Allison sat between Drew and Sammy, her shoulders touching both of them. Sweat coursed down her brow and ran into her eyes. She kept swiping at her forehead with the back of her arm, but it didn’t help much.
John knelt in front of them, having to hunch over so his head didn’t hit the ceiling. He’d led them to a small hovel he’d built into the ground for hunting. It was only four feet high or so, and hadn’t been designed for more than one or two people. Having all four of them in there made it more than a little uncomfortable.
He kept eyeing Drew, his unease evident.
Drew looked through the foot tall opening that surveyed the woods. The trail they’d followed cut through the trees about fifty feet in front of them.
Dr. Franklin had stormed by several minutes ago, his maniacal screaming filling the forest. He hadn’t so much as looked in their direction as he’d run by.
“Everyone went crazy after answering their phones?” Sammy asked John. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“They didn’t just go crazy.” John winced. “They started slicing each other to pieces right there in the restaurant.” He gently touched his thrashed cheek. “I was in the back, trying to keep up with the orders as usual. We’ve been down a man since Joe Bob quit back in—”
“Get to the point,” Drew whispered.
“Sorry.” John straightened his back out. “I was working on some flapjacks when I heard a bunch of phones ringing, but I really didn’t think much of it. The screaming started a few seconds later. I never heard something like that before. They were just screaming, no, screeching in pain out in the dining room. It sounded like someone was butchering a lamb out there.”
Sammy reached out and took Allison’s hand. Allison squeezed it. They’d just met that morning, and Allison didn’t know much about Sammy, but at that moment, she needed the strength.
John paused and inspected his feet before continuing. “Sally Mae came out of the office then. I almost ran into her when she came through the door. I thought she was going out to the dining room with me to see what was going on.” He touched his ruined cheek again. “She clawed my face instead. She was going for my eyes.”
“Did she say anything?” Drew asked.
“Not at first. I pushed her away and then slipped on a slick spot on the floor where I’d spilled bacon grease. Cracked my head off the edge of the oven and damn near knocked myself out. Sally Mae was on me before I could get up, clawing at my neck and face again. She had this grin on her face that made me want to scream.”
“She was smiling?” Allison asked. She’d known Sally Mae for several years now. The woman was in her mid-forties and mind-numbingly boring. Allison couldn’t remember a single time that she’d seen Sally Mae smile. All she did was agonize over her diner and complain about the patrons. Calling her humorless would be an understatement.
“Like a fox.” John shivered. “I kicked her back and pulled myself up, hollering for her to stop. Begged her to stop. She grabbed a knife instead.”
“Oh, god.” Sammy’s grip turned into a vice around Allison’s hand.
“I tried to run away, but the floor was just so slick. I knew I should have cleaned that up when I spilled it, but…” John gulped. “She lunged at me with the knife, but her foot slid in the grease and she… she fell on the knife. When I went back to help her, she pulled the knife out of her stomach and tried to cut me.”
“She wasn’t concerned about just stabbing herself?” Drew asked.
John shook his head. “She got up and came at me again. Then she started taunting me.”
“Taunting you? After stabbing herself?”
“She called me a pussy. She said I didn’t have a girlfriend because I liked dick. Sally Mae had never even sworn in front of me before. When people used foul language in the restaurant, she would threaten to kick them out. She said vulgarity was for simpletons.” John paused and fiddled with the bolt action on his rifle. A tear spilled from his eye, running into one of the gashes on his check. If it hurt, he didn’t show it. “There was so much blood coming from her stomach. It was so dark, so thick. She slipped in the blood again and fell onto the stove.”
Drew finally peeled his eyes from the forest and looked at John. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.” He put a hand on John’s shoulder. “It’s really important that you try to remember if she said anything about the call she got. Did she mention a sound? A voice? A signal?”
John shook his head. “Nothing about the call. Just about me. Her hand sizzled on the stove stop. She was screaming in pain when I ran out of the kitchen. I wanted to stay and help, oh God did I want to.” He gave Allison a pleading look. His words came faster and faster. “But I was so scared. I just, I couldn’t. I ran into the dining room, not even thinking about the screams I’d heard in there.”
“Take it easy, John. You’re safe now.” Allison touched his knee with her free hand. “We’re OK here.”
“Yeah.” John nodded timidly. “Yeah, we’re OK. But not the people in the dining room. They were—they were—dismembering a woman by the front door. They were using the little steak knives we give people for breakfast and—”
John’s face pinched.
His shoulders hitched.
Then he burst into tears.
He let out a sob that was much too loud considering there were men in the woods looking for them. Allison slid over to him and threw an arm around his shoulders. She did her best to soothe him as he quivered against her.
Drew looked at Sammy. “We have to be prepared for something.”
Sammy’s eyes had moistened. “What?”
“This might be more widespread than we’d thought. This could be happening outside of Arthur’s Creek.”
“Oh, Jesus. Don’t say that.”
“I’m not saying that it has, but we need to be prepared for it. There might not be any help for us out there.” Drew set his jaw. “I shouldn’t have let Ash and Nami go in there by themselves. They walked right into an inferno.”
Sammy blinked away tears. “You don’t think—?”
Gunfire erupted in the forest somewhere behind them.
The barrage, constant and almost high-pitched, was unlike anything Allison had ever heard before.
“What is that?” she asked.
Drew’s lips pressed into a thin line. “That’s the minigun.”
The powerful drone continued on, unimpeded, filling the air with the cacophony of war.