Cruel World (20 page)

Chapter 18

Alone

Quinn sat on the front stoop watching the light drain from the horizon.

He held a beer bottle loosely in one hand, the other on the stock of his AR-15. He’d found his duffel bag near the bathroom door. Alice had left him a dozen MREs, three hundred rounds of ammo for the rifle, fifty for the XDM, his clothing, and a case of water.

He watched the naked woods falling into darkness and almost moved to walk into it. He’d leave his weapon here, his supplies, and just walk until he found a place to rest. Or maybe something would find him first. Quinn drank the rest of his beer and tossed the bottle into the yard. The land settled into shadow around him.

When it was full dark, he went inside the house and ate one of the MREs, not bothering to read its contents. It went down without taste. When he was finished, he pulled the curtain aside from the window in the sitting room and rested on the loveseat, his rifle cradled on his lap.

The moon rose and shone behind the clouds that continued to emit rain on and off. The light was ethereal, coating the trees in silver cut with black, each new blade of grass distinguishable. He waited for headlights to slice the darkness, to shine on the house and the Tahoe to reappear. He waited for hours.

Sometime near dawn he fell asleep, dreams of demon-like figures cajoling around a fire in the center of a clearing, their voices braided into a chant that drew a cable of terror tight around his chest. Their faces were blank slates of mist, swirling as they laughed and danced around him. He was bound and couldn’t move, time moving slower than it should have, succumbing to the monotone chant that was otherworldly and frightening beyond anything he’d ever known. One of the demons came closer, and he saw that it had a face. It was his father, grinning around bloodied teeth.

Quinn woke to a high-pitched chirp and swung the rifle up, centering on a robin that sat on the windowsill. It turned its head, focusing on him with one black eye as he relaxed in the cushions. It chirped again and leaped away, wings flapping madly as it soared between two trees and out of sight. It was a new day, and the sun was out, barely clearing the tops of the trees.

He ate a stick of beef jerky and drank a bottle of water for breakfast. After a quick shower, he packed a wool blanket into his bag from the master bedroom’s closet, glancing around the space one last time before locking the front door and heading down the drive.

He found a log cabin-style home after traveling only a mile. Its garage was unlocked and a black Ford Raptor sat inside, as pristine as if it had come off the showroom floor days ago. Maybe it had. The thought saddened him.

He drove into the nearest town seeing nothing alive along the way save for a squirrel that darted in front of the vehicle in a near suicidal sprint. The gas station he stopped at had been looted, its glass doors and windows blown out, by gunfire or by rocks he didn’t know. There were a handful of candy bars along with some potato chips left on the floor. He picked these up and returned to the Ford before filling the tank along with two gas cans he found in a storage shed beside the station.

Stopping at a blinking traffic light on the edge of the town, Quinn glanced left and right. The road was a barren stretch, punctuated by the odd vehicle every quarter mile. He gazed in each direction before punching an address into the GPS display mounted in the dash. He’d left the sheet of paper with the address on it in the ruined center console of the Tahoe, waiting for the right time to bring up his request, but that didn’t matter anymore. He’d memorized the town and numbers that went with it, and now he had no one to discuss it with.

Quinn swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment before glancing at the GPS. It told him to go southwest on a road he’d never heard of. As he pulled out and accelerated, Alice and Ty flitted through his mind, and he wondered where they were on the digital map displayed within the dash, if they were safe. He supposed they were, now that they’d left him behind.

He rubbed his face, fingers finding the familiar, unnatural curves, and glanced around at the landscape flowing past. He couldn’t deny the beauty of it all. The sun, the road, the trees, the fields, the towns. Each sight brand new, each place original in its own right. But everything held a tinge of disappointment. As if the colors were less today than they were the day before.

He shrugged off the thought and focused on the road. Maybe he’d drive until the drabness went away. Maybe he wouldn’t stop. But there was one place he had to visit before continuing. And then again, maybe he wouldn’t continue. It would all depend on what he found when he got there.

He only hoped Foster and Mallory were alive to greet him.

~

Quinn waited behind the round, sagging hay bale and watched the seven stilts examine his truck.

They were all well over eight feet, one towering above the rest that must’ve been upwards of twelve, their long-fingered hands poking and prodding the vehicle’s paint. One sniffed at the grille, inhaling a long breath before forcing it out with a wet blast. The tallest kept turning in his direction, eyes wide and hungry, scanning the land around the road.

He’d been making good time, only having to leave the road twice to get around cars blocking the highway. But the Ford was a glutton for gas, and he’d stopped on a barren stretch where he could see a good length in almost all directions to refill the tank from one of the spare cans. When he was finished, he’d walked to the side of the highway to relieve himself, slinging his rifle around his shoulder, not bothering to close the truck’s door. While he was standing there, he’d glanced back the way he’d come, the road narrowing to a dagger point in the distance before cresting a hill. At its very top, long shapes had been swaying, their movements fluid and swift. He’d cut his urination off mid-stream and began to run for the Ford when two stilts had appeared from the trees closest to the road. Without pausing they’d made a line for the truck, their deep grunts and burps becoming louder and louder.

There was no way he would have made it to the vehicle.

He’d fled in the opposite direction off the road, keeping the truck between the stilts and his flight. He’d slid behind the hay bale as they reached the truck, the first one rumbling a growl as it peered inside the cab. Within minutes the other group he’d spotted first arrived and joined them, their numbers growing from two to seven.

An hour later, they were still enamored with the vehicle. As he watched, one pulled out his bag from the backseat and tore an MRE open, its contents exploding on the pavement near its feet. Quinn re-gripped the AR-15. He raised it to his shoulder, bringing his sights to rest on the tallest stilt’s head. Thirty rounds, seven of them. But only twenty yards between them and the hay bail. He placed his finger on the trigger, beginning to squeeze, but then lowered the weapon as another three pale figures emerged from the woods a quarter mile behind the truck and joined the group. Quinn’s nerves frayed further as time slid by. The sun arced overhead and began its descent toward the western horizon. He watched them scatter the contents of the bag further, all the while the tallest kept pacing up and down the highway. It croaked louder than the others, and he saw that they always gave it the most space when it passed by.

All at once the leader lunged down the embankment beside the road and closed on the hay bale.

Quinn shrunk down, aiming the rifle up, a split second from pulling the trigger.

The stilt slowed and stopped on the opposite side of the bale. The wind gusted, ripping across the field. The creature reached out and nudged the bale with one hand. It rocked slightly and settled. The stilt huffed once and then turned, letting out a loud grunt. The other nine turned their heads and looked at it before lumbering away down the road. The tallest remained where it was for an agonizing second and then followed the herd.

He waited until they meandered off the highway and then counted to one hundred before sliding from behind the hay bale. The road was deserted once again. The birds chirped, and the wind slid between dead brambles in the ditch. He returned his strewn belongings to his bag and stowed it in the backseat. With a roar, the Raptor started, and he sped down the highway doing over eighty. In an hour Newton, Pennsylvania, appeared before him.

The town was tiny and built into the side of a small mountain that rose above it in a tree-studded mound. A bald swath cut down its side, the center strung with massive power lines. The highway he drove on became Newton’s main street, stores numbering not more than five. A dozen houses were scattered beyond the business district, their fronts peeling paint and several open doors gaped like frozen screams. He cruised past the barren side streets and was out of the city limits in under a minute. The GPS informed him to turn right in half a mile. A dirt road appeared where the screen said it would, and he swung onto it, climbing in switchback curves through the budding trees. Every so often a driveway would branch off of the track even as it narrowed, the ditches closing in with each mile. Near the crest of the mountain, a mailbox appeared bearing a last name so familiar it took his breath away. Until then he’d been intent on the road, the destination his only focus. But now, now his hands trembled.

He turned onto the driveway, its path clear and well maintained. He searched the dirt for wheel tracks and saw nothing, but the rain could have washed those away.

One turn.

Two.

Three.

Then he saw it.

The cabin emerged in a clearing surrounded by birch trees. It was small but solid, composed of huge logs interlocked at each corner, reminding him immensely of Foster’s home on his father’s land. It was one level but had wide windows gracing its front, and a steep drop fell away on its opposite side that revealed the north face of the mountain. He pulled to a stop before a low lean-to that was blaringly empty, ricks of firewood stacked against its side.

The yard was silent when he stepped out, cradling the rifle in one arm. He watched the front door of the cabin, but it didn’t ease open and no faces appeared in the windows. Quinn approached the house, the magnificent view of the mountainside trying to steal his attention, but he continued to the covered doorway. He knocked once, hard.

“Foster? Mallory? It’s Quinn.”

Nothing. No answer.

He tried the knob, but it remained solid as his hand turned around it. Quinn lifted his leg and aimed a kick at the door. Wood splintered but the lock held. One more blast from his foot and it flew inward, rebounding away from the interior wall. He moved inside to a narrow living room. The walls were adorned with pictures of mountains: McKinley, The Matterhorn, Everest. Beside each of them were smaller photos of a much younger Foster amidst groups of people, everyone adorned in climbing gear. He was smiling, his arms around others’ shoulders.

Beyond the living room was a kitchen, everything in its place. In the rear of the cabin was a bedroom, bed neatly made, attached bathroom spotless, and a covered porch looking out over the vista dropping steeply away. Quinn stood beside an Adirondack chair and then sat in it, leaning his rifle against the nearby wall.

They weren’t here. Had never been.

The hope that had been unconsciously building inside him crumbled, demolished by the silence and crushing knowledge that everyone he had ever known was dead.

Their faces came to him and went. They were ghosts now, nothing more. Tears clouded his eyes. Before they could fall, he rose from the chair, picking a small coffee table up as he moved, and whipped it through one of the porch windows.

The glass shattered, and the table soared out of sight, its passage echoing through the trees. He stood there, chest heaving, muscles thrumming power lines, and all the while Alice’s words repeated in his mind.

That’s what separates you and I.

~

He spent the night in the cabin, the air cool from the broken window. As the sun set, the valley below came alive with croaks and bellows, the cries deep and reverberating, but far away. Quinn fell asleep on the floor of Foster’s bedroom with the moon gazing in through the single window.

In the morning he gathered as many supplies as he could find within the house. Foster had accrued two, five-gallon pails of rice along with twenty jugs of water. He took all of these as well as three scoped rifles and ammo to match. He considered backtracking the simplest route that Foster and Mallory may have taken, but dismissed it almost immediately. They’d left days before him, and only death would have kept Foster from reaching this place.

He drove away from the cabin at daybreak, coasting down off the mountain into a silver mist that hovered above the road. At the main highway, he paused, looking in both directions. To the left was home. He could return to it. There was some protection there, and it was familiar. To the right was complete ambiguity. The wild beyond. He gazed toward the ocean, now hours and hours out of sight, its crash upon the rocks like musical chaos. He looked ahead. A diverging road sign faced him from the opposite side of the highway. He waited only a moment longer and then turned right.

~