by Tim Curran
Louis supposed he’d never really know.
Outside, they stepped over bodies and dogs and that was when Louis went down on one knee and threw up. Oh, it had been coming for some time and when it arrived, it hit him hard like a good kick to the belly. Cold sweat popped out on his forehead and the world spun on its axis and down he went, his knee hitting the concrete hard and his hands slapping hard enough to make them sting. What was in his stomach came out in a warm, almost satisfying, gush as if he were voiding toxins or bad meat out of his system. He had no idea what he’d last eaten, but there it was, splashing onto the sidewalk.
Finally, the gagging stopped and blood finally made it back up into his head. “Macy,” he said. “Macy…”
She stood there, unmoved by what he had just done and what she was seeing all around her. Her eyes were wide and teary. They blinked. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed. Her hands were knotted into fists at her side. Her mouth hung open. But other than that, she was just gone. She’d seen too much, absorbed too much, and something in her had simply said, screw this, and shut down.
Louis reached out and grasped her left ankle. “Macy? Honey, are you all right?”
But she did not answer.
She was in shock or something, he figured.
He pulled himself up and put his hands on her shoulders. “Macy?” he said in a very soothing voice. “Listen to me now. I know this is bad, but you can’t let it get to you. You have to fight against it.”
But she was done fighting.
Louis took her hand in his own and it was chilly, moist and limp. She walked with him for maybe ten feet, then she moaned and folded right up. She fell against him and he caught her, which was a good thing because she might have split her head open on the sidewalk otherwise. She fell into him, loose and flaccid and he immediately gathered her up in his arms. She was a small girl, but he was amazed at how terribly light she was. He got her over to the grass, away from the splayed death all around them and gently set her down. She was breathing and her pulse was strong. Just shock. Just nerves. Just your average fainting spell and who more deserved one?
“It’s gonna be okay,” he told her. “It’s all gonna be okay.”
Although he did not like the idea of being out in the open and defenseless on Main Street, he knew there were things that had to be done. Things maybe he should have done hours before.
He pulled out his cellphone and dialed 911.
It rang and rang…but there was no answer.
No answer.
That meant emergency services were down and why the hell wouldn’t they be? He scooped Macy up and carried her over to the Dodge, wondering how it all looked from above. The bodies and the dogs and some crazy guy carrying a teenage girl in his arms. Jesus, like something off a paperback book cover or a movie poster. All that was lacking was some burning buildings behind him and some rolling plumes of smoke, maybe a couple smashed cars.
Leaning Macy against him, he opened the Dodge, then slid her into the seat. Her face was covered in a dew of sweat. Her eyelids flickered a few times, but she did not wake. He secured her with the seatbelt and shut the door…
45
The shadows were long.
It was almost time.
The Huntress was still waiting in the second hand store which was now growing wonderfully dark as the sun fell behind the trees leaving a smear of blood on the horizon. True nightfall would be in fifteen minutes.
The clan was growing impatient.
She made a grunting sound and they quieted.
Out in the street, the girl was in the car. The man was standing beside it, looking confused, looking troubled. The Huntress could smell his indecision, his weakness, blowing through the screen of the window. He was ripe for the taking. If they rushed out now, he might fight, but it would be half-hearted, without conviction.
She waited, sniffing the air.
She smelled green, growing things, the musky urine scent of the pack. She was catching a curious after odor of the girl in the car, too. The scent of her body wash, her sweat, the perfumed stink of her hair, and the ripeness between her legs that made the Huntress feel hungry.
The males of the clan smelled it, too.
Being who and what they were, they only wanted to follow it to its source. To take the offering of the girl, to break her and fill her with their seed. But the Huntress would not allow it and they knew so. They only wanted to run wild and free; she was teaching them discipline.
As the night air began to push steadily in, pure and sweet with night-blossoms, the Huntress felt her nipples harden. There was electricity in her blood, an expectant rhythm to her heart.
She watched the man.
In a few moments now…
46
Okay, Hero, what now? Louis asked himself. What you gonna do now? You gonna hang around this fucking graveyard in vain hope that the cavalry will ride in or are you gonna make like a sheep and get the flock out of here?
Standing there by the car, he was uncertain. Inside, a voice was telling him to run, to get out of town already, but it was not that simple and he knew it. Where were they? Where was everyone? Were they all dead? He could almost believe it, standing there on that deserted street, the shadows growing long, night coming, filling itself with a darkness that would soon fall over the town like a shroud. He could imagine them all, in their houses and garages and cars, just everywhere, all dead from something that was as inexplicable as the regression itself.
He looked around, seeing the bodies and the devastated police station. The buildings and storefronts of Main were just empty and dead like the entire population had been evacuated and somebody forgot to tell him about it. Everything was still, motionless and eerie. Like ground zero at an A-bomb test or a city in one of those post-apocalyptic movies.
Louis stood there, feeling the town around him, and was certain it was not empty. He could almost feel others out there as he had before. Hiding behind those storefronts, maybe waiting for dark like a bunch of ghouls. The idea of that made his flesh crawl.
Yes, he could drive out of town and leave this mess for someone else. But there was still Michelle. There was still his wife and he could not just abandon her. Maybe she was dead, but until he saw her corpse he couldn’t bring himself to believe that.
What then?
And then he knew. The most basic mechanism of survival was defense and all he had was the lockblade knife in his pocket. He needed something better. A gun. There were guns in the police station, but that would mean wading through those bodies, looting around through them and pulling a bloody gun from an equally bloody holster. The idea of that was repellent, but he didn’t really have a choice.
And then he saw, down the middle of the block, a State Police cruiser parked out front of Dick’s Sporting Goods. Cop cars always had shotguns in those racks. He would just borrow one, that’s all. He looked at Macy sleeping in the car. She’d be safe for a few minutes.
Louis turned and jogged down the sidewalk to the State Police cruiser. The windows were open, but there was no shotgun in a rack. In fact, there was no rack, just a lot of electronic stuff and a radar gun. So much for that. He turned to leave and then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Something that made him freeze-up. Through the glass windows of Shelly’s Cafe, he could see forms.
People.
There were people in there.
People sitting in booths. They were not moving, just sitting. Louis felt sweat run down his spine. He made ready to bolt. Surely those people had seen him. Surely they would come after him…but they didn’t. He glanced quickly down the block at his car. It looked very far away. Swallowing, he went up to the cafe, being very careful. Those people sitting in there still paid him no mind. He went up to the door, peered through the plate glass. Yes, there were people in booths and people at the counter. Some at tables. Maybe a dozen at most. All unmoving, just sitting and sitting.
This is where you leave well enough alone, Louis.
Sure, he knew that. He knew that very well. So, ignoring that voice of reason and common sense, he pushed through the door and stepped inside. He could smell the coffee, the burgers, the deep-fat fryers. Hunger actually wormed in his belly for a split second, but it did not last. Because there was another smell: a stench of blood and shit, a death smell that made his belly curl in on itself.
The people were not moving.
Many had fallen over in their booths or right off their stools. Trembling, fighting back a scream, Louis moved amongst them, knowing he had to. They were mannequins and wax figures, sideshow dummies and straw-stuffed effigies. At least that’s what his mind was telling him. But the truth was much darker. They were not wax or wood or thermoformed plastic, they were flesh and blood and every last one was dead.
Their throats had been slit.
Yes, the fat man and his obese wife in the booth; the two grimy men in coveralls sitting behind them; the pretty woman in shorts and her cute red-headed daughter; the two guys and the state cop at the counter. All of them had their throats slit. There were a few other bodies on the floor, people that had fallen from their seats. Blood was pooled on the green tiles. It had coagulated on the counter. Run in rivers down the back of the brown plastic seats of the booths themselves where the fat man and his wife’s heads hung back. All those throats were laid open as was that of a waitress on the floor behind the counter and a fry cook slumped in the corner by a stainless steel cooler.
Jesus.
It was bad. Just morbid and loathsome and frightening. But what was even worse was that it looked like they had slit their own throats. Using steak knives and carving knives from the cafe’s own wares, they had slit their own throats and testament to that was the fact that most of them still gripped the knives in their bloody, stiff fists. Other knives had fallen to the floor. Even the little girl had opened her own throat…if the paring knife in her chubby, dead little fist was any indication.
It hit Louis like it had at the police station, the shock which was huge and physically heavy, overwhelming. He almost went down, but gripped the edge of the counter and clenched his teeth until it passed.
No, they hadn’t needed dogs or mad killers here, they’d done the work themselves just as Jillian had. Louis found himself wondering how it had gone down, how it had worked. Had it hit them all at once? The urge to destroy themselves? Was it some kind of unspoken, unconscious decision to avoid regression, to die while they were still human? The same thing, perhaps, that had gotten inside of Jillian?
He stared at the carnage and was almost certain of it.
He could almost see it in his mind, all these people in the cafe, in their own little world, separated from the raw stench of primeval degeneration that blew through the streets in a hot, rank animal smell. Whatever was human in them rising to the surface like a swimmer desperate for one last gulp of clean air before sinking into the primal waters of race memory. It must have clicked in all their heads at roughly the same time: a complete rejection of that infectious, ancient evil rising from within. The need to preserve something human while they still were human and not slavering beasts running naked, killing and fucking in the streets.
There really was no other explanation for it.
The waitress must have passed out the knives and then, in unison, they’d slit their throats. Some had made a clean, almost professional job of it, while others had been very messy, sawing through their throats not once, but two and three times, their necks hacked and gouged and carved. But they’d done it. They’d all done it.
Louis thought: Get out of here. The rest of it is bad enough, but this is infinitely worse and you goddamn well know it.
But he didn’t leave.
He couldn’t bring himself to.
There were horrors and then there were horrors and some of them simply demanded examination, regardless of how sickened and terrified you were. Maybe the human mind needed reasons, needed explanations. Maybe it could not look on this without out demanding to know: why? Maybe the human mind could not just turn away from something so senseless and gruesome without understanding the design of it. Louis leaned against the counter, his head thick with the stink of blood, hearing flies buzz and the clock tick up on the wall. It scared him. This whole thing scared him. And the very worst thing was that all those corpses were grinning. Their faces were pale, their throats and chests dyed red, and they were all grinning, just grinning the most hideous smiles imaginable.
And their eyes were wide open…
47
When Macy opened her eyes, her first sensory experience was not the plate of spiderwebbed glass that lay over her lap from the shattered window. It was the stink. The stink of those that had ringed in the car in the fading light. Monsters. That’s what she thought. Monsters. These were monsters…ogres, trolls, bogarts from a storybook that had slipped out of the dark and secret wood to feast on children by moonlight. She seemed to recall something like them from a storybook as a child, but maybe, just maybe, the memory was much older: atavistic recall. For the tales of ogres and trolls and child-eating witches were just ancient memories of primal horrors re-channeled into harmless fable. The truth behind them was dark indeed.
They just stood there, looking at her.
Men, women, children. A couple kids she knew from school.
They were yellow-skinned, dirty, half-naked, faces painted up like skulls, hair greased or tied-up with sticks and tiny bones like those of rodents.
A man standing in front of the car had a huge butcher knife in his hands that was almost as long as his forearm. He motioned with it. He made a low barking sound.
Then filthy, scabby hands were reaching into the car, taking hold of her and she just didn’t seem to have the strength to fight. Oh, she reflexively kicked and hit at them, but they yanked her through the window and bounced her head off the roof to take the fight out of her. She cried out, but it was a choked, pathetic sound.
They threw her to the ground.
She looked up at their deathmask faces carved with shadow. Their eyes were empty, shiny, vulpine. She opened her mouth to say something and they rained kicks down on her until she rolled into a heap, barely conscious. When her mouth did open to scream, something was stuffed in it: a foul-tasting, salty scrap. A piece of a shirt soaked with their sweat.
Louis, Louis, Louis…please help me…
Help me…
But he was nowhere to be seen. And as Macy fell trembling behind some black wall of terror in her mind, she felt hands grip her ankles, dragging her through the street…
48
Warren was standing there in the fading light with a cigarette in his mouth, ruminating on his life as a cop upholding the law, when the arrow punched into Shaw. Caught him right in the throat with a solid thunk! and punched out the other side, the arrow tip shining bright red, a hunk of meat caught on it. Shaw’s eyes glazed like a pot fired in a kiln and he pitched straight over.
Warren just stood there, watching him squirming on the ground. Shaw looked positively ridiculous with an arrow through his throat. Sighing, Warren ground out his cigarette and pulled his knife. “Guess we’ll be having company soon,” he told the writhing, bleeding man.
He was right.
In the fading light, he could not see much out there. Cars at the curb. Alleys. Trees. Houses. Hedges. Nets of shadow overlaying them all and making for a fine killing ground with himself as the prey. He started backing away from Shaw’s body. He turned this way. Then that. Yes, they were all around him. Goddamn. He could smell the urine and musk they were scented with, the wild animal stink of them.
A shadow moved behind a car.
The sound of padding bare feet from behind him.
He turned, ready to fight, heard a curious whooshing sound and another arrow caught him right in the belly. It didn’t go all the way through. The impact put him on his ass, knocked the wind from him. His knife clattered to the concrete. Then the pain came: sharp, cutting waves of it as what s
eemed oceans of blood welled from the entrance wound of the arrow. Sweating, straining, his heart pounding in his chest, Warren let out a strangled cry and pulled the arrow from his belly. Blood gushed from the hole. He felt dizzy, confused.
The bloody arrow in his hand had a triple-barbed, four-bladed tip on it, a broad head used for bear hunting. It fell from his fingers. He tried crawl down the sidewalk, but he just didn’t have anything left to crawl with.
Clutching his bleeding belly, he opened his eyes.
They had ringed him in: the hunters.
There were a dozen of them with clubs and broom handles sharpened to lethal points. They were all dirty and streaked with blood and paint. A high-breasted, green-eyed young woman with a bow in her hands stepped forward. She made a hissing sound and another woman stepped up. She was older than the first, but well-muscled, sleek, her face painted with red and green bands as was her naked body. Things like beads and sticks and tiny bones were braided in her hair. She had a slat of bone thrust through her nose and had peeled her lips away with a razor so her teeth and gums were on display. She carried an axe in one hand and a sharpened broomstick in the other with a human head, that of a teenage boy, impaled on the tip.
Warren blinked at her through his pain. He recognized her. They’d brought the body of the boy to her in the wheelbarrow. She had given the crowd an offering of the old woman upstairs.
She did not recognize him; her eyes were glassy, translucent.
She chattered her teeth and trembled with rage, her eyes simmering black with a vast, stupid hatred.