by Brian Keene
“It’s going to be okay,” he calls. “We’ll catch him.”
Terri nods. “I trust you, Sam. I trust you both. I’m trusting you with my little boy. Do you understand?”
“I do,” he says solemnly.
Terri lifts Caleb to the window. He clings to her, crying, but then his eyes go wide as he sees something past her shoulder. He tries to scramble away from his mother, and nearly falls out the window. Terri struggles with him, and then dangles him over the sill, gripping the boy’s wrists. Caleb kicks and wriggles.
“Hurry, Mommy! They’re coming through the hole.”
“Sam? Stephanie?” Terri sounds close to tears.
“We’ve got him,” Sam shouts. “Let go!”
Terri does, and Caleb shrieks for her as he falls. Then, Sam catches him. The boy seems shocked. Sam is, too.
“I’ve got you,” he says. “You’re okay, Caleb. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“My Mom is still up—”
Terri lands on the bush, and tumbles over, sprawling into the mulch. Stephanie rushes over to her and takes her hand.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Terri gasps, her expression clouded with pain. “Nothing broken.”
Sam puts Caleb down and the boy rushes to his mother, hugging her tightly. Then, while Stephanie helps Terri to her feet, Sam glances around, surveying the yard. He sees naked figures looming beyond the smoke, but the fires seem to be holding them at bay.
“Any sign of Shaggy?” Stephanie asks.
Sam shakes his head. “Maybe they got him. Or maybe he got away. Let’s do the same.”
He leads them forward, sticking to the sidewalk. Terri and Caleb follow, hand in hand. Stephanie brings up their rear. All four are clustered together.
“Shit,” she exclaims.
Sam pauses. “What’s wrong?”
“I left the knife up there. And the hammer.”
“It’s okay. I’ve still got the gun.”
He reaches into his pocket, intent on reloading, but his breath catches in his throat when he only feels four bullets. Rather than telling the others, he quietly reloads, and then snaps the cylinder shut again.
One for each of us, he thinks. But it’s not going to come to that. Not now. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to live. I’m going to live.
They start forward again, approaching the abandoned car in front of Mr. Hicks’s front door. Sam glances up and sees that his apartment is also ablaze. He thinks about his belongings, all the stuff he didn’t want, all the things that didn’t matter—the books he’d written, and the awards, and all the other crap, and he feels a strange sense of relief.
“You’re smiling,” Terri says. “What are you thinking about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. Freedom, I guess. I feel free.”
“We’re not free yet,” Stephanie warns.
“No,” Sam agrees. “Not yet. But we’re getting there.”
Suddenly, the door to Mr. Hicks’s apartment is flung open. Sam stumbles, surprised. He raises the pistol, but Mr. Hicks emerges, waving his own gun.
“Don’t shoot,” Sam yells. “It’s us!”
Mr. Hicks squints at them. “Who’s us?”
“It’s Sam Miller, Mr. Hicks. I’m here with our neighbors.”
“Miller?” Mr. Hicks’s expression registers surprise. “You folks are still alive? I thought for sure you’d be—”
“Get the fuck out of the way, old man! The fucking apartment is on fire.”
Sam recognizes the voice at once. Mr. Hicks moves aside and Shaggy bursts from the doorway, scrambling up over the roof of the car. He stares at them in surprise.
“I thought y’all motherfuckers would be burned up by now.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Stephanie says.
Another figure emerges from the apartment. Smoke seems to billow around him. As it clears, Sam recognizes the third person as one of the neighbors. He can’t remember the man’s name.
“You okay, Mendez?” Mr. Hicks asks.
The neighbor, Mendez, nods, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “I am now. Need air.”
The three climb over the car and down into the yard as more smoke pours from the apartment. Their clothes smell like smoke. Then Sam realizes that his do, as well.
“You folks armed?” Mr. Hicks asks.
“Just me, Mr. Hicks. We had to leave in a hurry.”
“Call me Grady. And yeah, we left in a hurry, too. Messed up Mendez’s plan for going out the front window.”
“Into the parking lot?” Sam asks.
Mendez nods.
“Be glad you didn’t,” Sam tells them. “You would have never made it.”
“I think we could have,” Mendez replies, “but I guess we’ll never know now. It became a moot point when they set the building on fire.”
“Actually, that was Mrs. Carlucci,” Sam explains.
Grady’s eyes widen when he hears her name. “Edna? Where is she?”
Sam shakes his head, and glances at the sidewalk.
“Son of a bitch…” Grady spits on the pavement. “These goddamned sons of bitches.”
“Why aren’t they attacking us?” Mendez stares out across the burning yard. “There are less of them now, but even so, they still outnumber us. Why aren’t they rushing in?”
“Sam thinks they’re afraid of the fire,” Stephanie says.
“That’s right,” Sam confirms. “I think it might be some sort of primal thing. Earlier, I noticed that—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Terri says, “but maybe we should get moving? The smoke’s getting worse.”
“I’m with you, young lady,” Grady says.
“Terri,” she replies. “And that’s my son, Caleb.”
A round of quick introductions are made amongst them.
“Okay.” Sam points to the side of the building. “I vote we go that way. Stick as close to the building as we can. The proximity to the fire should make them keep their distance. When we get to the parking lot, we’ll make a break for the alley or the woods, depending on which path is clearer. Shaggy, Grady—you both have guns. I’m down to four bullets. Can you lay down some cover fire when we get on the other side?”
Both men nod.
“I hope fat boy is up there,” Shaggy says.
“I don’t,” Sam replies. “For all of our sakes.”
Shaggy puffs out his chest. “If he is, you just leave that fucker to me.”
Sam begins guiding them forward again, creeping toward the corner of the complex. The smoke isn’t as bad here, but the heat radiating off the walls is definitely noticeable. Shaggy follows close behind, with Mendez, Terri, Caleb, and Stephanie clustered in between. Grady brings up the rear, his pistol at the ready.
As they reach the corner of the building, Sam holds up one finger, indicating silence. He glances back to make sure they all understand. Each of them meet his gaze, and at that moment, Sam feels prouder than he’s ever been about anything in life. The look they give him is trusting, and the emotions it stirs up inside him are better than any amount of awards or good reviews. Smiling, he wipes his sweaty palms on his pants and readjusts his grip on the Taurus. Then he slinks around the corner.
Something punches him in the chest.
Stunned, Sam looks down and sees a length of rebar sticking out of him. The other end is in the hands of a naked man. Judging by the attacker’s physique, he was a bodybuilder before he became a raving maniac. The weightlifter grins, and shoves the rebar deeper into Sam. Sam tries to speak, tries to warn the others, but his throat seems full of something. He raises his head, and sees two dozen more crazies creeping along the side of the building. Behind them, smiling broadly, is Tick Tock. The giant spreads his arms as if to say, ‘What took you so long?’
“Hey, fat boy!”
Suddenly, Shaggy is standing beside Sam, firing his Kimber. The first bullet hits a woman in the neck. She staggers, takes a few steps forward, and t
hen slumps against the wall, spraying it with blood. The second round strikes Tick Tock in the stomach. The big man grunts, pauses, and then continues plodding toward them. Shaggy pulls the trigger again and again, but he doesn’t seem to realize the gun is empty. Sam tries to explain this to him, but when he opens his mouth, he vomits blood.
“Motherfucker!” Shaggy stares at the weapon in disbelief.
Sam is aware of Terri and Stephanie screaming his name, but he can’t turn his head to see them. He raises the pistol slowly, hand trembling, and shoots his opponent in the face, pulverizing much of the man’s lower jaw. The bodybuilder doesn’t seem to realize he is shot, at first. His tongue lolls out of his mouth, dangling into the gore where his chin and teeth used to be. Sam drops the pistol, grabs the rebar, and shoves forward, knocking the man over.
“Come on,” Mendez yells. “Shaggy, there’s too many! You’ll get another chance.”
“But Sam,” Terri protests.
“There’s no time! Run!”
Sam tries to raise his arm and wave at them, reassuring them that he’s okay, but his body doesn’t want to cooperate. Despite the heat baking off the burning complex, he suddenly feels very cold.
The rest of the mob race past him in pursuit of the others. Sam wishes he could stick out his leg and trip them. He wonders where his pistol has gone. Didn’t he just have it a second ago? There should be three bullets left.
Tick Tock strides up to him and grabs the rebar. He grins as Sam’s blood runs down onto his hands.
“You…stink…” Sam spits more blood, hocking a big wad of it on the fat man’s tattoo. Sam watches as it trickles downward. It looks like Hello Kitty is crying blood. Then, he glances back up at his opponent.
Tick Tock’s smile vanishes. His knuckles pop as he grips the rebar tighter. Then, with one savage motion, he yanks it free. Sam topples over onto his side.
He wonders if he left his computer on.
He wonders if he remembered to save the story he was working on. If so, it should be in his Dropbox account when he wakes up again.
He wants to call for Sergio, but he can’t breathe.
Then, a shadow covers him. Sam’s eyes dart upward, and he sees Tick Tock looming over him. The behemoth has the rebar raised over his head like a spear.
Then it comes rushing down toward Sam’s face.
Sam’s last thought before dying is, ‘But I wanted to live…’
Nineteen - Grady, Stephanie, Terri, Caleb, Shaggy, and The Exit: Cranbrook Road
They’ve made it across the yard—dodging the flames and smoke, and staying ahead of their pursuers—and onto Country Club Road when Grady’s chest pains return. The spasms are stronger this time, as if Tick Tock himself has grabbed hold of Grady’s heart in one meaty fist and is squeezing it tight. Since he’s got the only weapon, Grady has been bringing up the rear, picking off the crazies when he gets a shot. Now, he stumbles on his bad ankle, wheezing for breath.
“Dude.” Shaggy falls back, running alongside him. “Give me the gun.”
“Hell no,” Grady pants. “I’m not…giving you…”
“Your face is turning gray and you look like you’re about to keel the fuck over. Give me the fucking gun and let me get them off our ass. I’m out of bullets.”
Grady is in too much pain to argue. He slows down enough to surrender his weapon, and then Shaggy spins around, takes aim, and drops two targets.
“Here,” Grady gasps, reaching in his pocket for more bullets.
Shaggy holds out one hand. Grady nearly drops the ammunition as he places it in the younger man’s palm. Shaggy hurriedly reloads.
“Get going, Mr. Hicks. I got this.”
Nodding, Grady jogs after the others. It is an effort just to keep his legs moving. His feet feel like they’re bags of cement, and his wounded ankle is throbbing again, despite Mendez’s earlier triage. The pain in his chest begins to radiate, spiraling throughout the rest of him.
Mendez is at the front of the procession, leading them up a hill. Grady is surprised to see that he’s carrying the young boy—Caleb—on his shoulders. For a moment, Grady wonders if his odd-duck neighbor is starting to soften. The he realizes Mendez is probably only doing this to either keep the boy quiet or to ensure that he doesn’t slow them down. The boy is hunched over, clinging tight to Mendez’s head. Caleb’s mother is right behind them, along with the pretty girl from upstairs. She introduced herself before, but Grady can’t remember her name. Stephanie, maybe? Yes, he thinks that’s it. Their feet echo on the sidewalk, a counterpoint to the jeers and snarls of the mob chasing after them.
The Pine Village Apartment Complex is on their left as they run up the hill. Grady is stunned to see that their building isn’t the only one on fire. Both the A and C buildings are also engulfed in flames. Despite the pain coursing through him, he feels a sudden emotional loss, as well. He thinks about all the things he can’t replace—photographs from his childhood and the war, and of his daughter growing up. Gone now, and he will never get them back. Grady has renter’s insurance, but some things are irreplaceable.
To their right is a suburban housing development—rows and rows of identical ranch-style homes, right across Cranbrook Road from the Pine Village Apartment Complex, yet financially unreachable. Many times Grady has sat outside his apartment of an evening, smoking a cheap cigar and watching the sun go down and listening to his aluminum lawn chair squeak, and he has stared at those houses. They were always a reminder that, despite his best efforts in life, they were something he would never be able to achieve or obtain. He imagines many of his neighbors felt the same way.
The homes in the development are occupied by white and black families, all upper middle-class, mostly white collar; the majority of them two-parent households with two or three kids and a dog. And despite the fact that their houses are located in Red Lion, none of them live in town. Not really. In the morning, the parents commute off to work—most to either Baltimore, Harrisburg, or Lancaster, a few as far afield as Washington D.C. or Philadelphia—while their children go off to private schools. They are only home at night. Weekends are spent commuting back to those same cities they work in, to shop at an Amish Market or go to a museum or to attend an Orioles game. The only time people like Grady see them is if they’re outside, washing their BMW in the driveway, or once a year when they host a community yard sale, or maybe during the Fourth of July fireworks display over the high school’s football field. They aren’t part of the community. They aren’t neighbors. They’re just drones.
And now, they’re prey. Grady notices that many of the houses have broken windows and battered down doors. A few of them are on fire. There are overturned cars in driveways and on the streets. Blood stains a sidewalk. A pile of still-steaming intestines slowly slops off a curb, dripping down into a sewer grating. He hears screams deeper in the development, down a side road. Then he starts to see the bodies. It’s only two or three at first, lying dead in their yards or driveways, but as they reach the top of the hill and Mendez leads them deeper into the development, the corpses begin to multiply.
Tick Tock and his legions have already been here.
Grady has a sudden, intense vision of naked homicidal maniacs going door to door, shouting Trick or Treat and singing Christmas Carols while they shoot and stab and bludgeon the neighborhood.
Six shots ring out in quick succession behind him. A moment later, Shaggy is trotting beside him, fingers deftly reloading the pistol as they run.
“You gonna be okay?”
Grady nods. His mouth is too dry to speak.
“Don’t be having a fucking heart attack,” Shaggy warns. “I ain’t carrying your ass.”
Grady points behind them, indicating to the younger man that he should watch their backs.
“Don’t sweat it,” Shaggy says. “Ain’t no more of them back there, dude. I guess fat boy couldn’t keep up. He was fucking shot. Maybe that slowed him down. Some of the others split off. And I popped the rest.”
>
Grady risks a glance over his shoulder and is surprised to see that Shaggy is telling the truth. He swoons, and stumbles, and his vision starts to narrow. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Shaggy reaches out and grabs Grady’s arm, supporting him.
“Yo, Mr. Mendez! Wait up. Grady’s hurting.”
Mendez stops, turns around, and puts a finger to his lips, hushing Shaggy. Then, after glancing around to make sure the coast is clear, he hurries back to them. Caleb bounces atop his shoulders. Terri and Stephanie gather round Grady, as well. Grady is crouched over, gripping his knees. He’s worried that if Shaggy lets go of him, he might fall over, but he doesn’t want the others to worry.
“I’m…okay,” he insists. “Just…out…of breath.”
“There’s a swimming pool over there.” Mendez points. “We can hide in it for a bit. Let’s hurry, though. The power’s out and the streetlights are dark. I don’t see any of them around, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there, hiding in the shadows. I find it hard to believe they would have given up on us so easily.”
“Easily?” Shaggy laughs. “Shit, wasn’t nothing easy about it. We’ve been outsmarting them all fucking night.”
Ignoring him, Mendez clasps Grady’s hand and squeezes. “Can you make it that far?”
Grady is momentarily taken aback, touched by the concern he hears in his neighbor’s voice. Swallowing hard, he nods.
“I can…make it.”
“Okay, then.” Mendez lets go of Grady and straightens up. “We’ll head for the pool. Everyone keep an eye out. Be ready to run if we encounter any of them between here and there.”
“And where do we go if that happens?” Terri asks.
“Whichever way is the clearest. Shaggy, how is your ammunition?”
“Running low.”
Nodding, Mendez hurries toward the house with the swimming pool. The others rush along behind him. Terri and Stephanie support each of Grady’s arms. Both women smell heavily like smoke. Grady supposes that he does, as well. He feels grimy, covered in dirt and sweat and other people’s blood. Feeling self-conscious, he tries to remember if he put deodorant on today. He supposes most men his age would be embarrassed by this, but Grady is grateful. Stephanie reminds him a little bit of his daughter—she has that same spunk and spirit. Heart, is what the young people call it. She has heart. He’s glad for that. Heart is what will help them make it through this night.