Eve of Man (The Harvest Book 2) (7 page)

As the bunker residents were having their happy and
strange reunions, Kyle was recuperating in Deadbear, Alaska. Two days of rest
and he was back to feeling like himself. The aches had diminished for the most
part. Better than that, no midnight visitors or dreams of screeching monsters.
If not for seeing the footprint, he might have convinced himself it was all
imagined.

Although the town gave every indication of being uninhabited,
Kyle planned to look around before leaving. He would need supplies for the
trip, but had reservations on what he might be able to find.  First thing had
to be clothing. Still in his special suit, Kyle walked down the vacant ice
covered street to Kwiki Pete’s gas station. A sign above the door read, ‘Get it
now, cuz tomorrow it’ll be gone.’ Another sign announced ‘All your camo needs are
were right inside’. Camo was good enough for Kyle.

He grabbed the handle of the door and paused. Someone
had taped an obituary clipping to the inside of the window. The newspaper was
yellow and cracked and the writing difficult to read. However, someone had used
red ink to scrawl R.I.P. D. Reynolds across the bottom in big letters. All
around this were the faded names and initials of the bereaved. The date of Mr.
Reynolds death was some eighteen years ago. Old D. Reynolds must have been a
popular man here in Deadbear, Kyle mused. Or Kwiki Pete was too lazy to remove
the newspaper.

Inside the gas station, Kyle found the promised camo
wear. Pants, shirts, socks, boxers, and more were available in medium, large
and extra, extra large. A few children sized garments hung on the rack, but not
many. Kyle couldn’t imagine living in Deadbear as an adult, let alone growing
up there as a child. What a nightmare, he thought with a shudder.

After grabbing two pairs of everything in size large,
Kyle added four pairs of socks and a pair of boots one size too big. He threw
in a bright green and red striped scarf and hat set. This was better than the
table cloth he currently wore, which smelled like old bacon fat and cigarette
smoke. Beggars had to take what was left behind, and he wasn’t complaining. He
laid these items on the counter and went back through the station scavenging
for anything else deemed useful.

In the end, he had a small grocery cart containing the
clothing, two bags of canned food, a bag with Tylenol, aspirin and various
other medications, as well as a bag filled with several frozen bottles of water
and Gatorade. Satisfied these provisions would get him through the next couple
of days, Kyle returned to the diner with his goods.

Once back inside Terry’s Wilderness Room, Kyle heated
a can of soup on the stove and spread out a map on the counter. He ate the soup
straight from the can while looking over the map. The plan was to go across the
Norton Sound to Emmonak, a one hundred twenty mile trek and then head to
Anchorage, another five hundred miles as the crow flies. He fished a marker
from the grocery cart and traced his route to Anchorage and then on down to
Colorado. The task provided him comfort and something to do, but wasn’t
necessary. He’d studied the maps so many times over the past year, the route
was imprinted in his memory.

Wearing his new camo over his wetsuit, Kyle needed to
find heavier clothing. The wetsuit wasn’t made for permanent wear. His stomach
tightened at what he must do, but he had no other choice for now. The town
didn’t offer a shopping strip where you could get your nails done, cash in the
title to your car, grab a foot long sandwich and shop at the Big & Tall. The
gas station was it, and the only parka available had been two sizes too small.
He hoped his search would turn up what he needed and fast.

Bundled to the best of his ability, with the hat and
scarf secured tightly around his head, Kyle headed back up the street to the
residential part of town. He found a handful of small homes that were more like
shacks, and he marveled they’d survived this long in an upright position. The
first in the row seemed the ideal place to start his search.

Two broken wooden steps lead to a worn out front door.
The numbers eight zero hung lopsided from rusted nails. Kyle knocked on the
door. He waited a few seconds before trying the handle. At first it stuck and
he couldn’t help feeling relieved. He gave another hard twist and the latch
retracted. Pushing the door open, Kyle stood at the bottom of the broken steps
staring into the house. The door opened into a small living room where he could
see an old brown and blue plaid recliner and a metal TV stand. Past the chair
was a doorway leading to what he assumed was the kitchen. No sounds came from
the house. No bodies were visible from where he stood.

Taking a deep breath Kyle pulled himself up over the
steps and into the house. He looked around hoping to get lucky, but knowing he
wasn’t going to find what he needed right inside the doorway, in the safe zone.
Not going to be that easy junior. He walked through the stranger’s house, eyeballing
their personal belongings. On the other side of the kitchen he found a bathroom
and beyond that two small bedrooms.

On the wall of the first bedroom was a poster sized
picture of Thor above a twin bed. The comforter matched the poster. The bed was
empty. Kyle moved on to the next room where a queen bed took up most of the
space. On the bed was a mangled pile of quilts and sheets. Above the bed’s head
board someone had splattered dark paint.  Kyle stared at the splatter, similar
to that in the boat picture.

Not paint, you idiot.

Kyle’s eyes drifted back to the pile of blankets. The
light in the room was poor, but provided enough illumination for him to see
blood stains on the bed and floor. Not knowing why he felt compelled to walk
into the room when his body was screaming for him to turn around, to leave, to
not look any closer, he stepped closer to the bed.

Of course there’s a body under all those blankets you
fool, but you don’t need to see it. He tried to reason himself out of the room,
but was held in place by the magnetic draw of the gruesome. The appeal of the
morbid that took control of a person’s will, making them want to see things
they knew deep down they’d regret seeing. Things that stuck with you for a long
time and after having had time to fester, they came back to you in much grander
fashion than when seeing those things the first time had presented. Reason
never stood a chance against the lure of the fascinating, no matter how evil.
He had to see if this was as bad as the people on the island or if maybe those
gory details had been conjured up by his exhausted overworked brain. Yes, he
had to know, had to see, for sanity’s sake, that was all.   

Kyle reached out grasping the edge of the blanket and
pulled it back slow. The quilt caught and held. Kyle gave it a quick yank, but
it wouldn’t come free. He swore under his breath and tugged again, this time
with more force. The quilt, along with the corpse attached to it flew off the
bed knocking a startled Kyle backward onto the floor.  

“Oh shit. Oh shit.” He pushed the body off his legs
and scooted back against the wall.

The deceased lay partially exposed with the pile of
bedding tangled around its lower body. The face was mangled beyond recognition,
but Kyle gathered by the hair and clothing it was a woman. Or had been before
someone or something decided to shred her face and gut her like a pig. Through
blood matted hair, an empty eye socket looked out at him. Why would someone
take her eyes?

“Yes Kyle, why on God’s Earth would someone take my
eyes.” the corpse asked. “Have you seen my bedroom slippers dear?”

Kyle scrambled over to the doorway, keeping an eye on Mrs.
Mangled, waiting for her to rise up, to lunge after him, but she didn’t. He paused
in the doorway, his heart beating like an eight o eight drum. He wondered about
a Mr. Mangled and where Mangled Junior might be.  Were they going to want to
chat with him as well?

Kyle stumbled from the house, tripping down the steps
and out into the middle of the street. What on earth had he been thinking when
he decided to do this? Forget navigating the unforgiving wilderness of Alaska,
he couldn’t even navigate this small deserted town. He leaned over at the waist
and stared at the boots on his feet. Not his boots, but the gas station’s
boots. Not his clothes, not even his boxers. All around him silence and death
screamed at him, gnawed at his confidence, wore down his will.

Above the noise in his head an unexpected sound
floated along in the brisk wind. Kyle straightened up, and listened. Again he
heard it. The distinct sound of music. He pulled back the scarf, exposing his
ear, and cocked his head in the direction of the noise. Soon he heard it again,
loud and clear, the plinking of a piano. Kyle walked down the street towards
the plinks. The closer he drew, the clearer the sounds became. Whoever was
playing, was pretty good. He recognized the tune as something classical, but beyond
that observation hadn’t a clue. Beethoven was never his thing.

Kyle paused in front of a small blue house with white
lace curtains, a red door and steps all in one piece. The music was definitely
coming from inside. A piano player could be a psychotic killer, he supposed,
after walking up to the door and knocking. The player, or psycho killer, stopped
playing. The last note hung in the air as if it too listened. Kyle waited, but
no one came. He knocked again.

“Hello.”

The piano player killer did not answer.

He tried the handle. Locked.

“Hello,” he repeated a bit louder and knocked on the
door again. Determined to find the source of the music, Kyle twisted harder on
the door handle and banged on the door. “Come on I know you’re in there.”

“Hands in the air mister,” a girl’s voice demanded
from behind him.

Kyle started, stumbled and fell off the stoop landing
on his hip. He groaned and rolled over. “Oh shit,” he said to the end of a
double barrel shotgun. Behind the gun, with her finger on the trigger, was a
young girl. She wore a purple dress over green tights. Her feet were tucked
into florescent purple galoshes and her hair was in two long braids under a
pink knitted wool cap. Despite the weapon, he thought she appeared harmless
and, at least for now, he felt certain she was not a psycho killer.  

“Hands up,” she demanded.

Kyle held his hands in the air. “Now what?’

“You one of them?”

“One of them what?”

“One of them aliens?”

“No, not an alien. I’m an American. My name’s Kyle
Bosch.” Kyle lowered one hand.

“I said hands up mister. I’ll shoot you. I swear I
will,” she said, making her point by shoving the gun closer to Kyle’s face.

“Please don’t do that. I’m already having a bad day.”

The girl stood her ground, but Kyle could see she was
thinking things over, sizing him up, weighing her options, or chances. She
lowered the gun.

“I’m gonna lower my hands ok?” He moved slow keeping
an eye on her trigger finger.

The girl nodded, taking a step back and raising the
gun barrel a couple of inches. Her eyes remained cagey, her posture on edge.
The weapon was almost as tall as she, but she handled the weight with ease.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“McKenna.”

“Just McKenna?”

She nodded.

“Was that you playing the piano?”

She nodded again. “It’ll be dark soon.” And with that
she turned and disappeared around the side of the house.

Kyle jumped up and followed, but when he rounded the
corner she was nowhere in sight. “McKenna.”

Her head popped out from a hole in the siding. “This
way.” She pushed the siding over revealing a passage way.

Kyle knelt down eyeing the diameter with skepticism.

“You’ll fit,” she said with confidence and moved back.

About to stick his head into the hole, Kyle paused.
What if she wasn’t alone and this was a trap? A real live psycho killer adult might
be waiting inside. The word cannibal surfaced in his mind, and further fueled
his doubts. He glanced up at the gray sky. The light was fading fast. He walked
back out into the street. Was there enough time to make it to the diner, he
wondered and doubted at the same time. The two crescent suns had faded away and
the main sun was losing what little luster it had. Even running at full speed
Kyle knew he wouldn’t beat the night. Dark, he found, arrived in a blink,
falling like an iron curtain and, though not fully convinced of what he’d heard
on the island was real, confirmation wasn’t desired either. With only seconds
remaining Kyle went back to the hole and squeezed himself through.

Once inside, McKenna pulled the siding back in place. Using
a rope, she lowered a large piece of plywood over the hole. Kyle looked around
surprised to find himself in what had the appearance of a bedroom. The
furniture had been shoved to one side of the room. A dresser held several
planks of wood up against the wall. Kyle assumed a window was behind the crude
barricade.  

“Come on.” She tugged on his sleeve. “We have to get
to into the back room.”

Kyle allowed her to lead him down a narrow hallway to
another bedroom only slightly bigger than the first. Once inside McKenna shut
the door, slid three bolts into place and pulled on a curtain rope which
released an aluminum clad blanket that covered the door. From the corner a
battery powered lantern cast a dim circle of light. The single window was
covered over in layers of aluminum foil and the walls were also covered with
aluminum. Kyle stared at the foil, suppressing the tremor traveling up his
spine.