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As I reached the hedge, the young cop was standing there, looking indecisive. He put his hand on his gun and said to me, “Hey! Stop! Stop right there!” He began fumbling with his holster strap when Barnes yelled from the front porch steps of Ralph’s house. I stopped anyway. I didn’t want to be shot by some nervous cop.
“Let him go, Tim! I told him to run!”
Tim looked at the three cops hustling across Ralph’s front yard.
“Call for another ambulance, Tim! We need another ambulance! Now!”
The young cop, Tim, turned and ran to the first squad car that had arrived, and began calling his dispatcher for another ambulance. The paramedics were just loading the stretcher, which held Ralph inside of a black body bag, into the back of the ambulance, and they were still wearing their Hazmat suits. Barnes and Mitchell were literally dragging Richards to the ambulance.
“Hey! Hey!” yelled Barnes. One of the Hazmats turned around. Barnes said, “This man has been bitten by one of the creatures! Get him to the hospital right away! There isn’t much time!”
Richards was protesting as the four men forced him into the ambulance. “No, wait, guys! You know me! It’s Richards, man, come on! Nothing’s wrong with me!”
In the most chilling thing I had seen so far, not because of the act, but because of the implications of the act, Barnes used his handcuffs to attach both of Richards hands to a handrail inside the ambulance. “Now, go!” shouted Barnes, as he shut the doors on Richards protests. He banged twice on the closed door. The driver climbed inside without taking off his Hazmat suit, and the ambulance pulled away with lights flashing and siren wailing.
Something occurred to me as I watched the ambulance pull away, and I turned to Barnes. “Officer Barnes...,” I said.
“Sergeant, Mr. Stiles.”
I shrugged. “Sergeant Barnes, then. I have a question.”
Barnes looked around at the neighbors gathered in the street, and called out to Tim and Mitchell. “You two put some tape around these two houses, and get those people back on the sidewalks away from here! Go!” The other two cops hurried off to do what Barnes had told them.
“Okay, Stiles, looks like we have a minute to ourselves. What’s your question?”
“When you left to check on Catherine, one of the paramedics said, ‘Looks like number twelve.’ What did he mean by that?”
Barnes took a breath like he was about to tell me to mind my own business, but something in my eyes must have changed his mind. I followed up on my question.
“Something else, too. You were awfully quick to hustle Richards off to the hospital. I think you know something you’re not sharing. I’d like to know what it is,” I finished.
Barnes was silent as he looked out at my neighbors. Then he looked at the two cops herding them all back away from my house and Ralph’s.
Finally, Barnes turned to look at me. “Mr. Stiles...,” he started.
“Paul,” I interrupted.
Barnes smiled grimly at me. “Paul. My name is Bobby. And you can thank God tonight that you weren’t infected. We’ve had calls all over the city.”
“What are those things?”
Bobby shook his head. “Nobody knows. They’re nothing anyone has seen before. We aren’t sure where they came from, and we don’t know how to kill them all.” He snorted derisively. “We can’t even tell when people are infected. Not until they have those empty eyes.”
I started. That was the first thing I had noticed with Ralph, and I said so.
Bobby nodded. “Yeah, but your neighbor was in the last stages. The empty eyes show up about three hours before they vomit out everything. Even then, the bodies carry the eggs inside. The eggs are the black...goo, I guess...that comes up with the blood.”
“The squirmers that Ralph hurled out all seemed to die in the sunlight.”
“They aren’t dead.”
I looked at Bobby. “Say what?”
Bobby shook his head. “Those things aren’t dead. Sunlight doesn’t kill them. It only stuns them...makes them go dormant.”
“Dear God. Who knows about this, Bobby? What’s being done?”
“I know that three professors from the city’s university are all locked up tight in their quarantine area. They’re working on the problem, but they aren’t coming outside. They have plenty of food and water in there, and they’re making sure that nothing gets to them. One professor each of biology, physics, and chemistry. They each have an assistant inside with them, and that’s it. I don’t know what they’ve learned, and I don’t know who’s been told.”
“Somebody needs to alert the CDC in Atlanta! Warn the Feds! Get it on the news channels! Bobby, we’ve got to warn people!”
“Warn them against what? We don’t even know how these things spread! Richards was the first one we’d seen that had a creature infect with direct entry, but the rest of the infected people are a complete mystery! We don’t know if the eggs are spread on the wind, or through the water, or just by walking on the ground.”
“But people still need to be warned! Maybe they can protect themselves somehow.”
Bobby looked at me. “Paul, be real. People would simply panic. They’d begin killing each other off from simple fear.” He looked around at the line of neighbors again. “You married, Paul?”
I nodded. “Yeah, with two kids.”
“They inside?”
“No, the kids are at the movies, and my wife is doing some work at her office downtown.”
“Want some advice?”
“Sure.”
Bobby looked around again. “Round ‘em up, pack ‘em up, and get them the hell out of here. Go somewhere far away from everyone. Protect yourself and your family.” He started to walk away, then stopped and turned back to me. “But don’t wait too long. Go before you can’t.”
I carefully considered his advice. And, on the spur of the moment, I made a decision.
“Bobby!”
He stopped walking, and turned back to me.
“Do you have a pad and pen I could use for a moment?”
“Okay.” He dug in his pockets and pulled out both items, then handed them to me.
I took them, and scribbled an address, and some rudimentary directions.
“Are you married, Bobby?”
He shook his head. “Divorced.”
I handed him his pad and pen. “This is the location of the cabin we own in the mountains. That’s where we’ll be. If it gets really bad, come there. We’d be glad to have you.”
The man actually smiled. “Thanks, Paul. I may take you up on that.”
I nodded at him, pulled out my cell phone, and called Phyllis as I walked toward the house.
###
PHYLLIS WAS FULL OF questions after I explained the day’s happenings. For most of her questions, I had no answer to give her.
“So, based on what this cop said, we’re going to pack up and leave town,” she said, with a slightly derisive tone.
“Yes,” I replied. “For a few days, at least.”
“Do you have any idea how much work I have to do? It’s not tax season, but it’s earnings season, and some of our companies are demanding...,” she started, then paused. “Paul, one of the kids is calling me. Hold on.” She put me on hold.
I was thinking of ways to convince her that we had to go when she finally came back on the line.
“Paul, start packing. Let’s take both the SUV and the car. We can take more with us that way.”
“What happened, Phyllis? Are the kids okay?”
“That was Keith. The kids are fine, but they said that three people in the theater threw up, and ambulances carried them away. Keith is trying to be brave, but it’s only for Clarissa’s sake. They’re scared.”
“Okay, I’ll get started. We need to stop by the supermarket on the way to the cabin. We have to take as much as we can, and keep clothes to a bare minimum. We can wash clothes, but food will be at a premium.”
“You’re right, Paul. I’ll leave a note on Browning’s door, just in case he doesn’t answer the phone. I’ll let him know that I have to take a leave of absence, and that I don’t know how long I’ll be. Then, I’ll go get the kids and come straight home.”
“Okay, Phyl. Be careful, honey. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Paul.”
We disconnected, and I went to the garage to dig out the suitcases.
I noticed that the Cub Cadet was still standing guard in the front yard, offering a sober reminder that my next door neighbor had just died there.
###
BY THE TIME PHYLLIS got home, most of the crowd had gone. The ambulance had come and gone next door, and the Johnsons’ house had been sealed. The yellow tape had been moved so that my driveway wasn’t blocked by it, but a square of tape surrounded the Cub Cadet. The fence of tape was four feet long on each side, and had been erected by using leftover wooden pickets from another neighbor’s fence.
I went outside to meet them, mostly to keep the kids from getting too close to the lawn mower. I hugged and kissed each one, then hugged my wife fiercely.
I got the rundown about the people throwing up in the theater from Keith. He said that while no one had thrown up in their movie, they had heard about it from people that had seen it in their own movies. Since the average movie lasts two hours or less, that meant that those people had moved through to the final stage faster than Bobby had estimated to me, because no one had noticed anything about the infected people’s eyes.
I warned the children not to go near the lawn mower, and began discussing how best to load the SUV with Phyllis. Suddenly, Clarissa cried out.
“Mom! Dad! There’s something under the lawn mower!” she said with excitement.
“What?” I asked incredulously.
“I saw something move under the lawn mower!” Clarissa repeated.
We all watched the bottom of the lawn mower. After a moment, something shifted underneath. It looked to be about the size of a large rat...or a small dog.
My stomach sank. Whatever those things were, they were growing.
The sun was still out, so I wasn’t worried about it coming out from underneath the mower. Yet. But, when the sun went down? Yes, I believed it would come out them. Oh, yeah. Of course it would.
That’s when the nightmares always come out.
To Phyllis, I said, “Let’s go finish loading. Now.”
“What is that, Paul? What is that under there?”
“I don’t know, Phyl, but it was less than three inches long when Ralph threw it up. Let’s get moving now, please. I want to get on the road to the cabin before dark.”
Keith was already pulling his sister into the house, and I took Phyl’s hand. At the garage, I pushed Phyl inside and said, “Go easy on clothes – we can wash them, or wear most for more than one day. Suitcases go into the car’s trunk. Load every bit of food we have in the kitchen into the SUV as soon as I turn it around and back it up to the garage. Ice chests are in the kitchen. I’ll put down the back seats to give us more room. We’ll stop at a supermarket on the way out of town. Now, go...hurry!”
Phyl nodded, and the kids ran to their rooms to pack. As I started to pull away, my wife pulled me back. “Will we be okay, Paul?”
“I certainly hope so, Phyl. But, I won’t lie – I just don’t know!”
I let go of her hand and went back to the SUV. I kept a wary eye on the lawn mower as I turned the SUV around and backed it to the open garage. As I got out and walked around the vehicle, I happened to glance at the upstairs window next door.
In the Johnsons’ upstairs window was a squirmer, but this thing was at least a foot long. It was clinging to the glass, tapping it with its one antenna. One of its six legs was huge, with a pincer-like claw at the end. As I watched, it raised that claw and brought it down on the window with a sharp rap. The glass held, but if that thing got any bigger or stronger, the glass would shatter.
Then it would be loose.
Was this what was lurking under the lawn mower, awaiting its opportunity to escape once the sun was down? And what about the others locked inside Ralph and Catherine’s house? Were they searching for ways out as well? Of course they were! But, unless a window was open, or a vent opened directly to the outside, they couldn’t get out. Not until the sun went down. How did they breathe, hatching inside human bodies that way? If they can hold their breaths inside a body, couldn’t they...?
I broke into a sprint, dashing into the house. As I slammed open the kitchen door from the garage, I noticed that Phyl was loading an ice chest.
“Where are the kids?” I excitedly asked. “Hurry! Where?”
Puzzled, Phyl said, “In their rooms, I guess. What’s wrong?”
“Come on!” I shouted, as I ran down the hall to the stairs.
At the downstairs guest bathroom, I skidded to a halt, and Phyllis stopped behind me. I was watching carefully, and listening with every ounce of hearing that I possessed.
Something was in the toilet. I could hear the water moving quietly.
The lid popped up a couple of inches, then slammed back down.
“Oh, my God,” whispered Phyllis, with terror in her voice.
“Go upstairs, and make sure the kids aren’t using the bathroom. I got this,” I whispered.
The toilet lid popped up another couple of inches, then banged down again.
“Go!” I whispered urgently.
Phyllis ran for the stairs.
Now I was faced with the problem of trapping that thing inside the toilet. I thought rapidly, and, as the toilet lid popped up and banged down again, I did the only thing I could think of on short notice.
I flushed.
I heard the creature splashing and floundering as I picture it swirling in a rapid circle as the water went down the hole.
Our guest room still had a thirty-two inch old color television, and it weighed at least fifty pounds. I unplugged it and disconnected the cable from it, took it into the bathroom, and perched the heavy old beast on the toilet lid.
One down. Two to go, and both were upstairs.
“Paul! Come up here, quick!” yelled Phyllis from the top of the stairs.
I ran as fast as I could, only stopping to grab a golf club out of the bag of clubs that I’d been meaning to sell and hadn’t gotten around to yet. I dashed up the stairs and found Phyllis and Clarissa in the hallway outside the kids’ bathroom.
Keith was inside, being bounced up and down as he stood on the toilet seat.
The creature inside this toilet must have been much bigger, because Keith weighed around eighty pounds. He was having trouble keeping his balance with each bounce, and he looked terrified.
“Hold on, buddy!” I shouted.
I ran to our bedroom and opened my closet. On the top shelf, my probing hands found my double-barreled, side-by-side 12-guage shotgun. I pulled it down and broke it open quickly. Then I reached up and found the wooden box that I used to hold ammunition for my shotgun, my rifle, and my .357 Model 19 Smith & Wesson revolver. I grabbed a handful of shotgun shells, loaded two into the gun, and went back to the bathroom.
“Phyllis, when I say the word, you grab Keith and carry him out of the bathroom as fast as you can. I’ll shoot the thing if I have to, but maybe we can just close the bathroom door and keep it inside long enough for us to get out of the house.”
Phyllis nodded. “Okay, be ready, and be careful, Paul.”
I nodded as I shouldered the shotgun. Phyllis went into the bathroom and opened her arms in preparation of grabbing Keith.
I set myself, and said, “Okay, go!”
It seemed as if everything moved in slow motion even though it only lasted a few seconds.
Phyllis grabbed our son and dashed for the door of the bathroom. She had made two steps when the lid exploded upward, water splashed out all over, and the creature leapt from the toilet and landed on the floor of the bathroom. Phyllis got out of the bathroom, and the creature turned toward me, as I stood there in the doorway. I had no time to grab the know and close the door, because I could see its back leg muscles bunching for another jump. This thing was the size of a dachshund. Phyllis and Keith had barely cleared the door when I took aim at the creature, and pulled the trigger. The shot caught the creature in mid-jump, and it exploded into black goo that covered the bathroom wall behind it. All six legs detached from its body. The head of the thing landed against the shower curtain, and slowly slid down into the tub, leaving a black, viscous trail as it slid.
The shot had been incredibly loud inside the small room, and my ears were still ringing. I could hear Phyllis and the kids crying. Then I heard Phyllis screaming and pointing toward our bedroom.
Coming out of the bedroom was another one of the squirmers. It had obviously came out of the toilet in the master bathroom.
Phyllis and the kids were scrambling backwards away from the creature. All three were screaming and crying, and the scene threatened to sink into confusion and desperation.
I brought the shotgun to my shoulders again, and pulled the trigger once more. This creature exploded into the same black goo.
I turned toward the bathroom to shut the door, and as I grabbed the knob, I saw small squirmers wiggling around in the goo from the first creature that I had shot. They were all making their way to the bathroom door. I slammed the door, and saw that more of the baby squirmers were coming down the hall from the remains of the second creature.
“Okay, screw this! We’re leaving now!” I yelled to Phyllis and the kids.
Phyllis grabbed Clarissa’s hand, and I took Keith’s. We went downstairs. I told them to grab what they could, and to put it in the car. I went to take a peek into the guest bathroom, and the TV was bouncing slightly and rocking back and forth. Something was for sure trying to get out. Right after I slammed the bathroom door shut, I heard the old faithful Sanyo crash to the tiles, and something slammed against the door from the inside.
I didn’t wait to see what it was.
I hurried to the kitchen, wishing that I had been able to get my rifle. My .357 revolver was hidden in the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator, so I managed to get it and tuck it under my waistband behind my back. The big ice chest was almost full, so I finished loading it with frozen food, mostly meats, and slammed it shut. I picked it up and carried it to the SUV.
Phyl had the kids safely tucked into the car’s back seat. If we made it through the supermarket safely, one of the kids would ride with me.
“Okay, Phyl, we stop at McKelvie’s Foods. Keep your cell phone handy, and if it doesn’t look safe, we won’t go in,” I said.
Phyl nodded. “Okay, Paul. Please be careful.”
I nodded, and handed her the shotgun after I had loaded it. I also gave her all of the shot shells that I had left...seven. We might have to make another stop on the way to the cabin, just to buy more clothes and some ammunition.
The cabin itself had electricity. It had belonged to my parents. After one of my books had sold really well, I had installed solar cells and batteries, along with three windmills, so the cabin had electricity...at least enough to run a freezer and refrigerator, maybe enough to run a few other things, too.
As I climbed into the driver’s seat of the SUV, I couldn’t help looking over at the Johnson house one more time. The squirmer was still in the upstairs window, and it seemed bigger. It was still banging that claw against the window, and as I watched, the window cracked.
My beautiful new Cub Cadet lawn mower was rocking back and forth, as if something was anxiously trying to escape.
Yes, it was definitely time to leave.
I started the SUV, pulled down the driveway and into the street. Phyllis followed almost on my bumper. I glanced at the houses across the street. I couldn’t help myself.
I didn’t see anything at the Millers’, but there was a good-sized squirmer in the upstairs front window of the Taylors’. The Taylors lived immediately across the street from the Johnsons, and they also had a corner house. It looked as if the squirmers had traveled the sewers to our place, and the two houses across the street. They may have gone further, but I wasn’t turning around to find out. I turned right on Oak, which would take us to the suburbs on the west side of town, where all of the big box stores lived. McKelvie’s Foods was there, and the sporting goods store was in the same shopping strip. If they looked clear, Phyl could get food, and I could get ammunition, at least one more shotgun, and a couple of rifles. I thanked God that there was no waiting period for long guns.
My phone rang. It was Phyl.
“Paul, how’s the gas in the SUV?” she asked, after I had answered the phone.
I looked at the fuel gauge. “I have a quarter of a tank.”
“That’s about what I have,” Phyllis replied.
“Okay, we’ll stop along the way...after we hit McKelvie’s.”
“Whatever you think, honey. Have you thought to turn on the radio?”
I mentally slapped myself on the forehead. “No, I honestly haven’t thought about it.”
“Would you mind? I don’t want to for a couple of obvious reasons,” she said. I knew that she meant the kids.
“Okay, baby, I’ll call you back if I learn anything,” I said. We disconnected.
I turned on the radio, and pressed the “seek” button. When it stopped on music, I pressed it again. Finally it stopped on an all-news station in our city.
“...backed up all along the east side of the city. If you’re heading east, don’t take the freeway. If you’re heading west into the mountains, everything looks clear right now. We don’t know a lot about the bugs, but we have reports coming in from all over. It appears that they first appeared on the outskirts of the east side of the city, and have been working their way steadily west. Emergency officials say that the bugs are growing larger after they’re thrown up by infected people. They are carnivorous, and cannibalistic. Leaders are working on a way to kill the bugs, but have been unsuccessful so far. No one knows where they came from, and no one knows whether they’re even from this planet. At least, no one official is sharing that information with us. Once again, if you’re trying to get out of the city, stay off of the freeway to the east of town. It’s one long chain reaction crash, for over a mile or more...”
I snapped the radio off, and called Phyllis. When she answered, I told her what the radio had said, then I said, “Whatever we do, we need to hurry through the supermarket, and I have at least two other places that I want to go. We need ammunition, and we need a laptop, since I didn’t have time to grab mine.”
I could see Phyl nodding in my rear view mirror, then her voice came. “Okay, Paul. And we can fill both vehicles up a little farther west, if you don’t mind.”
I chuckled grimly. “I don’t mind a bit. I’m hoping that the flow of bugs will slow down once we’re out of the city.”
“Me, too, honey.”
We disconnected.
###
THE PARKING LOT AT McKelvie’s wasn’t crowded, and I could see people milling around inside. Michael’s Sporting Goods was also open, and I could see a couple of people inside there, too. I parked, and Phyl parked beside me. We all got out of the vehicles, and met beside the shopping cart return.
“Here’s what we need to do. Keith, you’re coming with me over to Michael’s. Clarissa, you go with your mother, and fill up with canned stuff. As much as you can get. Veggies, canned meat, fruit...just whatever. Also, spaghetti sauce, pasta, and Parmesan cheese. Things that will keep without refrigeration. Get butter, because we can freeze it, and a couple of gallons of milk...”
Phyllis held up her hand. “Why don’t you and Keith go get the hardware, and meet us inside McKelvie’s. That way, you and I can each have a cart, and the kids can have a cart. That should hold most of what we need.”
I smiled at my wife. Typical accountant, thinking logically again. “Yes, ma’am. And, Phyl?”
“What, dear?”
I kissed her and said, “Keep your eyes open.” I looked down at our daughter. “That goes for you, too, ‘rissa.”
“Okay, Daddy,” said Clarissa.
We parted ways, and Keith and I headed for Michael’s.
