By noon, they were approaching the Kansas border. Lila was still sleeping. Grey himself had lapsed into a half-dream state, barely paying attention to the road. He’d managed to avoid towns of any considerable size, but this couldn’t last; they’d need gas soon. Ahead he saw a water tower poking from the plain.
The town was named Kingwood—just a short, dusty main street, half the store windows papered over, and a few blocks of dismal houses on either side. It looked harmlessly abandoned; the only evidence that anything had happened was an ambulance parked in front of the fire station with its rear doors hanging open. And yet Grey sensed something, a tingling at his extremities, as if their progress was being observed from the shadows. He cruised the length of the town, finally coming to a filling station on its eastern edge, an off-brand place called Frankie’s.
Lila stirred when Grey shut the engine off. “Where are we?”
“Kansas.”
She yawned, squinting through the windshield at the desolate town. “Why are we stopping?”
“We need gas. I’ll just be a sec.”
Grey tried the pump, but no dice: the power was off. He’d have to siphon some off somehow, but for that he’d need a length of hose and a can. He stepped into the office. A battered metal desk, covered with stacks of paper, stood by the front window; an old office chair rested behind it, rocked back on its hinges, giving the ghostly impression of having only recently been vacated. He moved through the door that led to the service bays, a cool, dark space that smelled of oil. A Cadillac Seville, late-’90s vintage, was perched on one of the lifts; the second bay was occupied by a Chevy 4×4 with a jacked-up suspension and fat, mud-choked tires. Resting on the floor was a five-gallon gas can; on one of the workbenches, Grey located a length of hose. He severed off a six-foot section, slid one end into the 4×4’s fuel port, drew in a sip that he spat away, and began to siphon gas into the can.
The can was nearly full when he heard a scuffling above his head. Every nerve in his body fired simultaneously, clenching him in place.
Slowly he lifted his face.
The creature was suspended from one of the ceiling beams, hanging upside down with its knees folded over the strut like a kid on monkey bars. It was smaller than Zero, more human-seeming. As their eyes locked, Grey’s heart froze between beats. From deep inside the creature’s throat came a trilling sound.
You don’t have to be afraid, Grey.
What the fuck?
His feet tangled under him as he lurched backward, sending him pitching to the hard concrete. He snatched the gas can off the floor, fuel still gushing from the siphon, and charged from the service bay into the office and out the door. Lila was standing with her back braced against the car.
“Get in,” he said breathlessly.
“You didn’t notice if they had a vending machine inside? I’d really like to get a candy bar or something.”
“Damn it, Lila, get in the car.” Grey threw open the Volvo’s hatch, tossed the can inside, and slammed it closed. “We have to go right now.”
The woman sighed. “Fine, whatever you say. I don’t see why you have to be so rude about it.”
They raced away. Only when they were a mile from town did Grey’s pulse begin to slow. He let the Volvo coast to a stop, threw the door open, and stumbled from the car. Standing at the side of the road, he placed his hands on his knees, breathing in huge gulps of air. Jesus, it was like the thing had spoken to him. Like those clicks were a foreign language he could understand. It even knew his name. How did it know his name?
He felt Lila’s hand on his shoulder. “Lawrence, you’re bleeding.”
He was. His elbow looked ripped open, a flap of skin dangling. He must have done it in the fall, although he’d felt nothing.
“Let me look.”
Wearing an expression of intense concentration, Lila gently probed the edges with her fingertips. “How did it happen?”
“I guess I tripped.”
“You should have said something. Can you move it?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Wait here,” Lila commanded. “Don’t touch it.”
She opened the hatch of the Volvo and began to rummage through her suitcase. She removed a metal box and a bottle of water and dropped the tailgate.
“Let’s sit you down.”
Grey positioned himself on the tailgate. Lila opened the box: a medical kit. She rubbed a dab of Purell into her hands, removed a pair of latex gloves, snapped them onto her hands, and took his arm again.
“Do you have any history of excessive bleeding?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Hepatitis, HIV, anything like that?”
Grey shook his head.
“How about your last tetanus shot? Can you remember when that was?”
What Lila was this? Who was Grey seeing? Not the lost woman of the Home Depot, or the defeated soul in the kitchen; this was someone new. A third Lila, full of efficiency and competence.
“Not since I was a kid.”
Lila took another moment to examine the wound. “Well, it’s a nasty gash. I’m going to have to suture it.”
“You mean like … stitches?”
“Trust me, I’ve done it a million times.”
She swabbed the wound with alcohol, removed a disposable syringe from the box, filled it from a tiny vial, and tapped the needle with her forefinger.
“Just a little something to numb you up. You won’t feel a thing, I promise.”
The prick of the needle and in just a few seconds, Grey’s pain melted away. Lila unfolded a cloth onto the tailgate, laying out a pair of forceps, a spool of dark thread, and a tiny scissors.
“You can watch if you want, but most people prefer to look away.”
He felt a series of tiny tugs but that was all. Moments later, he looked down to see the gash and its flap of skin replaced by a tight black line. Lila spread ointment over it, then dressed it with a bandage.
“The stitches should dissolve in a couple of days,” she said as she was snapping off her gloves. “It may be a little itchy, but you can’t scratch it. Just leave it alone.”
“How did you know how to do that?” Grey asked. “Are you a nurse or something?”
The question appeared to catch her short. Her mouth opened like she was about to say something; then she closed it again.
“Lila? Are you okay?”
She was sealing up the kit. She returned her supplies to the Volvo and closed the hatch.
“We better be going, don’t you think?”
Just like that, the woman who’d stitched his arm was gone, the moment of her emergence erased. Grey wanted to ask her more but knew what would happen if he did. The pact between them was clear: only certain things could be said.
“Do you want me to drive?” Lila asked. “It’s probably my turn.”
The question wasn’t really a question, Grey understood. It was the natural thing to ask, just as it was his job to decline the offer. “No, I can do it.”
They got back in the Volvo. As Grey put the car in gear, Lila took up her magazine from the floor.
“If it’s all right with you, I think I’m going to read a bit.”
A hundred and twelve miles to the north, traveling east on Interstate 76, Kittridge had also begun to worry about fuel. The bus had been full when they’d started; now they were down to a quarter tank.
With a few minor detours, they’d managed to stay on the highway since Fort Morgan. Lulled by the motion of the bus, April and her brother had fallen asleep. Danny whistled through his teeth while he drove—the tune was nothing Kittridge recognized—gamely spinning the wheel and working the brakes and gas, hat tipped to his brow, his face and posture as erect as that of a sea captain facing down a gale.
For the love of God, Kittridge thought. How in the hell had he ended up in a school bus?
“Uh-oh,” said Danny.
Kittridge sat up straight. A long line of abandoned vehicles, str
etching to the horizon, stood in their path. Some of the cars were lying upside down or on their sides. Bodies were scattered everywhere.
Danny stopped the bus. April and Tim were awake now as well, gazing out the windshield.
“April, get him out of here,” Kittridge directed. “Both of you to the back, now.”
“What do you want me to do?” Danny asked.
“Wait here.”
Kittridge stepped down from the bus. Flies were buzzing in vast black swarms; there was an overwhelming odor of rotten flesh. The air was absolutely still, as if it couldn’t bring itself to move. The only signs of life were the birds, vultures and crows, circling overhead. Kittridge moved up the line of cars. Virals had done this, there was no mistaking it; there must have been hundreds of them, thousands even. What did it mean? And why were the cars all together like this, as if they’d been forced to stop?
Suddenly Danny was beside him.
“I thought I told you to wait with the others.”
The man was squinting into the sunlight. “Wait.” He held up a hand, then said, “I hear something.”
Kittridge listened. Nothing at all, just the creak of the crickets in the empty fields. Then it came: a muffled pounding, like fists on metal.
Danny pointed. “It’s coming from over there.”
The sound became more distinct with each step. Somebody was alive out there, trapped inside the wreckage. Gradually its components began to separate, the pounding underscored by a strangled echo of human voices. Let us out! Is somebody out there? Please!
“Hello!” Kittridge called. “Can you hear me?”
Who’s out there? Help us, please! Hurry, we’re cooking to death!
The sound was coming from a semitrailer with the bright yellow FEMA insignia printed on its sides. The pounding was frantic now, the voices a shrill chorus of indistinguishable words.
“Hang on!” Kittridge yelled. “We’ll get you out!”
The door had been knocked kitty-corner in its frame. Kittridge looked around for something to use as a lever, found a tire iron, and wedged the blade under the door.
“Danny, help me.”
The door refused them at first; then it began, almost imperceptibly, to move. As the gap increased, a line of fingers appeared beneath the lip, attempting to draw it upward.
“Everybody, on three,” Kittridge commanded.
With a screech of metal, the door ascended.
They were from Fort Collins: a couple in their thirties, Joe and Linda Robinson, the two of them still dressed for a day at the office, with a young baby they called Boy Jr.; a heavyset black man in a security guard’s uniform, named Wood, and his girlfriend, Delores, a pediatric nurse who spoke with a thick West Indian accent; an elderly woman, Mrs. Bellamy—Kittridge was never to learn her first name—with a nimbus of blue-rinsed hair and an enormous white purse that she kept clutched to her side; a young man, maybe twenty-five, named Jamal, with a tight fade haircut and brightly colored tattoos winding up and down his bare arms. The last was a man in his fifties with the coarse gray hair and barrel-shaped torso of an aging athlete; he introduced himself as Pastor Don. Not an actual pastor, he explained; by trade, a CPA. The nickname was a leftover from his days coaching Pop Warner football.
“I always told them to pray we didn’t get our asses kicked,” he told Kittridge.
Though Kittridge had initially assumed they’d traveled together, they had wound up with one another by accident. All told versions of the same story. They’d fled the city only to be stopped by a long line of traffic at the Nebraska border. Word passed down from car to car that there was an Army roadblock ahead, that nobody was being let through. The Army was waiting for word to let people pass. For a whole day they’d sat there. As the light had ebbed, people had begun to panic. Everyone was saying the virals were coming; they were being left to die.
Which was, more or less, what happened.
They arrived just after sunset, Pastor Don said. Somewhere ahead in the line, screaming, gunshots, and the sound of crunching metal; people began to tear past him. But there was nowhere to run. Within seconds, the virals were upon them, hundreds blasting out of the fields, tearing into the crowd.
“I ran like hell, just like everybody else,” Pastor Don said.
He and Kittridge had stepped away to confer; the others were sitting on the ground by the bus. April was passing out bottles of water they’d collected at the stadium. Pastor Don removed a box of Marlboro Reds from his shirt pocket and shook two loose. Kittridge hadn’t smoked since his early twenties, but what could it hurt now? He accepted a light and took a cautious drag, the nicotine hitting his system instantly.
“I can’t even describe it,” Don said, ejecting a plume of smoke. “Those goddamn things were everywhere. I saw the truck and decided it was better than nothing. The others were already inside. How the door got jammed I don’t know.”
“Why wouldn’t the Army let you through?”
Don shrugged philosophically. “You know how these things work. Probably somebody forgot to file the right form.” He squinted at Kittridge through a trail of smoke. “So what about you, you got anybody?”
He meant did Kittridge have a family, somebody he had lost or was looking for. Kittridge shook his head.
“My son’s in Seattle, a plastic surgeon. The whole package. Married his college sweetheart, two kids, a boy and a girl. Big house on the water. They just redid the kitchen.” He shook his head wistfully. “The last time we spoke, that’s what we talked about. A fucking kitchen.”
Pastor Don was carrying a rifle, a .30-.06 with three rounds remaining. Wood was carrying an empty .38. Joe Robinson had a .22 pistol with four cartridges—good for killing a squirrel, maybe, but that was about all.
Don glanced toward the bus. “And the driver? What’s his story?”
“A little off, maybe. I wouldn’t try to touch him—he’ll just about have a seizure. Otherwise he’s okay. He treats that bus like it’s the Queen Mary.”
“And the other two?”
“They were hiding in their parents’ basement. I found them wandering around the parking lot at Mile High.”
Don took a last, hungry drag and crushed the butt underfoot. “Mile High,” he repeated. “I’m guessing that was nothing nice.”
There was no way around the wreckage; they would have to backtrack and find another route. They scavenged what supplies they could find—more bottles of water, a couple of working flashlights and a propane lantern, an assortment of tools, and a length of rope that had no obvious use but might find some purpose later on—and boarded the bus.
As Kittridge mounted the bottom step, Pastor Don touched him on the elbow. “Maybe you should say something.”
Kittridge looked at him. “Me?”
“Somebody has to be in charge. And it’s your bus.”
“Not really. Technically, it’s Danny’s.”
Pastor Don met Kittridge’s eye. “That’s not what I mean. These people are worn out and frightened. They need somebody like you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
He gave a cagey smile. “Oh, I know you better than you think I do. I was in the reserves myself, way back when. Just doing the quartermaster’s books, but you learn to read the signs. I’m guessing ex–Special Forces. Rangers, maybe?” When Kittridge said nothing, Pastor Don shrugged. “Well, that’s your business. But you obviously know what the hell you’re doing better than anyone else around here. This is your show, my friend, like it or not. My guess is, they’re waiting to hear from you.”
It was true, and Kittridge knew it. Standing in the aisle, he surveyed the group. The Robinsons were seated up front, Linda holding Boy Jr. on her lap; directly behind them was Jamal, sitting alone; then Wood and Delores. Don took the bench across the aisle. Mrs. Bellamy sat at the rear, clutching her big white purse with both hands, like a retiree on a casino junket. April was sitting with her brother on the driver’s side, behind Danny. Her eyes widened as the
ir glances met. What now? they said.
Kittridge cleared his throat. “Okay, everybody. I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But we’re going to get you out of here. I don’t know just where we’re going, but if we keep heading east, sooner or later we’re going to find safety.”
“What about the Army?” Jamal said. “Those assholes left us here.”
“We don’t really know what happened. But to be on the safe side, we’re going to keep on back roads as far as we can.”
“My mother lives in Kearney.” This was Linda Robinson. “That’s where we were headed.”
“Jesus, lady.” Jamal scoffed. “I told you, Kearney’s just like Fort Collins. They said so on the radio.”
In every group, Kittridge thought, there was always one. This was all he needed.
Linda’s husband, Joe, twisted in his seat. “Close your mouth for once, why don’t you?”
“I hate to break it to you, but her mother’s probably hanging from the ceiling right now, eating the dog.”
Suddenly everybody was speaking at once. Two days in the truck, Kittridge thought. Of course they’d be at one another’s throats.
“Please, everybody—”
“And just who put you in charge?” Jamal jabbed a finger at Kittridge. “Just because you’re all, like, strapped and shit.”
“I agree,” said Wood. It was the first time Kittridge had heard the man’s voice. “I think we should take a vote.”
“Vote on what?” Jamal said.
Wood gave him a hard look. “For starters, whether or not we should throw you off this bus.”
“Fuck you, Rent-a-Cop.”
The Twelve (Book Two of The Passage Trilogy): A Novel Page 13