HOWLERS (25 page)

“Grace! Jesus! God!” Marvin turned and saw Patty Tyson pulling shotgun shells out of her jacket pocket standing in the open door to the kitchen, Miles behind her.

“Get back away from her, doctor,” Patty yelled. “Get back!”

“No,” Miles said, the horror of it all hitting him. “No, don’t shoot!” He turned and faced Patty.

Miles Hunt raised the broken rifle. He had counted the shots out on the road. The rifle’s stock was shattered so that only bits of the wooden stock where clinging to its steel frame. He threw the lever and lifted the rifle and lined up the ramp sight on the loping Howler. He fired and heard the shot go off and felt the barrel kick up. He hit the fat Howler in the face and she fell at Grace Poole’s feet.

“Don’t. Dear God. Don’t shoot her!” Marvin yelled. Poole was running toward them; he’d dropped the shovel and was waving his arms in an attempt to stop them from shooting his wife. Miles ran toward the doctor and grabbed him; they both fell together in the snow.

Patty Tyson walked past them. Miles saw her boots pass his face. He was holding the doctor with all his might, keeping him from standing up. He could hear Poole yelling, pleading with the girl not to shoot Grace.

Patty Tyson raised the shotgun and walked toward Grace Poole. Grace turned and looked at her, the knife in her hand, her missing arm’s mangled red stump leaking blood.

“Mrs. Poole,” Patty said. “I’m sorry.” A long wad of white thick-looking spit formed on Grace Poole’s lips. The spit welled out of her mouth in a long ugly ribbon.

“Goofloke ... Nostitch ... Shoo ... Shoot me. ... Plekase,” Grace said.

Their eyes locked. Patty could see the woman—what was left of Grace Poole—was crying. Tears formed in her blood-shot eyes. “
Pl-k-ease
. I eg you!”

Patty raised the shotgun and fired. Grace Poole’s head disappeared in a red halo. Patty pushed Grace’s teetering, headless body over and walked on, deeper into the yard, blasting at the Howlers who were approaching her, almost completely surrounding her. She didn’t realize, as she fired at the Howlers—picking them off one by one, turning her body in a clockwise killing motion, the twelve gauge’s muzzle flashing—that she, too, was crying.

*   *   *

“How many miles is it to your ranch?” Bell asked. They’d noted the mileage when they got in the truck and left Wood’s house, armed only with the golf club. They’d driven the first few miles in complete silence. At times an abandoned car would appear in the road; sometimes bodies could be seen inside the car, or lying in the road.

“Are you scared?” Lacy asked.

“Yes,” Bell said. “About running out of gas.”

“So am I,” Lacy said. The truck’s interior was warm. She’d been freezing in the house, and it felt wonderful to be warm again. “What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know,” Bell said.

“I think it’s that power plant in Japan,” Lacy said.

“Fukushima?” Bell said. “I read about it.”

“Yes,” Lacy said.

“Why’s that?” Bell said.

“I read that it was leaking radioactivity into the Pacific. A professor at school went on about it one day. What it would mean if only half of the reports were true: mutations, premature infant deaths? The man was frightened. He said the media wasn’t reporting the truth about what was going on there.”

“You’re in school?” Bell said, wanting to change the subject. He glanced at the gas gauge. The yellow warning light was on and the gauge was sitting on the E. Lacy saw him glance down at the gauge.

“Yes. Cal. It’s where my mother went,” she said.

“I went to Ole Miss.” Lacy gave him a look. “University of Mississippi.”

“Oh.”

“I played basketball. It was fun. I don’t think there’s anything better than when you’re in college,” Bell said.

“Yes,” she said.

“It was just
beautiful
,” Bell said. “Going to school. I had a scholarship. No worries. Just played ball and chased girls. I’d never had so much fun in my whole life. It was more fun than anyone deserves.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know,” Bell said. “My brother was killed in Iraq while I was in school, my sophomore year. I always felt it wasn’t right, my having all that fun and my brother being dead.” He hadn’t spoken to anyone about how he’d felt about his brother’s death, not even with his mother and father. He’d always felt that it was his fault. It was irrational, he knew that, but he’d felt it was some kind of divine punishment nonetheless. His parents were fundamentalist Christians and he’d grown up with a real fear of God, and a fear of doing wrong. Somehow he’d felt he’d sin by enjoying his life after his brother was killed.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” Lacy said. She looked out the window. The forest was dark; it was after six now and pitch black out on the road.

“Thank you.” Bell said. “Your dad is the sheriff, right?”

“Yes. Talk about fearing doing wrong,” Lacy said.

“It doesn’t really matter what caused this,” Bell said. “I mean, what difference does it make?” It was the first time she’d heard Bell sound angry, or even upset. Even when she’d told him Robin had deserted them, Bell had seemed to take it all in stride.

“No, it doesn’t, I guess,” she said.

Bell sped up. He’d been driving slowly, in an attempt to conserve fuel, keeping the truck to 30 miles an hour. But he’d seen headlights coming toward them in the distance and he decided to speed up.

“Maybe they can help us?” Lacy said, seeing the headlights too.

“Maybe,” Bell said. Almost immediately the truck’s engine started to sputter. He tromped the gas pedal, as if to force the truck to keep going, but the engine died, and he allowed the truck to coast to a stop. He kept his hands on the wheel as it came to a halt, afraid to look at Lacy. He saw a huge plane pass directly above them, flying over the road, very low. He could just make it out, the plane’s distinctive upturned wing-tip lights; it looked to him like an Army C17 transporter.

“The military is here,” Bell said. “That’s one of ours from the base at Reno, probably.” They both saw the car headlights approach quickly. The truck’s door opened and Lacy got out and ran to the front of the vehicle. She started to wave her hands in the air, hoping to flag the approaching car down. Bell turned on the truck’s high beams and emergency flasher. He got out and felt the immediate blast of cold air. He stood beside Lacy, who was waving madly. He, too, lifted his arms and started to wave them above his head.

“They’re not going to stop,” Lacy said under her breath. She stopped waving and dropped her hands. She could tell the car was picking up speed, afraid of what was in front of them.

Bell turned and looked at her. He grabbed her hand. It was the first time he’d looked her in the eyes since they’d gotten in the car. He could see she was terrified the car would not stop for them. He let go of her hand, stepped out into the on-coming lane and raised his hand. He didn’t budge as the car’s headlights grew bigger and brighter.

Bell heard Lacy scream. He heard the car brake at the last possible moment, slide on the icy road, and begin to fishtail.

Bell moved to the right, scooping up Lacy as he ran. He managed to get them out of the way as the brand new white Land Rover—completely sideways in the road—hit their truck, smacking it back a good ten feet.

Bell ran to the Land Rover when it had finally stopped. He recognized the stoner couple who had picked him up earlier that morning. The two were driving a different car, but he was sure it was them. The young man leveled a pistol at him through the Rover’s driver’s-side window.

“It’s Bell! Don’t shoot—for Christ’s sake!” Bell watched the Land Rover’s window come down.

“God damn, man! What the
fuck
are you trying to do ... get us killed?” Johnny said. He lowered the pistol. “Jesus
fuck
, man! I thought you’d turned into one of them.”

The girl Sue Ling, wearing a white mink coat and the gold earrings she’d stolen that morning, looked up at him and smiled. “I screamed like a little bitch when I saw you in the headlights,” she said. She had an AR-15 rifle between her legs.

“You can’t go down there,” Bell lied. He shot a glance at Lacy and she understood she should go along with the deception. “There’s hundreds of them just down the road about three miles back.” Bell said. “We just got by them, but ran out of ammo.” It was all a lie; he said it before he’d even thought it through.

“Shit,” Johnny said. “We just got through a pack of twenty or so behind us. How did you manage that?”

“You have to turn around,” Bell said again.

“Well, we can’t drive through a hundred of the gnarly motherfuckers,” Johnny said. “This GPS says that’s the only way to Highway 50. The emergency radio is on and says that Sacramento is safe. The US army has it cordoned off.”

“The car’s radio is working?” Lacy asked.

“This one’s is. It’s got satellite radio.” Bell saw Johnny Ryder smile.

“You should have seen the cool mansion we found,” his girlfriend said. “It had so much cool shit, we couldn’t take much.”

“Will you please shut the fuck up!” Johnny said to the girl. “You better get in. Your truck is fucked up, man.”

“There’s another way to Highway 50,” Lacy said. “There’s a jeep trail, a U.S. Fire Service road, near our house. If you have gas you could make it. It cuts over to Highway 50.”

“We got a full tank, and four-fucking-wheel drive,” Ryder said. “Get in. Let’s get the fuck out of here while we still can!”

CHAPTER 20

Dillon was loading the ammunition canisters for the Thompsons. He had a jumbo Wal-Mart box of .45 caliber shells open on his lap. They were passing vacation cabins, all dark. The one-lane road was covered in snow, with the patrol car’s headlights cutting a narrow tunnel of light into the pitch-black night in front of them.

“
Do not forsake me, oh my darling ... now that I need you by my side
.
Oh, I’m not afraid of death, but what will I do if you leave me
.” Dillon sang the lyrics of an old Western song as he loaded the drum magazines. “They used to play Frankie Lane a lot on Death Row. The Row was right above my tier in San Quentin. Sometimes they’d play
Rawhide
when someone was leaving the tier for a parole hearing. Those old gangsters, they’re a different breed all together,” Dillon said, turning to Quentin. “A lot of them were cop killers. Or FBI. Federal Bureau of Incompetents.” He saw Quentin smile. “You know how many FBI agents it takes to turn on a light bulb?” Dillon asked.

“No, how many?” Quentin asked, playing along.

“Doesn’t matter. They won’t find it unless it’s already turned on.” He laughed at his own joke. “You don’t plan on arresting these guys, do you? That’s
all
bullshit. Why don’t you be honest, lawman?”

Quentin didn’t answer.

“What are you going to do with them, lawman? Can’t exactly load them all in the car, can we?”

“You couldn’t blame him, could you?” Rebecca said from the back seat.

“What do you want to carry, honey? We got an M-16 in the back for the pretty lady,” Dillon said.

“That suits me fine,” Rebecca said.

“What about the pencil neck? Kid, what do you want to carry? Besides your pacifier? Maybe you just want to rush in and hit the Delete Button when you see them?” Dillon said.

“He can stay in the car,” Quentin said. He switched on the patrol car’s spotlight and turned it, from a handle inside the cab, so that the spotlight painted the fronts of the summer cabins they passed.

“I can’t fight,” Gary said.

“You
can’t
fight. Or you
won’t
fight?” Dillon said, not bothering to turn around. “Then what fucking good are you?” He turned and looked at the kid. “Really, what fucking good are you?” It was a real question, as if his type of person were a total mystery. “I’d like to know.
Really
.”

“Just can’t. I don’t know anything about guns,” Summers said.

“What’s there to know?” Dillon said. “See this? It’s called a trigger, you point the thingy here, it’s called a barrel, at the guy you want to shoot and pull the thingy and it goes bang.”

Summers turned away and looked out the window.

“Do not forsake me oh my darling ... on this our wedding day ...
The pussy goes too, or I don’t get out of the car,” Dillon said.

Rebecca laughed.

“You can’t do that. He’s just a kid,” Quentin said. “And what good would he be to us in a fight?”

“I don’t care, I think it’s time the kid pulled his weight,” Dillon said. He reached down at his feet and pulled one of the dozens of pistols they’d brought with them from the gun store. “Let’s see, a HK 9-millimeter. Looks used. Never shot one. Heard they’re pretty good, though. Here. You want freedom from these damn Howlers, kid? You’ll have to fight for it. Kill for it.” Dillon tossed the pistol into the kid’s lap. “
Wait along ... wait ... wait along, wait along ... I must face a man who hates me or lie a craven coward in my grave. Look at that big hand move along nearin’ High Noon,
” Dillon sang. “I’m tired of people like him. They always want to bitch and moan about the Man this, and the Man that. But when it comes down to it, they’re afraid of fighting for anything better in life. No one gives you anything, kid. That’s what I’ve learned. “
And I must face a man who hates me. Or lie a coward in my grave.”
Dillon turned back around, whistling the song.

Rebecca picked up the automatic from Summers’ lap and began to show him how to fire the weapon, pure venom in her voice. “And I hope to
God
they shoot you, and you die,” she said when she’d handed it back to him, finally.

Quentin shut off the headlights and the spotlight as they rounded a bend in the narrow gravel road. “It’s up here, about a mile,” he said.

The patrol car slowed, then stopped. They’d crossed an old wooden bridge in the dark. A house stood at the top of a driveway to their left. Its windows were bathed in a yellowish Coleman-lantern light.

“That’s it,” Quentin said.

“Now what?” Dillon said.

“We go up there and place them all under arrest,” Quentin said. He was lying to himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit he wanted to kill them
all
. He saw Dillon smile in the moonlight.

“I’ll go first,” Rebecca said. “When you hear me start shooting, you come on along.”

Dillon turned to look at the girl, impressed by her lack of fear. He picked up a Glock 21 from the floor.

   “Give me
that
.” Rebecca took the automatic from Dillon’s hand. She checked to make sure it was loaded and had a bullet in the chamber. She did it so quickly and expertly that Quentin couldn’t help but smile. “They’ll open the door for a chick. I’ll tell them I’m
scared
.”

“What if they think you’re one of the things?” Quentin said.

“My tough luck,” Rebecca said. She reached for the door handle, the Glock in her other hand.

“Wait—Rebecca. I promise, we’ll both be right behind you. We go up the driveway together. You knock on the door,” Quentin said. “Once you get inside, we’ll come in.”

“Take the kid with you,” Dillon said. “Here.” Dillon reached down and picked up a simple five-shot .38 revolver. He checked to make sure it was loaded and handed it to Summers. “Even
you
should be able to use this. Just point and click, motherfucker.”

  Rebecca knocked on the cabin’s front door. She had tucked the Glock into the small of her back so that her parka covered it.

“Help! Help!” She knocked again. The door flew open and a tall young man with long blond hair was standing in front of her.

“Well, fuck me!” he said.

“We need help,” Rebecca said. “They’re out there. The things. Our car broke down.”

“Well come on in, good looking,” the man said. He moved back from the door.

Rebecca saw that he had a pistol in his hand. She saw two dead Howler bodies hanging on one of the cabin’s back walls near the fireplace. The Howlers had been nailed to the knotty-pine wall of the living room like animal trophies—their arms stretched out, their ugly thick faces horribly bullet-pocked. Rebecca looked to her right and saw a tall, older biker with short black hair, standing at one of the cabin’s windows. He was wearing night-vision goggles.

The man who opened the door pointed his pistol at her and Summers, who’d walked up behind her.

“Now, I want you two to come on in here,” the younger one said. Rebecca saw another two men in the kitchen, holding short-barreled shotguns. One of them slipped out the back door. The tall man in the night-vision goggles, holding a walkie-talkie, spoke into the radio, still looking out the window. Rebecca reached behind her slowly.

“Hands where I can see them, bitch!” the blond said.

“We need help,” Rebecca said, bringing her gun hand back in front of her.

“Sure you do. You’re about to get it, too,” the blond said.

Summers jumped at the man. Rebecca pulled the pistol from behind her. The tall man at the window turned. Rebecca saw the green tint of the night-vision goggles as he moved for his pistol on the chair behind him. She fired, hitting him in the face, the hollow-point, 230-grain bullet boring a hole through one of the night-vision goggles’ lenses. She turned and fired almost point blank at the blond, sending two rounds through his right ear, as Summers fought with him. The blond dropped to his knees and fell over. She turned to fire at the man in the kitchen, but he was gone.

Rebecca flew out the front door and screamed for Quentin to watch the side of the house. Rebecca saw, almost immediately, the orange-yellow flash of the Thompson’s muzzle. The two machine guns opened up at once on someone she could just make out standing in the snow at the side of the cabin. The gunman tried to run.  His body danced, hit by both machine guns. She ran across the living room and toward the back door, expecting the other gunmen would try and come back inside the house. She pointed her pistol at the back door as she approached. As soon as she saw its dark knob move, she opened fire, shooting through the door in rapid fire until the pistol’s slide remained in the far back position, the Glock empty.

She heard voices and turned to see Quentin and Dillon walk through the front door.

“You okay?” Quentin asked from the doorway. She nodded, then opened the back door. The gunman’s head and upper body slid face down onto the dirty kitchen floor. She saw bits of white down, little white tufts poking through the nylon where her bullets had exited the back of the man’s red parka.

“Take the asshole’s shotgun, we’ll need it,” Dillon said. She went outside and found a combat-style shotgun lying at the bottom of the steps, its barrel buried in piss-stained yellow snow.

*   *   *

They could not get Marvin to speak. Miles had given up. Patty, he noticed, hadn’t really tried. It was the ranger who had led the doctor back into the house when they saw more of them in the woods heading for the Poole’s backyard. Forty or more Howlers had gathered in the woods, just out of sight, attracted to the sound of the howling.

Patty stood in the snow-covered backyard and watched them come. She dug into her red mackinaw coat pocket and felt the plastic covered shotgun shells; only three shells left. A howling started up from the forest. A gang of them was heading toward the fence, walking in the deep snow, some of them stumbling, their clothes snow covered.

Tired and angry, Patty walked over the backyard, stepping over the bodies of the Howlers she’d shot. It had become personal, a matter of her own survival. She’d seen too much violent death in the last several hours. Shooting the doctor’s wife had changed her—the poor woman’s tortured face imprinted forever. She wanted to kill them all. She was angry that she didn’t have more ammunition. She watched the closest Howler stumble on toward the fence. She turned and saw Miles guide Poole into the house and close the French door.

She turned back and faced the fence. The closest Howler kept coming, its mouth hung with frozen saliva, its dead eyes bloodshot.

“You
motherfucker
!” Patty said under her breath. “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you hear me? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

The thing kept coming. It stopped immediately in front of her, separated only by the chain-link fence.

“
ucluchih uulchi nockeer raw, nocker raw
.” The thing spoke to her, its glue-looking spit bubbling on the thing’s lips as it spoke.

She never heard one speak before, and it shocked her. “
What
?”

“
Ul raw
,” the thing said. Then it jumped onto the fence. She let it climb, watched it, relishing the thing’s nearness—seeing its ugliness close up. She heard the fence chatter as the Howler climbed it. She waited for its belly to get to her eye level; then she plunged the kitchen knife she’d picked up in the snow deep into the thing’s gut, through the fence. She watched it continue to climb, ripping its own bowels open as it pulled itself up the fence.

“
Die ... Die ... Die
,” Patty said, the knife sunk to the hilt. But even partially eviscerated, pulling its own guts out with each move up the fence—it
wouldn’t
die. She stepped back, letting go of the knife, and shot the thing in the head, just as it was about to lift itself to the top of the fence, dragging a long tail of red and white guts behind it. The thing’s body slumped back headless, its body caught on the fence. It hung there, caught on a cowboy-style belt buckle that said
TEXAS
.

The doctor had not spoken a word since Miles had led him back into the house. They’d done what they could to comfort him, but Marvin had refused food when they offered him some of the canned chili they’d found and cooked. Both Miles and Patty had eaten several cans, heating the chili on the Pooles’ gas range, which still worked despite the lack of power. The doctor had sat in the living room staring out the window to the street beyond. They’d brought him clothes for the trip they were planning. Marvin had put them on without speaking. When Miles had told him what their plan was—to leave the Sierras via Highway 50 and head for Sacramento, where Miles said the government was broadcasting from an emergency radio frequency—Marvin had simply nodded.

“I’ve decided to stay here,” Poole said when they came in to check on him. “I’d rather stay here. You two go. Take the car.”

“No,” Miles said. “We can’t leave you here. No way. You’re coming with us.”

Poole looked at them both and shook his head no.

“They’ll need doctors in Sacramento,” Miles said.

“My wife and children are all dead,” Poole said in disbelief.

Miles didn’t know what to say.

“Your family would want you to go on living,” Patty said.