by Maxey, Phil
She looked a little startled. “Umm… I just like push the cars and stuff. Like I can feel them with my hands, and they move…”
He smiled. “That’s cool shit.” She smiled in return.
Joel looked out to the largely flat separation between earth and sky, with only a few tufts of darkness signaling trees, and rectangular shapes for the occasional farmhouse or barn. “Not much cover out here during the daytime. We should stick to traveling during the night.”
“Yup,” said Dalton.
Joel placed his head on the rest and let the exhaustion take him. Speech pulled at him from the void.
“Hey!” said Dalton again.
Joel opened his eyes. They were at a junction, with the sky to the east a series of pinks and mauves.
“It’s almost sun up. Right, takes us into a small town. Thought we could stay there?”
“Umm…” Joel looked down at the roadmap on his lap, fumbling to get back to the right page then gave up. “Sounds good.”
They drove along a winding road until a large rectangular building appeared at the top of a small hill. Dalton stopped opposite a sign.
“Helton Hardware,” said Corine.
Before anyone else could talk, Dalton eased down on the gas and drove into the entrance then diagonally across a large parking lot, stopping near the glass doored entrance. He looked at Joel. “You reading any vamps in here. My nose ain’t.”
Joel paused for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope.”
Shirl lifted her head. “We in Cali yet?”
“No… That’s three days away,” said Anna.
“Where are we then? I was hoping to sleep all the way there.”
Joel pushed open his door. “Somewhere we can avoid being seen.” He looked at several vehicles sitting across the huge lot. “Everyone’s got a radio. I’m going to see if I can find another vehicle. You run into any problems inside, let me know.” He disappeared into the shadows.
Dalton got out, everyone else following him to the large entrance. Shopping carts rested on their sides, but the doors appeared in one piece. He grabbed the handle of the closest, then pushed. After a few seconds of effort he gave up. “My arms still—”
A creaking noise, followed a snap and the door flew open. He looked back to a smiling Corine, her hand wavering in front of her. He nodded. “Cool shit.”
Pushing the door back they walked inside, which appeared completely untouched by the end of the world. A series of blue signs hung from the cavernous roof. ‘Household’, ‘Cleaning’, ‘Lighting.’ Shirl headed towards the ‘Bedding’ section.
Anna looked at a static escalator. “I’m going to check out the second floor. Everyone stay on the radio.”
“Yup,” said Corine browsing candy bars near the checkout counters. Dalton headed towards ‘Guns and Ammo.’
Anna ran up the metal grated steps emerging into the ‘Electronics’ section, which was bathed in a pale blue light from the skylight above. A whole floor given over to TV’s, computers and everything else that was now useless in the new world. She walked along the aisles tapping the occasional keyboard, then picked up a small video camera. About twenty feet away at the back of the area a door creaked, but she remained focused on the black and silver plastic device, pulling its LCD screen open. A soft crunching across the short carpet got louder and she heard the young heart beating above it.
In a blur she moved around the end of the aisle behind the boy, looking at where she just was. He suddenly spun around and fired.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The bullet sliced through the edge of Anna’s cheek, sending a burning sensation through her jaw, but before the light brown haired boy could fire again, she had moved forward and grabbed the weapon from his hand. He screamed and ran towards the back of the area.
“No…” she grimaced, holding her face then ran after him. “Wait, I’m not going to hurt—” The same door as before creaked then clattered closed. Thuds came from the escalator and Dalton appeared behind her.
“Who’s shooting!” he said.
She pointed at the door which was visible in the back wall behind the counter. “There’s a kid. Almost took my head off with this.” She held up the silver pistol.
“He’s probably got more guns, there’s a whole room down stairs full of them.”
Corine appeared at the top of the steps. “Is everyone alright? There was a gunshot.”
A rush of wind heralded Joel appearing behind her, then pushed past, running up to Anna and examining her face. “It’s healing. Who—”
“There’s kid here. Maybe ten years old. He went into that door back there.”
Joel walked towards it. “Okay stay here.”
Anna walked past him. “No, I’ll go. He’s already seen me, and you might scare him.”
Joel frowned and let her open the door.
“Hello?” she shouted into the gray corridor, being ready to pull back if she caught the sound of a trigger being pulled. There were two doors. One half way along to her right and another at the opposite end. “I’m not going to hurt you. My friends and I are just stopping here to get some stuff. We didn’t mean to scare you. I really need you not to shoot me again.”
There was silence, but she could hear heavy breathing reverberating through the nearby door. She moved into the corridor, but made sure not to stand directly in front of the door to the staffroom. “If you want us to go, we can, but it would be nice if we could meet and chat? There are not many people around anymore.”
“I’m sorry for shooting you lady.”
Anna smiled. “That’s okay, it was just a knick. Hardly felt it. Can I come into your room?”
“You got any weapons?”
“No.”
“Good, cos if you had weapons then you would have to leave them outside. There are a whole room of them downstairs if you want them, but I can’t get inside it cos it’s locked.”
“I don’t have any weapons.”
A clunk came from the door, which then swung back. A boy with large brown eyes and shaggy hair stood in a room full of items from the store, most with candles on top. Between them were sleeping bags, and boxes of food. Mostly candy and chips.
Anna nodded towards them. “You know they will rot your teeth right?”
“Don’t care, nothing matters anymore. I can do what I like.”
“And when you get toothache and you can’t go to the dentist?”
He scoffed, then flicked his front tooth. “My teeth are good.”
“Are you here alone?”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I just wondered if your parents were here?”
“Nah… just me.”
The door to the corridor opened and the boy looked fearfully in that direction. Anna held up her hand, making sure to keep her injury hidden. “It’s just one of my friends. He’s nice, but looks a little scary.”
Joel appeared to Anna’s side and put on his best smile but it still didn’t stop the kid from intaking air on seeing him.
“What happened to your face?” said the boy.
“Was in a fight. I won.”
“Cool…”
“What’s your name?” said Anna.
“Barry Finch. Who are you?”
“I’m Anna and this is Joel.”
Joel looked at Anna. “There’s an RV out back, with a body—”
“You leave that alone!” said Barry.
The two adults looked at him surprised then made the connection.
“Don’t worry I won’t touch it if you don’t want me too,” said Joel. “Plenty of other vehicles out there…”
“Good. Cos it’s mine.”
“We’ll leave it alone Barry,” said Anna. “You have our word.”
“Good.”
“So how about you show me about this place?” said Joel.
*****
“How’d the fuck did you survive kid?” Shirl had just woken up and held a cup of instant but cold c
offee, that Anna had found her.
“My mom says you shouldn’t swear.” Barry was on one of several seats in a small restaurant area at the back of the ground floor level.
“Did your mom survive?”
“Shirl!” said Anna.
“I’m just saying, I don’t get how he survived.” She looked at the fifteen foot high shelves. “Even with all this shit.”
Barry looked down, while the older woman rubbed her forehead. “Great, now I’m getting a headache.”
Dalton and Joel stood inside the weapons room, which was more of a vault with racks of guns across the ten foot square space. Drawers were lower down, a few open, all marked with a number.
“There’s enough kit here to start a war,” said Joel, taking an assault rifle from the wall.
Dalton pulled a flak jacket from a rack of them. “What we gonna do with the kid?”
“Throw me one of them.” Dalton tossed one to Joel who slid it over his head. “We can’t leave him here. The only reason the vamps didn’t discover him already is because of all of the stored chemicals in this place. It’s why I couldn’t smell him. But sooner or later they will wander in here and then he’s dead.”
Dalton placed a larger size over his head, then grabbed more of the black fabric jackets. “The RV belonged to his folks?”
“Yeah, looks like his mom. Can’t say what she died off, couldn’t see any obvious wounds, but from the smell I would say he’s been in this building for at least a month.”
“How we gonna take a kid where we’re going?”
Joel shook his head. “I don’t know… Maybe we’ll find somewhere, some survivors we can leave him with.”
Dalton took a particularly mean looking gun from the wall and moved it from hand to hand. “When we find the place,” He looked at Joel. “Shit’s not going to go down like last time, right?”
Joel sighed. “Last time they had themselves another Amos, it’s the only way they could have masked all the soldiers. But… they also knew we were coming. Someone told them. So as long as—”
Dalton’s eyes widened, his expression hardening. “You got any idea who?”
“If I did, they’d be dead.”
Dalton shook his head. “Nah ah. If you learn who sold us out. You tell me. Then I make them dead. We on the same page?”
Joel nodded. Dalton went back to looking at the gun.
“So, if they don’t know we’re coming, and they don’t have another mind-alterer, then I just need to know the layout of the building, where people are, then we come up with a plan.”
“Just as long it involves killing lots of the corporations people, I’m down with it.”
Joel pulled the magazine from the rifle, checked it, then slotted it back in. “Definitely going to involve that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Anna and Barry stood outside the glass doors of the entrance. It was a bright cloudless morning and Barry’s mom’s RV sat like a mausoleum in the middle of the parking lot.
“I… don’t know… She was really ill… I tried to look after her, but she got more and more ill, and then she stopped breathing…” He started to cough and splutter as tears ran down his cheeks.
Anna pulled him close wrapping her hand around him. “It wasn’t your fault. She was just ill.”
“I thought she was going to turn into a vampire, so I grabbed some things and ran in here… and then I couldn’t go back.” He looked up at Anna. “She’s still in there isn’t she?”
Anna nodded.
“I left her…” His sobbing quietened.
“You were right to run, she could have turned into a vamp… umm there’s something you should know about myself and most of the others…”
Barry looked up, wiping the wet from his cheeks. “Yeah?”
“You know how the scourge changes people into vamps?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, some people don’t… become full vamps, they become something else, something—”
He pulled away, taking a step backwards. Fear growing in his eyes.
“Barry… I’m your friend, I’m… we are not going to hurt you. You have to believe me…”
“What are you?” His voice quivered slightly. Before she could answer he continued, his eyes moving to her stump. “That’s! How you survived losing your hand, right?”
She sighed, nodding. “Kind of.” She walked forward and sat on a small wall, with brown bushes just behind. “I’m part vamp and part human. But I’m not a monster.”
“Do you drink blood?”
“Well…”
His smiled. “Cool!”
“Umm… okay?”
He sat next to her. “So you’re like a super hero? You are really strong and fast and you drink the blood of your enemies!”
“Err… sort of…”
“Can I be like you?”
“Noo…”
He looked down. “Oh…”
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “But you can still be a hero. You can help us until we find a place for you to be.”
“But I like this place. We can all stay here.”
She sighed again, shaking her head. “We can’t stay here, Barry. You can’t stay here.”
He looked confused. “Where you got to be? There’s food, guns, everything is here.”
“Some of our friends were taken by bad people. We need to go find them. And we need you to come with us… to help.”
He looked away again. “I see… If we find your friends, can we come back?”
She nodded. “Maybe.”
“Then… I guess it’ll be okay…” He looked back to the beige and silver vehicle parked in the middle of the lot. “Maybe we should take mom’s RV.”
*****
Joel pushed the shovel into the ground near the grave, which sat on a small grass covered area with a few evergreen trees. It was raised as the store was, and allowed a view of the hills, freeway and setting sun in the distance.
The RV and SUV’s engine rumbled in the parking lot behind, but he could still hear the faint steps of the boy moving towards him.
Barry walked slowly forward and stood by his side.
“I… thought your mom would like this spot?” said Joel. “Has a nice view.”
Barry silently nodded, then took a step forward and placed a brightly colored super hero comic at the top of the small mound of dirt.
Joel swallowed. “Is there anything you want to say?”
Barry shook his head, but then as Joel started to walk away, back to the waiting vehicles, heard the boy say “Goodbye” before turning and joining him.
Soon the small convoy was back bumping over well worn country roads.
Inside the motorhome Shirl sat at a small pull down table. Barry sat opposite her with Joel driving and Anna in the passenger’s seat. She turned around to face the two in the front. “How we going to know where on the coast this place is?”
“We need to get more intel at some point.” said Joel turning the large wheel to follow the SUV onto another narrow road.
Shirl rubbed her head. “And how we gonna do that?”
Joel looked across at Anna who was looking back at him. “Find someone who knows.”
The older woman turned around to face the table. “Great.”
In the other vehicle, Corine sat in the passenger’s seat next to Dalton. She had decided she’d prefer staying in the SUV. She looked at the muscular arms of the man driving and felt warm. Just a day earlier she had seen him tear through countless soldiers in his transformed form, and nothing would have made her even want to be close to the guy, but now she felt differently.
“What were you doing… before?”
“Prison.”
“Oh…” She wasn’t sure she made the right choice choosing the SUV.
“How about you? What were you doing before the world went crazy?”
She sighed and looked back at the road in front. “Art school.”
“Yeah? What kin
d of art? I had a friend who used to draw all the time. He was pretty good.”
“Oh, umm I wanted too—”
Dalton slammed on the brakes and swung the car to the side of the road as a herd of deer sprinted across the freeway about twenty yards away. The RV skidded to a stop alongside. “Wait here,” he said pushing the door open.
“Okay…”
She watched enraptured as he surged across the road, hands becoming claws, his head changing form to include the beginnings of a snout and leaped over a nearby fence becoming one with the dark beyond. A knock came at her window making her jump. Joel was standing outside looking in the direction Dalton had run. She slid the window down.
“He’s pretty good at capturing live game,” said Joel. He wanted to pursue the creatures into the night as well but knew he didn’t have it in him. “We could do with some more blood.”
She briefly smiled.
“How you feeling?”
“I’m okay...”
“Good…”
A roar filled the air, almost rattling the windscreen, and Dalton lumbered out from between the bushes and trees with a huge stag with a network of antlers across his shoulder. He walked past the front of the pickup and dropped it on the hood, then sunk his teeth into the creature’s neck. Joel walked forward, his eyes turning dark and did the same to the creature’s thigh.
Corine pushed her door open. The air was so thick with the metallic fume of blood that she could almost taste it. She rushed forward and plunged her own enlarge teeth into the dead creature.
Anna in the RV, her own mind being drawn to the scene of blood letting, almost didn’t notice the boy to her left watching from between the two front seats. She pulled herself into the present, and turned around, standing in her seat. “Hey, why don’t we go wait in the back.”
Barry’s eyes were wide, his face one of horrified curiosity. “No… I’m…”
“Kid! Do as the nice lady says. Get your ass—”
Barry’s head flicked around to face Shirl, who immediately started coughing.
“His…” Her spluttering cut any attempt at speech, but her hand flicked out towards the boy, who Anna could only see the back of.