Hissers (31 page)

They stepped over the threshold into the store. Even with the sunlight coming in the broken window it was still relatively dark. A mixture of
PineSol
, rubber, oil, wood, and dust beat the olfactory senses dull. Goddamn if it didn’t smell like a hardware store was supposed to smell.

“Where’d the rope be?” she asked.

“Down one of those aisles.”

“I meant which one?”

“I don’t know. Let’s split up.”

While Seth ran off to the right, Amanita started from the left of the store. She went up aisles of tools, aisles dedicated solely to nails, nuts, and bolts, aisles with rakes, shovels, and garden hoses, and an aisle full of nothing but doorknobs.

The next aisle was where the booty lay. Rope and twine of every color and size. Seth turned down the aisle at the exact same time, and they met in the middle.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Seth pointed up above them where a sign hung listing the items in that aisle. “Yeah, well, I finally saw the sign.”

“How long?”

“Just a second ago. Would have saved us the trouble had we just looked up first.”

“How long a rope, Einstein.”

“Oh, I dunno. Figure the bottom of the riverbed is a good three or four stories down.” He pulled a giant coil of solid braid rope from a hook. “This one is two hundred feet.”

“Will that be enough?”

“Gonna have to be, it’s the longest they have.”

“Then get two.”

“I can’t carry two. They’re heavy.”

“You could if you stop covering up. Don’t worry about impressing me, Seth. I don’t care about your weight.”

“Sure you do,” he said. “I know what I look like. I know how gross it is.”

This was getting ridiculous. She grabbed him by the back of the head and kissed him. The boy froze solid, leaned back out of fear and knocked over several spools of nylon twine. She pushed her head closer, whispered, “Relax,” and kissed him again. This time he didn’t move, though he was practically shaking.

When she pulled back he was staring at her half in fear and half in awe. “See,” she said, “would I have done that if I found you hideous?”

“I guess not.”

“Good. Now grab two spools and let’s get out of here.”

“Maybe you should take one, too, just to be safe.”

“Can’t, because I’m taking…” She walked back two aisles until she found the axes, selected the biggest one she could find, and returned. “This.”

Sunday, 10:12am

With his bum leg and fatigue from the fight inside the plane, Connor knew they weren’t going to outrun the approaching mob of undead. Their only hope was to stay down behind the police cars and fire trucks and make for the back of the supermarket.

Nicole followed closely at his heels as they darted from one vehicle to the next. Hisses and snarls carried on the light afternoon breeze.

“They’re getting close!” Nicole whispered.

“Keep moving. C’mon.”

The first of the creatures, an older man who looked too weathered to move as quickly as he was, reached the plane and leapt inside like an ape.

Connor moved to the last police cruiser offering any coverage. He squatted behind the wheel well, Nicole gripping his arm, and stared at the open road between himself and the supermarket. Maybe fifty feet to the other side. Nothing to hide behind.

He peeked up and looked into the car. A headless cop lay slumped in the driver’s seat. The driver’s side window was smashed. Blood covered the steering wheel and inside of the windshield. The car’s radio was still in the corpse’s hand.

“How many grasping fingers does it take to tear a head off?” he asked.

Nicole was looking at the body now as well, but the carnage no longer surprised her. She merely sat back down and rested against the side of the car.

The sounds of the undead grew steadily louder as the remaining hordes converged on the plane. The hissing reached a decibel level that was deafening.

“It’s like a million snakes,” Nicole said, hands over her ears. She peered up through the car windows once more, her terrified glance saying all that needed to be said, and then sat back down. “They’re just running around the plane, looking for us. They move so damned fast I can’t even focus on them. You don’t think they can smell us, do you?”

“I have no idea. But sooner or later they’re gonna wander over here. We need to jet across the street and get behind the market fast but we’re gonna need serious luck on our side. Then we can get up to the fort and wait for Seth and Amanita.”

“And if they don’t show up?”

“We climb down the cliff, I guess. I don’t see any other choice. We’ve got the flash drives, we’ve got to get out of here alive. Our parents would want that.”

“I know. What if we distract them, those things, maybe throw something.”

“I already thought of that but there’s nothing to throw. Maybe these small rocks on the ground but I don’t know that a noise like that will really get their attention. They make so much noise themselves that they must have hunter’s ears. They’re waiting for something distinctly human. If I were a ventriloquist I’d throw my voice but—”

Nicole grabbed his knee and squeezed. “Wait, if this is unlocked then I’ve got an idea.” She gripped the handle of the police cruiser and lifted it. The door opened without any protest. Thank God for small miracles, thought Connor.

She slid up into the seat like a worm, slithered her way across the passenger seat and picked up the radio headset in the dead cop’s hand. The key was still in the ignition, the battery still on. She pressed the thumb switch on the handset and whispered. “Testing. One, two three.”

Her voice wafted out of another police cruiser, two vehicles down. The hissers near the plane began to spin in circles.

Connor realized her plan now and hoped the other cruisers near the plane were still running. “It’s working,” he said. “They can hear it. Keep talking.”

Nicole pressed the button again. “Hey, you ugly bastards, I’m over here.”

Connor peeked around the back of the car and smiled as the hissers raged and attacked a police cruiser on the far side of the fuselage. “Perfect! They ran around the other side. Let’s go!”

Nicole slithered back out of the car and together they raced toward the supermarket. As they ran across the street, they each kept their eyes on the nearby fuselage. None of the undead took notice as they were too busy trying to break into the abandoned cruisers.

Sunday, 10:15am

The sun was cresting in the sky, a brilliant white pearl on blue satin. The temperature was heating up the roads, evaporating the morning dew. Insects were flitting on the awnings of buildings, butterflies were exploring rose gardens and flower boxes, squirrels collected seeds in the park and carried them into the hollows of trees. Seth and Amanita ran behind the hardware stores and record shops and bakeries of Castor, ropes and a new shiny ax bobbing their hands.

The first of the rapid, chasing footsteps began when they drew close to Frederick Street, which would lead them toward the back of the supermarket. At first, neither turned to look, too afraid of what they might see. But Seth couldn’t contain himself anymore, he had to know what was behind them.

He turned and nearly tripped over his own feet. “Run!” he shouted.

Amanita screamed and moved as fast as her spindly legs would carry her.

The hissing reverberated off the backs of the buildings, like the swishing of a tidal wave.

“Here!” Seth shouted, and pulled her into a tight alley between two buildings. A cracked and bloody face appeared at once, arms reaching in for them. Without hesitation Amanita swung the axe, the blade coming down on top of the monster’s head. The blade wedged in and spilt the skull down the middle, one half of a face falling left, the other half falling right. The hisser went down on its knees and crumpled in a ball. Immediately, more yellow eyes and groping hands filled the emptiness behind the dead creature. Amanita swung again, catching the closest monster in the teeth. Molars and gums whistled by Seth’s ears and splattered against the brick walls on either side of him. Amanita pulled the axe back and swung again, hitting the next one in the sternum, knocking it backwards on its ass, the axe stuck tight in its chest.

More appeared, leaping over the unmoving bodies on the ground.

“This way,” Seth shouted, sprinting toward the main road, his bare chest slick with sweat. His elbows scraped the brick walls as he ran, ripping the skin off to the bone. He didn’t care, this was pain in the face of survival. This was what every gamer thought about when running around imaginary lands online, trying to outwit other humans in a game of life and death. But those who died online respawned in seconds to fight again. This was different. This was real. There was no coming back from this if they were caught. Just like Joana.

He’d lost that game, and she’d never returned. Losing Amanita was not an option.

Behind him, a gray arm snapped out and grabbed Amanita by the shoulder, began pulling her back to the rotund dead man it belonged to. She screamed and flailed but was too small to fight the large hisser.

“Seth! Seth!”

He turned and saw her go down on the ground.

“No!” He ran full speed toward the undead man trying to take this girl from him. He didn’t see the man’s bloody face or torn flesh, he only saw his parents, the cops who had questioned him, and the strange, bearded stick man that had stole into his bedroom when he was six.

He hit the beast in the chest, knocking it back into the bodies behind it. He swung the spools of rope and hit another hisser in the mouth, staggering it.

Amanita was up and running already, calling his name, screaming bloody murder.

He turned and ran, his belly rippling as he poured every ounce of energy into his legs.

They cleared the edge of the building, and ran into the parking lot that connected the small private businesses. Across the street, two wandering, undead women spotted them and came running.

“Down here,” Am shouted, leading them down another alley toward the back of the buildings again. They ducked behind a dumpster and pressed up tight against it. The two ragged women sped down the alley and turned right behind the buildings, their anguished cry exploding into the air.

In the parking lot, hordes of undead ran by the alley. But the running began to slow, and soon they were milling about out front, spinning in circles, sniffing the air. Too many of them stood at the entrance to the alley for Seth and Am to get up and run.

“We’re trapped,” Amanita whispered. “I don’t want to die, Seth. Oh God, it’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt and I don’t want it to.”

Yeah, it’s gonna hurt like hell,
Seth thought. And what was worse, they would probably come back as those things. Then what? They’d get burned to a crisp when the military fried the town. They were so close to the market, so close to the woods on the other side and the fort where Connor and Nicole might be waiting for them.

Amanita grabbed his arm and hugged him close, buried her face in his puffy shoulder. “I’m sorry, I thought we could hide here.”

“It’s fine. We’d be dead out there. Least here they can’t see us.”

“They’ll find us in minutes. Oh God, I don’t want to be eaten like that. It’s gonna hurt, Seth.”

“Just don’t think about it.”

“Seth?”

“What?”

“Will you kiss me once more? Just in case. I just…I want to feel like someone cares when I die. I need to know someone loves me.”

She was crying, squeezing his hand. He wanted to kiss her more than anything in the world. Wanted to show her he did care. Cared about her, cared about Jo, cared about every child neglected or forgotten, who died alone or lived alone, wondering why Mom and Dad had forsaken them. For the stolen, for the murdered, for the abandoned.

For the sister he should have protected, and the girl he hadn’t realized he’d been protecting until now.

“I don’t want to die alone,” she continued. “When they come, hold my hand okay?”

She slipped her hand into his, their fingers intertwining. “Please kiss me.”

He leaned forward and met her lips.

He tasted their sweat, tasted the salt of their fear. He felt her tongue rest against his. There was nothing sexual about it, just the fierce yearning of two young people attempting to share their love and fear, two people trying so hard to become one in the only way they knew how. He didn’t want Amanita to hurt. She was the first girl who’d looked past his ugly body and geeky passions. Her toughness had broken down to reveal the same thing lurking inside that everyone his age must feel: fear.
She may be a bitch on the outside, but she is more human on the inside than most people I know.

He let go of her, and dropped the ropes in her lap. “Get these to Connor. Tell him this makes me a level fifty, he’ll know what I mean.”

“What? What are you doing?”

“Am, I love you. I know I hardly know you, but I know I love you. And I’m tried of saying I’m gonna act but never actually acting. Now don’t make me do this for nothing. Get going as soon as I run.”