Wilders- The Complete Trilogy Page 11

  “Did you try calling Mom, Benny?”

  Benjamin was sitting on the ground beside the car, sobbing. “Her voice. Her beautiful voice is gone. Just gone. He just grabbed her throat. Like it was nothing. Like it was made of tissue paper. They’re really strong, Renna.”

  “Benny,” she tried to make her voice firm. She wanted to hug him, to sit and cry next to him, but they had to figure out what to do. They had a dead body, her brother was covered in blood, there may be Wilders running lose in the surrounding areas, and they had no way to get ahold of any real adults.

  He looked up slowly, his tears making pale streaks down his cheeks. “Yeah Renna?”

  “Let’s go inside, okay? How long did you drive to get here?” She thought maybe if she asked him some simple, everyday questions she might be able to snap him out of it.

  “Uh..” he hiccupped in a breath, “like almost an hour. I tried not to speed. I didn’t think it would be good to get pulled over.”

  “Yeah, yeah that’s smart. Good job, Benny. Let’s stand up now and walk inside. We’ll get you a shower. Some fresh clothes.” What Renna wouldn’t do for this to have been one of the days Alyssa’s parents had fought. She could really use somebody who would take charge here. This wasn’t her job. She wasn’t ready for this. She had no idea what to do next.

  Once they’d walked slowly inside, Renna said soothingly, “Benny, try Mom okay? Maybe the phones will work again soon. You take my phone and you keep trying. Every five minutes, okay?” She nodded as he walked over and bent to pick up her phone. Renna stared down at her wet toes, and kicked her flip flops back out the door, reaching for the hose beside the stoop. She tried to listen to the news behind her as she rinsed off her feet and sandals in the cold water.

  She could barely hear the drone of the news anchor, catching words and phrases like “Cell Phone towers are too busy.” And “Shelter in place,” and “full shoot on sight order.” She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard “Worst attack in over eight years.” She shuddered, thinking back to the panicked days when people barely left their houses; of her Father coming home and acting strange. She wondered what her mother would do if she were home with Benjamin. Would she stay with him, without trying to call emergency services? Renna, listen to me. Do not call that number from the TV. Whatever you do, just wait and stay quiet. I’m on my way. Don’t call them, Renna, they’ll kill your father. She wondered if her mother would have that same advice now. If she herself would disregard it again, now that she knew how it would turn out.

  Renna slipped her feet into her fuzzy pink house shoes, almost numb from the cold hose water. She started toward where Ben sat on the floor in front of the TV, remote in hand. He must have muted it. Something about his posture was weird. Maybe he was just uncomfortable, trying not to get blood on the carpet. She looked past him, to the TV, where his gaze was riveted. The images on the TV seemed surreal with no sound. The news anchor was gone from the screen, and the camera was at an odd angle, feet running past. As she watched, a body was dragged to the ground and bloody hands tore at it before it stopped moving. Abruptly, the screen went dark.

  There must have been another Wilder attack. But that seemed impossible. Renna’s thoughts flashed back to what the news anchor had said just before Benjamin had pulled into the drive, witnesses are claiming that some of the infected began changing even as officers arrived. Renna swallowed hard. A change had never happened so quickly. Just in rumors. And when the crazy doomsday prepper people made up stories about how the world would yet turn into a zombie apocalypse like in the comic books.

  She started over toward Benjamin, planning to switch to a different channel on the tv when Tim Tam slowly edged around Renna, pushing on her knees with his body. Urging her away from Benjamin and toward the door. His fur was fluffed up, and he continued to press against her. She eyed her brother as she backed slowly away, realizing that he could well be infected. He was covered in blood. It would only take a single hangnail, or a papercut. Maybe he’d nicked himself shaving that morning. It took such a small amount of blood to spread the virus.

  What if he was? What should she do? He was already inside the house. That was the plan, right? Get to safety inside the house. And he had the car keys. She couldn’t get in the car with Diamond’s dead body anyhow. She couldn’t sit in a car cowering again. She tried to stay very still and very calm.

  “You weren’t injured, were you Benjamin?” Renna watched him carefully for his tell. He wasn’t a bad liar, but he still used the old ‘look just above the eye’ trick. She watched him contain his shaking for a moment. She waited as his eyes snapped up to meet hers and then drift ever so slightly up.

  “No. No, I don’t think I was.” His eyes had a weird sheen, almost like there was a film over them.

  Renna took another half step away from him as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face. Tim Tam pushed more insistently at her legs, shoving her a step further back, beginning his low rolling growl.

  “Ben?”

  “Yeah?” His teeth were gritted, fist clenching and unclenching.

  “Don’t hurt Timmy Tammy, okay?” Her voice came out smaller than she intended it to.

  He grunted, “I’m not going to hurt either of you.”

  “Then why’d you just lie to me? Why’d you come home? You should’ve gone to a hospital.” She looked around for something, anything she could use to defend herself. Could she bring herself to kill her brother, to save herself? Maybe if she kept him talking his rational brain would hold on just a little longer. There had to be police patrols out on a night like this one.

  “I just didn't know what to do. I’m scared, Renna.” His body spasmed hard as he fumbled toward the cell phone again before jerking to a pause, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth.

  Renna turned and ran as fast as she could toward the road, hearing Tim Tam’s growls intensify, then cut off in a hissing shriek. Don’t turn around, don’t turn around she wished she’d put real shoes on before dashing outside instead of running out in her slippers. She could hear footfalls catching up to her, inhumanly fast.

  Wilder fast.

  Desperately she veered into the woods. Maybe she could find a stick or something. Anything. She felt a hand snatch at the back of her shirt as she dove through pine branches, and leapt over a log, darting to the left, hoping to loop around the back of the house. If she could just get inside she would be safe. She could close the screens, and turn on all the lights and wait until morning.

  But every time she tried to turn toward the house, Benjamin was there, just on the yard side of her. She kept pushing deeper into the woods, only remaining ahead of him because her smaller size allowed her to dodge through and under branches that caught him up as he tried to charge straight through them. As she ran she dimly caught a flash of red, the same color from earlier, ahead of her. Then a person in a red shirt was rocketing right toward her, from the woods. She faltered, unsure of which way to dodge.

  That one faltering step was her undoing. Benjamin knocked into her, sending her tumbling to the ground. She rammed the heels of her hands in the dirt, ripping a hole in the knees of her sweatpants and lost both slippers as she skidded to a stop. She felt a hard tug and heard the ripping of hair as it was pulled from the roots, jerking her head around hard. This was it. She was going to be ripped apart by her own brother.

  Or maybe she’d survive and turn. She’d rather just die. Still, her hands scrabbled for a stick, a rock, anything, as she was dragged to her side by her hair. She hoped he killed her fast.

  Abruptly, her hair was let loose as the red shirted figure from the woods slammed into Benjamin. They wrestled, both inhumanly strong. Panting, Renna crab crawled back from them, scrambling through blueberry bushes and leaves, deeper into the forest. She couldn’t see the yard anymore; didn’t know which way to go. She was barely able to see much of the figures as the sun had begun to set. She scrambled to her knees and then her feet, running headlong away fro
m the fight.

  Chapter Five

  Renna tripped hard, hitting her head on a rotting tree stump. She didn’t know how long she’d been running, she just knew she was afraid to stop. Bringing a hand to her head, it came away damp with blood. With a grunt she pushed herself into a sitting position. She was deep in the woods. She blinked, bringing her eyes into focus. She took a few deep breaths, trying to bring her heart rate down and to get some focus. She’d been running in a blind panic with no thought of what to do next. Now she had to figure it out. She was in the woods. At night. There was another outbreak. Benjamin was infected. Diamond was dead. She had no phone, no flashlight, no real idea of how far into the woods she’d run. She was bleeding.

  “One step at a time,” she mumbled to herself. “Just hold it together for now.” She shoved herself painfully to her feet, angry all over again that she’d run out of the house in her slippers. Slippers that were now lost somewhere in the forest. Renna gazed up to the stars, hoping maybe they would have secret map for her. She’d taken a sky navigating course once, online. Just for fun. She was pretty sure she needed to know what direction she wanted to go for that to be helpful. It was a night marked by heavy clouds anyhow.

  Her parent’s old hiking guides always said to stay put when lost, since you’d have a better chance of being found. That was before the change. Now they did not send out search parties. Even worse, on this day, anyone found out of their shelter was deemed “shoot on sight” for law enforcement or local gun owners. She felt a burble of choking sobs sitting just below her voice box.

  “Get it to-fucking-gether Renna. Think. Think! Where should I start?” She spun in a slow circle, looking for any lights glowing through the trees. She could barely even see more than two trees past where she stood. Start by not talking out loud to yourself, she bit her lip to keep the thought from being voiced. Gingerly, Renna slid a foot forward through the undergrowth, feeling for sharp rocks or sticks before placing her weight on it. She shuffled the other foot forward, in the same painstaking process. She’d never get anywhere at that rate.

  Plopping down on the rock next to her, she ripped at the holes in the knees of her dirty sweatpants, tearing sideways around her legs until she was able to rip the material apart. She used the portions of the material below the knee of each leg to wrap and re-wrap her feet for protection. With her new ‘shoes’ she stood and started past the rock, in the direction she hoped would be toward home.

  She’d been walking for almost an hour, taking alternate lefts and rights between trees, with no clear direction of travel when she heard the sound of something crashing through the forest off to her left. She let out a yelp, then covered her mouth tightly with her hand. Dropping into a crouch she froze listening hard. Holding her breath, she counted to ten. Not hearing further movement, she risked another quick breath in. It could have been anything. It could have been a deer. Or a bobcat. Or maybe just a really big racoon. She’d read once that even owls could sound huge when they dived down to snatch up a mouse then beat their wings to rise again.

  It could have been a Wilder.

  What if it was Benjamin? Or the stranger that had saved her. Was he saving her, though? Or just attacking the most enticing prey? She shivered as a strong breeze began whistling through the trees. Renna felt the first cool drops of a rainstorm plop onto her head. She remained crouched, listening hard over the patter of rain falling faster. There was the roll of thunder echoing off the mountains around her.

  She would have to find shelter. Just something until morning when she could see better. At least with the storm brewing nothing else in the forest would be able to hear her picking her way through the underbrush. The cover of noise worked both ways. Cautiously she rose, scanning for the dark hunch of the rocky hills scattered throughout these forests. She didn’t need a whole cave, just a little indent would do. Somewhere to put her back safely against while she waited out the night hours still and quiet.

  Once she reached the rock face, she slid a hand over the rough surface as she edged along it. Her tee shirt and sweatpants were heavy with the rain. She knew if she just kept at it a little longer she’d find herself a safe spot. With at least five more hours until morning, there were no other options. She thought about Alyssa, probably at home hunkered down in her room, fingers flying over her phone as she texted half the school. She wondered if she’d started freaking out yet about not being able to reach her. Alyssa would probably climb a tree and hunker in, counting it as some great adventure to be surviving. She thought of Benjamin again, lost to the human world. Not even Alyssa could make a positive spin on this one.

  Finally, Renna felt the rock curve away under her sliding hand, leading deeper into the rockface. She followed it out of the drenching rain and a little way into a cave. She sniffed deeply for the musky scent of an animal den. Her nose was running and snot filled, but she didn’t think she smelled anything. Even so, she didn’t explore further. She sank gratefully down, back against the cool stone, and hugged her knees to her chest, staring out into the darkness.

  Renna cracked her eyes against the rising sun, rubbing the crust of dried mucus off her upper lip. She was really thirsty. What was it those old survival reality shows had people do after a rain? Drink off leaves or something? Suppressing a groan as she unbent her knees, Renna tried to get her bearings. The trouble with living in one of the towns located within the Adirondack forest was that she could miss her home, or even her town, by less than a mile and never even know it. Being in an isolated area at the start of the infections had been ideal, as the outbreaks had started in big cities. But it didn’t take long before there was no safe place. The woods had become the holders of boogeymen and off-gridders alike.

  How had she fallen asleep out here? Her shirt was still damp across her midriff where her legs had been curled up all night. The areas on her feet and palms that had been scratched up stung as she stretched. Remembering the sound of her hair being ripped from her head, she gingerly touched around her scalp until she found a swollen area that felt shiny and thin. If anybody saw her now, she wouldn’t blame them for mistaking her for a Wilder.

  She stepped out from the edge of the shallow cave, pleased to see there was a field just a few steps away filled with blueberry bushes. It was a little late in the season, but most bushes still had the later berries on them. Renna spent the next hour as the sun rose picking the tiny berries and shoveling them in her mouth. If she didn’t find her way out of these woods today, she’d need a whole lot more sustenance than that.

  As she began walking again along the rock face, Renna could not shake the feeling of being watched. Every few steps she paused, listening. Once she thought she heard the snap of a twig just after she’d stopped. As the hairs on her neck refused to stop prickling, she turned her back to the rock wall and scanned the tree limbs. Was it just her, or did it seem like the birds had stopped singing in the immediate vicinity? Something stirred in the woods in front of her. Straining, Renna saw a subtle shaking of the undergrowth. With an ear-piercing shriek, a hawk streaked down, intercepting a rabbit as it made a break from the undergrowth, and carrying the squirming creature off into the heights of the trees.

  Hands shaking, Renna decided that the first thing she had to do was find a weapon. She cursed herself for spending time eating berries, oblivious to her vulnerability out here. She was the rabbit, not the hawk.

  She suddenly felt exposed making her way along the smooth rock, clear to be seen by anything hiding in the bushes and trees around her. But in the forest, predators could come from any direction. All of the school drills had focused on survival within a building. As if attacks never happened on sidewalks, or open fields. Because people, now, lived only in these enclosed, safe spaces.

  Renna decided to compromise and walk just inside the treeline. She would be better hidden, but also able to have a clear view of anything that came at her from the rock face on her left. She picked up a large stick, testing its weight. It looked sturdy, but as
she shoved it against the ground with force, it broke apart, spewing a swarm of ants that she danced away from. The next stick she found was better, stronger. She used it to push back branches as she walked steadily onward.

  Several hours into the day, she was hungry, and thirstier than she’d ever been in her life. She still felt as if she were being watched, but with hours passing and nothing attacking her, she decided it must just be a reaction to all of the stress she had been through. She sighed and walked on. If she could just find a road. She’d walk all night tonight if she had to.

  As she rounded one of the largest tree trunks she’d ever seen, something shiny caught her eye. Gazing around her, she heard and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Limping on blistered and torn feet, she shoved aside the long grasses where she’d seen the shine. Gasping, she picked up a shiny foil wrapped granola bar, cushioned against one of those sealed emergency water packs. Whipping her head back and forth, she looked for signs of a camp, or a backpack, or something to indicate where it’d come from. She swept her stick through the bushes and grasses, hoping for more packets, but scared to find a body.

  After finding neither, she gripped the packets and darted forward through several stands of trees before leaning against one and breathing hard, listening for pursuit. When she heard none, she ripped the water pack open and sipped on the corner. She crunched into the granola bar between sips. The tiny chocolate chips had never been sweeter than when they melted onto her tongue. After she finished her bounty, she carefully tucked the wrappers into the pockets of her sweatpants, stepping out onto the trail as the sun started its long dip into the tree tops.