Solstice: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse (21 page)

Portia joined them, her brow pulled into a deep frown. “What the hell is that? Is George out?”

Stu paused a moment, screwing up his courage before going into the warehouse. A shaking hand wasn’t going to be much help if he actually had to use the gun. He looked at his little bedraggled group. They were waiting for him to do something, and he hated being in that position. He wasn’t a leader. Hell, sometimes he couldn’t get control of a class of a dozen overachieving high school seniors.

He glanced at their shadowy, puzzled faces once more and suddenly his heart sank. “Where the hell’s Josh?”

No response.

“Ashley, have you seen him?”

The girl shook her head. “He was drunk earlier. He came into my tent, and we watched a movie on that little DVD player. I fell asleep, and when I woke up just now, he was gone.”

Stu started toward the double doors leading to the darkened warehouse area.

“Stay with the girls,” Tana told Davis. She sprinted and caught up to Stu. “Wait.” She touched his shoulder. “What if he’s out?”

Stu checked the magazine again, although he knew it was fully loaded. “If he’s out, I’ll take his head off.”

Stu pushed through the doors into the dim stockroom and groped for the lights. Tana stayed closely behind him, her own gun ready. The air was foul with the stink of human waste. He avoided a pool of what appeared to be vomit on the floor and stepped around the corner to get a better view of the supervisor’s glassed-in office.

BAM BAM BAM

George was still in there, slapping the glass partition with his bloody hands. When he saw Stu, he began to howl like a wounded animal. The pounding speeded up, twofold.

“Teacher! Teacher! Where’s your student?” the old man cried. “Look behind you, Stu, my boy. He’s dead, hanging like a sausage in a deli.” He pointed upward, and Stu turned slowly.

From the steel beams overhead, Josh hung from a noose made of an industrial-sized extension cord. Below his swinging Nikes, a metal ladder was lying on its side. Evidently, the boy had kicked it over as he flailed until he had no more air or strength left.

“Dead, dead, dead, like me,” George chanted.

“Shut up, George,” Tana snapped. She raised the gun and pointed it at him.

“Go ahead, girl.” George laughed, his voice filled with sandpaper. “Cut him down, why don’t you? I’m starved.”

Stu slowly approached Josh’s body. It was as if he’d never known the kid. His bloated, bruised face was foreign to him. Maybe suicide was better than seeing the handsome but arrogant athlete being devoured as he stood by helplessly. Maybe Josh’s way was the best option.

“Is he—” Tana started.

“Yeah, he is.” Stu shoved his gun into the waistband of his pants and stood up the ladder. He grabbed a box cutter from a nearby shelf and climbed. “Stand back.” He cut the cord, letting the body fall to the floor in a crumpled heap.

Tana stepped closer and tried to remove the noose, but the cord had bitten into the flesh of Josh’s throat.

“Don’t bother,” Stu said, climbing back down.

George continued pounding on the window, howling shrilly and screaming obscenities.

“Go get a drop cloth from the hardware department,” Stu said. “And don’t let those girls come back here, okay? They shouldn’t see this.”

Tana vanished through the doors leading back into the store, and Stu leaned over and examined the body. There was a note pinned to the front of Josh’s golf shirt that he hadn’t noticed in his hurry to cut down the body.

If you ever see my parents again, tell them I’m sorry. I didn’t want to become a monster.

Suddenly, Stu sank to his knees, buried his face in his hands, and cried silently.

Tana reappeared with the drop cloth. “Stu?” She hugged him and stroked his hair.

“I can’t keep them safe, Tana.”

“Jesus, Stu. Nobody’s safe anymore. It’s not your fault.”

George slapped the glass and hooted. “Nobody’s safe, Stu. Look at me, ya little shit!”

Stu stood, and pulling away from Tana, stalked toward the supervisor’s office. He yanked his gun free of the waist of pants.

“Come on, little man!” George called, pounding the window. “Open that door! I’m going to rip your heart out.”

Stu pulled the key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and threw it open. Cackling loudly, George sprang at him like a cat bearing down on a mouse. The old man’s sallow face contorted into an expression of fury, his lips pulled back into a snarl, exposing even, but stained teeth. He snatched at Stu’s throat and Stu stepped back, raising the pistol. Just as George grabbed at him again, Stu pulled the trigger, painting the far wall of the supervisor’s office in thick, spoiled blood.

Chapter 31

Dover, Kent, UK

They managed to find a newer model Mini Cooper that still had some life. The intense cold had zapped most of the life from the batteries, offering only a series of hesitant clicks when Tomas tried the ignition. Tomas easily bump-started it. They moved what they could, squeezing in and out through the tiny opening between the tunnel walls and the abandoned six-wheelerclothing, Christopher’s toys, Tomas’s iPod, laptop, Melanie’s eReader. Tomas left behind his compact discs, but after a moment of debate, ran back and retrieved Springsteen’s
Born to Run
on vinyl.

“I can’t give up everything,” he told Melanie sheepishly, slipping the album beneath their bags of clothes in the tiny trunk area.

The Cooper proved to be a tight squeeze for Bo, but Christopher seemed perfectly happy to have the dopey, smiling dog snuggled next to him. With his height, Tomas looked somewhat awkward behind the wheel of the tiny car, but the small interior warmed quickly, and very soon, Christopher was sleeping. Bo lay across Christopher’s small lap, panting contentedly. Melanie felt her eyes begin to drift closed, but she forced them back open.

Tomas must have noticed. “You can sleep, if you want. We may need to stop for gasoline at some point, but it appears we have a while yet.”

Melanie smiled and rested her head against the window. “Only for a few minutes. Then I can drive,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t take her up on the offer. She doubted he trusted her driving abilities enough to get them out of pinch if they encountered Ragers. She didn’t blame him. Her snow driving wasn’t exactly up to par, either.

Still she battled sleep, watching Tomas through half-closed eyelids. He’d found her iPod in one of the small bags and plugged it into the Cooper’s audio system, foregoing the search for the Zombie Radio X broadcast for a while.

The familiar tunes comforted Melanie immediately. Indie music poured from the speakers like blood from an open vein, the guitars hypnotic. A splash of horns gave the music a Balkan vibe, the vocals high and imperfect, but lilting.

Tomas drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s not bad.”

“It’s about Anne Frank,” Melanie told him drowsily. “Neutral Milk Hotel.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The band. Neutral Milk Hotel. Americans.”

Tomas nodded. “A new band?”

“No. This song’s pretty old. A boy downloaded files onto my iPod at a party one night when I first got to campus.” She laughed, remembering the boy’s faux-coolness with his pencil-lined eyes and leather jacket.

Was he a Rager now or had he been eaten alive, screaming up at the black, black sky?

What about the singer? The band? She could make herself insane thinking of such things. She reached over and touched Tomas’s arm.

He glanced at her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I just miss… shit! I don’t know what I miss. I…” She sighed, unsure of what to say next.

Tomas took her hand and pressed his palm against hers. She wove her fingers between his.

“I miss a lot of things, too, Melanie. It’s all right to remember them, to wish for them.” He laughed. “I miss lunch on the patio, the noon sun beating down on my head, and Christopher playing with his cars and trucks in the grass. Such little things, yet they seem so far away now.” He fell silent and gave her fingers another little squeeze before letting go.

“This sucks,” Melanie whispered.

“No doubt.”

Fat, wet snowflakes splatted against the windscreen before being wiped away with the wipers. They’d left the city without seeing anyone—Ragers or otherwise—and the narrow road meandered lazily between rolling hills and thick stands of trees, creating the feeling of driving through a canyon. The eerie “northern lights” had returned, a swirling mess of violent colors bruising the sky behind the low clouds.

Christopher stirred. “I need to pee, Daddy. Can we stop?”

“Sure can.” Tomas pulled to a halt in the middle of the lane, climbed out, and flipped up his seat to allow Christopher to scramble out of the small car. Melanie grasped Bo’s lead and brought him out, as well.

The little boy stood in the headlights and took a leak, his stream of urine steaming as it hit the cold air. Melanie walked with Bo. She needed to go, as well, but waited until Christopher finished. It was the end of the world, but there was no need to become too familiar.

Christopher paraded around the rear of the car, zipping up as he walked. “Daddy’s peeing in the road, just like me.”

“At least I decided not to do it in the headlights,” Tomas shouted over his shoulder.

“Take Bo,” Melanie said, handing the lead to Christopher. “I’m next.” She found a wadded up tissue in her pocket and headed over to the inky shadows of the trees. The air smelled of winter—clean snow and evergreens.

When finished, she straightened and closed up her jeans, hurrying toward the car. She was ready to warm up and perhaps find a place to stop for a while.

Soon, they were on their way again, the car slipping and sliding from time to time in the ice. The Cooper didn’t have the Rover’s traction, and Tomas drove slower, more cautiously, the world out the window gliding by at an excruciating rate.

“Look, Melanie! Look, Daddy!” Christopher cried suddenly.

To the right, the land sloped to a steep valley, and from the road, she could see lights brightening the countryside. Fires dotted the landscape, but it was impossible to tell what exactly was burning. Against the starkness of the snow, the flames appeared like Yule candles.

“Father Christmas! Is Father Christmas going to come again, Daddy?”

“Not this year.”

“Has he forgotten us?”

“I don't know.”

“Jesus has,” Christopher said matter-of-factly.

The snow began to fall faster.

***

“They saw us, I think,” Melanie said, turning around in her seat.

Four headlights swerved onto the road from the right and fell in behind the Cooper.

“Looks like it.” Tomas pressed the gas, bringing the needle to hover over seventy. The tires spun repeatedly, unable to gain leverage in the slushy snow.

The two sets of headlights gained quickly, appearing like a four-eyed monster that suddenly split into separate creatures. Their engines roared, growing loader by the moment. As the vehicles drew closer, it was easier to see what they were up against—a pair of tow trucks, both cabs full of flailing, howling male and female marauders.

The two renegade vehicles pulled up even on either side of the Cooper. Strapped to the hood of one of the trucks with two lengths of leather, was a male Rager, no more than twelve. His arms had been removed and his head whipped back and forth, his mouth in a snarl, his stringy hair flying.

“They’re going to try to pinch us out,” Tomas said. “It’s not going to work. Hold on!”

“What the hell do they want?” Melanie cried.

“I don’t know. Maybe you. Maybe Christopher. Anything else, they can get easy enough.”

Just as the trucks began to squeeze closer to the Cooper, Tomas drove his foot down on the brake pedal, and the car skidded to a violent halt, ripping hard to the left. Tomas played the steering wheel rather than fight it. The Cooper momentarily danced on two wheels, almost flipping. Melanie screamed, turned, and reached for Christopher to brace him for the impact.

The Cooper steadied and came to a complete stop as the trucks flew past. Tomas yanked the wheel around, floored the gas, and they headed back in the opposite direction.

“We’ll make it,” Tomas said. The trucks grew smaller in the rearview mirror. He switched off the headlights.

Christopher clapped his hands cheerfully. “Do it again, Daddy!”

Tomas laughed. “Maybe some other time, son.”

“What the hell—” Melanie started, her breathing coming in choppy little gasps. Her fingers busied themselves, tapping on the top of her thigh.

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” Tomas glanced at her and flashed a small, confident grin. She immediately felt better, her breathing smoothing out and growing less labored.

They veered off the road, coasting down a low sloping hillside. Snow splattered the windshield, and trees loomed like shadowy giants on all sides, but amazingly, Tomas managed to miss plowing headlong into any of them. The road vanished behind them, and after a few moments, Melanie could no longer see the headlights of the tow trucks.

“Can’t see, Daddy,” Christopher complained.

Bo hung his grinning face between Melanie and Tomas’s seats, and Melanie pushed the dog back. Melanie noticed the gas gauge was at the “E,” but said nothing. Tomas had asked her to trust him, and she did. She always had.

“Look,” Tomas said after a moment.

Melanie leaned forward and looked ahead, but she saw nothing but flying snow and low, heavy clouds. “What? I don’t see anything.”

“Through the trees. There’s a house just ahead.”

They drove out of the trees and ended up at the backside of a large farmhouse with a stone façade. From the tall stone chimney, smoke billowed up in thin, ghostly tendrils.

“Looks like someone’s home,” Tomas said.

“I hope they don’t mind company,” Melanie whispered, relieved.

Chapter 32

Folkestone, Kent, UK