Al stood on the porch with Donald when they left the house. Claire and Freddie were standing near the truck with Rochelle. Carl searched for Peter but didn't see him in the growing darkness. "Where did he go?" he asked Al.
Al didn't even ask who. "Peter's behind the shed."
Riley hurried down the stairs to the car. Carl waited until she was searching through the backseat before continuing to talk with Al. "There's a boy inside. A Lost Soul."
His attention had been focused on the shed but Al's head turned toward him. "How bad of condition is he in?"
"Not as bad as some of the others we've seen. He's been eating the food that was in the house."
Al glanced at Riley as she stepped away from the car, and then Peter as he emerged from behind the shed. "We should probably try and keep them separated and Peter should be kept away from the boy."
"I was thinking the same thing," Carl agreed.
Riley climbed the stairs of the porch and slipped inside. "Are we good to go inside?" Rochelle inquired.
"Yes," Carl answered. "It would probably be best if you went straight upstairs. The food rotted downstairs and it smells like crap."
"Thanks for the heads up," she said as she walked by him.
Carl followed them into the house. He tried to appear casual as he stood protectively in the doorway of the den and waited for the others to file upstairs. Even with Peter safely above, he couldn't shake the feeling that this night wasn't going to end well.
CHAPTER 11
Al,
Al stood in the doorway of the living room and watched as Riley tenderly washed the arms and chest of the little boy. She placed a clean t-shirt on him before grabbing a fresh towel and dipping it into a different pot of clean water. It took a few minutes but she finally succeeded in scrubbing the dirt and smeared food from his face. She settled back on her heels to study the child.
Al couldn't tear his eyes away from the little boy. The slender frame, and the slack expression on his face conjured memories of his siblings when they'd been at their sickest. He found himself hoping just as badly as she did that Riley's plan would work. He hadn't been able to save his siblings, but just maybe they would be able to save this lost child.
When she was done, Riley pushed the pots of water and towels aside. She lifted the bottle of L-Dopa and turned it around in her hands before pulling the top off. Her fingers were nimble as she pulled out two pills and used the top of the bottle to crush them on a book. She brushed them into a glass of water that was about a quarter of the way full. She sniffed at the water before taking a small sip. Her nose wrinkled and she quickly pulled the glass away from her face.
"I don't think the taste is going to bother him, Ri." Xander's tone was kind in order to ease the harshness of his words.
"Not after what he was eating," John muttered and Carl elbowed him in the side. Al shook his head as John shot Carl a look and rubbed at his offended ribs.
Riley turned her attention back to the boy. "Can you help me?" she asked Mary Ellen.
Mary Ellen nodded and took hold of the boy's chin before tipping his head back. "I wish we knew his name," Riley murmured as she forced the glass between the boy's lips.
"Victor. His name is Victor," Jim said from behind him. Al hadn't even heard the man approach; it amazed him that someone Jim's size could move so silently and with such ease. Al stepped aside to let Jim further into the room. "I saw it on a basketball trophy upstairs."
"I like it." Riley poured the liquid carefully down the boy's throat. He swallowed it but he showed no sign of the medicine tasting as nasty to him as it had to Riley. Like a robot, or a puppy, Al thought. "I played basketball when I was your age," she said to Victor.
"Peter doesn't want you to do this?" Jim inquired.
"No, he doesn't," Carl said.
"Can I ask why?"
"He thinks they'll be a threat if we can cure them, that they'll be a drain on the food supply," Al answered.
Jim frowned as his gaze went from Al to the boy again. "I can see his point on that, but he's a child."
"They aren't all children though," Al said.
Jim leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. "True, but they are all people. Besides, this might not even work."
"Peter has the same amount of concern for people as he would for a snake," Riley murmured and wiped away a trickle of water that ran down Victor's chin.
Al rubbed at the stubble lining his jaw as he watched Riley with the child. It was going to break her heart if this didn't work; he knew the promise of being able to help someone had been the main thing driving her since Bobby's death. It was a good part of what had been keeping him going too. There had to be something good left in this world, something worth working toward other than just fighting to survive day after day. There had to be something more out there.
Were they making a mistake? Al tried not to think about that question, it was too late now to change anything anyway. There was no turning back and he wasn't about to take the hope of curing this child away from Riley, the others, or even himself. In this room was the possibility of something good. Beyond this there was only the broken roads they'd been traveling and the promise of a cabin that may not even exist anymore.
Victor finished off the rest of the water and Mary Ellen lowered his head back down. The boy's eyes remained distant as he stared blankly at the wall across from him. Riley set the glass down on the floor and stood up. "How much time do you think it will take if it's going to work?" she asked.
"It could be an hour, a day, maybe even a week. There's no way for us to know Riley," Xander said as he rested his hands on her shoulders and began to massage them. "We'll just have to wait and see."
"If we have to put him in the car like this Peter will fight us on it."
"That's something we can figure out tomorrow," Al assured her. "For now let's just watch over him and see what happens."
Riley nodded and knelt before the boy again. She moved the glass aside and leaned against the loveseat at her back. The shadows under her eyes made her appear even younger and for a second she looked more like one of The Lost Souls than she did a healthy human. Al shook his head to clear it of the haunting image and turned to walk out of the room. He wouldn't mind a drink himself; he'd actually prefer something a little bit stronger than water if there was any liquor in this house.
In the dining room, he searched through the bottom of the hutch before uncovering a bottle of whiskey. It wasn't his drink of choice but when he unscrewed the top and savored in the scent, he decided it was perfect.
"You read my mind."
He glanced over his shoulder at Carl and rose with a pop of his knees. "It's needed," Al said.
"You're not going to get any argument out of me," Carl told him.
Al handed the bottle to Carl and pulled some glasses down from the top of the hutch. He glanced at the shadowed stairwell but he didn't hear any movement coming from above. "Let's hope they're sleeping," he said.
"I'm sure they are. Let's drink this outside," Carl suggested. "The smell of that rotten food will have my stomach turning before the whiskey does."
Al nodded his agreement and followed Carl out the door to where they had left the truck and cars. John and Donald followed them outside. Al gave Carl the glasses after Carl had settled himself onto the lawn. He watched as Carl poured the amber liquid into the glasses and passed them out to the others. Donald waved the glass of whiskey away before settling onto the ground beside Carl.
Al's gaze turned to the sky as the stars began to appear. The twinkling lights were such a beautiful display, one that he couldn't tear his eyes away from as he sipped at his drink. No, whiskey wasn't his drink of choice, but he thoroughly enjoyed the warmth working its way through him as the alcohol seeped into his system. The familiar chirrup of crickets began to fill the air. The overwhelming desire to cry seized him as he savored in the familiar sights and sounds that had once filled the night on a regular basis.
Human, he felt almost human again.
"At least they had good taste in liquor," Carl said.
"That they did," Al agreed.
"What if this works on the boy?" John inquired. "Are we going to try to round up more of The Lost Souls if it does?"
"I don't know. That's too far ahead to even think about," Carl answered.
"If this is the way to help them than we should try to save as many of them as possible," Donald said.
"I think Dick, that's what I think of Peter as now, is going to blow his top," John said.
"I think Dick is a much more suitable name." Carl lifted his glass and saluted John with it before downing the rest of the contents. Carl refilled his own glass before topping off Al's and John's.
"Peter might just be all growl and no go," Donald said. "You know, maybe he's all bluff and bluster but no bite."
Al swirled the liquid in his glass before lifting his head to meet Donald's rust colored eyes. "I really hope you're right."
"He's still a dick," John muttered and sipped at his whiskey as he walked over to the edge of the driveway.
Dancing through the woods like fireflies, Al spotted four sets of eyes about three feet off the ground, and watching them, from the trees. He froze, his pulse nearly doubled in the course of a second. Al couldn't tear his gaze away from those vivid, eerily disconnected eyes. At first he assumed they belonged to humans that had crouched to watch them from the shadows. He almost dropped his glass on the ground to grab for his gun, but then one of the sets of eyes swiveled to the side and he was able to see the long neck of the animal.
He still might need a gun, but he slowly felt his blood pressure return to normal as he kept a tight grip on his drink. "Coyotes," Carl said and rose to his feet.
Al nodded as John retreated a few steps from the edge of the driveway. Another head turned away and then the animals were slipping through the shadows so stealthily that Al couldn't hear their passing over the sounds of the crickets. "I don't want to tangle with one of those things but every time I see one, they give me a happy feeling," John said and took a sip of his drink.
"Glad to hear they made your night," Carl said.
John chuckled as he moved closer to them. "Well they don't make me as happy as a girl would, but yeah, they did make it a little better."
"I hear that," Donald said.
Al tilted his head back to look at the stars again; he took a deep breath and felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders and neck. But then, good friends always had a way of making even the worst of circumstances feel better, and he considered these people closer than others he'd known for forty plus years.
"To surviving," he said and raised his glass to cheers with the others.
"To surviving," they said. Their glasses clinked together and Donald raised his finger to flick it against John's glass.
Al was turning away with his drink when Jim stepped into the doorway. "I think you guys had better come back inside," he said in a tone of voice that made Al freeze mid sip.
Donald rose to his feet. "Is it the boy?"
"No, it's Peter."
Those words made Al go cold; there was something in Jim's eyes that brought to mind death. The glass tumbled from Al's fingers, it landed on the grass and broke into a couple of pieces. Fear spurred him onward but Carl made it to the doorway first with John close on his heels. Al followed behind with Donald at his side. Jim swiftly led the group toward the living room where they had left the others.
Even before they made it to the den, Al could hear the raised voices coming from the back. He recognized Peter's deep baritone and Riley's higher pitch as they spoke in a tone that made Al realize the situation was beginning to escalate.
"He's a child, an innocent child. You can't hurt him!" Riley said fervently.
"I'm not going to allow this to happen! I'll kill him before this goes any further!" Peter spat.
Al slid the gun from his waistband and held it before him as he stepped into the living room. Jim, Carl, and John spread out, moving closer to Xander. Donald moved in the other direction, toward Mary Ellen. Al froze when he spotted Peter standing in the middle of the room with one gun pointed at Riley, and the other aimed at the back of Victor's bent head. Riley had her hand on Xander's arm, holding him back as he tried to get in between her and Peter. Mary Ellen stood by the wall next to the loveseat; her empty hands were raised in the air by her head.
"How did he get two guns?" John asked in a low hiss.
"Shh," Carl silenced him.
"Oh look it's the cavalry," Peter snarled. "I bet every single one of you knew about this scheme of hers. I bet every single one of you were plotting on how to keep me out of this." Peter moved the gun away from Riley and trained it around the room at each of them as he spoke.
Al stiffened as Carl lifted his gun and pointed it back at Peter. "Don't Peter, just put the guns down and we can talk about this reasonably," Carl grated through his clenched teeth.
"There is no talking about this. This is something that cannot be allowed to happen. This is an abomination of the worst form. This child shouldn't even exist in his current state and what she is doing shouldn't be allowed to happen!" Peter retorted.
Xander pushed Riley's hand aside and took a step in front of her as Peter swung the gun back toward her. "Don't!" Riley cried and tried to push Xander out of the way but he remained planted where he was.
Al's heart began to pound a little faster as a muscle in Peter's jaw started to twitch. Donald is wrong, he thought. There was far more than just bluff and bluster to this man. There was a madness that had seeped through his mind and rotted his soul. It radiated from his eyes; it showed in the sweat beading across his upper lip, the florid color of his face, and the large vein pulsing in the center of his forehead.
This is what insanity looks like, Al realized.
It had finally happened, whatever thin thread of control Peter had been holding onto had been shredded by the discovery of the child. This world had been eating away at his sanity for a long time now, but the discovery of Victor had caused whatever façade of normalcy Peter had been exhibiting to slip away completely.
Peter swung his gun toward Carl when he took a step forward. "Don't move!" Peter spat. "Or I will kill him." Carl glanced at the gun Peter still had aimed at Victor. "Put your hands up!" Carl's jaw clenched, his eyes hardened, but he raised his hands into the air. "You, you put your gun down!" Peter barked at Al. Al glanced at Carl and the others but when Peter's finger tightened on the trigger of the gun he was aiming at the little boy, Al lowered his gun to his side. "On the floor!"
Resentment and anger boiled within him, but he bent down to lower his gun to the floor before rising again. "Put your guns down, Peter. It will be fine; we'll leave the boy here when we go tomorrow. We won't take him with us," Carl said in the tone of a parent trying to calm a three year old having a temper tantrum.
"There will be other children and other people. You think I'm going to believe that you're just going to walk away from this? I don't. You think I don't know that you've already considered leaving me behind. I'm not stupid. There is no way I'm going to allow you to leave me high and dry with no supplies, and without the added protection of more people to keep watch."
Al glanced at the unmoving boy and then at Riley and Xander. She had stopped trying to push Xander out of the way but the color had completely faded from her face. He spotted the gun at her hip, her hand rested on it, but Peter would be able to shoot Xander before she could pull the gun free. John stood in between Carl and Xander, his hand was on the gun at his waist, but he didn't make any move to pull it free as Peter kept his gun aimed at Carl. Donald had moved closer to Mary Ellen who remained unarmed in the corner behind the boy. Al didn't recall seeing Donald with his gun outside but he couldn't be sure, though he seriously doubted Donald would've gone out of this house unarmed.
"So what it is that you want us to say or do?" Carl inquired. "Are you looking to take people with you, to
tie yourself to someone? What is that you want?"
"I want Josh, Freddie, and Rochelle to stay with me, and I will be the one driving the truck from now on. You won't leave me behind if I have them with me." Peter would handcuff the rest of them by keeping the children by his side and by taking control of the supplies. No one would do anything that would risk the children's lives.
"That's not going to happen," Jim said through clenched teeth. "My son isn't going anywhere with you."
Peter swung the gun toward Jim as the large man took a threatening step toward him. Before any of them could react, before Al even knew what was happening, Peter pulled the trigger. Mary Ellen let out a small scream but slammed her hands over her mouth to stifle the rest of it. Al jumped and Carl leapt to the side as the man that had been standing between them stumbled backward. Jim's mouth hung open; he crashed into the wall. His hands were clasped firmly against his chest but a large red stain was already spreading across his shirt.
Already beginning to recover, Carl was lowering his guns back down from above his head. Riley had pulled her gun free and was stepping out from behind Xander. They were both already armed but Al knew neither of them would get a round off in time to stop Peter from shooting more of them. Peter smiled smugly as his guns were already focused on Carl and Xander. Al knew he would never forget the look of supreme satisfaction in Peter's eyes. It would be seared into his mind as clearly as the memory of his dying siblings, and the first time he'd ever met Nellie.
This is what Peter has angling for all along, Al realized with a sinking sensation. He wanted them all dead and he wanted their supplies. Maybe Peter had been planning to drag out their lives until they'd made it to the cabin, but they'd come to an impasse far faster than any of them had expected.
Though everything moved in slow motion, Al knew it had only been a second or two since Peter had discharged the shot that would eventually end Jim's life. He wouldn't be in time to save everyone, but there was no way he was going to do nothing while he watched his friends be murdered in cold blood. Kneeling down, he grabbed for his gun. Multiple gunshots sounded and blood splattered around him.