A second blast from outside.
Did that worry them, did the Can Heads in whatever crazed mental processes they had for thinking, consider backing away?
Instead, she watched one open its mouth, as if opening its jaw to loosen it, popping the joint, ready to …
… fucking eat.
She fired at that one, not seeing where she hit, only seeing it swerve away as if it had walked into invisible netting.
The third scrambled over the table, charging.
Crawling like a kid onto the wooden table, so fast, leaping up, hands and knees.
A human dog coming at her.
No. Not a dog. A wolf, something hungry, wild.
She swung the gun back, hoping to shoot it, but it was already too close, and the barrel hit the side of its face.
The gun almost knocked out of her hand, but instinctively she had tightened her grip just as she smacked the Can Head.
She backed against the wall, near the back door. Shut, locked, bolted.
So close—but useless as an escape.
The Can Head reared up on the table where her family had shared so many meals, so much talk, so much life.
All gone, as if swallowed by the darkness.
* * *
Kate saw them running at her.
She had wanted to save her mother, and now all she had done was make all of these other Can Heads race toward her.
She didn’t even bother to shoot. Not yet, with them still houses away.
She’d be shooting at the air.
And amidst the sound of the charge, this race to get to her, she heard—again—a sound.
A click.
Then the door opened.
And Simon, her little brother, came out, nearly rolled out onto the dark sidewalk, scrambling to her.
Until he was beside her.
She couldn’t say anything to him.
She didn’t know what she felt.
The fear claimed everything.
She felt Simon sandwich his body next to hers.
His arm raised.
Holding a gun.
“Wait,” Kate whispered.
As if it would do any good.
* * *
Moving backward gave Christie a few feet of distance from the table.
The thing on the table now towered over her as it knelt up, recovered from the smack of the gun.
It located her in the dark room.
Then jumped at her.
Christie screamed.
The sound as if coming from someone else.
Shrieking, loud, filling the room.
But even though she screamed, she pulled the trigger repeatedly, not worrying anymore about how many shots were left.
Three blasts, one after the other, as the thing landed on her, the weight pulling her down to the ground, smacking her down hard onto the wooden floor.
The smell overwhelming, her mouth, nostrils filled with it.
The smell of one of those things, the reek.
Then she felt wetness. Blood, in different spots, gushing.
And as she felt that blood, and the stench filled her mouth, lungs, something she could nearly taste, the Can Head didn’t move.
Christie grunted and pushed it away.
The wounded one was nearby, but it hadn’t attacked, the wound finally taking its toll as its blood covered the floor.
She stood up and bolted for the pitch-black opening that led from the kitchen to the hallway, to the open front door—
To her kids outside.
18
Surrounded
“Now,” Kate said quietly.
Simon said nothing. No whimpers, no cries.
As Kate herself fought back the tremendous urge to cry, to put down the gun with them so hopelessly attacked.
She pulled the trigger, trying to aim at the figures racing toward them. Then a blast from Simon.
More encouragement: “Keep shooting. Just … keep shooting.”
But could they hit anything in this dark, with the creatures running wildly toward them? She aimed at one Can Head only a house away, but it weaved and bobbed.
They know how to dodge the shots, she thought.
And:
We can’t stop them.
Her brother kept firing.
Such a good kid, she thought.
Again she fired.
How many bullets left?
Not enough. Not enough bullets, not enough light to see and—
She stopped, not letting her mind drift to the next thought.
What will they do to us? What will it be like?
And thinking … only a minute left of this.
* * *
Christie rushed out of the house. She could see her kids shooting outside the car.
Why the hell did they get out of the car? I told them, told them to stay in the car, locked, and—
Then to see: the horde racing toward them.
Her heart sinking more than she ever imagined it could. The despair, the terrible fear and horror crashing into her.
Seconds.
To take all that in, and she kept running, nearly tripping as she leaped off the two stone steps that led up to the front door, moving to stand beside her daughter just as she fired.
Simon beside her.
Simon. Holding a gun.
Shooting.
The moment insane, impossible—
And when she got there, not a word.
No, because she happened to notice movement from across the street, from beyond the car.
More shapes moving.
The sick blackness of the street making them nearly invisible.
But she knew—they were circling them.
Were there a dozen of the Can Heads, or only a few, moving fast, cutting left and right, sailing closer? Human rats. Or wolves, circling prey.
Not human at all. Animals.
She shot at one of them that hurried around to the back of the car, closing this ring around them.
In those seconds, as the ring closed, a jolt of guilt.
I did this. I was supposed to keep them safe.
Now—what will happen now?
A blast from Simon’s gun, shooting into the darkness.
A boy. With a gun.
She pulled her trigger—a Can Head only feet away, as it dodged and feinted.
She was answered with a metallic click.
No more bullets. All the bullets, and the other guns, in the car.
She thought then she whispered a word.
“Sorry…”
So quietly.
And the next sound … was anything but quiet.
* * *
A cannon went off.
Then another, a near-deafening boom that filled the night.
And she saw that one Can Head, one that was one last leap away from landing on them …
… was gone.
Where did it go? What happened?
But the cannon booms kept coming.
Steady, sure, rhythmic in the way they rang out.
In between the third or fourth rocketing boom, she heard a click.
Kate’s gun. Out of ammo.
Christie turned to her. Put an arm around her, and then Simon, who alone still had bullets, still pulling his trigger.
They both shook under her arms, as if they had been standing in an icy polar wind and nothing would ever get them warm again, would ever get them to stop shaking.
The cannonading booms kept coming, and Christie knew that as loud as they were—so different from the blasts that their handguns made—it was a weapon.
The dawning realization: someone else was firing.
She scanned the area around them, this circle made by the three of them and the car.
To see: fiery explosions from an area just behind them, past the back of the car.
And in the light …
… made by those flashing blasts …
A woman. Not even as tall as Kate.
Holding a rifle, this mon
ster of a rifle, as she kept blasting away, the blasts interrupted by the oh-so-fast click of her moving something on the gun to get the next shell in place.
A blast. More clicks, more blasts.
Until this woman, close enough now that her face, round, but with a set, determined look, stood beside them.
Raising the gun for each shot, reloading in a breath.
No one said anything.
Until—that rhythm slowed.
And finally—stopped.
And the woman, their savior, this angel with a cannon for a gun, finally spoke.
“I think they’re gone … for now.”
The woman lowered the barrel of her gun.
Christie said the first thing that came to mind, the street littered with bodies, the remaining Can Heads retreating.
“Who are you?”
The woman smiled. She took a moment to look at Kate and Simon, the smile broadening.
“A neighbor.” Then a small laugh. “Remember them? Neighbors?”
And then before Christie could say anything else, the woman nodded in the direction of the house.
“How about we get off the street and go inside, to my place, hmm? I could do with a cup of tea. Maybe—”
That set face suddenly relaxed—“maybe something stronger.”
Christie didn’t know what to say, her arms around her kids, the three of them standing there for a moment as if nothing had happened.
And all she could do was nod.
19
A Home
The woman’s name was Helen Field, and she lived just around the corner from them.
Maybe Christie had seen her before, maybe not.
But even after so many years in this development, they certainly hadn’t spoken.
People stayed in their homes, their fortresses, locking out the rest of the world.
Helen took a sip of the dark tea with half a packet of artificial sweetener.
Honey would be nice. Like a lot of once common things, now not common at all.
“You all look pretty beat,” she said.
Kate and Simon sat at the kitchen table as well, their eyes wide as if still on the street. So much Christie wanted to say to them … ask them, but for now, she felt immobilized.
Boiling the water for Helen was about all she could manage.
She asked Helen if sitting here, in her house with the lights on, was a safe thing.
“They’re gone. I doubt they’ll be back. Don’t think they like the smell of their own kind dead. With the doors and windows locked and shuttered, about the safest place. For one night at least.”
“I don’t know how to—thank you.”
“It’s Henry that should be thanked. My husband. Died two years ago. Colon cancer. When all this stuff happened—” another shake of her head toward the world outside—“he made sure I knew what to do with a gun. Every weekend, had me out practicing. Ex-marine, so the man knew his guns.”
Christie turned to her kids, their wide eyes locked on the woman.
“He was a big fan of the one I used tonight, a riot shotgun. Holds a lot of shells, and the pump action is fast. I got pretty good at it.”
No one said anything, but the woman kept smiling as she put her cup of tea down.
“Look at me. Going on about my gun. And you kids—you look like you need sleep. Why not sleep here while your mom and I talk? Two warm beds, just upstairs … hmm?”
Taking charge, directing us, Christie thought.
But didn’t they have to go, get on the road, get out of here?
“We shouldn’t stay here—we—”
“Look, Christie. These two need some sleep. So do you. I’m well rested. I can stay here and make sure everything’s—what’s the word—”
Another small laugh.
“—copacetic.”
Christie didn’t know what to do. If anything, this woman’s thinking had to be clearer than hers.
We all need sleep, she thought.
And having seen Helen in action, she felt amazingly … safe.
“Okay.”
She turned to Kate and Simon.
“You two—go get some sleep, okay?”
She saw Simon’s eyes on her. A question there perhaps, but one he wouldn’t give voice to.
“I’ll come up in a bit. Check on you.”
Would have been an absurd thing to have said to Kate even a week ago, so fiercely independent, pushing away all those lines that could keep her tethered to her parents.
Now, though—
Kate nodded, stood up.
And in another moment that wouldn’t have happened a short seven days ago, she reached down and took Simon’s hand. “Come on, Simon.”
Christie looked at her daughter. “Maybe you can wash up a bit.”
All that blood. Be good to get some of it off.
“Sure, Mom,” Kate said.
Echoed by Simon: “Sure.”
They walked out of the kitchen.
And when they had gone, she turned to see Helen’s eyes looking right at her as if she had seen a ghost.
“So. What happened to all of you?”
And taking care not to make much noise as she did, Christie began crying.
* * *
When Christie finished her sobbing, muffling it with her hands so the kids wouldn’t hear, she told the story in a crazed, haphazard way, missing details, jumping ahead, then back.
“Jack … my husband … had been wounded on the job. And this place we went to … was supposed to be a vacation for us.”
“This Paterville Camp?”
A nod. “Only Jack thought … something was wrong with it. I mean, right from the start.”
“A good cop.”
“He started looking around. And then discovered that some of these people who went there hadn’t left, hadn’t really left the camp, you see … because … they had all been—”
Helen reached out and put a hand on Christie’s wrist, gently closing her hand around it.
“Then you had to get out.”
Christie nodded, continuing the story.
“They took us to a cabin. Guarded us. We didn’t know where Jack was. But he had been tied up in their—kitchen. The place they did it. He told me about the bodies in the freezer.”
“Christ.”
“But he escaped. Came and got us. But there was a problem.”
“How to get out?”
“Exactly. He told me his idea. His plan. I wanted to tell him no, that we all stick together.”
She took a deep breath. So hard to even talk.
“Maybe you should stop. For now,” Helen said.
But Christie continued. The story had to be finished.
So Jack’s sacrifice would be seen clearly by this woman. This new friend.
“He took our Explorer out the main gate. There were explosives in it. Me and the kids … we took the car belonging to these people, all dead—the Blairs. Jack had found the keys. He’d distract the people who ran the place. It was the only way, he said. I—I didn’t know—”
Helen got up and came behind Christie.
“You’re here. You’re alive. It worked. He saved his family.”
The tears again, even though she felt she didn’t have any more tears.
“Look. Your kids may be waiting upstairs. Go give them a kiss. And you, you need sleep.”
“I can’t—”
A squeeze to her shoulders. “I’ll stay up, right here. My trusty shotgun by my side—though I think we’ve seen all the action we’re going to see for one night. Sleep, and tomorrow, I have things to tell you, to talk to you about.”
The words compelling.
So much so … that there was really no other option.
“Maybe wash up. Change. In the morning, I’ll be here.”
Christie nodded, and suddenly felt as if she couldn’t get out of the chair.
But somehow she was able to give that command to her body, slide the chair back, stand up
.
Then standing, she said, quite simply, “Thank you.”
Helen gave her a hug, released her, and then Christie turned and followed the kids upstairs, going to them, and then on to Helen’s bedroom where she would, for the first time in so many years, sleep alone.
20
The Plan
Christie came down the stairs, to the hallway.
She saw that the pile of photo albums that she had dropped the night before in her house were now here, neatly stacked on Helen’s hallway table.
She kept on moving, the feeling dreamlike.
Into the kitchen.
Where she saw Helen still sitting in the same chair, just as Christie had left her the night before.
Her eyes widened as Christie entered the sun-drenched kitchen.
“Well—you got some sleep. Good.”
She nodded.
“The kids?”
“Still asleep.”
“Not surprising. After all they’ve been through.”
Helen nodded at the stove. “Got some of that coffee stuff warmed up. Just made it a while ago.”
“You must be tired.”
“Been worse.”
Christie walked over to the stove and the coffee machine, the coffee a mixture of chicory, dried soy, and maybe even a dash of real coffee, mostly known for having caffeine and a bitter taste.
She poured herself a cup and went to the table and sat down.
“Was it quiet last night?”
“Oh, I heard some of them out there. Doing who knows what. But they stayed away from here. Guess even when people turn cannibal, they don’t want their heads blown off.”
“Guess so,” Christie said. She even managed a smile. “Thank you. For getting the photo albums. For everything.”
Helen smiled as Christie took a sip of the coffee. Then:
“Something I wondered about last night. Everyone’s gone? From here?”
“Pretty much. Even had cops going through the development, recommending that people get out. Least until the power comes back on. Even now, there’s only power in certain spots. My house is one of the lucky ones.”
“And you didn’t leave?”
“Oh, I wanted to. But some nice neighbor wanted my car. Maybe theirs broke down and my Suburban looked pretty good to them. Left me high and dry.”
“You were trapped here? No one would take you?”
“Guess it’s not that kind of world, Christie. Anyone near me had left already. I did talk to some people racing away. They looked at me as another mouth to feed, I guess, less space in their car for their stuff. No one knew how long they’d be away. A few days? A week? A month?”
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