Sundown Series (Book 1): Prepared Read online

  “You two sit right here on the floor. Do not go near the windows. Do not be seen, do you understand? It’s really important that I know you will listen to me. I have to be able to concentrate,” Alex said. She hugged the kids close, kissing their cheeks. Henry tried to hold onto her, and she hugged him a second time, whispering words into his hair, and handing him over to his big sister.

  “I love you. Don’t move,” Alex said as she opened the door, bowie knife in hand.

  Chapter 8

  Alex thought she stepped out into a war zone. There were bodies everywhere she could see, some that she could see had died as an infected. And some she could see had been consumed by an infected. Those were ones she would keep an eye on, because they could wake up at any time. Alex headed toward the back of the RV, where she knew there was a ladder to the top. As she stepped around the back, an infected lunged for her, his bloody hands catching the strap of her bag.

  “Shit!” Alex exclaimed. She slammed her bowie into the temple of the head that was bending to take a chunk out of her. As the infected fell, the grip on her bag pulled her down onto the pavement as well.

  “Shit, Damn!” Alex swore. She pried the fingers from her bag and leapt back to her feet, checking her surroundings, relieved to see no other infected had seen the fight. She tried to look over the horde toward the group of survivors, but she couldn’t see anything, but blood flying. She climbed the ladder quickly and took position in the middle of the RV roof.

  Looking through the scope of the rifle she took in the situation more. There were about 15 people from what she could see. They were trying to fight out of the Costco, so she took that as a sign that there weren’t any infected inside Costco, yet. Taking sight on an infected to the left of a large burly man that was fighting two other infected, she held her breath and pulled the trigger, blowing the brain from the infected.

  The burly man took out the other two, and looked around confused. A woman grabbed his arm and screamed up at him, pointing toward the RV. Alex did not waste time acknowledging them, but took another shot to the left of the man, trying to create a path for them. A scream to the right of the group pulled her attention, in time to see a young girl being pulled apart by a group of infected. Alex felt her breath hitch, as she wanted to cry, but she bit it back. And shot the infected that had their hands in her flesh.

  Another woman was screaming, and was not stopping. Alex could only assume that was the young girl’s mother. Alex took another few shots, until she had to reload. She sat up on the RV for a moment and reloaded as the group continued to fight. Once the rifle was full again, she laid back down, sighting up the next few head to target. Alex worked on the infected that weren’t quite to the group yet. Gary’s rifle was powerful, and she didn’t want a stray bullet to strike a survivor.

  After what seemed like hours, but truly was only two reloads later for Alex, there was a path that the group could take. The burly man grabbed his woman, who also had a child with them, and they ran as Alex continued to shoot any infected that tried to follow. They made it to a large red suburban. The engine quickly roared to life, so Alex knew that was their vehicle. When she turned back to the Costco, she could see the other survivors were scattering to their own paths.

  Alex waited a beat before heading back to the ladder. Looking down she cursed at the infected that had found her on the RV. There was five of them, and she was seeing more noticing her. She pulled out her 9 mm and took out the five that were at the bottom of the RV, and started to climb down. With the rifle slung over her shoulder she had her 9, she pulled her bowie waiting for the attack of the additional infected. Suddenly the red suburban screeched into sight, and plowed down the group of infected that were coming for Alex.

  The window of the truck rolled down and the man shouted out at Alex, “You need to get moving! There are more coming!” Alex nodded quickly and turned to go, but the man spoke again. “Thank you. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t stopped.”

  “We have to care for each other,” Alex said, feeling as if Mitch was speaking for her. As crazy as her father was, he was a caring man.

  “We do. Be careful. Where are you headed?” The man asked.

  “Montana. My family has a compound near Flathead Lake. You?” Alex asked. As she spoke, a lone infected got up from the pile that had been ran down and walked toward her growling. She pulled her 9 mm and shot it through the forehead before looking back at the man. His face wore a very surprised expression, but he didn’t comment on anything.

  “We don’t know. But away from here.”

  “If you head north, go to Montana. We will have enough space. There is a national forest there, plenty of safety can be built there,” Alex said. She wasn’t sure why she was telling these people all of this. However, she felt it was her obligation to try to save as many as she could. And while the rest of the survivors she had helped, had disappeared in their vehicles, these people came back to protect her. It spoke to Alex’s intuition and she felt good about them.

  “Name is Bill. Wife is Libby, kiddo is Jimmy,” the man said, reaching a plaid covered arm through the window.

  “I’m Alex. Alex Duncan,” she said as she took his large hand. It was calloused, telling a story of hard work in life.

  “Alex, I thank you again. If we find our way to your space in Montana, we will find you. Be careful out there,” Bill said. With that, he rolled up his window and they slowly drove on. Alex was sure they were waiting for her to climb back into the RV, before they left. Once she was inside, the truck pulled onto the main street and took off.

  As soon as she shut the door, Billie and Henry threw themselves on Alex. Henry was sobbing, but Billie looked dry eyed and stoic. That worried Alex, afraid she was setting into some sort of shock. Alex held tightly to Henry, letting him cry into her shoulder.

  “I’m ok. We’re ok,” Alex murmured to him.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Billie asked.

  “Do what?” Alex said.

  “Shoot with a gun that far?”

  “Gramps taught me when I was just a little older than you. Someday I’ll show you too,” Alex replied.

  “Soon,” Billie said.

  Alex didn’t argue with her daughter. She knew she was physically too small to do the shooting now, but she understood the need to feel safe. She placed Henry into the front seat, and stowed the rifle and left over rounds back above the table. Sliding back into the driver’s seat, Billie was buckling her and Henry in. Looking around the parking lot, Alex realized most of the infected were gone for now. She saw a cart sitting near a vehicle across the parking lot. She drove the RV near it, and smiled when she saw what was in it.

  “Stay here for a minute,” Alex said.

  She grabbed her bowie just in case any infected showed up that she hadn’t seen yet. She opened the door of the RV and checked around. Feeling secure, she ran to the cart, grabbed the case of soda, and ran back to the RV. She pushed the case inside, and ran back to grab the case of kids juices that was also there. Looking in the cart, she decided to just push it over to the RV. As she started pushing, she saw a dead body near the car where the cart was. And it was twitching.

  Running with the cart, Alex got to the RV quickly. She threw the juice, beef jerky, toilet paper and sweatshirts into the RV. Then she pushed the cart toward the infected that was trying to get up and jumped back into the RV. She slammed the door, locked it, and slid back into the driver’s seat. Henry looked back into the RV at what Alex had grabbed, and looked back at his mother.

  “Mommy can I have a soda?” He asked.

  “Absolutely buddy!” Alex said. The kids had rarely had things like soda, but Alex figured the situation called for some breaks of the rules. Alex climbed back into the body of the RV, grabbed three sodas, and gave one to each of the kids. When Billie went to place hers in the cup holder, she looked at the gun, and then looked at Alex. Alex moved the gun, and holstered it to keep it away from the kids.

 
Alex looked around the parking lot, the city was a mess. Looting had been happening for at least 24 hours, which made Alex glad they were self-contained at the moment. However, there was never a thing such as too many supplies. She spotted a few more full shopping carts, and decided to just drive around to each of them as she could, and take whatever was in them. She felt sadness for the people that had pushed these carts out, they thought they had a clear road ahead. Maybe they thought Costco was their last stop until leaving the city.

  In all, the Costco parking lot proved to be fruitful in the ways of liquids and paper products, which is what Alex had hoped for originally. Once they had unloaded the last cart, Alex locked up the RV and worked on organizing the living space. She had found two boxes of microwave popcorn and that made the kids cheer. Therefore, she popped a bag right then, to their smiles. They moved to the couch to share the popcorn as Alex organized.

  The banging on the back of the RV was the signal they had meandered too long. The panic hit the kids almost immediately, but Alex jumped into the driver’s seat and drove away from the two infected she could see in her mirror. The dead of the parking lot were starting to rise. And that was bad news for them. They needed to move on.

  She drove through town a little bit longer, staying far away from the places she knew would be more populated, like The Strip. Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of more vehicles fleeing areas, infected everywhere around them. She passed a few on ramps, with additional military barriers, that were over ran with infected. By the time they turned to see the RV passing, they were too far for them to catch up.

  Looking ahead as she drove, the red mountains in the distance caught her eye. Red Rock, a place that she had hiked and explored plenty over the ten years she had lived there. At the sight of that place she loved so much, she was struck with an idea. Things were going to get so much worse, before they got any better. They needed to be away from the city before that happened, but at the moment, it was not safe to break through a military barricade to get on the freeway.

  They were going to wait it out, Alex decided. In the mountains, away from the populated areas, with little chance of encountering more infected. As the plague swept through the city, Alex believed the infected would stay within the city limits, where meals would be plentiful. Alex understood they could not wait too long and reminded herself that she needed to get to Montana as quickly as possible, safely with her family, and find Rafe and Max.

  She turned toward the red desert and started toward the direction of temporary safety. As they drove, they had to pass a large casino, and Alex was stunned at the scene she saw. There were windows broken out, smoke snaking out of some of them, people were fighting everywhere. It was almost impossible to tell infected from an alive person. Alex slowed the RV, watching the grotesque scene unfold.

  As she watched, a body fell from the hotel tower to the parking lot asphalt. Billie screamed in the back of the RV, letting Alex know this was too much. As she pressed down on the gas pedal, she wondered who would survive this. In front of the RV were cars at a light. Though the light was green, none of the vehicles moved. Alex could see why. There were infected between cars, some were feasting on bodies they had pulled through windows. Others were stuck in the cars, as if they were ambushed waiting for a traffic light to change.

  Falling out of an SUV directly in front of the RV was a young woman, her face and neck mangled by bites and pieces torn away. Alex watched freakish movements of the woman, as she haltingly made her way across the street, toward the casino chaos. She tripped at the curb, as she was wearing sky-high stilettos that Alex couldn’t have walked in normally. Her infected body did not know how to work with the additional height, and she stumbled a number of times again.

  Alex was full of dread, as she watched a group of the living, fighting their way through the parking lot of the casino. The stiletto wearing infected came at them from their blind side, and Alex laid on the RV’s horn to try to warn them. In all the confusion, the horn did little good, and the infected woman bit directly into the arm of a man on the outside of the group. No one in his group turned to help, instead they all jumped away from the scene as if bitten by the same infected. At that moment, they all scattered like rats, and ran in different directions. No one seemed to notice Alex or the RV, so she continued to move. There was no helping this situation.

  The RV was a large beast, and at times it was a tight squeeze moving through some of the cars. Alex hopped a curb for a moment, eager to leave the screaming scene of the casino behind them. Avoiding another vehicle, Alex swung back on the road and sped up to get away from the full road, and the congested city. As she drove through the surrounding neighborhood, she could see havoc everywhere. Many people were running, some looked to be infected already, but there was no organization, only chaos.

  The instinct to stop and help was roaring loudly in Alex’s head, but she pushed it off to the side. Though she wanted to stop and help, the anarchy would positively overrun the RV. That action would only put her children at risk, and in the end that was her number one priority. She would worry about saving the human race on a later date. In the current state of the area, she would probably only be able to assist one or two, and possibly get infected herself in the process. That would not help anyone.

  Resolved, Alex tightened her hands around the steering wheel and pulled away from the houses on the ends of Las Vegas. As they got into the desert that direction, there were less cars, but still people were trying to escape the city that direction. She wasn’t sure, if it was just panic, or people not being aware, but the road that lead into Red Rock only circled back around to town. The number of vehicles driving the other direction, or stopped on the other side of the road, made Alex believe the military possibly had some sort of barricade on the other side as well.

  Driving in the quiet for 15 minutes, Alex kept her eyes on the road, but noticed many of the cars were empty along the road. Alex questioned what people were doing, but she was sure she could protect the RV from what may come. She slowed the RV as they came upon the entrance to the scenic drive of Red Rock. The tollbooth looked to be empty, and there were cars everywhere. She could see people near the visitor center, but from the distance she was at she couldn’t be sure if there were infected as well.

  The RV moved past the entrance, and Alex looked around trying to avoid the high-density population. The desert was mostly flat and clear of trees and cactus, making visibility very high for Alex, but also high for anyone looking to hide or loot. About two miles down from the Red Rock visitor area, she saw a dirt road off to the side. There were no cars on the road, and none coming that direction. She decided to take a chance and pulled the old RV off the road.

  They bumped over the cattle guard that was at the entrance of the road. There was a private property sign, which Alex disregarded. This was not exactly the time to follow the rules. The grade of the road gradually increased, and Alex followed until a mound of dirt came into view. Slowing the RV to a crawl, she checked behind the mound, and found nothing hiding to attack them. She estimated they were approximately a mile from the main road. Sitting in the RV, Alex turned the situation over in her mind.

  Her determination to keep her children safe was the driving factor in everything she was doing. Keeping them out of sight from most people was the only first step she could think of. Right now they were safe with the RV to live in, and the supplies she had accumulated during the day. She could set up the generator, to ensure power during the day, though evening time they would need to be careful with light. The desert was hot and bright, and Alex believed it would drive most people out, before they had time to search for supplies.

  Alex felt exhausted. Her body was wired with adrenaline from everything she had been through. But her mind wanted to just slow down and adjust, comprehend and handle all of her feelings over the events of the last two days. She pulled the RV around the dirt mound, parking so they could just drive straight to go back toward the main road. Mitch woul
d have approved of her proper use of being prepared for a quick exit.

  Once the RV was parked, she turned it off. The quiet closed in on them, as the engine rumbled to sleep. Alex stood and stretched. Her shoulder was sore from the shooting earlier and she rotated it to work out the kinks. The kids were still sitting on the couch, playing on their tablets and being quiet. Alex felt one thing to be very concerned with, and that was the sun shining off the front of the RV. It would be a beacon for people, and possibly the infected.

  Alex pulled out her bug out bag. She knew she had a camouflage net that might cover at least the window and bumper, so they weren’t easily recognizable. Pulling out the net, she turned to the kids and told them to stay put. They barely looked up, absorbed in their tablets. Alex checked her weapons and cautiously stepped outside. Silence greeted her, making even her own footsteps loud to her ears.

  Circling the RV, she noticed blood smears in places she either hit the infected, or they were pounding on the RV. She knew the sight of blood was going to be normal for a while, but it didn’t stop her from wishing she had extra water to clean up their little home. She sent a quick thank you to the universe and to Gary for being so prepared. Pulling out the net, she stood on the bumper to hook it above the windows, and then secured it below the bumper. She knew she would be able to see out of the large windshield, but people would not be able to see in easily.

  Looking around their surrounding a little bit more, she was pleased to see they were hidden from the Red Rock area by a curve in the road that moved around a low hill. That would mean people wouldn’t be able to catch sight of them until they were directly by the entrance to the dirt road. That should prevent anyone from heading their way. Alex found a few tumbleweeds, and she secured those near the tires of the RV, to hide the black, though they were quite dirty already.

  Entering the RV, Alex realized she was sweating. It was a bit hotter out in the open desert then in the city. They were also used to the air conditioning in everything they spent time in. Right now, the weather was still slightly cool at night, so they could cool the RV once the sun set. However, for now, it was hot. She went to the air conditioning unit and turned it on, and she found herself wanting to cheer aloud when she felt the cool air come from the vents. Looking down at the kids, she smiled.