The Virulent Chronicles Box Set

by Shelbi Wescott

  “Help! Lou!” she shouted with muffled cries.

  Lou was quick. He swiped at the Taser on his bed stand and raised it, poised to fire, but then he spotted Lindsey and his eyes went to the gun. He hesitated, floundering. His white boxers clung to his pale, skinny legs and his t-shirt sported holes along the collar. In the dark, in his underwear, he looked small and sad.

  “How?” Lou asked. It was the first word out of his mouth. He did not ask for Lindsey’s release, or beg for Darla not to hurt his daughter. Instead, he watched them both, reeling, and he wondered how his plans had failed.

  “I want Ainsley,” Darla demanded. “Or your daughter dies.”

  Even in the dark, Darla could see Lou’s eyes widen. He was frozen.

  “Lyle! Lyle!” the father called for his son.

  Darla shook her head. “Sorry. Your son will wake up in a few hours with a monstrous headache...and probably a concussion. And he may never be able to have kids. But I’m assuming that grandchildren aren’t high on your priority list. So, you’ve got no backup and I’m about to shoot your daughter—”

  From the corner, Cricket cried. “Closet! The girl is in the closet. Let my daughter go and you can leave.”

  “Cricket—” Lou interrupted in a warning voice.

  Without letting Lindsey budge, Darla eased herself over to the closet door, and positioned herself out of the line of fire from Lou’s Taser. She commanded for Lindsey to open the closet door. Lindsey looked at the floor, shut her eyes tight, and swung the door open. It was dark inside the walk-in, pitch black.

  “Ainsley,” Darla called. “Are you okay?”

  From the shadows, Ainsley shouted an exclamation of relief. Her words were slurred, and she spoke marble-mouthed. “Darla? You have to get me out of here. I can’t move. I hurt.” Then after a second, she added, “I didn’t say anything, Darla.” The girl coughed. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell them anything.”

  “Where’s a flashlight?” Darla asked. The closet was too dark to see inside and Ainsley was merely a disembodied voice. She saw a light sitting beside Lou and watched as he swiped it off the table and clutched it to his chest. He took a brave step forward.

  “Let my daughter go.”

  “You let my friend go, I let your daughter go.”

  “No,” Lou replied.

  Darla shook her head and then forcefully moved Lindsey closer to her; Lindsey gave a yelp of pain as Darla yanked her arms tighter. Lou clicked the flashlight on and pointed it into the closet. It took Darla a moment to comprehend what she was seeing in the shadows. Shoved inside the walk-in was a large dog crate. The steel wire glinted under the light, and Ainsley—hunched over and terrified—covered her eyes and shielded herself from the brightness.

  The crate was padlocked.

  When Darla turned her attention to Lou she noticed him twirling a chain around his neck. A key dangled on the end.

  Muttering an expletive under her breath, Darla watched as Lou raised the Taser again. Then, setting the flashlight on the bed, so it beamed directly into the closet, he reached into his side table and pulled out a small caliber pistol.

  “Your friend is staying put. And all I have to do is Taser my own daughterand when she falls, shoot you.”

  Lindsey stiffened underneath Darla’s hands. “Not a chance,” Darla replied with confidence. “I shoot you before Lindsey even hits the floor.”

  “Lou—” Cricket yelled from the corner.

  “Then it’s a stalemate,” Lou said.

  “You’d hurt your own daughter just to keep some random stranger trapped in a dog crate...for what purpose?”

  “I know you’re Sweepers.” But he didn’t sound sure. His eyes dropped to the ground and Darla knew he was bluffing.

  “You’re wrong. We’re normal people like you!” Darla spat at him.

  “Not normal people like us! Not normal people like us!” Lou cried and he flung his hand wildly, knocking the flashlight off the bed and sending it spinning, the light circling the room, illuminating everyone and then nothing, and then everyone, until it stopped. “You are keeping things from me...”

  “You fear the Sweepers,” Darla said, moving the gun to Lindsey’s side. “ But you don’t know anything about those guys except for something you heard on a radio weeks ago. You don’t know anything...your whole life here is based on the idea that someone is out to get you. But there’s no one out there! No one but people like you, me, the others...trying to survive!” Darla yelled and her voice filled the tiny room.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, weaker than before.

  He raised the Taser and Darla saw the determination and focus in his eyes. His entire plan was threatened; the seams of his world were bursting open to expose that he was just a scared old man without an understanding of the world. If she was right, then he was a monster. Darla saw that realization in Lou’s eyes—she knew that he couldn’t handle the dissonance. He was the hero of his own story. Nothing Darla could say would ever change that. He wasn’t evil. He was a man who wanted to stay alive.

  “No more Taser,” Darla said calmly. With swiftness, she spun Lindsey and herself into the closet, and dropped both her weapon and her hands from Lindsey’s arms. Then she grabbed the knob and shut the door in a flourish. Lindsey sunk to the ground and started to feel around for the gun, but Darla found it first.

  “I don’t get you,” Darla said. She was out of breath. She held the door shut with all her might and steadied her foot against the doorway. “Did you know Ainsley was in this cage? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Lindsey didn’t answer. “You attacked me with a lamp. You threw me to the floor.”

  “You set me up.”

  “I can’t trust you either.”

  They stopped as they heard Lou’s footsteps approach the door. He tried the handle and rattled it, but Darla hung on tightly. Ainsley whined from inside the crate.

  “You have no way out,” Lou said beyond the wood. He knocked and tapped the door, and then laughed to himself. “I’ll be waiting for all of you when you get tired of this charade.” He walked away, and the bed creaked under his weight. And the room went quiet. Darla thought she could hear Cricket and Lou whispering, but she wasn’t certain.

  They couldn’t see anything in the dark. Darla spun her hands around until they landed on Lindsey and she grabbed Lindsey by the collar and pulled her close. She could feel Lindsey’s breath against her face and she turned away. She had nothing to say. Nothing else to do. She had acted impulsively and trapped them in the closet with their enemy lying in wait on the other side.

  “He was going to Taser me,” Lindsey said.

  “You’re such a kid,” Darla said. “You’re a ten year-old trapped in some thirty year-old body. Did you need to play out some does-daddy-love-me fantasy? You suddenly realize you’re working for the bad guy?”

  “Shut up.” Lindsey pushed Darla’s hands off of her and stood up. “You’re right. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Darla felt her way in the dark and her hands landed on the crate.

  “You okay?” she asked Ainsley, leaning down.

  “Yeah,” Ainsley answered. “I don’t think...I’m...can’t walk...”

  “Okay, hang tight. Okay?” Darla tugged at the wire on the crate. It was solid. She rested her hands against the crate and then realized what she had to do. “Step back and cover your ears,” Darla said to Lindsey. “And Ainsley...I need you to curl up in the far corner. Okay. Don’t get near the front of the cage until I tell you it’s okay.”

  “What?” Lindsey bent down, feeling around for Darla. She touched her shoulder and then her upper arm. Her voice was panicked. “What are you going to do?”

  “Stand back. As far back as you can. Cover your ears.”

  Lindsey scampered backward into the closet, and buried herself in a sea of coats and shirts. The fabric swooshed and the empty hangers dangled.

  “Ainsley?”

  “I heard,” Ainsley s
aid. “I heard.”

  Darla knelt beside the crate and felt the wire. She slid her hand to the padlock, and felt where the shank connected to the body of the lock. Resting the muzzle of her gun against the lock body she took a deep breath. She imagined the scenario—the blast of the gun, the metal of the padlock. She stopped.

  “Dammit!” she whispered. “Lindsey...I need a coat. Something heavy. Feel around.”

  “You told her to plug her ears,” Ainsley offered weakly.

  Darla stood and held her hand out to find Lindsey in the closet, when her hand touched her forearm, Lindsey jumped. She brought her hands down, and she was shaking.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Find me a heavy coat.”

  Lindsey fumbled for a bit and then tossed Darla one of her father’s hunting jackets. The outside was polyester and the inside was a thick thermal shell. Darla held her gun in her hand and then wrapped the jacket around her hand and the gun, providing herself a barrier. Again, she put the gun muzzle, through the jacket this time, against the top of the lock, facing downward to the floor. She pushed her body away from the blast.

  “Ears,” she commanded. Her hand began to shake, her finger nudged the trigger. “Three. Two. One,” she counted down for herself. And then she fired. The blast illuminated everything in the closet for a millisecond. Darla felt a sharp stab in her hand and she dropped to the floor, collapsing to her knees. She shook the jacket free and the gun fell with a thud. Darla had ripped a hole through the top and the padlock broke apart, releasing Ainsley from her cage. She reached in and grabbed Ainsley, whose head was hot with a fever, and whose body shook in her arms.

  The tiny closet smelled like gunpowder and singed fabric.

  Outside Cricket’s voice was screaming for Lou.

  Darla’s ears rang with an incessant high-pitched tone. She tried to pick up her gun, but her hand ached. Ignoring the pain, she clasped her hand around the handle and said, “Move fast. To the hall. Go. Go!” She swung open the door and fired at the ceiling of Lou’s bedroom. The blast of the gun caused Lou, who sat posed with his Taser, to duck. Darla looked behind her and realized that Ainsley was still crumpled on the floor of the closet. She turned and grabbed her by her shoulders and started to move out, but she couldn’t hold Ainsley and protect them from Lou’s Taser. Before she could make it to the bedroom door, he shot her. The long wires lodging themselves directly above her collarbone. She felt the pulsing electricity surge through her body, but she pushed herself out into the hallway. Dropping Ainsley into a heap, she tugged the barbs free and dropped them to the floor. With her muscles aching, she tried to pick Ainsley up and throw her over her shoulders, but she stumbled and fell into the hall wall, and pictures tumbled downward, sending broken glass cascading around them.

  Lou had picked up the gun. He aimed it at Darla. She caught a solid look of his face. His mouth was turned down in a grimace and he looked close to tears. He thought the Sweepers were getting away; he was afraid for his life and the life of his family. Lindsey cried out for her father to stop and she grabbed at his hand. Yanking the pistol downward, his shot landed in the sheetrock of his bedroom wall along the baseboard.

  From downstairs, Darla could hear shouting. She thought that Lyle was awake and Dean had come back into the house. She tried to cry out, but found that her voice was gone.

  Now there were loud voices, a crash. Feet on stairs. Lou had pushed Lindsey off of him and he barreled toward Darla as she tugged Ainsley closer to the steps. As she tried to rush down the stairs, she saw people moving toward them coming up the stairs. Before she had time to react to the people approaching them, Darla felt heavy hands grab her and swing her down the steps. Ainsley, too, was being carried away, her head bobbing and swaying lifelessly. Darla’s whole body ached, and she could feel the hands clasp her without regard for her pain. She didn’t have time to think about who was carrying her. She stiffened and tried to slide out of the grip, but the hands held her tighter, stronger.

  Lou was following. His feet tumbled out beneath him and he went straight down, losing his balance and falling several steps before grabbing at the stair posts and catching himself. He aimed his gun, but didn’t fire.

  “Stop!” he yelled. “I told you what they were! I told you what they were! You’re inviting danger to his house.” And it sounded like he was screaming through tears, as his voice got further away.

  No one responded to him.

  She was outside. The fresh air hit her face and she tried to inhale its crispness.

  There were several trucks idling in the driveway, but still everything was passing by in a blur. She looked for Dean, but couldn’t see him.

  “Dean...” she tried to yell, but her voice was lost.

  The person carrying her dumped her into the bed of a pick-up truck. In an instant, Ainsley was on top of her. She heard shouting. “Go. Go. Go.” And the truck spun its wheels and rumbled away. Everything was a blur. She struggled to sit up, and caught the inner wall of the pick-up and hoisted her body upward. The Hales’ house disappeared from her sight. Darla could see Lou standing on his porch in his boxers, the silhouette of Cricket in their upstairs bedroom rocked back and forth. But the sight that made her look away was that of Lindsey running after them, her arms flailing by her side, her feet slapping the pavement. She pumped her arms and tried to chase the fast moving truck with every ounce of energy she had left. And even as the truck rounded the corner and fell out of sight, Darla thought she could hear her calling for them to stop. Come back. Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Take me with you.

  The truck maneuvered through the small neighborhood, back past the grocery store where they had tried to spend their first night, and then up to the highway. The farmhouse was long gone out of view before the truck slowed to a stop and pulled to the side of the road. A second truck sped up and stopped in the road. The driver threw the pick-up into park and slid out of the cab.

  Dean sat in the passenger seat. Unharmed and calm, he opened the door and rushed over to the girls.

  “You okay?” he said. “You two okay? I heard the shots. Oh man, oh man. Darla...your hand...”

  Darla looked down and saw a gash that extended from her middle finger to her wrist. It didn’t hurt, although the cut was deep and the blood trickled down her arm. She ignored Dean and wrapped the hand in her shirt, and then she looked at the man standing next to him—a tall cowboy-type with graying hair and a thin beard.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “And what the hell just happened back there?”

  “That’s what happens when Lou Hales has some trouble living in the real world,” the man said. “Just stopping by for a little climate check tonight…but it seems like our timing was spot-on.”

  Darla looked at the driver of her own car. A woman, her hair tucked up into a baseball cap. A young man sat next to her, big and balding. In the bed of the other pick-up were two teenage girls, huddled together holding rifles.

  “You are the people we heard? The ones who visited the Hales? You got a place up in Montana?”

  The man nodded.

  “You rescued us. Thank you.”

  The man nodded again. “Lou told us he thinks you know something about the people who did this...the terrorists...”

  “Oh,” Darla sighed, her stomach sank and she felt ill-at-ease. Her eyes went to the young vigilantes in the other truck. Their vacant stares scared the shit out of her. “I see…so, our rescue is far from altruistic in nature? We don’t know anything…so, I’m sorry if you wasted your time. You wanna take us back now?” She couldn’t help the bite in her voice. Dean put his hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off.

  The man didn’t budge. He cleared his throat, “I won’t lie. I wished you did know something. But you have to understand...I got a good community growing and a lot of people to look out for. My intentions in asking you what you know are only because I want to protect the people who have asked me for protection,” he said. “If you say you don’t anything, then I
believe you. Either way, we’ll take you where you want to go. Or leave you be. The choice is yours.”

  Darla didn’t answer. She scanned the faces again. They were all watched and waited intently.

  “The Hales, well, they found us you see,” the man continued. “Before the radios cut out. It’s not important, but you should know that they’ve been helpful to us. No doubt they’re paranoid. Lou’s not right in the head. But they didn’t see us as a threat and they’ve been kind and generous. Even if they won’t leave their house and join us. He says it’s too risky to congregate.”

  “They might be right,” Darla said. She turned her attention to Ainsley, who was still huddled against the bed of the pick-up. The girl looked pale and sickly. Although, she always looked pale and sickly. “So…why rescue us? If you don’t care about the information I possess and it could potentially risk your relationship with those people, then why?”

  “It’s not right what they were doing. Not right to keep people like prisoners. We thought...”

  “You just do all that for strangers? I don’t buy it,” Darla replied. “What’s your name?”

  “Ray. My wife Jillian,” he nodded to the woman in the cap. “That there is Liam. Survivor from Texas. And my daughters Alexus and Alia.” He paused. “Our intentions are good, Ma’am. We’re just doing what’s right. Not what’s easy or maybe even what’s sane. Just what’s right.”

  “Texas?” Darla looked at Liam. He had been the one to carry her to the truck; she could still feel his hands on her shoulders and wrapped around her legs. He had stormed in and carried her down the stairs like it was nothing. He had potentially risked his life for a stranger. She felt a bit light-headed. Liam nodded to her; he acknowledged her wayward glance.

  “People from all over. Canada, too,” Ray continued. “And we bet there are others. Maybe some like the Hales, paranoid and holed up. Maybe some like us, eager to rebuild.”

  “How many people you got in Montana?” Dean asked.