Open Roads Page 3

  When they’d moved to the driver’s side of the van, Gabriel could see for himself just how upset Dylan was.

  “She’s gonna be okay, buddy,” Gabriel said. “She’s just scared.”

  “It’s just…” Dylan’s voice trailed off as he wiped at his eyes.

  “It’s just what, buddy? You can talk to us if you need to,” Gabriel said.

  Dylan took a moment to gather himself, then he looked up to Will and said, “The way she was breathing… it reminded me of seeing you on the ground after the accident.”

  “And just like me, she’s going to be fine. It’s like Gabriel said — she’s just scared.”

  A few minutes later, Holly and Mary Beth appeared from behind the van. Though her entire face was red, Mary Beth appeared to be much happier now. A smile grew on Dylan’s face, and he went to Mary Beth and hugged her, an embrace she allowed with her own open arms.

  Holly walked past the children to join the adults.

  “She’s better now,” Holly said.

  Gabriel leaned in and whispered, “Has she said anything about where she came from or how she ended up at that farm?”

  Holly shook her head. “Not to me. I’m not sure what Dylan knows.”

  “I’m ready.”

  Gabriel looked past Holly and saw Mary Beth standing there. She reached over and opened the closed panel door on the driver’s side of the van, and jumped into her seat.

  The rest of the group loaded in, and Gabriel cranked the engine as he buckled his seatbelt. He looked to the gas gauge. The needle hovered around the letter E.

  And as he pulled back onto the open road, that’s when Mary Beth started to talk.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Day of The Fall

  Dawson Home - Maryville, TN

  “22, 21, 20, 19…”

  Fourteen-year-old Susan Dawson continued to count down from sixty as her younger sister, Mary Beth, looked for a place to hide.

  The woods behind their house stretched for what seemed to the children like miles. It was their favorite place to play. Since Mary Beth had been old enough, the two girls had spent hours upon hours playing out here. A bit off the grid, it had always been safe out in these woods; this place was truly the childrens’ sanctuary.

  Curled up with her knees at her chin, Mary Beth hid behind a large log. Her sister sat on the tree stump about thirty yards away. They’d named the stump ‘Home Base’; it was where the seeker always counted while the other went to hide.

  “2, 1,” Susan said. “Here I come.”

  Mary Beth stilled her breathing. Autumn was quickly approaching, and the leaves that had fallen to the ground made it easier for her to hear her sister approaching. This was a welcome advantage for Mary Beth, who’d never been very good at hide and seek. Susan routinely found her sister in one of the three spots she liked to hide, but the games almost always lasted longer once Autumn came.

  Sitting on the broadside of the log, Mary Beth’s nose started to itch. Something in the air had triggered her allergies, and she now found herself trying to hold in a sneeze. She rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand, but it only made the sensation worse. Then, just as Susan’s footsteps started heading the other way, Mary Beth sneezed.

  She heard her sister’s footsteps stop, and instead of waiting on Susan to come get her, Mary Beth revealed herself.

  “Dangit,” Mary Beth said, crossing her arms in a pout.

  “Come on,” Susan said, laughing. “We gotta head back so we can finish school.” The girls‘ mother home-schooled them.

  “Race you home?” Susan suggested.

  Mary Beth bowed her head, signaling she wasn’t in the mood to play. But it was all a ploy. Looking down at the fallen leaves, Mary Beth smiled, and then bolted away from her sister.

  Both girls laughed as they ran, and Mary Beth could hear that her sister was using her slightly longer legs to catch up to her, the leaves crunching under their feet. Mary Beth was determined to win something today, and chugged her legs harder to try and pull away from Susan.

  “I’m gonna beat you,” Mary Beth said, smiling as she swung her arms and ran.

  But something felt strange. It sounded as if only her feet were beating the ground.

  Mary Beth stopped running and turned around. Susan no longer followed her. Instead, Mary Beth’s older sister lay face-down, about twenty yards back.

  “Susan!”

  Mary Beth rushed to her sister’s side and kneeled down beside her. Susan lay with her eyes closed, her head staring off to the side. Her entire body was limp.

  “Susan? Are you okay?” Mary Beth shook her sister’s shoulder, but Susan didn’t move. “Please, Susan. What’s wrong?”

  Mary Beth reached down to grab her sister’s wrist and check for a pulse, and Susan grabbed onto Mary Beth’s arm and gasped for air. Mary Beth yelled, falling back onto her butt.

  “Gotcha!” Susan said.

  Mary Beth pulled her arm away and stood, scoffing at Susan. “That’s not funny!”

  “Sure it was,” Susan said. She pushed herself up onto her knees and patted the front of her dress down to knock off the loose dirt and grass.

  “You’re a jerk,” Mary Beth said. She patted dirt off her backside, then turned away and continued to make her way toward the house.

  “Come on, Mary Beth,” Susan said. “Don’t be a baby.”

  Mary Beth ignored her sister, continuing home. Susan hurried to try and catch back up.

  Then Mary Beth heard a thud behind her, and turned around to see that her sister was on the ground again. Only this time, she lay on her back.

  “Yeah, okay,” Mary Beth said, shaking her head. “Now you’re really being annoying.” She started to turn away again, but something didn’t feel right. She kept her eyes locked onto Susan, closely watching her sister’s stomach. Mary Beth waited for it to rise and then fall, but nothing happened; it remained completely still.

  Mary Beth crept toward her sister, keeping her eyes focused on Susan’s body to see if it would move. The woods were dead around her, the leaves beneath her sneakers making the only sound she could hear. She arrived at her sister’s body. Susan lay there with her eyes and mouth wide open, and Mary Beth could see now that she definitely wasn’t breathing.

  “Susan?” Mary Beth kneeled and shook her sister. Susan’s head rocked, but her facial expression didn’t change.

  Tears rolled down Mary Beth’s face, and she shook her sister again. “Susan, this isn’t funny! Wake up!”

  Mary Beth put her hand on Susan’s face, and realized that her sister’s skin felt cold. Susan could fake a creepy face, but she couldn’t make her own skin feel chilled.

  Standing up, Mary Beth stepped back, not letting her eyes leave her sister. The tears flowed more intensely now, and the emotion came to a boil when Mary Beth finally screamed.

  She turned and sprinted home.

  ***

  The Dawson house was a quaint, all-brick home, sitting on five acres of land. It had been built on top of a hill, the front yard sloping upward toward the entrance, and the back a steep downslide into the vast woods that covered the land behind the house. Charles and Maria Dawson had bought the 1951 ranch-style house just a year after they had been wed, and they’d hoped it would not only be their first home, but their last.

  Mary Beth’s voice had been wearing thin, with her screaming all the way home as she raced in between the trees. When her house came into view, she ran faster, gaining momentum to dart up the hill. She used a combination run and crawl to mount the yard, still using her hollow voice to call out to her mother.

  She climbed up onto the large wooden deck and blew through the door, not caring that it had swung all the way around on its hinges to slam against the shared wall. She scanned the living room, looking for any sign of her mother.

  “Mom! Mom, where are you?”

  She ran through the living room and headed down the hallway toward her parents’ bedroom. She heard the sound of water runn
ing through the pipes come to a stop, and when she reached the bedroom, her mother came walking out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.

  “What is it, honey?” her mother asked, concern in her voice.

  “It’s Susan, something’s wrong with her.”

  Her mother’s eyes widened. “Where is she?”

  “She’s out in the woods! Hurry! You have to help her!”

  Her mother moved faster than Mary Beth had ever seen, not caring that the towel dropped, revealing her nude back side to her youngest daughter. Within moments, she had on a shirt and jeans, and had laced up a pair of tennis shoes.

  Without hesitation, she took Mary Beth by the hand and raced for the back door.

  ***

  When they arrived at the place where she’d last seen Susan lying face-down, Mary Beth was stunned to find that her sister had vanished.

  “She was right here,” Mary Beth said.

  “Are you sure?” her mother asked. “It’s pretty wide open out here. There’s a lot of places she could be.”

  Mary Beth nodded and pointed to the stump sitting in the open with no trees around it. “There’s Home Base. We always walk straight out this way when we head back home.”

  Mary Beth took a few steps forward, then noticed something on the ground. She bent over and picked up the pink, polka dot headband that her sister had been wearing.

  “Maybe she went back home,” Mary Beth said.

  “But you said that you guys always go back the same way that we came,” her mother said. “We would’ve passed her.” She sighed and put her hand to her forehead, clearly stressed, and said, “Let’s split up and scan the area.”

  Mary Beth nodded and walked toward Home Base as her mother veered off somewhere behind her, looking for any sign of her sister.

  “Susan?” Mary Beth called out repeatedly. “Where are you?”

  No response.

  A cold, dark feeling crept up inside Mary Beth. Something just wasn’t right.

  “Susan?”

  Leaves rustled nearby and Mary Beth halted where she stood. She looked toward where she thought the noise had come from, and remained still so that she could listen. The leaves rustled again, this time joined by a strange, inhuman sound; it was not so different than the sound of an angry dog.

  “Susan?”

  A figure appeared from behind a tree, and Mary Beth’s eyes widened.

  She wore the same dress, the same shoes, and her hair was styled the same. But her eyes, her skin — both were so pale.

  Susan lumbered toward her sister, a strange wheeze escaping from her mouth.

  This time, Mary Beth spoke in a whisper as she recited her sister’s name, once more.

  There was no response. The lifeless figure only continued to trudge toward Mary Beth, not seeming to even be aware of where she was or who was speaking to her.

  Mary Beth screamed.

  ***

  Two Days Later…

  “We simply can’t stay here anymore,” Mary Beth’s father said. “We’ve been lucky that we’re in such an isolated area, but John told me that it’s absolutely chaotic out there.” John was their neighbor from next door.

  “But, Charles, we have no idea what we’re getting into out there,” Mary Beth’s mother said.

  “Yeah, but if we stay here, it’s only a matter of time before we run out of food. And then what? What if there’s none to be found? Hell, it might already be too late.”

  Maria Dawson sighed with stress. “Where would we go?”

  “John heard from a friend of his that they were allowing refugees onto campus in Knoxville,” Charles said, speaking of the University of Tennessee. “He said the football stadium is closed off and they’ve got a bunch of survivors housed there.”

  “And what about Susan?” Maria asked. “We can’t just leave her here.”

  “Honey, we can’t—”

  “No, Charles,” Maria said. “I’m not leaving her.”

  “It’s too dangerous, Maria. We have to. You saw her. She tried to bite Mary Beth. And what if whatever is wrong with her is contagious? Do you want to live out the rest of our days without either of our children?”

  Mary Beth listened in from the hallway as her mother started crying. For two days now, they had been unable to get medical assistance for her sister. Their aforementioned neighbor, John, had been a doctor before retiring some years ago. Shortly after Susan had become ill, John had arrived back home from errands. He’d urged Maria not to leave, and explained that whatever had happened to Susan seemed to have been widespread, and that everyone on the road was in a panic. Instead, he would do his best to tend to her. He hadn’t been able to help her, and she’d soon transformed into some kind of monster.

  With John unable to diagnose and treat the problem, Charles had tried taking his daughter to the hospital. Somehow, they’d managed to get her inside the trunk of the car, as she’d proven too dangerous to ride in the cab. Two miles away from the nearest hospital, he’d hit a road block, where authorities had been turning people away. The police, trying to control the panic of everyone trying to seek help, told Charlie there was no more room in the hospitals, and that they’d have to turn around and go home.

  For a short time, they’d tried to keep Susan comfortable in her bedroom. But after she’d escaped one of the times her father had opened the door to check on her, and then tried to bite Mary Beth, they’d had no choice but to move Susan outside, to the shed in the backyard.

  “Maria,” her father said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “You’re right,” her mother said. “We can’t put our family at risk like that. We have to try and go without her.”

  There was a long awkward silence, and Mary Beth looked around the corner into the living room to see her parents embracing. Her mother’s shoulders rocked up and down as she cried into her father’s chest. Mary Beth’s father caught his daughter’s gaze and pulled away from his wife to acknowledge Mary Beth.

  “Mary Beth, how long were you listening?” he asked.

  “We can’t leave Susan,” Mary Beth said, ignoring her father’s question. “We just can’t.”

  Charles went to his daughter, moving his hand to her shoulder, but she stepped back. He sighed and said, “It’s too dangerous to take her with us. We’ll come back for her. I promise.”

  “Let me stay here with her,” Mary Beth said.

  Her mother stepped in.

  “Look, sweetie. You heard me. I don’t want to leave Susan here either. But, your father is right. It’s the only option we have. John is going to watch her, and make sure that she is okay until we can get back here with help for her. She’s sick, baby. Too sick to travel. Letting your sister out of that shed would only put us all in danger.”

  Feeling as if she was being ganged up on, Mary Beth sat down against a nearby wall, bringing her knees up to her chin. She hid her face from both of her parents and started to cry. Part of the reason she was so upset was pure exhaustion. She’d hardly slept over the past two days, replaying in her mind over and over what she’d seen out in the woods. First, her sister lying on the ground, not breathing. Then, seeing Susan transformed into some sort of creature. Deep in the back of her mind, she could look past her denial to see the truth. The truth that whatever was wrong with Susan, there was no coming back. The same truth that she’d fought to ignore over the last couple of days.

  When her mother started to cry harder, a kind of guilt poured over Mary Beth. She knew that none of this was easy on her parents, and the decision to leave Susan behind couldn’t have been easy. She came out of her ball, wiped her eyes, and stood.

  “I’ll go pack a bag.”

  ***

  The Dawsons lived a few miles away from the main roads. Mary Beth looked out the windows to see the same, ranch-style houses that she’d seen hundreds of times before when heading into town. She sat in the back seat, hugging her duffle bag in her lap. Her father had advised her to pack light and only bring necess
ities, which ended up just being clothes and toiletries. She’d left room in her bag for Bun-Bun, a purple stuffed bunny her grandmother had given her and that she’d had for as long as she could remember, as well as a small keepsake that Susan had knitted for her which had the letters “MBD” sewn into the corner. Each of her parents had also brought only one bag, and they’d filled up two others with dried and canned foods, as well as various bottles and jars filled with water.

  They reached the main road of town. To her right was the grocery store that Mary Beth had been to with her mother more times than she could count. A mile off to the left was highway 129, the road they’d be taking to Knoxville. None of the businesses appeared to be open, even though it was well into the morning. Across the street, the windows of the gas station had been completely shattered. Mary Beth squinted her eyes into focus to see the inside of the convenience store trashed. Cars lined the streets, facing different directions. Other stores lining the street looked similarly vandalized.

  “What the hell happened?” her mother asked.

  Her father let off the brake, and eased the vehicle out onto Main. He drove at a snail’s pace as they each scanned the area outside, trying to take everything in. To Mary Beth, it was as if a tornado had blown through town, leaving behind nothing but pure devastation.

  “Look, honey, a person,” Mary Beth’s mother said, pointing just ahead. “Pull up and ask them if they know anything.”

  The person walked in the middle of the road, their back turned to the Dawsons. The figure moved with a limp and bad posture. Mary Beth noticed the tattered clothes. He appeared to be a man.

  “I think he needs help,” her mother said.

  The man stopped, and her father hit the brakes. He put the gear into park and unfastened his seatbelt.

  “I’ll be right back,” her father said.

  Mary Beth’s mother grabbed his arm. “Where are you going? Just pull the car beside him.”

  “I’m just gonna see if he needs help.”