Cruel World Page 13

  The rest was life.

  He caught sight of his dark reflection in a mirror near the rear loading door and stopped. He slid a palm up his cheek and then dropped it away. For a moment he’d forgotten. Being with them had done it, the action, the danger, the sickness and fear, but mostly them—although there would always be mirrors to remind him.

  He stowed the full duffel in the back of the Tahoe and glanced around the empty space behind the store. The day had warmed some, but a cool breeze coasted continually off the ocean, the air thick with salt. It could’ve been any day. A tractor-trailer might have rolled around the corner with a shipment. People may have jogged or walked the paved path running behind the store and around the muddy pothole a quarter mile south. But there was nothing. No movement and nobody but them.

  He went back inside using his light to guide him past the office and into the main area, heading toward the dim glow coming from the bathroom. He was halfway there when a sound stopped him, his guts contracting into a painful mass.

  An engine revved once, and a newer pickup coasted across the parking lot, rolling to a stop before the blockading cars. The portions of its red paint not covered by splotches of mud shone in the sunlight, and when the doors opened, the sight of Rick, still wearing his bandanna, caused a wave of déjà vu so thick that Quinn, froze in place.

  Chapter 12

  Run and Hide

  His thumb found the flashlight switch on the gun and toggled it off.

  The brothers examined the entryway, their shotguns at waist level, eyes scanning the store’s depths as they waited on the far side of the line of cars. Ty’s voice echoed out of the bathroom, not loud, but not quiet either. Alice answered him, just a murmur.

  Quinn broke from his trance and ducked, running in a straight line toward the bathroom. As he neared the doorway, Alice emerged, leading Ty by the hand.

  “Get back, kill the lights,” Quinn whispered, nearly bowling them over as he forced them into the lit bathroom. His hand skittered along the wall and found a light switch, flicking it down with a snap.

  “What is it?” Alice asked, instantly crouching, wrapping an arm around Ty’s waist as darkness invaded the bathroom and they became only shadows.

  “The brothers that ran you off the road, they’re here.”

  “Oh shit. Those bastards,” Alice whispered.

  “Shh, they’re inside,” Quinn said.

  Glass crunched beneath boots and low voices floated to them from the main area. Where would they inspect first? The bathrooms? No. The light was still on in the rear office. That’s the first place they would go. Quinn inched to the doorway and peered around the corner, the pistol’s grip trying to slide from his sweat-soaked palm.

  The brothers were mid-way through the store, their own flashlights sweeping arcs across the shelves and walls. Quinn leaned back just as one of them turned, coating the bathroom entry with light before swinging it away. Quinn looked out again and watched the closest one, he thought it was Rick, shove a display of rain gear over.

  “They’re going to the back room,” he breathed over his shoulder.

  “They’ll find the Tahoe. They’ll know we’re here,” Alice replied. Ty whimpered once, soft and brimming with fear. Quinn watched them approach the back office and take up positions on either side of the door. His mind spun like a dervish, whirling for a way out. They were trapped. Could he sneak up behind them and kill them both before they got a shot off? He re-gripped the XDM. Could he do it? Could he take a life? Two? Alice squeezed his upper arm, trying to pull him back into the full dark of the bathroom when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

  Four stilts were striding along the highway past the parking lot.

  They were enormous. Their enlarged heads bobbed well over the seven-foot street signs that lined the road, but the one leading the pack dwarfed them all. It stood half-again as tall as the rest of them, its pale skin glowing in the sun, skeletal arms swinging in time with its stride that surpassed a car-length.

  Before he had time to think, Quinn was moving. Alice gripped his arm, her nails raking furrows in his skin in an attempt to keep him where he was. His name hissed from her lips, but then he was out in the open of the store. The brothers had disappeared into the office, no doubt reveling in the armory they’d discovered. How long would it take them to wonder why the light was lit only there? How long until they saw the hammer on the desk, the broken deadbolt in the door, and do the math?

  Quinn tracked the stilts as they lumbered on, coming even with the store now, the lead tilting its massive head back to sniff the air. He lowered himself closer to the floor, running bent low, stepping over fallen clothes hangers, skirting broken glass, leaping past a downed display. Then he was between the cars, sliding along their bumpers. His jeans snagged on a license plate, and he swore under his breath as the material tore along with his skin. He began to crawl, crab-walking, when he cleared the cars until he was beside the brothers’ truck. His pulse jumped in his vision and his mouth gaped, breath hot and frantic blasting in and out. He stood, peeking over the truck’s hood. The monsters were beyond the parking lot now, their path taking them toward the ocean. One of them made the bullfrog croak that Graham had issued the night in the solarium, and the others answered with a chuffing sound that brought the hairs to attention on the back of Quinn’s neck.

  With a final glance back at the storefront, he opened the passenger door of the truck and pulled himself inside. The dangling key fob in the ignition sped his heart up further. He’d been right about the brothers. They were overly confident. So much so that they didn’t feel the need to lock up their unattended truck. Something in the back seat drew his attention. After he grabbed his father’s hiking boots from the pile of gear that littered the space, he pressed the small panic button on the truck’s keychain.

  The vehicle erupted with sound.

  The horn honked in short bursts, the lights flashing in strobe-like flickers. Quinn saw the group of stilts halt and spin as one, their faces turned toward the store, emaciated forms rigid. The tallest of them bellowed and began to run toward the truck.

  Quinn slid out of the cab, not bothering to shut the door. He skittered between the cars and slid inside the building as the brothers burst from the back office. He had just enough time to fall flat on the floor before the lights strapped to their guns swept the space above him. He belly-crawled, knees and stomach picking up shards of glass that stung like wasps. Boots pounded the floor as he tucked himself beneath a clothing rack, sure that they’d seen him duck inside the store. But they ran past him outside, not pausing for a second.

  Quinn leapt to his feet, glancing once over his shoulder to see the brothers leering, dumbstruck at the open door of the blaring truck. An instant later hungry croaking filled the air that reverberated throughout the store, and Rick screamed something to his brother as he raised his shotgun and fired.

  Quinn ran on, stumbling over something in the dark, and reached the back corner of the building. Alice perched at the entry to the bathroom, Ty in her arms now, her eyes wild and looking past him. He said nothing and simply grabbed her arm, leading them across the dark store to the lit hallway. More gunfire exploded outside and there was a deep, inhuman cry of pain that mingled with one of the brothers’ voices, yelling obscenities. They reached the hall and raced down it. Quinn kicked at the safety bar on the rear door and then they were outside in the sunshine, gunfire and screams following them into the open air.

  They didn’t speak or hesitate. Alice rushed down the concrete steps and flung the rear, passenger door open, boosting Ty inside before scrambling in herself. Quinn jumped into the driver’s seat and threw his father’s boots into the passenger wheel well. His thighs caught beneath the steering wheel and he realized Alice had adjusted the settings. He jammed the button on the seat down and when he could move freely, started the Tahoe. The engine roared to life and he jerked the vehicle into drive, hammering the gas as he did so. The SUV leapt forward and Q
uinn spun the wheel, his eyes searching frantically along the rear lot. They couldn’t go around the front of the store and back to the highway. What if the stilts were still alive and decided to give chase? How far would they follow them? Or even worse, what if the brothers had survived and saw them escaping? They would know instantly who had called the stilts in with the car alarm.

  A small dirt access road approached on their right, partially hidden by a sign reserving parking spaces for Thor’s employees. Quinn swung onto it, and the vehicle rattled over a dozen potholes as he accelerated. The access road emptied out into an industrial park devoid of vehicles. The large buildings were dark and the streets running between them clear of obstructions. Quinn cruised a mile, doing almost sixty, and then turned up another street, bringing them into a residential development with an assortment of new homes growing out of the cleared earth. He swung into an uneven driveway and pulled past the two-stall garage and out of view of the street before stopping.

  “Are you guys okay?” he asked, looking in the rearview mirror.

  “We’re fine,” Alice said. She was still holding Ty, stroking his hair, his face buried in her shoulder. “We’re fine.”

  Quinn let out a long breath, the humming of adrenaline in his veins quieting, but slowly so that he felt like a struck tuning fork growing still.

  “That was crazy,” Alice said.

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “No, I mean what you did. You could’ve gotten us all killed.”

  “I didn’t see any other choice, did you?” Quinn said, turning in his seat to face her. She held his gaze for a beat and then looked down, shaking her head.

  “No, I guess not.”

  He watched her for a few seconds, how Ty trembled in her arms.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think; I just reacted.”

  Alice nodded and pried Ty away from herself enough to speak to him.

  “Good thing we went potty before all that, huh, buddy?”

  Ty giggled a little as Alice laughed shakily. Quinn met her eyes, and the look held for a moment that drew out, hardening into something nearly solid before she glanced away and gasped.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, pointing to his thigh.

  There was a long gouge on his right leg where the license plate had torn through his jeans and split his flesh. A little blood seeped from the bottom of the gash, and the upper half of his pants were stained red.

  “I think it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt anyway.” But as he said the words, the pain began to burn in the wound.

  “Let’s get inside and get it looked at. We don’t want an infection now. Doctors are in short supply, I’m guessing.”

  They climbed from the vehicle and approached the house. It was a simple two-story with a concrete basement. It appeared newly completed. When Quinn made his way around to the front yard, there was a realtor’s sign stuck in the dirt beside the curb. A sliding glass door on the back of the house gave them entry after Quinn began to pry on it with a small multipurpose bar he’d taken from the store. The inside of the house was cool and empty. No furniture adorned the living room or kitchen and the three bedrooms upstairs held no beds. When he tried the faucet in the large bathroom on the main floor, cold water poured out on his palm, turning hot when he adjusted the handle.

  “We have hot water,” he said, meeting Alice and Ty in the kitchen where she deposited the black duffel on the floor. “Power must still be on in most of the city.”

  “I guess this is as good a place as any to spend the night,” she said, glancing around the room.

  “I would’ve liked us to get somewhere a little higher and more secure.”

  “Me too, but I didn’t see anything nearby, did you?”

  “No. I don’t know if it’s smart to keep pressing our luck driving around town either.”

  Alice sighed and ruffled Ty’s hair.

  “No, you’re probably right.”

  “It smells new in here,” Ty said, feeling the air with his left hand.

  “Here, I’ll set you up in the corner, champ,” Alice said, carrying him to the farthest corner of the living room. After opening a bottle of water for him, she and Quinn unloaded the necessities from the Tahoe. When they had weapons loaded and within easy reach on the marbled kitchen counter along with several MREs, Quinn moved the Tahoe tight to the rear of the house, parking it directly beneath one of the upstairs windows. From that spot, the vehicle could only be seen if someone were to round the house through the yard on either side, but from the street it was invisible. The pain in his leg intensified, and he resisted the limp that tried to implant itself in his stride. A runner of fresh blood rolled down his leg, and he felt it soak into his sock. When he stepped inside, already formulating how he would lock the broken door, Alice was at the counter, a small black case open before her.

  “Come lay down, big guy,” she said, patting the countertop. In the other hand she held a hooked needle that caught the early afternoon light.

  “Um, you know what you’re doing?”

  “It’s sewing; how hard can it be?”

  “It’s sewing a person, in this case me. Maybe it doesn’t need stitches.”

  “Just lie down, please.”

  He relented and climbed up onto the wide countertop but didn’t lie all the way back. There was a small scissors beside the medical kit, and he used these to clip away a large flap of jeans, exposing the wound completely.

  “Shit. It’s worse than I thought,” Alice said, drawing a length of black thread through the needle.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any type of pain killer in there,” Quinn said.

  “Nope. Not unless you count aspirin. It’s pretty bare bones. There is a little numbing gel in here though.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  After washing the wound off and sterilizing it with a small bottle of peroxide, Alice dabbed on the numbing gel that burned when it touched the gash but slowly leeched away some of the ache. Before she began to stitch, she looked up into his face.

  “You okay?”

  “I think so. Are you?”

  “Yes. This is going to be painful.”

  “I know.”

  “It’ll be okay, Quinn. It’ll be over in a jiff. That’s what mom says when I have to get shots at the doctor,” Ty said from the living room.

  Quinn smiled. “Thanks, Ty.”

  “No problem. It still really hurts though.”

  Alice tried to hide a grin and then raised her eyebrows in a question. Quinn nodded and she began to sew.

  The pain was sharp and boiled at each point she pushed the needle through, the thread thin but severely uncomfortable as it slid through his skin. After the first two stitches he looked away, focusing on the brightness of the day in the empty field behind the development, how the brown grass nearly glowed, the twisting paths a pair of birds made through the air, the dancing flicker of a butterfly close to the trees.

  “And done,” Alice said, snipping off the excess thread. The stitches were surprisingly neat and there were more than he would’ve guessed.

  “Wow, thanks,” he said.

  “What, you didn’t think I could do it?”

  “I guess I didn’t know.”

  She gave him a small smile.

  “Well, now you do.”

  He slid off the counter, his leg feeling somewhat like an overcooked sausage.

  “Did mom fix you all up, Quinn?” Ty asked.

  “She did.”

  “Did it hurt as much as shots at the doctors?”

  “Hmmm, no, not that bad.”

  “Good, ‘cause mom’s not a doctor, you know.”

  “Watch that sass, boy,” Alice said, cleaning up the first aid kit.

  She’s not, Ty mouthed, and it was Quinn’s turn to hide a smile.

  ~

  The afternoon passed into evening uneventfully. Quinn stood at the front bedroom window that faced the hidden ocean and listened for nearly an hour, one of the AR-15s leaning against
the wall. No gunshots or yells or even a car engine filtered into the small development. The surrounding neighborhood was quiet as well, with only squirrels and birds moving among the branches of the trees. What had happened to the brothers? Were they dead now because of his actions? Probably. But what choice did he have? In the recesses of his heart he knew that given the chance, the two men would’ve gunned them all down for the contents of their vehicle.

  Movement drew his attention on the next street over, and he pulled a pair of small binoculars to his eyes that he’d rested on the windowsill.

  A stilt walked down the center of the neighboring street, its elongated head stuck forward, sharp shoulder blades jutting in the evening sun. It didn’t look his way and continued south, stopping only to sniff the air once before disappearing through a garden in a large house’s backyard.

  “Anything?”

  His hands lost their grip on the binoculars, and he barely caught them before they clattered to the floor. He shook his head and turned to find Alice standing in the doorway.

  “Sorry I startled you.”

  “It’s okay. One of them just went by on the next street over.”

  “Really?” She came into the room, stopping next to him so that her shoulder brushed his upper arm. “Let me see,” she said, holding out a hand for the binoculars. He gave them to her and she scanned the houses and sidewalks methodically. Quinn looked at her, how dark her hair was compared to her skin. The delicate bones in her wrists. He’d never noticed someone’s wrists before. She dropped the binoculars from her eyes and he glanced away, surveying the same area she had.

  “I don’t see anything now,” she said.

  “No, I think it kept going.”

  “One of them wouldn’t be as much of a problem as a pack. We could handle one of them.”