Cruel World Read online

  “There was nothing—” Alice began.

  “We could’ve tried.”

  “They would’ve killed us. All of us. Who knows how many more there are out there.”

  “I just hope that if we’re ever in a situation that bad, if someone can help, they will.” In his mind’s eye he saw his father watching the starving girl and the dying man on the side of the road as he drove past.

  “You can do whatever you want after tomorrow,” Alice said, walking toward the door. “I’m going to keep me and my son alive.” She paused in hallway. “We should keep watch.”

  “I’ll take the first shift,” he said. Alice half nodded and vanished into the bedroom where Ty slept, undisturbed, by what had played out in the meadow.

  Quinn paced downstairs and sat with his back against a kitchen cabinet, his eyes burning as he tried to block out the sounds of feeding that filled the night.

  Chapter 13

  Silence and Frost

  The morning was overcast with interlocking clouds moving east at a steady pace.

  Alice had relieved him somewhere near three in the morning, waving off his assurances that he could make the whole night.

  “I’ll need you alert in the morning,” she’d said, and sent him to lay down in his own sleeping bag. He’d slept little and light, the first gray edges of dawn creeping beneath the curtains waking him.

  They ate a simple breakfast of powdered eggs and jerky, which wasn’t bad considering they had hot water to mix the eggs with. When they stepped outside, the development was quiet without so much as a single birdsong breaking the silence.

  Quinn laced up his father’s hiking boots and walked around the front of the house, easing up to the corner before scanning the street and meadow on its far side. There were no traces of the stilts or any sign of their late meal. The area where the couple had died was heavily trodden, the sprouting grass trampled flat. Other than a dark stain, there was nothing to show that they’d been there at all.

  After loading the Tahoe, they pulled onto the street, their windows down despite the cold to hear their surroundings better. Quinn rode in the passenger seat again, his rifle between his legs and the XDM strapped in a holster on his hip he’d taken from Thor’s the day before. Ty sat quietly in the backseat, his face turned toward his window, lips moving soundlessly in what Quinn could only guess was a song he sang to himself.

  Quinn searched the yards and parking lots of the buildings they passed on the way back to the blocked bridge. There was no movement, human or otherwise. The emptiness filled up the city and overflowed, stretching away to the indifferent ocean that continued its forever quest of washing away the land.

  When they arrived at the bridge, Alice slowed the Tahoe and swung it in a short U-turn so that it headed back the way they’d come. She motioned to Quinn to get out and then glanced in the rear view mirror.

  “Honey, you wait for a second in the car, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Alice got out and guided Quinn a few steps away from the Tahoe before looking up into his face.

  “Do you know how to get on the turnpike from here?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Really? How many times have you been to Portland?”

  Quinn licked his lips. “Not many.” Alice stared at him, her blue eyes studying every inch of his face before sighing.

  “Okay. You have to go back the way we came and take the first left. That’ll merge into Fifth Street. Follow that for a mile and then you’ll see the signs pointing to Ninety-Five. Ninety-Five goes south and then you’ll see—”

  “Wait, why are you telling me this?” Quinn said, cutting off her directions.

  “In case something happens to me. I want you to take Ty and try to get to Iowa.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he said, the words too fast and sounding hollow.

  “In case something does, you need to be able to get out of the city. It seems like most of the stilts are still around the populated areas.”

  “Probably centered near military posts and hospitals. Like the one we’re going to now.”

  She threw him a look that bordered on malicious. “This is a mental care facility, not a hospital. And it’s fairly small.”

  Quinn nodded, seeing Ty beginning to open his door.

  “Promise me,” she said. “Promise you’ll take care of him if something happens.”

  “I promise,” he said, the words coming easier than he expected. Ty climbed down out of the SUV, gripping his dowel in one hand, his face trained toward their voices.

  “Okay,” Alice said, reaching out to grasp Ty’s free hand. “We go quickly and quietly. The facility’s only a few blocks on that side road. We’ll go in, check the place to see if mom’s there. If she’s not, we leave.”

  “Is grandma okay?” Ty asked.

  “We’re not sure, honey, but we’re gonna check on her.” Ty’s lip trembled, but he nodded and lowered his face toward the ground.

  “We need anything else?” Quinn asked.

  “Just these,” Alice said, waving her rifle once. “Let’s go.”

  They moved in a single line between the cars on the bridge. The air was cool and a layer of decay hung with it, thicker near the vehicles that were still occupied, their inhabitants only mushy stains on the seats inside. The river gurgled beneath the bridge.

  “I’d forgotten that they did that,” Alice said under her breath as they passed the last of the cars. “Turned to soup.”

  The feeling of his father’s skull sinking beneath his fingers came and receded, and Quinn wiped his hand on his pants. “Yeah,” was all he managed.

  The street the facility was on branched to the right, stretching away long and narrow with old oaks growing from either side. Their branches reached high and intermingled over their heads, creating the illusion that they traveled beneath a striated tunnel. The houses were sparse here with wide lawns cut by paved drives that led to attached garages. A utility truck was stalled beside an electrical pole, its bucket half raised and empty, the driver’s door cocked open. When they passed it, the same terrible odor met them like a fog and what might’ve been a wedding ring glinted amidst a jellied mass on the floorboard.

  The street ended in a neat turnaround, its center landscaped with bushes not yet bloomed. The facility itself lay beyond, a single-story brick building with rolling lawns spanning either side dotted with birdbaths and a white fountain that still spouted water into a small pond. They stopped before the entrance, waiting for any movement from inside the structure, but the shadows remained still behind the glass lining the front doors.

  Quinn glanced at Alice who gripped Ty’s hand tighter.

  “All right, buddy, we’re going inside now. And it might smell bad for a little bit, okay?” Alice said.

  “It smells bad everywhere,” Ty said.

  “Isn’t that the truth,” she said. “You ready?” she asked Quinn.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Alice led the way, still holding Ty’s hand firmly. Quinn followed, turning back the way they’d come to inspect the empty street before moving through the door.

  The smell hit him like a hammer. It was like his father’s and Teresa’s rooms, like the cars on the bridge, except multiplied tenfold. It was all he could do to keep from retching. The odor was in his nose, coating his throat, burning his eyes. Ty coughed once and covered his mouth. Quinn put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Alice moved forward, seemingly unaffected.

  They were in a lobby with a square kiosk straight ahead, padded chairs lining walls hung with magazine racks. To the right side of the desk, a hallway ran away from them into darkness, a few sets of doors visible on either side. A single light burned on the desk, and when they neared it, Quinn saw a dark splash of red dried to a brown on the swivel chair before the blank computer screen. He shared a glance with Alice, and they both turned on the flashlights they’d attached to their rifles earlier that m
orning. Their beams cut swaths in the murk that inhabited the hallway, the sound of their footsteps much too loud. Quinn breathed through his mouth, not only to cope with the smell but also to hear any furtive movements that might’ve been drowned out otherwise.

  The hallway spanned the entire length of the building, the right side holding rooms looking out upon the expanse of lawn that let some light into the long space. The rooms opposite them offered no views except the decorations each patient hung up on the walls. There was an abundance of these that appeared and vanished in the sweep of the flashlights: mobiles made of string and straws, finger paintings, and the occasional full-length canvas sitting on an easel. A red exit light flickered above a hallway to their right emitting a soft buzzing. Alice paused there, bringing their procession to a stop.

  “My mom’s room is at the very end of the hall,” she whispered. “Why don’t you two wait here, and I’ll go check.”

  “No,” Ty whispered back.

  “I don’t think we should split up,” Quinn said.

  A door swung open a dozen paces down the hall, its hinges emitting a brief squeak.

  They froze, their lights trained on the door as it coasted to a stop. The doorway remained a frame of shadow.

  Nothing moving.

  No sound.

  Quinn tightened his grip on the AR-15, his finger touching the trigger.

  “Hello?” Alice said in a low voice.

  There was a beat and then a bald head poked from the darkness followed by two dark brown eyes that flitted over them, taking them in. The man emerged from what Quinn assumed was a janitor’s closet since he was inexplicably holding a mop in one hand, its head dried to a tattered pulp. He wore a dirty, blue jumpsuit, and his bare feet poked from the pant legs like two white fish. He blinked in the glare, holding up one hand to shield himself.

  “Don’t, don’t, don’t. He’s not here. Doctor’s not here. Not in right now. Come back later and see,” the man said, looking down at the floor. He began to shift his weight from foot to foot.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Quinn said, stepping past Alice and Ty. He lowered his gun toward the floor. “Are you here alone?”

  The man rotated as he swayed back and forth. One hand went to his mouth and he inserted a pinkie finger between his teeth, biting down. He shook his head.

  “Is there someone here with you?” Quinn asked, taking another slow step forward.

  The man pulled his finger from his mouth and grinned.

  “Always here, here, here, and there’s room now. Any room I want. Do you know which one is yours?”

  “Do you know Myra Fisher?” Alice asked. “She had a room here too.”

  The man’s eyes traveled from Quinn to Alice.

  “Marie, Marie, Marie, she lives across from me, me, me.” He giggled. It was a high, splintered sound that raised the hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck.

  Something flashed by the window of the room to their right, there and gone in a blink.

  Quinn stepped back and brought his rifle up, trying to see out the window in the room behind them. There was nothing but the long reach of dead grass, the fountain still flowing.

  “Something’s wrong,” Quinn whispered.

  “Always wrong, ping-pong, sing-song, come on,” the man sang in a high voice and sprinted away from them down the hall, dropping the mop to the floor with a clatter. His blue jumpsuit flashed in and out of their lights.

  “Fuck,” Alice said, moving forward with Ty in tow behind her.

  “Alice, let’s go,” Quinn said, snagging her arm.

  She pulled away. “He knows my mother. Marie’s her middle name.” Her eyes were shining orbs in the flashlight’s glow. “I need to know.”

  Quinn let her go, grimacing before jerking his head. They set after the man at a quick walk, his laughter bouncing off the tile floor and walls. He waited for them at the end of the hall, his back against the wall as he pushed off of it with his buttocks, letting himself slam against it before pushing off again.

  “Stop that,” Alice said, spearing him with her light. “You gotta be quiet.”

  He began to chew on his pinkie again, his upper teeth becoming red with blood.

  “You said you knew where Marie was,” Quinn said in as calm of voice as he could muster, the sight of the man gnawing through his own finger making his stomach flip.

  “In there, in there, always in there,” the man said, snapping his bald head toward the door on their right. “Go in, go see, go see, go see.”

  They kept Ty in between them as they moved past him. As Quinn came close to him, he realized the uniform the man wore wasn’t only dirty but wet also, and the smell that came off him was palpable. He’d been soaking in what the disease had left behind.

  Alice pushed the door open and stepped inside. Immediately she moved Ty to one side and stood him against the wall. When Quinn entered the room, he saw why.

  A police officer lay facedown in a pool of dried blood. His face was bone white, a partial beard spattered with gore covered his cheeks. His mouth gaped open, eyes sunken and dried to crusts. His pants were pulled up above his boots and something had been at his legs, the teeth marks prominent in the bloodless flesh. Quinn ripped his eyes away from the body on the floor to the bed occupying the room that was stripped of everything but a thin sheet. A stained outline rested in its center, a pool of viscous jelly desiccating along its borders.

  The man giggled behind them, and Quinn only had time to glance at the officer’s body, the empty holster on his duty belt, before he spun and brought up his rifle.

  The man had the cop’s handgun trained on Ty who stood motionless against the wall, his lips moving soundlessly again, completely unaware.

  “Here, we’re here, come, come, come, inside, quick!” The man yelled at the top of his lungs, glee pulling his lips back from bloodied teeth.

  Quinn tried to aim, but the concussion of a shot made him flinch, his sights losing the man’s grinning head. There was a mist of red hanging in the air, and it coated his face like a spray of surf when he would climb the cliffs by the ocean. His right ear buzzed and his head felt lopsided, heavy with the deafness that plagued half of it. The man was gone from the doorway, and Ty still stood against the wall, covered in blood.

  “Oh God,” Quinn said, rushing forward. He set his gun down and gripped the boy by the shoulders, beginning to wipe the blood from his face.

  “Quinn?”

  “Yeah, buddy. Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t… don’t think so. What’s on me? Momma?”

  Quinn glanced at the doorway and saw the man’s bare feet there, splayed out, pinkie toes touching the tile. Alice stepped forward and kicked the bottom of one sole. It jumped lifelessly and laid still. She then knelt beside them both, half elbowing Quinn out of the way, and hugged Ty to her chest.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” she chanted into the side of Ty’s neck. Quinn rose and retrieved his rifle before shining his light on the fallen patient.

  The man’s head was mostly gone from the eyebrow’s up. One eye had exploded and hung to the side by a strand of nerve. His mouth hung open, still grinning, a lake of blood within even with his teeth.

  Quinn doubled at the waist and was quietly sick in the hall, gagging on the rotted smell of disintegrated bodies, on the blood, for what had almost happened. He wiped at his mouth and spit once before straightening. Alice moved into the hall carrying Ty. She stepped over the corpse and set her son down, rubbing his arm and hugging him to her side.

  “Great shot,” Quinn said.

  “Thanks. Are you okay? The barrel was pretty close to your head when I fired, but I couldn’t…”

  “I’m fine. It’s just some buzzing on that side. It’s already a little better.”

  “Crazy fuck,” Alice said, baring her teeth at the dead man. “Should’ve known.”

  “He must’ve killed the cop. If it were stilts, there’d be nothing left.”

  Ali
ce kept running her fingers through Ty’s blood-matted hair. “We can go,” she said after a moment of silence. Her eyes passed over his, and Quinn glanced past the dead man to the bed. The person who had lain there and died had been small. He gave the body on the floor another look, and a chill slid from the nape of his neck to his buttocks, an icy finger tracing a path.

  “Was it just me or did it sound like he was yelling to someone right before you shot him?” Quinn asked.

  Alice paused in stroking Ty’s hair, her eyes widening in the dim light.

  The sound of the front entrance opening filled the hallway, the hinges echoing to them in a short moan.

  “Turn out your light,” Quinn hissed, dousing his own. The hallway fell into dappled darkness. They waited, listening, not breathing. Quinn took a step forward. The wind, it was the wind, had to have been. He motioned for them to follow, and they moved as one down the hall. The lobby was brighter than where they stood, but the sun still hid behind a blanket of clouds and didn’t lighten every corner. He strained his eyes, trying to make out any movement, but there was nothing. The front doors were closed, and the steps beyond their glass were empty. They came even with the glowing exit light and stopped.

  “Wind?” Alice asked, a note of hope in her voice.

  A stilt stepped into the mouth of the hall, its bulbous joints bending so that it stooped down, peering in at them like a hunter cornering a warren of rabbits in a log. Its lips split revealing broken teeth.

  “Go,” Quinn said, pushing Ty and Alice toward the emergency exit.

  The stilt rushed them, its slender body bent almost double to clear the ceiling tiles, feet hissing against the floor. The exit corridor was short, and they hit the emergency door with a bang and burst outside into daylight.

  Three more stilts were moving toward them across the facility’s grounds, their pale flesh the same color as the clouds. They paused as they caught sight of them then began to lope in their direction.

  “Run!” Quinn yelled, swinging his rifle up. Alice scooped Ty into her arms and sprinted in the direction of the Tahoe. He fired off three quick shots, and tufts of grass whipped at the creatures’ feet. He tried to find one of the monsters in the rifle’s sights and was about to squeeze the trigger again when the emergency exit blasted open and the first stilt stepped out, its mouth open, teeth glinting.