by Megan Duncan
Chapter 3
I knew Max was up for my idea before we even told him. It took some time to get him into the front seat, and I had to move his injured leg for him and place it on the clutch. Max placed his hand on Carter’s shoulder, and I let them have some space; while I’m sure Max was vowing not to screw anything up, and Carter was being overly technical trying to tell Max what he needed to do.
Looking at the two of them you would never guess the two were best friends. Carter was six foot, super slender even though he ate like a pig, and a geek to his core; while Max was the tall, dark and brooding type. The captain of our high school’s football team, and until everything happened he was on track to join the Marines. When they were young, Carter saved Max from drowning at the public pool, and they have been inseparable ever since.
Carter and I crawled into the cars, and we gave each other a final glance before we started the engines. He was going to have to move the truck first, before I could move, because the front end of the beetle was wedged underneath the bed of the truck. As Carter started to pull away, he dragged me with him making a loud, screeching sound as the weak metal of the beetle scraped against the solid asphalt. He looked back at me, a flash of panic playing on his face and I saw him try to peer over at the birds on the hill.
Then we heard their low shrieks as the four birds formed together, and shot down the hillside toward us. I put the beetle in gear, and slammed my foot on the gas trying to pry myself free of the truck. My wheels spun sending white smoke flying behind me and the smell of burning rubber into the air. We were stuck, and I was starting to worry, knowing this was my bad idea.
I looked over to the Bronco, wondering if I should make a run for it when I saw Max signaling Carter. Max backed up and then began hurtling toward us, aiming the Bronco for the side of the truck. I braced myself for the impact as it came crashing into me. My very bones rattled from the impact, but I was uninjured.
Max then drove the Bronco into reverse, freeing us from the entanglement of metal; and Carter took off in the truck, squealing its tires. I shook off the shock of what had happened and moved the smashed up beetle as fast as it would go. When I’d made enough space, I jumped out and ran for the Bronco as hastily as I my legs would carry me. The sound of Carter yelling my name was nearly drowned out by the pounding of my heart in my chest. I looked at him as he pointed a handgun at me.
“Down!” he shouted.
I dropped to the pavement, scraping up my arms as I tried to break the fall and heard Carter let out four bullets, followed by the loud shriek of a demon bird and an explosion of black feathers. The beating of their huge wings was terrifying and I felt strong arms grab me by my shoulders and pull me up toward the back of the Bronco as the remnants of black feathers rained down on us.
“You okay?” Carter asked, giving me a quick look over, then shoot at a bird as it dove with dangerous velocity straight for us. “Get in the car!” he shouted.
I crawled in through the back window, and grabbed my shotgun as Carter jumped in the front seat. Max took off through the gap as fast as he could, clipping the side view mirror on another car, but we made it. Three of the birds followed after us, and I shot at them through the back window. After a few miles they gave up their pursuit.
“Holy crap!” Max cheered once we were sure they had gone. “That was damn close.”
“Too close,” I said. “We should probably stop soon, Max, and get you out of that driver’s seat. You need to rest that leg.”
“I’m fine,” he said as he waved me off.
“Next time will you go with my idea, Abby?” Carter asked as he turned around to face me.
“Hopefully, there won’t be a next time,” I said.
We decided that we would wait until after the next city to pull over for a break, not wanting to chance that the demon birds were still trailing us. Making it through the rest of the city was quicker than we had thought as the roads were more open, but the tall pine trees lining the streets seemed to loom eerily over us, draping our path in a shady haze.
It was afternoon now, but the sky was overcast and a light drizzle of rain started to fall. As we drove along lake Coeur D’Alene, I watched a fog roll in and silently prayed that the rest of the journey would go more smoothly. About twenty miles outside of Missoula we pulled off the road to go to the bathroom. I was still shook up from earlier, so I wasn’t too fond of the idea of going very far into the woods to pee. I decided on a nearby shrub not caring about privacy at the moment.
Walking back up the embankment, I saw Max leaning against the front of the Bronco. He had changed into a clean flannel shirt, and was cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his knife. I looked at him for a moment before approaching him, admiring how handsome he was.
“How’s the leg?” I asked, as I rested my back on the front of the Bronco beside him.
“Fine. You hungry?”
“Starving.” I hadn’t realized it until he had asked. “Let me see what we’ve got.”
I walked over to the back of the Bronco, and found some canned peaches and beef jerky. With three cans and a bag of jerky in hand, I walked back up to Max and deposited the items on the hood.
Max opened a can for me and one for himself and we both ate in silence, until Carter joined us.
“So I was thinking, there is a summer camp not far from here, we should hole up for the night there,” Carter said, while wiping peach syrup from his chin.
“You don’t think we should try to drive through the night?” I asked yanking a big chunk of jerky off with my teeth and handing it to Max.
“Yeah, I thought that was the plan,” Max added.
“It was, but after all the “action”,” he made air quotations with his fingers at that word, “We’ve seen today; I think it might do us some good to lay low for a little while.”
Max and I looked at each other, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“Look,” Carter said, as he pulled the map from his back pocket. He unfolded it and held it out for us to see, showing us where we were and where the camp was. Or, where he thought it was.
“Carter, what if it is not even there?” Max asked.
“It is! Trust me. I was supposed to go there my sophomore year, and be a camp counselor, but I failed shop class so my dad wouldn’t let me go.”
I held back a snicker and said, “Yeah, Mr. Brooks was a real jerk. He didn’t like you much.”
“I would have had straight A’s that year if it weren’t for him, but that doesn’t matter now. How are we on gas?”
“Um…” I ran back to the Bronco and turned the key, “A little more than a quarter tank.”
“That should get us there, but we’re going to have to get gas soon. You grabbed the hose, right Max?”
“Yeah, but if we’re going to be siphoning gas often, I say we take turns,” Max said, as he tossed his empty can of peaches into the brush.
“Fine with me,” I said, hopping into the driver’s seat.
“You say that now, but you have no idea how terrible gasoline tastes,” Max replied.
“And you do?” I quipped.
He simply winked at me in response, which only made me smirk.
We drove on quietly, as a light summer rain pelted the Bronco. I was starting to think this whole thing was a bad idea, and I was sure everyone else was too. What were we thinking? I was a magnet for trouble, and Carter was all brains and no brawns, but Max, he could make it, I thought. He was tough and strong, but I knew the responsibility of taking care of Carter and me, must be weighing on him.
I stole glances at him as I drove down the highway. He sat silently, surveying the landscape making comments about a particular wrecked vehicle or the amount of garbage that littered the streets. I never said anything, feeling that the comments were more of him just thinking aloud to distract himself from what was really on his mind.
Carter sprawled out in the back seat, well, as much as a six foot person could sprawl out in a back seat. H
e had read through his book multiple times, asking for our opinion occasionally, but was now drifting off to sleep with the book resting tightly in his grasp.
“Do you really think there are people still in New Mexico?” I blurted out to Max without even thinking.
After a long pause he said, “I have to, Abs, if we can’t believe in that, then what are we even doing?”
“It’s hard for me to believe in anything anymore,” I said, as I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
“Listen, Abby, you’re too hard on yourself. I think you’re a lot tougher then you realize. You were raised by two men, a retired Marine and your big brother. You’re a tough cookie, and a bit of a tomboy,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I hated being reminded of it. Being a tomboy was always the kiss of death in my relationships. It was comforting to know that Max thought I was tough, but little did he realize that it was all a charade because I was too afraid to let anyone know how sensitive I really was.
“I don’t know how you were friends with that Heather girl, she was a little Princess, that one,” he said scornfully.
“Me? You dated her Max,” I said playfully.
“Yeah, well only for like three weeks, and besides, she tricked me. I didn’t really like her to begin with.”
“How does someone trick you into dating them? Did she tell you she knew the secret to winning the state championship or something?” I smiled at him.
“Something like that, yeah,” he said. I watched him scratch at his growing beard, and wondered what would have been.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“What makes you think I am thinking something?”
“You’re always thinking something, Abs.”
“I was thinking about Prom,” I said, eyeing him, waiting for him to start laughing.
“What?”
“No witty reply to that one?” I was actually quite shocked. All my life Max had teased me every chance he got, and now in the middle of a demon apocalypse, I was thinking about the Prom, and he had nothing to say about it.
“Ya know, Abs…” he said slowly, “I was actually thinking I was going to ask you to Prom.”
My heart started pounding in my chest, and I realized I hadn’t said anything when I heard Max say, “Hello, Abby, anybody home?”
“Sorry.”
“So, that bad, eh? Next time a guy tells you he wanted to ask you out, you might want to let him down a little easier,” he said almost amused.
“No… I… uh,” I started stuttering not knowing what to say. I wanted to tell him how I felt, that I thought he was the hottest thing on earth, but when it came to men, at least sexy men, I was a total wimp.
Max started to laugh, and when he looked ahead his face fell. “Abby, stop the car!” he shouted. “Stop the car, stop the car!” he repeated quickly.
“What?” As I said it I saw what he was seeing, and I slammed on the brakes. Just around a bend in the road, about a hundred yards ahead of us, a minivan was flipped over, but that wasn’t the worst part. Three birds were pecking at a body on the street, and they just moved their attention toward us.
“What should we do?” I asked, as I watched one of the birds jump to the top of the van to get a better view of us.
“I don’t know. Carter, wake up, man. Wake up!”
Carter bolted awake in a sudden flourish. He was about to start shouting, but I clamped my hand down on his mouth and pointed out the windshield. When he nodded his recognition I released my hand.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked Carter.
“Maybe we should just drive through them?” Max offered. “I mean we can’t exactly go back.”
I turned around in the driver’s seat, and watched the birds as Max and Carter tried to figure out what we should do. It seemed to me that at the moment, the bird’s feast was more important, so that bought us some time. As I watched them something caught my eye, a movement. Not made by the birds, but by someone or something inside the van.
“Carter,” I said as loudly as I could, but he didn’t hear me because he was in a debate with Max about what we should do. Carter wanted to turn back, and Max thought we should just put our foot on the gas and barrel through them. I thought that was a damn good idea, but with what I had to say, there might be a change of plans.
“Carter!” I grabbed him on the shoulder, and waved my hand in front of his face to get his attention.
“What, Abby?” he said annoyed, and when he saw my reaction he immediately softened.
“Tell me what you see inside that van.”
Carter leaned over the front seat and rested his hands on the dashboard. He squinted hard and I silently watched him as a drop of sweat rolled down his temple.
“Holy shit,” he said as his mouth dropped.
“What?” Max asked. “What do you see?”
“There is someone inside of that van,” I said. When his face still looked confused I added, “alive.” Max’s eyes opened wide, and he quickly pushed Carter aside to have a look for himself.
“Well, we gotta get them,” Max said.
That being his first reaction made my feelings for him grow. He was so much like my father. Everything I respected in a man; brave, honorable and selfless. He always wanted to play the hero no matter what the risk.
“What, are you crazy?” Carter said. “That might not even be a person, it could be a demon bird inside that van, or it could be something else. You really want to take that risk?”
“Carter, you said yourself that the whole point of this trip was to kill every damn demon we saw, well I see three right there!” Max said, pointing his finger out the windshield.
“So do I,” I added for good measure.
After a short pause Carter gave in to our reasoning. “You’re right,” Carter admitted while dropping back into the seat. “What do you think we should do?”
I watched him sit there for a moment, all our minds reeling, trying to figure out what to do. Carter picked at the little crocodile emblem on his polo shirt, while Max rifled through what weapons we had and mumbled about how much ammo was left.
“I think we should stick with Max’s idea,” I said trying to convey as much confidence as I could, even though I was starting to feel the fear creep in. “I say we haul ass to that van, and we each unload on a bird. There are three of us and three of them. Sounds pretty damn even to me. If there really is someone inside that van, we take them with us.”
~
