Glory (Book 5) (11 page)

Chapter 3

After breakfast, Adam walked to the back of the school with Scooter. They stopped at the top of the ditch and looked down at the dead bodies there.

"What happened?" Scooter asked.

"They were in the school."

"All of them?"

"Yeah."

"It's weird to see them piled up down there."

"It is," Adam agreed
.
Like garbage.

"Most of them are children.”

"I
t
wa
s
a school."

"I guess you're right. But…I mean…it's fu…well, it's weird."

"Yeah." There wasn't much more that Adam could say. "You ready?"

Scooter nodded his head and they walked down the hill.

*

As they entered the woods, Adam wished that Scooter had taken a gun. At the time, he had thought that the axe looked good enough. But now, walking in between the trees, he wasn't all that sure.

"You sure you don't want to go back and get one of the guns?" Adam asked.

"No," Scooter said, holding the axe up in front of him. "I'm good with this. And this way I won't accidentally chop you to death with it. I've never used a gun before. So who knows what might happen?"

It had meant to be a joke, but came out a bit flat under the circumstances
.
Maybe if they hadn't just seen a bunch of dead children who had ripped themselves apart. Maybe if they weren't searching through the forest for a woman who had lost her mind.

Maybe.

"All right," Adam said. "If you say so."

*

It wasn't long before they were deep into the forest.

"It's hot in here," Scooter said. He opened his bottle and took a sip of water. He offered some to Adam.

"That's all right. I'm good for now." Adam had his own bottle.

"Is there anything I should look for? Anything this woman might have left behind?"

"
Jane
.
Her name was Jane."

"Sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know you didn't," Adam replied. He was sorry too. Now that he had been walking in the forest for a while, several thoughts had started to come back to him
.
Jane, Claire, Shelly, his family
.
But that didn't mean he could take it out on Scooter. "It's just…you know."

Scooter looked as though he didn't actually know what Adam was talking about
.
And why would he
?
Adam hadn't been very clear. In the end, he decided not to explain himself any further. He wasn't in the mood to get into it more than he already had.

*

Adam and Scooter stopped after a little while longer.

Adam turned to look at the young man."Tell me a bit about yourself," he said.

"Abou
t
m
e
?" Scooter replied.

"Yeah, you. Tell me where you're from, what you used to do."

"Well…"

Scooter told him a little bit about his childhood. He explained that his family life hadn't been all that great. Then he said, "I'm a student at a high school. Not a very good one. I mean, I'm not a very good student. The high school is fine."

Adam smirked. He liked the way that Scooter had explained that.

"And I worked at the airport," Scooter continued. "Baggage handler. Nothing glamorous. But it got me out of the house. Gave me some money."

"And that's where you were when everything changed?"

"I wasn't actuall
y
ther
e
at the time. I had been on my way. I just decided to keep going the next morning."

"Why didn't you go home?"

Scooter shrugged his shoulders. It was something he had wondered about a lot. "I told you that I didn't have the best family," he said. "I guess that's why."

Adam nodded as though it was a perfectly acceptable answer
.
Who was he to judge if it wasn’t
?
"And that's where you met Emily and Julie?"

"Yeah, the little girl was in an elevator with her father. There were three other people in there with her. They had killed each other."

"And Emily survived that?"

"Yeah."

"But she had had to see it?"

Scooter shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know how much she saw. She said the lights had gone out. I think that's why she survived. But," he scratched his chin, "I guess she heard it all."

Adam sighed
.
Everyone's story was always so difficult
.
"Have you seen a lot of the creatures?" he asked next.

Scooter told Adam about the ones he had come into contact with. The few in the airport. The lady from the shuttle bus. Those he had seen when they flew over the city. The ones that had chased them into John's house.

"And then there was the one that killed John," he added. Upset. Every time he thought about the old man, his voice broke.

Again, Adam sighed
.
So difficult.

"And what about you?" Scooter asked after a moment.

"
Me
?
"

"Yeah, tell me about yourself."

Adam thought about it. He wasn't sure where to begin. "I worked in a book store," he said. "One of those big ones that sell almost everything. And I was trying to write a book of my own."

"You're an author?"

"Not really. I've never been published."

"But you write?"

"
I
wrot
e
."

Adam thought about the book he had been writing before the change, the one that he had left in his apartment. He told Scooter about it.

"You just left it there?" the young man asked. "Why?"

"Because I didn't think that I'd ever need it."

"Do you regret that?"

Adam didn't need any time to think about it. "Yeah, I do."

"You remember it though, right?"

Adam nodded.

"And you could write it down again if you wanted to?"

"I guess." It was true, h
e
coul
d
write it again. However, he wasn't all that sure that he wanted to. He didn't have a lot of time to sit down and write. He was too busy trying to find shelter, trying to find food, trying to avoid dangerous people and thos
e
things
.
"I just don't know if I'm up for it."

Scooter thought about that for a moment, then turned back to Adam. "What was it about?" he asked.

"They story?"

"Yeah."

Adam's eyes lit up as he thought about the characters he had created and the adventure they had gone on. "It was about a boy," he said.

As they walked, Adam told Scooter the story.

Chapter 4

The women walked along the road leading to the town Alice had mentioned. Backpacks were slung over Claire and Julie's shoulders. Marianne had her purse. They kept their eyes open for any sign of the creatures, yet their ears were focused primarily on their conversation. It had been a long time since either Claire or Julie had someone with similar interests to talk to. Even Marianne joined in.

"How have you been handling things?" Marianne asked once they had drifted off the topic of movies and music. It was a little bit more of a serious subject, but one that they knew was inevitable.

"I've been all right," Claire responded. Then she shook her head. "At least, lately. It…uh…it wasn't so good in the beginning."

Marianne and Julie looked at Claire, waiting for her to continue.

Though Claire was certain that they weren't going to pressure her 
-
or judge her, for that matte
r
- she wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell them about what had happened. It was painful for her to think of Big Mike, and what he did to her.

After a moment longer, she decided not to let that bother her and told them.

"That's fuckin' horrible!" Marianne said when she had finished.

Claire glanced at the woman, surprised. Swearing wasn't something she expected from her.

"Sorry," Marianne said. "It's an expression Scooter and I have been saying. It seems to sum up a lot of things that have been happening."

"You're right about that," Claire agreed
.
What Big Mike had done to her had been fuckin' horrible.

"How did you get away?" Julie asked.

She told them of how Adam had gotten her and Shelly out of the cage.

"Like a knight in shining armor coming to save a damsel in distress." Julie's voice took on a romantic, dreamlike quality.

Claire knew that Julie was only trying to make light of the situation, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to laugh about any of it, yet
.
If ever.

"I'm sorry," Julie said, grabbing Claire's hand. "I wasn't trying to make fun of what happened. I shouldn't have said anything."

Claire squeezed Julie's hand back. "Don't worry. I know you didn't mean anything bad by it. And, you know, I should probably try to laugh at it. Not that I think it's funny. But it's better than feeling angry, or wondering if I could have done something differently."

Marianne tutted. "You can't feel guilty about it," she said sternly. "What happened to you wasn't your fault."

"I know. That's why I decided to tell you about it. Though sometimes I wish I could have done more."

Marianne tutted again. "There was nothing you could've done."

"You're right," Claire admitted. "And I did try. One day, I almost stabbed a pen into his neck."

"A pen? Really?" Julie's asked, her voice raising in pitch.

"It was the only thing around. There were a lot of tools, but I couldn't reach any of them. He wasn't all too happy about that." She lowered her head as she thought of what Big Mike had done to her after that.

When she looked back up, Marianne was staring at her with a snarl on her lips.

"If I ever see that guy," the woman said, seething with anger, "I'll punch his fuckin' face in!"

Both Claire and Julie looked at each other. The statement had been such a shock to both of them that they couldn't help but laugh. And it felt good to do so.

Chapter 5

Marianne explained what had happened to her next. She told about her mother, who had changed into one of the creatures. She told them about the pharmacist, Darren, and even her stupid little fantasy of living happily with him. She showed them the pills that she took from the pharmacy.

Julie had already heard most of this before, but she didn't know about the pill. "You still have them?" she asked. "Why?"

Marianne shrugged her shoulders. "There's no reason. I had decided to throw them out a while ago, but I guess I forgot."

"And you don't think about taking them anymore?" Claire asked.

"No, I don't. I don't even think that I wanted to take them then. It was just that everything had been so unexpected, so difficult."

"Then throw them away!" Julie commanded. "Now!"

Without a word, Marianne opened her purse and grasped the little bag of pills. She pulled them out and lifted the over her head. Then she threw them as far as she possible could.The bag arced through the air and came crashing down somewhere in the grass.

"There," Marianne said. "They're gone."

Claire and Julie nodded their approval.

"All right," she continued. "Let me tell you about how I found Buster…"

Chapter 6

Julie was the last to tell her story. She told them about how she had been in the small staff room when everything  had changed. She told them how Scooter had come to the door, carrying Emily with him. Then she told them how they had gone looking for an airplane at an old hangar Scooter had heard about.

"There wasn't a plane there," she concluded.

"But you found one eventually," Marianne said. "Tell Claire abou
t
tha
t
."

Julie described how they had walked to the hangar outside of the city, how they had flown over the city, and how they had come to land near John's house.

"Sounds like Scooter i
s
you
r
knight in shining armor," Claire said. "Minus the armor."

Julie rolled her eyes. "He got me out of the airport," she agreed. "And I wouldn't have wanted to do any of this without him. But that's about where it ends."

"Because he's younger?"

"No, it's not that. It's…I don't know what it is."

"You never even thought about it?"

"Of course I thought about it. I wasn't even sure if there were any other people left. But…I don't know. He's a great guy. A few problems here and there. Nothing too big. But I don't think we're right for each other."

"He sure does like that axe," Marianne commented.

"If it hadn't been for that axe," Julie pointed out, "we would have been killed the first night." She told them about the woman who had been in a shuttle bus
.
Covered in blood. Wild
.
"She had found the hangar we were in and was trying to break into it. Scooter was able to stop her. Slammed that axe right into her face."

Claire shook her head from side to side. "Marianne, you're right: everythin
g
i
s
fuckin' horrible."

Though, instead of concentrating on all of the bad things that had happened and getting brought down by them, the women broke into laughter again.