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Two men were inside Michael’s, one was behind the counter, and the other one was just staring out the window.
Keith and I walked to the man behind the counter.
“Afternoon, fellas! What can I do for you?” said the man.
I smiled at him. “Afternoon. We would like a shotgun and two rifles, and we need ammunition, too.”
“What kind of shotgun were you looking for? I’ve got a great deal on a Russian 12-guage single shot this week – only a hundred bucks.”
I shook my head. “No, I need a pump, with a magazine that holds about ten shells.”
The man smiled. “I have one that I think you’ll like.” He went to one of the racks on the wall and pulled down a beautiful gun. “Take a look at this one.” He handed it to me.
I checked it out, grateful that my family had always used guns, both for hunting and for sports. I loved them, and I enjoyed target shooting. Keith had been shooting for just over a year now, and I had just given Clarissa her second lesson. Both were taking to it like ducks take to water.
I showed Keith how and where to load the gun, and what to do to pump a shell into the chamber.
I handed it back to the man, and told him we’d take it.
“Great! That’s the shotgun! Now, what kind of rifles were you interested in?”
“I want a thirty-ought six, and is that an SKS with a wooden stock that I see over there?” I pointed to the rifle that I was talking about.
“Good eye! Yep, that’s a Russian. Shoots 7.62 x 54 cartridges. It came with a thirty-round magazine, and I think I have another that will fit it in the back room. The only brand of thirty-ought six that I have is Remington, with ten-round clips.”
“Sold.” I picked up a pad and wrote on it. “Here’s the list of ammo I need, and I’ll take all you can sell me.”
The man whistled. “Mister, you just made my week! My name’s Michael Hayes. I own this place.” He held out his hand.
I shook hands, and said, “I’m Paul Stiles. This is my son, Keith.”
Michael tilted his head. “Paul Stiles, the writer?”
I nodded.
“Well, I will be damned! I’m reading your latest book right now!” He pointed to a tablet he had put down on the counter when we came in.
I smiled. “Thank you so much. I hope you’re enjoying it.”
“Oh, yeah! I love me some Stiles stuff!” He dug out some forms and handed them to me. “Well, here’s the paperwork. And I need to see your driver’s license so that I can call in the background check.”
I handed him my driver’s license, and I filled out the paperwork while Michael called in my information.
Fifteen minutes later, we were ready to pay for our hardware. I was leaning against the counter when I happened to see something half hidden on the shelf.
It was a flare gun, still in the original box.
Michael totaled my purchases, and was about to tell me the amount when I said, “I’ll take that flare gun, too...and all of the flares that you have in stock.”
“Mr. Stiles, you just paid my rent for the month,” replied Michael, as he added everything up.
I put it all on my credit card. I handed Keith the two rifles and I tucked the shotgun under my arm. I had bought another wooden ammo box, and it was full to the brim. Michael picked up the rest of our purchases, and said, “I’ll help you carry this stuff out.”
We got up front, and the other man was still standing in the same spot.
I asked Michael if the man was okay, and Michael said, “Sure. He came in earlier, and said that he didn’t feel well, and asked if he could just stay for a few minutes until he felt better. I told him that would be fine.”
I nodded, and the three of us carried the hardware out of the store and loaded it into the SUV.
As we loaded, I asked Michael, whose last name was Thomas, what he was going to do about the bugs.
He didn’t know what I was talking about. He hadn’t heard anything, and hadn’t had the radio or television on that day. He usually surfed the internet at night, after the shop was closed and he had gone home.
I told him about my day, and what I had heard on the radio. Then, I told him where we were going. He was incredulous.
Keith was the convincer. He said, “Mr. Thomas, one of those things almost got me and my mom. It came up through the toilet, and Dad shot it with the shotgun. They’re big, and ugly, and scary. It’s okay if you don’t want to believe it, but don’t not believe it too long, because they’ll get you if you’re not careful.”
We had walked back to the front of the sporting goods store. We all three happened to look up at the same time, and we saw the man that had stayed in the store.
He bent over at the waist and vomited an ungodly amount of blood and black ichor.
“Oh, dear God,” I said. “Keith, let’s go get the ladies.”
Michael, the sporting goods man, was staring in at the mess the man had made in the front window. Squirmers were wiggling around in the goo that had splattered on the window and on the display, and the man had collapsed onto the floor below our line of sight. Michael looked stunned.
“That’s how it started for me today,” I said. I made a fast decision. “Michael, you have a while before those things become able to move around outside of the goo. If you want to come with us, we’ll go get what we can while we can out of your shop. The invitation’s there, man. You just have to make up your mind fast.”
“My van is parked right over there. I’ll pull it around to the shop, if you’ll help me load the artillery,” said Michael.
“You’re on,” I told him. To Keith, I said, “Go find your mom and tell her what happened here. Tell her that we’re bringing Michael with us, and we’ll be over to the store as soon as we can get artillery loaded.”
“Okay, Dad,” Keith replied, eyes wide with the sight of all the goo. Oh, well, it was inevitable that he would see it happen, as fast as things were moving. Off he went to find his mother inside McKelvie’s.
Michael got his van pulled around in front of the sporting goods store. When he joined me at the store’s front door, I said, “Don’t step in any of the blood or black goo. I saw a cop do that today, and one of those squirmy things crawled to him, went up his pants, and burrowed into his leg. I can’t stress to you enough how dangerous those things are, and how dangerous they become.”
“Okay, let’s do this. What do we need besides artillery? I have lots of MREs and other survivalist stuff.”
“Let’s get those for sure, and we’ll take whatever else we think we can use.”
We shared a look, and went inside.
That familiar smell hit me once again, and Michael gagged from either the smell or the goo – I wasn’t sure which. Either one was enough to cause it. The blood and goo had splattered, but the splatter was in the window and on the glass. Very little was on the floor, and for that, I was grateful.
You have never seen two men load a van as quickly as we did. We grabbed ice chests, canteens, and even sleeping bags. There were lots of cases of MREs, and we gathered all of those that Michael had in stock. We loaded guns, ammunition, and hearing protection. We loaded goggles and hunting knives, bows and arrows. And we somehow got it all inside that van.
When we left the store, the squirmers had just begun dropping off of the dais that served as the window display area, and began moving across the floor. Michael closed the door and locked it firmly.
“Now what, Paul?” he asked.
“Let’s move your van over beside the SUV and the car, then we’ll head inside McKelvie’s. How’s that?”
Michael nodded. “Sounds good.”
We got the van parked, and headed inside the supermarket.
It was not crowded at all. The store had few customers, fewer than on a normal night. We passed one of the bagboys, and I said to him, “Sure is quiet tonight.”
The boy nodded. “Yes, sir, it is. I don’t know what’s going on, but we haven’t had many customers all afternoon long.”
“Wow,” I said, or something like that.
Michael and I each pulled out a shopping cart, and began searching for Phyllis and the kids. As we passed the juice aisle, Michael said, “Do you think we should load up on this, too?”
I nodded. “Can’t hurt, can it? We don’t know how long we’ll be at the cabin, so load it up!”
Michael began filling his buggy, and I continued on to find Phyllis. She and the kids were two aisles over, in front of the canned soup.
“Daddy!” yelled Clarissa excitedly.
“Hi, Dad!” said Keith. “Did you guys get everything that we needed?”
“We sure did, son! Michael has a van, and it’s filled to the brim! Hi, honey,” I said to Phyllis. I put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her.
“So, I hear you’ve made a friend,” she said.
I nodded. “He’s coming with us, Phyl. We can sure use the help.”
“And the supplies.” In a low voice, she said, “Was it bad?”
“Yes. The bugs had just started moving out of the goo when we knocked off.”
She shook her head, as if to say, “Unbelievable.”
“Yeah, we need to hurry. I don’t want to be here when they get bigger,” I said.
Phyl had two carts. She had one that was partially full, and the cart that the kids were pushing was overloaded with cans of food, bottles of water, and boxes of things like crackers and pasta that would stay edible for a long time.
She had also gotten both powdered milk and evaporated milk. I hadn’t even thought of getting those.
“Paul, should we go now?” Phyllis asked, concern showing on her face.
“No, we have time. But let’s hurry.”
We filled up her buggy and mine, and met up with Michael, who had filled his buggy with juice, and other non-perishable goods.
When we got to the checkouts, only two were open. One was staffed by a teenage girl, and the other was staffed by a middle-aged woman. Neither one was busy, so we took the teenager, and Michael took the middle-aged woman. The two teen bagboys started bagging our purchases.
“Wow! You guys sure are buying a lot of groceries!” said our checkout girl. Her nametag read “Teresa”. “I don’t think I’ve ever done this much stuff for one customer before!” She totaled the purchase, and, as I was paying with my plastic, Clarissa nudged me.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“Look,” whispered Clarissa again, and she pointed toward the back.
On the light hood over the meat counter was a bug. But this was a new kind of bug that I hadn’t seen before.
It had wings. Long, powerful looking, see-through membranes, with veins running throughout. It had a long, sharp-looking proboscis, and one long antenna coming from the center of its head. Its eyes were, as nearly as I could tell at that distance, were solid black. Its attention was focused on the meat inside the counter. As I watched, it jumped down into the meats and began sticking that proboscis into the packages. It was about the size of a Jack Russell terrier.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered.
Phyllis heard me, and so did Teresa.
“What is it, Paul?” asked Phyllis.
I put my finger to my lips in the universal “shushing” gesture, then I pointed to the back.
Phyllis looked for a moment, not seeing it. It moved, and caught her attention. The color drained from her face.
“Paul,” she said quietly, “we have to get these people out of here...take them with us.”
I tallied up the space we’d have, and nodded. We had room.
Teresa leaned over to see what we were watching. When she saw it, she drew in a sharp intake of air, about to scream. I clamped my hand over her mouth and started whispering.
“Teresa, don’t scream. I don’t know what attracts those things, but we can’t take a chance that sound will bring it up to us. Do you understand?”
Teresa nodded. While I was talking to her, Phyllis got the bagboy’s attention, and showed him. Michael saw it, too, and showed it to the middle-aged lady – “Millie” was what her name tag read. The kids showed the last bagboy.
“Now, listen carefully,” I said. “The whole city is being gradually overcome by bugs – it’s on the news and the radio. They’re working their way west. We have a cabin in the mountains. That’s where we’re going, and Michael is coming, too. We want you to come with us, very quietly, because that thing will soon be joined by more. We have to go now. Drop everything, and let’s go.”
Teresa, Millie, and our bagboy, Richie, nodded their heads, and began to help us push the carts. The other bagboy, Tommy, wasn’t fazed.
“I ain’t afraid of no bug,” he said defiantly, with all the bluster a seventeen-year-old kid could muster. “I’m gonna kill that fuckin’ thing.”
I stopped, and motioned the others to go ahead. Out the door they went. I turned to Tommy.
“Tommy, I have no idea what that thing can do, but I strongly think you should reconsider, son,” I said quietly. “No harm, no foul, okay? Come on, let’s go.”
“Fuck that! And fuck you, mister!” Tommy had picked up a mop from a display in front of the windows. He broke the mop head off of the stick, and whacked the floor with it. “No damn bug is going to scare me!”
I caught a glimpse of something moving through the air extremely fast, and the bug flew past Tommy and smacked into the window. It righted itself, and buzzed Tommy again. He waved the mop handle at the thing and missed.
Then I heard a sound that sent chills down my spine. It sounded like a beehive, but it was as if the sound was playing through an amplifier. It was loud enough to vibrate the floor, and it was coming from the direction of the meat counter.
“Tommy!” I shouted from right beside the door. “We have to go now!” And I ducked out the door, which automatically closed behind me.
I heard Tommy shout, “No way!”
I looked back as I ran, and I saw three of the flying bugs zipping around Tommy. I stopped, fascinated by what I was seeing. They were circling around him, buzzing close to his head each time. Tommy swung the mop handle several times, but kept missing the bugs. Finally, one of them flew close enough to hit Tommy’s head. It must have bit him when it hit him, because blood started to flow from Tommy’s head in a gush. He seemed dazed by the hit, and he continued to swing the mop handle in futility. Another bug, or maybe the same one, hit him again, and knocked him to the floor. The bug dropped out of sight, followed by the other two. I didn’t go back to look.
I hurried the last few steps to the vehicles, shaking my head as I went.
Teresa timidly asked, “Is Tommy coming?”
“No, Tommy won’t be coming,” I replied.
Teresa began to cry quietly.
We got everything packed into the three vehicles. I don’t think we could have gotten anything else inside them when we were done. As it was, people were going to have to scrunch together in the car. As we were climbing into the vehicles, the sun was just beginning to touch the horizon.
We all heard a loud thump. It had come from McKelvie’s, and it was the sound of something hitting one of the huge glass windows. We all turned to look, and what we saw there chilled us to the bone.
There wasn’t an empty spot on the window inside the store. Flying bugs were covering it, fluttering their wings, and shifting their positions. We could hear tapping, and I noticed that a couple of the bugs were tapping the window sharply with their proboscises. If they all started tapping, the window could break. Or, they could find the automatic door, which would be worse.
“Okay, time to go,” I said. I gave instructions. “We won’t go by the freeway, because it will only be a matter of time before it’s completely blocked. We’ll take highway 72 all the way to Pine Valley, in the mountains. We’ll go to the cabin from there.” I started to get into the SUV, then turned back. “We have to stop for gas. There’s a town, Murray, twenty miles down the highway. We’ll stop there.”
A quick glance at Michael’s Sporting Goods told us even more. The window there was covered with squirmers that were the size of rats.
I led the way out of the parking lot. Keith and Richie rode with me in the front seat. Phyllis was second in line, driving the car. She had Clarissa and Teresa with her. Michael brought up the rear, driving the van, with Millie in the passenger seat. We didn’t bring anyone else’s car because we were going to have enough trouble finding gasoline for three vehicles. That, and we didn’t want to get too spread out from each other. We had all exchanged cell phone numbers, and Michael had brought some portable radios that he had in stock. We each had one of those, and brand new batteries to keep them powered. Their range wasn’t great, but they were better than nothing in case the cell phones stopped working.
We turned on the radio. The all-news station wasn’t on the air, but other stations were. The story had become big enough for the Emergency Alert System to be activated.
“...and all residents are urged to stay indoors. The President has ordered the National Guard activated in all fifty states to try to stop the bug advance. There seem to be several different species, and they aren’t true insects. These creatures have lungs, and are warm-blooded. Scientists suspect that the bugs have hitchhiked their way to earth on a meteor, although they bear strong resemblances to insects from the Jurassic and other prehistoric periods. DNA is being coded by top government scientists in an effort to discover...” I clicked the radio off.
I noticed that Richie had his cell phone out.
“Richie, you want to try to call your parents or something? Let them know that you’re all right?” I asked.
Richie stared out the window for a moment before he answered me. “I did. Both phones went straight to voicemail.” He turned to me with tears in his eyes. “We live in one of the subdivisions. Maple Meadows.”
That was four blocks over from our house.
“Maybe they were at work, Richie,” I said.
“They both work evenings, Mr. Stiles. They don’t go in until seven.”
I watched the road for a couple of beats. “I’m sorry, son.”
“Thank you, sir. And thank you for saving us.”
We rode in silence for a few minutes.
Keith said, “Dad, is this the end of the world?”
I smiled and said, “No, Keith.”
“But what if the bugs kill everyone?”
“The world will go on. Besides, we aren’t dead yet. And we won’t be, if I have anything to say about it.”
