Lost Valley (Extinction Survival Book 1), page 17
They scrambled to collect themselves, cursing each other for not setting the alarm, and managed to make it out of the house in thirty minutes. By then, half the day had already gone, and a dangerous trip still lay in front of them.
He had opened the garage door and scanned the neighborhood. Satisfied that the area was safe, he returned to the house to bring the family out to the Toyota so they could leave for the Boy Scout camp.
Then their daughter Tina started complaining that her toys were being left behind. The five-year-old had been an “oops” baby, joining the family almost seven years after Josh was born. With her unexpected arrival came a lack of discipline as both parents found it easier to give in rather than teach their daughter how to behave. So when she insisted on taking her “dollies,” a piece of carry-on luggage had been assigned the task of holding all of her plastic babies and stuffed animals. Tina insisted that she roll the baggage herself; no one else was allowed to handle it. Another half hour had gone by before they could finally leave the house.
So when Tina Perron opened the door to the garage and saw an infected neighbor standing at the back of the 4Runner, she slammed the door shut, turned wide-eyed to her husband, and regretted that she had not trusted him. Now they had to face the creature that was roaming just outside.
Mark pushed the family back from the doorway and brought the Remington up to his shoulder. Flinging the door open, he stepped quickly into the large three-car garage. Their other car had been pulled out on the street, leaving the Toyota as the only vehicle present, and it was backed into the large space so they could load it more efficiently.
The deformed thing that stood behind the 4Runner was both ghastly and strangely hypnotic in its appearance. Mark brought the gun up and aimed at its head, but he hesitated before pulling the trigger. He’d never shot at any living thing, let alone killed a person. His brain refused to make his hand move.
The creature let out a horrific scream that cut to Mark’s bones.
The sound caused him to flinch, and his finger tightened involuntarily on the trigger. The buckshot flew true to its target and removed most of the creature’s head.
With the top of its cranium gone, it dropped like a sack of rocks to the pavement.
Shrieks came from the homes around them, sending Mark into a panic as he realized there were many more infected close by. The gated community hadn’t kept any of the residents safe.
As he pulled his wife into the garage, she recoiled from the dead body at the back of the SUV, insisting that he remove it or at least cover it up so the kids wouldn’t see it.
Mark grabbed several large trash bags and laid them over the corpse, which did little to disguise the streaks of gore still covering the floor of the garage and spatters of black-and-red goo clinging to the back of the 4x4.
Mark turned to his wife, frustration and fear bubbling up inside his chest. “Now, will you please get the hell into the truck?”
His distraught wife grabbed their daughter, pulling her along as the little girl dragged the wheeled luggage bag through the gore. The four of them piled into 4Runner, throwing the “dolly” bag over the back seat and on top of the rest of their luggage.
Mark gunned the vehicle out of the drive and down the street, evading several infected that had appeared from the neighboring backyards. Everything was going well until they got to Santa Ysabel, where their road met Route 79. Signs warned them that a military roadblock was up ahead, and all traffic had come to a dead stop.
“The line has to be a mile long,” Sarah said as she craned her neck to see the cause of their troubles.
“I know,” he replied testily.
A few minutes turned into a few hours while they sat in the 4Runner with windows closed and a DVD playing for the kids in the back seat. At last, he saw movement up ahead. People were getting out of their cars.
“I’m going to check it out,” Mark said.
He grabbed his shotgun and exited the SUV, walking in front of the vehicle and up the center lane. Dozens of drivers, mostly men, were standing in the middle of the asphalt road. Both lanes were being used for outbound traffic, and yet not a single car was moving. Mark still couldn’t see what was causing the commotion.
A sudden thumping came from behind him, and Mark turned to see a military helicopter rushing overhead. All eyes focused on the Blackhawk as it skimmed the highway, barely fifty feet above.
Without warning, missiles flashed from the tubular pods attached to the aircraft’s body, racing ahead and impacting on the roadway about a half mile down.
The resulting chaos was stunning. With the explosions less than a thousand yards away, the vehicles surrounding Mark suddenly began to try to turn around. The cacophony of horns and screeching tires was deafening by the time he got back to his Toyota, where he found Sarah screaming in panic and his children whimpering. Once he was back in the driver’s seat, Mark saw no options either forward or behind as more and more cars became trapped in the traffic jam.
Families on foot ran past, their screams mixing in with the vehicles’ engines and honking horns. Automobiles were playing bumper cars with each other. One station wagon swung wide in an attempt to out-maneuver the other cars, knocking down a group of people who were trying to get away from the heart of the chaos.
Seeing the park access road sitting to his left, Mark quickly shifted into four-wheel drive and barreled up the dirt lane. He was rapidly approaching a metal swing gate that appeared to have a chain and padlock attached to a metal pole buried on the side of the road. Mark swerved to the left of the pole and took out a barbwire post that marked the beginning of the dirt hiking trail.
A sharp right just beyond the gate, and the family was bouncing down a flat, straw-colored grass field, moving parallel to the highway they had just abandoned.
“Oh my God!” Sarah cried and pointed to the road.
The traffic was totally snarled, and about three hundred yards ahead of the roadblock, an impact crater had been dug into the pavement. Cars were thrown onto their hoods, and a large prison bus was smoldering in the middle of the chaos, its aluminum body ripped open.
But that wasn’t what had captured Sarah’s attention. At the roadblock, two large military vehicles, each painted in desert tan, formed a wall across the intersection of the highway and Route 79. The top of each vehicle had a large, manned machinegun, and both gunners were pouring bullets at the people who were rushing their position.
After swerving around a small pond and negotiating a dried creek bed, the Perrons were only a few hundred yards from the battle. Beyond the roadblock, the parking lot of a rundown strip mall was filled with Humvees and Jeeps. Next to the military vehicles, multiple tents had been erected, and armed soldiers were jogging between them. The large lot was usually full of visitors because of the business’ popularity, but now machines and people who had been positioned there were streaming out of the lot and turning left, retreating in the direction of the Boy Scout camp and away from the battle at the barricade.
Mark bounced along the field and angled toward the pavement, glancing back at the soldiers who were still firing down the road.
“It’s them,” Sarah gasped. “The monsters are here too!”
Mark watched the tracers from the heavy machine guns mark the path of the 50-caliber slugs as the bullets ripped apart the cars and trucks in front of the blockade. Undeterred by the carnage being brought down on them, the infected were galloping into the fire, many being torn into pieces by the large-caliber bullets rending their bodies and yet still moved toward the blockade.
As he sped away from the intersection, Mark took one last look in the rearview mirror. What he saw made his heart skip as both military vehicles were swarmed by the infected. Within a few seconds, both guns went silent, and Mark said a silent prayer of thanks that he’d convinced Sarah to buy the SUV with four-wheel drive instead of the minivan she’d wanted. With a half-full tank of gas and a convoy of military vehicles running interference, he felt good about the remaining twenty-five-mile trip.
With the sun quickly setting, the family turned past a quaint little winery and made their way up the camp’s dirt road. Hitting potholes and dodging the occasional rocks usually grated at Mark’s nerves, but now they were a pleasant reminder that salvation and safety were just a few miles up the road. Finally, as the sun descended below the nearby mountains, bringing total darkness to the landscape, he pulled into the camp’s parking lot and turned off the engine.
“Safe at last,” he sighed as the 4Runner went silent. To his great surprise, Sarah smiled at him and flung her arms around his neck.
“You did it,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
“We were lucky,” he said. “Next time, listen to me and do it my way from the beginning.”
If her smile became a little forced and her hands a little tighter around his neck than strictly necessary, he chose not to notice. Today, he had been a hero. And even Sarah couldn’t take that away from him.
— 20 —
Split Pine Campground
Lost Valley Boy Scout Camp
Carver
The lights from the incoming vehicle filtered through the branches and brush. Shrek emitted a low growl, alerting them all to the threat.
“Another family!” Kinney said. “Or maybe it’s Jennifer!”
“Are you guys all right for now?” Carver asked the Reedys, who were struggling to settle in to the unfamiliar environment. Darkness in the desert was an overwhelming experience for many people in the best of circumstances, and the family had already been through a lot.
“We’ll be fine,” Chris answered, giving his wife a reassuring look.
“We’ll take care of them,” their son Lucas assured them all.
“Yeah,” Timothy added, “I remember when you guys dropped me and Lucas off here for the first time. I cried like a baby!”
Their young sister sniffled at her brother’s words and looked more frightened than ever.
“Don’t worry, Sis,” he said, giving her a hug. “It was great after I found out how cool it is here. I promise you’ll love it.”
Carver smiled and left the family. Their solar batteries were powering several LED lights that had been strung between two of the eight-man tents, the dim bulbs just barely illuminating the large bivouac.
“Come on,” Carver said. “Let’s see who’s here.”
The men turned on their headlamps and walked rapidly down the path to the parking lot. When they arrived, they found two adults arguing with each other while a boy and girl watched from the sidelines.
“You expect me to stay at this place?” the woman hissed.
“You were out there,” the man replied angrily. “You saw what it was like.”
“Excuse me!” Carver shouted above their raised voices.
“Is that you, Mr. Kinney?” the man called back. “It’s Mark Perron.”
“Great,” Kinney whispered to Carver. “The Perron family. I know Jen didn’t invite them. The boy’s all right, but the parents…”
As the two of them approached the new family, Mark held his hand out in greeting. Kinney ignored the gesture, but Carver shook it, turning off his forehead-mounted light with his other hand.
“John Eric Carver,” he said. “What exactly brings you to Lost Valley?”
“Well, it’s a war zone out there,” Mark said.
“Really?” Kinney asked. “Is that why you’re here?”
“I heard from of the other families talking with Miss Blevins,” Mark explained. “This seemed like the best place to go when the virus began to spread. You have to admit, it’s isolated, and there should be plenty of room for us.”
Carver had to concede that his logic was sound. Even though the couple had a bad reputation in the group, Kinney vouched that their son, Josh, was a good scout.
“Can’t fault the kid for the parents,” he muttered to his friend. “And we could use the bodies to guard the facility.”
“You wouldn’t turn us away, would you?” the wife asked, sounding aghast.
“Your call,” Carver said to Kinney.
The ranger nodded and said, “Guess they can stay. Let’s get you set up in one of the tents.”
“A tent?” the wife practically screamed. “You didn’t say anything about a tent.”
“Come on, Mom,” Josh said, looking embarrassed. “It’s fine. Scouts do it all the time.”
“No way,” she said. “I’m not sleeping a tent. Not tonight, and not ever.”
The two began to argue again, and after a minute or two, Carver had enough. He put his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle.
“Enough!” he shouted. “You are guests here—and uninvited ones, to boot. If it wasn’t for your kids, I’d asked you to leave right now.”
Mark seemed to be ashamed of himself, but his wife glared at them. “Just you wait,” she hissed. “I’ll make sure you both are fired when this is all over. No one talks to me like that.”
Carver and Kinney both looked at each other and then began to belly laugh like they had just heard the world’s greatest joke.
“I’m gonna lose my job,” Kinney said in pretend fear. “Oh no!”
It took them a long moment to get themselves under control. After everything they’d been through since the start of the outbreak, after the friends they’d already lost, the suburban housewife’s empty threat was just about the funniest thing he’d heard all week.
Once his laughter subsided, however, he realized that she posed a real threat to the safety of the camp and its residents. She obviously wouldn’t be able to pull her weight, and if they had to put up with her hostile attitude for long, it would set everyone on edge.
Carver loomed over her, looking down into her defiant eyes. “I’m only going to say this once. If you cause problems here, you will be removed. Understood?”
“Mr. Carver, I can assure you that you won’t have any more problems with us,” Mark said to the large ex-SEAL.
“We better not, or you two are out of here.”
She glared up at him. “Two of us? You’d kick me and Mark out but not the kids? What gives you the right?”
“Lady,” Carver said, “I’ll boot your ass all the way back down that ten-mile road if I have one more problem with you. Do you understand me?”
The sudden and violent tone in Carver’s voice seemed to break something inside her, and she murmured an affirmative before looking away. He guessed she wasn’t used to anyone standing up to her. Good. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to follow through on his threat.
“Is there somewhere else other than a tent we can stay tonight?” she asked, gesturing at her kids. “We’re all exhausted, and it’s pitch-black out here. Please?”
Carver backed down at the reasonable request. Maybe he’d been too hard on them. After all, they’d probably had a difficult day.
“Kinney,” he began, “can they use Jennifer’s cabin tonight?”
Kinney grunted. “Fine,” he said. “But only tonight. She could be back at any time.”
Carver pointed to a two-bedroom cabin on the other side of the parking lot. “The door’s open. It’s hooked up to the solar batteries but be sparing with the juice. Clean up tomorrow when you leave. Breakfast is at dawn in Beckham Hall. We have a lot of work to do, so be ready.”
Sarah
While Carver followed his friend up the path, Sarah and her family hopped back in their SUV and pulled up to the dark cabin at the end of the dirt lot. It was hardly better than a tent, but at this point, she’d take what she could get.
“Just bring the big suitcase,” Mark said. “It’s got a change of clothes and some toiletries. We’ll get the rest when we set up at our tent tomorrow.”
Sarah just nodded as her husband went to open their evening’s lodgings. Privately, she had already decided to claim the cabin as their own. That Blevins woman could have the tent instead.
Sarah went inside the wood home and turned on a light in the living room.
“Can you turn on the outside lights?” she yelled. A moment later, the porch light came on as well.
“Mommy,” their five-year old cried, “I want my dollies.”
“Leave them outside,” Mark yelled.
“Come on,” Sarah whispered conspiratorially to her daughter. “Let’s get them.”
She instructed her twelve-year-old son to pull the large suitcase to the door while she retrieved her daughter’s special suitcase.
“I want to take it,” the little girl demanded.
Sarah surrendered the bag, and the spoiled little girl rolled it up the dirt path and into the house, leaving a streak of filthy muddy tracks on the floor of the immaculate cabin.
“Dammit!” Mark shouted. “I said leave everything else out there.”
Sarah smiled quietly at her husband’s anger. She was tired of being pushed around and tired of being afraid. Letting Tina bring her toys into the house was just one small victory for her need to control her rapidly out-of-control world.
“Tough luck,” she murmured to herself as she closed the cabin door.
“Look at that mess,” Mark said accusingly as he pointed to the roller tracks on the wooden floor.
“Shut up,” Sarah replied. “I’ll clean it in the morning. It’s not like you ever clean anything at home.”
“Hey, Mom,” Josh interrupted. “Is it okay if I go ahead and bunk down for the night?”
She nodded absently, already thinking about a hot shower to wash the stench of this place off her skin. Mark stepped over the muddy tracks and carried their one piece of luggage full of their overnight shirts and toiletries into the larger of the two bedrooms. Josh claimed the smaller room, which turned out to be an office with a couch that pulled out into a bed, as well as a small cot for Tina.
Mark took his son into the second bedroom, had him change clothes, and lay down next to him on the pull-out couch. They talked for a short while until both drifted off to sleep.
