Sorrow's Gift

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Parrish

On the other side of the smoke, they caught their first glimpse of survivors. A cluster of people, soot smeared across their faces, sat on the rails of a track that crossed the road at the edge of a small town. They looked tired and beaten down. Hopeless.

Crash pulled over toward them.

"What are you doing?" Karmen asked, rousing from her sleep. She'd been mostly out of it ever since she'd used her powers. "Why are you stopping? What if they're infected?"

"They're not infected," Parrish said. "They're just tired and dirty and probably hungry."

"I don't think we should stop," Karmen said, crossing her arms in front of her chest and turning away.

Parrish shook her head. Was there no end to that girl's selfishness?

She gave her a pass since Karmen had just saved their lives, but how she could turn away from the first survivors they'd seen in weeks was unreal.

Crash parked the Humvee a few yards shy of where the group was sitting. He opened his door and one of the adults in the group, a tall man who looked to be in his fifties, stood and walked toward them. Noah opened the back door for her and she jumped out.

Karmen and the girl stayed inside.

"Hey man, you guys doing okay?" Noah asked, shaking the man's hand.

He shrugged and squinted toward the direction of the smoke billowing up around Baltimore's city limits. "We spent the last twenty-four hours trying to get away from the fire, but we finally had to stop and rest. We lost our car back a ways and had to trudge through the woods to get to someplace we could breathe again."

He sounded tired, his voice almost flat. Maybe he was in shock.

"Do you guys need anything?" Parrish asked. She hadn't asked Crash if it was okay to start handing out his supplies, but she didn't think he'd mind. They had plenty to go around for awhile, and these people had obviously been through some rough times.

The man's eyes widened. "Do you have water? Food? We have nothing left," he said. He gestured toward his small group. "Most of us haven't had anything to eat or drink in a couple of days other than some water we got out of the creek down the way and a few bags of chips and other junk food we had in our packs."

Parrish looked at the group of people on the tracks. Three of them were small children, no older than Zoe had been. Two others were women, probably in their twenties. There were five men of varying ages ranging from teens to middle age. She wondered if they were a family or just random people from Baltimore who'd managed to get out in time.

"We've got a few bottles of water and some food we can spare," Crash said.

"How did the fire get started?" Noah asked.

The man followed Crash toward the back of the Humvee. "We're not sure what started it, but it originated somewhere downtown," he said. "It could have been anything. Everything's just..."

His voice trailed off, but Parrish knew what he meant. It still just didn't seem like normal, real conversation to be talking about bodies getting up and walking after they were dead.

She went around to the back of the vehicle and grabbed a case of bottled water. She lifted it up and walked over to the rest of the group. She set it down on the ground and pulled her sword from her back then sliced through the plastic that held it all together.

When she grabbed a couple of bottles and looked up, she saw the fear and awe in the eyes of all the survivors. She almost laughed. Yeah, it would probably be weird to see someone pulling out a katana to open up a case of waters. Everything had changed so quickly it felt like second nature to her now to use the sword.

She put it away quickly, though, and handed out the water. They were guzzled down so fast, it made her stomach hurt just thinking about how scared and thirsty they must have been.

Noah came over and started handing out packs of nuts and crackers.

"You guys doing okay?" he asked the smaller kids.

They nodded, but Parrish could see in their eyes that they were not okay. Something in her heart tugged at her to stay and take care of them. She would have given anything for the chance to take care of Zoe.

Tears stung her eyes and she looked away.

"Most of the walking dead burned up in the fire, I think," the older man was saying as he and Crash walked over carrying a few more boxes of supplies.

"I wouldn't count on it," Crash said. "We ran into a huge horde of them on the road a few miles back. The smoke and fire seemed to be pushing them away from the city. They could easily head this way. You guys need to find shelter."

"Where will you sleep?" Parrish asked.

One of the women stood. "There's a house just outside of town here that belonged to my mother. It's been empty for a while, but it's big enough for our group. We'll be alright. We'll be safe there."

Noah looked to Parrish and when their eyes met, she knew they were thinking the same thing.

No one was safe anywhere. Not anymore.

Maybe not ever again.