Among Monsters: A Red Hill Novella (5 page)

Tavia and I nodded.

Dad did, too. “I’m going to get back before anyone suspects anything. Act normal.”

Tavia put her hand on my shoulder and sighed as Dad walked away. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. Then, she looked down at me. “Your dad’s as smart as I thought he was.”

“Most of the time.”

He wasn’t always worthy of father of the year, but I trusted him to get us to safety. He thought quickly, was handy with little to nothing, and had a decent aim. He’d even made me a console table once. When I was nine, I’d accidentally fallen on it, and it hadn’t even wobbled. When he did things, he would do them right. Mom had even admitted once that she missed that about him. It seemed to be the only quality of his that she could appreciate. She could trust him to take care of things, and he would take care of us.

“
IT’S DARK
,” I said, rolling up a blanket and gesturing for Halle to hold it under her arm.

“So?” she said.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, and you have to be quiet about it. Okay?”

She gave a nod, already aware that she wasn’t going to like what I had to say.

“Dad is going to take us home.”

“But the governor—” she said.

I shushed her. “Tavia and Tobin are coming, too.”

Halle’s eyes bulged. “Is she the new girlfriend?”

“No. No, she’s just a friend. They think it’ll be safer if we go to Dad’s house. Mom will go there, too, when she gets into town.”

She frowned but agreed.

I leaned down to whisper in her ear, “You have to keep this a secret, Halle. We’re going to sneak out. We’re not supposed to leave.”

“Will they shoot at us?” Halle asked. She was always one for theatrics, but she was genuinely afraid.

I shook my head, pretending to dismiss her concern. “No way, crazy pants.”

Halle laughed once and rolled her eyes. When she turned, I swallowed hard.

What if the shots we heard were from those wannabe soldiers gunning people down who were wandering around? What if they shot Mom?
I shook my head, pushing those thoughts from my mind.

More than one person had referred to my mom as a badass. No one would take her down before she got to us. By sheer will alone, she would find a way.

“This blanket is yours to hold,” I said, holding out the tightly rolled wool.

“I don’t want to hold it. You hold it,” Halle whined.

“I’m holding the other one plus holding your hand.”

She pressed her lips together.

“Halle, this is important. You have to hold this, and you can’t draw attention to what we’re doing.”

She leaned toward me. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

I sighed. “You just went.”

“I’m nervous,” she admitted.

I kissed her forehead. “Me, too. We’ll go as soon as we get to Dad’s. It’s not far, I promise.”

“But I have to go,” Halle said again, desperation in her voice.

I looked to Dad. “We can’t go yet,” I whispered to him.

“What? Why?”

“Halle has to go to the restroom.”

“Again?”

“She’s nervous,” I explained.

He sighed, frustrated. “Take her. Hurry. In and out.”

I tugged on Halle’s hand.

“The bathroom’s that way,” she said, resisting with every step.

“There’s only one restroom, Halle, and there’s a line. You’re going to have to go outside.”

“What? I’m not pottying outside!” she hissed.

I forced her out the door and to a dark corner of the yard. “Halle,” I grunted. “Here. Squat.”

“No!”

“We don’t have time for this!” I said.

Our voices were no louder than a whisper. We were well practiced in fighting just loud enough so that no one could hear.

Halle grew sullen, her lips forming a hard line. “This. Is. Injustice,” she said, unbuttoning her jeans.

“You don’t even know what that means,” I said, exasperated. I turned around but leaned back to murmur one last instruction out of the side of my mouth, “Don’t go on your shoes.”

“My pee feels hot. I think I’m running a fever.”

“It’s just cold outside. Hurry up.”

“What if I’m infected?”

“You’re not. Let’s go.”

Halle put herself together, and then I gestured to Dad that we were ready. Dad would go first in case anyone noticed, and then we would follow in twos.

Halle and I pretended to talk while Dad walked casually down the fence line, running his fingers along the chain links. To me, his nonchalance looked forced, but no one else seemed to notice. I kept Halle with me once Dad had slipped into the space between the two large gates. The young gunmen had closed the gates earlier with a rusted thick chain.

Dad was athletically built. He was on the department’s softball team. He wasn’t in the best shape of his life, but he easily maneuvered himself under the chain to the other side. Halle simply sidestepped through, but I had to duck. Dad kept walking toward the shadows of the trees, and Halle gripped my hand tighter.

A few moments later, I heard the chain rattle again.

Dad strolled across the street and into the park, and then he ducked behind a large tree trunk. When Halle and I reached him, he pulled us to the side.

“Wha—” I began, but Dad covered my mouth with his hand.

Halle’s eyes danced between us. When Tavia made it to the tree with her son in her arms, Dad removed his hand from my mouth to hold his finger to his lips.

Tavia blinked.

“Can you keep him quiet?” Dad asked. He nearly breathed out the words.

Tavia raised an eyebrow.

“What if he’s scared? Will he be quiet if you tell him to?”

“I am his mama. Nothing else is scarier than that,” she whispered.

Dad tilted his head in the direction of the street on the other side of the armory. The police officers were mobilizing outside.

“Heads up!” one called.

“Halt!” another said.

“We’re police officers! Halt, or we will fire!”

The commotion drew the attention of the groups of people in the yard. They walked over to the west fence. The yelling had also attracted the multitude of silhouettes wandering in the dark, their slow ambling only truly visible between streetlights. They were moving like children. Like bored grade-schoolers walking in a line to a field trip no one wanted to go on, they shuffled their feet in protest. Surely, they moved forward toward the officers without fear.

I’d watched enough movies with my mom to know what I was looking at. “They came from the highway, didn’t they? They’re infected,” I said, not really asking.

“Last warning!” an officer commanded.

“Please stop!” another begged as he aimed and cocked his rifle.

The tornado sirens filled the air, an eerie rise and fall, echoing from each corner of town.

“Run,” Tavia whispered.

I knew she was speaking to the people in the armory.

“Kids are in there, Dad. Little kids.”

“Shh,” he said.

“Kids Halle’s age. Babies,” I pleaded.

“We can’t help them,” he said.

Tavia picked up her son. “We should go. Before…” Her voice trailed off.

I was glad she hadn’t said the words in front of Halle.

One of the police officers fired off a warning shot, but the river washed over him, his cries muffled, and then they moved on to the others.

“Go!” Dad took one stride and then stopped, yanking me back by the shirt. “Wait! Let’s go around.” He made a half circle in the air, pointing toward the east.

Tavia shook her head. “Let’s just get there!”

Dad pulled on my shirt again, and I, in turn, pulled on Halle.

“Look,” he said, gesturing to the road.

A few people from the yard had escaped despite the shooting, and they were running south down Sixth Street. It was just a handful at first, and then more appeared.

“C’mon, Tavia,” I hissed as the screaming in the armory began.

“What’s happening?” Halle cried.

I held my hand over her mouth as we walked quickly across the other street and down a small road with small houses. A dog began barking and rushed toward Dad, stopping only when its chain held him back. After a momentary pause, Dad encouraged us to continue.

We walked two blocks east and then turned south. The police were still shooting, but the shouting and screams had quieted down. Halle was whimpering but kept quiet. Tobin looked around with wide eyes and a finger in his mouth, but he hadn’t made a peep.

Once we got to Dad’s street, Dad held up his hand, and we froze. A man was bent over an animal that was collared and still attached to a chain. His head was bobbing up and down and then jerking from one side to the other as he yanked away the animal’s flesh from the bone.

Dad held up his finger to his mouth, and he took a step back. I did the same, but Halle was behind me, and when she didn’t move, I nearly tripped over her.

“Jenna!” she barked.

The man’s head snapped up, and he crawled a couple of feet before fumbling himself up to his feet.

Dad swallowed. “Run,” he said, his voice surprisingly even.

Tavia held on tight to Tobin as she turned on her heels and ran back the way we’d come. Dad brought up the rear, but Tavia began to fall behind. Dad ran back and took Tobin from her arms, and they ran together, puffing.

A light blinked once, catching our attention. Dad stopped and then pulled us across the street, up a few steps onto a porch, and straight through an open door.

In the dark living room stood an old man holding a small flashlight, sixtyish, with a short white beard and slits for eyes. Next to him was a much younger woman, maybe his daughter. She was plump and covered in freckles, her reddish-brown hair shaped like a Christmas tree.

“Thanks, Jerry,” Dad said, trying to catch his breath. He handed Tobin to Tavia. “Sorry to hear about Marva.”

I scanned the dusty frames on the walls. The same three people stood posed in all the photos. The only person in the pictures and not in the room with us was a woman with wavy silver hair, cut short and feathered back—Jerry’s wife. I couldn’t tell how long it had been since their last family photo. The redhead had the same hairstyle in every picture since she was around my age, and only Jerry’s hair color had changed since then.

Halle crumpled against my side, trembling from the cold. I wrapped her in one of the blankets we carried from the armory and then my arms.

“Have you met the girls? That’s Jenna”—Dad pointed to me—“and little Halle over there,” he finished, lowering his finger toward Halle.

“I’ve seen ’em around town once in a while,” Jerry said.

Dad looked at us and gestured to his friend. “Jerry is retired from the Navy. He’s also a retired Anderson firefighter.”

“Way before your time, Andy,” Jerry said. “I’m an old fart. Never been gladder though. Heard they called all of you to the armory?”

Dad looked down. “We barely made it out.”

“Who’s Marva?” I asked.

Dad shifted, offering a quick apologetic smile to Jerry. “Marva is his wife.”

“
Was
my wife,” Jerry said. “We lost her to cancer last year. We sure miss her.”

The house looked like it missed Marva, too. The living room had two worn couches and a dark green recliner, their backs turned to the kitchen. A counter covered in peeling Formica that looked older than Dad separated the two rooms.

Jerry continued, “This is my daughter, Cathy Lynn.”

She gave a nod, smiling just enough not to seem rude. She had dark circles under her eyes. She didn’t seem to like that we were there. She tugged on her Winnie the Pooh T-shirt. I thought her choice to wear a cartoon character was odd because she looked older than Dad.

Jerry gestured to his daughter. “I called her over when the news said the virus had hit Atlanta. I knew once it was on our soil, it would spread fast. She lives just down the road there. People just don’t use common sense. Speaking of, what the hell were you doing out there, Andy?” Jerry asked, frowning. “Don’t you know they’re patrolling the streets? They’re shooting people!”

“What?” Tavia asked.

Cathy Lynn pointed, her hands trembling. “On the corner. Greg Jarvis refused to go with them, and they shot him dead right in his front yard. Didn’t you see him?”

Dad shook his head. “We were…preoccupied. The infection is in Anderson. We saw a man. He was…eating a dog, I think.”

Jerry spit into the Styrofoam cup he was holding and nodded. “That was probably Greg. He’s been walking around since about a minute after they put a bullet in his chest and drove away. Idiots. You gotta shoot ’em in the head, or they just get back up.”

Dad and Tavia traded glances.

“One of the last reports on the news said that it spreads like rabies,” Jerry said. “They bite ya, and if it don’t kill you right away, you get sick enough to die. When you get up, you ain’t you.” He shook his head. “Just like in the movies. They were spot-on, goddamn it.”

“Did they say anything else?” Tavia asked.

Jerry frowned. “Oh, they did mention the flu shots.”

“What about them?” Dad asked, frowning.

“Did you get yours this year?”

Dad dipped his head once, the skin around his eyes tight. “Is that what’s infecting people?”

“No,” Jerry said. “Just the bite. But that blonde on channel nine said they heard several reports of people turning faster, once they’re bit, if they had the flu shot. They don’t know why. I’ve never liked her much—that reporter. She’s probably safe. I hear zombies eat brains.”