTER 15
As soon as the sun rose, Gus carried Abbey outside and the rest of us followed. The morning was crisp and cool. As a group, we decided to leave the small rock shelter behind and not look back. Come hell or high water, we would not split up again. Gus set Abbey down on the ground next to the stream. Danny cradled her in his lap and used a strip of cloth from Gus’ ruined shirt to wipe her head and face down using water from the stream. She was delirious and kept mumbling something about Katie. I took Alice by the hand and guided her to the water’s edge, where she and I both cleaned up the best we could. We were both coated in her mother’s blood, and no matter how hard we tried we couldn’t rid ourselves of all of it.
The idea of fashioning a stretcher for Abbey out of sticks was abandoned. Instead, the men decided to simply take turns carrying her. Once a plump preteen, she had leaned out and grown lanky since she’d entered our lives. Danny took the first turn, carrying her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.
We quietly walked the valley, listening for signs of the third Runner that we could only assume was still nearby. Clark led us eastward, up out of the valley. We stopped after about fifteen minutes so that Gus could relieve Danny. He easily swung her over his shoulder. It was at the bottom of a Douglas fir where we found Katie’s body. She was only recognizable from a bracelet that she wore on her right wrist. Her head had been eaten away to a point where all that remained was the curved back of her skull, barely attached to the stump of spinal cord that now protruded from her neck. Her belly had been ripped open and the contents scattered beside her. Flies now buzzed around her carcass, a sickeni
ng reminder of how nature cleans up after itself. Her legs lay beside her bent and twisted unnaturally. Most of her flesh had been stripped away and bone showed through in several places. I pulled Alice close to myself as we walked by. She hadn’t spoken since her mother had died. I felt a need to take care of her. She was barely an adult, and seemed even younger now that she had been so traumatized.
We moved on, anxious to put distance and time between us and the rock hollow. Gus carried Abbey, admirably, for the next mile or so. We stopped to rest, but only for a short time. My contractions hadn’t been a problem since Megan had risen. We never did find the third Runner.
Hours passed and evening was quickly upon us. Clark was carrying Abbey piggy-back. She awakened not long before and was strong enough to hold on. She didn’t remember any of what had happened back at the cavern. She continued to cough horribly and was still feverish.
“We’re almost there,” said Clark. He was slowing down and seemed tired, so Hoot took Abbey from him. “Just over the next ridge.”
None of us answered. We continued on, the ridge he had pointed to creeping closer with each step. My stomach was growling and the smell of food cooking made me look up.
“Laura’s stew,” said Alice quietly. “I should go first since she’s expecting me.”
Clark scratched his head in thought. “Knowing Laura, that sounds like the best plan. She’s apt to shoot anyone she doesn’t recognize.”
“Laura?” asked Alice, showing surprise.
“The Laura that I know.”
Alice sighed. At last we came to the crest of the ridge. Clark described exactly where to look in the landscape. Finally, I saw an unusual looking structure built into a hillside. It was well camouflaged.
“That’s home,” said Clark. “We built it a good twenty years ago. It’s called an earth ship.”
“I’ve heard of those,” said Danny from just behind us. “Aren’t they made out of old tires and concrete?”
Praying for Grace (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 16
