“Aren’t you having any?” Ben said.
“No. Little too intense for me.” I noticed that Aaron didn’t reach for a glass. “Aaron, can I get you something else?”
“I’m good.”
Ben unscrewed the cap, tearing the seal, and poured out two fingers. He drank it greedily, then poured more into his coffee. As I watched him, my lips felt dry. I could smell the faint odor of smoky scotch, and went to get more coffee.
When I came back, Ben was hunched over like he was thinking about something again. Aaron had lain back and closed his eyes, the hunting knife lying next to him on the sofa cushion.
“You always bring a shotgun to fish?”
“My dad kept guns,” Ben said. “I never liked them, but I keep this one around for protection.”
“Good thing.”
“Yeah. What in God’s name is going on, Dave?”
“I don’t know, but these things are all over Tres Marias.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Yeah. It’s like some kind of outbreak. All I know is, I need to find my wife.”
“Sure.”
“What about you?”
“Wife’s gone,” Ben said, glancing at Aaron.
“You messed up too, huh?”
Ben laughed, his ears turning red. “Maybe I did.” He reached over and grabbed his shotgun, resting it on his lap and running his fingers along the barrel. “I’m thinking we should stick together. Who knows how many of those things are out there.”
“Good point,” I said. “I’m not one of those hero types.” As soon as I said this, I remembered what I did to Fred.
* * *
We decided to stay at the house awhile to see if Holly and her mother showed up. Mostly we spent the afternoon watching the news on TV. Evie Champagne gave a blow-by-blow with the information she’d gathered firsthand, filling in any blanks with speculation. We saw footage of soldiers moving into the area and blocking off major roads. I was wrong—they weren’t the National Guard.
“Felix, this is extraordinary,” Evie said. “A private military company called Black Dragon Security has been given full authority to secure the area. So far, we know very little about this company, which is based in Pittsburgh. But one thing is clear. They are definitely in charge.”
As the camera panned around Evie, we saw that each military vehicle had a black-and-red logo with the image of a dragon. Soldiers wore the same logos on their uniforms.
What Evie wasn’t able to tell us was what the rest of the state was doing about the situation and whether other cities and towns were in danger.
It was after six when I asked the guys if they wanted to eat again. There wasn’t much. None of us was hungry anyway, so we skipped it. I checked all the doors and windows and made sure the lights were on outside. Though we weren’t flush with weapons, Ben had the shotgun and lots of shells, Aaron had the hunting knife and I had the axe.
I found extra blankets and took the second bedroom while the guys camped out in the living room. For comfort, they left the TV on with the sound muted. The night was long and dark there among the trees. For a time I lay in the bed looking at photos on my cell phone. There must have been over two hundred. Photos of Holly and me and of Jim. Places we’d gone. Things that were now a lifetime away.
I was never much for the domestic stuff, but I was up early the next morning fixing breakfast when Ben and Aaron came into the kitchen. I might have been trying to prove to myself I was a good guy, a family man.
“Smells good,” Aaron said as they sat.
“Cheese omelets,” I said. “Sorry, there’s no bread. But we do have coffee and a little milk.”
“This is fantastic,” Ben said, eggs dripping from his stubbly face.
We didn’t talk much. After breakfast, I unmuted the TV in the living room, looking for local news. An annoying weather girl gave a bubbly account of the scorching days ahead. Then we saw more recent footage of large military vehicles—LMTVs—and Humvees rolling through the streets of Tres Marias. It was like a military parade, but no one was cheering.
Evie Champagne interviewed a Black Dragon Security supervisor, who insisted there was a viral outbreak and they didn’t want it to spread.
“Is the outbreak related to SARS?” she said.
“We don’t know. There are doctors on the ground assessing the situation.”
“Can you describe the symptoms?”
“High fever, dizziness, loss of muscle control.”
“And an unexplainable hunger for human flesh,” I said.
“Can you tell me why your organization is here, and not the National Guard?” Evie said.
“You’ll have to take that up with the mayor,” the supervisor said. “There’s a contract in place, and we are fully authorized to be here.”
“Does that mean you can use deadly force?”
“We’re here to restore order.”
“But you have guns and live ammunition.”
“We are authorized to do whatever it takes to restore order. We are also bound to minimize the loss of human life.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chavez. This is Evie Champagne reporting. Back to you, Felix.”
I switched off the TV and threw the remote across the room. “Stupid bastards. They’re lying.”
“Of course they’re lying,” Ben said. “What did you want them to say? ‘Oh, and folks, there are all these dead people wandering around and they will eat you if provoked, FYI.’”
“I need to find Holly. Where’s your car?”
“We have a motor home way down on the other side of the lake.” Ben got up stiffly and winced.
“You okay?”
“Titanium hip. Still hurts sometimes.”
* * *
We saw them through the trees. Dressed like tourists, they were lost souls wandering through the forest, unaware of any purpose in life. As we made our way around the lake, it occurred to me that word must’ve gotten out about the danger and anyone normal had long since fled. This would explain why Holly and her mother had left in such a hurry. There was no sign of violence in the house—and more importantly, no blood. But how could two women, alone, survive out there among the undead?
As we neared the camp where Ben and his son were staying, we spotted a young girl in the road. Wearing shorts and a bloody T-shirt with the words L’il Princess, she couldn’t have been more than ten. I slowed down. She was drifting from one side of the road to the other, not yet aware of us. Flies buzzed around her head, but that didn’t seem to bother her.
“She’s sick,” Aaron said. “Let’s see if we can help.”
But I already knew the truth. She’d been infected, and soon she would be like those hellish creatures at the bottom of the lake. Though I was against it, I pulled over and we got out.
“Bring the shotgun,” I said to Ben.
“Hello?” Aaron said to the little girl. “Hey.”
For a time she kept drifting. Her arm was torn open, exposing tendon and bone. Flies swarmed the open wound, feeding on it. She stopped moving and stared at us, trying to form words I knew would never come. She looked like she wanted us to explain what had happened to her. Though she was confused, she wasn’t frightened.
“Look,” Aaron said. “She sees us. I don’t think it’s too late.”
“Aaron,” I said. I took Ben’s shotgun from him and ran up next to Aaron. “Get back,” I said. “She’s dead.”
“No, she’s injured and in shock! Please, we can help her!”
“She’s dead.”
“Please don’t do this! Please!”
He tried to take the shotgun from me, but I pushed him away. The girl was whipping her arms violently and mewling, trying to get hold of Aaron’s arm. She looked ravenous.
“Get back,” I said.
“No! Please! God no, please don’t shoot her!”
Aaron was hysterical. I hit him in the gut with the butt of the gun. As he doubled over, Ben took hold of his son and drag
ged him out of the way. I raised the shotgun and pumped it once.
For an instant I saw before me the young girl this used to be. Her soft blonde locks falling gently around her sweet face. Her trembling lips. Her hurt green eyes staring into mine, begging to know why it had to end this way. I must’ve been feverish, because they became Holly’s eyes looking at me with tears, wondering why I’d brought this down on us all.
Snapping out of it, I looked into the creature’s cold, dead eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I said as I squeezed the trigger.
The blast sent her to heaven. Her head half blown off, she shook like a mechanical doll whose springs had exploded, then lay still in the road.
Aaron buried his head against his father’s shoulder. When I looked at Ben, he faced me with an expression of sheer and utter hatred.
“She was already dead,” I said, and handing Ben the shotgun, I went back to the truck.
* * *
We found Ben’s motor home untouched. There were a number of human tracks in the pine needles in the surrounding area. We guessed a horde had passed through, seen there was no life inside the motor home and continued on.
Ben pulled out three beers from the little refrigerator inside the tiny kitchen, handed one to his son and tried to give me one. I almost took it, then waved it away.
“Got anything else?” I said.
“Yeah, I think so.”
He came back with a Red Bull, for which I was grateful. We sat around the little dining table.
“You don’t drink, do you?” Ben said.
“Used to. Back in the day.”
“Yeah, I figured. Good for you. Sorry I kept offering.”
“It’s fine.”
Aaron took a sip of his beer, made a face and, pushing it aside, grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge. “Sorry about back there,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t get used to this. Those things not being alive, I mean.”
“Sorry I hurt you,” I said. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m a little sore.” He massaged his abdomen and winced.
“Listen,” I said. “You did what anybody would’ve done under normal circumstances. You’re a good person, Aaron.”
“How do you know?” Aaron said. “That they’re dead, I mean.”
“Not sure. Instinct?”
“But what if you’re wrong?” Ben said.
“There’s no time for right or wrong,” I said.
“That kind of thinking leads to anarchy.”
“The thing is, when you’re in that situation, you don’t have time to look at all the facts. I know it sucks, but that’s the way it is. I don’t know what’s going on, but one thing I do know? If you get bitten, you become one of them. And I will do whatever I have to do to keep that from happening to me.”
“That poor child,” Aaron said.
“This is what I’ve observed,” I said. “When you’re bit, it’s only a short time till you become one of the undead. At first it was days, then hours. Now I don’t know how long it takes.”
“Is that what you’re calling them?” Ben said. I heard the disgust in his voice. “Undead?”
“What would you call them, Ben? Poor sinners?”
“Look, forget it.”
“It’s like you die. You stop breathing, you smell like all hell and you look really, really bad. And all you want to do is feed on living things. You saw it yourself in the lake.”
“So the little girl …” Aaron said.
“Would have gored you in seconds.”
“We need to get out of this forest,” Ben said.
“Agreed,” I said.
Outside, we heard a pounding on the ground. It sounded like a stampede in a Western movie. We rushed to the front of the motor home. Looking out the front windows, we saw them—hundreds of animals running towards us in terror. Deer, raccoons, squirrels. It was insane. Then we saw what they were running from.
A horde of undead poured out of the forest and into the clearing. Where had they all come from?
“Dear God,” Ben said.
“I need to get to my truck,” I said.
“What if I circle around and drive you next to it?”
“Sure, but you need to hit as many of them as you can on the way.”
He looked at me without comprehension, still not clear we were talking about actual dead people. “Can’t we wait for them to—”
“To run past? And what if they decide to attack? Ben, you have to take them out. Can you do it?”
“Yeah.”
I looked at Aaron. He was withdrawing again. I saw my younger self in him. How could I have ever dealt with something like this at that age? I went over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. I spoke calmly while Ben fired up the motor home.
“Aaron, listen,” I said. “Are you listening? You need to take the shotgun while your dad drives, okay?” I knew there was no way in hell he could ever use the axe—I wasn’t sure I could use it on one of those sorry creatures. “Aaron?”
Ben pulled forward, as the horde milled around the vehicle hungrily. “Run them over, Ben,” I said.
We watched through the large windshield as Ben found his nerve and hit the gas. He swung around sharply in the clearing, catching men, women and teenagers. They groaned as the motor home rolled over them, crushing their chests, arms and legs. A front wheel found a woman’s head and flattened it like a huge grape filled with dark, infectious blood. This went on for several minutes, as more of them came into the clearing. Some of them shrieked—the sound was unbearable.
More of them attacked from the sides. Ben turned into them hard, dragging them under the wheels. One of them got stuck in the right front wheel well, and we came to a sudden halt.
“We’re close to my truck,” I said, digging in my pocket for my keys. “Aaron, get over here. Anything gets near me, you shoot, okay?”
He nodded and followed me to the door.
“On the count of three,” I said. “One … two … three.”
I opened the door and started out. Some messed-up freak in a bloody Dodgers jersey came at me from the side. I brought down the axe and whacked his arm off in mid-grab. As if this were a minor inconvenience, he came at me with the other arm. I half expected him to say, “It’s just a flesh wound.”
I tried using the axe again and dropped my damned keys. Shoving the creature away, I was bending down to get them when an explosion ripped the air above my head. When I came back up, the thing no longer had a head and Aaron’s shotgun was smoking. The infected body teetered and fell backwards. Seeing my chance, I chopped away at the body stuck in the wheel well, dragged away what was left and jumped into my truck.
“Follow me,” I said.
My plan was to return to Tres Marias. I didn’t know where Holly and her mother were. I needed to contact Black Dragon to see if they’d been picked up.
As we drove out of the clearing towards the road, I saw something disturbing and unbelievable in a distant grassy field. I signaled to Ben to pull over. As I got out, I shielded my eyes from the hot sun and peered out at the lone figure wandering directionless in the distance.
It was Holly’s mother.
Chapter Ten
Man in the Silver Suit
I knew it was Irene when I ran across the field, carrying my axe. She was dressed in her favorite housecoat, a turquoise one with little yellow ducks, lurching forward, a fazed expression on her careworn face. As I got closer, I recognized the greyish skin and knew she was infected. Fear gripped me as I imagined Holly wandering somewhere close by in the same ghastly state.
Ben, Aaron and I stopped a good twenty yards from her, and from out of the trees a man dressed in silver, wearing a helmet with a black visor and carrying a long catch pole, the kind they use on zoo animals, gamboled after Irene. I thought for sure he was going to end up dead. There was a childlike joy in the way he bounced across the field, pursuing his dark prey.
Ben raised the shotgun. I took hold of the barrel and pushed it down
as the man in silver got the noose over Irene’s head, tightened it and pulled her down like he was in a calf-roping contest.
“He’s crazy,” Ben said.
Irene lay face down on the ground as the silver man removed his protective gloves and bound her hands behind her back with white plastic ties. Next he wrapped red duct tape around her head at the mouth, to keep her from biting.
“What are you doing?” I said, approaching the man.
“Capturing a specimen,” a familiar voice said.
By now two more undead—a man and a woman—were on us. Both were naked and looked to be Aaron’s age. Ben tried raising the shotgun, but he wasn’t quick enough. I pulled back my axe and swung, taking the dead man’s head most of the way off with the first strike. The creature spun in circles, uncomprehending as it tried to right itself. I kicked it to the ground and split its head open, then I went for the female, but it was already tearing at the silver man’s back. He seemed not to notice, and I realized that he was wearing a shark suit.
I was afraid to swing the axe again for fear of hitting that crazy dude. And the creature was too close to him for Ben to fire his weapon. So I drove the axe handle into the back of its head, which caved in like a rotten cantaloupe. Then I pulled the limp creature off by the hair, and the silver man got to his feet as if nothing had happened.
Ben and Aaron stared at me in silence. I looked down and found I was covered in blood. We didn’t see anyone else coming. Irene was hog-tied on the ground, grunting like a sow through the duct tape and trying uselessly to roll away.
The silver man pulled his helmet off to get some fresh air, and I laughed.
“Wait,” I said. “Mr. Landry?”
“Dave Pulaski! How the devil are you?”
“You know this guy?” Aaron said.
“My old science teacher.”
“Say, Dave. Good thing you’re here. My truck broke down, and I could sure use a lift.”
We stared at him, then at Irene screaming at the ground. Landry grinned, obviously pleased with himself.
* * *
Now in his sixties, Irwin Landry looked healthy, with a lean body, a white shock of hair, squirrel-like teeth, a hawk nose and steely blue eyes—the way I remembered him from high school. He retired from teaching at the end of the last school year. He described how he had bought a small cabin in Mt. Shasta and proceeded to go insane from boredom. When the outbreak hit, he had a purpose in life once again.
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