Chapter 27
Jeff moved through the deep snowdrifts, his thighs aching with the effort and his body hot beneath the clothes he wore against the cold. All the time since he’d left the group he had been scrutinizing the forest before him and moving away from anything he saw that made it seem like the hue of the trees was lighter than he wanted it to be. He had been looking through squinted eyes for so long that his cheeks were hurting. His ears were alive to every sound outside his own traveling and he constantly stopped to listen for any signs of danger.
After what felt like an hour but was probably in reality only twenty minutes, Jeff had to stop to rest. The uneven terrain and the weight of the wet boots on his feet, coupled with his general lack of shape, conspired to make him feel like a ninety-year-old man who’d smoked a hundred a day for most of his life. He sat on a wide stump and looked around. It was disheartening to think, as Joe had said, that it would be morning before he could even some close to thinking he was safe.
He wished Mouse was with him now. It wouldn’t make it any safer — the fact that Mouse was already dead was testament to that, but Jeff felt like he could do with a friend right now. Someone who he didn’t even need to talk to but just someone to be here with him, going through the same thing he was. It was hard to believe that such a man like Mouse could be dead and to be killed by, of all things, the forest where he’d spent his whole life. It beggared belief.
“If only you’d finished Maul off like you always wanted to, Mouse, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess now,” he said with a smile on his face. He’d known all along how scared Mouse had been of the wild Thorndean. Jeff was sure Mouse had always believed Jeff saw him as fearless of the man but it was clear in the changed voice of the huge man anytime he met Maul that he was terrified of him.
“Was it you who killed him, Maul?” he also asked aloud. Was it possible that Maul was somehow part of this forest now, each tree his eyes and his ears for miles all around? The idea that this was even remotely possible set him to walking again. Sleep is what he wanted to do but walk was what he needed to do. It was hard to imagine he would ever feel the comfort of a bed again. He moved off again.
The searing pain of a stitch shocked Jeff’s ribs as he walked farther on and he altered his body as he walked to lessen the hurt. This new walking position put strain on new muscles however and soon not only was his back hurting but his lungs stung as he breathed in, a pain that was equal to if not worse than the stitch itself.
Stopping and leaning against a large boulder that cropped out of the ground—and was taller than he was—Jeff breathed shallowly to try to ease his lungs. He gripped a handful of flesh at his side where the stitch was, almost feeling like he held the pain itself within his palm — an old remedy he’d used since he was a child and always found effective. He leaned back on the flat face of the stone and turned his cheek to it to feel the cool surface. It was a moment of bliss compared to anything the last few hours had presented him but it was to be very short-lived.
“Shopkeeper,” a growling deep voice said from the depths of the woods. Jeff shot up straight and looked all around, unsure which direction the sound had come from. He cocked his gun and aimed at nothing spinning the barrel from one part of the forest to another.
“Who’s there?” Jeff called out. “Where are you?” No answer came and for a few moments the only sound was the rattling of Jeff’s gun in his cold shaking hands.
“Shopkeeper,” the voice came again. “Run.” Jeff turned to where he thought the voice was coming from and aimed his rifle into the darkness. Planting his feet more firmly into the ground, he said,
“I’m through running,” the breath falling in thick fast mists from his mouth as his heart raced harder than ever before in his life. “Come on out Maul,” he said. “Let’s finish this now.”
What greeted this response was a low growling noise, deep and gravely and then slowly rising in volume. That horrible noise of the twiggy snaking tendrils came on slowly too but seemed to gather pace as the growling noise turned into a roar of what Jeff could only think of as abject and utter fury. It was a sound so terrifying that his knees rattled and tears fell from his eyes, blurring them badly.
“Show yourself you fucking coward!” he shouted at the top of his voice. The tendril noises grew closer and closer but seemed still to be a distance away and not yet in sight.
Jeff wiped at his eyes in an effort to see better and as he did he was sure something moved, something like he’d seen when they were attacked earlier. He fired off two quick shots and heard the bullets hit home and the roar of furious pain that went with them. As he’d been concentrating on the shape moving, Jeff hasn’t noticed the tendrils rush across the ground out of the trees and his legs were suddenly swiped from under him and he fell heavily on his back, the gun clattering off the rock and falling to the ground a couple of feet from him.
Faster than he would have thought possible, he found his body almost completely covered in those awful tightening tendrils and he pressed back as hard as he could against them, hearing some snapping and cracking as he did so. It was all in vain however and he was soon cocooned and could barely move at all.
Then he noticed something he found odd. The tightening had stopped and no part of the tendril seemed to be trying to do him any harm. He only had a moment to wonder why before he heard the heavy footstep of what was once Maul Thorndean coming from within the trees.
“I suppose this is what you’ve always wanted,” Jeff spat at the shape as it loomed over him. “Killing everyone in town?”
As he looked on the creature whose face was so little like that it once wore but enough to know that it was indeed Maul in there, it spoke those same words again, though his time in a lower tone,
“Shopkeeper, run.” Jeff didn’t know what he meant by this but he knew there was no way he was going to be even walking, let alone running away from this situation. He was about to attempt to spit in Maul’s leaning over wooden scaled face when a new thought scampered into his mind — two shots! He’d fired two shots that hit Maul and that was the signal he’d told the others he would raise when he was safely off the mountain.
‘They would know you didn’t have the time yet to get off the mountain,’ he second-guessed himself. But it was also possible that he had found some faster way down wasn’t it, a random driver that had somehow gotten through on the road or something similar. He looked to the gun and knew he had to fire once more if only to stop giving the false hope to those back up in Mercy.
The gun was close but his arms were pinned to the ground and time wasn’t on his side. Knowing this, he closed his eyes and put all his effort into one huge surge of strength in his right hand — the one closest to the rifle — and pulled free with timbers breaking and snapping as he did. He got hold of the gun just as another tendril shot over and held him down once more, he felt through the hoop and pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening and a clod of earth burst up into the air a few feet away where the bullet made contact. Maul didn’t move a muscle, and the tendril crushed in once more.
Jeff looked up at the night sky and held off screaming for as long as he could. It wasn’t all that long in the end and no doubt his agonised wails as he was crushed to death would have made up for any misconception the three shots would have fostered in those remaining up the mountain.
Chapter 28
Joe stood at the front door of the Lone Wolf Tavern and looked out at the little town he’d known as home these last years. Never in his life had he felt so hopeless and bereft of ideas. The white death was spreading all around and getting closer to town all the time. It wouldn’t be long before the buildings here would be surrounded with bent over vines and trees like the Thorndean place. He wondered how long it would be before that happened. It would not be a pretty end for any of them that was for sure.
The idea of shooting the others now before the horror arrived crossed his mind, but he pushed it away. In the moment like with Ava and Jarrod
, he might be able to do it again but not in cold blood; that wasn’t in him. He looked down towards his office and thought of trying the radio again. Just as he took the first step, the noise of the door opening behind him halted his progress.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Sally said with as close an imitation of her usual smirk as she was able to pull off just then.
“I was going to go over and try the radio one last time.”
“Worth a try I suppose,” she said, “You want some company walking over.”
“Sure.”
They walked in silence down the short distance to the sheriff’s office and Joe held the door for Sally to go inside.
“Finger crossed,” he said leading her to the radio room. Sally showed him her own crossed fingers and looked about the room. She had never been in here before.
Joe fiddled to no avail with the radio for a couple of minutes before giving up. Sally saw his disappointment and didn’t bother making any remarks on the radio not working. After a moment he looked at her and said,
“You should get out of here.”
“The station?” she asked not sure what else he could be talking about but also not understanding why he would put her out of this building.
“No, Mercy. It looks as though you might be the only one safe to get out. Maul will protect you.”
“I can’t go and leave the rest of you here,” she answered.
“You have to; it’s the only way anyone is going to survive.” Sally was shaking her head before he even finished talking,
“No, I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t leave you all like that, especially Susan.”
“If you don’t get out here, we won’t be able to warn anyone about what’s happening here.”
“Jeff might still get out,” she said.
“He might, but wouldn’t it be better if two got out rather than none?”
“If you’re so sure Maul will protect me, I can leave at any time,” she retorted, and it sounded like a child arguing.
At that moment three shots rang out from the forest. Joe and Sally looked at one another.
“Jeff?” Sally said hopefully.
“He can’t have gotten down the mountain that quickly,” Joe said. They went to the door and listened to the night. There was no more noise.
“He did say he would fire three shots once he was safe,” Sally whispered. Joe wanted to think this was what had happened, but he didn’t feel it. Then the third shot came and confirmed it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sally’s head drop and then heard her weeping. To make things worse, Jeff’s tortured screams filled the mountainside air as he died what must have been a gruesome death. Sally gasped at this noise and buried her head in Joe’s chest.
“Oh my God!” she sobbed. Joe held her close again and felt the hot sting in his own eyes.
“We better go back to Susan and Sam,” he said and ushered her onto the road. Sally moved with him but it was like she suddenly had the frailty of a ninety-year-old woman. He guessed Jeff’s death had been the one to send her over the edge and into despair.
There was no doubt by the glum faces and wet eyes on the couple in the tavern that they too had heard Jeff’s grisly demise. It was probably all the worse that they had only heard it; their imaginations would conjure up much worse horrors than whatever it was that had actually happened.
The fire was blazing in the hearth now, having been started by Sam since Joe had left the room, and the flames licked high into the chimney. Looking at the room — save the bed that clearly didn’t belong — it looked so warm and inviting. You would never guess the pandemonium that was going on outside the cosy tavern. An image of Centrepoint on fire came to mind; the view he’d seen from the top of the mountain and suddenly it made sense to him.
“What are you thinking?” Sam asked him suddenly. “Your face changed just now.” The others looked at Joe.
“Earlier, when I went looking for Mouse, I saw from the peak that there was a big fire in Centrepoint,” Joe started.
“Centrepoint?” Sam interrupted.
“It’s a town about twenty miles away on the other side of the mountain,” Susan told him.
“What about it?” Sally asked Joe impatient for him to get on with it.
“I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but just now I had the idea that perhaps they are having the same trouble we are.”
“The trees?” Susan asked.
“Yes,” Joe nodded.
“You think it could have spread that far from either here to there or the other way round?” Sally asked.
“I do,” Joe said. “But that’s not the point. I think they found a way to fight it, a very obvious way as it turns out.”
“Fire!” Sam said.
“They set their town on fire?” Susan seemed doubtful.
“I doubt they saw they had a choice,” Joe said, “If the same thing is happening there as here can you blame them for getting extreme.”
“So you want to set the forest on fire?” Sally asked making sure she had a handle on what they were talking about.
“Fire kills wood,” Sam said shrugging his shoulders.
“I think it’s our only choice,” Joe said.
“And what if that doesn’t work?” Susan asked.
“Well, in that case, we will be no worse off than we are now.”
“So how do we do this?” Sam said with an eagerness that had been lacking in everyone for some hours now.
“Gasoline,” Joe said. “We’ve got some in Jeff’s garage and then whatever we can syphon from the cars that are still around.”
“Let’s get to it then!” Sam said and then looking at Susan said, “We’ll get out of this yet!”
“Susan,” Sally said, “You’ll have to stay here on your own a while; it will take as many hands as we can get to spread the gas all around town and start the fires.” Susan nodded.
“I only wish I could help,” she said casting her eyes to the bedsheets.
“We’re going to need to split up for this,” Sally said then to Joe. “No arguments this time.” Joe nodded; she was right. They would have to cover as much ground as they could as fast as they could and get a circle of fire around the town.
Sam leaned in and kissed Susan.
“We’ll be back soon,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said and then added, “Good luck to you all.”
“Let’s go,” Joe said. “We don’t have much time.”
Chapter 29
There were ten five-gallon drums of gasoline in Jeff Sorkin’s garage.
“Plenty to get a fire going,” Sam said looking at them.
“Let’s hope it lights well in all this snow,” Joe said trying to calculate how much of a fire this haul might fuel.
“I say we head uphill first as it seems to be coming down the mountain faster than coming up it,” Sally said.
“I think we should have two up and one down,” Sam said. “Best to head off what’s coming up too, I say.”
“I agree with that,” Joe said, “Sally can you start downhill?” Sally nodded.
“Probably best we start at the points we need to get to farthest from here first so the journeys for more gas are getting shorter rather than longer,” Sam said. Joe nodded at this too and wondered briefly if there was any merit to starting some fires along the way with small Molotov cocktails? He concluded that it would take too long to make even a few of these up and dismissed the idea.
“What happens if it doesn’t light up, or if the wind changes and blows the flames back at us in town?” Sally asked. Joe thought about this a moment and then answered sombrely,
“It will either kill it, or kill us, but either way it will be over for us.”
There was a moment of silence as they each pondered this before Sam, getting more buoyant by the minute it seemed smiled and said,
“Well let’s hope it doesn’t turn back on us,” and he picked up one of the drums.
He immediately put it back down. “That’s too heavy to carry any real distance!”
“We’ll have to pour it into something else,” Sally said looking around.
“I’ve got a couple of half-filled containers in the jeep, we can use that to get you started Sally,” Joe said. “And we’ll figure out what to do here.” Sally nodded and set off.
“I’ll get it myself,” she said. “I assumed the jeep in unlocked?”
“It is,” Joe answered. “Take care and call if you need us.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said stopping at the door. “I have my guardian angel, remember?” She winked and then disappeared out into the night. Joe smiled and then saw Sam was looking at him perplexed,
“What was that about?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you when this is all over,” Joe said and he set about looking for something to pour some of the gasoline into. Sam stood there a moment longer at this answer before shrugging and getting on with the task in hand himself.
All they could find were three small jerry-cans. They filled them from one drum and they poured some more from a second drum into the first one so both drums were a little lighter than when they started.
“I’m going to get the jeep,” Joe said, “We can put these in the back and drive up the road a little to get started.”
While Joe was gone, Sam moved as much as he could closer to the door. All the time he was thinking ‘if this works, Susan and I can finally make a go of things.’ It was something worth risking his life for to his mind and not just a last gasp effort to survive. He’d wanted nothing more in his life than he wanted to be with Susan and all today had done despite the horrors he’d both seen and endured was to solidify that opinion.
“We’ll do this Susan,” he said, and he felt right and good was on his side. This was a plan that was going to work.
Both men watched the trees like hawks as they slowly moved down the road in Joe’s jeep.
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