Survival Ties (The Outbreak Chronicles Book 1)

by Trisha Leazier

  “Do you really think Sam will help find my brother?” She asked, sounding hopeful.

  “Yes, I think he will once we get to safety.” I responded and Daisy hugged me.

  It was surreal having someone from one of my favorite bands sitting on a bed with me. I never thought of her as a real person before, she was this huge deal up on stage or touring, adored by fans.

  Although now we were on the same level. We both survived and were trying to figure out how we keep doing so. As well as doing our part in keeping the whole group alive.

  “Hey girls, I wanted to let you know we’re going to make another stop soon for more supplies as well as weapons.” Sam said from the doorway, “We want to be prepared so we aren’t caught off guard like that again.”

  Chapter Five

  Neither Daisy nor I wanted to be alone as we laid on her bed looking at the ceiling. She had a poster of the General Lee taped there. We were quiet. Thinking about what Sam had said and wondering if we’d ever be safe.

  “Where do you think they’re planning to stop?” Daisy asked.

  “Someplace that’s abandoned, I hope.” I answered.

  “Agreed. Do you mind staying in here with me tonight since it seems like Sawyer’s staying on the couch?” She asked as she fiddled with a strand of her green hair that had come out of the ponytail.

  “Yeah, I don’t really want to be alone.” I answered.

  Daisy fell asleep before I did. I listened to her even breathing for a while hoping it would lull me into sleep.

  It was no use I could feel my heart pounding.

  My mind was racing with scenarios we may or may not face at the next stop.

  Morning came bright and glorious, I felt like I had just fallen asleep when knocking sounded on the door.

  “What?” Daisy called from under her pillow.

  “Rise and shine girls.” Sam called back and opened the door.

  The smell of eggs cooking wafted through the open door as we pulled ourselves away from the warm blankets. I stumbled out to the kitchen to find Tone standing at the stove. The handle of the pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. The closed cabinets around him had hook locks on them, I hadn’t noticed that before.

  “What are you looking at?” Daisy asked.

  “Just noticed the cabinet doors.” I answered.

  “What about them?” She asked.

  “The locks.” I said.

  “Well yeah, how else would the food and everything stay in them while the bus is moving?” She responded.

  “Ah.” I said as I took the plate Tone handed to me.

  Sawyer was still lying on the couch. Although Axel was now sitting on the chair, with a plate on his lap. Sydney smiled at both Daisy and me as we sat down at the dining room table with her.

  Angela came out and grabbed a plate but she returned to her and Thomas’s room without saying a word to anyone. She was skittish around us. It was the first time we’d really seen her since she got on the bus. We hadn’t seen her brother at all.

  “They’ll come around.” Sydney said as Angela closed the door.

  “Wonder how long they were out there and how much of the attack they saw.” Daisy responded looking at the door. “They’re staying in Johnnie’s room.”

  “Johnnie was the drummer, wasn’t he?” I asked her.

  “Yeah. He threw me into the bus and made me promise not to go back out. I can still hear him screaming, I couldn’t get the door open he jammed it somehow.” Daisy replied. “I never even saw that there was danger near the bus; I thought we had left it at the stage.”

  “He saved you.” I said.

  “He did. Tone and Sydney found me in here when they opened the door.” Daisy answered, “I hope she didn’t see or hear as much as I did.”

  “Do you know what happened to the rest of the band?” Axel asked.

  “I saw Robert get pulled down off the stage, Johnnie was with me. Andrew, I lost in the chaos. He didn’t come back to the bus and I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.” Daisy told him.

  “I saw my parents get attacked.” Axel told her.

  She nodded and hugged him to her.

  “Do you think there are other groups like ours?” Daisy asked.

  “Probably and maybe we’ll even find some more people on our way and they’ll join us.” Tone answered.

  “I hope so.” Sam said, clapping Tone on the shoulder.

  It was easy to not look out the windows and ignore that we were on a trip trying to make it to safety. We all had loved ones lost we tried not to think about. Some we knew were gone, others we weren’t sure about. We knew we had to keep our minds on surviving and not forget what the bus protected us from.

  “There’s a Super Wal-Mart a few miles up the road from where we are right now.” Tone started, “We plan to stop, get supplies and check for survivors.”

  “We understand if you want to stay on the bus, but the more eyes we have inside the safer we will all be.” Sam continued.

  “Everyone would stay in a group no separating unless absolutely necessary. We still need to make sure we have food and water for our trip.” Tone added on, “There may be others that have no place to go.”

  Both Daisy and I volunteered to go. Axel said he’d stay with Sawyer on the bus and keep an eye on her. Having the scavenging group decided, Tone got back behind the wheel and we started off towards the store.

  The trip was quicker than I would have liked. I was afraid we would be walking into the same situation as the gas station. I guess this time we were at least prepared for running into Red Eyes.

  Sam gave us some wicked looking hunting knives. The weight of the knife was comforting as we pulled into the parking lot that looked like a mass accident.

  There were cars everywhere and you could see dead people in some of them.

  The worst one was a child hanging out of a window, half of him gone.

  There was a lot of blood everywhere like some Hollywood movie, only no one was going to be calling cut. Sam took in everything as he looked around us.

  Tone pulled the bus up to the front of the store making sure he had a clear path to get us back out of the parking lot. Nothing was moving, not even a breeze.

  “Okay, we are going to do this quickly. Head to camping first. Grab what we can and any bags we can.” Sam directed, “Then go through the store hitting food last so we have an easy time getting back to the bus.”

  “Remember we are grabbing anything we need, so medicines, bandages, clothes, food and such. Stay together. Ready?” Tone asked us as we stood by the door, waiting.

  “Here we go.” Sydney said as she stepped off the bus and we followed her.

  Sydney took the lead, Sam was in the middle with Daisy and I, while Tone took up the rear. The doors to the store were crushed and once we were inside we found a car someone had driven through the glass.

  Other than the car, the store wasn’t as torn up as I was expecting it to be. The lights were out and it was hard to see clearly past the light from the wrecked door. Maybe I just had the images from too many horror movies in my head. I was expecting shelves to be mostly looted and knocked over.

  Everything still seemed to be in fairly good order as we made our way to camping supplies. We grabbed a few carts on the way and as we continued deeper into the store, our eyes adjusted to the dark.

  We started seeing spots that were dark, like oil spills, but we all knew they probably weren’t oil. Halfway through the store Sam tripped over what was left of someone’s arm.

  Once we got to the camping aisle we saw that there were two bodies lying at the other end. It was too dark to tell if they were male or female. Tone went to check the bodies; he came back shaking his head.

  “Are they going to come back?” I asked, not wanting to face Red Eyes in the close quarters of the aisle.

  “No, there’s not enough left for them to rise.” Tone answered, taking a tarp and throwing it over them.

  “Let’s get lanterns, k
nives, and tents if there are any left.” Sam said. He looked like he was on high alert.

  There was only one tent left on the shelf and it was one of those huge four room ones. The lanterns on the other hand, looked like no one else had even touched them so we took all of them. Sam had us grab tarps and sleeping bags while he loaded up cases of bottled water that were right on the end of the aisle.

  We had one cart completely loaded when Sam took us over to electronics to grab any and all batteries we could.

  We did the same at home improvement grabbing ropes, chains, and tie downs. Trying to ignore bodies or limbs.

  We followed Sam over to the pharmacy.

  He hopped over the counter and started grabbing things from there. The rest of us just started throwing everything we could off the shelves into the cart. Not even looking at what we grabbed.

  We did the same with clothing until we had all three of the carts piled way past capacity. We headed back to the doors to pass off the carts to Sawyer and Axel, then grabbed new ones to head over to the food aisles.

  We were scooping canned food off the shelves into carts when we heard something hiss at us.

  Sydney turned on a small flashlight she had on her belt and shone it in the direction the noise had come from. Huddled as far from the light as the back wall of the store would allow were three people.

  As soon as Sydney moved the light away, a male lunged at us only to slip on a wet spot on the floor. A drop fell from the ceiling on to him and he screamed and ran off closely followed by the two other people. Sydney shined the light up where there was water dripping down, maybe from a busted pipe. There was a ladder and one of those wet floor signs near the puddle.

  “I’m guessing crazed.” Sam decided as he turned around to head back to the front of the store.

  “Why are they afraid of light and water?” Daisy asked.

  “I’m not sure but we’ll keep that in mind.” Sam answered, motioning us to follow him. He was leading back to the bus when we heard something above us in the ceiling. Tone had a finger to his mouth telling us to stay quiet. Sydney went to investigate.

  She came back shaking her head at us.

  “Let’s hurry and get the hell out of here.” Sydney said.

  “What did you find?” Tone asked her.

  “Red Eyes upstairs in the employee area, must have chased someone up there and had no reason to come back down.” Sydney told him.

  “In that case, I think we’ve got plenty, let’s go before we give them a reason to come down here.” Tone said.

  We were quiet as we headed back to the doors. I saw a display that had those shoe figurines Daisy had been talking about. Without thinking about it I swiped all the ones I could off it and into a bag I found on the ground. I hurried to catch up with the group.

  Sydney came back and grabbed the cart from me. As I walked with her I tripped and stumbled into the car parked by the door. The car had one of those stupid overly sensitive alarms that started to scream at us.

  Tone looked up from loading up supplies and grabbed his gun. Sydney and I rushed back to the bus with the cart.

  At first all we could hear was the damn alarm, and then there was crashing as the Red Eyes were drawn to the noise. The alarm seemed to even draw the attention of Red Eyes that were walking by.

  We left the last of the supplies and rushed to load back into the bus as the first of the Red Eyes started rushing towards us. Tone jumped into the driver seat. Sam slammed the door shut.

  “Go, go, go!” he screamed to Tone.

  The engine revved up and we pulled away from the store. You could hear the Red Eyes running into the side of the bus trying to catch us. The bus bounced around over bumps that I had a sick feeling were bodies of some of the Red Eyes. I was shaking as Tone got the bus back on to the road and away from chaos once again.

  “Everyone okay?” Sam asked as he sat next to me and took my hand into his.

  “Yeah. No one’s hurt.” Sydney answered him.

  “I thought they were going to get us when that alarm started going off.” Daisy said as she sat down on my other side, “What’s in the bag?”

  “I grabbed something you might like.” I said, handing her the bag.

  “What?” Daisy asked. She looked inside.

  “Oh my god!” Daisy said as her eyes lit up and she smiled.

  “Before you say anything Sam I didn’t wander off to find those, they were right where we were walking.” I told him before he could lecture me.

  “You know what, we should be enjoying the small things and we should be trying to make each other as happy as we can. We have no idea what lays ahead of us now.” Sam told me, “Plus you’re right you didn’t wander away and draw attention to us.”

  Sawyer came out from the room we shared. She took one look at me and threw herself into my arms.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I asked her when she didn’t let go.

  “Yeah, it just hit me how much we’ve lost. I heard that alarm going off and I thought I was going to lose you too.” Sawyer told me as she sat back. I was glad to see her up and moving around, out of shock.

  “I’m sorry I scared you.” I told her.

  “How long will it take us to get to your nephew?” Sawyer asked.

  “Paradis Roulette is close to 150 miles from here. It depends on what’s between here and there.” Sam responded and patted her on the head. “The important thing we have to remember is to stick together and help each other.”

  When we had all calmed down from the near miss in the Super Wal-Mart, Sydney made us all peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwiches for lunch. She even took one to the front of the bus for Tone to munch on while he drove. Then she came and sat down to eat her own. Sam cleared his throat getting all our attentions.

  “What did we see inside the store?” Sam asked.

  “Blood and bodies.” Daisy answered, taking another bite.

  “Notice anything about that?” Sam asked.

  “No, what should we have?” I asked, wondering what he had seen that we hadn’t.

  “The bodies weren’t just chewed up like the Red Eyes do; it looked like tools were used on them.” Tone called from the front.

  “Exactly. Which leads me to believe that the crazed aren’t as far gone as the Red Eyes are. It’s like they were almost trying to cut pieces like you would a cow.” Sam responded.

  “Bringing up the crazed, what the hell was up with the water and light fear?” Daisy asked as she finished eating and leaned forward intently.

  “I’m still not sure about that. Maybe they’ve been in the dark for a while and the light hurt their eyes. The water may have just caught them off guard.” Sam answered, “I can’t think of anything that would make something afraid of water. Although, maybe Drew will know when we get to Paradis Roulette.”

  “I hope we get there soon. Seems like the longer it takes the crazier things get.” I said, not to anyone in particular more thinking aloud.

  “It depends what we run into on the way, who knows what we’re facing and what will slow this trip down.” Sydney responded wrapping her arm around my shoulders.

  “Was it really that horrible in the store?” Sawyer asked, speaking for the first time since we had all sat down.

  “Yeah it was like some horror movie only covering your eyes didn’t make it go away.” Daisy answered.

  “It also means that wherever we stop we have to be careful and stick together, some places could be worse.” Sam said.

  “Are we going to have to stop again?” Axel asked. He was fiddling with a piece of crust he hadn’t eaten yet.

  “We might, depends if we see someone who needs help, or we need gas, or we realize we need something we don’t have.” Sam told him, patting his knee to comfort him.

  Everyone went quiet for a while, lost in their own thoughts.

  I was watching the landscape going by out the window. The side of the road was lined with cars that looked abandoned. I didn’t want to look too c
losely at them. I’d rather believe their owners walked away from them, then see something inside them.

  Sam didn’t seem too interested in stopping to check them out either. There was no point to go and look when we saw no movement. All we might find were trapped Red Eyes in them and we would be putting ourselves in danger.

  I found myself heading back to my room, tired of watching cars go by outside I wanted to lay down and maybe sleep. Sawyer and Daisy both followed me and all of us ended up on the bed kind of laying on each other.

  Axel came in a short while later and found a spot for himself with his head on Daisy’s stomach. None of us said anything; we took comfort from each other doing something teens did all the time.

  Chapter Six

  I woke still in the pile and the bus wasn’t moving. I looked for a clock automatically, but the only one in the room was a digital alarm clock. The display was dead, which was just a reminder that not even time mattered anymore.

  I could hear the adults talking softly in the living room. As I sat up I noticed that Angela and Thomas had come in and joined us. They were sitting on the foot of the bed together, but it was more than they had done so far. They both sat there watching us with matching green eyes. Daisy rolled and saw them too.

  “Well, hi there.” Daisy greeted them like you would a frightened animal.

  “Hi.” Thomas squeaked, talking for the first time since we had found them.

  “How are you two holding up?” Sawyer asked, looking directly at Angela.

  Angela shrugged.

  She looked calm, unless you looked at her twisting, clutching hands, then you could see what she was feeling. She was putting on a brave face for her brother, but she looked like she wanted to cry.

  “I lost my sister and I have no idea if my parents are safe or not.” I told her, “You really have to try and focus on here and now and we’ll deal with whatever else there is together.”

  “Together?” Angela asked, looking at me like I was a lifeline.