Rabid

by J. W. Bouchard

  “So?”

  He held the phone up as if that explained everything. “So how come the phones don’t work? Those things have been pounding on the back door for how long now? If they had any brains left in them, they would have figured out to come around front and break the glass. That means they aren’t responsible for the phone lines being down.”

  Tina reached into her back pocket and took out her cell phone. Taylor snatched it from her. “How come you didn’t say you had a cell phone?” He started dialing.

  “Because it doesn’t work. Not in town. No reception. That’s why most people don’t have cell phones here. They can’t get a signal.”

  Taylor looked at the signal indicator and saw that there were no bars. He dialed his parent’s number anyway and pushed SEND. He waited. Nothing happened.

  “See? Told you. You can’t get service here in town. Take the interstate for ten minutes in either direction and you can get a signal. But that doesn’t help us very much at the moment.”

  “Okay. It’s a small town. Lots of places like this don’t get cell phone coverage. No mystery there. I don’t see how the land lines could be down, though. Something tells me that if we stopped in any of the towns around here and picked up a phone we’d have the same problem.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  That scared her, Taylor thought. Don’t make it any worse for her than it already is.

  “You’re right. I was thinking out loud. It’s just a theory.” He lifted the handset of the phone again and held it firmly to his ear, holding his breath as he listened, hoping to hear even the faintest of sounds; the familiar buzz of the dial-tone. Nothing. “Seems too coincidental to me.”

  “The sky is cloudy.”

  “Clouds don’t affect the phone lines.”

  “But it looks like it could storm some time soon. A storm could knock out the phone lines.” She gazed at him hopefully, but she recognized the doubt in her own voice. Of all the people she had ever lied to, it was always easiest to lie to herself, but in this case even she couldn’t buy her own flimsy story.

  “I doubt it. A storm could knock out the phone lines, but if there’s one coming, it’s taking its time. The lines wouldn’t go until the storm was right on top of it.”

  “I hope it doesn’t storm,” she said.

  “I kind of hope it does. In fact, I hope it rains cats and dogs.”

  “Why?”

  “Cover. We’d be harder to see in the rain. We could make a break for it.”

  Tina said, “It would be harder for us to see them, too.”

  “That’s true, but rain would drive those things bonkers.”

  Tina jumped up onto the counter and sat down, feet dangling a few inches above the floor. “How do you think they found us here? None of us were making that much noise. Not enough for them to hear it from outside anyway.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that too. I haven’t figured out an explanation for it yet.” But he had an idea. It was based on a helluva lot of assumptions, but it was also the simplest explanation. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Occam’s razor. Of two or more explanations, the one which uses the fewest suppositions is usually true. Or at least Taylor thought it went something like that.

  Thing was, it wasn’t an idea he could share with Tina because it had to do with her father. It was her father’s hardware store, after all. Didn’t it stand to reason that he would have been the one to lead the others there? His exhausted brain couldn’t conjure anything more logical unless a person was to assume that they had some supernatural sense of smell or that the disease had caused them to develop telepathic abilities.

  He kept his thoughts to himself. She was trying hard to keep herself together and doing a pretty good job of it, and he didn’t want to be the one to deliver the news that caused her to crack. The problem was outside the store, and that’s how he wanted to keep it.

  In the distance, they heard the far away but unmistakable rumble of thunder. Taylor came close to the window, studying the sky. Dark clouds had massed to the north where there had been only wisps fifteen minutes ago. “Maybe you’re right. By the looks of those clouds, it could be a real doozie. If it doesn’t pass us by. Nine times out of ten it’s a case of all bark and no bite.”

  There was silence. He guessed uncomfortable silences were normal in situations like this.

  “So you’re studying to be a veterinarian?”

  “For now anyway. My dad says I’m a scatterbrain. I’m interested in something for a while and then I lose interest and move onto something else. I’ve managed to stick with this, though. Partly to prove him wrong maybe.”

  “Find something you like and stick with it,” Taylor said. “That’s the advice people always give anyway.”

  Thunder boomed again. The clouds were thick and had formed a wall that blotted out the northern sky, swallowing the light of the moon.

  Something struck the front window.

  “What was that?”

  The street was empty.

  “Look. It’s starting to rain,” Tina said. A raindrop slid down the window glass and she tracked it with her finger.

  Another drop of rain hit the window and then another, gaining momentum. “Scared the crap out of me,” Taylor said. “I thought those things had finally wizened up.”

  He watched as the clouds approached, rolling in with a certain arrogance, the rain starting to come down harder now.

  “What’s going on?” Carl came jogging up the aisle towards them, machete at the ready. His baseball cap was off and he was scratching the top of his head with his free hand.

  “Storm’s coming,” Taylor said. “How’d you hear that over the racket back there?”

  “They stopped pounding. That’s what woke me up. I could tell that it stopped back there and started up here. Thought maybe they’d figured out to break the windows.”

  Taylor walked to the back to listen for himself. Carl was right. The pounding had stopped. The only sound was the patter of rain on the front windows and on the roof. The rain was heavy enough to have created narrow rivers that ran along either side of the street.

  “If they stopped pounding then where did they go?” Tina asked.

  Carl had his flashlight on, the beam dancing frantically across the linoleum floor.

  “Careful with that,” Taylor said. “We don’t want those things to see it.”

  Carl turned the flashlight off and said, “You think they’re still back there? Just standing there not doing anything?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not taking any chances. Not yet. We’ll give it some time. Wait it out.” He stepped close to the window, cautious this time. The rain would provide better cover than he could have hoped for.

  They could have made a break for it, and he would have been tempted to suggest just that. Unlock the front door, make a mad dash for a different safe haven; search for a different car or, worst case, find a house with the door unlocked. A house would have a refrigerator, and a refrigerator was bound to contain some amount of food. He was hungry. Despite his fear, his stomach complained to him of this hunger.

  The chance of finding a weapon was better. As far as population went, this town was comparable to their own, and back home most of the men in town were hunters to some degree or other. Which meant they owned at least one rifle. His father owned two gun cabinets and a gun safe. All of them were full. A rifle or two wouldn’t be enough to turn the tables, not with hundreds of those things running around out there, but it added another layer of safety.

  The trick was getting to a different location without those rabid things knowing.

  But now they had ceased their pounding. Listening? Waiting perhaps?

  Taylor felt exhaustion hit him. It was like a forceful hand trying to hold him down. He wanted to curl up on the floor and sleep. He thought about finding a house. In addition to food and the possibility of finding a weapon, a house would have a bed. Suddenly, a bed seemed like the most importa
nt thing to him.

  Responsibility. If only that word were foreign to him. He stood there, looking from his brother to Tina, realizing that sleep had a short life expectancy in a situation like this.

  “Get away from the window.”

  “There’s nothing out there,” Carl said.

  Lightning flashed, illuminating the sky for a moment, and Carl saw them huddled at the entrance to the alley.

  “Hide,” he said, barely audible. Thunder split open the sky like a hammer on metal, drowning out his voice.

  “What?” Tina asked.

  Carl turned away from the window, hurriedly making his way down one of the aisles. “Hide, I said. They’re out there, by the alley.” He herded them down the aisle in front of him, his hand resting on the back of Tina’s shoulder, urging her forward.

  Taylor thought: Great. Now they get some common sense. And us without so much as a simple plan.

  “If they’re in front, can’t we get to my car now?”

  Carl said, “You bet your ass. That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”

  His hand was on the door handle when Taylor said, “Wait!” His voice was little more than a harsh whisper, but Carl recognized a command when he heard one. His hand fell away from the handle and he turned to look at his brother.

  “What? We have to get to the car while we’ve got the chance.”

  “Don’t you remember pulling in? The alley dead ended in the back parking lot. There’s only one way out.”

  “Then we’ll plow through them,” Carl said, hand finding the handle again. “Now c’mon. Unlock it.”

  “If it was only a dozen of those things out there that might work, but there are more than a hundred of them. We can’t get through that many. Not without a truck or a bus anyway.”

  “He’s got a point,” Tina said. “My dad says my car has a lawnmower motor for an engine. No get-up-and-go to it.”

  Carl sighed. Instinct told him he was right, that now was the time to make a break for it, but logic got in the way. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

  Taylor glanced at the front of the store. It was still raining heavily, but the view outside the windows remained clear. “I wish I knew what those things were doing. It’s almost like they’re doing this on purpose. Like they know they’ve us by the balls staying where they are. We can’t go out the front or the back.”

  “If they’re boxing us in, then it means they’re at least semi-intelligent,” Carl said. “That’s a bad thing.”

  “It’s a hunting strategy. Animals do it. Useful but primitive,” Tina said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean those things are rocket scientists.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Taylor wanted to ask why the decision-making responsibilities fell on him; ask why someone else couldn’t do the thinking for them. But he had taken the reins and he couldn’t let them go that easily. It beckoned back to a time when he had known how to start things, but his weakness had been in finishing them. He had started college and dropped out. His father had gotten him a job with one of the local construction companies and he had quit showing up for work his third week into it. That had been a time in his life when ideas and plans had seemed to flow effortlessly from his mind, but his follow-thru had been sorely lacking.

  Recalling that period in his life was embarrassing. The worst part about it was that those events had taken place less than three years ago.

  He could feel the bulge of the keys in his pocket. He ran his hands through his hair and said, “Let’s think this through. We can’t go out the front because they would chase us down in no time flat. The back way and the car are out because we’d be sitting ducks. Bottlenecked in the alley.”

  Carl had his ear against the metal of the back door, listening. It was impossible to hear anything over the rain coming down.

  “What if we distract them?” Tina asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Distract them. Somebody could get their attention at the front while the other two slip out the back and get my car.”

  Carl’s face brightened. “That’s not a half bad idea. What do you think, bro?”

  Taylor mulled it over. He didn’t like it. It was dangerous.

  But options were scarce.

  “It might work,” he said. “So your car is pretty reliable? I wouldn’t want to even attempt something like what you’re talking about and then get to the car and it doesn’t start.”

  “I said that it doesn’t have any get-up-and-go, but it starts and runs fine. There was only one time that it didn’t start, like six months ago, but I got the battery replaced and it hasn’t had a problem since.”

  “All right. Good enough. The only reason I ask is because if this was a cheap horror flick we’d get out there and the car wouldn’t start.”

  “Well, this is real life,” Tina said. “Not a horror movie.”

  “Right about now, I’d say the line between the two is starting to blur. Anyway, so here’s what we do. You two stay back here. I’ll go up front.” He took Tina’s keys out of his pocket and splayed them out. “Which one is the key for the front door?”

  Tina pointed to the one with a large square bow. “This one.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Taylor removed the key from the keychain and handed the rest of the keys to Carl. He went to the back of the store, carefully slid the key into the lock, and slowly turned it. “This one’s unlocked. When we’re ready, I’ll unlock the front door and do something to get their attention. When they start coming all the way out of the alley, I’ll yell for you two to go. Get to the car and get out of the alley.”

  Carl cocked his head. “And what about you? What’s your escape plan?”

  And that’s the kicker, Taylor thought. Exactly what is my escape plan?

  He walked himself through it in his head, explaining it to them out loud. “The only way out would be through the back. Close the front door, and if there’s time, I’d lock it. Run out the back and shut that door.”

  “But the alley dead-ends,” Carl said. “You’d still have to come up the alley to the street.”

  “Maybe those things would have made it inside the store by then,” Tina said.

  “Maybe. And maybe they would see you coming out of the alley.”

  “Then I make a run for it. You two will have gotten away in the car. At the end of the alley, you’ll take a left and when you come to the first intersection, you’ll take another left. Once you get around that corner, leave the car running. Don’t even put it into park. Just keep your foot on the brake. I’ll know where to find you.”

  “If there’s running involved, then maybe it should be me that plays the distraction. Between the two of us, we’ve already established that I’m the faster runner.”

  “I want you driving the car. You’re faster, but I’ll be fast enough.”

  Carl stared at his brother and something unspoken passed between them. A look that traded a thousand words in an instant without either one of them opening their mouth.

  Finally, Carl nodded.

  “It’s settled then. Let’s do this before I go chicken shit.”

  Taylor started for the front of the store.

  “Wait,” Carl said. “Take this.” He handed him the machete. “If they get too close you can hack the shit out of them.”

  Taylor weighed the blade in his hand. It was lighter than he had thought it would be. He wondered what it would feel like hacking into their flesh.

  They’re not people anymore, he thought. Not really. They’ll tear you to shreds if they get the chance. Remember that. If push comes to shove, you can’t hesitate.

  Another reason he wanted them out of sight and around the corner was that he was willing to bet that Tina’s father was somewhere in the mob, salivating profusely like all the rest of them. If she spotted him…things could turn ugly quick. She might lock up and shutdown. Logic and emotion. The two often didn’t play well with one another.

  �
��That could get us kilt,” he said quietly and almost laughed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Talking to myself. So we all have this down, right? I’ll open the door, wait for my go, you guys bolt and get around the corner of the first street. Two lefts. Remember that. Then wait for me. Unless it isn’t safe. Then just keep going.”

  “There are parts of this I don’t like,” Carl said.

  Taylor shrugged. “I don’t like any part of it. Remember what Dad used to say? About how a person can get old before his time. How a guy had to learn two words to prevent that?”

  “Fuck it,” Carl said.

  “That’s right,” Taylor said. He pointed the machete at the back door. “Now get back there and be ready. When I give the go, you can’t be fucking around.”

  Carl stood there staring at Taylor, looking like he had something to say. After a moment, he turned and headed to the back, Tina following behind him.

  Taylor headed to the front of the store, pausing momentarily at the end of the last aisle, double-checking that they hadn’t strayed from the entrance of the alley. When he was close to the window, he could see them. No more than thirty feet away. Some of them swayed back-and-forth rhythmically, as though rocked by a powerful wind.

  He removed the key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock. He glanced at the mob and turned the key. He opened the door slowly.

  And then he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  Chapter 4

  The Escape

  Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

  It wasn’t until he was on the sidewalk, getting wet in the rain and facing a mob of a hundred or more bloodthirsty creatures that could hardly be categorized as human, that it occurred to him that he could have simply ran the other way. Instead of luring them into the store, he could have broken to the right and rounded the first street corner. Could have had Carl and Lisa take three lefts instead of two. He could have taken two rights and they would have met each other.

  It seemed so easy now. So obvious. But it was too late to make changes.

  His courage ebbed as if the rain was washing it away. The overprotective part of his brain, the part interested in self-preservation and continued survival, screamed at him to quit this nonsense immediately. Reasoning with him. They hadn’t spotted him yet. Quietly step back into the store, lock the door behind him, and call the whole thing off. There was still time.