This is the End 3: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (8 Book Collection)

by J. Thorn

  The violence of Lenore's response surprised him, and probably surprised her as well. "No!" she shouted vehemently, pushing him away as though it had been him who had chased her with a drawn knife. She stared at him dazedly, as though through a veil of shock that prevented her from fully processing what had happened. "I was alone. In my house. Just looked up, and there he was. Out of nowhere." She repeated that last in a low, horrified tone. "Out of nowhere."

  "And then?" Jason said encouragingly.

  "Ran," she answered. "Ran into the house, deep into the house. Ran for hours, it seemed like hours, it could have been hours, couldn't it?"

  The shock he had seen in her eyes was now covering her entirely, rendering her almost catatonic as she whispered "hours" over and over. Jason shook her gently, trying to keep her stable and with him mentally. "It's okay," he whispered. "It's okay now, he's gone, I got him."

  At this, Lenore drew suddenly back to reality, looking at him with eyes that were crystalline and clear in their understanding. "He's not gone," she said.

  "He is," said Jason. "Believe me, he is."

  "Not gone," she said stubbornly.

  Jason sighed. Might as well do this now, he thought.

  "Come on," he said, and took her to where the body lay. He could see it only as a dark outline in the mist, unmoving. Dead.

  At first Lenore didn't want to come, but he had to check and he didn't want to leave her alone in the fog where she would run off and get lost or worse, so he half-dragged her with him. They came to the body, and Jason waved the fog away like smoke, clearing a thin layer and revealing...

  "Holy shit," he whispered, and felt his knees go weak.

  It was no thug there on the ground, no potential rapist with a knife.

  It was someone he recognized from visits to the high school for career day, from time at the football games, from seeing around town.

  It was Sarah West. The cheerleader was laying where the thug had been only a moment before. No bullet wounds, thank God, he did not know what he would have done had it turned out that he had shot an innocent child, but there was no disputing the fact that the girl was very dead. Her sightless eyes stared up at him, shrunken back in a face that was blue and swollen.

  He saw a dark stain around her, and thought at first that it was blood, then realized that it was simply the sidewalk, but somehow it was saturated with water all around her.

  He touched her neck, feeling without hope for a pulse. As he had expected, there was nothing. But he did not expect her to be dripping wet. He touched her, and her clothing squished, water-saturated. When he touched her throat, her mouth drooped slackly, and water poured out. She was completely full of water, inside and out.

  "Is she..." began Lenore in a hitching voice.

  "Dead," Jason said dazedly. "Drowned, it looks like."

  "That's impossible," said Lenore. "Sarah wouldn't have gone anywhere she could have drowned. She was terrified of the water." The teacher gulped, then added, "And the nearest place she could have drowned is the lake, ten miles away."

  Jason nodded. "I know," he said. "But that doesn't change the fact that she's drowned." He paused, then realized something. Something that frightened him more than anything else had on this strange night: "It's quiet," he whispered.

  The screaming that had been an underlying stream of sound through all the last minutes had dwindled and then stopped. Dead silence billowed like the mist all around them.

  "What's happening?" asked Lenore in a hushed voice. And as she did, another one of the eerie shadows passed close by. Jason and Lenore backed away, and saw the thing lean over Sarah's body. The shadow was joined by several others, and as they congregated Sarah's body started to...fade. Suddenly it was shadow as well, no more substantial than any of the other fog-wraiths that milled about in the thick mist.

  In only a few moments Sarah West was gone. Dead and disappeared.

  The shadows dissipated. Moved away like hyenas after finishing off the last traces of a kill.

  Lenore sobbed, and Jason pulled her away with him, leading her backwards until they bumped into something hard and unyielding: his truck. He helped Lenore into the passenger side, then got in the driver's side and put the vehicle in gear.

  He accelerated slowly, not wanting to hit any buildings - or anything else - in the fog, but knowing at the same time that they had to keep moving, keep driving, stay alive. Life was movement, he reasoned at an animal level, so as long as they were moving they couldn't be dead, as he almost suspected they were.

  A huge shadow suddenly loomed before them, bigger than any of the wraiths had been, and Jason gave a small cry in anticipatory fear before he realized that it was not some new unworldly threat, but rather something much more mundane: he had almost driven through the front of a house.

  The house glowed dimly, its lights all on like hazy fog lamps. Jason hesitated for a moment, then got out of the truck, motioning for Lenore to follow him. "Come on," he said quietly, and drew his gun.

  "Wait, no!" she said.

  "Safety in numbers," he responded.

  "What if there are no numbers?" she demanded. "What if everyone in there is dead...or worse?"

  "Then I have to find that out, too," he answered, and pointed to the Sheriff's star that was pinned to his shirt. "It's my job. But I don't want to leave you out here alone, so please...."

  They entered the house together, going through the door that was - surprisingly - unlocked. Jason quickly recognized the home as belonging to Jack and Dot Powell, a retired couple that had lived in Rising all their lives. He and Lenore went room to room through the place, and he felt tension rising in him like a living beast as they called for the Powells.

  No answer. Food was half-eaten on the table, and a pan simmered on the stove. Jason turned off the flame, and realized that the clock built into the oven-top was blurred. He shook his head as though to clear it, but the numbers did not grow clearer. They remained strange and impossible to discern.

  The house was empty. The inhabitants had left mid-meal. Left, or been taken.

  "No one here," he said at last.

  "What now?" asked Lenore. He was grateful to hear how calm she seemed. Whatever happened to her earlier, it had clearly shaken her, but she was just as clearly determined not to let it rule her or divert her from the task of survival. Jason almost smiled at her, feeling a pull within him as the attraction he had already felt toward her deepened in small increments.

  "There are five more houses on this street," he answered.

  Lenore gulped, but did not complain or whine. Instead, she merely said, "We look?"

  Jason nodded. "We look."

  And they did. But at each house, they saw only more of the same: half-eaten food, blurred digital clocks. At one house there was a poker game, the hands still splayed out in front of empty chairs. At another they found black crayon notes. "Fear." "It's started." "Crak in the dam."

  No one was anywhere. They did not speak during their search, as though they were traipsing through a cemetery at midnight and were too frightened to talk; perhaps that was close to the truth.

  They returned to Jason's truck and clambered back inside. "What now?" asked Lenore again.

  "Sheriff's station," answered Jason.

  "Why there?" said Lenore.

  "Because I know it. Because there are weapons there. But mostly," he said, pulling slowly into the fog-bound street, "because I can't think of anything better to do."

  They didn't drive long before seeing something strange: a bright glow in the road before them. "What is that?" asked Jason, more to himself than anything. Still, Lenore answered.

  "Football stadium?"

  "No, the lights are too low," he said.

  "Then what is it?"

  Jason peered into the mist, trying to will it apart. Then, slowly, he realized what the light must be, and smiled. Lenore saw him and repeated, "What is it?"

  "It's Hatty," said Jason, and gunned the engine forward.

 
; ***

  NINETEEN

  ***

  The sheriff's station was awash in bright light, lit like a torch from within and without. Every light in the station was on, and the place was also illuminated with numerous portable floodlights.

  Jason grinned for the first time since this ordeal had begun what seemed like a thousand years ago. "Hatty must have set this up to lead everyone here; to get the townspeople somewhere safe."

  "Good thinking," said Lenore.

  "That's Hatty for you."

  He felt his spirits lift exponentially with each foot they came closer to the station, so by the time they entered the station he was practically beaming. His smile quickly dissipated, however, as he saw that, far from a milling crowd of Rising inhabitants, there was only one person inside: Hatty herself.

  The old woman was slumped in her usual chair, chin resting on her chest. Jason tensed when he saw her, thinking that she must be dead. But no, he could see that she was breathing - easy enough to spot in the brightness of the office. Hatty had set several of the portable spots up inside the place, as though to warm the office with light.

  Jason smiled again. "Hatty, we're home," he said in his best Ricky Ricardo voice - not a very good imitation, he knew, but he was proud of the fact that his spirits had risen enough to even attempt levity.

  The old woman jerked as though surprised, but did not raise her eyes to face them. She remained in her stooped position, though one hand feebly gestured for them to come closer. Jason immediately grew wary. Something was wrong.

  "Hatty?" he said quietly. He approached the old woman, and realized that she was whispering something, over and over:

  "So dark. So dark. So dark...."

  And now, at last, she sat upright, groaning as she did, as though it cost her every last bit of strength she had. She looked at Jason. And he inhaled in shock. Gone were the kind, twinkling old eyes. Now she looked at them with only blank, pupil-less orbs of solid white.

  Lenore gave a small yip of surprise and anguish, and as she did, Hatty started crying. Even her tears were wrong, milky stains of pus-like moisture dripping down her cheeks.

  "I tried," the old woman sobbed. "I tried to make it light, lit up everything I could, but it didn't work. Didn't work. The dark came. I put on the lights but it...all...went...dark!" And with that the old woman suddenly shrieked, writhing, clawing at her eyes in pain. "It hurts!" she screamed. "Too dark, too dark! Not the dark!"

  She began bleeding as she tore at her own eyes, the eyelids scraping off with two vicious tears of her fingernails, the eyes themselves puncturing and seeming to sag in their sockets. "It hurts!" she screamed again, but did not stop her self-mutilation.

  Jason was too shocked to move at first, but then he ran to her, crossing the space between them in two large steps and trying to grab her arms; to stop her from further injuring herself.

  "The dark!" she screamed again, tearing away from his hands and continuing to rasp at her own face and eyes. Then she stopped suddenly. Her face went pale and her lips went blue, even the blood from her wounds seeming to lose color and vitality in an instant. She convulsed in her seat and grabbed her right arm in the classic tell-tales of a heart attack. She thrashed back and forth for a single moment, moaned loudly, and then went limp. Her ruined eyes stared into nothing, her breath ebbed from her in a loud gasp. A single black tear traced its way from one eye down her cheek.

  "So...dark," she whispered. And she slumped again, her head coming to rest on her chest once more, then continuing down, down, down as she fell off the chair. She hit the floor face first, the movement so sudden that Jason didn't have the time to process what was happening, let alone prevent it in any way. She hit her nose on the floor, and he could hear it break and saw blood spatter across the tile. But Hatty didn't react, didn't move an iota.

  "Hatty!" he shouted. He rolled her over. Her eyes still stared at nothing, and a blue tongue lolled from her mouth. He felt for a pulse. None. "Hatty!" he screamed again, and began chest compressions.

  Without being asked, Lenore instantly moved to Hatty's mouth, pressing the woman's nose and breathing into her mouth after Jason had compressed her chest five times. "Breathe!" he shouted unnecessarily. Lenore breathed again, and then nodded at him. Five more compressions, two more breaths. He checked her pulse. Nothing. They kept up the CPR for several long minutes, but within the first twenty seconds Jason knew that the old woman was gone.

  He rocked back on his heels. "Dammit," he groaned. Then he shouted it: "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" He felt tears, hot and salty, dripping down his cheeks, felt snot run from his nose. Lenore's hand touched his shoulder, then traveled down his arm and to his hand.

  He clutched at her, holding her hand like it was a life preserver. And in a way, he supposed it was. Hatty had been his main reason for living for so long, his main connection to humanity, and now she was gone, her ruined face staring up at him in a macabre facsimile of the person she had once been. So he held to Lenore, drawing her close to him, holding her for warmth, for life. She stiffened at first, then relaxed and returned his embrace and the two of them held one another, survivors in the shipwreck that Rising had become, bounced and tossed with the waves of horror that had enveloped the place.

  "What now?" Lenore asked, pressing herself into his chest.

  Jason was silent for a time, still grappling with the loss of the old woman, of his oldest friend. Finally, though, he found his voice and said, "We go. Out of Rising. As fast as we can."

  He could tell from Lenore's relieved sigh that she was happy to hear this, but his respect for her grew in the next moment when she showed she was not just concerned with saving her own skin. "What about the rest of the town?" she asked. "Shouldn't we help them?"

  "I think," he replied, looking out the window. The mist was still there, the dark shadows still writhed like nightmares and he was sure that it was only a matter of time before they came for Hatty as they had come for Sarah West. "I think they're all dead," he finally finished, giving voice at last to the fear that had plagued him since arriving at the abandoned station.

  "I think they're all dead."

  ***

  TWENTY

  ***

  They drove slowly, crawling along through the darkness that surrounded the town. The mist still seemed to glow with an otherworldly light, but the illumination neither warmed Lenore nor made her feel any safer. On the contrary, it reminded her that whatever was happening, it was happening in a place grown suddenly alien and strange, a place where light shed no light and where shadows took corpses in the mist.

  "Can't we go any faster?" she asked Sheriff Meeks. He frowned, and she noted that even when he frowned, his eyes were kind and alert. He was something she had heard of but never expected to find: a good man.

  "Not unless you want to find out what paint feels like, splashed all over the side of some building."

  He maintained their slow pace, but suddenly something loomed before them. A sign. "See ya! Town of Rising says Goodbye and invites you to return to the Friendliest Little Place on Earth."

  The mist seemed to die down a bit as they passed the sign, and Lenore felt hope bloom inside her breast. "We're through," she breathed. "We made it."

  "Here's hoping," the sheriff responded, but she could tell from his clenched jaw and white knuckles that he didn't believe it. Either that or he did believe it, and was worried that their escape would be snatched away from them instantly.

  He hit the gas, accelerating a bit as the mist thinned. But Lenore soon saw that whatever was happening, it wasn't over. The mist kicked up again, thickening around them. She saw the sheriff grind his teeth in anger and perhaps despair.

  But he didn't decelerate. Indeed, she saw his foot plunge down on the accelerator and felt the truck lurch forward even as visibility disappeared.

  "Shouldn't you slow down?" asked Lenore. Sheriff Meeks didn't answer, his gaze riveted on the road ahead. "Sheriff?" she tried again. "You're scaring me."

>   Still no answer. The truck moved faster and faster, the tachometer redlining as the sheriff pushed the truck to its limits in a clear attempt to rip them free of the town and its evil influences.

  Then she screamed as a woman suddenly stepped out into the road in front of them; screamed again in the next instant as she saw the woman's face. It was only half there, destroyed by what looked like a bullet wound.

  "Elizabeth!" screamed the sheriff in a voice steeped in despair and fear. He cranked the wheel to one side in order to avoid hitting this stranger, this walking corpse, and Lenore felt the world crumble in on her as the truck hit a rut, bounced, and then slammed into something with bone-crushing force. She heard a loud "pop" and knew it must be the vertebrae shattering inside her neck and back, and then she slammed forward into something unyielding, and the darkness claimed her as its own.

  ***

  She awoke, though she could not say whether seconds or hours had passed. She looked in front of her and saw a pillow from her bed.

  No, that wasn't right. She wasn't in bed.

  She shook her head to clear it of the fog that gripped her, and realized in a moment that what she had taken to be a pillow was in fact an air bag. The popping she had heard must have been the sound of the explosives that ringed the safety device going off, allowing it to escape its hiding spot in the dashboard of the truck and inflate at the speed of sound, saving her from crashing into the windshield of the truck; probably saving her life.

  She looked over.

  The sheriff was gone.

  His air bag had gone off as well, but it hung loosely from the steering wheel, completely deflated.

  Where was Sheriff Meeks? she wondered, and felt her stomach drop at the prospect of being alone. Especially since being alone meant that she would be lost in this thick fog, with the possibility of running into him again, of running into the man who had caused her so much pain and grief.