by Chris Capps
"She was in the basement," Andrea said breathless as the voices ripped between them, "I barely talked to Mark. He was different. He's lost his mind."
"We'll talk later," Steven said as he pushed her back to where he had dropped the axe on the pavement, "We have to move now!"
As they turned he saw the spot where his axe had been dropped. It had vanished. How long had they been following him? How many had he alerted by dragging the axe on pavement all this way? It didn't matter now. He and Andrea were running together back to his house. Pumping legs in a wild sprint, they reached the grassy partition between the street and the rectory and looked up the small swelling of hill up into Steven's cottage. It was almost too late when Steven grabbed Andrea's wrist and hissed silently.
"Someone in the yard," he said, his voice drawn down to a quickened whisper, "Near the front door."
One of the Mollys was waiting by his front door staring off into the fog. She was scanning the walkway at the front of the house, the small path he had taken a thousand times before. Of course. They had probably watched him. It was only a haphazard chance that on this morning he had chosen the grass over the path, wishing to scan his yard for signs of Andrea before heading out onto the street. That Molly was slowly, gently tracing the end of a screwdriver lightly across her palm and reveling visibly in the simple sensation of it.
Steven and Andrea quietly beat their heels back into the fog, running at a full sprint back toward the mouth of their world, back to the tunnel facility. The building was massive, concrete, and even though it would never lead them back home, it would provide them a temporary refuge from their collapsing town.
Pulling Andrea's hand, he felt for the chain running across the door. The tunnel facility had only closed after Molly had vanished into the woods. There was a good chance she might not even know it was unlocked on the west side. From a tactical perspective, Ritzer reasoned, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine her never even considering the tunnel facility as an option. He ripped the chain from between the two door handles and tossed it aside, pulling the door open and disappearing into the shadow.
He whispered back as the dark swallowed him,
"Seems safe."
Andrea hesitated, but then decided she would have no choice but to follow. As the door clasped shut behind her, she visualized the labyrinth they had just entered in her mind. In the map she had just drawn, they were standing at the entrance to a grid of halls and rooms. Just up the hall and to the left they would find the tunneling room. If they continued straight, they would reach the elevator. They could take the ladder up to the second or third floor.
"Do you have a flashlight?" Ritzer asked, running his hand down the wall past a corkboard covered with flyers.
"No," Andrea said, thinking back to the night she had spent with Mark in his old office, "But I know where there are some candles."
Ritzer was less eager to climb the ladder than Mark had been on their last visit, but then again Mark had done the climb a hundred times before. Steven grasped the rungs of the ladder uneasily, and he kept looking up to see if his eyes could penetrate the complete darkness that enveloped them.
It was the kind of darkness you could just float in forever. As he moved hand over hand up the ladder, Steven had a thought. If he just let go of the ladder he could drift off into space. He knew it was impossible, but he kept thinking of a tremendous black void all around him, spreading out in every direction for eternity. And if you could have seen the knuckles on his hands as he shakily picked himself up rung after rung, you could have seen that they were an ivory sort of white. Finally, after a few moments of climbing, they reached the second floor in silence. And they sat in the hallway's own brand of darkness.
Andrea reached out in that shadow as they sprawled on the tiled floor, her fingertips reaching across the shineless smooth tiles, and felt the warmth of Steven's hand. She picked it up, feeling pulse in his fingertips and pressing it close against her face.
"Steven," she said, "I don't want to go any further right now. Let's just stay here for a moment and rest."
"The office ahead," Ritzer said, slow apologies about to form at the base of his tongue like the tiny bubbles of a steaming pot, "It's a place you and your husband went."
She nodded without a sound. Steven felt the nod as her soft cheek moved his hand with her head. And he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers, fingertips lightly running over her skin. They kissed for a long second, and in that moment Steven's mind returned to the fear he had felt moments prior on the ladder.
If they suddenly drifted away into the hall's darkness into a vast blanket of eternity, he wouldn't be afraid now. With his hand now intertwined with Andrea Newmann's, the bite that had been left in that image was now gone. He wasn't afraid. And even as his thumb traced across her face and wiped away a long stream of moisture, he knew Andrea wasn't either. They sat in silence, neither wanting to ruin the moment with words, and waited.
All they had now was each other's touch. And it was enough.
***
As Jessica's patrol car rolled toward the small sparsely furnished duplex at 720 Flamingo road, she let it coast to a stop at the corner. Flamingo road didn't seem as badly littered over with debris, but it did still have the eerie silence that had followed them everywhere else on their journey. It had been a long fruitless night of driving, knocking on doors, and seeing very little in the way of life. Even if there were people in those houses, they weren't answering the door.
The Mollys were acting strangely. If only she could know what their methods were for selecting which houses to invade. Luckily, many of the townspeople were doubling up now. A stretch of houses on Mendel Street had cloistered themselves into three buildings surrounded by utility vehicles. Inside she had seen two police officers now out of uniform. Deserters.
If any of them were alive in a few days, they would have to be collected again. It was a horrifying thought, considering what Cairo would look like in another two days. The luckiest thing was the fog hid all but a few things in a single moment. But that forced her to focus on whatever they strayed too near to. There was a bicycle up on Monroe Street, its rear wheel still spinning though its front half was slowly burning away in an unidentifiable mass.
Jessica shuddered as she looked out into the street and considered her next move in silence, save for the howling of wind and the crackling of unseen distant flames.
A small shape was emerging from the fog, no larger than a child.
"Bobby!" an old voice called out from beyond it. MacReady. This was her youngest grandchild, Bobby. Jessica's eyes scanned the street around them. Up ahead, mingling in the white of fog was a much darker color - a pool of deep red, around a pale white shape camouflaged in the mist. The child silhouette was moving toward it, hoping to discover what lay at the heart of that red pool on the ground. Jessica unbuckled her seatbelt in a moment and stepped out.
"Stay here," she said into the driver's side window.
"Bobby! Come back here!" the piteous voice called again, "Please, Bobby! I can't run!"
Tiny hands were clenching and opening as the figure bobbed over to the body, head craned curiously as it drew near.
"Hey," Jessica called out, "Hey kid."
The shape looked back toward her wildly, startled now. It approached to investigate. As Jessica stood, the boy - Bobby she remembered - walked up and looked at her. His eyes were glued to her gun.
"Are you a police officer?" he asked.
"Yeah," Jessica said, "Where's your family?"
The boy turned and pointed in the direction of the quickly approaching frail voice. Old lady MacReady was huffing toward them with the rest of her grandchildren trailing behind. She scolded the boy as she emerged from the white canvas all around them,
"Bobby! Get back here!"
"Linda MacReady?" Jessica said, her face softening as she saw the old woman.
"That's right," MacReady said, "Thanks for tracking down my boy."
"Ar
e you leaving town?" Jessica asked.
MacReady held her hand across her mouth with a nod, looking back toward her grandchildren,
"I packed their school bags full of food and blankets. We're hoping to run into... someone out there. I may decide to go off on my own after we find someone. You understand."
Jessica furrowed her brow for a moment, before realizing what the old woman had just said,
"On your own?"
"To the farm," MacReady said distantly, "The one you can't visit. You understand what I mean. Once we find someone."
"Linda," Jessica said, "We're going to fight this thing. You've got enough to last you a few days."
"Enough to last them a few days, Sherriff," Linda said, "They'll live. Jessica, you know who writes for the Daily Sentinel, right?"
"Jack Thorn," Jessica said, "He and Cherry write it."
"Do you know who writes for the Daily Finger?"
Jessica shook her head. A fire in Linda's eyes had grown. A smile passed across her face and she reached out to hold Jessica by the elbows,
"No one does. No one knows. She's the most careful woman you'll ever meet."
Footsteps. Another shape was approaching. Two shapes.
"Linda, get behind me," Jessica said as she unbuttoned her gun.
But they were too big to be Molly. One walked with broad shoulders and a heavy bag on its stooped back. The other had both hands on what Jessica immediately identified as a pump action shotgun. They were, after all, Melissa Novak and Harry Tanhauser.
"Hey," Melissa said hoisting the shotgun over her shoulder as Harry strained under his bag toward them, "You folks leaving town?"
Jessica looked back to Linda MacReady and they shared a silence for the briefest moment, but it was the moment when Jessica realized that a thousand scathing editorials and column pieces had all come from this simple frail old woman. She reached out to clasp Linda's hand and said,
"Linda, don't go to the farm yet."
The old woman nodded as Melissa cocked her shotgun and sent an unspent shell spiraling out of her gun into Tanhauser's hand. Linda said,
"Not yet, I know."
"We can take you with us," Melissa said, "We're heading to my garden. My husband and I cultivated it out beyond prying eyes. It's not much, but it's as good a place as any right now. We can take them with us, right Harry?"
Harry grunted beneath the sack slung over his shoulder,
"I guess so. But let's hurry, these cans are heavy."
"Hurry. And take care," Jessica said as they started off into the fog, "This side of town is quiet right now."
After a moment of watching them, she returned to the car and eyed Sugarhill for a moment as the car lurched forward. She knew she couldn't spare time to escort them personally. She had to secure the mayor and the doctor.
"Lots of people are leaving town," Sugarhill said.
"Yeah," Jessica said. The car reached mayor Sugarhill's safe house in the silence that followed. After it coasted to a stop, Jessica finished her thought, "But not everybody. Mayor, you and Rosario head into that shack. Not many people know about it, but the Sherriff most certainly did. If they asked the right questions he might have told them about this place when they were..."
"Torturing him," Sugarhill said breeching the cylinder of his .38 and looking in to check that it contained six bullets, "You can call it what it was. They probably tortured him."
"If," Jessica stressed the word, "they were torturing him. The point is they might know about this place and they might not. But as far as places in town go, this is probably as safe as any."
"Yeah, well," Sugarhill said, "You're not the only one I kept secrets from. There are some things about this place even Rind didn't know."
He reached over his shoulder and handed the revolver back to Rosario, who held it uncertainly between two fingers before dropping it into his doctor's bag.
"Sugarhill," Sam Rosario said, "I don't know what you expect me to do with that."
"Just keep it warm," Mayor Sugarhill said, "Jessica, report back to us when things are looking a little brighter."
"Understood," Jessica said to his back as he stepped out into the cool morning air, "I'll come by in a bit to check on you."
The mayor and the town's head doctor stepped out into the fog. Sugarhill was checking his coat buttons, unbuttoning and re-buttoning them as Rosario peered into the shattered window leading into the house. The front door unlocked under Sugarhill's touch and he stepped through into the silent living room. At least the electricity was still running.
Almost immediately Sugarhill was in the kitchen knocking goods into a large canvas army backpack. Canned goods were the thing he favored most, but he had also accumulated a stockpile of rice and beans, secured from the warehouse years ago. Sacks of rice and beans were joined by pots and pans and a hefty box of shotgun cartridges. The lid of the box dissolved as he dropped it down the bag, spilling shells in amongst the other goods. Sam looked in at Sugarhill's fridge and found it well stocked with soft drinks and McCarthy brand bottled ale.
"You mind?" he asked pulling one of the bottles from the fridge and opening it on a nearby drawer handle. The cap cascaded down onto the ground near a discarded shotgun shell.
"Drink up," Sugarhill said, "That's the last one you'll be able to drink for a while."
Rosario looked from Sugarhill back toward the still open fridge. Long puffy trails of icy fog were pouring out from the ice box's freezer into the room, bathing row after row of McCarthy ale at the back of the fridge. He turned back to Sugarhill,
"You have plenty."
"We're not taking any with us," Sugarhill said.
"With us?" Rosario said as he felt the ale go sour in his hand, "Jessica said to wait here."
"Oh yeah?" Sugarhill said with a chuckle as he buckled the dull army green backpack shut, "And you really think she'll be coming back?"
"Clayton," Sam said shaking his head, "We can't leave her like this. She needs us and we need her. The town needs us."
"Town's dead, Sam," Sugarhill said as he disappeared back into the living room. He was picking up his old hunting shotgun, the trophy piece Paul Rind had taught him to shoot with all those years ago. It was in poor condition, as Sugarhill hadn't found the time to clean or maintain it the way Rind had advised. But it would work. He loaded two shells from his sweaty hands into the double barrels and slammed the breech shut, "You know that already."
"Clayton," Rosario said, "This town is all we have. If it vanishes, we've got no chance."
Mayor Sugarhill waved him off with his hand, turning back toward the desk resting at the far side of the room near the window. He walked over and picked up the small plastic trophy that had been set there mere days prior. That was back when he had thought Rind was dead, back before Molly had truly returned. He picked it up, smirking at the token and placing it in his pocket. On the typewriter next to the trophy was a short message.
To whom it may concern.
"I don't believe in heroes," Sugarhill said pulling the sheet of paper from the typewriter and crumpling it in one hand, "Not here. But lately I've been giving a lot of thought on the subject. And I think the best I can do at this point is surviving. I've watched my best friend die and mourned him already, then after he came back I had him arrested and locked up in a cell where he will almost definitely die again. I did that at the time to help the town's chances. But like the poet says, the best lack all conviction. The worst are full of it."
"It doesn't have to be this way," Sam said, an odd hope in his voice. If it was genuine, Sugarhill reasoned, then he was certainly losing his mind. Or maybe he was just a foolish old man.
"Andrea was on the radio a lot last night," Sugarhill said, "And there weren't many units responding. Now if we're lucky, it's because they've fled to the woods. And if not, it's because they're already dead. I put Rind away to keep things from degenerating. But he was the only one that could have stared down the devil. With Jessica in charge, competent a
s she may be, we're not going to survive long. The men don't fear her the same way. She's too..."
"Good?" Rosario asked. Sugarhill snorted as he nodded, realizing that was exactly the word he had been searching for. It made sense. The thing about Rind that had enforced order so well was precisely the well inside him that would let him draw strength at any cost. Everyone high up in the town's social order knew it, and that's what had kept him getting elected. He had never really had to use it, but everyone felt a need to have him there. If they ever faced something bad enough, Rind could be worse if he needed to be.
Mayor Clayton Sugarhill and Dr. Sam Rosario walked outside the small duplex at 720 East Flamingo road and onto the street, carrying the loaded down army green bag of supplies between them, one hand each on the shoulder straps. Over his shoulder Sugarhill had the shotgun resting in line with the thick suspenders that pulled in two tracks of his bulging gut. In his other hand, Rosario had his doctor's bag with the loaded .38 special tucked inside.
"You sure about this?" Rosario said.
"Yeah," Sugarhill said, "We're not going to survive here. We don't know how many Mollys there are. They've swarmed us, picked up everybody and slit their throats. Or whatever they do to you these days."
"Mayor," Rosario said as they trailed up the road toward the edge of town. Flamingo road terminated in a clear cut line and the fence that separated Cairo from the rest of the world. Moments passed between Rosario's simple appeal and Sugarhill's response. They were soon at the fence, and Sugarhill pulled a pair of small wire cutters from the army pack. He worked at the wires, snipping a hole from them bit by bit. Finally, halfway through the task, Sugarhill looked up,
"What were you going to say?"
"I'm just surprised. You're not a man of great courage or supreme intelligence, but you're who we picked. You're a little man in charge of a little town in a world all by itself."
