The Cure, стр. 25
Danny stood up and walked back out onto the porch, glancing up to the bedroom where the small skeletons lay together in the double bed, hands still entwined. He sat down on the porch swing next to the remains of the father, jawbone missing and skull in pieces, shotgun laid out in front of him.
***************
As the sun started to come up McGregor pulled the wolfskin over his shoulders and rubbed his hands in front of a fire. A home-made spit above the fire held the remains of one of the wolves and he reached out and wrenched off a body part and crunched into the meat and bone. ‘Looks like I made a ‘dogs’ dinner’ of you Fido,’ he laughed.
Chapter Eleven
Logan soon realized that the group were getting tired and need a break. They had been walking for hours and although they knew they were getting close to the city morale was low and they were all hungry and thirsty and in need of a rest. In the distance they could make out high rise buildings and knew that they had maybe two or three more hours before they would be at their first destination. What they didn’t know was what to expect from the city itself. If the creature that attacked Brad was anything to go by, they were heading for a warzone and every one of them knew it. Unfortunately, the only way to Parchman Prison was right through the city center.
Logan stopped and drank from his water bottle. The others saw this as an opportunity and did the same. Chuck sat down with his arms stretched out. The twins did the same and Seth pulled off his boots and emptied the sand from them. No-one spoke but they were all thinking about Brad, and that anyone of them could be next. Xander lit up a cigarette.
‘We’ll go on another hour and then make camp for a few hours. Then we head into the city and make our way to the prison. I get it that you’re tired and demoralized, but we’re so close now. You’re scared, and I understand that too, but it took guts to get this far. I’m not going to promise you that we’re all going to make it, but I promise you that I will do everything I can to make sure that we do. Everything is within our grasp to ensure we make the right decision to save these people.’ As the words were coming out his mouth, Logan was wondering whether he believed it himself. He had to. He started this journey and had got all these kids involved in something far bigger than just his moral compass. He’d already lost one of his team and he wasn’t about to lose anyone else.
Seth sighed and pulled his boots back on. They started off again, one foot in front of each other. No further than ten minutes up the road Logan stopped again. ‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered to Tallulah. She shook her head. ‘There, I heard it again.’
The rest of the group had stopped and were all looking around in the dark with their flashlights, trying to see what Logan was hearing. ‘I don’t hear anything dude,’ said Chuck.
Logan stared in the black abyss of the desert, squinting towards where he thought the sound was coming from. He moved forward slowly and raised his torched. Two small lights shined back at him. He moved forward again towards the lights, which looked to be moving around. Five yards from the lights he switched his torch to full beam to see a gaunt brown bear hunched over the half-eaten body of a man. The bear looked up at Logan and locked eyes with him. Logan slowly retreated, and the bear went back to its meal while the beam of light faded, and both the bear and the body became invisible into the night again.
The others were huddled together shaking. Tallulah had her hand over her mouth to stop herself screaming, and Faye was holding her still. Logan raised his hand and pointed forward and they moved slowly away and towards the city.
A few hours later the sun was starting to come up and they were entering the city. Eerily quiet the empty roads made no sound. No traffic, no people and no shops made this a spooky place to be. They had seen what happened to human beings living in this world and they didn’t want to meet anymore. Sometimes it’s the not knowing what’s out there that scares us, more than the reality. In this case it was both.
Logan looked at the map and then looked in three different directions ‘This way,’ he said and moved confidently forward. By his reckoning they weren’t far, as the prison was pretty much on the outskirts of town. Something to do with it being home to some of the country’s worst criminal offenders. The intel he had from military records showed that through the city’s police station there were tunnels leading to the main gantry in the prison. Not even the previous guards had known about these as they hadn’t been used in years. The government had full access to blueprints though and Logan had planned to get access through the Police Station and into the prison that way.
His expectations at this point were that everyone in that prison was dead already, including the Professor, but somewhere deep inside him he had to believe that everything was still possible. If the others realized that he was losing faith, then it was all over. He had no plan as to what would happen once they were inside the prison, but hoped they were in a better physical