Cruel World Read online

  “Waiting? What did it think it was going to do, rip us out of the car?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s very aggressive.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Quinn shifted his gaze to Ty, took in the boy’s stoic fear.

  “It’s okay, Ty. We’re okay.”

  Ty nodded once and swallowed as he continued to twist the seatbelt. He didn’t sing another note the rest of the ride to the city.

  ~

  Portland appeared on the edge of the ocean amongst a tangle of overpasses and onramps. Quinn leaned forward as the signs announcing the city’s distance counted down. The stalled cars became more prevalent here, but Alice was able to weave between them without slowing below thirty. A large cove opened up on the right and he surveyed the choppy, shining water. A half dozen boats bobbed there, tethered in place by anchors, and a long sailboat drifted past them, sails furled, its deck empty.

  They took an off-ramp that pointed toward the first business district and pulled down a narrow street with dozens of cedar-shaked houses lining its sides. Ahead a small grocery store advertised lobster at eight dollars a pound. The sidewalks were deserted, the only movement a myriad of twisting pinwheels before a tourist shop. Alice took a right and drove down the street, passing dentist offices, a stone-sided restaurant, and a bakery with its front door hanging from broken hinges.

  “How far to the facility where your mother lives?” Quinn asked.

  “Another two miles.”

  Quinn’s head swiveled from side to side, watching not only for the threatening movement of pale flesh but also drinking in the rich colors of the city. The houses, the storefronts, the signs of so many people and life, yet there was none. The city held a voided quality, dreamlike but so vivid he could not look away.

  They came upon their first dead body while turning a corner where the street narrowed. Two cars had crashed and one had burned. The body of a partially charred man lay in the center of the street. One of his arms was charcoal-black and his scalp was blistered and purple. He faced mercifully away. Quinn was reaching toward his door handle and anticipating the cold touch of the body in his hands when Alice sped up.

  “What are you—” he managed before Alice drove over the corpse.

  There was a sickening double thump as the Tahoe’s wheels crushed the man’s skull and legs, and then they were speeding up again. Quinn’s stomach rolled and his mouth opened as Alice glanced at him.

  “Listen, were you present back there when that thing came out of the woods? Did you see how fast it moved? I’m sure you wanted me to stop so you could get out and pull that dead guy out of the way, but I will not endanger my child or myself because of some intangible respect for the dead. Understand? The world in which we had that luxury is gone, got me?”

  Quinn turned to face the street again and nodded once.

  “Mama?” Ty asked in a small voice.

  “Yeah, honey.”

  “I gotta go potty.”

  “Oh for God’s sake. Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll have to wait a little bit. Can you do that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good.”

  They passed an immaculately trimmed park, tall oaks shading a playground, swings swaying without occupants. Another body was sprawled near the slides, long blonde hair ruffling in the breeze, its arms wrapped protectively around something small.

  All at once Quinn could smell Graham’s clam chowder, hear Mallory singing in the living room, his father talking on his phone in his office, feel Teresa’s fingers brushing his face. He closed his eyes, shoving everything away, and then blinked until his vision cleared.

  They rounded a curve and the road widened before encountering a bridge choked with vehicles. They stretched from one side of the small river to the other, some of them crashed into signposts while others nudged one another’s bumpers. A massive eighteen-wheeler had rammed an antique shop on their side, its front end completely hidden by the building’s sidewall.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alice said, slowing the Tahoe.

  “Is there another way around?” Quinn asked, sitting forward.

  “No. This street ends in another mile near the waterfront. Mom’s home is set back on the right, two blocks in on its own street.” Alice stopped the vehicle and scanned the pileup of cars. She slapped the steering wheel with her palm. “Damnit!”

  Quinn waited. This wasn’t his decision to make, though everything he saw said to leave this place. The rows of trees seemed to grow inward as they idled in the street, the houses with empty windows staring at them. The breeze tugged at a small flag attached to the first car’s antenna blocking the bridge. It was a Boston Red Sox pennant.

  “We’ll have to regroup and come back,” Alice said finally. She threw the Tahoe into reverse and backed into an empty drive before turning around.

  “What do you mean, ‘regroup’?” Quinn said as they accelerated.

  “I mean, figure something else out. We need better weapons, more ammunition. If we get that, we can go on foot across the bridge and make it to the facility.”

  “So you won’t stop to pull a body out of the way but you’re going to go on foot out in the open?”

  “It’s my mother. What would you do for your mother?”

  “I never knew her.”

  “Lucky you.”

  Quinn shot her a look, and when she didn’t return his gaze, he went back to studying the various buildings scrolling by.

  “We’ll need better firepower anyway. Here,” she said after a time, “use my phone’s browser to pull up all of the gun shops in the area. Hopefully the internet’s still working.”

  Quinn thumbed the phone on and opened the internet application, only knowing which one to touch by having played with Graham’s phone over the years. After typing in ‘gun stores’ he hit search and touched the map option when the results appeared.

  “There’s one about a mile away, Thor’s Outdoors.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Quite the name.”

  “How do we get there?”

  Quinn read the directions off as Alice piloted the Tahoe through the quiet streets. Neighborhoods appeared, their lawns as well maintained as the park they’d seen. The ocean stretched away on their left, its expanse flat and calm beneath the sun. Too far out to see any details, a ship floated, only a dot amongst the blue.

  After barely squeezing between another set of crashed vehicles, the green sign of Thor’s Outdoors came into view, its yellow letters backed by a row of simple pine tree silhouettes. The parking lot was nearly empty save for several cars pulled tight to the front of the wide building. As they neared, the round holes in the vehicle’s bodies became apparent. The glass doors of the entrance were shattered, transparent fangs hanging down in sharp points. The blaze of brass shell casings littered the ground. Alice coasted to a stop a dozen yards from the building.

  “Looks like they had themselves a shootout,” she said.

  “I suppose this was one of the first places people came when it started to get bad,” Quinn replied. “When the hospitals wouldn’t take them, they decided guns were the next best thing.” He studied the interior of the business. The lights were off and darkness shaded the inside after forty feet. The outlines of clothes racks and cardboard stands were the most prominent before the rest of the merchandise faded into obscurity.

  “Okay, you two stay here and I’ll run inside to check it out,” Alice said, unbuckling her belt.

  “No, mama,” Ty said from the back seat.

  “No. We go together or not at all,” Quinn said. The finality in his voice gave him a start, and it must have surprised Alice also because she stared at him for a moment before looking past him to the waiting store.

  “Okay, but the first sign of trouble, we run and get back in here, yeah?”

  “Agreed.”

  Alice shut the Tahoe off and complete silence rolled in. They waite
d for nearly a minute before climbing out. Shell cases crumpled and rolled beneath his feet when he stepped to the ground. A gull sailed overhead and in a graceful turn, landed on top of Thor’s sign. It leaned forward and screeched at them. Quinn drew his pistol as Alice rounded the vehicle carrying Ty on one hip while pointing the revolver with the other.

  “Oh gross,” she said, stopping near the front of the Tahoe. Quinn took a step forward and followed her gaze.

  A bloodless, elongated arm hung down over the bumper, it’s fingers snagged in the grill’s holes. The opposite end was a ragged stump, worn off from being dragged.

  “That’s…” Quinn searched for the right word as he tried to control a bout of nausea. “…peculiar.”

  “Peculiar? You’re an odd one, Quinn.”

  With the barrel of the XDM, he pried the stiff fingers free from where they’d latched on in a death grip. The appendage fell to the ground with a dry slap.

  “Now that that’s out of the way,” Alice said, focusing on the storefront.

  They moved together in a line past the bullet-riddled cars and stopped in the entryway. Glass crackled under their feet, and Alice was about to take a step inside when Quinn touched her arm.

  “Wait.”

  “Did you hear something?”

  “No, but that’s the idea,” he said, reaching out with the XDM toward the door’s aluminum frame. He rattled the gun against it for a few seconds and then stopped, watching the gloom filling the rear of the store for movement. He did it one more time, and when nothing launched itself toward them, he glanced at Alice. Her lower lip scrunched up and she nodded once before striding into the store.

  Quinn turned in a slow circle after stepping inside. The space was large, the biggest building he’d ever been in. The ceiling stretched away into steel support girders, and the walls were decorated with banners depicting smiling sportsmen casting into rivers with long poles or taking aim through scoped rifles at enormous deer. The first area was dedicated to outdoor clothing and camping gear. Next were shelves laden with fishing supplies, kayaks, trolling motors, and camouflage blinds. Most of the merchandise hadn’t been touched, but there were empty hangers as well as several displays overturned, their contents splayed across the shining floor.

  Alice moved without sound between the racks of clothing, her handgun sweeping back and forth while Ty held tightly around her neck. Quinn walked behind them, the utter quiet adding to the eeriness enshrouding the store.

  They reached the back wall and came to the long glass cases that he assumed were supposed to display handguns like his own. Instead of shining weapons, there was only blank, red velvet. One section of glass was shattered, and there was a splash of dark blood, dripped and dried, down the front of the case. Behind the handgun displays were stands meant to hold rifles and shotguns. Most of these were empty too, but a few long-guns still leaned in their places.

  “Mama’s going to set you down now, honey. Stay in one place; there’s broken glass.” She set Ty down, and the boy didn’t utter a word of protest. He waited with his hands at his sides, looking past Quinn into space.

  Alice stepped between two adjacent cases and began to make her way to the rear displays when she tripped and nearly fell. Quinn moved to catch her, but she’d already righted herself and was staring down at the body she’d stumbled on. In the dim light there was no way of telling how old the man was but Quinn guessed somewhere in his thirties. Not that they could have told by his facial features even in the brightest light because everything from his mouth up was missing. The blood beneath their feet was still tacky. He hadn’t been dead long.

  “Damn,” Alice whispered, covering her mouth and nose.

  “Was he shot or…eaten?” Quinn asked, only able to take short glances at the body.

  “Can’t tell. Doesn’t matter.” Alice turned and began moving along the rifle stands. “Damn,” she repeated.

  “What?”

  “All of these are bolt actions. There’s nothing semi-auto, which is what we need.”

  Quinn scanned the displays, not entirely sure he would know the difference. At the end opposite the way Alice moved, a doorway opened into complete darkness. Quinn sidestepped toward it, finally flicking on the light beneath the gun barrel. The doorway opened into a small office complete with a large desk, computer, and file cabinets. Posters of different gun manufacturer’s symbols lined each wall. Bloody handprints and smeared gore covered the floor. The gruesome trail led behind the desk to a narrow door made completely of steel, a heavy deadbolt positioned close to the jamb. Quinn swept the office with the light once more before stepping back into the main store.

  “Think I found something,” he said quietly. A moment later, Alice led Ty through the doorway and stopped on the threshold.

  “What?”

  “See the trail?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m guessing whoever it was is still in there, but I’m betting they aren’t alive anymore.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Alice said, checking the seat of a leather chair near the wall before setting Ty in it. “Don’t move, baby.”

  She crossed the office and positioned herself to one side of the door before reaching a hand out to rap twice on the steel. They waited, Quinn’s light doing a shaky dance on the floor at his feet. Alice knocked again, and when there was no answer, she shrugged.

  “Wait here,” Quinn said, moving past Ty and back into the main store. Everything was quiet, and the parking lot remained empty save the Tahoe. He gave a brief glance around before hurrying to the aisle they’d passed on the way in. When he returned to the office, Alice gave the short, thick hammer in his hand a look.

  “You think you can get through with that?”

  “If I hit it right.”

  “You look strong, but the door looks stronger.”

  Quinn positioned himself beside the door after tucking the handgun into the small of his back and grasped the hammer with both hands. He gave Alice a look and she returned with a thumbs up. Aiming carefully, he wound the hammer back and swung directly for the deadbolt.

  The door blasted inward, hitting the wall behind it before bouncing back.

  Quinn nearly lost his balance but recovered, setting the hammer down to pull the XDM from his back. He clicked the light on again and paused.

  “I think I found Thor.”

  The man was huge with a blood-stained belly that hung well over his beltline. He sat on the floor straight across from the door, legs splayed out in a V, head tipped back to rest against the wall. He wore black combat fatigues, his large feet hidden inside military boots. Long, blond hair hung down in two braids on either side of his head, the roots stained red from where the bullet had traveled through the roof of his mouth and out the back of his skull. A black, semi-automatic pistol, the last three inches of its barrel coated in blood, lay in his open palm.

  Quinn studied the corpse for a second and then reached out, fumbling along the wall until his fingers met a switch. The room glowed beneath the light of two fluorescents set in the ceiling.

  “Holy shit,” Alice said, stepping into the room behind him.

  It was an armory.

  The walls were glazed with weapons. Handguns, rifles, shotguns, swords, knives of all lengths, and ammo. Stacks of ammo in dark, steel cases. Shelves laden with boxes all marked with the loads they carried. In the corner was a low bin containing rectangular, plastic wrapped objects the size and shape of hardcovers. Black writing graced the front of each one.

  “I can’t believe it,” Alice said. She glanced down at Thor’s corpse. “God of thunder took the easy way out, huh?”

  “Appears so.”

  “Looks like he was wounded by someone before crawling in here.”

  Quinn nodded. “Must’ve given up and left him to take care of himself.”

  Alice moved to the nearest wall and brought down a wicked looking rifle with an extended magazine protruding from its bottom. She brought the weapon to her shoulder, a
iming down its length before dropping it to her side. Her smile seemed to brighten the room further.

  “You did good, Quinn.”

  ~

  They spent the next forty minutes making trips to the Tahoe. After walking through the entire store twice, Quinn found a small loading platform at the rear of the building and pulled the vehicle around making for a shorter route from the office. Alice picked out four AR-15s as well as three Sig Sauer handguns, explaining the benefits of each one as she handed them to Quinn to haul out. If she noticed the questioning looks he gave her, she ignored them, choosing instead to stack more ammunition in his arms.

  The bin in the corner turned out to be full of MREs or, meals ready to eat, their contents displayed across the packages in small black print. They took the entire bin, and Quinn had to detach the third row seats from the rear of the Tahoe, leaving them beside a rolling dumpster. When Alice was satisfied with their haul, she picked up Ty, who had begun to squirm on his chair, and started for the door. Halfway there his small voice stopped them.

  “I still need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Oh honey, I’m so sorry; I forgot,” Alice said, turning in a circle to see where the nearest bathroom was located.

  “Over there,” Quinn said, motioning with his light to the far corner of the store where two alcoves were cut in the darkness. “I’ll load a few more things that look useful.” Alice nodded and continued through the building, pausing in the right bathroom entry to turn on the lights inside.

  After they disappeared, Quinn returned to the camping area and found a black, all-purpose duffel bag. He moved along the rows, the strangeness of being where he was compounded by the fact that they seemed to be utterly alone in the city. As he took items from the shelves and stowed them away in the bag, his hands shook. Not from fear but from excitement. The bizarre exhilaration hung about him like a fog, and he chided himself, thinking of the dead they had encountered already that day, the horrifying sights he’d seen only on TV before this—though those interpretations of death were weak when compared with the thing itself: the fetid smell, the slick of blood beneath your feet, the ravaged flesh. But he couldn’t deny there was something about being here, away from his home, in the company of others whom he didn’t know that moved him inside. The possibility of dying was only part of what he was experiencing.