Out on the water, a host of boats drifted, encased in black cloaks. She stopped briefly to study the scene, squinting, but unable to make out much. The boats weren’t covered, not properly, and not in any way she had seen before. A writhing rhythm shook across the blackness, an inky pulse that wormed through the tarps. With a squawk, one of the black flecks rose and then shoved its way into a nearby gap. The boats were encased in crows, she realized. Whoever had tried to escape land had become fodder for the birds, and now those creatures were feasting on the remains of their catch.
Shuddering, she moved forward again, her legs responding sluggishly but finding the pedals and giving them a slow, tentative turn. She vividly recalled the stinging pokes of beaks on her skin and hoped the birds were properly distracted with their carrion not to pay her much attention.
Scores of ravaged bodies lay in the sand, on the lawn. Whatever animals had felled them must have moved on, and although she did not see any immediate threats, she was more than wary.
Lauren pedaled slowly, made cautious by fear and the worry that the clicking noise of the bike’s chains and gears would draw attention.
A loud squawking rang out over the bay, and she shot a nervous glance toward the boats. The crows were writhing, some flying over to another pleasure boat and seeking sustenance. The intrusion sparked a cacophony of shrill, piercing noise, the smacking of feathered bodies loud even from a distance. Soon enough, the crows separated into groupings and the various murders assaulted each other. Feathers burst into the air amid war cries and shrieks of pain, the pulsing black cloud a whirling dervish of angry bloodlust.
She kept to the trail along the shore, unsure what the safest route was. Heat waves shimmered along the central road cutting through downtown, blocked off by a host of emergency vehicles and traffic. The trail at least provided open space and less obstacles to navigate around.
On the beach, she saw a handful of stray mutts chomping at the still bodies. One of the dogs looked up at her, but it was only a passing glance before it returned to its easy meal.
After putting a suitable distance between herself and the ravaged front of downtown, she began looking down the crosswalks to determine if it was safe enough to cross over and cut through toward City Hall. The four-lane break between streets, and the lack of wind, provided enough of a gap to prevent the fire from spreading further down Front Street, so she maneuvered her way through the snaking trail of cars and down the side street past the parking lots on either side.
Finding herself beside the brick front of the Mackinac Brewery brought back memories of beer cheese soup and the walleye sandwich she’d had so often. Every now and then, her dad would even allow her a discreet sip of the seasonal cherry lager or oatmeal stout.
The front doors were unlocked, but the window-facing booths and tables were, of course, empty, the building dark. Her stomach grumbled at the prospect of food—real food this time, and not raw dog meat still covered in fur, although she had eaten that ferociously and without complaint.
Mouth dry, she made her first stop at the bar. Tipping a pint glass beneath a tap of cherry lager, she filled it to the brim, warm beer sloshing over the rim of the glass and over her fingers. She sucked at the foam, then took a long draught, thirsty enough to chug it down.
Halfway down her throat, the muscles in her neck seized and she choked, spitting the beer out onto the black rubber cactus mat lining the floor behind the bar. She coughed, a fist-sized cramp twisting her gut and expelling the liquid she had swallowed. The glass fell, shattering against the bar top and sending shards everywhere.
The spilled beer had a yeasty, fruit smell—entirely ordinary, crisp and fresh, but somehow suddenly malicious. She bent toward the bar, inhaling the beer fumes and shoved away as another gagging fit took over, her nose crinkling in revulsion. Where she had once found the fruity, summery scent pleasant, she was now thoroughly repulsed and sickened.
Her cheeks and tongue felt mealy. She twisted the sink faucet and, rather than fill another glass, stuck her face in sideways, lapping at the running water. She rinsed and spat and then sucked in more water. Satisfied that there were no ill effects from this, she drank more.
Maybe the beer had gone bad, she thought, but was unable to convince herself. The beer smelled exactly as she had remembered it, smelled exactly as it should. The beer had not changed at all, and what that signified sent a shudder through her.
She drank more water and tried not to dwell on the implications her mental voice screamed at her. Once her thirst was quenched, she moved deeper into the restaurant, thinking about food more substantial than the abandoned bowls of peanuts and pretzels infrequently dotting the bar top.
She pushed through the swing doors and into the empty kitchen. There were containers of chopped vegetables beneath the steel prep tables, but her stomach kicked at the thought of the wilted greens and dried out, white-veined carrots that had been sitting out since, at least, the prior morning.
She pulled open the refrigerator doors, eyeing the shelves of raw steaks and ground hamburger, the pork cutlets and chicken breasts, and fillets of walleye, perch, cod, and salmon. Although not as cold as it should have been, the fridge had still kept a decent chill and the meat was cool to the touch. She licked her lips, her salivary glands tingling with the expulsion of moisture.
Her nails ripped greedily at the saran wrap covering the ground beef and she grabbed handfuls of meat, stuffing it into her face. Pink fluid gushed over her lips, down her chin, pooling between her neck and the collar of her shirt in a sticky mess. The meat was rubbery, the odor a muscly malodorous stink, but not quite rotten.
She gulped it down, finishing the tray, feeling the animal part of whatever she was now take over and gorge its bottomless pit of a belly. A cold, disgusting lump filled the void in her stomach, a chilly burp erupting from her mouth.
Satisfied, she let the refrigerator door close on its own accord, dropping the Styrofoam tray and the pink juices it held. Wandering over to the sink, she thrust her head beneath the faucet, scrubbing her face and washing the stickiness away from her mouth and hands.
Gunshots broke the silence, and she fell to her knees, gripping the edge of the washbasin with dripping wet hands.
Men’s voices rang out in between the shots, and a slight tremor ran beneath her knees. Closer, booming, explosive grunts, and the heavy pounding of hooves against cement.
Rifle shots broke against the animal noises, followed by loud shouting nearby. A man’s voice yelled, “In here!” and the door slammed shut hard enough to rattle the glass.
Keeping low, she edged toward the kitchen doors and peered through the thin gap. She spotted the profile of one of the men, the gun held up with the muzzle pointing toward the ceiling. Fast-moving dark flashes rushed past the window. The man looked afraid, and kept glancing between his companion and out the window at the massive creatures thundering past, his hand worrying against the grip of his rifle.
Quietly, Lauren edged away from the swinging doors, toward the steel door on the opposite side of the kitchen. This door, she knew, would dump her out into the parking lot separating the bar from the bayside road. Once outside, she could work her way toward the opposite end of the block. The bicycle was a lost cause.
Gun in hand, she pushed open the exit, the noises growing louder as she cautiously stepped forward. She peeked around the corner, her mouth dropping open at the sight of what had so scared the two men.
Massive black-haired buffalo stampeded down the street, running as a herd toward the lake. Steam boiled from their large, flared nostrils, their grunting crashing against the air over the clamor of their footfalls. Wicked horns jutted from thick bullet-shaped heads, sheets of muscle rippling beneath their fly-ridden coats.
The kitchen door had sealed flush with the frame, the only means of entry by way of a key. No door handle, no way to open it. No way back inside.
She sidestepped her way down the building’s flank, keeping herself pressed close t
o the brick in order to minimize her profile and, hopefully, make herself less of a target. That herd would tear her apart in an instant, and the pistol she carried would be useless against them.
Her mind struggled to piece together the discordant scene of so many buffalo trampling through downtown before seizing on the answer. There were plenty of farms out on the peninsula. They must have somehow broke free and fled down the thin rail of land, or had been driven down here by whatever hungry masses revolted against them.
Wherever they came from, she was fucked if they got any nearer. She suspected the same was true about the men inside the brewery, as well, and where there were two men, there could be more.
The overhang blocked her view of the roofs, which was okay because she knew that same obstruction would prevent anyone up top from seeing her below. If there was anyone up there, though, by the time she learned of them it would likely be too late. The fire escape winding up the rear of the antique shop was devoid of life, at least.
As she neared the ladder, the fire exit of the brewery banged open, the men tentatively stepping outside. The men met her eyes almost instantly, their eyes going wide and saucer-like.
“There!” one man said.
“I told you I smelled pussy,” his companion said.
Lauren turned swiftly and ran, closing the distance between herself and the fire escape ladder, springing up to grab onto a higher rung a few feet off the ground and hauling herself up. Her legs kicked in the air searching for a rung, using her arms to climb. The men were hurrying after her, their feet striking the pavement in loud, heavy percussions.
She gained vital height over them, her ankles out of reach, and clambered onto the metal floor of the lowest level of the fire escape. She looked down in time to see one of the men drawing a bead on her with his rifle, momentarily grateful for the second man, who grabbed onto the barrel and shoved the gun off target.
“Don’t shoot her, you idiot! Ward wants ’em alive!”
Sprinting up the steps to the next level, to the topmost floor of the antique shop, she caught flashes of the man slipping the rifle’s strap over his shoulder. The window to the shop was stuck, and she had no time to screw around with it. She smashed the glass with the butt of her pistol, using the front sights to clear off the shards so she could slip through. A racket of clattering metal and groaning joints announced the men’s ascent toward her.
The shop was dark, but there was enough daylight to see by. A stack of cardboard boxes were lined up against the nearest corner, and beside that an ornate/gaudy end table that looked as if its maker had been inspired by both the Victorian era and ancient Egypt. Atop it was a green shaded office lamp, and an oil painting of a kangaroo hanging on the wall. Small white price tags with too-high prices written in red marker dangled from the corners of everything. Junk, all of it. She began toppling as much of it she could, tossing it in front of the window, hoping to make a hazard out of all the bric-a-brac. All this garbage wouldn’t stop them from getting in, but it would at least make it bit more difficult. If she was really lucky, one of them would step wrong, turn their ankle, and maybe bust their head open on the corner of a table.
When the sound of glass shattering reached up from the floor beneath her, she realized how badly she had miscalculated. She had been operating solely on adrenaline and her flight reflexes, her decision-making skills buried in the sheer need to survive, and so she had allowed herself to be trapped. The only way was down, and now they were beneath her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She turned back toward the window, saw the fat, fleshy face of one of her pursuers leering at her. His wide hands gripped each side of the window frame as he levered one thick leg through, then the other, his foot rolling as it landed awkwardly on the leg of the upturned table.
“Shit!” he said, surprised and with a hint of pain. He kicked the table out from under the windowsill and she had to step back out of the way.
No sense waiting for him to get inside, she thought. The antique shop was an open loft-style floor plan. All the junk—“antiquities” was too kind of a word for the garage sale leftovers that found room here—were laid out in neat rows atop scarred card tables, old desks, beat up nightstands, and dining room tables that had gone out of style long before she’d been born. There was no good hiding spot to be had.
I guess I won’t hide then, she thought.
The fat man was through the window and striding toward her. His rifle was leveled directly at her, but if his warning about somebody named Ward was right, then she figured he wouldn’t shoot.
The green, glowing front sights of her pistol lined up squarely with the center of his face and he stopped and stood stock-still.
“Don’t be stupid, miss,” he said.
His finger hovered over the trigger of his rifle. Her finger rested on hers, already easing it back oh so slowly. He watched her, and she watched him. For a brief instant, he took his eye off the sights and she completed the trigger pull. A crater opened in his face, snapping his head back. His finger yanked the trigger, his body pulling the rifle up, shooting once into the ceiling. The loud, booming crack of the rifle jolted her and she nearly leapt out of her skin. She stepped back and her shoulders hit something solid.
Hands snaked around her mouth, pulling her off her feet, and she knew then what had distracted the fat man. His companion had come up the stairs quietly and approached her from behind. His hand was enormous, like a bear paw, and it covered her mouth and nose, the flesh of his palm plugging the gap between her lips and she inhaled his odor, a brackish, smoky stink. He pulled her head back, his other arm wrapping around her neck.
“Aw, goddamnit,” he said. “You fucking bitch.”
She recognized his voice as the one who had claimed to smell her, and now she smelled him all too well. His hand cupped her face so tightly the skin beneath his fingers pinched her nostrils shut. Her chin pushed against his elbow, trying to squirm between the squeezing muscles of his forearm and biceps, to escape his suffocating hand and to create enough breathing room between his other arm and her throat. She couldn’t, though, and when she tried to move her foot to kick back at him, she found it stuck, his foot laced around her ankle.
Her nails scrabbled at his forearm, clawing uselessly at the fabric of his coat.
“You’re coming with me now, sweetie. Don’t matter how. I’ll either be dragging you out of here, or you can come on your own. Up to you.”
She batted at his arm, and he squeezed tighter, the world going murky around her.
Unconscious, he would be able to do anything to her. Anything. And she wouldn’t be able to fight. Awake, she could at least try to resist, put up some measure of opposition no matter how small. Or so she hoped.
She stuck both arms out at her side, like a scarecrow, and forced her body to relax. He kept the squeeze on for a few more seconds, but once it was clear she had given up the fight his arm loosened.
He snatched the gun away from her. The gun she had fucking forgot she had been holding, so caught up in the terror of being choked from behind. The pistol went into his waistband and he gave her an appraising look.
“All right,” he said. “Turn around. Get on your knees, keep your arms out to the side.”
Oh god, she thought, revulsion sweeping through her, her stomach flipping over at the prospect of this man’s intentions, raw beef churning inside her belly and threatening to heave out of her. When she failed to respond quickly enough, he stepped forward and roughly shoved her around, kicking her in the back of her legs.
“Arms out!”
She raised them to the sides and, a moment later, felt the coarseness of rope around one wrist, tight, and he was pulling her arms behind her and binding her hands together. He coiled another loop around her throat and she could feel the pull against her neck as her arms relaxed. Another piece of rope went between her lips and was tied off around the back of her head.
“Get up. Start moving.”
He
pushed her toward the stairs and they descended. She wondered if she could break her neck by throwing herself down the steps and save herself the agonizing humiliation she expected to follow. As if reading her mind, he took a hold of the rope between her shoulder blades and held on.
He steered her toward the front doors, then reached in front of her to turn the deadbolt before shoving her outside.
Eight other men stood in the street. Between them were three women, each trussed up like Lauren and roped together at the waist. A smattering of children—five of them, she counted—were also tied together in a line. A number of hungry eyes found Lauren, lips glistening.
“We heard shots,” one of the men said.
“Bitch killed Alvis.”
A quiet murmur spread among the men, but she could not make out any of the words. Not that she needed to. Not that any of what they had to say or think mattered.
She was roughly pulled over to the train of women and tied off at the end of the line.
“All right,” another man spoke up. “Let’s get moving.”
18
THE ROPE SCRATCHED AND bit into Lauren’s neck. If she allowed her arms to relax and her wrists to sag, the rope constricted tighter around her throat, choking her.
Nine men surrounded the train of four women, surrounding them and marching them down Front Street. Smoke lingered in the air. More pungent was the reek of the early stages of rot from the mauled animals and their savaged prey, human and animal alike.
The women were spread out more than an arm’s distance from one another. Lauren figured it was to prevent them from snapping at one another, noticing that the men, too, kept themselves spaced apart. Not too far, but not too close, either. So far, all had seemed subdued and Lauren noticed that even her constant bloodlust felt quelled since being forced into the group. Yet she knew that, if given an opening, she’d put her teeth to the throat of any one of them and enjoy it.
Mass Hysteria Page 16