The Rotting Souls Series (Book 1): Charon's Blight [Day One]

by Ray, Timothy A.

  It had crossed her mind as well, but she was not willing to give up; not now anyways. “Matthew, let’s go,” she told him sternly.

  His eyes snapped in her direction, and for a brief moment she saw the fear and hate dwelling within. Not for her, but for what might happen to him.

  Pissed, he balled his fist, sheathed his knife, and got into the car. The keys were still in the ignition; a miracle left unexplained and one that she didn’t have the heart to question. Someone had ditched it. Probably the same son of a bitch that had bitten her husband. He had probably seen a zombie, hid under the car, and cooked himself to death.

  Her worry that maybe it had been left because it didn’t run was overridden by the sound of the engine roaring to life. She hoped it was an automatic because he didn’t look willing to sit in the passenger seat. He had things to work out and needed the sense of purpose to drive him. However, with the bite on his left ankle, a stick would prove problematic. She wasn’t even sure she remembered how to drive standard anyways.

  Taking her weapons in hand, she got into the car, placing them between her legs where they were easily accessible. Their eyes met and the moment tore her heart. Her defiance, his defeat, which one was more powerful? Which one would mean their death or their salvation?

  Only time would tell.

  She would have to keep an eye on him and monitor the bite, because he wasn’t the kind of man that would complain over any discomfort. If things got worse, she knew she wouldn’t hesitate to carry through with the pact they had made. She loved him, but she wasn’t eager to die either.

  As he flung them onto Tropicana, the thought of what she might have to do haunted her; an anguished tear leaking from her eye. She wiped it away quickly, lest he see it and the argument begin again.

  Trying to keep her eyes on the street, her hands went through the motions of reloading their weapons; the whole time she praying that one of the bullets she loaded wouldn’t eventually find their way through her lover’s head.

  Not that prayers were worth a damn anymore.

  Chapter 13

  Rattlesnake Lake

  Todd

  US 191, AZ

  They were finally approaching Rattlesnake Lake. Relief flooded him as he realized they had made it; they were safe. He had been driving close to four hours, the side streets that he had used to skirt the outside of the towns had detracted from their travel time. But it was better to be safe and make it, then reckless and dead.

  The small towns they had flown through showed no signs of panic; nothing to indicate that anyone was aware of what was going on in the world. They were blissfully hidden from the main thorough-fair of the world. It was one of the reasons he had suggested this location for their compound.

  His phone kept updating as they drove.

  Even though Tucson had begun to glow red, Safford and Morenci had remained in the clear. Maybe the decreased traffic and the locale had worked to their favor. It made him wish he had moved to one of the smaller towns; it was still home to most of his family. He had been tempted to stop at their houses on the way, but he had been unable to take the chance with his kids in the van, or with Sam and hers close behind. Too many were depending on him and they had to be secured before he worried about anyone else.

  He rubbed his chafed skin absent-mindedly, the skin on his wrist red from the friction. It was supposed to be more comfortable than a diving suit, but he felt claustrophobic with the tight rubber clutching at him. Sean had them custom made for each of them, but he swore that he must have put on some weight since the last time he had put it on, because it was hard to breathe. His mid-section compressed against him, causing it to restrict his breathing.

  Still, if it saved his life, right?

  He had been worried ever since they turned onto US 191. Superstition Highway went through Safford and the chance of them coming face to face with the infection scared the living shit out of him. It was almost a direct line to Phoenix, which had been hit far earlier than Tucson had.

  There had to be thousands driving in their direction.

  He had avoided the main part of the city by taking Herman road, which ran through the farmlands rather than the city center. Even then, he couldn’t help but worry the entire ten minutes it had taken to get back on the highway and move further east.

  His wife had been busy in the seat next to him, frantically sending texts to friends and family with rare looks at the land around them. He didn’t know why she bothered. If the kid’s cells weren’t working, then it wasn’t likely that anyone she was texting had phone service either. Whatever was going on wasn’t limited to one provider. Still, she’d go stir crazy if she didn’t try.

  “I know my mother got one of my texts, it said it had been seen,” she muttered.

  “Just now?” he asked, his thoughts furiously wondering if the phones were back up and whether or not he could reach his parents.

  He had felt horrible when he had passed his grandmother’s turn off in Clifton, but had kept on going. It had been the source of heated discussions over the years and one he ultimately lost. His wife’s stance had been that no matter what; their kids came first. The rest were adults and could make it on their own. They had enough on their hands already without taking responsibility for every other person they knew.

  That went for each other as well.

  That had been the hardest promise he had ever made, to leave his wife if their kids’ life hung in the balance. After seventeen years, they were inseparable; one not able to function without the other.

  She was shaking her head at him. “No. It was one of the earlier ones. I wish I knew what was going on! Don’t they realize that we can tell when they check their messages? That it’s obvious they’re ignoring us?”

  He didn’t have a response. He couldn’t assure her that everything was all right, because things didn’t feel or look that way. How could he comfort her when he needed it himself? Her mother lived on the outskirts of Tucson and had more of a direct shot of getting east then they had. If she wanted to get out, she could have. There was nothing else he could say other than that.

  She growled, then pocketed her phone and turned her eyes to the road.

  “It’s not just your mother, you know,” he commented after a moment. “Sam’s husband flat out ignored her advice to leave and actually turned his phone off. I’d say it might come back and bite him in the ass, but that is too close to home to what might actually happen.”

  Monica glared at him, “I can give two shits about Ruben. I want our parents to get out of there, my sister to check her messages and get on the road, and for the few people we’ve told to take us seriously. It’s not like we would just make this shit up. They have to have noticed something is wrong by now, right?”

  “I know Babe,” he answered simply, not wanting to push her any further.

  The kids were usually a bunch of chatter boxes, always egging each other on. But as he looked in the rear-view mirror, he only saw passive faces watching the land pass alongside them. Their silence was a new and frightening thing; it helped bring the reality down upon him.

  Without some outside impulse, they were at a loss of what to do or say; living zombies. Just—without the cannibalistic impulses. They were products of the information age and someone had pulled the plug.

  Their eyes were scanning the forest around them, ever vigilant.

  He had worried that bringing them up in this kind of life might scar them forever; but what could be more damaging than what was going on right now? He might have actually saved their lives instead. This was one time however that he hated to be right.

  He was coming up on the turn off and he eased up on the gas. The road he’d be turning onto was well hidden; he would need to focus on where they were going if he wanted to find it the first time. No matter how many times he came this way, it was still hard for him to find. There were no markers to indicate where the dirt road was; their need for secrecy paramount to their survival. They didn’t wan
t the wrong people finding the place. Very few of their friends and family even knew about it.

  Sam slowed to a crawl behind him, patiently waiting for him to indicate where they were turning, and even though he knew what to look for, he had almost missed it. As he turned onto the road, he looked up at the surveillance camera in the large tree next to the road. He waved at it; sure that Ben was watching them from his computer chair in the compound ahead.

  As if to emphasize that point, his phone became to vibrate.

  Ben: Glad you made it. You’re clear

  Confident that the way ahead was free from danger, he drove down the narrow dirt road and started to relax. The tall trees to either side obscured the light and he almost had to turn on his headlights. The van barely fit on the road, the ruts causing the vehicle to buck as he drove onward. It was designed that way so that the canopy would obscure it from the view of any passing planes. Not that the compounds themselves wouldn’t be seen or picked up by the satellites. They had a hard time over the years convincing themselves that it looked innocent while viewing it on Google Maps.

  “Mom, Sam is slowing down. I think her van is having a hard time with this road,” Michelle spoke up from the back, her head looking out the rear window.

  “She’ll be fine. She can slow down if she needs too, there is nowhere to go but forward now; she won’t get lost,” Monica answered before he could.

  He glanced over her and smiled. She hadn’t been overly eager to open up their marriage like he had been, and it had taken a few years for her to adjust to the added people to their lives, but eventually she came around, and their marriage had prospered because of it.

  The kids were calmer now as they realized that their second home was fast approaching. The safety it represented had a soothing effect upon them all. His wife’s hands had stopped their nervous rubbing in her lap and she was now looking at him with a weak smile upon her face.

  Even though they had practiced driving here using alternate routes over the years, it still felt like their first time.

  The reality of what was going on in the world kept wanting to intrude, but enclosed in the embrace of this familiar forest, he couldn’t help but forget it for a moment. The rush to get here had only been mitigated by the numerous times they had practiced this trip and the familiarity of the route they took. The routine of it had almost made the drive instinctual; like going to work the same way every day. It gave them more time to concentrate on what was around them rather than where they were going.

  He remembered the first time he had come up here with Sean during their attempts to find a good site to build on. He had believed that this was just something to ponder, see if it were possible; not that they’d actually create it. He had been wrong about his friend’s drive to make it happen and was surprised by his drive to get it done.

  It was almost like he knew that they’d one day need it.

  The night of the attack on Boston, he had been in the middle of a raid when one of his children had run in; flipping the television on. Barely distracted from what he was doing, he didn’t even register what was going on until she turned up the volume. Unable to hear what was being said on vent, he had turned to ask her to lower the volume and the sight of what was on the screen had dried up his response instantly.

  Queuing his mic, he had told them he’d be AFK for a second, not hearing the confused and angry replies. They were in the middle of a boss fight and none of them could believe he was walking away; they were winning. He turned his speakers down as he stood up and walked over to the couch, eyes glued to the television screen.

  There had been a terrorist attack at a Red Sox game and he couldn’t put to words the horror of the videos being replayed; how devastated he felt inside. It was like someone had just sucker punched him while the most horrible nightmare unfolded before his eyes.

  He had grasped his daughter’s shoulders and she leaned her head against his hands and sobbed. The boys were away for the weekend with the Boy Scouts and his wife and younger daughter were out getting groceries. It was just the two of them in the house, yet it felt like they were the only two left in the world. That feeling of isolation and grief was overwhelming. It stayed with him longer than 9/11 had; the smoking ruins of that stadium forever imprinted on his mind.

  The weeks following had thrown the country into chaos as even more of their freedoms were stripped away in the name of national security. Some things he could tolerate, but the more that the government clamped down; the less he felt like a free man and more like a rat in a cage.

  Using game console’s virtual machinery to spy into homes? Webcams on computers keeping track of their private lives, watching them all hours of the day unhindered? The fact that internet providers began to provide a constant connection so that people rarely turned off their devices wasn’t lost on him. A computer always running, its webcam pointed at a couch, or someone’s bed, watching. They welcomed that into their home for the entertainment it provided, yet no one thought of what nefarious purpose something like that could be put too. Making it so the only way to access a game was through an internet connection? It was another ploy to keep them connected in the name of copyright protection.

  His wife had thought he was paranoid, but somehow, he knew different. It wasn’t even the increase of films like Enemy of the State or shows like Person of Interest that fed that paranoia; it was the feeling that someone was always watching him.

  Once more they went to war against the invisible enemy who hated what his country represented. They made more enemies in the Middle East, if that was possible, and he spoke more often with his WoW buddies about their current national state. The impeding dread he felt was not his alone, and over the weeks following the disaster, the discussion turned extremely serious.

  Sean had spoken up one night and asked what it would take to make a place safe enough for all of them to survive should things go to hell. None of them found it funny anymore and a serious discussion began. He had made a flippant remark about winning the lottery and was surprised by Sean’s silence.

  It turned out that money was not something Sean was short of.

  Sean had always kept to himself during raids and although he was an officer in their guild, he never went into the details of his personal life. No one begrudged him that. Not everyone was comfortable sharing their lives with people they had never met.

  When his online friend had told them that he was actually a science-fiction/fantasy author, his jaw had literally dropped. He had written over fifty books under a pen name, and Todd actually owned most of them. This whole time he had been playing with one of his favorite authors and never even knew it. How had something like that escaped him? Sean claimed that it was the only way to keep his relationships on a realistic level; having seen what money had done to his previous attempts at friendships.

  Still, he felt betrayed. Did he truly know any of them? He had heard of celebrities that played the game and wondered if any of them had ever revealed who they really were. He knew he’d recognize William Shatner’s voice, or those of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but would he know Macaulay Culkin’s if he was on vent with him? He doubted it. And writers were even harder, because short of Stephen King’s cameos, he had never heard a famous writer outside of their written word.

  The joking had been light about the money since, the friendship they had formed preventing anyone from becoming greedy asses, but it had been a little different all the same. Casey would make a crack about needing help with his “gardening”, but otherwise things just kept on as they always had been.

  However, they felt liberated with their ideas. Even though they threw wild imaginings and crazy schemes at him, he just took it in stride and never let any of them know he was actually taking notes. The only time they got a negative response was when Casey suggested an underwater city off the Atlantic coast. Sean had told him to be realistic.

  He had wanted to ask, what was realistic about any of it?

  It wasn’t un
til he got a pair of cellphones in the mail with no return address that it dawned on him that Sean was serious about everything they had been discussing. The phones were top of the line and didn’t work with any carrier that he had recognized. After plugging them in and letting them charge, he had dialed the number included in the box and Sean had picked up almost immediately. Having been asked to meet in person on his next day off, they had gotten together for only the second time in their lives.

  That moment seemed unreal to him even today.

  The first time had been at a comic-con. The mood had been light and their costumes silly in retrospect, but this was a serious encounter with the man and the first since finding out who he really was. He kept looking around, worried that someone else would figure it out, but no one paid them any mind. The crowds in the food court were too busy with their errands to take notice of them.

  Sean had paperwork on places they had been discussing over vent and had detailed maps and research of those areas. Discounting the ones in New Mexico as too open, they had decided to look at a few places in northeastern Arizona. Even though Sean had insisted that they could take a trip out of state, he selfishly didn’t want it that far from home. He was surprised that Sean hadn’t picked up on that and given him shit for it.

  On the logical side, Arizona was between Utah, California, Nevada, and Texas, where most of them resided. Only a few of them lived further east and the more eastern the location, the further it became for those in the west. To him, Arizona was the logical choice despite his selfish reasons for it.

  He used to make trips that way as a kid, but hadn’t been there in a very long time. He came from a long line of miners who had migrated from back east to Morenci and Clifton during the 1930’s. He still had a lot of family there carrying on the family tradition and he’d been the first one born in a major city.