36 Hours (27 page)

“Pretty much. Hah! Dress up!” He ran out of the room, slamming the door. The man was, let’s admit,
odd
.

I stripped off the wet shirt, having a hard time – it kept sticking to my body. I threw it to the floor and slid my arms through the plaid sleeves, buttoning it up. The room was dark, but my eyes adjusted; a hand woven quilt covered the bed, stitched with needle and thread. Four pillows, two on either side. I closed my eyes, imagined waking up to the dawn, hearing the wind rustling through the eaves, opening the window to Wright Brothers Airport and 741. Did he say he had a wife? Where was she? Gone. Yes. He spoke so casually of it; blocking off the memories, turning it into a bank of information – yeah, I had a wife once, but she got sick, and what could you do?

The house threw off a wave of eeriness, and I felt myself racing down the steps, skin prickling. That feeling you get when you’re all alone running up or down the steps, imagining a thick-bodied beast with lolling purple tongue and silted ember eyes plodding after you, clawed hands dripping with fresh blood reaching out.

I turned at the foot of the steps; the others were all in the living room. My foot went forward when the door shuddered and a screech rippled through the house; I fell to the floor, writhing around; the door shook, the bar clattering; dust filtered from the hinges. All at once more bangs and romps and shouts came from all sides of the house, hammering and chiseling away, shrieking like banshees in a midsummer night’s dream.

“Morris!” I yelped. “Morris!”

He calmly stepped from the living room, a ghostly smirk on his face. “Give them six, seven minutes.”

The door creaked inwards, then returned into place. Dust fell from the rafters.

“Morris, they’re-“

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“They’ll stop for a while and go back to the road. Then they’ll come again in fifteen, twenty minutes. But it will hold. You have my word, and my word, Austin, does not run dry.”

I clambered to my feet and rushed around him, throwing my body into the living room. Les stood by the chair, gaping at a boarded window. The boards quaked and wavered, but didn’t move. His jaw hung open. Hannah stood behind the couch, white knuckles gripping the rim of the sofa; Ash propped up on the couch, Adam’s apple bobbing.

Morris shadowed me in the doorway. “Just wait. You’ll see.”

Les gazed at the window. In a trance. Hannah gripped Ashlie’s hand. Dizziness came over me.

And then it slowly stopped, crumbling away. The door was abandoned, living room windows still.

Silence.

The rain mixed with distant quells of thunder.

Morris beamed. “They know they can’t get in. They’re trying to draw us out.”

“How do you know?” Les spat, turning. “We don’t know anything about them! No one does!”

“They’re not that bright, but they’re not dumb sheep, either. They’ve still got human brains – if anything they have slivers of logic.”

“Logic doesn’t cannibalize!”

Morris grinned. “Some of the most royal and utopian societies were cannibalistic.”

Les smeared, “I can’t
believe
this. We’re being hunted and he’s playing philosophy professor.”

“Would you like to go-“

Hannah snapped, “Guys! Calm it! Whether they’re dumb or smart doesn’t matter. Whoever is right – it doesn’t matter. It’s all just speculation. But they haven’t gotten in. We have
that
much. They gave up. I’m not going to spend my time wondering why – I’m thanking God we’re still living and breathing. Les: sit down. Mr. Morris: forgive him. His brother and best friend are in Kentucky, and he has no idea how they’re faring.”

Morris shrugged. “We’re all wired tight.” He moved through the room and knelt down by the fireplace, opening the grate; tossing firewood in, he took some starter-logs, a Zippo out of his pocket, and lit them up. Light stretched over the logs, coughing smoke up the chimney. He shut the grill; warmth floated Anthony Barnhart

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out. Les grumbled and fell into the chair. I looked at the front door, then slid down next to Ashlie, running a hand through her hair. Hannah sat down on the sofa arm.

Hannah asked, “Won’t the smoke attract them?”

Morris opened the grill, took a fire poker, stuck it in, moving things around.

“Attract them?” A maniacal laugh. “I’d count on as much, to be frank. Yes!

Hah!” He dropped the poker and stood. “But if they come down through the chimney, they’ll get scorched raw and black and we’ll dash their ashes all over the bricks. Isn’t that a pleasant way to go? But enough about that
morbid
stuff. Tell me. You guys. All of you. How you get to driving down 741 towards Olde Clearcreek? What drives you so?”

We looked at each other. Hannah told her story, and about the insurrection at the grocery market. And I threw in my bit about the police station, and the chase through North Park. Stomaching my nerves, I spoke of my mother’s suicide and my father’s rampage. I spoke of how I had to dispose of him, and how I had to dispose of one of my best friends. I choked up, but I held my head high. My story was different, but the emotions were all the same. Hannah cracked at the mention of Peyton, and when she pondered aloud how her parents were faring, she started crying. Les watered when he spoke of Drake and Chad, and his mother at the Daycare. Another barrage on the house came, but we believed Morris, and even Les didn’t blow up with the tension. Nine minutes later, the house was quiet, walls untouched.

“What about you?” Ashlie dared. “What’s your story?”

Morris leaned against the hearth, flames warming his backside, drying the rain-clogged fibers. “My story? Well you have to know that while I’m a farmer, it’s only a full-time job in the summer. I have a degree in medical coronary art from Pennsylvania. My father was a coroner, and I followed in his foot-steps. In the winter I assisted Dr. Richardson in Arlington. He’s the one who does the coronaries at the Saint Elizabeth hospital; Arlington can be rough, especial y on the west side, and he affirms death by bullet wounds, strangling, poisoning, car crashes. I take no pleasure in the work, but it’s a 24/7 job. Townsend goes on retreat in the winter, and I take his place at Richardson’s side. I drove to work this morning, leaving around four in the morning, before the traffic gets bad. The sun was bright. Hartford was all over the radio, but I didn’t care. Why should’ve I? I had no idea! Richardson tells me that he’s been getting some phone calls about domestic disturbance to the north (he gets forewarning by the Anthony Barnhart

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police districts). There was a car crash last night and he’s identifying the cause of death and affirming the deceased when a nurse says that the phones are ringing and all the ambulances are going on runs. We start getting calls from the police – accidents are popping up all over in the north, sweeping downwards towards downtown. It’s a six-story building and I get a good look out a window.”

He coughed. “There are fires to the north and car wrecks all over. Most of the people on the streets don’t even notice anything, but then fingers start pointing and heads are raising. Then cars come screeching down the roads and we start getting
busloads
of people coming in the front doors! All bite wounds! Like they’ve been attacked by wild animals, but they say
people
attacked them. There’s rioting in the suburbs and there are fire engines and ambulances everywhere. It’s turning into a mess.”

He rummaged the poker through the embers. “A couple of the bite victims die soon after arriving, and Richardson puts them on a lab table. The bite victims are being sent to toxicology, and we’re just lolling about with two or three bodies coming through the doors. We strap them down. Richardson saying how crazy this is, he’s seen nothing like it. He puts blankets over the corpses and begins the basic preliminary on one of them when all of a sudden the body tenses and struggles against the straps! Richardson freaks out. Can you blame the guy? The woman on the gurney has become a horrible mesh of human flesh, and she starts screaming and snapping at him, struggling against the straps!

Richardson tries to subdue her, but the straps break and she grabs him by the head, jerks him down, and takes a chunk out of his neck. Blood is gushing everywhere and he sags against the wal .”

His eyes glazed, then refocused. “I try to help him, calling for help. The woman is trying to writhe free. Then all the other bodies under the sheets start moving back and forth, howling and crying out. Richardson goes limp. I jump up to the phone and try to dial for someone to get down here but when I look out the door to shout for a doctor I see the stairwell flooding with people running, screaming. I turn and see Richardson, the old fool, getting up. At first I’m thanking God, but then he tries to kill me, and I get in the elevator. Somehow it works, and it opens on the ground floor. I run outside. People are running down the streets, hollering, ‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ Around a block corner here come hundreds of people, running full-throttle, except they’re not people. They’re jumping cars and throwing down people and beating Anthony Barnhart

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them to death. Just ugly! I get in my car and somehow avoid accidents on the roads. The freeway is a mess. Accidents are piling up everywhere, from people trying to flee, people succumbing to bites behind the wheel; Arlington is going up in smoke, it’s god-awful. The accidents clear and I jet my way south. I shook my head at the people driving towards Arlington, so unknowing. God knows where they are now, or even
who
or
what
they are!

“By the time I get home it’s seven ten or so. I get off the exit and am driving through Clearcreek when I start to see the accidents piling up. There are people beating people at gas stations and K-Mart and restaurants. People running, screaming, into the trees, the woods, only to be chased down like savages. I went up Tamarack, connected to Pennyroyal and got to the farm. By then these guys, these creatures, they’re filling the streets, the buildings, there’s rioting and carnage. Parents vs. children, friends vs. friends. Neighbor vs. neighbor. How screwed up is that?”

He shook his head at that last thought, then a smile perked across his lips.

“But we’re better than that, aren’t we? We haven’t fallen into their hands yet. This can’t last forever. It just
can’t
. Let me tell you – we stay here, hoard up, become best of friends, rely on one another, sacrifice for one another, and live for one another, and we’ll hold out. These beasts, they need
food
to survive. Their attacks on the house get weaker with the hours. They can’t feel it, I don’t think, but their muscles are growing weak. Without the pain, the body can’t tell the muscles to stop. Muscles will tear, deteriorate. These
things
will die of starvation or dehydration, in a few days. If we can hold out that long…” A wan grin spilt over his face. “If we can live for the next few days, we’ll be
legends
.”

The infected came at the walls again. Hannah breathed, “I
hate
them.”

Morris walked over to her, sat down beside her. “Don’t worry. This place is secure. It’s like I said. If we can hold out for the next couple days, we’ll be fine. We’ll help rebuild this world. It’ll be a whole new society… Hey! We can make it
utopia
! Hah! How’s the sound of
that
?”

The infected continued to hit the walls, roaring and wailing outside in the rain. Ash leaned back on the couch pillow, opened her mouth, and began to sing. Her words floated through the room, wafting delirious throughout the rest of the farmhouse. The infected chanted their death cries and threw their fists and arms and legs and bodies against the walls, but she only sang louder. We closed our eyes, too, drowned in the ecstasy of it, and she sang the Disney classic,
A whole
new world
. The infected, furious with malicious envy, volleyed even harder, but Anthony Barnhart

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she sang louder; Hannah joined in, her own chorus rising above the hell storm outside. Morris, Les and I just listened, pushing out the sounds of a wicked reality, longing for the mythic, the enchantment, the beauty – the childlike passions that were lost just over twelve hours ago. Then the assault ended, the infected abandoning; Ash quit singing, and Hannah bellied out. Morris opened his eyes, drew a succulent breath. “Beautiful. You have a beautiful voice; both of you.”

Ash said, “Amanda and I used to sing it together when she spent the night.”

Ams. No. Don’t think-“Well, your voices are very nice. Did you ever sing as a threesome?”

“No,” Hannah said. “I was in choir at school. And at church.”

“You kids are religious?” Nods. “Hah! faithful teens. Never saw that one coming. Most teens today are brutal and harsh and mean. Oh. Don’t read me wrong. Most teens have hearts of gold, they just don’t… express it in the
right
way. Catholic teens. Virginia would love it.”

“Nondenominational,” Hannah corrected.

His eyebrows raised. “Eh?”

I said, “Protestant.”

“Ah. Most Catholics aren’t too fond of you, but Virginia, bless her – heart of gold.”

“Who’s Virginia?” Ash asked. “Your wife?”

He nodded quietly. “Yes. Most beautiful thing ever. See?” He stood and threw an arm out, waving at the mounted pictures on the fireplace mantle. “Isn’t she wonderful?” A plump lady with twirl brown hair, a gentle smile, and a cross necklace. Frilly Sunday dresses and a Bible in her purse. “She prayed three times a day and read her Bible morn and night. Woke up to read the Word with the sunset and laid down to read under the stars – when it wasn’t raining. See those two young ones? Those are my sons. Both are grown up now. One lives in the south, he’s an architect for some high-rise skyline company; the other moved to England to work with Scotland Yard. He was the finest cop you’d ever meet. Served in the San Francisco Bay area for quite some time.”

We sat there in the living room, staring at the twisting fire. Morris stood, left the room. Les crackled his legs, said, “Hey. Austin. Check this out.” He stood by the desk, beside a sleek ink-black notebook computer. I popped it open, expecting a blank screen; but to my surprise it whirred into action. Les and I exchanged glances, and he glanced down, looking for a chord. Nothing. Anthony Barnhart