Hour 23 (12 page)

Andy grabbed Chloe by the elbow. “You heard him, babe. Let’s go.”

Chloe snarled, “I’m not your babe.”

In a lightning-fast movement, Chloe kneed her right leg forward, making direct contact with Andy’s groin. Andy let out a
huff
and drooped forward. A bewildered look sprawled across his face. With one hand covering his groin and the other leaning on the hood of his truck for support, he struggled for balance.

“You fucking bitch. You just lost your way out of here—”

Chloe threw a balled up fist forward. It landed in the center of Andy’s face. He dropped to the cement on his back and watched the sky above, his nostrils filling with blood.

Chloe bent forward and grabbed Andy’s lanyard.

“Nolan, get in the fucking truck,” Chloe shouted, her chest heaving.

Nolan hopped into the passenger seat.

“What, you gonna’ steal my truck?” Andy said. He laughed so hard, he coughed. “Low and behold, the mighty Chloe.”

Chloe spit into Andy’s face. “You disgust me.”

“You’re fucked, you’re so fucked,” Andy said with a chuckle and he rolled onto his side. “As soon as I get home I’m calling the cops
and
my father’s lawyer. You’ll be so fucked. I’ll be getting a quarter off of every dollar your asshole dad makes for the rest of his life—”

Chloe kicked Andy in the neck, then climbed into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. The colossal truck roared to life.

The parking lot had mostly emptied out by then, and Chloe had no trouble peeling out onto Pigeon Hill Road. With the accelerator floored, the massive vehicle zoomed towards the valley below.

Neither Chloe or Nolan said much to the other for most of the trip back into town. The car ride was quiet and uncomfortable.

“I think…I think I’m going to be sick,” Nolan groaned, his hand on his stomach. The truck reached the bottom of the hill.

“You won’t be sick,” Chloe said calmly. Her eyes didn’t leave the road ahead and her hands gripped the steering wheel firmly. The knuckles on her right hand started turning several shades of purple and blue.

The truck sped by Nolan’s house. Nolan watched his home pass by in a blur. There were no lights on inside or other signs of life. His parents car was absent in the driveway.

Chloe glanced over at Nolan as he somberly stared out the passenger window.

“I didn’t even think—Nolan, I can stop,” Chloe offered.

“What’s the point?” Nolan asked. “They’re not home anyway.”

Chloe’s shoulders slumped. Nolan had been trying to call his parents all morning, and each call was unsuccessful. The calls either dropped, or connected to voicemail, or rang again and again without answer. She didn’t know what to say.

Chloe grinded the truck to an abrupt stop and parked it on the street in front of her home. She hopped out and met Nolan on the other side of the vehicle. He looked ready to fall apart.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said as she wrapped her arms around Nolan and pulled him close for a tight hug. “I’m sure they’re fine—”

A thunderous boom interrupted Chloe. Her and Nolan turned in the direction it was coming from and watched a bright light flash through the gloomy clouds above.

The light streaked over Pigeon Hill and lowly through the sky.

Instinctively, Chloe ran towards the front door of her house, pulling Nolan with her as she dashed. She tugged her keys from her pocket and fumbled with the front lock. Her hands turned icy and numb.

“Don’t look,” Chloe said as she pushed Nolan through the door. “Let’s just get inside.”

TWELVE

Dana had nearly reached her car when a voice shouted to her from behind.

“Where are you going?”

Dana spun around. It was Shelby, her neighbor. The two hadn’t seen each other since Dana walked Elliott earlier in the morning. Shelby was standing on her back patio, her tiny Pomeranian clenched tightly under her arm.

“You shouldn’t be going out,” Shelby said. She took long draws off a cigarette as she spoke. “Christ, haven’t you been watching the news?”

Dana slid her car keys back into her coat pocket and strolled over to Shelby’s patio. “I need to grab a few things from the grocery stor. Can I bring you back anything?”

Shelby just sighed and exhaled puff after puff of smoke. “Yeah. My husband.”

“Stan hasn’t come home yet?” Dana asked.

“He called earlier from the office. Said they were closing shop early so that everyone could go home. Be with their families.” Shelby flicked her wrist to check her watch, her cigarette rested between her lips. “That was an hour ago, Dana. An hour.”

Dana reached across the wooden railing between her and Shelby and placed a comforting hand on her neighbor’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry,” Dana said softly. “There are roadblocks all over town—they wouldn’t let me into my own high school this morning. Traffic is a disaster, there were a few accidents during my commute this morning. He’s probably just stuck—”

“He isn’t stuck anywhere, Dana,” Shelby said and she started to sob. “Something’s wrong and I know it. And this miserable phone isn’t working for shit!” Abruptly, Shelby reeled her hand back and sent her cell phone hurdling across the concrete floor of her patio. It bounced, then skipped, before sliding to a rest outside Shelby’s sliding glass door. The screen shattered.

Dana stood motionless, frozen by the awkwardness of the situation. All she wanted was to get a move on for the grocery store. After the White House’s press conference, she was certain there would be a mob swarming the local Shop-and-Save.

Shelby broke the uncomfortable silence by asking, “Do you read the bible?”

Dana looked blankly at Shelby, unsure of how to answer. As a child, Dana’s family celebrated Easter and Christmas, and as an undergraduate she read a few pages of the bible for a religious studies course. But, no—Dana didn’t read the bible.

Shelby scoffed. “These are the end times. The first bowl of judgment. I’ve been glued to my television all morning. The awful shit they get away with showing on TV now. Parents eating their children. Brothers eating brothers. They’re eating the flesh off of the people they love. Why?” The Pomeranian under her arm looked increasingly uncomfortable as Shelby spoke. “Their faces rot and peel away and still they just keep trying to eat those closest to them. Have you seen this? It’s all over the Internet.”

Dana shrugged. “I’ve seen the news.”

Shelby flicked her cigarette off of her patio and switched her Pomeranian to the other arm. “And the Lord will send a plague on all the nations. Their people will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.”

With a sigh, Dana put her hands on her hips and squinted. “I never knew you were so religious.”

Shelby laughed. “I’m not. I heard that on the news—but it’s pretty good, right? Seems to sum everything up fairly well.”

Dana huffed and turned back around for the parking lot. “If I see Stan, I’ll let him know how worried you are.” She paced hurriedly towards her Prius before Shelby could waste anymore of her time. “He’s probably at the store himself.”

Finally in her driver’s seat, Dana plugged a key into the car’s ignition and turned it. The car made a pathetic scraping noise, and the engine failed to turn over.

“Bastard,” Dana yelled. She slammed her hands on the steering wheel before taking a deep breath. She was certain that the strain she had put on her car that morning was the cause of her troubles.

Dana took another deep breath and tried again, being careful not to flood her engine. Hopeful to get moving, she stayed calm and summoned every bit of car knowledge her father had imparted on her over the years. She turned the key as she stomped the accelerator, and with a victorious hum the engine turned. The car rattled to life.

Dana turned onto Oak without incident. It was when she approached the intersection for Maple that the trouble began. The crossroads were gridlocked and a relentless drone of honking and hollering radiated from the street. She sat in the right turn lane for Maple for several minutes before she reached the intersection. When it was her turn to go, she nosed forward slowly, squeezing the small car into an empty space in the line of cars traveling northbound.

She was almost to the Shop-and-Save when she saw one in person for the first time—someone who was infected. There was no mistaking that the man was ill; he looked just like all the others that Dana watched on TV throughout the morning.

With East Violet being such a small town, Dana was surprised that she didn’t recognize the gentleman. He was gray-haired and wore a light Harrington jacket. The horn-rimmed glasses he was wearing helped conceal how sunken and grotesque his eyes looked—a creamy yellow where white should be, and bloodshot. The man moved slowly and hunched. He looked confused and angry, and Dana couldn’t help but feel a tremendous sadness deep in her chest for the man.

In the back seat of the sedan in front of Dana, a six year old girl was smiling and taking pictures with a cell phone from her passenger window. A parent in the front of the car turned around and smacked the girls’ hand, and a group of officers descended upon the man in the street.

The officers barked a series of commands at the man in the Harrington, and he ignored each one. Traffic started inching forward. Dana could get a better look at the fellow as her Prius rolled slowly by him. His lips were flaky. His cheeks were covered in open sores and blisters, and his skin was as gray as the dreary clouds that hung so low in the early afternoon sky.

Just then a barrage of gunfire rang out. Dana slammed her foot on the brake pedal and the Prius lurched to a stop. She put her forearms over her ears and shut her eyes tight. When the firing had ceased she reopened them. Lying motionless on the sidewalk was the man in the Harrington jacket.

Dana stared at the scene beside her, until a symphony of angry honks persuaded her to keep driving. She had never witnessed anything so awful in her life.

After what felt like an eternity, Dana pulled into the chaotic parking lot of the Shop-and-Save. Cars blocked each aisle of parking spots, leaving her little room to move or maneuver through the jammed lot. Every spot was taken, and the air was filled with screeching tires, revving engines, honking, and profanity.

On the outside of the parking lot was a thin patch of grass where several vehicles parked. As Dana approached it, a dark blue coupe unexpectedly backed out in front of her. A woman driving a gold minivan one aisle over noticed the coupe leaving at the same time Dana did, and the two began racing towards the soon to be open spot. By sheer luck, the coupe had backed out in the direction of the minivan—not Dana—and blocked the minivan out, allowing Dana to swerve into the open spot as the coupe drove away. The woman in the minivan rolled down her window and shouted something obscene at Dana before sputtering off. Dana ignored it, stepped out of her car, and locked her doors.

Dana huffed her way to the front of the Shop-and-Save. A fat, blonde haired boy in a green smock stood in front of the store entrance, his hands cupped in front of his mouth. “We will be closing within the hour,” the chubby employee yelled. “Again—our store will be closed within the next hour.”

Dana squeezed through the crowd of people near the front entrance. The stocky employee gave her a dirty look as she grabbed one of the few remaining shopping carts and wheeled it into the store.

The wheels of the shopping cart wanted to bounce and roll in any direction other than forward, so pushing it was a struggle. Dana managed to get the cart to aisle four, where she planned on stocking up on bottled water.

When she turned the cart into the aisle, it was deserted; everything seemed to have been picked clean. Still, Dana diligently checked each shelf, hoping to find water—or anything else useful—that may have been overlooked.

In the middle of the aisle, deep in the back of a center shelf, Dana spotted two cases of bottled water and a gallon jug of spring water. She raced her cart forward then reached her arms deep into the shelf, but the water was
just
too far out of reach for her to grab. She looked up and down the aisle—there was no one to ask for help. Not that she would want to ask for help, anyway; she was convinced that anyone who noticed her discovery would try to take the water for themselves.

Dana grunted and reached her arms back once more.
Not even close.
Desperate, she stood on her tiptoes and pushed her upper body slightly into the shelf. Balanced on just her left foot, she squeezed herself far enough in that she could barely brush her fingertips against a case of water.

Almost got it,
she thought, and she flicked her fingers wildly.

With no warning, the shelf snapped downward. Dana plummeted as she and the shelf fell to the floor.

Well. That works.
Dana crawled forward on her hands and knees, grabbed the packages of water, and dragged them back to her cart.

With the water loaded, she swooped up the empty aisle and headed for aisle six—canned goods. She brushed herself off, happy that no one had seen her embarrassing fall.

The soup aisle was much busier and had yet to be picked clean. There were too many customers crowding the aisle for her to maneuver her cart through; so, against her better judgment, Dana parked the cart at the end of the aisle and quickly sprinted into the fray of customers. Without bothering to check the labels, she grabbed an armful of assorted canned foods.

When she weaseled her way back to the front of the aisle, Dana immediately noticed her cart was missing.
Are you kidding me—I was gone for thirty seconds!
She looked to the left, and to the right, and then to the left again, before she noticed a hefty man in a gray sweatshirt slip out of sight in a nearby aisle.

Dana followed him, and when she approached she recognized her cart right away.

“Excuse me,” she said. She dropped the dozen or so cans into the front of her cart.

“What’s your problem, lady?” the dopey-faced customer asked.

“You have my cart,” Dana said, hoping that her politeness and curtness might substitute for vulgarity. She had no doubt that the slovenly looking man knew very well what he had done.

The man, dressed head-to-toe in gray sweats, cackled and let go of the handle of the cart. “My mistake, I thought it was mine.”

Dana nodded, avoided eye contact with the fellow, and pulled the cart towards her by the front basket. When it was near enough she grabbed it by the handle and started down the aisle ahead of her.

“Well, at least let me introduce myself and apologize,” the man called out as Dana strolled away.

Without looking back, Dana rolled her eyes. “I’m in a hurry—I’m sure you understand. Thanks.”

“Name’s Earl,” the stout customer hollered as he chased behind Dana. When he was close enough, he lightly grabbed the basket of her cart to stop her. Dana stopped, her thin fingers wrapped snugly around the handle of her cart.

“Dana,” she said bluntly. “Nice to meet you, Earl. Stay safe out there.” She tried to roll her cart forward, but Earl stood still, his hand resting on the front of her cart.

“Dana,” Earl clicked. “That’s a pretty name. What’s a lady like yourself doing alone on a day like this?”

“Respectfully, Earl…I’d say that’s none of your business.”

Earl chuckled. “Sure is my business! I gots me a nice little cabin not very far from here. Nice ‘n cozy. Plenty of room if you needed somewhere to be, you know, protected.”

“That’s a great offer, Earl. Wow. Thanks. But I really should be going, my husband is waiting for me in the car outside and he’ll start to get awfully nervous if I don’t get back soon.” Dana rolled the cart forward again, only this time Earl let go.

“Huh. Is that so? What kind of man lets his wife wander around alone on a day like today? What, with all the freaks out and such.”

Dana said nothing and narrowed her eyes.

“Well, you be careful out there little lady,” Earl said as he slinked away in the opposite direction of Dana.

What a fucking creep!
Dana thought.

Trying to forget what had just happened, Dana scurried towards the front of the store. As she did, she picked up whatever items looked good along the way: string cheese, a box of crackers, a loaf of bread. Some sticks of pepperoni, even though they conflicted with every single one of Dana’s health-minded virtues.

The cash register lines at the front of the store were swamped, each one flooded with customers. The white lamp above each cashier blinked on and off to signal that there was a problem with that particular register.

“Cash only,” one store employee would yell, as they directed customers towards a certain set of registers. “Credit only,” another would instruct, before directing mobs of people towards a different set of registers.