Joe thought of the pivoting, bloated freak he’d killed, the one that had smelled him, and his stomach clamped tight. “Let’s go. Remember what I told you,” Joe said.
“Yes, sir.”
He’d leave the jerky alone, for now. He’d go inside and look around for himself first.
Joe’s knee flared as boot sank into soft mud just inside the gate. Shit. He was a useless fucking old man, and he had a Bouncing Betty fifty klicks south of the DMZ to blame for it. In those happy days of Vietnam, none of them had known that the real war was still forty years off—but coming fast—and he was going to need both knees for the real war, you dig? And he could use a real soldier at his side for this war, not a little one.
“Closer,” Joe said, and Kendrick pulled up behind him, his shadow.
When Joe pushed the glass door open, the salmon-shaped door chimes jangled merrily, like old times. Mike had vanished quick, because he wasn’t behind the counter. A small television set on the counter erupted with laughter; old, canned laughter from people who were either dead or no longer saw much to laugh about. “EEEEEEE-dith,” Archie Bunker’s voice crowed. On the screen, old Archie was so mad he was nearly jumping up and down. It was the episode with Sammy Davis, Jr., where Sammy gives Archie a wet one on the cheek. Joe remembered watching that episode with Cass once upon a time. Mike was playing his VCR.
“Mike? Where’d you go?” Joe’s finger massaged his shotgun trigger as he peered behind the counter.
Suddenly, there was a loud laugh from the back of the store, matching a new fit of laughter from the TV. He’d know that laugh blindfolded.
Mike was behind a broom, one of those school-custodian brooms with a wide brush, sweeping up and back, and Joe heard large shards of glass clinking as he swept. Mike was laughing so hard his face and crown had turned pink.
Joe saw what he was sweeping: The glass had been broken out of one of the refrigerated cases in back, which were now dark and empty. The others were still intact, plastered with Budweiser and Red Bull stickers, but the last door had broken clean off except for a few jagged pieces still standing upright, like a mountain range, close to the floor.
“Ya’ll had some trouble?” Joe asked.
“Nope,” Mike said, still laughing. He sounded congested, but otherwise all right. Mike kept a cold six months out of the year.
“Who broke your glass?”
“Tom broke it. The boys are fine.” Suddenly, Mike laughed loudly again. “That Archie Bunker!” he said, and shook his head.
Kendrick, too, was staring at the television set, mesmerized. From the look on his face, he could be witnessing the parting of the Red Sea. The kid must miss TV, all right.
“Got any Cokes, Mike?” Joe said.
Mike could hardly swallow back his laughter long enough to answer. He squatted down, sweeping the glass onto an orange dustpan. “We’ve got hot dogs! They’re—” Suddenly, Mike’s face changed. He dropped his broom, and it clattered to the floor as he cradled one of his hands close to his chest. “Ow! SHIT ON A STICK!”
“Careful there, old-timer,” Joe said. “Cut yourself?”
“Goddamm shit on a stick, shit on a stick, goddamn shit on a stick.”
Sounded like it might be bad, Joe realized. He hoped this fool hadn’t messed around and cut himself somewhere he shouldn’t have. Mike sank from a squat to a sitting position, still cradling his hand. Joe couldn’t see any blood yet, but he hurried toward him. “Well, don’t sit there whining over it.”
“Shit on a stick, goddamn shit on a stick.”
When Mike’s wife Kimmy died a decade ago, Mike had gone down hard and come up a Christian. Joe hadn’t heard a blasphemy pass his old friend’s lips in years.
As Joe began to kneel down, Mike’s shoulder heaved upward into Joe’s midsection, stanching his breath and lifting him to his toes. For a moment Joe was too startled to react, the what-the-hell reaction stronger than reflex that had nearly cost him his life more than once. He was frozen by the sheer surprise of it, the impossibility that he’d been talking to Mike one second and—
Joe snatched clumsily at the Glock in his belt, and fired at Mike’s throat. Missed. Shit.
The second shot hit Mike in the shoulder, but not before Joe had lost what was left of his balance and gone crashing backward into the broken refrigerator door. Three things happened at once: His arm snapped against the case doorway as he fell backward, knocking the gun out of his hand before he could feel it fall. A knife of broken glass carved him from below as he fell, slicing into the back of his thigh with such a sudden wave of pain that he screamed. And Mike had hiked up Joe’s pant-leg and taken hold of his calf in his teeth, gnawing at him like a dog with a beef rib.
“Fucking sonofabitch.”
Joe kicked away at Mike’s head with the only leg that was still responding to his body’s commands. Still, Mike hung on. Somehow, even inside the fog of pain from his lower-body injury, Joe felt a chunk of his calf tearing, more hot pain.
He was bit, that was certain. He was bit. Every alarm in his head and heart rang.
Oh God holy horseshit, he was bit. He’d walked right up to him. They could make sounds—everybody said that—but this one had been talking, putting words together, acting like . . . acting like . . .
With a cry of agony, Joe pulled himself forward to leverage more of his weight, and kicked at Mike’s head again. This time, he felt Mike’s teeth withdraw. Another kick, and Joe’s hiking boot sank squarely into Mike’s face. Mike fell backward into the shelf of flashlights behind him.
“Kendrick!” Joe screamed.
The shelves blocked his sight of the spot where his grandson had been standing.
Pain from the torn calf muscle rippled through Joe, clouding thought. The pain from his calf shot up to his neck, liquid fire. Did the bastards have venom? Was that it?
Mike didn’t lurch like the one on the road. Mike scrambled up again, untroubled by the blood spattering from his broken nose and teeth. “I have hot dogs,” Mike said, whining it almost.
Joe reached back for the Glock, his injured thigh flaming while Mike’s face came at him, mouth gaping, teeth glittering crimson. Joe’s fingers brushed the automatic, but it skittered away from him, and now Mike would bite, and bite, and then go after the Little Soldier—
Mike’s nose and mouth exploded in a mist of pink tissue. The sound registered a moment later, deafening in the confined space, an explosion that sent Mike’s useless body toppling to the floor. Then, Joe saw Kendrick just behind him, his little birding rifle smoking, face pinched, hands shaking.
Holy Jesus, Kendrick had done it. The kid had hit his mark.
Sucking wind, Grandpa Joe took the opportunity to dig among the old soapboxes for his Glock, and when he had a firm grip on it, he tried to pull himself up. Dizziness rocked him, and he tumbled back down.
“Grandpa Joe!” Kendrick said, and rushed to him. The boy’s grip was surprisingly strong, and Joe hugged him for support, straining to peer down at his leg. He could be wrong about the bite. He could be wrong.
“Let me look at this,” Joe said, trying to keep his voice calm. He peeled back his pant leg, grimacing at the blood hugging the fabric to flesh.
There it was, facing him in a semi-circle of oozing slits: A bite, and a deep one. He was bleeding badly. Maybe Mike had hit an artery, and whatever shit they had was shooting all through him. Damn, damn, damn.
Night seemed to come early, because for an instant Joe Davis’s fear blotted the room’s light. He was bit. And where were Mike’s three boys? Wouldn’t they all come running now, like the swarm over the hill he’d seen in the field?
“We’ve gotta get out of here, Little Soldier,” Joe he said, and levered himself up to standing. Pain coiled and writhed inside him. “I mean now. Let’s go.”
His leg was leaking. The pain was terrible, a throb with every heartbeat. He found himself wishing he’d faint, and his terror at the thought snapped him to more alertness than he’d felt
before.
He had to get Little Soldier to the truck. He had to keep Little Soldier safe.
Joe cried out with each step on his left leg, where the back of his thigh felt ravaged. He was leaning so hard on Little Soldier, the kid could hardly manage the door. Joe heard the tinkling above him, and then, impossibly, they were back outside. Joe saw the truck waiting just beyond the gate.
His eyes swept the perimeter. No movement. No one. Where are those boys?
“Let’s go,” Joe panted. He patted his pocket, and the keys were there. “Faster.”
Joe nearly fell three times, but each time he found the kid’s weight beneath him, keeping him on his feet. Joe’s heartbeat was in his ears, an ocean’s roar.
“Jump in. Hurry,” Joe said after the driver’s door was open, and Little Soldier scooted into the car like a monkey. The hard leather made Joe whimper as his thigh slid across the seat, but suddenly, it all felt easy. Slam and lock the door. Get his hand to stop shaking enough to get the key in the ignition. Fire her up.
Joe lurched the truck in reverse for thirty yards before he finally turned around. His right leg was numb up to his knee—from that bite, oh sweet Jesus—but he was still flooring the pedal somehow, keeping the truck on the road instead of in a ditch.
Joe looked in his rearview mirror. At first he couldn’t see for the dust, but there they were: Mike’s boys had come running in a ragged line, all of them straining as if they were in a race. Fast. They were too far back to catch up, but their fervor sent a bottomless fear through Joe’s stomach.
Mike’s boys looked like starving animals hunting for a meal.
Kendrick couldn’t breathe. The air in the truck felt the way it might in outer space, if you were floating in the universe, a speck too far in the sky to see.
“Grandpa Joe?” Kendrick whispered. Grandpa Joe’s black face shone with sweat. He was chewing at his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Grandpa Joe’s fingers gripped at the wheel, and the corners of his mouth turned upwards in an imitation of a smile. “It’s gonna be all right,” he said, but it seemed to Kendrick that he was talking to himself more than to him. “It’ll be fine.”
Kendrick stared at him, assessing: He seemed all right. He was sweating and bleeding, but he must be all right if he was driving the truck. You couldn’t drive if you were one of them, could you? Grandpa Joe was fine. He said he was.
Mom and Dad hadn’t been fine after a while, but they had warned him. They had told him they were getting sleepy, and they all knew getting sleepy right away meant you might not wake up. Or if you did, you’d be changed. They’d made him promise not to open the door to the safe room, even for them.
No matter what. Not until you hear the danger word.
Kendrick felt warm liquid on the seat beneath him, and he gasped, thinking Grandpa Joe might be bleeding all over the seat. Instead, when he looked down, Kendrick saw a clear puddle between his legs. His jeans were dark and wet, almost black. It wasn’t blood. He’d peed on himself, like a baby.
“Are you sleepy?” Kendrick said.
Grandpa Joe shook his head, but Kendrick thought he’d hesitated first, just a little. Grandpa Joe’s eyes were on the road half the time, on the rearview mirror the rest. “How long before your mom and dad got sleepy?”
Kendrick remembered Dad’s voice outside of the door, announcing the time. It’s nine o’clock, Cass. Worried it was getting late. Worried they should get far away from Kendrick and send for Grandpa Joe to come get him. Kendrick heard them talking outside of the door plain as day; for once, they hadn’t tried to keep him from hearing.
“A few minutes,” Kendrick said softly. “Five. Or ten.”
Grandpa Joe went back to chewing his lip. “What happened?”
Kendrick didn’t know what happened. He’d been in bed when he heard Mom say their neighbor Mrs. Shane was knocking at the window. All he knew was that Dad came into his room, shouting and cradling his arm. Blood oozed from between Dad’s fingers. Dad pulled him out of bed, yanking Kendrick’s arm so hard that it snapped, pulling him to his feet. In the living room, he’d seen Mom crouching far away, by the fireplace, sobbing with a red face. Mom’s shirt was bloody, too.
At first, Kendrick had thought Dad had hurt Mom, and now Dad was mad at him, too. Dad was punishing him by putting him in the safe room.
They’re in the house, Kendrick. We’re bit, both of us.
After the door to the safe room was closed, for the first time, Kendrick heard somebody else’s footsteps. Then, that scream.
“They stayed for ten minutes, maybe. Not long. Then they said they had to leave. They were getting sleepy, and they were scared to near me. Then they went away for a long time. For hours,” Kendrick told Grandpa Joe. “All of a sudden I heard Mom again. She was knocking on the door. She asked me where my math homework was. She said ‘You were supposed to do your math homework.’ ”
Kendrick had never said the words before. Tears hurt his eyes.
“That was how you knew?” Grandpa Joe said.
Kendrick nodded. Snot dripped from his nose to the front of his jacket, but he didn’t move to wipe it away. Mom had said not to open the door until Grandpa Joe came and said the danger word. No matter what.
“Good boy, Kendrick,” Grandpa Joe said, his voice wavering. “Good boy.”
All this time, Joe had thought it was his imagination.
A gaggle of the freaks had been there in Cass’s front yard waiting for him, so he’d plowed most of them down with the truck so he could get to the door. That was the easy part. As soon as he got out, the ones still standing had surged. There’d been ten of them at least; an old man, a couple of teenage boys, the rest of them women, moving quick. He’d been squeezing off rounds at anything that moved.
Daddy?
Had he heard her voice before he’d fired? In the time since, he’d decided the voice was his imagination, because how could she have talked to him said his name? He’d decided God had created her voice in his mind, a last chance to hear it to make up for the horror of the hole his Glock had just put in her forehead. Daddy?
It had been Cass, but it hadn’t been. Her blouse and mouth had been a bloody, dripping mess, and he’d seen stringy bits of flesh caught in her teeth, just like the other freaks. It hadn’t been Cass. Hadn’t been.
People said freaks could make noises. They walked and looked like us. The newer ones didn’t have the red shit showing beneath their skin, and they didn’t start to lose their motor skills for a couple days—so they could run fast, the new ones. He’d known that. Everybody knew that.
But if freaks could talk, could recognize you . . .
Then we can’t win.
The thought was quiet in Joe’s mind, from a place that was already accepting it.
Ten minutes, Little Soldier had said. Maybe five.
Joe tried to bear down harder on the gas, and his leg felt like a wooden stump. Still, the speedometer climbed before it began shaking at ninety. He had to get Little Soldier as far as he could from Mike’s boys. Those boys might run all day and all night, from the way they’d looked. He had to get Little Soldier away . . .
Joe’s mouth was so dry it ached.
“We’re in trouble, Little Soldier,” Joe said.
Joe couldn’t bring himself to look at Kendrick, even though he wanted to so much he was nearly blinded by tears. “You know we’re in trouble, don’t you?” Joe said.
“Yes,” the boy said.
“We have to come up with a plan. Just like we did at your house that time.”
“A danger word?” Kendrick said.
Joe sighed. “A danger word won’t work this time.”
Again, Kendrick was silent.
“Don’t go back to the cabin,” Joe said, deciding that part. “It’s not safe.”
“But Mom and Dad might . . . ”
This time, Joe did gaze over at Kendrick. Unless it was imagination, the boy was already sitting as far from him as he could, agai
nst the door.
“That was a story I told you,” Joe said, cursing himself for the lie. “You know they’re not coming, Kendrick. You said yourself she wasn’t right. You could hear it. That means they got your father, too. She was out in the front yard, before I got inside. I had to shoot her, Little Soldier. I shot her in the head.”
Kendrick gazed at him wide-eyed, rage knotting his little face.
That’s it, Little Soldier. Get mad.
“I couldn’t tell you before. But I’m telling you now for a reason . . . ”
Just that quick, the road ahead of Joe fogged, doubled. He snapped his head up, aware that he had just lost a moment of time. His consciousness had flagged.
But he was still himself. Still himself, and that made the difference, right? He was still himself, and just maybe he would stay himself, and beat this damned thing.
If you could stay awake . . .
Then you might stay alive for another, what? Ten days? He’d heard about someone staying awake that long, maybe longer. Right now, he didn’t know if he’d last the ten minutes. His eyes fought to close so hard that they trembled. There’ll be rest enough in the grave. Wasn’t that what Benjamin Franklin had said?
“Don’t you close your eyes, Daddy.” Cass’s voice. He snapped his head around, wondering where the voice had come from. He was seeing things: Cassie sat beside him with her pink lips and tight ringlets of brown hair. For a moment he couldn’t see Little Soldier, so solid she seemed. “You always talked tough this and tough that. Da Nang and Hanoi a dozen places I couldn’t pronounce. And now the one damned time in your life that it matters, you’re going to sleep?” The accusation in her voice was crippling. “We trusted you, and you walked right into that store and got bitten because you were laughing at Archie Bunker? I trusted you Daddy.”
Silence. Then: “I still trust you Daddy.”
Suddenly, Joe felt wide-awake again for the last time in his life.