by Ronald Malfi
Above their heads, doors slammed.
“Do you think they’re okay?” Charlie wanted to know.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Kate said, when Molly wouldn’t answer.
“What if one of those things gets in here?”
“Nothing is going to get in here, Charlie.”
“But what if one does?”
“Then we kill it,” Kate said.
“They didn’t know we were here until you and your boyfriend showed up,” Molly said.
So that’s what this is about, Kate thought. “We were careful coming here,” she promised Molly. “No one followed us.”
“You can’t know that.”
“It wasn’t even our idea to come here. It was Tully’s idea. We came with him, followed him.”
“Well, what do you expect? Tully’s a good man. Did you think he’d just leave the two of you out there to die?”
“Of course not. I just don’t know what you want me to say.”
“And now you’ve brought these things to us,” Molly went on, ignoring Kate now.
Kate knew there was nothing she could say to this woman. Molly had made up her mind to dislike and distrust her and there would be no convincing her otherwise. “If I did,” Kate said evenly, “then I’m sorry. It wasn’t deliberate.”
Visibly disgusted, Molly turned away.
There were footsteps on the other side of the door, along with the sound of muffled talking. Molly produced a revolver from under her pillow, surprising Kate. The pregnant woman held the gun in a shaking hand against the swell of her abdomen. Both Cody and Charlie looked up at the door, frightened.
The door opened. Todd, Bruce, and Brendan came in, their shirts half off to bare their shoulders. Molly relaxed and stashed the gun back beneath the pillow.
“What was it?” Kate asked, sitting up straighter.
“One of the skin-suits was outside by the front doors,” Bruce said, peeling his shirt off the rest of the way. It was wet with blood. He balled it up and stuffed it into the Superman backpack. He went over to a pile of clothes and blankets on a rolling cart, where he began hunting around for a fresh shirt. “We killed it.”
Todd sat beside Kate on the cot while Brendan, looking pale and out of sorts, leaned a shotgun against the desk. Then he stared down at his hands in near disbelief, watching as they vibrated like a pair of tuning forks.
“Where’s Tully?” Molly asked. She looked from Bruce to Brendan. “What happened to Tully?”
“The Tull-man,” Brendan said forlornly, his eyes distant and unfocused.
“He’s dead,” said Bruce, pulling on a clean shirt. There were dark smudges under his eyes.
Cody’s grip around Kate tightened. Kate rocked her gently, telling her that everything was going to be all right—such feeble, futile promises.
“This is their fault,” Molly said. That sharp look was back in her eyes. “Those things didn’t know we were here until they showed up.”
“Relax, Molly,” Bruce said.
Molly shook her head. “No. We should have never let them in here.”
Brendan sat beside Molly on the cot. He placed one hand on her knee but looked too preoccupied to offer her any worthwhile comfort.
“There was only one,” Todd assured her, “and we killed it.”
“You don’t know that! There could be more right outside, watching and waiting. There could be a whole goddamn army of them.”
Against Kate’s chest, Cody sobbed. “Stop it,” Kate told Molly.
“We’re okay for right now,” Bruce said. He went to the liquor bottles on the desk and selected some tequila.
“But what about later?” Molly protested. “Those things will come back, Bruce. You know they will.”
“And if they do, we’ll fight them off again, Molly.” Bruce leaned against the desk and unscrewed the tequila, took a swallow. “There’s nothing more we can do about that.”
“There is,” Molly said. “We can send them both back out there, let them fend for themselves.”
“Molly,” Brendan said, seemingly returned from his stupor. He rubbed her thigh.
But Molly could not be consoled. “We could send them out and make them lead those things away from us.”
“No one is going out there,” Bruce said. “We’re in this together now.”
“They brought those things—”
“They didn’t do anything!” Bruce yelled back. Again, Cody shuddered and Charlie gaped up at the sheriff’s deputy, a combination of fear and awe on the boy’s face. More calmly, Bruce said, “No one did anything, Molly. This—whatever this is—just happened. And now we’ve got to survive it. Together. We’re not doing anyone any good fighting among ourselves.”
“You’re not the law anymore, Bruce,” Molly grumbled. She placed both hands flat against her distended stomach. “There is no law anymore. Not in Woodson.”
Cody sat up. Her face was red from crying. “Please stop yelling,” she said.
Bruce looked down at the bottle in his hands while Molly, her eyes welling with tears, looked away from him and at the wall.
“Hey,” said Brendan, clapping his hands together and startling them all. Some color had returned to his face. “Who wants hot dogs?”
“I do!” Charlie boomed.
“I do,” Cody echoed, less enthusiastic.
Brendan stood, forcing a goofy grin. “Then let’s go, gang. Train’s pulling out of the station. All aboard!”
Charlie hopped up and Cody climbed down off the cot. Still grinning, Brendan opened the door and saluted Charlie, who giggled and saluted him back.
“Brendan,” Todd said, and handed him the pistol.
Brendan nodded almost imperceptibly, stuffing the pistol into his waistband at the small of his back. Then he barked at the kids: “Let’s go, soldiers! Left! Right! Left! Right! Forward—march!”
A smile beginning to overtake Cody’s delicate face, Brendan led the kids out into the hallway. Their footsteps receded into the darkness.
Bruce grunted his approval. Rubbing a hand along his bald pate, he took some more tequila from the bottle before handing it over to Todd. “I want to hear about this computer you mentioned,” Bruce said.
Todd chugged a mouthful of tequila, winced, and handed the bottle to Kate. “I had a laptop with me when we came into town,” Todd said. “If I’m right about what’s going on—about why my phone works while everything else in this town is going haywire—then my laptop should boot up and work fine, too. If you can hook it up to that modem of yours, Bruce, we can get online, maybe even make a phone call out.”
“Theoretically,” Bruce said.
Kate took a swallow of the tequila. It burned all the way down her throat before exploding in her stomach.
“Wait a minute,” Molly said. “Are you saying we’ve got a working computer?”
Still want to kick us out? Kate thought, smiling wryly to herself.
“Sort of,” said Bruce. Turning back to Todd, he said, “Where is it, exactly?”
Todd took the bottle back from Kate. He looked instantly miserable. “I think,” he said, drawing out his words, “I think it’s back at the town square.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A look of total resignation overcame Bruce’s face. His whole body appeared to deflate. On her cot, Molly’s eyes darted back and forth between Bruce and Todd.
“The square?” Molly said. Defeated, she slumped back against the wall.
“We’ll just have to go back and get it,” Todd said.
“But Tully said—” Molly began, before Bruce spoke over her.
“The square is like ground zero, Todd. That’s where they’ve all been congregating. Not to mention, I caught sight of that electrical eye in the clouds while we were out front, burying the bodies. That eye is seated directly over the square right now.”
Kate frowned. “So what does that mean?”
“It seems to attract them, gives them strength,” Bruce said.
“Just
like last night, back at the church,” Todd said. Too clearly, he could recall last night’s escape from the church, and how one of those things had gotten inside Chris while, unbeknownst to the rest of them, another had gotten inside poor Meg. And once they’d exited the church, there had been all those townspeople—what Tully had succinctly dubbed “skin-suits”—standing there as if awaiting instruction.
Instruction from that glowing eye in the sky, Todd thought now.
“Where exactly in the square is this computer of yours?” Bruce asked.
“If it’s still where I left it, it’s inside the Pack-N-Go.”
“If the Pack-N-Go is still there, too,” Kate added, attracting an impatient glare from Molly.
Bruce sighed. The halogen lamps gleamed off his scalp. “Well, then, I guess we don’t have much of a choice.”
“We can make torches,” Kate suggested. “They kept away from the torches last night. And when one of those snow-things rose up out of the ground, I think I burned it.”
Bruce was shaking his head. “A torch might scare one off, or even injure it if you really nail ’em, but chances are it’ll get away and will only come back with friends. When they’re in groups, they swoop down over you and generate enough wind to extinguish any small flames.”
“We’ve learned that the hard way,” Molly added.
“So what do we do?” Kate said.
“We travel as incognito as possible,” Bruce said. “Same way Tully got you both here, I’m sure. Far as I can tell, they don’t have any extraordinary senses. No amplified sense of sight or smell—not like a dog or a wolf or anything—so it’s our best bet just to lay low.”
“All those guns out there against the wall,” Todd said. “I assume you’ve got more than enough ammo?”
“Yes. And Tully had another flamethrower. It’s upstairs in one of the offices. We can take that, too.”
“We should probably go sooner rather than later,” Kate said. “No sense waiting around till nightfall.”
“Kate,” Bruce said. “We’re gonna need you to stay here.”
“No. I can help.”
“You can help here.”
“No.”
“Kate.” Todd put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s right. Someone needs to stay here with Molly and the kids.”
“Brendan can stay.”
“Brendan knows the town. It makes no sense leaving him here when he could be more helpful to us out there.”
“Brendan’s not going anywhere,” Molly said. “He’s staying right here with me.”
“See?” Kate said. “Brendan’s not going to want to leave her.”
As if summoned by the repeated mention of his name, Brendan appeared in the doorway. “What about me?” he said, popping the last of a hot dog into his mouth. Charlie and Cody scampered into the room, looking more contented than they had when they’d left.
“They’re talking crazy, Brendan,” Molly said. “They’re talking about sending you out there!”
Around a mouthful of hot dog, Brendan cocked an eyebrow and said, “Huh?”
“Todd’s computer,” Bruce explained. “It’s back at the Pack-N-Go, Brendan. The three of us have to go get it.”
“Out there? At the Pack-N-Go? But Tully said the square—”
“I know what Tully said,” Bruce barked, “and he was nowhere near the square when he died an hour ago. If Todd’s computer actually still works, we can use it to contact the outside world.”
“It’s our only chance of getting out of here,” Todd added.
“But what if it doesn’t work?” Molly demanded. “The three of you will be going out there and risking your lives for nothing.”
“Come on, Molly,” Bruce said. “It’s our only shot.”
Molly looked pleadingly at Brendan. “Bren…”
“It makes sense, Molly.” But Brendan didn’t sound too confident.
“We’re gonna need the guns,” Bruce told Brendan. “And Tully’s extra ’thrower, too.”
“Like, now? We’re going now?”
“Brendan!” Molly cried, cradling her belly, in case Brendan had somehow forgotten about the state she was in.
“We should go soon,” said Bruce. “But first I want us all to go upstairs so I can show everyone here what to do with the computer once we bring it back.”
“Why won’t you just do it yourself, Bruce?” Brendan asked…but then turned his eyes down toward the floor when he realized the motive behind Bruce’s suggestion.
“All right,” Bruce said, adjusting his gear belt. “Everyone upstairs. You, too, Molly.”
“It’s simple, really,” said Bruce. They were all crowded around the desk in the computer room while Bruce held up a rectangular black box. “This is the modem. I assume we all know at least the fundamentals about computers and how the Internet works?”
“Not me,” said Cody. Some tired laughter circulated around the group. Cody smiled uncertainly, embarrassed.
“Look.” Bruce pointed to a thick white cable that trailed from the rear of the black box and into the wall behind the desk. “The modem’s already hooked up to the fiber optics. It can also be connected to a power source—a battery—to give it juice. Watch.” He plugged a brick-sized battery into the modem. Lights lit up on the modem’s faceplate. “See those lights? That means you’re in business. If you’ve got no lights, you’ve got no power.
“When we’ve got the computer, we hook that to another power source”—he waved one arm at the shelves across the room, laden with, among other things, portable batteries—“then connect the computer to the modem with another cable. Okay, watch again—I’ll show you.” He demonstrated with the laptop that was already on the desk. “From there, with any luck, it’ll be no different from logging onto the Internet from your home computer. Any questions?”
“Seems too good to be true,” said Brendan.
Bruce rolled his heavy shoulders. “As long as we’re able to get the computer back here, plugging it in and dialing it out should be a piece of cake.”
“Yummy,” Cody said. Kate smiled and rubbed the girl’s head.
“Just one more thing,” Todd said. They all looked at him. “The operating system on my laptop is password-protected.”
“Good thinking,” Bruce said. “What is it?”
“Turbodogs,” Todd said. He offered them all a meager grin. “It’s my son’s favorite cartoon. About a bunch of dogs who race cars.”
Young Charlie nodded and quite matter-of-factly said, “Yeah, that’s a good show.”
Todd’s grin widened. “So I’ve been told.”
“Anyway, Kate was right,” Bruce said. “No sense sitting around here wasting time. You two good to go?”
“Good to go,” Todd said.
“Good to go,” Brendan said, too. Yet his eyes, which never left Molly’s, told a different truth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
In the gloom of the hallway outside the computer room, Todd sat on the floor with his back against the wall, loading fresh rounds into magazines. He could hear the others talking in hushed tones farther down the hall in one of the offices.
Setting the gun down, he managed to wrangle his wallet from his pants without having to stand up. He opened it. The folded racing form was still inside—the racing form that was stained with his blood.
It was a winning ticket, the one that had ended his unfathomable losing streak. That one race had been his last chance, knowing that it would be all or nothing, and that he had no other choice. He’d bet to win, the name of the horse—Justin Case—almost prophetic in its allusion to his son. And it had seemed God was smiling down on him that sunny afternoon, because the motherfucker had won, had come in first. Todd had not only won enough money to pay back Andre Kantos, but would also have some left over for the next few months’ rent. Needless to say, Todd had been flying high when he left the Atlantic City Race Course.
Kantos and his men had picked him up in the parking lot of the track. They we
re leaning against his car, four or five of them, each only uglier and angrier than the next. He’d already had a few run-ins with Kantos’s men, the most recent one outside a Manhattan bistro where two of them smacked him around a little bit—a run-in that had hurt his pride and his conscience more than his face and ribs. But he knew Andre Kantos meant business; he wasn’t going to be able to put him off for too much longer.
Todd had paused in the parking lot when he saw Kantos and his men leaning against his car. The sun was already setting, the sky the color of ripening fruit on the horizon, and his shadow was stretched out long and skinny on the gravel before him.
“This is where I find you,” Kantos said, peeling himself off Todd’s car. He was stocky with large meat-hook hands and a face like a patchwork quilt. His thinning hair was the color of steel wool, greased back off his Neanderthal brow. A diamond stud earring winked at Todd, catching what remained of the sunlight. “You owe me a shitload of money, Curry, and this is where I find you?”
“I was gonna call you tonight, Andre,” he said.
“Well, shit.” Kantos smiled—a grim Halloween pumpkin smile. “I must be a fuckin’ psychic, huh?”
“I’ve got your money.” He’d produced the cashier’s check with the racetrack logo in the corner. One of Kantos’s men came over to him, plucked the check from his fingers, and nearly pressed his beaky nose to it as he examined it. Todd also showed him the racing form. “See? I’ve got it.”
Kantos came over to look at the check and the racing form. His beady little eyes glittered. When he turned back to Todd, there was a dispassionate sneer tugging at the corner of his pocked face. “You know, Curry,” Kantos said. “I take it back what I said to you last time we met, about how you’re one unlucky son of a bitch. Maybe I had you pegged wrong. Maybe you are lucky. What are the odds, right?”
Some of Kantos’s men grumbled with laughter.
Andre Kantos took the cashier’s check and folded it nicely into the front pocket of Todd’s shirt. He did the same with the racing form. His face so close to Todd’s, every nick and pore and crosshatched pockmark was clearly visible. The man’s ruinous little eyes glittered like polished jewels.
