“One more thing,” Colonel Wallace said, silencing the frantic murmurs from the crowd. “For the chemical propellant to reach its full effectiveness, my scientists have informed me that the local cell phone towers would have to be deactivated. Therefore, beginning at eight tomorrow morning, none of you will have cellular service until you are out of town.”
Clay noticed Colonel Wallace smirk ever so slightly at his latest ploy to undermine the town. Why the hell would the cell towers interfere with the fumigation?
All at once, the crowd erupted from their pews. They elbowed and scrambled their way toward the exit, grabbing on to their children’s hands. Clay felt mildly content: he still had power over his people despite everything. And as he turned, he received a tiny, firm grin from the mayor. She mouthed, “Good job, Sheriff.”
Chapter 21
As the church cleared, leaving only Clay, Alayna, Lois, and Colonel Wallace, Clay reached for the colonel’s hand and shook it firmly. He felt an engrained sense of responsibility for his people, alongside a fluttering of cockiness. He’d beaten Wallace at his military game. And everything was going to be all right. Hopefully.
“We’ll see how this goes,” Wallace said gruffly. He stomped from the church’s side entrance and slipped a cigarette from his pocket, popping it between his lips.
But Clay couldn’t revel in his victory for long. Alayna appeared beside him. “Good work. But let’s get outside and keep watch, all right? I have a bad feeling.” Her eyes searched his face.
Clay and Alayna marched through the church’s double doors, waving to both Maia and Valerie as they headed for home. “Meet you there?” Valerie mouthed. And Clay nodded, knowing he’d find a way. He always did.
The rising glow of the moon faintly lit Main Street, giving it an ominous feeling. Clay moistened his chapped lips and felt a sudden stab of pain in his left forearm, where the lesion was. He presumed it had begun to blister. “Shit,” he muttered.
“What is it?” Alayna asked. She looked harried, a bit panicked. Her tight, black bun had nearly wound down her back, but she didn’t notice it. She was rarely this unkempt.
But Clay didn’t yet want to reveal his sores. “Just this day. Something about it doesn’t add up for me,” he muttered, watching as a family of three across the street began to load food items into the back of their van. A young girl of about six or seven held three cans of beans and peered out over the horizon, her eyes like saucers.
“You questioning things again?” Alayna asked him. “You know you don’t have to think about everything all of the time. The world’s evils are not always just around the corner.”
Clay rubbed the back of his sweating neck as the girl thrust the cans of beans into the van before darting back into the house. “I suppose it’s just my nature. I can’t explain it. I have this gut feeling about today. It’s ominous, certainly. But I can’t help but feel like we don’t have all the answers.”
“Now who’s been watching too many sci-fi movies?” Alayna said, laughing.
But Clay didn’t react. Instead, his stomach throttled with sudden pain. He wrapped his hand over his abdomen, gasping. Alayna placed a steady hand on his lower back, sensing something was off.
“Dude, you’re sweating. Like, a lot,” she whispered. Her eyes scanned the street, ensuring no one else was noticing.
“The last thing I need right now is for Colonel Wallace to see me like this,” Clay muttered. He righted himself as the spasm passed.
“You should really talk to the doc,” Alayna pleaded. Everything about her was suddenly angular, panicked. Clay knew that if he agreed, she’d have no one left. And she couldn’t monitor this town’s evacuation by herself.
“The last thing I need right now is to be in some quarantine tent,” Clay muttered, resting a loose hand on his gun. “Really, Alayna, I’m fine. It’s probably just stress.” He gave her a slight smile before asking, “So, how ’bout my speech in there? Seems I’m a real crowd pleaser, huh?”
Alayna rolled her eyes but still maintained her upset disposition. “You killed it. But it’ll be all wasted breath if you’re dead. You really need—”
Clay held his hand up, stopping Alayna’s plea midsentence. “I’ll take it easy, all right? If things advance, I’ll talk to him at first chance. But for now, we need to be actively visible for the town’s residents. Agreed?”
Alayna nodded but continued to wear her look of disagreement.
Clay forced himself to retain his composure. He and Alayna took turns marching down Main Street, watching as people packed their vans and cars, kissed their children, and sobbed openly, knowing that their lives were about to change. He stopped in front of a teenage boy who kicked his foot against a post. “Aren’t you getting ready to go?” Clay asked him, tilting his head.
The teenage boy kicked the post harder, filled with anxiety. “Caleb was my best friend,” he said. “If he’s dead, we’re all going to die. He was the best person I knew.”
The boy’s words, despite their melodramatic tone, impacted Clay, causing his chest to tighten. “Losing Caleb was a tragedy. But if you don’t speed up and get out of here, your entire future, along with the future of your family, could be in jeopardy.”
The boy’s eyes gleamed with tears. His cheekbones were high, stark, without the baby face of his youth. “Fuck this, man,” he said. “Seriously.”
Clay’s stomach lurched. He agreed wholeheartedly. But he pointed toward the boy’s mother, who carried a large suitcase in her arms, stumbling wildly. “Just do the right thing. We all have to,” he whispered.
Clay met Alayna back in front of the church, feeling the chill overtake the air as the moon rose farther above the horizon. The streetlamps buzzed, providing small strings of light at several different points for about a mile. Alayna shivered, rubbing at her upper arms. “I used to think this town was so cozy,” she breathed. “Now, I’ve never been more frightened.”
That’s when they heard the first scream.
Chapter 22
Clay turned his head toward it, reaching for his gun. He saw a group of about ten people staggering toward them. When they drew close enough, their eyes flashed yellow beneath the streetlights. Their angry howls echoed against the old brick buildings. Clay rushed into the street, screaming for Alayna.
“They’re infected! Get your gun!”
“We can’t hurt them!” Alayna cried. “We know them!”
And sure enough, they did. Several of the crazed people coming toward them, staggering, bleeding purple blood from lesions on their heads and necks, had been the very people in the church’s town meeting. They’d gazed up at Clay with wide eyes, taking his word as gospel. And then they’d rushed to their homes, eager to evacuate.
But it had been too late. They’d already turned.
Women ripped their nails over their blouses, causing blood to spurt from their breasts. Three children, all around the age of ten, flung themselves to the ground and began thrashing wildly, screaming. It looked like they were being exorcized. The feverish mob drew closer still to Clay and Alayna, their arms outstretched, their hair falling in clumps around them, leaving a trail.
“Shit. What are we going to do?” Alayna whispered. “We can’t take them all to quarantine. They’ll destroy us.”
Clay lifted his gun. It shook in the air as he aimed it toward the first man: the aging science teacher from the local high school. His mouth lolled open, and he lurched toward Clay, sending his erratic, bleeding arms toward Clay’s throat. He was screaming, his tongue lolling from his mouth.
As his fingers waved inches from Clay’s neck, Colonel Wallace’s soldiers appeared from around the corner and flung up their automatic weapons, shooting several holes through the science teacher’s stomach, dropping him to the ground. His limbs flailed. Beside Clay, Alayna screamed. But the noise was soon obliterated by the sound of countless automatic bullets pummeling through the crazed group, pounding them to the ground. Blood splattered violently across the
church.
The silence after the shooting was deafening. Clay still held his gun elevated as the smoke cleared, revealing the sprawling bodies. Elbows pointed all direction. Their faces remained intact, blissful, almost angelic, if not for the few with bright and dripping legions.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” The teenage boy across the street, the one who’d been Caleb’s best friend, began to panic, waving his arms in a crazed way. But he didn’t have the virus. His fear was honest—the same fear that ravaged Clay’s heart.
But as the smoke cleared and the teenager continued his rambling, several of the dead men and women began to uncoil themselves from the ground. Miraculously, they pounded their hands upon the cement, lifting their elbows and upper bodies. They grinned ominously at Clay, their faces partially smashed in from the cement. And then they righted themselves on spindly, bullet-riddled legs and began their march toward him once more, their eyes still yellow, searching for him.
Clay stepped forward, confident. On instinct, he thrust his gun toward the heads of each of the men and women, shooting holes into their skulls. They flung back upon the ground, the brains spilling out behind their heads like a pillow. He shot them all—bang, bang, bang—the noise ringing through his ears.
And then, all at once, it was quiet. It was finished. Clay dropped his arm to his side, gasping. The silence around him was echoing, never ending. He collapsed upon his knees in immediate exhaustion. The facts of the day pounded into him: he’d killed nearly a dozen people, including Cliff, with a bullet to the brain.
The world was spinning.
He felt Wallace’s presence beside him. He craned his neck, peering up, and felt the sweat dripping down his cheeks.
Wallace’s voice pounded like the voice of God. “If you would have let me evacuate this place sooner, those lives wouldn’t have been lost,” he said. He gave Clay a look of extreme disappointment. “You better hope we can save the others.”
Wallace strutted back toward his vehicle, leaving Clay to stare down at his hands. He felt oddly defeated. Alayna moved toward him, tapping his back, silently supporting him.
Clay lowered his head, turning the events of the day over in his mind. He swiped at the never-ending stream of perspiration, unable to draw the link between the meteorite and the sweat and—all of this.
His voice came in staggering bursts. “What the fuck is really going on here, Alayna?”
Before him, the people he was meant to save dribbled dry, their blood and guts pushing out over the cement. Alayna had no answer.
Chapter 23
Clay and Alayna staggered into the church, Clay gasping for air. He pounded his fist against the wall. His eyes darted back toward the open doors, noting that the evacuation had continued and that Colonel Wallace’s men were already taking care of the dead bodies.
“Listen, Alayna. I want to make sure my family’s all right,” he said. He brushed his hand through his hair, feeling the strands release once more. “Would it be okay if I left you to handle things for a while? I’ll be back as soon as I can. And then, you can go check on—”
Alayna nodded. “Actually, Megan’s already left. She sent me a text that she’ll meet me in Austin. We’ve been talking about going there for months now.” She gave a small shrug. “Maybe the breakup’s not quite so official, huh?”
Clay nodded, remembering that Alayna and her girlfriend, Megan, had been on the rocks in the previous few weeks. He’d given her the best advice he could, given that he’d never been a thirty-year-old bisexual woman. He tapped Alayna’s shoulder, lightly kissed her cheek, and then rushed out to his sheriff’s car, parked near the station.
“Hurry back!” Alayna called to him. Her voice echoed against the main street buildings. It chilled Clay to the bone. But he reached his hand in the air and waved to her. He hoped that was assurance enough.
He sped toward home, winding down the back roads, taking the same route he had that morning. He blew through stop signs and stoplights, pushing past twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. When he was only two minutes from home, he felt he was going to jump out of his skin with anticipation. He just wanted to wrap his arms around his wife.
He burst into the house to find Valerie poised over a suitcase, stacking her mother’s silver cutlery in the sides. She blinked at him brightly and then rushed toward him, wrapping him in a sure, cozy hug. She kissed his cheek. “Darling, you don’t look well. Are you feeling all right? Can I make you some tea? I know you probably didn’t eat enough today . . .” She trailed off, wandering to the kitchen.
Clay followed her, falling into the comfort of home. He heard Maia’s music upstairs blaring. “Is she packing?” he asked. His voice was quieter than it had been the entire day. He didn’t want to hear himself any longer.
“She is,” Valerie said. “And pretty glad to be getting out of school for a while, frankly,” she teased.
“Well, wouldn’t we all be?” Clay said. He eyed the suitcase in the foyer. “You know, we should only be taking things that we absolutely need for the next month. Not china. Not cutlery. We can eat off paper plates if need be. Once we get to where we’re going.”
“And where in the world is that, exactly?” Valerie asked. She gave away her fear with a bright flash of her eyes. “This is all happening too damned fast, Clay.” She eased into the chair across from him and dropped her face into her hands. “I can’t remember ever feeling so frightened.”
Clay brought his hand over her knuckles, kneading at them. “Listen, baby. We’re going to get through this,” he said. He felt slight anger riding within him—anger that she couldn’t possibly understand how dire things really were. But he had to have strength for her.
“We’ll meet in Austin,” he offered, reminded of the place Alayna had said she and Megan would be. “I hear it’s a beautiful place. We can treat it like a vacation. You know, you’ve been asking me to take a vacation for something like two years.”
Valerie laughed through tears. She pulled her long fingers across her cheek, trying to orient herself. “Okay. Just the simple things, then,” she said, shuddering. “Clothes. A bit of food for the journey.”
“Right. And Maia, of course.”
“Oh, shoot. I wanted to leave her behind,” Valerie giggled.
For a moment, as they exchanged a smile, Clay could feel the passion he’d once had for this woman, back when they’d been high school sweethearts, making out in the back seat of his car. He’d felt assured in his belief that he never wanted to spend a day without her. And here he was, sending her away.
“I just want you two out of town, before anything . . . happens,” Clay muttered, trailing off.
“Before what happens?” Valerie asked, frowning. “They’re just going to fumigate, right? Everything will be right as rain again in a month. Right?”
“Sure,” Clay said, nodding. An image of the crazed zombies swam through his mind once more. In an instant, he could imagine his wife into that role: the lesions dripping blood down her cheeks, her eyes yellow and manic. He quickly slammed the door on those horrific thoughts.
“Listen, Val,” he said, kissing her hand. “Just get packed up and get going, okay? The sooner you leave, the better it will be. We just want to stay on top of this situation. No lollygagging. And watch your back out there, all right?”
Valerie nodded, parting her lips. She lifted her mouth over his and kissed him passionately. He could feel her hot tears rolling down her cheeks. He felt shattered, like shoving her away was a mistake he would regret. He wrapped his arms around her, yearning to crawl in bed with her, to forget the world.
But there wasn’t time. The world was at their doorstep. And it wanted blood.
Over the next several hours, Clay helped his wife and daughter load up the SUV, ultimately insisting that they didn’t pack the television, the china, or Maia’s stuffed animal collection from when she was a little girl. “Just one,” Clay insisted, not wanting to admit that he sort of loved that Maia was devolving in age
as she acknowledged her fear. She wrapped her arms around him and sobbed for several moments, completely eliminating the wretched teenage persona he’d grown accustomed to. She was his little girl again.
Finally, about an hour before sunrise, Clay stood in the driveway as the SUV backed from the driveway. He gave them an earnest wave and smile even as his stomach began to lurch, even as the lesions on his forearm began dripping. With the last glimpse of his daughter’s face vanishing, he suddenly realized he might never see her again.
He might never teach her to drive a car. Or walk her down the aisle for whatever bozo she married. Or watch her make a million and a half little mistakes, all of which didn’t make a hill of beans compared to how much he loved her.
That was nonsense. Why would he think that? Of course he’d see her again. It was just a simple evacuation. Nothing more.
He couldn’t understand these emotions. And, of course, he couldn’t dwell on them. He stumbled into the house, feeling, at first, that he might vomit. But the purge didn’t come. He tousled his hair, still noting that it was thinning. But he was feeling strangely better physically. He’d taken his wife and daughter and pushed them toward safety. And that made up for the rest of his ailments.
Chapter 24
Clay took a brief, five-minute shower, and scrubbed at his skin, breeding life back into his pulsing veins. He dressed quickly, his brain already humming with thoughts of Alayna. He hadn’t heard from her since he’d left her late the night before, and he’d begun to imagine the worst.
Humanity's Edge- The Complete Trilogy Page 7