The Harvesting (31 page)

We ran between the booths and made our
way to the gate. As we snuck through the fairground, we saw lots of
people standing around in the fog. That was the odd thing. They
were just standing there: not moving, not talking, just standing
there. Every muscle in my body was pulled tight. They weren’t
thieves. They were something else.

Just as we turned the corner near the
high striker at the west gate, we ran into Beau.

“
Beau. You alright? There
are people all over the grounds. Something weird is goin’ on,” I
said.

Vella took two steps back. Puck
uttered a growl, showing his teeth.

Beau, who had been standing with his
back to me, turned. His face had gone pale white. A strange frothy
saliva leaked from his mouth. His chin was covered in blood, and
his white t-shirt was also stained red. His eyes were a terrible
milk-white color and red shot all through them like you see
sometimes in an over-developed egg yolk. I nearly gagged. Beau
hissed and then lunged toward me.

“
Cricket, look out!” Vella
screamed.

I ducked just in time. Beau stumbled
over the machine and fell. He got up, slowly, and came at me again.
I swiped him across the chin with the pipe wrench. His chin broke
and hung slack. He looked at me and lunged again.

Puck jumped between us and growled,
momentarily confusing Beau. I lifted the wrench again just in time
to see Vella lift the high striker mallet and lower it with a boom
onto Beau’s head. His head cracked open and blood ran from his
skull and ears.

“
Oh my god,” I whispered,
my hands shaking.

“
Let’s go,” Vella said and
we ran toward the gate.

We bolted out of the gate and into the
parking lot. I was headed toward my truck when Vella called to me.
“No, Cricket, look. There’s no time,” she yelled. She was pointing
back at the park. Ambling down the aisle toward the gate were at
least a dozen people, all carnie folks we knew, who looked to be in
the same condition as Beau. Red was at the front. Blood was smeared
across his face. Every one of them looked like they were aiming to
kill us. From somewhere in the park I heard a woman scream. It
sounded like Mrs. Chapman.

“
But the tilt!” I called
back.

“
No, you’ll never make
it!” Vella called. “Come on.”

We both rushed toward her old Ford
Bronco sitting just near the gate. Vella slid into the driver’s
seat and turned the ignition. Puck and I jumped in. Vella hit the
gas, heading toward the fairground exit.

Mama Rosie was parked just inside when
we came down to the road. Vella pulled up beside her.

“
We’ve gotta get out of
here, Mama. The flu got everyone and they are all wild, trying to
bite, and I don’t know what. Christ, Beau tried to kill me. Look in
your mirror. We’ve got to haul it,” I told her.

I saw Mama Rosie look back to see the
deranged looking crew rushing after us. “Oh my lord, let’s go,” she
called.

We sped off.

The fairground was located just
outside of town. We headed down one of the main streets. I turned
on the radio. There was only one station broadcasting and it was
playing a recording of cities now under quarantine.

“
What the hell is goin’
on?” I said, my eyes tearing up.

“
The Tower,” Vella
replied. She reached across the truck and opened the glove box,
pulling out a map. “We need to get to the interstate,” she said,
handing the map to me.

I opened the map and quickly took a
look. As we drove, I noticed a couple of cars had pulled over on
the side of the road. It looked like people were sleeping inside. I
scanned the map and found our location. “Left at the next turn,” I
told her. “It’ll take us up to the ramp.”

I set the map down and looked out.
There was a car on fire on the road ahead of us. Vella slowed to
pass it. In the cow pasture nearby were two figures, a woman and a
child, walking slowly.

“
You think they’re
alright? You think they need help?” I asked Vella.

Vella just stared at them.

I rolled down my window. “Hey, ya’ll
okay?” I called.

They turned and looked at us. They too
had that strange, sick look, their mouths foaming. They ran toward
us.

“
Mother Mary,” I
whispered.

Vella took off.

I looked back to see that they had run
up to the side of Mama Rose’s van, but she was able to pull safely
by.

We drove down the road. It took us
almost half an hour to get to the interstate on-ramp. When we got
there, we found it was completely jammed.

“
What do we do now?” Vella
asked.

I could see people sitting in their
cars: men, women, children. Some men were standing outside their
vehicles talking. Many of them were armed. Inside the large SUVS,
small T.V. screens played cartoon movies, keeping kids otherwise
frightened out of their wits calm. In the distance, I heard gun
shots. “We gotta take the back roads,” I told Vella.

“
To where?”

“
I don’t know, but the
more back road it is the better. Go that way,” I said, pointing
ahead. “Looks like there is an old country route just ahead a
ways.”

I stuck out my arm and waved at Mama
to follow us.

We drove down the country road. It was
fall and the trees overhead made a canopy of red, yellow, and gold.
The road before us was spotted with sunlight. We passed more cars
pulled to the side. After we had gone a ways, we turned onto the
old country route. It looked like no one had bothered to pave it in
years. The trees were low and the road was rough. Vella’s Bronco
easily took on the rugged terrain, but I worried about Mama
Rosie.

We had been driving for a few hours
when we finally came to a fork in the road. We had a choice between
two dirt roads. We pulled over and examined the map. The Bronco was
low on gas and the small town that was supposed be there wasn’t.
Vella’s map seemed to be as old as her Bronco. There was no sign of
a town or anything else anywhere. I had wanted to get away from
people, but I didn’t want to be in the middle of nowhere. Both
roads looked equally country. We knew Mama Rosie’s truck wouldn’t
be able to make the haul. She’d have to ride with us.

“
Let me go talk her into
coming with us,” I said to Vella, opening the door.

“
I can move some stuff and
fit her in the back.”

“
It ain’t her fittin’ I’m
much worried about, but I’m thinkin’ she won’t leave her
babies.”

Vella nodded. “Well, try to convince
her.”

I nodded, and Puck and I hopped out
and headed toward Mama’s van.

When I came to the side of the van,
Mama wasn’t in the driver’s seat. She must have gone back to check
her snakes. I opened the door and called to her. “Mama
Rosie?”

She didn’t answer.

I looked down at Puck. He seemed
nervous. He never liked Mama’s snakes, and I didn’t blame him. I
stepped up into her truck. The cabin door to the van was open. I
walked in to see Mama Rosie sitting at the ticket seat at the other
end of the van. I also noticed a couple of the pens had been
opened.

“
Mama, you alright? You
got snakes out?” I called.

Mama Rosie didn’t move. Only a little
light showed in from the front window and the skylight overhead.
Mama’s head hung low.

I took two steps into the van. One of
the snakes hissed at me, lunging at its glass cage wall.

“
Mama?”

Puck was standing on the driver’s seat
in the cab whimpering and dancing around nervously.

When I came up to Mama Rosie, she was
still not moving. Her arms and legs hung limply. Her head hung
low.

“
Mama?” I said, and gently
putting my hand on her forehead, I tilted her head back.

Her eyes rolled forward with a
flutter. They were milk white. She opened up her mouth and a loud
gurgling sound erupted. Two black snakes came slithering from her
open mouth. She rose and lunged at me.

Puck started barking
loudly.

I ran toward the front of the van,
knocking several of the cages down behind me, blocking Mama’s path.
As I turned to leave, a snake darted out of in front of me. I
jumped sideways and fell into the driver’s seat. Mama Rosie was
grunting and pushing at the cages. Puck barked at the snake and
chased it out of the van.

I found myself staring down at the
driver’s side floor, face to face with one of Mama’s tarantulas. It
wandered away. Just then I remembered something. I jabbed my hand
under the seat, praying to God no snakes were hidden there, and
found Mama Rosie’s handgun.

I pulled it out in time to see Mama
Rosie come crashing toward me. I aimed as best I could, closed my
eyes, and fired.

I heard Mama Rosie hit the ground with
a thud.

A moment later Vella came running
up.

“
Oh my god! Are you
okay?”

I sat up to see I had shot Mama Rosie
between the eyes. Snakes were crawling everywhere.

“
Get out of there,” Vella
called, lending me a hand.

We closed the door to the van and
stood at the side of the road breathing hard.

“
You shot her in the
head,” Vella said.

I was crying. I nodded, wiping the
tears from my eyes. I felt like I was going to throw up.

“
No, I mean, she went down
when you shot her in the head. Beau, he didn’t feel a thing when
you hit him across the chin, but he went down when I bashed him on
the head. There is something with the head, the brain.”

I nodded, understanding.

I took a deep breath and looked
around. “Where the hell are we?” I asked.

“
Falling from the tower,”
Vella replied.

I frowned. “Now, none of that. Come
on,” I said, pulling myself back together. “We need to get
somewhere safe. Let me drive for awhile.”

I backed the Bronco down the road and
siphoned the gas from Mama’s van. I hated to leave her there like
that, but I wasn’t going back in there with those snakes. We turned
down a dirt road, Forest Road 23, and headed into the woods. We
drove for hours before we saw anything. Eventually, however, we
came across The Hickory Nut Camp Store. We pulled the Bronco in
beside the old gas pumps. They looked like antiques more than
anything else. The lights were on inside so we headed
in.

“
Hello?” I called, pushing
open the door. I had Mama’s gun and my pipe wrench, and Vella was
still carrying the mallet.

We could hear static coming from the
T.V. mounted on the wall behind the counter.

The store was full of all kinds of
camping gear: tents, lanterns, sleeping bags, and other odds and
ends. Most importantly, I spotted guns, ammo, and
snacks.

“
Anyone here?” Vella
called.

Puck was braver than the two of us. He
trotted into the store and started poking his nose in the shelves.
It wasn’t long before he’d torn into a bag of beef jerky. He sat
down on the floor beside the soda cooler and chewed his
lunch.

“
Let me check the back.
Grab some supplies?” I said to Vella who nodded.

I went around the back of the counter
toward the store room. “Hello? Anybody home?” I called.

A single light bulb lit the back room.
It flickered off and on. Two very dusty old windows also lit the
room. The sun was setting so not much light shone in. I decided the
place was clear and went to head back to the front when I spotted
the toe of a shoe sticking out into the aisle at the end of the
row. Someone was sitting on the floor.

“
Hello?” I called. When I
didn’t get an answer, I feared the worst. I whistled. A moment
later Puck appeared. With my Puck at my side, I carefully crossed
the store room. Whoever was sitting there didn’t move. When we got
close, Puck stopped and sniffed the ground. He barked at the
figure.

I raised the gun and stepped sideways
to stand in front of whoever was sitting on the floor.

A man, maybe around fifty, was slumped
sideways on the floor. A handgun lay beside him. I could see he had
shot himself in the head. His brains were splattered all over the
boxes.

“
Sorry, friend,” I said,
lowering my gun. I picked up the dead man’s handgun and headed back
to the front.

Vella was just returning from a trip
to the Bronco when I came back.

“
Everything okay?” she
asked.

“
Depends on who you ask,”
I replied. “Store owner shot himself. He’s dead in the
back.”

Vella looked shocked.

“
Can’t say I blame him,” I
said.

Vella and I loaded up the Bronco with
the supplies, nearly half-emptying the store, and we headed back
outside. We had given up on our map. Nothing was where it was
supposed to be. By nightfall, we were completely lost. It didn’t
help much that Vella had only one head-light and no high-beams. We
drove through the woods and sometime around midnight, we emerged at
a clearing that overlooked a valley. Something about the place,
maybe the glow of the moon on the grass bending in the wind or the
moon’s silver light reflected on the small field pond, made the
place look almost magical.