Joshua Benoit ran like he had never run before. His lungs burned with each thrusting stride (I have to quit smoking, he thought) and briars ripped at his clothes, opening tiny cuts on his arms, shoulders, chest, and thighs. Through patches of trees and backyards he sped, strangely conscious of the toll on his body. He formed a mental contract as he ran. I promise I’ll exercise more…maybe start jogging…cut down on fast food. It helped to keep him focused.
He jumped over a hedge and a stranded, rusty tricycle, ducked under a clothesline, and wedged his way between a pair of discarded ice-fishing huts. Shouts rose above the pounding of his heart, sounding much too close. He dropped flat on the ground and rolled beneath a fallen evergreen, using the branches to shield him from view. It didn’t matter who those pursuing him were—friend or foe, they would only impede his progress. He watched as four pairs of booted feet rushed past his hiding spot. His anxiety played games with his psyche, showing him horrific scenes of what was, right then, happening to his loved ones. He counted to five, emerged from beneath the tree, and took off again.
Five minutes later, Dover Middle School came into view. He scaled the fence and dropped down on the other side. There was no one around, giving him time to stop and gather his thoughts. He faced the rear of the building, a hill and three athletic fields standing between him and the back entrance. That was a lot of open space.
After swallowing hard he made his move, dashing down the incline and into the open. The ruckus of combat could still be heard, as more explosions and the report of gunfire echoed through the valley. He crossed the baseball diamond, his head on a swivel. Something caught his eye, an object resting against a bench, hidden behind the tall mesh fence that served as the visiting dugout. Josh stopped his legs from moving, but his forward momentum kept going. His feet slipped on the damp grass and sent him down on the seat of his pants. When he stopped sliding he froze, used one hand to support his weight, and stared at the dark lump. He counted to ten. When the object didn’t move, he got to his feet and, staying low, inched his way toward it.
The unknown thing turned out to be a dead soldier. He looked young, too young to be put in command of the intimidating weapon in his lap. He was dark-haired with brown skin, and had blank eyes that stared straight ahead. Dried tears formed twisting valleys of sorrow on his dirt-caked face. Blood covered his clothes from his chest down. The folds of his uniform concealed the wound that brought about his untimely end, and Josh had no desire to see it up close. Instead he seized the automatic rifle in his lap and ripped it free. The body collapsed as its weight shifted and Josh jumped, almost taking another header.
He was off to the races again, this time with a weapon slung over his shoulder. This fact brought him no solace, even as shots rang out around him. He crossed the football and soccer fields, each yard that stretched out before him seeming like a mile, until he finally reached the brick-and-concrete bunker that was Dover Middle School. He pulled on the door to the gym, fearing it would be locked, and uttered a relieved whimper when it opened with ease. He tiptoed into the place and swung the rifle from behind his back, holding it in both hands like a security blanket.
The inside of the school seemed much too quiet. The dull green paint job he remembered too well, combined with the fact the only light was that which came from the few windows, cast a ghostly aura around him. He exited the gym and entered the main hallway, where rows of lockers mocked him with their normalcy. He felt the urge to head into the basement, where he’d stolen quite a few moments to puff a cigarette when he attended school here, and hide. The thought of his sister brought him back to the moment.
“Hello?” he said in a hoarse voice. No one answered. It was as if he’d been sucked into a vacuum of sound, for even the near-constant echo of the events outside the thick walls seemed to fade.
The place looked so huge, so insurmountable. He glanced up at the hallway clock in amazement. It was only ten-thirty, half an hour after the first explosion had hit. He racked his brain for the information he needed, but nothing came to him.
“Twenty-seven,” he finally mumbled. That was Sophia’s homeroom number, on the second floor. He recalled his sister telling him how comforting it had been to have her first class take place in the same room where attendance was taken, how she always felt exhausted that early in the morning and liked not having to move after the bell for first period. She’d also told him about Mrs. Flannigan, her English teacher, and how nice she’d been. The idea was a long shot, because first period ended at a quarter to ten. He hoped beyond hope that the kids had retreated back to class instead of fleeing the school entirely when that first detonation hit.
He sped down the corridor. His fears were both quelled and intensified by the odd whispers that escaped beneath the closed classroom doors. You don’t know what’s behind there, he thought, so just focus on what you came here to do. He reached the stairwell and bounded up the concrete steps, avoiding the sixth one. That was the one with the hole in it. That he knew this tidbit of knowledge amazed him. He hadn’t entered the building in twelve years, and yet he remembered the little things, the quirks of the place, as if it were yesterday.
The second floor was just as quiet as the first. Josh quit running and advanced at a slow creep, his finger tapping the rifle’s trigger. He hoped he didn’t have to use the thing; he hadn’t fired a weapon of any sort since his days as a Boy Scout. He wasn’t sure if he’d even remember how.
At the door to room twenty-seven, he paused and pressed his ear to it. He heard a slight rummaging, coupled with the faint whisper of a seemingly androgynous voice. Swallowing his fear, he turned the knob and entered the room.
The faces of thirty terrified teenagers greeted him. They were hiding behind their desks, which had all been moved to the other side of the room in a sort of barricade. Some were trying to force their bodies into the cabinets beneath the rear bookshelves and not having much luck. Josh scanned each alarmed face that peered at him, many just eyes and the tops of heads that appeared above the desks’ surfaces like prairie dogs peeking out of their burrows, on the lookout for predators.
“What…what do you want?” asked a voice to his left.
Josh yelped and spun around, lifting his weapon as he did. His finger squeezed the trigger out of reflex but it didn’t budge. A woman in her early thirties stood before him, frozen as the barrel wobbled just inches from her forehead. Her body shook violently and her complexion grew pallid. Tears spilled down her cheeks and her mouth dropped open. Something about her face seemed familiar. She had brown hair, pulled back in a braid, a tiny nose, and ruddy cheeks. He dropped the weapon to his side as fast as he could. Blood rushed through the veins in his neck, making his temples throb. Thank God the safety held. He didn’t want to think of what might’ve happened if it hadn’t.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Flannigan,” he whispered. He couldn’t look at her.
After a long pause she said, “Who are you?”
Josh picked up his head. Mrs. Flannigan had righted herself, standing rigid with her hands clenched before her. It was a display of inner strength he found both amazing and recognizable. She dabbed the tears from her cheeks with a napkin and straightened her blouse. Her expression became cold, but not the type of cold that implied callousness. No, this was an appearance his mother had taken on many times in the past, a righteous posture brought about by carrying the obligation of being responsible for the safety and wellbeing of children. It suddenly didn’t surprise him that he found her identifiable.
Josh cleared his throat. “I’m looking for my sister,” he croaked. “I thought she might be here.”
Mrs. Flannigan leveled her gaze. He swore he could feel invisible prods jabbing into his brain.
“What’s her name?” she asked.
“Sophia Benoit,” he replied. He flattened his hand and placed it beneath his chin. “About yea tall, wavy brown hair.”
“Are you Joshua?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Flannigan
turned away from him and walked across the room. With every other step she took, she would glance at the windows, as if she could see through the drawn blinds and into the bizarre world outside. She stopped in front of the cordon of desks and offered one last glimpse of suspicion in Josh’s direction before leaning over and whispering something to those behind the barrier. Other than that, no one moved.
His only thought was why isn’t she coming out?
“Honey,” he heard the teacher say, her voice rising, “your brother’s here.”
A pale hand finally came into view, clutching the lip of the desk, the knuckles white as bone. The head came next, with that familiar hair matted by sweat. Her eyes followed, darting around the room until they met his. This caused Sophia’s manner to slacken. The thinnest of smiles came across her lips.
He walked up as Mrs. Flannigan helped her climb over the barricade. Sophia trembled.
“She hasn’t been feeling well today,” said the teacher. He could see that. Not only was her hair plastered to her forehead despite the definite chill in the room, but she shivered as if in the throes of a fever, as well. He placed his palm on either side of her face and moved a slick wisp of hair from her cheek with his thumb, noticing the puffy red scratch marks the cat had given her. She was clammy, drawn out, and very, very pale. Dark circles ringed her eyes. Her bottom lip quivered.
Josh took her hand and guided her toward the door, walking away from the teacher and the rest of the students. Sophia followed him mechanically. He was afraid she might pass out, but he pushed that worry aside. His sister was alive. He’d agonize over her condition once he got her home.
“Where are we going?” asked Mrs. Flannigan. Josh turned to see the rest of Sophia’s classmates rising from their hiding places.
“We?” he replied. Those uneasy jitters emerged again.
“Yes, we. All of us. You’re taking all of us, correct?”
Josh cleared his throat. “Um, well, I wasn’t really planning on it.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
His mind went blank. “I…I don’t know.”
“So you’re just going to leave us here?” The teacher’s eyes tapered and her cheeks became even redder than before. “Can you at least tell me what’s going on outside? How bad is it? Have the rest of the students fled? Does the army have everything under control?”
Josh opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. She spoke more words to him but none of what she said made any sense. It felt as if the cognitive part of his brain had sealed itself off from outside stimuli. Four letters were all he could comprehend.
H-O-M-E.
Without saying another word, he turned and hurried for the door, dragging Sophia behind him. Mrs. Flannigan burst into a livid rant as he fled, but to him it sounded murky, as if she existed in a dimension he could only distinguish through shadows. He imagined the looks on those faces he could no longer see, the faces of children frozen in fear, children he could save but chose not to. His heart pounded and guilt threatened to halt his forward progress. What are you doing? his conscience scolded. Those people—those kids—need your help!
Please go away, he pleaded. I just want to get her home.
He ran down the hallway. At the top of the steps he paused and listened to the wounded cries of those he left behind. He glanced at Sophia, who stared straight ahead, her face a vacant mask. Josh swallowed hard, closed his ears to the sound, and swallowed his guilt with a mighty breath, then scooped his sister up in his arms and trundled down the steps.
“It’s not my problem,” he whispered.
* * *
On his way back across the athletic fields, Josh was disconcerted to see that the dead soldier had disappeared. He quickened his pace, helping a weakened Sophia over the fence and entering the woods.
The trees formed a living maze, making him the rat trapped in it, wondering if the next turn would wind up in a dead end. He carried Sophia over his shoulder while he scooted around trunks and briar thatches. Her weight was taxing. He stopped and put her down to gather his strength.
“Can you walk?” he asked, panting. She didn’t respond. He gave in and picked her back up.
A steep embankment came next. It took dexterity he never knew he possessed to navigate the damp, slippery slope. His foot slid and he went down on one knee, somehow staying upright while balancing Sophia’s dead weight. Mud ran up his pant leg, its cold slickness making him shiver. He wanted to stop right there, to throw up his hands, lay down for a minute and rest, but the bubbling of running water told him the journey would end soon. The stream, his beacon, was only a few feet away. If his recollection served him well, it was only a ten-minute jog to the promise of safety after that.
A tree had fallen over the stream years ago. In his younger days, he and Colin would spend hours running across the crude bridge’s greasy surface, oftentimes temping fate by pushing themselves faster and faster until one of them fell in. With this memory fresh in his mind he used his boot-covered foot to test the log’s stability. It rocked from side to side, decayed splinters of bark floating to the water below.
Josh moaned. His back was sore to the point of stiffness. He could scarcely hold Sophia up as it was. If he tried to perform a tightrope walk he’d fall in for sure. He shrugged the rifle off of his opposite shoulder to lighten the load. It fell into the brush. The burden didn’t seem much different. He glanced up and down the stream’s bank. There had to be another way around.
A twig snapped, followed by another. He slowly turned, the action made that much harder by Sophia’s dead weight. Two figures approached from behind him. He saw them from a distance, one man and one woman, moving cautiously, their knees bent and bodies crouched like primates. They sniffed around with their noses pointed to the sky. Josh backed up, not taking his eyes off of them, and his left foot splashed into the stream. Icy water spilled into his boots. He yelped and the wandering pair brought their searching eyes to him. The male reared his head back and let loose a bellowing roar.
Josh immediately swiveled and began high-stepping it through the water. The stream was only twenty feet wide and reached mid-thigh at its deepest level. Freezing water nipped his flesh and seeped into his jeans. His testicles tensed up into throbbing little acorns as the water licked at them, causing his abdomen to constrict and pain to spurt down his legs. It was the most horrendous physical sensation he’d ever experienced.
He reached the other side and collapsed. Sophia toppled off of him and dropped into the mud, a single puff of air escaping her lips. Josh stooped on all fours and huffed. He was shaking all over. Get up, he ordered his resisting muscles. Get up now. He scrambled to his feet and, grabbing Sophia beneath her armpits, he dragged her through the trees. He glanced behind him to see their pursuers standing at the water’s edge, smacking the stream with their claw-like hands. They seemed unsure whether or not to enter the water at first, but then, after only a few seconds of delay, they plunged in.
“Shit!” exclaimed Josh. He swung Sophia up onto his shoulder once more and continued running.
The old fort his father had built when he was a child came into view a few moments later. It stood atop an old, dying oak tree whose limbs no longer held any leaves, even in the summer. The tree had captivated him as a child. As did his home. As did his family.
The latter two would be waiting just beyond the coming rise. All he had to do was get there.
He ran faster.
CHAPTER 10
THE OLD STONE CHURCH
JUST OUTSIDE OF DOVER, in the town of Newmarket, there was an old stone church. It sat atop a solitary hill called Zion, veiled by a forest of thick evergreens. The structure, erected in the mid-nineteenth century as a Universalist meetinghouse, stuck out amongst the modern homes of the surrounding neighborhood at the bottom of the rise. With its granite stones worn jagged and in some places stained green from moss, it seemed to be beaten-down, yet its sturdiness belied those appearances. Standing tall under the weight of
years, the edifice stood as an American tribute to the possibility that man’s influence could stand the test of time, even if the people who built it did not.
Its purpose had changed dramatically over the years. No religious services had been held in the massive cavern of an interior since the turn of the previous century. Instead, starting with the arrival of the Summer of Love, it became a musical mecca for the coastal New Hampshire youth. They still came en masse on these days as they had in those of worship past, crooning as one, only now it was the lyrics of popular songs they chanted instead of glory-be-to-God. Every Friday and Saturday night they would ascend the hill in droves, money in hand, anxious to spend the next few hours being bombarded into deafness while getting lost in the enthralling alternate reality of music.
Kyra sat alone in the choir loft, which was the only segment of the church that still bore signs of its original purpose. She watched the people below her mill about the open space. These were her neighbors, her fellow townsfolk, and they had come here for the same reason as she: to lay low, to hide, and to wait. The carnage that had shaken her awake earlier that morning seemed to be miles away. She could barely hear a trace of it through the thick, unyielding walls. The place made her feel secure, if only for a moment.
It had been two days since Roger’s daring rescue at The Pit. He’d brought her to the house he and Stacy shared and, almost as soon as he was in the door, he began tossing pillows, blankets, canned goods, and formula for Little Roger into plastic garbage bags.
“What are you doing?” she remembered Stacy asking.
Roger had given his wife a look that could melt steel. “We’re going to the Stone Church,” he replied. He looked at his son, held firm in the bend of Stacy’s arm, and added, “It’s not safe here.”
His words and actions proved prophetic. The morning’s fireworks saw to that.
Kyra pulled the sleeping bag over her head, hoping the confines of her stitched cloth sanctuary would allow her to get some sleep. Rest had eluded her ever since that ill-fated night. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Justin’s face—that twisted, revolting visage of her husband, bearing down on her with sharp teeth and clawed hands. She laughed in an attempt to cope. He had always been with her and, she supposed, he always would be. Even now, free of her mundane life with him, she couldn’t get him out of her head.