The King of Clayfield - 01 (4 page)

“It’s for me,” she said.

I stepped back so she could
 
get the phone without getting too close to me.
 
 
 
 
She grabbed the phone and went back to the window, “Yeah, it’s me. I’m in the window.”
 
 
 
 
She waved.

“I see you. The power is out here.”

Pause.

“No, come around front. There’s too many of them back there.”

I could see some of the infected coming around the truck now.

“Watch them, hon. Lock your doors.”

One of the infected women crawled into the back of the truck.

“No! Don’t you dare get out. Just come around front. We’ll deal with her later.”

The truck began to back up, and then Stuart Wall ran at it and jumped on the hood. Then the cop started pounding the driver’s window with his fists.

“Just go!” she shouted into the phone.

The truck surged backward and Stuart rolled off the hood. The cop grabbed the mirror and ran alongside the truck, continuing to beat the window, his knuckles bleeding. The woman in the back was joined by a second, and when the masked woman’s brother stopped to shift into drive, the two women fell in the bed. It almost looked comical with their feet sticking up for that brief moment.

“Go, Danny! Dammit, just go!” the woman in the mask was crying now.

Danny went. The rear tires of his big truck smoked as he mashed the accelerator and peeled out onto North Street. The cop fell, taking the mirror with him.

She pushed past me and ran to the front door.

Before I could join her, she had already opened the door and ran outside. I got outside just as Danny was pulling over the curb and into the museum’s parking lot, just barely missing my car. He circled the truck around so the passenger door would be closest to us. The truck jerked to a stop, and the passenger door flew open. The masked woman jumped in and started to shut the door, but one of the women in the back stood and reached around and stuck her arm into the cab. The masked woman slammed the door on her arm, and the infected woman howled in pain, but didn’t
 
pull it out.

By this time, the cop had recovered and was limping around the corner of the building.

“Go!” I shouted, “Just drive!”

The cop grabbed the truck door as Danny put it in drive again and pulled away. The woman that had reached in fell out of the truck as Danny turned onto North 8
th
Street. She landed on her head and stayed there. The cop continued to run beside the truck, but couldn’t keep up. Danny cut through the corner lot at Jay’s Transmission and headed west on Broadway.

The infected crowd from the intersection
 
were agitated by the commotion with the truck and chased after it.
 
I quietly backed into the museum and locked the door.

I was alone.

There was a splattering sound from the other room. My heart jumped as my imagination
 
told me it was something horrible. I peeked around the corner into
 
the permanent collections. The sound was coming from the back room next to the supply closet.

She’d left the water running, and the sink was overflowing into the floor.

I walked past the nurse’s uniform on my way to turn off the water. She’d taken the shoes…and my phone.

CHAPTER 4

I turned the water off and went to the supply closet for a mop. I would have to leave the building soon. With the electricity off, the museum would get cold. Plus, I didn’t have enough food in there to wait until things died down outside. I knew I had a couple of cans of soup and a partial box of crackers in the bottom drawer in my desk
 
in case I ever forgot my lunch. Then there was today’s lunch, a salami sandwich,
 
in the mini-fridge. There were a couple of bags of microwave popcorn, not that they’d do me any good now.
 
I could hide
 
in the museum
 
for a few days,
 
ration my food, and try to ignore the temperatures, but I didn’t want to.

I mopped up the water as much as I could. I didn’t have a place to put the wet mop, because she’d filled my bucket. There were also three small, plastic trash bins full of water, and of course, the sink. I propped the mop against the wall. I had to remind myself it didn’t matter if I made a mess, because life as I knew it was over. The weight of that thought made my knees weak. I suddenly felt so alone. I wished someone were
 
with me
 
so I wouldn’t have to go through this by myself, even if it was the rude woman with the dust mask.

I needed to sit, so I went back to my office, pulling my chair in with me. I sat at my desk and stared at the black, blank
 
computer monitor. With the power off, it was amazingly quiet in the building. I could hear myself breathing. I tried to calm myself. I needed to think.

I had to get to Blaine’s. First, I would need to go home and get a few things….

Just then, I was startled out of my thoughts by a scream outside. I stood and looked out the office window. Off to the left, on the other side of North Street, I could see a man and a woman
 
on the sidewalk clawing and slapping each other. I could tell by their movements they were both infected. I pulled the blinds closed on the window. I didn’t
 
want to see any of it anymore.

It was after 1:00 p.m. and the sun would set in less than
 
four hours. If I was going to go home and get to Blaine’s before dark, I needed to go right then or wait it out in the museum until the next day. Blaine’s place was less than a ten minute drive outside of town, but I didn’t know what sort of problems I would face between here and there, or what problems I might encounter once I got there.

The more I thought about it, it became clear that I just needed to go straight to Blaine’s house and see what kind of plan he had, then maybe he and I could venture back into town
 
later for the things I might need.

I put my coat on, and then I went to the mini-fridge to
 
get what was in there. I pulled out my salami sandwich and two small bottles of water. All that was left was three fast food ketchup packets. I brought the stuff back to my office and then put the sandwich and water along with the soup and crackers in plastic garbage bag she’d left in the floor. She’d left the first aid kit sitting on the floor just outside the door. I grabbed it, too. I tied the rag over my face, picked up the bag of supplies and her tobacco stick, and I went to the front door.

To the south, I could see a man over at the transmission shop, but he was far enough away not to be a problem. To the north, I could see a group of people gathered around the overturned delivery van by the newspaper office. They, too, were far enough away so long as I got to my car quickly and got out of the lot before they blocked my path.

It looked like a good time to go. As quietly as I could, I exited the building. Out of habit, I started to lock the door behind me, but stopped myself. I might need a place to which I could retreat.

I made it to my car okay. I didn’t attract any attention. I knew that once I started the vehicle, they’d come. I unlocked the door, put my food in the back floorboard behind my seat, the tobacco stake in the passenger seat,
 
and climbed in. The seat was cold, and I could see my breath. I pulled the door shut gently. My hands were shaking as I slid the key into the ignition.

“God help me,” I whispered.

I cranked the car, and immediately the group at the newspaper office turned to see. There must have been twenty of them. They came at me fast. I put the car in drive and jumped over the curb onto North Street. I turned right and headed east toward the fire station. I could see them in my rearview mirror chasing me. Then the couple I’d seen fighting earlier, jumped in front of my vehicle. I tried to swerve, but I hit the woman. She flipped up onto the hood, against the windshield, and rolled out into the street. I didn’t slow at all. The crowd shrank in my mirror as I sped
 
down North Street.

I kept looking in my mirror at the woman’s body in the road. I’d already hurt two people today–first, the woman I’d beat with the broom handle and now this one. I know the masked woman said they weren’t people anymore, but I still didn’t believe that.
 
The night before when they went to bed
 
they’d been human beings with families. What if their families were looking for them or worried about them? What about their kids? It brought tears to my eyes.

When I got to North
 
5th I took a right so I could connect with Broadway. I immediately wished I
 
hadn’t.

The intersection of Broadway and North 5th by Clayfield Water and Electric was blocked by a head-on collision. It was bad. The driver of the car on the right was halfway out the windshield. The front end of the other car was folded up so that the hood was pushed into the interior of the car.

There was a crowd of infected around the wreck. There were people crawling on the vehicles. They were all in various states of dress. I couldn’t
 
understand
 
how
 
some of them
 
could stand to be in the cold without their coats…or pants. They all turned toward me. I stopped the car. I knew I had to get out of there quickly. I put the car in reverse, and threw my arm up on the back of the seat to head back the way I came, but there was a little boy behind the car. He couldn’t have been more than six years old. He was infected like the others. He had a vacant look on his face. He just stood there. I faced front again, and the crowd was approaching. I turned back, and the little guy was still there.

“Move dammit!” I yelled. I was crying. I was scared. “Move!”

I laid on the horn. The boy jumped a little, but didn’t move from his spot. Then the crowd started hitting and rocking my vehicle. They didn’t like the horn. They were in a crescent around the front end. Some of them were actually snarling. I looked in the mirror; the boy bared his teeth.

Rabid dog, or no, I wasn’t going to run over a kid. I put the car in drive and stomped the accelerator. I didn’t punch through the way I’d hoped. I wasn’t going fast enough. An elderly man, directly in front, went down and under the car. I groaned inside about that,
 
but I couldn’t think about that right then.
 
Suddenly, the car just wouldn’t go. I kept the gas pedal on the floor. I could hear the rear tires squealing. The people were crawling on the vehicle–fists and faces pressing against the glass.

I looked into the mirror again, and the little boy was on the trunk. I didn’t hesitate. I took my foot off the gas, and put it in reverse, then foot back on the gas.
 
The vehicle
 
jumped backward, but I was crazy with fear and lost control. The car hooked around to the left and
 
T-boned another car parked on the street. The boy flew off the back and bounced off the other car. The crowd was coming. I crawled across and out the passenger side of the car, grabbing my stick on the way out.

I just ran. I had no plan at that point; I just needed to get away. They chased me, but the disease had messed with their coordination enough that they weren’t fast enough to catch me.

I ran two blocks
 
north
 
to Ann Street before I looked to see how close they were. I had
 
outdistanced them by a full block. This made me feel better about my chances. My lungs were burning from the cold air. There was no way I’d make it to Blaine’s on foot by nightfall. I could either go home or head back to the museum. I allowed myself a slower pace and jogged west down Ann Street, trying to get a clear thought in my head.

My house was on 17th Street and that
 
was long way on foot. I jogged two more blocks until I reached North 7th. There was no traffic on the roads then, just wrecked or abandoned cars.

I stopped at the corner of Ann and North 7th to catch my breath. My pursuers weren’t even in view anymore. I wondered if they weren’t smart enough to follow me that distance, or if once I was out-of-sight they’d forgotten about me, or
 
if
 
they’d found other prey.

I’d left my keys in the car, along with my food and water. I needed to get home. I went up to a couple of empty cars, hoping I could find one with keys, just to get me home, but no luck.

I looked south down North 7th, and I could see the Old Hill Hotel
 
in the distance, and next to it, Kentucky Regional Bank. That would put me next to the museum. The Old Hill had been a hotel in the early 20th century, but now it was used as office space.