Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Raven trudged through the trees, her thighs burning, breathing hard. Breaking from the tree line, she found herself at the summit of a wooded hill overlooking a small town.
The sky glowered a miserable gunmetal gray. The chilly morning air reddened her cheeks. She exhaled white puffs as she stood staring down at the small crisscrossed streets and buildings. They seemed like toys from this distance.
Her heart thumped against her ribcage. A mix of dread and excitement surged in her veins. A town meant supplies. A town meant people.
Instinctively wary, Shadow hung back. He gave an urgent, plaintive whine, as if he knew exactly what Raven was thinking and wanted her to know he disapproved.
Since the altercation with the wild wolves two nights ago, Shadow had stayed close by. His presence was a balm to her broken heart.
“What do you think? Should we check it out?”
Raven couldn’t tear her gaze from the town. She hadn’t set foot in a real town since the altercation at the pharmacy in Forsyth. That felt like years ago.
She was in desperate need of a physical map to figure out where she was and how to navigate the perilous terrain to get where she needed to go. She also needed a winter coat, better gloves, and a knit hat. It was downright frigid at night. Winter would be here soon.
Some canned or packaged food items, especially fruits and vegetables, would be excellent. And some new socks to replace her tattered ones. Band-Aids for her blisters. Toothpaste and a toothbrush for her fuzzy teeth. Shampoo for her itchy scalp.
She needed supplies to survive.
From her vantage point, everything appeared quiet and peaceful. That didn’t mean it was. Worry gnawed at her.
“Not all people are bad,” she said as much to reassure herself as the wolf.
Shadow laid his ears back against his skull as if in disagreement.
“I know last time didn’t work out so well. It’s dangerous, I get it. But also, I could freeze to death tonight. Winter is coming.”
She had no idea what day of the week it was, or even if it was still October. Judging by the chilly weather, the frost on the grass in the mornings, and the barren trees, it was probably well into November by now.
“Five minutes,” she said. “I’ll be careful.”
Shadow whined his reservations.
“I said I’ll be careful.”
She couldn’t just stride into town and announce her presence to anyone who might be still alive, lurking about with ill intentions. She closed her eyes and thought of Dekker and Vaughn and Rex. Those types would be the norm now, not the exception.
Her father had taught her to be vigilant and cautious. Though her stomach was growling so loud even Shadow could hear it, she made herself wait.
Raven found a spot on the hill that gave her the best view, rummaged in the pack until she found the binoculars, and settled down to do some surveillance. With a long-suffering huff, the wolf sank to his haunches beside her.
Through the binoculars, Raven studied the town. The side roads were clustered with ranch houses. Several stores lined the main street, along with a gas station, a barber shop, a couple of mom-and-pop restaurants, and a Victorian-style bed and breakfast with a sign that read, “Shady Dale Retreat”.
It was eerily quiet. There was no movement, no life.
An hour passed. Then another. Still no signs of life.
After scanning the streets for another thirty minutes, her hunger and need got the best of her.
It was late afternoon, though she couldn’t see the sun through the dour gray clouds.
She didn’t want to be caught anywhere near dangerous humans after dark.
She rose to her feet. “Come on, slowpoke. Let’s go. We’ll be quick, I promise.”
Shouldering her pack, she gripped her rifle in both hands, making sure the safety was off in case she needed to fire quickly. Cautiously, she descended the hill, darting from tree to tree, until she reached the main road leading to the town.
Shadow whined his unhappiness, but he loped obediently after her.
Dozens of abandoned cars blocked the road on both sides of the meridian. She walked in the center of the road, zigzagging between the gutted vehicles. Some vehicles had crumpled fenders or bent bumpers. Others slumped with their doors sagging open.
A mud-spattered teddy bear lay next to the flattened tire of a gray SUV. A yellow leather purse had been left behind in the center of the road. A crumpled sweater. Inexplicably, a single sneaker.
A little further along, three abandoned suitcases lay on their sides, opened and emptied. Two squirrels chased each other across the road, darting in between the tire wheels.
Raven stifled the shudder that zapped up her spine. She tightened her grip on the rifle and kept going. The air was clear and still and utterly silent. Her footfalls and ragged breathing were the only sounds other than the buzzing of insects, the occasional trill of a bird.
Ten minutes later, she passed a large sign that welcomed visitors to Shady Dale, home of the state’s best fried okra. Population: 947. Not anymore.
As she drew closer, her stomach knotted in apprehension. This town was worse than empty. It had been ransacked, looted, and turned inside out.
Trash, crumpled leaves, and broken glass littered the sidewalks. Potholes pitted the streets. Discarded face masks blew across the weed-infested parking lots like tumbleweeds.
She sidestepped towers of trash bags left to rot when no one came to retrieve them, some split open with greasy bags, empty tin cans, sodden tissue paper, balled up plastic gloves strewn everywhere, blown by the wind across silent streets and into overgrown yards, the weedy grass knee-high in places, nearly to her thighs in others.
Strips of colorful paper carpeted the streets like a ticker tape parade, the paper rain-sodden now, the ink blurred and weeping. She could only make out the occasional word: warning, shelter, spreading, disease, danger, death.
Broken windows leered from most of the buildings, their interiors scraped clean of anything but trash and glittering shards of glass. Graffiti covered the boards hammered over a boutique shop’s windows and doors. Death becomes us. Kill the elites. We’re all in hell. And worse.
It was the same with the barber shop and hardware store, the gourmet café on the corner, the restaurant with the teal- and white-striped awning half-fallen over the caved-in front door.
Raven stepped gingerly over the Welcome to Josie’s sign lying on the sidewalk, spattered with something dark-colored, and headed for the gas station.
Small holes punctured the driver’s side of a blue Jeep parked in front of the gas station. The same with a gold minivan and a few SUVs crowded around the defunct gas pumps, like the owners had fought each other desperately for the last dregs of fuel.
On the side of the road sat the burned husk of a GM pickup truck, which looked like it had been torched with a Molotov cocktail.
The glass from the gas station’s front door had been knocked out. Shards thrust from the frame like jagged teeth. She yanked open the door and cringed at the tinkling ring of a bell, loud as a trumpet blast in the eerie silence.
Inside, deep shadows crouched in every corner. She blinked to adjust her eyes. The hackles bristled along Shadow’s spine. He kept close to her side, growling low in his throat.
She kept her voice quiet. “I know what you’re thinking. It feels haunted. Everything feels wrong here. I get it. I feel it, too.”
Quickly, she searched the gas station. The shelves were picked clean. Several racks were tipped over. The air smelled foul, like rancid milk and rotten meat. Flies buzzed everywhere.
Beneath an empty shelf, she discovered a single can of SpaghettiOs. Her mouth watered as she tucked the can into her pack for dinner later tonight. Nothing had ever looked so delicious.
There were no maps to be found, however. The racks were empty except for some postcards that had been spilled across the floor.
Only a few months ago, she could’ve found whatever info she needed in two seconds on the internet. Like electricity, the internet appeared to be long gone.
All that knowledge, the collected advancement of the human race, utterly erased in a few short devastating weeks.
It was a disturbing thought. Disconcerting. So much of this catastrophe still seemed unreal, like some terrible nightmare she might wake up from even now, even as she stared at the devastation right in front of her.
Raven tugged one of her carved wooden birds from one of the zippered pouches on her pack and placed it on the rack. She wasn’t sure why exactly, she just did it.
Maybe she wanted someone like her to find it and know they were not alone out in this devastated world.
Maybe some small idealistic part of her hoped Damien would leave his uncle after all and would follow her north, discovering little breadcrumbs like her carvings, knowing she was out there, somewhere, and would search until he found her.
However stupid, however unrealistic. But still.
She left the gas station and strode down the sidewalk with wobbly legs. Shadow trailed warily several yards behind her. She kicked aside a gas mask like the kind you saw in movies. The right eye lens was shattered. It must not have protected whoever had once worn it.
Down the road at the corner was a sign for Manfield’s Grocery. She glanced both ways, scouring the buildings lining either side of the main street. A hardware store, a hair salon, a diner that smelled like rotten eggs.
Each store had been thoroughly pilfered. No movement anywhere, no sounds. No signs of life—or danger.
Next to the grocery store was a pre-owned clothing store. Unlike the other businesses, the store had been ransacked but wasn’t completely emptied.
Sweaters and hoodies had been yanked from the shelves. Racks of pants and dresses were knocked over. Clothing spilled in puddles of colorful fabric mixed with crushed cardboard boxes and other detritus.
Raven scavenged an oversized Beastie Boys hoodie, a wool vest to wear beneath her raincoat, a knit navy cap, and a pair of oversized gloves, as well as a few pairs of dingy socks.
She wouldn’t be winning any fashion shows, but she’d be warmer at night.
Shadow sniffed disdainfully at everything she touched.
She rolled her eyes. “Tough crowd tonight. Like you care what I look like. I bet you like my smelly breath about as much as I like yours.”
Shadow turned his butt toward her and pawed at a pair of blue rubber-ducky swim shorts on the floor next to a torn sleeping bag. Someone had been hiding out here recently.
The final stop was the grocery store. The parking lot overflowed with vehicles parked haphazardly, as if in great haste.
Cars were parked on the overgrown grassy berm.
Near the front entrance, a dusty gray hatchback had crashed into the passenger side of a black sedan.
Shards of glass and chunks of twisted metal and plastic littered the walkway.
Raven skirted the crashed vehicles and slipped through the double front doors, bending to enter through the shattered glass. The doors had once been barred with wooden boards. The two-by-fours remained stacked in a pile next to the entrance.
Someone had attempted to protect the contents of this place, or perhaps they’d tried to hoard the food from other survivors. Someone else had forced their way inside anyway.
Inside the entrance, Raven halted, blinking to allow her eyes to adjust. With few windows, the darkness huddled deeper, the shadows stretched darker beyond the row of cash registers to her left.
The smell hit her first. The stench of death. Of coppery blood and rotting gristle, of putrid, bloated flesh and feces.
Covering her mouth and nose with the hem of her new hoodie, she kept both hands on the rifle as she stepped further into the grocery store. Shadow padded reluctantly at her side, his hackles bristling, teeth bared.
She could see enough to discern the rows of barren shelves. Opened cans and crushed empty packages and split bags of rice and beans scattered across the floors, each grain of rice and individual bean long since scavenged.
The bodies lay side by side in what used to be the deli and bakery aisle. At least twenty of them. Men, women, and a few teenagers. One kid around ten years old.
Rust-colored stains marred the tile floor beneath them. The same rust-brown blotches spread across the N95 masks covering their mouths. Dried blood leaked from their eyes. The bodies were bloated and discolored, their swollen limbs locked in rigid agony even in death.
Raven jerked back, breathing hard. This was how her father had died. How ninety-five percent of the world had died. Probably her mother, too, though she didn’t know that, not for certain.
Raven hadn’t gotten sick like this. She’d been spared the Hydra Virus. Was she immune, or had she simply gotten lucky?
Right now, it didn’t matter. She longed for the protection of the trees, the comfort of the woods. Anything to escape all this death.
She imagined every town and city in America like this. Every city in the world. Ravaged by the virus. And those who hadn’t been ravaged by the virus had been left to fight over what little remained.
She saw then what she hadn’t noticed at first. Each of the diseased corpses was riddled with holes. A tiny round hole was drilled into each forehead. They’d been lined up and shot to death.
Raven backed up a step. Then another. “I think I’ve seen enough. How about you, pal?”
Shadow growled in agreement.
She desperately wanted to skirt any other towns and highways, but the vast sprawling metropolis of Atlanta loomed to the west, and the sizable city of Athens lay somewhere directly to the north, with a population of 100,000, at least. Augusta was 80 or 90 miles to the east.
To get to the mountains and the Chattahoochee National Forest, she’d have to approach several population zones. There was no other option.
Plus, soon she would need more supplies, more food. And she couldn’t wander aimlessly forever. She needed a specific destination.
Raven retreated from the gruesome scene within the grocery store and headed back down Main Street. The beginnings of an idea needled at the back of her mind, but she ignored it. For now.
“Let’s go,” she said. “There’s nothing for us here.”
The wolf loped at her side. Together, they left Shady Dale behind.