HOWLERS (18 page)

“You better stop the chin wag. They’re coming now.” Fifty or sixty Howlers were trooping up the street, looking for their brothers. “They’re changing,” Dillon said. “Changing from the way they were in Elko. Their arms and faces are different, maybe.”

  “Holy shit!” Stewart said.

“You got anything fully automatic?” Dillon asked. “Anything in there like what he’s got?”

“Well? Do you, Mike? For God’s sake, man, get it, if you do!” Quentin said.

Stewart looked at Quentin, then went back into the store.

“It’s better if we fight them from inside,” Dillon said. “If they get behind us we won’t have a chance. You won’t be able to kill them fast enough.”

“Look, I got to go get my daughter,” Quentin said, looking at Dillon, then at the troop of Howlers coming at them. “Can you help me? I can’t do it alone. Some assholes have her in a house down on the other side of town. I need back-up. I’ll help you get that money out of town if you come with me. If you help me get my daughters back.”

“What about the old man in there? We can’t leave him,” Dillon said. “He won’t stand a chance.”

The Howlers had stopped at the beauty parlor and were swarming it. One of the old ladies was passed out of the parlor and torn apart as if she were made of paper instead of flesh.

“Can’t let that happen to him,” Dillon said, watching.

They’d been making out in the semi-dark, just a candle lit, when Rebecca noticed the light from the top of the stairs. Very stoned, she heard her father calling to her. She got off the couch and faced the narrow gun range they’d built into the store’s basement. She reached over and snapped on the range lights. Piles of old
National Geographic
magazines were stacked up on either side of the couch where Summers was lying, a shocked look on his face.

“Rebecca! God damn it! Get up here!” Something about the tone of her father’s voice froze her blood.

Gary looked up at her. A post blocked his view of her father. Terrified her father had caught them, Summers jumped up off the couch.

Rebecca turned, smiled, and held out her hand in an “it’s-cool” signal, a calm-down-no-problem-look on her pretty flushed face.

“Yeah? What’s up, Dad?” she said, hooking up her bra quickly, and finally stepping out of the dark to the bottom of the stairs.

“You better come up, honey. And bring the Thompsons, all of them,” her father said.

“Okay, but—”

“
Rebecca
, just do it, please.”

“Okay, Dad. Okay.” They heard the door close. Gary was putting on his bike shoes.

“God damn, that was close!” Gary said.

“Sure was. God, you’d think there was a war going on,” Rebecca said.

“What’s he want? What are Thompsons?”

“Machine guns,” Rebecca said.

“Excuse me?”

“Dad collects older machine guns. He wants me to bring up the Thompsons. Must have a collector up there or something. Probably the goddamn ATF agents again. He’s got one of the biggest collections in the state. It’s illegal, though, I guess. You don’t work for the ATF or anything, do you?” She smiled at Gary. “Somehow I don’t think so. Help me move these boxes out of the way.”

Gary turned around and looked at the couch they’d been making love on. Great stacks of
National Geographic
magazines stood on either side of the couch and ran down the walls of the shooting range. Rebecca went to the first stack and pulled down several bundles of magazines they used to hide the collection of automatic weapons. She reached into the space, opened a box and pulled out a Thompson. Gary recognized the thing from old black and white gangster movies he’d watched on TV.

“Holy shit!” he said.

“Pretty cool, huh? Here, take this one upstairs, and this one too.” She handed two of them to him. Summers stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around. Rebecca was taking out two more Thompson submachine guns from their original wooden packing cases.

“I never met anyone like you before,” Gary said, and went through the door into the store.

“Boy, give them guns,” Mr. Stewart said. Gary stepped out of the doorway. The sheriff he’d seen around town was at the counter. His face was hurt, one eye almost closed shut. The sheriff was taking boxes of ammunition and throwing them in a canvas bag he’d gotten from a rack. Another man, tall and muscular, was standing near the shop’s entrance—he looked a lot like a white version of the movie actor the Rock, Summers thought. The man had a shock of black hair, was about forty, and had crude tribal-style tattoos on his arms. The man stuck his head out the doorway and looked both ways.

Gary walked to the sheriff and handed him one of the guns. Quentin looked up from what he was doing.

“Kid can you use one of these?” Quentin asked. He nodded to the M-16 he was holding. From the look on the men’s faces, something was seriously wrong. Gary glanced at the man standing in the open doorway, who’d turned around.

“No time, they’re on the way,” Dillon said. He walked toward the gun counter. “Give me that thing!” Gary handed him one of the Thompsons.

“Where’s Rebecca?” Quentin said.

“Here I am, Sheriff.” Rebecca kicked the door to the basement shut with her foot.

Quentin looked up at the girl. He put his hands on the counter in a formal way, like a preacher at his pulpit.

“I want you to listen to me, girl, because what I’m going to tell you is the truth, but it’s going to sound pretty strange. There’s a bunch of things out in the street. They look human but aren’t. They’re going to try to kill us as soon as they get here. I don’t have time to explain. Lacy and Sharon need me. I have to go back outside. There’s no more law in town. I guess it’s everyone for themselves.”

Dillon yanked off the canister clip on the Thompson and was filling it with ammunition that Mr. Stewart had thrown to him from behind the counter.

Dillon looked at the girl. “How do you use it? It’s a fucking antique!” Stewart grabbed the Thompson and showed Dillon how to change canisters and where the safety was.

While they were doing that, a few Howlers rushed the door. Gary had wandered to the front of the store, not sure what was going on. He looked at the people outside and thought they were trying to escape from what the sheriff was talking about. He went to the door and opened it for them. The three armed people behind him watched in disbelief, not able to shoot because Gary was in the way.

Dillon was the first to react. He ran across the room and began firing. The thing that had grabbed Summers by the throat caught a hail of bullets as Dillon threw himself against it and kept firing. The bullets went through the Howler that was trying to rip Gary Summers’ head off, and out the back of its head into the other Howlers that were crowding the door. A waterfall of brass poured out of the Thompson. Dillon drew Gary back by his shirt, yanking him backwards violently. Dillon stepped between him and the Howlers trying to come in the open doorway. His machine gun clicked empty.

A Howler, a tall, thin woman, flew through the door and grabbed Dillon by the shirt, backhanded him, and started to pull him out the door. Rebecca ran across the room, put one of the Thompsons up against the woman’s jaw and fired a burst. The Howler dropped to the ground, its broken-into-pieces skull pouring blood. Rebecca turned on the open door; several Howlers were trying to get through. She opened fire, moving slowly along the doorway and wall. Wood chips and pieces of Howler flew in the air. Rebecca kicked the door closed, threw the dead bolt, then a steel security arm across what was left of the shot-up door.

“Thanks,” Dillon said.

They were silent. Gary picked himself off the floor and moved back away from the door, terrified.

“Are you coming with me, or not?” Quentin said, looking at Dillon. “I’m leaving. I’ll come back with the girls if I can. And pick you all up.”

“Go where?” Dillon said, still looking at Rebecca. “It’s no different anywhere else. They’re all over.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But you don’t have a car and I do,” Quentin said. “I’ll need everyone’s help to clear the street, and give me a chance to get into the patrol car.”

“Would someone please tell me what the fuck is going on, for Christ’s sake,” Rebecca said.

Dillon turned around and looked at her. He could still feel the iron grip of the Howler on his shirt as the thing had tried to pull him out the door. “Hey, save the last dance for me,” he said, without even thinking about it. He didn’t smile, but the gates in his eyes opened a little.

Rebecca’s father looked at the man. He saw something he didn’t like in that look, something feral and extremely masculine aimed at his daughter.

*   *   *

“I said you aren’t supposed to stop the van,” Bell said.

“Those are civilians, sir. I can’t just run them over!” the MP driving said.

“That’s exactly what you have to do,” Bell said. The young soldier glanced into the mirror. “I’m your superior officer. That’s a direct order—run them down!”

Bell felt the van slowing. They had been going about sixty miles an hour, driving in the fast lane on Highway 50, when they saw them. Bell watched the trees outside and gauged the van’s speed.

“That’s an order!” Bell said again.

The young soldier slowed down, not listening to him. They had left Timberline and just gotten on Highway 50 near Truckee. No traffic was coming the other way, Bell noticed. They had been on the highway for ten minutes and still there was no traffic coming the other way. The highway’s eastbound lanes were empty. He knew something was wrong. It was late Friday  afternoon; at this time of day, the traffic heading east from Sacramento should have been heavy. But not a soul was on the other side of the freeway. They were alone.

“I’ll shoot you if you disobey that order, soldier,” Bell said. He’d taken out the side arm he’d made the other MP give him as soon as he got in the van.

“Can’t do it, sir. Not going to run over civilians. Go ahead and shoot.”

“I’m going to tell you one more time: YOU DRIVE THROUGH THOSE THINGS, SOLDIER!” Bell lifted the pistol. He felt himself getting off the back seat. He saw the hairs on the driver’s scalp where he’d rested the barrel. Bell looked down at the speedometer. They had slowed down to thirty miles an hour. In front of them, across all five lanes of the freeway, a mass of Howlers was coming toward them. They were walking down the freeway—a hundred, maybe two hundred strong.

“I’m not running over civilians, sir. You’re crazy. That’s why you were down here. I’m not taking orders from a crazy man,” the young man said.

“You think those things are regular people, soldier? Look at them. Take a good look. Do regular people walk down the middle of a freeway like that? HUH!”

“I don’t know, sir. Maybe there was some kind of accident.”

Bell felt the van slowing down even more. He glanced at the other soldier.

“They’re dragging something, on the left, there—look at them,” the other MP said.

Bell felt the van brake hard. They were going only about fifteen miles an hour, and slowing, the van only about a hundred yards from the mass of Howlers.

“Do regular people drag a dead man down the road with them, soldier? Do they?” Bell said. One of the children near the front was dragging a man by the neck. “How many children you seen strong enough to drag full-grown men like that?” Bell felt his finger close down on the trigger. He saw the white skin, the blue color of a blood vessel under the young soldier’s skin. He couldn’t shoot the man in cold blood.

“God damn you! Stop the fucking van!” The MP slammed on the brakes. The van skidded and came to a stop.

Bell hopped out. The driver was fixed on the Howlers, which were walking quicker now. One of them started to howl. It was the sound Bell had heard that morning with the sergeant. They were trotting only fifty yards from the van. Bell started to run in the opposite direction. He ran like he’d never run before, the pain in his side forgotten, running in terror away from the van. He heard the howling become louder and the pounding start on the van’s sides as they pulled the MPs out. The driver tried, too late, to pull into reverse, but his escape was over before it started.

As Bell ran, he heard something behind him. He held the pistol at his side, his legs working as fast as they could. The shoulder of the road, to his left, was a high white wall of snow cut by the plow. He recognized the sound; it was the sound of shoes hitting the pavement. The sound was gaining on him. He was afraid to stop and afraid not to. The wall of snow to his left looked icy and hard, almost clear. He tried to pick up his pace. He heard himself scream at the point he heard the howling start up right behind him. The howling was loud and ugly; the sound covered up the sound of heavy boots hitting the pavement just behind him.

Lieutenant Bell, running as fast as he could, realized that he was going to die here on this empty stretch of freeway. The howling behind him reached a kind of hypnotic level. He knew that the Howler chasing him must be close, only a few feet behind him, and gaining.

He looked down the great expanse of highway. In the distance he saw a car in the fast lane, its lights on. It was too late. He dove into the snow bank to his left.

Unlike what he expected, the snow bank gave way. He fell into it, turning to fire his weapon. He felt himself tumbling backwards, inside the snow bank. He could see the Howler in front of him, only a few feet away, as he fell into the gloomy snow-tunnel firing at the thing. It was a man’s face, only heavier, and it wore a uniform, a highway patrolman’s uniform. The thing’s face seemed apelike, the brows heavy, its forehead anvil-like and thick, its lips wet and cracked, spit-laced.