“Carter?”
I wasn’t sure who called my name—Stephanie? Tommy?—but I turned toward the voice. I didn’t see anyone—not directly, at least. But what I did see froze time.
The window. The rectangular window near the top of the wall by the back door. Behind its curtains shined a faint light, just a thin strip of gold.
Get up, I told myself. Get up now!
I didn’t, but I moved my position, and halfway through this movement, my muscles locked and I couldn’t go any more than another foot or two. Was it fear? Was it something the monster had done? The whispers? I wasn’t sure about that, but I was sure I’d be dead in a few seconds if I didn’t break whatever spell I was under.
I closed my eyes, expecting to feel the large, cold hands of the things wrapping their fingers around my neck, pulling me closer and closer. This nightmare image only lasted a few seconds. Because a different one overtook it.
An image of my daughter. Clem dressed in her little piggy outfit that last Halloween, her grin stretching across her face, making her chubby cheeks climb toward her ears.
Now I tried to smile, and the muscles in my face obeyed the command. That was when I knew I was okay, that I was able to move again.
Not wasting any more time, I stood on shaky legs, turned around, and made for the window.
I was grateful then for my height. All I had to do was reach up, grab the curtains, and rip them down. So I pulled with all my might, tearing the rod from the wall, yelling as I did. The screws twanged, the thin metal crumpled, and the curtains snapped as they fell.
Morning light bathed the room in gold. I did not turn around when I heard the creatures' screams of pain. I did not turn around when I heard their skin sizzling. All I knew was that I no longer sensed the cold presence of death in the atmosphere. Both were fleeing.
All they left behind were puddles of melted flesh and smoke.
“Jesus Christ,” Tommy whispered. He was the first one to talk in what felt like years.
“Are—are they gone?” Autumn asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“How’d you know?” Stephanie said, her voice unbelieving. She was rubbing her head. A few lines of blood ran down from her temple. She must’ve hit something when we fell. “How did you know the light would hurt them?”
“I…I’m not sure. I think it was when Autumn turned on the phone’s flashlight. I saw them wince.”
“So you think artificial light hurts them too?” Tommy asked.
“I doubt it. Otherwise the first one would’ve never attacked us in the first place. I think it’s more the fear of it being real,” I said.
Tommy shook his head. “Well, shit, I hope fake light hurts ‘em too. Just shine a fucking spotlight in their faces and be done with it.”
“It’s never that easy,” I said.
Stephanie stepped toward the window. “I never thought I’d see the sun again.”
There was a smile on her face. One of the blood streams touched the corner of her mouth, adding a hint of horror to what otherwise was a beautiful picture—to remind us of what we went through, maybe, even though we didn’t need a reminder.
“Me either,” Autumn said. She limped toward her best friend and looped her arm through hers. Stephanie rested her head on her shoulder. “It’s beautiful.”
We had made it through the night, all the way to the morning. We had defied the odds stacked against us, and we were still alive.
Autumn was right. It was beautiful.
10
We left soon after. I didn’t want to linger in case they came back—even though we felt, for the time being anyway, safe—but I also didn’t want to leave the bar behind. We had so many memories here. So many laughs. So many great conversations with great people. To top it all off, The Dinks had performed quite possibly their best—and last—concert ever in this very spot.
And then there was Ruby… She was gone. Not just for a little while. No, she was gone forever. The woman who had basically taken Tommy and me in during our college years and who had become one of our strongest supporters and best friends later was now something else. A monster. The heaviness in my heart couldn’t be measured. And I felt like leaving here, leaving The Last Call behind, was like leaving her behind. In a way it was a betrayal.
It’s not your fault, Carter, I tried to tell myself. It is not your fault. But there was no way I’d ever believe that. I would always take the blame for what had happened to her. For not being quick enough. For letting the whispers hold me back.
I stepped through the door out into the muggy morning. The storm had ravaged most of the nearby buildings, so I didn’t have much hope for my SUV. The four of us more or less limped toward the parking lot. In the distance, there sat my white Nissan in the same spot I had left it the night before. A few stray branches framed the vehicle, and the windshield had cracked down the middle, but other than that it seemed okay.
That was one thing, though. I was sure starting it would be an entirely different problem altogether. If every horror movie told the truth—and it seemed like we were in our own little horror movie, didn’t it?—then I’d stick the key in the ignition and the engine wouldn’t turn over. It would stutter and cough, and then a few seconds later the monsters would emerge.
Except…when I tried, the engine roared to life like it had the day I bought it from the dealership a few years ago.
I buckled my seatbelt and adjusted the rearview mirror. I saw the brick facade of The Last Call in the reflection. My eyes lingered there for a long moment, because I knew I’d never see it again.
Our good times had come to an end.
As all good things do.
Tommy turned on the radio. There was nothing on the FM side but silence and static. On every channel on the AM side was the recitation of an emergency alert system message about the storm. The storm that had finally passed.
“We’re in the dark,” Tommy said. “What the hell, man? I thought our country would be better prepared for this. Where’s the military and the government? What are my tax dollars being used for if they can’t even help us in our time of need?”
“You’re sounding like your dad,” I said.
Tommy smirked. “Fuck you, man.”
“What even is this?” Autumn asked from the back. “They probably don’t know any more than we do.”
That was a great question.
“I just want to go home,” Stephanie mumbled. “Can you take me home?”
“It might not be safe,” Tommy said.
“Anywhere might not be safe. We won’t know until we see for ourselves.” She had a point there.
I said, “I can take you. Where is it?”
“My parents live by September Creek in Cherrington. It’s actually only a few miles from here.”
“I know the area. We used to shoot hoops there when we were younger,” I said, motioning to Tommy and me. It wasn’t out of the way either. I glanced in the rearview mirror at Autumn. She was looking out the window into the early morning sunshine and fading fog. There wasn’t much to see besides that. “What about you, Autumn?”
“I’ll go with Steph, and we’ll figure it out after. I know you want to get to your daughter. My dad…as much as I hate to admit it, even if he’s all right, he won’t have any idea what kind of danger he’s in.” She paused, took a deep breath. “And if…if he’s not all right, I think it’s kind of a blessing. He would be so mad at me if he knew just how bad his mind had gotten. He always told me he’d kill himself before he let some disease win.”
She sniffled. None of us said anything, because I don’t think Autumn wanted us to. So I hit Route 59, which headed east toward Cherrington, and we went on.
On the road—and in life—sometimes that’s all you can do.
Stephanie offered to come with me to get Clem, but I couldn’t let her do that. There was no telling how safe that journey would be. Five miles to Cherrington already felt like too far. The monsters were affected by sunlight—so it had see
med—but that didn’t mean they couldn’t hurt us in other ways.
What other ways? No clue, but I wasn’t dying to find out, nor did I want to put Stephanie and Autumn in any more harm than they’d already been in.
I asked Tommy if he wanted me to try and drop him off at his apartment after we left Cherrington. He just snorted and looked at me like I was crazy.
“Are you high, man?”
“What?” I said. “You don’t have to come with me. I can handle it on my own.”
“Doubt it, but you think I’m gonna let you go by yourself?” He laughed. “Don’t be dumb, Carter. We ride or die to the end.”
I thought there was a big possibility we might do both. I didn’t say that, though; I only nodded at my best friend. He could be a dick sometimes, that was true, but he always had my back. When it came to a fight there was no one I’d rather have in my corner.
“Besides,” Tommy said, “what the hell am I gonna do at home? Wait for this apocalypse to blow over?”
It was the first time any of us had mentioned this being an apocalypse. Apocalypses were meant for movies, TV shows, books—not for the real world. The word alone brought on a sinking feeling of dread within my heart. One I wasn’t sure I could shake.
I didn’t give him an answer. No one did. Then he started searching through my glovebox, mumbling to himself and throwing papers and napkins all over the floor. You know, important stuff I probably needed. “C’mon, c’mon…” he was saying.
“What? Why are you trashing my car?” I said as I pulled onto the street. I could only go about fifteen miles per hour. There was too much debris in the road.
“I need a pen.”
“Why?”
“I think he’s having a mental breakdown,” Autumn said from the back. Stephanie was sitting next to her, her head resting on the window, eyes closed. I doubted she had fallen asleep, but it was possible considering the night we had been through.
“I had a breakdown a long, long time ago,” Tommy said. “Like back in high school. Algebra II slayed me.”
“Amen to that,” I said. “Didn’t help that we sat right next to each other either.”
“At least you passed.”
I smiled. We needed that. With the future looking so bleak, I sensed we’d be doing a lot of reminiscing about the good ol’ days.
“Here!” Tommy pulled out a pen and ran it over my registration paper, testing the ink. I would’ve been mad, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d probably never need those papers again. He flipped the page over and wrote: WHAT WE KNOW.
“Not much,” I said. “They’re a mystery.”
“But some stuff,” he replied. “Like for instance, how they are hurt by or fear sunlight.”
“Like vampires,” Autumn said. She chuckled, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Wow, I never thought I’d compare anything in real life to vampires.”
“Exactly.” Tommy continued writing. “They have no faces. They’re tall as hell. Skinny. The color of corpses. Apparently come from underground. Apparently telepathic.”
“Also very strong,” I added as I slowed down and swerved around an abandoned car half in the road and half on the sidewalk. It had plowed over a bus stop shelter. The shelter had won that battle, if the crumpled front end of the Chevy was any indication, but a quick glance showed no person nearby. I wondered if the creatures had taken the driver like they had taken Brock.
“Compared to you,” Tommy said, “most things are strong.”
“Ouch.”
He winked at me.
“They mess with our heads,” Autumn said. “They give off that noise.”
“Mental noise, yep,” Tommy said. “Makes you hallucinate, although I haven’t hallucinated yet.”
“I did,” I said. “I saw Clem. She was right there in the back room, getting ready to go play in the rain, and I wanted nothing more than to stop her.”
“Perfect distraction for the thing to get close.” Tommy wrote that down too.
“So it singles one of us out?” Autumn asked.
“Seems like it,” I said. “I didn’t see the carnival Ruby had seen when we were in the park.”
“And I didn’t see your daughter,” Autumn said.
“Christ,” Tommy said, “we are dealing with some apex predators here, aren’t we?”
“Look at you,” I said. “You’re all invested now. A few hours ago, you wouldn’t believe a word Ruby was telling us.”
“Can you blame me? I mean, who the fuck would believe any of that? No one in their right mind, that’s for sure.”
“Fair point,” Autumn said. “I saw it…that thing…with my own eyes, and I saw what happened to Ruby, and I’m still having trouble believing it.” She paused. “I’d say they’re not animalistic, though. Not predators in the way a lion is. They’re…kinda human, I think. The one was laughing at us, and Ruby was even able to say some words at the end.”
A pain flared in my chest as I thought of Ruby begging for us to kill her. But Autumn was right about that.
“I was thinking more like the Predator from the movie Predator, with Arnie and Apollo Creed,” Tommy said.
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Carter, stop the car,” Tommy said. “We’re throwing Autumn out. She’s never seen Predator.”
“I’d like to see you try, shorty,” Autumn replied.
I laughed at that. Tommy didn’t, but he did crack a smile.
“He’s talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers, Autumn,” Stephanie said. She was still resting her head against the window, eyes closed. “Predator is an '80s action movie.”
“Ha!” Tommy exclaimed. “Now this one…this one is a keeper!”
“Oh, she must be so honored to be called a keeper by the likes of you,” Autumn said sarcastically.
Stephanie shifted. “My dad loves those kinds of movies. He never let me watch them. Not outright, at least. They were too bloody, and there was too much swearing. That’s what my mom said. But I’d sneak down after bedtime and sit on the stairs and peek through the railing. My dad knew I was there. I wasn’t exactly a ninja when it came to stealth. Sometimes I’d gasp or let out a weak little scream during a particularly bloody part.” For a moment, she was smiling at the memory. It was like she’d been transported back to that time. Then the smile faded, and her brow creased and her eyes hardened. “Gosh, I hope they’re okay.”
“They are,” I assured her. “If he loves his action movies as much as you say he does, he’ll have picked up a few useful tips and tricks, definitely.”
Stephanie’s smile reappeared, making her more beautiful than before, which I didn’t think was possible. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
The sun was high in the sky and there was no sign of any storm or haze from the previous night. There wasn’t much to see on the highway besides a few cars parked crookedly in the ditch or across the median. You could maybe expect to see one or two of these cars on the road on a Saturday morning. People got drunk and made bad decisions; that was easy to understand, but there were more than a few.
Some of their doors hung open, and glass glittered on the asphalt nearby…as if the drivers had been ripped from their seats. I had to swerve around a pickup parked across two lanes, and I’m not sure if the others saw it but there was a rusty stain near the front right tire. I thought it was blood, but I kept my mouth shut and went on driving.
After maybe fifteen minutes, I saw the buildings in the distance that made up downtown Cherrington. My eyes lingered there for a second before they caught something else closer. It was the red and blue flashing lights of three cop cars. They were parked across the road, blocking off entry into the downtown area.
My heart swelled with hope. I sat up straighter. The exhaustion I felt was replaced by a burst of nervous energy. If the police were here, that meant there were other survivors, and maybe they had managed to keep the city safe, like a quarantine a
rea or something.
“Look!” Stephanie said from the back. Her hand flew between Tommy and me. That was good—it meant I wasn’t hallucinating.
“I see it,” I said, trying to hide the excitement in my voice.
“Should we stop?” Tommy asked.
“Uh, duh!” Stephanie said.
“I don’t know. I never trusted the police before all of this,” Autumn added. “Why should I trust them now?”
“Because we have nothing else going for us,” Tommy said, glaring at Autumn over his shoulder.
“It’s probably just more empty cars,” she replied. “Those things…they’re taking everyone.” She sounded defeated, and it wasn’t hard to understand why. I already felt like we had lost. That any chance we had at winning this war, the one we had no idea we were a part of, had slipped away.
“Don’t be such a downer,” Stephanie said. “Think positively, Autumn.”
Autumn made no reply, so I eased the SUV toward the barricade. The lights flashed off the puddles in the street. Puddles of rain, thankfully, and they didn’t resemble blood.
The sun was up. That had to be a good sign, right? Already, its warmth radiated through my windshield. I could tell it was going to be a hot—and hopefully long—summer’s day.
There was much we didn’t know about the creatures with one-hundred percent certainty, except how they preferred the darkness to sunlight. All signs were pointing to lots of sunlight today.
Hopefully.
I kept the car running, unbuckled my seat belt, and stepped into the heat.
“Want me to come with?” Tommy asked.
I shook my head. “I’m just gonna take a quick look. See if anyone is here.” I narrowed my eyes at him in an attempt to let him know how serious I was. “First sign of those things, you slide into the driver’s seat and get the hell out of here.”
“I wouldn’t leave you, man.”
“Yeah, we’re a team,” Stephanie agreed.
“Well,” Autumn said, smiling, “I guess I’ll be the one to do it, since these bozos won’t.”
The Whispers: A Supernatural Apocalypse Novel Page 11
