Grayland

by James Bierce

  “Hundreds?”

  “No, probably more than that.”

  “Do you think they’ll come here?”

  “I don’t really know, Matt.” He looks at his son, and sees the uneasiness in his eyes, the fear. That obviously wasn’t the answer he was looking for. “I don’t think it’s always going to be like this. I think someday all of those people are probably gonna end up dead from the virus, or from each other, but until then we have to be extremely careful.”

  “And if they all die, then what?”

  “That’s the big question, isn’t it? I guess we’ll have to figure that out when it comes. It depends on how many others are out there, like the four of us.”

  “And Larry and Beth…”

  “Yeah, and Larry and Beth.”

  Matt takes the binoculars from Curtis, and then looks intently in the direction of a house across the highway.

  “What are you looking at?”

  Matt hands the binoculars back, then points toward the house. “Over there, on the front lawn next to the path.”

  It takes Curtis a moment to get his bearings, and then he sees what his son spotted. Sprawled out in front of the house is a naked body, lying face down and covered in blood. He looks around the neighboring houses, and sees two more bodies, all of which are in the same condition, and all of them stripped of their clothes. Another one is on the pavement in front of a pickup on the highway, but is still fully clothed with no blood visible. He keeps an eye on it for a minute, trying to gauge whether the person is actually dead, or just playing dead — but he quickly looks away when he notices a long-handled ax that’s embedded into the back of their head. Whatever happened here, it certainly doesn’t look like self-defense, not with the bodies spread out as far as they are.

  “Do you think those were the gunshots?”

  “I’m sure they probably were.” Curtis hadn’t been in those houses in months, not since they emptied them of their belongings, but the idea that there were infected people squatting this close to them is a little unnerving. What’s even more unnerving is the fact that somebody seems to have slaughtered all of them, and might still be somewhere in the area. He looks back at the cabin, where he can now see the front door, and it’s still in one piece. The other houses on the street all have their doors kicked in.

  “So are we going back home?”

  “Yeah, but not for long, we’ll just grab some things and move on.”

  “We still haven’t figured out where we’re going,” Sarah whispers, following closely behind Curtis as the four of them walk quietly through the woods toward their cabin. All of them are armed, but Curtis is the only one with his gun already in his hand.

  “We can’t go north, the road is blocked, so we’ll have to head south and then into the hills.”

  “Maybe we can meet up with Larry and Beth…”

  “We’ll find someplace isolated, away from everything — maybe near a creek or a lake.”

  Annoyed at him for ignoring her suggestion, she decides to let it go, and instead focuses on the cabin in front of them. From the outside it looks perfectly normal, exactly the way they left it the day before. As they come around to the front, however, Sarah notices that something looks off about their pickup. The tires, all of them nearly new when the outbreak occurred, are all completely flat. “Curtis, look at the tires…”

  He takes a close look around the place, fearing that someone might be watching them — but he doesn’t see anything suspicious. “You guys stay out here, I’ll check the cabin.”

  “How are we gonna go anywhere like that?”

  “We can drive on flat tires, far enough to get away from here anyway.”

  Unlocking the door, he slips inside and makes a quick scan of both rooms, thankful that the building is so incredibly small, then brings his wife and kids inside with him. “Pack the food, medicine and guns first. I’ll load the truck, I don’t want any of you going outside, understand?”

  “Yes, I understand, but I think we should radio Larry first. We could really use their help.”

  “They’re probably a couple of hours south of us by now, and out of range. I don’t want to waste time trying to reach him.”

  “Fine.” Angry, she hands him a box that’s already taped up. “This one is first.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Pictures.”

  “Sarah…”

  “I’m not leaving without that box. Take it.”

  Hearing the tone of her voice, threatening and angry, he takes the box and packs it into the bed of the pickup. For the next thirty minutes, the four of them work feverishly to fill the truck to its limit, and by the time it’s done they’re dismayed at how little they managed to fit compared to what was stored inside the cabin.

  Sarah looks around, surrounded by the memories of the last several months, both good and bad, and finds herself already missing the place. “We can always come back later and get the rest I guess.”

  “Sure, after everything settles down. We could probably…” Curtis is cut off by the sudden knocking on the front door. He motions for Sarah and the boys to go out the back, but he only sees her and Matt. “Where is Ben?” he whispers.

  “He’s in the bathroom,” Matt answers.

  The knocking continues, then a male voice is heard. “I know you’re in there, and I don’t mean any harm, I’m just looking for someone.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Beth Wilson, my wife.”

  Curtis and Sarah look at each other, both of them shocked. “And what’s your name?”

  “Jake Wilson.”

  Curtis stares at the door for a moment while Sarah watches him, baffled at why he doesn’t open it.

  “Hello? Are you still there?” the voice asks.

  “Why aren’t you answering him?” whispers Sarah.

  He reaches down and unsnaps his holster, resting the palm of his hand on the gun’s grip. “Why did he slash our tires?”

  CHAPTER 11

  GRAYLAND: DAY 4

  Hearing the sound of a dog barking in the distance, which is something that she hasn’t heard for quite some time, and seeing the bright flickering rays of sunshine coming through the side windows of the nave, Beth wakes up feeling refreshed for the first time since this entire ordeal started. At first she even wondered whether all of it was just a horrible nightmare, but that thought was fleeting, lasting only until the moment she realized where she’d been sleeping. The pew benches were barely tolerable to sit on, let alone sleep on, but she barely remembers even closing her eyes before falling asleep.

  Wondering why Larry never woke her up to take watch, she stands up and stretches her sore back and neck, then walks into the other room where she sees Amanda standing in the doorway of the closet. She still looks as though she died the week before, but today she looks stronger somehow, and the skin on her face looks a little more flushed and normal looking. She glances at Beth, then continues staring across the room toward the kitchen, with a look of concern on her face.

  “Amanda, what are you looking at?” Beth asks as she enters the kitchen, seeing Larry still sitting on the overturned cabinet. His face is looking tired and defeated, and when he sees Beth he just shrugs.

  “I couldn’t do it,” he says.

  “Do what?”

  “Kill whoever the hell is behind this door.” He lowers his head, slowly shaking it from side to side, clearly disgusted with himself. “I tried, I got myself all worked up, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

  “You’re exhausted, that’s all.”

  “How am I supposed to make it out here, protecting us, when I can’t kill this asshole?”

  “I’ll kill him.” Both Larry and Beth turn toward the voice, the words sounding strange coming from the mouth of a young girl.

  Beth backs up closer to her brother, feeling weirdly disturbed by the deadly tone in Amanda’s voice. Ever since that day in the abandoned house, her voice has sounded so pure and in
nocent, that Beth had started to think of her as nothing more than a gravely ill child that needed help.

  “Give me back my knife, and I’ll do it.”

  “Sweety, Curtis threw your knife away.”

  The girl’s voice turns to an even harder tone, more commanding than before. “Then find another one, there must be one in here somewhere.”

  “Forget it, kid. The last thing we need is you running around free,” Larry responds.

  “Then open the door yourself, and you do it.”

  “Why don’t we just leave and forget about it?” Beth asks.

  Larry is looking at Amanda, at the taunting, judging look in her eyes, aimed squarely at him. She has zero respect for him, which could prove to be dangerous down the road. “The minute I get off of this cabinet, he’s going to push right past it.”

  “Then open the door, I’ll shoot him,” Beth answers back.

  Still looking at Amanda, Larry tightens the grip on his gun, then stands up off of the cabinet. “No, I’ll do it.” He starts pushing the cabinet away from the door, then stands back and aims his gun. “Open the door, then stand clear.”

  Beth turns the handle slowly, then swings it open quickly, but Larry doesn’t do anything, he just stands there with a blank look on his face. She aims her own gun at the steeple door, and then circles around to get her own look. The staircase is empty, aside from bloodstains on the wooden steps, and the obvious fingernail marks on the inside of the door itself.

  “Shit, he’s upstairs,” Beth says, as she moves through the doorway and onto the first step.

  “No, he’s gone.”

  “He’s not gone, he’s just up there resting somewhere.”

  “Beth, look at the window.”

  He points to an open window at the top of the stairwell, and Beth notices the cold air moving across her legs and feet. When she turns around and starts to shut the door, something catches her eye, and after looking more closely she discovers that there’s not only fingernail marks on the surface, but actual fingernails as well, embedded into the wood.

  “Do you hear that?” Larry asks, listening closely for the noise to come back. It only takes a few seconds before he hears it again, the sound of breaking glass. “There it is again…”

  Without answering, Beth slams the attic door shut, then runs back into the nave and looks out at their car, which has had every window busted out of it. The doors are also wide-open, and all of their belongings are scattered across the parking lot — bullets and all. Even the jars of canned peaches they found a month ago have been smashed on the pavement. Larry also notices the hood slightly open, and the battery lying on the sidewalk in front of the car, its contents spilling out onto the concrete.

  “What are we gonna do? Should we go out there?”

  “We have no idea where he is, he could be waiting for us.” Larry looks around the parking lot, and at the trees and overgrown brush surrounding it. “We need to get away from the windows, he could still be armed.”

  They both back away, toward the kitchen, when they hear a loud thump from somewhere in the building. Beth sees Amanda still standing in the same place, looking curiously at the other end of the room.

  “There’s no way he’s that fast… There must be two of them.”

  They hear another thump, this time clearly coming from above them, followed quickly by the sound of footsteps racing down the stairs. Beth runs into the kitchen, with Larry right behind her, then braces herself against the door — dropping her gun in the process. As she bends down to pick it up, the deafening explosion of a gunshot echoes throughout the building, and she looks up to see a bullet hole in the door right above her. Larry grabs her arm and pulls her away just as another shot rings out.

  “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here!” Larry screams.

  “Grab Amanda, we can’t leave her!”

  Larry picks up a blanket from the floor and wraps it around Amanda, then picks her up and follows Beth through the church and into the parking lot. He only gives the car a quick glance before looking around at the rest of the town, seeing only a few close places that three people can hide — and then he hears the sound of approaching footsteps from the church behind him.

  “Behind that dumpster over there, quick…” Larry whispers to Beth.

  “What about our supplies still in the church?”

  “We’ll get them later, come on…”

  Avoiding the boxes of spilled ammunition on the ground, both of them make it to the dumpster on the other side of the parking lot, out of sight from the side door of the church. Larry gently lays Amanda down on the pavement, unwrapping the blanket from around her.

  “Don’t try anything stupid, understand?” he whispers. She simply nods in reply as he takes off the rope restraints from around her ankles, leaving the ones around her wrists still in place.

  Larry pulls his pistol out just as he hears the church door open, then he leans out far enough to get a good look at the church, and sees the man standing just outside the door, looking around the neighborhood. He carefully aims his gun at the man’s head, feeling his body tense up as he places his finger on the trigger. Curtis had warned him months ago that killing someone wasn’t as easy as it looks, even if the person was trying to kill you. He thought he understood what Curtis was trying to tell him, but as he feels his hand squeezing the pistol, he realizes that until you’re in that situation, you can’t possibly know what it feels like.

  “Wait…” Beth whispers, pointing toward the front of the building.

  Larry takes a quick look in that direction and sees two more men coming from around the corner, both of them walking in broad daylight and looking completely unaffected by it, and yet even from a hundred feet away he can tell that both of them are clearly infected. Their skin has a gray, almost waxy look to it, like a corpse that’s been dead for awhile. Leaving the church door open, their pursuer walks toward the road, a pistol dangling loosely from his left hand, then he moves right past the two men that are still standing on the sidewalk. A few seconds after he turns and heads north on the highway, toward Westport, the other two follow him.

  “We need to find someplace to hide, now…” Beth whispers.

  “Your radio light is on, Mr. Gossman” Amanda says, her voice sweet and childlike once again.

  Forgetting that he turned the volume off, Larry grabs the handheld radio and turns it on as he surveys the nearby buildings once again. The only one of any decent size that’s close to them is the commercial building across the street.

  “Beth, Larry, are you there?” Sarah says over the radio.

  “Make it quick, we have a bit of a problem here.”

  “You guys need to come back, as quickly as possible.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  The radio stays silent for a few seconds, then Sarah comes back on, her voice sounding upset. “Tell Beth that Jake is here, and that he needs her.”

  With a look of shock on her face, Beth quickly grabs the radio from Larry. “Sarah, is he okay?”

  The radio crackles, and then a few intelligible words come through. “…he’s doing here… you need to be careful…”

  She waits for something further, but everything goes quiet. “Sarah, do you read me? Are you there?”

  “Come on, we have to go…” Larry says, as he stands up and carefully looks down the highway in the direction the men went.

  “I think the battery might be dead,” Beth says, as she grabs Amanda’s hand and follows Larry toward the road.

  “We can deal with it later, right now we have to get out of sight.”

  When they reach the center of the road, Beth can see the three men about a half-block to the north, moving in their direction once again. “Larry…”

  “I see them, just keep moving.”

  “Dad, I think they’re coming here. What should we do?”

  Christine is watching out the window at the scene in the street below her, hoping that neither side actually fires t
heir gun and attracts every soul from a one mile radius. She can hear the man and woman kicking at the front door downstairs, and she knows it’s only a matter of time before they get in. After that they’ll only have the flimsy hollow-core door at the top of the stairs to get through.

  “Is the door locked?” George mumbles, his voice growing weaker by the hour.

  “Yes, they both are.” She crouches down, then slides her hand under his chin, lifting it up until she can see his face. “Dad, what should I do?”

  “Do they look sick?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “If they are, kill them.”

  She can feel her body shaking as she hears the door downstairs begin to break apart. After a few tense minutes of yelling and commotion, the building suddenly becomes quiet.

  “Are they gone?” George asks.

  “No, I can still hear them down there. They’re climbing the stairs…” She points her gun at the door, her hand trembling violently. She nearly screams when they begin kicking the door at the top of the stairs. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” she manages to blurt out, not certain if she sounded tough or frightened.

  “Open the door, they’re almost in!” screams a man on the other side.

  “Let the girl go, and back off!”

  “I can’t do that, she’s dangerous.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “No, we’re not sick.”

  Christine looks back at her father, who nods his head. Reluctantly, she reaches out and unlocks the door, then steps back and stands next to George. When the door opens, and she watches the three intruders enter the room, she can tell right away that the young girl is obviously sick. Her skin is paler than it should be, her body jerks slightly whenever she stands still for very long, and her eyes look darkened and dead, like there’s no soul inside. Christine has seen enough of the infected to recognize the benign from the dangerous, and this girl is anything but benign.