by Brian Keene
As they sneak through the yard, Grady spots a dead dog, split down the middle so severely that the carcass is almost cut in half. The poor beast’s innards are scattered throughout the grass.
“Careful,” Grady warns. “Watch your step.”
The pool is an above ground construct, encircled with a deck fashioned out of oak planks. A chain link security fence surrounds it. Mendez quietly lifts the latch on the gate, and glances around one more time.
“I’m going to put you down now, Caleb,” Mendez tells the boy.
Caleb doesn’t protest, and takes his mother’s hand. Mendez leads them inside, and Shaggy closes the gate behind them. Then, crouching down, they creep across the deck. The planks creak beneath their feet, and Grady stiffens, expecting a naked person to burst out of the darkness. Instead, they reach the edge of the water without incident. Although, judging by the far-off sounds of gunshots, shouts, and screams in the distance, the crazies are hard at work throughout the rest of the town.
“So, what now?” Stephanie asks.
Mendez pulls his wallet from his pocket, drops it on the deck, and then slips into the pool. The water level comes up to his chest.
“Now, we hide out for a bit. Catch our breath. And figure out a plan.”
Shrugging, Stephanie starts to take her shoes off.
“I wouldn’t,” Mendez says. “If we have to flee, you might not have time to put them back on.”
“Good point.”
She sits down, puts her legs in the water, and then slides in beside Mendez. Terri and Stephanie help Caleb into the water, and he clings to the side, paddling his legs. Terri follows, and then Grady. He pauses only to remove his wristwatch—a retirement present from his former employer. His arthritis flares as he clambers into the water, and his ankle still hurts, but the pain in his chest has subsided again, and Grady considers this a fair trade. The water is surprisingly warm. Grady finds it soothing. He sighs.
Shaggy kneels down on the deck, watching them apprehensively.
“Come on in,” Grady whispers. “The water’s fine.”
Shaggy shakes his head. “No, I’m good.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mendez says. “Get down here before somebody sees you.”
“Don’t tell me what to fucking do. I’m okay right here.”
“Is it your ribs?” Grady asks.
“No, they’re feeling better. But I’m staying up here.”
“Shaggy…” Terri speaks to him in the same tone she does her child. “Please. You’re going to give us away. I’m tired and scared. Caleb is, too. We all are. We just need to rest for a few minutes. Please come in the water.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Stephanie asks
“Because…” Shaggy pauses for a moment, and glances down at the deck, refusing to meet their eyes. “Because I can’t fucking swim.”
“You’re taller than Mendez,” Grady points out, “and the water only comes up to his chest.”
Shaggy glares at him.
“Shaggy, listen,” Grady continues, trying to sound sympathetic. “Think about all the shit you survived tonight. Think about the odds. And yet, here you are, still standing. Now, after all of that, are you really going to let a little thing like not swimming stop you?”
Shaggy shrugs again, and then glances over the edge of the deck railing. “I don’t know. What if I fucking slip or something?”
Before any of the others can respond, Caleb speaks up.
“You can hold on to the side with me, Mr. Shaggy. I’ll keep you safe.”
Shaggy stares at him for a moment, unblinking. Then, he slowly smiles.
“You got fucking balls, kid.”
Grady sees Terri grimace in disapproval, but she says nothing as Shaggy empties his pockets, puts the gun down on the deck, and then dips his legs in the water, up to his knees. Grady notices that his lip is quivering.
“It’s okay,” Stephanie encourages him. “Just slip in nice and easy until your feet touch the bottom.”
Trembling, Shaggy eases himself into the water. The others gather around him in support. When he touches the bottom, he stands there, shivering. Then he laughs.
“Well, fuck me. Look at that. I’m in the pool.” He turns to Caleb. “And you ain’t gonna let me drown, right?”
Caleb giggles. “I promise.”
Grady glances at Terri again, and sees that she’s crying. He pats her shoulder offering comfort.
“It’s good to hear him laugh,” she whispers.
“Okay,” Mendez says, his tone hushed. “I think we’re safe here, for the time being. With the electricity out, there’s no streetlights, and it’s pretty dark in this yard. Just remember to keep your voices down, and no splashing. Agreed?”
They all nod in unison.
“Well, then.” Mendez offers a tight-lipped smile. “We should discuss our options. Obviously, we can’t hide out here all night.”
“Why not?” Grady asks. “I mean, as long as we’re quiet, we could last here until dawn.”
“And what happens when the sun comes up?” Mendez points out. “Something tells me this situation won’t be resolved by then. As soon as it is light out, anybody passing by will see us. We’d be sitting ducks.”
“What about the borough’s municipal building?” Grady suggests. “They’ve got a fallout shelter in the basement. We could hole up there. Wait for the police or the National Guard to get things under control.”
“Shit.” Shaggy bounces up and down, apparently getting over his fear of the water. “If they were going to do something, wouldn’t it have happened by now? Where the fuck are they?”
“I don’t know,” Grady admits. “And that’s the problem—we don’t know anything. We don’t know what’s causing this, or how far it’s spread, or what the government is doing to stop it.”
“Government ain’t gonna do shit,” Shaggy insists. “Every time there’s some big emergency like this, the government are the last motherfuckers to come in and help.”
Mendez nods. “I agree. We can’t just sit around and wait to be rescued. That’s how people die. And I’m not dying tonight. The municipal building sounds like a good choice, provided we can gain access to the fallout shelter.”
“It’s a long walk,” Grady points out.
“Only ten blocks,” Stephanie says.
“Sure,” Grady agrees, “only ten blocks, but that’s ten blocks of crazy assholes trying to kill us.”
“Point.” Stephanie nods. “How about the high school? They’ve got an emergency shelter in the basement, too, and that’s a lot closer than the municipal building.”
“But we’ll still be in danger on the way there,” Terri points out. “Wouldn’t it be better to steal a car, and get out of town?”
“That’s a possibility,” Mendez agrees, “but where would we go?”
“I don’t know.” Terri shrugs. “The woods?”
Mendez shakes his head. “The woods next to the complex was full of crazies.”
“Well, there’s other woods around. Or maybe one of the farms outside of town. Those backroads between Red Lion and New Bridgeville and Windsor are full of farms. Or we could go to LeHorn’s Hollow. They’d never find us in there!”
Shaggy visibly perks up. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“LeHorn’s Hollow?” Grady asks.
“For real. Those woods are plenty deep, even after the forest fire from a few years back. Motherfuckers would never find us in there. You can get lost in those woods.”
Stephanie’s expression seems troubled. “I’ve heard some weird stories about that place. Isn’t it supposed to be haunted?
“Tell you what,” Shaggy says, “I’d rather take my chances with ghosts than these crazy fucks. I vote we go there.”
“Do you know how to hotwire a car?” Mendez asks.
Shaggy’s expression sours. “What—you think I’m a thug just because of the way I dress and talk?”
&nbs
p; “You are most certainly a thug,” Mendez responds, “but I’m not judging you in the least. We need a thug on our side right now. So, do you know how to hotwire a car?”
Shaggy’s shoulders sag. “No.”
“Then the farms and LeHorn’s Hollow are out. We would never get there on foot, and certainly not before daybreak. The more I think about it, the more I like Stephanie’s idea. I suggest we head for the high school, and we should do so now, while we’ve still got the darkness on our side.”
Grady shivers. “That’s a creepy way of putting it.”
Mendez climbs out of the pool. His wet clothes clinging to him and water streams from his body.
“Trust me, Grady.” He reaches down and offers a hand to Caleb. “There are far worse kinds of darkness out there in the universe. Be glad that this one is our friend.”
Twenty - Mike and Bryan: Speedy Stop Convenience Store, 282 Main Street
“Five years of sobriety down the fucking drain.”
Mike watches Bryan tip the whiskey bottle to his lips and take a deep drink. The older man shivers as he gulps, and closes his eyes as if in bliss. When he opens his eyes and lowers the bottle, Mike notices that he’s crying.
“Ah.” Bryan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’d forgotten. I mean, you never truly forget. Not really. But still…”
“What,” Mike whispers, “the taste?”
“No, not the taste. The kick. I’d forgotten the kick. Wish it was beer, though. An ice cold beer would be better. That’s something you can taste.” He sighs, hanging his head. “Five years…”
“Wait a second. You’re a recovering alcoholic?”
Bryan shrugs. “I don’t know about recovering. I mean, I was before tonight, but that was easy. I spend a lot of time at home, and when I’m at home, I rarely feel the urge to drink. Temptations came up from time to time, but the only time I really struggled was during social interactions with people. But now…well, I guess I’m not recovering anymore.”
“I guess not.”
Bryan grins. “But I am legendary.”
Loony is more like it, Mike thinks. “But why would you break your sobriety now?”
“Come on, kid.” Bryan takes another swig. “The things we’ve seen tonight? It’s the end of the world. I might as well go out with a bang. If I’m going to slip, then this seems like the time to do it.”
“We don’t know that it’s the end of the world,” Mike says. “For all we know, this is some kind of local event. I think that’s probably more likely.”
“Well, if so, then let’s just call this a momentary lapse of reason.”
“Like the Pink Floyd album?”
Bryan makes a sour face. “Fuck no, not like the Pink Floyd album. I’ve never been a fan of them.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugs, studying the bottle as if an answer to their problem can be found within. “Hopefully I’ll have the inner strength to stop again when this is all over—if I’m still alive.”
Mike shakes his head, unsure of what to say. He doesn’t want to judge this man whom he only met this evening, but he also knows they’re going to have to rely on each other if they want to survive.
“So,” Bryan asks, “what do you think caused all this?”
“I don’t know,” Mike admits. “My guess is chemical warfare or maybe something in the water. Remember all those news stories a few years back? People were taking that drug and ripping off their clothes and like breaking into houses and shit? Killing people in a frenzy.”
“Yeah,” Bryan says. “I remember. One naked guy in Florida bit off most of a man’s face.”
Mike nods. “I remember. So what if somebody put that drug in the town water supply?”
Bryan tips the bottle toward him. “Then all the more reason to drink this, instead of water. Want some?”
Mike waves it away. “No thanks. The last thing I want to be right now is drunk.”
“I don’t know about that. It might hurt less when they kill you if you’re passed out.”
“Well, I don’t plan on getting killed. I just need to figure out how to get back home.”
Mike lives in East Petersburg, a town across the river in Lancaster County. The only reason he’s in Red Lion tonight is because he was supposed to pick up a girl for a date. Unfortunately, when he arrived at her house, the door was answered by her very angry boyfriend. Mike didn’t know the guy was her boyfriend, of course. He didn’t find that out until the guy asked him what he wanted and he said he was there to pick up Katie. Suddenly, there was drama and accusations and a raised fist. A very large raised fist. Mike apologized, talked his way out of it, suggested the boyfriend should take his complaint up with Katie herself, and then made a hasty retreat.
Mike has never had much luck with dating. He’s good at first dates, and he has no problem finding the casual fling, but he desperately wants something more than just hook-ups and flings. But tonight, he couldn’t even manage one of those.
Four blocks from Katie’s apartment, he’d pulled in to a Speedy Stop convenience store for an energy drink and something to eat. Parking was almost non-existent. There were a dozen spaces outside, but twice as many cars jostling for them, narrowly avoiding hitting each other and the pedestrians walking to and from the gas pumps. He was just about to give up and find another store when the naked lady came strolling into the parking lot. Mike judged the woman to be in her mid-forties. She seemed oblivious to the commotion she was causing, as motorists and customers stopped what they were doing and gawked at her. She simply stared straight ahead, seemingly focused on the person closest to her—a man on his way back to the gas pumps, wearing shorts and a black bowling shirt.
It was then that Mike noticed the screwdriver in her hand. He didn’t look at the rest of her, despite her nudity. His eyes were drawn to that screwdriver, and he watched as she shuffled toward the guy in the bowling shirt and, without a word, stabbed him in the throat.
Mike didn’t see what happened next, because that was when Bryan rear-ended Mike’s Saturn with his rental car. As it turned out, Bryan was from Nashville, in town on business, and had been on his way back to the airport in Baltimore. Mike staggered from his vehicle, dazed. He glanced at his car, which was now hopelessly entangled with another vehicle, and then back to the stabbing. The next thing he knew a paunchy, older man with almost platinum silver hair and wearing the loudest, most garish Hawaiian shirt Mike had ever seen was apologizing and asking about his insurance information. Mike shook his head, and pointed at the naked woman, who was now kneeling over her victim, stabbing him again and again.
Bryan said, “Holy shit!”
A customer exited the store. Mike assumed he must have had a permit to conceal and carry, because the man pulled a pistol from a holster at his side and shot the woman three times. Mike cringed, expecting the gas tanks to blow up, but they didn’t. Instead, the naked lady slumped over, dead. In the aftermath, some people cried out, some hid their eyes, and most pulled out their phones and began snapping pictures of the carnage.
Then, seven more naked people came charging down the sidewalks and across the street, converging on the store. One of them had a gun, too.
And then everybody started running or dying. Mike decided that the store offered the best refuge, so he dashed toward it. Bryan followed him. Gunshots and screams fought for supremacy. Tires squealed on pavement. Glass shattered. Chaos ensued. The last thing Mike saw before dashing inside the store was a naked man smashing another man’s head repeatedly into an ATM machine on the side of the building.
Mike and Bryan weren’t the only customers who ended up taking shelter inside the store. There were three more, but all of them are dead now, killed by the first wave of attackers while they were still in the process of barricading the store’s big plate glass windows. They repelled the rest of the attackers and finished the barricade before more could get inside. Someone had forgotten to turn off the store’s sound system, and some auto-tuned pop m
usic princess caterwauled through the speakers while they defended themselves and made preparations.
With the other three customers dead, that had left Bryan, Mike, and the store’s staff—Gretta, Mark, Jorge, and Heather. Heather was a hatchet-faced woman with a nose like a knife and limp brown hair. She had rings in her ears, nose, and lip, until one of the crazies got ahold of them later, and removed them with a pair of pliers before putting the tool to work on the rest of her. Gretta was short and dumpy, and wore glasses with thick, smudged lenses. It had seemed to Mike that her expression was frozen into a permanent scowl—until the third wave of crazies broke in, and began hitting her with an axe and a crowbar. Only then had her expression changed. Mark had been about the same age as Mike—twenty-six—but still had the unfortunate acne of a teenager. The attackers had solved that problem for him when they splashed a bottle of drain opener in his face and then flattened him out on the counter and poured the rest down his throat. And Jorge—well, Jorge had kept insisting that the police would show up any minute. As far as Mike knew, he had died still believing that, shot to death while Mike and Bryan escaped unseen through a back door.
That had been their first lucky break. The mob ransacking the store had been so preoccupied with the clerks and the manager that they hadn’t noticed Mike and Bryan fleeing through the storage room. The door led out behind the store, onto a fenced off concrete platform with what Mike assumed must be the building’s air conditioning and heating system. There were all kinds of metal ducts, a big industrial fan, and a compressor. There was also a plastic chair, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and several fifty-five gallon steel drums on a wooden pallet. The chain link fence surrounding the area was about ten feet high, and equipped with a sturdy gate. The section of the fence facing the alley also covered a cement block retaining wall, damp to the touch and covered with moss. The wall was high enough that Mike could just peer over the edge when standing next to it. Even better, the cluster of maple trees growing behind the store kept the entire area concealed in deep shadows. It occurred to Mike that if they successfully barricaded the door, they could hide here, crouched down behind the ducts and equipment, until help arrived.