Vanish (19 page)

At length, Mitch spoke again. “Did you ever have to watch someone you love suffer? I mean, go for months in pain?”

Conner hesitated. “No.”

Mitch nodded and stared out the window a moment longer. “My mother died slowly. Pancreatic cancer. It spread to her lungs and brain. There wasn’t anything they could do.”

“How long did she suffer?”

“She was sick for over a year, but the last few months were the worst.” Mitch shook his head. “I was fourteen. I’d sit in her room. Y’know, praying for her. Until my father would come and kick me out. He wouldn’t let me near her.”

“He didn’t want you to have to watch her suffer.”

“Maybe. I didn’t get it at the time. I wanted to be by her, but I couldn’t stand to see her like that. She was in… a lot of pain.”

“And you resented him for that? kicking you out of the room?”

Mitch shook his head. “My old man was real religious. He’d kick
me
out. But
he’d
sit there by her bed and sing these hymns and read his Bible to her. She’d be groaning in pain, and he was like a robot. Like his singing was going to make her feel better or something. At least I kept quiet. She hardly even knew I was there.”

Conner thought he was beginning to understand. “So you got tired of the hypocrisy?”

Mitch shrugged. “He was in politics. A congressman. When the dude wasn’t campaigning, he was getting ready for the next election. I hardly even knew him. My mother was the one who raised me. She tried to teach me history and stuff. She said I could grow up and run for congress like my old man.” His jaw tightened. “But I never wanted to be anything like him.”

Conner nodded. “That’s not all that uncommon with kids of high-profile parents.”

Mitch drew in a breath. “After she died, things just got worse between us. It was like I didn’t even exist. He talked to me even less than he had before. When I turned eighteen, I let him have it. Both barrels. I told him what he could do with his politics and his religion. And his God.”

“And you hadn’t talked to him until he called you?”

Mitch chuckled, and it grew into a hollow laughter. “In twenty-four years, the first time the man ever said he loved me was when he called that night.”

Conner fell silent. Over the last several minutes he had been cultivating a righteous anger toward Mitch’s father. He had always been disgusted with the purveyors of politics and morality, forever barking down commandments to others but rarely living up to them. And Mitch’s father seemed like a classic example. But in Mitch’s bitter laugh, Conner suddenly felt the story turn on him. Like a mirror, he saw
himself
now, hypocritical and self-righteous. And Rachel was the one bitter and laughing.

He couldn’t recall the last time he had told her he loved her. And Marta’s words echoed in his mind.

“She wants to be with you.…”

His indignation had run its course. It left him feeling hollow and cheated.

Mitch’s voice drew him from his thoughts. “I never thought I’d ever hear him say that. I never thought he’d forgive me.”

Conner frowned. “Forgive you? For wha—?”

The Cherokee lurched slightly. The engine sputtered. Mitch swore and sat up.

Conner checked the fuel gauge. It was well past empty. He peered back out the window. “No… not now.”

CONNER SCANNED THE FOG for any sign of a gas station or any building with vehicles. The Cherokee sputtered again. Conner let off the gas. Mitch was scanning the roadside as well.

“We had a quarter tank. We can’t be out already.”

Conner shrugged. “We haven’t been driving that long.”

“Dude, we cannot get stranded out here!”

Helen and Devon stirred in the backseat as the engine sputtered again. “What’s going on?” Helen mumbled.

Devon swore. “Outta gas? How can we run outta gas?”

“We’ve been looking. We haven’t seen any place to stop.”

Helen leaned forward. “There’s gotta be someplace nearby.”

Conner shook his head. “We stopped someplace about twenty minutes ago, but there wasn’t any gas. We even tried to siphon some from a truck parked outside, but its tank was empty.”

Mitch was growing agitated. “We haven’t seen anything but trees and empty fields this whole time.”

“I thought we were close to the interstate?” Helen said. “Wasn’t there a gas station when we got on?”

“We haven’t seen the interstate yet,” Conner said. “But this fog’s been so thick, we can’t see much of anything.”

The Cherokee sputtered once more, and the engine finally stalled.

“There!” Mitch pointed ahead. “I see something! There’s a building up there. And I see some cars!”

Conner spotted the boxy shape of a building in the fog and turned into the driveway. The Cherokee rolled to a stop in the middle of a gravel parking lot.

They got out and listened. The fog seemed to press in on them from all around. The building itself looked to be a small roadside bar. No gas pumps. No lights. But three cars were parked near the entrance: a station wagon, a pickup, and a compact.

Mitch retrieved the hose and gas can from the back and went to the station wagon. He fed the hose into the tank. They could hear a dull, hollow thud.

Mitch looked up. His expression was grim.

“That’s dry too?” Conner shook his head. “Doesn’t anybody in this state keep gas in their cars?”

Mitch tried the pickup and the compact as well with the same results.

“Oh, that’s great, man!” Devon pounded the hood. “That’s great! We got no gas and we’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere! What are we supposed to do? Walk?”

Conner inspected the bar more closely. The windows were broken out. Shards of glass lay strewn along the ledges. The door hung ajar. He shook his head. “Looks like we’re not the first ones here.”

Mitch flipped on the flashlight and pointed it through one of the windows. “The place is trashed.”

“What do we do now?” Helen asked.

Conner stood with his hands on his hips and looked around. “There’s got to be other places around. Maybe houses. I say we wait until dawn and see if the fog lifts.”

Mitch spread the map out on the hood and shined the flashlight on it. “I can’t believe we missed the interstate.”

“We couldn’t have missed it,” Conner said. “We would’ve seen something.”

Mitch shook his head. “You said this road connected right to the interstate.”

“I have a law degree; I know how to read a map.”

Mitch traced his finger along the map. “Dude, it was just a few miles.”

“And you were driving first,” Conner shot back. “Why didn’t you see anything?”

“Will you two stop fighting!” Helen grabbed the flashlight from Mitch. “I thought I heard something.”

She swung the light around the parking lot. Their visibility wasn’t much more than a dozen yards or so.

Conner peered into the fog. “What’d you hear?”

Helen shook her head. “I… I don’t know.… There it is!”

Conner strained to listen. At first, all he heard was his own breathing, then Helen’s. But then he caught something else.

Voices. Whispering in the mist.

THEY ALL STOOD BACK to back, guns drawn. Conner’s chest pounded, and his palms grew moist. He could hear the voices more clearly now, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Just like on the lake, they were whispering to each other. Conner swallowed. His throat was so dry.…

Mitch whispered, “I don’t see anything.”

“I do.” Helen’s voice quivered.

Then Conner saw them as well. Vague silhouettes, tall and thin, encircled them. Some stood upright, some slightly bent, swaying in the fog. Others crouched low.

“I’ve had enough of this!” Mitch shouted.

The night erupted with the thunder of gunshots. Mitch shouted a string of profanities, and Devon as well. Conner could hear Helen screaming. Not out of fear but anger. A mad, high-pitched tirade. And more gunfire.

Conner felt a sudden surge of emotion in his chest. Anger and hate welled up as adrenaline released into his bloodstream. He brought the sight up onto one of the creatures and fired.

A flash of light erupted from the end of the barrel. The blast kicked back into his wrist and arm. Gripping the gun with both hands, Conner squeezed the trigger again, pumping the remaining rounds into the creature. He didn’t even know how many rounds he had fired. He just kept shooting. And screaming.

Then it stopped. Conner kept squeezing the trigger but felt only the impotent click of an empty chamber. As the smoke cleared, the ring of creatures remained. Conner’s shoulders slumped. It hadn’t even fazed them.

“Get back in the Jeep!” Mitch yelled. The extra ammunition was inside the Cherokee, and it was the last source of refuge they had. The last barrier between them and the creatures.

They jumped inside and locked the doors. Mitch rummaged though his bag for extra bullets.

Devon’s face was pressed to the glass. “They’re coming!”

Out of the mist, the figures approached the car. Faceless gray heads lowered as if to look through the glass at them. Conner now saw the gray, mottled, and leathery skin up close. These were no phantoms. These were things of flesh and form.

Something thumped on the roof. It dented inward. Another thump dented the hood. The pounding against the Jeep grew louder and fiercer.

One of the heads bent down and seemed to peer through the window next to Conner. He could see only tiny nostril slits undulating in the featureless face, as if smelling them. Was that it? Were they operating only by smell?

Out of nowhere, thin, dark lines appeared in the pallid flesh above the nostrils. As if some invisible knife were cutting through the coarse, beaded skin. Then the skin pulled itself open to reveal two milky orbs.

The eyes made contact with Conner, and immediately the rash on his wrist prickled with heat. Conner winced and clutched his arm.

The creature’s head jerked and swiveled with insectlike movements, as if inspecting the other occupants of the vehicle.

Helen screamed as a second pair of white, vacant eyes looked through her window as well. Then more of them appeared through the back.

Devon cried out and clutched his neck.

They were completely enveloped now. All the windows seemed filled with gray limbs and torsos and soulless, white-eyed faces. Staring. Pounding. Clawing. The attack continued with the sound of claws on the metal of the roof and hood. Thumping against the glass.

The window next to Conner cracked as the alien pressed against it. The creature seemed to lock its gaze directly on him. Now another razor slit appeared in the skin beneath its nostrils. It widened from one side to the other. The leathery skin peeled back, far beyond what any human mouth would be capable of, folding over itself to reveal dozens of narrow, dark teeth.

Conner tried to scream, but his throat was frozen. He could neither cry out nor move as the hideous face took shape before his eyes. A deep growl emanated from the creature and grew in volume. The grotesque jaws parted, revealing even more teeth and a thick, black tongue. Inklike saliva dripped and pooled inside the gaping mouth.

The Jeep wobbled and shook as the creatures mauled it, pounded it, and climbed onto it. The roof dented sharply. Helen screamed. Mitch struggled to load his gun in the dark. Devon shouted incoherent curses at the top of his lungs.

The rear window shattered. The barrage of inhuman croaks and growls grew louder.

The hellish face pressed against Conner’s window, cracking it further. Lines spread out like a web.

Conner closed his eyes.

Then, through the screaming and pounding, there was another sound, thunderous and deep—like the blast of a foghorn. The sheer volume of it shook the Jeep.

The creatures halted their attack and howled as a sudden white light enveloped them, blazing down through the fog. Brilliant and intense, it came from somewhere above and in front of them. The creatures scurried from the windows and tumbled off the roof as a second, deafening horn blast shook the ground.

THE BLAST ECHOED off into the distance.

The entire Jeep was flooded with the intense light. Conner shielded his eyes. They all sat in shock, unable to see anything but the brilliant glow in front of them. Helen was sobbing softly and gasping for breath. Mitch wrapped his arm across his face.

Now Conner heard something else: a deep, sustained rumble—like the roar of a jet engine—that grew steadily louder. He squinted into the light and saw something moving inside the glow. A lone figure, obscured by the glare, descended and came toward them.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel and a hand knocked on the glass.

“You all right in there?” said a muffled voice. “It’s okay. They’re gone for now.”

Conner tried to open the door, but it was stuck. The damage to the Jeep had jammed it. He kicked against it and managed to push it far enough to squeeze out. Conner could hear the source of the rumble better now. It was some sort of tractor engine.

He squinted in the light and found himself looking up at a rather unassuming figure clad in denim bib overalls and a plaid shirt. He was tall and gaunt, with unruly gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses.

“You all right?”

Conner nodded. A wave of relief flooded over him. “Mister, you saved our lives.”

The man chuckled and held out a hand. “Name’s Bristol. Howard Bristol.” He stuck a thumb over his shoulder. “I live just up yonder there. Saw your headlights in the fog and heard some gunshots. Figured somebody needed some help.”

The others squeezed out of the Cherokee, looking dazed. Howard raised his eyebrows. “Four of you! Good gracious. Well, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you!”

Mitch rubbed his head. “The feeling is more than mutual.”

Conner’s eyes adjusted to the light enough to see its source: an enormous tractor or harvester of some sort. Two rows of floodlights were mounted across the top of the reaping apparatus on the front, and a huge bullhorn speaker was attached to the hood.