Rabid

by J. W. Bouchard

  Only there wasn’t. One of them turned and saw him. It was a little like being caught jerking off by his mother. For a moment, you just froze with your dick in your hand, looking at it and then at your mother as it went instantly flaccid, a look on your face that said, Where did this come from?

  Taylor felt logic stripped away. “C’mon, motherfuckers! Come and get me! I don’t have all fucking day!”

  He ran back into the store, pulling the door closed behind him, cursing at the pneumatic arm that caused it to close with agonizing slowness. He had the key in his hand to lock it. He yelled back to Carl and Lisa. “Go! Get the fuck out of here! Now!”

  He turned the key and snapped it off in the lock.

  Hands slammed into the glass, leaving slimy handprints. Taylor fell back, machete held out in front of him. He heard the sound of the back door slamming closed. He thought he heard the sound of Tina’s Escort starting but couldn’t be sure.

  He picked himself up from the floor and made his way to the back room. Glass shattered behind him. It was a forced effort to keep from looking back; to keep moving to the back of the store. When Carl had handed him the machete, it had seemed like a formidable weapon. Now it just felt inadequate.

  Taylor heard them come crashing through the glass, the store being destroyed as they pursued him.

  He reached the back door and flung it open. The car was gone. Good, he thought. Thank God for that at least.

  Cold rain bit into his skin as he ran up the alley. He reached the street and stopped. Dozens of the rabid things were still stuck at the entrance to Dave’s Hardware, attempting to shove their way in through the bottleneck that had formed. Yet another oversight in his plan. Despite this, they continued to force their way in, none of them noticing that he had appeared at the entrance to the alley.

  He heard the sound of the back door, metal rebounding off of brick; feet splashing in puddles. He turned left and ran.

  The pain in his legs was almost instantaneous, but it was easy to forget the feeling if he focused his mind. The rain made it hard to see too far ahead, but he could make out the reflective green surface of a street sign.

  Red streaks reflected off of the rain slicked street. At first, Taylor wasn’t sure of what he was seeing. But as he moved closer, he recognized the red light as coming from the Escort’s brake lights.

  He reached for the handle of the rear door and pulled. It was locked. He pounded on the window. Tina leaned over into the backseat and unlocked it.

  “Go!”

  Taylor jumped into the seat and pulled the door closed. The car rocked to the side as the first of the mob reached it and one of them jumped onto the trunk. He saw the face of utter insanity pressed up against the rear window, nose flattened against the glass, lips pushed back, its breath creating a foggy patch on the glass. And despite the heavy rain, he could read the name stitched on the thing’s work shirt: DAVE.

  “Go!”

  Carl punched the accelerator with disappointing results. The takeoff was sluggish; revealing the car’s lack of get-up-and-go that Tina had warned them about. Taylor watched in slow motion as the rest of the mob arrived and kept pace with them until the Escort gained momentum.

  The car fishtailed and the inhuman thing that clung to the trunk went sailing away, sending up a spray of water as its body collided with the curb.

  So long, Dave. Thanks for letting us hole up in your store, Taylor thought. I’ll take good care of your daughter.

  Carl found the controls for the windshield wipers and turned them on. He glanced out the rearview mirror. Despite poor visibility, he kept the car at a steady forty-five, watching the mob grow smaller and smaller as the distance increased. After they had driven several blocks, he slowed at the intersection and said, “What now? If we go straight, we can get back on the highway.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Tina said. “Out of this town. It might be different somewhere else.”

  She’s in denial, Taylor thought. She could be right and the radio could have been wrong, but I doubt it.

  “I second that motion,” Carl said. “Let’s get the hell out’ve Dodge.”

  Taylor said, “It’s gonna be a long drive. An hour-and-a-half at least.”

  “I can get us there faster than that. Call me crazy, but I don’t think they’ll be handing out speeding tickets.”

  “We could use some supplies.”

  “Sitting right next to you. Everything you put in the tarp. What else do you want?”

  “For starters? Food.”

  Carl pondered this. His stomach rumbled at the thought. “Food would be good. But none of us are going to starve to death in the hour and a half it takes to get back home. I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry. Not enough to risk getting hung up in this town.”

  “There’s nothing left for me here,” Tina said. “I just hope that my dad got out before things got bad.”

  Taylor stared out the window. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, he thought, and wondered if he was breaking some law of morality by not telling Tina he had seen her father. Wondered if he would have wanted to know if the roles were reversed. He decided that in this case, the old saying held true: ignorance is bliss.

  “It’s not a matter of how long we can hold out. I’m thinking about all the possibilities. Like the possibility that we hit a roadblock. What if we have to travel on foot at some point? What if we can’t get home? I can think of a bunch of them. It might be smart to stop off and find food here. Find a house and raid the fridge if we have to.” He turned in his seat so he could see out the back window. “Those things aren’t behind us anymore. Even if they try to follow us, it will take a little while for them to get this far. We can hide the car.”

  “They could find us,” Tina said. “The way they found us in the store.”

  Carl said, “Yeah, I don’t want to get boxed-in again.”

  Taylor leaned forward. “Maybe we were too loud. That could be all it was. They got lucky. It doesn’t necessarily mean they have special abilities.” Taylor noticed Carl staring at him in the rearview mirror. “I’m not proposing we hole up here. We’ll just take some food and whatever else is useful. We can do that in less than twenty minutes. Then we leave.”

  Carl stared into the rearview mirror again, and this time Taylor was certain that his brother’s attention was focused on him.

  “Listen, guys, think about it. It’s the smartest thing.”

  Carl sighed and tapped gently on the brakes. “Fine.” He gestured out the window at the houses lining the street. “So which one? Or are we gonna play eenie-meenie-miney-mo?”

  Taylor put his hand on Tina’s shoulder. He could a tremor of fear running through her. “Are you okay with that?” he asked.

  “Whatever you think is best. I asked to come along. The last thing I want to do is be demanding.”

  “I appreciate that, but this is still a democracy. You still get a say in the decision-making process.”

  “That’s nice to know,” she said, staring out the window into the rain. At least for the moment, she seemed far away and out of touch.

  “You better decide quick, bro, because this isn’t a big town. And once I get to the highway I can’t guarantee I won’t change my mind about this pitstop idea of yours.”

  “Just pick a house.”

  “You want to just randomly pick a house? Shouldn’t we pick the biggest one?”

  “No. The biggest doesn’t necessarily mean the most food. What I’m thinking is we look for the most rundown one we can find and check that one.”

  “See? He’s a nutcase.”

  “Food stamps,” Taylor said.

  “What about them?”

  “We look for a below average house. You figure whoever lives there is poor. Or at least struggling. Go a step further, and you figure they’re poor, maybe they’re on food stamps. If you got free money what would you do with it? You’d spend it. So they’re the most likely to have a well-stocked fridge.”

&nb
sp; Carl slowed the car, squinting to discern the condition of the houses through the rain. “That’s some fucked up reasoning, but you might be right.”

  Tina turned in her seat so that she could see both of them. “Or maybe there is another option.”

  “What’s that?” Taylor asked.

  “We go to my house. Well, the house I grew up in anyway. Now only my dad lives there. He keeps the fridge stocked for when I visit him some weekends. Nothing fancy, but I’m sure we could find some stuff to take with us.”

  “That’s even better,” Taylor said.

  “Does he have any guns at the house?”

  “Not that I know of,” Tina said. “I don’t think he kept any guns in the house when I was growing up. He might have since then. I wouldn’t know where he would keep it if he did though.”

  “So how do we get there?”

  She leaned closer to the windshield, scrunching up her face. “The rain makes it tough. Okay. See this street coming up? Take a right when you get to it.”

  Carl slowed and turned right. Two blocks down, she instructed him to take another right.

  “My dad’s house is on the opposite side of town from where we are now. Just keep heading straight until you get to the stoplight. It’s one of only two that we have in town. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

  “We don’t have any back home,” Carl said. “We’re still on dial-up Internet.”

  “I’m sorry for you.”

  “I’m sorry for myself. It’s like a tiny black hole in America. Our town got sucked into it. Just sits there going nowhere and nothing can escape.”

  Tina pointed ahead. “The stoplight is right up there. It’s not working, so it’s hard to see. You’re going to want to take a left there. It’s kind of a roundabout way, but it will keep us farther from downtown where those things are.”

  Taylor said, “Who knows where they are. They might have kept on following after us.”

  Carl took a left at the dead stoplight and then another right for three blocks until Tina pointed out her house. There wasn’t a driveway so he parked alongside the curb and killed the engine. Taylor and Carl opened their doors to get out. Tina stayed in her seat, unmoving.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m afraid to go in,” she said. “My hopeful little vision is that my father made it out of town. That he’s somewhere safe. That’s what I hope. But my imagination can come up with a whole lot more less appealing possibilities. Like he could be lying dead on the kitchen floor. Or turned into one of those…things.”

  “You can’t think like that,” Taylor said, feeling as close to a piece of shit as he had ever felt. His conscious prodded him to just come out and let her have it; give her the plain old truth of the situation, which was that her father was indeed one of those things, but that they didn’t have to worry about running into him inside the house.

  If you had told her in the first place, you wouldn’t be standing here trying to convince her to come in, he thought.

  But he ignored his conscience for now. Deep down, he knew he was taking the coward’s route and it didn’t sit well with any part of him.

  “How do you know?”

  “I tell you what,” Taylor said. “I’ll have Carl wait here with you for a minute while I go check the house. If it’s safe, I’ll motion for you guys to come in. Sound good?”

  Reluctantly, she nodded.

  “Sure you want to go in there by yourself?”

  “It’ll only take me a minute.”

  “Seems like you’re the one taking all the chances,” Carl said.

  “Calculated risks.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Big brothers are supposed to be assholes.”

  Carl watched as Taylor unfolded a corner of the canvas drop cloth and dug around until he found one of the flashlights.

  “Be careful.”

  Taylor nodded and trudged off toward the house.

  “Wait,” Tina said.

  “What?”

  “The house key is on there,” she said, pointing to the key ring dangling from the Escort’s ignition.

  Carl fumbled around with the keys. “Which one?”

  “Let me see.”

  After Carl had handed her the key ring, she went through them until she found the right one. “This is it,” she said. “I remember because it’s the one with the little fake ruby glued in the big end.”

  Taylor bent down and thrust his head through the lowered car window. “Is there a door in the back?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’m going around back. Don’t ask me why. I don’t have a good reason. Seems safer. Keep the key in the ignition. Leave the engine off because it’ll make too much noise, but be ready just in case those things show up.”

  “What about you?”

  “Honk the horn. I’ll know that means you had to take off. Drive around to the other side of the block. I can cut through the backyard, fences…whatever, to get to the street behind this one.”

  There was only the pitter-patter of rain, and the sound of his shoes squishing as they plodded through the soggy grass.

  The urge to start smoking again hit him; this nagging feeling that came out of nowhere. When he had first quit, the urge hadn’t been so haphazard. It had come as naturally as any other routine act or emotion. Something as simple as the phone ringing could trigger it. Over time, those attacks had subsided, but once in a while, during particularly stressful situations, he would feel the need. And he felt the need now in a bad way. He found himself hoping that Tina’s father had smoked. Maybe he would find a pack in the house. Taylor thought he might cave to temptation if that happened.

  By the time he reached the rear of the house, the moisture had penetrated his sneakers and was soaking into his socks. He climbed the three cement steps, opened the screen door, and twisted the knob of the inner door. Locked. He took the key Tina had given him (there was indeed a small artificial ruby set into the metal), inserted it into the lock, and it turned smoothly.

  He switched on the flashlight and pointed the beam into the house. He was in the kitchen. A square table with four chairs sat in the center of the room, a stack of folded newspapers on top of it, and several unopened letters resting on top of the papers. There was a pile of dishes in the sink. Bet Daddy’s little girl does those for him when she comes home on the weekends, he thought.

  A cordless phone hung on the wall to the left of the entrance to the living room. Taylor picked it up and pushed the TALK button. There was no dial tone.

  He performed a cursory check of the house. He opened the front door, stepped out onto the steps, pointed the flashlight at the Escort and flicked the beam on and off three times in rapid succession. He waited until he saw his brother and Tina exiting the car before going back into the house.

  When Tina was in the kitchen, Taylor said, “I didn’t want to snoop around too much without your permission.”

  Tina opened the refrigerator. “Not too bad. I’ve seen it worse. There’s almost a full jar of grape jelly. Peanut butter’s in the cupboard.” She opened a drawer and removed a loaf of bread. “This will work.”

  Carl helped her ransack the cupboards. They organized the canned goods into two groups: take and don’t take. The “take” group consisted of canned fruits, vegetables, baked beans, and three tins of sardines. “They’re kind of nasty, but not too bad on crackers. The ones in mustard sauce are better.”

  Taylor searched every nook and cranny of the house. No guns. That would have been too damn convenient. A heavy-duty safe sat on the floor at the back of her father’s bedroom closet, but he had no way of opening it.

  He tried one of the other rooms. Shined his light in and saw stuffed animals on a neatly made bed, posters of boy bands tacked to the walls. Tina’s old room. Taylor had no doubt that her father had left it untouched. His daughter away at school, he probably peeked his head in the empty room once in a while just to be reminded of her. Peering into that room made the h
ouse feel like the loneliest place in the world.

  After having given the upstairs the proper once over, Taylor descended the stairs to find Carl and Tina still working in the kitchen. Tina had taken a large cardboard box from somewhere and positioned it on top of the counter, slowly filling up with the odds and ends from the cupboards.

  Taylor said, “I didn’t mean we had to pack for weeks. I was thinking of enough for a day or two maybe, but you’ve got quite a collection there.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Tina said. “I think I’d have to be starving to death before I could consider eating any of it, but it is edible.” She topped off the box by adding the jars of peanut butter and jelly and carefully placed the loaf of bread on top. It almost felt like they were getting ready to go on a picnic. “One of you two will have to carry it to the car. It’s heavy.”

  “Any luck?” Carl asked.

  Taylor shook his head. “Nope.”

  “I didn’t think he kept a gun in the house,” Tina said. “In a town like this anybody that keeps a gun uses it for hunting. My dad wasn’t a hunter. Nobody really keeps a gun for protection. Probably one of the few places left where people still leave their doors unlocked.”

  Taylor kept thinking they had been stranded in an alternate version of Coldwater. A town like this or a town like Coldwater, were probably endangered species this day and age, but he supposed there were still a few of them left. Almost made you feel fortunate. Like you were privy to a secret only a select few knew about.

  Taylor went into the living room and parted the slats in the Venetian blinds. The street appeared empty. The Escort parked on the street, looking more like a tired prehistoric animal. The rain had let up.

  From behind him, Carl said, “Well? That everything?”

  “Unless you can think of anything else.”

  “A bazooka maybe,” Carl said, uttering a nervous laugh.