Devil’s Wake

by Steven Barnes

  Joe thought of the pivoting, bloated freak he’d killed, the one in the plaid print dress, its red-clotted nostrils flaring as it caught his scent. His stomach clamped like a big sour fist. “Let’s go. Remember what I told you,” Joe said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He’d leave the jerky alone, for now. He’d go inside and look around for himself.

  Joe’s knee flared as his boot sank into soft mud just inside the gate. Crap. He was a useless old man, and he had a Bouncing Betty fifty klicks south of the DMZ to blame for it. In those happy days in Southeast Asia… or French Indochina… or just “the ’Nam,” none of them had known that the real war was still forty years off—but coming fast—and he was going to need both knees for the real war, you dig? And he could use a real soldier at his side for this war, not a piss-pantied girl.

  “Closer,” Joe said, and Kendra pulled up behind him, his shadow. When Joe pushed the glass door open, the salmon-shaped door chimes jangled merrily, like old times. Mike had vanished quick, because he wasn’t behind the counter. A small television set on the counter erupted with ancient, canned laughter from people who were either dead or no longer laughing.

  “DOH!” Homer Simpson’s voice crowed. Mike was playing his DVD.

  “Mike? Where’d you go?” Joe’s finger massaged his shotgun trigger as he peered behind the counter. Suddenly, there was a guffaw from the rear of the store, matching a new fit of laughter from the TV. He’d know that laugh blindfolded.

  Mike was behind a broom, one of those school-custodian brooms with a wide brush, sweeping up and back, and large shards of glass clinked as he swept. Mike was laughing so hard his face and crown had turned pink. Joe saw what he was sweeping: the glass had been broken out of one of the refrigerated cases in back, which were now dark and empty. The others were still intact, plastered with Budweiser and Red Bull stickers, but the last door had broken clean off except for a few jagged pieces still standing upright, like a mountain range, close to the floor.

  “Y’all had some trouble?” Joe asked.

  “Nope,” Mike said, still laughing. He sounded congested, but otherwise all right. Mike kept a cold six months out of the year.

  “Who broke your glass?”

  “The boys are fine.” Suddenly, Mike laughed loudly again. “That Homer!” he said, and shook his head.

  Kendra too was staring at the television set, mesmerized. From the look on her face, she could be witnessing the parting of the Red Sea. The kid must miss TV, all right.

  “Got any Cokes, Mike?” Joe said.

  Mike could hardly swallow back his laughter long enough to answer. He squatted down, sweeping the glass onto an orange dustpan. “We’ve got hot dogs! They’re—” Suddenly, Mike’s face changed. He dropped his broom, and it clattered to the floor as he cradled one of his hands close to his chest. “Ow!”

  “Careful there, old-timer,” Joe said. “Cut yourself?”

  “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!” Sounded like it might be bad, Joe realized. He hoped this fool hadn’t messed around and cut himself somewhere he shouldn’t have. Mike sank from a squat to a sitting position, still cradling his hand. Joe couldn’t see any blood yet, but he hurried toward him.

  “Well, don’t sit there whining over it.”

  “Owowowowowow.” As Joe began to kneel down, Mike’s shoulder heaved upward into Joe’s midsection, driving the breath from him in a woof! and lifting him to his toes. For a moment Joe was too startled to react, the what-the-hell reaction stronger than reflex that had nearly cost him his life more than once. He was frozen by the sheer surprise of it, the impossibility that he’d been talking to Mike one second and—

  Joe snatched clumsily at the Glock in his belt and fired at Mike’s throat. Missed. The second shot hit Mike in the shoulder, but not before Joe had lost what was left of his balance and crashed backward into the broken refrigerator door. Three things happened at once: his arm snapped against the case doorway as he fell backward, knocking the gun out of his hand before he could feel it fall; a knife of broken glass carved him from below as he fell, slicing into the back of his thigh with such a sudden wave of pain that he screamed; and Mike hiked up Joe’s pant leg and took hold of his calf in his teeth, gnawing at him like a dog with a beef rib.

  Cursing, Joe kicked away at Mike’s head with the only leg that was still responding to his body’s commands. Still, Mike hung on. Somehow, even inside the fog of pain from his injury, Joe felt a chunk of his calf tearing, more hot pain. He was bit, that was certain. He was bit. Every alarm in his head and heart rang.

  Dear sweet God, he was bit. He’d walked right up to Mike. They could make sounds—everybody said that—but this one had been talking, putting words together, acting like… acting like…

  With a cry of agony, Joe pulled himself forward to leverage more of his weight and kicked at Mike’s head again. This time, he felt Mike’s teeth withdraw. Another kick, and Joe’s hiking boot sank squarely into Mike’s face. Mike fell backward into the shelf of flashlights behind him.

  “Kendra!” Joe screamed. The shelves blocked his sight of the spot where his granddaughter had been standing. Pain from the torn calf muscle rippled through Joe, clouding thought. The pain shot up to his neck, liquid fire. Did the freaks have venom? Was that it? Mike didn’t lurch like the one on the road. He scrambled up again, untroubled by the blood spattering from his broken nose and teeth.

  “I have hot dogs,” Mike said.

  Joe reached back for the Glock, his injured thigh flaming while Mike’s face came at him, mouth gaping, crimson teeth glittering. Joe’s fingers brushed the automatic, but it skittered away from him, and now Mike would bite, and bite, and then go after the Little Soldier—

  Mike’s nose and mouth exploded in a mist of pink tissue. The sound registered a moment later, deafening in the confined space, an explosion that sent Mike’s useless body toppling to the floor. Then, Joe saw Kendra just behind him, her little sawed-off birding rifle smoking, face pinched, hands shaking.

  Holy God, Kendra had done it! The kid had hit her mark. Sucking wind, Joe dug among the old soapboxes for his Glock, and when he had a firm grip on it, he tried to pull himself up. The world whirled. He tumbled back down.

  “Grandpa Joe!” Kendra said, and rushed to him. The girl’s grip was surprisingly strong, and Joe hugged her for support, straining to peer down at his leg. Maybe he was wrong about the bite. It was possible he was wrong.

  “Let me look,” Joe said, trying to keep his voice calm. He peeled back his pant leg, grimacing at the blood binding the fabric to flesh. There it was, facing him in a semicircle of oozing slits. A bite. Not a deep one. But damn well deep enough. Freak juice was already shooting all through him. Damn, damn, damn.

  Night seemed to come early, because for an instant Joe Davis’s fear blotted the room’s light. He was bit. And where were Mike’s three boys? Wouldn’t they all come running now, like the swarm over the hill he’d seen in the field?

  “We’ve gotta get out of here, Little Soldier,” Joe said, and levered himself up to standing. Pain coiled and writhed inside him. “I mean now. Let’s go.”

  His leg was leaking. The pain was terrible, a throb with every heartbeat. He found himself wishing he’d faint, and his terror at the thought snapped him to more alertness than he’d felt in weeks. He had to get Little Soldier to the truck. He had to keep Little Soldier safe. God only knew what would happen to a girl left on her own. If the freaks didn’t get her, the survivors would.

  With each step, the back of his left thigh screamed bloody murder. He was leaning so hard on Little Soldier, the kid could hardly manage the door. Joe heard the tinkling above him, and then, impossibly, they were back outside. Joe saw the truck waiting just beyond the gate. His eyes swept the perimeter. No movement. No one. Where were those boys?

  “Let’s go,” Joe panted. He patted his pocket, and the keys were there. “Faster.” Joe nearly fell three times, but each time he found the kid’s weight beneath him, keeping him on his
feet. Joe’s heartbeat was in his ears, an ocean’s roar. “Jump in. Hurry.”

  After the driver’s door was open, Little Soldier scooted into the car like a monkey. The hard leather made Joe whimper as his thigh slid across the seat, but suddenly, it all felt easy. Slam and lock the door. Get his hand to stop shaking enough to get the key in the ignition. Fire her up. Joe lurched the truck in reverse for thirty yards before he finally turned around. His right leg was numb up to his knee—from that bite, oh sweet Lord—but he was still flooring the pedal somehow, keeping the truck on the road instead of ramming it into a ditch.

  Joe looked in his rearview mirror. At first he couldn’t see for the dust, but there they were: Mike’s boys had come running in a ragged line, all of them straining as if they were in a race. Fast. They were too far back to catch up, but their fervor sent a bottomless fear through Joe’s stomach.

  Mike’s boys looked like starving jackals stalking an antelope.

  TWELVE

  Kendra could barely breathe. The air in the truck felt the way it might in outer space, if you were floating alone in the universe, a distant speck, too far in the sky to see.

  “Grandpa Joe?” Kendra whispered.

  Grandpa Joe’s face shone with sweat. He was chewing at his lip hard enough to draw blood. Grandpa Joe’s fingers gripped at the wheel, and the corners of his mouth turned upward in an imitation of a smile. “It’s gonna be all right,” he said, but it seemed that he was talking to himself more than to her. “It’ll be fine.”

  Kendra stared at him, assessing. He seemed all right. But Dad had seemed fine too.

  She and Mom had been all right for a while, living off the refrigerator, and then the pantry after the power went out. But Mom got bit by their neighbor Carolyn Stiller and had forced Kendra to hide in the cellar. Made her promise not to open the door, even for her. No matter what. Not until you hear the danger word.

  Kendra felt warm liquid on the seat beneath her and she gasped, thinking Grandpa Joe might be bleeding all over the seat. Instead, when she looked down, her jeans were dark and wet, almost black. It wasn’t blood. She’d peed herself, like a baby. Damn. She was losing it.

  “Are you sleepy?” Kendra said. Grandpa Joe shook his head, but Kendra thought he’d hesitated first.

  Grandpa Joe’s eyes were on the road half the time, on the rearview mirror the rest. “How long before your mom or dad got sleepy?”

  Kendra remembered her mom’s voice outside the door, announcing the time. It’s nine o’clock, Kendra. Worried it was getting late. Worried she should get far away from Kendra and send for Grandpa Joe to come get her.

  “A few minutes,” Kendra said softly. “Five. Or ten.”

  Grandpa Joe went back to chewing his lip. “What happened?”

  “We were… at the hospital.”

  For the first time, Kendra told Grandpa Joe about Portland General. How her father had been bitten. How they’d been lucky to get home, and heard the radio guy saying that sleepiness came just before the urge to attack, so bite victims shouldn’t sleep. Dad had fought yawning for a few hours, drinking cup after cup of coffee, but he’d finally panicked after a micronap. He had fled in the middle of the night, refused to go to sleep in the house, telling them to lock their doors. He’d slept in the car. And by morning, he was foaming at the back door, trying and trying to get in, eyes bloody.

  Kendra heard herself tell the story, but her voice sounded like someone else’s.

  “So… was it about… twelve hours?” Grandpa Joe said. He sounded hopeful.

  Kendra’s throat felt like a pinprick. She could barely breathe. “Something like that. I… guess. But…”

  “But what?”

  “It was different for…”

  Shadows wrestled across Grandpa Joe’s face. “Your mom?” His voice rumbled.

  Kendra nodded.

  Grandpa Joe sighed and cleared his throat, girding himself to hear the rest. “How was it different for Cass?” he whispered finally. His voice broke on her name.

  Kendra glanced at the bloodied mess on her grandfather’s leg before she blinked away. “The bite was worse. Like yours. She got real sleepy real fast. It took less time.”

  This story would be harder, she realized. She hadn’t loved her mother more—she couldn’t have chosen one parent over the other at gunpoint. But Dad had left them so quickly, absorbed in the surreal fog of the first day of the crisis, that he didn’t seem truly gone. But she and Mom… They had weathered it together. Made plans together. They had listened for news of a cure, determined to find Dad and help him one day. For weeks, they had been the only part of the world that still felt right.

  “I was in bed,” Kendra said. “Mom poked her head in my room and said our neighbor was knocking on the window. Mrs. Stiller. Carolyn. Nice lady who wrote plays. They perform… performed them at the local theater. They even made a movie of one of her plays.”

  Grandpa Joe tried to smile. “Would I have seen it?”

  “I think it showed on cable. Her husband was an insurance agent. Had a sailboat, and took me out on it.” A pleasant, wistful memory, even though she’d been thwacked twice by a swinging boom.

  A nice man. Hardworking salesman, and a good husband, until he’d knocked on the door offering a variety of Whole Life beyond Prudential’s wildest dreams.

  “A lot of us had a buddy system, someone to go to for food. Or a generator. Or news. She was ours. Her husband helped put up the boards on our house. Mom said Carolyn looked upset, and I should stay in bed… I guess when Mom saw her out there, she…”

  “She wasn’t thinking,” Grandpa Joe finished. “She forgot.”

  Kendra nodded.

  Mom had come back shouting, clapping her hand to her left shoulder, blood oozing between her fingers. Kendra had thought she was dreaming—willed herself to be dreaming—but Mom had pulled her out of bed, yanking her arm and pulling her to her feet. Kendra had cried the whole way to the basement. I’m bit, Kendra. You can’t trust me anymore. Don’t open this door until you hear the danger word.

  “Mom stayed outside the basement door for ten minutes, maybe. Not long. She said she”—Kendra swallowed hard, forcing the words out—“she was so sleepy she could barely… stand up. She was scared to be near me, so she went away. Four or five hours. Then I heard her voice again, and she was knocking on the door. I was so… relieved.” Kendra sobbed, trying to catch her breath.

  “But it wasn’t her?” Grandpa Joe said gently.

  Kendra’s eyes went to Grandpa Joe’s bleeding wound again, and her limbs shook as if she wore no clothes. Her damp jeans felt frozen. “She said, ‘Where’s your math homework? You were supposed to do your homework.’ ”

  “That’s how you knew,” Grandpa Joe said, whispering again.

  Kendra nodded. “There was no more school.” Her nostrils leaked, but she didn’t move to wipe her nose. “I didn’t open the door.”

  Grandpa Joe nodded, considering the story. Struggling with it.

  His hand came toward her knee, but the sudden movement made her flinch. Even after she relaxed, reminding herself it was too soon, her hand rested near the door latch. With a heartbroken smile Grandpa Joe pulled his hand back.

  “Good girl, Kendra.” Grandpa Joe’s voice wavered. “Good girl.”

  All this time, Joe had thought it was his imagination.

  A gaggle of the freaks had been waiting for him in Cass’s front yard. He’d plowed most of them down with the truck so he could get to the door. That was the easy part. As soon as he got out, the ones still standing had surged. There’d been ten of them at least; an old man, a couple of teenage boys, the rest of them women, moving quick. He’d been squeezing off rounds at anything that moved. Daddy?

  Had he heard her voice before he’d fired? In the time since, he’d decided the voice was his imagination, because how could she have talked to him, said his name? He’d decided God had created her voice in his mind, a last chance to hear it to make up for the horror his
Glock had made of the back of her head. Daddy? It had been Cass, but it hadn’t been. Her blouse and mouth had been a mess, and he’d seen stringy bits of nastiness caught in her teeth, just like the other freaks. It hadn’t been Cass. It hadn’t been.

  People said freaks could make noises. Walked and looked like us. The newer ones didn’t have the red stuff showing beneath their skin, and they didn’t start to lose their motor skills for a couple of days, so the new ones could run fast. He’d known that. Everybody knew that. But if freaks could talk, could recognize you…

  Then we can’t win. The thought was quiet in Joe’s mind, from a place that was already accepting it.

  Cass had only lasted ten minutes, Little Soldier had said. Half of them already gone, maybe more than half. Joe tried to bear down harder on the gas, and his leg felt like a wooden stump. Still, the speedometer climbed to ninety before the truck began to shiver. He had to get Little Soldier as far as he could from Mike’s boys. He had to get Little Soldier away…

  Joe’s mouth was so dry it ached.

  “We’re in trouble, Kendra,” Joe said. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, even though he wanted to so much he was nearly blinded by tears. “You know we’re in trouble.”

  “Yes,” the girl said.

  “Don’t go back to the cabin,” Joe said, deciding that part. “It’s not safe.”

  “But Mom might…” This time, Joe did gaze over at Kendra. The girl was sitting as far from him as she could, against the door. He’d gotten so used to Kendra waiting for her parents to come that he’d sometimes felt himself waiting too.

  “That was a story I told you,” Joe said, cursing himself for the lie. “You know they’re not coming, Kendra. You said yourself she wasn’t right. You could hear it. She was out in the front yard, before I got inside. I had to shoot her, Little Soldier. I shot her between the eyes.”

  Kendra gazed at him wide-eyed, rage knotting her face.

  That’s it, Little Soldier. Get mad.