The sounds seemed to cease for several minutes. Elijah remained at the window, occasionally adjusting his grip on the poker. Neil packed up the clothing and water bottles they’d pulled from the bike packs. He didn’t want to head out in the dark, but if Elijah insisted, they’d at least be ready. He’d almost finished when an uneven, rapid clicking erupted nearby. He saw Elijah’s form straighten with sudden tension. Neil went to the other window. The clicking noise echoed off of the other buildings in the street making it hard to pinpoint where it was coming from and the moon was too low behind the tops of the trees to illuminate much, but after a few seconds, a large shadow burst past the window and the clicking began to recede.
“What is it?” asked Neil.
“Deer, I think,” whispered Elijah. “Horse maybe? Can’t see. Dogs will be—” he was interrupted by a loud series of yips and barks. And then a heavy thumping, almost like thunder. A hulking, rippling shadow rounded the corner down the street and galloped toward them. The windowpane in front of Neil rattled. Elijah took a shocked step back from his. “Oh shit,” he gasped. Neil could hear the growls and barks mixed in with the rumbling. A piece of the shadow broke away, veered toward them. Neil flinched as it raced up onto the porch, tried to leap over the railing, and fell with a crash as its large rack of antlers smashed into the overhang. A smaller shadow jumped out of the long grass and sprang on top of the deer before it could rise. A ragged scream ripped from the deer and it struggled to right itself, the smaller shadow snarling and hanging on to its neck. The deer stumbled down the porch and fell into the yard. The large mass had mostly passed the house now, but other shadows had peeled away and closed in on the yard.
“Damn it,” hissed Elijah, shrinking further back. “I should have picked a place with two exits. I thought we’d be safer, only one way in to defend— I’m sorry, brother, I killed us—”
“No, you didn’t. Take a breath, Elijah.” Neil left his own window and worked his way around the couch, trying not to thump. “They’re just dogs. And now they’re going to eat. They’ll fall asleep or go away after. We just have to wait them out.” He tugged Elijah’s elbow. “Come on, you only got a few hours of sleep. There’s still time to get some rest. I’ll watch.”
Elijah shook his head. “The sound and the smells are going to attract Infected.”
“Maybe,” Neil admitted, “but I’m watching. And I don’t know what you remember but I definitely didn’t try to get into any locked doors while I was sick. My attention span was too short. Infected might show up, they’ll chase the dogs or eat what’s left of the deer. That’s how it works, remember? We just stay quiet until everything’s gone.” He pulled the poker out of Elijah’s grip. “At least go lie down. Even if you can’t fall asleep you can rest your legs. Still got a long way to go. You didn’t do anything wrong. We’re safe. And even if it turned out badly— I’ve got a brain, too. We talked about this. We fuck up and die, then we fuck up and die together. That was the whole point.”
A pained yelp from outside interrupted his attempt to persuade Elijah to return to the bedroom. The thunderous beat of the hooves had faded away, but the growling and barking had not. They’d caught at least one deer, Neil was sure of it. Elijah shifted the curtain slightly again to look out.
“They’re just dogs,” Neil insisted. “They aren’t going to find us. And even if they did, they couldn’t get in. Go to bed, Elijah, the only thing to do is wait until they wander away.”
Elijah reluctantly pulled away from the window. He took the poker back from Neil but returned to the bedroom. “Watch for the Infected,” he warned Neil again.
“I will. If any show up, I’ll wake you.”
Neil could make out a writhing bundle of shadows and the occasional branching rack of the deer for a few more minutes, then it slowed and the shrieks of the deer ceased. The growling and yipping persisted a while longer but that, too, dwindled until only the crickets could be heard again. Neil eventually gave up on the window as the lumpy shadow began to evaporate. When the sky finally began to lighten, he checked once more. A wide smear of blood stained the street in front of the house and the carcass of a buck lay just on the far side of the tar, its antlers maroon-tipped and crooked toward the sky. A few dogs lay dead nearby, casualties of the battle. Two living dogs remained, the rest of the pack long moved on. One hobbled around the edges of the buck on three legs, stopping to sniff and pull at the meat every few seconds. The other lay panting close to the grass near the house. It wasn’t facing Neil, but he could see its ribs expand and contract too quickly. Both dogs had heavily matted fur and the three-legged one still had a dingy orange collar hanging loosely from its neck.
Randi had asked him for a dog. After the divorce. So often, in fact, that Neil had lost his temper once and snapped at her to stop asking. It was the last time she had. It had been a few weeks before her birthday, just a month before the parade. He’d had nowhere to keep a dog. No money for a vet. Barely enough to keep the tiny apartment he’d lived in. “If you get a pet, you have to be able to take care of it!” he’d shouted. “Can’t afford a vet, I can’t even afford to take you to the dentist. It’s cruel to keep an animal and watch it suffer,” he’d told her. She’d cried and run off and he’d felt evil and low. They’d made up a few hours later, of course, but he still felt guilt about it. Such a small thing, compared to everything else, but it still stung his conscience.
The panting dog was dying. Neil knew it, though he’d never watched a dog die before. Healthy animals didn’t breathe that way. And the morning was too chilly for it to be overheated. It must have been wounded in the battle with the deer and left behind when the pack moved on. Should do something, he thought. Can’t leave it like that. He glanced toward the bedroom doorway. Elijah was frightened of the dogs. But the limping straggler wasn’t a threat. Neil was certain he could outrun it if he had to, and it had to be relatively full by now. There wasn’t much left of the deer. The panting dog hadn’t moved at all since he’d been watching. He should go out, scare the limping dog away and do something for the other. What he should do was a separate question. He could at least give it water. Maybe the injury wasn’t that bad. Maybe he could do something to help. There’d been a dog here once, the note had said. Maybe there was some food or some kind of blanket to warm it. Neil left the window and went to the kitchen.
Except for some mouse droppings and an open package of sponges, the cupboards were bare. Of course she would have taken the dog food, he reminded himself, she said she had the dog with her. He found a bowl though, and a dusty bath towel sitting on top of the washing machine. He was searching the packs for a water bottle when Elijah emerged from the bedroom. He was still holding the poker and the dark hollows under his eyes told Neil that he hadn’t slept after all.
“Washing up?” he asked Neil, eyeing the bowl and towel.
“No. Wasn’t sure if we could spare the water. One of the dogs is injured. I don’t have any food, but I thought some water and a blanket might—”
“It’ll bite if you get close. They aren’t like you remember. They don’t know us anymore.” Elijah pushed past him toward the window. He brushed aside the curtain and stared out. “We can’t afford a bite. Even assuming it wasn’t rabid, a dog bite means having to find a pharmacy and risking whatever’s inside. We’ve got bandages but an infection—”
“It’s dying, Elijah. I haven’t seen it even move. I just wanted to give it some comfort. I don’t think it has the strength to bite.”
Elijah was quiet for a minute and Neil pulled a water bottle from his pack. He’d shoved the couch away from the door when Elijah finally said, “Don’t. Giving it water’s only going to draw out its suffering. We both know what we ought to do for it.”
Neil hesitated. “How? No vet around here. If I had a car then I could—”
“We’ve got a hatchet. And the guns. Like I said, death comes very easily now.”
Neil looked for the hatchet. It was leaned against the kitchen c
ounter where he’d left it. “I don’t want to miss,” he said. “That’ll hurt. If we had some food and maybe some— I don’t know, some poison or something…”
Elijah shook his head. “That would just leave it suffering for longer. It’s going to lie there in pain until we do something. But we’ve both got to go together, that other dog hanging around, I don’t want to turn my back on it. Not even sure we’ll be able to scare it away. We may have to kill it, too.” He craned to see farther down the street. “You’re sure the rest of the pack is gone?”
“Haven’t seen or heard them since late last night,” said Neil.
“And no Infected?”
“They’d have attacked the wounded dogs, wouldn’t they?”
“Yeah,” Elijah reluctantly agreed.
“I’ll do it,” said Neil. “I’ll take care of the one that’s lying on the street. You won’t have to get close. You can yell and wave at the other one. Or— chase it with the bike. That way if it won’t go, you’ll be fast enough not to get bit.”
“But what’ll you do if I bike off? It’ll just turn on you.”
“I’m hoping this isn’t going to take long enough for that to matter.” Neil picked up the hatchet and tested its weight. It was meant for chopping kindling. He wasn’t sure it would be enough for this. I wish there was a more painless way.
“You want me to load one of the guns instead?” Elijah asked. Neil shook his head.
“More likely to miss with that. Especially if the other dog decides to come after me. Never shot one before. Shit, I don’t want to do this.”
“We can switch if you want.”
“No. I can do it. I just don’t want to.” He also didn’t want Elijah pushed any closer to whatever edge he’d been on all night. Neil didn’t really know what had happened with the dogs, but Elijah was visibly sweating just considering the two wounded ones outside. Neil wasn’t going to risk making it any worse than they had to in order to get out of here. Elijah grabbed their packs.
“Get your bike,” he told Neil. “There’s going to be noise no matter what we do, and there could still be Infected following the pack. Happens a lot because they’ll eat the leftovers or the stragglers. We’re probably okay, they likely would have passed by now, but just in case.”
Neither dog even glanced over at them when they emerged from the house. The three-legged one was too absorbed in the deer carcass and the other was past caring about anything but pain, Neil suspected. It had dropped its head onto the tar, but its chest still stuttered rapidly.
Elijah’s hands flexed on the handlebars of his bike.
“Okay, going down there now,” whispered Neil. Elijah nodded. Neil didn’t wait to see if he’d follow, just slowly wheeled his bike down the porch steps and across the small lawn. He put it down a few feet from the dog. The three-legged one had noticed him, and a low growl rippled across the road at him.
“It’s okay, boy, it’s okay,” Neil said calmly.
The three-legged dog’s growl didn’t stop, but the hackles of its back didn’t rise either. Neil turned back to the dying dog. Its tail lifted an inch and flopped back down. Then again. It whined at him. “That’s right, everything’s going to be okay,” Neil said again. He bent to get the hatchet. Elijah’s bike moved between him and the other dog. The growl deepened.
“Go on, get out of here,” said Elijah. His voice was shaky. “Go on, get!” he said a little louder. The growl turned into a bark. Neil stood up again.
“You okay?” he asked without looking.
“Just get it over with,” said Elijah. There was a scraping sound behind him and then a clatter. “Go on!” Elijah shouted. The dog yelped.
Neil tried to ignore it. The dying dog was in very bad shape. It had been gored by one of the deer, blood staining the tar around its belly. Its fur was almost a shell of dirt except where it had fallen out and exposed its skin which was covered in raised bite marks. The tail thumped again. “It’s okay, boy. You belong to someone once? Randi would have loved you,” Neil said softly, not even certain what he was rambling about. He only wanted to get close enough to the animal to finish it without alarming it. It just stared at him, its tail sped up slightly. Behind him, Elijah yelled again. Another yelp.
“Just stay like that,” said Neil, raising the hatchet. Don’t miss. Don’t flinch, he told himself. His foot was an inch or two from the dog’s snout. If it had wanted to bite him, it was the perfect chance. Instead, it only huffed out another breath. Neil brought the hatchet down as hard as he could. He’d expected— well, he wasn’t certain what he’d expected. An agonized howl. A scream like the deer had emitted during the night. A yelp or a bark. There was nothing. Just the thump of the hatchet. Neil realized he’d shut his eyes. Stupid. Could have lopped off your foot, he realized, opening them. It was over. The dog’s chest was still, its rapid heaving abruptly gone as if Neil had imagined it.
“We need to get going,” said Elijah.
Neil glanced over at him. The three-legged dog had stopped a few feet beyond the deer carcass, growling. Its hackles were truly up now, the dusty fur bristling and bunching along its back. But it wasn’t looking at Elijah, it was staring up the road behind him. Elijah, too, had seemingly frozen, a small stone in his upraised hand. He was staring down the road as well. Neil turned to look. A figure stood at the top of the hill behind them. Too far to make out details.
“Elijah, I swear, there were none last night,” Neil said quietly.
“I believe you brother. But there’s one now.”
“Maybe not, maybe it’s a survivor. Maybe they heard you shout at the dog and realized you were sane—” Neil stopped as another figure appeared at the top of the hill and grabbed the first figure. For an instant, Neil thought maybe they were hugging. That they’d found each other and in relief— Elijah dropped the stone. It clattered on the tar and this time, the dog did flinch. It turned and ran unevenly down into the overgrown yard across the street.
“Time to go, no matter who it is. Unless you want to have to use that again.”
Neil glanced at the hatchet still hanging from his hand and wanted to drop it. He picked up his bike instead and stuffed it into a side pocket. So sorry, boy, he thought, looking again at the dog’s corpse. He had a crazy longing to bury it so that the people on the hill wouldn’t eat it. Elijah’s bike clicked as he began pedaling and Neil shook himself free of the idea and climbed onto his bike.
21
“That’s a lot of cars,” Neil said as they stood at the edge of the service area’s enormous lot. “Why are there still so many cars?”
Elijah shook his head and walked his bike slowly toward the large service plaza. “I don’t know. Maybe they did some type of screening here. Maybe they took people right out of their cars to a quarantine station to keep them from traveling. I don’t know.”
“They can’t all be here still. They wouldn’t keep people at a highway rest stop, would they?” asked Neil. He peered into a dusty gray sedan. It was empty. He tried the door. Locked.
“If it was a screening place, I’d imagine they’re gone. But it could have been something else. It could just have been where people agreed to meet up in the chaos. Could have been normal holiday traffic and something happened inside. So they never came out.”
“Maybe we should stay out here. There have to be some bottles of water in some of these cars.” Neil tried the door of a red jeep on his other side. Also locked.
“Might be. But most of them we’ll have to break into. We can do that, but it’ll take a long time and it’s getting dark. And it may take several cars to find what we need. There are restaurants and souvenir shops inside the plaza. Ten minutes and we’ll have enough water for days.”
“If no one is already living there. And there’s no Infected.”
“Yeah. If. But we need the water. I’ve got enough left for maybe the night. You?”
“Ran out an hour ago.”
Elijah stopped and leaned his bike against a pickup w
ith a flat rear tire.
“It’s okay, I’m not thirsty,” said Neil, already anticipating the offer. Elijah unstrapped his water bottle anyway.
“Well I am,” he said and took a drink, then offered it to Neil. Neil shook his head but accepted the water.
“There might be vending machines near the entrance,” Elijah offered. “Maybe we won’t have to go in.”
“Maybe. Where are we going to camp though?”
“We could go to the toll booth. The sign said half a mile.”
Neil glanced at the sun sinking behind the trees and handed Elijah the water bottle. “We’d better hurry or we’ll be biking in the dark then.”
Trash littered the sidewalk outside the plaza. Old food wrappers caught in the overgrown bushes and empty pop bottles rolled back and forth over the pavement with the breeze. A charter bus was parked sloppily half in the fire lane. Neil headed immediately for it.
“Wait,” Elijah called.
“I have to check—”
“I know. Just— let’s do it together.”
They circled the bus. The door hung slightly open. Elijah leaned his bike against the side and reached to push it further. Neil caught his arm. “You don’t have to look. You can— you can keep watch out here,” said Neil. “We don’t know if someone’s going to come running out of the plaza.”
“But if someone’s on the bus—”
“Then they’re probably not alive,” Neil admitted. “Nobody’s going to last a year on a bus. And the door was open. I’m just looking for— for a picture or a piece of clothing or maybe a map, anything that’ll tell me where this one came from. That’s all.” He stepped past Elijah onto the bus. Elijah watched him but didn’t follow.
He could tell immediately from the clean smell of warm fabric that there was nothing on the bus, even before he climbed the steps. Nothing rotting. No old food, no mildewing clothes, no people. He checked anyway. The seats were empty. They were also closed in small cubicles of Plexiglas, two bench seats in each. There were bolts on the outside of the Plexiglas doors. Neil pulled the bolt back on the first door and opened it, disturbed by the idea that it’d been used to keep people in. Get out of here, he told himself. No way this was Joan’s bus. No way she’d show something like this to Randi. Shay would have told me about something like this. Wouldn’t she?
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 20