by Tim Meyer
“Idiots,” Susan muttered. “They'll die.”
What began as a band of forty, had dwindled to almost a quarter that number. Between the suicides and the ones who thought they had a better chance of surviving by not traveling across the country, and now a car carrying five once-loyal followers, they were left with fourteen people. Mouth and Becky in the car behind them. Susan, Brian, Shondra, Dana, and himself in the SUV. And the eight people in the minivan. That was it. His inventory was running low.
The world is never short on pawns, he thought, stepping on the gas.
Brian braced himself for a huge let down. Shondra squeezed his hand; she could feel it too. Things had been too smooth for something not to go terribly wrong. He closed his eyes and envisioned a massive pile up at the end of the tunnel, fifty or sixty cars strong. Brian offered Shondra a quick smile, and she returned it with one of her own; both smiles were given by two people good at faking smiles. On the inside they were both kicking and screaming, wanting to get as far from this situation as possible.
“It'll be okay,” Shondra whispered, giving his hand another comforting squeeze.
Brian smirked. “How do you know? You psychic?”
Silent laughter.
Soren must have heard them, because he immediately became alert, staring at them in the mirror.
“Something you two want to share?” he asked.
“Not really,” Brian said. He didn't like the way their self-appointed leader glared at him. Did he suspect something? Did I say something crazy in my sleep? They told him he rambled about rats, but that was as far as it went. Or did it? He suspected Soren was holding out on him. Like he knew something. Something about him and the intense nightmares stalking his dream life.
We all have our secrets, Brian thought. He thought a man who could withstand the sun's destructive rays was more intriguing than a man with strange dreams. I should be looking at him like that. Not the other way around.
In the distance, a faint light lit up the end of the tunnel. It was dawn. As they traveled, the sun had stretched over the horizon, basking the morning in a pale purple glow. Soren gunned the SUV toward the mouth of the tunnel. The entrance to Tunnel Two was less than five miles away. With the sun over the horizon, there was no way they could safely make it across without becoming human toast.
At least I was wrong about the tunnel being clogged.
Soren stomped on the gas.
“There's no way we can make it!” Susan shouted. “We'll burn if we try!”
He ignored her.
“Soren...”
The SUV sped forth, Soren pushing the pedal to the floor.
“Soren!” Susan screamed.
“Oh, Christ,” Shondra said, realizing the crazy bastard was going for it.
“You may be immune to the sun, but we are not!” Susan screamed.
He heard the walkie-talkie crackle. “Soren, what the fuck are you doing?” It was Mouth. He sounded pissed, which wasn't much different from any other time.
Brian grabbed the walkie-talkie from where it rested between the seats. “Mouth, it's Brian. We're going for it. We're going for Tunnel Two.”
“(crackle crackle) Why the hell for?”
Brian paused. “Mouth,” he whispered. “Just trust me.”
“(crackle crackle) Fuckin' (crackle crackle) ball sack! (crackle crackle) fucknut (crackle crackle) dick-skin licker! (crackle crackle) bunch of fu—(crackle crackle) tards, dickless, re—(crackle crackle).”
Brian clicked the walkie-talkie off and sat back, holding the oh-shit bar with one hand and Shondra's hand with the other, praying to a god he no longer believed existed.
Dana was scared, but she never showed it. When the car zoomed out of Tunnel One, her eyes drifted toward the odometer. The gauge hovered over the 100MPH tick. She quickly did the math in her head and quickly determined the ride across would take precisely three minutes. Three. Long. Minutes.
The sun wasn't as high in the sky as they had previously believed. It hung halfway over the horizon, the bruised-purple sky still holding onto night. Still, it was more than enough light to burn the flesh off their bones. Dana rolled herself into a ball on the front seat. She hid her nervousness behind her knees. The others ducked, keeping away from the windows. Soren continued driving, speeding toward Tunnel Two, which an overhead highway sign told them was called the “Thimble Shoal Channel Tunnel.” Dana thought the name was funny, like it had come from a fantasy epic like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones.
“Almost there,” Soren told them.
Dana peeked over her knees. Soren was right. They were more than halfway there. She looked in the side-view mirror and saw Mouth and Becky chugging along behind them, the minivan bringing up the rear. He wasn't pushing the car nearly as fast as Soren was driving the SUV. The minivan had no balls whatsoever and was falling behind with each passing second. Those were precious seconds; the sun was ascending the sky with a pace Dana had never seen before. She'd never been this close to being trapped outside since that first confusing day at the water park.
The second Soren crossed the finish line, he slammed on the brakes and gently turned the wheel. The wheels screeched below them, an effect he seemed to be aiming for. The car spun, but stopped on a ninety-degree angle.
“You're a fucking asshole,” Shondra blurted.
“You're alive aren't you?”
She placed her palm on the center of her chest. “For the moment.”
“Susan? You okay?”
Susan swallowed a lump in her throat.
Soren turned his attention to the girl on his right. “You okay, Dana? I know that was scary.”
Dana put on her game face. “Nah. I knew you had it all along.”
Soren smiled, but the smile told her he didn't believe a word. He patted the girl's shoulder and turned, opening the door and stepping out. He waited for the other cars to follow his lead, and didn't have to wait long. Mouth cruised into the tunnel, parked about twenty feet away from them, and scrambled out of the car. He was already cursing when the door opened.
“You sonuvabitch!” he screamed. “I'll kill you!”
Soren folded his arms across his chest, watching the man make a hilarious fool out of himself.
Becky stepped in front of him, trying to talk some sense into the foul-mouthed maniac. Soren turned away from them and concentrated on the approaching minivan. The van finally crossed over and escaped the dangerous territory. Once underneath the safety of the tunnel, the driver of the van threw open the door and jumped out like someone had stocked the van with explosives.
“Help!” the driver screamed, waving the others over.
Soren sprinted forward. The driver, Hugh, ripped open the passenger's door and grabbed one of the passengers, removing him from his seat with little struggle. He smelled the acrid stench of burning flesh once Hugh hauled the man into the open.
Dana jogged alongside of him.
“What happened?” Dana asked.
“Go back to the SUV,” Soren told her. There was no gentleness in his voice.
“But—”
“Go.”
She didn't listen, but she stopped following him. She stood back and watched the drama unfold from a safe distance.
Soren knelt next to the victim. He was rolling on the asphalt, screaming, kicking his feet, trying to escape the torture. The victim's name was Dustin, a man in his mid-thirties, although he looked a hell of a lot older. The sun had toasted most of his scalp, burning away the little hair he had left. Several layers of skin had been erased from his face, the old acne scars from his youth replaced by yellow oozing burns. Badly drawn and faded tattoos covered most of his arms and legs, some of them gone, charred over from the sun's touch. Skin hung from his triceps like a fleshy hammock, runny like egg yolk. Several of the van's passengers were around him now, holding him down, telling him to keep still. Shondra had joined the party, holding a brown bottle of peroxide. She unscrewed the cap and poured the liquid on the bur
ns. Dana watched the man thrash as the medicine bubbled into a froth over the wounds. He screamed as if he was passing kidney stones the size of grapefruits. Dana turned away when Shondra poured the peroxide on him once again.
There was only so much a little girl could take.
“You could have gotten us all killed, motherfucker!” Hugh shouted as he shoved Soren. He was smaller than Soren, although most men were. Hugh's blonde hair shimmered even in the tunnel's dimness. His mustache didn't exactly match the shade atop his head, and Soren wondered if the man dyed his hair to make it brighter. It was a question for another time, when things were less tense, and the man didn't want to punch his face in. “Are you fucking nuts?”
“I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry?” Hugh said. “Oh, hey everybody, it's all good. Soren's sorry. Don't worry about it! It's all okay! The Grand Poo-Bah said he's sorry!”
A woman, younger than Hugh and Dustin, placed her hand on Hugh's shoulder. Tied back in a ponytail, her red hair swung back and forth as she shook her head, telling him to let it go. Her verdant eyes fixed on Hugh, her stare immediately washing his anger away.
“Calm down,” she said.
“I'm sorry, Jo,” he said. “It's just... fuck, babe. He could've gotten us all killed.”
“I know,” Johanna said, wrapping her arms around him. “Just take it easy. Don't stress. God is with us. He is on our side.”
“You're right,” Hugh said, hugging her back. “I love you so much.”
Soren wanted to roll his eyes, but Jo's glaring eyeballs made him think twice.
“It's okay,” she told Hugh, rubbing his back. “God's on our side. Isn't that right?” The question was meant to be rhetorical, but Soren got the sense she expected him to answer.
Hugh bit his lower lip and gave a single nod. He turned to Shondra, and asked, “How is he?”
Shondra had finished wrapping Dustin's arm in a giant ace bandage. “Pretty bad. I think he's mostly in shock. I think he'll be okay. The burns are really bad. Never seen anything like it. I'm no nurse, but I think we should keep an eye on it so doesn't get infected.”
Soren agreed.
“So what's next, oh Great One?” Hugh spat.
He drew a deep breath. “We press—”
“Do you smell that?” Dana interrupted.
The group dropped their conversation a moment and sniffed the air. There was something there, something no one could put their finger on.
“It smells like...” Something tickled her nose.
“Fire,” Brian finished for her. “It smells like fire.”
-8-
A black garbage can sat in the middle of the road, spitting flames and small embers. A figure wearing a hooded cape glanced over his shoulder, shielding his eyes from the headlights belonging to three vehicles. His other hand hovered over the flames.
Beyond the man and his fire, a dozen cars and trucks blocked the tunnel, only allowing access for those on foot. Soren drove within twenty feet of the man and parked the SUV. He looked to Dana, turning to Brian, Shondra, and Susan next. “I'll go out first. Susan, why don't you hop in the driver's seat in case we need to make a speedy retreat.” He turned back to Dana, gave her a wink, unlocked the door, and let himself out.
She opened her mouth to protest, but Soren stepped away before she could.
“I don't like a goddamn thing about this,” Shondra said. Susan eyed her dirty when the word “goddamn” rolled off her tongue, but she chose to ignore the woman's hard glare.
“Me neither,” Brian added.
They watched Soren approach the homeless man and his flaming garbage can. Brian leaned forward, sticking his head between the front seats. Susan hustled around the SUV and into the driver's seat.
“It's okay,” Brian said, noticing the trepidation leaking into Dana's features. “It's all going to be okay.” He didn't know this for sure, not exactly. He wasn't psychic after all; his dreams only showed him snippets of the future, and most of the time they were masked within vexing riddles. Some were impossible to unravel, so convoluted only someone insane could solve. Maybe I am in insane. Things might have been easier if he believed that.
Soren pantomimed back to the vehicles as he spoke to the stranger. During their exchange, Brian noticed how unclean the tunnel man was. His face was covered in dirt and grease; he looked like the mechanic who used to fix his car at the local Hyundai dealership. Bloody rags were wrapped around the man's wrists. They were old, stained the color of rust. His clothes were ripped and torn, revealing cuts and bruises on the man's body. Someone had either kicked the shit out of him or he lost a fight with a forest.
As the seconds passed, Brian grew nervous. “This isn't good. It's taking too long.”
“Maybe you should go out and help,” Susan suggested.
Brian looked around the tunnel, saw only shadows. Shadows of the cars in the firelight. Shadows belonging to Soren and the Tunnel Man. Shadows of...
“Shit,” Brian said.
It was too late to help Soren.
The shadows twisted toward him.
Toward them all.
“Howdy there,” Soren said. He approached the man cautiously, keeping his hands where the man could see them. “I was wondering if we could, perhaps, with your permission of course, pass on through.”
The man grunted. He wasn't a pretty-looking bastard, and he smelled worse than he looked. Soren inched closer and thought the stench wasn't coming from him, but the tunnel itself. Nope, it was him. He backed away when he reached striking distance. The man flinched. Maybe the smell permeated his clothing, the gag-worthy result of collected aromas from his apocalyptic journey.
“I'm not here to hurt you,” Soren said, putting up his hands. “Just the opposite. In fact, I can help you.”
“Help,” the man rasped, as if he hadn't spoken in months. For some reason Soren got the sense the man was putting him on, that this was all for show—and a good one. Very believable. “Help?”
“Yes, help. I want to help you. My friends and I,” he waved back to the convoy, “we are on a long journey. There's this sanctuary beneath the surface in Northern Alaska. It's a secret place, but it's safe and not too many people know about it. And we're headed there. Now. Today. Well, we won't get there today, but—” He was rambling and he knew it. He watched the man's eyes shift back and forth. Something was happening behind him. He sensed movement, but it was too late to react. “But we will get there. And we will be safe. And free. And we won't need anyone to come and save us because we'll have everything we need to live out the rest of our lives.”
“Help,” the man said again.
“Yes,” Soren said, following the man's eyes. He found himself surrounded by sixty men, all armed to the teeth with pistols, rifles, swords, baseball bats, hockey sticks, meat cleavers, makeshift cudgels with round spiky ends, and he even spotted one man with a lasso. They were equally unclean and bandaged as the half-wit standing next to the fire. “Help.”
The man smiled, displaying a mouth that hadn't seen a dentist since 1975. His blackened gums trembled as a laugh crawled from his mouth. An awful odor intensified when the man spoke, spitting saliva down his chin.
“Help,” the man uttered, introducing Soren to his friends.
They weren't gentle; not even with Dana. They ripped the girl from the front seat like an old Band-Aid. Brian tried fending two of them off, but they sucker-punched him in the gut and he collapsed to his knees. A throbbing pain entered his testicles as they dragged him away from the SUV. He heard Mouth shouting expletives making little and no sense. Shondra went willingly and they pushed her along like she had committed some unspeakable crime.
The rats are here...
In the dream, the circumstances were different. There were actual rats sweeping through the city. The city in his dream had been replaced by a tunnel in reality. No, that didn't seem right. The city should have been a city. The rats should have been rats. Had his dreams failed him? No, he thought. This
isn't what I was dreaming about.
They gathered everyone together and circled them like sharks. They turned their weapons on them, pointing their blades at their faces. The men grumbled and shouted, cursing and saying things no man should ever say to a lady, or anyone else for that matter. They reeked of trash and sewage pulp. Some gritted their teeth and said things like “I'm going to fucking gut you!” and “I'm going to have fun with your lady parts!” Some simply spat on their captives, laughing and singing like lunatics.
This was absolute Hell.
Someone whistled over the noise and the cacophony of vile insults and bestial groans abruptly came to an end. A single figure pushed through the throng of dirty men. He had long, raven-black hair that fell on his shoulders, a bandage taped over his right eye, dried blood caked around it. Dirt stained the skin under his eyes like warpaint, surrounding his hawk-like nose. His beard, which matched the color of his hair, was months old, streaked with grime and food from who-knew how long ago. Brian's eyes migrated and found the sheathed machete hidden in his leather-mahogany hip scabbard. He found everything about the man unsettling, because he'd seen him before.
In a dream.
Bad boys. Bad, little boys.
“Welcome to Thimble Shoal,” the man said, after giving the group a slow once over. “This is a toll road, and to pass safely, you must pay it.”
Soren stood up defiantly. A few of Hawk-Nose's people motioned like they were going to sit him back down, but the leader of the group raised a single fist and ended that idea. He extended his hand diplomatically.
“My name is Soren Nygaard. My people and I mean no harm to your... community.”
For a second no one said a word. Then, all at once, every single filthy mouth in the tunnel erupted with raucous laughter. Their gut-busting outburst deafened the tunnel like the roll of thunder. Hawk-Nose let the laughter drag on for far too long before raising his fist again.