Kevin pauses, eyeing Scott. “I guess you found someone.”
Joel glances into that back seat. “Oh. Yeah.”
Kevin sighs raggedly, firing up the Chevy. “All right.”
No one says anything then, and the only sounds are weeping and tires on asphalt.
Chapter 17
The downtown Fort Collins library, southeast of Old Town on Peterson, is the oldest and largest library in town, and right now its mass of accumulated knowledge means almost nothing. Its books sit forlorn on the shelves. Instead, the library is the focal point of two groups of rattled survivors at the end of the world.
Joel rumbles the Hummer effortlessly over a curb and tears up the recently manicured grass, heading toward the front entrance. Kevin’s truck bounces onto the lawn behind them. Two vehicles are already parked next to the entrance, and there are faces in the dark glass of the library’s front sliding door. There’s no activity on the expansive lawns surrounding the library, but Michael knows it won’t be long before those damn things sense them and begin approaching.
The Hummer lurches to a stop, and Joel twists off the ignition. Just as he does so, the sky lets loose with another atmospheric roar, and everyone flinches, craning their necks to stare out their windows, up into the mottled sky, until the sound rumbles out into a strange crackling. Through his window, Michael notices a subtle red brightening in the sky to the west, above the smoke, above the blocky corner of the library roof. For a fleeting moment, it looks like great sheets of blood cascading down from the heavens. And then it’s only dark clouds and smoke.
Michael shakes his head, hoping against hope that these things he’s seeing are merely products of his imagination.
Then everyone is moving again.
“Let’s go,” Joel says.
Rachel is still curled up, crying over the loss of Danny. She can’t seem to stop the sobs. Michael touches her shoulder, briefly, and she flinches, lifting her wet-eyed gaze.
“Those goddamn fucking things!” she screeches. Her face is filled with red-streaked anger. “Why? Why are they doing this?”
Michael opens his door, jumps down from the Hummer to the ground, and goes straight to the rear passenger door. Scott is already out of the vehicle, pushing roughly past Michael, and jog-limping toward the library’s front sliding doors.
“Come on, Rach,” Michael says as gently as he can, taking her by the upper arm and urging her out. She comes as if reluctant, shrugging him off, embarrassed of her tears.
Michael’s eyes dart everywhere as he leads Rachel toward the library. Kevin, carrying the large cardboard box in his arms, shuffles in their direction. Bonnie is right ahead of him, along with the girls; they’re all carrying empty, blood-smeared Super Soakers, and—to Michael’s surprise—several units of plasma.
“Do you need help?” he calls to the women.
“We got it,” Bonnie says miserably. “This is the lot of it.”
“Come on, come on!” Joel calls from the doors. “Before they see us!”
They’re a ragged crew, slogging the short distance across the concrete sidewalk. Michael nods to Kevin as they come abreast of each other, and the big man gives Rachel a double-take, no doubt never having seen the young woman so vulnerable. He glances at Michael, then moves ahead and through the open doorway. When Bonnie catches sight of Rachel in distress, a new energy quickens her step.
“Rachel, dear!” Bonnie cries. “What—”
“It’s the boy,” Michael breathes, urging the kind woman forward.
“Oh my,” Bonnie whispers, ducking her head and continuing on.
They reach the doors and hurry inside. Immediately, Michael feels relief as the relative cool of the indoors wafts against his face. And there’s the somehow extremely clean, welcome scent of books—quite a contrast to the intensifying summer heat and smoke outside.
The library’s lobby is dotted with people watching them enter—in all, there are only six new people in addition to the hospital crew, about fifteen in all. Two unfamiliar men—one heavyset and middle-aged, the other hale and hearty, in his thirties—are poised on either side of the sliding doors, ready to shove them closed.
Joel is talking wearily but alertly with a young man near one of the check-out kiosks, and Michael knows this must be Ron, whom Joel has been in touch with over the radio. Ron is a lanky, tall man with poor posture. Bookish. Steel-rimmed glasses over a narrow nose. He has a certain low-key intensity to him, like a first-year teacher, maybe. Michael automatically associates him with the college, although he probably just ended up there by chance.
Michael helps Rachel to one of the vinyl benches lining the room. His daughter’s breathing com in sharp hitches, but her sobs are gradually subsiding, giving way to a trembling anger. She appears on the verge of lashing out.
Suddenly Bonnie, minus her burden, is sitting next to Rachel, petting her forearm.
“Poor girl.”
“Crazy out there,” Michael murmurs.
Bonnie just shakes her head, watching Rachel.
For the first time, Michael notices that Bonnie is also covered with patches of both tacky and dried blood. He finds the three young women across the room—Chrissy, looking small and fragile, and the athletic twins, breathing heavily still. They’re hanging off each other, still trembling, tears and dark astonishment in their eyes. Their limbs, particularly their forearms, are painted with blood.
“Hard to know what might happen next,” Bonnie whispers, tears threatening her voice.
Michael turns to the older woman, finds her eyes shiny, and then she’s leaning toward him and pulling him into a trembling embrace. He lets one arm return the gesture, leaving the other reassuringly on Rachel’s thigh. And Michael is stunned to feel a cough of emotion coming up out of his throat and hot tears of his own stinging his eyes. His chest convulses helplessly. He lets his eyes close, and—
—she feels just like Cassie, long before disease claimed her, long before their daughter morphed from angelic child to surly teen, long before his career turned from professional to criminal, and for a moment all the ensuing years dissolve, and this ridiculous, horrific reality is just a strange nightmare, and they’re a family again—
—he clears his throat, shakes his head, pushes away from the embrace.
Because flashing behind his closed lids is the image of Susanna, urgent, as if shouting at him, and as he returns to the present, the recollection of her corpse on their bed is vivid, too vivid, and wrong, and yet all his questions about that, all his stunned grief—it all feels like it’s on hold while he deals with this preposterous reality he’s found himself in.
He realizes that Joel is speaking.
“Obviously things have gotten out of hand, so we need to establish a stronghold here in a hurry—that is, unless anyone can think of a better location. I’m open to ideas, but they better be goddamn quick. And good. Because I’m not exactly thrilled by the prospect of going out there again.”
“I’m not going out there again,” Scott calls from the corner, where he appears to be hugging himself in an odd clutch.
“Figured,” Joel says. “Anyone else?”
“I’m with that guy,” says a young Asian woman near the checkout counter. She’s got her hip thrust forward jauntily, and she’s rubbing one eye with her knuckle as if to remove an eyelash.
Michael glances back at the front doors. The two men are still poised there, watching the immediate grounds. But Michael isn’t considering them; he’s focused on the glass of the doors and remembering the way the body on the Hummer pressed its head to the glass and distorted it …
“Uh,” Michael speaks up, “I don’t have an alternative in mind, but I’ll just point out that the perimeter of this library is dominated by glass. Big windows.”
“Right, I was just talking to Ron about that.” He gives the lanky fellow a nod. “These are very thick windows, even at the entrance. Heavy, reinforced double-pane panels. They look an inch thick to me. I know wha
t you saw out there, in the Hummer, I saw it too. But windshields are more like an eighth of an inch. I’m willing to bet we’re safe behind these panels, but like I said, I’m open to ideas.”
“Wait,” Ron speaks up. “What did you see?”
“Those things, whatever is in their heads?” Michael says. “It basically melted that glass and was eventually able to punch through.”
Bonnie stares at him in anguish.
“Jesus.” Ron says.
“Yeah.”
“What is it? Heat?”
“No, not heat,” Joel answers. “More like … radiation.”
The cop scans the room, and everyone stares back at him almost sullenly. It’s a scared, jumpy bunch, and they’re exhausted. These people are unwashed and grimy, their eyes sunken from stress and lack of sleep. And Michael would bet that most of them are suffering from shock.
“Okay,” Joel continues, “obviously those bodies out there have become much, much more aggressive than before. Everything is different now. We have to defend ourselves, and that means barricading this library—especially any entrances but also possibly these windows. Before we do anything else, I want to do a sweep of this whole damn place, check for open doors, check for any way inside those things might have. Seems to me we have a lot of opportunities as far as heavy shit for blocking entrances.”
He’s gesturing at the bookcases that surround them on all sides.
“So let’s spread out and make sure we’re okay—how about Ron’s team to the south end, upstairs and down, and the hospital crew can split up and take the north side? Most of all, check for bodies that are still in here. We found one unlocked employee door in the back, so who knows? Some employee probably came in early to do a little work. Check all offices and stock rooms, whatever, every room.”
He pauses, glances around, making sure everyone understands.
“Now, I’m told this building has a generator—”
“That’s right,” says a stocky man leaning against a large display of mystery novels. His face holds a naturally pinched expression beneath jet-black hair. “It’s on the roof.”
“We’ll get that in working order after we’re done, but barricading happens first. So let’s get to it, and then we’ll meet back here and get to know each other. Sound okay?”
There’s a general murmur of fatigued consent throughout the lobby.
“Good, let’s do it. I think we can make this work.” He points at the door guards. “See anything out there?”
“Surprisingly, no,” says the younger one on the right.
Joel thinks about that for a moment, then shakes out of it. “You two stay right there, keep an eye out. Do those doors lock?”
“There’s a key lock,” says the bigger, sweatier guy on the right. “Obviously we don’t have the key, but there’s also a security bar that I already dropped in place. That oughta do it.”
“All right, shout if you have a problem.”
“You got it.”
No one has moved out of the general area. They all still seem to be catching their breath. Michael has been so laser-focused on his daughter’s tears—she’s still snuffling, buried now against his shoulder—that he’s failed to recognize that two other women and a young man are also weeping. The young man, possibly a late teen, is part of Ron’s crew; the other two are Chrissy and Chloe. Michael sees hopelessness in their sodden gazes. And he catches sight of Scott again; he’s now squatting in that far corner, head down, cracking his knuckles.
Joel appears on the verge of blowing up, but he grits his teeth and releases a frustrated breath.
“Look,” he says, easing up but still intense, “if we don’t do this right now, chances are good we’re all going to die. You are going to die. Pretty horribly. Now come on, let’s pair up, right now. On your feet.”
Kevin stands up from his bench. He appears to have a moment of light-headedness and sways to his left, enough for a look of concern to make its way to Chrissy’s blood-streaked face, but he rights himself.
“Okay, who’s with me?”
Bonnie gives Rachel a squeeze, then Michael an encouraging glance, and wearily gets to her feet.
“We’ll take the south end over here,” Kevin says, and they walk off, Bonnie placing a hand on Kevin’s broad back.
“That’s the spirit,” Joel says. “Watch the windows, but don’t get too close. If you see anything threatening, give a shout.”
The rest of them get moving, with at least a modicum of purpose, and begin scattering through the building. Even Scott pairs off with someone—that young Asian woman from Ron’s group. As he leaves the room, he locks eyes with Michael, as if to communicate something, but then he’s gone. Michael frowns.
Then he nods at Joel, as if to say Gimme a minute, and Joel heads upstairs with Chrissy and the twins.
Rachel is breathing more evenly. Michael looks down on her, watches her face, which is still trembling as if with the effort of holding back emotion. Indeed, her grimy cheeks are striped with the paths of tears.
“You all right?” he asks softly.
“No.” The word comes out monotone, quick.
“Stupid question.”
Rachel tries a deep breath, but it falters and turns into a quavering exhale. “Let’s go, I need to stand up.”
“Okay.”
He gets to his feet and helps her up. She stands up straight, gives a sad, apologetic smile to the two men at the door who have been half-watching her, then finally manages the deep breath she wanted moments ago. Superfluously, she straightens the fabric of her bloodied shirt at her waist.
“All right,” she says. “Let’s go.”
Beyond the main checkout counter is the darkened multimedia area, but it’s wide open and obviously clear. Father and daughter move quickly beyond the racks of discs and tapes, entering the large children’s section.
An arm grabs his bicep. Rachel glances back, and at the sight of Scott, she can’t prevent a grimace from snarling her lip. She continues forward.
“Nice to see you, too,” Scott says out of the side of his mouth, letting go of Michael’s arm.
“What’s up?” Michael says, noting that the Asian woman is waiting behind him. She’s watching the back of his head curiously. Michael nods at her, and she returns the gesture and glances away.
Scott moves his gaze from Rachel to Michael. There’s something shifty there, and Michael curses inwardly, recognizing it.
Assholes even at the end of the world.
“See anything?” Michael asks.
“So you’re Rachel’s dad.”
“Name’s Michael.” Impulsively, he reaches out to shake Scott’s hand, and Scott—seemingly stunned—finally accepts it in a sweaty grip. Like Michael always told Rachel (and Michael’s mom told him), it’s best to meet assholes with kindness; they’re the ones who need it most.
Scott takes a breath, seems to shake himself out of something. “Yeah, I’m Scott. Glad you woke up. I know your daughter went through hell to find you.”
“Okay, Scott, thanks.” He lets Scott’s clammy hand go. “It’s good to be alive. I think.”
Scott makes an effort to give that an appreciative murmur of laughter. “Look, I didn’t mean to be a dick back there. I don’t even know how that happened. I’m not the bad guy here.” He combs his fingers—minutely trembling—through his unkempt red hair. “It’s just that cop, man. All I’m saying is don’t just fall in line behind Joel, okay? Watch that guy.”
“Glad we found you, too, looked like you were in some trouble there.”
“God, that was a mess.” He scratches behind his ear—another nervous gesture. “I lived not far from there. I ended up there when one of those fuckers unclamped from this giant tree near the street and started racing toward me. Goddamn thing. Like an animal. And once it saw me, it was all over. Suddenly a bunch of them were surrounding me. I’m just lucky that door was unlocked.”
“So you weren’t at the church long,” Michael s
ays, keeping an eye on Rachel, who is just about to turn a corner.
“Not long at all. I felt a little guilty—”
“Listen, we gotta check this place out, right? But let’s talk later, okay?”
Scott looks at him, and Michael can see some kind of pain in his eyes. “Sure. Yeah.”
Michael watches him go.
Huh.
Then he jogs to join Rachel. She’s walking one long aisle, letting her fingers pass gently along the books’ spines.
Broad windows surround them.
The bright daylight dazzles him. Not only that—the expanses of manicured green lawn, the rare glimpses of blue sky between gray scuds of smoke, the faces of familiar suburban homes directly north … the sight jars Michael into a weird reality shift, as if all the horrible shit that has happened in the past few days—the past few minutes!—has been a fever dream, and this quiet glimpse of near-normalcy is like a broken fever. Michael feels his breath catch with false relief.
He also notices with very real relief that his head is not gripped in a vice. He blinks exaggeratedly, at once relishing the sensation of apparent healing within his skull and taking in this brief peaceful moment with his daughter.
Rachel glances at him, sees that he’s alone.
He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her so devastated.
“Can I just curl up in here with these books?” she says. In any other situation, a mischievous smile might be lifting the corner of her mouth at this small joke, but right now, she just looks deadened.
Michael walks past two large tables of bright children’s books and stops at one of the windows. After his close call in the Hummer, he knows he won’t feel truly safe next to a piece of glass any time soon. He lets his gaze wander east and west, paying particular attention to the areas beneath the gigantic pines that dot the library lawns. The bark of several trees has clearly been assaulted; on one close tree, lines of blood mar the trunk from the damaged area all the way to the ground. He supposes the blood came from the injured mouth of whatever poor soul was attached there.
At least in the immediate vicinity, there are no reanimated bodies scurrying madly like mad spiders.
Blood Trilogy (Book 2): Draw Blood Page 17
