The silhouette of a coyote came into view as it moved onto the road from the forest past the shoulder of the curve by Scott’s house. Moonlight painted the dog’s presence clearly on the rocky surface. Lowering his nose, he sniffed the air and lifted his head before yipping hard and fast.
Scott looked around him. There was nothing else around that could be labeled with the call. Just him. He was weak. He was tired. There had to be scrapes and raw flesh and blood exposed, leaving the scent of injury on the air for the predators to sniff out.
Scott was the prey. Fear and weakness came off him in waves and he had to give the go ahead to predators that he would be an easy kill. And wouldn’t he? What had he done? Leaving the safety of Cady’s house was probably the dumbest thing he’d ever done.
It was too late to regret. All he could do was try his best not to become a pack’s meal.
Another coyote showed up, taking a position half a length behind the first one. A cacophony of yipping started around him in the black shadows of the forest along the perimeter of the road.
They would be able to take him down and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He had no gun, no stick, nothing to defend himself. He didn’t even have pants. If he’d had shoes, he could have at least made a break for it, but even that option was abandoned back at Cady’s. He stepped forward, lifting his shoulders up and waving his arms as much as he could in his weak shape.
“Hey! Go on, now. Shoo.” Shoo? Had he just trued shewing away wild animals that wanted to eat him? Yeah, that was going to strike fear in the hearts of everything.
The first one didn’t move, but the second one backed up a few steps then came forward again, glancing between the first one and Scott. The alpha wasn’t afraid. Why would he be? He’d found his midnight snack.
The alpha held steady, waiting as more joined the first two, their silhouettes menacing in the silvery light of the moon.
Scott took a breath. Did he fight or run or just lay down and hope they killed him fast? His options were few and growing slimmer by the second. He had to make a decision and he had to do it sooner rather than later.
As he stood there, staring them down, tossing his options around like a mental hacky-sack, a sudden deep growl came from behind him. The sound had no similarities to the pack closing rank. It was guttural and deep, desperate.
Had Scott gotten himself between a pack of sharp teeth and a lone killer? A wolf? Did he dare find out?
He glanced over his shoulder and gasped, rolling his shoulders forward in relief and gratitude. “Ranger!” His best-friend had found his way home. The dog’s tail moved back and forth in a tight hello but he didn’t leave his hunched over position as he stared at the coyotes threatening Scott. He moved past his owner, carefully leading the way toward the house. Ranger growled, snapping his teeth as a coyote came close, testing the vulnerability of the pair.
Scott limped along, trying to keep pace with his buddy while tears tore up his cheeks. He leaned down while they worked their way forward and rubbed Ranger behind his ear. His friend’s hair was matted and dirty, but he felt solid and fleshed out like he’d at least been eating well. That was a relief. Scott had worried Ranger had thought Scott abandoned him. He hadn’t wanted to leave, but he’d had to.
Ranger pushed forward down the road, keeping his hackles up as they walked. They could make it to the house. If they could do that, Scott could get the gun Rachel had used from where she’d dropped it on the walk after she’d died. It was closer than finding one in the house and would be fast to use for protection.
He just had to make it another fifty yards.
If he didn’t make it, he had no doubt that his dog would die with him.
Chapter 20
Beth
Beth could barely breathe normally, but at least the tightness in her chest eased. With her legs sprawled in front of her, she’d done her best to open up her diaphragm and breathe fully. She had to get to the door to close it. Rolling to all fours, she crawled across the floor of the garage, the gritty dirt scratching her palms and biting her knees through her jeans.
At the door, she closed it firmly but quietly, leaning up to lock the deadbolt on the mandoor that led outside. The lack of fresh air was made acceptable by the sudden feeling of mock security. At least nobody could see her. At least they would have to work to get inside to her. They wouldn’t know she was in the garage. She didn’t even have a light out there. Not yet.
Beth breathed in and out with intent, not as an afterthought. She wasn’t sure what was bringing the pain on, but the chest tightness had returned. Was it a heart attack or anxiety? She didn’t know. If it was a heart attack, wouldn’t she have dropped dead by then? What a cruel way to go. There was no way to know for sure – unless she died.
But after taking the aspirin and making sure she was at least partially secured from the looting and anyone else outside after dark, Beth carefully scooted across the concrete to raise herself onto the cot. Her arm hurt again and she lay down. She couldn’t take another aspirin and she couldn’t call anyone.
There was no one to call. She was completely alone.
She drifted off to the place between sleep and awake, moaning as her arm ached more and her chest burned. Finally, the pain ebbed into a numb sort of haze. To test if she was still alive, she pinched her hip. Yep, she was still alive. She let her hand fall back to her side and closed her eyes. She needed rest. She was probably just tired.
Losing her children was enough to deplete any soul.
A crash from the inside of the house jerked her from the sleep she was desperately trying to lose herself in. When had the power gone out? The furnace had stopped running and that thing always ran. Her inhaling and exhaling roared in the sudden silence.
The thinly insulated walls didn’t hide the crashing or the stomping as the intruder made their way through the home. Would they do something to the bodies of her babies? She had nothing of value – no gold, jewelry, no weapons inside the home, nothing that looters would want. If they searched for remnants of the Cure, they should look somewhere else.
The searcher would come to the garage. That was inevitable. She would be in their path. Rolling to her side, Beth grappled at her waist for the gun she’d tucked in there, but the gun was gone. When had it fallen out of her waistband? Why hadn’t she heard the clatter of metal on the cement? Unless she’d dropped it outside on the grass when she rushed indoors with the chest pain.
Where had it gone? She squinted, trying to see in the too-dim interior. Sliding to the ground, she felt around for the gun. Where had it fallen out? It could have been anywhere between there and the mandoor as she’d tried to keep the garage secure. She couldn’t fathom it being outside, locked away behind her secure deadbolt.
More stomping. Something crunched through the large television. They were destroying her things? Why would they do that? What did they hope to gain? How many were there? She could have at least grabbed a knife from the kitchen, but why would she have done that? She’d thought she had a handle on the firearm.
She couldn’t just lie there and moan internally about the mistakes she’d made. She had to get up and do something. Find the gun or find another weapon to defend herself.
Beth rolled from the cot to all fours, sweeping her hands over the cement, ignoring the small rocks and grainy dirt beneath her fingers. Her skin scratched across the floor as she searched the darkness for a shape she couldn’t see.
The sounds inside moved closer to the garage door. Beth’s chest pain returned, spreading up her neck and clenching her throat like a pair of hands trying to choke her. Her left hand went numb but she ignored it as she continued dragging her hands across the floor. Just find it. Where is it… where had she dropped it?
Her fingers rammed into the cold metal of the gun’s barrel and she jerked it into her grip. Flipping it around to the proper position in her palm, Beth fell to her rear end, watching the general direction of the door to the house. She couldn’t see clea
rly. Would she be able to see anyone who came through? That didn’t matter. If she couldn’t see, neither could they.
Her question was answered as the door swung open and a man’s profile blocked out the light from the moon shining through the slider behind him. Stocky shoulders blocked much of the light through the door from entering the garage.
He stepped onto the first step into the garage, sweeping the shaft of a flashlight around the contents closest to him.
Beth’s chance to protect herself would come and go, if he left the doorway. The light would tell her where he was, but not enough that she would be a successful shot. She had to decide to use the gun before she used. She had to be prepared to use it. She had to be willing to shoot. As long as she didn’t see his face, she could do it. If it got to where she could see his face, she’d already lost her chance anyway.
She hesitated. What would he do when he found her? What would he think? He might not be a bad guy. He might be someone just looking for food like she was earlier.
His other hand moved out from behind him and she held her breath. The outline of a gun was in his grip. He didn’t know it, but it was her or him. Her chest didn’t hurt so much she couldn’t protect herself. She was right-handed. Her left hand could hang there and do nothing for all she cared. Her trigger finger was ready and willing, and more importantly, able.
A sudden urge to fight burst through her and she thanked her lucky stars for chambering the round while she’d been searching the neighborhood for signs of something, anything. For once, she had something to thank Steven for.
Holding her breath to a slow and shallow pace, Beth carefully put her finger on the trigger, aiming the barrel on the intruder. She could do it. She had to do it. There wouldn’t be another chance. Kill or be killed. Wasn’t that what Steven had always said? Kill or be killed.
The man’s flashlight swept back and forth, closer and closer until it finally swept across her, momentarily blinding her vision until it moved one. But it came immediately back to focus steadily on her.
As the light blinded her a second time, Beth closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger.
The blast obliterated the sound of her name. “Beth?” The man’s voice ended on a moan as he crumpled to the ground. The gun clattered to the garage floor and the beam of the fallen flashlight cast a long shadow from the boxes against the garage door.
She leaned back, her hands shaking as she dropped the warm gun. She’d recognize that voice anywhere, albeit this time he was significantly nicer than he’d been the last few years. He’d said her name minus the demeaning names or insinuations she’d grown used to.
Steven had come home.
Beth had welcomed him home with a gunshot.
She really was completely alone.
Chapter 21
Cady
Would that be her time to die? Cady thought she’d made her peace with death, but as chills ravaged her body and aches destroyed her nerve endings, she didn’t know if she still wanted to die. What if the vaccine failed and Bailey ended up sick? What if there was a treatment that would work? She had to find out before she got too sick. But how sick was too sick? When the tar-like substance came out? Was that too sick? Or when the pox emerged from the rash?
Cady didn’t have enough time to figure out the answers to any of her questions. She needed time. She wanted more time.
All she’d tried to do was save as many people as possible, but that wasn’t true. She hadn’t helped anyone. Even her cousin, Benedict, hadn’t made it out. She knew he wouldn’t. There wasn’t enough time for anyone. Even her and her family and they’d been warned.
Her hope hadn’t taken into account the vast devastation planned or the fact that pain was a part of the game. The game that centered around eradicating the population.
Tears had become her constant. As she faced the truth around her, she gripped the hem of her t-shirt, twisting and turning as she worried about what she was facing; what her daughter was facing.
Her friend betrayed her. Jackson. As the pain tore through her, she realized that she’d betrayed them both. She’d allowed him to talk with her the way he had. She’d encouraged the topic and helped cultivate the plans for the world to end. She’d failed him. She’d failed everyone by continuing their discussions. Her shame would forever follow her.
Then Zach. Her husband had abandoned her. Wasn’t that what he’d done? He always refused to wear his seatbelt. Would he still be alive then, if he’d just once done what he was supposed to? Or would he be sick and dying? There was no way he would have done the things Cady had gotten Scott and Bailey to do. He would have fought every step and argued all the ways Cady was wrong.
Scott had relied on her for her knowledge and her friendship. She’d let him down by hiding her knowledge about the vaccine and not taking better care of his nephew and niece. She’d dropped the ball with that one and she didn’t even know if she had it in her to cry about his death. Cady wouldn’t ask Bailey what had happened. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to know he was dead with a definitive answer.
Cady had even killed her neighbor. She’d hurt more people than she’d helped.
All she had left was her daughter. Everyone else would be dead by now, or worse off than she was. She hadn’t helped anyone and now she was paying for it.
Cady didn’t have the right to complain, yet she longed to end her suffering with the Glock hiding under her bed. Yet, what could she possibly hope to accomplish with a bullet in her brain? She’d make more of a mess for Bailey to clean up. Was that fairer than just dying slowly?
Slowly lowering herself to the ground from the comfort of the mattress, Cady put herself into a prone position and placed her cheek on the floor. Lying on the floor beside her bed, she reached under the mattress and pulled the gun from its position of safety. The weight was comforting as she tightened her fingers on the handle. She squeezed her eyes shut and slumped back to the carpet.
Nothing was soft or calming. The threads of the carpet abraded her skin, every nerve screaming to be left alone, yet itching at the same time.
It would be okay for her to end it. No one would know. No one would care. It would be a relief for Bailey. The pain would end. She could leave everything behind and not have to worry anymore.
She blinked as she stared under her bed into the dark. Cady was better than that. She knew better. If she killed herself, every sacrifice would be in vain. Her daughter’s pain would be for nothing.
Cady dragged a breath through her swollen and cracked lips. She closed her eyes again, unwilling to open her eyes and find the sun beating through the window. She didn’t want to acknowledge the chill in the air as an illusion to a fever. She just wanted all of her blankets on top of her, warming her in the sun. The thought made her cringe. Was she delusional? Was the sun even out?
Half-heartedly, she reached up and tugged on the blankets hanging from the bed, but couldn’t budge them. She squeezed her eyes at the effort, but still didn’t peek. What was she thinking about? Oh, right, killing herself. Everything would be a waste. Cady didn’t like waste, and all of that would be the worst kind.
She couldn’t find the energy to climb back onto her bed. Stretching out her hands, she felt along the carpet for anything that might be warm, her fingers clamping onto a fallen t-shirt lying in a crumpled mess a few inches from her hip. She pulled it over her arms and rolled to her back.
Cady groaned as the heat of the sun – imaginary or not – caused pain while it warmed her. She had to take the bad with the good. Relief. She just wanted relief.
If only Jackson had sent enough of the vaccine. But Jackson wasn’t benevolent. If Cady survived the horrible virus, she’d find him and she would make him pay.
~~~
The virus is taking its toll and claiming who it wants. People are going to die. Three generations of women are trying to survive the crazy they’re caught up in. Cady wants revenge, but she has to survive, first. Find out who the virus claims in Find Them,
book 6 in the 180 Days and Counting… Series.
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***BR Paulson Books***
180 DAYS AND COUNTING… SERIES
No Time, bk 1
Last Chance, bk 2
Hold On, bk 3
Too Late, bk 4
Look Away, bk 5
Find Them, bk6
Try Hard, bk 7
Move On, bk 8
Fit In, bk 9
Death Days, bk 10
Long Gone, bk 11
No More, bk 12
WORTH OF SOULS SERIES
Cost of Survival, bk 1
Exchange Rate, bk 2
Worth of Souls, bk 3
BoxSet books 1 - 3
INTO THE END SERIES
Into the End, bk1
Through the Flames, bk 2
Out of the Ashes, bk 3
BoxSet books 1 - 3
BARELY ALIVE SERIES
Barely Alive, bk 1
Falling Apart, bk 2
Mostly Dead, bk 3
Viral Intent
BoxSet books 1 - 4
MEMOIRS OF A CANNIBAL SERIES
Memoirs of a Cannibal
Cannibal Holiday
Cooking with the Cannibal
Cannibal CookBook
Keeping up with the Cannibals
The End
Copyright © 2018 Bonnie R. Paulson/Captiva Publishing, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Look Away: an apocalyptic survival thriller (180 Days and Counting... series Book 5) Page 10
