Cruel World Page 6

  The screams cut off as abruptly as they began and Quinn moved to the west end of the conservatory in the general direction the sounds had come from. He leaned into the glass, its surface cold beneath his palms.

  The grass shone silver outside beneath the light of a half-moon. The woods were drapes of solid shadow. He watched the tree line for movement but none came. He stood there for a while, hands pressed to the glass like a patient observer at the zoo. His breath began to fog a section below his face and he reached to wipe it away as a strange sensation sprouted like a seed within him. It made gooseflesh erupt across the nape of his neck and down the backs of his arms in sickening waves. He stepped away from the glass quickly, retreating until he stood at the entrance to the conservatory. The urge to flee expanded until it was all he could feel, the same instincts that he was sure the now silent rabbit possessed in life, calling out to run, run, run.

  Quinn swallowed and made his way through the dark house until he was in the living room. He wrapped himself in a thick quilt hanging over a chair and laid down on the large sofa, his eyes glancing around the room. The house ticked as it settled on its foundations. The small sounds that he knew so well were alien to him now. Each creak was a footstep, each click a doorknob turning.

  He fell asleep without knowing it, sliding seamlessly into a dream of running through an endless forest, dark and twisted branches tugging at his clothes like beggars seeking change. There was something behind him but he couldn’t gather the courage to look back. In the late morning, he woke covered in sweat and breathing hard, as if he had actually been sprinting only moments before. He rose and refolded the blanket before making his way to the kitchen.

  When he looked out the window, he saw that the graves had been dug up during the night.

  Chapter 7

  Visitors

  He stood beside the disturbed earth, looking down.

  Both sheets he’d wrapped the bodies in were visible, the shrouds torn and tugged upward revealing a jelly-like substance caked with dirt. The soil itself had been turned and scattered into the surrounding grass, some sticking to the trunk of the towering pine. Quinn moved around the holes, trying to ignore the stench that rose from them. The smell was overlaid with an oily odor that came and went with the wind. He looked to the west to where the jet crashed the night before. A slice of gray smoke rose, cutting the blue sky into halves.

  He knelt and touched the dirt. There were marks from the animal that had done this in the overturned earth. It had dug down and pulled the sheets up and after finding nothing to eat, moved on. Quinn stood and picked up the shovel that had fallen over in the night, recovering the sheets as best he could. When he was finished, he looked into the woods, his eyes growing unfocused. A bear—it had to be—or maybe a coyote. There was nothing else large enough in the state of Maine to exhume the graves overnight. The problem with the theory was the fence surrounding the property. Smaller animals could move freely between its bars but anything larger would be unable to gain access, unless it had been inside the hundred acres when the fence had been erected eighteen years ago.

  “We would’ve seen it,” Quinn said to the woods. But maybe not. Animals were reclusive, especially bears. There were deer on the property; he’d seen them many times over the years, but never anything else besides squirrels and rabbits, along with the occasional porcupine.

  He turned from the woods, and just as he was about to walk toward the house, his eyes snagged on the lawn’s border further down.

  The mattresses were gone.

  His breath hooked in his lungs and hung there for a long moment before coming out again. He walked slowly until he came even with the spot where he’d left the soiled mattresses. There were shreds of fabric strewn in the dead leaves and some tatters caught on tree trunks. A dozen yards back in the woods the sun glinted off of the twisted steel springs exposed within the remains of the mattresses. They looked like broken bodies after some horrific accident.

  A worm of fear glided through his stomach. The fence had broken somewhere, fallen down over time or perhaps beneath a large bear’s insistence. Quinn nodded, trying to swallow the dryness in his throat. He backed away from the woods, awaiting movement and the flash of dark fur somewhere in its depths. The rear deck bumped into the back of his legs and a groan escaped him as he fell onto his ass, the fall jarring his vision. He almost let out a laugh but cut it off, knowing how crazy it would sound.

  He stood and went around to the front door as sunlight peered over the tops of the trees lining the drive. He ate a cereal bar standing by the kitchen counter, washing it down with the last of the milk. How long before he would have to go out looking for food? When he inspected the pantry, he saw that Mallory had told the truth. She and Foster had barely touched the stores within. There were two unopened cases of bottled water, multiple shelves full of canned food, and an entire corner holding Graham’s baking necessities. One shelf was solely dedicated to his father’s favorite Herring. He reached out to touch one of the slim containers and then turned away.

  The freezer was well stocked with frozen chicken, turkey, ham, seafood, and ten pounds of ground beef. The fridge looked surprisingly empty and the reason why came to him as he shut the door. Today was Sunday. Mallory always went grocery shopping on Sunday.

  He checked the TV and found the same result as the day before except now several stations were simply blank screens of darkness. Quinn flicked the power button and left the living room.

  His father’s office was warm and filled with light, the mahogany surfaces like dark honey, the crystal glasses glowing. He sat behind the massive desk and powered up his father’s sleek desktop computer. The WIFI signal was strong in the upper right-hand corner and he clicked the Internet symbol. His father had chosen Yahoo as his homepage, and when it loaded, Quinn sat back from the screen, his fingers hanging over the keyboard and then falling to his lap.

  The page was generally the same with its sidebars of ads and electronically shouted proclamations, but now at its center, instead of a rotating list of current news and photos, was a single video box, dark except for a red play triangle in its middle. There was no headline and below the box was an uneven mixture of letters and numbers running on in an unending paragraph that continued down and down as he scrolled. At the top of the page, his fingers brought the arrow over the play button on the video and hovered there before tapping it.

  The video started, the camera showing a shaky frame of a pair of feet beneath a vehicle’s steering wheel. It swung up and focused out of the driver’s side window. The car was parked on an interstate somewhere that looked like Midwest farm country. Barren fields not yet greened by summer rolled into the distance and a string of power lines stood like sentries, their cables drooping between them. It was evening and the sun had fallen behind the horizon, its last glow seeping into the darkening sky. There was a rushing sound of static as the camera holder adjusted the zoom and then a man’s muffled voice.

  Do you see it? Right there on the second hill.

  The camera joggled some more and then focused on a distant rise that held a tangle of brush and the outline of a lonely tree with pointed branches drooping toward the ground.

  Quinn leaned closer to the computer screen. There was something strange and familiar about the tree. Its top had a bulbous look, incongruent with the rest of its thin stature. It had the appearance of being broken halfway up and its base was so spindly it didn’t look strong enough to hold up the rest of its bulk. The camera dipped and came up again, a woman’s voice this time saying something that he couldn’t make out. The zoom engaged and the tree blurred before clearing once more, its features defining so that something within his mind forced his eyes to widen, his jaw falling open.

  The tree moved.

  It stepped to the side, its narrow trunk splitting in two as the camera tipped skyward. The woman squealed a warning. A thin, pale flash swung past the camera only feet outside the car’s window. The video blurred and filmed a split s
econd of the car’s roof and the lower half of a man’s bearded face before ending and resetting to its beginning.

  Quinn sat back from the computer. His finger hovered over the play button before punching it again. He watched in silence trying to make out the words that the couple said, but they were too indistinct, too garbled. But he could hear something else clearly enough in their voices, running like a frigid river below a layer of ice. Fear. They were both terrified. The tree enlarged on the screen, impossibly taking a step to the side as the shot turned up and caught the pale thing passing the car again. Quinn paused the video, staring at the image. The thin strip outside the vehicle was bent, its middle bulging slightly with a few small dents at its joint. The entire shape looked rounded, like a white stilt bending at its center.

  Quinn examined the screen for several long minutes, something stirring in the back of his mind. His lips began to tingle and he blinked, his hand reaching for the computer to start the video again.

  The screeching of brakes came from the direction of the highway followed by a bang that he felt reverberate through the desk. A clicking issued from somewhere in the house and the lights went out. The computer’s screen flipped to darkness, reflecting his face only inches from it along with the room behind him.

  Quinn jerked, sitting back in the chair, his eyes flitting around the office. The power had gone out. The sound of the refrigerator motor winding down was the last noise and then supreme quiet invaded the house.

  He stood, his legs wobbling and his stomach slewing as if it were overly full of a noxious soup. He moved down the hallway, pausing in the kitchen before continuing out the back door. The air was lighter outside, the smell of burning jet fuel no longer as pungent. Quinn breathed it in, trying to calm the nausea that rose and fell within him, a sickening tide. He looked toward the highway, listening for any further sounds but heard nothing. Only the wind spoke in the branches.

  Fresh sea breeze coasted past him as he moved around to the rear of the house. He found the squat generator box and opened its access door. The generator was a large unit, capable of powering the entire house and attached garage. It was set up to turn on immediately following an outage, and it was only then he realized that it hadn’t kicked on when it should have.

  He examined the controls and bundles of wires running into and out of the unit. One of the buttons in the center of the side panel was labeled ‘Auto Start’. He pressed it and pulled his hand away quickly. There was a sound from inside its steel shroud like dominoes snapping together. He waited for a moment and when nothing else happened, he pressed the button again. There was the same loud clicking and then silence.

  Quinn stepped out of the enclosure and stared at the machine. Maybe it was out of gas? Foster had been meticulous about his work, always going the extra step to ensure that each job was done fully and correctly. But how long had it been since they’d had a power failure? A year? Two? The groundskeeper could’ve forgotten about the generator’s maintenance, or maybe he’d been in the midst of exchanging the fuel and gotten sidetracked on another project.

  Quinn stepped back inside the enclosure and found the gas spout jutting from the side of the machine. Above it was a gauge, its level reading full. He frowned and dropped his hand away from the spout’s cap. For some reason, the video began to replay in his mind and he shivered before climbing back into the sunlit yard. There must be a manual for the generator somewhere, most likely in Foster’s house. Maybe there was a reset that he could engage to get the machine running.

  As he walked around the side of the house and started down the drive, a metallic clanging erupted from the highway. Steel on steel rang through the forest, a hollow gonging that stopped him in his tracks. It went on for thirty seconds before there was a short bang and then nothing. Quinn swallowed, waiting, waiting. His muscles were solid beneath his skin, beginning to ache from being continuously taut. There was the low hum of an engine and then the crackling of tires coming closer down the driveway.

  He turned and ran.

  Hurdling across the lawn he raced up the stairs and flew to the kitchen door, slamming against it and bouncing back when the knob refused to turn in his hand.

  Locked.

  He’d locked it on the way in earlier. He cursed and ran around the side of the building, the sound of the engine getting louder behind him. At the back door, he swung inside, shutting and locking it before hurrying to the kitchen. Standing to one side of the large windows, he waited, eyes welded to the closest bend in the drive, blood surging in his ears.

  The shining chrome of a truck’s grille appeared.

  Quinn ducked away from the window and bent low as he hurried out of the room and down the hall to the office. Without a glance outside, he knelt by his father’s desk and pulled the lowest drawer open. The gray lockbox was covered by three file folders, which he pulled out and set on the floor. The code, the code, the code. He’d forgotten the code. His fingers hovered over the numbers, the sound of the truck’s engine getting louder before shutting off. The numbers sprang into his head as if flung there from outside. 942304. The lid of the box popped upward and only as he reached inside did he realize that the code was his birth date backwards.

  The Springfield XDM was heavy as he drew it into the light. Its black polymer grip and forty-five-caliber bore gave it an intimidating look that had impressed him years before when targeting with his father. Now the handgun shook as he pulled back the slide, barely remembering how the weapon functioned. There was a round in the chamber and the safeties were on the trigger and grip. The small flashlight attached below the barrel came on, shining against the wall, and he flinched. He’d triggered it by toggling a small pad beneath his thumb. Hitting the little switch again, he turned the light off.

  Quinn snapped the lock box shut, storing it away in the drawer and moved to the office window. The entire room vibrated around him with each heartbeat. The truck was parked directly before the front door. It was a vibrant red with mud flung up its fenders in brown arcs. Its doors were open but there was no one in sight.

  “Oh God,” Quinn breathed, and walked into the hallway. At the doorway to the kitchen, he stopped and peered around the corner.

  There were two men holding shotguns moving up the walk to the kitchen door. They were both tall and broad-shouldered, wearing stained jeans and camouflage hunting jackets. One of them wore a black bandanna over his mouth and nose, his eyes flitting to the right and left above it.

  Quinn backed away from the corner and reached blindly behind him for the bannister leading upstairs. The first man came up the steps and stopped before the door. He looked over his shoulder and cocked his head to one side as if he were listening to something. Quinn’s hand found the railing and he began to sidle up the stairs as his eyes landed on the drinking glass he’d used that morning. It sat in the middle of the counter, the leftover milk still wet at its bottom.

  The man at the door reared back and threw a kick at the lock. The door shuddered in its frame.

  Quinn ran.

  He flew up the steps as the second kick hit the door and the sound of cracking wood filled the lower level. He turned in a stupid circle on the landing before opening his bedroom door. There was nowhere to hide. They would be sure to find him beneath the bed or in the closet. Another kick from the kitchen and then the sound of the door banging open against the wall.

  They were inside.

  Shaking, he shut his bedroom door and started for his father’s room, then turned to Teresa’s. Both of them were laid out the same as his own. Whispers came from the kitchen, floating up to him as if he were in a dream. The XDM almost slipped from his sweaty hand and his vision wavered. Footsteps came quietly into the hall and headed toward the office. Quinn retreated to the end of the landing and crouched, bringing up the handgun. The sights wobbled as he aimed at the head of the stairs. Squeeze the trigger, never jerk it, otherwise you’ll miss every time. His father’s voice spoke within his mind, calm, assuring. His finger tigh
tened on the trigger as he heard one of the men speak.

  “Check upstairs; I’ll look around the garage.”

  Quinn’s vision teared up, and he blinked as his eyes landed on the linen closet door beside him. Without a sound, he stood and turned the knob, slipping inside and closing the door as he heard the man climb onto the landing and move into his father’s bedroom.

  In the utter darkness of the linen closet, he ran his hands over the wide shelving. Rags and cleaning supplies on the lowest shelf, sheets and bedding next, extra towels and pillows near the ceiling. Quinn tucked the handgun into his pocket and found the rear of the closet and began to climb. In the hallway, the man cursed the smell and moved closer, blasting Teresa’s door open with a kick. Quinn gripped the topmost shelf and blindly began to shove stacks of towels to either side. With a heave, he flattened himself onto the shelf, pulling his legs up and over a column of pillows. The gun scraped against the board beneath him and he winced, listening. Footsteps crossed the hallway outside the door and entered his room. His breathing the loudest sound in the world, he rearranged the pillows and towels before him, trying to straighten them the best he could in the dark. He laid with his back against the wall, his legs straight out, stiffening as his bed was overturned in the next room. With a final movement, he picked up a towel and flung it toward his feet, feeling it cover part of his legs, but stopping short of his toes.

  The closet door opened, flooding light inside as he drew the gun out of his pocket. Between two stacks of towels, he saw the man with the bandanna step inside and flip the switch on. The light bulb directly in front of where Quinn lay remained dark, and the intruder laughed quietly behind the handkerchief before stepping inside. The man’s head and shoulders were all he could see from the angle of the top shelf. Bandanna moved closer, and Quinn lost him from view completely. The man rummaged the shelves below, knocking cleaning supplies to the floor as he turned in a half-circle.