Feeling as if he was leaving a little bit of his salvation and security behind, he reluctantly shoved the keys in his pocket, climbed out from behind the wheel and locked the doors. He jogged over to join Donald and John next to the truck. "I don't feel good about this," Donald whispered.
"We don't have much of a choice," Xander said. "There's nowhere else for us to hide them and we have to get them out of that parking lot. If Jim and his family can hear the sick people outside at night that means they're roaming through the parking lot over there."
He'd said the words but his feet stayed in place as he glanced at the vehicles that had gotten them this far. "We can probably keep an eye on them from the florist shop and no one can take them without the keys," John said. "I'm going to grab some more food first, I'm starving."
Xander almost argued that they should just go back, but the rumbling in his stomach silenced him. He followed Donald and John to the back doors of the truck and held one open for John to climb into the bed. His eyes rapidly scanned over the parking lot as he searched for anything out there that could be a threat. John sat on the edge of the truck and jumped down with a bag clutched in his hand. Xander took the bag from him so John could close and lock the door.
Slinking through the shadows next to the department store, Xander spotted someone moving by the building. He seized hold of John's arm and pushed him against the doors of the truck as the loud grunts of some of the sick people drifted through the night.
The beat of his heart accelerated, his head began to pound with the rapid pulse of his blood. Xander released John; he brought his gun before him and clutched it with both hands. John placed the bag of supplies under the truck and moved toward the side of it. Following behind him, Xander stayed low to the ground with Donald on his heels.
The strange grunts grew closer and the scuffling sounds of those things feet slapping against the asphalt filled the air. Xander knelt down on the asphalt to peer under the truck, but he saw no movement below the surrounding vehicles. Lifting his head, he shook it no in response to the questioning look he saw in John's eyes.
He jumped and spun toward the back of the truck when something behind them shattered. A loud crash filled the air seconds before a woman began to scream in a loud continuous wail that would have pierced his eardrums if he'd been any closer to her. The agony and terror behind those screams made him long to go to the woman, to try and save her, but he knew it was already too late and he didn't even know where to start looking for her.
The scream abruptly cut off and then one more high-pitched wail resonated through the air. This time the silence that followed stretched into seconds that seemed to extend into hours but was probably no more than minutes. His hand trembled as he lifted it up to push his sweat soaked hair away from his forehead. Donald and John had taken on a sick, pasty hue. Neither of them attempted to move.
Xander took a deep breath, rested his hand against the side of the truck and cautiously lifted his head to look through the windows of the mini-van beside them. He peered through the windows to search the night beyond the vehicles, but nothing moved within the darkness. Even still, he felt that moving away from the truck was a bad idea right now.
He sat back against the truck again and poked his head underneath it. He didn't know what he expected to accomplish, or what he assumed he would see, but he was greeted with nothing but darkness and asphalt. He sat back up and leaned against the mini-van. Donald went to move but Xander grabbed hold of his arm to hold him in place.
"Wait," he whispered.
Donald frowned at him. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know, I just don't think it's safe right now. Stay here."
Leaning back down, he slid underneath the truck and crawled on his belly to the other side. The rough asphalt scraped against his chest and stomach, the acrid smell of the oil that had seeped into the parking lot drifted up to fill his nose. He searched the parking lot around him but the moonless night and cars obscured most of his view. Silently slipping out from under the truck, he crawled on his knees to the car beside the truck. He lifted his head to peer through the windows toward the store.
He ducked away when he spotted three figures running through the gloom on the side of the building. The breath hissed out of him, he leaned his back against the car. Across the way, he could barely make out the sign on top of the building that marked the floral shop. His mind spun and adrenaline rushed through his body. He took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself.
Turning back around, he rested his fingertips against the window and lifted his head to barely peek through the window again. He didn't see anyone amongst the shadows but that didn't mean they weren't there. His head tilted back, he searched the tops of the vehicles before scanning the roof of the store. He wouldn't be astounded to see them moving across the roofs of either; the rabidly sick humans enjoyed climbing things.
Like chimpanzees, he thought silently. He wondered if perhaps the virus that had been released from the earth was not only some form of meningoencephalitis but also something that caused people to revert to a more primate-like state. If it was a virus from the early days of human evolution, he assumed it could be a possibility. Those people were definitely driven by something more primitive and far more feral than anything that resided within a fully evolved human.
Nothing moved on top of the roof of the store or the tops of the vehicles. Xander retreated and crawled beneath the truck to rejoin the others. "Did you see anything?" John demanded in a whisper.
"Three of them, disappearing around the side of the building. I didn't see any others though," he answered.
"I'm so tired of these sick freaks," John muttered.
So was he, but he kept silent as he strained to hear anything out there. "What do we do?" Donald asked.
They couldn't stay here; they were sitting ducks if they did, especially if more of those things arrived. But if they got up now and tried to make it back to the florist shop they would be exposed and they could be putting the others at risk. They'd gotten lucky that they hadn't been spotted when they'd moved the vehicles across the street; he knew those things would have already been on them if they had been seen. Or maybe they had been seen and those things were just playing with them.
A chill like the kind he got when someone dropped ice down the back of his shirt slid over his spine. He dropped his forehead into his hand as his mind spun. Somewhere in the far off distance, he heard another cry, but this one had nothing to do with suffering. It was the cry of something on the hunt, and whatever was on the hunt was excited.
He cursed as he dropped his hand back down to his side. He looked to the others but he saw the same bleakness in their eyes as he felt curling within his soul. Sorrow filled him at the thought of Riley. She was probably already worried sick, never mind if he didn't make it back tonight. Never mind if he didn't make it back at all. He couldn't think about the consequences of that, of what it would do to her, it would only make him reckless if he did.
Sitting back on his heels, Xander pressed his back against the truck as another scream resonated through the night.
"We survive, somehow," he finally answered.
CHAPTER 7
John,
Once, when he'd been eight, his grandparents had left him behind at a gas station while he'd been in the bathroom. At first it had been great fun, he'd walked around the building, he'd thrown stones, he'd explored the comics inside the store and tried to peek at the contents of the nudie magazines in the stacks near the counter. The teenage clerk behind the counter flipped through his own sports magazine. He pretended not to notice John when he tilted the adult magazines back and forth.
It wasn't until an hour passed, and his stomach was rumbling from the smell of the microwave burrito a customer was cooking, that he began to realize freedom wasn't such a great thing. The clerk had stopped flipping through his magazine to study him. "Don't you have a home kid?"
"Uh yeah," John had answered absently. He just
wasn't entirely sure how to get there from here.
"Where are your parents?"
"Home."
It was a lie; they were in Las Vegas for the week and had left him with his grandparents but he wasn't about to tell this guy that. "I've got to go."
John had walked out of the store, but he didn't even know which direction his grandparents had driven away in. They'd spent the day antique shopping; it had been great fun for his grandmother. He and his grandfather had spent more time sitting on benches and holding his grandmother's purse. When they'd pulled into the gas station, his grandparents had been bickering. His grandfather had had enough shopping. John wisely chose not to voice his agreement, but he'd really hoped his grandpa would win the argument. He was exhausted, antiques were about as exciting as day old mud to him, and he really hated sitting there with a purse in his lap. His grandparents had been much more fun when they'd only stopped by his parent's home for the day, gave him presents, and tossed the football around with him for a little while before leaving.
Standing there, he would have given anything for a purse and a bench if it meant sitting close to someone he knew and that loved him again. He'd been near tears, and completely disgusted with himself, as he'd walked to the edge of the parking lot. He was tough, the toughest of his friends at least. He was always the most daring, the one that could withstand the most pain when they held their fingers over a flame. He was the one who didn't get scared at ghost stories. He prided himself over that fact and held it over all of his friend's heads. They'd all be laughing if they saw him now and he swore that if his grandparents would just come back to get him he would never act superior to his friends again.
Staring helplessly back and forth down both directions of the road, he tried to decide which way his grandparents had gone but it was an overwhelming decision to make. It felt as if the asphalt had melted and reformed around his feet as they refused to take one more step. If he went the wrong way he may never be found again.
Kneeling in the parking lot now with Xander and Donald, his feet felt the exact same way they had back then. He actually had to look to make sure that they weren't stuck to the parking lot. The only difference between now and then was back then his grandparent's black Lincoln had materialized over the horizon before he'd had to make a choice. They had both jumped out to shower him with hugs and kisses as they apologized profusely for having forgotten him. Afterward they had heaped candy and ice cream on him, taken him to the park, the zoo, and allowed him to stay up until midnight to watch horror movies. He'd decided he liked his grandparents even more when they were there for more than one day at a time.
His time at the gas station had been a running joke between the three of them over the following years. His parents had always been puzzled about their quips with each other, but they'd never understood them. His grandfather had died of a heart attack when John was sixteen and his grandmother had followed a year later from breast cancer, but until their deaths they'd been one of his biggest sources of support.
There would be no Lincoln coming for him now, no one to heap ice cream and kisses upon him. There was only the three of them, sitting there, staring at each other as they all tried to breathe shallowly and strained to hear if one of the sick people was approaching them. His hands were beginning to ache from their death grip on the gun he held at the ready before his face.
He had no idea what they were going to do, where they were going to go. Sitting here seemed like a death sentence. Moving seemed even more of one. They couldn't get back into the truck without having the interior light turn on. He tilted his head back to search but he couldn't see anything other than the vehicles around them.
A hundred swears and curses ran through his mind as he fought the impulse to kick something. He couldn't even be sure that the others in the floral store would be safe if something were to happen to the three of them. They could have revealed they'd come from the floral shop when they'd moved the vehicles over here. But there had been no other choice. They would have been screwed if they'd left the vehicles in the parking lot but now they were screwed anyway.
They'd been in trouble from the second that mob of sick people had shown up on the bridge. There hadn't been enough time for them to get somewhere safe before night had descended. Maybe they'd been living on borrowed time ever since the beginning, maybe the sand in their hourglass had finally run out. It was taking everything he had to stay in place and not run screaming into the night.
The shattering of glass on his right caused him to jump. It was followed by something that sounded like hyena laughter or some other maniacal creature. He'd rather deal with ten billion clowns driving around in freaky little clown cars than anymore of these things, he decided.
Xander shifted forward and reached to the makeshift knife holder at his side. He slid his knife free and placed his hands on the asphalt as he crept toward the front of the truck again. John would have preferred to use his gun but he knew it would be a really bad idea right now so he pulled out his own knife. He wasn't sure what to think about himself with a gun and knife. He supposed he should feel like a bad ass but really, he felt more like an eight-year-old boy playing war with his friends.
Unfortunately, this was not a game.
Xander kept his back against the truck as John stopped beside him. Something broke in the distance, the distinct sound of feet hitting a metal roof followed. John leaned back to try and see over the truck again but it was useless. More feet hit metal, John got the distinct impression that the sick people were jumping from roof to roof on the vehicles, hunting them.
The look on Xander and Donald's faces made him realize they were thinking the same thing. Trapped between these two vehicles it was impossible to see any threat coming at them. "We have to move," Donald said so discreetly that John barely heard him.
The last thing he felt like doing was moving out of the shadows of the truck, but staying here was no longer an option. John held his breath as Xander poked his head around the corner. He gave them a brief nod before scurrying out from their hiding place. John stayed close behind him; he kept his hand on the cool metal bumper as he stayed low in front of the car.
He glanced over his shoulder but he still couldn't see whatever it was that was making the noise. Another set of footsteps running across a metal roof sounded in the distance. He'd rather hear fingers on a chalkboard than those damn footprints one more time! His jaw started to ache from the force with which he clenched it. His nostrils flared as he finally slid around the side of the car. He wasn't fooled into thinking it offered them any kind of protection but he did draw an easier breath.
His heart sank when he spotted the three empty spaces before them. A jacked up pickup truck with tires almost as tall as him was on the other side of those three spaces. He was so focused on the empty spaces before him that it took him a couple of seconds to realize the thudding metal footsteps had stopped.
The nights weren't as warm as they had been over the past couple of weeks, not here in the mountains. However sweat still beaded across his brow from the muggy night. Tilting his head back, he fully expected to see someone perched on the roof of the car, leaning over top of them. He was so certain they would be there that he already had his knife raised in order to drive it through the sick person when they launched at him.
Instead, he was greeted with only the stars in the sky. John's head came back down but then his mind registered what he'd just seen. He tilted his head back again to stare at the velvety night above them. There they were, not the thousands upon thousands that he was used to seeing, but there were at least a hundred glowing stars piercing the veil of blackness that had been enshrouding the night during these endless weeks.
He was afraid to blink, but even after he did they were still there. They were sparkling rays of promise for better things, and even better looking than the shiny black Lincoln when it had appeared on the horizon coming back for him. A lump formed in his throat, he didn't want to look away from the sky but
he did. He elbowed Xander and Donald and nodded upward when they both looked at him. They glanced up and looked away again. He elbowed them more forcefully this time.
"Look!" he hissed at them. "Really look."
They both scowled at him before turning their attention to the sky. He felt it when they finally spotted what he'd seen. Their bodies went rigid against him, Donald inhaled sharply, and a small tremor went through Xander. John had to look again too, it was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen and he couldn't get enough.
That strange chattering laughter sounded again, it pulled his attention away from the stars. Footsteps sounded by the building but they sounded as if they were coming this way. "We have to keep moving," Xander said.
John nodded and braced himself to rush across the open spaces. They moved swiftly, and as one, across the parking lot. John looked back just as the shadows shifted and he spotted one of those people running toward the front doors of the store. He became so focused on watching them that he tripped over his own foot and sprawled on the asphalt surface.
The air rushed out of his lungs but he managed to keep hold of his weapons as he labored to catch his breath. Xander and Donald grabbed hold of his arms and pulled him forward. He scrambled to try and get his feet back under him but they more or less dragged him the last three feet to the pickup.
He collapsed against it, but there was no protection to be found, not on this side. They never said a word, but the three of them crawled under the pickup truck together. Their hands and feet brushed against each other as they dug into the pavement in order to get to the other side. They were almost there when a loud crash sounded from somewhere close by.
They all froze as the sound gave the impression of coming from two or three directions at once. John twisted to try and look behind him but he couldn't see anything beyond his own feet and Xander's. He tried to pull his feet in but there wasn't enough room under the pickup for him to get them more than a few inches closer. His sneakers no longer poked out the other side but they still felt far too exposed for his liking.