Hissers (26 page)

At some point in the night two Jeeps rolled into town, each carrying scouts from the United States Marine Corp. They did not expect the townsfolk to rush from the dark yards and open doorways and attack in almost infinite numbers. They did not expect the townsfolk to swarm the Jeeps, hissing like steam pipes, stab claret-stained fingernails beneath their chins and necks and cheeks, and pull back long strips of skin and muscle, rip it clean off and then fight for it like hungry jackals.

There was nothing the scouts could do against the voracious flesh-eaters who wanted to eat them alive. There were gunshots and SOS calls over radios as the men went down, but they were ignored by the Marine Commander who had set up his new HQ at a farmhouse just on the other side of the Jefferson River ravine. He stared at a direct order from his superiors instructing him to assess the crash site of a plane carrying a known mutating pathogen. Should the area show signs of infection, he was to institute a Code 72.

So, as he listened to the screams of his men dying over the radio, he shifted his gaze from the orders to a map of Castor, sipped a coffee, and began drawing red circles around various hotspots where his soldiers were dying as they scouted for trouble.

The entire map was now one red circle.

Inside the school, the four teens made a decision to catnap, give the storm another hour and then try for State Road 134, maybe find a smaller car that could weave around the trees beside the pileup.

Connor and Nicole slumped at the north end of the room, near the fridge. They were asleep in minutes, arms around each other.

Seth lay on his back near the sink, staring at the ceiling, wondering where his parents were. Wondering where Jo was, and what he could have done differently that horrific night. At some point, just before he fell asleep, he felt another body crawl next to him. A head fell to his chest.

“I’m cold. You mind?” Amanita said.

“Um…no.”

“Thanks. You’re not so bad, you know,” she said.

“Neither are you,” Seth replied.

“I know.”

Seth smiled in the dark.

Amanita lifted her head, looked at him. “I’ve never done more than kiss a boy, despite what Mandy Robinson says. And I never got naked with my cousin’s friend. I just lied. I don’t know why. I’m waiting for someone special.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“Oh. Well, I heard from Danielle that she told Alicia that I was messing with some guy…you know what, it doesn’t matter. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry. And you’re soft…I like that.”

She put her head back down on his stomach and was soon drifting off to sleep. Weird girl, Seth thought. I think I may be in love with her. He slowly put his arm around her, closed his eyes, and found his own peace and quiet as well.

Part II: Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday, 9am

The ground rumbled as if giants were walking through Castor. Connor opened his eyes, groped for the flashlight and found it, snapped it on. He saw Nicole lying next to him, still asleep. The first time he’d slept with a girl, he realized. Well, slept next to one anyway. She looked peaceful despite the anguishing revelation she’d made a short while ago. He still hadn’t digested that one as much as he needed to, but right now it was unimportant.

Across the room Seth was sleeping with Amanita, her head on his chest. His position looked forced, propped uncomfortably against the wall, an art student’s sculpture of a man with no spine. Must have stayed stock still all night for Am’s comfort.

How strange
, he thought,
that in all this horror we each find ourselves in the arms of girls. Is that what they mean by life being a circle? You’re down then you’re up in just minutes? No, this isn’t up, we’re still too far through the looking glass for any of this to be positive, girls or not.

A crack of light was spilling in under the door, probably from the windows in the hallway beyond. It was a new day; they’d slept through the night.

The ground shook again. Dust fell from the ceiling. He shook Nicole. “Hey, wake up. Something’s going on?”

She grunted and sat up, picked sleep from her eyes. “What?”

“Something’s happening. You feel that shaking?”

“I feel it,” Seth said, his eyes now open. “Feels like an earthquake.”

“We don’t have earthquakes here,” Nicole pointed out. “We’re nowhere near a fault line.”

Amanita woke now as well. “Don’t suppose anyone brought a toothbrush?”

This time the walls shook, and plastic cups fell out of the cupboards over the sink.

“C’mon,” Connor said. He began clearing the table and chairs from the door. “Something’s going on outside.”

Sunday, 9:12am

The morning air was humid, yet still chilly. The rain had seeped into the soil of the school’s front lawn, turning most of it to mud. Plants and bushes had been weighted down under the downpour and remained slanted sideways. The grass was sparkling with beads of water.

Out on the road past the lawn, there was a military Jeep. A plume of black smoke rose from its hood.

Beyond that lay a strip of businesses, CLOSED signs still hanging in the doors and windows. A line of trees ran behind them, extending back for miles of undeveloped land.

Out of the sky, a tiny object fell in a line of gray into the trees. There was an explosion, followed by a snaking trail of smoke that rose up and dissipated.

“That was a mortar round,” Seth said. He’d played enough war games to know what they looked like. He also knew that if one came close to them there would be no surviving it. He stood with his three friends just outside the school, constantly scanning his surroundings for the undead. It was bright out and he felt exposed. He wanted to get back in the school or in the SUV. There was no telling where those things were hiding.

“Hang on, I want to check out the Jeep,” Connor said. “If the Army is here then we’re saved. We just have to find them and let them take us out.”

“Officer Whitaker must have gotten word out,” Amanita said. “Which means she could have taken us with her, the bitch.”

Connor wasn’t listening, he was already moving toward the lawn.

Next to Seth, Amanita stood a little closer than normal. What do I say to her now, he wondered. Did last night even mean anything?

Nicole started following Connor. “I’m not letting him go alone.”

Walking out into the open street was a stupid move, Seth knew, but he had to admit he was curious as well. When he took a step, Amanita started walking with him.

The four teens moved slowly across the lawn. They all swiveled their heads, anticipating an attack, but they made it to the Jeep without incident.

The Jeep was wet with rain drops. In the front seat was a mound of red and gray meat. The smell was enough to make one’s eyes water even in the open air. A head lay in the back seat, its lower jaw ripped off. Two M16 machine guns were on the ground near the back tire. A collection of bullet holes riddled the dash board and steering column.

“Jesus,” Nicole said. “They lost the fight. What does that mean? If the Army can’t even—”

“They’re SOCOM,” Seth said, pointing out the spear logo on the Jeep. “Or MARSOC, a branch of the Marines.” He bent down and picked up one of the machine guns. He waited for Amanita to tell him to drop it but this time she said nothing.

It took him a second to find the release for the magazine and let it drop out. Empty. He pulled back the slide, exposing the chamber. There was no bullet inside.

“He shot the whole thing off.”

He examined the other gun in the same way. It was also empty. “They fired every round they had and still died.”

“Strength in numbers,” Connor said. “They must have been overwhelmed. We’ve already seen how they work.”

“We were right inside the school, so close,” Nicole said. “Thank God whatever did this didn’t come looking.”

Another mortar round exploded in the trees, further away than before. “They’re still fighting,” Connor said. “We should get out of here.”

“To the SUV?”

“First I want to check the phones,” Connor replied. “If the marines are here they may have restored the connection.”

Sunday 9:23am

The school’s reception area was open to the hallway, situated directly across from the room marked DETENTION. On the wall next to the door was a white porcelain water fountain that coughed up the most heavily-chlorinated warm water they’d ever tasted, but it didn’t stop each one from satiating their morning thirst. Connor hoped it would wash away the stale taste of defeat in his mouth.

The reception area already showed signs of an administrative work force-—coffee mugs and family photos, papers and pens and staplers with people’s names written on them in whiteout. Connor checked the phones again for a signal but they were still as dead as the lumps of marine meat in the Jeep outside.

“It’s too dark.” Seth pulled the leads for the floor-to-ceiling Venetian blinds just enough to get a view of the outdoors. The school’s front lawn stretched twenty yards to the road. The Jeep was visible. To the left the school’s flag pole swayed in the morning breeze.

Connor put the phone back in its carriage. “Still out. We’re gonna have to drive toward where they’re firing the mortars from and see if we can’t find any more troops.”

“They’re firing the mortars from the other side of Jefferson River,” Seth said. “There’s no direct route unless you want to climb down a rock cliff into the ravine and then up the other side.”

“So then we’ll go out the way we were planning. Take the State Road out and swing around till we find the cavalry.”

“Hey, look what I found,” Amanita said, stepping off a chair she’d used to explore the tops of nearby filing cabinets. “It’s an old police scanner.”

Seth squinted his eyes. “A what?”

“Police scanner. My mom had one when I was little. You use it to listen to the cops talking to each other over their radios.” She brought the device over to the front desk and plugged it in to the outlet in the wall beside it. The red bulbs on the front lit up.

“Thank you, backup power,” she said.

“You know how to use it?” Nicole asked.

“Yeah. It ain’t hard. Each of these switches is a frequency. You just flip them around until you hear some talking. We can get a better idea of what the situation is if we can find what frequency the cops are on.” Amanita flipped the switches up and down but they heard nothing.

“Cops are either dead or too busy to talk,” Connor said. “Not to mention this thing looks ancient. Don’t they have ways to get around this nowadays?”

“Maybe. I’m not on the force, you know. But it used to work when I was young. Mom would sit for hours stoned out of her mind, paranoid the cops were coming to arrest her. All you mostly hear about is asshole guys beating their wives and drunk drivers and shit like that.”

They stood around as Amanita flipped the switches in different patterns, hoping they might hear someone talking about Castor’s predicament, but no chatter came. Finally Connor took the car keys from his pocket and jingled them.

“Alright. This is just wasting time. Let’s just get going. We’ll drive fast. Stay off main roads. Try to—”

“This is General Ryan to Team Six. I need SITREP now.” The static-laden voice came through clear as day.

A second voice responded, quivering, but with the same static-heavy effect: “Quadrant one beyond saving, sir. Those things are everywhere. We found Team Nine’s truck. It’s empty, covered in blood. Nothing left but their guns. We thought we saw them in a pack of those things on another street, running all fucking wild like the rest of the town. These things are zeroing in on anything that moves, sir, especially our Jeeps. We’re making too much noise in this thing and they can spot us from down the road. Permission to get the fuck outta here, sir?”

“In a sec. What about the plane?”

“Plane is empty, sir. No Dr. Haley, no General Davis.”

“And the data disks? You find them?”

“Negative, sir. Could not stay around the plane long enough. They started coming for us. We shot down a handful but…sir…they’re not right anymore. They have legs and arms and more legs and Jesus God they’re just not human—”

“Alright. Calm down. Shit. Without the data we have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

“Should we return to the plane, sir?”

In the background someone yelled, “Don’t ask that!”

There was a pause. Then: “Negative. Negative. You tried and I can’t risk more men, we’ll have to do this the easy way. Where are you now?”

“Passing Myers and Newcomb.”

“Visual report. Quickly!”

“Sir, we’ve got a group of those fuckers at the tip of the street. Sir, they just saw us, they’re heading our way.”

Someone else yelled: “Go for the heads! Shoot them in the head!”

In the background there was the sound of marines yelling and crackling gunfire. When the radio man spoke again he was screaming.