Rabid (10 page)

The high-pitched squeal of the brakes woke him.  When he opened his eyes, the headlights of the Escort were lighting up a large wooden sign that read
Coldwater.  Warm people.  Population 1579.

“Why are you stopping here?” Taylor asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  He couldn’t have slept for more than forty-five minutes to an hour, but he still felt a hell of a lot better.

“Just nervous I guess.  Being here means it’s time to face reality.  My stomach’s tied in knots, dude.”

Taylor leaned over and glanced at the instrument panel.  “By the skin of our teeth, huh?”  He was looking at the gas gauge; the needle hovered just below the “E.”

“Oh, yeah,
that
.  And I guess it’s accurate ‘cuz there were times at the end where it seemed like this baby was gonna crap out.  Probably nothing left but fumes.”

“Then don’t waste gas just sitting here.”

“Aren’t you worried at all?”

Taylor stared at him, his eyes narrowing the slightest bit.  “What kind of a question is that, little brother?  I’m as scared shitless as you, but we didn’t come all this way to chicken out.  Now put this piece of junk in drive and let’s face whatever reality there is to face.”

Carl shifted into drive.  The engine sputtered as though responding to an insult.  “Maybe you should say a little prayer that we make it into town.”

“No good worrying about it now.”

Traveling north of the highway, it was three miles into Coldwater.  Carl pointed, whistling through his teeth.  “Would you look at that.”

There were two gas stations in town.  One could hardly be classified as a gas station.  It was an auto body shop that happened to have two gas pumps sitting outside, about fifteen feet from the entrance.  Carl had pointed to the only Honest-to-God gas station in town.  What was left of it anyway.  It was a charred ruin.  Four of the pumps lay on their sides, the metal contorted into strange pieces of alien art.  Thousands of pieces of glass littered the cracked cement, twinkling like tiny stars in the car’s headlights.

“Jesus,” Carl said.

Taylor patted Carl’s shoulder.  “Let’s hope the other one is in better shape.  Keep going.”

It was the longest drive of his life.  Carl wouldn’t let the speedometer’s needle creep above twenty miles per hour. 
You’re only delaying the inevitable.  That’s what Taylor would say.  He won’t let you get away with this pussy shit for much longer.

Tina stirred in the back seat.  Carl watched her in the rearview mirror.  “Wakey-wakey,” he said.  “Welcome to the
other
speck of fly shit gracing the Rand McNally Road Atlas.”

She sat up and rubbed her eyes; the gesture making her seem more childlike somehow. 

Carl pulled up in front of the house he shared with Angie.  It was painted a light green, like sunwashed limes.  He put the car into park and killed the lights.

“Her car isn’t in the driveway,” Carl said.

Taylor knew when his brother was trying to act tough.  He was acting tough now, trying to pretend he wasn’t about to panic.  Taylor didn’t call him on it.  They had a mutual need to be strong, feigned or otherwise.  He opened the door and stepped out, stretching his legs.  His head swam momentarily, big black butterflies crowding his vision.  He closed his eyes and waited for it to pass.

Tina trailed behind them as they walked toward the house.  Taylor had the machete in his hand.

Carl hesitated at the front door.

“You want me to go in first?” Taylor asked.

“No.  I’m a big boy.”  He took a deep gulp of air and opened the door.

The beams of their flashlights cut through the darkness.  Carl flipped the light switch next to the door and nothing happened.

“Angie?  Hey, Angie, it’s me.  You home?”  He repeated her name several more times.  They searched all the rooms in the house.  When they had finished, he felt compelled to state the obvious.  “She’s not here.”

Tina said, “I found something.”

Carl rushed over to her.  She was holding a piece of paper that had been laying on the coffee table in the living room.  She handed it over to him.  “It’s a letter.”

“What’s it say?”

“Give me a minute.”  His eyes darted over the letter.  He read it again, this time more slowly, before saying anything.  “Says she’s going over to Mom and Dad’s.”

“So let’s get going over there,” Taylor said.  “You need to grab anything before we go?”

Carl disappeared and then reappeared a minute later carrying his hunting rifle.  “It’s a two-seventy.  Packs enough of a punch.”  He held a box of ammunition in his other hand.  “I’m ready.”

Taylor stared at the couch.  It looked like one of the most inviting pieces of furniture he had ever laid eyes on.  If not for a small surge of adrenaline, he might had plopped down on it, sunk deep into the soft cushions, and drowned himself in sleep. 

Taylor opened the door and immediately cursed himself for not being more cautious.  A group of the rabid things had gathered around the car.

The engine’s still warm I bet,
he thought. 
Can they sense that?

Seven or eight of them stood huddled closely together.  He squinted into the semi-darkness. 
It’s entirely different when they could be people you know.
  One of them was Jeff Cairns, proprietor of the local grocery store.  He recognized another as one of the mechanics who worked for Mike Earnest, owner of Earnest Motors a few blocks east of Main Street.  Taylor couldn’t recall the mechanic’s name. 

Carl raised the rifle. 

Tina said, “What are you doing?”

Carl hesitated for moment and then squeezed the trigger.  Taylor thought the sound of the shot was perhaps the loudest thing he had ever heard.  It cracked like a whip; a brief thunderclap of authoritative noise.  Tina gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.  Taylor had to suppress the sudden urge to laugh out loud. 
Maybe I’m going a little crazy if I can think about laughing at a time like this,
he thought.

 The right side of the rabid thing’s face disintegrated a moment before it sank to the ground.     

“Gotcha!”

Carl chambered another round.

“They’re coming,” Tina said.

“Get in the house!” Taylor said.

Tina reached the door first, holding it open for Taylor and Carl.  Carl walked backwards slowly, taking aim with the rifle again.  He squeezed the trigger, catching the mechanic high on the shoulder, and sent him spiraling around to bounce off the side of the Escort.

Taylor enjoyed a certain amount of satisfaction watching Carl take the rabid things down, but as he scanned the empty streets, he knew it was one of the dumbest things they could have done.  The roar of gunfire was loud enough to wake the dead –
no pun intended,
Taylor thought – and it would only draw attention to their location.

Carl said, “One more,” as he ejected an empty round.

Taylor batted the rifle down.  “Get in the house.”  He had meant to yell, but instead the words tumbled from his mouth in a calm and detached manner, as if he was reacting to something far away.

By the time all three of them were in, the first of the rabid things had reached the porch and was at the door before Taylor could get it all the way closed.  He put his back to the door, squatted, and used his feet to push off the floor.  It worked.  He heard the latch click and he locked it quickly. 

“That won’t hold them off for long.  Help me find something to block it closed with.”

Carl pointed to the couch.  The two of them, both on one end, shoved the couch so that it was positioned up against the door. 

Carl went to the window nearest the door, parted the curtains ever so slightly, and looked out.  He could see them gathered on the porch steps.  He counted five of them.

“I count five,” he said.  “One of them is Carrie Martinez.  She owns that store over on Birch.  Stitch With It or whatever it’s called.”

“Is there a back door or something?” Tina asked.

“Yeah, but it’s two miles to our parent’s house.  I wouldn’t feel safe going a block by foot with things like that waiting around out there.”

Carl turned his head to look at Tina.  “He’s right.  It was a good idea, but for once in his life my brother’s right.” A hand slammed against the window, a thin pane of glass the only thing preventing it from grabbing his face.  He jerked back.  “Jesus.  Stupid but dangerous.  What do you think makes them so dumb?  None of them were exactly rocket scientists before, but
damn
.  All they seem to know how to do is chase after normal people.”

“Severe brain damage,” Tina said.  “That would be my educated guess.  You said whatever they had is like rabies -”

“According to the
radio,
” Taylor said.  “I don’t know how much trust we want to put in that information.”
“Whatever it is, I’d say that it causes a terrible fever.  Enough of one to cause permanent and extreme damage to the brain.  It should be fatal.  Under normal circumstances, it probably
would
be fatal.  Instead, it makes them insane.   Look at the symptoms.  Insanity is a symptom.  Excessive salivation.  Poor judgment and motor control skills.  An aversion to water.  If you look at what we know,” Tina said, “there are quite a few similarities to rabies.  But rabies doesn’t cause animals to run in packs.  From what we’ve seen, all of those things seem to travel together.  That’s not a hundred percent accurate, but it seems to be the rule rather than the exception.  I wouldn’t say they’re necessarily
working
together.  It’s more like
grouping.
  A natural tendency to be with their own kind.  But that’s just a shot in the dark.” 

“This makes twice they‘ve found us, too.  Don’t forget that.  Out of the blue, they found us at your dad’s store.  And now here.”

“The car’s running,” Carl said.  “That makes noise.  They could have heard the noise from the engine running.”

“Right.  That doesn’t explain how they found us in the store, though.”

Carl shrugged and looked back to the window.  The rabid thing that had once been Carrie Martinez slapped her hands against the glass repeatedly, eying him, exposing her teeth as rivers of drool ran from her open mouth and down her chin.  He studied her face and the emptiness in her eyes, and he couldn’t quite fool himself into believing there was anything remotely human left.

“That could be coincidence, or it could be another symptom,” Tina said.  “If it’s a symptom, there’s nothing that I know of to connect it with that particular disease.  We don’t know what sense to associate it with.  Hearing or sense of smell or something else.”

Carl said, “Is science class over yet?  Maybe the two of you can go back to flirting later.”

It was one of those comments that, if uttered in the past, would have led to a brotherly brawl.  Taylor narrowed his eyes and stared at his brother, trying to resist the blossoming rage that welled up inside of him.  Tina looked aghast.  Taylor wasn’t sure if it was a feigned response or not, and couldn’t decide which was worse: his brother’s comment or Tina’s I’d-Never-Flirt-With-Your-Brother-In-a-Million-Years reaction. 

Carl met his gaze.  “I’m not going to apologize for that,” he said.  “It got your attention, which is exactly what it was meant to do.”  He was still holding the curtains open, and Taylor could see Carrie Martinez - or the thing that passed for her these days - with her face pressed up hard against the window, nose and lips smooshed up against the glass.  She looked like an alien fish.  There was only madness in her gaze.

“Why don’t they just break the glass?” Tina asked.