Then I lost sight of him as I passed between the houses and into the bush lined path leading to the creek. Shrubs crowded both sides of the asphalt, limiting my vision despite the nearby lantern.
“Casey!” I yelled. “Slow down! Where are you?”
“Right here!”
Her voice came from directly ahead, and a second later I broke out into a long, black tunnel crossed by a railed footbridge. Everybody crowded on the bridge and, with the exception of Ashlyn, gasped for breath.
“What is he doing back there?” Casey frowned back in the direction we came.
I turned to see the other end of the path now filled with the orange glow of flames. Squinting against the brightening light, I made out Tommy’s silhouette as he calmly walked up to a car parked right near the beginning of our path and smashed the window out. He leaned in for a couple of seconds, then stepped back and stuck his torch through the broken window.
I heard another “fwoosh” and the inside of the car burst into flames.
“Oh God, he’s lost his mind,” Darla moaned. “He’s going to burn down the whole block!”
For a moment I wondered if she might be right.
Then, as I watched the boy’s silhouette move out of sight to what must be the next car, I realized we had it all wrong. Tommy’s actions made perfect sense. Faced with an oncoming horde of ravenous predators, he had simply erected a barrier they would not cross. He had picked one hell of a way to go about it, but the fact he had thought so much further outside the box than the rest us didn’t change the fact his plan was both practical and effective.
Still, I confess something about the whole scene bothered me.
And I wasn’t the only one.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it…” Ashlyn murmured in an uncharacteristically somber voice behind me. “All those cars are dead…and the people who own them are dead, too. They’re just things now.”
“Ashlyn…” Casey began.
“No, really,” the smaller girl insisted. “This isn’t a neighborhood anymore. Sure, the buildings are still here, but everybody who lived here…everybody who defined things, made things what they were…are gone.”
That uncomfortable thought hushed us all.
“It’s all gone…” Ashlyn whispered. “It’s all gone.”
And she was right.
This wasn’t Coventry Woods anymore. All of that had disappeared. Everything defining the normal and everyday world around us had vanished. We now huddled in an alien jungle, where living corpses slept in abandoned structures and metal objects with reservoirs of flammable liquid lined the asphalt trails. None of us had any idea why this had happened, but that didn’t change the one central truth to our whole situation.
We were a long, long way from home.
But at the same time I grappled with that, I couldn’t help but notice the bleak tone in Ashlyn’s voice. It contained a tremor I definitely didn’t like hearing coming from the girl. I knew she had been through a lot, and even though she hadn’t mentioned it, I realized if she lived in this neighborhood then she must suspect her family was gone too. Which left her here, surrounded by strangers—since I had never heard of her in the past eight months, she and Casey must have been more acquaintances than friends—chased by monsters, and a recent witness to several people dying horribly.
All things considered, she had been holding up rather well, but now I caught a hint of her resolve starting to crumble. And I really didn’t want to see that happen to her. I desperately tried to think of something to say, some form of reassurance to offer. Anything to help stave off the despair I heard creeping into her voice.
I drew a blank, but fortunately Casey must have been thinking along the same lines. On the other hand, this being Casey, comforting reassurances would not be the order of the day.
“So that’s why you’re carrying his bow now?”
“Huh?” the girl looked up at her with surprise.
“That’s your plan?” Casey favored her with a dubious look. “Seriously?”
“What do you mean?”
“Him Tarzan, you Ashlyn?”
“WHAT!?” I think the girl grew two inches on the spot out of sheer umbrage. “Now hold on there! I did not offer to carry it for him. He just gave it to me and I took it without thinking.”
“Uh huh,” Casey gave her a disbelieving look.
“It’s true! Ask your dad, he was there.”
Not knowing what to say but willing to play along, I gave a weak nod of agreement.
“Big deal,” Casey shrugged dismissively. “Mark is hopelessly old fashioned and would totally lie for you.”
“Oh, come on!”
“It’s true. By the way, you do realize this plan of yours is only going to end badly. Oh sure, he’s cute now…but wait until he cuts some monster’s head off and starts wearing it as a hat.”
“That’s gross, and there is no plan!”
“Righhhhhht…you are sooooo going to end up in a stewpot.”
“Seriously, there is no plan,” Ashlyn groaned, “and will you stop it with the stewpot thing already?”
“Okay. You win,” Casey clasped her hands behind her back and looked heavenward with an angelic expression. “I was only trying to help.”
“Ugh!” Ashlyn turned to me in exasperation. “How do you not strangle her on a daily basis?”
Normally I would consider that a perfectly reasonable question…but this time I sensed what Casey had been up to, and from the look in her eye I could tell she knew I had picked up on it.
“Oh, she has her good moments too,” I grinned. “But you have to look close for them.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” the pixie grumbled.
“Okay…really, really close,” I admitted, which thankfully elicited an amused snort from the girl. That sounded more like it.
She was nowhere close to being truly okay…hell, none of us were…but the distraction had worked and given her a chance to regroup and firm up her resolve.
On the other hand, I noticed the other two men in our current group didn’t look okay at all. Ed looked more gaunt and tired than ever, and the sweat streaming from Mr. Treadwell could not possibly be due only to the current atmosphere. The exertion from our recently finished run had left him pallid and kneeling next to his wheelbarrow.
“Mister, are you alright?” I eyed him with concern.
“Just the flu,” he gasped, then rattled a hollow laugh. “Just the goddamn flu. Can you believe this shit?”
I could believe it.
A nasty summer flu…something that meant little more in the modern world than a day or two in bed, with some over the counter meds and lots of liquid. But under these conditions things were far different. Tonight he was trying to fight for his and his family’s lives, push a heavy load across a death infested jungle, and all while running a high fever.
The twenty-first century had taken a time out on us, and in the old days sick people had died in situations like this.
“Mr. Treadwell…”
“Allen.”
“Allen,” I amended. “Let me know when you need it, and I’ll spell you on stretcher duty. Okay? Killing yourself won’t get anybody through this.”
“Thanks, I’ll do tha…”
“Speaking of getting through this,” Darla cut in impatiently, “we’re not exactly out of trouble yet. We’ve lost another person, and now we’re standing out in the open over a ditch. How about we figure out our next step while we’re waiting for Wonderboy to get back from burning down the neighborhood?”
Right. As much as she grated on me, I had to admit she made sense.
“We move on,” I asserted. “And we only stop when we have to. Other than that, we keep going until we’re out of here.”
“Out of here?” she echoed, her voice thick with sarcasm.
“Yes. Out of here.”
She glared at me with such intensity I honestly wondered what I could have done to piss her off…other than lead a pack o
f killers to her front gate and accompany her boyfriend on the task that just got him killed. Okay, maybe I had no right to expect to be her favorite person…but still…
“Oh really,” she snarled, “then would you mind explaining to the rest of us where exactly ‘out of here’ is? For that matter, while you’re at it, why don’t you explain to us how you know there IS an ‘out of here’ to head for?!”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Oh, give me break!” Darla snapped. “Hasn’t it occurred to you this has been going on for a couple of hours now and we haven’t seen a single sign of the cavalry riding to the rescue? Where the hell are the police?”
“There were police when this thing started. They’re dead!”
“Yeah? So where’s their goddamned backup!? Houston has thousands of cops! How come they ain’t pouring in here and shooting the hell out of all this creepy bullshit?”
Taken aback, I realized she had a point.
“Maybe…” I struggled to reply, “maybe they’re out there trying to get a handle on the situation. Maybe they’re trying to figure out what they’re up against before charging in.”
“Or maybe,” she shot back, “there’s not an “out there” at all!”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then faced her again.
“No. That’s not true.”
“It’s not? How do you know?” She flung her arms wide. “Do you have any idea how big this thing is? Do you? How do you even know Houston is still ‘out there’!? Maybe it’s all ‘in here’ with us! Maybe everything is like this now!”
I could see the sick looks of doubt creeping into the faces around me. This didn’t help, and I desperately wished Darla would shut up. I now realized she possessed a ruthless intelligence behind her good looks, but it didn’t seem the type to overly concern itself with group dynamic.
“It’s out there,” I insisted. “And we need to keep moving if we’re going to have any hope of reaching help.”
“I’m afraid we need a little more than that,” she growled. “If we’re going to “keep moving till we’re out of here,” then I think I need to see some evidence there is an “out of here” to try for. Otherwise, the smart move would be to break into a building and take shelter.”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Are you kidding me? There is death in those houses, Darla! I would have thought you realized that.”
“Not all of them,” she countered, “or we would be up to our necks in killer freaks by now. Actually, I bet at least half of them are empty.”
“And you’re willing to bet your life on that?” I gaped at her. “Are you? You got any particular place in mind you’d care to try your luck?”
“As a matter of fact, I can think of two off the top of my head. First would be the clubhouse at Stratton Park. It mainly has one big room, and plenty of windows we could look in to make sure it’s empty.”
Crap. That actually made sense.
“Or,” she continued, “we could go a block farther and try Harvey Holland’s place.”
So much for making sense.
“Huh?” I looked at her in surprise. “You mean Harvey Holland, the right-wing nutjob with the awful Christmas displays?”
“No. I mean Harvey Holland, the right-wing nutjob with the closet full of high powered rifles.”
Oh.
Damn.
I was getting destroyed here. All of her points had been valid, and so far I hadn’t refuted a single one.
Could she be right? And if so, did that mean I had been intending to drag people through a gauntlet of death just to satisfy some forlorn hope of my own?
What should I do?
Your only hope of survival is to get clear of this ‘event’, and time is not your ally.
The words of the white-suited man rose in my mind as I looked at the doubtful faces around me. He still seemed so real, but I had no proof. Dammit, I didn’t even have enough evidence to mention him in front of the others. It would make me sound crazy, like I wanted to act on the advice of a hallucination…and if I looked at it objectively, it would be because I wanted to do exactly that.
So where did that leave me?
If Darla had it right and we moved on, I would be leading people on a futile death march to nowhere. If she didn’t and we stayed, then we would be holing up like doomed rats while deliverance waited only a night’s walk away.
Not exactly a great margin for error in that choice. And worst of all, getting Casey back to Stella depended on me getting it right.
“Damn these trees,” I growled in frustration, scanning the blackness above me. “If it weren’t for these goddamned trees we could see what was out there and know what to do!”
“Yeah?” Darla folded her arms. “Well, we can’t. And they’re too tall for crawling up on a roof to make a difference. Even if we climbed one, the only ones we can climb aren’t high enough to see over all the pines. And since I sure don’t see us climbing one of those, there’s no point in wasting our time on it.”
“Shit.”
I was getting really sick of her being so negative while being right at the same time. Mainly because deep down I had the feeling she took some small satisfaction in it. She might be gorgeous—and sexy as hell—but she had really begun to make me feel sorry for Happy Harry and Sid.
But as I struggled over what to do, and how to deal with Darla, a new voice made itself heard.
“...ell…on…ow…er…” Agnes Treadwell moaned from her wheelbarrow. She was weak from loss of blood, and I thought she had passed out from the pain earlier.
“What, honey?” Allen leaned over his wife in concern.
“Ce…cell…phone…tower…” she whimpered.
“Cell phone tower?” he repeated. “What about a cell phone tower?”
“Taller…than…trees…”
I latched onto her meaning in an instant. Not wanting to press her further, I turned straight to the pair I figured would be the experts on the matter.
“A cell phone tower!” I exclaimed at the girls. “Is there a cell phone tower around here somewhere?”
They looked at each other, and Casey started to answer, but once again a new party entered the conversation.
“South of here,” Tommy’s toneless voice spoke behind me.
I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound, and turned to see him emerge from the brushy path. The other end of the dim tunnel behind him blazed a bright orange, making me wonder how big a fire he had set. At least, judging by his lack of hurry, the creatures back there could no longer reach us. The boy no longer carried the torch, but now had a gym bag bearing the logo of the local high school slung under his arm. I guess he had been doing more than torching vehicles back there.
His sudden presence acted like a bucket of cold water on the conversation.
Nobody spoke and all eyes focused on him as he approached. If the boy noticed our sudden silence he ignored it. He walked past me without further comment and stopped in front of Ashlyn.
“Oh right,” she smiled weakly. “Your bow. Here it is.”
“Thank you,” he answered softly while taking the weapon.
“You’re welcome,” she replied automatically as he turned and headed for the other end of the bridge.
Then she grimaced in self-realization before risking a peek at her redheaded cohort, who now regarded her with smug amusement. Casey’s grin widened and she batted her eyes prettily at the other girl. That got the intended effect.
“Knooock it ooo-ooffff” the little blond leaned next to Casey and quietly sing-songed out the side of her mouth, “before I completely muuurder youuuuuu.”
I could tell she now understood Casey had only been teasing her, and merely played at being angry. Well, mostly…I imagine some of the annoyance was real. It was also silly as hell under the circumstances, but I took solace in the fact they had found a way to keep up their spirits…at least a little bit.
At the same time I also noticed the glan
ce Tommy favored on Ashlyn while the girls’ backs were to him. As always, his face bore no expression, so it could mean anything…or absolutely nothing. Still, I had seen him do it while she wasn’t looking and it made me wonder.
All joking aside, did we have a problem forming there?
Oh well, I could only add that to my already epic list of potential problems. At the moment I had more pressing concerns.
“So,” I asked the girls again, “about this cell phone tower…it’s to the south?”
“Yeah,” Casey replied. “It’s down on Deer Ridge, almost due south of us. As a matter of fact, you could follow this jogging path right to it. You would just need to know to keep going straight through the trees a little after the path starts turning toward Stratton Park because you’re probably not going to be able to see it from the trail in this light. But it’s there, about fifty feet into the trees.”
Damn.
I didn’t want to go south, and certainly not as far as Deer Ridge. That would be a three or four block walk in the wrong direction…not to mention down a pitch black jogging path, sandwiched between backyard fences and a wooded creek.
And if Stella had made it into the neighborhood before this insanity went down, then she would be the other way somewhere on Coventry Boulevard.
Thus my plan had been to go west until reaching the top end of Stratton Park, start working our way north toward Coventry Boulevard and then west toward the neighborhood’s exit. Unfortunately, that would be pushing several members of our little group, and now Darla offered an alternative plan that would involve stopping once we reached Stratton Park itself. And without any proof of an “out there” to escape too, I had nothing to convince them her plan didn’t make the most sense.
Truthfully, I couldn’t in good conscience say her plan wasn’t the best anyway. My motivations revolved around me and Stella, and I really had no right to endanger these people by dragging them on my own personal quest.
In the end I really only had one choice.
“Then I guess we continue west,” I sighed. “We’ll go with Darla’s plan and see if the Stratton Park clubhouse is safe to occupy.”
Nightwalk Page 17
