The Rabid: Fall (4 page)

7

The following morning we ate breakfast and packed up the vehicle. We got a couple miles out before we found a convenience store. Katia and I cleared it while Sonny (happily) stayed with the Humvee. There were corpses and signs of a bloody struggle, but it was nothing we hadn’t seen before. I found my map and tourist guide without much issue, and Katia picked up a few candy bars and a couple bottles of water.

“Looks like we’re not that far out.” I hold the map up against the dash and trace the lines with an index finger.

“You gonna tell me where we’re heading or am I supposed to guess?” Katia is behind the wheel, tearing the wrapper off a candy bar with her teeth. She breaks it in two and passes half back to Sonny.

“Hot Springs.”

“Awesome!” Sonny exclaims through a mouthful of peanuts and caramel.

“I thought you hated that place?”

“Hot Springs is nothing to speak of, but the people I went there with are what made it special.”

“Okay, but why are we going back there again? We’re supposed to be looking for my brother.” Katia is holding a wedge of chocolate in her cheek as she speaks.

I fold the map up. “You’re going to want to stay straight.” Straight is a relative term when you’re weaving in and out of a constant maze of destruction. “And to answer your question, I’m simply taking your advice, reliving good memories. I also want to create some new memories, with you and our boy Sonny. Sonny, you want to create some good memories, take a little vacation?”

“Hell yeah, I do!” There’s chocolate smudged on his bottom lip.

Katia shoots daggers at him in the rearview. “Hush it and eat your candy.”

“Besides, we don’t know where Ruiz is. All we’re doing is driving and hoping we get lucky. Maybe we’ll find something in Hot Springs…some way to reconnect with the world.”

“I doubt it.”

“Everything nowadays is a stretch, babe. We’re all flying blind; just gotta hold on and enjoy the trip.”

“Cut the bullshit, Tim. Just tell me which way to go.”

***

Hot Springs is vaguely familiar. I know we’re headed in the right direction because we pass the Wal-Mart (the roof is missing) where Dad bought a new battery for our van after our old one died in the middle of a rainstorm. Then there’s the racetrack. It is, for the most part, intact. The three flags out front are still standing tall and flapping in the breeze. The watercolor-style mural of brown and black stallions carrying the waif-like bodies of their riders is still wrapped around the building in a relatively untarnished state. We pass chain restaurants, churches, and gas stations. There are Rabid as well, walking the sidewalks and parking lots, draped in filthy rags, their gray skin stained with the blood of their previous meals. They come to attention as we pass.

Katia jumps a curb without slowing down in order to avoid an overturned tour bus. I fly up out of my seat and bounce the top of my head off the roof.

I yelp as my dented hat goes flipping onto the floor. I pick it up and start trying to punch the damage out with my fist.

I hear Sonny behind me checking the mag on his rifle, reloading it, and chambering a round. “I got something for you bastards, I got something for you,” he’s muttering.

“Sonny, chill, I’ve got this; no need to waste ammo.” Katia takes a Rabid out with the right side of the bumper, sending its withered body skidding across the gas station parking lot. “When does the vacation start?”

“Just keep on keeping on. Guide says Central Avenue turns into Bathhouse Row, which is exactly what I remember; bathhouses, hotels, and a candy shop.”

“A candy shop!” Sonny sounds off with childish excitement.

Katia is quick to take the wind out of his sails. “We’ve got our share of candy; we’re not battling Rabid for more.”

As much as I’d like to relive the excitement I felt so many years ago when browsing those plastic display cases of fudge and taffy, Katia is right; we’re full up on food and drinks. Risking it for anything more would be greedy and foolish.

As we descend on Bathhouse Row, the road becomes completely impassable. The four narrow lanes (two on each side of the yellow dividing line) are clogged like a truck stop toilet; there are cars parked parallel on either side of the street and between them, sitting front-to-back, sideways, and upside down, are the four-wheeled, gas-guzzling chariots of the vacationers that had fallen prey to the ultimate tourist trap. Judging by the number of Rabid around here, vacation never quite ended for most of these people.

“Sidewalk! Jump up onto the sidewalk!”

“I’ve got it, Tim!” Katia takes out a newspaper bin and barely misses a tree as she jerks the wheel to the right. “I’m having the time of my life, let me tell ya. You remember what I said about surprises?”

“This isn’t the surprise.”

“Really? Because this is surprising the hell out of me right now!” Two more Rabid go ass over teakettle across the hood, thump along the roof, and slam to the ground behind us as Katia continues to rant.

“What’s surprising you?”

“That you’d be stupid enough to bring us to this death trap!”

“Buildings are pretty,” Sonny says, hesitance straining his voice.

Katia ignores him and continues. “Where do you expect us to stop and
make memories
?”

“Calm down and keep driving, you’ll see.” I’m learning to let Katia go when she starts on a rant; she’s bound to run out of steam eventually.

The bathhouses pass directly to our right. They are big, two-story, white buildings with ornate carvings on the front, topped with Spanish tile and mosque-like domes. To our left, across the street, are the storefronts; a small toy store for the kids, a burger and beer joint for the adults, and an outfit called
Duck Tours
for the whole family (the tour van, which is shaped like a duck, is up on the sidewalk, the front half penetrating a burned-out storefront). The Arlington Hotel rises out of the ground in front of us. It’s shaped like a castle, with two structures that look like little bell towers protruding from the roof like horns. The wide staircase out front is ordained with a smattering of bodies; most of the flesh has been stripped from their bones and the flesh that remains is black and spotted with lesions. “I remember that hotel. The lady at the bed and breakfast kept going on and on about the history behind it. Me and Bethany constantly bugged my dad to let us go inside, he never did. Said it was too fancy and he didn’t want us breaking something that he’d have to pay for.” The road splits. “Go right.”

Katia busts through a line of bushes and comes down onto the two-lane road that loops around the backside of the hotel. “Where are we going, Tim? Surprise time is over. You got me. I’m surprised.”

The Rabid herds have started to thin now that we’re beyond Bathhouse Row.

“Should be just up here, on your right. Just a little further.”

“Don’t
little further
me! Tell me where we’re going.”

I sigh. “Up there,” I say, pointing to the rise of trees ahead of us.

“Up where?”

“There’s a tower at the top of that mountain. You can’t really see it through the trees, but it’s up there. Incredible view, but more than that, it’s secure. It’s out of the way. Maybe, just maybe, they’ve got computers, phone lines…the stuff we need to try to get up and running and talking to the world again.” I’m trying to read her face, but she’s wiped it clean. The Humvee has begun to slow as she removes her foot from the gas. Is she really going to turn the car around on me like I’m some disobedient child?

“How long ago were you here?” she asks.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything.”

“My dad was still alive, so I was young, real young.”

“Exactly. For all you know, they’ve turned it into a dog park.”

“Doubtful.”

We stop next to a sign with an arrow pointing towards a steep, narrow road with sprigs of grass cropping out of the cracks in the pavement.

Hot Springs Mountain Scenic Drive: 3 ½ mile one-way loop
.

“Okay, we vote it,” Katia says, slapping the steering wheel in frustration.

“You wanna get democratic about it for once? Alright, fine by me. I vote we go.”

“What about you, Sonny?” Katia asks.

“Well…I mean…I don’t really want to get between you—”

“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s nothing personal. Neither of us are gonna get pissed at you. We’re a group. We should be voting on things as a group.”

Sonny gives us a solid minute of throat clearing and humming noises before he finally works up the nerve to speak his mind. “I see both sides. But what can it hurt to check it out? Like Tim said, it could get us off the road for a little while.”

“Alright then, damn it!” Katia slams it into drive. “Obviously, I vote no. But I’m surrounded by a couple of idiots that want to daredevil it, so what the hell? We’re going to get killed eventually, why not take the guesswork out of it?” She drives right through the sign, pulverizing it beneath the tires.

“You realize that you’re being a little bit irrational, right?”

She doesn’t say anything, just white knuckles the wheel and stares down the narrow, winding road leading us to what will, hopefully, be our refuge atop the mountain.

“If it doesn’t work out up here, we can just turn around and go down the way we came. Nothing gained, nothing lost.”

“If we get swarmed on this itty-bitty ass road, we’re screwed. You ever tried popping a three-point turn in one of these?” She belittles me with a chuckle. “No, of course you haven’t, or you wouldn’t have suggested this in the first place. There’s too many damn Rabid in this city and walling ourselves in with them is not tactically sound.”

Her insistence is starting to make me doubt myself. I don’t have much to say after that, so I just sit back in my seat and watch the leaves and trees inch by on the other side of the glass, praying that a horde of the gray skinned bastards don’t appear.

The road is clear.

There are a few twisted bicycles and a skateboard. But these items are nothing to Katia; she drives over each one without hesitation. The only time she slows down is for the turns, tapping the brake pedal before each one, and fishtailing slightly before regaining traction.

We’re probably two miles into the ascent before the first dark omen appears; an orange and white striped construction hurdle with five skulls lined up across the top, each one held in place by a short length of rope.

Katia hits the brakes and throws her hands up. “And what did I say? Satisfied?”

“Rabid didn’t do that.” I can still make out bits of gray flesh attached to the skulls. Most of them have a bullet hole, one of them has two.

“Something much worse did; people. They don’t want company.”

“They don’t want Rabid.”

“You think this barrier is for Rabid? You think this scares them? They don’t feel fear. No, this is to make us back up and go back the way we came, which is exactly what I intend to do.”

I wrap my hand over hers, holding the gearshift in place. “Just hang on a second.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and flares her eyes at me.

“If they did this, it means there’s probably something up there worth protecting.”

She nods rapidly, like she’s already reached the same conclusion. “But if they’re up there on that tower, they probably saw us coming miles out. They’ll be waiting and they’ll probably kill us as soon as we’re within range.”

“Or maybe they won’t.”

“Damn it, Tim! It’s not worth the risk!”

“Okay, fine. I’ll stay out front. You and Sonny keep a couple paces back. If they fire, I’ll be the only target. You’ll be out of danger.”

“You’re an idiot! You’re not understanding what I’m saying! I don’t want any of us to get hurt. For all I know, you two are the last friends I’ve got on this entire planet.”

“Who says we gotta go up the road? There’s a ton of forest. Let’s approach from the trees. We do it right, we should be able to get the jump on whoever’s up there.” Sonny sounds unusually confident.

“He’s got a point,” I say. “The woods are still thick. We’d have good concealment.”

Katia drums her fingers against the dash, panning the trees with her eyes. “Fine,” she sounds like a bewildered parent giving into a pack of insistent kids. “But if anything feels off, if I don’t feel right about it, we turn around and come back. Deal?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

***

Leaves crunch and branches give way beneath our feet. We pause every few steps and get low, listening, breathing shallow. When we’ve determined it’s clear, we rise and continue, none of us making a sound.

I’m leading the pack, rifle up. I’ve got a pistol in my belt for backup. Katia is behind me, swords unsheathed. And Sonny is at the rear. Along with his weapons, he’s carrying a backpack with a few food items and some bottles of water, just in case we find ourselves away from the vehicle for an extended period of time.