by Maxey, Phil
He slammed on the breaks. Ahead of them were more cars, but also pipes and pieces of houses, whole walls with broken windows. All of it crunched and jumbled together in the middle of the street.
“It looks like a… nest…” said Carrie.
Grant put the pickup in reverse and pushed down on the gas, Jay doing the same.
“Oh god…”
Grant couldn’t turn back to the front to see what his son and Carrie were seeing, he just needed to get the hell out of there.
“They’re coming for us!”
They were doing thirty but he looked to the front anyway. Rust colored two… three legged things were tumbling out of what they had created from parts of the town, and where running towards them.
“We can go around! The turn to our right!” shouted Carrie pointing to a road they had just passed.
Grant’s pickup skidded to a stop, then surged forward steering onto a street which climbed a hill. He glanced at the rear mirror to see the pickup behind doing the same, but then one of the creatures leaped onto the back, its long claws grasping the side of the cabin.
“What out!” shouted Ben and Carrie.
Grant swerved around another abandoned car, this one having crashed into a parked vehicle. Gun fire came from behind.
“Left, go left!”
Their pickup screeched around the corner into another road surrounded by homes, some of which were boarded up.
“Where… Where’s Jay and Ethan?” said Ben looking behind.
Grant looked in the rear mirror to an empty street behind them. Seconds passed then the other pickup roared onto the street they were on, and everyone sighed in relief. He pushed down on the gas and they surged ahead again.
“Left!”
They moved onto another hill, but this one a downward slope, quickly getting to the bottom and without Carrie needing to tell him, took a quick right, quickly accelerating away. As trees and fields replaced houses and stores, he looked in the rear mirror relieved to see the other pickup behind.
Carrie blew out her cheeks. “That was close.”
Grant’s radio came to life with Jay’s voice. “Grant. Ethan’s injured!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Damn that thing was hard to put down. Put half a mag in it and it still got me before it stopped coming.” said Ethan, grimacing. Blood seeped from a large gash his shoulder which was exposed, his bloodied T-shirt and jacket on the backseat of Jay’s pickup.
Carrie hurried forward with some gauze in her hand from a bag. Ethan took it and dabbed at the flap of skin, but the blood was still running.
Grant shook his head. “That needs to be sealed. What you got in your bag?”
She looked inside to a hastily gathered bunch of bandages and ointments, but nothing that would do the job.
He looked at the hills around them, mostly covered in trees. The leaves and branches swayed in a light breeze.
Ethan looked past Carrie. “In the back. The large green box. I got some tape. Give me that.”
She ran to the back of the pickup. “Argh!” she yelled on standing alongside it. “You could have warned me there’s one of those things back here!”
Ethan smiled through his pain. “Hey, Carrie, watch out for the monster!” Everyone but her laughed.
“You’re sure it’s dead right?”
Jay stood opposite her looking down at the concoction of bat-like appendages, and somewhere lost within blood stained fur, a mouth and eyes. “I put my knife into it to make sure, so yeah, I think it’s dead.”
She frowned and pulled the green box clear of the carcass, slid the latch back and flipped the lid open, grabbing the dark gray tape which sat on top of small tools and pulled a strip free.
Ethan took one end but grimaced. “Maybe better if you wrapped it. It needs to be tight.”
Grant noticed Ben was looking out of the back window of his pickup. He beckoned to him to get out. There was no point trying to shield him from everything anymore, and anyway this was a teaching moment.
Carrie went to pull the tape around Ethan’s upper arm, when he held his other hand up.
He looked at Jay. “Get the bottle.”
Jay nodded and pulled a glass bottle from behind the seat and handed it to Ethan, who then proceeded to pour it over the gash. He wiped the dried blood away with the gauze, then poured some more alcohol on, dabbing it gently. He let out a breath. “I’m going to hold the skin together. Remember, tight!”
“Yeah, yeah I got it,” said Carrie starting to unravel the tape some more and wrap it around the wound.
“Is he going to be okay?” said Ben to his father.
“He’ll be fine. One of things is in the back dead. Do you want to look at it?”
Ben nodded.
They both walked to back of the pickup.
“It’s dead?” said Ben.
“Yup.”
“Can I touch it?”
“No. No touching, just look.”
Ben leaned in closer. “It’s got legs and arms like a bat, but… I can’t see a head…”
“Yeah, it’s friggin weird, kid,” said Carrie, sticking one end of the tape to another around Ethan’s shoulder. “Right. Done!”
Grant looked back the way they came and then the route ahead. “Let’s get back on the road.”
*****
Carrie looked out at the expanse of flat light beige grassland, which was bordered by blue green hills. “I don’t know what’s worse, being able to see for miles, or not being able to see for miles.”
“This is better,” said Grant. “We get more warning. Time to react.”
“But what if they’re flying?” said Ben.
“Still better.”
Ben went back to looking outside. “Look!”
Grant had already seen what his son had noticed. Way off in the distance, almost lost in the heat haze was dark specks which were moving. There were also shapes in the sky, like low flying helicopters, but he knew there was nothing mechanical about what he was seeing.
Carrie looked down at the map. “There’s a big lake over there. I guess it’s like a watering hole or something for them.”
“Yeah…” He pressed down on the gas.
An hour later the road became more modern, the scenery less wild, with a scattering of farmhouses.
“We’re coming up to another small town,” said Carrie.
Grant heard the intake of breath from his son. He wanted to tell him that there is nothing to be afraid of, but that would have been a blatant lie. And lies wouldn’t keep him alive. He held up his radio to his mouth. “Moving through another town. Keep your eyes open. Over.”
“We only have a few cans of fuel left. Might be an idea to siphon some off if it looks safe. Over,” said Ethan.
“Good idea. How’s the shoulder? Over.”
“Still working. Over.”
They drove past a fire station. Both of the large doors were open but there were no vehicles inside, and a flag pole outside was bent over, its flag flapping in the wind.
A road construction vehicle sat opposite, on its side.
They moved steadily forward, passed a turning which led to lawns with foot high grass, and beyond that low flat buildings.
“That’s a school,” said Carrie, not really wanting to continue any further with the thoughts in her mind.
They moved past fields with entrances announcing what ranches lay behind them until Grant noticed what they looking for. He informed the others they were pulling off to the left, and steered past a sign letting visitors know that liquor and gas was available at the ’Blue Sky’ market and gas station, and into the parking lot, driving right up to the double glass doors of the white painted building.
A lone silver pickup with its back covered in a cage, sat tens of yards to their right.
“Could be someone else here?” said Carrie.
“Could be. We have to be careful, we don’t know how people are going to react when we see them.”
She nodded.
Ethan walked up to Grants driver side door, his red stained T-shirt back on and his M4 in his hand. “Me and Jay will take a look inside.”
“Take Carrie. Get as much useful stuff as you can find. Me and Ben will check out the gas station, maybe we can get the pumps working.”
Ethan nodded while Carrie got out and together with Jay walked to the entrance doors, peering inside. He tried the long horizontal handle and the door opened. Ethan took a quick look back to Grant then with Jay and Carrie, moved inside.
Grant looked over his shoulder. “Stay close and don’t touch anything.”
Ben nodded.
Grant went to get out, but stopped. “Hey, you got better eyes and ears than me. I’m old. So I’m going to need you to use them and tell us if anything is coming our way.” Ben nodded again, but this time with part of a smile.
Grant stood outside the pickup for a moment, taking in the scene. There was a thick blanket of trees behind the buildings they were near, but the telephone poles and street signs were still upright. That was good. He suddenly realized how warm it was, and made a mental note to collect any bottles of water they might see.
They walked across the sand covered concrete, Grant keeping one hand on his M4 and quickly made it to the first of the three gas pumps, under a small metal roof. “Keep watch, while I look at these pumps.”
Ben squinted against the sun looking at the tufts of yellowing grass and small groups of trees in the nearby field.
Grant picked the nozzle up and squeezed the trigger. A stream of gasoline flowed out and onto the ground. He quickly let go. “They never turned them off!” he said to Ben, smiling.
A muffled pop then another came from inside the building behind them. Ben looked at this father.
“Get down!” shouted Grant pulling Ben to the floor, while pulling his radio from his pocket. “Ethan? What’s going on?”
“There’s some crazy old coot in here, trying to kill—” More clearer gunshots came from the speaker. “Stop shooting!” shouted Ethan. Another voice started to talk then static returned to the radio.
Grant looked around them. There was a door at the side of the building, not far away and to their left about the same distance, a smaller building, possibly a storage room.
He got to his feet pulling his rifle from his shoulder. “Follow me!” They both ran to the smaller structure to the left where he tried the handle. It wouldn’t turn. “Stand back!” Ben did and he fired into the wood near the lock. He didn’t bother trying the handle again, instead one kick pushed the door open. He immediately raised his rifle into the warehouse. Boxes and barrels looked back at him. He walked inside with Ben. “You stay here. Do not come out unless you hear it’s one of us.”
Ben nodded. Grant went to walk outside, but stopped, shaking his head. He pulled his Glock from his side and cocked it, then held it in front of his son. “This is a loaded cocked gun, it is ready to fire. Keep your finger away from the trigger unless you have to fire. And keep it pointed down unless you have to fire. Okay?”
Ben looked at his father then the gun, then took it from him.
“If anyone tries to get in here that is not one of us. You shoot them. Then you run. Got it?”
Ben nodded.
Grant turned and was outside before Ben had a chance to ask what he should do if no one comes back.
Grant approached the side door to the building. Static came from his radio, which he quickly turned the volume down on. He stood to the side of the entrance and placed his free hand on the handle. Years of similar such entrances when he was on duty flashed into his mind. He turned the silver handle gently and pulled the door towards him, instantly the air was filled with expletives from an elderly man.
Grant instinctively moved back, but then realized the words were not aimed at him but those inside.
“You ain’t gonna steal my shit, like those other shit bags tried! I showed them the road!” said the man.
Grant heard some voices in reply, but couldn’t recognize who.
“Yeah I don’t care what you say. You got the military guns. You came here to loot! Well I got weapons too! You didn’t expect I would put up a fight did ya!”
More muffled voices.
Grant peered around the doorframe into a darkened hallway. About ten feet away was a junction, with another open door directly opposite. It looked like some kind of storage room, with shelves of weapons and food.
The old man is right about the weapons.
Grant let his rifle lead the way creeping forward, closer and closer to the where the angry voice was, until he could hear the old man’s breathing and the rustle of his clothes.
A boom rang out and Grant crouched lower.
“Yeah, you see I also got the twelve gauge! You come any closer and—” The man felt the hard barrel poke into the side of his head and swore.
“Easy now. Pass the shotgun back to me,” said Grant.
The man did, a sneer was just visible through his unruly gray beard.
“Ethan? Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah!” shouted Carrie.
“You can come forward to the counter. It’s safe.”
Grant and the old man were inside a narrow space, with a partition to the store on the other side. One small square gap was the only view of the aisles and Ethan’s face appeared in it. He then moved to the end of the counter and went to open the door, but it was locked.
“Where’s the key?” said Grant.
“In the drawer…”
Grant moved around the front of the man and pulled the small drawer open, pulling the keys out and pushed them through the opening to the store. Ethan took them and let himself, Carrie and Jay in.
“I told you we weren’t here to do you any harm!” shouted Ethan at the man.
“Yeah? Well who’s got the gun on me now then?”
Grant lowered his gun slightly, but still held it in the direction of the man. “What’s your name?”
“Arnold Hobbs.”
“My names Grant. This here is Ethan, Carrie and Jay. And what he said was true. We’re not here to steal. We thought the place was abandoned. Now we know it’s not we’ll pay for what we take.”
The man chortled. “Ain’t you been been paying attention. Dollars don’t mean shit anymore.”
“Then we trade,” said Ethan.
The man frowned. “Maybe.”
“So what do you want?” said Jay.
The man walked towards the gap to the store. “I saw you pull up. My old trucks beat to shit. You give me that one on the right, the blue one, and I’ll give you one thousand dollars worth of stuff from my store.”
Jay laughed. “My truck’s worth twenty times that.”
“My truck,” said Grant. “And two thousand dollars worth of stuff, not including some of the rifles, guns and ammo you got in the store room behind us.”
The frown hadn’t left the old man’s face. “How’s it run?”
“It’s been through some scrapes but hasn’t let me down yet. It needs refueling, but I—” He remembered Ben in the building out back. He looked at Carrie. “Can you let Ben know it’s safe to come out… Oh, and be careful as you approach the door. He has got the Glock. Get it back off him.”
Carrie walked off down the short corridor.
Grant picked up the shotgun and held it out to Hobbs. “We got a deal?”
He took the gun, nodding. “Reckon we do.”
Grant looked back and smiled to Ethan, then footsteps came from behind. Carrie appeared slightly out of breath. He was already past her and running back to the other building before she could say, “He’s not there!” to the others.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Grant stood in the storage building. On the grime covered floor were a few drops of blood.
“Could… a creature—”
He shook his head stopping Carrie from continuing. “There’d be more disturbance of the boxes and things…” His detective brain took control of his emotions as so
on as he pulled the door open to the large space full of Hobb’s supplies and saw his son was missing. He knew this wasn’t an E.L.F event, which meant… someone had taken him.
He swallowed. “There was a struggle. No way of knowing who’s blood that is. But it’s not an arterial wound, otherwise there would blood everywhere, or a head wound. No, this was a small injury, maybe caused by Ben on whoever… took him.” The words almost got caught in his throat. Something Hobbs had said flashed through his memory, and he turned and jogged out and into the main building. The old man was sat in another of the rooms, an office of some kind, but which also had a single bed along one wall. “The men?”
“What men?”
“You said there were others that came here and tried to take your stuff. But you scared them off?”
“Ah yeah. Two of them. One real big fellow with a—” He waved his hand around the back of his neck.
“Ponytail?”
“Yeah, that’s it. And a smaller guy. I knew there was something off about them as soon as they pulled up.”
“In?”
“Yellow van. Old one, from the eighties I’d say. Why you asking? We still got a deal right?”
Ethan appeared in the corridor behind.
“Yeah, we still got a deal.” He turned to Ethan.
“The tire marks in the sand out front,” said Ethan. “Look fairly new. I followed them to the road, they turned left. The same way we’re heading.”
“Tell Carrie to transfer everything to Jay’s truck, and Jay to take everything he think’s we’ll need from the store and put it in the back. Tell them we’ll be leaving in ten minutes.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Grant walked back to the other storage room and the racks of rifles and guns. “Take as much of this stuff as you can fit in the back.”
Hobbs went to get out of his chair. “Hey, I need most of that! Just a few rifles is what I agreed.”
Grant’s eyes fixed on the old man. “We’ll leave you with what you need.”
Hobbs sat back down.
Eleven minutes later Grant was seated alongside Jay, with Carrie and Ethan in the back of the pickup. The bed was now covered with a tarpaulin, also courtesy of the store. They drove past fields and the occasional group of trees. He looked down at the map and drew a circle from their current location. Roughly thirty miles in a northerly direction. Luckily there wasn’t much in the way of other routes. Something though that was shouting at the back of his mind, was why they would take a ten-year-old boy. Despite his years on the force providing him many answers he chose to ignore all of them and fix on the ones that gave him hope. The men had come back to steal from the old man. They tried the warehouse and stumbled across Ben, who tried to warn them and… He still couldn’t think of a good reason to take the kid… unless, they thought Ben was related to the old man? And could use him as ransom! He felt a weight lift from him. It wasn’t much but it was something, and it actually made sense. It also meant they probably wouldn’t have gone far. Maybe a local farmhouse, so they could come back to threaten the old men and do a trade. He just hoped Ben was smart enough to realize what was happening and keep quiet.