Instinct (39 page)

“Shit,” Tim said. He whipped around to look at Ty one more time and then gathered his feet beneath him. He sprinted for the door.

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“Hang on to something,” Tim yelled as he threw open the door to the ambulance.

Jackson and Amy Lynne were laughing in the back. Cedric jumped in through the driver’s door and took the passenger’s seat. Tim climbed in and leaned towards the back.

“Hang on!” Tim screamed.

The faces of Jackson and Amy Lynne looked like those of frightened children. They were shocked by his scream. Tim pulled himself back to the wheel and cranked the key. The metal dug into his fingers as the engine fired. He saw the tube hanging from the gas tank, but he didn’t care. Tim gunned the engine as he shifted into drive. The ambulance lurched forward. Cedric flopped back against his seat and then fought against the acceleration to curl up in the footwell of the passenger’s side.

Tim looked back up in time to see the rear end of an old Honda. The owner had either parked carelessly, or had been snatched up by a monster before he got the car to a safe place. The ambulance corrected that. Tim clipped the rear end of the Honda and it flew to the side, bashing into a truck.
 

Tim dragged the wheel to the right and the suspension resisted the vehicle’s momentum as it screeched through the turn. Tim was on a side street. He was headed directly towards the storm clouds.

With another savage turn, he bounced the front tires of the ambulance up over a curb. They dug into the grass and left rubber on the sidewalk. The front end of the ambulance plowed over a decorative tree and Tim made it to the store’s little parking lot. As the rear end of the ambulance completed the transition over the curb, Tim heard Jackson and Amy Lynne scream their surprise as they became airborne. Tim didn’t have time to worry about their safety. Less than a mile away, a funnel cloud dropped from the sky and tore up trees and chunks of building. Tim saw them swirl up and away as they were torn to shreds. This would happen to him very soon if he didn’t move fast.

The brakes buzzed as Tim stomped on the pedal. He threw the ambulance into park and jumped from his door.

“I need help!” he yelled to Jackson as he rounded the back of the ambulance. The rear door banged against its hinges, still swinging from the trip.

Tim found Ty right where he’d left him. He ran to the other side of the man and pushed. It was like trying to push a cement cylinder. There was no give in the giant man whatsoever. He grabbed a paper bag from the counter and whipped it open with one hand. On his tiptoes, he managed to settle the bag over Ty’s head.

“Stop!” he yelled to Jackson as the young man came through the door. Tim threw up his hand, palm towards him.

Miraculously, Jackson followed orders. His face was turned towards the refrigerator cabinets. A hanging sign advertising some kind of noodles was the only thing that prevented Jackson from compounding Tim’s problem. It blocked out Jackson’s view of the mural.
 

“Don’t look at the writing there. Remember what happened to you at the airport.”

Jackson squeezed his eyes shut and put up a hand next to his face.

“Good,” Tim said. He was surprised that Jackson seemed to grasp the situation so quickly. “Just keep your hand there and you can open your eyes.” Tim was leaning into Ty so hard that his body was almost at forty-five degrees to the floor. “That’s it. Come forward and pull. We have to get Ty to the ambulance.”

Jackson reached him and grabbed Ty’s big hand with both of his own. He pulled while Tim pushed. The result was the same. Ty didn’t move.

“Get him rocking,” Jackson said.

Tim had no idea what he meant until Jackson started doing it. He tugged rhythmically at Ty’s arm, giving pressure and then letting up. Sure enough, the giant began to rock. They got him to stumble towards the door. Ty’s body compensated, throwing a leg out to rebalance himself. Tim and Jackson started the process again. They coaxed him into another step.

Outside, they heard Cedric barking again. It was the alarm call from before, but it had even more panic behind it now.

“Too late,” Tim said.

Jackson turned and let go of Ty’s hand. They watched as the funnel cloud came out of the sky and descended right on their position.

CHAPTER 27: HOUSE

J
UDY
TOOK
A
DEEP
breath and then reached for the handle. It wasn’t even locked. She pushed into the kitchen and saw room dancing in candlelight, just as it had on the night when they’d first arrived. That was the night that Bill had shot Woolly. Judy knew that was part of it. Somehow when she had witnessed that ghastly murder she had begun to mentally distance herself from these people. That distance allowed her to be swayed.

She walked towards the table.
 

Three men sat there. The one at the head was called Hampton. His real name was Sam.

“I’m ready, Sam,” she said.

“I’m sorry?” Hampton asked. He gave the slightest nod to the other men. They folded shut their papers and rose to leave. Judy took the seat opposite Hampton and faced him over the light of a flickering candle. It was burned all the way down to its holder. In another hour, it would be out.

When the other men had left, Judy continued. “I’m ready to tell you about what happened to me when I left the grocery store that night.”

“Oh?”

“I told the truth before. I just didn’t tell you the entire truth. For instance, I didn’t tell you the reason I ran away from the front of the grocery store. I was going to leave the group. I probably could have gotten away, but that’s when I ran into the creature.”

Hampton tilted his head and scratched at his scraggly beard.
 

“It makes a sound. It’s hypnotic, I suppose. The sound makes you fall back into memory. The creature doesn’t see time the same way we do. It lives in every time. When you’re in its presence, you can’t control exactly where your memory will take you.”

“And where did it take you?”

“Christmas. When I was a kid. That’s not the only thing it did to me though. It altered me. It changed my instincts. Do you know what your own instincts are, Sam?”

He frowned and blinked several times. “Same as everyone, I guess. Even though I’m incapable of reproduction, I suppose we all still have the drive. We want to do that even more than we want to survive, although I think those two are in a pretty close race.”

Judy nodded. “Yes, absolutely. Do you know what’s underneath though?”

“Underneath?”

“Believe it or not, there are instincts under those. They’re from before we were individuals. The first little snippets of DNA evolved before there was such a thing as individual reproduction or survival. Back then, before there were even eyes to see, life was concerned with engendering life itself. There wasn’t anything selfish about it. There were no proprietary genes to consider.”

“You lost me.”

“It’s not important. Even if you did understand it intellectually, you wouldn’t be able to feel the truth of it. Your instincts would drown out the real message.”

“Which is?”

“That our host is the most important thing. Humans are a parasite. We are the worst kind of infection. This genetic experiment is over.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The chess game is over. The snow will start in six days, but before that, the tornadoes will come and tear this place apart. They’ll rip down this house and turn over the soil until they uncover and exhume your underground structures. It’s too late. These events can’t be stopped.”

CHAPTER 28: FARM

“C
OME
ON
, R
OBBY
,” L
ISA
said.
 

“Just give me two more minutes. The information is here. I’m sure of it,” Robby said. He swept his light back to the cork board and then back to the desks. He pulled open drawers. Most were empty, or contained scattered office supplies, but in one he found files. Robby’s fingers walked through the tabs, trying to make sense of the numbering scheme.

“We have to stay together. It’s our best shot at getting out of here,” Lisa said.

Robby pulled one of the thicker files. The documents in it were printed on a thick paper that felt almost like plastic. The words there were encoded into a strange alphabet. It was no language that Robby recognized. Lisa grabbed his elbow. Robby tucked the folder under his arm and followed. The others were waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Straight up and out,” Pete said. “If we meet anyone along the way, just keep moving. No matter what they say, just push on through.”

He glanced around at each of them.

They all knew what Pete meant. Robby saw it on their faces. They’d been through a lot together and had developed a communication that seemed to go beyond words. Robby knew that Beardos might try to stop them from leaving. He knew that they might have guns, and they would certainly order the group to halt. But, as long as one of them made it by, they had a chance. Romie went first, followed by Brad. Robby went next and he wasn’t surprised to see Lisa right behind him. Pete would bring up the rear. If they ran into trouble, Pete would find a way to draw the attention to himself, giving the people in front a better chance to sneak by. Robby understood the plan even though nobody had said it aloud.

They climbed the stairs as quietly as they could, but their feet clanged on the metal treads. The stairs spiraled up towards the light from the dim bulb in the room above. They shut of their flashlights and climbed.

Brad seemed unsteady as he climbed the stairs. Robby began to wonder how the man would fare on the ladder. Not that it would matter—the little control room between the stairs and the ladder was the perfect bottleneck to place armed Beardos. Robby had little doubt that they would find resistance there.

Romie slowed as she approached the doorway. Robby saw the silhouette of her head scan the room. She moved forward into the light. As Brad followed, Robby waited to hear one of the Beardos bark an order. None came.

Robby climbed up and through the doorway next. Romie and Brad stood there, glancing around. They’d all expected a welcoming party, but nobody was there. Robby moved to the ladder and looked up into the darkness. The hatch was still closed, as he had left it.

When he came back, they all looked to him.

“Beardos up there?” Pete whispered.

Robby shrugged. “I don’t see anyone.”

“They’ve probably locked us in here or something,” Brad said. He looked to the dark rectangle of the doorway and clasped his hands together at his stomach.

Robby tucked the folder of papers into the back of his pants and went back to the ladder. He climbed up about halfway and then looped his elbow around a rung so he could dig out his light. He stuck it in his mouth so he could see the latch when he got to the top. He squeezed the mechanism. Something clicked and the hatch opened. Above it, the bin swung up and out of the way. Robby fumbled at his light, turning it off as fast as he could. What he’d seen of the little shed was burned into the back of his eyes—the room was empty.

He climbed back down. The others were gathered at the bottom of the ladder.

“It opened, and the shed is empty. If there are any guards, they’re outside.”

“That’s good,” Pete said, nodding. “We’ll gather there and burst out. If they try to stop us, at least we can make enough of a ruckus to draw attention.”

“Wait,” Romie said. “If they didn’t try to trap us down here, they’re probably not guarding the outside of the shed. That would just draw attention to it. I say we sneak out. Maybe they haven’t discovered that we’re down here.”

“She’s right,” Lisa said.

Pete shrugged. “But if you see anyone—ruckus.”

They climbed. Pete followed Brad closely, to lend support if Brad’s muscles gave out. Brad was sweating and trembling by the time he got to the top, but he made it. They slipped out into the night. They found no guards outside the shack.