Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
As we approach, I get an uneasy feeling. The hairs on my arms stand up on end, this time not from the never-ending biting cold. Thunder rumbles in the distance, making the ground shake mildly.
“Hey,” I call out when we’re about hundred feet away. “Kyle?”
Nothing.
Just the sound of whistling wind and distant thunder.
“Let’s go check it out,” I grunt, cautiously making my way toward the vehicle.
“Someone’s lying on the ground,” Gerry whispers. “You think they’re asleep?”
Outside? Doubtful. I certainly don’t voice that. Shrugging, I creep toward the prone form on the ground.
One of the women—I can’t tell which—lies face down, naked from the ass up. Her pajama pants have been wrenched down to her ankles and she lies in a pool of blood.
Fuck.
This doesn’t look good.
“You think Kyle did this?” Gerry growls, rushing to check the woman’s pulse. “Dammit, she’s dead. Cold and hard, too. This didn’t happen recently.”
I squat near her body and push away her hair. A gash along her neck appears to be the cause of death. I take note of her fingernails. They’re ripped and torn as though she tried clawing her way along the asphalt, away from whoever was doing this to her.
“I think she was, uh, assaulted,” Gerry says, motioning at her bare ass that’s smeared with blood. “This isn’t good, Kellen.”
My stomach twists, this time with a trickle of fear as I rise to my feet. I then notice the other woman, bent over the front of the vehicle. Her pants are completely gone. She too seems to have been brutally raped, murdered, and then left to rot in the elements.
Swallowing down bile, I shine my light into the vehicle, confirming my fear. Kyle sits in the passenger seat, slumped over, a gunshot wound to the head.
“He’s dead too,” I croak out. I scan the area around me, searching for who could have done this. It makes me think of those three guys we first encountered, who wanted to take Hailey. This new world is lawless.
“What do we do now?” Gerry asks, voice shaking.
“We go back to the others and make a plan. There are bad people out here. We have to make sure we don’t run into them.”
Thoughts of Judy or Hailey or Hope meeting the same fate make me want to throw up.
We cannot run into these people.
Tyler
The tires have been slashed and the keys are missing. Whoever did this to them wasn’t just eliminating them, but leaving a warning to anyone who came across them.
Who are these people?
“Should we bury them?” Gerry asks, shivering as he stares at dead bodies. “This is so screwed up, Kellen.”
Kellen casts a gaze toward Stovepipe Wells and sighs before looking at Gerry. “It is and, no, I don’t think we can afford to waste the time or energy.”
I certainly agree with that. It’s horrible what happened to Kyle and those girls, but we have to keep moving.
“We need to get off the road,” Aaron says, unable to take his eyes off the dead girl on the ground. “These monsters could be watching people who travel this way. Hell, we may already be in their sights.”
“You think this area is a trap?” I ask, alarm bells suddenly ringing in my head.
“We can’t exclude that thought,” Aaron mumbles. “It could just be a traveling group of marauders who encountered these three. But if it was something planned and far more sinister, I sure as hell don’t want to walk into something like this.” He glances over at Hope, who wears a worried frown. “We need to be smart.”
“Maybe the people at Stovepipe Wells will help,” Judy offers, voice raw from crying. “There has to be a military presence or policemen or FEMA. Something.”
Hailey, Jesse, Silas, and Pretzel all remain in a spot just out of eyesight of the carnage. My brother may be a little shit, but this would break him. Those kids don’t need to see the brutality we’re facing.
“Maybe,” Kellen mutters, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
I’m not convinced either.
Aaron opens up the map again. We decide to leave highway 190 we’ve been traveling on that’ll go straight through the small town, travel east along the southside of the area, and then come into Stovepipe Wells through an indirect route that’s off the beaten path. Coming in through a main road doesn’t seem wise, so we’re going to avoid it.
“Let’s see if we can use any supplies in the vehicle and check the radio before we head out,” I suggest, heading over to the driver’s seat.
Broken glass and Kyle’s cold, nearly frozen brain matter litters the seat. I tuck my hand inside the sleeve of my jacket and dust it off. Once it’s safe to sit, I climb inside, trying my best to ignore the rotting corpse beside me.
Though the keys are now gone, I manage to use my pocket knife to pull away the steering column so I can attempt to hot-wire the car. I’m not a savant like Jesse, but I manage to figure it out. Someone—Kellen—opens the back seat and starts rummaging through a bag he finds.