by John Everson
“We’re out of gas,” Rachel announced.
“Motherfucker!”
“Anders!”
“What? You think I want to go out there and get eaten alive again?”
She shook her head. “I’ll go this time.”
“No you won’t fuckin’ go. I’ve already got bites all over me. Fuckin’ flies are vicious as a witch.”
Rachel held her hands over Eric’s ears. “C’mon, he doesn’t need to hear that.”
He cocked his head. “Really, Rachel? There are fuckin’ swarms of flies out there that might be something out of the Old Testament, never mind the monster spiders that are spinning webs over everything they touch, and eating anything that moves. And we’re in the middle of trying to get the hell out of Dodge before we’ve all got spiders crawling out of our heads. And you think that it matters if I swear in front of him in the midst of all this? I don’t think it’s the cuss words he’s going to remember if we make it to the other side on this one. I really don’t.”
Anders snorted and put the car in drive, pulling up next to a gas pump. “These better be working,” he grumbled, and then looked at Rachel.
“Make sure you catch anything that gets in here,” he said. He tilted his head towards the backseat. “That goes for you too, loverboy.”
Anders got out of the car and a moment later they felt the gas tank door open and the tank cap drop on its tether to crack against the metal of the car body.
He started the pump running, and while the tank filled, he ran to the gas station and pushed the door open, stepping inside.
There was no attendant in the small station building.
“Might as well get something out of this,” he mumbled, and pulled a handful of Reeces and Nestle bars from the snack rack. Then he grabbed a Mountain Dew from behind the sliding door of the old refrigerator unit. For a moment, he considered just walking with the stuff, but then the voice of his mother whispered in the back of his head. Anders was sometimes an asshole, but he was no thief.
He was leaning over to set a $5 bill down on the counter by the cash register when he saw the familiar violet slash on the wall. Surrounding it, was a body of black, and eight, crookedly, poised legs.
Behind it, another slow moving, smallish spider. There were three more below that. All of them were walking up the wall, away from the floor.
Anders leaned on the counter and looked down to see where they were coming from.
And that’s how he found the attendant.
The boy looked young, but Anders couldn’t tell how young. He still wore the gray mechanic’s one-piece that was the uniform of station attendants everywhere but his face was hidden. The patch on the right breast pocket read Bob.
He could see the brown curls of a head of hair that the kid would have probably have killed to have retained twenty years from now…but Bob would never have that chance.
The boy’s face was covered with spiders. And Anders could see that when they moved and shifted and revealed some of the skin beneath, the spiders were sitting on welts. The afterlife of their poison kisses.
Bob had probably been dead awhile. His mouth hung open, and the pale tinge of his lips and tongue looked to be more blue than pink.
Anders picked his $5 back up and shoved it in his pocket. Fuck honesty; nobody was gonna be caring about balancing this station’s cash register anytime soon. He moved towards the door, sure that the SUV’s tank had to be full by now. He put his hand on the steel handle, but didn’t push it open. There was a steady drone in the air that was growing closer. He looked out past the gas tanks to the fly-specked sky, and saw the flash of a plane in the air. It was a smaller craft, a single-engine deal, flying pretty low. There were six other planes following it.
He’d seen the Blue Angels practicing many times—while he lived across the state line at the edge of Florida, he wasn’t that far from the air corridor a few miles outside of Mobile where they ran through their aero-acrobatic show every week. This reminded him of that, only these planes were different. They were propeller craft, and looked to be crop-dusting. A silver jet that looked like steam spewed out behind each of them. The vapor spread through the sky to drift down like a heavy cloud across the houses and trees of Passanattee.
Anders raised an eyebrow. That couldn’t be crop-dusting. No. The city—or more likely the county, since nobody seemed alive back downtown—must have finally put together an insecticide campaign.
“About fuckin’ time,” he murmured, and pushed through the door to run to the SUV. He pulled the gas nozzle out of the tank and quickly capped it. Rachel threw the door open for him as he turned from the pump, and he hoisted his way inside.
“Here, buddy,” he said, tossing Eric a candy bar. “Looks like the cavalry’s finally here.”
“Bug spray doesn’t work on these things,” Rachel said. “They tried it before.”
Anders slapped at two flies that had gotten in with him and after smashing them to the driver’s side window, he turned around to stare out the back window.
“Yeah, well I think whatever they’re using is working.” He pointed at the silver clouds that were settling across the house roofs just a few blocks behind them. The sky there was obviously cleared of the swarm.
“It does look like it’s working,” Terry agreed. Wherever the spray descended, the black dots of flies disappeared.
“There are still some people back there! And they’re alive,” Eric said.
It was true. Running down the main street they had just left, a half mile away, were two figures. A man in a red T-shirt and a woman in shorts and a white tank top. Another woman trailed behind them, carrying a child. Her long black hair trailed across her back as she ran, head bent, tucking her child into her shoulder. Ahead of them all, a dog ran. He was just a couple blocks from the barricade that Anders had just cleared.
They could hear the urgency of the dog’s barking inside the SUV, but the drone of the planes grew louder, and began to drown the animal out. The planes were overtaking the runners. Seconds later, the silver fog settled down around the mother and her child, and then it covered the woman and man. All three of them began staggering, as if they had been running for a very long time.
The mother fell. She dropped the blanket-covered baby to the street as she rolled across the asphalt.
The planes were almost overhead, but they could hear the poor woman screaming. It was a bloodcurdling noise, as if she were being burned alive.
The tank-top woman fell too. And then the red-shirt man’s gait began to grow strangely disjointed. He staggered and weaved across the yellow lines in the center of the street for a block or more before toppling.
“Start the car,” Terry said. The tone of his voice left no room for argument. “We need to go. Now.”
Anders nodded, and turned the key.
The dog’s barking suddenly became more frenzied.
The first fog of the pesticide hit the parking lot of the gas station as Anders shoved the gear shift to Drive.
“Mom, look at the dog,” Eric said. His voice sounded near tears. Rachel pulled him by the shoulders and forced his gaze away from looking out the back window.
“Don’t watch,” she said, and held him away. Behind them, growing smaller but still visible, the dog was twitching and spasming on the ground. The thrashing of its jerking legs and tail propelled it around and around in circles.
“That shit’s not just killing the bugs,” Anders said, pushing the gas pedal down. The buzzing of propellers overhead nearly drowned out his voice.
“There’s only one way to kill the bugs,” Terry said quietly.
“What?” Eric asked. His voice sounded tiny.
“Kill everything,” Terry said.
“Yeah, well, they have to catch us first,” Anders said. The SUV continued to accelerate. The tires slipped slightly as the two lanes suddenly veered left, and widened into four.
“Yippe-ki-yay, Mother-F—”
Rachel punched him, and c
ut off the “fucker”.
“Yeah!” Eric answered from the backseat. “Go, Dad!”
“Like a bat outta hell,” Anders said, and punched the gas again. The SUV lurched forward and the sound of the death planes faded.
At least for now, they had raced death…and won.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Wednesday, May 22. 8: 46 a.m.
His entire body burned. He was swelling up; he could feel the way his T-shirt had drawn tight across his biceps. The skin just above the waistline of his jeans felt like fire. He was dying to let go of the wheel and use both hands to itch the hell out of his back and thighs and ass. He wanted to, but didn’t dare take his hands off the wheel. Once he began touching the bites…he’d never stop. And right now, they didn’t dare slow down. He had to drive them out of range of those pesticide planes.
“Hey, Crocodile Dundee,” he said.
Terry leaned forward. “Yeah?”
“How long do I got?”
“As long as any of us?” Terry asked.
“Fuck that shit,” Anders said. “Give it to me straight.” He lowered his voice. “I got a hundred bites all over me. Knew it was gonna happen, so I’m not crying. But how long do I got?”
Terry’s face went blank. With one eye, he looked to the backseat to see where Eric was, and if the boy was listening. The kid was kneeling on the seat and looking behind them at the growing clouds of smoke. The church steeple and village hall tower that were normally a staple part of the town’s skyline were lost in the haze. Passanattee was nearly obscured by a cloud of deadly fog.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Terry said. “But it seems to move pretty fast. Overnight at least. So a few hours maybe. How do you feel? Do you want me to drive?”
“Sit back and relax, princess,” Anders said. “I got it. I just needed to know for how long. I’ll get us to the top of the boot, and then I’ll hand over the wheel. First we have to get away from the planes.”
Terry nodded. He opened his mouth to say something, and then thought better of it. Instead he sat back and put a hand on Eric’s shoulder. The boy was kneeling on the seat, watching the road slip away behind them.
“They’re still coming,” Eric said.
Terry nodded. “They are trying to kill all the spiders and flies. And anything that they might have laid eggs in. They have to cover a lot of ground if they’re going to be sure they’ve done that.”
“How far?” Eric asked.
Terry shrugged. “I don’t know. Not as far as we’re going though.”
“What about dad?” Eric asked. “He’s been bit.”
Terry nodded.
“Are the spiders inside him?”
“I don’t know,” Terry said. “Your dad’s a strong guy. He might be able to fight them.”
Terry didn’t want to provide false hope, but he didn’t want to be the one to hand out Anders’s death sentence to the man’s son. But he knew there really wasn’t much hope. If there was any at all. The only ones who knew what these things were had determined the best course of action to eliminate the threat. And it didn’t include vaccines or drugs. Their solution was utter obliteration.
Eric didn’t ask another question, which worked out well, since Terry didn’t have any more answers. They rode in silence for a few minutes.
“It looks like something’s on fire,” Eric announced.
Rachel turned and swore under her breath. “Looks like a big one,” she agreed.
Anders looked in the rear-view mirror, and nodded. A dark cloud of black smoke had erupted from behind them. He couldn’t see buildings or flames, but the smoke told the story well. Passanattee was burning. Just another reason to get the hell out of Dodge. Anders itched his head and neck relentlessly. He was thinking of all the ways he could itch his back without giving up the wheel, when he saw them.
“Son of a fuckin’ bitch,” he said. He took his foot off the gas.
“What’s wrong,” Rachel asked, but before she’d finished saying it, she got it.
The highway ahead was no longer a clear ribbon of black asphalt.
It was blocked by a barricade of cars and Jeeps and tanks. The air beyond it was dotted with helicopters.
“We aren’t getting out of this easy, kids,” Anders said.
Terry shook his head, and stifled the urge to whistle.
This was bad. He could see the military emblems…the way out of Passanattee was blocked. The only way out. At least by car.
“Slow down,” Rachel said.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Terry said.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “We have to stop! They’ll shoot at us if we don’t.”
“They’ll shoot us anyway,” Terry said. “This is a containment exercise…and you’ve seen what happens to those stuck inside the perimeter. We’re not leaving here alive.”
“Hang on,” Anders said. “We’re not dead yet.”
All of a sudden, he pulled the wheel to the right, and the SUV shot off the asphalt and down a gentle incline into the strange field of forest and trees.
“Where are you going?” Rachel screamed, holding on to the dashboard in front of her with both hands. “I always knew you were fuckin’ crazy!”
“Language!” Anders said.
The SUV bounced and jumped as Anders floored it and they shot across the uneven ground that bordered on swampland. He didn’t dare slow down since he didn’t know where the ground was going to suddenly want to suck them in.
The back of the vehicle suddenly jolted. And then again. Inside the cab, it felt as if someone had just punched the car.
“Lay down!” Anders commanded. “Everyone down, now!”
“What’s going on, Dad?” Eric asked.
“The Man wants to keep us down,” Anders said. “And right now, so do I. Lay down.”
“They’ll hit the gas tank,” Terry warned. “You’ve gotta stop. They’ve got us.”
Anders shook his head. The motion made his vision blur. There was a dull ache running from his neck up across his skull. Already? he thought. But it didn’t matter. He already knew his time was on a clock. A quickly running down clock. He just didn’t realize how quick.
A voice echoed through the cab. The windows seemed to shake with each word. “Stop where you are. You are attempting to leave a quarantine zone. Stop now or we will need to shoot again.”
“One more minute,” Anders said. He didn’t take his foot off the gas.
Another jolt shook the SUV, which lurched sideways, and then thumped down. Eric bounced off the seat and slipped halfway to the floor. Rachel cried out and held on to the plastic armrest on the door to keep from falling herself.
“Okay,” Anders said. “We’re there.”
He stomped on the brake, and the SUV shuddered to a halt.
“Please exit the vehicle,” the voice thundered overhead.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Anders said. “I am going to go out the driver’s side and run towards the highway. I want you all to wait a minute until I’m away from the car and they are focused on me. Then I want you to crack open the back door and slip out to the ground. Stay low, and push the door back closed. They can’t see that you’re here.”
“There’s no way this is going to work,” Terry said. “They had to have seen us already.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Anders said. “But this is your only chance. My time is already over. So if I can draw their attention away from the car, and you can make it into the trees…”
“You have to come with us,” Eric said. He grabbed at his father’s arm. “You can’t surrender!”
Anders looked at his son, and for once, he didn’t have a smart-ass comment or a loud criticism to make. He didn’t have much to say at all, because he saw the concern in his son’s eyes, and he knew that there was absolutely no way out of this one for all of them. There was no way out of this for him, at all. So maybe he could, just this once, play the hero. At the same time, putting a middle
finger in the face of the Man…
“Eric,” he said. “You’ve got to try to get away. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I’ve had my time and…well, sometimes…you just have to do what needs to be done. And right now, I need to do this. I want you to have your time.”
“But, Dad…”
Anders leaned over and kissed Eric on the head. “I have to go, buddy.”
He cracked the driver’s side door. “Hey, Crocodile Dundee?”
“Yeah,” Terry answered.
“She’s all yours now. Slap her around once in a while, if you’re smart. She likes that. But right now…get them outta here, okay? Don’t fuck it up?”
“Do my best,” Terry said.
“Do better than that shit,” Anders said, and then threw the driver’s side door open. “I’ll give you whatever distraction I can. Count to thirty,” he said, and stepped out of the car. “Be strong, Eric.”
Anders slammed the driver’s side door behind him, and began to run across the sawgrass field. Rachel lifted her head and tried to peer through the driver’s side back window, but Terry pulled her back down.
“He’s right. We’ve got one chance at this. We can’t be seen now.”
“What if they shoot him?” she said. Her voice was a whisper. It had finally sunk in that Anders—that fuckwad, asshole, wife-beating piece-of-shit ex-husband of hers—was about to die. And something in Rachel’s heart shriveled up as she realized that.
Because he was going to die for them. She hadn’t thought he had it in him.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Terry said. “I’m going to crack this door, and slip out to the ground. If they don’t notice me, Rachel, I’ll have you follow. If they do notice me…you guys just stay down, and I’ll try to draw their eyes the same as Anders is doing right now. If they don’t see me…Rachel, you slip out, and then Eric, you come over the seat and follow us. Then we crawl across the grass and into the trees.”
From outside, the booming voice called across the field again.
“Stop right there.”
“Now or never,” Terry said, and cracked the door open on the opposite side of the SUV from the highway. He slipped to the ground like a snake. Rachel followed, and when no voices told them to “Stop!” they called for Eric to follow.
