Hollow Men (17 page)

A small one, just big enough to route the massive rush of water that must come through on rainy seasons. Probably to keep the field from flooding. There’d probably been plans to put it in the ground and redo the landscape. But those plans were over.

“In, in,” Evan said.

I ducked low and ran along the concrete pipe. Very little water trickled along the bottom. It was about sixteen-feet long and dark. But it didn’t smell bad, and the light at the end of the tunnel framed a wide open field and a house off in the distance. A big-ass white farm house like the one I had wet dreams about buying, living and growing old in.

“So do we make a break for that house and hope they can help us?” I leaned against the side to catch my breath. The concrete was cool at my back.

“If there’s even anyone there.”

He had a point. The town seemed deserted but for the infected. So what was the point of hoping anyone there could help us.

We waited, counting unbelievably loud heartbeats to see if any of the garage visitors would stumble across our small hiding space. After a few minutes with no surprises, I touched him and whispered, “So? What are we doing?”

“If we make a break for it across that field we’ll be running across a big wide open place. So if they chase us, we’ll see them. There’s nowhere for them to hide.”

“Us either,” I snapped.

He grinned at me. “Well, there is
that
.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. I knew we had to run. We couldn’t stay in the drainpipe all night. That would make us sitting ducks. So we should go while it was light. If there were this many stumbling around, hungry and intent, in the daytime…how many would there be at night?

“Fine. Let’s go. This thing is creeping me out anyway. It’s like a big, round tomb.”

He moved fast, cutting off my cry. Evan pushed me to the damp cold wall of the pipe and kissed me. “See you on the other side,” he said. He tried a chuckle, but it felt forced.

“It will be okay,” I found myself telling him. He’d infected me with hope these last few days.

“I know. Now let’s go before we lose our nerve. And our light.” He smacked my ass once, and I gave him a playful cry. But in my mind I thought of him spanking me in the dark on the bus. And the fucking. I thought of how awful the last few days had been and yet how great because he’d been with me.

“Let’s go,” I said around the lump in my throat. “It’s now or never.”

We ran.

* * * *

Nothing chased us. It didn’t change the clawing panic that they could be, though. Or the three million—
felt like
—times I turned to look. Or the sheer terror I felt when my foot slipped into an unseen divot, and I took a header in the tall grass. Evan was right behind me, there to help me up, there to watch my back, but after months in my little safe home, it was horrifying to be exposed in the open.

We got to the house in less time than I thought. It felt as if it had taken us years to cross the field, instead of probably less than five minutes.

On the wraparound front porch, we knocked. We knocked normally, didn’t hammer the door with our fists the way we truly wanted to. That would draw attention.

No one answered.

I moved to a side window and saw it was up. Set over the porch, the window as an easy point of entry. All I had to do was kick the screen in and climb through.

“Eleanor!” Evan sounded peeved. I should have told him. He climbed in right on my heels.

“Sorry, sorry!” I hissed. “I’m still operating solo half the time. Old habits die hard.”

“Well, you aren’t solo anymore,” he snapped.

Then in unison, called out in a whisper-yell: “Hello?”

We waited. The grandfather clock in the dining room ticked. The birds outside continued to chatter. The ones that were still around despite the dropping temperature. I cocked my head. Somewhere in the house a faucet dripped.

“Nothing,” he said.

I set down my pack and Evan followed suit. Right by the front door so we knew where it was. Then I proceeded to undo the chain on the door and turn the deadbolt latch. All that remained when I tested the door was the knob lock. That way we only had one lock to turn if we had to make a speedy exit.

I looked right, I looked left, I looked up. The top of the staircase to the second floor was dark with shadow, but no one stood there.

Somewhere in the house a soft sound bloomed.

We eyed each other. I shrugged. “Could be a cat. A dog. Rats. Could be anything,” I whispered.

Evan nodded, pointed toward the archway to the kitchen, and I followed him. We walked quietly, in easy, heel-to-toe strides, single file to the kitchen.

On the stove was a pan. The long-crusted remnants of something in it. It looked like dog food, but I thought maybe that had more to do with age than actual content. A can lay on the floor. The whole smell in the kitchen was one of sweet rot on the verge of turning to dust and mold.

“Old,” I said.

Evan nodded. We went into the dining room. The table was piled high with papers. Newspapers. All of them stacked in neat rows. Headlines being:
Man Eats Man!
and
Infection Spreads!

My eyes tracked them quickly, and my stomach turned as if this were a new horror.
Beef Killer Culprit!
;
Facts on Pica
and
Protecting Yourself and Your Family from the Infection
. Dirty dishes were interspersed with the papers.

I shook my head, nodded toward the living room where we’d entered. Being by the exits seemed to calm us.

“I saw a basement door in the kitchen.”

Evan nodded. “Me, too.”

“So the question is, do we go up or do we go down?”

He smirked at me.

“Don’t be a pervert, Evan,” I hissed.

“Sweetheart, I was just trying to lighten the fucking mood.”

When he said that, I heard the tension in his voice. He was just as on edge ad I was. I bit my lips. “Sorry. I know.”

“I say up,” he said. “Up, then back through the first floor, then down. Agreed?”

“Agreed. You want the head or the rear?”

He smirked again.

“Right,” I whispered. “You take the rear.”

“Darling, I thought you’d never ask.”

I shook my head at him but noticed as I turned away, I was blushing. It’s not as if I’d never thought about it. I just couldn’t think about it now.

I started up the steps slowly. The house had to be at least a hundred years old. Maybe older. Every step we took was a symphony of creaks and cracks. My head felt buzzy, and I realized I was holding my breath. I inhaled deeply and strained to hear anything besides the cacophony we seemed to be making as we advanced.

“Top of the steps pause. We need to check both ways before going on,” Evan whispered.

I nodded. The ascent to the second floor seemed to be taking a lifetime.

At the top we stopped, I turned left, aiming my gun. Nothing but a small room painted algae green. The blinds were up, and I could see a sagging single bed and a chair. Nothing more of the room was visible. I heard nothing but my own anxious breathing.

To the right was a bathroom with black and white tiles on the floor, clawed foot tub under a window. A sink, a toilet—nothing exciting. Another small room. Directly ahead was a room and to the right by the bathroom was another. All the doors were open. All the blinds were up.

“Left,” I muttered. “Then we work our way down the line, yeah?”

Evan grunted his agreement.

We moved slowly but in unison, him aiming in one direction, me in the other. My biggest fear right then was we’d get spooked and shoot each other. I snorted.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. I poked my head behind the door to the algae room. Nothing. I nudged the closet door open with my foot. Nothing. The room was clear.

“What?” he said again.

“Just do me a favor. Don’t get riled up and blow a hole in me, okay?”

He shook his head but then grinned. “If you promise me the same.”

“Deal,” I said. Without thinking, I leaned in and gave him a brief kiss right on the mouth. Something changed in his eyes. I chose to ignore it. “Next room,” I said.

The second bedroom was set up for a sewing room or a storage room. There was a wardrobe full of crafting stuff, an old sewing machine, an ironing board, a table to cut patterns or fabric. The wardrobe held nothing but clothes and supplies and boxes of stuff. The closet was for storage. The room was empty but for the ghost of a woman who liked to make things with her hands.

“Nada,” Evan said.

We both froze. Somewhere in the house a sound echoed. But it was impossible to tell from where. My heart lodged firmly in my throat, and nausea rolled through me. I was sick with it.

“Next room,” I said. “We need to clear this place or get the fuck out,” I hissed.

He touched my arm. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

I inhaled deep, gave him a nod and followed him out. The next room was the master bedroom. There was an old double bed, the frame was probably seventy years old or so, with hand-carved headboard and posts. Beautiful, but for the bare sagging mattress, crumpled linens, and deserted feel to the whole thing.

I pulled the closet open. Nothing but what you’d expect. Clothes and shoes. Nothing fancy. Working people clothes. These people did not have a lot of money. Probably less than most.

“Again zip,” I sighed. I even squatted down to look under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies.

Evan had picked up a framed photo of a couple off the bedside table. The man in the image had his arm around the woman proudly. She was laughing toward the camera. Judging by the car in the background, it was taken in the seventies or so. They were young. I pointed to the main dresser to a more recent photo. Them about forty years older, still in love, obviously. Him still proud, her still laughing.

My throat narrowed, and my vision doubled from sudden unshed tears.

“Let’s do the bathroom,” I growled and left before he could answer me.

The bathroom held nothing more than was visible from the hallway, barring a very narrow linen closet. Which held…linens.

“Upstairs is clear,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“Now back down.” He leaned in, kissed my forehead. He’d caught my look on that photo. Probably my unshared emotions too. I clenched my teeth and followed him out.

We made our way back down, past our bags, back through the rooms we’d already visited. Another noise came, and it seemed impossible to tell if it was inside or out. I half-expected we were hearing a noise on the perimeter of the house and not in the house itself. Then a knock sounded from downstairs, and we both went wide eyed.

“I guess we should have started with the basement,” Evan chuckled.

I made sure the safety was off my gun and watched him do the same. Chances were, though, we wouldn’t want to fire. Not if we could help it. So far the hollows were all up by the road, all hanging out at the service station. A gunshot could get them curious.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s get this over with before I pee my pants. I can’t stand the fucking suspense anymore. We only have to get a few hours from here. Let’s figure out how to do it.” I was getting angry. “I mean Jesus fucking Christ. Should an eleven-hour road trip really have taken this goddamned long?”

Evan put a finger to his lips. “Get angry later, babe. Let’s move now.”

It was just the verbal slap I needed to reroute my emotions. I took a deep breath. “Right. I’ll have a meltdown after.”

He smirked at me. “That’s my girl.”

Something in me shifted and quivered when he said that. It annoyed me. But it also made me feel good, despite my best efforts to not feel good.

“Let’s go.” I started out in front, letting him take my rear. Just thinking that made me smile, even as we started to descend.

Chapter Nineteen

The main room was a mess. A line of spilled food started at the foot of the steps and traveled toward the back room of the basement, which was the place that usually housed the laundry area.

“What the bloody fuck is this?” Evan asked.

I picked up a can of peas off the floor. It was mostly gone, but the sticky, mushy, starchy ones at the bottom remained. A sack of flour lay open at my feet, bags of beef jerky looked as if someone had chewed through the plastic.

Beef jerky.

“Shit,” I said, pointing.

“But everyone knows not to eat beef.”

My mind flashed to the debris in the frying pan upstairs. It had looked like hash. Or processed meat. I found a tin that was marked Turkey Loaf. Turkey. Safe right? I turned it over as Evan kept the gun trained on the unexplored bit of the basement.

Way down at the bottom in a long line of ingredients the human mouth could not pronounce was a small asterisk and the words:
may contain beef, pork, or chicken byproducts.

A rustle and a thump from the darkened back room.

“I think we’ve cornered ourselves an accidentally infected farmer,” I said. “I think they were eating the food they had in reserve they thought was safe.”

A whimper sounded from the back, and my blood turned to ice in my veins.

“And?”

I waved the can. “Byproducts.”

“Christ,” Evan said.

We moved toward the sound though I just wanted to run away. “So now?” Evan asked in a hushed voice.

“So now he or she or they are just eating their way through what’s down here in their reserves.”

We moved through two old louvered doors, and the washer and dryer came into view. So did an old second fridge and a second shelving unit full of canned goods. Not to mention the body of the farmer’s wife and the feasting farmer himself.

I leveled the gun and almost fired, but Evan said sharply, “Eleanor!”

It was too much seeing the man who had once mugged proudly for the camera bent over her that way.
In
her that way, face smeared, eyes glazed, her body surrounded by packets and cracker sleeves and bent up cans. His hunger had gotten bigger than processed foods. His hunger had gotten huge.