by Crae, Edward
“I don’t see anything,” she said. “Maybe you should go down there.”
“Fuck that,” Jake said. “The fat dude always dies first.”
“Bullshit,” Toni corrected him. “The black dude always dies first.”
“You’re not a fuckin’ dude, are ya?”
She shot him an annoyed look. “Fine,” she said. “I’m smaller and quicker anyway. You would just run me over if you got scared. But what if I get scared and you’re in the way?”
“If you have legs, you’re never in the way,” Jake said. “I’ll be gone before you can even turn around.”
Shaking her head, Toni took Bill’s flashlight from the table and shined it down the stairs. Jake moved up and looked, too. The landing down there was visible. It was dusty—very dusty—with no footprints.
“What the fuck?” Toni said. “There was nobody here.”
Jake shook his head in agreement. “They would have left footprints.”
He suddenly thought back to Dan’s story about the shadow people—all the stories about the shadow people. He had never seen one himself, and personally thought the whole thing was bullshit. But hey, you never know.
“Have you ever seen a shadow person?” Toni asked.
Jake’s heart skipped a beat. Had she seen them, too?
“No,” he said. “Have you?”
“No,” Toni said, leaving Jake with a feeling of relief. “But I’ve heard about them.”
A shrill, deafening cry came from the family room behind them. They both turned around in an instant just as the screamer turned the corner. It was a flash of movement—with a face twisted and tormented—that shot toward them like a comet.
They both unloaded their weapons into it, not stopping until they were empty. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing there.
“What the fuck?” Toni screamed, her revolvers still out in front of her.
Jake was frozen, too, feeling like his chest was going to explode or his bowels were about to let loose.
A low hiss came from the darkened doorway. Toni and Jake both turned in an instant, staring into the shadows. They backed away, grabbing everything off of the tables, keeping their eyes trained on the shadowy gates of Hell.
A demonic face popped down from the top of the doorway, screeching like an eagle through its long, transparent fangs. Jake and Toni fled quickly, jumping over tipped furniture and nearly slamming into the walls. They were out the door in less than two seconds, sprinting at full speed across the lawn.
They kept going, turned left onto the street and not stopping until they reached the next block. Jake’s breath was ready give out, and his chest began to ache badly. He stopped, walked forward a few steps, and then collapsed to his knees, breathless. Toni turned, keeping her revolvers raised and pointed behind the house behind them. She too was breathless.
“What the holy fuck was that thing?” she asked, panicked and pacing. Her face was screwed up into a grimace.
“Stalker, I think,” Jake said between breaths. “But I’m not sure what the other thing was.”
Toni holstered her guns, putting her hands on top of her head as she caught her breath. “It was there, and then it wasn’t,” she said. “Things just keep getting weirder and weirder. It’s like a motherfuckin’ dream.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Jake said.
Toni chuckled, almost maniacally. “Did that shit really happen?” she asked. “Or are we just crazy?”
“Yes,” Jake replied. “Both.”
“The slow ones are called shufflers,” Jake said as they wandered along in the dark. “They’re usually not aggressive though. At least they didn’t used to be.”
“Maybe they’re just now getting hungry,” Toni suggested. Jake shrugged. “What about the ones with the red eyes? I’ve seen a few of those.”
“Shamblers,” Jake replied. “I don’t know why they call ‘em that, though. But then there are the stalkers. That’s what the thing crawling on the ceiling was, I think.”
“Those ones are freaky,” Toni said. “They don’t even look human anymore.”
“Nope. They go into some kind of cocoon when they get infected, and then come out looking like that.”
Toni shook her head as she sighed. “Damn,” she said. “I don’t know much about science, but that sounds like some kind of genetic thing. Like a butterfly hatching after living most of its life as a caterpillar.”
Jake nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“Have you seen anything else?”
“Well, there are the floaters,” Jake said. “Those are the glowing green pod thingies. They come out of the shufflers. We saw it happen the first morning I was with Dan and Drew.”
Toni glanced at him curiously. “How do they do that?”
Jake shrugged. “Not sure,” he said. “But we saw one come out of a woman who was wandering down the street. We though she was pregnant, but then she collapsed on the street and that thing came out of her. Well, it forced its way out of her.”
“Hmm,” Toni said. “That’s nasty.”
“Yeah, it was. Interesting, though.”
“I wonder about the dead things,” Toni said. “The ones that actually look like they’re dead, instead of just infested with fungus.”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, moving his pack to his other shoulder. “I’ve never seen those, and no one on the forums has ever mentioned them. They must be new.”
“Well, whatever they are, they don’t seem to be any more dangerous than the shufflers. They just smell different.”
Jake chuckled. He was beginning to get tired, but tried to keep his spirits up. He knew his blood sugar was a little high, but it was tolerable. The walking would help. But a lot of nice, cold water would help even more. The problem was, they didn’t have any.
“There’s a house,” Toni said, slowing down. “We should stop for the night. Nashville is a long walk.”
The moonlight illuminated a small cabin-style house about twenty yards from the road. It looked fairly clean from what he could see, and was definitely cozy-looking. His feet were aching on top of the thirst.
“Looks good,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”
Toni drew her revolvers and crept into the yard. Jake followed with his shotgun, doing his best to stay quiet, which he suddenly realized was not the best idea.
“You know,” he said. “We should make noise when go into a house.”
“Why?”
“That was if there’s anything inside, we’ll know it right away.”
Toni grunted, making that “okay, yeah” kind of face. She lowered her revolvers and they casually walked on to the covered deck. Jake shined the flashlight around, seeing nothing but trash, and then pointed it at the front door. The screen door was closed, but the inner door was open. A quick look inside revealed nothing but furniture.
Toni reached out and banged on the screen door.
“Avon,” Jake said in a falsetto voice.
They waited a few minutes, both of them as silent as church mice. When nothing answered the door, Toni winked and opened it.
“After you,” she said, sweeping her arm out in a polite gesture.
“Why, thank you, nice lady,” Jake said, stepping in.
The house felt warm on the inside; much warmer than the cold night air. There was no rancid smell of rotting flesh or food, which was a good thing—or maybe a bad thing. Maybe the owners had fled, but then had taken every scrap of food with them.
The floor plan was a somewhat open concept. There was a fireplace along the right wall, with two couches arranged with one toward the front wall, and the other facing the fireplace. A kitchen counter was behind the first couch, and a single step led upward into it. On the left side was what looked like an office space with a nice computer sitting on top of a rustic log computer desk.
“That’s cute,” Jake remarked, lowering his shotgun and heading toward the kitchen.
Next to the step up was a staircase th
at led to a loft, presumably the master bedroom. He ignored it, shining his light around the kitchen. Much to his surprise there was a half a case of bottled water sitting next to the fridge. He took a few bottles, handing one to Toni, and cracking open the other. It was cool and refreshing; bringing a surge of pleasure to him that was long needed.
“I’ll check the medicine cabinet,” Toni said. “Get some rest.”
That sounded like a good idea. Jake entered the cozy living room area, plopping down on the couch facing the TV. He looked over to the fireplace. There were a few logs on it, and a tall, cardboard can of matches next to it. He went over and opened the match can, there were four matches left, and a small square of fire starting material. He set it underneath the logs and struck a match.
Dud.
The second match broke, but he managed to light the stump of it, and held it next to the fire starter. It went up gently, and would likely burn long enough to get the logs going. Soon, they would have some warmth. He went back to the couch and relaxed.
“There must be a lot of diabetics around here,” Toni said when she returned. “There’s a meter, some strips, and a Lantus pen.
“Nice,” Jake said, sitting up.
As Toni relaxed on the other couch, he checked his blood sugar. The meter read 210. Not too bad, but not great, either. Maybe a couple units of insulin would do the trick.
“The fire will be nice,” Toni said, lying back with an arm behind her head. “I hope the flue isn’t blocked.”
“Well,” Jake said. “If we wake up dead, we’ll know.”
Toni snickered, then yawned. Jake figured she was tired; probably even more so than him. But, he saw that her eyes were still turned up to the ceiling, staring off into space.
“So,” he said. “Did you have any kids before all this?”
“Not really,” Toni replied. “Kind of.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was taking care of my niece—my sister’s daughter.”
“What happened to her?” Jake asked.
Toni’s silence told him the answer. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It was probably for the best,” she said. “She was a good kid. Got good grades, was already looking into colleges; good ones, not this university bullshit. She wanted to have an actual career. She never would have survived… this.”
“She would have survived if she had you looking after her,” Jake said. “Hell, I’m not sure I would have survived if you hadn’t have found me.”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye, smiling. “You would have survived,” she assured him. “Maybe I wouldn’t have.”
“Sure you would,” he said. “It just makes me wonder if you would have even bothered helping me if you knew that I was so vulnerable.”
She laughed out loud then, drawing a snicker from Jake.
“Either way,” she said. “I helped you up for a reason. When I realized what had probably happened there, that you had tried to save some friends, I knew you had to be a good guy. One that cared about people.”
Jake grunted. “I don’t care about people.”
Toni let out a smirking grunt. “I don’t believe that,” she said, skeptically. “I know you care about those two other guys.”
Jake nodded silently. He supposed that was true. Though he hadn’t known Dan and Drew for very long, they seemed to bond well. They both had personalities that he could deal with. They weren’t pussies, crybabies, or over-sensitive whiners. They took whatever life threw at them, and seemed to like the current world better than real life; even someone as social as Drew.
“I hope we can find them,” Jake said.
Toni looked over at him again. The smile on her face was comforting, and gave Jake a warm, hopeful feeling.
“We will, baby,” she said. “We will.”
Chapter Four
“Son of a bitch!” Max cursed, throwing down his screwdriver.
Drew was startled a little, but chuckled at Max’s tantrum. “Take it easy, sailor,” he joked. “What’s the problem?”
Max smacked his hands onto his face, and then rubbed his eyes in frustration. “This regulator is non-functional,” he said. “It’s junk—FUBAR.”
Drew dropped the coil of 10/2 wire he held in his hand. “Can it be fixed?” he asked.
Max shook his head, plopping down on his ass, defeated. “Negative,” he said. “No pun intended. I’m not getting any readings across the leads. There should be a definite reading there, but I’m getting zero, zilch, zip.”
“Is it the meter, maybe?”
Max touched the meter’s leads together. The needle went all the way up the scale, showing that it was fully working. Drew pursed his lips, looking at Max curiously.
“So…?” he said.
“We will need to get another one,” Max said finally. “Otherwise the system won’t work. I knew Melanie wasn’t taking care of the equipment like she said she was.”
“Why was it in her ‘care’ to begin with?” Drew made air quotes as he asked.
“As you remember, she was a bit controlling. Everything we wanted to do had to be approved by her. She wanted me to draw out a complete schematic of the battery bank and the related circuitry before she would ‘authorize’ any work.” He made air quotes, too.
“Did she know anything about electrical circuits?”
Max shook his head. “Not a damn thing,” he said. “She didn’t even know the difference between AC and DC current.”
“Shit,” Drew laughed. “Even I know that.”
“She had no idea what an inverter was for,” Max continued, “Or why a regulator is necessary.”
“Well,” Drew said. “We already talked about going on a run. Where can we get another regulator?”
Max pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t think any of the places in Columbus or the surrounding small towns would have any.”
“Surely there are electrical supply stores in Columbus,” Drew offered.
“Of course there are,” Max agreed. “But we would have to go into town to find them. Deep into enemy territory.”
“Maybe Dan would know of a better place.”
“If you think so,” Max said, “then ask him. Meanwhile, I have to defecate. Excuse me.”
Dan watched Eric skillfully work the tractor to put the last of the sheds in place. The two of them had arranged the others in a semi-circle around the back area of the office building, leaving only Travis’ shed. Eric carefully scooted it into place right at the arc of the arrangement, leaving about three feet on either side of it.
There, in the center of the semi-circle, they would build a fire pit, and the radiant heat should keep everyone nice and warm in their own sheds. If it didn’t work, then Dan supposed they could just modify the interior of the office building to accommodate all of them.
“That looks good,” Travis said. He stood in the future fire pit area, eyeing the gap on either side of his shed.
Dan heard his signal, and waved to Eric. The big man lowered the tractor’s bucket, and stepped off to examine his work. Travis stepped into his shed with the level and placed it on the floor. He turned it this way and that, nodded here and there, and gave a thumbs up.
“Close enough,” he said.
“Nice job,” Dan said to Eric. “Now, let’s see if we can get this fire pit built.
“Let Dad do that,” Eric said. “He’s good at that kind of thing. We should find Cliff and finish moving those junk cars out to the perimeter.”
Dan nodded. That was a good idea. Earlier, they had discovered that a large portion of the old junkyard had been fenced off into a football field sized area. Though the fencing was old, it was tall and sturdy. It had just been overgrown with vines and weeds and was nearly undetectable. If they could move all of the cars to the outside, against the fence, they would have a huge area to grow crops or use as a shooting range.
“You guys did a great job on the gate, by the way,” Dan said, admiring the handiwork.
Cliff and Eric had found an old, half-sized shipping container half-buried in the weeds, and had fashioned a crude tunnel-like gate with it. They had placed it in the gap where the old gate had been, and piled up a few cars on either side of it. The container’s own doors were just wide enough to allow a large pickup to pass through.
Perfect.
“We should still fill in the smaller gaps, though,” Eric said. “Just in case.”
Dan nodded again. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll go check on Lena and Toby. They should be done with the kitchen by now.”
“Dan!” he heard Drew shout.
“What’s up?”
“Max says the voltage regulator is shot,” Drew said. “We’ll need to go get another one, but he doesn’t think going into Columbus is a good idea. I agree.”
“Great,” Dan said, disappointed. “Where the hell else are we gonna get shit like that?”
“Houses,” Eric said. “You could take a ride out in the country and look for houses that have solar panels. They’d have one or two. Most of them, anyway.”
“Right,” Dan said. “We need to go out anyway. Lena says we’re getting too low on food. We don’t have much water, either. Not with the well pump out of commission.”
“That propane tank won’t last much longer, either,” Drew added. “But we already know how to fill them up.”
Dan thought for a moment. There was a propane company near Nashville, as he remembered. Plus, being a small, rural town, there would likely be a plethora of small tanks at any of the exchanges around the area. Then, he remembered his last visit, a few years ago before his dad died.
“There was a hardware store there,” he said. “I can’t remember what it was called, but they had everything from cast iron skillets to ammo. Maybe they’ll have small electrical shit.”
Drew grinned. “Alright, chief,” he said. “Who’s going?”
Eric held his hands out, backing away with a grin. “I’m no good in a gun fight,” he said. “I can be of more use staying here and getting things done.”
“He’s right,” Drew said. “We should go, and take Max with us. He’s the one who knows what we’re looking for. Plus, he needs to get his feet wet.”