Hissers

by Ryan C. Thomas

  Nicole dried her hands on the towel near the shower. “Yeah. But this night has ruined my life. All our lives.” She sat on the toilet and began to cry again.

  The sentiment was contagious, and within seconds Amanita was crying too.

  “I want my mom,” Nicole whispered.

  “I want your mom to be here, too.”

  Saturday 10:32

  They all sat around the kitchen table with a bowl of taco meat and a slice of bread in front of them. Amanita used her lighter to light some of the candles they’d collected from various shelves in the house and it felt very much like they were going to tell ghost stories around a campfire, which wasn’t half wrong, except this particular ghost story was true.

  “The guy from the plane had to be dead,” Connor said.

  “You mean the steward?” Seth asked.

  “Yeah, the steward or whatever you call him—”

  “Pretty sure they’re flight attendants these days,” Amanita corrected.

  “My point is the steward/attendant had to be dead. I mean, could you survive that crash?”

  “It’s possible,” Nicole said. “Lots of people survive crashes. It just doesn’t always get reported. I saw a late night news show once about plane crash survivors. One guy flew out of the plane and smashed through the wall of a house and lived. He had like a million broken bones, but he survived.”

  “Well the steward didn’t appear to have broken bones. He was running. And it took all of what? Ten seconds for the cop he mauled to stand up and come after us. Whatever is changing them acts super fast, within seconds. It was the same with…with my mom.”

  Nobody said anything. The topic of dead parents was becoming too tough to discuss. It was easier to let these moments float in the air collecting sadness. At least it was a way to acknowledge their parents’ passing, however brief and insufficient for the grieving process. Still, Connor knew they had to get their heads around what was happening so he forged on.

  “With my mom, it took about ten seconds. I suck at math but I know that with all the people in this town, this thing could spread like wildfire in minutes. It feels like it already has.”

  “Do you think they’re really dead?” Seth asked. “Like zombies. Doesn’t seem possible. I love cheesy bad horror movies and all, but zombies aren’t real. I mean, we know about zombies, everybody does. Shoot ‘em in the head, kill the brain and—boom—they die.”

  “Like that one who broke the car window. You stabbed him in the head—”

  “He does that a lot,” Amanita interrupted.

  “—and he fell over. The sword went in almost to the hilt, out the back of his skull. It had to have hit the brain. Did anybody see if he stopped moving?”

  Everyone shook their head no.

  “I also did it to some chick at Seth’s house,” Amanita added, “with the fireplace thingy. She dropped like a rock but she was still moving when we left.”

  “Maybe you didn’t push it in far enough,” Seth said. “Either way they’re not human. And they do want to eat people. And they are dead. Shit. I don’t get it.”

  “I thought you had to shoot zombies,” Nicole asked. “Maybe a bullet does something different?”

  “I don’t know, a brain’s a brain,” Connor said. “If the sword didn’t kill it, I don’t know a bullet would.”

  “But we don’t know for sure.”

  “Well no, but I don’t have a gun to try it. Unless your mom had one.” He caught his use of the past tense and saw that Nicole did as well but let it pass. Normally he’d apologize, but he was too angry and too scared to worry about it right now. He could see Nicole was a strong girl and would get over it. She was taking this all pretty well, and she’d been calm under pressure in the car. Hell, they’d all been able to hold themselves together so far. Fairly well anyway, considering the circumstances.

  Only her brief breakdown in the living room had shown any weakness, and that was more than acceptable. She hadn’t seen it, no one did, but when he’d put his arms around her and held her, letting her sob in his chest, he’d cried as well. For her. For himself. For everyone.

  “She doesn’t have a gun, no. I don’t know who in the neighborhood does. We have no cops as neighbors as far as I know. Hell, I don’t even know where to buy a gun.”

  “Which means we have no real weapons,” Connor said. “All we had was the sword, but that’s gone.”

  “Thank Christ,” Amanita said, “or we’d all have our heads cut off by now.”

  Seth put down his piece of bread. “My dad got me that sword, you know. I’m sorry I hit you with it, but it meant something to me. Stop putting me down for using it and remember I managed to save your fucking life with it.”

  “You almost slashed my throat when you did! You thrust it out right in front of my damned neck.”

  “And stuck it in that shithead zombie’s face!”

  “I repeat, you came an inch from my jugular.”

  “I’m surprised you even know what a jugular vein is.”

  “Oh, what it that? A joke about me being stupid. What, because I’m not in the honors classes with you three you think I’m an idiot? Because I don’t read a nerdy science fiction novel every week like you bookworms I can’t possibly know anything about biology and anatomy? Well guess what, I know just as much as you and maybe more.”

  “You only know stuff because Nicole is smart and you hang out with her, so I don’t doubt it. Doesn’t mean you’re smart.”

  “You’d be surprised what I know, you video game nerd. Not everything is learned from reading books about spaceships and dragons.”

  “Watching the Discovery Channel doesn’t mean you’re smart either, it means you’re filled with useless knowledge.”

  Amanita took out a cigarette and lit it up at the kitchen table. “Sorry, Nicole, it’s either this or I punch him. I’ll go out back if you want me to.”

  “No, it’s fine. Doesn’t matter anymore, anyway,” Nicole said.

  Seth picked up his bread and dipped it in the meat sauce. “Yeah, go ahead and smoke, because the first thing we need is for the smoke alarm to go off and tell every undead thing in the streets where we are.”

  Amanita leaned in close to Seth’s face. “One—smoke alarms are triggered by thick smoke breaking up the electric current inside them. Unless I blow the smoke directly into the alarm, the cigarette smoke dissipates before it even reaches it. But I didn’t learn that on the Discovery Channel so I guess it’s not true and I’m just a dumb idiot. And two—there are a million noises going on outside right now. Screaming, fires, cars, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  “God, I should have slashed your throat. Then I could’ve killed two birds with one stone—that zombie bastard and you.”

  “Enough, guys.” Connor picked up his plate and set it in the sink next to some dirty dishes. He sat back down and took a sip from his glass of water. “Back to the plan. We have no real weapons so we’ll need to find some. Anything that we can swing or stab with.”

  “What about fire,” Amanita said, punctuating her question by holding up her cigarette. “Didn’t we see one go down on fire near the plane?”

  “I don’t know. A lot of them were running around on fire. Maybe it eventually burned one enough to kill it but I can’t say for sure. It’s worth keeping in mind.”

  “My mom has some scented oil for the oil lamps in her bedroom,” Nicole said. “She never lights them because she’s afraid she’ll fall asleep and the house will go up, even though I tell her they’re built to stay lit without supervision. It’s in a bottle under the kitchen sink.”

  “Okay,” Connor said, “We’ll take that too. Now, once we load up, our first stop needs to be the police station. It’s not that far from here. I assume if there’s one safe place to be right now that’s it.”

  “It wasn’t safe in Resident Evil II,” Seth said. “And as far as we can tell the power is out everywhere so who knows. We could get there and those things could be waiting f
or us inside.”

  “The front door is glass and looks into the receptionist area. So we’ll be able to tell. There’s always someone sitting at the desk.”

  “Arrested a lot?” Amanita took a drag and blew the smoke down toward her feet.

  “No. There was a comic book store across the street from it for a while. Mom would take me when I got good grades. Sometimes we’d just park in front of the station and walk across the street. Anyway, it’s still the safest plan for now.”

  “I wish there was a comic book store there now,” Seth said. “I have to order them online. Still haven’t gotten my latest copy of Gambit.”

  “And if we get there and it is overrun by these things?” Amanita stood to flick her ash into the kitchen sink.

  Connor nodded. “Then we leave town. The two quickest routes are…um…Jefferson Road—”

  “Jefferson Bridge over the river gorge and into Victorville,” Nicole said. “We can be out of town in fifteen minutes.”

  “Right, or we can go the other way. Take 134 into Wallington.”

  Amanita took another drag and the cherry glowed bright orange. “But that’s back near the park, and near the crash. And I just realized this shirt is sticking to me with blood. Can I borrow a shirt, Nicole?”

  Nicole sighed. “Yeah, sure. Go in my room and get one.”

  Amanita stubbed her cigarette out in the sink and left the kitchen.

  “So it’s settled?” Connor asked.

  “Honestly,” Seth said, “I don’t really care. I don’t know where my parents are, neither does Nicole or the She Beast in there changing her shirt. All I really know is I want to find them. I’ve lost my PSP and my sword, I don’t want to be here in Castor right now, but leaving scares me even more because what if my parents are here? What if we leave and they’re out there hiding? I can’t lose anymore…” Seth left his final thought unspoken.

  “I agree,” Nicole said. “I can’t make a decision on anything right now. I want to get out but I need to know where my mother is first. So right now if you think this is best, then I say we do it. I trust you.”

  Connor knew they were saying this because he was the only one whose parents were dead, or at least changed. There was nothing impeding his decision-making ability. He had nothing to live for here anymore. They still had hope.

  And that annoyed him. Hope was going to continue affecting their ability to think rationally. What would he do if they got to the police station, saw it was under attack, and decided to come back here and look for their parents? Would he just let them?

  Yeah, you will, he thought. It’s what they need to do. You may be with friends but you’re more alone now than you’ve ever been.

  “Okay, then we’re doing it,” he said. “Start gathering weapons.”

  Amanita returned wearing a long-sleeved, maroon V-neck thermal top. “I know it looks bad but it’s comfy and warm. Deal with it.”

  “Nobody said anything about you,” Seth said, taking some steak knives out of the utensil drawer.

  “Well, d’uh. It was just a joke. And I heard what you called me. I thought we had made a truce.”

  “We did, but you kept bitching about the cut on your forehead. I said I was sorry like a million times.”

  Amanita let out a long, deep breath. “Alright, fine, I’m sorry too. It’s just, you know, I kind of like my face scar-free. But since you saved me from having it eaten off, I’ll let it go. But you gotta stop whining about losing your PSP thing. That’s gonna drive me nuts. You sound like you lost a child or something.”

  Seth put the knives on the table, looked at Amanita without so much as a smile, and walked out to the living room. The moment of silence that followed seemed to slow down time for everyone.

  “Geez, I was apologizing. What’s up his ass?”

  Connor set the bottle of lamp oil next to the knives, careful to keep it away from the burning candles. “The missing child comment. You shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why? It’s just a damn video game machine. You guys act like it’s the world. Trust me, girls don’t dig that strongly on video games. We’d rather the attention be on us.”

  “It’s not that. Seth had a… Forget it. We’re leaving in a few minutes. Get something long and sharp. Hurry.”

  Saturday, 11:04

  They all piled into Nicole’s mom’s SUV, the interior of which was now so full of knives, garden tools, broom handles, and even screw-off table legs that if the vehicle took a funny turn they might all end up diced and concussed before they knew what was happening.

  But at least all the windows were intact.

  Nicole begrudgingly left her pocket book in the house, and only took her cell phone. Better to not be carrying something bulky if they had to run.

  Amanita once again sat in the back next to Seth. He had not spoken to her since she’d made the dumb joke about the PSP and still had no idea why it had upset him. For some reason just seeing his dumb frown made the gash on her head pulse. He was too sensitive about material possessions. Or maybe she wasn’t being sensitive enough to his position—the boy valued gifts from his parents, they must have loved him very much and he them.

  And what about you, she asked herself. You should really cry over them, Am. Your parents are probably dead. Don’t you want to cry? That’s what a normal person would do in this situation. Jesus, you’re so fucked up. You don’t even care, do you? No wonder nobody loves you.

  She pressed her face hard against the window until pain ran up her nose. It made the voice in her head go away.

  She looked back at Seth, studied the distant look in his eye. I should tell him about his parents, she thought. He deserves to know. I’d want to know. But how do you tell someone you saw their mother and father eating someone?

  She decided not to bring it up right then. Maybe when they got to the police station and were safely inside, then she’d mention it.

  Connor turned around from the driver’s seat. “I feel high up in this thing, like I’m too far above the ground to see the road.”

  “Do you even know how to drive this?” Amanita asked.

  “Not really. Do you?”

  “No. But I don’t want you to kill us either. Maybe we should find a smaller car. If you don’t feel comfort—”

  “Nah, I drove the Camry okay and this is an automatic too. It’s actually not that hard. I don’t see why we need to be sixteen before we get our permits. It just feels so frigging big.”

  A moment of silence passed, enough time for Amanita to wonder where her parents were and whether or not they were okay. If they were, were they looking for her? Did they even care? She’d always wished her parents were more like Nicole’s mom, interested in her day and encouraging her no matter the endeavor. But her parents were not like that, they didn’t care what she did so long as she didn’t cost them more money than was required by the state to raise her.

  It didn’t even matter if she left a pack of smokes out on the table or not, they were just goddamned automatons—-paying bills, going to work, microwaving Lean Cuisines for dinner, watching shitty television shows from the 70s on Nick at Nite, buying her shitty birthday gifts from cheap stores, ignoring her grades.

  “Hurry up, Nicole,” Connor whispered. “She’s been in there for five minutes already. We need to go.”

  “She said she had to go find her mom’s spare keys,” Amanita replied. “Give her a sec.”

  “I am. I don’t mean to be so frantic, I just…I’m scared and I’m not afraid to say it.”

  “Join the club,” Seth said.

  Amanita pulled her seatbelt over her and locked it in place. “By the way, that was sweet how you hugged Nicole. She kinda likes you, you know.”

  “I like her too. I mean, you know, she’s nice. But I’m a dork and she’s probably gonna see lots of boys…” He let the thought die out.

  Amanita knew why he stopped. Because there may not be any more boys in the high school after this.

  “Found �
��em!” Nicole said, running out of the front door, holding the keys aloft. She got in the passenger seat and handed them to Connor. “Okay but wait. Before we go—when I was leaving I noticed Missy’s leash is gone. I didn’t think to look for it before because it was dark.”

  “So,” Seth said.

  “So, sometimes Mom likes to walk Missy, especially in the summer when it’s warm. I think they just went for a walk and aren’t back yet. We should wait a little while and see if she comes back.”

  The other three teens traded glances in the dim interior. No one wanted to say what needed to be said. Finally Connor came up with a compromise. “How about if we drive up a couple of these side streets. If she went for a walk she wouldn’t be far. And if we see her and you want to go home with her then fine. If not, we stick to the plan.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Nicole,” Amanita finally said. As much as this whole night was driving her mad it was killing her to see her best friend suffering from profound false hope in the face of impending defeat. She had to start facing the fact her mother was probably dead or undead. “We need to get to help. I love you and I love your mom but we were here for over a half hour and she didn’t come back. There was food cooking and everything. She probably did go out to see what the noise was, put the dog on the leash, and then… Let’s just let Connor drive.”

  Nicole spun around in her seat. “I just want to know if she’s okay.”

  “We’ll help you find out,” Connor said, “I promise. But after we get somewhere safe. Okay?”

  He turned the key and started the SUV, backed out of the drive. They went up two streets before they saw the first mob of hissers. At least a hundred of them, speed walking all over the place, their noses in the air, their mouths agape. When they saw the headlights the entire pack charged.

  “Hang on!” Connor yelled, and attempted a three-point turn which became more of a nine-point turn before he got them facing back the way they’d come. It was too little too late. The hissers engulfed the car, pounding on it, spitting blood onto the windows, pressing their mangled faces against the windshield.