by White, A. L.
Jermaine entered the shop, pulling a little red wagon with wooden sides projecting up.
“Something off to you?” Charlie asked.
Jermaine shrugged. “If you mean how nothing looks ransacked or how neat and well-kept the yards are here? Then yes, something seems to be way off, like we have entered another dimension.”
“Look at the food on the shelves. Whoever was here last took the time to organize the canned goods by brand and contents.”
Jermain sat on a bench next to the door. “Hardware store was the same. In fact, it didn’t look like anyone had touched anything.”
“When’s the last time you remember anything looking like that?”
“Before everything went to hell.”
“Same.” Charlie tossed a few cans of corn into the shopping cart. “I wanted to talk to you about staying here for the night and getting an early start.”
“Might be better off moving down the road a piece.”
Charlie frowned. “Would have been nice to sleep in a bed instead of the truck.”
They both laughed at that.
Jermaine had been keeping an eye out for a decent-looking RV. The trip was supposed to be a straight line with no stops to where Virginia had said it had all started for her and Lori. Trips had a way of going sideways, and everyone knew it. Now Charlie was even toying with the idea of detouring back through Rivers Crossing, get one more look at his hometown and check his house. Being in the safety of town and made him nostalgic for the old days. Times that were a million years away felt like he could reach out and touch them, like he could turn back the clock and be with his sweet Anne one more time—maybe just the idea of seeing the stuff she had loved and cherished one more time. He didn’t know what it was, but the drive to go there grew stronger with every mile.
“Well, what do we have here?” Jermaine asked.
Charlie didn’t hear alarm in his voice, so he turned down the box mix aisle. “See something interesting? Cold beer or steaks still frozen?”
“Looks like Virginia found a friend someplace.”
Charlie pushed the cart to the end and turned toward the shop’s only cash register and Jermain sitting on the bench. From this distance, she looked like a zombie to Charlie. Leaves and twigs poked out from her matted hair. She was slightly taller than Virginia and a built like an athlete. “If she was dangerous, the dogs wouldn’t let her near Virginia.”
“Virginia wouldn’t let her that close if she thought something could happen,” Jermaine replied.
When they reached the door, Virginia waved. “Guys, this is Pippa. She’s thinking about traveling with us for a while.”
Jermaine looked her up and down, deciding if he should trust her or not. “Good to meet you, Pippa. I’m Jermaine, and this guy here is Charlie.”
Charlie nodded. “Glad you came back. We’re planning on moving up the road before we stop for the night.”
“I thought we would stay here,” Virginia said. “Plenty of empty houses to pick from.”
“We did too,” Jermaine said. “Then we both got a bad feeling about this town.”
“Things are too neat and orderly,” Charlie added.
Pippa laughed and went to the bench to sit next to Jermaine. “Sorry, that would be my fault. I’ve been here for over a week, and I guess I got bored.”
“You did all of this?” Charlie asked, motioning to the shelves.
“Yes, sorry. I got bored and didn’t know what to do with myself. I was afraid to move on and see what was out there by myself. If I kept busy, I didn’t think about it. I also cut the grass and weeded a few flowerbeds around the houses.”
“Did you have a preference in what house you stayed in?” Jermaine asked.
Pippa averted her eyes from them. “I was afraid to stay in the houses. I didn’t want to get too comfortable and let anyone or anything sneak up on me.”
“Don’t have to worry about that with the lads,” Virginia replied.
Pippa thought for a moment and then seemed to start to glow. “There’s a nice house by the river. It’s close to fresh water and has empty lots on each side, as well as the river behind it.”
“If Virginia lets the dogs check it out and they don’t find anything, we can stay there,” Charlie said.
“Let’s go, lads. Our work is never done,” Virginia said.
“Go on ahead with Virginia. Charlie and I will catch up to you shortly,” Jermain said to Pippa.
Pippa led the way to the house while Zeus took up a position that kept him between Virginia and Pippa. Perseus had reverted to his younger self, storming off to each yard they passed. One minute, he was bolting away, and the next, charging at them to catch up.
The house sat on the corner of the last street before the river, with the bridge in clear view from the back yard. Other than that, Virginia saw no benefit to staying the night here. It was an older ranch—the type her grandfather called a pillbox house—built after the Great War for soldiers returning home. Only two doors in and out would mean that, if they needed to make a fast exit because they were surrounded, their options were limited. No high ground existed to see a clear path or make effective use of firepower.
“How do we do this?” Pippa asked.
“You’ve been here a few weeks, you say?” Virginia asked, ignoring Pippa’s question.
“About a month, I think.”
“If I had been here a month, I would know what was in every house here. If the door is unlocked, we just open it, and Zeus and Perseus will do the rest.”
“I didn’t see a need to go into every house in town,” Pippa replied, climbing the two-step concrete stoop and opening the door.
Zeus entered first, with Perseus close behind. Time stood still while they were waiting and listening for sounds inside. What seemed like an eternity was less than a handful of minutes when both dogs returned and sat next to Virginia.
“There’s your answer. The house is clear,” Virginia stated.
Pippa laughed. “I guess all I needed to do was find a dog and do away with searching buildings.”
“I don’t know about other dogs. Zeus would never put a person in danger. If he had found anything in there, we would have known about it.”
The furniture was in order; nothing had been moved, other than cobwebs and a thick layer of dust that showed no signs of being disturbed. Virginia thought the people who lived here could have left on errands.
Pippa followed her and the lads in and went straight to the bathroom and returned with a bottle of body wash and shampoo. “Not something I would have bought in the old days, but it’ll do. I’m going to take a bath in the river.”
Virginia nodded and proceeded into the small galley-sized kitchen. Here, too, nothing had been touched. No signs of scavengers looking for food existed. The putrid smell of rotten food burnt the inside of Virginia’s nose when she opened the fridge. Slamming it shut, she looked at Zeus, who was now backing away. “Nothing in there that we want, right boy?”
The cabinets were full of canned goods and box mixes. Virginia felt like she had discovered the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. When Charlie and Jermaine got here, she would load as much as possible into the back of the truck. She knew having too much was never an issue when on the road these days.
She spied Pippa neck deep in the river, washing her hair. Virginia called the lads and went to the bank near Pippa. She unholstered the .357 Magnum and laid it next to her clothes. “I’m taking the lads to scout across the bridge. If you need this, it’ll be right here.”
Pippa rinsed the shampoo from her eyes. “Thank you. If you wait a few minutes, I can go with you.”
“You should wait for the guys to get here. Besides, the lads and I work best by ourselves anyway,” Virginia said and headed toward the road.
It didn’t sit well with her that she had left the gun for Pippa. On one hand, she couldn’t leave the woman defenseless, but, on the other hand, nothing about Pippa and her story sat right in Virgini
a’s head. Pippa had been here for a month but hadn’t searched the houses, least not very many if she had. This was a small town with five or six streets and probably less than thirty houses. Virginia would have perused through all of them in the first week. And what about the bath? Virginia found it hard to believe that, in that entire time, Pippa had never felt the need to bathe, yet today, she had walked into the house and had gone straight to the bathroom to get soap for a bath. Maybe it was because of the guys. Virginia didn’t see the bathroom, but Pippa had gone straight to it. That was something to keep in mind.
A path through the hedges that ran between the street and the back yard led Virginia to the bridge. Zeus took the lead as they crossed the river. After pausing once, he reached land to check where Virginia was then continued up the middle of the street. The shops on this side were older and more rundown. She only saw a few cross streets, and, even then, a short distance down, the roads turned to gravel. One that exhibited the look of a newly completed blacktop piqued her interest. It was just one more thing here that didn’t fit in with anything else.
Virginia veered suddenly to see where it led, causing Zeus and Perseus to race to her. Zeus didn’t like her exploring without him leading the way. He clipped her thigh ever so gently as he passed just to let her know he wasn’t happy.
“I know, Zeus. You go ahead and check things out,” Virginia said, laughing.
A few buildings down, the land on either side of the road were replaced by cat-o-nine tails that stood over six feet easy. Behind them grew a thick cover of wild thistle weeds topped by purple flowers. A deep feeling of uneasiness at the cover both would give anything lurking inside caused Virginia to pull the crossbow off her back and load a bolt. Too many things could hide in places like this, and she didn’t want to be caught off guard.
As abruptly as the fields of weeds on both sides of the street had started, it cleared away to a foot-long grass. Virginia noticed the paved road dead-ended into a parking lot. A few dust-covered cars were parked, telling Virginia they had been there for quite a while. A two-story building sat on the far side without a business name or sign to tell what the building’s function had been. To the left were several large dumpsters placed out of the way and against the building. All of Virginia’s experience screamed at her to pass this one by and return with Charlie and Jermaine. Even Zeus didn’t seem like he wanted to take another step forward, but Virginia ignored both and started on again.
Virginia judged that the sun would set soon. This would have to be a quick in and out for today, with a possible return before they left in the morning. The building didn’t hold much promise by way of having anything useful. You never know what you would find, Virginia thought.
She quickly surveyed the land to familiarize herself with the layout; the tall weeds were now to the left and heavy woods to the right. The building sat in the center, with the river running behind. Nothing was causing alarm to the lads or to Virginia so far. A door by the row of dumpsters sat propped open as a possible way in. A roadway ran around the opposite side that she still needed to scout. Virginia followed it and found a loading dock with a new white van backed into the first of three bays.
“Look at what we found,” Virginia said to Zeus and Perseus. She lowered the crossbow and inched toward the driver’s door. She cleared a hole in the dust and didn’t see anything inside. She easily opened the door and, climbing into the van, could see the back was empty. She checked every place she thought someone would have hidden the keys and found nothing.
“Looks like we’re going inside.”
Each of the loading bay doors were closed and, as she had thought, were raised and lowered by an opener. Down a little farther past the bays, Virginia saw a side door like the one on the other side. That would have to be the way in, she hoped,
Pulling the door open, Virginia stood back as Zeus and Perseus advanced inside. Zeus stopped and lowered his head, growling. Virginia moved in closer until Perseus blocker her path then pushed her back with his body. Holding her ground, Virginia waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark.
Shuffling sounds grabbed her attention, but she couldn’t place its direction. At first, it sounded like it was in front, but then it shifted to the left and the right.
Zeus’s growl became deeper and a little louder, causing the shuffling to become more intense.
Chapter 10
As promised, Katrina and Stu arrived early in the morning to take Lori to see Walter. It was a pleasant morning with the day’s heat not yet built up, so Stu suggested they walk to give Lori a chance to see more of their community firsthand rather than from a car window. Lori didn’t really care how they got there, she just wanted to ensure Wally was okay.
Just like the days when the plague had been raging through the world’s population, the medical detention center looked more like a prison than a medical facility. A chain-link fence topped by razor wire surrounded the flat grey windowless building. She noticed four men armed with high-powered military-grade assault rifles dressed in black makeshift uniforms. It looked to Lori like most of the uniforms were football pads hastily painted black to match the garments.
They snapped to attention and saluted Stu as they crossed through the gate into the detention center’s compound.
Lori saw armed men on the roof, watching her every move. It wouldn’t have surprised her in the slightest if they had shot her dead halfway across.
The entrance had four more guards dressed like the ones at the gate. Once through the door, it opened into a large room Lori thought had been a foyer or vestibule in the past. A dry fountain sat in the center with four more men on either side, facing into the building. These were more armed than the ones at the door or gate. It seemed odd to Lori that they guarded the way out instead of the way in. Like the others, they saluted Stu and made no attempt to stop or detain them.
She followed them through what seemed to be miles of hallways with closed and locked doors on either side. Each door had a small window about three inches wide by six inches tall. Lori couldn’t see inside them because of Stu’s fast pace. Lori wasn’t sure if he was moving that fast to stop her from looking inside the rooms or if he always moved this fast. The walk to the detention center seemed to have been a leisurely walk, while this was more like a marathon.
Stopping at a door that the glass was shattered but still in place, Stu motioned to the guard standing at the door at the end of the hallway.
The guard opened the door and said something to someone Lori couldn’t see. She didn’t have to wait very long when six men dressed in grey uniforms jogged into the hallway. Their uniform was like the others except for being gray and having a lot more padding covering every inch of their body.
“You might want to prepare yourself for this,” Stu said then turned to Katrina. “Did you explain all of this to her?”
“I touched on it yesterday.”
“Touch on it again before we open the door.”
Katrina placed her arm ever so gently on Lori shoulder. “Like I told you yesterday, the shots help subdue the parasite and let our brains become dominant.” She paused to see Lori’s reaction. “The parasite is strong, very strong. That is how it takes over the parts of the brain needed to keep the body functioning. In adults, there are some cases like all of us, where the brain fights back, so to speak. It survives in a subservient role to the parasite. New people, like the three of us, have become dominate over the parasite, controlling it as best as we can. Most of the time, we stay in charge, and the parasites only gets the upper hand in rare cases—things like the smell of fresh flesh or when it perceives a danger to its existence. The shots, followed by the daily medication, take even that away from the parasite.”
“How does this change for Walter?” Lori asked.
“Children have weaker, less-developed brains,” Katrina replied. “That same ability to learn and absorb knowledge like a sponge is the very thing that gives the parasite the upper hand in them.”
�
�Have you ever noticed him having issues controlling when the beast emerges?” Stu asked.
Lori didn’t even have to think very hard to identify times when Walter had struggled, too many to make her comfortable. She was always having to watch for signs of the change in him, especially when they came across other people. Once, she knew he had snuck off in the night and attacked him. When asked why he was covered in blood, Walter just smiled at her and continued walking.
“Let’s do this if we’re going to,” Lori said.
Stu winked at her and turned to the door. He reached deep into his pocket and removed a master key and slid it into the lock. The guards pushed Lori and Katrina out of the way and opened the door.
Walter charged them and latched onto the first guard he reached, sinking his teeth deep into the padding while growling like a lion. He threw back his head and bellowed a roar so loud Lori had to cover her ears.
A smaller guard lunged forward with a needle, shoving it into Walter’s neck.
He jumped off the guard and retreated into the room.
“Now the real fun starts,” a guard said to the others.
They entered the room and spread out to form a semi-circle blocking the exit from Walter.
“Free me from this room, or I’ll eat your flesh while you slowly die,” Walter said. “You will feel each piece of your body being torn from you.”
“Go in there and let Walter see you,” Stu said.
Lori moved forward in a cloud of disbelief and alarm. She wasn’t sure what Walter would do when he saw her or even if he would recognize her. They had only been together a few times when the change had happened. Most of those times, it was her who had changed and not him.
Looking between the large guards, she got her first glimpse of Walter completely changed. His pale skin had a grayish hue. Walter’s small-boy body was now bulked like a weightlifter, and he seemed taller than before. Where is fingernails had been, long arched claws now menaced the guards. His teeth had transformed into fangs, like a wolf’s or lion’s. But it was the eyes that frightened Lori. They were coal black and dead, like the eyes of sharks in all those ocean documentaries she had seen growing up. If a part of Wally remained in there, it was hidden deep inside someplace in the back crevices of his brain.