Instinct (15 page)

“And when he wakes up, we could get him talking and find out what he knows,” Robby said.

Robby and Lisa moved closer together as they defended Lyle. Pete approached them with his hands turned up. He beseeched them. “Can’t you see what a terrible idea this is?”

“I think I have to agree with them, Robby,” Brad said. “We have to be able to…”

His sentence was finished for him by the loud pop. They all turned to Romie. She was standing with her arm extended towards Lyle. When she turned away, Lyle slumped and they saw the gun in her hand. It was one of Lyle’s own.

Lisa didn’t say anything. She turned and walked to the van. She got in the back seat and closed the door.

Brad could barely hear Pete from the ringing in his ears.

Pete was looking around the garage. “Okay. What do we need from here?”

Romie tossed the gun towards the workbench. Brad flinched as it landed. He was convinced it would go off and send a stray bullet in a random direction. It didn’t. Romie headed for the driver’s door.

Pete didn’t find anything to take from the garage. Maybe he didn’t want to disturb any of the orderly tools. Robby grabbed the box with the remaining warm soda. They all walked towards the van. As Romie backed away, the headlights of the van encircled Lyle in cold light. His head was slumped to the side. His chest was a shiny red hole. His crotch was darkened from the urine that had released when he died.

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Pete had an old folded map that he had found somewhere. He bent over it, using the light from the glove box to decipher the symbols.

“Take a right,” Pete said.

He guided them north, over a twisty country road, so they could get to the nearest bridge. Nobody talked.

“Left up here.”

Romie let out an exasperated sigh as she slowed for a patch of water across the road. Brad leaned forward to see if he could tell if it was the dangerous kind of liquid.

“Go ahead. It’s nothing,” Pete said.
 

Romie accelerated. She normally hit wet patches at a cautious speed, regardless of Pete’s confidence. This time she threw the vehicle at the streak of liquid on the road. Brad fastened his seat belt. They crossed the bridge over the rushing water. Somewhere downstream of their position, their last minivan had drowned in this same river. Brad pressed his face against the window as Romie rolled over the bridge. This one sat higher and didn’t look like it had any intention of collapsing. When Brad looked back up, the headlights lit up a sign that read, “Welcome to Vermont. The Green Mountain State.”

A hundred yards beyond the sign, Romie stopped for another patch of liquid.

“Okay,” Pete said.

Romie stomped the gas pedal and the minivan lurched forward.

“WAIT!” Pete shouted. She slowed to a stop. For a second, Brad wondered if she was going to just barrel through. They were so close to the patch of wet pavement that Pete had to push himself higher and stretch his neck to see.
 

“Back up,” Pete whispered.

Romie pushed the transmission to reverse and let the van idle backwards. Brad leaned forward.

“It’s happening again,” Robby said from the back seat.

“What’s happening?” Lisa asked.

“The liquid is collecting again for…” Robby started to say.

“No!” Romie said. “I’ve heard enough speculation. I only want to hear facts. Which way do we go, Pete?”

“I don’t know,” Pete said. He was flipping the map over. The river and the bridge were located right on a fold in the map.

Romie was still rolling the van backwards and Brad suddenly had a better view of the liquid. He saw what had made Pete yell. On the right side, near where the liquid came over the side of the road, it glistened. It was strange enough that there would be a stream of liquid across this patch of road. The road was crowned in the center and had drainage ditches on either side. With no standing water in the ditch, Brad couldn’t imagine how runoff could get to the point where it would crest the road. That wasn’t the only clue. The liquid also glistened in the headlights. Over near the side he could see it ebbing and flowing, like it was getting ready for something. After that back and forth movement, a wave pulsed and flowed down the wet patch. The wave flowed across the road.

“Which way, Pete?”

“I don’t know. I guess we have to go back across the bridge. We haven’t passed any other roads on this side of the river. We’re going to have to go…” He flipped the map and unfolded another section. The interior of the van was filled with the sound of crinkling paper. “I think we have to go twenty miles north. Wait. Thirty miles.”

“I wouldn’t,” Robby said.

Romie practically growled at him. “Is this more speculation? Are you about to make another guess at something?”

“I wouldn’t keep backing up,” Robby said.
 

Brad looked at the boy. Robby sat in the seat behind Brad and didn’t appear to be looking anywhere but forward. Romie tapped the brake pedal, for whatever reason, and when the red lights joined the white reverse light, Brad saw something terrible.

“STOP!” Brad yelled.

They jerked to a stop.
 

“Will you people quit yelling?” Romie asked. “I can follow orders that aren’t screamed.”

Brad was tugging at his door. “We have to get out of here.”

Behind the van, the liquid was moving much faster than the gentle wave that had flowed across the road in front of them. Behind them, lit up by the brake lights, the liquid was pulsing and flowing like a flood. Two runners of fluid led the way, seeming to mark where their tires had rolled. Farther back, lines of liquid zigged and zagged back and forth, covering the road in a spiderweb.

Romie threw the vehicle into park and took her foot off the brake. Brad’s view of the liquid was gone. His fingers finally found the secret to the door. He had to pull it back while he tugged the handle. The door rolled open.
 

Pete flipped the map. “There is a…”

“We have to get out of here,” Brad said. Nobody seemed to understand.

Brad jumped out into the night. He pulled out his flashlight and swept it to the pavement behind the van. The liquid was coming fast. It would be to the van at any second.

“Get out!” he yelled. “Come on. Come on.”

Lisa and Robby began to follow through Brad’s door. Romie swung her door open and Pete looked up from his map. Through the back window, Pete must have seen what Brad’s light showed, but he just sat there. Romie got a clue and pulled his sleeve. Pete crawled over the center console and followed her out into the night.
 

“This way,” Brad said. He pointed his light in the same direction as the headlights. The liquid was still pulsing across the road in that direction, but the flow wasn’t wide. “We can jump it.”

“Take big strides,” Robby said. He almost sounded bored.

“What? Why?” Romie asked.

“Just do it,” Lisa said.

They all ran towards where the liquid formed a line across the road. They all hopped from foot to foot, taking big strides. When they got to the edge, Brad’s flashlight beam swept across the sky as he leapt across the liquid to the other side. Robby and Lisa followed. Romie backed up and took a running start. Pete jumped and windmilled his arms to catch his balance. Lisa grabbed him and pulled him forward.
 

Brad led the way up the road.

“Wait,” Romie said after a few paces.
 

Brad turned around. She was looking back the way they’d come. The headlights shining in their eyes made it difficult to see. The beams jerked when the liquid reached the vehicle. They heard the rear tires of the van explode and the headlights pointed up, over their heads for a second. Then, when the liquid exploded the front tires, the headlights came back down again. They didn’t last long. Something shorted in the vehicle as the liquid consumed it. The headlights flickered and then went out, leaving a glow on Brad’s retinas.

“We should head uphill,” Lisa said.

“We won’t be able to see the liquid in the grass,” Pete said. “We have to stay on pavement.”

Brad turned his flashlight forward again and it was joined by Lisa’s. They moved at a fast walk. Lisa turned her beam around periodically to look the direction they’d come from.

“Will it follow us?” Lisa asked.

“Yes,” Robby said.

They hadn’t gone far when they saw the next line of liquid. It was wider than the last. Brad jumped over it before anyone could debate what to do. Only Romie had trouble with the jump. She ran to the edge and leaped, but she didn’t get much height. Her foot came down very close to the edge of the liquid. Lisa’s light was pointed to the ground where Romie had landed.

“It senses us,” Lisa said.
 

Brad joined his light to hers and saw. The edge of the flow broke open and Romie’s footprint filled with the stuff. They all backed away as they watched it. A pencil-thin bead of liquid reached out in their direction. It moved slow.

They ran.

Brad counted his paces and got to eighty before they found the next line. The road was flat ahead of them and there was nothing but Vermont forest on either side. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but it seemed like this flow was closer than the last had been. He wondered if they were just getting closer and closer to a place where the liquid covered the entire road.

The only good news he saw was that this flow wasn’t as wide across. They all jumped easily and settled into a slow jog. After seventy-two paces, they found the next one.

“The gap between them is getting smaller,” Pete said. Brad had been just about to make the same comment. “We have to figure out a different plan. What if we head into the woods between the flows and maybe climb a tree? Do you think they liquid will go away?”

“What if it’s a grid? Didn’t someone say it was a grid?” Lisa asked.

“Speculation,” Romie said.
 

“We keep going forward until we’re forced into something different,” Pete said. “We know what’s behind us.”

“Yeah,” Lisa said.

The rest agreed silently.

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Over the course of the next fifty paces, the road crested a small hill. When their lights swept over the pavement on the other side, they saw a strange pattern of wet asphalt. A couple of bands of pulsing liquid ran perpendicular to the direction of the road, but down its length, they saw intricate trails of the stuff. In some places, big patches swelled and flowed. In others, it was like a fine network of threads.

“What the hell is it doing?” Romie whispered.

“Can I borrow your light?” Pete asked Lisa.

She handed it to him. Pete headed off to the side of the road. The rest watched as Brad’s beam explored the surface. The liquid seemed oblivious to them. It was busy creating its patterns. Brad found a spot a few yards away where the liquid moved through a few gentle turns. Dotted down the length, the liquid swelled into shapes that looked like footprints.

“Someone was here,” Romie said.

“This is where they camped,” Robby said.

Brad kept his light on the road, but turned to look at the boy. His blank eyes were staring up at the sky.

“Hey,” Pete said, as he jogged back up to them. “We might be able to go this way.”

Pete led them over to the side of the road. He pointed Lisa’s flashlight into the tall grass. The ground fell away into a ditch and then quickly climbed up a small hill where the tall grass ended and the trees began.
 

“What makes you think it’s safe?” Romie asked.

“You can see the liquid there,” Pete said. He pointed the light more to the west. He was right. The liquid coated the stalks of grass up to the tops, making each one droop a little. The top of each stalk glittered in the light. The pulsing moisture caught the light and sparkled.

“So we get into the woods—then what?” Lisa asked.

“Look at this wall,” Pete said. He focused the light on an old rock wall, under the canopy of trees. Some of the rocks had tumbled away, but it looked pretty good for an ancient wall that might have once demarcated the edge of a cow field. They could see where the liquid passed near the rock wall. It made a clear path on either side of the rocks, but it must have flowed under, rather than over, them. They were dry on top.

“This seems like a bad idea,” Romie said.

“Do you have a better one?” Lisa asked.

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It would have been impossible, if not for the trees. They grew close enough to the wall so the group could lean on the trunks when the footing was bad. It was bad most of the time. As they walked down the length of the wall, Brad wondered about its origin. Some of these rocks were so big he wouldn’t have been able to get his arms around one. They were big round monstrosities that someone had pulled free from the soil and moved into this straight line.

Back when the world made sense, Brad had owned property with rock walls. But those walls were made from jagged pieces of ledge, that you could imagine two people might carry.
 

Ahead, Romie slipped and her leg shot out to the side. With lightning-fast reflexes, Pete caught her arm. Her foot stopped an inch from the wet leaves.
 

Brad turned around. Behind him, Robby had his arms out the side. He looked like a kid practicing his balance on a curb. The experience didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.

“Pete?” Lisa called back, from the front of the line. Brad swept his light in her direction. “There’s a gap in the wall.”

She moved off to one of the out-of-place stones and the rest gathered the best they could at the edge of the gap. Robby pulled himself up into a maple tree while Romie watched nervously.

Ahead, the rocks were little islands in the forest. Someone had knocked a hole in the wall, about the right size for a vehicle to pass through. It was overgrown, but Brad thought he could see the remnants of a road. Pete took Lisa’s flashlight again and used it to identify the places where the liquid pulsed over the forest carpet.