Grayland

by James Bierce

  Although she’ll never admit it to anybody, part of her is relieved that the cabin isn’t so crowded anymore. Living with two more people in such a small dwelling was beginning to take its toll on everybody. There was no privacy, no space to move around without bumping into each other, and definitely no intimacy. The six of them were existing, they weren’t living — they were waiting around for something to happen, knowing full well that it never would. In some ways she feels guilty about abandoning Beth and Larry, especially now that they’ve learned to depend on each other so much — but she’s also jealous of them, being able to move on in search of the unknown. She knows that Curtis won’t ever move far from the area, not while their daughter, Annie, was still out there somewhere.

  When Matt comes through the front door and heads toward the side of the cabin where Curtis is working, Sarah moves over to one side of the swing and makes room for him, patting the seat with her hand. “Matt, come sit with me for a minute.”

  Reluctantly, he does as she asks, and sits next to her. “Dad said I have to help get the wood in before dark.”

  “I know, but we have a little while.” She wraps her arm around him, suddenly aware of how big he’s getting. “How are you doing with all of this?”

  He shrugs. “Okay I guess.”

  “And what about Ben, how is he doing?”

  “He isn’t talking much, he just sits around and reads those stupid comic books.”

  “We have to give him some time. I can’t imagine what he went through when he was with her.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” They both swing for a few minutes, neither of them talking, just listening to the peaceful sound of the trees that surround the cabin, and the ocean that can be heard a short distance away. “Mom, are we gonna have to move again?”

  “Yeah, I think so, at least for a while anyway.”

  “Because of her?”

  “You mean Amanda?”

  “No, Beth.”

  “It has nothing to do with Beth. Why would you ask that?”

  “She sided with Amanda instead of killing her. Why did she do that?”

  “It’s not that easy, Matt.”

  “If she was dead we wouldn’t have to move, right?”

  She doesn’t really know how to respond, because simplistically, in his mind, he’s correct. Without regard for what’s right or wrong, it is the easiest solution. “Listen, I don’t…”

  Her answer is cut off when she hears a gunshot coming from down the highway, in the direction of Westport to the north. Both of them stand up and pull their own guns out, then three more shots come from the same location.

  Curtis runs around the side of the cabin and stands next to Sarah, with Ben following right behind him. “Do you think that’s Larry and Beth?”

  “I don’t think so. They were going south, toward Grayland. This is coming from the north.”

  Sounding even closer than the shots, they hear a woman screaming, and then after another gunshot, complete silence.

  “They’re getting closer, we should get inside,” Sarah warns, her voice shaking.

  “No, we should spend the night in the woods. The cabin is a little too obvious that someone is living here,” Curtis replies, opening the door of the cabin and motioning everyone inside. “Come on, let’s grab the bug-out bags.”

  Peering through the fog and drizzle, and leaning on an empty wooden workbench that runs the length of the wall, Curtis is watching the cabin through his binoculars for any signs of activity around their home, but the visibility is so bad that he can barely make out the silhouette of the building. The four of them are hiding in a shed on the neighboring property, one that should have been torn down years ago.

  “You should try them again,” Sarah says.

  Still looking out the dust-covered window, Curtis takes the radio out of his pocket, then looks at his watch. It’s right at 3:00pm. Larry had told him that he’d turn his radio on for a few minutes past the hour, every hour. “Larry, are you there?”

  (filled with static) “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re getting close to Grayland — why?”

  “We heard some gunshots down the road earlier, and we just wanted to make sure that you weren’t involved.”

  “Are you still at the cabin?”

  “I’d rather not say over the radio.”

  “Right, I hear you. Do you want us to come back?”

  Curtis looks at Sarah, who’s nodding her head yes. “Do you still have Amanda?”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “Then no, we’re fine. You guys should keep some distance just in case, we’ll keep you updated.”

  “Okay, we might have to stay the night down here anyway. It’s taken us longer than we thought getting through.”

  “People on the road?”

  “No, not a soul in sight — just more cars on the highway. I’ll check back in an hour.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Sarah sits down on the workbench beside him, inspecting it as a possible place to sleep for the night. “I think the kids are asleep — either that or they’ve gotten pretty good at pretending.”

  “Hopefully it’ll only be for one night. I haven’t heard anything else out there.”

  “I’m not sure we should go back, except to gather our things.”

  Curtis turns around and sits on the bench next to her, but keeps his gaze aimed at the cabin in the distance. “And go where?”

  “I don’t know, but we need to figure it out.”

  He finally takes his eyes off of the cabin and looks around the shed, figuring that it’s too dark and wet to see anything outside anyway, and sees his two sons huddled up and lying on a bench on the other side of the room. There’s almost nothing inside the building other than a few rusted garden tools and some old truck tires piled up in the middle, but it’s mostly dry, and from the outside it looks entirely uninhabitable.

  “There’s a few old places up in the hills to the east, I guess we could check those out. I’m not sure how many supplies are up there though.”

  “Were they lived in before?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t been up there since I was a kid.”

  She leans in closer, whispering so the kids can’t hear. “How long do you think we’ll have to live like this, hiding from everybody?”

  “Probably until everyone is dead.”

  “How many do you think are still in town?”

  “I have no idea. I saw dozens when I was there looking for Ben, but I’m sure there were probably more. They all sounded sick though, including Amanda.”

  “I noticed that. She has a horrible cough.”

  “She’s cold too, I noticed that when I…” He hesitates for a moment, then continues. “…when I was choking her.”

  “Maybe she won’t last much longer — maybe none of them will.”

  Curtis looks out the window again, seeing the faint glow of the sun making its way through the fog and mist as it inches closer to the ocean. He can barely make out anything but the trees in front of the shed, but then he sees something flickering in the distance, a light moving alongside the road. At first he thinks it might be a car, but then he recognizes the subtle swinging motion.

  It’s a lantern, and it’s coming closer.

  CHAPTER 8

  GRAYLAND: DAY 3

  After a brief distance where the highway was clear of any obstacles or blockages, Larry slows the car down as they come around a corner and face complete gridlock ahead of them, stretching out as far as he can see. While the previous impediments have slowed their travel time down considerably, they were still able to get around them without too much trouble. This was different though — the vehicles here not only span the entire width of the road easement, but they also face opposite directions. The cars nearest to them are heading south toward Grayland, but most of them seem to be going north, toward Westport or Aberdeen — and unlike the other abandoned cars they’ve seen be
fore, these ones appear to have been ransacked, with their doors still wide-open.

  Larry rolls to a stop before reaching the blockade, looking around carefully to make sure it’s not an ambush of some kind. “There’s no way in hell we’re getting through this…” Beth opens the passenger door and starts to get out, but stops when he grabs her arm. “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “I’m gonna check it out, see what might have happened.”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious — people were evacuating and just panicked.”

  “Then why is all of their shit scattered all over?”

  He watches her climb out of the car and onto the pavement, walking slowly with her gun drawn as she approaches the first car in the pileup. Already regretting it, he gets out himself and opens the back door, taking an assault rifle from the backseat and then following her along the shoulder. When they reach an area where there’s barely enough room to squeeze through, he begins looking through the open doors and busted out windows next to them.

  “These cars weren’t just left here, it looks like someone was searching for something,” he says.

  “Well, it certainly wasn’t food.” She pulls out a bag of canned goods and boxed cereal from the passenger seat of a pickup, holding it up for Larry to see. “Huh, or guns…” She throws the groceries back into the truck and grabs a small semi-auto pistol from the floorboard, handing it to Larry. “What do you think?”

  “I think this is probably out of bullets.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  He points to the pavement under her feet, where several small shell casings are scattered. Then he takes the clip out and shows it to her. “See, empty.”

  She looks around at the pavement surrounding them, and then at the other cars that are nearby — but no other casings are visible, and the truck itself appears untouched other than a broken-out side window. “Are you a little creeped out by all of this?”

  “I don’t know if it’s possible for me to get creeped out anymore. We have a twelve year old girl in the trunk of our car, remember?”

  “I know, but this is strange. Where are all the people?”

  “I know, it doesn’t look like anyone left their vehicles voluntarily, does it?” Hearing a thumping sound coming from the trunk of their car, Larry walks beside it and bends down. “Do you need something?”

  —Muffled— “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Motioning for Beth to get in position beside him with her gun aimed at the trunk, Larry inserts the key and flips the trunk lid open, then jumps back. The girl, who’s sweating profusely, grabs onto the back of the car with her tied up hands, struggling to lift herself out.

  “For goodness sake, Larry, will you help her? We know she’s not armed,” Beth says.

  Very cautiously, he reaches down and picks up her shivering body, then carefully sets her onto the blacktop facing away from him. He’s alarmed at how skinny she is, and how incredibly cold her skin feels despite showing every other symptom of fever. She stands up slowly, her face grimacing with every movement, as if she’s in a great deal of pain.

  “Can you untie my hands so I can go?” the girl asks.

  “You know I can’t do that. Just walk to the edge of the road and go.”

  After Larry hands his gun to her, Beth watches Amanda walk to the shoulder and wait, as he takes off her coat and attempts to pull her underwear down. “Maybe I should do that…”

  “What, afraid someone will call child protective services?”

  “It just doesn’t seem right, that’s all.”

  He steps back several feet, then faces away from her. “Nothing about this seems right. Is she going?”

  “Yeah, she’s going.” She notices that Amanda is looking down the road toward the cars, her eyes seemingly focused on something. “Do you see something, Amanda?”

  “Are there any people in the cars?”

  “No, they must have all gone on foot.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  Finished, the girl stands up again and manages to pull her own underwear up. “We need to get out of here, before it’s too late.”

  “There’s no sign of anybody around, we’re perfectly safe,” Larry says, turning toward her again. She continues staring down the road though, then takes two small steps back as her eyes grow wider. “Amanda, what are you looking at?”

  Beth turns around and takes a look for herself, but sees nothing but abandoned cars lined up down the highway.

  “They’re coming…” the girl says in a loud whisper, still backing away from them in the direction of the woods beside the road.

  “There’s nobody there, stop moving,” Larry orders, following her as she steps off of the gravel and onto the grass-covered ground at the edge of the trees. “I don’t wanna hurt you, but I will if you don’t stop.” He rushes her, grabbing onto her arm and pulling her weakened body onto the highway once again while Beth watches from a distance with her gun still in her hand. Before either of them realize what’s happening, the girl spins around and kicks Larry in the back of the knee, then pushes him down to the pavement before running off into the woods.

  “Are you okay?” Beth asks, helping him back to his feet.

  “Shit, she’s a lot stronger than she looks.” Taking his gun back from Beth, he scans the densely forested woods next to them, and sees a flash of movement about thirty feet or so away. “She’s right there, I can see her.”

  “Maybe we should just let her go here, and find someplace to stay the night down the road.”

  He shakes his head, looking north toward the cabin. “We’re only a half days walk from Cohassett — it’s not far enough.” Leaving Beth behind, he pushes his way through the wet salal beside the ditch, then moves deeper into the stand of young Douglas fir. As his own shoes crunch through the thick layer of fir needles on the forest floor, he hears the crack of breaking tree branches up ahead, and then the faint sign of movement to his right as he stops and tries to pinpoint her exact location. After a brief silence, hearing only the rushing sound of ocean waves in the distance, a child’s scream fills the air as the cracking sounds appear again. He runs forward, through the underbrush and rain-soaked ferns, until he finally spots Amanda lying on the ground with a bedraggled looking man standing over her, wearing ripped up clothing and dark colored paint on his face, and a framing hammer in his right hand. The man turns around and faces him, his eyes bloodshot and menacing. As Larry lifts his gun up and aims it at the guy, he hears another sound to his right, and yet another straight ahead. Backing up, he glances around the woods and sees more men closing in on him.

  “Larry, you need to come back!” he hears Beth yell from back at the highway.

  Still backing away, he motions for Amanda to get up and follow him, and as she runs past the man that’s after her, he takes a swipe at her with his hammer, barely missing her head. “Get behind me, and don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Untie me, I can help.”

  “You’ll get us killed. Let’s just get back to the car.”

  The men follow them through the woods, gaining on them a little bit with each step as they quicken their pace. When they reach the perimeter of the trees and cross over the ditch, he sees Beth aiming her gun at the other side of the road, where three more men and a woman are walking toward the car.

  “Beth, get in the car!” he yells, grabbing Amanda and placing her back into the trunk, her feet trying to fight him off as he closes the lid and locks her inside. One of the men from the other side runs up behind him and stands between him and the driver’s door, smiling as he points a blood-stained, rusty knife at him. Larry aims his pistol at the young man, but before he has a chance to pull the trigger, a bullet comes crashing through the side window and hits the man in the head, dropping his limp body to the ground. With more of them getting closer, Larry climbs into the car and starts the engine, slamming it into reverse as he runs over one of the
m.

  “Where is Amanda? Is she hurt?” Beth yells loudly, still deafened by her gunshot.

  “She’s in the trunk, and she seems fine.” He keeps driving in reverse, navigating through the few scattered vehicles still behind them, then finally turns around once he gets some distance from the people and starts driving north again. “Where the hell do we go now? It’s gonna be getting dark before we know it.”

  Behind them, Beth watches as the crowd of people drag the two bodies into the woods, then disappear completely into the trees. “What about the beach?”

  “To go south?”

  “Yeah, we could take the next beach access road, then drive all the way to Grayland.”

  “The next access road is back up in Cohassett — it’d be well after dark before we got there.”

  “Stop for a minute until we figure this out,” she says, grabbing a map from the backseat as he slows the car to a stop in the middle of the highway. “If my phone worked this would be a hell of lot easier.”

  “Are you sure that what we’re doing is the humane thing?”

  “You mean verses killing her? Yeah, I think this is the better option — for her anyway.”

  “You don’t think she’s gonna get killed anyway? If I wasn’t there today, it’s hard telling what those guys would’ve done to her.”

  She holds up the map, pointing to a number of roads along the highway that all lead toward the beach. “What about these?”

  “Those aren’t access roads, so the pavement doesn’t actually run all the way onto the beach.”

  “How obstructed are they?”

  “In a luxury sedan, driving over loose sand and brush? Pretty obstructed…” He takes the map from her and examines it, wishing that he’d paid more attention to the area in the past. “What we need is another vehicle, or a better road…” Handing the map back to Beth, he starts driving again, looking carefully down each driveway and private road they pass by.

  “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a gated community at the end of the next road, I remember seeing the sign for it when we came by. If we can’t make it onto the beach, we can at least find a place to stay the night.”