“Those five-star dives in Manhattan have got it all wrong,” he agreed.
When they were done eating, they walked through the rooms of the lower level, but the place was deserted. The sunlight that spilled through the windows looked dirty, like a sepia-toned reel of film. It had something to do with the sky, Todd was certain, and that bizarre cloud cover. In fact, it even occurred to him that the
air
tasted funny, as if the whole
atmosphere
were slowly deteriorating. He tried to think how long the air had tasted like that and remembered some sense of disorientation when he’d followed Eddie Clement through the trees only to arrive in the field that overlooked Woodson. It had started back then…but he’d been too preoccupied with other matters at that moment to notice something so subliminal. Now, however, everything was suspect.
“Go check the drawers in the kitchen for car keys,” he told Kate. “I’m going to take a look in the garage.”
It was a single-car garage, housing a dust-covered Ford station
wagon. He frowned, wondering how far they’d get on the icy roads in this piece of shit. Well, at least the tires looked to be in good shape.
Kate appeared behind him, dangling a set of keys. She peered at the station wagon over Todd’s shoulder and grimaced. “That looks like my grandmother’s car.”
Todd took the keys and headed around to the driver’s side of the car. He reached out for the door handle, then looked up at Kate. “I’m going to start the car. Once it kicks over, pull open the garage door.”
“Isn’t it automatic?” She sounded as though she wanted to get in the car with him.
“Power’s out. It won’t work.” Then he tossed her the keys. “Okay, you kick it over and I’ll open the door. Then I’ll hop in the passenger seat.” He forced a wink and it earned him a smile. “Just don’t leave without me.”
“Not on your life,” she said, hurrying around to the driver’s door. “You’ve got the gun.”
Todd went to the garage door, unlatched it, and prepared to shove it open once the station wagon kicked over. Kate climbed into the driver’s seat and sat there for a long time.
“Go ahead,” he said to her eventually.
“I
am,”
she told him, leaning out the door and gaping at him. “It won’t start.”
“Are you sure?”
“I know how to start a car.”
“Let me try.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
He leaned against the driver’s side door, frowning down at her. “Let’s not do this, okay? I just want to get out of here.”
“So do I.” Then with a huff, she climbed out of the car and Todd got in.
Slid the keys into the ignition. Gave it a good crank.
Nothing.
Todd and Kate exchanged a look. “I told you so,” she said.
He popped the hood and climbed out. Examining the engine, he couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with the car.
“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” she asked him, peering into the engine block, too.
“Just the usual stuff,” he said, “but I’m not an auto mechanic.”
“Wonderful. Now what?”
He chewed his lower lip. “I hate to keep pressing our luck, but I think we hit the house next door and try it all over again.”
The house next door was in worse shape. For starters, the doors were locked and they had to break a window and shimmy through it. Inside, the furniture had been toppled over and there were broken dishes on the kitchen floor. The television set in the living room was busted and the whole house smelled like it had been fried in the electric chair. In the laundry room, something that had once been a small dog or cat had been turned inside out and resembled something one might find in a Dumpster behind a slaughterhouse.
“I don’t like this place,” Kate said for the record.
“Duly noted.”
There was a set of keys hanging from a pegboard beside the pantry. BLESS THIS HAPPY HOME was painted on the pegboard in bright blue letters. Kate and Todd went quickly to the garage and found a Toyota Corolla, freshly detailed.
“Let’s try this again,” he said, tossing Kate the keys and going to the garage door. He undid the latch on the door as Kate slid into the car. This time, Todd could hear her twisting the keys. But the car would not roll over.
After several more tries, Kate got out of the car and stood there in the half light as if she were about to scream. Todd
went to her and hugged her. It was a warm and lengthy hug. She smelled like Brianna’s pillows did in the morning after she’d gotten up out of bed. It made his head dizzy and his heart hurt.
“I’m starting to think…” he said after a moment.
“No,” she said. “Please don’t say it. Something is preventing us from starting these cars. Just like it cut the power and killed the phones.”
“I think so.”
“Todd,” she said, and moved in as if to hug him again. He brought her closer…then felt a rush as her lips touched his. She tasted like sea salt and felt very warm despite the cold all around them. If he could, he would have stretched this moment in time out to infinity.
A mechanical tone sounded from his pants pocket just as Kate pressed her thigh against his. She flinched at the sound, startled. “What was that?” she breathed directly in his face.
“Looks like you’ve activated my cell.” He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and ran his fingers along the keypad to activate it.
“Please tell me that’s an incoming call,” Kate said. Her hands slid slowly down the lengths of Todd’s arms until they were no longer touching.
“No such luck. You just leaned against the keypad. Still no signal.”
Then a notion seemed to strike them both simultaneously. In the dark cave of some stranger’s garage, they glanced briefly at each other, their faces illuminated by the cold glow of Todd’s cell phone.
“Other cell phones,” Kate said.
“Might get different reception,” Todd added.
“Might have closer towers,” Kate finished. It was like an epiphany.
“There must be some around the house,” Todd said as they
stormed back into the kitchen. “Lying around on tables, on phone chargers, maybe upstairs in one of the bedrooms—”
Kate rushed over to the kitchen counter where a small flip phone sat in plain view. She flipped it open and beamed. “Battery works!”
Todd rushed to her side just as her face fell. “What is it?” he asked.
Kate held out the phone so that he could examine the display screen. “Look at the numerals. Look at the time.”
“I…” But then he saw it. When he looked back up at her, she had the face of a frightened child.
“How’s that possible?” she said.
According to the cell phone, the time was currently F9:KA.
He took the phone from her and scrolled through the electronic phonebook. “Jesus Christ, will you look at this…”
The first entry was nothing but gibberish:
“It’s like the goddamn thing got scrambled,” he said, flipping through more names. Each one was in some similar form of hieroglyphics. “Let me see your phone.”
“I don’t have it. It’s still in my coat, back at the Pack-N-Go.”
Todd looked around. He began going systematically through the kitchen drawers until he located a ruby red cell phone with unicorn stickers on the casing. He powered it on and the screen blinked with the following cryptic missive:
DWELLDWELLDWELLDWELLDWELLDWELL
. Todd scrolled through the rest of the phone, each of the alphanumeric entries comprised of similar nonsense. Frustrated, he tossed the cell phone back in the drawer.
“Our situation just got worse, didn’t it?” Kate said. “None
of the cars in this town will start, will they? All the electrical shit is out and all the battery-powered things have gone to shit. Everything’s either dead or scrambled.”
“Kate,” Todd said, suddenly backing up behind the kitchen counter with his gun drawn. “There’s someone behind you.”
Upon waking, the first thing Shawna was aware of was the pain in her leg. The bandages had come loose in the night and the wound had reopened, soaking the left leg of her sweatpants in fresh blood. She sat up with much difficulty, utilizing the wall behind her for support, and managed to grab hold of the pant leg in one fist and slide her leg out straight in front of her.
The pain was like a thousand holocausts.
Gritting her teeth, she adjusted her leg and slid one hand inside the waistband of the sweatpants, then farther down her thigh until she felt the swollen, tender tissue just below the knee. Her entire calf had swollen to twice its normal size.
That’s because it’s infected,
she thought, instantly miserable.
One of those fucking snowmen took a chunk out of me and now I’m infected with whatever malignant diseases those fucking things carry.
Miserable.
She reached down into the nearest cardboard box in hopes of finding a fresh pair of pants and another bandage to tie her leg. Instead, she wound up planting her hand firmly in the still-warm vomit from last night.
“This is certainly not one of my better days,” she muttered…and the ruined, parched sound of her own voice nearly frightened her as much as her injury. It was as if she
were becoming less and less herself…changing as everyone else in town had changed…
I won’t let that happen,
she thought, her eyes shifting to the rifle that had remained by her side all throughout the night.
I’ve still got Old Blue here.
The next thing she realized was just how hungry she was. Her stomach caterwauled. Holed up in the Pack-N-Go, it had been easy to take food and drink for granted—she’d had all she could want at her disposal. Now, out here in no-man’s-land, she was on her own. Was it possible old Rita Tubalow had some food stowed away down here?
Sure,
she thought, her misery increasing.
Everyone keeps food in the basement!
It briefly occurred to her that she was losing her mind.
Anyway, there was sure to be food upstairs. In the kitchen. If anyone were up there, she’d let Old Blue do the talking. If, of course, she was actually
capable
of climbing the stairs…
Using the rifle as a crutch, she hoisted herself up amid a fog of pain. It was all she could do not to scream when she straightened out her leg and actually set her foot down on the floor. She’d kicked off her shoes in her sleep and now the cold concrete of the basement floor radiated up through her sock and into the depths of her bones. Her sock was dark with dried blood…
Come on come on come on come on comeoncomeoncomeon—
She stood, and let out a meager cry. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Climbing the stairs would be tantamount to climbing Everest. Hell, just
making
it to the stairs would be an incredible feat. Nonetheless, she proceeded, crutching along with the rifle, limping and in excruciating pain. Each time she put weight on her injured leg, she swore she could feel the wound separating and tearing farther up her calf, straight up to her kneecap. Was it possible for kneecaps to come undone,
to fall out and clatter like dinnerware to the floor? A hideous mental image of plastic Tupperware rolling out of a gash in her thigh suddenly filled her mind and it was all she could do to keep herself from breaking down into uncontrollable laughter. Tupperware containers full of frozen meatballs and lasagna, of fruit salad and leftover green beans…
Think of Jared. That’ll sober you up, you imbecile. Think of how you shot Jared, then shot him again, then shot him again until his head split down the middle and that ghostly thing came flying out of him. Think of how he’s frozen solid right now under a heap of Glad trash bags back at the Pack-N-Go, just a few yards away from poor George Farmer, who fared even worse. Not much left of poor George Farmer, who used to hand out the really big candy bars every Halloween, do you remember? You remember, don’t you, Shawnie? Of course you do. My little Shawnie…
Somehow, she made it to the stairwell. Looking up was like staring into a mine shaft. It would take an eternity plus two extra days to hoof it all the way to the top. Glancing down, she saw that she’d shed a lot of blood on the concrete floor in her trek across the basement. As she looked at the bloody smears, she felt her bladder let go and warm urine traced down her inner thighs, soaking the sweatpants.
Don’t lose focus now. You’ve done so good this far. You can make it farther. Just one foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Wasn’t there a television program or a song called “One Step at a Time” or something like that? That’s good—think of that, think of good things. Don’t think of your leg and how every time you put pressure down on it you feel like a burlap sack that’s about to get torn down the middle. Whatever you do, don’t think of that.
“Stop it.” The words came out breathy and not quite a whisper. “Please. Stop it.”
I’ll stop it if you promise to keep moving.
“Deal.”
She lifted her good leg and took the first step. It wasn’t too difficult, and this realization gave her instant hope. But then the second step came, and it was a doozy—sending shocks of electric fire soaring through her soul. Thankfully the stairwell was equipped with a sturdy handrail; she hooked onto it and threw all her support against it, the rifle now slung back over her shoulder where it belonged. Old Blue.
Holding her breath, she managed to take on two more stairs. She was really moving now. Another step…and her left knee weakened. If it hadn’t been for the handrail, she would have toppled backward, probably smashing her head on the cinder-block wall at the foot of the stairwell.
This was impossible.
No, Shawnie. Nothing’s impossible. Listen up—I’ll make you a promise. You make it to the top of those stairs and the second you swing that basement door open, this’ll all be over. Just like snapping your fingers and waking from a dream, this will all be over. How does that sound? One foot in front of the other and let’s just see how bad you want to wake up from this nightmare, Shawnie. Let’s see how bad you want it, girl.
Bad. She wanted it bad.
Gripping the handrail tighter, Shawna pulled herself up another step…then another…then another. Several more steps ahead of her the basement door was closed. She could make out the faint crack of daylight at the bottom of the door. It would be good to see daylight again. It seemed like centuries since she’d seen daylight.
Somehow she made it to the top. Steadying herself against the wall, she reached down and twisted the doorknob in her sweatsticky hand. Already her mind was wandering through a blessed valley, free of this nightmare. When she swung the door open, she was already wearing a wan smile.
The upstairs hallway was choked full of people.
Townspeople—all of them crowded together in the hallway,
their heads slightly bowed, their eyes shut. They were packed together like stowaways in the cargo hold of a steamship. The sound of their joined slumber was like a thousand bees buzzing.
Shawna stumbled and fell backward down the basement stairs. She cracked her head smartly against the wall halfway down, but that was quickly eclipsed by the shock of searing pain she felt race like fire up her leg. The rifle came loose of its shoulder strap and clattered down the stairs on its own where, upon striking the wall, it fired a single round into a section of drywall.
Shawna struck the basement floor at the foot of the stairs, the back of her head up against the cinder-block wall. Her vision briefly blurred…but when her sight returned, all she could see were the countless eyes—the open eyes—of the townspeople standing in the rectangular frame of the basement doorway directly above her.
She managed to turn her head just enough to see Old Blue on the last step. Close…but too far out of reach. Anyway, she couldn’t move.
Couldn’t—
There rose a shrill cry in unison as the townspeople poured through the doorway and fought over one another to get down the stairs. To get at
her.
Shawna screamed and somehow managed to launch herself forward. Two of her fingertips actually grazed the hilt of the rifle before the townsfolk were upon her, clawing and tearing and biting and ripping. They got into her leg wound and tore her calf open like a bag of frozen peas.
—make a promise to you make a promise if you make it to the top of those stairs you can wake up wake up wake up you can wake up if you make it to the top to the top of the—
Blessedly, she didn’t live long enough to suffer the worst of it.