Hissers (14 page)

But they don’t hide,
he reminded himself. That was one attribute they could rely on. Whether or not it would help them was anyone’s guess.

“Park here.”

Connor pulled to a stop outside of Nicole’s house. It looked so forgotten without any lights on inside.

“The car is in the driveway,” Amanita said.

Nicole put her hand on the door handle. “Yeah. That’s good. I mean, at least she didn’t drive off. And the house looks okay. Everything seems, you know, together.”

Nobody spoke for a good five seconds. Then Seth sat up. “Let’s go already, I’m exposed back here.”

Connor turned off the car but left the keys in the ignition. Everyone exited and waited while Nicole fumbled in her purse for her house keys. The now-familiar sounds of screams still managed to make the hairs on their arms stand up, even from a distance.

Nicole opened the front door and stepping inside, caught the smell of something cooking, a sweet mix of onions and grease. She waited to see if Missy, her Mom’s Pomeranian, would come running up as usual, but she didn’t. Nicole’s heart sank and her pulse began to race.
Please dear God no,
she pleaded silently,
don’t let it happen to me, too.
The other three teens followed her inside the dark house. Amanita shut the door and locked it behind them.

“I smell food,” Seth said.

“She said she was going to make tacos tonight.”

“Mom? Mom? Missy?” Nicole called out for her mother and the dog but got no reply beyond the echoes of her own voice off the walls. The kitchen was empty, a frying pan on the stove with browned ground beef still waiting for a cook to stir it. It was an electric stove but she turned the burner’s dial to the off position just in case the power came back on. She continued on into the dining room, which was empty, and the bedrooms, which were also empty. She came back to the living room and found her three friends waiting for her.

“Sorry,” Amanita said.

“But the door was locked. There’s no indication anyone broke in,” Nicole said. “Wouldn’t there be broken windows and overturned furniture? I don’t get it.”

“My house was fine,” Amanita said. “I think most people stepped outside to see what happened.”

“But we’re far enough away…”

“It’s spreading fast,” Connor added. “Who knows how quickly it got to this street. People go outside to talk, stand around, some undead thing comes charging out of the shadows a few minutes later. Who knows.”

Connor’s thesis made sense, and in fact was almost surely what had happened. Her mother must have heard the explosion, grabbed Missy like she always did—the dog had separation anxiety if she wasn’t picked up every ten minutes—and stood around gossiping with Mrs. Henry from next door. Maybe they saw the orange sky over the plane crash, stayed outside a while waiting for news. It would only take two minutes, maybe three, for one of those undead creatures to run over here or at least start a domino effect that backed up this way.

“But why? Why do they want to kill everyone?
Why!?
”

Nobody answered or offered much in the way of consolation and Nicole didn’t really expect it. Connor’s parents were dead, Seth’s and Amanita’s were missing as far as she knew, and now her house was empty. It was par for the course.

She sat down in the middle of the floor and began to cry. “Why? I don’t understand any of this. I don’t want to be here any more. I don’t want my mom to be—” she pointed through the front door. “—one of those things.” The tears came so fast they stung her eyes.

She felt an arm around her and let her head fall into the chest of her comforter. She’d expected it to be Amanita but it smelled like a boy.
Connor.
She’d been hoping to get close to him tonight, but not like this. There was nothing exciting or romantic about this and
Cosmopolitan’s
“How To Get Your Man” advice column sure as hell didn’t cover this scenario. She’d wanted to steal a kiss from Connor after a beer or two, after she’d worked up the courage, just a little lip-to-lip action to dwell on for the next few days, but instead she was sobbing in his arms because their parents were dead and they were probably going to die themselves if they didn’t find help soon and the world was going to hell.

Amanita sat down beside them, put her hand on Nicole’s head and stroked her hair. “Nicole, I really am sorry. You know how much I love your mom. But I need to ask you something.”

Nicole ran a finger across her eyes to clear her tear-streaked vision. “What?”

“I need to borrow shoes. My toes are cut to shit. What size are you again?”

“Um…six.”

“Damn. You have big feet. I need a five.”

“My mom is a five. Well, five and a half.”

“Close enough. Where does she keep her sneakers?”

For a split second Nicole almost said she didn’t want Amanita wearing her mother’s sneakers. Every one of her mother’s possessions suddenly felt very sacred to her. She didn’t want to ruin the memories associated with them by covering them in blood.

Oh, what does it really matter now,
she asked herself.
We need to get help and Am needs to be able to run. Self preservation first, grieving second. Get a grip on yourself or you’ll be dead in no time. And don’t you think for one second Mom wouldn’t want you to get out of here and get help.
“In the hall closet. Just dig around and you’ll find a pair. There should be a couple of different ones in there.”

While Amanita rooted around for the sneakers, Connor got up and checked the phones which, he reported, were still dead. Seth randomly flicked on lights and then gave up and said he’d look around for a flashlight. Nicole remained on the floor, letting the reality of her new life sink in. She was alone now, just like Connor. Her mother was just a passing moment in time that had ended without warning. The last thing she’d ever said to her mother was that she was staying over at Am’s house and would be home by noon tomorrow. A lie. Her last words to her mom were a lie!

Now she couldn’t apologize, couldn’t tell her how much she loved her. All that was left was stuff, mementos that could not ask her how her day was or hug her when she needed it. Just stuff. The family pictures on the table near the couch, the folded up jacket draped over the easy chair, the chotchkies on the shelf near the far wall—most of them bought by Nicole as birthday and Christmas gifts when she was little, two cheesy paperback romance novels on top of the entertainment center—dog-eared as Mom was wont to do to keep her place. Just stuff you couldn’t apologize to now, no matter how badly you wanted to.

“The sneakers fit,” Amanita said, sitting back down beside Nicole. “Can you do me one more favor? As my best friend?”

“What?”

“Be real. Tell me what my forehead really looks like? Because it’s throbbing like a motherfucker and I don’t for one second think it’s a scrape. Be honest.”

“Honestly…you’re gonna have a scar if we survive.”

“Fucking Seth.”

“There are bandages and ointments in the bathroom. C’mon, I’ll fix you up.”

Nicole used the light from her cell phone to find gauze and hydrogen peroxide under the bathroom sink. The sink itself was still working, which she took as a good sign, a sign that civilization was still intact. Unfortunately she still could not get cell phone service but decided to tackle that after she cleaned up the sword wound on her friend’s head. For now, it felt good to be occupied with something, anything, that would get her mind off of her mother’s disappearance. “Here, hold the phone up like this so I can see what I’m doing.”

Amanita took the phone and held it above her head, bathing most of the bathroom in a light blue hue.

“Now hold still, this might sting.” Nicole poured the hydrogen peroxide onto a wad of toilet paper and dabbed it at Amanita’s cut.

“
Motherfucker
that burns!”

“I told you. Geez, it’s deeper than I thought. This might need a stitch or two.”

“I’m gonna kill Seth, I swear to God.”

“Well, don’t kill him yet,” Connor said, sticking his head into the bathroom. “He just found us a flashlight. And when you guys are done, we need to figure out where to go next. We’re gonna need all four brains working here.”

“Why can’t we just stay here?” Nicole asked. “We can hole up in the basement or something. The phones and power are bound to come on soon, right? And there’s food and water and…and…” She trailed off, afraid to say what she really wanted.

Connor said it for her. “And maybe your mom will come back? Nicole, I know how you feel, we all do, but we can’t wait around hoping that—”

“Don’t make me feel bad for wanting that. I’m sorry about your parents but my mother could still be—”

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad. Honestly. I just think…if this situation keeps progressing like it is, we’re going to have company soon enough and I think we should get out of the neighborhood. Sure there’s food and water here but there’s no way to call for help, and you saw what just two of those things can do to break into a house. If they see us in here they won’t stop until they get in and get us. That’s why we need to talk about this.”

Nicole felt bad for jumping down Connor’s throat. His parents had just been feasted upon and morphed into raving lunatics right in front of his eyes after all, and even though she had no idea where her own mother was, it didn’t mean she should assume nobody else felt for her.
God, I’m losing my mind on an emotional rollercoaster.

“Okay, two seconds and we’ll be right there.”

“No sweat, we’re gonna eat some of this taco meat if that’s cool. We’re starving and it’d be better to be fueled up in case we have to hide for a while.”

“Go ahead. I know you have to heat the taco shells up in the oven, but that’s not working, so there’s probably bread or something on the counter near the fridge. Forks and spoons are in the drawer near the dishwasher. Plates are in one of the cabinets. Just open them all ‘til you find ‘em.”

After Connor left, Nicole used her phone again to find some Band Aids in the medicine cabinet. She put one across Amanita’s new battle wound and washed her hands.

“He’s nice,” Amanita said. “He’s no hottie like Jason but if this night had turned out differently maybe it would have worked for you two. I mean, if he liked you back. Not that he wouldn’t because you’re a hot piece of ass, but, well, you know what I mean.”

Nicole dried her hands on the towel near the shower. “Yeah. But this night has ruined my life. All our lives.” She sat on the toilet and began to cry again.

The sentiment was contagious, and within seconds Amanita was crying too.

“I want my mom,” Nicole whispered.

“I want your mom to be here, too.”

Saturday 10:32

They all sat around the kitchen table with a bowl of taco meat and a slice of bread in front of them. Amanita used her lighter to light some of the candles they’d collected from various shelves in the house and it felt very much like they were going to tell ghost stories around a campfire, which wasn’t half wrong, except this particular ghost story was true.

“The guy from the plane had to be dead,” Connor said.

“You mean the steward?” Seth asked.

“Yeah, the steward or whatever you call him—”

“Pretty sure they’re flight attendants these days,” Amanita corrected.

“My point is the steward/attendant had to be dead. I mean, could you survive that crash?”

“It’s possible,” Nicole said. “Lots of people survive crashes. It just doesn’t always get reported. I saw a late night news show once about plane crash survivors. One guy flew out of the plane and smashed through the wall of a house and lived. He had like a million broken bones, but he survived.”

“Well the steward didn’t appear to have broken bones. He was running. And it took all of what? Ten seconds for the cop he mauled to stand up and come after us. Whatever is changing them acts super fast, within seconds. It was the same with…with my mom.”

Nobody said anything. The topic of dead parents was becoming too tough to discuss. It was easier to let these moments float in the air collecting sadness. At least it was a way to acknowledge their parents’ passing, however brief and insufficient for the grieving process. Still, Connor knew they had to get their heads around what was happening so he forged on.

“With my mom, it took about ten seconds. I suck at math but I know that with all the people in this town, this thing could spread like wildfire in minutes. It feels like it already has.”

“Do you think they’re really dead?” Seth asked. “Like zombies. Doesn’t seem possible. I love cheesy bad horror movies and all, but zombies aren’t real. I mean, we know about zombies, everybody does. Shoot ‘em in the head, kill the brain and—
boom
—they die.”

“Like that one who broke the car window. You stabbed him in the head—”

“He does that a lot,” Amanita interrupted.