The Survivor Chronicles: Book 1, The Upheaval (26 page)

He was heading for that path now, silently praying that it had not been as ruined as almost everything else they had encountered today. Riley’s hand remained in his, he could hear the increase of her breath, but she kept up as he jogged relentlessly onward.

“The path?” Lee panted beside him.

“I think it’s our best bet,” Xander told him.

“I agree. I would prefer to stay away from the highway, I imagine it’s chaos, and I’d like to see what’s going on at that stadium before we go in there.”

“You read my mind.”

“What path?” Riley inquired.

Lee explained it to her as Xander shoved some branches out of the way, holding them back so they didn’t slap her or a still-dazed Bobby in the face. “I never knew about that,” she murmured.

“It was a guy thing. No girls allowed,” Lee informed her with a small smile that half an hour ago she would have returned, but her face remained stony and her eyes somewhat glazed. Xander hated that look on her, but he was even more concerned about the continued lack of response from Bobby.

“I have to walk for a minute,” Lee told them.

Xander eased to a walk, his lungs burned, his legs felt like rubber but he would have preferred to keep running. His mind could focus on other things now that it wasn’t focusing on going forward, on attaining their destination. Riley released him and bent over to inhale great, shuddering breaths.

Xander rested his hand briefly on her back before turning his attention to Bobby, who was still carrying their bag of supplies. “How about some water?” he inquired, hoping to get Bobby engaged again.

Bobby stared mutely at him before nodding and pulling some water out of the bag. They rested for another couple of minutes before continuing onward. Surprisingly, and finally, the way was actually relatively easy going. There were a few new holes, and some trees had fallen in their way, but once they made it to the path they were able to move rapidly toward the tracks.

They had just arrived at the tracks, and paused to take another break, when a flare shot high into the air. It burned over them, a greenish glow that wasn’t as noticeable now that the sun had moved higher into the sky. Xander screwed the cap back on the water bottle and dropped it in the bag. Riley stepped beside him, her arm touched briefly against his as her head tilted back to watch the flare.

“Do you think it will be safe?” she inquired.

“Hopefully.”

He slid his hand back into hers. She stared at him for a moment before her eyes fell to their joined hands. He expected her to pull away, that she had simply been looking for comfort before and was now back to hating him. Her forehead smoothed as she gave a nod that was almost imperceptible. His fingers tightened around hers as eyes the color of tanzanite met his again.

It was a damnable thing to have her stop hating him on the worst, and quite possibly the last, day of their lives. He wished Carol had been here to see it; she’d been pushing him for years to stop being a moron. She’d been his biggest champion and would probably be doing her happy dance right now, laughing loudly as she told him, ‘I told you so,’ repeatedly.

The ache in his chest spread. Mourning swelled so fiercely inside of him that for a split second he couldn’t see Riley before him. All he could see was an image of Carol jumping from foot to foot as she waved her arms in the air and twirled around. He could almost hear her laughter. It was all so crisp, so clear, that he couldn’t believe it wasn’t true. That her happy dance was forever gone.

Seeming to sense his distress, Riley released his hand, wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest. He enfolded her, fighting against the hot burn of tears in his eyes as he relied on her solidity in the shifting reality before him. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the fruity scent of her shampoo that was still faintly detectable beneath the dirt and sweat that coated her.

“I miss her too,” she whispered.

Carol had been his sister, but she and Riley had been two peas in a pod, thick as thieves, and inseparable since they’d first met. They’d been closer than sisters, closer than he’d ever been with any of his friends. Their fights – the few he’d ever seen them have – had consisted of brief periods of bickering before both of them simply moved on. Not only would he never see Carol’s happy dance again, but he’d never see her and Riley’s heads bent together as they conversed quietly or simply sat in amicable silence.

“I know.”

“It’s not your fault, you couldn’t have done anything. I was closer… I should have reached her...” A shudder ran through her, she broke off as a small sob escaped.

He cradled her neck and pulled her closer as he pressed his mouth against her ear. “No, Riley, you couldn’t have done anything either. It’s no one’s fault.”

Though he said it, he knew they would both blame themselves for a long time to come, if not the rest of their lives. He could only hope that they would one day come to terms with that guilt, and that it didn’t eat them alive from the inside out. He felt her tears against his shirt again, but they had subsided by the time she pulled back from him. “We should go.”

He sighed regretfully as he nodded and released her. Bobby had moved further down the railroad tracks, his head was bowed as he stared at his feet. Lee was a little bit away from him, he studied the horizon with phony intensity. He seemed more than a little relieved when Xander and Riley rejoined them.

“How much further?” Riley inquired.

“Only about another half a mile,” Lee told her.

They followed the tracks for a few minutes before branching off onto another path. He heard the sounds of the stadium long before he saw the massive structure. Voices boomed over what he assumed was a bullhorn, or perhaps even some sort of loudspeaker system. At the hole in the fence, he pulled back the metal wiring to allow Riley and the others to crawl through before following after them.

“What are they saying?” Lee’s head was tilted to the side, his face scrunched in concentration as he tried to decipher the blared words.

“I don’t know.” Riley looked just as perplexed as Lee. Bobby remained strangely impassive.

They crept forward. Having been here before, and knowing how to avoid the security staff, the three of them knew the best places to hide in order to survey the stadium. The parking lot came into view as he moved around an oak.

It was bedlam below, a rolling sea of turmoil and confusion as people mulled around. They had formed ten enormous lines that wound toward the gates. State Troopers, police officers, some firemen, and what he assumed were National Guard, or some type of military were lined up inside of the gates, searching people, and patting them down as they entered. Other public safety members paroled amongst the crowds in the parking lot, their weapons shone threateningly in the radiance of the sun.

There was still more people filtering down the highway, maneuvering through abandoned cars either on foot or by vehicle. He moved a little closer as the voice boomed out again, but this time he was able to decipher most of the words.

“No weapons of any kind will be permitted within the gates! All weapons will be confiscated! Anyone caught with a weapon will be evicted from the grounds! Put your name on the list, but do not stop to look at the lists! Updated lists will be posted every hour; you may look for your loved ones then!”

The voice broke off briefly before the words were repeated.

“Are we going down there?” Riley inquired nervously.

“I don’t want to lose our guns,” Lee said.

Neither did he, and he wasn’t entirely certain that going down there was such a good idea. There was something disconcerting about the scene below. It reminded him of far too many scary movies and videos of war he’d seen.

“Our parents may be down there, though.”

Xander felt like running down there simply because Bobby had been the one to utter those words. Simply because it seemed as if Bobby might actually be coming back to them, and it was the prospect of finding his parents that was finally getting to him.

“We don’t have to stay there,” Lee suggested. “We can come back out.”

“We’ll hide the supplies up here,” Xander told them. “Keep ‘em buried so no one else can find them. If we don’t like what’s going on we’ll leave.”

He didn’t add that he hoped they would be allowed to leave after they were granted access, he knew by the look on their faces they were all thinking the same thing.

CHAPTER 19

John

Bridgewater, Mass.

He felt as if he was watching his life from a movie. Crumpled houses and buildings, and the dark canyon that seemed to be straight from Dante’s version of Hell were all just opening credits in a bad horror flick. He was seeing them, but he wasn’t really experiencing them. It was his life, he knew that, but he felt as if he were standing outside of it.

He wondered if this was what an out of body experience felt like. He’d heard people talking about a disassociation from the body, but they were dead when it happened, or dying.

Was he dead? The thought was terrifying, but not nearly as terrifying as the realization that he was actually pondering the possibility. Had he died in that field, when the first tremors hit? Was this all some sort of death-inspired hallucination? Were the last neurons still randomly firing in his brain to create this world of ruin and suffering?

He wasn’t as frightened by the idea as he thought he should be. He could be dead. This could all be just some strange dying nightmare, and the thought didn’t bother him. He didn’t feel connected anymore anyway.

He could hear Carl and the girl, Rochelle? They were talking softly as she studied the map. They sounded like the grown-ups in Charlie Brown, though, just a lot of wah, wah, wah in a strange droning tone that barely penetrated the detached haze surrounding him.

His father was dead, he was certain of it. He held out no hope of finding his mother anymore. He didn’t cry though, the tears had dried up. What was the point of crying when it wasn’t real anyway? Not anymore, nothing was real. He was dead, he was certain of it. He’d wake up on some strange tropical island, or just simply pass on any minute now.

Or maybe, just maybe, there was a heaven. He wasn’t sure he’d be accepted there, though. He wasn’t a bad person, but he wasn’t a great one either. He felt his odds of the tropical island were far better than heaven.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen his father. Two… three days ago? He lived in his parent’s house but he wasn’t a cellar dweller. His room above the garage was airy and private, but it had still been in their house, and here he couldn’t even recall the last time he’d seen his father. He’d seen his mother yesterday when he’d stumbled downstairs, still somewhat drunk from the night before. She’d made him some coffee, a grilled cheese, and sent him back to bed with an indulgent smile that he’d been unwilling to admit made him feel happy and safe, like she had as a child.

But his father… well, his father was a different story. They lived in separate worlds, rotated on different schedules and barely saw each other. They got along well, always had, but his father worked a lot of overtime so he could retire early. John spent most of his time with his friends and at the bars. He’d thought there would be plenty of time for them to spend more time together later.

Actually, he hadn’t really thought about it all. He’d known that his parents would die one day; everyone would, but never today, and probably not tomorrow. Twenty, thirty, maybe even fifty years in the future, sure, but not anytime soon.

Not today.

But it was today.

The time had come, his father was gone, and John was growing increasingly certain that he was gone too. Maybe one of the birds knocked him in the head, or perhaps he’d been swallowed by a hole. Maybe the lawn mower had run him over, as it did in every bad dream he’d had about the heavy piece of industrial equipment. He shuddered inwardly at the thought.