He spoke into the radio. “Angie, if you can hear me, we’re coming. If you can, try to find a way to signal us. I love you, baby.”
Another hiss of static.
“Is that her do you think?”
“Could be. Or it could just be static.”
The dirt path curved to the left and then to the right again. Gradually, the ground became less muddy, and in places it became difficult to make out the tire tracks. He figured they had been following the tracks for nearly a mile, never falling below a rapid walk unless it was to allow Tina to catch up to him.
“How far does this road go?”
“A few miles, I guess.”
The prospect of walking several miles exhausted her completely. She hoped that Taylor would catch up to them in the car sooner rather than later.
“I wish she would answer,” Carl said. “That we were getting more than static. We’ve got to be getting closer right? So why isn’t this thing working? We heard her when we were by the lake. Why not now?”
“Taylor thought it was interference of some kind. She might be moving the same way we are.”
“It sounded like she was talking about those things. Something about being separated. What if they’re after her? What if we’re too late?”
“We haven’t seen any of the rabid things since the ones on the interstate. That’s a good thing.”
The path seemed to narrow as they went. Huge stones peppered the landscape.
In a feeble attempt to distract Carl from his thoughts, Tina said, “It’s pretty up here. How long did you say it’s been since you were up here last?”
Carl pointed to the ground. “Look. The tracks leave the road here. See? They curve and head that way.”
So much for that idea, Tina thought.
“Do you see them?”
“Yes.”
“They must have headed for those rocks over there.”
“Could they get a car through there? It looks rough.”
Carl followed the tracks. The ground was solid, rocky, and strewn with leaves. The tracks became faint. Fifty yards later, they vanished completely.
“They can’t just disappear can they?”
Carl stomped his foot on the ground. His foot didn’t leave a mark.
“There’s no give to the ground. Not like there was when we were closer to the lake. And it doesn’t look there’s much rain up here. The ground is hard and rocky. The tires didn’t leave marks.”
“What do we do?”
“Keep heading this way.
“How far away is that?”
“Maybe a mile, maybe a little more.”
Tina felt like her legs might give out at any moment, but she continued to trudge onward.
It didn’t take him long to realize why they kept that particular road closed. It hadn’t been properly maintained. Taylor thought it probably bore some similarities to what it would be like to drive across the cratered surface of the moon. The Escort wasn’t faring well.
He had to take it at a crawl. The needle on the speedometer hovered anywhere between five and twenty miles-per-hour. It felt like an eternity. Taylor was frustrated at having to move at such a slow rate when every fiber of his being was screaming at him to hurry the hell up.
But there was always the reality of it: if he hit any one of the potholes going too fast, Tina’s car would be finished.
I’ve got to be close to the lake by now, he thought. It wasn’t that far.
He was hoping to see it up ahead, but the trees were distributed densely in the area to his right, making it impossible to see anything past them.
The road curved slightly to the right. He skirted another pothole.
His mind was preoccupied with the mystery of the boat. It was hard to grasp. In his mind, he saw the image of it sitting forlornly in the middle of the still lake. His theory had been wrong. There was no evidence suggesting that it had floated out there by accident.
Admit it. They abandoned the boat. That’s the only explanation.
It went against everything they knew about the rabid things. If his parents and Angie had been in danger from them, then the safest place would have been inside the boat. Those things wouldn’t go in the water.
Or had they purposely left the boat there so that the walkie-talkie could be found. It was such a small lake, a solitary boat floating in the center of it stuck out like a sore thumb. Had his father known they would come to find them and that the boat would catch their attention? Wasn’t it also odd that there had been nothing else in the boat other than the walkie-talkie? Almost as if it had been left on purpose. If all of that had been part of his father’s elaborate plan, then it had worked.
The only reason to leave the walkie-talkie was to communicate. Maybe his father had a hiding place and leaving the walkie-talkie for them to find was the means by which he could give them directions. Somehow his mom and dad had been separated from Angie, and Angie had the walkie-talkie. He had been able to figure that much out from Angie’s static-filled transmission.
These thoughts reminded him of the urgency of the matter. Driving along at fifteen miles-per-hour was agonizing, but it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t take the chance of losing their only means of transportation.
Then, to his right, the lake was visible through the trees. As the trees fell away, he could see the boat exactly where they had left it. The dirt road followed the northern side of the lake and then curved to the left, unwinding to the north. He had to squint to make out the tire tracks from inside the car. He rolled down the window.
Almost there, he thought.
The terrain had grown more rugged since they had left the path. The ground was rocky, and Tina’s slip-on shoes were thin enough to make it seem as though she was walking barefoot over every branch and rock. The pack on her back was growing heavy. Don’t complain. You asked for it. With a sense of purposefulness, she pursed her lips together and carried on, watching Carl’s back as she followed behind him.
The two of them hadn’t spoken since they had diverged from the road. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth to speak, she would only end up complaining about the weight of the pack or the condition of her shoes. She didn’t want to come off as whiny; she didn’t want to sound like most other girls she knew.
A change had come over Carl since he had heard Angie over the walkie-talkie. He had become solemn and preoccupied. His withdrawal scared her a little. He kept talking into the walkie-talkie. He would say different things, but it was almost like he knew he was only talking to himself but doing it anyway. He would say things like It’s okay, baby. I’m coming for you or I love you so much, honey. The constant repetition of it gave the words a chant-like quality that Tina found disquieting. Especially since the only response was a transitory burst of static.
As part of her studies, she had been required to take a course in psychology. They had covered stuff like this. In certain extreme conditions a person’s mind could snap as easily as someone stepping on a twig. She wondered if that was what was happening to Carl.
“Can you slow down a little?” she asked. “I can’t keep up.”
Carl didn’t respond, but he slowed down until she caught up with him. Tina came up beside him, looked at his face and tried to judge his condition. His face was blank. He brought the walkie-talkie up to his lips and whispered something into it. Pretty soon he’ll start hearing voices coming back through that thing when there aren’t any, she thought. When that starts happening, that’s when you’re going to have to be on your guard.
Despite having covered another half mile, the looming rocks appeared as far away and unattainable as they had twenty minutes ago. It’s like they’re moving away from us.
“They don’t seem to be getting any closer,” she said, once again trying to spur him into conversation if for no other reason than to gauge his state of mind.
Carl said, “It’s always like that. But we’re making progress. Trust me.” He picked up his pace. “It’s a kind o
f illusion. You can’t focus on the peaks. The highest ones are actually the farthest away. The trick is to let your eyes follow the ground.”
Tina trailed a few behind him, focusing her gaze on the ground directly in front of her. The rocks still seemed a long way off, but she trusted that he knew what he was talking about.
“Maybe another mile,” he said. “Tops. From here it seems pretty open, but up close there are plenty of hiding places.”
“Caves?”
“No caves. Not that I know of anyway.”
She was glad to have him talking again. It helped to keep her imagination in check.
Carl tried the walkie-talkie again. When there was no response, he fiddled with the volume knob. He tried a second time, and this time the burst of static sounded oddly like a high-pitched human voice.
“Baby? Was that you? If you can hear me, say something...anything. Even if it’s just one word.”
Nothing.
Carl brought the arm holding the walkie-talkie back, looking as if he were about to launch it into space, but then thought better of it.
“This is bullshit! She’s alone out here and I’m too dumb to know how to find her.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re doing the best you can.”
“Yeah? And what if that’s not good enough?”
“It has to be, Carl,” she said. “That’s all there is.”
He made a disgusted look and stuffed the walkie-talkie into his back pocket. He said, “Let’s just concentrate on getting there. We don’t need to talk.”
I think he’s losing it, she thought.
The tire tracks ended. Gone. He parked the car along the side of the road and stepped out, inspecting the tracks as they veered to the right, disappearing when they reached the rocky soil where the road ended.
Taylor stood next to a tree, running his palm down the rough bark, gazing ahead in the direction of the rocks. No way to go off-roading with this.
He spotted them far ahead in the distance. If the distance between them hadn’t been uncharacteristically flat, he would have missed them. They were little more than blurry specks, but Carl and Tina stood out among the more subdued tones of the landscape.
His first thought was: I brought the car for nothing. All that time wasted to go back for the car and I can’t even get to them.
And then he saw something else in the distance as well, hidden amongst the trees like the secret figures in an illusionist’s paintings.
Then he started to scream.
Chapter 10
The End of the Road
Carl heard a twig snap.
“Did you hear something?” he asked, pulling the walkie-talkie from his pocket and holding it up to his ear.
“No. Why?”
“I thought I did.” He spoke Angie’s name into the walkie-talkie to no avail.
Another sound. The squishy, crackling sound of feet trampling over brittle leaves.
“Oh my God!” Tina screamed.
He glanced at her, following the direction of her gaze, and immediately saw what all the fuss was about: a group of rabid things seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.
Carl registered them like a man in the kind of dream where you’re cognizant of the face that you’re dreaming; with the stunted sense of urgency that comes with realizing you are not in any real danger.
But the danger in front of him was real.
He thought he heard another sound in the distance. Something far away. A voice perhaps?
His first thought was that it was that the group of the rabid things was surprisingly small. After witnessing the strange migration on the interstate, he expected to see them in larger numbers. His mind calculated quickly. On first sweep, he counted a dozen. They stood in a haphazard line. Some of them were wearing mountain climbing gear. Forty yards away.
Then he heard the voice clearly. He turned and saw Taylor standing beside the car, hands cupped around his mouth, shouting at them.
Carl heard the rustle of leaves and didn’t need to look to know the rabid things were running towards them. He grabbed Tina by the arm and said, “Run!”
She was slow. It took Carl a moment to realize that the pack on her back was weighing her down.
“Drop the pack.”
“What?”
“Leave the fucking backpack!”
She shrugged the pack from her shoulders in one fluid motion. The pack hit the ground, sending up a spray of leaves.
Over the walkie-talkie, Angie’s voice said, “Carl? Where are you?”
Carl heard his name called over the walkie-talkie and tried pulling it from his back pocket. He was running full speed, one hand around Tina’s wrist. He fumbled with the radio and it fell to the ground. He let go of Tina’s wrist and stopped.
“What are you doing?”
“I dropped the radio.”
“Leave it.”
“I heard Angie.” He stooped down, rummaging through the leaves, pushing piles of them aside with his arms, frantically searching for the fallen radio. He heard it squawk again, and Angie’s voice calling for him.
“Carl!”
It was the type of mistake that didn’t allow for second chances.
They descended on him, ripping and tearing at him before he could scream, and even then his arms were stretched out toward the spot where the walkie-talkie had suddenly appeared on top of the leaves. The pain was swift and unbearable.
Angie’s voice over the radio: Carl, where are you? I love you. Please say something.
Carl felt his flesh being torn and shredded; felt an oozy warmth slide down his body. He closed his eyes.
He was almost grateful that the last sound he heard was Angie’s voice coming over the walkie-talkie.
Taylor saw his brother stop and stoop to the ground.
What the fuck is he doing?
He watched Tina hesitate, but only for a moment, and then she started running toward him again.
Taylor ran. He’s out of his mind, he thought. Damn fucking moron!
He and Tina passed each other. She was screaming. She seemed to not even notice him as they passed one another. Taylor’s heart was beating so fast he thought it would thump right out of his chest.
He arrived too late. The rabid things had Carl and had destroyed him within seconds.
Taylor felt rage take over. A shouting voice that spoke only the language of fury, drowning out the quiet and rational voice that whispered for him to run.
He pulled the Glock from his waistband and fired, hitting several of them, but missing most out of carelessness.
After the Glock was empty, he picked up a sturdy branch from the ground and swung at one of the rabid things that had hold of his brother. He caught the rabid man in the neck and its head tilted severely to one side. Another one of them hissed and lunged at him. Taylor struck him across the face with the branch, caving in the side of the thing’s face.
They dropped what remained of Carl. Taylor stood next to the body, swinging the branch back-and-forth wildly, trying desperately to protect his brother.
Carl was dead. There was no question of that.
Taylor struck a woman this time, raking the end of the branch across her mouth and tearing open her lips so that her teeth were exposed.
One of them grabbed him from behind. Taylor flailed around like a captured animal, throwing his head back so the back of his skull collided with the rabid thing’s face.
He felt pain erupt at the back of his neck; thick wetness. He collapsed to his knees, still managing to cling to the branch, his brother clearly visible on the ground two feet in front of him.
This is it, he thought. All the things he had ever hoped to do in his life occurred to him within the span of a single second. His hands grew too weak to maintain his hold on the branch. Dark blotches crowded his vision, seeping in from the corners and working their way to the center until his vision was clouded completely. This is it. It was a hard fact to accept.
They
were on him, dragging him to the ground face first. He tasted dirt and smelled the mustiness of brittle dead leaves.
Taylor was stubborn. Like his father. He continued to struggle, fighting death with the bullheadedness he was known for. However, in the end, it was a losing battle.
Tina refused to look back.
She reached the car, sat down in the driver’s seat and closed the door, listening to the whine of the engine. She had stopped screaming. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, shaking with the vibration of the engine.
She put the car in drive, mashed down on the accelerator, and pulled the car around so that she was headed back in the direction of the lake. By the time she could see the lake up ahead, the needle of the speedometer rested at the sixty miles-per-hour mark.
She didn’t see the pothole. The Escort’s right front tire caught it with enough force to allow it to go airborne, coming down and issuing a brief scream as the tire went flat. Tina slammed the brakes and the back end fishtailed. One of the rear tires skidded onto the embankment that marked the place where one side of the road ended. She pressed down on the accelerator as hard as she could, but the car refused to move.
“No!” She pounded her fists against the steering wheel. “Noooooo!” Tina drew the word out, screaming it until her breath was gone. She threw open the car door, running toward the lake. Behind her, the rabid things followed the road. They were far back, but they were tireless and relentless and Tina was familiar with the futility of trying to outrun them; knew that they would keep coming long after she was unable to run any longer.
The boat was where they had left it.
Water, she thought. They can’t stand the water.
Her mind raced frantically. She was all alone now and the knowledge of that ate away any sanity she had left.
Tina reached the boat. Her shoes sunk into the mud, and she felt water squishing between her toes. She pushed on the front of the boat hoping to set it free from the shore. At first, nothing happened; it was an immovable object. The boat had worn a deep groove into the dirt where it rested on the shore.
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