Grace Lost (The Grace Series) (2 page)

I trusted Boggs and nodded
again.  “Your place then,” I said, looking him in the eyes.

“Think you can run it, kid?”
His old annoying nickname for me.
  Right now I took comfort
in it.

“Faster than you, Boggs,” I joked
in a strained voice.  Neither of us smiled, but instead just looked at one
another in a moment of understanding.

“Give me your pack?  I’ll
carry it.”

I handed the backpack to my
friend, and we set out with a renewed sense of urgency to reach safety.

Ferns, vine maples, and
huckleberry bushes blurred by us as we ran.  I could hear my pulse in my
ears and did my best to keep my composure.  Fight or flight came to mind
and I knew now was the time to flee.  Eventually, we came to a lazy
creek.  We slowed as we approached the water, and looked at each other as
we smelled death once again. It seemed stronger here, and we both had troubled
looks on our faces. 
“Boggs?”
  I said
quietly.  He put his finger to his mouth.  Things around us seemed
unusually silent.  I realized even the nearby Interstate was quiet. 
All we could hear now was our own breathing and the gently flowing water of the
stream. 

Boggs held his hand out signaling
me to stay still as he crept forward toward a large fallen tree.  He
eventually motioned for me to join him.  I obeyed, crawling on all fours
to crouch beside him behind the log.  The ground here was wet, the moss
forming a soggy blanket.  We watched the back side of the neighborhood
with which we were both familiar.  There were only eleven homes in all,
including both of ours.  His was closest, backing up to the greenbelt
where we now hid. We saw no movement, nothing suspicious.  I felt Boggs’
warm breath on my cheek as he whispered to me.  He still smelled faintly
of the beer we drank last night.

“We need to stay quiet, Zo.”

“I know.”

“Let me walk ahead of you. 
I’m going to head to our backyard and we can go in through the sliding
door.  My folks never lock it.”

I felt him squeeze my hand, which
I had been unaware he’d been holding.  We stood slowly and Boggs straddled
the fallen log, then turned back to help me over.  Being a bit shorter, I
had to sit on the massive old growth tree, swing my legs over, and slide down
till my feet touched the ground.

As I landed on the soft forest
floor, we heard a loud high pitched scream full of pain and agony.  I felt
a type of chill in my stomach which I had never felt before and the hairs on my
arms stood on end.  My feet didn’t want to move forward.  I sensed
danger in the direction we needed to go.  Still holding my hand in his,
Boggs forcefully pulled me forward.  My hip complained again, and I
winced.  Boggs pulled me back to the floor of the woods, where we huddled
together so he could talk to me.

“Zo, what’s wrong?”

“I landed on my hip.  I’m
sure it’s nothing, Boggs. 
Really.”

“Do you want me to carry you?”

“No way.
  Seriously, I’m fine.  Let’s just get
inside. 
Please?”

He studied my face for a moment,
and then nodded in agreement.  He stood and held a hand out for me.

We ran through the shallow creek
that separated the forest from the nearby homes.  Our surroundings blurred
as our pace quickened, our target now in sight and coming closer.  The
screams cut off as quickly as they had begun. 

The freshly painted back porch of
Boggs’ parent’s house was only strides away, but it seemed to take forever and
a day to reach.  Catching my own disheveled reflection in the glass of the
patio door, I startled and began to scream.  Boggs quickly clasped one of
his hands over my mouth.  He protectively put his other arm around me,
holding me tight.  I tried to slow my breathing, willing the heart
pounding within my chest to slow.

In the distance we heard a loud
explosion, moments later feeling the impact as a subtle pressure change in the
air.  I closed my eyes, holding back the tears that fought to
escape.  Boggs released his hand from my mouth, reaching back to open the
door.   My ears now ringing, I barely heard the slider open. 
Still holding me tightly against his body, Boggs pulled me inside and quickly
closed the door behind us.  Loosening his grip on me, he slid the lock on
the door into place and pulled the curtains closed.  We were in his
parent’s basement, which was cool and dark being set partially below ground
level.  My mouth was dry and my heart continued to beat wildly against my
chest.  We heard the squeal of tires outside followed by glass breaking
and metal crunching loudly.  The house shook with another explosion, this
time much closer.  A new set of screams began.  I walked to the couch
that sat under a small window that was situated halfway up the wall at ground
level and looked out at the front yard.  I had never been this full of
fear.  I knelt on the cushions of the faded brown and orange floral sofa
and dared to look out to the front street.  The shrubs were well
established, blocking our view.  Boggs knelt beside me in the same
fashion.  For the first time since entering the house one of us spoke.

 “Do you think we’re safe
here?”
I asked, my voice strained.

“No,” was all Boggs said while he
looked out toward the street.  After a long pause, he finally turned to
me.  “I can’t see anything Zo, but I think we need to leave and find
somewhere safe.  My Explorer’s in the garage.  I think we should pack
what we can and leave.”

“Where will we go?” I asked, still
speaking in a whisper.  My body was trembling.

He shook his head back and forth,
a bead of sweat dripping down his temple.  “I don’t know.  Let’s just
start by seeing if we can get any news on the TV.”

I nodded.  He crept down from
the couch and crawled to the corner where the television sat on the
floor.  It was an old set, the kind that doesn’t have a remote
control.  Boggs turned a knob and we waited.  Nothing happened.

“One of those explosions must have
been a transformer,” I mumbled, now biting on my thumbnail.

“Yeah,
probably.”

I was on the verge of spilling
tears.  Boggs came over and sat beside me on the tattered sofa. He looked
me in the eyes, holding my head in his hands to make sure I was fully paying
attention.

“We have to keep it together, Zoe.
Ok?” 

I nodded. 

“We need to go upstairs, get
water, food, clothes, cash,
blankets
. 
Like we’re going to be gone for a few days.
  Can you
help me with that?” 

I nodded again, still fighting the
tears. 

“Ok, let’s go. Stay away from the
windows.”   He stood up, and held a hand out to me.

I took his hand and stood.

“Jesus, Zoe. You’re
bleeding.”  He was looking down at my pants.  He knelt down to inspect
where blood from my hip had stained my jeans. 

“It’ll be fine,” I said,
sniffling.  I didn’t want him to know just how much it was starting to
hurt.

“We’ll need to look at it
upstairs.  No arguing.”

He walked to the far end of the
room, toward the stairway, and I followed.  We climbed the steps, Boggs in
front.  The landing that divided the staircase half-way up squeaked as we
reached it, causing us to pause.  Now directly in front of the main door
to the house, we heard unearthly moans coming from outside.  As Boggs
stepped closer to the door to check the deadbolt, I took a step back.

“Boggs, your parents are still in
Arizona, right?” I whispered.

“Ya, why?”

“I thought I heard something
upstairs.”

Boggs took his place in front of
me again, hushing his own voice now.  “Stay here, Zoe.”

Before I could argue, he let go of
my hand and was halfway up the last set of steps.  I felt my stomach drop,
the bitter taste of bile rising in my throat.  Sick with fear, I threw up
on the next step down from the landing.  I used the bottom of my t-shirt
to wipe my mouth.  I listened for some sign from Boggs, but only heard the
horrible moaning coming from outside.  I dared to look through the small
pane of glass in the door that allowed for peeking at visitors.  In the
street I could see the car that had crashed, turned on its side with smoke
coming from under the hood.  It was down about half a block, halfway in
the yard of an elderly couple that had lived there since before I could
remember.  The Robinson’s house sat across the street, next to my
own.  There was a woman lying face down on the lawn.  She was wearing
little white shorts, now stained red with blood, and a green and white flowered
bikini top.  By her flaming red hair I knew it was Nicole Park, the middle
aged woman who had moved in last year.  I could tell she was dead by her
deeply pale skin and the massive amounts of blood surrounding her.  Her
left arm was missing, the stump sporting torn muscle and ligaments.  The
neighborhood ended in a cul-de-sac, which was only partly in my line of
sight.  I could see several figures kneeling around something.  They
moved in unnatural ways.  Not far from them I could see a bicycle lying on
the ground, its rear wheel still spinning, and a pair of legs that were not
attached to a torso.  There was so much blood.  I must have been in
shock, because I reacted by giggling. No one in their right mind would giggle
at such a horrific sight.

“Zoe?” called Boggs.  “You
ok?”

I held my hand over my mouth,
trying to stifle the chuckling that I knew had no appropriateness right
now.  My laughs turned to sobs, still muffled by my own hand.

“Zoe,
shhhh
.
There’s no
one upstairs.  I checked everywhere.”  He walked down the steps two
at a time and joined me on the landing.  He took my free hand in his and
guided me up the stairs.  In the back waistband of his jeans was his dad’s
Kahr .45 caliber pistol.  I had always hated that his family kept
guns.  Now, though, I found the sight of the firearm comforting.

Once in the living room, Boggs
walked to an end table and picked up his cell phone.  I watched as he
punched a few buttons and listened.  “No service, Zo.  Let’s grab
what we can and get out of here.”

“I’m not sure I can do this,
Boggs.  This can’t be real.”  I could hear hysteria building in my
own voice.

He wrapped his arms around me and
squeezed.  “We’ll do this together, Zoe.  Just hold it together for
me?”  He kissed me on the forehead.

“There are more of them out
there,” I said in a strained voice.  “I saw them, out front.”

He nodded, and then kissed my
forehead again.  “Let’s get to the kitchen and look at your leg.”

We walked to the kitchen together.
The room was lit by a picture window that overlooked the greenbelt from which
we had just come. I stood looking out that window, watching tree leaves dancing
from a light breeze.

“Zoe, take your jeans
off.”   At any other time I’d make a joke.  Instead, I
unbuttoned, unzipped, and slid them off without saying a word as Boggs walked
to the pantry.

“My mom keeps a first aid kit in
here.  Let’s be sure to take it with us.”  He walked toward the
sink.  “Can you hop up here so I can look it over and clean it, Zo?”

“Ya, I think so.”  I walked
to the sink and put my hands on the counter behind me, and hoisted myself up,
wincing from the pain.

“It’s hurting pretty bad?” asked
Boggs.

“Not too bad,” I lied.

He bent down to look at the wound
on my hip more closely.  “It’s not big but it looks deep.”

“Great.”

“Have you had a tetanus shot?”

“Ya, last year
when I stepped on a nail.”

He opened a little flat square
package and removed a small alcohol wipe. “Hold still Zoe, it might
sting.”  He used the cold wipe to clean the wound, causing me to hold my
breath and make fists.

Boggs sighed. 
“Sorry, Zo.
  I know that hurt.  It looks like a
puncture.  I’m just going to put some Neosporin and a band aid on it, ok?”

I nodded, but remained
silent.  I knew if I tried to talk I’d start crying.

Once I was slathered in antibiotic
ointment and patched up with a band aid, Boggs helped me down and I sat at the
kitchen table while he looked for empty boxes.  It didn’t take him long to
come back from the garage with two sturdy shipping boxes.  He busied
himself filling them with cans from his mother’s pantry.

“Mrs. Park is dead.  She’s
lying on the Robinson’s lawn.”  My voice was lacking in emotion, which
must have been what caused Boggs to stop and look at me.

“I have a feeling a lot of people
are dead, Zoe.  Let’s stay focused till we get out of here, ok?”

“’Kay.”
 I returned to looking out at the
greenbelt.  

“Zoe.” Boggs’ voice calling my
name was faint.  I ignored it and kept looking out the window.  “
Zoe
Kate
.”  I looked at him.  “Go in the drawer under the microwave
and grab the can opener?  Please?”