The Survivors: Book One (50 page)

Her worried eyes watched the drunken passage of a very large group of dirty, well-armed Mexican men, rolling down the street like they owned it. Praying none of them looked her way, she listened to shouts, glass breaking, and wild gunfire that made her duck down a bit more.

These were the stragglers, hurrying to catch up to the main group she had already watched go by, the sky behind them warning of another nasty storm coming. She ignored the throbbing leg that confirmed the forecast. Samantha had been moving very cautiously since surviving the battle with wolves, and her alert eyes saw the billowing, black smoke filling the air in the direction the Mexicans had come from. Were they the ones who had taken NORAD?

The small cellar room Sam had taken shelter in was cold and stank of mildew. The floor was covered in standing, stagnant water, but she only had eyes for the dangerous men moving through the devastated neighborhood bordering the big, dark city.

Samantha didn’t know who they were, but it was clear they were trouble. Not that she would have made contact even if they’d looked okay. She hoped to be left alone until she got to Cheyenne, and it never crossed her mind that this group might be headed there, too.

Samantha had seen more bodies around here than in other places, the dead carrying sores that made her push away horrible flashes of the bunker where she had killed her first man, but there had been live people, too - brief, distant glimpses of her fellow survivors that sent her dropping out of sight as fast as she could.

Sam was heavily-armed now, shame and paranoia her constant companions. The pair had settled onto her shoulders, making her prefer the lonely solitude to the conversations she would be forced to have. What would she say?
“Hi. I’m Sam. I had a pass to the government’s safe bunker, but my chopper crashed, and now I’m stuck out in this hell with you common folk.”
Not a good idea.

She did want to be with others again, longed for her normal life back, but there was only one type of people she could live with, she understood that now. The thought of being alone didn’t bother her nearly as much as how everything had changed, how dangerous even living had become.

Sam’s eyes looked over the last of the vehicles driving though the dirty slush, lingering on the very distant shadow of purple mountains with dull, white peaks. They would be full of lavender columbine by now, gigantic ash trees and evergreens providing homes for the rabbits, cranes, and larks she hadn’t seen down here. Up there was a whole different world.

Her leg had healed slowly and painfully, forcing her to spend two full weeks at a farmhouse just south of the hunting lodge. She was glad the morphine had only held out for the first six days. Any more than that might have turned her into a junkie.
Almost had anyway,
she thought, still wanting that liquid gold buzz, even though normal Tylenol was controlling the pain.

Traveling was hard though, and she had only been able to keep going because of the cart she’d found in a shed behind a vandalized golf course. She had been back on the road for almost a week now and still wasn’t sure if it had been hunger driving the wolves, or something else. The way they’d tracked her, surrounded her, and waited for the storm’s cover, implied organization.

“Almost like they planned it,” she muttered lowly, pulling her trench coat closer as the last of the muddy jeeps fell out of her view that was distorted by the light rain on the dirty glass, and the tier of dark Hanukah candles that would stay that way forever. “They were the hunted before. Now they’re the hunters.”

Her words, spoken quietly, disturbed the occupants of the dank basement that she hadn’t noticed when she’d quickly limped down the steep wooden steps, seeking refuge from the large group of obviously dangerous men. Suddenly, Sam realized her safe shelter wasn’t so safe.

There was movement in the corner and she froze, heart thudding. A soft slither around a cobweb-covered ceiling beam - long and drawn out as it slid closer, another ripple of movement along the floor, a dark, weaving shadow under the inches of water - and Sam’s paralysis broke. She had to get out of here!

Staying low, Sam swung the sharpened walking stick in front of her as she limped to the steps, able to feel the snakes gliding toward her from above. There was no hissing, no noises except for hers, and it was menacing.

Samantha took the steep stairs two at a time, seeing another, larger snake coming from behind the wooden steps and she lunged up the last three.

Unable to stifle a cry as she rolled, she lost her cane, her bad leg taking the brunt of her weight.

The air moved near her head, and she rolled again, hitting the wall. On her feet a second later, Sam quickly limped to the door, not able to see anything following, but sure the hungry reptiles were there.

The feeling was gone as she moved through the heavily-decorated front door, but she didn’t slow as the rain pelted her, only slid her goggles over haunted blue eyes. The ghost town around her was silent, smoking heavily in places, and Sam wondered if the fallout that was changing nature’s routines and habits, was also affecting the people.

She had seen things since the War that made even Stephen King’s stories seem tame, and it was everywhere. Dead corpses full of bullet holes, female bodies still lying with their legs spread and mouths open in mi-scream, the family dog impaled on a broken porch rail, blood smears in the shape of a small hand on the stone walk. Her eyes landed on these things and flew away each time, but she knew she’d see them ‘up close and personal’ in her dreams. There was no escaping it.

2

Cesar and his Slavers were indeed headed toward southern Wyoming, where survivors had been heard calling for help, attracting his attention instead. These refugees read the American Pledge of Allegiance and sang the anthems over the radio. Cesar couldn’t wait to show them who this new America belonged to.

Chapter Twenty Five

March 11
^th
, 2012

Pitcairn Island                                    

1

Kendle winced at a brilliant bolt of white lightning forking across the cloudy sky, her stomach churning as the storm roared down on them.

“Nice night for a ride. Come on!" Luke shouted over the thunder, grinning, and Kendle moved faster, fighting the stiff wind and driving rain. She pulled the cabin door shut and shouldered the backpack while she ran for the idling bike.

The storm had been growing all day. When Luke had said to pack a bag, that they were going to higher ground, she hadn’t argued, despite not wanting to be soaked and get a chill from a midnight ride. She would face anything that kept her off that merciless ocean. She threw her leg over and grabbed hold of his belt buckle.

The bike jerked forward, throwing her back, and Luke grabbed for her blindly. He snagged her jacket and pulled her back on behind him. He found her hand, wrapped it around his hips, and she buried her head against his strong back, heart skipping in her chest. The angry sky above them lit up again, lightning flashing wildly, and Luke wanted to comfort her when she jumped, but already had his hands full keeping the Yamaha moving steadily on the muddy path.

Kendle knew to mold her body to his so their matched movements would help him keep them balanced. She held on tight, feeling his muscles flexing, controlling, his heartbeat comforting against her ear, and these things were a relief in spite of the fear. All in all, she’d much rather take her chances on land, with Luke. There wasn’t a road or any lights that signaled other people, the island natives miles apart, and she closed her eyes when the path they were on narrowed suddenly by more than half.

Soon they were under the protective canopy of a thick forest of tall, leafy trees. Sheltered from the worst of the weather pounding on the thick vegetation far above them, he took a moment to check on her. “You okay?”

She pushed closer against his back, not looking, as lightning flashed again.

“Be there in half an hour.”

She nodded, miserable physically, but emotionally, she felt only unbelievable gratitude that someone else was in charge of this crisis.

They moved through the thick, black jungle at a steady pace for what seemed like hours to Kendle. Muddy, unseen, leafy plants and vines slapped at them from the dense darkness around their speck of a headlight, and the rain began to beat on them again when Luke turned onto an extremely narrow path that veered out of the trees and down a steep hill.

The fast-moving bike hit the bottom, and Kendle clung to him as they shot upward, very close to tipping over. They evened out onto a rocky path that led gradually up a tall hill dotted with heavily-swaying banyan trees. Rain pelting their faces, wind stealing her breath in little, painful gusts each time he rounded a curve, Kendle held on tight, and waited for it to be over.

Blindingly vivid lightning flashed overhead abruptly, moving toward them at thousands of miles per hour, and their ears were filled with a roaring thunder as it slammed into the ground, exploding in a ball of vivid red and white light.

Ccrraaacckkk!

There was no way to avoid the flaming, bushy tree that crashed to the ground across their path, and the bike tire hit the thick log at full speed, flipping them into the air.

Arm still deadlocked around his waist, Kendle screamed, and then the breath was knocked out of her as they hit the mud and slid toward the edge of the steep hill.

Kendle sucked in air to scream again, hands clawing for purchase as she felt herself start to go over, and the small breath shot out in another piercing shout as she started to fall.

Luke snagged her slick wrist, pulling it out of its socket for a second of awful pain, before hauling her up and into his arms. “You all right, Darlin?”

She buried her head against his chest and Luke held her close as he got to his feet. Moving back to the muddy path that he had no trouble seeing in the dark, Luke had a brief, horribly real flash of trying to carry each villager out of ground zero and shook it away. Now was not the time.

The rain fell harder, washing away some of the mud on their hands and faces, and Luke didn’t stop to look at the bike, but carried her to a dark hillside before setting her gently on her feet.

“Hang on a minute, little girl, and we’ll be inside.”

Kendle saw nothing that resembled a shelter, and her eyes widened when he pulled aside a large patch of grass like it was a carpet, revealing a wide, steel door set into the earth.

Realizing carpet was right, she watched him twist the combination lock into place. When he disappeared inside, she followed with only a little hesitation. She had that unnerving sense of wrongness as she went in, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been previously and she guessed that was one of the few wounds that might heal completely with enough time. She had been back on land for a little over three weeks, but a lot of the horror was still there, lurking just under the surface of her polite smiles and casual words.

The storm’s sounds were muffled by the dirt, and when a light flared in the darkness, then brightened, allowing her to look around, Kendle was glad to know they wouldn’t be laid up short.

Luke lit the lamps hanging in each corner of the 8’ x 10’ x 30’ room, and Kendle stared in approval. Everything they needed was here. The walls were concrete, the floors, ceiling, chairs, and small table all made of plain yellow wood - as were the long rows of shelves running the length of the back wall, and everywhere she looked, there were supplies. Serious survival supplies.

Lamps, batteries, weapons, a gas stove hooked to a grill, lots of dusty boxes marked ‘fragile, handle with care’. It was all neatly arranged, and there were personal touches here that were missing from the bare walls of his small cabin, like the pictures of a jungle, behind American soldiers holding rifles up and grinning.

Were these the men he had served with in ‘Nam? LJ hadn’t said he’d been there, hadn’t even told her that he was a soldier, but she knew. He was way too tight-lipped and organized to be anything but military, and she’d figured the place by his age. He had told her he would be sixty-one on the sixth of July, but she was pretty sure that back in the day, Luke had been a badass. The young man in those pictures certainly looked the part.

“This is amazing. You built it yourself?”

Luke unfolded a blue tarp behind the open door as she got a towel out of the backpack to wipe her face. “Dug it, mostly. Frank helped when I started putting in the walls and ceiling. We’re only three miles from the cabin, but we’re almost a hundred feet higher. Even a rogue wave won’t reach here.”

He ducked back out into the storm, and Kendle forced herself to wait, hating the awful loneliness that swept over her every time Luke was out of sight. She could follow. He'd made it clear he liked having her around. He hadn’t even wanted to tell her that the doctor had a room in town if she felt uncomfortable staying with him. She got the sense that he was lonely too, and his full days backed that up. It spoke of someone wanting to be too tired to think or even dream when he went to bed, and that, she understood completely.