A Whisper in the Flame (The Ragers Series Book 1) Page 8

  "I'm so sorry," I whisper through the wall to whoever this person was. It wasn't his fault his life ended this way. He didn't ask for this.

  I turn my back on the door and on the camera. Slumping down to the floor, I pull my legs tightly to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, cradling myself. This is the first time in my life I have ever truly been alone, and I am terrified.

  Chapter 13

  Alone. Completely and utterly alone.

  Can there be anything more?

  How long can I keep this up?

  Whispers call out to me. In my sleep. In the fire that rages through my dreamscape.

  When the sky burns red, orange, and purple. The voices reach through each flickering flame. They call me forward.

  "Move." They whisper. "Come to us."

  I know I must go. I need to race through the burning embers to reach those quiet voices.

  But I don't know that I can. I'm trying so hard to let go. My feelings keep thrashing me back like waves in the ocean. They rise and ebb, tossing my heart back and forth.

  Then a wave of anger comes. It topples me, pounding me into the gritty, crystallized sand. The fire still burns past the dunes, but I'm being taken away. I'm falling deeper into the ocean. Dragged away by the rising tide.

  ****

  The apartment is submerged in near total darkness. From my spot here on the floor, the only light I can see is the dim green glow of the time on the microwave in the kitchen. I can't read it; it is nothing more than a blur through my tears. There is no way I'm getting up to try and look. I'm too tired, too weak, and too afraid.

  I'm so tired. All I want to do is go to sleep and stay asleep. I'm too terrified though. I'm not only afraid of what awaits me here in real life, but also of what monsters lie in my dreams.

  I've been laying in the same spot, with my hood pulled up tightly around my face for hours now. My eyes feel itchy and irritated from crying and lack of sleep. Part of me wants to wash my face, rinse the sting away. I'm too frightened to lift a muscle, though. If I move, they might hear me. More could come.

  Ha, I remember not long ago, when I would have given anything to be out on my own; to have freedom. But this... This is not what I envisioned.

  Before everything went so wrong, I longed to be away from my family. I couldn't wait to graduate high school and go off to college. I knew that if I was out there by myself, doing my own thing, I was going to find myself.

  You know, the classic fantasy that everyone has: to find themselves. Why? Are we not already ourselves? Yes, we change and we grow. We discover new things all the time. But this crazy idea that one day we are going to know who we are meant to be and where we are going. Yeah, sure... I find this notion absolutely ridiculous now.

  Was this supposed to be part of my journey? Is this the path I was meant to be on to find myself? It's all a bunch of bull.

  And I had it all planned out, too! Like I was in control of who I was going to be and how I would come through it all. I planned on living in my own apartment or in a dormitory at the university. When I first went away to school, I was going to drown myself in my schoolwork and try to prove I belonged there.

  Slowly, I would make new friends, try new things and become more adventurous. I wanted to travel abroad and experience different cultures. I would visit Ireland, Germany, and Cancun. I would go out to a few bars, drink a little and sing karaoke.

  I was going to fall in love and then have my heart completely and utterly broken. I would wallow in my pain; I wanted to feel it all. Then I would pour out my heart in song as I strummed on my guitar.

  After finally picking myself back up, I would decide that it was time to refocus myself. Get back on track and complete my degree. I would be ready for the next chapter in my life.

  Then one day, unexpected: I would meet someone new. We would fall in love and this time it would be the real, forever kind of love. Suddenly, all of the heartache of my past would have been worth it because it all led me to where I was meant to be.

  It's all gone now. Vanished.

  And honestly, I would have gladly given that dream up, that notion of finding myself, just to have my family back. None of it matters. If I could be here, in this apartment, facing this, doing it all with Mom, Dad, and Will; losing those other dreams would be so inconsequential.

  I jump in my skin as the refrigerator rumbles to life. Every single time. Every little noise gets me. The fridge. The A.C. unit. Every time they cut on and off, on and off. My brain tries to make sense of the noises and the shapes in the darkness while my heart thuds in my chest. I keep thinking that any moment the boogeyman is going to jump out and get me.

  Shapes emerge from the darkness all around me before disappearing like wisps of smoke.

  Wait, what is that? There really is something there. It's getting closer. Shit! It's one of the Infected. She found me. She limps forward blindly with her short hair hanging in front of her face, matted with blood.

  I stumble trying to move out of her path, but I end up catching her attention. She cocks her head to the side, and her face lights up with malice as she sees me standing in the middle of the road.

  Her ankle, it's broken, it hangs limply to the side as her bone grinds against the pavement. The lab doors are still open and part of me contemplates running in and locking myself inside.

  Instead, I reach down to Will's hunting knife in my sock, retrieving it with haste. As I rise back up, I bring my arm into the air, ready to strike. Her face is right in front of me. I can see her eyes clearly. They are beautiful, amber with green around the irises.

  "Mom?" I croak out. "NO, MOM!!"

  Screaming myself awake, I come back to the dark apartment.

  Shhh... shhhh. Don't draw attention to yourself. I rock myself back and forth, shaking hysterically as I try to control my sobbing.

  I am falling apart. I don't know what to do or how Mom ever thought I could do this on my own. I can't go on without her. I need her. I feel like I am still stuck underwater in the river. My lungs are filling with water, burning my throat. My body is convulsing with fear. I am drowning, but this time, I don't want to come back up.

  Chapter 14

  I'm so thirsty, but I feel like I can barely move. My throat is dry and aching and my body feels limp. I've barely gotten off of the floor over the past two days outside of to use the little hall bathroom, but now I have nothing left to give. I've been laying or sitting here by the door quivering, feeling nauseous and weak. I've run out of tears. Though I feel like I could cry forever, nothing is coming out.

  The part of me who still cares about living and going on knows that if I don't drink water soon, I'm going to die of dehydration. The other part of me who doesn't give a shit says what's the point?

  Everyone has left me. My brother is dead; Lauren is missing; Mom is dead; Dad is with the enemy and Shae tossed me out with the trash. I don’t have anyone left in the world.

  The point is Mom. She told me to keep going. She told me she wanted me to figure out a way to stop this. She wanted me to find Lauren and help her.

  But how in the world did she expect me to do this on my own. What did she want from me? I’m barely eighteen years old and I technically didn’t even graduate high school.

  How is a girl like me supposed to do anything? How am I supposed to make a difference?

  I guess that’s something I’m going to have to figure out along the way. It’s time to get up. To fight. To make something out of this situation.

  I push myself off the floor, feeling the weakness in my muscles as they contract with the effort of keeping my blood pumping. As I amble into the open kitchen my heart starts racing faster and I have to fight the urge to puke.

  My brain feels too fuzzy to try looking for cups. Instead, I go straight for the sink, not even glancing out the window above it. I pull the smooth chrome handle forward and watch as the water flows, checking to make sure it looks clean. The water comes out powerful and clear. Without thinking about i
t, I lean forward over the sink, head to the side, and suck in the water.

  I don't know how long I stand like this. Part of the time was drinking the water; part was letting the hydration soak into my dry cracked lips and the corners of my mouth.

  I pull back, leaning against the island behind me while I stare out the window over the sink. Hunger and thirst still eat at my stomach, rumbling in my throat. My mind, however, feels clearer than it has been since I got here. Adjacent to the kitchen is the dining room with a beautiful chandelier hanging in the middle. The boxes stacked in the middle of the room are labeled "China" and "Kitchen."

  Outside of being unable to finish taking their belongs, the people downtown were lucky they were evacuated when they were. The damage is minimal. The electricity is still on for now, and the water is still running and drinkable. I mean, unless I get sick and die from it in the next few days...

  Out of nowhere I am laughing. Out loud. What if I did die from the water. No one would know. Not one living person would know. My body would be bloated and decaying and rotting on the floor somewhere in this apartment and no one would ever find me. Nature would probably take over this building before anyone realized I was dead. We'd both crumble, bone and brick and dust, right back into the ground.

  My eyes are blurred and stinging, watering at the thought, but not with sadness. They're watering from laughing so hard. My stomach is aching from it as well. I feel lighter than ever. It's crazy, we went from a world that was completely obsessed with following people's every move through social media to one where no one is left to even care.

  My dad doesn't care, that's for sure. He's probably sitting comfortably in his office on base, not thinking about me, or Mom, or the son that he let die on his watch. He doesn't give two shits. Why? Because he's fine, he's alive and well. He's a liar.

  Suddenly all the laughter is gone. I feel like I am going to erupt. I want to go on a warpath. And I do. Ripping cabinet doors open, I throw anything left in them onto the floor. The glass cleaner under the sink, gone. I threw it against the pantry door. Plates in the cupboard, smashed and fragmented all over the floor. One cabinet door is opened so forcefully that it fights back, it flings back at me, colliding into my knuckles. Still, I reach in and scoop my arm around a few coffee mugs and fling them onto the floor.

  "Ouch!" I scream. One of the cups hit the counter sending a broken fragment into my hand. It's a small cut on my palm but it still tingles and burns. My emotions cool as I collect myself to rinse and wash my hand in the sink.

  Breathe. Stop letting your emotions control you. Just breathe.

  After wrapping my hand in the dish towel hanging off the oven, I open the pantry and find a few items left behind to eat. There are some saltine crackers, tuna, and some yellow rice.

  Grabbing a sleeve of crackers and pouring a glass of water, I slip past my path of destruction in the kitchen and perch myself in front of the front door again. This time I face the door. Watching the video monitor for signs of anything or anyone who might try to come for me after all of the commotion I've made.

  As I munch on the saltines and watch the screen, I try to level with myself. I'm still angry with my dad. I feel like he abandoned us. I know he drafted those emails for Mom to find but he had to know something was up. He seemed to know a good bit about what was going on. Shouldn't he have warned us? He could have found some way to let us know that the Army was coming and what they were about to do. Or he should have told them who we are and had us brought to him. Safe and both alive.

  But why would he do that? I think resentfully. He didn't do anything to help Will. He let them throw a charade of a trial and then let them kill him. If he loved us, if he cared about Mom, myself or Will, he would have done something.

  Mom wanted me to find him though.

  She had all of the same information I do and yet she still wanted to get to him. She trusts him. Hell, so do I... He's my dad. I love him.

  Ems, he can't control everything. Some things are just out of his reach.

  I know.

  I've got to get to him. He knows how to make the cure. We can do this together. We need each other. Like we always have, like family.

  It's time to put the anger aside. It's time to stop with all the tears. Determination is beginning to well up in my heart again. I don't have time to lie here in sorrow. I've got to get out of here and get onto that base.

  I have to come up with a plan.

  Chapter 15

  I wonder if the owners actually made it out alive. Why were they given notice to evacuate but our side was told to stay put? They were given the chance to live, great, I'm glad someone was. Why them, though? Is it because they're wealthier than us? Most of the people living downtown are store owners or wealthy businessmen.

  Or was that all a sham too. Were they truly given the chance to evacuate or were they just moved to a different location to be killed? What if it was all a diversion? It got us to stay put in our homes. The soldiers were able to go house by house and execute everyone they didn't think they could use.

  My mind has been mulling this same thought over and over for the past three weeks now. Anytime I'm not staring out the windows in every single room of this apartment, my mind wanders back to this.

  Right now I'm parked on the soft carpet in front of the tall floor to ceiling living room window. It faces the backside of the building and gives an expansive view of other stores and streets in the area. I should be taking notes, but I can't keep my thoughts in order.

  When I first started my planning, I grabbed some paper from the desk in the guest bedroom and began taking notes of my observations. I looked for buildings that might offer food or supplies to help me on my journey. I've watched for Infected, trying to figure out if they cluster in different areas or randomly appear. I've searched for road names, looking from the front windows to the back to see where they connect.

  With a growl from my stomach, my mind circles back to food.

  They barely left anything behind other than what was in the pantry and some deli meat in the fridge. Now, though, I only have a can of tuna and half a sleeve of saltine crackers left. I've decided to leave here tomorrow, at least long enough to find food. It will be a good test for me.

  From the master bathroom, I spotted a little corner grocery store a few blocks away. It really is too far to tell, but from what I see, it seems safe enough and I didn't see too many Infected nearby.

  The sun is setting, casting shadows on some of the street signs. I make a few final notes on my paper before heading to the guest room. I turn on the light switch and scatter the otherwise empty oak desk with my notes, before getting more paper out of the drawer so I can draw a crude map.

  Really, really crude. I draw a square close to the center of the page and mark it with a big star to indicate my apartment. Then, using my notes, I draw little lines to indicate streets and label them appropriately.

  I couldn't see too much of the roads on the side of this part of the apartment because there are only windows on the back wall of this room and none in the hall bathroom. Part of my paper is completely empty as I begin drawing from memory the streets I took to get back here from the Iron Giant and the river beyond.

  Looking down at my creation I am in awe of myself and ashamed at the same time. If anyone else were to try using this map they would never be able to figure it out, from the outside it reads like the scribble scramble of a four-year-old. Good thing, no one is left to read it but me.

  I fold my map and notes up delicately as I walk down the hall towards the kitchen, hitting the light switch on my way out of the room. Darkness is setting in, so I turn on the hall light to help me see but to avoid drawing attention to me being here.

  I slide the map in the front pocket of my backpack on the island and head to the pantry for "dinner".

  You know I wish the owners would have left me a couch or someplace comfortable to sit and sleep. Seriously, the floor is killing my butt. Since they had time to pack an
d move as much as they did, I wonder if they actually had more notice than what was told to us on the news.

  I mean I suppose they could have been moving anyways. But a lot of the stores were chained or boarded up. Were the residents here told to get ready to leave but were surprised because the evacuation happened sooner than anticipated?

  Questions continue to swirl around in my head as I begrudgingly eat the last of the tuna. I hate tuna... The smart, conservative side of me decides to save the last of the crackers for the morning so I have something to get me through my first run.

  As I am getting up to put the crackers away, a loud bang goes off from somewhere outside. I can see sparks igniting from an electrical pole outside of the dining room window. The hall light flickers and then goes out, along with the electricity in the rest of the apartment, plunging me back into darkness.

  "Great, freaking great!"

  Chapter 16

  I can't believe I'm about to do this. What the hell am I thinking?

  Umm, that I don't want to starve to death.

  Daylight is pouring in through the windows as I pull my clean t-shirt over my head. My old clothes are rolled tightly up, and I slide them into my backpack. Trying to leave as much room for food as possible.

  I barely finished eating the rest of the crackers, yet the pit of my stomach still feels empty and hollow. Mom's gun is sitting on the counter along with the box of bullets which I shove into my jacket. Shakily, I tuck the gun into the back of my pants, securing it in my belt.

  Deep breaths, Ems. Do you have everything you need?

  Will's knife! Where did I put it? No, no, I have to find it. My head is spinning, and my heart is racing as I start searching the apartment up and down trying to find his knife. He would kill me, I mean literally rise from the dead, to come back and kill me if I lost it.