by Steven Novak
Blueeyes looked concerned. “What about howlers?”
“None of them out this way…not this deep into town. Hairy bastards don’t like being closed in.”
The man I assumed was Willie moved closer; he was tall and skinny, pale skin covered in fading tattoos. He seemed annoyed, anxious, and never let go of his gun or lowered his guard. I watched his finger lightly tracing the trigger of his weapon. His eyes narrowed and locked on my friend. “You’ve got the passage you wanted, big man. Hit the bricks.”
A woman moved through the crowd toward the center, short hair and deep brown eyes. Walking beside her and holding her hand was the girl in the red dress. She was younger than me, not sure by how much. Her hair was dark and curly, sculpted into two puffy balls resting atop her head. I’d never seen someone so made up, so put together. She looked like she didn’t belong. She was out of place, the mountain of corpses still smoldering behind her. When I looked at her she looked away, dropped her head and stared at her feet. The pair moved to either side of Sam. The little girl wrapped her arms around his leg and buried her face into his side.
The woman coiled her arm around Sam’s waist and looked up at him, concerned. “Sam?”
He nodded. “I know, baby.”
I thought of Father, of Mother.
I looked away as well.
Sam sighed. “Look, I can’t send you and the girl out there at night. This block is clean and the smell will keep the gimps away, but I can’t say the same for the rest of town. As far as I know this city is overrun. That being said, I can’t have you sleeping in my living room either; no offense.”
Blueeyes motioned behind him. “We’ll take the bus.”
Willie stepped between us and turned to Sam, a finger in his face. “Like hell they will. Straight up, are you serious with this shit, Sam? We’re just going to let them pitch a tent on our front lawn? Am I the only one who sees a fucking problem with this?”
Sam moved close to him, his wife and daughter remaining behind. “It’s a kid, Will. You expect me to send a kid out there? I ain’t doing that. Come on. Think of Alexis, man.”
“Don’t say that name.”
Sam shrugged, shook his head, and put his hand on Willie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, bro. I’m not feeding another kid to those fuckers.”
“Fuck you.” Willie smacked his hand away, stomped off, and disappeared into a house further down the block.
Thirty minutes later I was on my back, staring at the ceiling of the bus and counting cracks in what remained of the paint. The seat underneath me was dusty but soft, softer than anything I’d slept on in years. Blueeyes was pacing, moving slowly from the front of the bus to the back, scanning the area outside. He seemed on edge. Then again, he always seemed on edge. I couldn’t figure out why. I believed Sam’s story of the burning bodies, believed the way he told it. It made sense. Maybe it was his wife or his little girl. Maybe it was her dress. Maybe it was because he hadn’t tried to kill me, or eat me, or worse. I liked this place; I even liked the bus. It was old and rusted and creaked and shifted when the wind blew, but it felt safe. I didn’t want to leave.
For some reason I felt the need to tell Blueeyes and foolishly believed he might agree. When he passed by, heading for the rear of the bus, I sat up. “I like it here.”
“Well, don’t get used to it.”
“Why not?”
He moved closer to me, still watching the windows, muscles tensed, mumbling. “People are fooling themselves. Three months of quiet and they think they’re safe. Playing with fire…literally.”
My heart dropped more than it should have. For once I wanted him to see what I saw. I wanted to be right about something. “But the fire keeps the gimps away…they said it did, right?”
He shook his head. “Maybe…I don’t know. Howlers will smell it a mile away, though.”
I remembered the little girl and her dress, little white frills along the bottom. “B-but I-I thought…I-I thought they don’t come to the city.”
“Go anywhere if they’re hungry enough. If it’s not the howlers it’ll be something else. We had no problem sneaking in here. Someone like Travis finds this place?”
I was done. He wasn’t going to give me what I wanted, no matter how badly I needed it. I turned away and buried my head in the seat cushion. I didn’t want to listen.
Blueeyes moved to a window, struggling to see through a pane of filthy glass while talking to himself. “The girl…the way they’ve got her dressed.” I wasn’t looking at him, but I could feel him shaking his head, could hear it in his voice. “All that fabric…silly…something else for them to grab onto.”
He paused. “That reminds me…we’re cutting your hair. Should have done it already.”
I didn’t want to cut my hair.
Blueeyes stopped mumbling and I stopped listening. We’d said what we needed to say. In my heart I knew he was right, even if I hated admitting it. Blueeyes was always right. At the same time I wanted just one night. I wanted to pretend. I wanted to sleep on my comfortable cushion in my big metal bed. I wanted to listen to the wind, feel the remaining warmth from the fire, and feel safe. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow, about finding food, or the road, or learning to shoot, or following Blueeyes wherever he was leading me. I was sick of trying to be strong, wasn’t very good at it anyway. I wanted to think about mothers and fathers and families, and dimples. I wanted to dream about a pretty red dress. Which is exactly what I did.
Until the howlers arrived.
15.
When I woke, Blueeyes’ hand was covering my mouth. He was on one knee, body wedged into the space between the seats. His finger went to his lips. “Shhhh…”
I could hear them outside, huffing, sniffing, nails clanking pavement. A paw slid across one side of the bus, claws dragging over steel. The sound sent shivers up my back. Something slammed into the rear of the vehicle. The sound echoed through the interior. I tucked my legs beneath me and rolled toward Blueeyes. There was a snout inside, poking through the broken glass on the rear door, drooling lips and crackling tongue. When something slammed into the side, the bus wobbled on flattened wheels. It inhaled, searching for our scent, and held its breath for a moment before moving away. One of them howled so loud it hurt my ears, so long I thought it wouldn’t end. Another joined in. Another. Another after that. I counted fifteen distinct voices screaming at the moon, anxious to feed, the scent of flesh in the air. There were probably more. One was too many. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch my breath, hyperventilating. Everything was spinning. The features on Blueeyes’ face blurred, twisting into something unrecognizable.
Fifteen howlers.
The bus jerked, old metal screeching, rusted welds cracking. A window on the front door shattered. One of the howlers leapt to the hood and stepped to the roof. It was above us, pacing, steel folding under its feet. I could see the outline of its paw as it moved, bent inward and molded around the massive appendage. My lip quivered and my hand began to shake. I wanted to scream. I needed to scream so badly.
Blueeyes grabbed my head, hands on either side, whispering. “Look at me.”
All I heard were footsteps, low moans, and deep growls.
“Breathe, Megan. You need to breathe.”
The monster on the roof screamed at the sky.
“Breathe. You can do it.”
Its body tensed, claws digging into steel, piercing and pulling back.
“Look at me, Megan. Look at me.”
I looked.
“We’re getting out of here. I promise.”
There was something about his eyes, the way he was staring at me, the expression on his face. He wouldn’t let me die, couldn’t, not again. When he looked at me, he was looking at her, at everything he’d lost. He would do anything for us, for a chance at redemption. He would die to keep us alive. I believed every word he said.
My breath returned.
“That’s it. Good job.”
Glass shat
tered. A gun fired. In a matter of seconds there was anarchy. Bullets pelted the street and the bus, tearing the surrounding area to pieces. Blueeyes pulled me to the floor, crawled on top of me, glass shattering around us, metal riddled with ammunition. The howlers wailed and scattered, attacking the houses on either side, charging the flashing muzzles, absorbing steel from above. An explosion shook the ground. Another, much closer; the bus trembled. On the roof of the bus I could see the reflection of fire, crackling shadows stretched obscenely.
When the gunfire in the area of the bus lessened, Blueeyes lifted off me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into a crouched position, screaming over the noise. “Stay close!”
As we made our way to the rear of the bus, I began to hear the screams, death cries intermixed with gunshots, popping and wailing. The house at the end of the street was engulfed in flames, the one beside it lit along the bottom. A man charged from the front door, back on fire, rifle in hand. He was shooting blindly at everything, screaming as the flames overtook him. A howler emerged from the darkness, wrapped its jaws around his midsection, and shook its head until he ripped it in two. It might have been Willie; too dark too tell.
They were dying. All of them were dying. The little girl popped into my head: her red dress, the way she clutched her father’s leg. I couldn’t shake the image, tried so hard. It wouldn’t go away.
The moment we reached the rear of the bus, something exploded outside. It was close, so close one half of the gargantuan vehicle took to the air. My ears popped. Something behind my eyes ruptured. My feet left the floor. Suddenly I was airborne, tumbling with the bus, fire cracking around me, smoke clogging my face. I hit everything, bouncing back and forth in our rolling tomb. Something smacked my shoulder and popped it from the joint. My leg twisted, bent in a way legs aren’t meant to bend. When the bus stopped rolling, the roof was beneath me, embers popping inches from my face, soot coating my lungs. I opened my eyes and saw only black and subtle shades of gray that burnt my face. My head hurt, throbbed. Blood trickled down the side of my face, into my ear, and along my neck. I was cut, bleeding from somewhere under my hair. Instinctively, I rolled to my stomach, crawling nowhere specific, anywhere at all. When I hit a wall of fire I turned around. When I found what I believed to be a window, I climbed through, flipped, and landed on my back. The smoke was too thick and I inhaled too much of it. I tried to breathe and coughed, black mucus spraying from my mouth, eyes red with tears. For a moment, the smoke parted. It didn’t last, not nearly enough for me to get a sense of where I was. I could still hear the screams all around me, punctuated with flurries of gunfire. Someone cursed, stopped midsentence, and gurgled. I tried to sit up. My back had other ideas. My legs went limp. The pain in my shoulder was too much and my arm crumpled. Another explosion. Gunfire. Flames. A man yelled.
Blueeyes?
Couldn’t tell.
The fire behind me was spreading, slowly overtaking the bus. I could feel it on my back, so hot it hurt. I needed to move. The next time I sat up, I bit my lip so hard it bled. When I tried to stand my leg nearly folded. A flash of pain shot through my arms and down my spine and made friends with the pain already coursing through my back. I ignored it, had to. I needed to move and keep moving. I needed to find Blueeyes, needed somewhere to hide. Before I even took a step I heard the growl, so close. Through the smoke its eyes appeared, deep red, ghostly, almost glowing. I froze, praying it didn’t see me, that the smoke was too thick, that it couldn’t hear me whimper over the noise.
Its eyes narrowed. It took a step forward.
Without thinking, I reached for Pointycrunch and lifted him over my shoulder, amazed he was still in one piece. The wind whistled and the smoke thinned for a fraction of a second. White teeth shimmered and reflected hints of fire. The howler growled. With an arrow in Pointycruch, I fired into the black, aiming for the teeth. I heard it pierce flesh. The growling didn’t stop. The monster didn’t care. I fired again; it hit. It didn’t matter. I was a bug, a nuisance. I was food. The beast screamed so loud the cloud of smoke ruptured and opened wide. For the first time I saw the whole of its face covered in soot, soaked in sweat, snout stained with blood. There was an arrow sticking out of its back, another in its neck. Its head lowered, lips quivered, exposed teeth drooling. Anxious paws scraped pavement, kicking up stone, preparing to attack.
In that moment I knew I was gone. I couldn’t fight it. There was nothing I could. Pointycrunch couldn’t help. Blueeyes couldn’t save me. I was alone. Everything slowed. I watched the howler shake its head and snarl, the mane surrounding its face catching the light. Sweat and blood scattered, without weight. When it moved, the smoke folded around it, embers singeing its face. The beast emerged from the fire with its eyes wide, a force of nature, at one with the world that birthed it. Instead of lowering Pointycrunch, I held him forward, stiffened my arms, and straightened my back. I thought of Blueeyes, of what he would have wanted from me. I wondered if he was watching. I wanted him to see. Instead of cowering, I fired. The arrow pierced the howler’s jugular just below the snout, crimson spitting from beneath the fur.
Somehow, its head exploded.
Blood and meat sprayed in every direction, bits of bone peppering my face. The monster’s body whipped, jittered violently. What remained of its face froze, mouth locked open, tongue hanging loose. It collapsed in a heap, a crumpled mess of angles and fur.
A hand fell on my shoulder. Blueeyes stepped from behind me. His face was filthy with black, half his jacket burnt, the barrel of his shotgun still smoking. His hand moved to my arm, lightly pressing down and lowering my weapon. He nodded.
I knew what it meant.
Blueeyes wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me into the air. Suddenly, we were running though the smoke and away from the gunfire. Hanging loosely from his side, I listened as the gunfire began to slow, as the explosions stopped. There were no more screams, nothing remotely resembling the sound of a human voice. They had thought they were safe; they had believed it. They were wrong.
They were wrong and they were dead.
When we reached the wall of debris protecting the street, half of it was gone, reduced to rubble by howler jaws, destroyed like everything it was meant to protect. We passed through easily, took to the road. Again I thought of the little girl, her mother, and Sam. I imagined her face-to-face with howler, helpless with tears in her eyes. I pictured her pretty red dress, now a shade darker. It was an awful thought. It was probably true. A part of me wanted to turn around, go back and help and see if any of them had survived. It was a stupid idea, childish. There was nothing I could do, nothing Blueeyes could do. There was nothing anyone could do.
Not anymore.
Blueeyes ran for nearly an hour through darkened streets, unable to see even a foot in front of him. He never put me down. I could hear the gimps moaning, hungry voices from the abyss. Blueeyes heard them as well and ran in the opposite direction, never stopped moving. We took shelter in a shed, small, roof collapsing. While it wasn’t safe, it was the closest thing we could find. The door wouldn’t close, so Blueeyes held it shut. He remained in that position for some time, one hand holding the door, the other on his gun, struggling to catch his breath and making sure to do it quietly. I watched him, the way his head fell and his eyes closed. He looked so tired, like a man who hadn’t slept in years and may never sleep again. He told me to rest, that I needed to lie on my left side and stay off my shoulder. I didn’t listen. Instead, I moved beside him, hand on the door as well. It hurt. My arm was in agony. I didn’t care. He let go of his gun for just a moment, long enough to wipe the howler blood from my face.
I smiled. “Thanks.”
He nodded.
I told him what he wanted to hear. “Tomorrow we’ll cut my hair.”
It was the last thing we said that night.
In the morning, Blueeyes checked my shoulder. “Not broken. You’re lucky.”
When he was done, he cut my hair, trimmed it so short I couldn’t
feel it on my back or push it up and over my ear. It felt strange, uncomfortable. I didn’t feel like myself.
He rubbed the top of my shaved head and grinned in his half-smile sort of way. “Looks good.”
I could learn to live with it.
Before we left the shed, I made him cut his beard. “It’s too long. Something might grab it.”
He agreed. He looked different when the hair was gone. He reminded me of Father. We did our best to avoid packs of gimps that day, but occasionally put down a straggler. My leg stopped hurting a few hours later. The pain in my shoulder dulled. While my back was sore, it wasn’t sore enough to make me complain. I was alive. That’s all that mattered. I spent most of the day playing with my head, running my fingers through what remained of my hair. I couldn’t remember ever having short hair; I always liked it long, like Mother.
It was growing on me.
For the most part, the day was uneventful. Afternoon arrived quickly. In no time at all, we found ourselves on the outskirts of town. Gimp numbers dwindled. For nearly an hour we saw nothing. With night approaching, we happened on an isolated group of them, five or six, plodding aimlessly from one side of the street to the other, dead eyes in sunken skulls. Half of them looked too worn, too old to be dangerous. Their bodies had decayed to the point that some muscles became useless. They could barely lift their legs, shuffling more than stepping. When I asked Blueeyes how long gimps lived, he said it depended on how much they ate. Eating slowed the decay of their bodies. If they ate regularly they could, potentially, live forever.
When I asked him how long he would live, he ignored me.
Instead of responding, Blueeyes ducked behind a nearby car, back to the steel. Instinctively, I followed. We remained there for a minute, hunched in silence.
