The King of Clayfield - 01 (5 page)

I could see the
 
stoplights for the next two intersections were black, but I did see one working a block past the
 
courthouse. The power wasn’t out everywhere.

Looking toward Kentucky Regional Bank, I remembered what the woman said about closing her account and how she didn’t get her money. I also remembered
 
that she didn’t have her purse with her. I presumed it must still be in the bank. Even though I never asked her, I was hoping that the car she was searching earlier belonged to her. I decided to venture into the bank and retrieve her purse, and hopefully, her keys.

I jogged south to North Street and stopped. I made sure I wasn’t followed, and that there wasn’t anything waiting for me ahead. The crowd that had chased me after I left the museum was gone, but the woman I’d hit with my car was still there. I felt sick about that. Part of me wanted to go check on her, but I knew I couldn’t help her.

I proceeded to the bank. As I got closer, I got a better view of Broadway. There was a small group on the courthouse lawn, but they didn’t notice me. Once I got to the bank building, I hugged the wall until I got to the tinted glass
 
door.

It was dark inside, darker than I expected it to be…and quiet. I stood still for a moment, allowing my eyes to adjust. There were glass-walled offices to my left. To the right was the area for tellers. Papers littered the floor. The place appeared to be vacant. I looked in each teller stall for the purse, but it wasn’t there. In one stall, I did find
 
two stacks
 
of twenties bound with paper wrappers. A little voice told me that I would need the money and that no one would ever know, but I left it.

I was just about to leave, when I spied
 
a purse. It was in one of the offices, on the floor next to a chair. Could be it.

I stepped inside and picked it up, then came out next to the front door. I opened the purse to examine the contents to the dim light coming through the front of the bank.

There were keys, a wallet, two tampons,
 
a partial pack of
 
gum, an ink pen, and some loose cough drops. I opened the wallet. It
 
wasn’t the woman with the mask. It was the woman I’d beaten with the broom handle. I felt a twinge of guilt, th
en sadness as I looked at the face in the driver’s license photo. She was smiling. Her name was Rhonda Leslie Stern. She lived out
 
in the county on Foster Road.
 
She was
 
5′ 6″ tall and 135 lbs. She was
 
two years
 
younger than me. I didn’t recognize her, but
we might have gone to high school together. I might have seen her around town. She might have visited the museum.
 
She was still alive–she wasn’t on the ground behind the museum anymore–but her life was over.

I took her keys and left everything else.

Once outside again, I had to figure out which car was hers. I could hit the unlock button on the key chain, but that might alert the small group of infected at the courthouse. The key was large with
 
a Chevrolet symbol on the back. I remembered a black Chevy Blazer parked around the rear lot. I crept around the corner of the building and bumped into a man.

I stepped back away from him. I knew he was infected. Even though it was ten degrees below freezing, he was in short sleeves. He growled and stepped toward me. I raised my stick.

When he attacked it took me by surprise even though it shouldn’t have. He grabbed my stick and we twirled around and slammed against the back wall of the bank. I stumbled and went down backwards. He fell with me, snarling in my face.

CHAPTER 5

His face was inches from mine. I’d managed to push the tobacco stick
 
against his throat
 
crosswise, and that was the only thing preventing him from biting me. He wanted to. Saliva hung off his bottom lip in a long syrupy strand. I couldn’t allow it to get in my eyes. There was an unnatural heat coming from his body.
 
I couldn’t imagine a person surviving a fever that high.

I don’t know how much he weighed, but my adrenaline was pumping, and I was able to shove him away from me long enough
 
scoot backwards and get out from under him. By the time I
 
got to my feet, he was in a crouch ready to
 
lunge at
 
me again. I swung the stick like a bat and connected with his shoulder. He made a noise that was something like a cross between a scream and a moan and charged me. I was ready this time. I turned the stick again and leaned in.

The stick caught him across the chest. He grabbed it, but I was able to turn him and
 
press him back against the wall. I got the stick against his throat again and put my weight against it. He didn’t have the leverage to push me away. Slobbering and eyes bulging, he
 
slapped me and
 
tugged
 
at my coat. I just kept leaning in. I didn’t even feel like it was me doing it.

I noticed a couple of men
 
approaching from the direction of the museum. They were walking and didn’t seem interested in me just yet. I had to go, but this guy was still fighting me, and…where were the keys? I’d dropped them during the scuffle. Keeping my weight against the stick, I looked around. They were on the ground by the corner of the building.

I looked the other direction toward the
 
approaching newcomers. They’d seen me. I
 
pulled the man away from the wall a little, and then slammed him back, his head smacking the bricks. While he was dazed, I
 
grabbed the keys.
 
I hit the unlock button on the key chain.
 
The lights flashed on the
 
Blazer and there was a little
toot!
 
from the horn.

The newcomers were very interested by that time. The other man had slid down the wall. I could see blood at the corner of his mouth, and he was making a loud rasping sound. I got to the truck in plenty of time. The interior of the vehicle smelled like the coconut air freshener hanging from the mirror. I noticed a
 
toddler’s car seat in the back. I tried to ignore it. The truck started without a problem, and I pulled away going west past the museum, on my way home. The men didn’t chase me. The last thing I saw in
 
the
 
mirror was them standing over the man by the bank. I didn’t want to think about what they might be about to do.

I didn’t see many people on my way home. I stuck with the side streets, which took me a little longer to get there. The only direct way for me to
 
get over to 17
th
Street was to use Broadway, and I knew better than to do that–there was too much activity over there. I had to go north on 9
th
, and then cut across Gardner to 12
th
, then 12
th
to Depot Street, and that would take me to 17
th
. Twice, I had to go around abandoned vehicles, but otherwise, the streets were empty.

As I crossed over 14
th
Street I could see thick, black smoke billowing
 
from the northwest. There would be no one to put it out. I prayed it wouldn’t spread.

When I pulled into
 
the driveway of my little house, the clock on the Blazer’s radio said
 
3:09 p.m.
 
I have a
 
small, one-car garage, but the automatic opener was still clipped to the visor of my car; besides, the power was probably out anyway. I
 
almost parked
 
the truck in the driveway but
 
changed my mind. I would be leaving within the next couple of days, and I would need to load
 
it with supplies.
 
I looked around to make sure no one was close by, and then I jumped out and opened the door manually.

Once inside, with the door shut, I felt this incredible emotional release. I broke down. I just plopped down on the cold concrete floor by the closed door
 
next to oil stains and spider webs and cried like a baby. Once I was able to compose myself, I continued to sit there listening to the Blazer’s cooling engine pop, smelling the stale fumes of gasoline.

I hadn’t noticed it right away, but the light on the garage door opener motor was on. This side of town, or at least my house, still had power.

I walked between the car and a narrow, metal shelving unit to the interior door. It was locked, but I kept a spare under the mat. The house was warm; it felt good. The first thing I did was to try to call my mom again. There was still no answer.
 
I told myself she was shopping.

Then, I
 
stripped down and
 
took a hot shower. It might seem frivolous to do something like that, but I needed it. It comforted me.
 
It was
 
the last hot shower I would have for a long time.

I turned the water off when the ends of my fingers started to wrinkle. It was much longer than my normal showers. I stood there a moment watching the steam swirl and listening to the dripping water. There was a clean, clear drop hanging from the shower nozzle. It grew then fell and another replaced it.

I could hear the voice of the woman in the mask in my head,
“Start with water….”

I
 
didn’t know
 
how to purify water. I knew I could add bleach to it, but I didn’t know how much. I knew I could filter it, but I didn’t know if that was enough.

I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off quickly. I had a lot of work to do, and I’d already wasted
 
too much time.
 
I grabbed a pair of pants from the pile of dirty clothes in my bedroom floor, put them on, and then went into the living room. It was dusk. I
 
was afraid light would
 
attract the infected, so I didn’t turn any on. I shut all the blinds and curtains, and I made sure all of the doors were locked.

Okay. Think. What are my priorities?

Water, food, and shelter. She’d said to fill every container with water. So I did. I plugged the tub and filled it. I filled every bucket and plastic trashcan, but
 
I couldn’t imagine drinking from any of those things. I also filled the empty juice and water
 
bottles in my recycling bin.

With that done, I turned on the TV and put it on CNN. I just wanted to listen while I worked on other things. They were reporting that the disease had been contained, and that it
 
hadn’t spread any farther north than Pennsylvania in the east, and Kentucky in the west,
 
but I wasn’t sure I believed that.

I turned on my laptop. The internet was still working. The news stories on my internet provider’s
 
home page were about Canton B. One headline said PROTECT YOURSELF WITH ALCOHOL. The blurb underneath said, “Doctor tells people to get drunk.”
 
I rolled my eyes. Even then, with the most sensational story of
 
all time,
 
they felt the need to get more sensational.

I moved on and checked
 
my emails for something from Blaine or my
 
mom, but there was nothing there but
 
advertisements. I logged into
 
all the social networking sites. I hadn’t been online since Wednesday, and that was to check my bank statement. I hadn’t visited any of the social sites
 
since
 
Sunday.
 
There was a lot of talk about Canton B, but none of my local friends had posted anything for a couple of days…except one.
 
Jen
 
Warren, a woman I knew from my high school days, had posted as recently as
 
three hours
 
before.
 

Her post
 
said:

“Things are really bad. People are killing each other outside.
 
We’re at home 131 College St., Clayfield.
 
Please send help.”

That post had 68 comments on it, many
 
of them said, “Praying” or “Sending positive thoughts your way”
 
or some pointless variation of that.
 
A few people talked about
 
themselves and how things were where they lived. A few
 
said they
 
were
 
going to help, but I visited their profiles and they lived north or west of the rivers or too far away for
 
that promise to be realistic.