The Outside

by Laura Bickle

  I jumped back, and he chuckled. “It’s a lot more fun when the power’s on. The ball hits the bells, and it lights up. You score points based on how long the ball’s in play.”

  I leaned curiously over the glass. “Interesting.” I met his eyes. “You actually pay money for this?”

  “Remind me to show you Pac-Man sometime.”

  I frowned. “We play checkers or chess back home . . .” My voice trailed off. “Or, we did.”

  Alex squeezed my shoulder. “Maybe we can find a chess set somewhere along the way.”

  “There’s water!” Ginger exclaimed.

  I turned, clutching my apron full of goodies. Ginger had emerged from a hallway marked SHOWERS. Her hair was wet, and she held a bottle of shampoo. She looked overjoyed.

  “It’s working?” Alex’s face split into a grin. He let out a spontaneous whoop and tore off his jacket.

  “Yes! I don’t know if it’s still what’s left in the pipes, but there’s water. And it’s even kind of warm.”

  I scurried down the tiled hallway. Ginger had started a fire in a wastebasket, and the flames illuminated a bathroom. Lockers stood on the left side, sinks on the right. And beyond them, shower stalls. I wrapped my apron up, kicked off my shoes. I peeled off my dress, mindful to keep track of the pins that fastened it together, threw my bonnet and the rest of my clothes in a pile, and skidded into the nearest stall.

  I turned the handle and held my breath.

  A blessed stream of lukewarm water flowed out and over my head. I scrubbed it through my hair and over my face. I felt filthy. Not just from the grime of the journey. From the evil and destruction. From hopelessness. It clung to me like a corrosive film. I could feel evil creeping into my pores, feel my morality slipping down the drain. Each day, I was slipping further and further away from my faith. I had begun to demand things of God. I had surrendered to fear and doubt.

  I choked back a sob. I felt that I was falling. Failing. I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t tell if there were tears on my face or just the warm water.

  The sweet smell of violets assaulted my nose. I took a deep breath, savoring that innocent scent.

  I felt hands in my hair, the soft lather of shampoo. Startled, I twisted back to find that Alex was massaging my scalp.

  Naked.

  I felt a flush crawling over my cheeks. “I . . .”

  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen him in the nude before. I’d given myself to him back home. I knew that it had been wrong, violated every rule I’d been taught. But I cared for him. Not in a romantic, head-over-heels kind of passionate longing I’d seen glorified in the English magazines. Instead, I felt a deep steadiness when we were together, a quiet reservoir of strength. It made me wonder whether there were different kinds of love, for different kinds of people.

  But it was still new, and I was still shy. My hands curled over my chest to cover myself, but my eyes roved over the water sluicing down his shoulders. The scarred ankh on his heart contrasted sharply with his fair skin, and I could see the black Djed pillar creeping up his neck in ink.

  I don’t know that I could say that we were “in love” the way that they talk about in books. But it was the end of the world. “I thought you’d like this.” He held up a bottle of scented shampoo. Water dripped down his chiseled chin and he grinned sheepishly. “It says it’s ‘violet wisteria water blossom, with ylang ylang.’ I don’t know what that is, but it sounded girly, eh?”

  “Where’s Ginger?” I managed to croak.

  He jabbed a thumb behind him. “She’s out there, playing with a musical toothbrush.”

  I could hear tinny jingling and happy chortling behind the trickle of water.

  He tenderly wiped a glob of soap from my eye. “I . . .”

  The water suddenly dropped in temperature, and I squealed. I thrust my soapy head under the cold water to finish rinsing off, then stepped back for Alex to do the same.

  I beat a hasty retreat to the room with the wall-mounted hair dryers. Ginger was wrapped in a towel, bobbing her head along in time to her musical toothbrush.

  I snatched up a towel from a pile in the corner and began to dry myself off. I’d gotten myself pinned back in my dress by the time Ginger had made herself decent. I looked down at my apron full of food and set about tying the corners together. Ginger didn’t mention the flush that still clung to my face, but I could feel the heat.

  And that couldn’t be good. Not for me, and certainly not for the fragile state of my faith.

  ***

  We’d scavenged through the convenience store in less than an hour, stuffing everything we could carry into plastic grocery bags and some mildewy-smelling laundry bags that we’d found in the shower area. We’d come away with some good first-aid supplies, some food, fresh water, and some lighters. Those would be helpful—though I could start a fire without one, it was time-consuming and very dependent upon the weather. I’d also found a small collection of brooms and mops that would make good stakes. And we’d found maps. Those were the most valuable things.

  My heart soared a bit at our good fortune, and I set about tying the bags to Horace’s tack. He pressed his head into my chest and I rubbed his forelock.

  “I promise not to leave you behind,” I murmured.

  He seemed nervous, pawing and fussing at the packs I’d tied to him. I took this to mean that he wasn’t used to being used as a pack mule. But I was still eager to move on.

  I glanced at the city skyline on the horizon, and longing welled up within me. I had always wanted to see the city someday, but it seemed that “someday” would never come. Not that my faith needed any more tempting.

  Alex had hopped up into the cab of the nearest truck. It had a big, boxy trailer. I stared at the one with a cylindrical trailer parked next to it. I had seen trucks like this one at one of the bigger commercial dairy farms near my old home. But I didn’t think this one had milk in it. It bore a placard with an orange flame on it marked FLAMMABLE.

  “No keys,” Alex announced, jumping down to the pavement.

  I frowned. I wasn’t sure he could even manage to drive such a huge vehicle. Though I supposed that there were few penalties now if we hit anything.

  “But I found something useful.” He threw a piece of black plastic at me.

  I caught it, turned it over in my hand. It had jagged edges, as if he’d pried it out of the dashboard with a knife. It was a compass.

  “How about this one?” I pointed to the flammable truck’s cab. I didn’t know if there was a way that we could switch out the trailers to accommodate Horace.

  “There were keys in the tanker truck, but gas got siphoned from it. I already checked.”

  I glanced at the puddle below it, wondering if it was gasoline. Squinting closer, I could see dripping from the metal seams.

  Alex crossed to the back of the truck trailer. “Maybe there are some things we can use in here. If we’re lucky, it’s hauling a fully gassed-up Maserati.”

  I didn’t know what a Maserati was, but it sounded like a good thing.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Ginger said. “I think we used up our luck on the candy bars.”

  Alex reached up for the handle of the trailer door and pulled it down. “Probably not. If gas was scavenged, then there’s probably nothing else left for us to use.”

  The door swung open, and Horace whinnied. The hair rose up on the back of my neck.

  “Alex, don’t!” I screamed.

  Pale hands reached out of the darkness of the trailer and dragged him inside.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

/>   I snatched up a broom and dug a lighter out of a bag with shaking and swollen fingers. I ran to the door of the truck. Chalky hands were already trying to pull it shut, but I saw that they smoked in the sunlight. I smelled burning meat.

  I lit the bristles of the broom with the lighter and thrust it into the darkness before me. The vampires shrieked and hissed, recoiling from the fire. I swept the broom right and left.

  I scrambled up on the edge of the truck trailer and plunged inside.

  My vision took a moment to adjust to the darkness, and I was blind in the glare of the makeshift torch. I felt a spider web stretch across my face and break, the very sensation of evil, and I couldn’t stifle a shudder.

  This was a vampire nest. Thin filaments of something like spider silk streamed from the top of the cavernous trailer. Shadows moved in the guttering torchlight, skittering across the floor and crawling up on the ceiling. I was reminded of a nest of daddy longlegs that my sister and I had disturbed while cleaning out a barn. The vampires gathered on the ceiling, hissing, bobbing, the fire reflected in their cold red eyes.

  “Give him back.” I heard my voice issuing the command, and it sounded so much more assured than I felt. I reached into my pocket for the Himmelsbrief.

  Something snickered above me.

  I stared up into the reflective eyes of a vampire. He wore a flannel shirt and a hat with an advertising logo on it. I wondered if he might have been the trucker who owned the vehicle. “Your fire will burn out, girlie. Then you’re ours.”

  My eyes slid to the guttering flame at the top of the broom. It was burning fast, the bristles blackening and curling.

  I thrust the flaming bristles into his face. The vampire howled at the sparks and batted it away. The broom spiraled away in the darkness, and I lunged for it. I singed my fingers trying to pick it up.

  An aggrieved yowl emanated from the far darkness at the front of the trailer.

  “Alex!” I shouted.

  I grabbed the last of my makeshift torch and advanced toward the writhing shadows, my heart in my mouth.

  A pale figure flopped and writhed toward me. I moved to jam my torch in its face, but I saw familiar markings on the flesh. Alex’s tattoos. His jacket and shirt had been torn from his shoulders and he was crawling toward the door, slashing with his knife.

  I swept the broom right and left over his head as we backed to the opening, toward daylight.

  “It’s not going to be that easy, girlie. We’re too hungry.”

  The trucker vampire slammed the door shut behind us, blotting out the sunshine. My heart stopped—I could hear it stop over the clang of the door.

  “Get behind me,” Alex muttered.

  The light from my broom faded to sparks, and I heard the thunk-thunk-thunk of vampires dropping from the ceiling like too-ripe apples on the ground. I could feel the weight of the creatures’ eyes upon us. They seemed almost human, palpable in their need, except for the red glow of the sparks in their eyes. But I knew that they were not like us, that they had left humanity behind a long time ago. I felt the strand of a spider web brush across my face, and I shivered violently enough to shake the last of the sparks from the broom.

  “Come here, girlie.” I smelled fetid breath. I knew that this was a vampire’s attempt at glamour, at seducing a victim with its voice. I’d seen it before. Men and women could be lulled into a lassitude, follow the vampires and bare their flesh to them. But the holy letter I held insulated me from it, just as Alex’s tattoos made him resistant to that siren call.

  Before, I’d been grateful to God for such a boon. Now, that might serve only to make us painfully aware of a slow, agonizing death. We’d be lucid rather than walking blindly into death in a soft dream state.

  I began to pray beneath my breath.

  And my prayer was answered in a blinding flash of light.

  White-hot brightness flooded the compartment. The door was torn open, and a short silhouette stood in the open void. And that figure held fire in her fist.

  “Leave those kids alone,” Ginger’s voice bellowed.

  The vampires turned toward her, snarling. She held a bottle in her hand with a flaming rag trickling from the top. I dimly registered it as her prize—the bottle of vodka she’d scavenged from the convenience store cooler.

  She hurled the bottle into the trailer. It sailed over our heads and struck the far wall with a sound like a gunshot. It exploded into glass and flame.

  I ducked, trying to shield my eyes. Fire blistered from the makeshift bomb, and raced over the wall in a liquid rush of blue and orange flame. I heard howling, smelled burning meat . . .

  . . . and there were hands tangled in my apron straps. Alex hauled me through the door of the trailer, into the daylight. I landed on my shoulder on the blacktop, gasping as the wind was knocked out of me.

  I felt Alex land on top of me. I rolled back, under his arm, seeing shadows seething at the mouth of the trailer through blurred vision. I clutched his arm, struggling to breathe.

  Ginger stood before the opening of the trailer. In each hand, she held a bottle of lighter fluid. She twisted open the cap of one bottle and hurled it into the conflagration.

  Squeals and screams echoed from inside. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears. It sounded like the screaming of pigs. The neighbors’ barn that had burned when I was a child held two dozen pigs inside. It was not a sound I’d ever forgotten.

  “Burn!”

  Ginger’s glasses reflected the fire inside the truck. Her face was twisted into something I didn’t recognize. I had always known her to be motherly, passive. She’d faced the end of the world with a soft shock, hesitating and confused.

  But now . . . now, she was wrathful.

  She hurled the second bottle into the truck. The open neck of it arced into the air. Flame licked from the interior of the trailer, igniting those clear drops. They splashed on the pavement, burning in a puddle.

  Ginger turned her back on the truck, her gait stiff as she approached us. She seemed a different woman now, full of the power of anger that sang through her.

  “Ginger,” I wheezed. I could barely squeak, so I pointed behind her.

  Something was crawling out of the trailer.

  She turned, her skirt swirling in the backdraft. A flaming creature clawed beyond the lip of the truck, slipped to the blacktop like a bat startled during daytime. It scuttled right and left, flopping, as fire crackled along its spine.

  But it was daylight. And daylight was just as deadly to these creatures as fire.

  Ginger stared at it as its blackened jaws opened and closed, as its fingers spasmed and curled in on themselves like burning paper.

  “Burn!”

  I saw then that her eyes were damp beneath her glasses. Of all of us, Ginger may have lost the most. And I could see that she wanted these creatures of night to suffer.

  My eyes fell to the trickle of lighter fluid on the pavement. The burning creature scuttled to the nearest shadow—the underbelly of the next truck.

  The one with fire on the placard.

  I drew half a breath to scream at her. Alex pulled me to my feet. I saw understanding cross Ginger’s face, and she began to run.

  We ran to Horace. The horse had begun to retreat, cantering along the shoulder of the road, away from us. Away from the evil. And away from what he could smell coming.

  Thunder roared behind us. I skidded to my knees and covered my head. Gravel rattled along the side of the road. Behind the ringing in my ears, I could hear bits of metal striking the blacktop parking lot.

  I turned, gripping my bonnet strings.

  The tanker truck was an open shell, burning. The fire soared beyond the roof of the truck stop. I heard a thin, high whistling in the wreckage. I didn’t know if that was the sound of something flammable under pressure
or the keening of something dying. For good this time, hopefully.

  And more black smoke poured up into the sky, darkening heaven.

  ***

  “I’m all right.”

  I reached for Alex, placing my hand on his cheek. I felt stubble growing there and a worrisome smudge of blood on his lip. A bruise was darkening over his right eye, and I could see a piece of metal jutting out from the top of his thigh.

  “I’m all right,” he repeated.

  We were relatively unscathed. Ginger had cracked her glasses, but no one had been bitten, and there were no broken bones. Ginger plucked the piece of metal out of Alex’s leg without warning him, and he swore at her.

  Nonetheless, we truly had God’s favor.

  Except the horse was gone, with all our gear. Horace was understandably spooked, and had run off with all our scavenged supplies. I was the fastest runner and took off after him. Alex and Ginger followed, but fell behind. Alex limped along, pressing his hand to his leg.

  I chased Horace, a receding white speck in the distance. He raced away from the city, away from the fire and the smoke. I chased him past the road we’d come in on, through a field pocked with drainage ditches, across an empty freeway. My snakebitten hand still throbbed with every step. I whistled and called for him, but he galloped as if the Devil himself was after him. I lost sight of him once or twice, beyond the edge of the horizon that kept falling farther and farther away.

  Outside was much larger than I’d ever dreamed. Endless.

  I knew that Horace’s panic would drain away, that he would stop at some point. He had to. It happened to all of us. The poor horse was without any logical explanation for what was happening to him, to us. He knew only fear.

  But even fear gave way to exhaustion.

  I found him, at last, in a soybean field. The yellow leaves curled against each other like closed fists. I could see his white figure standing beneath a hickory tree at the edge of the field. His pack was askew, and there were leaves tangled in his mane and tail.

  I approached him slowly, well within his sight. He was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring as he watched me.