Cruel World (27 page)

“We should get going,” Alice said, looking at the bright cloud hiding the sun.

“I think we should wait one more day, make sure you’re good to go.”

“I’m good to go,” Alice said.

“Alice—”

“I’m fine.” There was a familiar edge to her voice that told him there would be no negotiation. “Let’s leave in an hour. There’s nothing to stay here for.”

~

They walked to the nearest house in the mid-morning, Quinn and Alice in front with the guns, Ty behind with his cane, Denver at heal beside him. Quinn watched the dog as they moved down the declined road. Every ten steps or so, Denver would nudge Ty’s hip with his shoulder, and it was only after the fourth time did he realize that the dog was keeping Ty from straying even an inch out of line. Quinn was about to say something to Alice when they came upon the driveway and turned into it.

The house at the end of the lane was massive, its top soaring almost to the tree tips. They found several cans of vegetables and fruit along with some more candy, but no weapons.

“Damn pacifists,” Alice muttered before leaving the house. In the garage they found a newer GMC Sierra pickup alongside a hybrid smart-car. Alice paused before opening the door to the truck.

“Want to take the car?”

“What?”

“I’m just trying to be eco-friendly. Doing my part to save the world.”

Quinn shook his head. “Get in.”

They drove toward Ferry but turned south before coming within sight of the town. The day lightened but maintained its cool, gray tone throughout the afternoon. They had to stop twice to tow wrecks from the narrow country road they drove on. At the second crash, a flock of crows feasted on something in a nearby field, taking flight long enough for them to see the tattered remains of a man’s jacket and pants.

It was near evening when they joined a large highway that took them northwest through a larger town. Vacant storefronts slid by, empty parking lots, the occasional dead car, or body. When they’d left the burg behind, Alice shifted in the front seat, her hands toying with the revolver.

“We should find somewhere soon.”

“Definitely. I’ll pull off at the next exit that looks—” But his voice faltered as they rounded a bend and the setting sun shone full force through the windshield. Quinn took his foot off the gas and coasted to a stop on the left side of the highway near a guardrail.

“What are you doing?” Alice said.

“It’s,” Quinn started but couldn’t continue. He put the truck in park and tore his eyes away from the scene before him, checking the immediate surroundings as he opened his door and climbed out.

“Quinn, are you okay?” Alice asked.

“What’s wrong?” Ty said from the backseat.

“Nothing,” Quinn said, stepping away from the truck. A cool breeze trailed past him, pushing his hair back, and he swallowed, coming even with the steel rail.

A strong river flowed beneath the highway, so blue it nearly hurt his eyes to gaze into it. The water stretched between two rounded hills, their sides rich with dozens of trees that grew close to the water’s edge in tiered rows, their branches beginning to green. The sun painted the dead river grass a shade of yellow as it bent beneath the wind’s touch and it rippled like the water beside it. Reaching tips of rocks studded the center of the river in a zigzag like the zipper of a woman’s dress.

The painting in his room at home lay before him in all its splendor.

His father’s words came back to him.
The only way to feel something that you haven’t seen in real life is through art.
Tears clouded his eyes, and his lower lip trembled. He sat down beside the guardrail, its cold steel beneath his palm the only sensation telling him he was here and not in his room dreaming of the day he could see the artist’s rendition in person.

“Are you all right?” Alice stood beside him, and he looked up at her, blinking away the tears.

“Yeah. I’m more than all right.”

“What is it, Quinn?” Ty asked, appearing at his shoulder, Denver close to his other side. “I hear water. Is it a river?” Ty gazed out over the rolling hills, not seeing the beauty that was right there before him. Quinn fought off another bout of emotion and grasped the boy’s hand.
You have to feel it, Quinn.

“You’re right; it is a river. It’s deep and wide with big, dark rocks in its middle. It curves between two hills that come down to meet it. The hills have trees and long grass, and the sun is shining on it all. Can you feel the sun?”

“Yes.” Ty closed his eyes.

“Can you see the river?”

“Yes.”

“It’s all right in front of you. Everything’s there.”

A smile spread across Ty’s small face, the sunshine lighting it like it did the grass and trees so that he looked more alive than Quinn had ever seen him.

“It’s beautiful,” Ty said at last.

~

They stopped for the night at a farmhouse at the end of a dirt road that cut between two fields full of greening alfalfa. At its rear, a plantation of stark trees stood in even rows, their shaded tunnels narrowing to nothing with the setting sun. There was a smell of death inside the house, but Quinn found only a dried mass in the corner of the kitchen floor. He poured a bottle of bleach on it that he found beneath the kitchen sink, and the stench subsided enough for them to breathe easier.

They brought their belongings inside and ate a meager supper of cold sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce. Denver had a bowl of dog food Quinn had packed, returning to Ty’s side the moment he was finished.

“I think I’m losing weight,” Alice said between bites. “If society ever rebuilds itself, I’ll start my own program. ‘The Apocalypse Diet: all you need is a gunshot to the leg, canned food, and overwhelming fear to lose those extra pounds’”.

“You’ll make a million,” Quinn said.

“Yeah. At least then if we run out of toilet paper…”

Ty’s face crinkled. “You mean wipe with money?”

Quinn and Alice laughed. Denver woofed once, and they all laughed harder. After he’d finished eating, Quinn took a quick tour around the farmhouse, watching the land for movement, but there was nothing, only the sharp flitting of a bat past his head and the hoot of an owl somewhere deep in the tree plantation behind the house.

He stood there as the clouds roiled amongst themselves, their bellies going from gray to black, dyed by the night. Crickets sang their endless tune, and somewhere to the east, a single coyote howled. There was no traffic trundling along the road, no planes tracing a path across the sky. He could’ve been the only human being alive on Earth.

He shivered and went inside.

Ty was asleep on a pile of blankets Alice had packed from the house where they acquired the truck. Denver lay next to him, one paw almost touching the boy’s outstretched hands.

“Have you ever seen such a thing?” Alice said, motioning to Ty and the dog as she changed the bandage on her leg.

“No, can’t say I have. They’ve really taken to each other.”

Alice laughed without mirth.

“What’s really funny is that I considered getting a service dog for him about a year ago.”

“Really? I thought you didn’t like them.”

“I don’t, but the benefit to Ty was too important. There were organizations that provided guide dogs for free, but the waiting list was over two years. There were places that trained and sold them, but the problem was the dogs were close to fifteen thousand dollars. I couldn’t afford it out of pocket, so I signed up for a grant. And we were to the point for final approval when it was defunded.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. It was through the state. My income was so low we qualified. Bastards pulled the rug right out from under us. Anyone who says people applying for government assistance are lazy have never filled out any of the required paperwork; it took me almost a week to gather everything they needed. And then to have them take it away.” She shook her head. “After seeing the disappointment on his face that day, I vowed never to mention a dog again until I had the flea-bitten mongrel paid for and in the house. I started saving and had about three thousand built up when everything went to shit.” Alice pulled her pant leg down over the clean bandage and stared at her son. “Now he’s got one, and all it took was for the world to end.”

“I’d bet on Armageddon before the government any day.”

She laughed and rose, carrying the rifle. “I’ll take first watch.”

He nodded and was about to look for a place to bed down when Alice put a hand on his shoulder. He turned to her, and she was close. So close it startled him.

“What you did today, at the river, that was…” she stared up at him. Her breath tickled against his neck. He could smell her, not a perfume of any kind, just the scent of her sweat and her hair. There was barely any light in the room, only the meager glow from the closest windows, but there was something in the way she looked at him, something in her eyes, the way her head was tilted back. It was as if—

A loud bang came from the yard. Glass tinkled.

They both flinched. She gripped his shoulder harder before releasing it. They hurried to the front door, crouching before they got to the window.

Somewhere behind them Denver growled.

Quinn brought himself up high enough to look out into the night.

“Oh my God,” he said.

Chapter 23

The Cellar

A stilt loomed over the truck and shoved its hand further through the driver’s window it had just smashed.

It was wreathed in shadow and only truly discernable when it moved, separating itself from the dark. Behind it, a quarter mile away, a herd milled in the field. Quinn couldn’t tell how many there were, but most of the open ground was covered by slender forms, long arms swinging as they walked.

“Go get Ty and go out the back door,” Quinn said. “Get into the trees and keep going. Don’t stop.”

“You’re coming,” Alice said, snagging his arm as she sidled away from the window. The stilt bumped the truck’s horn, and they both jumped. The monster jerked also then slammed a fist through the rear driver’s side window and continued to rummage inside.

They slipped into the living room, and Alice roused Ty, speaking so low Quinn couldn’t hear what she said. Denver continued to growl, a low and menacing sound in the middle of his chest.

“Shh,” Quinn said, stroking the Shepherd’s ears. “Quiet now.” The dog nosed Ty’s shoulder as Alice helped him to his feet. Quinn grasped the first aid kit, and they started for the back door when Alice halted.

“Wait. I don’t hear it anymore,” she breathed. Quinn listened.

Silence.

They could be walking outside into its waiting arms and teeth.

He leaned in to Alice, putting his mouth against her ear.

“I’ll check the front. Be ready to run.”

He moved back through the simple house, the front entry dark and unfamiliar. He gripped the revolver.

Five shots.

Edging close to the window, he peeked outside, one eye around the window frame.

The stilt was gone, but the herd was still there, undulating like a single entity. Maybe it had gone back to rejoin them after finding nothing in the truck. What were they doing out there? So many. The group was at least twice the size of the herd in Ferry. Maybe three times, the night belied their numbers. He squinted and tried to search the areas to either side of the window.

The stilt stepped out of the darkness two paces away from the house, bowing low, its eyes finding him framed in the window.

It roared.

Quinn raised the handgun, mortaring everything inside him to keep still and aim. He couldn’t miss.

He fired as it came through the glass. Its long head rocked backward, a chunk of skull vaporizing. The gunshot resounded across the field, and the surrounding area lit up in a dazzling blast of flame that shot from the barrel. Ringing filled his ears, and then something else.

Deep croaking.

They were coming.

He turned, yelling through the length of the house. “Go!” The back door opened, and they were gone before he could even make out their shapes. In the field, tall forms loped forward, long shadows beneath the starless sky. He had to buy them time somehow, give them a head start. He had four rounds left, along with his body to sacrifice if necessary. How long would his corpse slow them down? Long enough for Alice and Ty to get away? He tried to steady his hands as the stilt’s footsteps and thrumming calls came closer, tried to make out his first target. It was so dark.

Dark.

Quinn tucked the revolver in its holster and ripped the first aid kit open, fingers fumbling with the orange flare pistol. He yanked it free and found one of the three tubular flares. By feel, he loaded the pistol and cocked the hammer back before standing.

Cool night air drifted in through the broken window. The herd was thirty yards away and closing. He aimed at the center of their numbers and fired.

The flare launched out of the pistol with a sizzle and seared the night in a sodium line as it sped across the distance between the farmhouse and the stilts. It blazed a path between them, their forms careening apart like water breaking on a rock. The croaks became hisses that filled the night like a kingdom of snakes.

Quinn stooped and reloaded the flare gun, shooting the second round at the greatest clot of figures.

Then he ran.

Through the house and out the rear door without looking back. The air whipped past him, his breath quickening. He sprinted into the closest row of the plantation, the sound of his passage metronomic against the many tree trunks. Sticks and grass tried to tangle his feet, but he stormed through them, twigs breaking underfoot. After what seemed like hours, he swung to a stop behind a tree, drawing the revolver.

Held his breath.

His heart wasn’t where it should’ve been. It thudded behind his eyes, in his throat, even his arms. The farmhouse was out of the sight, only the rows and rows of trees visible in the night. A window broke. There were sounds of a door being ripped from its hinges. More croaking. Behind him he could hear soft footfalls in the distance.

He turned and ran again, plummeting through the tunnel of branches and trunks, sight jangling with each step. Ahead, a dim light swung. There and gone like the flash of the nearest lighthouse he’d watched every night at home. The light spoke a word through the blackness.

Hope. Hope. Hope.

He exploded into a clearing and nearly trampled Alice and Ty beneath him before slowing. Denver snarled and took a step toward him before he realized who Quinn was.

“Thank God,” Alice said, latching onto his arm.

“They’re still coming,” Quinn managed between sucking breaths.

Across a narrow tract of turned field, a flashlight swung.

“There’s some kind of house over there,” Alice said, grabbing Ty’s hand. She hurried forward, and Quinn kept pace, his legs weak from the flight.

As they neared the home, which didn’t seem much more than a shack of some kind, its left end much higher than the right, the person holding a flashlight shone the beam on them, and they paused with the sound of a shotgun being racked.

“Hold it right there,” a cigarette soaked voice said. They stopped and stood beside one another. Alice held the AR-15 ready but pointed at the ground. “What’re you doing in my field in the middle of the night?”

“We’re being chased,” Quinn said, throwing a look over his shoulder. The clouds had parted enough for a wedge of cold light to fall on the plantation edge. The trees stood like bristling needles in their rows.

“By what?”

“By stilts,” Alice said, blinking at the glare of the flashlight.

“The hell is that?”

“The creatures. What used to be people,” Alice replied, holding up a hand to block the light. “Can you get that out of our faces?”

“Why shouldn’t I just drop you where you stand right now? How do I know you’re tellin’ the truth?”

A branch snapped in the distance, and a long hiss trailed from the trees.

“Because they’re going to be here in thirty seconds,” Quinn said. “Either let us inside or get out of our way.” He raised the pistol from his side, aiming at the shape behind the light. The man drew the beam across them all, finally resting it on Ty who gripped Denver’s collar in one white hand.

Three stilts exploded out of the plantation and paused, their heads snapping up as if catching a scent before they bellowed and ran toward them.

“Inside!” the man shouted, and fired a blast from his shotgun in the stilt’s direction. They ran past him and found a weather-beaten door in the side of the house. Quinn glanced around as soon as they were all inside.

The house was a simple shed, its roof slanting dramatically to one side so that even Ty wouldn’t have been able to stand up straight beneath its low end. The walls were thin, cracks as wide as his thumb open to the outside in some places. Two candles burned on the top of a great cast iron woodstove in the furthest corner beside an unmade cot. The air smelled the same as the field outside, turned soil and a hint of tobacco. Unfinished boards creaked beneath their feet.

“This won’t keep them out,” Alice said, spinning in the center of the room.

She was right. Quinn’s eyes combed the space for somewhere to hide. He was about to lead them back outside to take their chances in the dark when the man entered and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Down here,” he said, dropping to one knee. His fingers pried up a steel ring set in the floor and he pulled.

A trap door opened unto pure darkness, a single tread visible in the dim light.

Alice found his eyes, and Quinn hesitated, glancing at the man holding the door. He nodded. Alice held Ty’s hand, guiding him down the steps as she disappeared into the void sideways. Denver dove after them, and Quinn heard the big dog grunt as it hit whatever floor waited. Quinn went next, hearing hurried footfalls punching the furrowed earth outside the shack.

His feet found four stairs, widely separated, then solid ground. Wooden beams ran only inches over his head, cobwebs brushing his face and shoulders. The man slipped into the cellar behind him, lowering the trap door without a sound. He shone his flashlight on a heavy, steel bolt that he threw into its housing with a clack, locking the door tight.

Wood cracked and groaned above them. The man doused his light, plunging everything into an abyss of darkness. Guttural rumbling filled the shack, vibrating the air around them. Dust rained down as heavy footsteps crossed the little house’s width. Something crashed to the floor, more dust fell, and Quinn felt a sneeze beginning to build. He bit down on the inside of his cheeks and pinched the bridge of his nose. The sneeze burned in his sinuses for a harrowing moment and then receded. Someone was beside him, soft skin and hair. He ran a hand down Alice’s arm, and she laced her fingers in his.

Quinn swung his free hand out, and it met rough concrete block no more than a foot away. Denver’s collar jingled once and then no more. They waited, the stilts trampling the floor above them, tearing the man’s home apart.

After what seemed like days, there was a loud croak from somewhere to the south, and the shambling feet receded from the planks, several more things falling in their wake.

Quiet except for their breathing.

The man flicked his flashlight on, cupping the beam in the palm of his hand. Barely any light found its way past his fingers, but it was enough to see the small room they were in.

The walls were uneven concrete block, unsealed and water-stained from many years of flooding. The floor was earth, lumped and heaved in the center of the space. There was a pile of rusted hand tools in one corner, indiscernible in their function. Other than the short angle of stairs, the room was bare.

The man went to the wall near the tools and worked on something for a moment, a soft grating coming from one of the blocks. Steel clinked. Then he returned, the shotgun cradled under one arm. He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up at the trap door before turning to them.

He was in his mid-to-late sixties, a curled, white beard, stained yellow around the mouth, covering his face. Wrinkles ran away from the corners of his eyes like erosion on the bank of a river, and he was mostly bald, several large age spots growing in dark patches on his naked scalp.

He illuminated each of them in turn, shuffling his boots along the dirt floor. When he came to Quinn, he froze, bringing the light closer.

“The hell happened to you?”

“I was born this way. Genetic disorder,” Quinn whispered. His hand lingered on the revolver at his hip. The man grunted and stood back, lips pursing behind the dirty beard. “Thank you,” Quinn said, glancing at the boards overhead. “Thanks for taking us in.”

“Wouldn’t have if it coulda’ been helped. Wasn’t much getting away from the bastards as it was.” The man eyed them all again. He spit on the floor.

“We appreciate it,” Quinn said. “We’ll move on at first light.”

There was a muted scratching sound, and the man turned his light on the corner of the cellar. Denver was pawing at a place in the corner, his nails raking the dirt up in furrows.

“Keep that dog from diggin’,” the man said, taking a quick step forward. Denver looked up, glancing at all of them as Ty found his collar with one outstretched hand.

“Sorry,” Ty said.

“Place is wrecked enough as it is. Don’t need more damage down here.” With that, he clicked the light off and moved across the room where they heard him settle to the ground. Alice squeezed Quinn’s hand, bringing her mouth to his ear.

“What the hell?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll just get through the night. Find another vehicle in the morning. Maybe we can make Iowa by tomorrow.”

She released his hand, and they huddled together on the floor in the complete dark. Outside the stilts growled and chuffed, their bullfrog voices intermingling as they called to one another.

Alice slowly slumped closer to him and finally rested her head on his shoulder. A warmth bloomed there that spread through him, fluttering wings in his stomach.

“Are you okay to stay awake?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Yes. I’ll keep watch.”

As her breathing evened and the sounds of the stilts receded further, his mind drifted, the utter blackness around him like being in the vacuum of space. He closed his eyes and opened them. No difference. The man shifted and then fell quiet. Quinn kept his hand on the revolver, finger in the trigger guard until the first light of dawn crept into the cellar through the cracks in the ceiling.