Clickers

by J. F. Gonzalez

  Melissa gave Rick a bemused smile. “My father was a cop,” she said. “He showed me everything he knew about guns.”

  Rick nodded. “That explains it. The way you handle that thing makes you look like you could kill me.”

  Melissa chuckled.

  The onslaught against the freezer door continued with more frenzy. Melissa darted up next to Fred, braced for whatever might come through the door. Rick checked Janice’s progress; her sobbing had stopped and Glen was still with her, checking her pulse. She was lying down on a pile of jackets. Rick walked up to them, making special effort to point the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson to the floor and not hold it by the trigger. God forbid he should trip and the gun go off.

  “How is she?” He knelt down beside Janice, who was lying down with her eyes closed. At the sound of his voice her eyes opened, and she looked at him with a smile.

  “She’s mostly exhausted,” Glen said. He maneuvered his overcoat over Janice’s figure, tucking her in. “She and Bobby need to be in a hospital.”

  “Rick.” Janice motioned him closer.

  Rick leaned over her. “I’m here, babe.”

  Janice grasped Rick’s hands in both hers. “Please watch Bobby for me, Rick. Take care of him.”

  “You know I will.” He brushed a lock of hair from her brow. Despite the coldness of the freezer there were beads of sweat on her forehead.

  “I mean it Rick.” Janice’s features were serious. “If it comes down between him and me, take care of him!”

  The words hung in the air with their obvious implication. They reeked of dread. Rick tried to lighten the mood. He smoothed back her hair with a gentle brush of his fingers. “Everything’s going to be all right, Janice.”

  “Don’t dance around the issue, Rick.” Her voice was stern, commanding, yet gentle. She meant business. “If it comes between me and Bobby, protect Bobby. I know how you feel about me, Rick…” Her hands grasped his, her fingers interlinking with his. “…I feel the same way about you, too. But please, just watch after Bobby.”

  Rick felt a lump rise in his throat. He bent over her and kissed her forehead, quelling the lump back. “You have my word,” he said, his voice husky. “Now you lay down and get some rest.”

  Janice locked her gaze with his for a moment as if confirming his promise. Rick found it hard to break away, but he did. He rose and stepped away from her and Glen, fighting the lump in his throat and wiping at his eyes. He almost burst into tears right in front of her and he couldn’t do that, couldn’t lose control now when there were so few of them left. He took a deep breath, regaining his composure, and walked over to where Annette and Barbara were watching Bobby.

  They were huddled at the far end of the freezer behind the last row of hanging slabs of beef. They were seated on the floor on their jackets. Bobby was sitting between them, his face droopy with sleep. Rick knelt down beside them. “How’s he doing?”

  “Sleepy,” Annette said. She put her arm around the tired boy. “He almost conked out when you went to check up on Janice, but he came back to again.”

  Bobby regarded Rick through sleep-heavy eyes. His features were slack with fatigue. Rick watched as Bobby’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier, closing like shades being slowly drawn. A moment later his chest was rising and falling in sleep.

  The sounds of the Dark Ones outside still reached even this far into the freezer. Rick looked at the two women. Annette was armed, a semi-automatic pistol lying at her feet. Barbara was unarmed, but with Annette near her and Bobby, the three of them should be fine.

  Rick rose to his feet and went back to the front of the freezer.

  * * *

  For a while it looked like the steel pole they’d erected in front of the door would split. The repeated poundings against the door began to throw little dents in the door, then bend it inward. The pole itself began to bend and Rick thought the screws holding the doorhandle that the pole was run through would be pulled from their bearings, causing the pole to snap back with one hearty smack. But neither happened. The door took one hell of a pounding, and the paneling and wall that held up the doorway took a beating, becoming splintered and cracked. But it held. It held fast.

  Through it all, Fred, Rick, and Melissa stood at strategic angles; Fred directly opposite the door some twenty feet back, rifle aimed and ready; Melissa thirty feet to his right, flush against the wall, and Rick thirty feet to Fred’s left, forty-five degrees from the wall. They stood and waited as the creatures roared and gnashed and pounded at the freezer to get in. They knew they were in here now; they could no doubt smell them in here, if not their fallen comrade in scales. Thank God they hadn’t been in hot pursuit behind the one that managed to slip through or they’d all be dead now.

  Glen left Janice’s side briefly to examine the dead Dark One and was astonished. They could hear him muttering from behind them excitingly. “My God, it’s incredible. It’s the most primitive looking reptile I’ve ever seen—if you could call it that. It’s also…vaguely amphibian. Jesus, just look at it!”

  “So what the hell is it? A reptile or an amphibian?” Fred asked from his position. He allowed the rifle to drop from his shoulder.

  “It’s a little of both,” Glen said. “It has both gills and scales,” He moved around the fallen Dark One, pushing and probing at the dead creature with all the excitement of Darwin discovering the missing link. “The only thing I can’t understand is their locale; a cold blooded animal would die in such frigid temperatures as the North Atlantic Ocean. How do they thermoregulate themselves?”

  “What do you mean?” Rick asked.

  “There are reptiles such as the large sea turtles and the venomous sea snakes that live entirely in the ocean,” Glen explained. “However, the oceans they thrive in are in the tropical coasts of the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific, which are relatively warm waters. Most reptiles generally begin to freeze at 37 degrees Fahrenheit. Those that live in cold winter climates thermoregulate themselves by simply burrowing underground for the winter where it’s warmer. But how do you do that in the ocean?”

  “Maybe they go to a secret cave, or something,” Fred suggested.

  Rick thought that could be a likely answer himself. Glen didn’t appear to hear the possible explanation, and continued in his rapt examination.

  The minutes passed by. The onslaught outside seemed to subside a bit, and for a moment it died down completely. Fred stepped forward cautiously, cocking his head toward the door. “Did they go?”

  A sudden barrage of blows rained upon the door and Fred jumped back. Rick nearly pissed his pants. The volley of blows resumed, accompanied by the roarings of blood-thirsty beasts. Rick raised his gun up, ready to blow away whatever stormed through that door. The barrage of blows continued, then subsided again.

  They’re doing this to fake us out, Rick thought. They’ll quiet down, then when it gets too quiet one of us will venture forth and then—images of Fred opening the door after several days of silence and lack of food sprang to mind. Fred opening the door slowly, poking his head out, turning back with a look of joy and happiness on his face. They’re gone, he would shout back. They’re gone, let’s go! He steps forward and the others crowd behind him; Glen, Annette, Charley and Anne, Barbara, Melissa, Janice and Bobby. Rick. They follow Fred out and lying in wait around the corner near the frozen food counter and the canned goods aisle is a Dark One. With a bloodthirsty grin on its face.

  Rick shook the image out of his mind.

  Now it was silent outside. Dead silent.

  Rick stood still, body tense, listening. I mustn’t think what I just thought. I mustn’t think that or we’ll never get out of here.

  Behind him and around him the others stood as silent as he, listening.

  Outside the Lucky’s Supermarket, the terror continued.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hurricane Floyd was in full swing by seven p.m. that evening.

  He came with a force that was stronger than the p
revious two storms that hit within the last two days. The past few days’ storms dropped ten inches of rain, had been responsible for widespread destruction throughout much of the Eastern Seaboard and New England, and had hit as far east as New Castle, Pennsylvania and as far south as Alexandria, Virginia. Mass destruction was reported in most of the eastern seaboard towns: Portland, Boston, New York, Providence, Hartford, Baltimore. Most of the destruction was along the shipping docks; hundreds of private boats had capsized, many of them hurled with such force that they were driven into shore-front structures. Waves crashed along the beachfronts taking down piers, flooding stores, parking lots, and streets. The water ran down through the centers of towns, causing more flooding, and combined with the rain this made things more hectic; major intersections miles from the beach became rivers as motorists navigated through town on makeshift boats and canoes. Some got stranded on top of their cars and in some cases, their houses. Towns that were lower in elevation got the worst of it, of course.

  Those that were a little higher up didn’t fare as badly, but they still bore the brunt of the storm, mainly from the fierce winds, some of which were clocked at one hundred and twenty miles an hour at their strongest. In New Castle, Pennsylvania, the storm produced three fierce tornadoes that decimated the eastern part of town and completely demolished a train depot. The tornado hurled boxcars and flatbeds like matchbox cars over a twenty-mile radius—one boxcar was found across the state line in Ohio, crumpled near a train track that went to Youngstown, which was where it had come from. A tornado in northern Virginia tore the roof off a barn and took the cows and horses with it—only to set the animals down safely five miles from where they’d been picked up.

  But most of the winds came from the hurricane itself. The wind howled and blew rain and the waves of the ocean fiercely. It hurled down signposts, blew cars over, picked up people and animals and hurled them against buildings and trees. It blew houses down, blew roofs off buildings, and knocked down utility poles. It forced the rain down harder, making it pour from the sky in buckets.

  On the evening of October 22 the President of the United States declared most of the New England region a disaster area and promised federal assistance. He told a nation of viewers and listeners that his office would do “all within their power to meet the emotional and financial needs of every American affected by this terrible tragedy.” He backed his words up by dispatching the National Guard and the United States Army to help in disaster relief and to aid local law enforcement in stopping looting.

  Much of the electricity in the area was down, null and void. The storm had destroyed three major power stations along the eastern seaboard: one, outside of New York City, another in Boston, and yet another in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Along with those three, a smattering of smaller outlets were knocked down, ranging from the GE Plant on the outskirts of Phillipsport, Maine to the north, to the GE Plant in Moonrock Virginia. All totaled, some fifty million people were left without power.

  The death toll was another matter. The previous evening, forty-six deaths were attributed to the storm. These ranged from drownings and heart attacks to people being crushed by falling objects. One person was struck by lightning standing in a puddle of water trying to rescue a cat from a tree. A woman in Bridgton, Maine was swept away by a flood that broke through a makeshift dam erected by the town’s finest. A man in Baltimore drowned in his car when it stalled in traffic; thinking he would be rescued, he settled down in his seat and promptly fell asleep. When he awoke two hours later the water had risen to roughly three and a half feet, just brushing the lower portion of the driver’s side window. He opened the door to exit and was crushed by the torrent of water that rushed into the vehicle. He drowned trying to escape.

  The National Guard and the United States Army made their presence known in all the major cities of the disaster area. They began showing up in most areas in the early morning hours of October 23. By ten o’clock that morning they were firmly entrenched in the major cities. More were dispatched to the rural communities. They began assisting local law enforcement and went about on rescue missions. Emergency shelters were set up in fire stations and schoolyards and whatever buildings could hold the stricken that hadn’t yet fallen victim to the storm. By eight-thirty p.m. the shelters were full to capacity and began to divert people to surrounding cities and towns for assistance. Most people were able to make it through the heavy, driving rain. Others were forced to turn back; the storm had closed off many roads to other towns. Some communities were cut off from major and local highways, CB transmitters, and telephones. One such community was Phillipsport.

  And while people in small communities worked together and managed to weather the storm, the people of Phillipsport couldn’t because most of them were dead.

  The people in the smaller communities knew that as long as they helped each other, they would eventually be rescued. Once that happened, things would begin to move smoothly. People would be whisked to hospitals. Food and water would arrive. All they had to do was batten down the hatches and wait—it would just take a little longer for the help to reach them due to their being cut off from major metropolitan areas.

  The same was true in Phillipsport as well. The remaining population of the town was holed up in the meat freezer of the local grocery store and had no idea of the severity of the problem that lay outside.

  * * *

  By five o’clock the following morning, a plan had been made.

  They huddled inside the meat freezer, sitting on the floor, wrapping blankets around themselves and keeping the guns ready and loaded beside them. Somebody always tended to Bobby, who was sleeping in the rear of the freezer, usually Barbara or Janice. Hunger set in around eight-thirty, and two hours later they were all growing very uncomfortable. Psyches began to crumble. Charley started a campaign to see who would venture out into the store to bring back some food. This started an argument between himself and Fred, who felt they should remain where they were. “Well, what the hell are we going to do about food then?” Charley yelled. Fred got up, his face flushed, his wavy hair plastered back over his head. They probably would have gotten into a brawl had Rick not stepped between the two men and broke it up. He was hungry too, but it wouldn’t do any good for them to fight about their predicament. They would have to sit down and talk about it rationally like civilized people.

  And talk they did. They talked, argued, and reasoned with each other. And while the arguing broke out sporadically they all generally agreed upon three very basic principles:

  1) They couldn’t sit in the freezer forever. While help might come, rescuers might not realize anybody was trapped in the freezer for perhaps days after any rescue mission was launched.

  2) They couldn’t just blunder out of the freezer to scope things out or get food, yet they couldn’t remain inside from fear. There hadn’t been any sounds outside the freezer for the past eight hours, and even if a Dark One was curled up outside sleeping, it most likely wouldn’t hear the door opening. As Rick explained, if they were reptilian and Glen appeared to be convinced they were, their hearing was very limited. They apparently went by scent, sight, and movement. It was unsure if they went by heat receptors like pit vipers or pythons, so the sudden change in temperature such as the freezer door slowly opening and letting out some of the cold air might not register to them the way scent would.

  3) It was obvious that they didn’t like the light. This much was evident from yesterday when they seemed to retreat when the clouds broke up briefly. Glen explained that this was probably due to the fact that they spent the majority of their time submerged in the ocean at such a depth that the sun didn’t reach them. Thus, they lived in continual darkness.

  While all this seemed plausible, it did have its logic problems. Fred Logan voiced this as he leaned back against the wall, rifle cradled in his lap. “If they live so far below the ocean’s surface like you think, how come the sudden release of pressure on their system didn’t cause them to explode?” />
  Barbara looked queasy at the thought. Charley and Annette looked confused. Melissa seemed to stare off into space, her pretty features heavy with fatigue. Glen shrugged. “They could have a system that allows them to ascend to the surface of the ocean slowly. That could explain why they’re able to operate on land so fluidly. You’ve got to remember that the idea of them living so far in the ocean’s depth is still a theory.”

  But it was still a plausible one.

  Fred suggested staying in the freezer until daylight broke. His explanation was that if these things were more active in the dark as Glen and Rick suggested they were, they would be more prone to attack if an escape was attempted now. They mused over this. He had a point, and a good one, but then suppose the day turned out to be just as cloudy and sullen as it had been the day before?

  “And another thing,” Rick said, choosing his words carefully. He was exhausted, sitting down on the floor next to Janice, his back slumped against the wall. The pain in his leg from the Clicker wound only added to his tiredness. “We have to remember that the Dark Ones first came on land when it was broad daylight. It was very cloudy, the sky was dark with clouds…but it was three or four in the afternoon. And they were pretty active yesterday as well.”