by Bryn Roar
Rusty interrupted his father’s morose train of thought. “Dad, you want me to go over to the museum and tell them we’ve got to get going?”
Ham nodded. “Jump on your bike and pedal like the wind. Tell ‘em we’ve got to cast off in one hour, tops. Your mother and I will meet you down at the Betty Anne in twenty minutes. Now, don’t make me come looking for you, boy! I got enough to worry about.”
“I’ll be there, Dad. Where’s Mom?”
“She’s out in her garden, taking in what she can and covering up the rest. I tried to tell her it was a waste of time, but you know how she loves that little patch of earth.”
They shared a quick uneasy laugh, and then Rusty was off. He walked his ten-speed down the front porch steps and used the middle riser to hop onto the seat. As long as there were some steps handy, it wasn’t so hard getting on. Getting off the damn thing was the tricky part. Half the time he just kind of fell off the adult 10 speed. The way Rusty looked at it that indignity didn’t compare to riding around town on a children’s Schwinn.
His feet barely able to reach the pedals, Rusty rode the bike through the open picket gate and made a wobbly left on Huggins Way. He turned around briefly to wave at his mother, on her hands and knees just then in the garden. She was too focused on her work to notice her son.
*******
Josie wiped her brow with the hem of her polo shirt and stretched her aching back. The last of the sandbags now in place, she and Bud took a breather. As everyone had predicted, Bill Brown had decided to stick it out inside his museum. He was now dragging his most beloved gadgets and tools up from the cellar and into the lobby in case the basement flooded. Josie and Bud had certainly done their part to keep that from happening.
Sandbags now covered both the front and rear entrances. All the way up to the handles on the doors.
“Thanks for the help, Red,” Bud said, handing her a cold Fresca. She popped the top and chug-a-lugged it. A most un-lady-like belch was the carbonated result.
Josie pointed up the street, where Rusty was battling the wind to try and stay upright. “Here comes Gnat on that overgrown bike of his. Och! He looks ridiculous on that feckin’ thing!”
“Ham’s probably ready to boogie,” Bud said. He took a seat on the curb. The rain had been intermittent all day. At the present, a fine mist was blowing straight in from the south, cooling his flushed face.
“I’ll be right back,” Josie said, standing up.
“Gonna try and call Joel again?”
“Yeppers. Maybe the lines are back up.”
By the time Josie remembered to call her Aunt Sissy’s it had been too late. The phones were dead. No dial tone at all. Bill’s cell phone had been no better—what with the lousy weather. Much as Josie hated to admit it, Joel would have to tough it out with Shayna. Even so, Josie kept at it all day. Picking up the phone every half-hour or so. Praying she’d hear a dial tone. Praying she’d hear her brother’s voice on the other end.
Bill Brown was putting up the last plywood board inside the box office when Josie walked in.
“Hey, Bilbo. Don’t you think those steel shutters on the outside are protection enough?”
“You can never have enough protection, Joey.”
Josie blushed; she hadn’t missed the real meaning in Bill’s icy blue stare. The same intense eyes as his son’s.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” she said, refusing to look away. She was reaching for the phone when she remembered the roll of film in her pocket. “Och, I almost forgot! If you’re gonna be sticking around anyway, do you think you could develop this film for me?”
Bill took the roll of film and placed it in his shirt pocket. “I’ll take it right down to my darkroom. What’re they of, Ralph’s little shindig last night?”
“No, sir. They’re pictures of Bidwell’s personal files. Linking him directly to The Research Center. I think you’ll find them most interesting.”
Stunned, Bill dropped his hammer. “Josie! What the hell were you thinking?!”
“What’s done is done. Just don’t tell Bud, okay?”
Bill paused long and hard, thinking it over; his eyes appraised her, cold and furious. Finally, he agreed, baring his canines. “All right…I won’t tell Bud. As long as you promise me you won’t get further involved.”
Josie smiled and nodded her head. Thinking that was the end of it, she picked up the phone.
Bill took it from her and dropped it back into its cradle. “No, ma’am. Not good enough. Not nearly good enough! I need to hear you promise me out loud, Josie O’Hara. Promise me you won’t take any more foolish chances like that again!”
Josie trembled before the fierce look on Bill Brown’s face. She had never seen him so angry before. Now she knew where Bud got his god-awful temper. “Yes, sir. I swear to you, this is the end of it. No more foolish chances. Honest Injun!”
Bill smiled again. It was astonishing how quickly the Browns’ could switch gears. Like a grizzly bear. Funny one second, ferocious the next. “Good to hear. Just remember, Joey…Bud’s lost a lot in his short life already. I don’t think he could bear to lose you, too.”
He left Josie to think that one over. She picked up the phone and listened to the dead air talk to her.
*******
Tubby and his dad waited outside on the front porch for Emma to come out. It was time to go. They had done as much as they could. Everything they owned of sentimental importance was in the hold of the Betty Anne. Everything they’d left behind: furniture, groceries, anything not nailed down, ended upstairs on the second floor. In case the storm surge rose above their porch, which, according to Ham, was looking more and more likely. Emma was dragging her feet, though. Not at all eager to leave. This was her first real home as Mrs. Emma Tolson, and a bad feeling had stolen over her that she was never going to set foot in it again. She took one last look around and put her hand over her mouth. “Goodbye my little yellow house.”
Frank took her by the elbow and led her out the front door. “You’re saying goodbye to the house? Come on, dear. Don’t be so silly. We’ll be back soon enough.”
Emma nodded and smiled, as though she really believed that. In her heart, though, she knew it wasn’t true.
*******
Betty Anne Huggins was pulling the last of the tomatoes off the vines when the rabid raccoon lunged out at her from underneath the crawlspace. She jumped back, receiving the tiniest of nips on her wrist, barely even drawing blood.
Betty Anne threw the tomato she’d had in her hand at the scruffy little animal, barely bigger than a squirrel, sending it scurrying underneath the cabin, where it chattered away spastically. They’d had problems with the pesky critters before, making their homes in the crawlspace, but this was the first time one had ever attacked her. Well, maybe attack was too strong a word.
The storm’s got it all riled up, she reasoned to herself. She took her baskets into the kitchen and set them down on the counter. When they got back, she would can what vegetables she could. Give away the rest. It wasn’t in her to let them go to waste in the wind and rain. Like so many before her, it never occurred to Betty Anne that the animal might have had rabies. She washed the small scratch in the kitchen sink but didn’t even bother with a Band-Aid.
She was right, of course.
A Band-Aid was of no use whatsoever.
Second Interlude:
5:53 p.m. Monday:
The thing that had once been Lester Noonan watched its prey jog on the far side of the dirt road, across from the Pines, where he lie hiding in wait. Too far out into the caustic sunlight to make a grab for her. Lester, now more than fifty hours into his incubation, no longer recognized people and places he’d known before. The swelling in his brain had taken care of all that, erasing whole sections of his gray matter in a matter of hours.
Josie O’Hara ran right past him without a glimmer of recognition on his part.
After killing his father and rutting with Shayna O’Hara on the f
loor of the trailer, Lester had taken sanctuary inside the Pines. The dark woods had become his home and there weren’t much of them he didn’t know by now. There were sinkholes to shelter in, and enough natural prey within to satiate his unnatural thirst—though, as the days went by, this was becoming less and less the case. As the virus continued its downward spiral, healthy animals began to take to the sea. Frantic to escape this pitiless peril in their midst.
Along with the strange thirst was the unconscious need to pass on the virus. It compelled the carriers to bite and scratch; to partake of their preys’ lifeblood, which was the only way they could sustain their thirst, while at the same time leaving their victims intact enough to survive the onslaught. This included the animals, some of which were killed for nourishment, while most were just bitten and left to survive, to further the spread of the virus. It must be noted that some carriers felt no such compunction as to their victims’ survival. Their rage knew no bounds. These were the exception to the rule, however. Greater even than its lust for violence was the carriers’ need to fornicate, to pass on the corrupted seed to healthy cells. Only then could the host truly rest for a time.
Lester’s desires had eventually driven him to seek out the uninfected humans living on the periphery of the piney woods; striking out at the unfortunate few who lingered too close to the edge of the forest. The same dark forest he now shared with others like himself.
Tansy Wilky, of course. She had been especially productive, spreading it in turn to Tad Swartzman, Hank Norby, and Ronny Broome, in one 24-hour span. Not to mention her own stepfather. A record by even Tansy’s slutty standards.
Hank and Tad, both sophomores at the Academy, had joined Tansy and Lester in the Pines, spreading the virus outward. Like ripples in a stagnant pond. Infecting members of their own families before escaping into the woods, where the remaining wildlife, sparse now though it may be, was soon rife with the disease.
Oddly enough, these first human vectors of the virus barely took notice of one another. The desires that drove them to bite, maim, and rut didn’t compel them to seek out the already infected. It was as if the virus had a mind and will of its own, knowing that to attack other infected cells would be counterproductive to its cruel cause.
Or maybe something else was at work here...
Lester sniffed the air hungrily. Someone had recently passed this way!Someone uninfected! It was a scent trail he’d picked up before, but had been unable to track down. The untainted blood caused him to salivate even more. The scent seemed to lead back to the lake. The lake and swamp he’d thus far taken great pains to avoid.
This time it won’t get away…
*******
Albert Feeny was a ghost. And the Pines was a fine place for ghosts. He thought it odd that Way Out Here, amongst the soaring trees and silent trails, he should feel less lonely than in any other place on Moon. And yet at school, surrounded by other kids and teachers, he was the loneliest boy on earth. A ghost, really. That’s how he thought of himself. Lonely boys at least amounted to something real. As in: Look at that lonely boy over there, sitting all by himself. I feel sorry for him!
Ghosts were next to nothing, though. A cipher, a zero, a nonentity. You don’t feel sorry for a ghost.
Nondescript Albert Feeny walked the halls of the Moon River Academy unnoticed by all. Lester and his merry band of thugs seemed to look right through him, never once beating him up, or even taking his lunch money. Even his teachers frowned in consternation whenever he approached them. He could see them searching through the student files in their minds, wondering: ‘Who in the heck is this pale looking mutt?’
It wasn’t much better at home. He recalled the day when he first realized his existence in this world didn’t matter one little bit. That if he fell off the face of the planet, no one would take notice or care. No tears would fall with him. He might just as well have never been born.
That was the day Albert Feeny knew he was little more than a lonely ghost. Simply passing time on this plane until someone cared enough to make him real.
He’d gone exploring in the Pines that day and gotten lost. Wandering around in circles for hours, crying and calling out for help. When seemingly out of nowhere, Bud Brown appeared in front of him! Stoic and still, Bud stood there, like some All Powerful Genie called forth from the Lamp. Immediately, Albert stopped his weeping, knowing he was safe now. Bud was just one year his senior, and yet to Albert it felt like a hundred years separated them! Bud Brown was kind to Albert that day. Gentle. Not at all the psycho head-case everyone was making him out to be. Quiet, sure. Bud barely said a dozen words to him on their way back to the Old Oyster Trail. And from there Albert had run all the way home, certain his parents were worried sick by now! Darkness had long since fallen and he was three hours past his curfew. By now, his folks had probably called the cops!
As it turned out, that was hardly the case.
When Albert entered the living room, where his mother and father were watching Alex Trebeck remind a hapless contestant to frame her answer in the form of a question, they barely looked up from the boob tube. His mother told him his dinner was in the oven, while his father flipped disinterestedly through the TV Guide. Instead of feeling relieved, Albert felt abandoned and adrift. For the first time in his life he saw in their eyes the indifference in which they held him. Nothing more than an obligation to feed and clothe. He couldn’t help but wonder if like the parents of Hansel and Gretel, maybe his folks weren’t disappointed he’d found his way out of the woods…
And with that gesture of apathy, a part of Albert died that day. A part of his childhood that could never be reclaimed. The Magic that was once his imagination and only friend, gone in a twinkling.
After all, what does a ghost need with Magic?
Since that day in the Pines, Albert began shadowing Bud Brown and his morbid-minded friends. It was easy for a ghost to stay undetected, to spy unnoticed. They never knew he was there, peeking from behind a locker, sitting at the same cafeteria table, trailing them in the woods. He knew everything about them and dreamed of someday joining their club.The Creeps!
With their green army coats, the frayed collars turned up coolly against the slings and arrows of their callow peers,the Creeps epitomized everything Albert wanted to be a part of: A group of like-minded individuals, apart from the everyday herd, yet conforming to each others finest ideals. Friends who all had something ardent in common: A mutual love of All Things Horror. Whether it be fiction, film, or fact. Being a fan of that genre himself, it was a love affair Albert could get behind. It was a lot more than that, though, and Albert knew it. Shoot, Lester Noonan liked horror movies—that didn’t mean Albert wanted to hang out with him! Albert could see the affectionThe Creeps truly felt for one another. Even their newest member, Tubby Tolson (and did that sting? Lord, yes).
Even more than his desire to possess one of those tough green coats, he wanted to be one of them. To feel their love. To have someone like Josie O’Hara smile at him, as he came down into that way cool clubhouse out by the lake. “It’s Albert!” she’d sing out, in that lilting Irish brogue. Heck, it would be like when Norm walked down into Cheers! Hailed by all his friends at the bar!
Truth be known, like everyone else, theCreeps barely knew Albert Feeny existed. To them, he was just that ghostly looking kid who always seemed to be on the periphery of things. Blending into the walls wherever he went. To fill in all the lonely hours, Albert had taken an avid interest in the local flora and fauna. Cataloging and checking off the different species in his well-thumbed pocket addition of The Naturalist Guide to the Lowcountry, which he kept around his neck on a chain—in the same way a G.I. wears dog tags to identify them.