by Maxey, Phil
Static came from her radio just at the moment a weight at the front of the wagon tilted it forward and its wheels started to turn.
“Jess? You there. Over.”
One of the kids moved to the front, trying to peer through a hole in the covering. “Warren’s back, we’re going!”
Jess held the radio to her lips as the wagon bumped and swayed. “Yes! Are you okay? What’s happening? Over.”
“I’m fine. We’re all fine. No creatures showed up. They know, Jess. They know. Over.”
“Know what?” She felt all the eyes in the confined space on her.
“Isiah’s moving the convoy into the town. I’ll see you in a few minutes. Over.”
Jess lowered the radio, glancing at those around her, most quickly averting their eyes. She could tell Meg also had questions for the content of Landon’s message, but the older woman instead continued her vigilance outside.
“Few hours until sunup,” said Meg. “We should find a place for the kids to get some sleep.”
“I don’t need any sleep!” said Agatha, proudly.
Meg looked at her with a smile. The young girl’s eyelids were heavy, as were the other children’s. Sam though looked anything but, sleepy. “That may be so,” she said to Agatha. “But us old people need to get some rest too.” The answer seemed to appease the ten-year-old, who went back to patting the dog.
Jess joined Meg looking out the back at the other driver, just ten feet away driving their previous wagon. Lanterns dangling from other vehicles in the convoy, bobbed and swayed, lighting trees, fences and front yards of homes. The wagon took a bend and a few moments later they came to a stop.
Agatha scrunched her face. “What’s that smell.”
“It’s not the monsters, Aggy, don’t worry,” said Toby.
The air had a sharp chemical odor, tinged with charcoal. “I don’t know,” said Jess. “Must be the van they set alight.” She stood and peered out the back. Stores which looked as if they hadn’t changed for a hundred years sat on both sides of the narrow two-lane street. The windows of the rooms above them were dark and forbidding but equally looked like salvation. Others were getting down from their transport and moving towards the buildings. She looked back to those in the wagon, when the sound of someone running came from behind and she turned to face Landon.
“I found us a place,” he said.
“What about us?” said Agatha, from inside.
He looked past Jess. “Everyone. Get your things. I’ll show you.”
They all made their way to the back and climbed down, Josh taking the dog. The children huddled together as they walked quickly past other wagons and stores, then to a larger building, perched on the corner of a junction. A sign hung from its second-floor balcony proudly announcing its role as a bed-and-breakfast, with ‘Rooms only $49 per night.’
Agatha led the kids, including Jess’s own and Tye up to the front door. Jess started to shout for them to stop, when she caught Landon’s expression that she need not be worried.
“I’ve checked it out,” he said.
Meg and Sam followed the kids, and Landon was going to do the same when Jess pulled him to the side, walking slightly around the front of the building, where the shadows lurked. “What happened? I thought you said there were creatures in this town?”
Shouts of excitement could be heard from inside the two-story building, then a shout from a half asleep Arlo, when someone had tried to enter his room.
“We heard one when we entered. And again not long ago, but whatever is here, didn’t take the bait.”
“What did you mean, they…” Her mind answered her own question. She looked at him in the gloom, seeing his expression of concern. “They knew it was a trap…”
He nodded. “That’s what it looks like. But I think it’s worse than that… Do you think… and I know how this sounds, but do you think they can be intelligent? Maybe still have some kind of human mind in there?”
The idea wasn’t fresh to her. She had thought about the possibility, but dismissed it on seeing how most of the things acted. Like mindless beasts, intent on assimilating. “I don’t know, but I’ve seen them act together.”
“The noise the thing made, I thought, I’ve always thought it was just animalistic, but now I think… it was communicating… It sent out a call for others to come… Is that possible?”
She wanted to give him a definite answer. Something scientific that would make sense, except nothing about the past three days appeared to be based in any science she knew. How the creatures did what they did, what they were… it was beyonds the bounds of her knowledge, or any patents she may have created. Everything was a guess at this point.
He saw her struggling for an answer and threw his arms around her, holding her tight. “Four more days…”
They almost didn’t hear the nearby footsteps.
“If you two are done,” said Gregg. “The boss wants a word with both of you.”
CHAPTER SIX
5: 41 a.m. City Hall.
Jess and Landon followed the older man across a parking lot, his flashlight being the only guide. Landon knew the building they were heading towards, for he had been on its roof for the past hour, and despite the light from the fire in the van almost completely gone, the stench still hung in the air. Instinctively he wanted to hold his wife’s hand, but that would send the wrong message to the man he was following and the man they were about to meet. They were not convicts awaiting to be judged, but that’s how it felt as they arrived at the side entrance of one of the more modern buildings bordering the street.
They moved through narrow corridors, past offices and to a larger main hall, then finally to a door marked. ‘Courtroom.’
Gregg didn’t bother knocking and opened it to the glow from lanterns, which were arranged across a bench at the front of the room. But it was no robed individual seated in the high backed leather chair, but instead a man who had laid his stetson on the wooden surface. By his side were two others, men that Jess or Landon hadn’t seen before, but both were armed with shotguns.
“Take a seat,” said Isiah to Jess and Landon. He looked at Gregg. “The horses situated?” The older man nodded. “Good. Find them something to eat. Should be something in a small town like this.” Gregg turned and left. Landon was sure he saw a waver in the old man’s usually dour expression as he moved back outside, closing the door behind him.
Isiah turned to the newcomers. “So. Jess and Landon Keller, from Denver. You’re a long way from home.”
“Yeah, it’s been a tough few days,” said Landon. “But we got through. Now we’re—”
The man ten feet away, held his hand up, then turned his palm into a pointing finger which was aimed at Jess. “I want your wife to speak.”
Jess tried to hide her swallow or her attempts to obtain saliva for her dry mouth. “What do you want to know?”
“The girl that ran away, with her idiot brother and pa, tells me you’re some kind of scientist?”
“Microbiologist.”
“So—” He waved his finger around. “— You know what’s caused all of this to happen. And you know why we’re immune?”
Questions piled up in her mind.
What did Tracey tell you…
“I’m not a virologist, but there must be something about your genetics and mine, that—”
“And we’re not going to change?”
“I, can’t be sure we won’t change. The virus itself will be mutating, creating new variants. We might not be immune to one of those…” She noticed one of the younger men to Isiah’s side, shift his weight slightly.
“And what about some kind of vaccine—” Jess’s heart skipped a beat, but her expression remained resolute. “— to make all of us immune forever?”
“I… would need a laboratory, a team to work with me. It would take weeks, months, maybe longer. And in a few days it—”
“But it’s possible?”
“In theory, yes.”
“What’s the rule?” said Landon.
“You don’t lie to me. I can’t stand dishonest people. Talk plainly. If you got a problem with something, you tell me. A few times over the past few days, I had people who kept their secrets, and it didn’t go well for them.”
Jess nodded. “We understand.”
He looked at Landon. “You think the things in the town have called out for others to come?”
“I think so…”
“I’ve seen cattle do the same. Saw a calf got separated, once. It could tell some coyotes were circling, started squawking. Then another made the same noise in the field over, and others. Soon—” He leaned forward. “It wasn’t one small lone calf, but a hundred head of pissed off cows. I got men on the roofs all along this street. In a few hours, they should be able to see for ten miles in all directions. If there’s anything making its way here. We’ll know. So if I were you two. I would get some rest. A fight is on its way.”
Isiah and his two guards started to leave, but the former stopped, looking back. “How’s the arm?”
“It’s fine. I can still use it.”
Isiah smiled. “Good. Wouldn’t want to put you down!”
Before Landon could respond, Isiah joined his men and left.
*****
7: 28 a.m. Boarding house. Main Street.
Jess could hear Landon’s heavy breathing, confirming that he was asleep. She wasn’t even tired, which she knew wasn’t right. She had had maybe four hours sleep over the past twenty-four hours, certainly not her normal eight that she always needed. She had closed her eyes when he had in the hope that he would think she had fallen asleep, and the trick worked. Since then she had been lying awake, trying to keep her mind from spiraling into a flurry of panicked thoughts and hideous memories. Every few minutes she would glance at the far corner of the room, and the loose floorboard which covered the rag which was wrapped around the vaccine bottles. They still had some time before they needed another dose, but if something were to happen to those fragile glass bottles…
‘I don’t like dishonest people…’
Isiah’s words were mixed with her own.
We can’t stay in this town.
Landon had been right before, in the church’s spire room. They just needed the immunes to get them out of the city. But now they needed to leave. She had a feeling Isiah wouldn’t let them. His questions about a vaccine at the time filled her with dread. Maybe Tracey had told him the truth about them, but in hindsight, he was thinking long-term. And having a scientist in their little cult might come in handy.
Morning light was already peeking through the closed drapes. They couldn’t escape during the day, so it would have to be nighttime again before they left the town. Plenty of time to plan things.
She started to feel sleepy, and for the first time in days, she felt secure enough to let it happen…
A knock came at her door. She jolted awake, immediately noticing the difference in the slant of the bed and the swathes of light cutting across the room.
“Can I come in?” said Josh.
She looked to her left, at the empty space, then to the watch on her wrist.
‘8: 56 a.m.’
She blinked a few times then pulled herself up to the headboard. “Yes.”
The door creaked open, and her son appeared, squinting at the sun’s rays which covered that part of the room. “I didn’t want to wake you, I know you’re—”
She waved him forward. “It’s fine. Come, sit on the bed. Close the door.” He did as asked. “Did you sleep?”
He nodded. “Did you talk to the man in charge? Is he going to let us stay?”
It hadn’t occurred to her that the kids might not want to leave. She leaned in closer to him. “We can’t stay here, Josh. You know that, right?”
He looked down. “But all these people can protect us from the monsters… And now there is Agatha and Toby and Helen. They like it here as well…”
She sighed and held his arm. “I know you think it’s nice here… but the monsters are coming to this place as well…” His eyes grew wide, so she quickly continued. “They’re not here right now. Well, apart from a few which haven’t bothered with us, but there are many more on their way here, Josh.”
“Does the man in charge know?”
“Yes, and they are making preparations. And we have to as well. We will be leaving tonight, when it’s dark.”
He briefly looked down again. “But my friends will come too, right? Agatha, Toby—”
Jess pulled back. “I don’t know. We don’t have much food and supplies. And like you said, they are happy here.”
“But you said the mon—”
“I don’t know, Josh!” The words came out with a fury which surprised her and him, and he looked down with an expression that filled her with guilt. She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep very well. But can you keep us leaving, to yourself? Don’t tell anyone else, not Agatha. No one.”
“Does Sam know?”
“I’ll tell her. Just keep it to yourself for now. Okay?”
He nodded.
“Do you know where your father went?”
“Some men came. He left with them.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
9: 04 a.m. Snare Street.
Landon crept across the patches of mud. To his left loomed silver metal cylinders, a few stories high. Grain silos which sat near the rusting train lines to his right.
Gregg held his fist up and Landon stopped then peered around the edge of the wall of metal. Twenty-feet away, run-down buildings sat behind overgrown grass and mud, and in the closest garden was an 80s red sedan, slumped to one side. Its hood and roof were crumpled and torn as if a similar sized cat had clawed at it.
The older man kneeled, making the others do the same. “Rory said he saw something moving over this way.” He sniffed. “From the smell and that car, I reckon it’s that house on the other side.”
Landon had picked up the pungent aroma of rot a street before, despite his nose stinging from the bitter cold, and now it was stronger than ever.
Gregg looked past him to Beau and another man, slight in build, with a long beard, named ‘Warren.’ “You two, go around left, behind the folk’s places. Tell me on the radio what you see at the back.” They nodded and moved off, taking their radios and rifles with them. He peered around the edge of the curved metal surface again to the ruin of a wooden house. Shadows clung to the interior despite the blue sky above. “You been up close with one of these things?” he said to Landon.
“Few times.”
“Can never say what you gonna come up against. Could be a SUV sized spider or something that looks more like… Anyway, all shapes and sizes. Like nature threw a hissy fit and decided to reshape us into something else.”
That was as good a description he had heard as any other, Landon thought.
“How you settling in? Looks like those kids took a shine to your wife.”
Landon sensed the children’s welfare mattered to the older man, despite his dismissive tone.
“They were still asleep when I left… How long have you known Isiah?”
Gregg looked away from the old house and back to Landon. “Why’s that important?”
“Be nice to know more about the guy in charge.”
It was an honest answer and Gregg took it as such. He looked back to the house. “I was the manager there before him. Taught him everything about the farm… The other stuff he taught himself.”
Landon wasn’t sure what the ‘other stuff,’ was.
Gregg held up the radio to his lips. “You around back, yet? Over.” His words came out as a white puff of mist.
“Yeah. Ain’t seeing anything un…”
; “What?”
A scuffling noise came from the radio. “There’s something in the house, it’s real weird looking! Like it’s got two heads or something. I think it saw us!”
Creaks and the sound of something moving came from the house that Gregg was paying attention to, as if the turn of the century collapsing property was waking up from its slumber.
Landon moved around the left side of the silo, Gregg doing the same on the other side, both watching the dark windows for any movement, but despite the sounds drifting on the air with the stench, the interior kept its secrets.
“You think it’s alone?” said Gregg.
“Yup. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be hiding in that house.”
Gregg raised his rifle. “Then, why don’t we let it know we’re—”
Splinters of wood and glass showered the two men as the front of the property exploded, and a brown oily mass surged towards them, growing in size.
Instinctively Landon raised his shotgun and fired at the tentacle like arms which propelled the thing across the mud, but the shot seemed to be absorbed, not slowing the beast. Without breaking stride it screeched and bound forward, churning the soft ground, scampering directly at Landon who fired another shot, this time flecks of blood sprayed from the beast’s core, but still it moved towards its target. He staggered back, almost falling over a dip in the ground as the thing bared down on him, only vaguely being aware of the cacophony of gunfire lost to the creature’s own roars.
It fell to the side, slamming into the nearby metal column, creating a good-sized dent, then slumped to the ground as more bullets ripped into it. Limbs flailed at the air and surface beneath it, and Landon stood back up, walking forward with Gregg and the others that had joined.
The old man held his fist up and the barrage stopped.
All four men looked down at the quivering layers of skin and muscles, which seemed to have no clearly defined beginning or end, just rows of claws which were still trying to push the thing back upright, but then even they dropped lifeless to the faded grass.
