by Siara Brandt
But that was going to have to wait. Both men turned at the surging roar of an engine. It was accompanied by the high-pitched sound of tires squealing. A car turned the corner sharply two blocks away and veered crazily down the middle of the street, heading right for them. Anyone could see that the car was out of control because it was weaving erratically from side to side. It took out one mailbox, clipped another one and sent it spinning. The car ran up on the opposite curb for a while but didn’t even slow down. The roar of the engine continued to grow louder as the car bumped across the front corner of Eymann’s yard, tearing out the small L-shaped picket fence there. The on-coming vehicle then continued across the driveway, brushing under the streamers of toilet paper, some of which became caught on the windshield wipers. It ran over Helice’s hostas and flattened her prized Rose of Sharon bush, taking the clematis with its trellis out completely.
Eymann dove for cover. As he did so, he tore open one of the knees of his khaki shorts. One bandage was ripped halfway off. Just like last night, he landed hard, rolling frantically for safety as the car kept coming. For a terrifying moment, it seemed like it was going to run right over him. But at the last second, the car veered sharply and ran up the porch steps, almost overturning as it finally came to a shuddering halt the moment it slammed into one of the front pillars of the Eymann’s porch.
Once again, Eymann was sprawled on his hands and knees on the ground. Both his knees and his hands were a scraped and bloody mess, much worse now than they had been last night. There was only so much a man could take. Thinking that whoever had been behind the wheel had probably been drinking and driving and was responsible for the pain he was in now, Eymann almost swore out loud. Luckily, he was able to restrain himself from the profanity at the very last second.
As he got slowly back to his feet, he looked around in disbelief. There had been a brief, but torrential downpour early last night which meant that the ground was still soft and muddy. Tire tracks had gouged deep, ugly paths across his entire yard. There were also muddy tracks across his concrete driveway and his sidewalk.
As Eymann continued to survey his ruined yard, the expression on his face grew positively wrathful as he spun around and focused on the car. The person behind the wheel was slouched down in the seat, maybe hiding in shame after what he had done, if he was even aware of what he had done and wasn’t too inebriated to take notice. Eymann didn’t have a clear view of the driver yet because of the shadows on the windshield cast by the leaves from the Buckminster’s dogwood tree, the one that had been getting ready to bloom, the one whose buds were now covered with toilet paper.
As Eymann started forward, he could see that the driver was clearly struggling to get out of the partly-open door of the vehicle, that he would have gotten out if the door hadn’t been jammed against the porch post and the shattered railing. Whoever was in there was writhing like a madman. A very violent madman. Eymann didn’t drink himself, but he knew that there were mean drunks and he assumed that’s what he was seeing right now. He began to think that it was a good thing the man was trapped inside the car. Eymann had another sudden thought. What if the man was high on illegal drugs? It could be a very volatile situation.
Looking closer, Eymann could see that there was a deep gash on one side of the driver’s face. It was the man’s eyes, however, that stopped Eymann dead in his tracks. In fact, Eymann began to back away under the drapes of white that were swaying gently in the faintest of breezes, because he now also saw that the man’s mouth was drawn back in a terrifying snarl as he fixed Eymann with a ferocious, bloodthirsty look. A look of pure evil. That was Eymann’s spontaneous thought as he stood there. Suddenly, Eymann’s confrontation with Caleb Lydon seemed mild in comparison and was all but forgotten, especially when he heard the almost inhuman sounds of rage coming from the vehicle.
That was when Helice emerged from the front door of the house. She gave one look at her demolished porch, her smashed hostas, and the place where the Rose of Sharon had been. Finally, she looked at the trellis and the delicate tendrils of about-to-bloom, carefully-tended clematis that were now draped across the fender of the car that had come to rest halfway up the steps.
Blinded at first by the shadows and the toilet paper on the windshield, she was going to give the obviously-inebriated driver a piece of her mind. He wasn’t going to get away with this, no matter what his excuse might be. But for once, Helice went dead silent as she continued to watch the driver as he struggled to exit the vehicle. One arm was halfway out of the partially-open window and waving wildly in the air. When the man pressed his face close to the glass, it made her draw in a startled gasp and back up towards the doorway.
Above the tops of the trees to the east, clouds of smoke were rising into the sky. They were thick, rolling clouds of black smoke and it looked like there were several fires in different places. She couldn’t know, none of them could know yet, that there was no fire department left to answer the calls, not of the fires or the accidents and emergencies that were happening all over the city. The real chaos had just begun.
Chapter 6
Sleep had been impossible for everyone that night. For hours Rafe had stood at the front window of the lodge staring out at the vast, unbroken wilderness that stretched out as far as the eye could see. A thin, vaporous mist hung over everything, especially the lake, but the sky was clear and cloudless with no indications of rain.
It had been a long, exhausting night. Daylight brought the men awake one by one to find that the phones still weren’t working. Neither was the electricity. As far as everyone was concerned, they couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Everything seemed quiet out there now. There were no signs and no sounds of any dangerous wildlife, nothing even remotely threatening. Actually, it looked pretty peaceful out there, almost serene with the lake smooth and unruffled under the diaphanous shards of slowly-drifting mist. Kyn had already left without incident. So had most of the others. Only Rafe and Ren were left. Rafe himself had never been one for patience and he was eager to leave himself. While the others had headed straight home, Rafe and Ren had volunteered to go down to the main lodge and see about reporting what had happened last night so that they could get some help for the woman who was still locked in the bedroom. They hadn’t heard a sound out of her for hours and had no idea what her condition was. But they all agreed that door was to stay closed.
The two men were standing on the front porch now. Rafe scrubbed a hand across the dark stubble of beard on his unshaven jaw. No one had bothered to shave or shower. They just wanted to get out of there. What was going on was still anyone’s guess. Was it an EMP as Ren had suggested? Terrorists? Until they reached civilization, there was no way of knowing.
Ren hoisted his bag over his shoulder. “I barely got any sleep last night,” he said as he glanced over his shoulder at the open doorway. “It’s been so quiet.”
He was right. It had been ominously silent. There had been no more howls. No more banging. No more scratching. There had been plenty of that going on last night. Enough to wake the dead, as Kyn had said. Enough to be the dead, as Ren had also hinted.
They had agreed to look through the window from outside to see what was going on before they left. They were still both struggling with the decision they had made last night. What if, because they had done nothing, the woman had died during the night? What if she had been suffering and they could have done something about it? It would be a hard thing to live with if that was the case.
Both men looked at each other.
“You ready?” Rafe asked.
“Yeah, ready,” Ren answered him, but he didn’t look ready. He didn’t sound ready, either.
The branches around them dripped with moisture and the normal morning twitter of birds filled the trees as they made their way around the side of the log cabin. They dragged a bench along the porch so that they could raise themselves high enough to peer through the bedroom window.
“Where is she?” Ren
muttered as he pressed his face up to the glass, turning his face first one way and then the other.
A faint breeze gusted, lifting the hair from Rafe’s collar. He was also looking but he couldn’t see any signs of the woman, either. He leaned closer to the glass. On this side of the cabin, the shadows were deep. The early morning sunlight was filtering through dense pine trees and only faintly lighting the room . . .
Slam!
She startled both of them by hitting the glass. Hard. Her mouth was wide open just like last night as they heard her shriek from the other side of the window. She looked even worse this morning, if that was possible. She looked more terrifying. Her eyes were the same. She glared at them from the other side of the glass, lunging ferociously at them with her mouth snapping like she wanted to tear them apart.
One question was answered at least. She was still alive. Or what looked like alive. Neither one of them said anything. Right now, even Rafe wasn’t discounting Ren’s theory about zombies.
“If she’s not a zombie, then what the hell is she?” Ren breathed as he got down from the bench.
Of course, neither one of them had any way of knowing and Ren didn’t expect an answer. They both backed slowly away from the window, not at all sure she wouldn’t break right through the glass if they continued to stand there like bait.
Ren looked nervously out at the surrounding wilderness. “You’re sure we’re safe?” he asked.
“For now,” Rafe answered him, narrowing his own gaze on the forest. Watching out for an unseen enemy was what he had been trained to do and he did it automatically now, especially after what had happened last night. “We made it through the night. She made it through the night,” he said. “That’s something. Once we get to the lodge, we’ll make sure someone gets up here to take care of her.” That was about all they could do. “I’ll be glad when this whole thing is over,” he added.
But when the main lodge came into view, Rafe was anything but relieved. The place looked deserted, almost ominously so. There wasn’t a soul in sight when there should be a lot of activity. The place had been packed when they’d arrived, with people everywhere. There were still cars parked in the gravel parking lot outside, but no sign of anyone walking around even though the front door was wide open.
“Where is everybody?” Ren asked as his worried gaze shot back and forth.
Rafe had already asked himself the same question. It didn’t take a genius to figure out something wasn’t right here.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Ren muttered as they opened their doors and got out of Rafe’s jeep. “It’s like we’re living an episode of the Twilight Zone, one of the scary ones.”
Rafe silently agreed with him. It was just like that. It was damned eerie. Especially when they saw what looked like a dark trail of blood leading across the porch and through the front door. Both men came to a dead stop.
Yeah, that was definitely blood and it wasn’t a good sign. Rafe immediately went into combat mode.
He saw that there was also a dark, viscous pool of blood seeping out from under the front floor, and bloody handprints on the wall and on a chair. The metallic stench of blood, already familiar to Rafe from his war years, hung heavily on the air.
Whatever was going on here, it was definitely bad. No doubt about that.
Ren glanced back at the Jeep, then he looked back at the door with an anxious look. He was thinking the same thing that Rafe was thinking. He really didn’t want to go in there. Of course, if someone needed help, did they have any choice?
Rafe slowly pushed the door open a few more inches and they saw the same clerk they had met two days ago. But now the man lay on the floor just inside the door with his bearded face ghastly white and the life gone from his glassy eyes.
They heard a shuffling sound from inside the lodge. They couldn’t see what was making it and were pretty sure they didn’t want to know. One thing was clear. They weren’t alone.
Both men backed up from the door as quietly as they could. Caution was definitely called for here. They were unarmed and they didn’t know what they were dealing with. They turned to look behind them just in time to see a flutter of movement inside the dark doorway of one of the outbuildings on the other side of the parking lot.
Both men continued to scan the area beyond the parking lot, making sure to keep an eye on the front door of the lodge at the same time. Soon a ghoulish figure emerged from the black doorway of the biggest outbuilding. They were shocked to see that the man had the same feral look as the woman in the cabin. It didn’t take him long to spot them. He bared teeth that dripped with bloody saliva.
Ren just stood there like he was paralyzed. Rafe had to grip his shoulder with iron fingers to get his attention. Ren still didn’t move, so Rafe grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him down behind the railing into the cover of some bushes.
It was too late, however. The man across the parking lot was waving his arms wildly as he staggered forward. He reminded Rafe of an enraged elephant swinging its trunk, one that was about to charge. And then he did.
Everything happened fast after that.
“The Jeep,” Rafe gritted, but Ren still seemed half dazed.
With a low curse, Rafe propelled him down the porch steps. It wasn’t a moment too soon because another ghoulish figure staggered out of the lodge behind them. They made it safely to Rafe’s Jeep, but just barely. Ren jerked open the passenger door and dove into the front seat at the same time that Rafe slid in behind the wheel. He wasted no time in starting the ignition. He immediately put the vehicle into reverse and jammed down on the gas pedal. The tires spun on gravel as the Jeep surged backward. Rafe slammed on the brake, switched gears, then hit the accelerator just as the man from across the parking lot appeared at the driver’s side window. The Jeep fishtailed for a moment before it surged forward.
They were already on the road before Ren turned to stare behind them. He looked back at Rafe and didn’t say a word. He just stared.
As Ren punched down the lock on his door, he finally breathed out in a shaky voice, “That was close.”
Yeah, Rafe agreed. Too damned close.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Nadia gave a little shake of her head. She tried to act nonchalant, but she wasn’t sure she was completely successful in keeping the worry out of her eyes as she turned around. “What do you have to be sorry about?”
“For turning you into a car thief. I mean an ambulance thief,” Matt corrected.
For her son’s sake, Nadia managed a small smile. “You didn’t think I had it in me, did you?”
Anyone looking close enough would have seen the troubled look in her eyes as she approached the bed. It was quiet here. It was nothing like the emergency room they had left earlier. So far, she had been operating on an adrenaline high with everything happening too fast to even consider the consequences of her decisions. There had only been time to react, not think. So that’s what she had done. She’d reacted instinctively. Not that she regretted any of it. She’d had to resort to desperate measures, or they wouldn’t even be here.
But now-
Now that there was no immediate danger, her adrenaline was getting back to normal levels and the rational thinking was kicking in. She couldn’t believe that in the chaos and confusion she had stolen an ambulance, but it had been the only way to save her son and herself.
The hospital had been like a war zone with panicked nurses and frantic doctors calling out orders as they tried to deal with screaming, bloody patients who were just as panicked. She didn’t want to remember all that had happened, but she could still recall the vicious, deadly attacks that had been going on right in the hallways. And the most alarming thing of all- police officers shooting the attackers dead right in front of her eyes. Right in front of Matt.
As it was, it was a miracle they had gotten out at all. People were already barricading themselves in different parts of the hospital. Her car had been parked across a dan
gerous, wide-open series of parking lots, every one of them too dangerous to cross because the same chaos they had encountered in the emergency room was happening outside. The ambulance just happened to be there with no one inside it.
As she tried to make sense out of it all, her mind quickly switched gears and went back to the time before everything had gotten so out of control. Matt had been bitten on the arm, right in the street by a complete stranger. Since human bites were supposed to be worse than animal bites, Nadia had taken him to the emergency room to be treated. It turned out that Matt wasn’t the only one who had been bitten. There had been a rash of attacks and bite wounds that morning. Nadia had overheard some doctors talking about quarantining the bite victims. Right away she decided she wasn’t going to let that happen to Matt. But then, before she could even protest, before he could even be looked at, all hell had broken loose. And now, here they were and she had no idea what she was supposed to do next.
“What do you think is going to happen to me?”
It took her a moment before she could look her son in the eye. “We’ll rest here for a while and I’ll treat you myself. There are plenty of supplies in the ambulance. When things settle down, we’ll see about getting you some antibiotics.”
She dragged a tall-backed chair over to the side of the bed.
“What if things don’t settle down?” Matt asked.
She had been thinking the same thing, but she said, “Of course they will.”
“I don’t need to be in bed,” she heard him say next. “I’m not as fragile as you think I am.”
“I don’t think you’re fragile,” she said as she touched her hand to his forehead to test for fever, at the same time thinking to herself that the ambulance probably had something more modern to do the job of monitoring his temperature.
