The high-pitched squeal of the brakes woke him. When he opened his eyes, the headlights of the Escort were lighting up a large wooden sign that read Coldwater. Warm people. Population 1579.
“Why are you stopping here?” Taylor asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He couldn’t have slept for more than forty-five minutes to an hour, but he still felt a hell of a lot better.
“Just nervous I guess. Being here means it’s time to face reality. My stomach’s tied in knots, dude.”
Taylor leaned over and glanced at the instrument panel. “By the skin of our teeth, huh?” He was looking at the gas gauge; the needle hovered just below the “E.”
“Oh, yeah, that. And I guess it’s accurate ‘cuz there were times at the end where it seemed like this baby was gonna crap out. Probably nothing left but fumes.”
“Then don’t waste gas just sitting here.”
“Aren’t you worried at all?”
Taylor stared at him, his eyes narrowing the slightest bit. “What kind of a question is that, little brother? I’m as scared shitless as you, but we didn’t come all this way to chicken out. Now put this piece of junk in drive and let’s face whatever reality there is to face.”
Carl shifted into drive. The engine sputtered as though responding to an insult. “Maybe you should say a little prayer that we make it into town.”
“No good worrying about it now.”
Traveling north of the highway, it was three miles into Coldwater. Carl pointed, whistling through his teeth. “Would you look at that.”
There were two gas stations in town. One could hardly be classified as a gas station. It was an auto body shop that happened to have two gas pumps sitting outside, about fifteen feet from the entrance. Carl had pointed to the only Honest-to-God gas station in town. What was left of it anyway. It was a charred ruin. Four of the pumps lay on their sides, the metal contorted into strange pieces of alien art. Thousands of pieces of glass littered the cracked cement, twinkling like tiny stars in the car’s headlights.
“Jesus,” Carl said.
Taylor patted Carl’s shoulder. “Let’s hope the other one is in better shape. Keep going.”
It was the longest drive of his life. Carl wouldn’t let the speedometer’s needle creep above twenty miles per hour. You’re only delaying the inevitable. That’s what Taylor would say. He won’t let you get away with this pussy shit for much longer.
Tina stirred in the back seat. Carl watched her in the rearview mirror. “Wakey-wakey,” he said. “Welcome to the other speck of fly shit gracing the Rand McNally Road Atlas.”
She sat up and rubbed her eyes; the gesture making her seem more childlike somehow.
Carl pulled up in front of the house he shared with Angie. It was painted a light green, like sunwashed limes. He put the car into park and killed the lights.
“Her car isn’t in the driveway,” Carl said.
Taylor knew when his brother was trying to act tough. He was acting tough now, trying to pretend he wasn’t about to panic. Taylor didn’t call him on it. They had a mutual need to be strong, feigned or otherwise. He opened the door and stepped out, stretching his legs. His head swam momentarily, big black butterflies crowding his vision. He closed his eyes and waited for it to pass.
Tina trailed behind them as they walked toward the house. Taylor had the machete in his hand.
Carl hesitated at the front door.
“You want me to go in first?” Taylor asked.
“No. I’m a big boy.” He took a deep gulp of air and opened the door.
The beams of their flashlights cut through the darkness. Carl flipped the light switch next to the door and nothing happened.
“Angie? Hey, Angie, it’s me. You home?” He repeated her name several more times. They searched all the rooms in the house. When they had finished, he felt compelled to state the obvious. “She’s not here.”
Tina said, “I found something.”
Carl rushed over to her. She was holding a piece of paper that had been laying on the coffee table in the living room. She handed it over to him. “It’s a letter.”
“What’s it say?”
“Give me a minute.” His eyes darted over the letter. He read it again, this time more slowly, before saying anything. “Says she’s going over to Mom and Dad’s.”
“So let’s get going over there,” Taylor said. “You need to grab anything before we go?”
Carl disappeared and then reappeared a minute later carrying his hunting rifle. “It’s a two-seventy. Packs enough of a punch.” He held a box of ammunition in his other hand. “I’m ready.”
Taylor stared at the couch. It looked like one of the most inviting pieces of furniture he had ever laid eyes on. If not for a small surge of adrenaline, he might had plopped down on it, sunk deep into the soft cushions, and drowned himself in sleep.
Taylor opened the door and immediately cursed himself for not being more cautious. A group of the rabid things had gathered around the car.
The engine’s still warm I bet, he thought. Can they sense that?
Seven or eight of them stood huddled closely together. He squinted into the semi-darkness. It’s entirely different when they could be people you know. One of them was Jeff Cairns, proprietor of the local grocery store. He recognized another as one of the mechanics who worked for Mike Earnest, owner of Earnest Motors a few blocks east of Main Street. Taylor couldn’t recall the mechanic’s name.
Carl raised the rifle.
Tina said, “What are you doing?”
Carl hesitated for moment and then squeezed the trigger. Taylor thought the sound of the shot was perhaps the loudest thing he had ever heard. It cracked like a whip; a brief thunderclap of authoritative noise. Tina gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. Taylor had to suppress the sudden urge to laugh out loud. Maybe I’m going a little crazy if I can think about laughing at a time like this, he thought.
The right side of the rabid thing’s face disintegrated a moment before it sank to the ground.
“Gotcha!”
Carl chambered another round.
“They’re coming,” Tina said.
“Get in the house!” Taylor said.
Tina reached the door first, holding it open for Taylor and Carl. Carl walked backwards slowly, taking aim with the rifle again. He squeezed the trigger, catching the mechanic high on the shoulder, and sent him spiraling around to bounce off the side of the Escort.
Taylor enjoyed a certain amount of satisfaction watching Carl take the rabid things down, but as he scanned the empty streets, he knew it was one of the dumbest things they could have done. The roar of gunfire was loud enough to wake the dead – no pun intended, Taylor thought – and it would only draw attention to their location.
Carl said, “One more,” as he ejected an empty round.
Taylor batted the rifle down. “Get in the house.” He had meant to yell, but instead the words tumbled from his mouth in a calm and detached manner, as if he was reacting to something far away.
By the time all three of them were in, the first of the rabid things had reached the porch and was at the door before Taylor could get it all the way closed. He put his back to the door, squatted, and used his feet to push off the floor. It worked. He heard the latch click and he locked it quickly.
“That won’t hold them off for long. Help me find something to block it closed with.”
Carl pointed to the couch. The two of them, both on one end, shoved the couch so that it was positioned up against the door.
Carl went to the window nearest the door, parted the curtains ever so slightly, and looked out. He could see them gathered on the porch steps. He counted five of them.
“I count five,” he said. “One of them is Carrie Martinez. She owns that store over on Birch. Stitch With It or whatever it’s called.”
“Is there a back door or something?” Tina asked.
“Yeah, but it’s two miles to our parent’s house. I wouldn’t feel safe going a block by foot with things like that waiting around out there.”
Carl turned his head to look at Tina. “He’s right. It was a good idea, but for once in his life my brother’s right.” A hand slammed against the window, a thin pane of glass the only thing preventing it from grabbing his face. He jerked back. “Jesus. Stupid but dangerous. What do you think makes them so dumb? None of them were exactly rocket scientists before, but damn. All they seem to know how to do is chase after normal people.”
“Severe brain damage,” Tina said. “That would be my educated guess. You said whatever they had is like rabies -”
“According to the radio,” Taylor said. “I don’t know how much trust we want to put in that information.”
“Whatever it is, I’d say that it causes a terrible fever. Enough of one to cause permanent and extreme damage to the brain. It should be fatal. Under normal circumstances, it probably would be fatal. Instead, it makes them insane. Look at the symptoms. Insanity is a symptom. Excessive salivation. Poor judgment and motor control skills. An aversion to water. If you look at what we know,” Tina said, “there are quite a few similarities to rabies. But rabies doesn’t cause animals to run in packs. From what we’ve seen, all of those things seem to travel together. That’s not a hundred percent accurate, but it seems to be the rule rather than the exception. I wouldn’t say they’re necessarily working together. It’s more like grouping. A natural tendency to be with their own kind. But that’s just a shot in the dark.”
“This makes twice they‘ve found us, too. Don’t forget that. Out of the blue, they found us at your dad’s store. And now here.”
“The car’s running,” Carl said. “That makes noise. They could have heard the noise from the engine running.”
“Right. That doesn’t explain how they found us in the store, though.”
Carl shrugged and looked back to the window. The rabid thing that had once been Carrie Martinez slapped her hands against the glass repeatedly, eying him, exposing her teeth as rivers of drool ran from her open mouth and down her chin. He studied her face and the emptiness in her eyes, and he couldn’t quite fool himself into believing there was anything remotely human left.
“That could be coincidence, or it could be another symptom,” Tina said. “If it’s a symptom, there’s nothing that I know of to connect it with that particular disease. We don’t know what sense to associate it with. Hearing or sense of smell or something else.”
Carl said, “Is science class over yet? Maybe the two of you can go back to flirting later.”
It was one of those comments that, if uttered in the past, would have led to a brotherly brawl. Taylor narrowed his eyes and stared at his brother, trying to resist the blossoming rage that welled up inside of him. Tina looked aghast. Taylor wasn’t sure if it was a feigned response or not, and couldn’t decide which was worse: his brother’s comment or Tina’s I’d-Never-Flirt-With-Your-Brother-In-a-Million-Years reaction.
Carl met his gaze. “I’m not going to apologize for that,” he said. “It got your attention, which is exactly what it was meant to do.” He was still holding the curtains open, and Taylor could see Carrie Martinez - or the thing that passed for her these days - with her face pressed up hard against the window, nose and lips smooshed up against the glass. She looked like an alien fish. There was only madness in her gaze.
“Why don’t they just break the glass?” Tina asked.
Carl said, “I don’t think they know they can. Not yet anyway. It’s like back at the hardware store. Remember how long it took them to come around front when they couldn’t get in through the back. And even then they didn’t wander to the front of the store on their own.”
And then the glass did shatter. Carl felt fingers clamp down on his wrist. The fingers were warm and sweaty and mushy. He let out a high-pitched scream. His first response was to pull away, and as he did he tripped over his own feet. Gravity, as reliable as ever, assured his fall to the ground, and he pulled Carrie Martinez forward through the window. He felt her hand slip from his wrist as her body was impaled on the long slivers of broken glass still clinging to the bottom of the window. He scrambled back.
Carl looked back in the direction of the window. Carrie Martinez hung halfway into the house, blood so dark it was almost black gushed from her stomach. From behind him, Tina made a retching sound.
Carrie Martinez’s eyes remained blank. Her mouth opened and closed as if keeping beat to some rhythm only she could hear. When he was only a boy, Carl had enjoyed going on fishing trips with his father. The first fish he ever caught was a small catfish out of Granite Lake, and he remembered his father holding it up to his face and how the fish’s mouth had opened and closed the same way Carrie Martinez’s mouth was opening and closing now. He had felt sorry for the fish; he’d had his father toss it back into the lake. He had watched it flounder for a moment and then shoot down into the depths. A part of him felt the same compassion for Carrie Martinez. After all, whatever was wrong with her wasn’t her fault.
But you can’t help her, he thought. No throwing this one back.
Carrie Martinez’s mouth stopped moving. Her head sank forward, and for a moment she looked as though she were bowed in prayer. Her long black hair reached down to the carpet. It glistened with moisture in the flashlight’s beam.
Sweat, Carl thought. Just like her hand was sweaty. That must be another symptom. Part of the fever or something.
A man appeared in the window behind Carrie Martinez’s impaled body and placed his hand on her back, using it for support as he got his first leg up, trying to work his way through the window.
The rifle had landed several inches away. Calmly, Carl leaned over and snatched it up, took his time aiming, the man so close that his head was all that could be seen through the rifle’s scope.
Carl fired. The top of the man’s head disappeared and he fell back through the window, landing on the ground with a wet thud.
“I’m an army of one,” Carl said, laughing, as he pulled himself up off the floor.
More of the rabid things appeared in the window.
Lining up like ducks in a row, Carl thought, taking aim with the rifle.
He picked them off one by one until there were none left. Taylor watched, knowing he should put a stop to it, but he was caught up in the thrill of it just as much as his brother.
In the end, he had put down all five of them, not counting the two by the car or Carrie Martinez. He had experienced that rare surge of adrenaline, but it had worn off as quickly as it had come, leaving him breathing heavily and physically drained. He lowered the rifled, resting the stock on the floor, leaning on it like a makeshift cane.
Carl approached the window slowly and poked his head through, careful not to touch Carrie Martinez’s slumped over body.
“That’s a massacre,” he said. His stomach went queasy; something hot and nasty got as far as the back of his throat before he managed to hold it back. He gagged, dropped the rifle, and held a hand to his mouth. “I’ve gotta use the bathroom.” He fled from the room.
“Is he going to be all right?” Tina asked.
Taylor nodded. “I think so. It’s not every day you kill someone. Even if they aren’t human anymore. But he’ll be all right. Give him a couple of minutes to himself. I’ll check on him after that.”
He walked over to where the rifle lay on the floor and picked it up. He undid the bolt and ejected the spent casing. The flashlight was on the floor, the beam pointed at the shattered window, illuminating Carrie Martinez. In the weakening light, her hair was the color of canned spinach. He stared out the window. “We can’t stay here. It’s not safe. More of those things will have heard the gunshots and they’ll come running.”
On the street, Tina’s Escort was idling quietly. It wouldn’t last much longer if they didn’t feed it gas, but Taylor wondered if any of the pumps would work. Nothing else did, so it was hard to believe their luck would turn for the better.
Carl entered the room, wiping his mouth with his forearm. Taylor held the rifle out to him, but he shook his head. “Why don’t you hold onto it for now.”
“Nice shootin’.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks. I guess.” He felt like baby brother again. It made him feel ashamed yet comfortable. It was an easy niche to fall into. You could take a lot of excuses with you into a role like that. “On second thought…it’s not like you’d be very handy with this thing. You never did like to hunt.”
“Wasn’t for me.”
Carl turned to Tina. “He couldn’t bring himself to hurt an animal no matter how small.”
“I could never see the fun in it,” Tina said.
“So are we getting out of here or what?”
They made their way to the car, vigilant as they hurried down the narrow sidewalk. Carl glanced back at the house before getting into the car, sadness in his eyes.
“The town seems so empty,” Tina said.
Carl said, “It’s always like this here at night. That’s why my brother likes to take his long walks.”
Taylor looked at the houses lining either side of the street, wondering if there were survivors in any of them. If there are, then they’re the smart ones, he thought. Smart enough to stay put and be quiet.
“I don’t see anyone,” Tina said.
“They’re hiding somewhere,” Carl said. “I’d bet money on it.” The rifle stood upright between his legs, resting against the back of the driver’s seat. Carl had one hand wrapped around the barrel. His window was cracked to provide easier access in case he needed to start shooting from the car.
They passed an elementary school. The playground was visible just west of the school. The jungle gym caught Carl’s attention. In the dark, it resembled a giant steel spider web.
As they reached the outskirts of town, the houses were spaced farther apart. Taylor drove them another half a mile, at which time their parent’s house became visible a quarter mile down the road.
Carl pointed. “That’s it up there,” he said to Tina.
It was a two-story house, painted white with brown shingles on the roof. A sizeable deck was built onto the left side of the house. A picnic table sat on the deck. Taylor slowed the car. For some reason, he felt the urge to keep going. He told himself that maybe it was better not to know, that some of the alternatives were far too dark to entertain. But he also realized he must be feeling the same way Carl had felt when they had pulled up in front of his and Angie’s house. Now that the shoe was on the other foot – his foot, to be exact – it wasn’t as difficult to empathize with his brother.
Taylor sucked in his breath and turned into the driveway. Putting the car in park, he leaned over the wheel and peered up at the front of the house. “Looks quiet. You guys want me to go -”
Carl had already exited the car, rifle out and at the ready. He approached the house, eyes darting from window to window. Please, God, let them be all right. Let Angie be here and let them be all right. You know how much I hate asking for favors, but I’m asking now.
Taylor walked over to the two car garage. The garage doors were lined with windows. He pointed the flashlight through them. “Van’s gone,” he said. “The truck is here, but no van.”
The front door was unlocked.
They had grown up here. All of their senses were attuned to the house. By the time they entered the kitchen, both of them could already sense that the house was empty.
Carl said, “Forget it. There’s nobody here.” He flicked the lightswitch and the lights came on. “Power works.”
“Must be the backup generator. Dad put it in a few years ago, remember?”
Carl placed the rifle on the kitchen table. “They’re not here.”
“Check anyway.”
Carl explored the house, calling Angie’s name as he poked his head in the various rooms, knowing full well he wasn’t going to find anyone.
“Where the fuck could they be?”
“Do you think she would have left another note?” Tina said. “I thought maybe she might have left one like she did at the other house.”
“Where would they have went?”
Taylor tried the phone. No dial tone, which wasn’t at all surprising.
“Why wouldn’t she leave a note?” Carl said. He rummaged through the papers, bills, and receipts that were scattered across the countertop in the corner. “If those things had been breaking in, I can see them having to make a break for it, but there aren’t any signs that that happened. Nothing’s broken. It doesn’t make sense. Angie wasn’t that scatterbrained. Not like some of the chicks you’ve gone out with.”
“Thanks,” Taylor said.
“You know what I’m sayin’. Shit!”
Tina said, “Is there anywhere else she might have left it? Someplace she might have chosen where she knew you would look for it?”
Carl thought about it and after a moment his eyes lit up. He rushed out of the room and up the stairs, and Taylor and Tina heard a door being thrown open.
“Found it!” Carl had a yellow sheet of paper in his hand when he came down the stairs. “She left it in my old bedroom, stuck to the desk. I didn’t go all the way in when I looked before, so I missed it.”
“Well,” Taylor said, “what does it say?”
“There’s not much. She must have been in a hurry. All it says is ‘Your dad said we’re going to the mountains. He says you will know what that means.’ That’s it. Oh, and ‘Love, Angie.’”
“Do you know what she’s talking about?” Tina asked. “What mountains?”
After some thought, Carl snapped his fingers and threw his head back, chuckling to himself.
“What?”
“No wonder she wasn’t more specific. She probably didn’t know what the hell Dad was talking about when he said they were going to the mountains. You remember where we used to go camping when we were younger? It’s been seven or eight years, but do you remember? Dad would pack us up some weekends and tell us we were heading to the mountains. Thing is, they’re not really mountains. He just called them that. They’re just big rocks, but when we were kids, they looked like mountains to us.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous? Being out in the open like that. There wouldn’t be any way to protect ourselves.”
“Those dumb fuckers can’t even figure out how to open a door without breaking it down,” Carl said. “Dollars to donuts they wouldn’t be able to climb up a big rock.”
Taylor and Carl exchanged glances. Taylor led them into the dining room where a large safe stood in the corner. The safe was large enough that it could have housed a grown man comfortably, maybe two if they didn’t mind rubbing up against each other, and when Taylor grabbed the handle he was surprised to find it unlocked.
“For our sake, I’ll bet,” Carl said.
“He left the Glock. There’s a 12-gauge, and another one of the Ruger’s.” He spoke directly to Tina now. “See, normally this thing’s full, which means they packed up the rest and took them with them. You asked why they would head into the mountains. My dad’s kind of a wilderness junkie. Not one of those paranoid survivalist-types or anything, but he liked to spend his free time hunting and being in the woods. He’s never lived in a big city, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to head for one now. He’s familiar with that place. Maybe for somebody else it would be the worst mistake in the world. For him, it’s probably the best place he could have picked. Loaded the van with food and guns and ammo and went on their merry way. Plus it’s isolated. If those things out there are only out to fuck up other people, they’ll stick to the places where the people are. That’ just an educated guess, but it sounds about right.”
“How big is this place?”
“Big enough to get lost in if you don’t know where you’re going. But there are quite a few trails in there. Usually you follow one of the trails and sooner or later you’ll find your way out.”
“If it’s that big, how do we find them?”
Taylor reached into the safe. He checked the magazine in the Glock, made sure it was loaded, and then tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. He handed the shotgun to Carl. Pulling out the rifle, he handed it to Tina and said, “Let’s worry about that when we get there.”