Dead Stop (22 page)

“What is it?”
She whirled, half expecting to see one of the monsters had somehow found its
way inside.

“They moved.”

“What?” She
followed his gaze to the front windows. The line of cadavers still loomed
outside the large windows. “Where? They’re still there.”

“They’ve turned
their heads.” He glided forward through the dark room on cat feet. “They’re
watching something…something towards town.”

Now that he
pointed it out, Marisa could see many of the skulls were now in profile.
Several others were slowly turning their heads to match them.

“What is it?”
Despite Doc Sutherlands demonstration of how these things couldn’t see into the
restaurant when it was dark, she still didn’t feel comfortable approaching the
windows. “What’s going on?”

Harley slowed as
he approached the front window, and eased forward. Careful not to put a hand on
the glass, he leaned against a window sill and looked in the same direction as
the cadavers.

“Police lights!”

“Really!” Hope
leaped in her chest. “They’re coming?”

“Three cars with
lights flashing…no…four of them! The police are coming!”

###

Rising Waters
- Rachel

“Hey, everybody!
The police are coming! They’ll be here in a minute!”

Rachel jerked
herself out of a semi-doze and looked up just in time to see Marisa fly back
through the door and into the restaurant.

The kitchen
around her came to life as the waitress’s words sank in. Gerald and Holly
tumbled off the counter and rushed for the door.  Deke was already in the
process of gently attempting to wake the sleeping girl under his arm, and even
Grandpa Tom had started to his feet.

Hope gave an
energy to the air that only seconds before had been heavy with despair.

Rachel headed
for the door, then hesitated. She glanced back at the form of the janitor on
the floor and bit her lip. Over the past couple of hours the man seemed to have
stabilized, and there were signs he might even regain consciousness in the
future, but the idea of leaving him back here unattended still didn’t sit right
with her. At the same time she desperately wanted to see what was going on out
front.

Indecision tore
at her.

“Hey, doc?”

She looked up to
see the old truck driver giving her a knowing smile.

“Why don’t you
go on out there,” he nodded towards the door as he sat back down on his crate.
“I’ll watch our friend here and let you know if anything changes. He’ll be
okay.”

Rachel
considered this proposition with reluctance.

“Are
you
okay?” She eyed the man doubtfully. His color and demeanor had improved over
the past two hours, but she still worried. The last thing she wanted would be
for him to suddenly drop with a heart attack with nothing but an unconscious
man for company.

“I’m fine,”
Grandpa Tom insisted, “I’m just old and a little out of shape. On the other
hand, you’re the only one with any medical knowledge and it might be necessary
for you to be up there where the action is going to be.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He
crossed his legs and made a big show of being at ease.

Rachel wasn’t
convinced, but she really did want to see what was happening out front. The man
did
look better, and she certainly wasn’t going to call him a liar. Not
to mention he also had a point of her possibly being needed up front as well.

Another three
seconds of thought decided the matter.

“Okay,” she
relented after giving him another dubious look. “But if you so much as feel
funny, you call me back right then. Understand?”

“Understood,”
the old man gave an exasperated sigh, “I will. Now shoo!”

Rachel “shooed.”

She pushed her
way through the door, barely pausing to give her eyes time to adjust to the
darkened restaurant.  Once again, it felt like being on the wrong side of
the glass in a darkened aquarium. The sound of rain drumming against the
windows created a white noise that added a hushing effect to the atmosphere of
the room.

The silhouettes
of the dead still lined the perimeter outside.

Rachel made out
the rest of the survivors standing in a knot in the middle of the room and
moved to join them. They were watching the front windows, where she could see
Harley standing close to the pane and peering out to the north up the highway.
The tall young man squinted through the streaming windows with a calculating
look on his face.

“They’ve
stopped,” he announced, just as Rachel reached the group.

This brought a
few noises of dismay from the small crowd.

“They’ve
stopped?” Gerald demanded. “What do you mean they’ve stopped?”

Harley didn’t
answer right away, but continued to stare out to the north. He reached down and
picked up a toothpick from the table next to him and stuck it in his mouth as
he studied the situation.

“They’re about a
quarter mile out,” he reported, “sitting in the middle of the highway.”

“What! Why?”

“Maybe they’re
waiting for backup,” Stacey offered while rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Four squad cars don’t seem enough for this.”

Rachel saw the
others nod at this, but the look on Harley’s face worried her. She had the
feeling that he knew something, or had noticed something, that he hadn’t shared
with the rest of them. She had already noticed the way he paid attention to
everything going on around him despite his laid back geniality.

“Maybe,” Harley
chewed his toothpick with a thoughtful expression. He didn’t sound very
convinced.

“Maybe?” Gerald
echoed. “C’mon, the chick is right. They’re not stupid. They’re just waiting
for more firepower.”

“That’s assuming
they know what’s going on here,” the man at the window muttered.

“Of course they
know what’s going on here. Why else would they have stopped?”

“I wonder…”

“You wonder
what?” Exasperation filled Gerald’s voice.

Harley ignored
the question.

“Holly?” he
asked instead. “Did you ever manage to actually get somebody on the line when
you called for help?”

All eyes turned
to the thin blonde.

“No,” she
swallowed. “I did manage to leave them three different messages though…before
all my bars disappeared and I lost service. I told them there were a lot of
these things.”

Harley nodded
again, but kept his eyes fixed up the highway.  Outside the storm
thundered, and almost impossibly seemed to intensify.

As Rachel
watched the man at the window, she started to get the sinking feeling that
something was wrong…badly wrong. A quick glance at the other dimly lit faces in
the diner confirmed she wasn’t the only one. And after the initial surge of
hope from just a minute ago, this new injection of doubt was more than she
could stand.

“Okay, Harley,”
Rachel spoke up, “tell us what’s wrong. What aren’t you saying? We’re all in
this together, so how about you share what you think you know with the rest of
us.”

Once again, the
man went silent.

He frowned down
at the floor, chewing the toothpick, and Rachel could tell he was struggling to
decide what to say. At any other time she would have waited for him to come to
his own way of saying things, but her nerves were beginning to wear thin.

“Just spit it
out, Harley.”

Harley
straightened and turned from the window to face them.

“Okay, doc,” he
favored them all with a sad grin. “You win. The truth is, I don’t think this is
a rescue at all.”

“What? What do
you…”

“Not a rescue!”
Gerald interrupted. “That’s ridiculous! If it’s not a rescue, what is it then?
You don’t think they’re just parked out there enjoying the storm, do you? 
Of course it’s a rescue! What else could it be?”

Harley shook his
head, pulled the toothpick from his mouth

“I think it’s a
retreat,” he answered.

The entire group
stared at him in stunned disbelief.

“I think,” he
continued, “they are pulling out from Masonfield.”

“But…” Rachel
struggled for words.

Once again,
Gerald stepped up in her place.

“Because of a
fight at a football game!?” he bellowed. “What kind of candy ass cops do you
guys have out here!”

“There was no
fight at the football game,” Harley replied, “at least not the type of fight
you are talking about.”

The bad feeling
Rachel felt earlier began to become a sick certainty. She did a quick recall of
the football field and its surrounding area, and it only took a few seconds for
her to realize what Harley had to be talking about. The picture that rose in
her mind almost made her choke with horror.

“Oh no,” she
whispered. “Masonfield Cemetery!”

She heard Stacey
gasp beside her and knew the girl had come to the same conclusion. She looked
over to see the small waitress covering her hands with her mouth, her eyes wide
with realization. Beside her, Deke went visibly pale in the dim light, his lips
silently mouthing one word…“Mom.”

Ten seconds ago,
Rachel had thought things were about as bad as things could get. Now she
realized they were worse. Much, much worse.

And she could
see that realization spread in the faces of the others.

“Wait! What do
you mean?” Holly looked from her to Harley, and back again. The out-of-town
girl looked both terrified and confused. “What are you talking about? I thought
these
things were from the cemetery! How could they get all the way over
there? They can’t be in two places at once!”

“No,” Rachel
forced herself to regain control. “These things are from Mazon County
Cemetery.  Masonfield Cemetery is in town, next to the Lutheran Church.
It’s only two blocks from the football field and…and it’s…and it’s several
times larger than the one we’re dealing with out here.”

“Oh Christ!” the
Holly gasped. “You think they would attack a football field full of people?”

“Without
hesitation,” the doctor replied. The mental image of hundreds of death-faced
monsters attacking a bleacher full of helpless families made her stomach turn.
“I think they would have been drawn to the field by the stadium lights, or at
least most of them would have been. Come to think of it, the lights are probably
what brought the ones from the county cemetery here. The rest would have fanned
out through town, attacking anybody they came across.”

“Causing a mass
panic and the overwhelming of the 911 system,” Harley concluded. “Most of the
officers who answered the initial calls probably died fast because they had no
idea what they were stepping into…which would have added to the confusion.”

“ORrrrrr….”
Geralds nasal voice cut in, “there was a big fight at the football game, just
like somebody suggested earlier. And when the storm messed up the cell tower
behind your phone company it also messed up the lines causing the 911 system to
fail. And now that they have the fight stopped and finished processing their
jail full of football addled yokels, somebody has finally noticed their 911
lines were down and listened to the messages…and now here they are.”

Despite his
snotty presentation, Rachel had to admit Gerald’s scenario was appealing. It
offered a lifeline of hope in a situation that looked bleaker by the second.

“Couldn’t he be
right, Harley?” she queried.

“Of course I’m
right,” Gerald huffed. “Occam’s Razor…the simplest solution that fits the facts
is almost always the correct one.”

“I hope he is,”
Harley answered with a doubtful shrug, “I really do.”

“But you don’t believe
it.”

“I don’t know,”
the tall young man tilted back his hat and turned to the window. “I think the
existence of these things has already redefined what the ‘simplest solution’
may be. I guess we’ll find out in another few minutes.”

“What do you
mean?” Rachel pressed.

“Well,” Harley
moved close to the glass and squinted out into the storm again, “if he’s right,
then they will sit there until reinforcements arrive…either from Houston or San
Antonio.”

“And if he’s
wrong?”

“Then they are
sitting out there trying to figure out what’s going on here, and weighing the
risk of stopping for gas. The fact they’re parked out there tells me that one
or more of them must be running low. They’ll have to decide one way or the
other soon and move because the next available stop for gas is thirty five
miles down the road.”

“If that’s the
case,” Deke asked, “why not just double up in the cars that still have gas in
the tanks and leave the empty ones behind?”

“Because,”
Harley bent closer to window, “they won’t have the…Aw shit...I was afraid of
this. Here they come! We’ve got to warn them off!”

The last small
flame of hope Rachel had been holding on to flickered and dimmed.  The one
time she had hoped Gerald would be right, and it looked like Harley’s doomsday
scenario was turning out to be the case.

“Wait, warn them
off?” Gerald’s voice went up an octave.

Harley ignored
him.

“Stacey,” he
spoke urgently, “I need you to run back into the kitchen and start flashing the
lights in here. They might see it and know not to stop.”

“Sure, Harley.”
The little waitress disengaged from Deke.

“Harley,” Rachel
warned, “that will make the zombies refocus on us in here. It may excite them
as well.”

Stacey hesitated
in the act of turning for the kitchen.

“I know, but…”

“Wait a minute!”
Gerald broke in. “Warn them off? That will leave us here alone!”

“They can’t help
us,” Harley tried to explain, “Stacey go on. At least this way…”

“You don’t know
that!” Gerald yelled as he reached out and laid a hand on Stacey’s shoulder.
She stopped once again in the act of heading for the kitchen and looked
pointedly down at his hand.