Wayne looked at her, aghast. "What the hell does that mean? Are you pregnant?"
"No," she said. "For a while, I thought that too, but I'm definitely not. Then I started thinking about the virus. You know, the zombie virus. And with all this talk lately about there maybe being a virus behind this whole thing, and after seeing these new things come out of the woodwork last night, I can't help but think maybe this is all somehow connected. Maybe I'm just being paranoid."
"Did he say anything else?" Wayne asked.
"Yes. He said that they did something to him."
"Who's 'they'?"
"He didn't say. But he was so abnormal, even for a psychopath. The way he took pain and punishment and just kept moving on like it was nothing. The way he just absolutely would not stop, like a Terminator or something... it was almost like he really was a machine."
"You're not really serious, are you?"
She shook her head. "No, but there was definitely something going on. And he told me that they sent him to find me."
Wayne stopped. He didn't say anything; he just stood there and stared off into the woods in front of him, thinking long and hard.
"What do you think it means?" Sarah asked.
After long pause, he started walking again and she kept up with him. "I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe nothing."
"Surely it can't be nothing," she insisted.
"I don't know," he repeated. "Let's just take things one step at a time," he offered, and he nodded toward the path in front of them.
Sarah fell silent, nodding to herself. She glanced around to make sure they were still alone, but she suddenly got an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, almost like they were being watched.
"Do you feel that?" she asked.
"I've been feeling it ever since we left the shop," he admitted. "Let's just keep on the trail and be done with this soon." He pointed ahead. "It looks like it came through those bushes."
The underbrush became dense around them, and it swelled up into a thicket of tall, wild shrubs filling in the space between the trees picketing the woods in front of them. As Sarah and Wayne headed for it, they heard a rumbling in the distance.
"What's that?" she whispered.
Wayne's eyes were trained on the bushes like the deadly gaze of an eagle locking onto its prey. He didn't say a word and began to creep forward as silently as possible. He aimed his gun ahead and Sarah followed suit, suddenly wanting very much to get out of the woods and go back to the shop.
The noise got louder as they approached, until they both realized it sounded like a car engine. But that was impossible. Outside of her little escapade with David as they escaped from that school, she knew firsthand that cars didn't run anymore.
But as they knelt down in front of the bushes, hiding themselves from whatever was on the other side, the noise was unmistakable. Wayne slipped the barrel of his rifle between the branches and used it to pull them aside, giving him a narrow view of what was making the mysterious noise, and his expression changed from intrigue to complete surprise. Sarah set her gun down on the ground and used her hands to pry apart the bush, careful not to make any noise.
On the other side stood a large military cargo truck facing away from them with a green camouflage cover stretched over the top of the bed. The back of the truck looked empty from where they were, but it was too shadowed to tell for sure. The engine was on and the truck was idling, and surrounding it were seven men all dressed in black military combat gear—special forces tactical stuff, by the looks of it—all with large-caliber assault rifles.
At first it looked like they were just standing around, not doing anything. They didn't talk to each other, and it almost seemed like they were waiting for something. Sarah periodically glanced over at Wayne to gauge his reaction, and she saw his eyes light up as he shifted the bush around to get a better view. She pried the bush apart a little wider and saw what he did.
Next to the truck, beside a thick oak tree, were the mutilated corpses of what she guessed were once two black bears. Heavy chains hung around their necks, the other ends of which were pinned down to the ground by large spikes, just like the cow she and Carly had spotted the night before.
Sarah almost let out a gasp, but she restrained herself. The truck and the soldiers were not even a dozen yards away, and she all at once wanted to run away before they figured out she and Wayne were there, and at the same time she couldn't peel herself away from what was going on. Ever since she and David set out from the townhouses in Roanoke, everything just got stranger and stranger. And now she held onto the almost undeniable feeling—something like intuition, she figured—that there was something very sinister going on.
Another minute or two passed before a Jeep appeared in the distance. It shared no qualities with the rusted vehicular relics that littered the landscape like so much garbage; it was new and obviously cared for. The paint was shiny, and it tightly crawled over the uneven ground without so much as an unexpected creak or jostle. Sarah wanted to say that she and Wayne stumbled upon a contingent of the military that had survived this catastrophe all along, but she knew the uneasy feeling that they experienced throughout the morning told her otherwise.
The Jeep came to a stop near the front of the truck. The driver remained inside and the sole passenger got out. Seeing him scrunched inside the passenger seat of the Jeep didn't do justice to his appearance or stature, so when he stepped out and stood fully, Sarah had to suppress another gasp. He must have been at least six-foot-eight, and he almost looked like a walking section of wall. His imposing nature gave the impression of great musculature, though it was hidden behind a long black overcoat. He wore a black wide-brimmed hat, along with black boots, black pants, and black gloves. In fact, even his face was covered by some kind of dark mask, but he was too far away to make it out. Before Sarah could get a better look, he turned and disappeared behind the front of the truck. His footsteps were loud even on the soft ground as he walked along the side, still hidden from view. His right shoulder and leg finally appeared behind the back end of the truck as he stared down at the sad corpses of the bears.
"Report," he said in a deep and frightening voice, holding out his hand to a soldier next to him.
All of the soldiers standing around didn't say a word—didn't even move—except for the soldier he spoke to, who produced a clipboard to the man. It was as if they were scared of him.
The unknown man took the clipboard and scrutinized it. Sarah could only see the back of his head as he shifted to the side, and she determined that whatever he was wearing over his face extended around his whole head. It looked like a thin nylon mask that someone from a comic book might wear—thin enough to breathe through.
For a long moment, it was like time had stood still. Not a single soldier dared to move or to speak, and the imposing man himself did nothing but stare at the clipboard he held. Finally, he gave another glance down at the two dead bears and handed the clipboard back. "They need further adjustments," he told the soldier next to him. "Test out the new batch and see how they do."
The soldier nodded silently, his expression hidden behind the black combat helmet he wore.
The tall man headed back for the Jeep, but this time he went around the back of the truck, in full view of Wayne and Sarah. His strides were long, and it almost seemed like he could cover the length of the forest in just a few of them. As he passed by the thicket of bushes, he stopped dead in his tracks and snapped his head to the side, staring directly at them.
Sarah's heart jumped into her throat and Wayne felt his scrotum tighten.
Emblazoned on the front of his black mask was a purple skull. The image was hyperrealistic and terrifying, and even though it was only a graphic on a black piece of cloth, it felt like it was the man's face, like his own black, soulless eyes were boring down on them, his mouth ajar as a creeping evil poured out from behind rows of decaying teeth. The muscles in his face behind the mask moved slightly, and made the skull seem to com
e to life.
Sarah's heart pounded furiously as her hands still held open a small hole in the bush, scared stiff.
The man continued to stare, and all the soldiers around him seemed to gain the courage to turn their heads and see what he was looking at.
Wayne's finger slipped over the trigger of the M16 and started to apply pressure. Sarah shifted her eyes down to the M1 Garand on the ground next to her, feeling the creaking in her neck and hoping it wasn't as audible as the screaming in her head was.
The soldiers exchanged glances with each other, and some of them started to take a step toward the bushes, concerned something was wrong.
Just as Wayne had applied a full pound of pressure on the trigger, the man turned his head and walked off toward the Jeep, as if he had never spotted anything out of the ordinary at all.
"Move out," he told the other men behind him before he lowered himself into the passenger seat of the Jeep. The driver spun the vehicle around and drove it between the narrow trees until it was out of sight. All the soldiers relaxed at once, slumping their shoulders and shedding the rigidity that had stiffened their spines into perfect spires. A couple of them spoke a few mumbled words to each other before the majority of them piled into the back of the cargo truck, with two of them going in the driver and passenger seats in the cab. The sound of gears shifting echoed through the forest, then the wheels started to roll and the truck lumbered carefully through the trees and drove away until the whole scene was nothing but a memory, save for the black bears whose flesh had been torn away down to the bone in some spots.
Wayne finally withdrew his rifle from the bush and eased down onto his haunches, and Sarah nearly fell over backwards, her body recoiling from the stiffness of staying in the same position for so long. They looked at each other and without a word seemed to say the same thing: Let's get the fuck out of here.
5
Moving Out
A thick and unnerving blanket of relative silence fell over the shop. Everyone buzzed around, quietly doing their part to pack everything up and get ready to move out, and when there was a spare moment they would stand around nervously, looking at each other for a sense of support that they couldn't find. Every time Sarah passed by, they all looked to her for answers. But she had enough on her mind and didn't have time to mother everybody. She coordinated with Wayne and doled out orders for the rest to make sure they would be ready to go within half an hour. Much of the initial time was spent on deciding the logistics of what they were going to do; the actual packing didn't take long. There was a lot they couldn't take, like the cots and other obvious things, but food and water were the most important, as were the weapons. Any clothes they had, and any knickknacks that anyone could take on their person, and wanted to, would be about everything that would accompany them on their journey.
Sarah held an especial sense of unease. When she and Wayne returned and debriefed from their experience in the woods, she had looked around for Carly, but couldn't find her. She initially freaked out, but Wayne helped her calm down and carry out the rest of her business in the meantime. At the same moment as the survivors had everything packed up and ready to go sitting in the open garage, Carly slipped through the broken fence from the street.
She looked sheepish and stopped in her tracks once she saw that Sarah spotted her. Her eyes softened from their wide deer-in-the-headlights look, trying to play it cool like nothing was wrong.
"Where were you?" Sarah asked, trying to hide how unimpressed she was.
"I... went to get some fresh air," Carly replied. "It's no big deal." And with that, she passed through the garage next to Sarah and turned into the hallway. She stopped and looked around. "What's going on?"
There were a few things Sarah wanted to say to her floating through her head, but she dismissed them for now. "We're moving out," she said.
"Where?" Carly said, not terribly surprised by Sarah's decision.
"I don't know. But we can't stay here anymore."
Carly nodded slowly, took a look at all the other survivors still milling about, then disappeared down the hallway.
Sarah hadn't told the others exactly why they were leaving, only that it was too dangerous to stay. With the events that occurred the night before as well as the shop being in disrepair, everyone understood, even if it wasn't for the same reasons that Sarah had.
When everybody finished their duties they gathered around in the garage.
"Is that everything?" Sarah asked.
The general sea of faces bobbed up and down in unison, half of them strange and new. She vaguely recognized some of the ones from Noah's Ark, but others she didn't think she had seen before. But the new members were all helpful, and so far they had no problem following her orders. Talking to Wayne earlier in the day about leadership boosted her confidence, and she knew she would need it for the night. She peered out through the open garage door and saw deep oranges and crimsons twirl amongst each other in the sky. The moon was already up and the sun would be down completely in about ten minutes.
"Is everyone here?" Sarah asked. Everyone looked around at each other and she did a headcount.
Carly sauntered out from the hallway and leaned in the doorframe. Sarah noticed that there was a certain glumness about her that day, but she didn't have the time to address it.
When Sarah finished her headcount, she walked over to Wayne and whispered to him, confused. "Didn't you have six others with you?"
"Yeah," he said. He turned his head to the crowd, doing his own headcount. "They're all here."
"Then who's missing?" she wondered aloud. She went over the faces of the crowd twice before realizing who it was.
"Where's Derek?" she asked.
The new survivors looked around and shrugged, but her group looked around with a little more worry.
Sarah glanced at Carly. "Can you check and see if he's in the front of the shop?"
Carly disappeared and returned a minute later, shaking her head.
"Derek?" Sarah called, trying not to be too loud about it. When there was still no answer, she stepped outside into the street. The very last rays of the sun basked the road, and she felt the wind pick up and send a chill across the bare skin on her hands and cheeks. She walked along the street for a few buildings each way, peering into alleyways and alcoves, but there was no sign of him anywhere. She came back into the garage and told the others that she couldn't find him.
Thin chatter began amongst the group, and suddenly there was a fear in her eyes that she couldn't hide. She looked to Wayne for support, but he just stared back with a steely and unaffected gaze.
"Well, obviously we can't leave yet," someone in her group said.
"We have to find him," someone else replied.
"I don't think it's a good idea to stay here in the dark," another retorted.
Everyone's attention turned squarely on Sarah and she suddenly felt about the size of a mouse. They all relied on her, and her next words carried tremendous weight. The garage became completely silent.
Sarah looked at Carly, who was still standing in the doorway with a sullenness that was impossible to unravel. She looked at Barry who was standing amongst the crowd, his face as cheerful as always, but with the slight hint of worry. Wayne's gaze remained steely, and where she thought she would find support and softness in him, he remained resolute.
"It's your call," Wayne said softly.
The sun was washed away completely by the darkness, and the cloudless sky gave way to the white-specked blanket that had been rare lately. It gave a false sense of serenity that was alien to the thick tension that hung in the garage. The night was here, and every moment they stayed in there would doom them more and more. They could force the garage door closed and spend the night and hope that Derek showed back up, but with the recent zombie attacks and proximity to whatever disgusting tests were going on in the woods right next to them, her gut told her that they couldn't stay. They had to go, and they had to go now.
Sarah op
ened her mouth, feeling her tongue dryly stick to the roof of it. She cleared her throat and slowly she managed to summon her words.
"We're moving out," she said.
The garage erupted into a dull chatter again, with various people crying out in protest.
"We can't just leave him!" someone said.
"We wouldn't leave you!" someone snapped at her.
The crowd became raucous, and Wayne's eyes shifted across them, measuring them before looking back at Sarah. He gave her a subtle nod, and it was the first sense of reassurance that he had given her. It calmed her, and she understood in that moment that she had to truly lead the group, even if it was something they didn't want to hear.
"We're moving out now," Sarah said forcefully.
There were still protests, but the chatter started to dwindle.
"We don't know where Derek is, or if he's still alive," Sarah told them. "He knows the protocol, and he should be here right now. Since he's not, we have to assume the worst. If this were any other circumstance, we could look for him, but right now it's not safe for us to stay here." She motioned to the sky. "It's already dark, and if we don't leave now, none of us are going to make it. We can leave a note for him, telling him that we've moved out, but in two minutes, I expect those bags to be over everyone's shoulders and everyone to be out of this garage and on the street." She stared down each of them, and she was met with a variety of faces; some of them seemed completely obsequious and others had a little bit of rebellion painted across them. But all of them were silent, and she knew that they all understood her orders.
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 4): In Shadows Page 5
