by Brian Keene
“I’m more of a dog person,” he whispers.
The Exit clears his throat softly. They all look at him, including the cat. He cocks his head and starts walking again. The group begins to follow. Hannibal trots along at Stephanie’s side, eyes darting from shadow to shadow, ears twitching. He is obviously alert, and it occurs to the Exit that maybe the cat isn’t so bad to have along, after all.
They come to a two-car garage on their right that is under construction. In the yard next to it is a wooden pallet stacked high with bags of concrete, another filled with roofing tiles, and a third with loose lengths of rebar.
Well, the Exit thinks, I saw several of them armed with rebar tonight. Now I know where they got it from.
He grabs a length for himself. Stephanie and Terri follow suit. The Exit is pleased with these new acquisitions. The weapons will only help to serve their disguise.
The alley comes to an end at the corner of a Chinese restaurant called Fortune Garden. The Exit thinks that’s a perfect omen. They could use a garden of good fortune right about now. And indeed, he spots a second good omen as they pass the rear of restaurant. Someone—he assumes probably the owner—has been growing vegetables on a small plot of dirt behind the building. Plump, ripe tomatoes dangle heavily from their vines, as do several varieties of peppers that he doesn’t recognize, and something that looks like a zucchini but is bigger and rounder. The Exit glances around, listens, and then studies the cat. When Hannibal shows no signs of immediate distress, the Exit trots up a small embankment and plucks a tomato from the vine. He bites into it, relishing the taste as juice and pulp and seeds squirt into his mouth. The effect on his system is immediate. He doesn’t know if it’s real or merely psychological, but he feels rejuvenated and refreshed. He takes another bite. He turns silently to the others and points at the garden, asking if anyone else would like a tomato. Stephanie nods, and Terri holds up two fingers. He places his rebar to the side and picks a tomato for each of them. As he hands them down, he glances at Grady. The old man seems oblivious and disinterested.
No, the Exit decides, after a moment. That’s not what he seems. What he seems is tired.
While the others enjoy their quick snack, he retrieves his weapon, tiptoes back down the embankment and creeps to the end of the alley. Seeing no activity in the immediate vicinity, he motions at the others to follow him. They do. Caleb wipes tomato seeds from his chin.
The Exit turns left, stepping out onto Main Street. The others follow, their naked feet padding along softly behind him. It occurs to him then how quiet the town has now become. The sounds he’d heard a few minutes ago—the gunshots and screams and screeching tires—have all faded. Now, there is only silence. The Exit wonders if they are the only ones left alive.
They continue on, passing by a Rite-Aid and a Hardees fast food restaurant. Neither establishment has escaped unscathed. The windows are smashed and debris is scattered throughout the parking lots. Some of the debris is human. A lone naked man kneels at the restaurant’s drive-thru window, calmly using a bloody hacksaw to separate the arm off a victim. He glances up at them with feral eyes. The Exit does his best to return the gesture, apparently convincing the madman. They continue on, unscathed.
A little farther up the left hand side of the street is a storm drain. The iron grating that covered it has been removed and tossed out into the road. As they walk by it, the Exit glances down. The storm drain has been filled with severed heads—men, women, children, all staring up sightlessly, mouths hanging open in death. He glances back at Terri and nods toward the hole. She manages to divert Caleb’s attention from it until they are past. It occurs to the Exit that this was perhaps foolish. After all, the boy has seen a multitude of other atrocities tonight. Why should they be so concerned about him seeing this one? But if it keeps the boy quiet, and prevents him from reacting in such a way that their cover is blown, then it’s better to take precautions.
Movement in the sky catches his attention. The Exit glances upward and sees the pale oval of a searchlight moving across the clouds. Then he looks at the horizon and sees that it is glowing—not from a fire or from sunrise, but from an array of bright electric lights. It’s the National Guard perimeter, and he wants to cheer. Instead, he motions at it, making sure the others see. Their expressions mirror his own—relief, joy, and determination.
All except Grady’s. His expression is slack. His mouth hangs open, and his eyes droop. He is limping badly, favoring his injured ankle.
The Exit touches his shoulder, staring inquisitively. Grady motions at him to keep going. Frowning, the Exit starts down the sidewalk. The others follow behind.
The houses on Main Street mirror those in the rest of the town. If anything, the damage is even more extensive here. A swath of destruction has been carved through them, and no home remains unscathed. The dead are everywhere—in the street, in cars, hanging out of windows, porches, and yards—and although the corpses are composed of both sides in tonight’s war, those wearing clothes far outnumber the naked.
They pass an empty State Police car, tipped over on its driver’s side. The vehicle leaks gasoline and oil and antifreeze onto the road. They find a second police car half a block away from the first. This one remains upright, but it has been flattened by what the Exit can only assume were a pack of crazies armed with sledgehammers. The roof is even with the hood of the car, and the doors and side panels have collapsed. The two state troopers inside the vehicle are even flatter than the car itself—recognizable only by their blood-soaked uniforms.
Gunfire echoes ahead of them, from somewhere in the direction of the perimeter, shattering the stillness. Judging by the sound, it’s a heavy caliber automatic weapon. A National Guardsman holding the line, perhaps? The sound gives him hope. Safety is at hand. And if not safety, then at least shelter. At least a brief respite.
All they have to do is make it there.
That’s when Grady collapses, crumpling to the pavement like a falling leaf. The Exit cringes at the sound the old man’s head makes as it strikes the pavement. The pistol clatters out into the street and slides under the rear tire of a parked car. The bullets he’d carried in his other hand are scattered across the road and sidewalk. The others cry out in surprise and dismay. Casting aside their rebar clubs, they rush to him, all pretense of disguising themselves gone.
The Exit pushes his way through the others and crouches down next to Grady. He is surprised to discover that he feels concern for his neighbor, and is even more surprised by the relief that washes over him when he sees that Grady’s eyes are open and alert. The old man’s expression is one of agony, and he claws weakly at his chest.
“My…heart…”
“I’ll carry you.” The Exit slides one arm under the elderly man’s legs.
“Bullshit,” Grady rasps. “Can’t go…anymore, Mendez. I’m done.”
“No, you’re not. We are less than a mile from the perimeter. I can carry you that far.”
Grimacing, Grady waves his hand. “Slow you…down.”
“His head,” Stephanie whispers.
The Exit sees blood spreading out onto the sidewalk from beneath Grady’s head. He scowls, feeling a rage build inside of him.
“I don’t…” the Exit pauses. “I don’t have anybody, Grady. In my life, I mean. There’s no one. I’m alone. And yet…there is you. I have you.”
Stephanie, Terri, and Caleb stare at him. Grady looks up, smiling.
“Listen to me…Mendez. Everything I had…burned up tonight…in that…fire. I’ve got nothing…except my daughter. She’s out there…somewhere. You all need to make it…out of here and… tell her. All I have is her and…the rest of you. I need you to go on…”
“You are coming with us,” the Exit insists. Then he turns to the others. “Help me lift him. We have to do it carefully.”
“No…”
Grady’s pained expression is replaced with one of resolve. He raises one trembling, liver-spotted hand and points back to
ward town. The others turn to look.
Tick Tock is a block away, limping toward them, at the head of a pack two-dozen strong, if not more.
Hissing, Hannibal turns and runs into the night, leaving the others behind. The Exit stares after the cat for a second, and then turns his attention back to Grady.
“Never did…trust cats…” Grady groans.
“Hurry,” the Exit says, and slips his other hand beneath Grady’s shoulders. He feels warm, sticky blood on his fingers.
“Goddamn it,” Grady wheezes. “Leave me…be and get… going.”
“What happened to no man left behind, Grady?”
“What happened to…you can’t die…Mendez?”
The Exit pauses. He looks into the old man’s eyes. Grady smiles, nods slightly, and then grimaces in pain.
“You can’t…die tonight. Now…prop me up against…that car… and…find my gun…”
Nodding, the Exit does as he asks. Grady moans, biting his lip as the Exit lifts him from the ground and carries him over to the car. Caleb ducks down and retrieves the gun, holding it with an expression of awe. Terri snatches it away from him and hands it to the Exit.
“Get going,” he tells them. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Nodding, Terri grabs Caleb’s hand and leads him toward the searchlights.
“You, too,” the Exit tells Stephanie.
She hesitates, then leans down and kisses Grady on the top of his head. “Thank you.”
He smiles. “That’s a…nice way for an…old guy like me…to go out. Kiss from a…pretty lady.”
Stephanie’s face twists with grief. She rushes away, sobbing. She bends down and grabs her weapon. Her shoulders hitch as she then runs after Terri and Caleb.
Tick Tock roars. The Exit glances behind them and sees the mob surge forward.
“Go…” Grady urges.
The Exit hands him the gun. Then he turns, searching for the scattered bullets.
“There’s no time,” Grady insists. “I’m loaded. It will be enough.”
“I was wrong,” the Exit tells him.
Grady looks up at him quizzically.
“I was wrong,” the Exit repeats. “I thought it would be different tonight. I thought that I wouldn’t need a sacrifice to save everyone this time.”
Grady stares at him for a moment. Then he coughs.
“Anybody ever…tell you…you’re a weird little fucker… Mendez?”
Smiling, the Exit reaches down and pats his head. “Thank you, Grady.”
Nodding, Grady raises the gun with one trembling hand and points it at the onrushing horde.
The Exit runs after the others. He flinches when he hears the first gunshot behind him, but he doesn’t turn around to look.
It isn’t until his vision grows blurry that he realizes he is crying.
Twenty-Four - Stephanie, The Exit, Terri, and Caleb: City Limits
Stephanie hears four shots as she runs, echoing over the enraged cries of their pursuers. She doesn’t turn around, but she flinches when she hears Grady cry out in pain. Then, his cries are lost, buried beneath the others—but those are not cries of pain. They are cries of savage joy and exultation. And of rage.
She leaps over a body sprawled in the road—a dead nun, still dressed in her full habit. Two dinner forks stick out of her eyes. Laughter wells up inside her but she forces it down. She remembers a joke from grade school—what’s black and white and red and runs into walls? A nun with forks in her eyes.
She glances at a light post to her right and sees a man dangling from a noose made from an extension cord. His legs kick feebly, but she convinces herself that it’s just the wind making them move.
The bank and the used car lot to her left are both on fire. Stephanie takes a deep breath and holds it as she barrels through a cloud of smoke drifting across the street. Her eyes sting, but she pushes on until the smoke passes. When she exhales, her chest aches.
Grady’s last words run through her mind. He called her a pretty lady. That was what he saw her as. That was his perception. She sobs, feeling gratitude and fear and happiness and regret all at the same time.
She runs past destroyed houses and wrecked cars and dead bodies, fleeing toward the lights growing ever brighter and bigger ahead of them, and thinks about Grady’s words again. They give her strength, and strength is what she needs, because her lungs are burning and her legs feel like she’s running through cement. Her head pounds in time with her pulse.
He called me a pretty lady…
She wonders how the others perceive her. She thinks about how she perceived them, before tonight. Mrs. Carlucci, for example. She’d always been the old lady next door, the one who acted nice, but also a little nervous. Before tonight, Stephanie had always assumed that nervousness was a silent form of disapproval over her transition, but she’s not so sure about that anymore. And never in a million years would she have thought the old lady would be so resourceful in the face of danger. The way she’d helped, fearlessly going up against their attackers…
Stephanie realizes that her initial perceptions of Mrs. Carlucci were all wrong. She was wrong about a lot of them. Sam, for instance. And Turo. Yes, Shaggy had behaved exactly as she’d expected him to, even calling her a he-she at one point, but Turo had been surprisingly kind and accepting—in his way. And Sam… Sam had called her Steph. She still thinks she’d prefer to be Rose, but Steph felt good. It felt…acceptable.
All of them are gone now. Gone just as she’d gotten to know them.
She hates that this night—this hell—was the catalyst for her to finally break those misconceptions, and truly get to know the people around her.
She hears someone stumble behind her, followed by a gasp from Terri. Stephanie turns around and sees Caleb sprawled on the sidewalk, hands splayed. He’s picking himself up, bottom lip puckering as he notices a bleeding scrape on his knee. Then Mendez appears beside the boy and, without pausing, scoops him up and continues running, passing by both Stephanie and Terri.
“Hurry,” he pants. “They’re gaining on us!”
Stephanie sees that he is right. Grady may have taken a few of their pursuers with him, but their numbers haven’t thinned. The naked horde charges after them, filling the street. Tick Tock lopes along behind the procession, arms outstretched as if to welcome them in his embrace.
Stephanie turns and runs. She grits her teeth and focuses only on breathing. She passes Terri, draws alongside Mendez, and then she’s in the lead again, racing toward the perimeter.
The spotlights fill the road ahead of them now. A wall of sandbags has been erected. Behind the wall is a line of military vehicles, fire trucks, and police cars parked nose to nose and blocking the road. Uniformed guardsmen and various members of the local and state police stand in a phalanx between the sandbags and the vehicles. She notices that there are some civilians among them, as well, helping to man the post. All of them—civilian, law enforcement, and military—are armed. Their weapons are raised, and they’re shouting something, but Stephanie’s pulse is so loud in her ears that she can’t understand them.
She screams, urging herself forward as a sudden pain jolts through the calf of her right leg. It burns, coursing through her entire body. Behind her, the cries of the horde grow louder. Ahead, the soldier’s shouts do the same.
It occurs to her then how they must look. She, Terri, Caleb, and Mendez are naked and dirty, running ahead of a naked and dirty mob. She tosses the rebar aside, presenting herself as weaponless, and hoping that they will notice.
See us for who we are, she thinks as they near the blockade. See us for who we really are…
One of the guardsmen shouts into a bullhorn. They’re close enough now that she can see their expressions. Everything behind them is lost in the glare of the spotlights, but she can see their faces clearly, and their weapons.
Weapons that are pointed at her and her neighbors.
Faces and expressions that mirror the fear and desperation s
he feels.
“We’re not them,” she shrieks. “Don’t shoot. We’re not like them!”
The horde are right behind them now. Stephanie can hear their grunts of exertion, the sound of their teeth snapping, their weapons clanging.
See us for who we are…
See us for who we are…
See us for who we are…
She’s still thinking it when the first gunshot rings out.
Afterword
I got the idea for this short novel when a naked man rode a bicycle past my home one morning in 2013.
I used to live in a remote cabin nestled on a mountaintop in the Susquehanna River bottoms. There were a few other homes in the valley below me, as well as a winding, twisting, one-lane road that seemed to flood out every time it rained—after which the valley would fill with fog. It was an eerie, spooky place, as rural as you can get for Pennsylvania, and perfectly suited to both my writing and my lifestyle. My friends affectionately referred to the area as Shoggoth Town. If you’re a regular listener to my podcast, then you’ve no doubt heard them talk about it on many occasions. And yes, I’ll admit, Shoggoth Town was an apt name, but I didn’t mind. I liked living there. I liked having privacy and space and a backyard full of black bears and deer. The few neighbors were all fairly normal, and I knew them all quite well.
I was awake at five in the morning the day I saw the naked man. This wasn’t abnormal. Since I’m at my most productive early in the day, I always get up at five. I was still in bed, talking to my girlfriend on the phone and getting ready to exercise and then start writing, when I happened to glance out the window. There, down below, on that twisted, narrow little road, was a naked man on an old ten-speed bicycle. I paused, making sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, and verifying that I was indeed awake. I asked my girlfriend to verify this, too, which she did. Then I told her what I was seeing. She took it in stride.
Deciding to investigate, I told her that I’d call her back.