The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (34 page)

Riley gave a little chuckle. She walked
across the front of the barn, stretching her back as she moved.
"You've seen the way I drive, right?"

John contemplated her response before
answering, "Touché."

"I still have nightmares about it," Carl
muttered.

John glanced over at where Carl sat around
the corner of the barn; his back was against the tire of the truck.
His chin rested against his chest but he lifted his head to blink
at them. "I didn't mean to wake you," Riley apologized.

Carl yawned and rubbed tiredly at his eyes.
"It doesn't matter; an hour of sleep does a body good."

"You're having a bad feeling about tonight?"
John pressed Riley.

She glanced around before focusing on him
again. "I'm not sure it's a bad feeling, so much as I can't shake
the feeling that something is out there."

"There's always something out there lately,"
Carl said.

He knew Carl's words were right but he
remained focused on his haunting dream. He could still recall his
mother's laugh as he glanced at the shadows bouncing over the barns
surrounding them. He turned to look at the woods beyond the barns,
but he didn't see any unearthly fires burning within the trees.

"No, this is something else, something
different, and it's coming this way," Riley whispered.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up at
Riley's cryptic words. He was becoming increasingly certain that
something was beckoning to him from somewhere in the night. He just
had to know where to look, or actually he had to
start
looking. His heart leapt into his throat at
the idea, but once it took root in his mind it was impossible to
shake. Putting his good hand on the ground, he pushed himself to
his feet and brought his gun before him.

"What is it?" Carl asked.

John searched for a firefly in the dark, a
lantern, something like what he'd seen in his dream but the night
remained as dark as ever. "I just…" Just what? Had a dream with a
voice and a bonfire? Carl would get the biggest kick out of that
and he wasn't much in the mood for his sarcasm or laughter right
now. Not when he was becoming increasingly certain there were
answers to be found, if he ended up looking like an idiot so be it,
but he
had
to look. "Thought I
heard something."

Carl glanced around before shrugging and
facing Riley again. "I hope whatever it is waits until the
morning."

"I don't think that's going to happen,"
Riley said.

John would have thrown her a deck of tarot
cards if he'd had one. If the world hadn't fallen apart she could
have made a fortune off of people at county fairs. He could picture
her waving her fingers over a crystal ball as she revealed
someone's future. She really had a way of drawing things out and
making them sound ominous.

"I'm going to go check out the track," he
said.

"Why?" Carl demanded but he was already
rising to his feet.

"I just have to."

"Are you having "feelings" now too?" John
was tempted to smack Carl for the finger air quotes that he put
around the word feelings, but he would have been just as skeptical
if the roles had been reversed.

"You can stay here," he replied.

"No, a stroll around this place, at night,
sounds like a great idea right now or the beginning of a
really
bad horror movie."

John ground his teeth together and glared at
him. Carl didn't acknowledge the death stare as he pulled out a
cigarette and lit it. "I'm going with you," Riley volunteered.

"We can't leave Xander here by himself,"
John said.

"I'll wake him," Riley said.

She walked past John and over to where
Xander was propped up against the back tire of the truck. She
rested her hand on his shoulder. He woke with a start and stared
around in confusion as she spoke with him. He wiped at his eyes,
glanced around, and rose tiredly to his feet.

Carl opened the door to the truck to
retrieve a flashlight. "Will it be ok to leave the truck?" Xander
asked.

"It should be fine," Carl said but he still
grabbed the keys from the ignition. "Are you sure about this?"

"I can't just sit here right now, that's for
sure," John said as he scanned the night again. They'd seen nothing
other than some wandering horses since arriving here but he was
certain there were answers to be found amongst the shadowed
buildings. There were also numerous places to hide but if there was
someone out there that was going to try and eat them, they would
have already tried to do so.

Their footsteps were nearly silent as they
walked down the paved road in between the rows of barns on this
hillside. At the bottom of the road was a hill that went down to an
oval track encircled by a white fence. The large grandstand
building stood to the right of the track; the gleaming moonlight
reflected off of its darkened windows. In the center of the track a
handful of horses grazed on the grass while others slept in the
field.

"Where are we going?" Riley asked from
beside him.

"I don't know," John muttered. He just knew
that his eyes were open and that a voice had promised him answers.
It was absolute insanity, he knew that, and if someone else had
said it to him, he might actually have considered tying them up,
but he was becoming increasingly certain there were answers to find
here.

Going on instinct and the memory of what
they'd seen from the road, he was drawn irresistibly to the left
and the other track located there. They walked past a cluster of
more barns on their right. The flashlight beam bounced
disconcertingly over the pavement. The strain the bobbing light
placed on his eyes made his head pound but he continued on.

Nearing the other track, he started picking
up on a strange noise, one he didn't immediately recognize. "Is
that hoof beats?" Carl inquired.

John felt the color leech from his face. Of
course there could be hoof beats, there were horses all around them
but the mention of hoof beats brought him back to the dream he'd
had with his father weeks ago. That dream had also left him rattled
and confused upon waking but it hadn't left him with the certainty
there were finally answers to be found like this dream had. His
step faltered slightly and he froze for a second before hurrying to
catch up with the others again.

"I think they are," Xander answered.

The barns and buildings on their right began
to fade away. John frowned and tilted his head back to look at the
clear night sky again. His sore neck protested the movement; he
dropped his head down to take in the area around them. The hoof
beats echoed in the air as they continued to pound across the
ground. The buildings fell away to reveal another oval track at the
bottom of a hill. Like the other track, there were horses in the
center field of this one but they were running toward the chain
link fence on the far side of it. Before they could crash into the
fence, the animals all skidded to a halt and spun around to come
back toward them. Some of the animals fled across a grassy hill on
their right but more than a dozen of them ran across the grassy
center of the track.

He had no idea what had spooked the animals,
or what drove them to run from one end of the dirt track to the
other but he couldn't shake the hideous belief this strange running
was the precursor to the awful mounds they'd seen throughout their
travels.

"What are they doing?" Riley whispered.

Carl clicked the flashlight off, but
strangely, the night around them didn't dim. With the flashlight
off, John could see that the strange light of the night wasn't
coming from the moon. The illumination came from the area in
between the two tracks where a water truck and an assortment of
other vehicles were parked in front of a large building. It took
him a minute to realize that the building must have been the
maintenance area for the racetrack.

The vehicles and building were oddly lit up
but he couldn't see what was causing it. The light encroached upon
the track as it moved toward them. The horses had already made it
to the other side of the track again and were now fleeing back
toward them.

The only sound the animals made was the
pounding of their hooves across the dirt. The horses didn't whinny,
they didn't cry. John looked down as the horses stopped at the
bottom of the hill beneath them again. Their sides heaved, their
nostrils flared, and their eyes rolled in their heads as they
pressed together against the grassy hillside.

"What the…?" Xander's voice trailed off.

John found his hand inexplicably shaking
upon his gun. His dream had promised answers, it had promised
beauty, but he couldn't shake the feeling that his subconscious had
been lying to him. Perhaps it hadn't been his subconscious talking
to him after all; perhaps it really had been something more. Riley
had her feelings and maybe he had his voices. His voices might have
been coming from demons though.

He was definitely losing his mind, he
decided. He wanted to get out of here, but he found himself unable
to move even a centimeter as he waited for the source of that light
to reveal itself.

And then the light moved into view. It felt
like the world did a complete one eighty while he stared down at
the spectacle before him. He would have pinched himself, he would
have asked the others if they were seeing what he was seeing too,
but not one part of his body would respond to anything he told it
to. What had revealed itself was so completely unbelievable that it
shattered everything he thought he'd ever known about the world. It
took every belief he'd ever had and threw it out the window. He was
scared it also took a part of his mind and completely shredded it
of all the sanity that it may have still possessed.

What revealed itself was so awful that John
knew Hell had been unleashed upon earth. Yet, as the voice had
promised, there was a strangely captivating beauty about it. He
couldn't tear his eyes away as it continued across the field to the
horses below them. He was mesmerized by it as the horses began to
climb over top of one another in an attempt to escape the creation
baring down upon them.

A part of him wanted to cry, another part
understood everything that had happened. Understood every awful
event and thing that had been unleashed since the quakes had
started on that long ago day at seven twenty-two in the morning. He
had his answers. They might not have been the ones he'd been
seeking, weren't even the ones he'd been expecting but it all made
perfect sense to him now.

Mary Ellen,

She could feel the beat of her heart
slamming against her ribs; feel the pulse of her blood in her
fingertips as more gunshots rang out from the camp. A scream built
in her throat but she fought it back. All she could think about was
getting to her daughter; Rochelle's name ran repeatedly through her
mind as she forced herself to speeds she'd never considered
possible.

Her foot got caught up on a tree root; she
tripped and nearly fell but managed to keep her balance as
adrenaline drove her onward. Screams and shouts echoed from the
camp as she arrived at the back of the cabin and ran toward the
front of it. Donald grabbed hold of her arm, jerking her back
before she could bolt out into the open.

"What are you doing?" she protested loudly
when he pushed her against the side of the cabin.

"Wait!" he commanded brusquely.

She didn't want to wait, she jerked on her
arm but he didn't release her as he poked his head cautiously
around the corner of the building. Al caught up to them and stopped
on the other side of her. "He's right," Al huffed. "You could get
shot."

More gunshots rang out; a scream pierced the
air. "We have to help them!" she cried.

She jerked her arm away from him as Donald
pulled his head back. "Let's go, but cautiously," Donald advised
before ducking out around the building.

Mary Ellen stayed low behind him and rushed
forward. "Coming from behind!" Donald shouted as they ran toward
the others.

Claire stood on the other side of the
clearing with Freddie at her side. They barely glanced back at them
as they were busy firing at the sick people coming at them from the
woods. One look at their flaking skin, tattered clothes, and the
flesh of the gray naked one was enough for Mary Ellen to confirm it
was the same group from earlier. Her eyes shot toward where Nancy
stood by the lake but she didn't see Victor or Rochelle
anywhere.

Thoughts were barely able to form in her
mind as she frantically searched for her daughter. Continuing
toward the others, she finally spotted Rochelle around the corner
of the cabin and to the left of Claire. She fired at one of the
sick ones approaching her but another one was coming at her from
the side.

"Rochelle look out!" The words were screamed
so forcefully that her throat instantly became raw.

She fired wildly at the creature stalking
her daughter while she continued to run. Bullets slammed into the
earth around the one hunting Rochelle, they were all off their
mark. She swore her heart stopped as the creature launched at
Rochelle and brought her down. Everything around her burst into
crisp detail, the world dropped out from under her.

There had been many times in her life when
she'd been afraid, but all of those paled in comparison to watching
that thing pounce upon her daughter. Speed she didn't know she had
burst from her as a shout of rage tore from her brutalized throat.
She raced across the clearing and flung herself onto the back of
the monster on top of her daughter.

The sight of her daughter's blood caused
another bellow to escape her. She clawed and beat savagely at the
thing under her. The feel of the creature reminded her of a snake
laying out to absorb the sun as the heat of its skin burned against
her hands. The thing had a temperature high enough to fry its
brain, something she was certain had already happened. She'd
assumed its skin would feel slimy or even scaly like a snake's.
Instead it felt like any other person with dry skin would feel. If
that skin was also fiery, festering and infested with maggots in
some areas.