Page 113 of The Last Sanctuary
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 theWelcome to Josie’ssign 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.
