A motorcycle’s revving outside made Terry’s heart race. He looked at his watch: it was eight-thirty. Piranha was five minutes late with the van. The Twins had promised to wait for him, but they were getting anxious.
After listening to the news all day, he hadn’t thought the situation could get any worse, but it just had. “Dammit,” he said.
Sonia shrugged. “Dean’s worried. His family doesn’t have a landline, and the cell towers are down.”
Terry went to the doorway, handing the bat to Sonia. “Stay here with Vern. We shouldn’t split up.”
Sonia took the bat with a sour chuckle. “Like they’d listen. The Twins only care about the Twins.”
Darius and Dean had already gassed their bikes, and both wore backpacks and leather jackets. Darius was riding in a lazy circle around Dean, stirring a thin dust cloud while Dean strapped his leather travel bag shut. Dean took off his sunglasses and straightened when he saw Terry, but Darius never acknowledged him, revving his engine.
“What the hell, man?” Terry said. “What about Vern?”
“You’ve seen the news.” Dean shrugged. “What about him?”
“What are you taking with you? What’s in the bags?” Terry said.
“Don’t sweat me, Terry,” Dean said. “We left plenty.”
“You should probably take more.”
Darius laughed from his bike. “Quit trying to stall us.”
“It’s almost dark,” Dean said.
“Exactly!” Terry said. “Why not wait ’til tomorrow?”
“If your mom wasn’t a crackhead, would you wait?” Dean said. “We already waited too long. My sisters need me.”
At the word “crackhead,” the world went red. Terry’s legs tensed, ready to leap at one of the Twins, either of them, both of them… until he heard the approach of a new engine, heavier than the bike. Darius’s bike fell still as he rested on one foot, and they stared toward the dirt driveway, waiting for a vehicle to appear from beyond the stand of Douglas firs. Sonia hung back, watching from the icehouse doorway, as they all shared a thought: What if it isn’t Piranha?
But it was.
Piranha was alone in the van. Instead of driving up to them, Vern’s van bumped over the scattered firewood at the edge of the driveway as Piranha swung around to park at an odd angle fifteen yards back, blocking the driveway as if to pen them in.
As they trotted up to him for a report, Piranha opened the van’s side door, where he had stored a red gas can and a box of supplies, including what looked like a scarred laptop. Terry and the Twins grinned when they saw the stash, but Piranha’s face had forgotten smiling. Even Sonia’s full-body hug didn’t bring a glimmer to his dull eyes.
“What’d you see?” Terry said.
“Nothing good,” Piranha said, with a long gaze at the Twins.
“Did your phone work?” Sonia said.
Piranha shook his head, his face clouding more. “Dinner ready? I’m starving.”
Like the rest of them, the Twins were dying for details of Piranha’s recon mission. All talk of driving off ceased as Sonia heaped pasta on paper plates, and they waited for Piranha to start talking. The news played at its usual low volume while they heard the distant thunder at the freezer door.
Wham… wham… wham…
No one was guarding Vern anymore, and Terry realized it didn’t matter. Guard duty had only been their attempt to have order and control, something they could do. Vern wasn’t going anywhere.
One of the items in Piranha’s box was a warm bottle of merlot, so they shared the wine at dinner, although there was nothing festive about it. Terry figured he would need six bottles like it before he felt anything remotely resembling a decent buzz. Instead, the wine made him so tired that he wanted to crawl under the table and pass out.
“More of a weed guy myself,” Darius said, pouring his glass. “But whatever.”
Other than that, the box was full of geek stuff. The laptop, wires, adapters. Terry remembered the Professor from Gilligan’s Island building radios out of coconuts.
“Does this thing work?” Sonia said, opening the laptop.
Piranha grunted, shoveling a forkful of pasta into his mouth. “Battery’s dead, but it fires up when you plug her in. Too bad we don’t have Wi-Fi.”
Terry pulled out a spool of phone line. “Dial-up?”
“Better than nothing,” Piranha said. “Maybe we can get e-mail.”
“And Facebook!” Sonia said, looking rapturous, as if maybe her friends were busy poking each other and posting YouTube videos.
“Don’t suppose you found anything useful, like more ammunition?” Dean said.
Piranha shook his head, the brooding silence falling over him again.
“Where’d you get this stuff?” Terry said finally. “A yard sale?” He could have asked sooner, but he’d been afraid of the answer.
“Know that little lake house about five miles out?” Piranha said. “By the road?”
The table went silent. Nothing but Vern’s bang bang bang.
“Friendly people, huh?” Terry said finally.
“Wouldn’t know,” Piranha said. “Nobody home. Windows dark all summer, same Toyota sitting in the driveway. Couldn’t hot-wire it, but I got the gas.” He took a sip of wine from a paper cup and sloshed it around in his mouth before swallowing.
“Don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.” Darius had boasted that he could hot-wire any car more than ten years old. That skill might come in handy later. “But good job with the gas.”
“You broke into their house?” Sonia said, midway between impressed and shocked. Terry was tempted to remind her that she proudly referred to herself as the Vanisher, since she’d been such a great shoplifter.
Piranha concentrated on his wine.
“How’s the road look?” Dean said.
“Toxic,” Piranha said. “I only drove out a couple miles to try to get a signal, save gas. Saw smoke. I got close enough to see it was a car, but I turned the hell around when I heard the gunshots. Wasn’t Cujos doing the shooting and burning. I’ve got news for you: the Cujos aren’t the biggest problem.” He turned to Dean and Darius. “You guys wanna go riding on your little toy bikes? Do what you want. But the rifle and shotguns stay here.”
When no one said anything, Piranha stood up, grabbing the wine bottle by the neck. It was three-quarters empty, maybe a glass left. “You guys good?”
They all eyed the wine, but mumbled that they’d had enough. With his free hand, Piranha grabbed his box of geek supplies and headed for the desk by the TV, where there was a phone line. Considering how often the phone signal was busy, Terry didn’t think he’d have much luck finding the Internet. But if anyone could, it was Piranha.
“He’s right,” Terry said, his voice steady, loud enough for the big guy to hear. “We’ve all got people we’re scared about and want to help. I’ve got a baby sister I’m thinking about all the time, but we need to hole up here and wait it out. Right now, we’re the only people we can trust. We’ve got enough food for weeks, if it comes to that.” Months, actually, if the food in the freezer was intact, but he didn’t say it. He couldn’t imagine living for months in this bad dream. “When it’s time to go, we’ll know it. But we’ll do better together than any of us would do alone.”
Terry wasn’t used to making speeches, but he sounded convincing, at least to his own ear. He saw a spark in Sonia’s eyes. Maybe a tear.
But the Twins left the table without a word, heading to the door. When the bikes’ engines fired up outside, Sonia gave Terry a Well? DO something look. Terry glanced toward Piranha, but he didn’t look up from his stolen laptop.
Screw it. They’d tried. Why was it his problem, anyway? Terry stirred his pasta, mad at the Twins for being stupid, mad at Sonia for her expectations, mad that he felt somehow responsible.
Then the engines cut off. The Twins came back inside to sit at the table. Darius sopped up the last of his spaghetti sauce with a slice of bread fro
m their dwindling loaf.
“Getting dark,” Dean said.
Later, Terry would see that they’d parked their bikes in the shed.
Piranha worked nearly all night trying to rig an Internet connection, plagued by busy signals. The few times he got past the beep-beep-beep, the connection refused to take. He drew on patience he didn’t know he had, numbing himself. He’d hoped the wine would drown the hot snakes writhing deep in his belly or the stitch he’d had in his side since they locked Vern in the freezer. But nothing had changed when the bottle was empty. He was still stuck in hell.
Piranha’s AME church life had died with his mother, even on Christmas, since he’d told his stepfather he didn’t believe in God. Piranha’s excuse wasn’t exactly true: he believed in God, but he was so pissed off that he’d stopped speaking to him, and he didn’t see a reason to visit his house. God had lost his visiting privileges.
Piranha’s anger was still there, but it felt petty now that he was stuck in hell without a plan. Piranha had been telling himself be cool all day, but his cool was wearing thin, especially since he’d seen the smoke and the gunshots. News footage was one thing, but he was out here alone, the only brother for miles. He didn’t have a gun, not that he knew how to use one. He had a girl to protect.
And he couldn’t get a damn Internet connection.
Piranha didn’t like his stepfather, Ed Simmons, with his Brooks Brothers suits and pomposity. He’d hated Ed Simmons when he filed charges after the hacking incident—who would send his own stepkid into the jaws of the criminal justice machine? Yeah, Piranha had hacked into the computer system at Simmons’s office and embarrassed him in front of his boss, maybe lost him a little corporate cred, but you call the cops? Piranha’s rage flared anew. But since his older sister was married and living in Dallas, Ed Simmons was the only person who could give Piranha an answer about what to do now. He’ll never replace your father, Charlie, his mother had told him when they got married, but Edward Simmons will always be there for you.
So Piranha sat at the old laptop he’d found in the office nook of the abandoned house and tried again. And again. He hoped the servers were only flooded, not blown.
At one a.m., he nearly gasped when the Gmail logo finally appeared on his screen. His mind tried to blank out on his screen name and password, but he typed with shaky fingers, careful with each letter, and his mailbox presented itself like a hallucination. A note from “Edward Simmons,” the latest in a string of at least twelve from his stepfather, sat at the top of his list. The time stamp said it had been sent only thirty minutes earlier. Ed was alive! And he was the only person on the planet trying to get in touch with him, just like his mother had promised. Maybe the SOB wasn’t all bad.
Piranha held his breath as he tried to open the most recent note. “Please, God, I know I haven’t done right by you, but let me have this one thing…”
Working, the screen promised.
Except that it wasn’t working, or didn’t seem to be. For ten eternal minutes, Piranha was sure the overloaded server would boot him off and ask him to try again, severing the last bare thread of his life.
Suddenly, the note was there:
Charles,
I remember you telling me you don’t have access to a computer, but I’m praying you’ll see this note. I can’t reach you on your cell. I’m trying to send the same note again and again.
You must have heard by now, but there’s a terrible national crisis, an epidemic of a kind of hysteria and insanity involving an infection from people who may try to bite you. A single bite spreads the terrible disease. I have not been bitten, and neither has Lori. I heard from her, and she and Tyrone are staying with friends in Dallas. So far, she is safe, and I pray you are too.
May God protect you in the woods, far from anyone who might try to hurt you. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO COME TO ME, because it’s too dangerous and I don’t know how long we’ll stay here. So far, we’ve avoided contact with any infected, but the radio keeps warning us that we’ll be asked to evacuate and go to a camp near the military bases if the situation doesn’t improve.
Charles, we are living through a war. Neighbor against neighbor. I’ve seen things on TV, and with my own eyes, I cannot describe in words. I keep thinking of that quote by Nietzsche: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he become a monster.” These are the days of monsters.
ONCE IT IS SAFE, I WILL COME TO YOU.
Until then, be careful. Watch everyone for abnormal behavior and red eyes, friends and strangers alike. DO NOT LET ANYONE BITE YOU. Wait for me to come for you. Above all, SURVIVE. I’ve lain awake many nights wondering if I did the right thing by sending you there, what your mother would have thought. I believed I saw you headed down a path of no return, and I made the hard choice, praying you would be a better man for it. I lost two brothers in prison because no one stepped in when they were young, and I didn’t think I could live through that heartache again. This is the first time I’m glad you’re tucked far away in wilderness. You have no idea how much weight has been lifted from my soul.
I love you, Charles. I look forward to the day when we can start again.
Dad
The note stayed frozen on Piranha’s screen long after the connection died.
Dad. Not Ed. Dad.
Piranha was glad the others had left him, because sobs fought from his throat like flames.
Vern banged on the freezer door all night and most of the next day.
On the third morning, they woke to silence. When they finally opened the freezer, blankets readied like fishing nets, Vern was curled on the floor, silent and cold in a slick of frozen blood. His banging had pulped his face so badly that even Jolly Molly wouldn’t have recognized it.
Even working together, it took two hours to dig holes deep enough to bury Vern and Molly Stoffer, two people they barely knew. They’d waited a day too long to bury Molly. At least. Her stink was a revelation. Even Hippy stayed far away.
Nobody said anything over the graves. What could they say? They were burying far more than Vern and Molly, and there were no words to describe what they had lost.
NINE
August 15
The morning after burying Vern and Molly, they woke to discover that Dean and his cherry-red Honda were gone. Darius raged about it, calling his cousin every profane name he could think of, but Terry got it: Dean hadn’t wanted to risk anyone else’s life. He must have rolled his bike far enough down the path to prevent them from hearing the engine.
They finally found a note on the kitchen counter, meant for Darius more than anyone else: Have to check on my folks. Stay safe. Still Here.
No promise to return.
The last part, Still Here, probably meant he was still with them in spirit, but it was a slogan they’d seen on the news. People were spray-painting it on their houses and rooftops in case rescuers came to evacuate them, or scrawling it in big letters on signs and Tshirts so no one would mistake them for a freak and shoot them while they walked on the side of the road. Caravans of pickup trucks with armed riders were patrolling some areas, spraying anything that moved with bullets. Still Here meant you hadn’t been infected. Hadn’t turned into one of Them. Wouldn’t give up. Sometimes it wasn’t true, of course. No declarations or signs could change what was happening out there, the bodies piling up on the roadsides. Terry had seen footage of burned-out houses, their front yards littered with dead.
They took quiet bets on whether Darius would follow his cousin, but he didn’t. Darius slipped into the woods to be alone, but he left his bike in the shed. He was back by lunchtime, his eyelids swollen and his knuckles raw from hitting something. Trees? The soil? They accepted his return without comment, and ate canned ravioli.
“Dean is smart, and he’s fast on that bike,” Terry told him. “He’ll be fine.”
He was both right and wrong.
Two days later, Dean came back without a scratch or a bite. But whatever he’d seen had changed his eyes, not
red like Vern’s, just stripped blank. He wasn’t fine.
It didn’t take a psychic to know that none of them would be fine again.
Camp Round Meadows, once a prison, had transformed into the closest thing to a safe haven they could imagine. The only path to the camp was two miles of a bumpy dirt road most people would want nothing to do with. Since Vern had been preparing for fifty new campers, there was an obscene amount of food for the five of them, as long as they didn’t waste it.
They avoided the freezer the first days after Vern died, but exploring paid off: the shelves were crowded with ground beef, hot dogs, bags of chicken legs, corn on the cob, Fudgesicles, and, of course, fish. Vern must not have left the door or thought about food while he was locked inside, because none of the packages had been marked or moved from their neat stacks. Terry and the others debated how sanitary the space was, whether or not the infection might have spread in the freezer, but in the end, they chose the food. Chef Boyardee’s mustache was starting to wilt.
They lost their milk fast, within a week. The bread was gone before that, except for the hot dog and burger buns, which apparently were so crammed with preservatives that they could sit forever without molding. They froze buns to defrost later.
The television went to emergency broadcasting, and that devolved to frightened people talking against blank backgrounds, and from there to test patterns with intermittent static-filled footage. As television faded, Terry felt an eerie sense that they were lifting off in a balloon far from the world, floating aimlessly into the sky.
The radio was a little better, thank God. FM died fast, but AM radio kept broadcasting for a month, with signals coming in from Moscow, Idaho, and Vancouver, British Columbia. It was all the same, increasing despair and confusion. After the news stations died, most of what they could pull in was that movie guy, who called himself Reverend Wales, or “Josey” Wales, based in some place called Domino Falls down in Northern California. Preached an end-of-the-world broadcast with a new and impressive enthusiasm.
Hell, it was hard not to see his point.
Devil’s Wake Page 5