Robbie got a good look into Ray’s eyes as the young man shrieked past him in agony, unwilling to surrender to what were definitely going to be the last moments of his life. It was a mix of horror and pain Robbie would be taking with him to his demise . . . which would be happening in another couple of minutes if he didn’t get out of the building.
He took two steps in the direction of Carol, then remembered his axe and doubled back.
A–M Fantasy Fiction was already on fire and in the process of falling over. He barely recovered the axe before it was buried under an avalanche of books.
Then he ran.
The middle corridor was the widest book-free part of the library, so he was safe as long as he stayed in it . . . at least for the moment. There were flames coming up on both sides, and the smoke was getting bad, fast.
He collided with Bethany and Carol, and the three of them fell over in a heap.
“Are you okay?” he asked, of whoever felt like answering.
“We’re okay,” Carol said.
“Did you torch it?” Bethany asked. “The vampire.”
“We have to go back that way,” Robbie said, pointing to the old wing of the library.
“Fire’s cut it off,” Bethany said.
“Right.”
He grabbed the elbow of Carol—who had ahold of Bethany—and pulled them past the front desk, to the glass door exit Bethany couldn’t pick. That was back before a tornado, a vampire, and a raging inferno, so it seemed as if it happened ages ago.
He hit the door, hard, thinking the crash bar would unlock it. It didn’t.
“I have some real fire safety concerns about this town,” he said. “Stand back.”
“There’s a fire behind us,” Bethany said. “Not much room to stand back.”
“Get back and duck below the smoke,” he said, raising the axe. “I don’t want to hit you with the backswing.”
He flipped the axe around so the dull side was facing the door, and then swung it as hard as he knew how.
The glass, to the credit of whoever designed this building, didn’t shatter. He put a mean dent into it, though, with threads crackling away from the epicenter of the strike.
He swung again.
Then a third time.
On the fourth swing, the door burst. Robbie jumped back and covered his face, and then got blown over. A rush of air swept past him and into the library, where it supercharged the flames.
And suddenly it seemed like all of the books exploded.
“Where are you?” he shouted from the floor near the exit, amidst broken bits of door glass.
He could barely see. Smoke was billowing out from the raging fire, blinding and choking him. They were only a few steps from fresh air, but he wasn’t positive which way that was.
Then he felt a hand grab him by the elbow.
“Come with us,” Carol said.
They pulled him to his feet, and the three of them staggered out together, collapsing onto the cool, wet grass once they made it far enough away from the fire that they couldn’t feel the heat on their backs any longer.
“Oh my god,” Robbie said, rolling onto his back.
It had stopped raining, of course. Rain would have been useful in putting out the fire, so naturally they couldn’t have any now.
He ran his hand across the wet grass and used the moisture to clean out his eyes.
“Are we all here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Bethany said, coughing.
“We’re here,” Carol said. “But I don’t think we’re alone.”
Robbie sat up and looked around.
“You’re right,” he said. “We’re not alone.”
Their eyes glowed in the firelight. Three pairs, or four, or six; it didn’t matter. It was more than they could handle.
They were surrounded by wolves.
2
Robbie had once been closer to the wolves than he was now, that one time near the dorm on the first day, but it had been so dark that he hadn’t been able to see what he was running from.
He had no problem seeing them now.
The library fire was lighting up the whole area, attracting creatures great and small . . . especially the seven wolves who were about to eat the last three people on Earth.
They’d looked bigger from a distance. Not that they weren’t plenty big enough, but he remembered seeing something that, from afar, had appeared horse-size. And up close, through a metal gate, with no light and a lot of imagination, he was certain the creature on the other side of that gate was simply massive.
These were slightly larger than a Saint Bernard.
He didn’t even know if they were wolves. They were large canines, and they were wild animals who hunted in packs. In his admittedly limited understanding of the species variants, that made them wolves. Probably there was a book in the library that would clarify matters, except the library was burning to the ground.
“What do we do?” Bethany asked. “Should we try to run?”
“To where?” Robbie asked. “The nearest place is on fire.”
The animals were taking turns circling them, not yet certain if the humans were capable of launching a counterattack. To that end, they might have been if Robbie hadn’t left the axe in the entryway.
Carol, on her knees between Bethany and Robbie, was tilting her head and listening to the pack. “I know what to do,” she said.
Then she stood and took two steps toward the nearest wolf.
Robbie reached up to grab her, but she whacked him with her cane.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “It will be fine.”
Carol was in the habit of making a particularly bad joke about how it would be best if they just put her on an ice floe and sent her down the river. It wasn’t funny, but it was easier to laugh off than to confront what was clearly a concern for her. Aside from pointing out that the Charles River didn’t have any ice floes, Robbie never knew exactly what to say. He’d just assumed she was joking.
Now that she appeared to be sacrificing herself, he was starting to think it hadn’t been a joke at all.
He looked at Bethany, who just shrugged and shook her head.
Carol took another step closer, and now all the wolves were focused on her. Then she crouched down, held out her hand, and spoke.
“Puppy,” she said. “Hello, puppy.”
Not one of the seven wolves and two humans witnessing this appeared to have any idea what was going on.
“Puppy,” she said again, waving her hand. “Hello, puppy.”
One of the wolves started into a growl that tapered off into a whine.
“Puppy,” she said.
The vocal wolf broke rank, walked around Robbie from the left, and positioned himself inches from Carol’s outstretched hand.
She smiled.
“It’s okay, puppy,” she said.
The wolf edged closer, sniffed her hand, and then put his head under it. She started scratching him behind the ear.
“What a good boy!” she said.
He whined and licked her face.
The other six wolves didn’t look all that impressed by this.
“Yes, hello,” Carol said. In the same singsongy voice, and while still apparently addressing the wolf, Carol said, “Robert, are they stepping away? Can you escape?”
Another wolf made a tiny motion forward in a way that Carol’s wolf took poorly to. He turned his head and growled.
Stay away was the clear message.
It didn’t look like it was in charge, though. For the moment, the rest of the pack remained uncertain, but they weren’t going anywhere, either.
“I don’t think we can,” Robbie said, under his breath.
“Maybe we should all adopt one,” Bethany said.
The biggest wolf—the leader, perhaps—barked twice. Carol’s wolf barked back, and then whined again and licked her. Two other wolves barked.
It seemed as if they were caught in a negotiation, which was fine,
but the wolf representing the humans was outnumbered and appeared to be interested in defending only one client.
I object, thought Robbie.
He started looking around for a safe place he could sprint to. Maybe he and Bethany could make it to safety and, as crazy as it sounded, Carol could escape by becoming a member of the pack. But the closest safe haven was a pizza parlor with a chain on the door, across a lot of open grass. They would never make it that far even if there was a way past the chain.
“Hey, who’s that?” Bethany asked. She tapped Robbie on the shoulder and pointed.
There was someone walking up Broadway from the direction of Harvard Yard. Robbie assumed at first it was Touré, back at last, at the very worst time.
It wasn’t Touré. This was a big white guy with a scarred face and tattered clothing. He walked with a limp and didn’t appear to have full use of his left arm.
There were two long guns on his back and a large duffel bag over his right shoulder. He looked a little like a soldier returning from war, only he’d forgotten to stop and see a paramedic before hopping the boat home.
The man reached the edge of the lawn and assessed the scene. Then he calmly lowered the duffel, drew a handgun from his belt, and fired it once, in the air.
This got everyone’s attention. Carol screamed in surprise and dropped to the ground, covering her head. All the wolves, including her favorite, turned and walked toward the man, growling.
“Was that a gunshot?” Carol shouted.
“Sure was,” Robbie said.
“C’mere, dogs. C’mere,” the man said. “Know what a gun is, do you?”
“I don’t think the wolves do know,” Robbie said. “They’re not afraid of anything.”
He looked over at Robbie.
“I know that, son. It’s a common problem these days. And these aren’t wolves; they’re coyotes.”
The pack drew closer.
“They don’t fear people,” he said. “And they don’t care if it’s day or night. They’re smart. They need to be taught things, but they can learn. What do you say, doggies? You ever see a shotgun before?”
“Robbie,” Carol whispered. “Don’t let him.”
The man drew one of the long guns from his back, held it with his right hand, and stabilized it over his left forearm.
Robbie couldn’t have stopped him if he’d wanted to, and right then he didn’t know if he did want to or not. He reached out and grabbed Carol’s hand and squeezed.
“Guys, we can escape now,” Bethany said. “We have an opening.”
“Are you paying attention?” the man asked.
The coyote-wolf creatures were about ten feet away when he fired. He had it aimed at the grass between them. Shot kicked up the dirt and grass, for a display of cause and effect.
One of them yelped and started limping around, caught in the foot by a stray pellet. The other six backed way up.
“There’s another barrel,” he said. “The next lesson’s gonna hurt more. Now git.”
The big one, the one Robbie had pegged as the leader, took two steps forward and growled at the man. The man literally growled back. Then, after a short staring contest, the coyote-wolf broke off and the pack dispersed.
The man stood his ground until he was certain that the wolves had no plans to double back. Then he fell to one knee.
Robbie handed Carol off to Bethany and ran over to their rescuer.
“Hey, hey, are you all right?” Robbie asked.
“I’m looking for Ananda,” the man said. Then he collapsed into Robbie’s arms.
Robbie nearly fell over himself; the guy was pretty big.
“Help!” he shouted. “Need some help here.”
Bethany came running over.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
The two of them managed to get him off of Robbie and onto his back.
“I think he’s just unconscious,” Robbie said. “Yeah, he’s breathing.”
“Wow, what happened to him?”
Something large had bitten his shoulder sometime in the recent past. The blood seemed pretty fresh. Another, older scar, on the left side of his face, looked like a gift from a large cat.
Robbie pulled open the man’s jacket, expecting to find dog tags or a flak jacket, or maybe a police badge or a Superman costume. What he found instead was a black shirt with a clerical collar.
“Huh,” he said.
Carol found her way over. She looked deeply shaken.
“Is he all right?” she asked.
“I don’t know—he’s pretty messed up,” Bethany said.
Carol nodded wordlessly and took a few steps closer to the fire.
Robbie was no expert in psychology, but he thought that what she just went through must have felt a little like losing Burton all over again, even though the dog that just ran away was still alive and in fact wasn’t a dog at all.
“We have to get him off the street,” Robbie said. “Before everyone in town shows up to watch the fire. Any ideas?”
“An ambulance,” Bethany said.
“Any ideas we can use?”
“No, I’m just saying this guy needs an ambulance.”
Bethany
Getting the preacher man out of the streets became one of those puzzles Bethany remembered from grade school, with the canoe, the duck, the wolf, and the wheel of cheese.
Between them, they couldn’t lift and move the preacher more than a couple of feet without his help, and he was out cold. Robbie wanted to go out, in the dark, and find something they could use to carry the man back to the house, but he also wanted Carol and Bethany to go back home, where it was safe.
They also couldn’t leave the guy alone and defenseless for however long it took to make it back to the house and to find something that could help get the man out of the street.
Then Carol said Robbie was in no position to demand she go back, because she wasn’t defenseless, and they started that argument again, until finally Bethany volunteered to go find something herself.
“You can’t,” Robbie said. “We don’t go anywhere alone, remember? Not outside, especially.”
“There aren’t any better choices,” she said. “One of us has to be left alone. It’s you, me, or the wheel of cheese.”
“Excuse me?” Carol said.
“Never mind.”
Bethany picked up the handgun lying next to the preacher. It was heavier than expected.
“I’ll take this,” she said.
“Whoa, whoa, be careful with that,” Robbie said.
“I’ll be fine. It’s point and shoot, right? I’ve played video games before.”
“Have you ever fired a gun?”
“Nope,” she said. “But it makes a loud noise. Nobody likes loud noises.”
“Just don’t shoot yourself,” Carol said.
“No, I’ll point it the other way.”
“This is a bad idea,” Robbie said.
“You don’t have any good ones, unless you want to sit out here all night with him. Hey, maybe we can. We already have a fire going. Look, all you need is a . . . a wagon, right? A wagon or a wheelbarrow. Do you have any idea how many gardens this town has? I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
Robbie looked torn, but he had to appreciate the logic of her argument.
“All right, but please hurry,” he said.
“I plan to.”
She shoved the gun in her bag and took off before Robbie changed his mind. Not that he was in any position to tell her what she could and couldn’t do, but life was a ton more annoying when Robbie and Carol were mad at her.
Bethany headed straight into the neighborhood they’d just been house-hunting in. The front half of it—before the hill—was still bathed in light from the library fire, which made searching pretty simple. It also meant she knew quickly that nobody on the street she’d picked had a wheelbarrow in their yard.
There were plenty of gardens, al
though none of them had anything edible: just flowers or long-dead vegetable crops. The only evidence that someone intentionally grew plants in most of these yards was the landscaping, and even then, a lot of the intentional stuff—the railroad ties and tiered gardens and whatnot—was seriously falling apart. In one such yard, she spent a couple of minutes picking a lock on a shed, thinking the contents would be helpful, but the gardening tools stored there included nothing on wheels.
Having exhausted the easy options, she got back to the sidewalk and headed over to the other side of the hill . . . and immediately ran out of light.
Bethany hadn’t spent any real time outdoors once the sun went down, so she was stunned by exactly how dark it was. The cloud cover completely blocked out the moon and stars, and without them she had nothing except the matches in her bag to light the way. She had a torch, but lost it somewhere in the middle of the library fire.
She was beginning to understand why the others thought it was a bad idea to go anywhere after dark, alone or otherwise.
Robbie may have been right about this one, she thought.
She lit a match. It killed what little night vision she had, but it was verylittle, so whatever. The match didn’t help at all, though, except maybe to notify the local animals of her exact location.
She spent a few seconds looking for a loose branch to light on fire, but everything she found was wet. Then the match was at her fingers, so she put it out.
“It’s either head back and find another street before the fire dies,” she said, “or wait a few minutes for the moon to come back out.”
She sat down next to a tree to give the moon a minute to think about it. If it didn’t make an appearance soon, she’d double back.
While waiting, her hand went into the bag and found the grip of the gun. She wrapped her fingers around the handle, just in case any of the wildlife tried something funny.
She almost dozed off then, thanks to some combination of the adrenaline crash after all that excitement and the fact that she literally could not tell if her eyes were open or closed. She’d been wondering if the fire had spared the stacks or not, and then her focus drifted and she was in the stacks, reading Pogo to a guy in a cape with fangs, which was definitely not actually happening.
The Apocalypse Seven Page 26
