by Riley Flynn
“We didn’t-”
Another slap.
“You did! You did! I saw you drive down from the house. You were there! They were there too! Murderers! Maybe I have to show you how serious I am?”
The woman reached out with her free hand and dragged Timmy forward. She had a surprising strength, not that Timmy was that heavy.
Finn growled and stood up. Alex had forgotten about the dog. But the snarl was unmistakable. He had been lying down in front of Joan and now crouched low, his haunches up.
“Shut that mutt up,” the woman screamed at Joan, “or he’ll get one, too.”
Joan reached out and took hold of Finn’s neck, dragging him back.
Alex could barely see with the lack of light, but he could make out Joan’s hands stroking the dog, calming him down.
The woman threw Timmy to the ground in front of her and pointed the shotgun at his face.
“You first then. And then you others better do what I say.”
“Please, we didn’t do-”
She hit him with the handle of the shotgun, whipping the flat wooden surface into Timmy’s cheek. Alex, still standing behind her, could see the blood run.
Timmy touched the blood with careful fingers. He looked up at the woman and then his eyes, moving in and out of focus, met Alex’s own. They locked stares.
Alex raised a finger to his lip. Timmy nodded.
“You’re going to call your murdering friends right now and get them to come here!”
Timmy stared blankly at the woman. Alex moved forward. He had one chance to get this right. Gritting his teeth, trying to grind his nerves into a pulp, he paused. One chance. There was only one tree between him and the woman now. The others hadn’t seen him. He could leap out and grab her. He could take the shotgun. But he had to get it right. It had to be perfect. His jaw hurt, he was clenching it so hard.
Looking up into the barrel of the shotgun, Timmy licked at the blood rolling down his face.
“Sure, lady. I’ll do that. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Finally. Call your friends. Call your murderers!”
Timmy reached into his pocket slowly.
“I’ve got to use this. Is that okay?”
“What is it? Hands where I can see them!”
“It’s a radio. I can call my friends on the radio.”
“Do it!”
Every time she spoke, the woman accentuated every syllable with the shotgun, shoving it into Timmy’s face.
Timmy took the radio from his pocket. It was off, Alex knew. The little red light wasn’t on.
“Come in, come in. Base. This is Operative two zero alpha. Come in.”
Once Timmy had finished speaking, he raised the radio to his ear and nodded along.
“Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.” He lowered the radio to his mouth. “I’m going to need you to dispatch a team out here immediately. People who were here before. Got someone they’re going to want to meet.”
Again, he lifted the radio to his ear. When he was done listening, Timmy offered the radio to the woman.
“They want to speak to you.”
“Huh?” The woman seemed shocked. “What? Who?”
“Just listen in.” Timmy pointed at the speaker on the front of the walkie-talkie. “They just need confirmation.”
The woman seemed hesitant. Even from a distance, Alex could see Timmy’s hands shaking. Virus or fear? He didn’t know. He wondered whether the woman had noticed.
Timmy noticed. Alex saw his face stiffen as he tried to hold his hand steady. The walkie-talkie stopped shaking.
“It’s the only way they’ll come.” Alex was sure he could hear a hint of fear in Timmy’s voice but he was doing a good job of sounding confident. “Please. You just need to confirm. Standard procedure.”
Her hand wavered in the air. She snatched the radio from Timmy and took two steps back, swinging the shotgun from side to side. Slowly, she lifted the handset to her ear.
This was the chance. An opening. Timmy, you genius. Alex watched her lean her head farther to the side, struggling to hear.
He jumped from behind the tree. Aim for the gun. Not the woman. Grab the gun.
Midway through the air, Alex stretched out his hand. Everything slowed down.
His fingertips brushed against the metal barrel of the gun. Wet and slippery.
The woman turned, the radio falling to the floor. She faced Alex, leaning back as he burst from nowhere. She tried to position the gun but it was already too late.
Alex hit against her, his body flying through the rain. His hand was almost around the barrel of the shotgun. He could feel it. His weight pushed the woman back and down, hard into the ground.
They hit together. A bang. She had fired the gun. Alex held it flat against the floor as an explosion of mud covered them both.
With one hand on the gun, Alex used his other to hit the woman’s fingers, trying to release her grip on the trigger.
She let go, only for a moment, and Alex slid his hand into position. He had it. He had control. He tried to roll away.
But she went with him. They writhed around together, wrestling for a grip on the trigger. It was all Alex could do to keep it covered. Keep her fingers away. Stop her firing.
Screaming incoherently, biting, scratching, spitting, the woman tried to reclaim her gun. But Alex had it. He clung to it tight, refusing to let go.
And then she was gone. The world sped up again.
Alex looked up. Cam had crashed into her like a blitzing line-backer.
“Hey, Timmy!” Alex shouted. “Take this!”
He threw the shotgun sideways. Timmy caught it, his arms swinging low, surprised by the weight. The woman had rolled to het feet.
She stared around at Timmy, now holding her gun, and Alex, reaching for his pistol. She ran.
The woman ran with fear. Ducking, dodging, weaving, and careening through the pine trees, she seemed desperate. Timmy raised the shotgun and drew a bead on the target.
“Timmy, wait!” Alex shouted, already seeing events before they happened, already scared of what would happen.
He didn’t want his friend to be haunted by those same dreams, by the endless parade of the dead. Timmy wasn’t thinking. He was just acting.
Timmy pulled the trigger. The shotgun clicked.
Nothing happened.
The last sounds of the woman running away faded into the night. Alex was left in the rain, watching her go, the relief warming him up from the inside.
Chapter 21
“You really think this is the best place to be right now?” Timmy spread the sleeping bags and blankets across the bales.
“They’ve already checked it,” Alex explained, helping his friend. “They won’t be back here. Just don’t start any more fires.”
Back in the barn, Cam took the first watch.
After he’d recounted the entire episode with Root and Byrne, Alex had listened to the story of the woman who had attacked his friends. She had burst out of the trees once Cam had stopped the car, waving her gun around. All Timmy had been able to do was send a message, a quick plea for help. She’d cut him off.
No one knew who the woman was. Someone related to the owner of the farm, Joan said. She had a personal stake. A quest for vengeance. She knew about the men in the Cadillac. She knew more than she was prepared to answer. And now she was out there, in the night, alone. Unarmed.
The decision to sleep in the barn had belonged to Alex. He took responsibility. They weren’t going anywhere else until daybreak and it was the most secure place around. Still, more and more questions hung over the farm but everyone was too tired to talk. Too tired to make plans, too tired to examine all the tiny details. But the questions remained.
Who were the men?
Alex lay with his eyes closed, trying to force himself to sleep. He couldn’t tear his mind away from the days ahead. And it was days, not hours. They were travelling carefully now. This wasn’t ripping it up to Detroit with a brok
en heart and a full tank of gas. They rode heavy. They rode careful. That was all they could do.
He pushed all the thoughts from his mind. Driving them out, chasing them away. Every time he nearly dropped into a slumber, however, there they were. The two men creeping in through the door. Their faces. Their words. They wouldn’t leave.
Eventually, exhausted, Alex forced them out of his head. And then, finally, he fell asleep.
* * *
Alex woke up, dripping with cold sweat. A bad dream, he knew right away. He reached out and clenched a handful of straw. It scratched his skin. Back to the real world.
Even now, when he closed his eyes, sitting upright in the barn, he could see the same image. The face of his father. All too familiar. That face, walking around this farm, through the house and through the out buildings, arriving next to his sleeping body, leaning down and whispering a warning.
That face, like Alex’s but older. The tangle of hair trimmed down while he perched over the sink. The wrinkled jowls that come from spending every day working in the fields. The clipped sideburns, a relic of an army stint. The coal-black pupils and the yellowing teeth which hid behind a tight-lipped smile.
He knew exactly why. Those men. The way they’d talked about an old man. The man who lived here, he knew. Just the way they talked about it and the way the woman had acted. The stench of death poured out of the farmhouse and infected the entire world.
Alex raised himself from the bed and walked to the stack of straw bales.
“Cam,” he hissed. “Cam. I’m here to take over from you, buddy. Get some sleep.”
The dark, shadowy shape of Cam emerged from above.
“You all right, my friend? I heard something, I saw you sit up.”
“It’s nothing. Get some sleep.”
Cam didn’t need to be told twice. He walked across to the vacated sleeping bags, curled up inside, and fell silent. Alex was left alone in the dark, watching over everyone.
No storm any more. No raindrop applause hammering against the roof. No thunder rolls, no howling wind. But every time Alex closed his tired eyes, there was his father. A bad dream outstaying its welcome.
Alex decided that his legs needed action. Movement might help to banish unwanted thoughts.
He began to walk around the farm house, taking in the buildings and the courtyard.
The walk was short. Uneventful. Nothing to see except the night sky, recovering after the rain. But with every step, Alex knew he was heading to the same place. Back to the farm house. Back through the busted down door, back inside and back through the stench of death.
By the time he reached the courtyard again, with a flashlight in one hand and his gun in the other, Alex could feel his heart racing. He knew he’d be going inside. From the moment he had woken up, he knew he had to look inside the house, to see it all for himself. He stepped inside.
A boring house. An empty house. Dust and disuse hanging over everything. A house bare but for the creaks and groans. The way the men had talked, Alex knew there was only one man. An old man. The man who had worn his father’s face in the dream.
Alex tried not to make a noise.
No use looking for supplies. The kitchen had been eaten through already.
The gun had already slipped into his pocket. The hand better used to cover his mouth.
The smell, it swallowed him up. Chewed on his skin. Turned his hair dry and brittle. Prickled the hairs on his neck.
It grew stronger toward one end of the house.
Deeper and deeper Alex went, the flashlight cutting a path through the gloom. He never lingered on anything. He didn’t want to see an armchair with a well-worn seat or a pair of socks needing to be stitched.
He knew, if he looked hard enough, he’d see a framed photo of the woman from the pines. He didn’t need it to be confirmed. Nothing to add humanity to the empty farmhouse.
With his nose fighting back and his ears strained desperately to hear any noise, Alex’s mind focused only on one thing. That face. That same old face.
The face of his father. The face that had raised him. The face that taught him to ride a bike, that was there when he bought his first car. The first face he told when he was thinking of asking Sammy the question. The first face he told when she said no. The face after the accident, paler, staring up. The face in all the photographs he’d given over to Eames with the rest of the house. That same old, familiar face.
Coughing, the smell creeping down into his lungs, Alex arrived at the last door. The air smelled thickest here. Haunting. Gripping. Making him feel alive, almost.
He slipped through the open door and found himself standing before a big bay window. There was a shape, a body sitting up in a chair. Still. Dead, clearly. But Alex had to look. He had to see the face.
Alex stalked around the room. The flashlight was off. He didn’t want the light to be seen through the window. But there was enough of a glow coming down from the newly-emptied sky. Enough to be sure. He was almost there, stepping around the man’s side. Standing in front of him. Looking up at the dead man’s face.
It was different. A broken nose and a bullet wound in his head. Maybe he took his own life, Alex told himself. Maybe. Might make as much sense as anything else. But he sneered at his own lie. It all made sense.
The scorched earth. The reason they hadn’t seen anyone – any sign of life – since leaving the forest. Root and Byrne had swept through the area, moving people or cutting them down. Leaving nothing to the enemy. Easier to search a wasteland.
No one to help, no one to hinder.
The old man didn’t have the face of Alex’s father. They were nothing alike. This was just a sad old man, his corpse left all alone, a man who had been swept up in events beyond his control. Maybe he felt safe on his farm. Maybe he had resisted. Maybe he had fought back.
This man had his own face, his own story. He didn’t need Alex’s ghosts.
Alex walked out of the house, his footsteps lighter. A weight from his shoulders. The horror of the dream gone. He almost skipped.
But there was a new dread, he noticed. A new concern. The reality, beginning to set in, of what these people were willing to do.
In the middle of the courtyard, Alex stopped. He pulled the flash drives from his pocket. They didn’t go far these days. What could they contain? What kind of information could drive those men to kill? What could possibly be worth all this?
He could smash them here and now and be done with it all.
But that would mean not knowing. That would mean abandoning the only meaningful chance they had of finding out how the country could have fallen apart, of finding out why two murderous men were chasing them across the country, of finding out why the drones were screaming through the sky and why the freeway was littered with the dead.
Alex wanted answers. He returned the flash drives to his pocket. Keep them safe. Keep them close.
There was another worry, too. This farmhouse, all isolated and alone. It hadn’t managed to escape the circumstances. It wasn’t even the virus. The tumbling world had found its way through the fields, bringing its violence and horror in through the door and leaving a dead man behind. All of a sudden, Alex realized, his farm in Virginia might not be as free and safe from it all as he’d imagined.
But think like that, Alex told himself, and there will be nowhere left to go. Nowhere is truly safe. There was nowhere he could really be alone and cut himself off from the world. He might as well go home. At least it felt familiar.
He slipped in through the open door of the barn. Everyone was still asleep. Settling into position, his mind moving too fast, Alex Early watched over his friends.
Chapter 22
A quiet car, lost on the road. After they’d passed the road sign welcoming them into West Virginia, Timmy had hummed the famous song for most of an hour. They drove through the country roads. Even that couldn’t dampen Alex’s excitement. Keeping his hands on the wheel, he tried to hide his nostalgic anticipations fro
m the others. They didn’t need to know how much each passing mile meant to him. No one said much. Joan leaned forward and tapped Timmy on the shoulder.
“Enough, Timmy, please. Please.”
The car contained enough anxiety, enough tension. Humming an endless loop of country music didn’t help. Timmy struggled with the map, had them lost a few times. They never pushed the car past thirty miles an hour, but it didn’t matter much. They retraced, re-routed, and kept heading south.
“Sorry, Joanie. Helps me concentrate. Good song. We should have been home yesterday, it’s right, you know?”
“A good song the first dozen times, maybe.”
She sat back in her seat with Cam next to her and the dog spread across them both. Joan had made it her job to watch the skies, taking the binoculars from a bag and scanning the horizon. It made her sick and nauseated, forcing her to pause every ten minutes. After a moment’s rest, she’d start again.
“You sure you know where we’re going, Timmy?” Alex asked, seeing another sign for the freeway.
“Yeah, man. We’re not too far out from Charleston.”
“We’re heading on to the freeway. Is that part of your plan?”
Timmy turned the map around again.
“We got to. I can’t see any other way. Just ten minutes on the freeway, take another exit and then we’re taking this road here around the city and straight on to proper Virginia.”
Alex saw Joan wince in the rear-view mirror. On to the freeway, they’d be sitting ducks. Easy to see for any eyes in the sky.
“You’re absolutely sure there’s no other way? We have to go on the freeway?”
“Yeah, man, unless you want to drive through Charleston.”
So far, Timmy had done a good job of avoiding towns. They’d passed a few houses. All abandoned. Just like the farm. Alex wondered how far Byrne and Root had reached, how much of the area they’d swept through, preparing the local population. Hunting.
The car turned another corner. A part of the world called Romance. All hills and trees and thin roads rolling between both like ancient rivers. They would hit the freeway soon.
