by Maxey, Phil
“We’ll see.”
They passed over a cattle grid, making the car rattle, those in the back remained sleeping.
After a while, hills and fields gave way to steeper inclines.
Ever since Joel realized who it was who he managed to save back in Coolstone, he could not find any words to communicate with. Each time he went to open his mouth, he felt the guilt of what he had done to her husband would be obvious. And then what? Would she try and kill him? Better to stay quiet. But after an hour and a half, the silence was getting to him.
He briefly looked across to the woman whose eyes were closed, with her head slightly cocked to one side. “You awake?”
“Yes,” she said without stirring.
“So how you end up there. I heard gunfire. That’s why I drove down there.”
She sat up, opening her eyes. “You got any water?”
He nodded towards the glovebox. “In there.”
She pulled the glovebox lid down. Two plastic bottles looked back at her. As well as two handguns. She reached in carefully grabbing the bottle and being careful not to make any move towards any of the guns. She pulled the plastic bottle out, unscrewed the cap then took a few mouthfuls. Before resealing it, she looked back to her daughter, then smiled, and put the cap back on. “I was trying to make my way back to my husband.”
I killed him.
“Right.”
“You?”
The road they were on curved and climbed.
There was only the sound of the engine as Marina waited for an answer.
“What?” said Joel.
“How did you end up out here? You from LA?”
“Err… yeah. I was stationed there.”
“Stationed? You in the army?”
“No, I was in one of the FBI’s tactical units.”
“Guess that’s why you’re still alive.”
“Something like that… What about you? You must be pretty tough. The scourge killed most.”
“Scourge?”
“That’s what they were calling it in LA.”
“No, I’m just a mother… part-time housewife.”
Joel knew that wasn’t completely the truth, she had done a tour in Iraq before leaving to start a family with Russell.
She briefly checked again on her sleeping daughter. “LA looked pretty bad on the TV news…”
Joel didn’t want the images of the early days in his mind and tried to find a way to answer without dredging up the memories. “It was.”
He slowed the car to a stop on the narrow winding road, and pulled the large pullout map up from beneath his feet.
The cool night air drifted in through Joel’s slightly open window.
“I used to like going into the mountains with my family as a kid,” said Marina.
Joel didn’t respond, his eyes being focused on the map.
“You know where we’re going?”
“There’s a small town up ahead, former mining town. Looks like it’s all by itself, not much around it for miles. Maybe we can hole up there for a while.”
“You don’t think they will be there?”
“I don’t know… probably.”
“You got more guns?”
“I have.”
“Good.”
He pushed the foldout map back down and drove around the winding bend. In the night sky they could just about make out the shapes of roofs from homes built on the cliffs above them. As they progressed, larger buildings appeared as dark square shapes against the stars.
“Not seeing any lights in these buildings, if there’s anyone here they are keeping a low profile,” said Marina.
“Lights will draw them to you. If there are people here, we won’t know it until morning.”
The car arrived at a sharp bend. Ahead of them, the headlights caught another building, proudly announcing ‘Bellweather Fire Department.’ They slowly drove past, moving lower down the mountainside into a more built up area.
Marina looked at shadows residing in shop windows which lined the side of the road. “Doesn’t look like there has been any looting here.”
Joel stopped the car.
“Why you stopping?”
Marina then followed his gaze.
They were at a junction. Ahead and to their left were figures standing in the dark.
“Are they those things?” said Jess from the rear seat.
The dog started to growl.
Joel put the car into reverse and went to floor it but stopped. “Shit.”
Marina looked through the rear window. Similar human forms stood in the rear lights.
“Just drive through them!” shouted Marina.
Once before he and Russell tried the same tactic, they were lucky to get out alive.
“You don’t understand, they’re quick and strong, they will tear us apart…”
“Then what we going to do? We can’t just stay here.”
Joel looked at the doorway to his left, it was only a few yards away. A sign sat above it. ‘Bellweather Hotel.’
“We make a run for it, into that hotel.”
Marina looked at the quaint, large glass windows which ran along the side of the building. “We’re not going to survive in there!” She looked back at the black-eyed beings outside. “What are they waiting for?”
“I don’t know, grab both the guns from—”
Before he could finish, night became day as streams of red neon tore across the street, tearing the things outside apart.
Marina whipped around in her seat. “Get down, Jess!” The young girl did as asked hiding beneath the front seats.
After what seemed like minutes but was seconds, it was done, and nothing was left standing.
Joel peered above the dashboard, not quite believing that the vehicles windows were all still intact. “Is anyone hurt?” he said to those around him.
Marina looked at her daughter looking back at her on the floor. “I think we’re okay.”
Lights started to switch on in all the second-floor buildings around them, until the whole street was clearly lit.
Holding his hand to his eyes to try and see through the glare, Joel sat back in his seat. A knock came on the window. He turned to face a barrel of a shotgun.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Darnest thing I’ve ever seen. Them all just standing there like that,” said a clean-shaven stout man with a red baseball cap on. He sat on a bar stool in the hotel foyer.
The dog barked from the car as men and women carried the bodies of the fallen from the street and piled them into the back of a large truck.
“The barking could bring more,” said a portly middle-aged woman wearing a flannel shirt.
“He don’t like being locked up,” said Joel. He was sat on a chair in the middle of the lounge area. Marina and Jess were sat to his right on a sofa.
The woman eyed the dog suspiciously. “Yeah, well something’s off about that animal’s eyes.”
“We’re not a threat to you! I’m just a mom with her kid!” said Marina, looking at two other men pointing their rifles at them.
The man with the cap looked at the rifle-holding men who then lowered them to the ground.
“So why don’t you tell us why you entered our town?” said the man.
“Maybe we should wait for Jim?” said the woman.
The man with the cap rolled his eyes. “We don’t mention names, remember?”
“Well how else am I meant to—”
Before she finished a rush of cold air heralded the hotel main door opening, and in walked a tall rugged gray-haired man, wearing a Stetson, and a long, worn coat with a history of its own. He walked forward as two other men came in behind him.
Joel recognized the air of authority from the new arrival just from how he walked across the room.
“You three were in the car?”
The man with the cap started to talk, but the taller man put his hand up. “I want them to answer.”
“We were just looking
for a place to hole up for the night,” said Joel.
“And you are?”
“Joel Garret.” Joel noticed the older man’s eyebrow slightly lift on hearing his surname.
The tall man looked at Marina.
“Marina Hopkins, and this is Jessica Hopkins, my daughter.”
He looked back at Joel. “You ex-military or just a gun runner?”
Joel had already seen some of the other men looking in the trunk while they were waiting. “I’ve been collecting munitions on my journey east. You’re welcome to take some.”
The man with the cap smiled, looking at those gathered in the small foyer. “Oh, we’ll be taking what we want.” The tall man looked at him, making him frown.
The man with the cowboy hat looked back at Joel. “What did you say you did again?”
“I didn’t…” Joel looked at the rifles around him and wondered if mentioning his past role as a law officer was worth the risk. “I was a HRT operator, based in LA.”
Now both eyebrows of the older man raised, and Joel felt Marina’s eyes on him.
The man with the cap tried to hide his confusion. “And what does that mean? We meant to be impressed?”
The older man ignoring the question, took his hat off, walked forward and held his hand out. “I’m Jim Braxton, Sheriff of Yavapia County.”
Joel got to his feet and briefly shook the sheriff’s hand.
“How do we know he’s telling the truth? He could—”
Jim turned slightly to the man on the stool. “And this is the mayor of Bellweather, Pat Hardin.”
Joel nodded to Hardin, then looked at the woman behind the bar counter.
“And that is the owner of this establishment—”
“I can speak for myself, Jim. Claire Bennett.”
They all realized the dog had stopped barking.
Jim briefly looked back at the shards of glass which laid on the floor near the windows. “Sorry about the damage.”
Claire nodded. “It was time I boarded some of these up anyway.”
Marina looked at Jim. “The street was full of those things—”
“Call them what they are, vamps,” said Claire.
Jim frowned. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot still in our town, we…” He looked briefly down into his hat, turning it over in his hand. “Used your arrival to draw them to the main street.”
“Well it worked, didn’t it,” said Hardin.
“That it did,” replied the sheriff. He then looked at Claire. “Maybe we can show Ms. Hopkins and her daughter to a room?”
Claire nodded and walked over to Marina and Jess who got to their feet. They glanced at Joel then, with Claire, walked up a wooden staircase.
Jim sat on the sofa, Joel sat back down. “What’s it like out there?” said Jim.
“We heard most of the major cities were hit hard?” said a younger man with scruffy light brown hair.
“Let the man speak for himself,” said Jim.
Scenes of fire, death, and people feeding on people ran through Joel’s mind. “It spread pretty fast when—”
“It’s a virus, right? Like Ebola?” said an older slim man with a rifle, he too was wearing a baseball cap.
“We don’t know what it is, Ted,” said Jim, his eyes not moving from Joel. “Please continue.”
“I was part of a team that helped coordinate with the CDC. We helped protect their people as they tried to figure out what was happening, but, umm, whatever it was that was changing people, happened too quick, and those that changed, they became stronger, faster.” Joel looked directly at the sheriff, his eyes red. “Lots of good people died, and…”
“Became vampires,” said Claire at the bottom of the stairs.
Jim shook his head as she walked through the lounge towards another door. “We don’t know what these things are, Claire. For now, let’s keep the superstition to a minimum.”
She opened a door at the back of the room. “Sure,” she said, disappearing inside.
It was then Joel realized the strange smell that had been invading his senses since he was brought into the room was garlic.
*****
Joel weaved around a jackknifed truck. Helicopters roared overhead, and faces, some contorted in terror others lost in despair, flashed past. People became blurs as he tried to concentrate on not hitting any of them. His own face was smeared with blood, and his chest stung from the lacerations.
Keeping one eye on the road in front of him, he kept his foot on the gas pedal and leaned across to open the glovebox, when something slammed into the front of his pickup, flew upwards, then hit his windscreen, cracking it. He slammed on the brakes, but the momentum took him forward into the back of a sedan.
For a moment his mind spun, and he blinked, trying to claw back some semblance of awareness. The fury of the world then rushed back in to his senses. Alarms, screams, and another sound, which he couldn’t quite place filled the smoky air around him. He turned around to check on Tarin. Her body was still limp on the rear seat under the blanket he placed on top of her. He then remembered he hit something, likely a person, and went to open his driver’s door, when the rear window of his truck shattered.
He spun around to see a man, or something pretending to be one, trying to climb in through the back of the cabin. He pulled his handgun from his hip holster, slid off the safety, and went to fire when the driver’s side window shattered, showering the back of him with tiny segments of glass.
Sharpened nails tore into his right shoulder. Ignoring the pain, he instinctively turned and fired. Unlike what actually happened, in his dream the thing’s head just absorbed the bullet, and its mouth opened, wider and wider, showing teeth sharklike in nature.
Joel awoke into darkness, his feet and hands flailing in front of him. His heart pounded in his ears. He sat up, not being completely aware of where he was, then remembered the previous hours and how he ended up in this hotel bed, in a small hillside town in Arizona.
He swung his feet around to the floor. A glow was coming from the bottom of his door, but he didn’t need the light to see in the dark of the room. He went to get up, then realized the sheet he had been partially wrapped in was torn in a number of places. Sighing, he dropped it to the bed, and stood, then walked to the window and looked out to the street below. His car was still there, and he could just about see a dog-shaped shadow through the rear window.
Putting his pants on, and the rest of his clothes and boots, he left the bedroom, and walked across the landing. There were another four doors that he could see before the hallway ended at a junction, but he didn’t want to investigate. He wanted to go outside.
Creeping down the stairs, keeping to the far edges of the wooden steps so to avoid them creaking, he made it to the bottom, and walked to the front door, hoping it wasn’t locked by a key. A sound came from behind him making him freeze and look back. He knew there was someone in the room he saw Claire go into earlier in the evening. Their sweat and other bodily odors wafted through the gaps in the door. He could almost see the smells as wispy streaks in the air, but he knew he must have been imagining that. He turned his attention back to the door, and pulled back two latches, including lightly dropping a small chain, then pulled the door open. A rush of cool air hit him, making him breathe in, then he stepped through the gap, and closed the door behind him.
The dog was already sitting up on the backseat looking at him, but he walked past the canine and went straight to the trunk. They had given him his car keys back, and he now used them to discover what he already presumed, but needed to see for himself. He pulled the trunk open and looked at the empty space that once held a number of military grade weaponry. Even the supplies he had scavenged were gone, including his water, food, and survival gear he had picked up along the way from California.
Leave me with half, eh.
He leaned in and pulled up the carpet to reveal the small silver suitcase and sighed, then let the carpet fall back down.
He wond
ered who had taken everything. The sheriff looked like a man of his word. Old school.
The dog gave out a suppressed bark.
“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re there.”
Joel closed the trunk, then walked around to the rear door. “If I let you out, you gotta promise not to bite anyone, okay?”
The dog just looked back at him with attentive eyes.
He slid the key in the driver’s door, and went to open the other door, but the dog jumped between the seats, down onto the sidewalk, then bolted off into the night, down the main street.
“Shit… come back!”
Joel took off after it, the dog was quick, but he found himself gaining on it. He had no idea he could run this fast, and lunged forward, grabbing the animal around its neck. They both skidded to a stop.
“I get it, you been cooped up in that car all evening, you want to let loose, but—”
Joel stood up straight. “Where the hell are we?” He turned around to face the way they came. A sign sat on top of a pole, just visible in the moonlight.
‘Bellweather, 1 mile.’
“We ran a mile?” Joel slid his hand through his thick hair.
Behind him, the dog took a few paces forward and started growling.
“What is it?” Joel walked past the dog, following the mountainous road as it veered around the bend to his left. Built into the rock was an intensely dark circular opening. The dogs growl increased.
Joel walked closer to the mine entrance, most of which was boarded up with wooden boards across it. He tried to see deeper into the void inside, but even with his improved vision he wasn’t detecting any movement within.
“I’m not seeing anything in there…” He turned away from the entrance. “I’m going to have to come up with a name for you, can’t keep calling you dog.”
The dog’s growling started to subside.
Joel turned and started walking back towards the town. “Come on, we’re walking back, and by the time I get back to the hotel, you’re going to have a name.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Marina laid on her back in the double bed looking at the strips of sunlight on the ceiling. Jess was sleeping to her side. Seven hours earlier it had taken a full retelling of her favourite dragon story, and Marina telling her repeatedly that they were being looked after by nice people, before her daughter’s eyes closed and her breathing deepened.
