The Withered Series (Book 1): Wither Page 12

  “I reckon it won’t make much difference now.” He tosses the mask aside.

  “Why’s that?”

  Cable hikes his leg and sinks down onto a square bale of hay. The whole barn smells of it. That and spilled oil from the relic of a tractor in the far corner. He kicks out his leg, his boot slamming back into the hay. He rubs his hands together, losing himself to that inner world that nothing can penetrate, then grabs my pistol and begins methodically cleaning it.

  I sigh and turn back to the feed bag. My grunts are the only sound in the barn for several minutes. I duck and weave, as if matching wits with an opponent. I’m sure Cable knows that I’m faking most of the moves. A soldier with any decent training would see right through my bravado but I can’t just sit around and wait. I need to prepare. If what Cable and Eric said yesterday is true, my life is in danger from far more than this contamination. What started out as a need to vent has become something like borderline desperation.

  Glancing over at Cable, I consider asking him to teach me how to use that pistol, but we have very few weapons as it is and far fewer bullets. I notice that he’s laid the gun in his lap and is busy scratching at his palm. I squint to look closer, wondering if he’s picked up a splinter while hunting for supplies, but when he sees me staring he shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry about Natalia.”

  “Me too.”

  “I uh…” I rub my hand along the back of my neck. “I just want you to know that I support your decision to move on. It will be good for Eric to say goodbye but not linger.”

  Cable looks around the barn, leaning back to look up into the rafters overhead. Tools hang from rusting chain: hoes, shovels, pitch forks and something that looks like a handheld tiller for a garden. “She genuinely cared about people,” he finally says when he returns his gaze to me. “Eric most of all. I think they could have made it, you know? A decent couple.”

  I sink down into a crouch and wait for him to continue. For once he might actually be in a talking mood. “Eric knew her from before all of this. I guess he was kind of sweet on her back then but she never really had time for stuff like that. Her work was her life. By the time Eric figured that out, it didn’t matter anymore.”

  Grabbing a handful of hay, he shoves a long strand between his teeth, as if he’s always done it. There is a weird familiarity about the action, making me wonder what Cable was like in a previous life, before the mutations, before the Marines. I can’t recall if he ever told me where he was from. Only that he was from the South.

  “Why did she help me?”

  Cable leans back, crossing his arms over his chest as he rests his weight against the wall. The weathered wood holds firm, despite the knots and evidence of termite damage near the floor. “She was a scientist. One of the best, according to Eric. She spent her life devoted to helping people, to discovering cures to unspeakable horrors. You were a piece to a larger puzzle but she knew if you remained there you wouldn’t be able to help the world.”

  “Help the world?” I scoff, rolling my eyes. I sink down onto the ground, tucking my legs before me. I dust my hands off on my pant legs, leaving dirty hand prints behind. “I’m just one person.”

  Cable’s expression tightens as he leans forward. “For all we know this whole thing started with a single person, a single virus, a single mutated gene. Why would you think one person couldn’t fix it all?”

  Blowing my hair out of my eyes, I shrug. “Because I’m no hero.”

  “How do you know?”

  I avert my gaze, focusing intently on the bald tractor tire sitting beside him instead of his piercing gaze. “I just do.”

  “Hmm.”

  I listen to his steady inhale and exhale, wishing that he would leave. He makes me uncomfortable at times. Usually when he’s trying to get some deep message across to me. It’s not that he lectures me, but it’s pretty darn close to it.

  “You don’t know me,” I whisper, turning my cheek to press it against my knee. My muscles ache from training. My head feels light and airy. I’ve pushed myself farther than I should have. I’m still recovering, but I will go crazy if I do nothing but wait and pray for a miracle.

  My pleas on the radio have gone unanswered all day. Last night, not long after the moon hit its highest peak in the sky, we heard the choppers fly over. Their light shining in through the windows would have woken me if the noise hadn’t. We’d planned for that, made sure we hide in interior rooms just in case. They couldn’t have seen us from the air, but that won't stop them from checking all the same. The question is: how many other homes do they have to search before ours?

  “You’re a good person, Avery.”

  “What is good? Helping an old lady across the street? Giving a kid a balloon just to see them smile? Handing out money to a homeless person who is hungry?”

  I raise my head. “None of those things matter anymore, Cable. There is no good left in this world. Only greed. Only murder and evil and nothingness.”

  “You’re wrong.” He slides off the hay bale and scoots toward me. He never breaks eye contact with me as he draws near. I can smell the scent of sweat on him, see the sheen on his skin. He spent most of the morning helping Eric try to hotwire the old Ford truck in the yard. A hose sits near the front of the Humvee that was used to siphon gas in the hopes that it will work in that old clunker. He also worked to stash our supplies in bags for us to carry out of here if we had to leave on foot. Planned tirelessly on securing the house, wiping all evidence of our presence except the Humvee. Not much we can do about that.

  He has hardly stopped long enough to close his eyes for a few minutes since we arrived here. He’s done the work of five people. I could never fault him for not caring about our protection. No. I’d almost fault him for caring too much. I know where that path leads and I wouldn’t want that for him.

  Cable motions with his hand between us. “You and me, we’re still good. We give a shit.” He points toward my chest. “I’ve watched you these past few days and have witnessed your desperation each time you switch on that radio. You risk your own life each day we remain here and for what?” He ducks his head to meet me in the eye. “For a friend.”

  I wrap my arms around myself and rock slowly. “She’s probably gone.”

  “Yeah,” he nods in agreement. “She just might be, but you never gave up hope.”

  “I should never have let myself care. I’ve spent my whole life keeping people at arm’s length. It was safer that way.”

  “That’s a hard way to live.”

  I shrug. “It’s how I survived.”

  “And that?” He turns to look at the grain bag. “You learn that along the way too?”

  “Maybe.”

  He stares down at my hands, no doubt noting the bruising and cut skin. “I could teach you to shoot.”

  “No.” I shake my head, knowing that I’d only waste precious ammunition. Maybe if we come across a pawn shop or gun cache somewhere then I’d be willing to learn. “That’s your thing.”

  “So, what? You think you’re going to pummel them to death?”

  I smirk, laughing at his grim expression. “I’ve learned a thing or two living on the streets.”

  His mood shifts as he rubs his jaw, his nails grazing another day’s addition of growth. “Killing someone, even in self-defense, isn’t easy, Avery. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that it is.”

  Cable’s words fall heavily over me, stealing away the smile that teetered on my lips. “Have you done it?”

  His nod is slow and forced. He refuses to meet my gaze. “Seventeen. That’s my count so far.”

  “Before or after the world fell apart?”

  His adam’s apple bobs. “Fourteen after.”

  I blow out a breath and lean back. “And the other three?”

  He shakes his head. “They were a mission. Nothing more.”

  “As easy as that, huh?”

  Cable falls still. “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you di
dn’t, but you’re sure as heck trying to make it sound like that.”

  “What do you want me to say? That ending a life gets easier each time you do it? Well, I hate to tell you, but it doesn’t. Each time is just as fucked up as the last.”

  I lean forward and wait for him to re-engage with me. “You killed twice for me. I know that cost you something.”

  A vein pulses down the center of his forehead as he struggles to control his emotions. Guilt? Shame? Fear? I can’t tell. Probably a mixture of all of those. “You did what you had to do. There’s no fault in that.”

  He drills his gaze right into me and for a split second I recoil. “There is always fault in death. Especially when it’s face to face. Those final moments haunt you forever.”

  I reach out and place my hand on his forearm. He looks down at it. “That’s what makes us different than those people out there.”

  He follows the direction of my arm as I point to a small cluster of Withered Ones emerging from the dense tree line. The wooden fence proves too tricky to maneuver for the two on the far left side of the group. The others walk on, leaving their companions behind to repeatedly march into the fence.

  “They aren’t people,” he says.

  I purse my lips, hesitating before I speak. “Maybe they still are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I jerk my head toward them. “What do you see?”

  He clears his throat and pulls his hand out from under mine. The warmth of his skin lingers only a moment. I rub my palm against my leg to remove the feeling of his touch. “Six Moaners out for a stroll.”

  “They aren’t strolling, Cable.” I wait for him to tear his gaze away from the Moaners to face me again. “They are walking, in the same direction, at the same speed.”

  He slowly turns back toward the doorway. I lean forward, near enough to see the pulse thrumming against his neck. “They are in step with each other.”

  His breath hitches as he finally sees exactly what I have seen for the past several days. “That’s not possible,” he mutters under his breath.

  “And yet it is.”

  His brow furrows as he turns to look at me. His eyes widen as his nose brushes against my cheek. I quickly sit back. His gaze searches mine but I turn away, tucking my hair behind my ear. Clearing his throat, he repositions himself, placing space between us. “I never noticed before.”

  “I did.” I trail my fingers through the dirt. The barn floor is a mixture of dust, old fallen leaves and stray bits of hay. Beneath is a layer of hard dirt. “I think one of them grabbed me.”

  Cable’s head whips up. “What?”

  I chew on my lower lip, digging my nails deeper into the ground. “Before I was taken by those soldiers, I was in this pharmacy looking for supplies. I heard it when I entered. It was dark, pretty much impossible to see. To be honest, after the herd I passed through in the street I’m amazed I went in there at all.”

  A smirk tugs at his handsome features and I know he’s about to toss out some crap about me being stronger than I think I am, so I rush ahead. “It grabbed me by the wrist. I could feel how cold its skin was, like a tepid bath on a hot summer day. It felt...wrong. The skin was loose, kinda floppy I guess.”

  “What happened?”

  “A bag came down over my head and the next thing I knew I was being tossed in the back of a truck. Woke up in that blood bank a while later.”

  I stare at dust motes floating through the air instead of him. I feel him watching me, weighing my words. “I know it sounds crazy. Trust me, I’ve wondered if I’m losing it so many times, but I know what happened.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Do you?” I lower my gaze toward him. He stares back with an unwavering gaze.

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you said it.”

  I laugh, shaking my head and the moment of tension passes. “Are you always so trusting?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Must be a southern thing.”

  “No. I just prefer to think good of people.”

  “That could get you killed one of these days.”

  Cable smirks and pushes himself up from the ground. “Well, then let’s hope today is not that day.”

  He offers me a hand. I brush my hand over the ground to cover my doodling and pause. “Wait a second.”

  Rising to my knees, I place my palm against the dirt and sweep my hand wide across the ground. Cable crouches down beside me. I trace my hand along a deep groove in the dirt, hardly unusual to find in a working barn but something about it feels to straight, too perfect.

  “Look!”

  Leaning low I blow against the dirt and reveal a distinctive wood grain beneath the layer of dirt. Cable begins to follow my lead and a couple minutes later we uncover a trap door. “Well, how about that.”

  I loop my finger through a small hole cut into the wood, but Cable places a hand on my arm to stop me. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

  “Shouldn’t what? It’s not like we would be trespassing any more than we already have.”

  “I know, I just think–” he cuts off as the sputtering of static bursts from the open door of the Humvee. I scramble to my feet and race for the radio.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” I lean in close, fighting to hear the garbled voice, distorted and faint. “Please repeat. I can’t understand you.”

  “This...Alex...coming...you…”

  “It’s them,” I call back over my shoulder to Cable, only to find him right behind me.

  “I heard. Let’s see if we can clean it up a bit. Go grab Eric. He’s better at this than I am.”

  I toss Cable the handset and tear out of the barn. My shirt billows around me as I race across the lawn, grabbing hold of the porch post to swing myself up the steps. “Eric!”

  The screen door screeches and slams behind me as I search the bottom floor. I move swiftly up the stairs and check the bedroom we shared the night before. The bathroom is empty, as are the spare rooms. I fight to still my breathing as I turn toward the only door left closed.

  “Oh, Eric.” I reach out to push open the master bedroom door. The morning light filters in through the white eyelet curtains, graying with dust. The pale rose colored rocker that sits beneath the window is empty. The pictures of a smiling man and woman standing proudly on their front porch stare back at me. White hair and big smiles contained within a frame boasting the ‘best grandparents in the world.’

  The bloody bed covers dangle on the floor. The pillows bear evidence of two heads, a dent on either side of the bed. I step toward the partially closed bathroom door and hold my breath as I listen to the steady drip of water. The door squeaks on its hinges as it slowly opens. Grimy white tiles offset the pink soaker tub and vanity. Wilted flowers droop from a glass vase residing on the double window beside the bathtub. Droplets fall from the tap into the bath, collecting into a tiny stream as they trail down into the drain.

  Spinning around, I look into the linen closet and behind two sliding doors to reveal an old side by side washer and dryer that has a manual dial.

  Eric isn’t here.

  “Avery?”

  I turn at the sound of my name and head for the door. I pause in the doorway, casting one last glance at the room.

  “Cable?”

  “Downstairs.”

  My feet feel like lead as I descend. I should have paid attention to Eric’s mood shift. I should have spoken to him, expressed my sympathy. I knew he was hurting, mourning in his own silent way. I assumed with the way he poured himself into fixing up that truck that he needed to get away…

  I hang my head. “He’s gone,” I whisper, realizing that he probably slipped away while I was beating up the grain bag, when my grunts masked the hum of the engine starting. We should have seen this coming. Cable helped him get it ready. We gave him the perfect opportunity and he took it, leaving us behind.

  “He took the truck,” I say as I slowly descend the stair
s. Cable nods, placing his hands on my arms as I stop on the final step.

  “I know. It’s what he would have wanted.”

  I sink down onto the step, feeling numb, cold. “Why would he just leave us like this? He took our supplies and our only transportation.”

  Sinking down into a crouch before me, he shakes his head. “He couldn’t let go.”

  I wipe at my eyes, realizing that my emotions have betrayed me. It angers me that I’m crying, that I’m feeling weak when I should be strong. I swallow hard. “He was a fool.”

  “Why? Because he loved her?”

  “Because he let her drag him down.”

  I rise and try to push past him, but Cable stops me, grasping my arm. “Don’t shut down. Not now.”

  “Why not? What good has caring ever done for me?”

  His grip loosens, his hand slides down my arm to take my hand in his. I stare at it, knowing that I should pull away, but I don’t. “Because your friends are coming.”

  ELEVEN

  I watch Cable shove cans of food and packages of homemade dried jerky into a spare pack, digging deep into the back of the cabinets for food we never thought we would need. He rushes through the kitchen, opening and slamming cabinet doors in search of more supplies. Spare canning jars, filled with water from the well out back, line the counter. He moves with purpose and speed. This worries me.

  “Do you need any help?” He hasn’t spoken in nearly three hours. Not since he told me my friends were coming. He doesn’t seem all that happy about the idea. “I could help, you know?”

  Cable looks back over his shoulder at me, as if realizing for the first time that I’m still here. “I need you outside. Keep watch on the west. That’s where they should be coming from.”

  Something about the way he says they makes me wonder if he actually means Alex’s group. I close the gap between us and grab onto his arm, noticing how the early evening light filtering in through the kitchen window has begun to wane. Twilight will be upon us within the hour. We need to be gone by then.