by Ronald Malfi
He didn’t allow himself more than that initial, cursory glance before his pumping legs carried him through the intersection and across the snow-laden lawns of apocalypse-dark houses.
Beneath him, the ground erupted. He was thrown into the air, his fingers digging into the fabric of the laptop’s carrying case. When he struck the ground, the force squeezed the air from his lungs and his head snapped back on his neck, striking the frozen pavement of the street. He felt the wound at his leg reopen.
Something big was crawling up out of the ground. Todd blinked, clearing the blurriness from his eyes while scooting backward on his hands and feet like a crab. The thing rose and blotted out the sky, a shaggy white behemoth with the body of a worm capped by a multitooth maw that reminded Todd of lawn-mower blades. Its sturdiness was questionable, as its body was comprised solely of snow, and, as it towered over him, its shadow like the shadow of a skyscraper, bits of itself avalanched down its cylindrical hide.
Paralyzed with fear, Todd could only stare up at it. He went instantly deaf, unable to hear any sound other than his own blood rushing through his veins—a sound like an old washing machine.
Above him, the thing swayed, unsteady. Todd could see the sheath of its snakelike belly threaded with thin silvery filaments of light. It’s a legion, he had time to think. It’s a bunch of those snow phantoms smashed together to make this monstrous beast.
The thing roared and Todd’s hearing returned, his eardrums nearly bursting.
Something clambered at Todd’s side and Todd cried out. It was Brendan, his face an O of terror as his eyes locked on the monster.
Todd managed to jump up. He faded in one direction, then took off in another, carving a swath of zigzagging footprints in the snow. There was a narrow pass between two houses; he shoved his head down and charged for it, hoping that the creature would prove too big to follow him through.
If I could just—
Something snagged his ankles, tackling him to the ground. Yowling, he rolled over on his side to see something black and snakelike, perhaps the thickness of a boa constrictor, come untangled at his ankles and bow up into the air. His first thought was, Tentacles! They have tentacles! But then he saw it for what it really was: the fallen power line.
The line swung and spat blue-white fire from its frayed end. Todd covered his face with his arms and rolled farther down the lawn, feeling every bump and crenellation in the snow through the threadbare fabric of his sweater. When he came to rest, he sat up on his knees, the entire world spinning on its axis.
The power line whipped against the ground until it swung around and connected with the base of the giant snow creature. Despite the creature’s appearance, its hide was made of something other than snow: the moment the electrical teeth of the power line bit into it, the snow turned black like burning paper, and Todd could then see the segmented plates that made up its belly. It caught fire and mewled with thunderous aplomb. It only managed to put the fire out by collapsing in on itself, showering the blaze in an avalanche of snow.
A second later, and it was as though the thing had never existed.
Across the yard, Brendan jabbed a finger at him. There was a wild, feral look in his eyes. “You!” he screamed, rupturing his throat by the sheer force of his excitement. “Get the hell out of here!”
That was the only invitation Todd needed. Again, he was on his feet and running to beat the devil. He did not dare look behind him to see what became of Bruce and Brendan, who were still fighting off the encroaching horde of townspeople; nor did he want to know if that giant snow-beast had rematerialized out of nothingness.
Up ahead he could see the woods they’d crossed earlier, and he knew he was halfway back to the station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
In her urgency, Kate had ushered Charlie and Cody into the sally port. She opened the back door on one of the cruisers and instructed the children to get inside. They were both trembling, with Cody clinging to her brother and whimpering audibly, and although Kate’s heart went out to them, she knew she couldn’t afford to slow down.
Before slamming the door shut, Kate bent down and peered inside. Both siblings were clutching each other and trembling with fear. Tears had carved clean slicks down their grimy faces. “No matter what you two hear,” she told them, “you both stay in here and don’t come out until I come get you. Do you understand?”
They both nodded.
Kate left them.
In the basement, Molly was petrified. She refused to leave her cot, having unconsciously barricaded herself with pillows and paperback novels. Kate had little hope that down feathers and John Grisham would be enough to keep those things at bay, if any actually happened to get in here.
“What happened to those things outside?” Molly wanted to know.
Kate set her shotgun against one wall and began stuffing extra clothes into a plastic bag to take back to the kids. “I don’t know,” she said. “They took off.”
Molly was inconsolable. “Took off? What the fuck does that mean? Where’d they go?”
“I don’t know!” Kate’s own temper was incontrollable; she felt it burst through her from the wellspring of her fury. “There was some kind of explosion down the road. It must have scared them off.”
“What explosion?” Molly pulled a pillow into her lap. Her eyes looked sloppy in their sockets. “My God, what if something happened to them?”
Kate knotted the bag of clothing, then tossed it on her cot. She went straight to the desk and began rummaging through its drawers for a lighter, a book of matches—anything that would catch fire. Blessedly, she located a Zippo with the Marines insignia on the side, and she silently thanked a God that she wasn’t so sure she believed in at the moment. She slipped the lighter into her pocket.
“What if they’re dead?” Molly wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
Kate reeled around to her. “Listen—if those things do come back here, I don’t think it’s a good idea that you stay down here.”
“It’s safe down here.”
“No,” Kate said. “It’s not. There’s only one door. If they come to it, where are you gonna go?”
“Are they inside?”
“No.” But she wondered. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“Oh, my God…”
“I took the kids to the sally port—it’s where they keep the cars—”
“The cars don’t work,” Molly moaned. She wasn’t listening anymore.
“It’s safer there. They’re hiding in the cars. I think you should go there, too. If anything gets inside, there’s more than one way out from the sally port. Plus, it’s made of concrete, like a garage.” She drummed her knuckles against the drywall. “Not like this Sheetrock shit.”
“You’re talking too fast.”
Kate squatted down in front of the woman. “Molly, I think you should come with me to the sally port. Do you understand?”
But Molly was shaking her head. “Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere.”
For one instant, Kate considered snatching her by the hair and dragging her upstairs. Had the woman not been pregnant, she might have done just that. But despite her terror, Molly had fight enough left in her; dragging her up the stairs might prove dangerous, even lethal, for one or both of them.
Smirking, Kate stood. “No,” she said. “Fuck you.”
Back upstairs, she gathered some food from the commissary—bags of pretzels and potato chips, a six-pack of Mountain Dew, granola bars, an uneaten Italian sub wrapped in tinfoil in the fridge—and, burdened with the halogen lamp, bag of clothes, and the shotgun by its strap over one shoulder, she carried the stuff back to the sally port.
She expected the kids to still be whimpering in the backseat of the cruiser, but when she opened the door she was startled to find them sitting stock still, their heads slightly cocked in the direction of the open door.
“Jesus,” Kate said, dumping the food and clothes into the foot well. She reached out and grabbed the colla
r of Charlie’s shirt, pulled him toward her. “Come here.” Slipping a hand down his collar, she felt around the smooth flesh of his shoulder blades.
“Stop it,” he whined. “Your hand’s cold.”
“I’m sorry.” She withdrew her hand, uncomfortable.
“We’re just tired,” Charlie said. Eerily, he sounded much older than he was.
“Here,” Kate said, opening the bag and pulling out the various articles of clothes. “I grabbed whatever was there. Put these on and stay warm. It’s cold in here. Just keep warm, okay?” She looked over to Cody. “How’s your headache?”
“Hurts.”
“Okay, okay. Todd and the others will be back soon, okay?”
“And then what?” Charlie said.
Kate did not have an answer for him. “And here,” she continued, filling their laps with the junk food and sodas. “Eat if you’re hungry, but don’t get sick.” She slipped back out of the car.
“Where are you going?” Cody said.
“I need to go back out into the hall, sweetheart. I need to check things out.”
“With the gun?” Cody sounded so small.
Kate nodded. “Yeah. With the gun.” She looked at Charlie. “Keep your sister warm.”
In the hall, she went around to every window she could find, peering out. The pebbled glass made it difficult to see what exactly was going on out there. At the double doors, she checked and rechecked the lock on the inside of the doors, even though she hadn’t unlocked it since Todd and the others left.
Get the fuck back here, Todd.
Nonetheless, she managed to drag one of the secretary desks out into the foyer and prop it up in front of the door. It might not stop the possessed townspeople from breaking in but it might slow them down. Enough to take a few down and then reload the shotgun, anyway.
She hoped.
Returning to the darkened storage room, she began looking around for things with which to board up the windows. There were more than enough wooden crates and the slats seemed sturdy enough; it was locating a hammer and nails that proved difficult. Eventually, though, she found some in a tool chest under an old poker table. Quickly, she set to work prying apart the crates, working like a demon and sweating through the layers of her clothes.
She stopped only when she felt a cold breeze at her back.
Holding the hammer up by her face as a weapon, she spun around and faced the darkness. Only stacked boxes caroused in the shadows, leaning into one another like deteriorating architecture. She bent and groped for the shotgun that she’d set on the floor, walking her fingers across its girth before snatching it up and propping the hilt beneath her right armpit.
I’m just scared and jumpy. I’m alone. There’s no one here.
But was she? Was she alone?
One of those things had been trying to come in through that pipe, she recalled. Had Charlie not seen it…had I not plugged it up…
She went to the wall to see if the oil rag was still jammed into the mouth of the exposed pipe. It was.
But there could be more.
The thought caused goose bumps to break out along her arms.
Frantically, she searched all the walls, and even moved heavy boxes out of the way to make sure there weren’t any more exposed pipes. Satisfied that there weren’t—and exhausted from the exercise—she paused to give herself a few moments to catch her breath.
Something was moving across the floor.
Her hand vibrating like a seismograph, she lifted the halogen lamp to better illuminate the room.
At first she didn’t see it—a dark patch in a world of dark patches; a slick of spilled oil on the concrete—but then it moved, betraying all sense of the inanimate, and Kate uttered a sharp cry. The halogen lamp fell from her hand and struck the floor. There was a shattering sound and the room went pitch black.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God what was that thing?
She’d caught only the vaguest glimpse of it, yet its image resonated like the afterimage of a flashbulb in her mind—a meaty twist of fibrous tissue, perhaps as long and as thick as an infant’s arm, that arched like an overgrown inchworm along the floor while trailing a slick of glistening mucus behind it…
And now it was somewhere in here with her.
In the dark.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God what was that THING?
Trying not to panic, she began patting down her pockets until she felt the bulge of the Zippo lighter in her hip pocket. She tweezed it out with two fingers, flipped open the lid, and rolled the flint wheel. A narrow white flame issued out of the lighter, illuminating a circle roughly three feet in diameter around her.
Then she heard it—a sandpapery shhhh as it dragged itself across the floor, followed by the tacky peel of the sticky mucus. The sound was like an old man smacking his lips in his sleep.
Kate squatted and brought the flame closer to the floor. She could see it, less than a foot away from her, coming toward her. Disgusted, she thought of dried meats hanging from deli ceilings, the phallic protrusion of cured, uncut salami. Acid burned at the back of her throat.
It was heading toward her, yes, but it was also moving away from its spot of origin: the place on the floor directly beneath the jutting pipe, which was now clogged with a balled-up oil rag. The inky drops of syrup were no longer patterned on the floor. With mounting horror, Kate realized that the thing before her was what had become of those gooey drops of bloodlike milk—that they had melded together to form this eel-like obscenity, this creeping phallus.
She realized she still held the hammer in her left hand. Steeling herself, she drew the hammer down on top of the atrocity. Its head was flattened and emitted a yellow puslike substance that stank like sulfur. Its rear still wriggled, side to side now as if in pain, and she brought the hammer down again and again and again until the thing stopped moving. When she’d finished, on the floor before her was a gnarled fibrous abortion in a puddle of yellowish glue.
Kate leaned over and vomited on the floor. And she might have even passed out, had she not been pulled from her half swoon by sudden pounding at the far end of the station.
At the front doors.
She dropped the hammer and wended her way through the darkness while holding the shotgun in both hands. She hit the hallway like a bullet and paused, wondering if the banging she’d heard had come from someplace else. Listening, all seemed quiet. Perhaps one of the—
The banging echoed again down the long, hollow corridor…and this time it came with such ferocity that the doors were shaking in their frames. The chains through the door handles rattled, and the desk she’d moved in front of the doors squealed across the tiled floor as it was, inch by inch, pushed away from the doors.
Kate charged a fresh round into the shotgun and held it up at eye level. She proceeded to march down the hallway, one eye closed, aiming the barrel of the gun straight at the center part of the two doors. If anything came bursting through there, it was going to get one motherfucker of a surprise.
Then a voice: “Kate! Kate, open the fucking doors!”
Confusion shook her. Then reality reached out and cracked her across the face. She lowered the shotgun and closed the distance to the double doors in a sprint. Before he left, Bruce had given her the key to the deadbolt. For one traumatizing moment, she forgot where she’d put it.
Oh God oh God oh—
But then she remembered, and dug it out of the rear pocket of her pants. It suddenly seemed so tiny, so useless, in her overlarge hand.
“Kate!”
“I hear you!” she shouted back, though the pounding of his fists was louder than her voice. She managed to shove the desk out of the way and, after three or four nervous jabs that missed the keyhole completely, she lucked out and jammed the key into the lock and turned it. The rolling of the tumblers was as loud as a truck starting in the dead of night.
Todd burst through the door, clutching a black nylon case to his chest. His hair was matted with snow and his
skin looked an unhealthy shade of light blue. Blood trailed from one nostril. “Shut it! Shut it!”
Kate had been holding the door open in anticipation of Bruce and Brendan coming through…but when she saw no one else outside, she slammed the double doors and refastened the chain and padlock. Behind her, she could hear Todd’s boots squelching wetly down the hallway as he took off toward the computer room. Kate gripped the shotgun in both hands and raced after him. By the time she reached the computer room, he was fumbling around in the dark with the cables on the desk.
“Here,” Kate said, and clicked on the Zippo.
Todd nodded his appreciation and began digging the laptop out of its carrying case.
“What happened to the others? Are they dead?”
“I don’t know. They’re still out there.”
“Stop.” She touched his right forearm lightly, the shotgun inching up at him. “Let me see your back.”
He paused, the laptop halfway out of its case. He set it on the desk, then pulled his sweater and the shirt underneath over his head. His skin was pale, goose pimpled, his frame wiry. But his shoulders were clean.
Kate lowered the shotgun. “Those aren’t the clothes you went out in.”
“There was an accident. Hold the light closer.”
She brought the flame down close to the laptop as Todd plugged in the battery source, then ran a cable from the back of the laptop to the modem. He plugged the modem into the battery source, too, and watched as the row of green lights blinked in succession on the face of the rectangular black box—just as Bruce had demonstrated.
“Where’s everyone else?” he asked, still breathing heavily from his trek back and forth across the town.