The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 28

They walked for miles under the hot sun. Sam was quiet for most of the trip, but as his feet are sore and stomach started to rumble, he turned cranky.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"We should of taken a horse."

"We'll stop soon for a lunch."

"We can't stop."

"I know you really want to see Mal. I do too, but we can't have ourselves beaten down and exhausted.

The roads Tom picked were narrow and often turned from asphalt to gravel to dirt.

"We haven't seen a infected in a couple of hours," Sam said. "How come they stick close to home. Some do unless they merge into a herd but I heard people saying some are close to him:"

Tom took a couple of minutes on that. "There are lots of theories, but that's all we have- just theories. Some folks say that the dead lack the intelligence to think that there's anywhere other than where they're standing. If nothing attracts them or draws, they'll just stay right where they are."

"But they need to hunt, don't they?"

"'Need' is a tricky word. Most experts agree that the dead will attack and kill, but it's not been established that they actually hunt. Hunting implies need, and we don't know that the dead need to do anything."

They created a hill and looked down a dirt road to where an old gas station say beneath a wrapping willow.

A moan stopped their tracks and Tom went in.

"What are you doing?"

"Saying hello."

A grey skinned man shuffled slowly around the corner of the building. He wore a flannel shirt stained with dark blotches and a garland of fresh flowers around his neck and ribs. The man's eyes were missing, and the sockets gaped emptily. The moaning mouth was toothless, the lip and cheeks sunken in. Worst of all, as the Infected raised its hands toward them, Sam saw that all of its fingers had been clipped off at the primary knuckles.

Sam gagged and stepped back, his muscles tensed to turn and run, but Tom put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. A moment later the door to the gas station opened, and a pair of sleet-eyed young women came outside, followed by a slightly older man with a long, brown beard. They were all thin and dressed in tunics that looked like they had been made from old bed sheets. Each wire a thick garland of flowers.

"Leave him be!" Cried the youngest, a black girl in her late teens, as she ran across the dirt to the dead man and stood between him and Sam and Tom, her feet planted, her arms spread to shield the Infected.

Tom raised his hand. "Peace, little sister. No one's here to do harm."

The bearded man fished eyeglasses from a picket beneath his tunic, and squinted through dirty lenses.

"Tom...?" He said. "Is that you?"

"Hey, Brother David." He puts his hand on Sam's shoulder. "This is Sam."

"What are you doing here?"

"Passing through," said Tom. "Going to the Sanctuary to find an old friend of ours."

Brother David scratches his beard. "I see." He then bent toward Sam. "Tell me, young brother, do you come here bringing hurt and harm to the Children of God?"

"Um... no?"

"Do you bring hurt and harm to the Children Of Lazarus?"

"I don't know who they are, mister."