“Awful,” Abby whispered.
I wanted to agree, but I couldn’t find the words to describe this miserable experience. The pile began to even out, leveling across the ground. The end to the sea of crap seemed to finally be in sight, though I was certain we would never escape the smell. I could taste its awfulness on my tongue. This place would haunt my memories until the end of my days. I shuddered, drawing strength from Abby’s slender frame as we picked our way through the smaller layer of trash.
I glanced toward the sky, surprised by the lack of seagulls and crows fluttering through the air. They always circled the dump, cawing and diving for food. In fact, even though we had trudged through a veritable mountain of wasted food, I was stunned to realize that we had not encountered any wildlife. No birds, no rodents, not even a few stray cats or dogs were hanging around looking to be fed.
I froze, scanning rapidly over the heaping mounds stretching around us. The birds had been singing this morning, and now…
And now there was nothing again.
I pulled Abby back, stopping her before she continued onward. “Bethany!” she hissed.
I shook my head at her, scanning the pristine sky again. It was hot; maybe the animals were seeking the sanctuary of the shade. But all of them? It seemed not only unlikely but nearly impossible.
“Bethy come on, I want to get out of here!”
“Shh Abby!”
Cade and Jenna had stopped walking; they were staring at me with confusion and impatience. “Come on Bethany.”
“Something’s not right.”
“No kidding!” Jenna retorted.
I didn’t rise to her snippy attitude; instead I released Abby and began to move slowly back the way we had come. “Bethany!”
I held up a hand to forestall Cade’s hissed words. One of the greatest things I had experienced in the past day was finally making the decent down this veritable mountain of crap, and now I was crazily clawing my way back up it. And it was just as awful, and exhausting, as I remembered. I struggled through the trash as it skidded and slipped out from underneath me, making the climb even more difficult. My legs ached, my lungs were beginning to burn again, but finally I made it to a small peak in the rubble.
I rose slowly, my gaze scanning over the hills spanning out before me. I glanced back toward the sky, but there was still nothing there. Across the tons of trash I spotted movement on the far side of the heap. And it was coming closer. I watched, straining my eyes to make it out, struggling to see what was across the way. The heat, and waves of decomposition rising off of the pile, made whatever it was blurry and hard to discern. It could be anything, it could be the missing animals, it could be more people, but a crushing sense of impending doom was beginning to descend over me.
Panic worked its way through my body; I didn’t need to see what was coming to know that it was not going to be good. I turned, fleeing back down the pile, slipping and sliding, skidding and tripping through the disgusting mess. My feet skidded out from under me, I cried out, losing complete control of my body as I plummeted, rolled, and bounced painfully through the disgusting filth.
Hands grasped hold of my arms, rescuing me from being buried within the mound as they pulled me from the filth cascading upon me. Crap was pulled off of me, brushed away, thrown to the ground in a useless attempt to clean me a little. “What is it?” Cade demanded his hands surprisingly gentle on my skin as his gaze trailed back up the mountain. “Bethany, what is it?”
“I don’t know,” I panted, trying hard not to think about the filth and bugs that I had just rolled and squished through. “It’s not good though. I think they’re still tracking us. We need to move faster. Now.”
Cade grabbed hold of my arm, running and jumping through the trash as we tried to move as fast as we could through the pile of calf high rubbish. We reached Abby and Jenna but Cade did not release me as he continued to drag me forward. I seized hold of Abby’s hand, tugging her along with me, my heart hammering in panic as the garbage seemed to suck and pull at us even more than it had before. We were never going to escape; the refuse was never going to let us go. It was going to mire us down until those things were upon us, until we were nothing more than useless bodies added to the debris scattered around us. We would be nothing more than garbage in just a matter of moments.
Rationally I knew that the trash heap did not have thoughts, and was not actually on the side of the aliens, but right now it seemed as much of an enemy to me as the monsters hunting us. I was convinced that it wanted our bodies to feed it, and it was doing everything it could to make sure we were trapped here to nourish it.
And then, suddenly, the garbage released us. I stumbled forward, nearly falling to my knees as the waste gave out and pavement rushed up to meet us. Abby gave a startled cry but helped to pull me back to my feet. “This way,” Cade panted finally releasing me as he darted toward the right.
I didn’t know where we were going; I had never been here before. I didn’t ever want to return either, and I sure as hell did notwant my final resting place to be here. I was surprised when we turned a corner of the mountain and a giant warehouse came into view. One of the massive garage doors was open, revealing the shadowed, barely visible interior. I balked against going inside as Cade plunged into the darkness. The last thing I wanted was to go in there, the last thing I wanted was to be cornered and trapped, and killed amongst the giant walls of darkness.
“Bethy,” Abby breathed when I hesitated. “Bethany please.”
Fear of imminent death outweighed my fear of being trapped within the cavernous building. I darted through the open doorway as Cade began to pull some ropes, rapidly lowering the massive garage door. “Wait!” I gasped, terror spurting through me.
“It needs to be done,” he grated, his jaw clenched tight and a muscle jumping in his cheek. He had been lowering the door so swiftly, and rapidly, that I hadn’t realized it was heavy and he was struggling not to let it crash down. It settled quietly into place with only a small clatter of metal on pavement. “This way.”
“How do you know where we’re going?” Abby asked quietly.
“I don’t.”
I shuddered at Cade’s words but followed silently behind as he led us through the building. There were small windows up high in the lofty walls, but they didn’t light much of the massive structure. It was hard to make out much within the shadowed interior. I could still smell the rotten stench of trash, but I saw no sign of it within the building. It was the four of us that were bringing that scent with us, a scent that would be easily traceable within these deserted walls. If I thought it would help to rid ourselves of our clothes, I would have gladly stripped from the offending garments, but the disgusting odor was engrained into our skin and hair by now.
We reached an area that had steel piping around five gaping holes in the ground. I leaned over the pipe railing, peering into the shadowed deaths. Something glinted within the sunlight, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. “Recyclables,” Cade explained.
That was why this building didn’t reek, I realized. Unfortunately the fact that this was where the recyclables were brought did little to aid our cause. It would have been better if they were giant bins of trash instead of non-smelly recyclables. Cade moved swiftly past the bins, heading toward the shadowed back wall. Abby’s hand was tight in mine, her grip nearly bone cracking as Cade vanished from sight. Jenna followed swiftly behind and then Abby and I slipped into the small back room.
It was apparently the workers break room as there were two tables with five chairs crammed around them. A microwave, TV and radio, and four different vending machines were against the wall. Cade stopped, his head tilted as he studied the machines with narrowed eyes. Moving swiftly he tore his shirt off. I blinked in surprise as he wrapped it rapidly around his hand. I was confused by his actions, but I couldn’t help but admire the flex and play of his lean muscles and hard stomach as he stalked toward the glass fronted machine.