FRIDAY 11:02 PM
The night grew colder and darker. The sounds of the wolves fighting the undead had long faded out, and no trace of the hissers advancing had arisen. Amanita walked under the cradle of Doug’s arm. It was warmer for her like this, and when she stumbled from the pain of the burns on her legs he caught her. He was big, and soft, and protective, and she needed that right now. Because the majority of her mind was replaying the events at Harold’s. The crazy bastards were something right out of the Salem Witch Trials. Even the damned kids. Who taught kids to murder innocent young girls? Raving psychos, that’s who. It made her shiver with disgust. What had the world come to?
Doug pointed down the road. “I see houses up there. Maybe someone can help.”
Amanita saw the house too, and remembered all the times now she’d been trapped in a house fighting for her life. What had once been a symbol of safety and shelter was now a potential for imprisonment and death. “Maybe they’ve been turned,” she said. “Not for nothing, Doug, but I’m not feeling, like, super trusting right now. We have no weapons, and I think it’s obvious I’m a little young to be fighting adults. Who knows what’s in those houses.”
“You’ve fought harder than anyone I know, Am. Don’t knock yourself. You’re a regular little scrapper. But I hear you’re point. Okay, hold up here. I’ll check it out.”
Slowly, Doug inched up the dark front lawn of the closest house. All was black inside and out, as was the norm. He peered in through the front window, put an ear to the side of the house, and then disappeared behind the back. Am stood alone in the street doing her best not to freak out as the trees creaked around her. He came around again a minute later holding a piece of paper. “It’s a note,” he said. “It was taped to the back door. Says they went to Seattle. I’m not sure who it was for, maybe friends or relatives, anyone looking for them in this mess. But it doesn’t matter. The house is empty. Let’s get inside and barricade it, get some sleep.”
Twenty minutes later Amanita was staring at herself in the bathroom mirror yet again. Doug lit candles he found in the kitchen and her burnt hair flickered in the flames. “I’m hideous,” she said, and started to cry.
Doug entered with a pair of scissors and stood behind her. His hulking frame blocked out the shower behind them, which was nothing but a reminder of how dirty they were. “It’s not that bad. Let’s just cut off the burnt parts.”
Amanita shook her head, knuckling tears from her eyes. “No. That won’t do it. Goddamn those pieces of shit.” She turned around and buried her face in Doug’s chest. He stank of sweat but she found it somewhat comforting. She knew he was fatigued, exhausted, and his smell was a testament of the energy he’d spent while trying to save her.
His arms fell around her and hugged her close. “It’s okay, Am. We’ll get to California soon enough. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to get to that psycho’s place sooner.”
She let go of him and picked up the scissors, placed them to her hair and began to cut. The burnt pieces fell into the sink and collected there like ash. “I used to freak out if I couldn’t get my hair right, you know. Like, it was this big deal to impress the other girls at school. I don’t even know why it matters. It’s just hair. But hair and makeup and clothing, it made me feel good somehow. It got me a lot of attention.”
“From the other girls?”
“Girls, boys, more often than not from older men. Men are pervs.” She turned and looked at him. “I’m glad you’re not a perv.”
“I like my women to be women.”
She cut more locks of hair off, tried to make the top all one length. In another minute she turned around and presented her new pixie haircut, cut above her ears, to the top of the nape of her neck, and with bangs that ended well above her eyebrows. She’d mussed it up with some hair product found in the bathroom cabinet to give it a fashionable slant. “Well?” she said, throwing her arms up. “There are some bald spot on top where the fire got too much of it, but overall I think I can live with it. At least no one can grab my hair now.”
Doug smiled. “Am, you’re going to make a beautiful woman someday.”
She looked in the mirror again. “I kind of like it, actually. It’s a new me, and God knows I could use a new me right about now.”
An hour later they sat around a candelabra in the kitchen and ate chili from cans found in the pantry. Amanita wore a pink t-shirt she’d dug out of a dresser in an ugly bedroom adorned with bad horse paintings. They’d drawn all the shades and blinds, locked the doors, and assembled a collection of knives and two hammers just in case they needed a quick weapon. Outside, the wind howled through the nearby woods but otherwise all was silent. No helicopters, no gun shots, no cars, and no hissing.
Doug finished his food and leaned back in his chair, one hand rubbing his full stomach. “I gotta warn you, this here is the magical fruit, so if you smell something ornery, you may want to run far away. I’m too old to be coy these days.”
“Oh my God, gross. Why are boys so in love with their own farts. It’s disgusting.”
Chuckling, Doug stabbed a finger at her. “Now don’t you act like you ain’t got the same insides as every other human. Girls fart too.”
“Yeah but not in front of people. Ew.”
“Pull my finger.”
“What? No!”
“Suit yourself.” Doug made a face as he let one go.
“Jesus, Doug! Ew, that stinks.”
Now laughing hysterically, Doug got up and threw his chili can away. He sat back down, amused by Amanita’s repulsed sneer. “That does stink, don’t it.”
Amanita waved the noxious smell from her face, then squared him up with a challenging stare. “Oh yeah.” She stood up and let one rip as well.
“I knew it,” Doug said, “I knew y’all farted. Hoo wee, girl, that smells like the rug section at Macys.”
Amanita burst out laughing. “What’s that even mean?”
“Means it stinks like burlap and dust. Gross.”
Now they were both laughing, Amanita with teeth covered in cold chili. “Oh my God I can’t believe I just did that. So much for being a lady.”
“Ah, you’ve got years to worry about being a lady.”
She stopped smiling as new thoughts fell over her. “Do I? I mean, is this shit gonna end?”
“Sure, it’ll end. It’s got too. Ain’t never been a time in history when the Devil has really won, right?”
“I don’t know. I’m not really religious.” Especially not after meeting Harold and his zealot clan. “I just don’t want to keep living in this kind of world. Today it’s my hair, but tomorrow it might be my legs, or even my life.”
“Don’t sweat it. Your hair is so cute I’d enter you into a pageant if I could.”
She looked him up and down, saw cuts on his face, graying stubble around his mouth and nose, and deep black circles around his eyes. “Fuck, Doug! How did you find me? How did you survive? I saw you get swarmed.”
“Just went a little nuts, I guess. First set of teeth came down on the guitar, not on me. Then I threw some kicks and punches—used to play football, you know—and they went down. Swung that guitar at them like a plane propeller. Juked them a few times and went back down into the cellar—”
“But there were more in the cellar!”
“Don’t I know it. But I grabbed a shovel and swung at them and…” He hesitated a moment, looking her in the eyes. “Man, this ain’t no fun memory to describe.”
“I cut a severed head out of a car engine, Doug, I can take it. Go on.”
“Well, I chopped their heads off. A shovel to the head knocks ’em down, a swing to the head cuts the neck, a kick severs it.” At these words he seemed to linger in his own mind for a minute. Amanita assumed he had never beheaded anyone before, even if they were zombies. She supposed it wasn’t something anyone ever really got used to.
“I held two against me. Dead ones. Like body armor. Backed into the laundry room and locked the do
or. I could just barely hear tires screeching and then I heard them things take off, chasing whatever car it was. So I risked it, ran upstairs, out the front door, and I see a van coming around the corner. I waved to them for help but they blazed past me. The driver could have gotten me, but he didn’t, and I thought that was pretty rude. So I ran to the next house, hid in the garage, looking through the windows at the street. The hissers, most of ’em anyway, were all chasing that van, but it was too fast for them. And by then they were way down the road and moving off to find other prey. So I stayed there, watching the remaining stragglers amble about, wondering how I was gonna get out and find you, praying you had made it somewhere safe.
“Eventually, an army helicopter flew overhead and I watched the hissers go after it, heads all cocked up to the sky.”
“They didn’t smell you before the copter came?”
“No. But I saw them licking the air like snakes, and I think they were trying to get my scent or something. But there were a couple cat litter boxes in the garage, and quite possibly dead cats as well, and it stank to high hell so I think they were confused or something. Anyway, later on that van came back and started moving real slow up the street, like they were looking for something. I snuck out and followed, and when they stopped I jumped in front of them and yelled for them to hold up. They rolled down the window and I asked for a ride. They said no. I said, ‘Fair enough.’ I asked if they had an extra gun and again they said no. Then I asked if they’d seen a teenage girl and they said no again, but this time the way they said it was all wrong. See, that’s the trick to catching a liar. You learn how they tell the truth so you can catch their differences when they lie. I knew right then and there they’d seen you, so I yanked the driver’s door open and I pulled him outside. His buddy got out and ran around to hit me but I laid him flat. Then I took that driver and I looked in his eyes and said if he knew where you were he’d better tell me, ’cause in two seconds I was gonna knock his teeth out.”
“You should have.”
“Believe me I wanted to. But I didn’t want to knock him out before he told me where you were.”
Amanita rubbed her short hair, a nervous sort of tic now. “They said they were looking for something. And Harold said he’d give them something in return.”
“Yeah, I found that out soon enough. They were looking for kids. Seems old Harold shoots blanks, and them kids aren’t even his. He kidnapped them when they were babies. That was the key, according to the one with the spider on his neck. They had to be babies.”
“So he could raise them his way without them knowing. What a piece of shit.”
“Yeah, and too bad too. Them kids was brainwashed long ago. Before this whole epidemic even happened. Ain’t no saving them. He just figured it’d be easier now, with all the mass confusion, to build his family even bigger. And in return for kidnapping, them two scums doing the ’napping got paid in meth or some such drug, which Harold also taught his kids to make. The bastard was as evil a cult leader as they come.”
Amanita remembered the tiny lab in the cabin. Now it made sense. At least in a twisted, disgusting sort of way. “And he was gonna marry me off and impregnate me because they couldn’t find any babies.”
“Something like that,” Doug said. “Sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”
“You got there, Doug, that’s all that matters. So where do we go now?”
“Well….I suppose we keep going west.”
“Well, first things first.”
“What’s that, Am?”
She poked him. “Pull my finger.”
Friday, 11:05 PM
“Move move move!” Olive shouted as she dug her oar into the water and rowed for all she was worth. Connor matched her speed on the other side. The little boat picked up momentum and surged forward, but the spider monsters behind them were gaining.
“It’s too shallow,” Connor cried. “We’re not gonna be able to outrow their running. We have to jump to the shore.”
“No, keep rowing.” Olive threw her oar down, spun back over the stern and aimed her rifle, fired off two shots. The first hit a random middle-aged man’s head on the beast, blowing out the back of its skull. The head went limp, deflated and cored out like a giant popped zit. The second shot missed as the boat rocked on the waves. “Shit.”
Connor spun around to meet the creatures just as their multiple appendages clamored for a hold on the boat. His oar came down with an echoing crunch as it hit the snarling face of a middle-aged woman. Feeling no pain, the creature swung at him with three arms. Olive kicked it in its massive chest and it stumbled in the water. The other two creatures came up around it like dogs fighting for a bone and lashed out at her just as she fell backwards. The half dozen arms and legs grasping for her caught nothing but air.
Connor wracked his brain for a tactical solution. If it were a game he’d let his enemy get close and blowing up the both of them. It’d be a victory only in death. He didn’t have dynamite or plasma grenades, though, or anything often found in video games. All he had was two shots left. The best he could do was take out one random spider head and then himself. It wouldn’t stop the beast, but at least he’d go out knowing he wasn’t coming back as a monster. Let it get close and take it out. Always go down swinging, right?
He drew his gun and waited for the monsters to swipe again. When the next set of hands reached for him, he fired and took out the eye of an African American woman. The head dangled like rotted fruit on a branch. He looked at Olive, who was re-cocking her rifle, and prayed she had more ammo left than he did.
“I’m out,” she said, and swung the rifle at the beasts in the water.
All Connor could think about were his parents as he looked at his gun, scared to death of how much it would hurt to pull the trigger against his temple. He had wanted to so badly to see if the drive in his pocket held any answers, but now he would never know. Just before he put the pistol against his head, the three hissing arachnid abominations disappeared under the water with a splash.
All was silent, save for Olive’s heaving breaths beside him. It took a second before she could find her voice. “Where the hell did they go?”
Trembling, Connor looked over the side of the boat. “Down there.”
The boat had hit some kind of channel. Some ten feet below them, the spider monsters crawled on the river’s muddy floor, just barely lit by a few rays of moonlight. Dozens of white, pasty heads looked up at them, snarling and hissing. Connor could just barely hear them, even though there were no air bubbles escaping, which defied everything biological about the mechanics of hissing underwater. But the Devil probably didn’t care about the rules, he thought.
The boat stopped.
“What the…?” Olive sounded frantic.
The boat was stuck against collection of fallen tree trunks and brambles that had formed a makeshift damn in the middle of the water. Too bad it didn’t stretch to either bank or they could climb on and walk to land. But why would they ever have such luck? Connor tried to kick off of it but the current, as mild as it was, was keeping them in place.
Olive looked at Connor. She was shaking, wet, scared, and a cut above her eye was bleeding. Connor pointed to it. “Got scratched?” It was all he could get out.
She put her hand to it, looked at the blood. “Don’t give me that look. I hit myself with the oar. Nothing touched me but me.”
Connor hoped this was true. He didn’t want to have to shoot Olive. She was the only person in the world he had left, even if he didn’t know her that well.
“We’re stuck,” he said, glancing around to the river banks to get an assessment of the situation. The edges of the river were a good fifty feet off to either side. Not a tremendous distance, but enough to influence a plan other than swimming; if they swam too slow the things under the water might be able to jump up and snag them. If he was on his bike, and had a good start, he was sure he could jump it from here. But he hadn’t seen his bike since the day he and Seth had
gone to the 7-Eleven, which felt like a lifetime ago.
In the darkness, Olive tapped him. “We have company.”
Like a polaroid developing, new figures came out of the black woods around them and gathered on the edges of the river. Hundreds of the undead, snarling and glaring at them. Some of them continued on into the water, just walked right in, and sank beneath the surface, flailing as they struggled to stay afloat, ultimately joining their monstrous brethren on the river bottom. The others just stood on the banks and swayed and gnashed their teeth and reached out with their arms and legs and whatever new body parts now doubled as their hands.
“There’s no way out unless we swim.” Olive’s voice broke as she realized the tenuous predicament they were in. “Can you swim?”
Connor looked up, saw the tree branches overhead and wondered if he could somehow get on her shoulders and grab them. No, he realized, they were too high up, and besides, that would leave Olive alone on the boat. He looked farther down the river, following the current, then looked down into the water over the side of the boat and saw hundreds of pale, barely visible faces looking up at him through the murk. “Yeah, I can swim. But can we outswim them? What if they jump from the banks at us? They can take us down no problem.”
“Kid, I don’t think we have a choice.” She kicked at the brambles to prove her point. The raft wouldn’t move. It was locked up.
He stuck his gun with its single bullet in the lone backpack they now carried. He couldn’t even remember what was in there anymore. “On three?”
Olive dropped her gun. It was useless without bullets and would just slow her down now. “Look at me, kid. Look at me. If we get separated, if something happens to me, don’t you wait for me, just get out and run and go hide. You hear me?”
“Don’t say that.”
“I don’t want to, but this isn’t a school water polo match. You just make sure you keep running if that happens. I’m hoping it doesn’t, of course. I’m not trying to sound like Mother Teresa or anything. Just fucking say yes.”
Hissers II: Death March Page 13