Affliction Page 6

  After following skid marks on an overpass another mile up the road, I peer over the dented railing to find the remains of a second motorcycle. A third is dropped beside it on the ground with a body sprawled out a few feet away. The remaining seven are nowhere to be seen.

  I follow the scent of gunpowder for several more miles, but see no other signs of wreckage. Their scent carries on.

  “Damn it.” I hold a stitch in my side, using just about every swear word known to man and a few that I invent as I begin to jog again.

  The following day, after pausing to sleep only a couple of hours, I track them through the first signs of suburban outskirts of Chattanooga and then follow their erratic trail east where they headed toward Signal Mountain. Then night returns. From the highest peak, I am able to see the valley below and in the middle of wooded lots and farming fields I spot a large fireball sending smoke high into the air.

  It takes me nearly an hour to reach the crash site and by the time I do, the metal is far too hot to comb through. It is nearly impossible to tell if there were any bodies still inside, but I know without a doubt that this was the truck Jax was driving. The heat is too intense to remain close by, and I can’t bear to stare into the flames for any length of time, so I move farther off to wait for the debris to cool.

  Exhausted and frustrated beyond measure, I lie down on the ground and stare up at the smoky sky. It hangs in a thick cloud, covering everything within a mile radius, and dampens my senses. A new round of dangerous storms threatens to overtake me sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I am forced to take shelter in a small lean-to half a mile from the crash site that stinks of urine and rotted food. I grow restless as I pace under the leaking room, watching the forks of lightning that stretch toward the ground with growing agitation.

  Even with the fire out and the smoke settled, I won’t be able to search for clues under this deluge. It is almost as if heaven itself hates me.

  Not long after dawn, the brunt of the storm passes, and I emerge to find a drenched fire pit less than a hundred yards from my shelter that I hadn’t noticed the night before. I sniff the air and catch the faintest whiff of three males and the ruts of a motorcycle. Glancing in the direction they are headed, I realize that they have turned back toward their home.

  My hopes plummet as I wearily walk back toward the crash. If they left, that means only one thing: they believe everyone died in that crash.

  The rains slowly begin to give way to a light drizzle. The thinning clouds are a welcome sight until a pinprick of a brilliant dawn peeks through and I’m reminded of why I have grown to hate the sun.

  Beautiful pastel colors splash across the sky beneath the cloud layer, but I can no longer savor the beauty of a new day and I realize just how quickly I have become a thing of the night.

  I turn away and hunch my back against the sun.

  I spend the next hour digging through damp ash and melted metal. I kick aside the fender and toss away the license plate to find a set of teeth buried beneath.

  With a heavy sigh, I sink down to my knees and lower my head. I should be happy, grateful even, but the lost opportunity to seek revenge strikes me hard. I slam my fist into the moist ground and feel mud squish between my fingers. My cry of outrage sends birds bursting into flight as I throw back my head.

  I collapse onto the ground. With my hair concealing my face and my arm wrapped under my head, I finally sleep.

  Sometime late in the evening, a sound wakes me. I sit upright, ears alert as I turn left and right. I zero in on the eastern hillside when I hear the distinct echo of an AK-47.

  “I only found two sets of teeth,” I whisper as I look back at the pile I made of jawbones. “They could still be alive.”

  I sprint through the trees, leaping over fences and across wide open fields with one direction in mind, without a single shred of evidence that the one shot came from a soldier, but hope forces me to run on. A second shot sends me skidding to a stop and I lift my nose to sniff the air.

  There are conflicting scents here. I turn this way and that, hunting for a familiar smell, but nothing stands out to me. All I have is the sound, and amongst the hills, the echo is impossible to pinpoint accurately.

  “Think, Avery. Where will they go?”

  I think back to the rest area that I came across outside of Chattanooga the day before that had a map posted on the interior wall. This entire area is surrounded by forest and rising elevations. Although their plans may have been to stick to the main roads leading into Atlanta, the Raiders have forced them off course. To backtrack now would lose time and distance.

  Cap will want to deliver Wiemann to the Safe Zone as fast as possible.

  I look to the mountains before me and smile. “They are going to go straight through.”

  For once I feel as if I might have a tiny amount of luck on my side. Cap and the survivors will be forced to move slowly and with care over the rough terrain. That is where I will hold the advantage. I can’t be too far behind now.

  By the time I reach the CDC, it will be heavily fortified and in total lockdown. Whatever experimental drugs that have been created in their labs will already be in route to the Safe Zone and administered to the living and unsuspecting residents. With Iris and Brian no longer alive to remain in constant communication with the Zones, these experiments are likely to have already begun.

  I have no way of knowing if samples of my blood have somehow made their way to the Zones, or if others like me have already been created and then duplicated. Things in Atlanta may have escalated to the point where nothing can be done to save the people inside, but I am determined to try.

  As I run I reach a two lane road, I leap over downed motorcycles emptied of gas, bicycles with blown tires and car doors left open in a rush to escape whatever force blew through this area. Shrapnel long since rusted by the elements lies beside demolished vehicles, many overturned and damaged by explosions. The grass on the roadside is blackened and dead. A battle was fought here, but I am left to wonder who won.

  The feeling of vulnerability grows as I keep a wary eye in front and behind while I dart across the road and return to the trees, but I see no one as the sun moves to a position high in the sky and the terrain begins to rise and fall under my feet. The strain of near constant travel wears on me and my nerves fray as the hours stretch on.

  I can feel Flesh Bags around me but none of them give me any sense of having located an immediate source of food to navigate by. Their numbers are far greater than I could have imagined. I do my best to skirt around them, giving them a wide berth to conserve my energy, but when forced to, I deal with them as quickly as possible and continue on.

  I pause at the edge of a tree line to survey an old abandoned dirt road that cuts across my path. It looks as if nothing has traveled this way in quite some time, but as I look to my right, I catch a distinct scent that makes me fingers twitch: humans.

  Many survivalists have probably fled to the mountains in order to ride out the outbreak when the rumors first began. If they are still alive, they will be well supplied, hunkered down and heavily armed. I must tread carefully as I pass through their lands.

  The night stretches out before me, cold and damp after the storms. A dew begins to form on the leaves as I swat at the occasional fly or mosquito and move rapidly through the underbrush. The air feels close within the tree cover as I struggle to keep a steady pace but I feel my strength waning on the steep mountainside.

  Winded and sorely in need of water, I slow my pace and look around. The lack of food or water and unrelenting heat of the day has sapped my energy. I need to find somewhere to rest before I move on. Plodding around through the woods without a clear sense of direction is no good to anyone.

  Less than half an hour later, I stumble across a winding dirt road that appears to lead to a small homestead hidden behind a thick grove of trees. I look to where the trail r
ises higher up the hill and sniff the air. Someone is definitely up there and they have food that I need.

  Racing across the road before plunging through the disorderly tangle of shrubbery, trees and dangling vines, I can’t help but marvel at some of the changes within me. My speed has increased to nearly twice that of a human across flat land but the mountains remain a challenge. I hope that with proper nourishment I will be able to recover quickly and press on with my mission. I will rest a single night, but tomorrow I return to the hunt.

  I pause beside a tree wide enough to conceal two of me and survey the house from a distance. It sits back from the dirt road about a quarter of a mile. The wide curved logs of the cabin’s face look to be in good repair and the screen door and deck on this small country home are in good standing. Flowers not long dead drape over painted window boxes.

  A small wooden fence with a locked gate stands before me as I take it all in with a keen eye. It looks too clean, too untouched by the desolation of the world I left behind, and for a moment, I can almost convince myself that all is right with the world again. At any minute some sweet, apron-wearing old lady might just come out onto her porch and offer me a glass of hot tea and a rocking chair to sit in while we suffer through the unbearable mountain chill.

  None of that will happen, of course, but it is a nice thought.

  The decking boards creak softly beneath my feet as I cautiously step up to peer into the cabin through a bay window. It appears to be a tidy, modestly furnished home with dented hardwood floors, crocheted doilies on the side tables and a wall of mounted animal heads. A knit blanket drapes across the arm of a faded blue sofa. A stack of hunting and gardening magazines sit neatly on the handmade coffee table. There is even a small pile of mail near the door, already stamped and ready to be taken to a rural post office.

  There are no other signs of life moving within the cabin. I can’t hear the steady thumping of a heartbeat inside and when I sniff the air I sense that the house is empty, though obviously recently occupied.

  I step up to the doorway and open the screen door, waiting for a few seconds to see if anyone will react to the loud creak of the door hinges. My eyes quickly adjust to the dim interior and I feel the tension in my forehead ease. The room is indeed empty.

  The only light that flows into the living room comes through a row of windows off to my right where moonlight spills over, dappled through low hanging trees. To my left, I notice a newspaper beside the stack of mail and realize that it was printed a week after the mutations began. Splashed across the headline in bold print is this: MONE Vaccine Reported to have Potentially Adverse Effects.

  “That’s the understatement of a lifetime,” I mutter and turn the paper over.

  Judging by the numerous wrinkles in the newspaper and the leathery texture under my fingertips, it has been read many times. It seems an odd thing to obsess over something that happened months before, but perhaps that day holds special meaning for the owner.

  I shiver and move into the house, careful to step lightly.

  “Hello?” I call as I close the door softly behind me and set the lock in place.

  I have grown far too accustomed to covering my back to allow anyone to sneak up on me from behind. I would most likely catch their scent beforehand, but I would rather not take that chance.

  There is not a speck of dust to be seen on any of the surfaces the furniture as I walk into the main living area. An old tube TV stands in the corner facing a well-loved arm chair. At the foot of the chair is a pair of men’s slippers.

  “It could almost be passed off as homey if it wasn’t so anally clean.”

  I walk through the sitting room and into a short hallway beyond. Trailing my fingers along the wall, I stop to look at each of the family photos. Some are in black and white with a bit of yellowing at the edges. These must be from distant relatives in years past. Others are newer and obviously printed with a digital camera quality.

  I stop and stare at a large framed photo prominently positioned on the wall of an old man and woman, holding hands and standing side by side near a small pond. The woman’s head is slightly turned and there is a look of adoration on her face. The man wears a small yet wicked grin. As I lower my gaze I realize that he’s in the middle of pinching her backside.

  “I guess men never grow out of that,” I muse and push aside the discomfort the photo births within me. Thinking of Nox at a time like this will hardly help.

  The dining room table is empty apart from a vase of dead flowers. The heads have wilted and fallen to the wood surface. Mold clings to the brittle stems.

  A china cabinet stands in the far corner of the dining room when I enter and I feel a new pang of regret when I realize how similar it is to one that my mother had when I was a child. I have not thought of her in several months, mostly out of self preservation, but this reminder is like a slap to the face that I can’t dodge. As I place my hand on the thin pane of glass and stare at the delicate blue and white tea cups, I realize that I actually miss my mom.

  It feels like a silly thing to admit considering we were never close. Perhaps, because of the horrific nature of her ending, I feel closer to her now merely out of guilt. There was nothing I could have done to stop the Raiders from killing her. Back then I was unskilled and foolish. If I had tried to help her I would have joined her in death.

  Anger burns in my stomach at the thought of how those men ripped into my mother’s flesh and drained her of her blood. Stupid, ignorant ideas that blood could spare a person’s life in the beginning days led to so many needless deaths and for what? By now those men have either succumbed to the virus themselves or shot each other dead in the streets. Neither of those endings bring me any comfort. They should have died gruesomely, just as my mom did.

  Turning away, I force myself not to smash the china cabinet and the memories that it drags with it. I take a moment to notice that this space is almost obsessively spotless as well.

  “Whoever lives here has a seriously creepy obsessive compulsive issue.”

  As I turn around in place, an eerie feeling falls over me. This area is remote for sure, but not so much so that it would have remained completely untouched by the outbreak. How is it that an old man and woman would survive so well when others lost everything?

  “Something is definitely not right with this picture.”

  When I enter the kitchen, I feel like I’ve been sucked into a time warp and shoved straight back into the 1800s. In one corner is an old fashioned ice box and across the room, nestled in the corner, is a black pot belly stove still radiating heat. Cast iron cooking pans line the wall on small metal hooks. Spice jars and a tub of what looks like lard sits beside the stove on a small wooden shelf. Large carving knives are fixed to a magnetic strip on the wall beside the small wash basin.

  “I guess these people already knew how to rough it when the power went out.”

  I turn in a complete circle to take it all in and bump my hip against a two-seater wooden table and chair set, all laid out with mealtime cutlery and dishes. The plates are a simple white and chipped on one edge. They are nothing fancy, unlike the ones stored in the china cabinet in the other room.

  A quick check of the two bedrooms at the rear of the cabin reveal neatly made beds adorned with homemade spreads, an old fashioned pedal-powered sewing machine and a closet filled with work clothes, many of which have been mended multiple times. Oil lanterns stand on nearly every table in the house to provide light during the nighttime hours but none of them are lit.

  Turning to look around the final bedroom, I frown. “How can a place look so completely unlived in when it’s obvious that someone does?”

  I place my hand on the bed and push down to find that a feather mattress lies beneath the covers. It looks like a godsend and I would happily sink down into is welcoming softness if not for the hairs rising on the back of my neck reminding me that the owners
are here somewhere and I have yet to locate them.

  Forcing myself to complete my search, I move back through the kitchen and out onto a back deck to take a look at the property. Two rocking chairs sit on either side of a small table. An unlit pipe is cradled in a small smoking dish empty of embers.

  Three steps lead down into an unkempt yard, overgrown with weeds and brambles. Beyond that I spy a small trickle of a stream that crisscrosses through the yard and leads to a hand pump. The land slopes upward with a fairly sharp angle and on the rise I catch the sight of smoke. It appears to be coming from a large fire hemmed in with a dirt ditch to keep the flames from spreading.

  Just beyond that, nestled near the side of the mountain, is a barn. It’s wood siding has faded to an off red in the moonlight and the white trim has peeled in several places. The roof stands two stories high and is severely pitched at the middle in an A-frame style.

  A large rectangular opening at the top appears to lead to a loft area where I can just see the tops of rounded hay bales. I turn my head to listen but fail to hear mooing or the lowing of farm animals. Those most likely became food over the past few months.

  To the right of the barn I spy an old pickup that has seen better days. The hood is open and nearly rusted through. A tarp covers the cab but it is easy to see that it won’t be moving anytime soon by the large hole where the engine once sat.

  The barn door appears to be slightly ajar and has small holes in it scattered over its surface. I step down onto the wet ground and quickly jump over the stream to make my way up the hill, but I stop short when I see footprints in front of me. Dropping to my knees, I survey the trampled ground.

  “These was not done by one man,” I whisper to myself as I press my finger into the different depths of indentations.

  My skin begins to tingle with apprehension as I lower my nose to the ground and breathe in deep. My nostrils flare as the potent scent of death becomes unmistakable against the moist earth and smoky fire.

  “Withered.”