The Withered Series (Book 1): Wither Read online

  “I was hoping you could tell us. What I do know is that there were four sets of prints out there this morning when I woke. Yours, Cable’s, mine and another guy. Sal pissed in the corner when he woke up so it wasn’t him and Vicky here has tiny feet. So that leaves a stranger stomping up to our doorstep while we slept. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on that idea.”

  I push back against the counter, needing the pressure of it to keep me grounded. “I saw a Moaner in the woods last night.”

  “So?” I blink, surprised to hear Victoria speak. It’s been so long since she joined in an actual conversation I’d almost begun to wonder if she was really present at all.

  “So it followed me. Or at least it watched me from a distance.”

  Sal snorts and pulls the lever of the recliner. He pushes it out to its full length, laying back and crossing his hands under his head. Even from this distance I regard the rash that has grown down his arm. His eyes look hazier than normal. “Little Moaner got you scared? I’d have thought a tough girl like you could take one on.”

  I start to snap back at him but a voice calling from above stops me. “Avery’s right. There was someone in the woods last night and they didn't just pass through. They stopped and watched. That tells me that whoever it was took a bit too much interest in us for my liking.” Cable’s boots clunk as he leaps down the final three steps of the ladder.

  His pack is slung on his back. His hat is firmly in place, tugged low enough that I can’t quite make out the direction of his gaze, but I feel like it’s firmly focused on me.

  “What was it watching?” Alex tugs at his sleeves. The chill on the air is more prevalent this morning. Only wisps of smoke coil up from the fire now. I guess there was no need to keep it going since Alex decided to ship out.

  “Me bathing.” My cheeks flush red as I hop up onto the counter. The Formica is old and peeling away from the wall. Not the most stable seat in the room but it’s the nearest. If I’m walking all day I might as well get the last few ounces of rest in that I can.

  “Wait a second.” Alex holds up his hands. He takes turns between staring in disbelief toward Cable and accusingly at me. “You’re telling me that you think some Moaner stopped for a peep show last night, then followed you back here?”

  “Almost impossible to believe, right Avery?” Sal chortles.

  Cable adjusts his pack, buckling it around his waist to even the weight. Without food the pack caves in at the top. His boots are laced high to support his ankles on the hike. I can tell by the way he’s standing that he’s wrapped his ribs up nice and tight, though he didn’t seem too concerned with them last night.

  “Avery?”

  “That’s what I saw, Alex.”

  “Cable?” He only shrugs in response to Alex’s question. I can tell by the hard set of his jaw that it’s taking every ounce of restraint he possesses not to go and throttle Sal.

  Alex scoffs, shaking his head. “Fine. If you two don’t want to tell me the truth, that’s fine. Grab your shit. I’m done with this place.”

  “Alex, we’re not—”

  “Save it.” He glares openly at me. I’m taken back by his hostility. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s liars. I should know. I’m one of the worst, but this...this is different.”

  I look to Cable for support but he shakes his head and turns his back. I sigh and leap down from the counter, resigned to face a really long day.

  We hike through the afternoon, pausing only for small sips of water we discover seeping through the sediment at the base of a large set of stone steps naturally carved into the rock. It tastes earthy but clean. A path winds through the large boulders, making our passage easier, but we veer away when the trail begins to head back toward our previous direction.

  South—it is the only direction that matters at the moment. I never really asked Cable or Alex why this was the decision. East or West seem just as good a candidate as any. I’d veto North in a heartbeat unless that whole bit about Moaners hating cold turned out to be true.

  Sal marches at the head of the pack, his mouth running faster than his feet. He rambles about nothing and everything, all at the top of his voice. I’ve seen Alex trying to talk to him but Sal shoves him away and continues on.

  I exchange worried glances with Cable but say nothing. I know he is thinking the same thing I am: if there are any survivors in the area Sal will bring them down on top of us.

  The sun beats relentlessly from overhead. Beads of sweat trickle along my spine beneath the thick layers of clothes and the bulk of my pack. I had hoped once all of the food was gone that it would be an easier load to bear, but the lack of nourishment only makes the trek that much harder.

  Cable remains behind me, drawing near only when we reach a steep slope. His presence is both welcoming and unnerving at the same time. Each time he grasps my arm to ease me down another boulder, a tingle begins beneath his fingers and I’m instantly swept back into the memory of sleeping in his arms.

  I know he feels it too. It’s obvious in the way he releases me the second he knows I’m safe, snatching his hand back as if I’ve burned him. He helps Victoria from time to time as well. I guess he’s trying to prove that it’s not favoritism or some crap like that.

  “Hey, Avery.” I look up to see Sal twirling atop a wet boulder. The spray of a larger waterfall has left the rock face dark and slick. “Wanna dance?”

  “Alex,” I shout out in warning. Though he’s hardly spoken a word to me since this morning, he rushes forward to intercept Sal.

  “Hey, buddy. Why don’t you come down from there before you get hurt?”

  Sal’s face scrunches up. Spittle seeps from the corner of his lips as he shakes his head. I pause several feet below, watching Alex carefully pick his way up to meet Sal.

  “What’s he got that I ain’t got, anyways?” Sal yells and spins once more. His footing is precarious. “Sure he’s kinda good looking, got arms the size of tree but I’ve got experience that he can’t compete with. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

  “Sal,” Alex raises his arms. He’s two rocks below Sal and not nearly close enough to avoid disaster. “I think I’ve got a candy bar in my pack. I’ll share it with you if you come down quietly.”

  He seems to contemplate it for a moment, brushing his hand along the length of what little hair he has left. Victoria was right to try to get him to chop it off. That greasy mullet is repulsive.

  “Listen to him, Sal.” I call out.

  His gaze shifts to look at me. “Not till you promise me that dance, sweetheart.”

  Alex jerks as Sal’s foot slips, but the fool merely laughs and spins on one foot. His heavy paunch seems to balance him as he leans forward and creates the image of a fat, hairy ballerina.

  “Cable?” I say. He stands beside me, his hands tucked deep into his pockets and once again I wonder if he has a weapon concealed there.

  “I know. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  I stare hard at him. “Yes, there is.”

  I ease past Victoria and approach the base of the rocks. Even from here I can feel the frigid spray of the water. A small rainbow hovers in the air before me, the mists illuminated in the dappled sunlight. Clouds have begun to move in. There is a change on the air and pray that we find shelter before the next storm. They seem to come so fast these days.

  “One dance, Sal, but you have to promise to keep your hands above the waist.”

  “That’s where all of the good stuff is anyways.” He spins to face me, a wide triumphant smile lighting his face. “I knew I could convince you. You’re a smart girl. You just need the right leverage—”

  His cry startles birds from the trees. His arms flail and the crazed look in his eye shifts as the realization that he’s going to fall sinks in a moment too late. Alex reaches out for him, grappling to catch onto his foot as he teeters. “Sal!”

  His boot slips off the rock and he plummets backward. Cable outstrips me as
I race to climb the rocks.

  “Oh, poor, poor Sal.” I turn to see Victoria wringing her hands before her. “All he ever wanted was to be loved.”

  “Stay back,” Cable warns as he inches his way around a boulder overhead. The ledge is small, barely wide enough to hold the toe of his boot. Alex approaches from above, both converging on Sal’s last location.

  A part of me knows that I should ignore his warning and go to Sal’s aid. Another part, the more callous realist wonders what’s the point. He is turning. Everyone knows it. It’s only a matter of time before he becomes one of them.

  Cable disappears from sight. The top of his back disappears behind the rock. Alex plants his hands and feet between the two rock faces and shimmies down. Several minutes pass without any sound.

  “Is this when the screaming starts?”

  I turn, surprised to find Victoria has managed the initial climb up to me. She looks lost and frail. Her face is drawn. Dark circles line beneath her eyes. I smile and motion for her to join me, sucking in my pride as I place my hand around her shoulder. She leans her head on me and I’m choked by the overwhelming scent of perfume. Where on earth did she uncover that crap?

  “They’ll be fine. We all will be.”

  “You always did know how to make me feel better.”

  I frown and pull away from her. “Vicky, are you feeling ok?”

  Her brow furrows and her gaze drifts far off. “Stop fretting over me, Mom. You know I hate that.”

  Mom? I stare at her a moment longer and am shocked when I see her stick her thumb into her mouth. She’s regressing. Isn’t that one of the symptoms too?

  I press my palm to my head, trying to think. I remember before the news reporters went off air that there was a long list of symptoms to watch out for. So many of them mirrored the common cold or flu that it left everyone sure they were next. Was this one of them?

  “It will all be fine.” I squeeze her shoulders and lead her toward a rock a safe distance away. “Why don’t you rest here for a bit while I go help the guys?”

  “You’ll come back right? You promised.” Her mouth puckers as she shakes her head. “You promised you’d come back but you never did. I waited for you…”

  Shaken by her words and how closely they hit home with my own father, I step back and hurry away. That is all kinds of messed up right there!

  “Cable?” I shout. At this point it won't really matter if anyone hears us. Either they will help or we’ll fight. I doubt things could get much worse. “Cable?”

  “We’re here.” The grunt comes from my right and I lean around the rock and see Alex and Cable struggling toward me. Sal hangs limply between them, unconscious. Blood trails down from his head. His skin appears ashen.

  I hurry forward. “Is he dead?”

  “Probably should be.” Alex winces as he stumbles under Sal’s weight. Of the entire group, Sal’s got the largest frame. Big boned, as he tried to call it. That gut is all beer and Twinkies if you ask me!

  They lower him to the ground a few feet ahead of me. Leaves and dirt stick to his scalp wound as his head rolls to the side. There is an ugly cut along his hairline. The rest of him looks miraculously unharmed. I’d have expected at least a broken bone or two.

  “Found him wedged between two rocks. Lucky bastard can’t even kill himself right.” Alex wipes at his nose. The end is pink, as are the tips of his fingers. He presses on his lower back and arches to stretch out his muscles.

  “He’s an idiot.”

  Alex nods in agreement of Cable’s assessment. “In more ways than one.” He turns to look at me and his expression changes. “Thanks for at least trying to help. I know you didn’t want to.”

  “It was the right thing to do. He would have given away our location.”

  “Yeah, probably so.” Alex turns and surveys the woods. The dark grey rock face behind us rises nearly fifty feet overhead. It curls around us in both directions. It’s not a terrible spot to be in, but I would have liked to find real shelter for the night. “I guess we set up camp here.”

  Cable drops his pack. He sinks down low and digs through the contents to find several slightly dented plastic bottles. He holds them out to me. “Might as well fill these up while we can.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He points back toward the path we left less than half an hour before. “I’m going to follow that and see if we can find shelter. Judging by the look of those clouds we are in for a rough night.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Alex splashes water on his face, rubbing it through his hair. He cups his mouth under the trickle of water and drinks deep before rejoining us.

  “You’re leaving me with them?” The prospect of staying being with a highly perverted man and an old woman suffering from a bought of crazy mommy issues doesn’t sound the least bit appealing.

  “We’ll be back before sundown.” Alex takes an empty bottle from my hand and tosses another to Cable. “Fill up before we leave.”

  He splashes through the water, heading away from us. Cable stands beside me, unmoving but I can tell he wants to be nearby. “We won’t go far.”

  “I know.” The flat tone in my voice affects Cable. He stiffens and thumbs the edge of the bottle cap in his hand.

  “I wouldn’t go unless I felt I had to.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Avery—” he reaches out for me but I pull back.

  “Just go. I’m fine.”

  He sighs and taps the bottle against his leg. “Why is it when you say you’re fine, I get the feeling you mean the other thing?”

  A small smile tugs at my lips, but I don’t turn to let him see it. I know he doesn’t want to leave me behind, but he does, because he should. It’s times like this I hate being a woman. I’m not a caretaker or a nurse, but people keep trying to make me into both.

  EIGHTEEN

  The sun hangs heavy in the western sky. Its fading rays offer little light or warmth to the darkening woods. Victoria rocks back and forth on the ground beside me. Her mutterings incoherent, grating on my nerves.

  Sal sits with his back against a tree, his hands and feet bound by strips of towel that I tore apart while he was still unconscious. I don’t trust him. He is too erratic. Too unstable. Too...Sal.

  I know it’s the transformation progressing that causes his overbearing personality to explode. Though I’ve only ever seen it happen once before with Natalia, she hadn’t reacted anything like this. That’s the frustrating thing. There’s no easy way to pin down the symptoms because they seem different for each person.

  “Must be nice to have three guys hot for you,” Sal says, spitting to the side. Blood tints the saliva, darkening the rocky path nearby. “Bet you love making us squirm. Though I guess Cable can stop squirming now, can’t he? You already gave it up to him. Guess I’ll just have to wait in line and you’ll eventually get around to me after you mess with Alex’s head a bit first.”

  “Fuck you.” I hurl a stick out into the woods, wishing that I could smash his nose in. I should have gagged him but I didn’t want to get close enough for him to bite me. He’s infected and I won’t take the risk of any of his bodily fluids touching me.

  His raspy laugh sounds moist and clogged. A sudden intake of breath followed by intense coughing makes me turn back toward him. His face grows red. If his hands were free I’m sure he’d be beating on his chest, but he isn’t free. I sit and watch his struggle, his face shifting through pale pinks to dark purple. His lips begin to take on a blue tint, though I guess it could be a trick of the light.

  Sal’s eyes begin to bulge. A vein pulses down his forehead.

  “No, no, no!” Victoria rocks faster, clutching her hands to her ears. There is a steady tremor in her fingers.

  Sighing, I rise and approach him. He looks at me, unseeing. I crouch before him and hesitate. It would be easy to let him go out like this, suffering, like he deserves. I could do it. Just let him choke to death,
but as I glance back at Victoria I know it would unhinge her completely.

  “Ain’t that a bitch.” I ball my hand into a fist and beat on his back. He splutters, gasping for breath. Three more pounds on his back and a glob of mucus bursts from his throat. I turn my face away, sickened by the sight and potent smell. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  I push off on his shoulder and return to my spot, actively ignoring him as he slowly recovers. The wheezing is new. I only wish I knew how many more symptoms he had to go through before the end.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  I look up to see Alex appear around the bend in the path. His light blond hair picks up the final rays of twilight. Cable marches behind him, his taller frame lost to the shadows. Alex drops what looks like a large rolled garbage bag and rushes to Sal’s side. He places two fingers against his neck.

  “His heart rate is all over the place.” He turns to glare at me. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar, liar, liar,” Victoria mutters. “Kill, kill, kill.”

  Alex’s gaze hardens. “Did you try to kill him?”

  Cable steps between us as I start forward. He raises his arms out to keep me at bay. “I’m sure Avery didn’t do anything to harm Sal.”

  “Oh yeah?” Alex doesn’t seem to buy it for a second and my anger multiples. Why the heck would he take the word of a crazy woman over me? “How do you figure that?”

  Cable turns to look at me over his shoulder and smiles. “Because if she wanted him dead...he would be.”

  I nod in silent agreement, thankful that he understands just how close I came to letting it happen. Alex doesn’t need to know that though.

  “He started choking. I whacked him on the back a few times and he recovered. No big deal,” I shrug and push Cable’s arms down. I don’t need to him to protect me from Alex. He’s not the one I’m worried about.

  Alex’s hands are planted on his hips. He stares down at the mess between Sal’s feet then up at Sal. I detect by the way he shifts that he’s looking for some sign of bruising around his neck, probably finger impressions to prove my guilt. When he finds none he closes his eyes and sighs. “Why is he tied up?”