The Decaying World Saga (Book 1): Tribes of Decay (9 page)

“I’m going to need help with this,” he said.

Mia looked on, waiting for more, but his aim became evident. Jacob guided the point of a screwdriver into a small slit between the floorboards. He jammed the tool beneath the board with a slap of his palm and motioned for Mia to slide her fingers under the exposed piece. Mia pushed her hand underneath the wood and lifted.

The entire closet floor gave way, pulling up in Mia’s hands. Jacob reached down into a dark hole beneath the exposed space and ran his hand along the side until he found what he was looking for. Mia had seen a lantern before although she’d never seen one that actually worked. Jacob laid it on the ground and pulled a small box from one of his coat pockets. The box slid open with a thumb push and the contents made Mia gasp. She knew what matches were, but she’d never seen any that produced a flame. Jacob opened one side of the lantern’s clear panels and removed a match from the box. He went to strike it when a series of crashes from the hall caused him to drop everything in his hands.

“Damn it!” he exclaimed. “You better get your butt down in that hole.”

He pinched the match off the cold wooden floor as another pair of hits smashed down on something in the hallway. Mia started for the dark pit in the bottom of the closet; she slipped one leg down onto the first foothold she could find and then stopped.

“What about you?”

Jacob kept his focus on his task, disregarding her excited utterance. A quick flick of the wrist brought the match to life. He ignored the echoing sound of cracking wood as it was joined by the distinct chatter of dead-speak. The wick sparked to life the moment the flame touched the material. Jacob closed the exterior panel on the lantern and adjusted the fuel. He was on his feet again before he turned his attention back to Mia.

“Would you prefer we wait here for them to get in and eat us?”

The question snapped Mia’s attention back to the task at hand. She plunged down into the darkness in a hurry and didn’t stop until her feet hit solid ground. The light from the room was lost the moment Jacob closed the closet door and pulled the makeshift cover back into place. He started running through an underground tunnel the moment his boots touched the bottom, offering no explanation for their course. The lamp provided enough illumination to keep the darkness at bay. Mia took a long breath and then one last look at the hole above before scampering off after him.

9

Rowan wrestled with terrible thoughts. He knew the moment Mia stepped away from him that he shouldn’t have let her go alone. He also knew he couldn’t have talked her out of it no matter what he said. His gut churned with every nightmarish vision and he was incapable of thinking of anything else.

He steadied himself with his hands on the floor. It took him a while to get up into a sitting position and the idea of standing felt hopeless. Rowan rocked back and forth then, ignoring the pain in his spine, he forced himself forward. The push launched him with enough force to get his feet under him. The standup was shaky, but Rowan was on his feet. He kept his eyes on the flames of the fire unsure if he was going to fall on top of it.

Rowan used the first few steps grab his gear and head toward the darkness on the far side of the room. He found the opening in the wall and the first step of a staircase he figured Mia used to reach the ground floor. He didn’t want to test his strength much further so he settled his goal on the opposite side of the room. He had a vague memory of following Jacob into the bowels of the building, but there wasn’t enough to recall the details.

A pair of dusty blankets covered an opening near the center of the wall. Rowan pulled one-half aside and peered in. The light exposed few details and left Rowan wallowing in his thoughts. He settled in beside the fire, resting his legs. The flames were beginning to lose their strength and it wouldn’t be long before he was left cold and alone. His thoughts were on Mia. She was out there somewhere, as alone and scared as he was.

A low murmur pulled him from his deliberations. The growling sound was faint, but familiar enough to send a chill down his spine. An echo got him up to his feet again. He gathered his things as he considered what to do. Rowan doubted his strength, but a burning fear in his chest drove him on. He stood at the bottom of the staircase looking up at the landing two flights above. It took one long breath to gather his courage.

“I can do this.”

The announcement preempted the first step. He reached the midway point of the stairs before a shot of pain pulsed from the tips of his toes up to the back of his neck. The throbbing forced him to reach out for the wall to keep himself standing. Rowan ground his teeth and continued. The pain was persistent, but he refused to stop. He reached the landing after several agonizing waves and nearly collapsed on the dirty, concrete slab.

Rowan took his time gathering his thoughts and his attention fell on a tall, metal door in the wall across from the stairs. The face of the door shuttered once and the sound grabbed a hold of him. Rowan took a few hesitant steps, never looking away. The door shuddered again, this time longer than the first. A noise followed the vibration, providing a haunting impression of what lay beyond the exit. The volume rose, but Rowan knew what it was long before it reached a resounding height.

Dead-speak was a terrifying thing to hear. The slithering whispers mixed between vulgar growls to create an abhorrent conversation. They were close, and worse, there were a lot of them. Rowan backed away from the door, doing his best to remain silent. The next set of ascending stairs offered his only means of escape. Part of him said he’d be better off waiting it out down by the remains of the fire, but thoughts of Mia out in the streets on her own were too much to bear.

He climbed up to the next landing and found the interior stairwell door missing. The pale night sky lit the hall beyond the doorway through an exterior wall comprised of transparent panels. A series of obstacles littered the way in either direction. Doorways lined the hall on the interior wall with a wide opening running along the center of the building. Rowan stepped out into the hallway and leaned away from the stairwell. He got his first look at the outside and the shock forced him back with an incomplete view. He had to run the picture back through his mind in order to piece it together.

“What the hell?”

Rowan slipped his face forward, sliding the tip of his nose against the window. The image in his mind had been correct although he was still having trouble processing what he was seeing. They were running; more figures than he could count. Under the frail light, it was difficult to make out, but their mannerisms and irregular twitching gave them away. The odd formation moved forward like an advancing army, hurrying along as if late for some important event.

Rowan slid back, his ears filled with the growing thunder of his heart. Mia was out there somewhere and there was no one to help her. He knew at once that he could not keep his promise to wait for her. The thought urged him into motion. Rowan backed away toward the inner wall, ignoring the growing pains in his legs and back. He held his knife up and tapped the end of his bow slung over his back in order to ensure himself it was there if he needed it.

He crept forward, the sounds of the infected lost somewhere in the hollow stairway behind him. Rowan took no notice of the figures on the street. The view wouldn’t help him at the moment and it surely wasn’t going to calm his nerves. It took him longer than expected to reach the far end of the building. Stacks of broken furniture and debris were laid out in ancient defensive positions from a fight lost somewhere in time.

The continuing hallway provided a different view beyond the turn. Most of the panels on the exterior side of the building were missing. A cool breeze met Rowan’s face as the familiar sounds of the infected reached his ears. Rowan got down on his hands and knees, crawling toward the closest opening. He was on his stomach, sliding his chin over the edge of the building, looking two stories down.

The street view was calmer than Rowan expected. Movement to the north and south told him that the infected group he’d seen was not alone. He strained his eyes eastward and made out multiple clusters running from building to building. Rowan’s eyes snapped back, looking down on what was directly below him. He figured he couldn’t do anything about the growing chaos unless he managed to get out of his predicament.

A drop down to the street was a quick solution, but Rowan wasn’t looking forward to it. There was a good chance that his current condition would leave him paralyzed the moment his feet slammed onto the cement. He considered trying to wait out the infected mobs, but that would lessen his chances of catching up with Mia. Rowan ran his eyes up the side of the building and found a possible solution right under his nose.

Several of the panels were busted out on each of the floors, both above and below Rowan’s position. He estimated a drop down to the floor below would be safer than trying the entire length of the building in a single shot. The catch, he quickly discovered, was how he was going to swing out and then down to the next floor. He would have to accomplish it without leaving himself dangling from the side of the building, or worse, plummeting all the way down to the street.

Rowan did a hasty search of the rooms along the hall and found little of use. He stood at the edge of a broken panel looking down, still unsure of what he was going to do. He put his knife away. The space between the first and second floor wasn’t wide enough to make an attempt impossible, but his current condition made him pause. He settled his mind on the way forward, pushing through his risk-averting nature.

He tried not to think about what he was doing as he laid down on the floor and slid his legs out into the cool, night air. Rowan reached his waist and knew any further would take him past the point of no return. He ground his teeth and inched his stomach back. He was up on his elbows then holding himself by his hands. His thin frame dangled off the side of the building as he rocked back and forth.

Rowan felt a twinge in his spine as the muscles tightened. The burning in his fingertips came quick and he knew he had a few seconds at best. He heard the growls of the dead only a moment before he let go. The fall to the next floor down felt much further than it should have and the impact was far more painful than he hoped. His mind moved faster than his body. Rowan thought to get up to his knees and pull out his bow, but that didn’t happen.

The tattered remains of a once pale blue carpet took up all of his view. Rowan lay flat on the ground, unable to move a single muscle. The sounds of the dead were close and moving in his direction. The feverous pitch of their loathsome call grew with sudden intensity, enough to announce the hunters had found their meal.

Rowan regained some of the strength in his arms and didn’t waste any time pushing off the ground. The move opened up his view, but he wasn’t happy with what he saw. The floor was nothing like the one above. The entire space was open, dotted with the remains of crumbling dividers and solid steel beams. A wave of shuffling outlines reaching out for him was unmistakable even in the darkness.

The pain in his legs subsided enough to get Rowan moving. He had his bow in his hands before he stood up. A quick scan said neither his bow nor his knife would be enough. His only hope lied in going out the same way he came in. There was no time to prep himself or gauge his landing point. Rowan spun around as the first of a pack of rotting corpses tried to grab a hold of his arms. He slapped down on his butt and slid out the side of the building without a thought. The last thing he felt was the tip of a finger slipping through the hair on the back of his head.

The impact on the sidewalk was far worse than the one before it. Rowan hit flatfooted and went down, sending one of his knees up into the bottom of his chin. Warm blood filled his mouth from somewhere along his lips as he lay flat on his back. His eyes were open and his blurred vision painted a terrible picture.

The dead had not given up. The first zombie stepped out of the broken panel on the first floor like it was expecting to continue its stroll through the air. The decomposing body plummeted toward Rowan and he barely had time to roll before the figure hit the ground with a solid thud. The result got Rowan up, despite the intense pain, but the zombie didn’t fare as well. The dive had been in poor form, ending in a headfirst landing. Its skull burst open like an overripe fruit resulting in a colorful display of brains and bits of hair and skin.

A combined howl signaled that the remaining members of the undead group had leapt from the building in a gaggle. Rowan forced himself to run, knowing several of the divers were sure to land on one another saving them from the fate of the first jumper. He ran south along the sidewalk across the street. He had a vague idea of how Mia would try to reach the tribe, but he wasn’t certain what she would do if forced to go in another direction.

He kept a moderate pace, partly because of the constant movement around him, but mostly because his body wouldn’t allow him to move any faster. Rowan slid between the shadows of the buildings, dashing out in the open only when there was no other way to go. He stopped from time to time, studying the details of any figures out in the light. He ignored groups; sure, they were part of the infected invasion. He looked for slow movements, any signs of someone trying to hide themselves away. If Mia were out in the open, she would have to move in quick bursts and stay hidden as she waited to move again. He was following the exact same pattern.

The first rays of morning light caught Rowan by surprise. He was closer to the tribe’s buildings than he guessed. He was more surprised by how hard he’d pushed himself throughout the night. There was no sign of Mia and thoughts of where she might be played havoc on his mind. Exhaustion was setting in and Rowan feared he might not get his legs moving again if he risked a long stop.

He’d nearly given in to fatigue when a new light grabbed a hold of his attention. The fire was larger than any he’d ever seen. The flames filled the sky covering the rooftops of several structures. It took Rowan several stunned moments to realize it was the tribe’s building tops lighting up the darkness. He was running before he knew what he was doing.

Rowan rounded the corner of an adjacent building and reached the middle of the street before he caught sight of several people rushing in and out of the ground floor entrance. A wave of fury resonated around the base of the structure. Rowan came to a sliding stop nearly toppling over his feet. Had the host of infected not been in the midst of depraved delight, he would have been spotted for certain.

He backed away, tiptoeing at first and then running as fast as his weary body would carry him. He reached the side of the main tribal building and pressed his back against the wall. The sound of the infected surrounded him, distracting his every thought. Something told him he had to reach the rooftop, but he wasn’t sure how. Darian’s face suddenly popped into his head. The pair had snuck off and back on to the building many times, and the front entrance was far from their favorite means of escape.

Rowan slid along the wall to one of the many broken exterior windows. He popped his head in for a quick look before hopping in. The sounds echoing through the hollowed-out interior told him the infected had already entered the building. His eyes bulged as he tried to see through the darkness. Several quick steps brought him to one of the four stairwells, two of which were cleared enough to reach the highest floors.

He went up three steps at a time and reached the fourth floor before the first signs of trouble. They were moving upward, Rowan could hear the gaggle only a floor above him. He listened for them to stop, but they never did. Rowan followed at a distance, moving as quickly as the infected were capable of climbing. It wasn’t until they were near the top of the building that he realized there was something quite different about his guides. The problem in Rowan’s mind was the silence. The dead-speak he’d heard all his life was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until they came to a stop that an unmistakable set of directions resonated down the stairs.