The King of Clayfield - 01 (18 page)

He stepped into the living room, staring blankly at Brian. He growled again.

"Do it," Jen whispered.

The door continued to tap against the dining table.

He stepped farther into the room. The light from the fireplace lit the coagulating blood on the side of his face.
How could he be walking?

He took another step.

I looked at Jen. There was something in her eyes that got to me more than my fear and more than my dread over killing someone. It
 
was disappointment, or maybe even disgust. She looked at me the same way she'd looked at her boyfriend, Zach, when she saw him in the doorway of her house and attacked him
 
with the stick. It made me ache inside for her to look at me like that.

I put the shotgun to my shoulder, lined the end of the barrel with the man's chest, and I squeezed the trigger.

CHAPTER 17

The recoil from the shotgun hammered my shoulder.

It wasn't like in the movies--the man
 
didn't fly across the room and there wasn't a bucket of gore. It was as if someone
 
kicked him in the chest. The white stuffing from his coat puffed out, he fell back against the dining table then to the floor.

The tapping of the basement door against the table stopped for a moment. I could hear moaning in the stairwell and there was still movement below us, but otherwise it seemed so quiet. I felt sick. I looked over to Jen. She was standing. Brian was awake and trying to sit up but was prevented from doing so by the belt tied around his arm.

"Let's get that thing out of here," Jen said.

That
 
thing.

The tapping started again. Jen got to the door and pushed it closed then pushed the table closer to stop the door from opening at all.

That
 
thing.

In the past three days, I'd beaten people, choked people, shot people, hit people with my car, and I had probably accidentally taken lives; but this made me feel like a killer. The man was on his side next to the table his eyes stared ahead at nothing. I looked at his clothes and
 
his silly hat. I wondered what he'd
 
been thinking about
 
when he was getting dressed in those clothes, what his plans
 
had been
 
for the day. I wondered if he'd been married and if he'd told his wife he'd loved her that morning. I wondered if he ever suspected that he might be sick. I wondered what his last thought was before the disease took his mind.

Jen stepped in front of me and waved a hand in my face and snapped me out of it.

"Don't do it," she whispered. "Don't think about it."

She took the shotgun from me and propped it against the chair.

"Let's get him out of here," she said.

Brian
 
had untied his arm and was
 
sitting up. He didn't look good.

"Brian," Jen said, "does your head hurt?"

"Ooooh God,"
 
he said, "I drank too much."

"Brian?" Jen said.

He jumped up and ran at us. Jen grabbed the shotgun, but he pushed
 
past us, down the hall to the bathroom.
 

"Brian?"

We could hear him vomiting.

"We'll check on him when we get back,"
 
I said. "It's too soon for him to
 
show symptoms, anyway,
 
I think."

The sun was coming up as we dragged the man out into the backyard. We pulled him out by the grape trellis, and Jen started back inside.

"I'll catch up to you," I said. "I want to check something."

She hesitated then nodded and went inside.

I walked past the swimming pool, and went around the side of the house. I could see the
 
broken basement window. There was no one around. I noticed that there was a fence across the front of the property, but the rest of the land was enclosed
 
by a line of trees. There would be no way to keep them out, even if we shut the gate.

I stepped up to the basement window and squatted to look in. It was packed. There were people crawling over each other on the stairs.
 
Everyone was focused on the basement door. In front of the door at the top of the stairs, the people had climbed up on each other all the way to the ceiling and were stacked on each other four or five deep. They didn't notice me there.

I looked around for something to seal the window to keep them from getting out, but I didn't see anything nearby. I thought I might find something in the garage.

On my way back around the house, I was shocked to find the man I'd just shot standing beside the swimming pool. I ducked back around the corner before he could see me. It might have been possible, though not probable,
 
for him to survive the .22 to the head at point blank range, but that
 
and
 
a 12 gauge blast to the chest from only a few feet away? Maybe the shells had been reloads of rock salt.

I peeked around at him again. He was just standing there with his back to me. I went back around the house, past the broken window, and knocked on the front door. Jen looked through the curtain and let me in. I didn't mention the man out back. I wanted her to rest.

Brian was back on the couch with his head in his hands.

"How is he?" I asked.

"He failed to mention that
 
he gets hot like that when he has too much to drink."

"That can happen?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "My roommate in college had an allergy to red wine.
 
She got hives."

"I'm not allergic," he said. "I just get flush, that's all."

"You were hot, dear," she said.

"You're not too bad yourself. Now keep it down;
 
my head is pounding."

She turned back to me, "The fever is gone, but that headache bothers me. Plus, his ankle
 
is still
 
swollen and red."

I nodded, distracted by thoughts of the man out back.
 
I wasn't really concerned about Brian. The alcohol had worked for us; it would work for him.

"What were you doing?" she asked.

"I thought maybe we could close the gate and stay longer, but now I don't know. Why don't you go to bed, and I'll talk things over with Brian."

She looked at Brian, a worried expression on her face.

"Just go," I said. "He's fine."

After she closed the bedroom door, I went into the dining room and looked out the back window. The man had stepped out onto the pool cover, and the cover had collapsed. He was waist-deep and surrounded by floating leaves and chunks of ice. He looked content to be there.

I returned to the living room and sat down.

"You had to kill him two times," Brian said.

I nodded.
 
"Two times."

I cooked some sausage, eggs, and toast for breakfast. As I was preparing the meal, I would walk past the kitchen window, which
 
gave me a view of
 
the pool. The man hadn't moved. His skin and lips were turning blue. I didn't want to look at him, but I needed to know when and if he decided to end his soak.

I took a plate into the living room
 
to Brian.
 
He balked at eating.

"It'll make you feel better," I said. "You need protein and bread. It'll take care of that hangover."

I got myself a plate, and we both had coffee and orange juice. I got to thinking about how coffee beans and oranges didn't grow in Kentucky, and how one day, I wouldn't have them anymore unless I
 
relocated.

"It's not safe here," I said.

"But I have
 
electricity here,” he said, “and I need to stay near a computer in case Henry tries to contact me."

"I understand," I
 
said. "I haven't heard from my mom, either."

"I'll stay indoors. When I've heard from Henry, I'll load up the car and leave. They got in this time because I wasn't careful. I'll be careful now."

"Why don't you come with us and bring your phone. He can contact
 
you that way."

"And what
 
happens when the battery dies? And what about my ankle?"

It sounded like he was making excuses.

"You can't stay here, man."

He didn't answer.

"Okay," I said. "How are you set on food? I noticed you might have about a week's worth in the kitchen. Is that all you have?"

"I can stretch it," he said. "We have a lot more food, but it's in the basement. I always thought that would be the best place to keep it, in case of a storm or something. Now I guess I should have spread it out some. Maybe I should have stored it all over the house."

"Well," I said, "you'll know to do that for the next time the world ends."

He grinned.

"I'd feel better if you came with us," I said.

"I'd feel better if you stayed."

I nodded. I knew so long as Henry hadn't checked in, he wouldn't be convinced.

"Do you own a gun?" I
 
asked.

"No way; I hate guns.”

"Do you want us to leave you one?”

"Absolutely. That big one there would be perfect."

"It only holds three shells
 
at a time, but
 
it's a man-stopper,
 
unlike the .22. Do you know how to shoot it?"

"I had a dad. I
 
grew up in Clayfield. Of course, I know how to shoot. I can also show you how to take the plug out of that thing so it'll hold
 
five shells instead of three."

"Oh," I said.

"Yeah," he said,
 
winking. "I'm a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped
 
in a--"

There was an incredible crash from the dining
 
room. We both jumped up. I went in with Brian limping behind me, but
 
we couldn't
 
see anything. Then I remembered...

"The stairs."

We
 
moved the stuff off the table, then moved the table just enough to
 
crack the
 
door.

The stairs had
 
caved under
 
the weight of all the bodies. We moved the table completely away from the
 
basement door and opened it. The well was just an empty space now. They were all piled on each other ten feet below us. Some of them had the funniest,
 
confused
 
expressions on their faces, while others had already recovered and were reaching for us.
 

It smelled like a sewer down there.

"Ugh," Brian said, looking at me. "The
 
stench alone
 
might...."

His voice trailed off. He was looking past me out the window.

"What the hell?" he said.

He moved over to the window. He'd seen the man in the pool.

"Oh my God," he said. "It's true."

"No," I said. "It doesn't mean anything."

"He's been dead twice, and now he's standing in my swimming pool--my
icy
swimming pool."

"Yeah," I admitted. "It looks bad. I didn't want to upset either of you."

"We're not children." It was Jen, awake from the falling stairs, and standing behind us. "You don't keep stuff like this from us."

She peered down into the hole where the stairs had been, made a face because of the odor, and shut the door.

"If there are dead people walking around,
 
we all need
 
to know," she said.

"We don't know if he's dead," I said. "I'm thinking that maybe I shot him with rock salt."

"Rock salt? I had that rifle to his head," she said. "That might not have done it--I've heard stories about that kind of thing--but you shot him again, and now he's just out there standing in freezing water. Something isn't right."