Distinct

by Hamill, Ike

  Wrapped up in Ty’s strong arms, Tim seemed perfectly calm.

  “He wants to talk to you,” Tim said.

  Lisa shrank back from everyone. She pressed herself against the wall in the kitchen and stared at Tim with wide eyes.

  Brad couldn’t hear the conversation that Romie was having—Ty was too loud.

  “I just need you to sit down and take a pill, Tim. Do it for me and I promise you’ll feel better.”

  Tim whispered his responses. Ty didn’t seem to be listening. He simply repeated himself, over and over.

  “Sit down and take a pill. You’ll feel better.”

  Cedric circled their embrace, looking up with worried eyes.

  “It’s too late,” Brad said. Only Lisa seemed to hear him, so he repeated himself. “Listen to me—it’s too late. They’re gone into whatever state the others went to. Call it hypnosis, or call it whatever, but they’re gone. We have to get away from them before they infect us too. We’ll get away, figure this out, and hope that there’s a cure.”

  Ty didn’t respond. He was still working on the problem of getting Tim to sit down and take a pill.

  Lisa heard him, but she had a different outlook.

  “No, Brad, we’re not leaving our friends. They need us now more than ever. You’re crazy if you think we’re leaving.”

  Tim had been whispering. He rose his voice to a shout.

  “You’ll understand if you just talk with him!”

  The room was quiet for a moment.

  For Brad, the worst part was that he believed it. He remembered the feeling that he had when he was sitting at the table in the restaurant. After the crazy dead man had talked of Karen, he had the distinct feeling that everything would be okay if he just opened himself to the possibility that…

  “No!” Brad shouted. “This is exactly how they’re going to suck us all in. The only possible way to keep our independence is to forget about them. We have to leave them behind. We have to walk away.”

  Lisa shook her head. Ty wasn’t even listening.

  Brad realized that he had backed up all the way to the door. He looked down and saw that his hand was already squeezing the knob.

  He turned it and opened the door.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Brad was still crossing the parking lot when he spotted movement on the road. He sprinted for the corner of one of the other buildings and got around the side before the vehicle turned in. It could have been the men from the boat. It could have been someone else. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was putting distance between himself and the infection. Whatever had incubated inside Tim had finally taken Romie. Soon, it would have Ty and Lisa. The dogs seemed immune, but there was no way to be sure.

  Around the back side of the far building, Brad broke for the cover of the trees. With each stride, it seemed like he was leaving his memories behind. He shoved his memories of Karen away and thought about his home in Gladstone. It may have been burned down, but that was his home. The place in Kingston Depot was gone. Karen was gone. Even the men who had imprisoned him in that home were gone.

  The brush was thick. The stand of trees between the development and the road was completely uncultivated. Brad struggled, looking over his shoulder frequently to be sure that nobody was following. When he emerged on the asphalt, he didn’t follow it. He wanted to stay away from the road until he was sure that there were no other vehicles patrolling around.

  A path wound down through tall grass and ended at a rocky beach. With the tide out, Brad could run west along the shore. When he got winded, he dropped into a squat and surveyed the water.

  Memories began to catch up with him. They encroached on the perimeter of his thoughts. Running was better—Brad stood and forced his legs to move again.

  A mile later, his shore ran out. Instead of mud and rocks, marshy grass grew right down into the water. It was impossible to run through. Brad began to hike back up the hill towards a cluster of houses.

  The pace wasn’t fast enough.

  All he could think about was Karen, and Kingston Depot, and Herm Gunther.

  He wondered if he was too late—maybe the infection had already taken hold.

  CHAPTER 40: NEW YORK CITY

  CORINNA AND THE DOG were up and chasing the man as he dragged Liam out of the store and into the hallway. They were too late to catch him before he disappeared into the bathroom, but they could still stop him from doing something terrible in there. She had knives stashed all over the store. Corinna grabbed a long hunting knife and tossed her light to the side. She didn’t need it. She knew every inch of the shopping center.

  Prince seemed ready too.

  Corinna moved to one side of the door. Prince stayed on the other. She started to push the door open as she raised the blade to her shoulder.

  A man’s voice was talking low inside the dark bathroom. His voice echoed on the tiles.

  The door swung on its own. Someone was opening it from the inside. There was just enough light for Corinna to see Frank’s shape emerging from the dark. She swung her knife.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Liam screamed against the man’s hand and tried to bite him. The hand already tasted of blood. The man kept his hand flat and Liam couldn’t get his teeth on the flesh. When the man backed into the bathroom, Liam knew that darkness was coming. He didn’t mind it so much. In the dark, he could hide really well. He had done it before.

  Frank let him go and Liam ran for the big stall. His mother used to call them the handicapped stall, but Corinna didn’t like that. She called them the disabled stall. Corinna said that just because someone was disabled, it didn’t mean they had a handicap. Liam had no idea what any of that meant—he just took it as a fact.

  It was dark, but he knew precisely where he was going. He took two big steps and then slid across the tiles to slip under the door. Once he was in there, he could duck and dart under the stall walls and get away from anyone in the dark. He had done it before.

  Frank didn’t come after him.

  “Hello, Liam.”

  There was another voice in the dark.

  The man sounded sad, perhaps lonely.

  Liam froze.

  On the other side of the stall wall, he heard the bathroom door open and then the man with blood on his hand screamed.

  Liam was alone in the bathroom with the sad voice.

  “I’m so sorry about Prince,” the man said.

  Liam didn’t want to give away his position by talking, but he couldn’t help asking a question. He desperately wanted to know about Prince.

  “What happened to Prince?”

  “You can be with him again. Would you like that?”

  Liam nodded and then realized the man couldn’t see him. “Yes,” he whispered.

  “I thought so. It’s going to be so great to be back with him, right?”

  Liam nodded again.

  Outside, in the hall, there were more screams.

  Liam started to get up.

  “And Corinna,” the man said.

  Liam paused.

  “You don’t want anything bad to happen to her, do you?”

  Liam shook his head. He remembered the man couldn’t see him. Before he could voice his response, the man continued.

  “And your mom is probably back in Burbank, right?” the man asked.

  Liam held his breath. This was too much to hope for. When he was little, and his mom went to Burbank, he had thought she was never coming back. When she did, the warmth that had filled him up had made him so happy that he wet his pants. She took him into the handicap stall in the airport to clean him up. It seemed almost logical that she would come back from Burbank again. She had been gone a long time, but she had always come back before.

  “You could have Prince, and Corinna, and your mom all together and they wouldn’t be jealous at all.”

  The man knew everything. He even knew that Liam had suspected that his mom would be jealous of Corinna. She had been jealous of Sandra,
so it only made sense.

  “Where would we be?” Liam asked.

  “I guess you would probably all live together in the parking garage, right? That way if the dead things came in the air again, they wouldn’t get anyone.”

  Liam nodded vigorously. It was exactly what he had been saying the whole time. The parking garage was the safest place and it even had the hill where he could kick the ball and it always came back unless Prince got it first.

  “You should tell Corinna about how it could be,” the man said. “Tell Corinna that she can bring her grandfather and her friends too. You could all live in the parking garage. There’s plenty of room and someone would bake bread and someone else would make cheese and you would have grilled cheese sandwiches and kick the ball up the hill where it always came back.”

  Liam could see the whole thing in his head. His wide eyes looked out into the darkness and he saw. It was beautiful. He was ready to go tell Corinna right that instant.

  “Give her a second,” the man said. “It’s either Corinna or Frank out there. You have to give them a second to work it out.”

  Liam nodded and sat on the floor to wait.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Corinna slashed at Frank’s wrist. All the tendons that worked his fingers were on the other side, but she knew that she could weaken his grip if she cut the ones that ran on the inside of his wrist. He howled and dropped the gun.

  She kicked it into the dark and swung the knife laterally, aiming for his guts.

  He was old and injured—no match for her speed—but he had bulk. Frank managed to deflect the blade with his arm. Only the tip snagged his shirt and it was sideways. The knife tore from her grip.

  Frank’s wrist spattered blood down on the floor as he dropped for the knife. She kicked at his head, but was too late. Frank had the knife and he was between her and the store. There was another sword tucked under the massage kiosk, about thirty yards back in the darkness. By the time she got it and returned, he could do horrible things to Liam. She couldn’t risk it.

  Prince was growling but staying out of the fight now that Frank wasn’t hurting Liam.

  “You don’t have to fight me,” Frank said.

  “Fuck you!”

  Corinna kicked at the hand that held the knife. She was lucky that she had already cut his good wrist. With his bad hand, Frank wasn’t very fast. Still, he flipped the blade over and caught part of her shoe as she tried to kick his hand. The knife jabbed into the side of her foot.

  Corinna caught her balance.

  She realized that she didn’t have to disarm him. She only had to disable him.

  Her next attack was a side kick to his knee. Frank swung the knife too late. She had already delivered the kick and his knee had already buckled.

  He almost went down.

  “He just needs a minute,” Frank said, standing on one leg while the other one refused to support him. He pointed the knife at Corinna.

  She wasn’t sure if he was even capable of coming at her. His wrist was pressed to his side, but it was still bleeding. The man looked like the life was draining out of him with each passing second.

  She wasn’t going to take a chance.

  Corinna kicked at his hand again. This time, he didn’t even manage to turn the blade. It flew out of his grip, almost straight up. Corinna backed up a pace and let it bounce to a stop.

  “One day,” Frank said, “you’ll understand that you didn’t have to do any of this. You could have just accepted it and nobody would have been hurt.”

  “Shut it,” she said. She couldn’t let herself be distracted. Frank was disarmed, nearly disabled, and Liam was in the bathroom. The kid could take care of himself in the dark, but there was something nagging at Corinna. The voice that had been talking to Liam had been at the far end of the bathroom when Frank emerged. He had talked about his boss. There was a real chance that there was someone else she still had to contend with.

  Corinna kicked once more. The extended side of her foot connected squarely with his cheek. He was hunched over, but she could have kicked him even if he had been upright. Corinna had practiced the kick at least a thousand times while her grandfather held the bag. While other kids her age kicked into the air, Corinna had always practiced with a bag. Her grandfather had always said, “When it comes time to fight the air, call one of your classmates.”

  Frank’s head snapped back. His eyes had rolled back into his head at the same time that his legs got the message. The lights were out. Nobody was home. Frank collapsed.

  Corinna grabbed the knife and then ran for the light. She pushed open the bathroom door and tossed the light inside. While the beam flashed and spun into the dark, she would gather information and start her approach. By the time it came to rest, she hoped to have Liam safely in her arms.

  Liam was standing just beyond the door.

  CHAPTER 41: VIRGINIA

  THE SUN WAS COMING up. The starter motor spun. Robby pictured the pump pushing the fuel down the dry line. It should have already made it. The fuel from the back of the excavator had smelled fine, and it poured like it should have, but that was no guarantee that it wasn’t full of water. Still, even with water, it should have at least given him something.

  He let the engine rest and looked at Gordie. The dog had his eyes shut. Blood had stained his fur. There was one cut on the dog’s back that needed either a stitch or a good butterfly closure, but it wasn’t critical. Dr. Matthew had warned Robby about this type of injury. High on the back, away from blood flow, the wound would be slow to close, especially if there was bacteria in there.

  None of that mattered if the Hummer wouldn’t start.

  There was a coyote-thing laying on the hood of the Hummer, looking in through the windshield. Robby would die inside the vehicle before he gave them the satisfaction of taking him down. In fact, if he opened his window a few inches, he might even be able to injure one of them before he ran out of fight.

  Robby closed his eyes.

  One of the coyote-things was testing the Hummer’s tire with its teeth. Every now and then, the rubber would go PONG! The animal would stop chewing for a moment and then resume. In the back, he heard one of them scratching at the tailgate.

  They would never get it in. It was all glass and metal.

  “Did I ever tell you about my friend Jim?” Robby asked Gordie.

  The dog didn’t respond.

  Outside, the tire went PONG!

  “We were in preschool together and then kindergarten, of course. It was a small island and all the kids knew each other. He wasn’t really my friend though until one day in first grade when I lost my pencil. I loved that pencil because it had a little owl stamped right next to the number two. I saw Jim with it behind his ear at the water fountain, so I told him that it was mine.”

  PONG!

  “He said, ‘Oh yeah? Did you lose it out near the cubbies?’ I was all like, ‘Yes. I must have lost it near the cubbies.’ So then Jim said, ‘Well this must be a different pencil then because I found this one over by the bathroom.’ He never gave me the pencil back, but I knew we were going to be friends.”

  Robby put his hand on the key and readied himself to turn it. His hand wouldn’t move. There was too much riding on it.

  He looked over to Gordie.

  The dog needed serious attention.

  Robby turned the key.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  When the engine caught, the pressure started to build in Robby’s chest. At any moment, it might sputter and die, choking on the new fuel. He tapped the gas pedal to hurry the inevitable. The engine roared and the coyote-thing on the hood scrambled its claws on the paint. The coyote-thing slipped and tumbled from the hood.

  Robby put the vehicle in reverse.

  The Hummer bounced over the debris from the entry door. The tires spun and caught on the pavement slick with bad fuel. As soon as they were over the curb, Robby shut down the four-wheel drive and traction control—anything that might save a co
uple of drops of fuel.

  In his mirrors, the coyote-things trotted after them for a bit before dispersing different directions.

  Instead of savoring the small victory, he put his attention to tackling the next problem. He paused at the entrance to the highway to consult his paper map. They would go north as long as there was another exit coming up. It seemed pretty close on the map.

  With each tenth of a mile between the vehicle and the coyote-things, the pressure in his chest abated. Robby put a hand on Gordie’s back and drove north.

  At the next exit, Robby skipped the gas stations and continued to a barn at the top of a hill. There were three tanks on the west wall of the barn that he could see even from the road. The Hummer pushed easily through the wooden gate. Robby checked every direction twice before he opened the door.

  He tested the fuel in a plastic bottle, letting it sit for a few seconds to see if water, or anything else, would separate out. There was a noise in the distance, coming from the west. It sounded like a horn, jumping up through intervals and crashing down. The sound was followed by a roar.

  Robby poured some of the fuel on a stick and lit the wood. It burned fast and orange. The dented can from the amusement park was still hanging by the metal spout. Robby tossed it aside and started the siphon from the farm’s fuel tank into the Hummer.

  He waited in the vehicle, checking over Gordie’s wounds. Several punctures were only skin-deep. The gash on the back needed cleaning and closing. Gordie also had a tender, swollen muscle on his shoulder and a very sore ear. Robby helped him drink bottled water from a shallow bowl. Gordie already seemed a little more lively. The dog perked up and Robby smiled until he realized why Gordie was suddenly attentive. There was a low rumble coming.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Robby recognized the sound. They had heard it before. The low rumble sounded like an ocean wave building. Back on the island, Robby had loved summer storms. His mom would take him down to the rocks on the southwest coast and they would watch the swells. They always started to curl at the same spot, out where his father said that the rock ledge would tear out your hull at low tide.