by Tim Curran
And then he happened to look in the mirror, saw the blunt tips of black shiny shoes under one of the stall doors. He was not alone.
He reached for the gun.
12
Ben and Nancy Eklind were on the move again.
“We’re going to walk right out of this town,” he told his wife. “No stops, no bullshit, no nothing. No stolen cars. We walk out, get our asses somewhere safe.”
It was a plan.
Ben decided then and there, after they were a safe distance away from the hanged boy and the child laughing in darkness, that they weren’t going to bother with anymore of the houses, lit up or not. All of them were potential traps. Better on the streets where you could run, maneuver.
They simply had to get out.
That was all that mattered; leave this clusterfuck to the authorities. But to get out they had to purge their minds of all the horror, wipe the blackboards clean, so to speak, so they could concentrate.
As they approached Chestnut, he pulled Nancy behind a tree.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m just fine, Ben. What could possibly be wrong?”
Good. Sarcasm. Meant she was indeed okay or as okay as she was going to get this night. They crossed Chestnut at a jog, holding hands. They saw no one or nothing and that was perfectly fine. Soon enough the houses ran out and then there were warehouses, a few decrepit factories behind locked fences, a public works garage, a junkyard, and beyond, more dark buildings and a train yard.
“We make that train yard,” Ben said, “and we’re free.”
Nancy had nothing to say to that. She simply nodded.
Ben studied the streets.
God, so many shadows, so many traps waiting to be sprung.
He remembered reading To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. There was a line in it about nothing being as dangerous as a deserted, waiting street. It had stuck in his mind all these years, buried with the attendant trash of daily living, only to emerge now. As if maybe it had been waiting for this, waiting to be applied to this spook show.
Hand in hand, they started walking faster, practically jogging.
He could feel the night air on his exposed hands and face like the breath of something long dead.
Not far now: the weedy fields of the train yards were just ahead. He studied them in the deadly moonlight. A gravel road wound along the edge of Cut River. Beyond it were the silent hulks of the trains themselves, huge and segmented worms clinging to the rails, waiting to be woken.
He could feel Nancy’s hand gripping his own tighter and tighter, feel the breath aching in his lungs. Yes, this was it. So simple and easy, of course, he hadn’t thought of it until survival instinct had pointed the way: the fields, the woods, you dumb shit, make for the open spaces.
They stepped onto the gravel road and seized up like their hearts had stopped.
On the other side of the road there was a ditch, another deep culvert separating them from the train yards and freedom. And out of it loped three or four bulky, panting bodies. Dogs. Mangy things covered with greasy pelts, tongues lolling from their mouths, teeth bared.
They saw Ben and Nancy, froze.
And then in unison, they started to growl, baleful yellow eyes fixed on the intruders.
“Oh no…” Nancy managed.
The dogs watched them.
They came no closer but stood their ground, growling, teeth exposed like white spikes.
Two or three others came out of the ditch, joined their comrades.
The fact that he and Nancy had even made it this far, Ben knew, was a blessing. Her hand in his own was hot, greasy, and crushing. They were close enough to one of the abandoned factories to make a run for it, to climb over the fence. He doubted that dogs, even these dogs, could climb an eight-foot storm fence.
As they slipped away, the dogs started growling simultaneously.
It was a low evil sound that rose up to a cacophonous whine.
The dogs launched themselves forward at the same time.
Nancy let out a scream and Ben thought he might have, too.
They turned and ran, both instinctively going for the fence. They would make it, maybe, mere seconds before those teeth ripped into their ankles like knives into soft, fat bellies.
They heard a rumbling, saw lights wash over them.
A Jeep Cherokee came whipping down the street, bearing down on the dogs, scattering them to the four winds like hornets in a cyclone. The Jeep cruised right up to the curb, the passenger side window slid down.
“What’s happening, people?” a woman said to them. “You walking the dogs or are they walking you?”
Ben and Nancy stood there, staring at this woman, this vehicle. Too good to be true. A taste of civilization.
“Yeah,” Ben told her, wanting to start crying with relief. “Jesus Christ, are we glad to see you.”
“Climb in,” she said.
The driver’s side door opened and a mountain of a man got out. The Jeep seemed to actually rise up a few inches when it was free of his weight. He had wispy, shoulder-length hair and a full ZZ Top beard. He was built like a linebacker, carried a gut on him like a feed sack, but given his size, it seemed to belong.
He nodded to all present. “What the hell’s going on around here?” He went to the back door, opened it with a key. “Lock’s fucked,” he said. “Gotta have a key to open it. Hop in.”
Ben and Nancy did, melting into the soft leather seat, the warmth, the safety.
The big guy slammed their door, walked around the Jeep, scanning the darkness, looking and looking.
“He better get in,” Ben said, “those dogs…”
“Don’t you worry about Joe, hon. Dogs mess with him they gonna be sorry.”
Ben almost believed it.
He was like a recruiting poster for the Hell’s Angels.
He moved quickly for a large man, carrying a certain deadly intensity about him. He stood out in front of the Jeep, daring the dogs to come on. Slowly, they did. They came from all directions, making that awful growling sound again as they joined forces. Joe came around the side and hopped in, slamming his door. The Jeep rocked from his girth.
He hooked an arm the size of a carpet roll over the seat, turned to face his guests. “What in Christ’s name is going on here?” he asked. “Goddamn town’s like a graveyard. What gives?”
Ben broke up into laughter, despite himself. Wasn’t that the $10,000 question? He kept laughing until he started coughing and gagging. Nancy laughed, too, patting him on the back.
“I say something funny?” Joe asked.
“We’ve been through a lot,” she told him and, having found her voice, couldn’t stop talking.
She told them about the hit-and-run on the road outside Cut River. About the dead guy who wasn’t dead at all. About Sam getting killed (that wasn’t easy), about them running. All the craziness they’d seen. All she left out was the bit about the hanging boy because it was just too…insane. Now, in the warmth of the Jeep, she was certain she’d hallucinated that.
“Jesus Christ on a stick,” Joe said. “Nice place. All that and mad dogs, too.”
Nancy nodded. “Not just them, but the people. Rabid. They’re all rabid or something.”
“You don’t say?”
Nancy’s hackles rose. “I’m telling you the truth.”
He held his hand up, palm out. “Easy, lady. I believe you. Something’s majorly fucked here. Even I can see that.”
He told them that when they’d pulled into town about fifteen minutes before, the road coming in was nearly blocked with cars. Smashed cars.
Ben felt the skin at the back of his neck crawling. “Blocked off?”
“Almost,” the woman said. “We just squeezed through, man. It was unreal. Remember, babe? Remember what I said? Heavy weather ahead for sure.”
He nodded. “Yeah, we should have just turned around. Place didn’t fe
el right, if that makes any sense. After we got past those smashed cars, shit, there were others in the streets—windows broken, bumpers torn off. And bodies. A mess. Looked like a goddamn riot passed through.”
“Maybe one did,” Nancy suggested grimly.
He shrugged. “By the way, I’m Joe,” he told them. “This is Ruby Sue.”
“Nancy Eklind.”
“Ben Eklind.”
“Married, eh? That takes some serious balls,” Ruby Sue said.
She was thirtysomething, Ben figured. Short, thin, her face dominated by huge sleepy eyes. She was friendly, very warm, though maybe a little dizzy like she was hitting the pipe a little too often.
“That guy you hit…he just went crazy, eh?” Joe asked them.
Ben sighed. “Never seen anything like it. I hit him hard. He popped out of nowhere. I turned my eyes from the road for a second or two…and, well, there he was. Bam. We found him in the ditch. We were sure he was dead…head split right open, ribs crushed in on the side, and then he jumped up and started throwing us around. Christ.”
“Like he was possessed,” Nancy added.
“Hit and run. Wow.” Ruby Sue stared at the ceiling, overwhelmed by the concept. “Know what? There was this guy…what was his name, Joe? Oh, Crazy. Remember Crazy? We had this bash, you know? Everybody drunk and naked, booze, chemicals…oh, man. Crazy, though, he snorts half of Peru, been drinking thirty-six hours straight. Tripping, speeding, totally fried, man, wanders off, starts dancing out in the highway. BAM! Big Peterbuilt. Hamburger Helper, you know?”
Joe looked at Nancy. “Your brother,” he said, saying it very gently, compassionately, “Sam was it? You sure—”
Nancy chewed her lower lip like a strip of jerky. “Yes. That psycho ripped his throat open…blood everywhere…” She fell silent.
“I’m only asking because if he’s not, well, shit, we wouldn’t want to leave him out there.”
“Yeah, Joe would help him if he could,” Ruby Sue admitted to Nancy. “He was a medic in the army once. Like that one time, eh, Joe? Those two Banditos at Sturgis? Going at each other with knives? Bad news. Bleeding all over the place. Joe stitched ‘em up, took care of ‘em. Hey, babe?”
The bearded giant ignored her, folded his massive forearms over his chest. “Barefoot, no shirt, you say? This time of year? Again I ask, what the hell is that all about?”
“That’s what we were wondering,” Sam said.
“Dude must’ve been baked,” Ruby Sue decided. “Some of that shit, man, look out. You just never know. Sometimes you get stuff that’s been treated or sprayed with shit. Been there, done that. You get some herb treated with dust or something, cancel future appointments.” She laughed. “Happened to me. I thought everyone was after me. Major paranoia, for sure. I thought my roommate had a spider for a head and snakes for hands. God, I was dusted for twenty-four hours.”
Again, Joe didn’t pay any attention.
Probably kept his sanity that way, Ben figured.
“We have to get out of here,” he told them. “That’s the bottom line.”
“Agreed,” Joe said.
There was a sudden thudding and the Jeep started rocking. It came again and again. Thud, thud, thud. The dogs were back, throwing themselves at the Jeep. They dove at the windows, enraged and filled with maniacal bloodlust, jaws snapping, eyes bulging, snouts spraying tangles of saliva and foam into the air.
“Jesus Christ!” Joe cried. “They’re attacking my fucking Jeep!”
An immense black lab clawed its way up onto the hood, throwing itself at the windshield, teeth biting, tongue licking, paws clawing. Its eyes were huge, bulging, on fire with that profane yellow shine, raging with blind hatred. Its jaws closed around a windshield wiper, ripped it free, and snapped it in half like a chicken wing. It kept smashing its snout into the glass with a savage ferocity until the windshield was painted with foam and slime and blood.
“Wow,” Ruby Sue said. “Un-fucking-believable.”
Joe threw the Jeep in reverse, swinging around in a perfect arc, tires squealing. The lab tumbled through the air, disappeared. The Jeep popped the curb and Joe already had the transmission in drive. They swung back onto the street, knocking dogs aside like bowling pins. The Jeep gave a sickening lurch as it rolled over more than one of them. And they were away and gone, tooling down the road.
Ruby Sue said, “They’re rabid, man. I seen a show once.”
“It’s worse than that,” Nancy said, pressed up close to Ben now.
Joe was shaking his head as they wheeled around a corner, sliding into the street. “I’ve seen rabid. I’ve seen it more than once,” he told them. “And that ain’t rabid. It’s like rabid to the tenth power.”
Joe had the Jeep wailing up Chestnut, doing an easy seventy miles an hour.
The dogs had sent home the message that Ben and Nancy had been unable to: that there was something seriously wrong here and it was like nothing you could possibly imagine.
Now they know, Ben thought and was satisfied with that.
But he knew that the message wouldn’t truly hit home until they saw the people of this town…or what they had become. The dogs were bad, yes, God knew they were, but the people…savages, monsters, inhuman things.
“Let’s just get out of here,” Joe said. “We’ll sort the rest out later.”
Joe brought them straight up Chestnut until they crossed Magnetic Street, and entered one of the blacked-out sections of Cut River. Houses were dark. Cars parked. Bodies sprawled in the streets. Lifeless, empty. A cemetery. At least that’s how it looked, but Ben knew better. He knew what sort of things populated the darkness, their pale faces and grinning mouths and hooked fingers.
Yes, he knew all about those things.
Joe kept putting her to the metal, squealing around corners, firing through intersections, handling the Jeep with a near-suicidal mastery like he was piloting a fighter-bomber through enemy airspace. And, in some respects, that was true. Only thing lacking here was the heavy firepower.
“Up ahead,” Ruby Sue said. “That’s where those cars were, I think.”
Joe nodded. “Yeah.”
Ben sat silently waiting for something, anything. He didn’t know what, but he knew it was coming. Knew it wouldn’t be this easy.
Nancy was feeling it, too, he knew.
Her breathing was deep and labored, her body tight and rigid like it was held together with wire.
The headlights of the Jeep cut through the night like scalpels, peeling back the blighted darkness and revealing the festering underbelly of Cut River: cars with smashed windshields, flattened tires; garbage cans overturned, litter strewn on the sidewalks; tree limbs down from the storm; a pick-up truck driven right through a garage door. The homes squatting dismally in the gloom didn’t look right either—windows were shattered, furniture spilled out onto lawns. There were other things in the yards, too, shapes nestled in the leave-strewn grass.
Ben thought he saw bodies, but it was hard to be sure.
But he did know he saw what he thought were effigies, scarecrows dangling from second-story windows and porch overhangs.
At least, he hoped they were effigies.
“Check that out,” Ruby Sue said. “Did you see it?” Nobody answered, so she elaborated. “Looked like…I don’t know, man…like symbols and shit painted on that house. This place has gone totally fucking pagan.”
Pagan.
It made all the sense in the world to Ben.
Whatever had gotten this town, whatever pestilence had infected its citizens, it almost seemed to have freed something primal, something atavistic dwelling within them. Like the veneer of civilization had been peeled free, baring the dark, feral underbelly of the human race and the calculated barbarity that went with it. These people, like our ruthless, bloodthirsty ancestors fifty, a hundred millennia before, were predatory monsters, killers who reveled in the art of butchery, of slaughter.
“I thought it was the storm,” Joe sa
id to them or maybe to himself. “But it isn’t; not all of it.”
He had his window open just a crack. No more, no less. The air smelled of smoke like maybe there was a fire nearby. It stunk of other things, too: ripe, raw things. Nameless odors that stirred some shadowy race memory in the occupants of the Jeep. Some distant, dark memory of barbaric times when civilization was an unrealized dream.
Yes, Ben thought, these people have reverted somehow. And wouldn’t it be easy, when you came right down to it, to tear off your clothes and join them? Celebrate death and sex and blood?
“What’s that smell?” Ruby Sue inquired. “That burning? What is that?”
Good question because the wind was carrying a stink far worse than charred wood now.
The Jeep slowed down and everyone saw why.
The street was entirely blocked-off now.
Cars were wedged three deep across the road and right up onto lawns, blocking any possible avenue of escape. There were a few battered, mutilated bodies lying on the pavement before them.
And Ben was thinking: Yes, exactly! They’ve marked the perimeters of their territory and everything within is their domain. And the bodies? Sacrifices, blood offerings to whatever it is they think rules the night. A primitive version of breaking a bottle of champagne against a ship. Because it wasn’t always champagne, not in the dire, forbidding days before history. Good luck, good hunting, fertility…
Maybe he was overwrought (he was) and maybe he was giving them too much goddamn credit, but he didn’t think so. This was not as simple as he’d originally thought. This was not just a bunch of crazies acting impulsively, satisfying their basal desires. Oh no, not at all. The blockade proved that; this was organized. Maybe at some aboriginal, tribal level, but organized it was.
Joe clicked on his hi-beams.
“Look,” he said, “by God, look—”
And they were all looking and all seeing, knowing there was no need for explanation here. At the back of the blockade, at the rear row of vehicles, bodies had been lashed to tree limbs and posts jammed into the ground, set afire. They were blackened and smoldering now, curled and withered by flame. The fires had gone out, but the thick nauseating stench of cremated flesh hung in the air like a poisonous envelope.