“We can’t, Sam,” Micah tells him, his lips tight.
The sharp creak of breaking glass whips my head around, and a shake’s face and arm thrust through the exposed window.
“Micah, windows,” I yell, and run forward, pulling my gun free. I carefully aim for the head and shoot, and the bullet finds its target. The shake slumps over, its blood dripping down the wall. Maybe this would be a good end for me, but not for the others. I can’t let Micah die like this, I can’t let go just yet.
A crash from behind me signals the end of the other window. I turn around and see a shake launch its body through the shards of glass. Micah’s there, but the shake rushes him before he gets a shot off. I scream and raise my gun, but I can’t shoot it with Micah underneath. He grabs the shake by the wrists, keeping its teeth out of range. The shake snarls, biting the empty air in front of Micah’s face.
“Willie,” Micah yells, struggling to keep the teeth away.
“Shoot it,” Curtis shouts at me.
“Hold on! Sam, chair,” I order him. “Get that thing off him.”
Sam, quick as ever, understands right away. He grabs one of the chairs and with a grunt he swings it at the shake, knocking it clean off of Micah. It lands with a growl and I put two bullets in its chest before it has a chance to get up again.
“Thanks,” Micah gasps, sitting up.
A loud bang from the front door ends my relief.
“Hold those windows,” Ben says, grimacing as he repositions himself against the table.
“You two take that one,” I tell Micah and Sam. I retreat to the other window, the blood now pooling in a large circle on the floor. A stray arm tries to shove its way past the dead shake. I shoot once and it recoils.
They’re going to get in; I should prepare myself. It’s only a matter of time now. I thought I would be scared. I mean, I am scared, but more than that, I’m angry. I flash back to McAllister at my door, barging in and threatening my family, to Dollarhide sneering in my face, trying to steal what little I have. I’m tired of being pushed around and bullied, I’m tired of losing. I didn’t come all this way only to get trapped in this house with shakes at the walls, and I’ll be damned if I’m just going to sit around and wait for them to kill us. If I’m going to die in a rundown house, at least it’s going to be my rundown house. I didn’t think I would ever miss it, but I do; I miss my bed and the stove that smokes and the patched-up roof and most of all the twins, dirty and sweaty and always underfoot. Or under—
“Micah,” I yell. “Cover this window.”
“Why?” he asks, confused but obliging.
I lean over and rip the rug aside. “The floor.”
I kneel down and dig at a floorboard, my fingers scraping for purchase against the rough wood.
“What about it?” Sam asks, but Micah catches on quickly, having chased the twins under the house often enough.
“Knife, Will,” he orders, pulling out his own and wedging it between two planks of wood. “Sam, keep on the windows.”
I grab my knife and jam it into the next slat; it’s a tight fit, and I stomp on the handle to push it in farther.
“What are you doing?” Ben asks.
“I’m getting us out of here,” I reply. “I hope.” There’s a bang from outside, and I swallow hard.
When my knife reaches as far as it will go, I use it as a lever to pry up the board. One side comes loose, and I dig my fingers underneath it, hoping with everything I can muster that they built the foundation high enough. I grunt and yank the board free and crouch down to look underneath. I reach one arm out, my fingers trembling, and I don’t touch the ground until my entire arm disappears beneath the floor. I let out a triumphant cry and grin up at the others.
“We can fit,” I say.
After the first board, the others tug out easily, and with Micah helping it only takes a minute to make a large-enough hole. I jump down and land with a jolt that pains my knees. I fall to a crouch, then push my legs back until I’m lying flat on the ground with my elbows propping me up. It’s dim and musty smelling, and my face immediately catches on a spiderweb. I wipe the strands away and focus on the gaps between the stones the house rests on. Ahead is a tangle of legs and feet, a swarm of shakes clamoring to get through the front door. At the windows, too, all of them so packed together I can’t count how many. They feel closer somehow, with no wall to protect me. I scoot back involuntarily and turn my head to look toward the rear of the house; I see three, maybe four pairs of legs. That’s as clear as it’s going to get, I reckon.
“Willie?” Micah lowers his head down and spots me. “How’s it looking?”
I wiggle my way closer and throw out an arm; Micah clasps it and hauls me up out of the hole. Jagged pieces of wood scape my back as I stand, and I wipe dirt and cobwebs out of my hair.
“I think we can get out if we head out the back way,” I say, breathing heavily. “There’s not as many over there.” I look up at Curtis and Ben, trying to keep the pleading out of my eyes; I want them to take charge, tell me this is the right thing to do.
The brothers exchange a quick glance, straining to keep the door blocked, and Curtis nods sharply.
“Let’s do it,” he says. “Y’all go ahead, we’ll hold them till the last second.”
“Come on,” I say, motioning at Sam and Micah. “You two first. Wait for us once you’re down there.”
Sam squeezes my arm briefly and climbs down, his face disappearing as he stretches out flat. He moves forward until I can’t see his feet, and I wave to Micah.
“You next.”
“You should be—” he starts, but I am in no mood.
“Micah, just go,” I say, ready to shove him into the damn hole if he doesn’t cooperate. Maybe he can see that, because he jumps down and crawls out of sight in no time.
I follow Micah, stepping both feet into the hole. I look over at the Garretts, not wanting to leave them. Curtis turns so his back is flat against the table.
“Go,” is all he says, and Ben moves away from the door, grabbing the lamp on his way toward me.
“Get down,” he tells me as he swings his feet over, and I reluctantly lower myself. Micah and Sam wait a few feet away, their faces shadowed. I keep close to where Ben stands, angling my head so I can see his face.
“Come on, Curtis,” he says. “We’re ready.”
Boots run on wood, and then there’s the thump of the table falling down just as Curtis’s feet appear. I can’t see them, but I can hear the shakes pushing their way in, scraping and snarling at one another, and I shudder at how close they are.
“Do it,” Curtis says, and Ben raises the lamp. I don’t understand what he’s going to do until it’s too late, and I cry out as he throws it. The second it takes to fall stretches out interminably, and then the crash comes and my eyes fill with flames.
39.
I back away from the Garretts, flat on my stomach and feeling ill. From the house come screams and the sigh of fire and the smell of charred wood and singed hair.
I crawl toward Micah and Sam quickly, my gun digging into my hip, trying to outrun the stench of burning bodies I know is coming. Ben and Curtis are behind me, but their size makes it slower going.
“What the hell was that?” Micah asks me when I get close, his forehead beaded with sweat.
“The house is on fire,” I answer.
“Damn. They don’t play around, do they?”
“Guess not.” Smoke is trickling in through the floorboards, stinging my eyes. “Let’s just get the hell out of here before we burn, too.”
“Agreed,” Sam says wryly.
We inch forward to the edge of the house, intent on the sunlight. I don’t see any of the shakes I saw before; maybe they moved to the front, or the fire scared them off. We wait a couple feet back, close enough to reach and stick an arm out but not so anything standing can see us. Ben and Curtis finally pull themselves alongside, both breathing heavily; it’s a tight fit for them, and the guns
can’t have been comfortable.
“It looks clear,” I tell them, jutting my chin forward.
“All right. Hold back a minute,” Curtis says, and with a grunt he slithers out from underneath the house and rolls to his feet, gun in hand. His boots turn in a quick circle and then his face appears as he crouches down. “Let’s go,” he says.
We crawl out quickly and get to our feet, all of us red-faced and streaked with dirt. I squint, the light bright after the dimness beneath the house, and take my first real look around Silver. There’s a large chunk of the roof missing from the house that we couldn’t see from the inside; smoke billows out of it, dark and ashy. We’re in between a number of small houses, all with damaged roofs and broken or boarded-up windows. I reckon those are the first to go; eventually the walls and the floorboards will sag and then all of these houses will crumple in on themselves.
Curtis motions us to follow him and he leads us down an alley of sorts between two rows of houses. We move quickly, and I count four places down when he calls a stop. Curtis ducks his head out of the alley and looks both ways.
“All right, we should be just off the road. Once we clear these houses, we turn right and then keep going till we make it out of town.”
“Everyone keep as quiet as you can,” Ben says. “If you see movement, call it.”
“Guns out,” Curtis says, and I pull my revolver, heavy and familiar in my hand as I reload.
“Ready? Let’s move.”
Curtis heads straight for the gap between two houses. We turn right and pop out on the main road, the lane stretching wide and overgrown with sticker grass. Curtis turns to face us and holds a finger to his lips. He points to where the road continues straight through the town, then holds up one finger, then two, then three. On three we move, as quick as we can without losing sight of our surroundings, all of us fanned out to face the town. Small houses give way to larger houses, many of them with smashed-in doors and black streaks of fire damage; they must’ve started looting the rich when everything went to hell. I glance over my shoulder to find the smoke spiraling into the sky; I guess we did our part, too.
The houses turn into shops, dilapidated with dark interiors, paint peeling from signs on the windows. We pass the law offices and the gin mill and I reckon we must be getting close to the edge of town. I glance inside a drooping building with a red door, and a face stares back at me. I halt, my eyes frozen on the sunken mouth and hollow cheeks. My gun is aimed straight at the shake, but he, I think it’s a he, only stares blankly.
“Sign!” someone yells from behind me and a gun explodes, the blast echoing sharply. I flinch and look around wildly as another shot rings out; smoke trickles from the end of Curtis’s gun, and a body slumps against a storefront. I spin back, but the shake I saw is gone, disappeared somewhere into the shadows.
“Keep moving,” Curtis calls, and I tear my eyes away. We’re almost running now, and my heart is pounding painfully in my chest. Micah is in the lead and I stay close, keeping him on my right while the Garretts take the rear. Long minutes pass without any noise, and I can see the last buildings of Silver and just beyond, the desert looms wide and empty.
“Behind you,” Ben yells, and I spare a moment to look over my shoulder: three shakes tumble out from behind a corner, separating Micah and me from the rest. I shove my brother forward and speed up, but the shakes are doing that lurching run they do, their eyes mad and roving. Ben fires and hits one of the shakes in the shoulder; it spins and screams in pain and rage, but he can’t shoot at the others without hitting one of us. Those two don’t even pause, their minds long beyond reason.
“Micah, keep going,” I order. I bring my gun up and take aim behind me, stopping for a long moment to get one in my sights. I breathe out and pull the trigger; the crack pierces my eardrums and the kick jolts my shoulder. The shake on the left goes down with a hole in his neck. I cock the trigger to shoot again when the second shake takes a running leap and slams me to the ground.
When my back hits the dirt the air goes out of my lungs and time slows down to a crawl. I can feel my chest struggling to rise with the weight of the shake on top of me, his knees digging into my abdomen. I blink, and it takes forever for my eyelids to make the journey. I stare up into the sunken face of the shake, and he stares back at me with dull eyes. But then something flickers across his face, an expression so fleeting I can’t put a name to it—recognition maybe, or regret? Time stretches between us, and as I finally manage to take a gasping breath I realize he’s not attacking me. The shake cocks his head, the gesture half animal and half human, and then there’s the familiar crack of a rifle and blood splatters across my face.
I scream and the shake slumps on top of me, his head a wet mess of hair and skin. Blood gushes from the wound, more blood than I could imagine fitting inside something so emaciated. I turn my face away as I struggle to get out from under him, his dead weight pinning me down.
“Get him off me,” I beg, “get him off me!”
Micah grabs my arms and pulls, and Ben uses his boot to roll the shake over. I stand up, trembling and covered in someone else’s insides.
“Did he bite you?” Micah asks, scanning my face and neck intently. “Did it get in your eyes?”
“No,” I say, wiping blood from my cheek.
There’s a shriek in the distance and we snap to attention.
“Later,” Curtis says, and we keep moving. My ears are ringing, my lips are numb, and the air is hot with gunpowder and fire smoke. I’m afraid; a tremor starts in my stomach and veins out through my body. It’s not the fear of dying, it’s not the blood or the pain or the loss. It’s the fear of knowing the truth, knowing it in my bones; this isn’t some paltry infection from a dirty penknife. The last small shred of hope I had is gone. That shake looked at me, looked at me like he knew me. Like I was one of them. Like I’m already gone.
All around eyes watch me, eyes of the sick and the eyes of the dead. All over I feel them, the old ghosts and the bad dreams, all of them that haunt this place. We turn a corner and run past a hollow building, and then we burst into the open desert, and safety. I keep going, wanting to outrun those eyes, but the ghosts stay with me; I reckon they know I belong with them.
40.
Curtis finally calls a halt, long after my lungs start to scream and my legs start cramping. I brace my hands on my knees and wait for my ears to stop ringing.
“We can slow down. They won’t follow,” Curtis pants, “not when they got dead to eat.”
I grimace and clench my teeth. My heart is pumping so fast it feels like one long burning beat, and I bend my head down to ease the pain. My hand cramps and I realize I’m still holding my gun, my fingers white from gripping so hard. I have to peel them back, one by one, until my revolver comes free and I can holster it. The hand starts to tingle something awful, and I stretch it out gently.
I look back at Silver, at the black smoke still spewing into the air. How long will it take for the house to burn to the ground, and what will be left when it does? How many bones did we leave in our wake?
“Willie,” Curtis says, looking me over. “You sure he didn’t get you?”
I shake my head, too tired to even mouth no. I can still see the blood, can smell it on my skin, coppery and hot. I scrub my face with my hands, wishing I could do the same to my mind. My fingers come away stained red.
“Careful,” Sam says, “don’t get it in your mouth or eyes.” He hands me a handkerchief.
“Then maybe,” I say, wiping my hands, “y’all shouldn’t shoot shakes when they’re on top of me.”
“Sorry about that,” Ben says. “Didn’t have a chair handy this time.”
I toss the handkerchief on the ground where it flutters sadly.
“Everyone else in one piece?” Curtis asks.
“I think so,” Sam says. He stares down at his hands like he’s unsure they’re still attached to his body.
“We got lucky, then,” Ben says.
“You call that lucky?” Micah asks, incredulous. “We get caught in a dust storm, lose our packs, and get chased outta town by shakes?”
Ben shrugs. “No one died.”
“Day ain’t over yet,” Micah grumbles.
“You’re right about that,” Curtis says. “We still got a ways to go, and little left to help us along.”
We do a quick inventory, and it’s not reassuring. I still have my coat and the pouch around my neck, and Sam held on to his doctor’s kit, but we lost most of our food and drink. Between the five of us we have three and a half canteens of water, some crackers and crumbling cheese, one mottled apple, and a scad of bullets. Too bad we can’t eat lead.
Curtis surveys our paltry supplies and runs a hand through his hair. “It’ll get us to Best, at least. I know y’all are dragging, and I know we’ve been through the mill here, but we have to push on while we have the light. It’s two miles to the next box, that’ll have to do for tonight.”
We each take one swig of water and save the rest for later. I don’t remember ever being this weary before. My body goes through the motions, one foot after the other, and I’m not walking so much as trudging, trying not to fall too far behind. My hair smells like smoke and gunpowder, the back of my neck is tight with sunburn, and my skin itches with sweat and grime. At this point I’d sell my soul for a bed and a bath.
We’re walking straight east, our backs against the lowering sun. The sky looks split, half orange and half blue, like it can’t decide if it’s day or night. We head toward the night, or maybe it’s coming for us, stretching out purple and black tendrils to eat the last of the light.
The stars blink on, first one and then another, and then the sky is scattered full of them. The moon hangs slim and long, frowning down at us from a great height. My eyes are heavy and starting to blur, doubling my vision and smearing the ground. I stumble over something I can’t see and catch myself, pinching my arm to stay sharp.
“There, up ahead,” Curtis calls at last, his voice weary. “I see it.”
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