The Hours

by Robert Barnard

  Nolan relaxed onto the floor, shifted to the side of the support beam opposite of Fuller. The air stunk of loose change.

  Even after all of the excitement, Nolan couldn’t keep his eyes open, either. The adrenaline wore off, and what small amount of Fuller’s toxin he’d ingested took hold. He shut his eyes and drifted somewhere very far away.

  It was the sound of something rustling above him that woke Nolan.

  His eyes opened wide. The soft light that filtered through the slim windows at the base of the house had dimmed considerably. The basement was darker, now. How long had Chloe and him knocked out for? Six hours? Eight?

  Nolan groaned and stood up slowly. Again, there was a sound in the house above him. A light knocking, followed by a cupboard door opening and slamming shut.

  “Chloe,” Nolan whispered, sharply. “Chloe, you have to wake up.”

  Chloe tossed on the basement sofa, replied quietly: “I heard it, too.”

  “You have to uncuff me,” Nolan said. “Fuller had a key to unlock you earlier. It must be somewhere on him.”

  Chloe rose to her feet, shambled awkwardly across the basement.

  Fuller was sprawled across the floor on his back. His complexion had turned white, the pool of blood beneath him had started to dry.

  Chloe fell to her knees and gagged. She patted each of his cargo pants, felt nothing.

  “It’s gotta be in there somewhere,” Nolan said.

  “Obviously,” Chloe answered.

  She dug her hand into a pocket on Fuller’s left leg and felt a jingle.

  A key ring.

  She plucked the set of keys from Fuller’s pocket and held them in the air, victoriously. She shuffled through them, found the handcuff key, and freed Nolan from the support beam he’d been locked to.

  Nolan rubbed his wrist. “Does he have a wife? A friend he lives with?”

  Chloe shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  Above them, there was a loud bang.

  “Then who the hell is that?” Nolan said, and pointed at the ceiling.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Chloe said.

  Nolan scanned the basement. There was hardly anything that could be used as a weapon. That was the whole point of it, right? They’d been left in a prison. There wasn’t to be anything within arm’s reach that could hurt their captor.

  “I think I saw my uniform and my gun belt,” Chloe said, “when he took me upstairs to the bathroom. On his kitchen table.”

  Nolan shook his head. “Whatever is up there, it sounds like it’s in the kitchen. There’s pots and pans being rustled. There’s cabinet doors opening and slamming shut.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “Is there a key on there for his Explorer?”

  Chloe checked the key ring. There was.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Chloe nodded. “Still a little woozy.”

  “Do you think we can run upstairs, make a break for the Explorer?”

  Chloe laughed. “We don’t even have shoes. What if what’s up there is human? What if they’re armed?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Nolan said. He reeled back his leg, kicked Fuller’s lifeless body in the ribs.

  Chloe put her hands on her hips, glanced around the room. She walked towards the small kitchenette and grabbed the four or five jars of cinnamon, chili powders, and herbs from the spice rack, set them down on the counter. When the spice rack was clear, she pulled on it, yanked it right off of the wall.

  She held the metal rack in her hands and said, “Now what about you?”

  Nolan looked at the microwave, clicked it open, and pulled out the glass carousel plate from inside. “This, I guess?”

  Nolan held the carousel plate unsurely, Chloe gripped the spice rack with white knuckles.

  “This is ridiculous,” Chloe said, and she started to cry.

  “Whatever happens now,” Nolan said, “I am so incredibly lucky for every second I’ve had with you.”

  “Me too, Nolan,” Chloe said, her words shaking.

  Nolan nodded. “I’ll go upstairs first.”

  Chloe wrapped her arms around Nolan’s neck, then kissed him hard. “Let’s get the fuck out of this house.”

  The two tiptoed toward the spiral staircase. Nolan led the way. They ascended the metal stairs slowly and carefully.

  There were more bangs and crashes in the kitchen above them.

  When he reached the top of the staircase, Nolan planted a firm palm on the doorknob ahead of him, then spun it. The door groaned open slowly, and the clattering in the kitchen ceased.

  Nolan inched out into the first floor hallway, then turned to the right. Standing in the kitchen, staring at him, was his neighbor, Mrs. Collins. He tried to consider how she’d made it all the way from town to Fuller’s house, but he was too distracted by her heaving chest, her glowing yellow eyes, her mouth that snapped rapidly open and shut despite the rest of her body remaining eerily still.

  “Well?” Chloe whispered.

  “Mrs. Collins,” Nolan said. “She has EV1.” Nolan quickly looked to his left. The front door of the house was wide open. “I think it’s just her, but there might be more.”

  Chloe stepped out onto the first floor landing behind Nolan. Mrs. Collins cocked her head. A thin stream of drool frothed around the corner of her lip, then tapered off and hit the linoleum in front of her with a splat.

  Nolan said, “What do we do?”

  Chloe shook her head. On the kitchen table at the end of the hall was a pile of her and Nolan’s belongings. Their clothes, their shoes, and most importantly, Chloe’s gun and ammunition clips.

  Nolan took a deep breath, focused on the woman down the hall from him. He reeled back his arm, held the carousel plate like a discus. Then, with all his might, he hurled it forward.

  The carousel plate missed Mrs. Collin’s head by nearly three feet, hit the kitchen cabinet behind her, and shattered into one million pieces.

  “Shit!” Nolan said.

  “What were you trying to do?” Chloe asked.

  “I don’t know!” Nolan replied.

  Mrs. Collins shambled down the first floor hallway, her arms stretched out in front of her.

  “What do we do?” Nolan said.

  Chloe wound the spice rack behind her head, prepared to bash Mrs. Collin’s right across the head with it, when suddenly—

  Mrs. Collins stopped her approach. She set her arms down to her side and stared at Chloe and Nolan with confused, terrified eyes.

  “Chloe?” Mrs. Collins said.

  Chloe gulped. “Yes. Mrs. Collins. How are you?”

  Nolan slipped past Mrs. Collins and into the kitchen. Not once did the woman take her eyes off of Chloe.

  “Where am I?” Mrs. Collin’s asked.

  Chloe lowered her hand. She’d been holding the spice rack like a baseball bat.

  “You’re in Sergeant Andrew Fuller’s house,” Chloe said, meekly. “Did—did you know him?”

  “Sergeant who?” Mrs. Collins said. Her skin was thin and papery. Patches of her hair were missing, and her left eye wondered aimlessly, independent of her right. “I don’t know an Andrew Fuller.”

  “Mrs. Collins,” Chloe said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I don’t know!” Mrs. Collins answered. “Take me home, Chloe, won’t you? Won’t you take me home?”

  Chloe swallowed. “I would love to,” Chloe said. “But I think that you’ve been hurt—you’ve been terribly hurt.”

  “I don’t feel well,” Mrs. Collins said.

  Chloe watched Nolan shuffle quietly into the kitchen. He scooped up their piles of clothes and Chloe’s patrol belt, then snuck back into the hallway where Mrs. Collins and her stood.

  “Here,” Nolan whispered, and he handed Chloe her gun.

  “Nolan?” Mrs. Collins said. “What are you going to do with that gun, Nolan? You have to be careful with something like that.”

  Chloe took her pistol from
Nolan, then held it nervously in her hand.

  “I baked you and your father a tray of Christmas cookies last year, do you remember, Chloe?”

  Chloe choked: “I remember, Mrs. Collins.”

  “Why is this happening?” Nolan whispered.

  Chloe shook her head, mumbled: “I have no fucking idea, Nole.”

  “Why are you two being so serious right now?” Mrs. Collins asked. “Just—just take me home. We can stop for a treat along the way. Maybe get something to eat. Too cold out for a milkshake—”

  Mrs. Collins jittered. She looked slowly to Chloe, then to Nolan, then turned to her right and slammed her head into the wall as hard as she could.

  “What the fuck,” Nolan gasped.

  Mrs. Collins turned back toward Chloe and Nolan. Her forehead bled; she’d left a crater in the drywall on the wall.

  “I’m going to kill you both,” Mrs. Collins said, plainly. “I’m going to crack your heads open like eggs and eat the still-warm insides. Do you understand? Still warm, like freshly baked Christmas cookies.”

  “I don’t doubt that you’d try to, Mrs. Collins,” Chloe said. “And I am terribly sorry about all of this.”

  Mrs. Collins hissed, then lunged forward at Chloe.

  Chloe raised her 9mm, aimed it carefully at Mrs. Collin’s temple, and squeezed the trigger.

  Mrs. Collin’s stopped mid-lunge, plummeted onto the baseboards.

  Chloe shivered. “She was talking to us, Nolan, she was fucking talking to us like we were still neighbors.”

  “I know, I know,” Nolan said. “I don’t understand it, either.”

  “It was one thing when they…when they just tried to attack you, when there wasn’t anything still there, you know? When their lights were off. They didn’t talk! What the hell was that? What the hell was that?”

  Nolan wrapped his arm around Chloe. She trembled.

  “Is that what—is that what my dad was like when you found him?”

  Nolan nodded. “A lot like that. He was present—mentally—and then, just like that, he wasn’t.”

  Chloe clutched her stomach. She felt like she might be ill. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the key fob that she plucked from Fuller’s corpse just a few moments earlier, then handed it to Nolan.

  “Get us the hell out of here, Nolan,” Chloe said, and she turned toward the front door. A chilly breeze flapped it open and shut. “Get us home.”

  TWENTY

  Nolan held the passenger door of Fuller’s explorer open for Chloe, helped her inside. She climbed into the massive vehicle and buckled her seatbelt. Nolan walked around the front of the truck and hopped into the driver’s seat, then started the car.

  “There’s one small miracle,” Nolan said, and he looked down at the dashboard.

  “What’s that?” Chloe asked.

  “Fuller must have filled it yesterday. It’s nearly on full.”

  “That is a miracle,” Chloe said. “The closest gas station to town is a crater in the earth now.”

  The two sat for a moment, faced toward the home in front of them. A blanket of snow clung to the gardens on either side of the house. The sun’s setting rays glinted off of them, turned them gold. The sky behind the home was white and rose colored; little blusters of snow blew back and forth.

  It’s almost pretty, Chloe thought.

  “When we pulled into here last night, I thought it was the last place we’d ever see,” Nolan said.

  “For a second, so did I,” Chloe said.

  “You were sure we’d make it out?”

  Chloe smiled. “We were together. I was sure we’d figure out something.”

  Nolan nodded. “I’m glad you have so much faith in us.”

  “Always.”

  Nolan shifted the Explorer into reverse and backed out onto Crane Hill Road. Chloe took one last look at Fuller’s home, that awful little clapboard house atop the hill, then curled up in her seat and focused on the road ahead.

  The Explorer rumbled down Crane Hill Road and toward the town of Cherry Valley below. When Nolan passed a clearing of trees, he braked, veered the Explorer off of the road and parked.

  “What are you doing?” Chloe asked.

  “Look at that,” Nolan said, and he pointed out over the side of the hill. “Look at all that.”

  Chloe followed Nolan’s finger. Far on the horizon was the faintest outline of the Denver skyline. Several plumes of smoke rose high into the air. Republic Plaza was missing entirely. The massive skyscraper must have collapsed.

  The sky was quiet. Empty. No helicopters, no fighter jets. There was an unsettling stillness to it all.

  “It’s just…gone,” Chloe said.

  Nolan nodded. “This is bad, Chloe.”

  “This is really bad.”

  “How long did the military quarantine take it New York? Less than a day?”

  “Not long at all,” Chloe said.

  Nolan said, “Then where is everyone?”

  Chloe turned on the Explorer’s FM radio. “I wonder what’s happening everywhere else?” For the first time since the night before, she thought of Dana. “I wonder how Dana is. I wonder if it’s as bad in Wyoming. It can’t be, right? There’s less people there?”

  “I don’t know,” Nolan said. His eyes were tired and worried.

  Chloe thumbed at the scan button on the radio, but it refused to pick up a signal. All of the radio stations she’d regularly listen to were silent. She clicked on the rock channel, and a loud, piercing squelch blared from the Explorer’s speakers.

  “—Residents are urged to remain indoors and to ration food and water accordingly. Non-perishables should be budgeted to last for a month. Adults should account for one gallon of clean drinking water per day—”

  “It’s an automated message,” Nolan said. “Listen.”

  The radio continued, “Denver County Residents are urged to remain indoors and to ration food and water accordingly.”

  “No one’s there,” Chloe said.

  “Maybe they are,” Nolan said. “But it sounds like they left the message on a loop then jumped ship.”

  Chloe sighed. “What do we do? Where do we go? We’re not prepared for this. I wasn’t thinking—we should have rummaged through Fuller’s house before we left, took what we needed. Fucking Mrs. Collin’s threw me off.”

  “We don’t need his supplies,” Nolan said. “Dumbass thought he was going to ride this out on cups of ramen and instant coffee.”

  “Then what’s next?”

  Nolan drew a heavy breath. “There’s something back at home. Your dad promised that I’d give it to you if something like this ever happened again.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Nolan said. “It was a small envelope. He made me promise not to open it or talk about it unless there was an emergency.”

  “Then let’s start there,” Chloe said.

  Nolan turned the Explorer back onto Crane Hill Road. The truck accelerated down the empty two lane road, and Chloe gasped.

  “What’s wrong?” Nolan asked.

  “In the madness of it all, I almost forgot.”

  “Forgot what?”

  “We need to stop by Hannah’s house. She lives near Rose Park.”

  Nolan shook his head. “I know where she lives, but why do we need to stop there? Hannah’s…gone.”

  “I know she’s gone, Nolan, that’s why we have to stop. I promised to check on her mother and her son. We have to go.” Chloe itched at her thumb. It’d been two days since she smoked. She wondered why she ever picked up the awful habit to begin with.

  “Her mother must be looking after her kid,” Nolan said.

  Chloe said, “We don’t know that for sure. We have to check in on them. Make sure they’re safe. Make sure they have supplies.”

  “No, Chloe, we’re not safe, we don’t have supplies. I’m sorry, but, we need to get home. That’s the only thing we have to do. We were chained to a sociopath’s basement floor
thirty minutes ago. We are as fucked as everyone else, and we need to look out for ourselves.”

  “I held her hand as she died, Nolan. You don’t understand. She made me promise her that I’d look after her son.”

  Nolan sighed. “And your father made me promise him that I’d take care of you. I’ve already failed that promise, miserably, once this week. I’m not going to let it happen again. Who knows what town will look like? And we’re driving a police cruiser. We’re going to draw a lot of attention—from both the living and the dead.”

  “We have to do it, Nolan. We just have to. Her son, Max, he’s three and a half. We need to at least stop in and offer some support, even if we have little support to offer.” Chloe looked at the duffel bag of guns and ammunition that Fuller kept wedged in the front seat of the SUV. “We can leave Hannah’s mom a gun and some rounds. It’s better than nothing.”

  “They probably got out of town when it all started to go down—”

  “I doubt that,” Chloe interrupted. “Her daughter was at work. With me. She had a kid who was a cop, she probably felt safer than most others.”

  Nolan shook his head. He didn’t realize it, but he was tapping the accelerator harder in his frustration.

  “I’m begging you, Nole,” Chloe said. “Imagine if that little boy was you. Wouldn’t you want someone to do the same?”

  The Explorer slowed to a stop at the intersection of Crane Hill Road and Mitford. A left onto Mitford would guide them back towards home. A right onto Mitford would steer them towards Rose Park and the subdivision where Hannah Yates once lived.

  Nolan paused to study Chloe’s worried face. Her forehead had been scraped, her eyes were tired and worn. He took a deep breath, thought of what the right thing to do would be. When that didn’t help, he took another breath and thought of what Jim would do.

  Though there wasn’t another car for miles, Nolan still clicked on his turn signal. The passenger side indicators blinked, and he turned the car right onto Mitford.

  Cherry Valley was a mess. The small town in the suburbs of Denver had been swallowed by violence and chaos. For Chloe and Nolan, it painted a picture eerily similar to East Violet, a town they had once survived and escaped after an outbreak of EV1. There was a gruesome poetry to it, almost. Some kind of sinister symmetry.