The deer darted away when she walked toward the house. "What are you doing?" Xander hissed from behind her.
She waved her hand at him and continued through the trees. Reaching the edge of the wood line, she stopped to stare at the small blue farmhouse in the distance. "What are you doing?" Xander demanded again as he stepped beside her.
The mound at the far side of the pasture drew her attention. Her stomach twisted as she realized that it was another strange heap of horses. The already bizarre scene seemed even more disturbing with the luscious green grass growing in the pasture around them.
"There's people living in that house," she said.
"What makes you say that?" he inquired.
She pointed to where a deer was hanging from a hook off of the barn. "That deer hasn't been there for long."
"No it hasn't," he agreed.
The snap of a stick behind them brought both of their heads around. Carl and John were fifteen feet away and moving through the woods toward them. "What's up?" Carl inquired.
"There's a home," Riley answered.
Carl stepped up to her other side and looked down. "More mounds," he said.
"More mounds," she confirmed. "The people in the house are alive though."
"So strange," he murmured as he rubbed at the stubble on his chin. She believed that to be the understatement of the year as she turned her attention back to the mound of dead animals. "I think it would be best if we found somewhere to settle in for the night," Carl said but his voice was hushed. "We're not going to make it to the cabin today."
"Should we check out the house?" Riley inquired.
Carl pondered this before shaking his head. "I don't see any reason to risk a confrontation."
"And I've had enough of people pointing guns at me," Xander said.
John nodded as he shifted from foot to foot. "I have to agree with that."
"I don't think staying on the roadside is a good idea either, not after that mob we saw yesterday. We should try and find shelter," Carl said as he lit a cigarette.
Riley agreed with him. "Let's get moving then."
They made their way back through the woods to where they'd left the others. Donald, Jim, Nancy, and Al were moving through the sparse vehicles abandoned beside the roadway searching for supplies and gas. Freddie, Rochelle, and Josh had gathered near the car. They weren't much younger than she was but she suddenly felt ancient as she stared at their bowed heads.
Her gaze drifted to Peter as he moved through another set of vehicles in search of something. He acted completely normal, but the look she'd seen in his eyes earlier still haunted her. With a sigh, she followed Xander down the embankment to the roadside.
Climbing into the car, she waited for the others to join her. Al settled in beside her and pointed down the road. "The towns were all small through here; it shouldn't be difficult to find a remote home or store to stay in. I hope," he added in a mutter.
Riley really hoped so too as she shifted the car into drive. Her gaze scanned the tranquil roadway. She saw nothing out there but she knew the unseen was often more frightening than the seen.
CHAPTER 10
Carl,
Carl stood on the side of the door to the farmhouse and nodded to Xander to push it open. Xander turned the knob and ducked back to press himself against the wall across the way. Carl held his breath as he waited for something to come charging at them from inside. They'd discovered the house after leaving the highway and entering the next town. It was the first one they'd come across that hadn't had its windows broken out or its front door hanging open.
Carl counted to fifty before poking his head around the corner of the doorway. The shadowed interior kept all of its secrets until he flicked his flashlight on and shone the beam around the small hallway. The beam revealed racks of coats and shoes on one side and nothing but a forest green wall on the other. The light bounced off the glass of the closed door across from him. The scent of mildew and age permeated the hall and caused his nose to wrinkle.
"Mudroom," Riley said from beside him.
He realized that she was right as he stepped inside. He crept across to the other door and shone the light through the window to aim it around the inside of the house. He could see the open door of the fridge, and the blue linoleum floor, but the beam didn't go much further than the kitchen. Carl grabbed hold of the knob and pulled the door open.
The stench of rotten food, or at least he hoped it was only rotten food, hit him hard. He recoiled from the potent aroma and threw his hand up in a useless attempt to block the smell but it had already been seared into his nostrils. Carl edged his way into the kitchen, the open fridge door directly to his right blocked most of his view of the room. He pushed the door of the fridge closed so he could get a better look around the interior of the room.
Food and containers littered almost every inch of the floor. Most of it was moldy, and decayed beyond recognition, but it looked as if someone had been eating it. He prayed that it hadn't been recently. There were fingermarks in the sugar and flour that had been dumped on the floor.
"Oh ugh," Riley said from behind him and threw her arm over her nose. Her blue eyes watered as she stared at him over top of her arm.
"Maybe this isn't a good place to stay for the night," John muttered.
A clattering noise from somewhere deeper in the house brought all of their heads around. Carl couldn't tell if it had come from upstairs or down. "I don't think that's a cat," Xander said in a low whisper.
"Maybe we should find somewhere else to stay," John said more forcefully.
"It's too late to be driving around looking for other places," Carl told him. He brought his gun up before him as he stepped from the kitchen and into the dining room. "Plus this is a pretty rural area. There might not be a whole lot of other options around here."
"We'll check upstairs," Jim said and pointed to Josh, Mary Ellen, and Nancy to follow him to the stairs leading upward from the dining room.
"Be careful," Carl said before continuing on to the den and finally the living room. His beam played over the photographs lining the walls and the furniture filling the rooms but he didn't see anyone amongst the belongings of the home. He was turning away from the living room when he detected an odd rubbing sound.
His right arm went straight out before him as he spun back to the room with his gun raised. He held the flashlight up with his other hand to study the shadowed recesses more closely. He didn't see anything within the room and didn't know where someone could possibly be hiding, but he knew there was someone in the room with him.
John placed his hand on Carl's shoulder and slid past him to stand in the corner of the room. Carl pointed to the right, toward the end of the couch. He believed that might be where the noise had come from. John nodded and began to creep forward. The space between the couch and the wall didn't look as if it were big enough for a five year old to hide behind, but then he never would have expected Nancy to fit into the trunk that she had crammed herself into either. Riley and Xander came in behind him. They moved toward the front of the couch while he walked toward the end opposite of John.
The tension in the room was nearly palpable; he didn't even hear a breath from anyone as he kept his flashlight focused on the wall opposite the couch. He didn't want whatever was back there to know that they were approaching the piece of furniture. Something scraped against the wall again as Carl stepped around the arm of the couch. Keeping his gun before him, he spun and shone the light into the dark recesses behind the couch.
At first all he saw was a human back and then a face sluggishly turned toward him. He braced himself for the child to launch at him, but the boy remained crouched behind the couch, his hands clutching something that Carl couldn't see. The dull look in the boy's eyes, and his slack expression, made Carl realize this boy wasn't going to attack them. This child was one of The Lost Souls.
"It's a child," Riley whispered from where she knelt in the middle of the couch to peer over the ba
ck.
"It's a sick child," Carl emphasized. He took a crouched step closer to the boy whose cat green eyes remained unwavering and unseeing upon Carl. Those eyes were vivid in the glow of the flashlight, and more than a little unsettling, but Carl knew they couldn't leave the child there.
Carl held his hand out to the boy but he remained unmoving behind the piece of furniture. The child simply raised his hands and took a bite of whatever he was holding. Carl had the unsettling feeling it was some of the remains that had been sprawled and rotting on the kitchen floor. His stomach turned over at the thought, but he continued to hold his hand out to the child. The dirt smearing his face and the sharp angles of his sunken cheeks made it difficult to tell the boy's age, but judging by his size Carl guessed he was no older than six or seven.
"It's ok." Carl coaxed the child like he would coax any other animal he was trying to get out of hiding. He waved his fingers at him and spoke in a low, soothing tone. The boy didn't move and he didn't acknowledge Carl's words as he continued to stare ahead.
"I think we're going to have to move the couch to get him out," Riley said.
Carl nodded his agreement and rose to his feet. Riley and Xander climbed off the couch and he and John each grabbed an end. They lifted it up and moved it away from the wall. The boy didn't run away but his head turned to take in the people that gathered around him.
"Careful," Xander warned when Riley approached the child.
Carl's nose wrinkled as he moved closer to the child's other side. The boy wasn't covered in feces or urine but the aroma emitting from him led Carl to believe he hadn't washed himself in weeks. He was pretty sure there were three day old dead bodies, left out on a hot August day, that smelled better than this kid did. At least these Lost Souls were coherent enough to take care of their waste in a civilized manner, but then most animals were careful not to sleep in their own waste or to have the odor of it on them.
Animal. He was convinced that was what he was looking at right now. A human being who had been stripped of all coherent reasoning and left only with the ability to live in some form or another, no matter how good or bad that form was. At least the boy wasn't trying to eat them, that was a bonus.
"It's ok," Riley said as she knelt at the boy's side and touched his arm.
The boy turned toward her but didn't acknowledge her hand upon his arm. "He needs a bath," John muttered.
"We'll get him one," Riley assured him.
"Just be careful," Xander said again.
"I am," she murmured as she ran her hand over the boy's bruised arm.
Unlike the more malicious ones these Lost Souls didn't have the petechial rash the angrier ones exhibited. It was strange to see the different effects of whatever was raging through the ones that had fallen ill so up close and personal. They were both completely different from each other. One was full of rage and uglier than a hairless cat with boils. The other was calm, and though not the healthiest looking, there was still something human to them. The boy dropped his hands away from his face and remained backed up against the wall as he stared blankly ahead of him.
"Help me get him up Carl," Riley said.
Vicious man-eater or not, Carl wasn't at all thrilled about the idea of touching the child. They still didn't know how this disease spread, he was ninety-nine percent certain it wasn't through touch, but his skin crawled at the idea of coming into such close proximity with one of those people on purpose. Even so, he couldn't just walk away from him. Carl suppressed a groan as his fingers wrapped all the way around the child's bicep with room to spare.
He helped Riley lead the boy out from behind the couch. They moved him into the center of the room and settled him on the ground. "We'll get some water and we can wash him off," Riley said.
"You better get a fire hose," John muttered.
Riley shot him a disapproving look. Carl hadn't liked the way he said it but he found himself secretly agreeing with John. He took a step away from the boy and wiped his hands on his jeans. It wasn't enough; he would find some soap and a scrub brush as soon as possible. None of it appeared to bother Riley as she knelt before the boy to study him more closely.
"He's pulled out some of his hair but he hasn't picked at his skin like some of the others," she murmured.
Carl looked down at the pink bald spots on the boy's skull. "That's because he had food to keep him busy in the kitchen," John said.
Riley finally showed some sign of being repulsed as her upper lip curled and she leaned a little further away from the child. "Can someone get me some water and towels?" she asked. "After we clean him up we can try the L-Dopa on him."
"We'll make sure the rest of the house is empty first, and that the others are safe. Then we'll bring you some," Carl told her and nodded to John to follow him from the room.
"See if you can find him some clothes too," she instructed as he moved toward the door that led into the den.
"We will," Carl promised her.
"I'm going to stay here," Xander said. "I'm not leaving her alone with him."
The child remained unmoving in the middle of the room but Carl understood Xander's concern as Riley settled in beside the boy with her gun in her lap. She was too focused on trying to save someone to realize how much of a risk the boy could represent to all of them. "We'll be back soon," Carl promised.
Xander stepped away from them and walked over to stand protectively beside Riley. John followed him into the den and pulled on the sleeve of his shirt to halt him in the dining room. "Peter is not going to like what she intends to do," John whispered.
Carl nodded and glanced toward the doorway leading outside. Peter was still out with the cars, or at least he had been the last time that Carl had seen him. "I know and I don't care. It has to be done; we have to know if there is something we can do for those people. It may be our biggest help in all of this."
"Or it could be our biggest downfall," John said.
Carl didn't want to acknowledge that, if he did he would have to acknowledge the fact that it may very well be better for them to let people suffer and die. To let that boy suffer and die. He'd never considered himself an overly compassionate man but he simply couldn't walk away from that broken child without trying to do something for him.
"It could," he said thoughtfully.
"But we're going to try it anyway."
"Isn't that what humans have done throughout history, trial and error? Sometimes it worked in our favor and other times it was a giant failure. It's always been a live and learn process for millennia."
"Yeah well, tell that to the people at Chernobyl."
Carl snorted as he glanced at the still empty doorway. "Come on let's go find the others."
They met Jim at the top of the stairs as he came out of a bedroom on the right. "It's all clear up here," Jim informed him.
Carl stared at the shadowed room beyond Jim. "Did you look in every spot, even the really small ones you wouldn't think anyone could fit into?"
Jim frowned at him and folded his arms over his chest. "What happened?"
"We found a boy downstairs. He's one of the ones that just wander about aimlessly, one of The Lost Souls as we've come to call them," Carl told them. "And he had crammed himself behind the couch."
"I made sure to look everywhere," Nancy said.
She would have done so, Carl realized with a sense of relief. Jim stared down the stairs past he and John with a considerate frown on his face. "Are you sure the boy is one of these Lost Souls?" he inquired.
A chill slid down Carl's spine as Jim's words caused a thrill of apprehension to shoot through him. The sick ones are smart, far smarter than they'd given them credit for a few times. The child didn't have a rash, but how did he know for certain that all of the angrier ones would have the rash? Without a word, Carl spun on the stairs and rushed back down. He could hear the footsteps of the others behind him as he raced through the dining room and back through the den. He was breathless by the time he arrived in the living room.
Riley jumped to her feet at the sight of him and Xander spun to face him.
"What's wrong?" Riley demanded.
Carl inhaled a shaky breath as he took in the immobile boy still sitting on the floor staring at the wall. The cannibalistic ones may be smarter than he liked but this boy wasn't one of them. He put the gun back in the waistband of his jeans. "Nothing," he assured her. "The house is clear."
Riley didn't look as if she completely believed him but she didn't question him further. "Did you find any clothes for him?"
"No, I forgot to look," Carl told her.
"I'll get some now," Jim offered. "I know which room is his."
"I'll go with you," Nancy said and turned away from the door.
"Don't tell anyone else the boy is here," Carl said before they could leave the room. They exchanged puzzled looks before turning back to him. "I'll explain later, just don't let the others know he's here yet."
"Peter?" Jim asked.
"Yes." Jim nodded before leaving the room.
Mary Ellen brushed past Carl and walked over to where the boy sat. "He's so young," she murmured.
"He is," Riley agreed before going to stand next to the window. She pulled the slats of the blind apart to peer out; Carl spotted a swing set in the growing twilight. One of the swings swayed back and forth in the small breeze outside. "It's going to be a long night," Riley murmured before releasing the slats and stepping away from the window.
"We should probably go get the others," Mary Ellen said.
Carl dreaded speaking with Peter but he wasn't going to avoid the man; that was the last thing he was going to do. "I'll come with you to get the L-Dopa, some towels, and water for him," Riley said. "Will you stay with him?"
Mary Ellen nodded in response to Riley's question. Carl didn't think it was the best idea for Riley to be around Peter, there was a little too much hostility between the two of them, but Riley was already walking out of the room. Carl and Xander followed behind her while John and Mary Ellen stayed in the room with the boy.