Waiting Out Winter (7 page)

One thing about wild packs Nick had always found interesting was that coyotes were terrified of wolves. Humans had been creating monsters out of them for centuries, most notably Red Riding Hood and werewolves, but really had no modern cause for concern. Wolves never entered town. Sure an occasional bear would get stuck in a tree at the park, or a raccoon would be caught in a live trap and returned to the woods rather than left to hang out in a garage, but wolves were more afraid of humans and less interested in getting over that for the sake of food.

Or at least they were until they got sick.

While Sarah had seemed to have all her faculties right up until the end, Nick had to believe the animals were affected differently. The snarling and baying held no romantic quality in the empty streets. It was nothing short of menacing after sundown. And the night the infected pack figured out the smells of food came from behind the barricaded windows, a nightmarish fairytale came to life.

The first scream woke Nick. It took him a second to figure out why he was awake in the first place and he mentally checked off a list of possibilities: need to piss, nightmare, kid by the bed tugging on him--nope. Then he heard the second scream and leapt from the covers. Within moments he was at the door to the boys’ room, but they were tucked in and sleeping soundly. The lump that was Emily under her Winnie the Pooh blanket moved with rhythmic breaths and he knew she was still happily unconscious. He closed the door and headed down the hall toward the living room.

“Shhhh…” Jerry’s voice came from somewhere behind the flashlight which blinded Nick unexpectedly.

“What the hell was that?” Nick whispered and joined his brother-in-law.

“Wolves.”

“But it sounded like a scream. Bobcats sound like that, not wolves.”

“No. Wolves attacking humans. You heard the humans.” Jerry turned away and went to the window.

Nick didn’t mind the vigilance Jerry had taken on after the death of Sarah, but the truncated sentences were annoying. He felt like he was trying to get information from a teenager that didn’t understand they should just tell you the whole story, with full sentences, rather than make you keep asking for the next portion. He huffed under his breath and prepared to start the cat and mouse game to get information out of his brother-in-law, when he heard his name whispered.

Jerry extinguished the flashlight and then pulled the duct tape from the peek hole they’d cut out, motioning Nick to come look. “They broke into the house over there a few moments ago.”

Nick peered into the moonlit darkness, unsure which house Jerry had referred to until he saw the broken picture window and pacing pack. “How many went in?”

“Two. They banged against the door for a while before taking a stab at the window. When they got in, I heard a gunshot and saw a flash, but since then it’s been nothing but screams.”

Nick watched the pack pace in the street, obviously agitated or anticipating food, and wondered how long before they would systematically go from picture window to picture window along the block. He didn’t have to wait long, as Emily squawked down the hall to announce she’d woken for some apparent reason and the pack turned as one to stare back at him.

A large, exceptionally mangy wolf leapt toward the house and Nick backed up instinctively. Jerry stood his ground and watched the animal for a moment before walking over to the fireplace and grabbing his hunting rifle off the mantel. Nick hadn’t noticed it there and wondered whether the 30-06 was new tonight because of the pack, or if Jerry kept it handy every night.

Outside, two more wolves bounded into the snow covered front yard and began to pace in front of them. Nick turned to Jerry. Jerry looked past Nick down the hall to his crying daughter. Without a word, Nick understood. Jerry had the gun and he wasn’t giving it up, so Nick turned to attend to his niece and quiet her before the wolves broke in. Unfortunately, he understood Jerry’s thoughts a moment too late, and as he took a step toward the hall the window exploded behind him, catching him off guard. Nick dropped to a squat in a reactionary defensive move, twisting him back around to face the danger.

The rifle was deafening in the quiet house and even though Nick hadn’t been looking directly at it, he was momentarily blinded. His mind, however, had not been paralyzed, and he lunged at the fireplace, groping for the poker he knew was there, to arm himself in some way against the intruder. When his eyes readjusted he saw the dead wolf lying at the base of the window. Two more used its carcass as a landing pad, as they entered the house and immediately turned toward the small noises Emily continued to make down the hall.

“What the hell?” Nick and Jerry turned at the sound of Jamie’s voice. Jerry followed the wolves with the barrel of the gun rather than his eyes. Nick grabbed the flashlight from the table and flashed it down the hall, screaming as he illuminated the danger to his wife.

“Get back!” He saw the white of Jamie’s eyes and heard her gasp, as she spun on one foot and sprinted to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

“Shit! Not the bathroom…” Jerry lowered the gun. The wolves chased Jamie and slammed into the door as she shut it behind her. “She’s in the line of fire.” He glared at Nick and headed toward the hall. Nick peeked outside, checking on the rest of the pack and wondering why they didn’t all follow into the houses to feed, before remembering pecking order ruled wild canines at mealtime.

The snarling wolves banged against the bathroom door. Jamie’s screams behind it muffled Emily’s cries. “Kill them!” She hollered over and over, and Nick could imagine her flinching every time the wolves slammed against the door. He was impressed the door hadn’t crumbled yet, as he didn’t think the interior doors of the house were sturdy enough to ward off a determined attack, and he wondered if Jamie was pushed up against it to give it added strength.

“Shoot them.” Nick whispered to Jerry, pleading for him to either deal with the situation or hand over the gun. Nick’s own gun was in the bedroom, but the wolves were between him and it, and he wished he had grabbed it when he’d jumped out of bed. Cursing himself, he urged Jerry to act, “Shoot them, for God’s sake.”

Jerry nodded and aimed low at the first wolf’s form. Nick saw his eyes glance up at the door and wondered if he were gauging where Jamie was standing. He watched Jerry finger the trigger and knew they’d only have one shot to do this right before the wolves likely turned their attention back to the men or the bedroom housing the crying meal ticket. He waited a moment, until he was sure Jerry was seconds from firing, and yelled at his wife. “Get in the bathtub!”

The shot was deafening. The yelp was unmistakably pain. The crash behind the door was followed by a muffled vulgarity.

The bullet had entered the wolf’s spine just as it had slammed into the door. As it slid to the ground in a lifeless pile, its blood smeared the cracked door. The second wolf turned and snarled at them. Nick realized they blocked its exit and raised the fire poker above his head, readying for the attack. Instead, the animal turned back to the door. Either the disease had ruined his mind and he was unaware of the danger above his hunger, or he believed the door was a way out. Ignoring the other wolf, the second one rammed into the door as Jerry took aim. With Jamie’s body no longer bracing it on the other side, it began to crack and give. In all the commotion, the little noises seemed louder than they should to Nick, as they represented his wife’s safety being shattered.

The blast caught the wolf just as the door gave way. His body tumbled through the shattered wood and veneer and skidded to a halt at the base of the bathtub. Jamie jumped up, holding the shower rod above her like a spear, and stared at the bloody mess until Nick’s voice broke her concentration.

“Jamie?”

She blinked and looked up at him before crumbling to the cold porcelain. Her shaking was visible to Nick, even in the dim hallway and he put a hand on Jerry’s shoulder to get past him. Jerry turned around to face Nick but his eyes stopped to the side of him. Nick followed Jerry’s gaze and saw Hunter standing in his bedroom doorway. Nick took a step toward the room and stopped.

Hunter stood, his legs spread in a sturdy half squat, the innocence of his crumpled Batman pajamas offsetting the seriousness in his face. The thin, Lord of the Rings toy sword he had gotten for his last birthday was held above his head with the white knuckles of his right hand. His left hand was braced against the doorframe. Steady. Equally white from pressure. His stance was protection, or at least the best imitation a seven-year-old could offer. No one, or thing, was getting into that room without going through him.

Behind Hunter, his younger brother Tyler huddled underneath the crib. The boy gripped Emily firmly in the six-year-old safety of his arms. He had her Pooh blanket wrapped around her for the dual purpose of added protection and comfort, and his eyes mirrored her own, the fear palpable in the silent tears that ran down his face. None of the children spoke. None had screamed. They were scared silent and even though the commotion had passed, they were frozen as such.

Forgetting about Jamie for a moment, Nick sidestepped to his son and gently tried to pull the sword from his hand. Hunter looked up at him with a lost expression and he could tell the boy didn’t know if he truly believed it was over. If it was really safe. Nick tugged at the sword, watching the boy’s eyes the entire time. Hunter finally released the sword, as his eyes came into focus on his father’s face, and Nick set it on the carpet. He pulled his son’s other hand from the door jam and gathered the boy in his arms.

“It’s ok, Hunter. It’s over now.”

Jamie had come from the bathroom and now pushed past the two in the doorway, Jerry right behind her, to retrieve the other children from under the crib. From the hallway, Hunter’s voice cracked, barely above a whisper.

“No it’s not. The rest of them are still out there. I can hear them.” Over the boy’s shoulder, Nick made eye contact with Jamie and Jerry. Jerry nodded and handed Emily to Jamie before he popped open the rifle and reloaded it as he left the room.

“You stay in here with mommy. Daddy and Uncle Jerry will take care of this and be right back.” Nick urged Jamie with his eyes to come get Hunter and she read the request without question. She pulled the boy into the room and shut the door. Nick heard what sounded like the dresser being dragged in front of the door and frowned. He supposed she had had enough with broken doors and wasn’t letting anything back into that room until she knew it was safe.

Jerry stood by the window, watching the diminished pack from the edge of broken glass and flapping plastic.

“Where’d they all go?” Nick asked as he joined his brother-in-law.

“To the next house or block or neighborhood, I imagine.”

“Is it over then?”

“Not as long as this window is open, and the others are available. We can’t sit here waiting for them to die.”

“What do you want to do?”

“We’ve got to board it up. Board them all up. Do we have any planks or anything in the garage?”

“There’s one pallet left we could tear apart and use, but other than that…” The living room was barely visible in the moonlight that seeped through the broken window, but he perused its shadows for an answer.

“Doors.” Jerry set the rifle on the fireplace mantel and grabbed the tobacco tin from his back pocket. Nick knew Jerry’s nicotine supply was getting low but the dip was a requirement after the stressful events. “We’ll use the interior doors.”

Nick and Jerry quickly took the doors off the closets of the house, leaving the bedroom doors for a touch of protection and privacy, and nailed them up over the picture window frame. The shorter planks from the pallets and cupboard doors from the kitchen were used to cover the smaller windows. When they were done, Nick felt they were more fortified, but was too on edge to relax quite yet. He quietly accepted the sting in his chest, as he became even more isolated from the rest of the world.

Cabin fever hit full force just about the time Nick and the others began to hear phantom buzzing. To be honest, Nick hadn’t heard any buzzing for several months, and the lethargic winter-version of the flies had only been around for a few weeks after Sarah’s death. When they vanished, when the physical evidence of the flies was gone, everyone began to imagine the insect everywhere. It was as if the silence bred fear and initiated waking nightmares. Nick blamed the imagined fear for the very real mental breakdowns that began spreading through his house, and the town at large.

People were still getting sick, as the nature of the disease was contagion, not just the fly bites. Bodies were still being dumped in the middle of streets and burned--Jamie assumed they had been all along, but Nick hadn’t noticed it in his own neighborhood until the morning he’d done it himself. And in the silence of the pre-dawn light, late one day in January, the emotionally unstable tipped over to the other side of the scales and began acting up as if a remote had been triggered, causing them all to snap in rapid succession--a domino effect of insanity.

The three of them watched as people ran down the streets batting at swarms that didn’t exist. Children, presumed to have lost their parents and been trapped indoors with the bodies, clawed their way through boards and plastic to run wild through the streets. Parents with lost children, or adults in general who had lost hope, walked outside unprotected from either element or disease, and looked for death to take away their pain. On their supply run, Nick and Jerry saw what looked like patients in hospital gowns wandering about, knocking on random doors, and leaving a wake of terrified people in their path. Word on the rumor board--the front window of the grocery story, which had become a hot spot for people to post notes to other scavengers--claimed the homeless had been responsible for burning down businesses and at least three residential blocks in the name of infestation.