by Mark Mathews
“Well, I don’t know. According to what those two women said, it’s not a great place to be right now.” He sighed and put his head in his hands for a moment before looking back at everyone. “But then again, I’m not sure if we can trust them right now. It could be worth a shot anyway, but I just don’t know.” Tom was trying to make himself look better, so he went along with what Emily wanted.
“I think we should listen to her. Maybe the Great Lakes are a good idea, and maybe they aren’t, but the truth is we’ll never know unless we go there, and if we go there, Emily will get to see something she’s never seen before. I’m okay with heading towards the lakes.” Sarah was impressed. Emily had persuaded both men to change their minds in five minutes flat. She wasn’t quite sure what the power was that the little girl held over them, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. She still had that feeling pulling her towards the lakes, and try as she might, she just couldn’t explain it.
“Alright. Let’s shoot for this little town here and maybe we can get some more supplies. A car or some bikes would be nice, too, but we’ll take what we can get.” Wade was pointing to a dot on the map. It said Sicklerville. The town was about twenty miles away from where they were, and it was a start in the right direction at least. Now that they had their heading, Sarah tried to calm down a little more. She would need all the energy she had to walk that twenty miles. Something told her she might have to carry Emily with her at some point.
The miles were slipping away, albeit slowly, and the heat was bearing down on them in a way that was draining them all. It was easier not to talk, so they all were plodding along silently, like a herd of cattle that were being led to new grazing lands. It didn’t take long for Emily to be riding piggy back on Wade. Sarah had been so tired that she hadn’t even noticed. She felt awful because she still felt like she was responsible for Emily, and so she should be the one carrying the little girl. If she would have known, she would have picked her up immediately. As it was, part of her was happy Wade had taken her, because she was struggling to make it down the road by herself. The heat shimmered on the pavement, and it made Sarah wonder if mirages only could happen in the desert.
Time went by so slowly, but even the longest journey had to end, and eventually, the outline of the town came into view. Sarah felt a second wind come and lift her up. Her feet started to walk faster, and it was almost as if they were walking of their own accord, just dragging her body along behind them. Suddenly, Sarah stopped. She wasn’t sure if it was another mirage, but it looked like this little town still was populated.
“Wade! Come here and look! People are still in the town. How can that be? It’s so much smaller than even your town. People can’t still be living there, can they? Am I imagining things?” Wade came up next to her and looked. No, she was right. There were people going about their business as if nothing had happened.
“Let’s get into the trees and watch them for a while.” That was the best way to handle it. Observing these people might tell them if the stories the girls had told them were true, or if they just had been trying to discourage them from coming this way. Everyone was on the alert as they watched a group of children running around chasing each other. They didn’t seem too bothered by anything that was going on, and watching the adults made them think that they had no reason to do so. A man was drawing water from a well, one woman was weeding a small garden, and another was washing clothes in a tub that looked like it just had been used to bathe some of the kids. They seemed to be reverting back to the olden days and doing a great job at it. Sarah was amazed. If only their town could do that, she never would have had to leave. It seemed as though the people genuinely liked each other, too. She had to stop herself from scoffing out loud. That was something that wouldn’t have happened in her town. People there only trusted each other as far as they could throw them.
A couple of men were standing together in a group, talking, and it really did look like business as usual. Except there were no cars, and no signs of anything electric. A man had a tackle box in his hand and a group of three young boys was following him with fishing poles and big smiles on their faces, talking excitedly. It warmed Sarah’s heart. This was what she would have wanted her ex to do with their son, if they’d ever been able to agree on having children. She had to build up her wall again. Thinking about her ex wasn’t going to help anything, and reflecting on the fact she’d never had children definitely was not going to help anything. She hugged Emily to her, now that she was off of Wade’s shoulders, and considered herself lucky that she had found the girl.
“Well, everyone looks like they’re doing fine. Let’s go join them. If they have such a stable community here, then why should we go anywhere else?” Tom was very eager to join them, and even though it looked alright, both Wade’s and Sarah’s police instincts were telling them it wasn’t such a good idea.
“Tom, it may look like they’re doing fine, but we have no guarantee of that. I have a feeling deep in my gut that’s telling me something just isn’t right.” Wade couldn’t explain exactly what it was, but Sarah was nodding along with him. She agreed. Something was just…off.
“If you can’t tell me why we shouldn’t go, then maybe I’ll just go by myself.” Tom’s anger was near the surface, and that meant he might do something rash and stupid, but Wade had it under control.
“We’re going to do a little more recon on the town before we expose ourselves. This time, how about you listen to us instead of just causing us more trouble?” Wade’s voice was stern, and it cowed Tom enough to make him listen and hang back with them as they went deeper into the foliage to spy.
“But they seem like nice people.” Tom wasn’t going to let it go.
“How about this? We’ll stay hidden until it gets dark, then one of us can investigate and see what’s going on in the town. Maybe we can get some supplies out of it, or some information, while the others stay here with Emily. That’s a decent compromise, and I think both of you should agree to it.” Her eyes were flashing, and her energy was sparking. Both Tom and Wade backed away a little from her, but they thought she had a good idea.
“Alright. Let’s do that.” Tom was reluctant to agree, but it seemed as though Sarah actually had scared him. When night fell, they all were surprised to see the town was lit up with gas lamps and candles. It gave the streets a soft glow that seemed almost surreal. The little town had transformed into a dreamscape of itself, and it seemed to be like a lure in some horror flick, calling to the people concealed in the bushes. The only thing that seemed wrong with the picture in front of them was there were no people milling around anymore. “I demand to be one of the people who goes into the town.” Tom was speaking up for the first time, and it seemed he might have a backbone after all.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, given your track record,” Sarah began, and Tom glared at her. She glared right back at him and he backed down.
“It’ll be alright. I’ll go with him. Just in case.” Sarah felt Emily trembling next to her and knew the little girl was scared. Maybe it would be better to let the men go into the town while she stayed behind with the child.
“I’m scared. I don’t think we should go anywhere near the town.” Sarah got chills down her spine now, and she remembered the day she’d met Emily. That crazy sixth sense of hers had saved Sarah’s life and now she thought Emily was seeing something again that she refused to say. It was too late now to call back to the men and warn them. Sarah was lost in thought about the day she’d met Emily…
Sarah just had left her house to try finding some more supplies, ranging farther than she had in a long time because the neighbors’ places already were picked clean. She had a pistol with her, and she was heading toward the worst part of town, when she heard a noise. Not sure what it was, she started heading toward it when a little girl popped up out of nowhere.
“Stop! Don’t go in there! You won’t make it out alive.” Sarah had been scared of the girl’s words, but she’d had no reason to believe h
er. She’d taken a few more steps toward the noise, but the girl had grabbed onto her arm and dragged her away. Before Sarah could ask her what was going on, she’d heard a scream that was cut short by the staccato sound of a gunshot. Sarah didn’t even think, she just grabbed the little girl and fought her way into the closest house to hide. She brought Emily up the stairs to a room that overlooked the street. She stashed the little girl on the bed, then crawled forward to the bay window to peek out from under the curtain at the street. She’d wanted to know what was going on, but the street refused to give her answers. After laying there for about a half an hour, Emily had spoken again.
“You won’t find them. They don’t come this way.”
“What are you talking about? How do you know all of this?” Emily had gone on to explain that she had a sort of sixth sense where danger was involved.
Sarah didn’t quite know if she believed it at the time, but ever since, she always had questioned the things she was planning on doing if Emily had any apprehensions. Now that she was saying the town wasn’t safe, Sarah wanted to find the men and bring them back here to where she knew it was safe. Unfortunately, it was too late now, and all she could do was sit there with Emily and hope that they made it back in one piece. Emily didn’t always have the details of what exactly was causing her to sense the danger, so there wasn’t something they could prepare for. It was just an overwhelming sense of foreboding that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
“I hope they make it back okay. I don’t know what it is about this town, but I have a bad feeling about it.” Emily still was trembling, so Sarah knew the danger hadn’t passed.
“Is there anything you can tell me about it? Anything I can do to warn them?” As much as Sarah didn’t like Tom, she didn’t want anything to happen to the arrogant, useless, stuck-up youngster, either. Wade, she was sure, could take care of himself.
“No. I’m not getting anything specific, just a dark presence that means they might not make it.”
Chapter Nine
Wade and Tom were doing their best to slink down the streets. It was eerily quiet without the sounds of electronics buzzing around them. Wade thought back to the old Stephen King movie, Christine, the one about the car that possessed the boy working on it. It would go out on murder sprees in towns just like this. The soft glow was reminding him of nights out on the water when he was deep sea fishing with his father as a young boy. He’d always been afraid some sea monster would rise out of the waves and wrap its tentacles around him, pulling him deep into the ocean where no one could help him. Wade’s skin broke out in goosebumps, and a cold sweat began chilling him to the bone. Tom, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be affected at all. It was hard for them to squint through the gloom, but from what they could see, there was no bicycle shop and no specialty camping store to be found. Wade had been afraid of that, but seeing as it was a small town, it really wasn’t much of a surprise. If they had no tourism pull, then they wouldn’t have something like that in a two-horse town.
Wade was beginning to think he might know why this town was doing just fine after all of this. He’d passed three general stores and two farm equipment stores, like a tractor supply shop, leading him to believe this was a farming town. Granted, farmers still used electricity, but they were usually out in the middle of nowhere where it hardly worked anyway, and that meant that they would have had backups for everything they used. Three of the stores had been locked, but the fourth had a window that was busted out, with only some tarpaper hanging down over the opening. Wade thought that might be the best option for them, so he motioned for Tom to keep his mouth shut and follow.
For the first time since Wade had known Tom, he actually did as he was told. They found themselves in a dark store, with no lit lamps or any other source of light. The windows near the ceiling didn’t allow any light to penetrate them either, and whether that was because the glass was too thick and dirty, or whether the glow from the lamps outside was too weak, it didn’t help them at all. Wade dug around in his pocket and pulled out a glow stick that he’d found at the bar. Cracking it, he held it high over his head as he and Tom made their way up and down the aisles, looking for anything they could use.
With the window being busted like that, he was sure he wasn’t the first person to break into this particular store, and the shelves confirmed his thoughts. Most of them were bare, and his heart sank. He’d hoped to at least find some kind of food to carry out to the girls, but it looked as though all the food was pretty picked over. In the back, there was a storage area, and Tom helped him jimmy the lock until they could get in. There wasn’t much back there either, but he did find a few cans of ravioli and some canned fruits and vegetables. It looked like people didn’t want to eat healthy here unless they had to do so. Or, they ate healthy all the time, so there were tons more fruits and vegetables to choose from. Wade was by no means a vegetarian, but he would take what he could find and thank his lucky stars.
They got out of the store, continuing down the main street to see if there was anything else they could take with them, when they saw a barn that was well lit up, with a multitude of people milling around outside of it. Wade threw his arm out to stop Tom from walking, then pulled him back toward the coverage of the trees to hide. Tom fought him a little, but a low growl from Wade was enough warning to make him do as he was told. Tom remembered the trouble they’d had with the bikers, and he went willingly after that, because if anyone would have been hurt in that encounter, it would have been his fault. He didn’t want any blood on his conscience.
“Looks like there’s some kind of meeting going on in there. Maybe we should go check it out.” Tom’s voice betrayed his excitement. Wade knew Tom had been alone for a long time and just wanted more humans around him, but it wasn’t something he could justify.
“Let’s get out of here while our luck holds. We don’t know what kind of people these guys are, and if they’re not friendly, it’s better they don’t catch us stealing from them.” Wade tried pulling Tom along behind him, but he was stubborn. Tom twisted and wrenched himself out of Wade’s grip. He started for the barn. Wade swore under his breath. Now that Tom was going rogue, Wade had no choice but to go after him and try keeping his ass out of trouble. He felt more like he was babysitting than doing something to help his group. He wondered if he should have stayed behind with Emily instead. She didn’t seem to give anyone any trouble at all. Thinking about Emily and Sarah made him wonder if they were okay. He didn’t think there would be a search party out there looking, because they had been pretty stealthy when they’d snuck up on the town, but he just couldn’t be sure.
Wade and Tom drew closer to the barn, and when they could hear voices, they had their suspicions confirmed that some sort of a meeting was indeed going on. Wade could tell by the posture of the men out front that they were on guard duty. Something might be going on beyond just a friendly town meeting, but they still were too far away to hear the words clearly.
“Tom, I don’t think we should be going in there. Those men outside are guards. This isn’t just a town council meeting. There’s no reason to have guards at a town council meeting. I think we need to get the hell out of here.” Tom didn’t budge. He had a different opinion, of course.
“I bet if I were to walk in there, no one even would know I wasn’t part of the town. I think I want to try it.” Tom made a move to get out from under the cover of the trees, and Wade yanked him back sharply. Tom stumbled a little, but didn’t go down.
Before Wade could do anything else to stop him, Tom set his plan into motion, breaking out of the darkness and walking toward the barn with his head held high and his shoulders squared. Wade only could offer up a little prayer that everything would be alright. Tom drew even with the guards, and Wade held his breath. This would be the first test. He was stunned to see, however, that the guards didn’t stop him at all. Thankfully, Tom had enough common sense not to turn around and wink in Wade’s direction. Not that Wade wo
uld have credited him with that much sense.
Meanwhile, back in the hiding place, Emily now was rocking back and forth, repeating over and over that they needed to leave this place. It wasn’t so bad at first, but now Sarah was scared. As often as Emily was repeating it, it was starting to get under her skin, and it was winding her nerves tighter and tighter until at last she had had enough.
“Emily, we need to go and find them so we can get out of here. Can you hold it together and come with me to find them?” The little girl’s teeth were chattering in fear, and it was enough to break Sarah’s heart, but she wasn’t going to let Emily out of her sight. Not after what had happened at the hotel where she’d almost lost her.
Emily didn’t answer Sarah, but she got up and took her hand, doing her best to stay quiet. Sarah took Emily and led her into the town toward the section of Main Street that she’d watched the men disappear down. The two of them were soon under the gas lights and candles, looking around them and thinking much the same things as Wade had. That this town looked like it was something straight out of a horror movie. Emily grabbed Sarah’s hand tighter, and Sarah was relieved, because it gave her an excuse to hold on to the little girl even tighter. She was afraid, too, but since she was the adult, it was up to her to make sure they got out of this okay. They passed empty houses and locked stores, and Sarah did her best to look for clues in the dim light of where Wade and Tom had gone. The store with the broken window caught her attention, and she slipped inside for a cursory check. Nothing. The two of them continued down the street, and when they saw the barn, Sarah and Emily quickly dove behind the trees.
Wade had left the cover of the trees, and had circled around the barn at a safe distance so he could look through a window at the back. There was a man standing behind a rough hewn podium that looked like it had been dragged in from a high school assembly room. He was wearing a checkered shirt and faded jeans, and he embodied the look of a classic farmer. More gas lights lit the barn’s interior, and he could see a lot of the people in the crowd holding candles in glass jars. He searched the faces he could see until he found Tom. He was sitting in the crowd, nonchalantly, looking for all the world like he belonged there. Unfortunately, Wade still was pretty good at reading people’s facial expressions, and the people sitting around him all had secretive little smirks. Then it hit him that they all knew Tom was sitting there with them, and that they knew he wasn’t one of them. Something bad was going to happen, Wade just knew it. Right now he had no way of getting Tom out of there safely, and he couldn’t even signal to him.
