Clay allowed the words to sink in. Strangely, they didn’t seem to affect him or bring him panic. His entire existence remained in finding his family. Assuring these people remained okay was secondary. Third was his own life. He’d live as long as he could in the interim. No matter what.
Chapter 73
Although the repairs were taking longer than he’d like, time seemed to tick along too quickly. Night would fall soon. Clay shifted his weight, clinging to his gun, with the echo of the bullet he’d just shot throttling through his ears. The two crazed, both women wearing black dresses, were splattered across the pavement. They all needed to get going, and soon.
Clay turned to the group. Ralph and Brandon were cranking at the interior of the vehicle, and Norah was organizing the supplies they’d been able to bring with them from the lab. He cleared his throat and addressed them all, his hands upon his hips. He felt Alayna’s dark eyes upon him. Always, she was watching.
“Hear me out, everyone,” he said.
The survivors turned, expectant. They’d heard him out so many times. With grease on their faces, they waited.
“I think we should split into two groups,” Clay began.
“You already said that’s too dangerous,” Ralph interrupted, sweeping his hand over the vehicle. “That’s why we’re doing this, Clay. Jesus.”
Clay shook his head, feeling more and more certain of his opinion. “Just listen. In the end, we’ll be safer with this one vehicle. But seeing as it’s taking a while, we could be more useful if we split up. We’ve been here for hours, and it’s almost nightfall. We should gather more supplies before we get going.”
“But what about what we already have back at the hotel and the lab?” Jacobs asked.
“We can’t be sure it’ll be enough. Besides, we need more nonperishable goods and possibly some medical supplies.”
“You want two groups, one for supplies and one to finish off the vehicle?” Alayna asked. She offered a soft layer of support, giving him a brief smile.
“I don’t think that’s a terrible idea, I suppose,” Daniels offered. He scratched at his growing beard. “I’ll stay here with the mechanics if you want to head off and find supplies, Clay. I think you should move quickly, though.”
Clay began dividing the group, feeling like a postapocalyptic dodgeball captain. “Ralph, you and Brandon and Daniels stay here. Norah, take a rest here, if you like. We need you in tip-top shape for when we get moving. Daniels, make sure Norah’s sleeping in a place you can see her. We can’t afford to lose anyone else.”
Daniels shot his hand to his forehead, saluting. “These power outages are becoming more and more prevalent. Maybe . . .” Daniels began, drifting his sight up to the fading sunset, when Clay continued.
“And that means Jacobs, Alayna, and I will go gather up as many supplies as we can in this immediate area. We’ll go on foot and leave the cars here to use for a light source while you finish with the repairs,” Clay continued. He shuffled toward the edge of the driveway, watching as Alayna and Jacobs stepped forward, joining him. “I’ve never trusted us more as a team than I do right now,” he affirmed. “Keep it up, everyone, and we just might live through this. We just damn well might.”
Chapter 74
Behind the garage, a backcountry road cut down about a half mile, past a forest of densely packed trees, before opening out on a street of farmhouses. Clay and Alayna walked side by side, Jacobs following up behind them, as they headed toward the first of the residences. No one bothered to speak.
The first farmhouse, which belonged to a widow named Teresa, was almost empty. Just a few suitcases had been placed in the first room, half stocked, before Teresa’s ultimate flee from Carterville. Clay wandered through the house, feeling like an intruder, gazing at the photographs of Teresa’s deceased husband that lined the fireplace and walls.
Alayna appeared beside him, holding a bag of painkillers and other medications and giving him a knowing look. “Seems like we’ll need these eventually, huh?”
“Good find,” Clay agreed, skimming his fingers over the top of the counter. “Did Leland find anything?”
“He’s in the garage, actually,” Alayna said, shivering. “But the woman was so alone up here. She didn’t keep a lot. Not even food. I remember I saw her at the diner frequently. She didn’t often cook.”
“Right,” Clay said, heading toward the exit. “Then we shouldn’t waste our time diving through her ghosts.”
They went to the next farmhouse, and then the next, finding nothing but a few food items and another tank of gas. The last house on the left was a one-story that used to belong to a model citizen of the town—a man named Rex Taylor—who’d often come by Clay’s house to play cards and drink beers on the back porch. Despite having known the man for several years, Clay realized he’d never been inside Rex’s home. He reached for the door, and then, finding it locked, barreled his boot into the door, waiting for it to give.
But the door didn’t budge. Clay tilted his head, trying to see in through the door window, but found that it was blocked out, like a board was nailed across it, keeping intruders out.
“Whose house is this?” Alayna asked, appearing beside him. “Leland tried to get in from the back, but no dice.”
“It’s my friend Rex’s,” Clay admitted. “He wasn’t a private guy, really. I expected him to be the type to just keep the door wide open, you know?”
“Ha. Well, when you leave your house for who knows how long, you probably at least lock it,” Alayna said. “Did you try kicking it?”
“Of course,” Clay said, incredulous. “I’m thinking about shooting it.”
Alayna marched toward the side window and then noted that the glass, which was initially covered with lace curtains on the other side, was actually decoration for a dark stone that seemed to cover the entire interior of the house. Clay’s jaw dropped, realizing that what she said was true. “I swear, I’ve seen him enter the house from his front door,” Clay offered, shaking his head. “Or have I?”
“HEY!” Jacobs called to them from the back of the house, causing them both to scamper around the bushes and trees to find him staring at something on the ground.
Clay, thinking it was one of the crazed or perhaps another kind of danger, brought his gun from his holster and barreled toward Jacobs, adrenaline pumping through him. “What is it?” he cried.
Jacobs just pointed downward, waiting. Clay reached his side. There before them was a small door that seemed to go directly into the ground, its handle sticking straight into the air.
“What the hell?” Alayna asked, gasping for oxygen after the mad dash. “I don’t understand.”
Jacobs reached down and grasped the handle, yanking at it. To his surprise, the door crept open, causing him to cry out. “Grab on to it! My god, it’s heavy!”
Clay gripped the edge of the cement door to help him lift but nearly ripped it from its hinges instead. Jacobs tumbled back as Clay flipped the bulky hatch over onto the barren ground, revealing a dark, dirt tunnel that seemed to ultimately turn into a staircase.
Alayna eyes went wide. “You said you knew this guy? Did you know that his house was essentially a fortress?”
Clay shook his head. He carefully lowered his legs into the tunnel and then dropped, catching himself on the side wall so he wouldn’t tumble down the steps. Pain swept up and down his legs upon landing, but he soon righted himself, shouting up to Alayna and Jacobs. “Don’t come down! I’ll just check it out real quick like. Keep watch for any of the crazed.”
Clay crept down the steps, searching for some kind of light switch. He slipped the flashlight from his holster and peered into the darkness before marching into an underground circular room filled with weapons.
Every sort of assault rifle lined the walls. Clay counted to ten, and then lost track, realizing that they extended to the far end of the cavernous room. Across from the rifles was Rex’s collection of grenades and grenade launchers, every make and mo
del. Clay shifted his weight. “I’ll be damned,” he said, remembering how Rex had been a vegetarian and seemed to take offense at curse words. “Was it all an act?”
He collected several of the weapons, oddly giddy that he’d discovered the selection. But as he carried them through the tunnel, back toward Alayna and Jacobs, he realized he hadn’t seen Rex at the town meeting. In fact, he hadn’t seen Rex in weeks.
“Holy mother of god,” Alayna said, collecting the guns in her arms as he crawled from the tunnel. “Did you know he was like this?”
Clay shook his head vehemently. “I had no idea, honestly. And I realized that I didn’t see him leave, either. Do you think he’s still around?”
Alayna considered this, a darkness passing over her face. “You know, actually, now that you mention it, I think I heard from someone in town that Rex was leaving for a few weeks. He was visiting a friend, or he had a job out of town. It might have been both.” She shrugged, but still eyed Clay suspiciously. “Why?”
“Just curious,” Clay said, walking back between the trees and toward the mechanic shop. “We should get back with the others now. The sun’s too low. It’s making me nervous. And I don’t like it.”
Chapter 75
Clay trudged down the street with Alayna and Jacobs rushing behind him, chasing the shadows to get back to the Humvee before full-on darkness. The guns and other equipment clattered in their arms. They hadn’t spoken in several minutes, the realization sharp between them that words wouldn’t do any longer.
Once they were back at the mechanic shop, Ralph made a final crank in the Humvee before wiping his oil-laden hands over his pants and giving Brandon a slight nudge. “See, boy? Using your hands isn’t so bad, after all.”
Brandon agreed, giving both Norah and Ralph a wide smile. They slammed the hood shut and began positioning guns in the back of the Humvee.
They turned to Clay with trustful eyes, knowing that no matter how fatigued he was, his brain was constantly pushing forward, attempting to keep them alive.
“I think we should pack up as many supplies as we can and then get some rest back at the lab,” he said. “We’re exhausted. And it’ll do no good for us to head out to the perimeter when we can barely walk. We’re going to need our wits about us.”
Norah cleared her throat, alerting them to her clear inability to be physical. Clay turned a sharp eye to her, explaining, “Norah, you know we’ll carry you across that energy field if we have to. We’re not leaving you behind.”
“I just don’t want to hold anyone back,” she answered, looking at him sharply. “If I have to stay behind, I will.”
“We’re not leaving you,” Brandon interrupted forcefully. “You know we wouldn’t do that to you. We aren’t just individuals trying to survive. We’re a team.”
Norah nodded at him gratefully.
“I think that sounds fine,” Ralph finally answered. “The Humvee’s up and running, and we can take it back with us to the lab. Rest up. Get a move on.”
Daniels got into the driver’s seat and eased the Humvee from the garage bay. As they began to pile in, three of the crazed scrambled around the corner, blood oozing from between their teeth. Norah shot one in the brain, plastering it against the sidewalk, while Ralph killed the other two. Clay looked on with a burst of pride before helping them both into the Humvee. They rode silently back into town, toward the lab, eyeing the muted town around them.
Daniels tried to get as close to the candy shop as possible, but the presence of numerous abandoned cars forced him to park on a side street, a half block away from the entrance.
The team paraded into the blaring light of the laboratory, grateful to be out of the openness, where the crazed saw them as their next meal. They ate their own meal of potatoes, noodles, vegetables, and alcohol brought over from the hotel, chewing and glugging without words. For many nights, since this had all begun, they’d known that the following day didn’t hold any certainty. And now that they were leaving the safety of the containment zone, everything was even more up in the air. They hadn’t seen the outside world. They didn’t know if they would find an entire world of destruction or if they would learn that they could live normally out there, as if nothing had happened.
Clay chose not to think about the possibilities and to just proceed, with his survival instincts in tow and without any sense of hope.
They went to bed immediately after eating. Clay and Alayna shared a room but not a bed. Clay lay awake listening to the quiet of Alayna’s breathing, his eyes staring into the darkness of their barrack.
Sometime at around five in the morning—not that time had any meaning in this current reality—the light from the main room of the laboratory cut out. The violence of total darkness made Clay’s eyes snap open. He was immediately awake, and he ripped from his bed and into the lab, stubbing his toes against a large box of supplies that they’d gathered for their departure.
“SHIT!” he cried.
A few other survivors began to clamber from their beds to join him. Jacobs gasped, incredulous. “But the backup battery system. I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think it could go out?” Clay asked, almost disdainfully. “You didn’t think the world would end with the nanites, either.”
No one spoke at this. Jacobs snapped his fingers, remembering. “I think we have another backup system. It should kick on when the first one fails.” As the team waited, an eerie light glowed across them, emanating from the ceiling’s emergency fixtures. This cast long, strange shadows across the floor and turned their faces green. Alayna and Clay made momentary eye contact, feeling the strangeness of this new environment.
“All right,” Clay said. “I think we should pack up the Humvee with our last-minute supplies now. No use in waiting here in this half light. And the sun’s about to rise.”
Everyone agreed. Norah grabbed a bag of fruits and vegetables—things, she said, they would ultimately missed if they couldn’t get them on the outside. “We’ll have to eat them quickly. And really appreciate them. Maybe write down the feeling of eating an apple for our future selves to remember it best.”
Brandon wrapped his arms around the old woman, holding her tight. “Thank god you’re here,” he said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t look at the world correctly. We’d see only darkness.”
As they neared the laboratory door, Clay felt a shadow descend over his heart. The dangers on the main roads were apparent, especially given that they’d killed countless of the crazed the previous day. He was certain they were still coming, especially with the power fully out now. And he had no idea if they could communicate with each other and thus tell other of the crazed their location.
“Daniels and I will lead,” Clay announced, moments before he opened the door to the staircase that would take them into the candy shop. “And Alayna, you’ll bring up the rear. You all have your guns still. Be prepared to fight if you have to. And we’ll get the fuck out of here in no time.”
No one spoke. Clay lifted the latch of the lab door, revealing the ghostly, grey light of the early morning. He took steps upward, feeling the others close behind him. He could hear subtle noises from Norah’s creaking bones. But she didn’t complain.
When they reached the sales floor of the candy store, the exterior of the shop looked empty and abandoned, just as quiet as it had been the previous evening. Clay raised his hands, speaking quietly. “Okay. The Humvee is just around the corner. Let’s be cautious and alert. But it looks like this might be our best chance. No matter what, this is our first step to life on the outside. After this, there’s no going back.”
The team nodded, their eyes dark and serious. And then Clay took the first steps to daylight, feeling the weight of six other peoples’ lives upon his shoulders. He didn’t know how to pray for them.
Chapter 76
The lone survivors of Carterville stood at the entrance of Moe’s, blinking into the early sunlight. Clay placed his hand upon his holster, looking around. He sensed
something. Suddenly, they heard the slobbering and growling noise of a single crazed ducking from around the corner. The monster’s eyes were glossy and alien, with blood dripping like eye seeds into his lips. The crazed opened his mouth to reveal chomping teeth, sharpened as if he’d been gnawing upon bones.
Alayna stepped out and blasted the monster in the brain with a single bullet. Norah gasped, but the rest of them remained silent, watching as the monster collapsed to the ground. Ralph breathed heavily. The light of the morning no longer seemed so soft.
“Just a small bit of excitement this morning,” Clay said, causing several of them to titter. He took a step to the side, making an arc around the dead body, in full sight of the Humvee. “They never let us down, do they? Always keep coming back for more. Like we’re irresistible.”
Clay stepped out onto Main Street and felt Alayna beside him. She placed a hand on his back as they moved toward the Humvee, easing her fingers over his tense muscles. Clay felt he could hear her encouragement in his head. “It’s going to be all right,” she seemed to say. “I’m right here. You’re not alone.”
But in that moment, Clay heard the sudden, rash scream of another crazed. He lurched around, realizing that as he’d been distracted, three monsters had marched up behind them, on the attack. Ralph lifted his gun even as a crazed wrapped his arms around his neck, trying to bite at his ear. Ralph blasted him once through the stomach, forcing the mutant back a few feet. But then he began to scramble forward, purple vomit and pus seeping from his stomach.
Daniels lifted his gun and shot the still-fighting crazed through the head, destroying him.
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