The Hours

by Robert Barnard

  The front door of the garage was blown to pieces, but other than that, the home looked undisturbed. Chloe was relatively certain that the structure hadn’t been looted since she’d seen it last. At least, she kept telling herself that.

  “Should we go in?” Nolan asked.

  “It’s our home,” Chloe said. “Of course we should go in.”

  Nolan scanned the street. “That’s Mrs. Collin’s car. It was parked outside Fuller’s when we left.” He pointed at three houses up the road. “What the hell is it doing here?”

  Chloe inhaled, scanned the neighborhood. “I don’t know, Nolan. I don’t know. But we should get in before neighbors see us or the Jeep. I don’t want to be bothered. We need ten minutes of silence and safety among us to get our bearings—”

  “There’s no such thing as safety.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes. “Let’s get inside—”

  “What’s that?” Nolan said. There was a movement in the corner of the garage.

  Chloe grabbed Nolan’s knee. “How many rounds do you have left in your Glock?”

  Nolan ejected the gun’s clip, examined the marker on the side. “Five.”

  “Shit,” Chloe said. “That’s all?”

  “Mhm.”

  Chloe examined her own gun next. “I’ve got three.”

  Nolan turned around to Max, said: “Can you wait here for a minute, big guy? Can you be good?”

  Max yawned and nodded.

  “What are you doing?” Chloe asked.

  “Making sure it’s safe to go in.” Nolan opened the passenger door, hopped out, and walked toward the garage.

  As he drew closer to his home, he could hear the figure rustling back and forth.

  “Hey,” Nolan said. “We got a problem?”

  The figure shambled out of the darkened corner of the garage. It grinned and said: “Oh, yeah. We’ve got a big fucking problem, my man.”

  It was Sergeant Fuller. He stood with a hunch. His clothes were soaked with blood. Some of his teeth were missing, the ones that remained were gnarled. His left eye was yellowed, sunken. His right eye was pulpy, the flesh around it engorged and puffy. A thick, viscous tar oozed from the massive crack along the top of his head.

  “I killed you,” Nolan said. “You were dead.”

  “Not dead enough,” Fuller said, and he laughed. “Lot of that going around lately, huh? Woke up in my basement, saw that my two best friends had left me, blacked out, and found myself here. Crazy world, right?”

  “You’re done, sarge,” Nolan said. “Have you looked at yourself?”

  “Caught a glimpse of my face on the drive in, sure. Does it look infected?” Fuller laughed, plunged his right index finger deep into the squishy, gooey matter that was once a right eyeball. “This EV1 shit is great, Nole, you should try it sometime. I can’t feel a fuckin’ thing.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Nolan said. “I was really looking forward to you feeling it when I beat you to death for the second time today.” He tossed his Glock onto the floor of the garage. “Bullets are a precious commodity.”

  “Ah, a little one on one with my man Nolan?” Fuller grinned, held his hands up in tightly balled fists.

  Nolan took two steps to the left, grabbed an aluminum baseball bat that was leaned against the side of the garage. He clutched it firmly in his palm, thought of the last time it’d been used—over the summer, playing softball with Jim and Chloe in the backyard—then took two steps back.

  “Where you goin’, Nole?” Fuller said, and he stepped out of the shadows.

  Nolan smiled, took two more steps back. He was standing in the driveway, now.

  “Come on, Nole, let’s have a fair fight.” Fuller looked down the street at Chloe, made eye contact with her through the windshield, and smiled and waved. “You want her to come out here and fight for you? From what I hear, that’s something she’s used to.”

  Nolan didn’t say a word, took two more steps back.

  “Come on, come on, come on. Where are you going, slugger? You running?” Fuller cackled. When he did, he coughed up three loose teeth. They hit the pavement of the driveway with a clatter.

  Nolan took two more big steps backward, then stopped.

  “Is this where you wanna do it then, my man?” Fuller asked.

  Nolan grinned. “I didn’t want you dirtying the floor of my garage.” He reeled the bat tightly around his back, then let it fly. It connected to the left side of Fuller’s head, and the sergeant went tumbling toward the street in front of the Whiteman residence.

  Fuller fell to the ground, then scrambled back up to his feet. “Good one, Nole, but I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t feel a single thing—”

  Nolan wound back a second time and smashed the baseball bat atop Fuller’s head. The tip of the bat connected to the crack in his skull from earlier, and the divide atop his cranium grew wider.

  Fuller fell to his knees, coughed up a quart of blood. “That all you got, pussy?”

  Nolan wound back the bat one more time, and Fuller whispered: “You’d be doing me the favor.”

  “I’m doing us all one,” Nolan said, and the bat flew downward, a bolt of lighting. It glided through layers of skull and brain. A small explosion of flesh and blood blew out from either side of Fuller’s head, and the sergeant collapsed onto the street. Nolan bashed and bashed and bashed until he realized he was no longer hitting Fuller’s head, but the blacktop beneath it. There was nothing left to hit. From Fuller’s neck on up was no longer a head but rather some pile of rotten loose meat, soft and mushy, covered in black slime. The tip of the bat had actually dented from how many times Nolan smashed it into the pavement.

  Nolan stood up, chest heaving. He looked back at the Jeep. Chloe sat in the driver’s seat, utterly shocked.

  And then there was Max. Max had watched the entire episode unfold from the comfort of his booster seat. His eyes were wide and still, he didn’t make a move. He had witnessed something he was never supposed to witness, something he would never understand.

  Nolan tossed the bat onto the lawn and said, flatly, “Well, come on now. Let’s get inside already.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Nolan entered the kitchen of the Whiteman home, first. Chloe followed close behind, carried a scared and crying Max against her shoulder. She set him down on the living room sofa, told him to stay there and be good for a little bit while the grownups talked.

  “I would kill for a hot shower,” Nolan said, and he tapped the faucet in the kitchen sink. A plop of brown sludge ejected from the faucet, hit the sink with a thwack. A trickle of dirty, brown water followed behind it, and then the flow of water stopped.

  “Are you okay?” Chloe asked, pointedly. She said it in a whisper, quiet enough so that Max couldn’t hear, but it still startled Nolan.

  “Of course I’m okay,” Nolan said, and he let out a terrible little laugh. “What’s there to not be okay about? The world ending?”

  Chloe crossed her arms. “Do you even realize how many people you’ve killed in the past twelve hours? Both living and dead?”

  “I killed Fuller twice. So how do I figure him into my calculations?” Nolan smiled, pretended to count on his fingers.

  “I’m being serious, Nole,” Chloe said. “In East Violet, you completely checked out. You were helpless. You’re on the other end of the spectrum today.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed,” Nolan mumbled. “Maybe I see, now, what has to be done at times like these.”

  Chloe cupped her hand over Nolan’s face. “I don’t want you to change. I want you to always be my doe eyed, sweet, Nolan.”

  Nolan stepped back. “When you’re carrying all the weight, you’re unhappy. When I step up to the mound, you’re unhappy. Christ, Chloe, it’s ridiculous—”

  “I’ve never been unhappy with you,” Chloe pouted. She stepped forward, combed her dirty fingers through his hair. “Just don’t get lost in all of this. Please. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  Nolan
shook his head. “You’re not going to lose me. We’re wasting too much time even talking about this. There’s more important issues at hand.”

  “Such as?”

  Nolan pointed across the kitchen at the toddler seated in the living room. “That.”

  “God, Nolan, what’s there even left to discus about him?” Chloe asked.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, something severely fucked up is happening this time around. I’m sorry to bring him up, but it’s how your father was. It’s how Mrs. Collins was. It’s how Hannah’s mom was, and just now it’s how Sergeant Fuller was. The infected aren’t just content with shambling around mindlessly. They were easy to deal with, then. This is new. They’re half gone and half still here. One second they’re talking to you about the weather—as if the world isn’t ending all around us—and the next they’re trying to filet the skin from your face—”

  “Where are you going with this?” Chloe interrupted.

  “I want to help him. I want to help that poor little kid. But he spent who knows how many hours locked in that town home with Hannah’s mother. What if it’s inside of him, idling? What if he turns at any moment?”

  Chloe stomped. “Don’t be ridiculous. Every one we’ve came across had been bit, had been infected. He’s a healthy little boy, alone and scared in the world—”

  “We don’t know if it’s inside of him,” Nolan said.

  Chloe raised her hands. “I could say the same about you! How much blood did you get on your hands when you were beating Fuller to a pulp out there? Do you have any open cuts on your arms?”

  Nolan leaned against the refrigerator, looked down at the floor.

  “What else do you suggest we do, Nolan? Leave him in a basket in front of the fire house? There’s no one left. We’re all he has. He’s staying with us, and that’s the end of the discussion.”

  The kitchen lights flickered off, then on, then off again.

  “Five minutes,” Chloe said. “All I wanted was five fucking minutes to sit in this living room and appreciate what I hold most dearly in this miserable life. And now—now—the power decides to give. Please, get that letter my father left you. If there’s anything in it that can help us—anything at all—now’s the freaking time for it.”

  Nolan strode out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the bedroom he shared with Chloe. He rifled through his nightstand, plucked out the letter Jim had left him, and walked back to the kitchen with it clasped between his hands. He tore the end of the envelope open, and gave the letter a wiggle. A heavy, bronze key slid out of the envelope and into his palm.

  Chloe was handing Max the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d so carefully prepared for him when she noticed that Nolan had returned, and was holding a key. She asked, “Is that it? Is there anything else?”

  Nolan wedged a finger into the envelope and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He opened the letter, stared at it for a moment, and shook his head in confusion.

  “Well?” Chloe asked, impatiently.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Nolan said. “It’s just a bunch of numbers.”

  Chloe grabbed the letter from Nolan’s hand and looked it over herself. For the first time all day, a smile crept across her face.

  “These aren’t just numbers,” Chloe said, and her eyes widened. “They’re coordinates.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Chloe yanked her cellphone from her sweat pants pocket. She opened up a GPS app on her phone and carefully punched in the coordinates. A loading icon appeared, spun slowly in place.

  “Where do they lead?” Nolan said.

  “I’m working on it,” Chloe said. “Service is slow.”

  The icon spun and spun and spun, then froze entirely. Chloe flicked the display of the phone out of frustration, and at last, a list of directions appeared on the screen.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Chloe said. “My map app is telling us to drive north on old state road thirty for an hour; then it says to turn left. But there’s nothing there but a few access roads, and then hills and trails. It leads right to the middle of no where.”

  “Are you sure you typed the numbers in correctly?” Nolan asked.

  Chloe held her phone side by side with the paper her father had left her. She stopped to admire his handwriting—the way he crossed his fours, the way he slashed his zeros. It was all so uniquely Jim. She felt a rush of sadness well from the pit of her stomach upward.

  “It’s correct,” Chloe said, and she sniffled. “It’s all typed in correct.” She pinched at the screen on her phone. The map zoomed out, and letters above the coordinates read: SEVEN LAKES STATE PARK.

  Chloe gasped. “It’s in the middle of the park,” she said. “There must be something important out there. Maybe some kind of shelter?” She studied the map on her phone even longer. “It’s far, far, far out there. Seven Lakes State Park is enormous, and the coordinates point to an area that’s literally in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere at the base of Mt. Tipoulk.”

  “Well then what are we waiting for?” Nolan said. “Let’s get as much as we can fit into the Jeep and go.”

  “Are you sure?” Chloe said. “It’s a hell of a drive and we don’t even know what’s out there.”

  “He wouldn’t have left a map for you,” Nolan said, “if there wasn’t a treasure chest where X marked the spot. We’re talking about Jim here. Your father. When he left me the letter, he mentioned not stockpiling supplies at the house because he didn’t want to worry us. He wanted us to feel like we were living normal, happy lives. Maybe he stockpiled something there. I’m willing to bet he did. We should go.”

  “Okay,” Chloe said, and she looked at the map one last time.

  Her cellphone screen went black. Her face withered to a frown.

  “What now?” Nolan said.

  “I just—I just lost all cellphone service,” Chloe said. “It’s gone. Check yours.”

  Nolan fumbled for his phone. He pulled it from his pocket. There was hardly any battery left, but it didn’t matter—he too was left without signal or connection.

  “Mine’s gone too,” Nolan said. “What do we do?”

  Chloe took a deep breath. “Dad kept old maps of the park in his bedroom. Stay here with Max. Maybe if we find one, we can figure out how to get there the old fashioned way.”

  Chloe hurried down the hall past the living room and into her father’s bedroom. When she opened the door, she almost gagged. The stench of rotting flesh was horrifying. Sherri lay in the middle of the bedroom in the same position as when Chloe had seen her last. But her skin had started to liquefy, a rapid decomposition caused by the EV1 virus eating away at what was left of her.

  Chloe pulled her shirt over her nose and mouth. Her eyes started to water and she thought that she might be sick. She walked toward the closet in the back of her father’s bedroom, careful not to accidentally step on Sherri.

  When she reached her father’s walk-in closet, she opened it hurriedly, then slammed the door shut tight behind her. She took a deep breath—the stench of Sherri was still very much present, but less pronounced in the sealed room.

  Chloe pushed past racks of her father’s clothes. She breathed deep—they smelled so unmistakably of Jim. In the corner of the closet, tucked between some storage bins, were a stack of maps. Chloe grabbed them, pressed her shirt back over her nose and mouth, and turned to leave the room.

  Before she left, she caught a glimpse of a jewelry box stuffed onto a shelf above Jim’s clothes. She reached up, grabbed it, and opened it. Inside was some loose change and a Timex Jim wore daily when he was a cop. Chloe smiled, pulled the Timex from the box, and wrapped it around her wrist. It was behind an hour or so, but that didn’t matter—she figured she’d set it later. Regardless of what the hour and minute hands read, it would always be a reminder of her dad.

  Chloe strode out of the master bedroom and shut the door behind her.

  “Don’t go in there,” Chloe said.

 
Nolan sniffled. “God, it smells awful even from out here.”

  Max wrinkled his nose. “What’s the bad smell?”

  “It’s nothing, sweety,” Chloe said.

  “I want to go home,” Max added, and he took a chomp out of his sandwhich.

  “I know you do,” Chloe said. “But your grandmother isn’t feeling very well right now and your mom—well—your mom is really busy at work, okay? So she asked me to watch you for a little while. Does that sound good?”

  Max shook his head. “When is she coming to get me?”

  Chloe crossed her arms, then looked to Nolan. Nolan shrugged—he didn’t know what to say, either.

  “I don’t know yet, Max,” Chloe said. “She’s very, very busy saving other little boys from trouble today. So in the meantime, you’re going to stay with me and Nolan—”

  “Nope,” Max said. “Nolan is a bad man.”

  Chloe shook her head. “No, no, no, Max. Nolan is good. So am I. I’m your mom’s friend, remember? We’ve met so many times. We’re good, and we’re going to take good care of you—”

  “Nolan hit that man in the face,” Max said.

  Chloe sighed. “Help me out here, Nolan.”

  Nolan walked towards the living room sofa. “I wish you hadn’t seen that, Max. I really do. But the man I hit was a bad man that was trying to hurt you and Chloe. I had to do a bad thing to stop something bad from happening. I know that doesn’t make sense to you. It won’t for a very long time. It hardly makes sense to me.”

  “Okay,” Max said. “Where we going?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Chloe said.

  Max clutched onto his stuffed animal. “But Mr. Burgie can come?”

  “Of course,” Chloe said, and she kissed him on the forehead. “Mr. Burgie can come.”

  Max was strapped safely into his booster seat in the backseat of the Jeep. Nolan hopped into the driver’s seat, started the vehicle. Chloe sat in the front passenger’s seat, stared out the window at the Whiteman family home.