HOWLERS (11 page)

  “Marvin, I don’t have a lot of time,” Quentin said. “You heard what he said. Something crazy is going on. I thought you should hear it, seeing that you’re the only doctor we got in town.”

“Sheriff. I just had Willis Good kill himself in my office. He cut his throat.”

“
What
?”

“Willis cut his throat because he was afraid that something was coming to town,” Marvin said. His face was almost gray from the stress. His shirt, splashed with blood, was pulled out and hung from under his sheep-skin jacket. The shirttail was stiff and hard with dried blood.

“Willis killed himself? I
just
sent him down to Sacramento with T.C. That’s
impossible
.”

“There was an accident outside of town. They brought Willis to my office,” Marvin said.

“Eileen, where’s T.C.?” Quentin spoke into the intercom.

Eileen Anderson opened Quentin’s door and stepped into the office. She’d put on her coat and a ski hat.

“I don’t know, Quentin. He never got to Sacramento with the prisoner is my guess. I’m leaving the office. I have to find Ronny.”

Quentin stood up and wanted to grab something, anything, to stop the world from spinning.

   “Quentin. I think there’s something very wrong. Some kind of mass poisoning or meningitis. I’m not sure what,” Marvin said. “I called the CDC. We’ve had over twenty cases at the office this morning alone.”

“Poisoning?” Quentin said. “What’s that got to do with Willis killing himself in your office, for Christ’s sake?”

“I don’t know. He was hysterical,” Marvin said.

“Okay. All right, there’s something going on, okay. You heard what the man said on the phone. Let’s slow down. Marvin, I want you to go back to your office. We’ll investigate Willis’ suicide as soon as we can. Eileen, I want you to find out where the hell T.C. is.” He looked at the two of them. The doctor’s bloody shirt and coat were unnerving. They both were staring at him.

“I want to use the phone,” Marvin said. “I want to check on my wife.” Quentin nodded.

“T.C. is missing,” Eileen said. She walked back over to her side of the office and turned on the intercom. “I had the note on my desk. I just didn’t read it, I’m sorry. T.C. wasn’t at the accident site when they found Willis. His patrol car was destroyed,” she said over the intercom.

“Accident site?” Quentin said.

“T.C. must have gotten into some kind of accident out on
50 this morning,” Eileen said over the intercom. She lifted the Highway Patrol flash report from her desk and pressed it against the glass between them, showing Quentin the report.

The sheriff’s car pulled out of the parking lot and merged into the traffic on Main Street. It didn’t seem much different than any other February morning, Quentin thought. The sky was overcast. Lit Christmas lights were still strung over the street. Quentin took comfort in the familiar sight. The lights always reminded him of his own childhood.

“What time did Lacy call?” Quentin asked.

“About an hour ago,” Eileen said.

“I’m glad she’s decided to go back. I don’t know what got into that girl. Kids, huh?” He looked at his friend.

She was looking out at the street, her expression pensive. “What did the captain mean by mass hysteria?” Eileen said.

“I don’t know. People are missing all over the state. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Or maybe it’s some kind of illness. I just don’t know.”

“Quentin, what would make people go missing all over the state? Come on? Don’t talk to me like a cop, Quentin.”

“Eileen, you heard him. They don’t know.”

“You said Sharon didn’t go to school this morning.”

“Right.” Quentin turned off Main Street. He looked into the new coffee house that had gone in on the corner. The bike stand in front of the place was full of mountain bikes. He stopped the patrol car. “She likes to come here, Sharon and her friends. I bet you a dollar I’ll find her in there cutting class,” he said. Quentin stopped the patrol car in the middle of the street and turned on his red lights. He threw the shift lever into park. “I’ll be right out.”

“Quentin, hurry,
please
,” Eileen said.

Quentin walked into the Higher Ground Cafe. The stereo was playing a song he didn’t recognize. The tables were full of young people on break from the businesses nearby. He saw Rebecca, Mike Stewart’s daughter, talking to a tall kid in bike clothes sporting a goatee, a bright yellow bike jacket hung over the chair behind him. Quentin walked through the crowd. Several of the local business people nodded to him. His radio went off and he turned it down. Eyes started to follow him toward the back of the cafe.

“Hey, Rebecca,” Quentin said.

“Hey, Sheriff. This is my new friend, Gary.”

The sheriff saw how red both kids’ eyes were.
Stoned,
he thought.

“Hi, Gary,” Quentin said.

The kid glanced at him, not wanting to look him in the face.

“He’s just moved up from the City,” Rebecca said.

Quentin nodded. “Welcome to Timberline, son. Rebecca, I’m looking for Sharon. Has she been in here this morning?”

“I didn’t see her, Sheriff.”

“You’re
sure
?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. If you see her today, will you tell her to please call me? How’s your dad?”

“Okay. The shop’s being picketed by some anti-gun people. All week long,” Rebecca said.

“I know, he called me about it. I got to run. If you see Sharon, please tell her to call me on my cell. Or better yet, to go to the office and wait for me.”

“Sure, Sheriff,” Rebecca said.

“Nice meeting you, Sheriff,” the kid said.

Quentin was going to move on, but he stuck his hand out and the kid shook it. Quentin tried to smile back at the young man’s eager-innocent stoned face. He felt protective of the two kids, of everyone in the cafe.

   “I should go back to the store,” Rebecca said. “It’s like, not cool. But I can’t stand meeting someone and then—I don’t know. I’m kind of impulsive,” she said.

“What about the video store?” Summers asked.

“I know the owner. She’ll understand. I want to check on my dad.”

“Cool,” Gary said. He wanted to look at his watch. He was going to be late for his appointment with Mr. Worden at the pet shop, but he didn’t give a damn. The girl in front of him was not only beautiful; she was turning out to be unpredictable, too, which was very exciting. She was different from all the girls he’d known in San Francisco, with their cool-breeze, butter-won’t-melt attitudes.

“The sheriff said your dad was being picketed?”

“Yeah. It’s
really
stupid,” Rebecca said.

“You mind if I ask why?” Gary asked.

“He has the gun shop in town, and every once and a while the gun haters come up from San Francisco, Sacramento, or LA, some big city, and picket our shop.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, it’s really stupid. My dad’s great.”

“Why his shop? I mean, there are lots of gun shops in the Bay Area.”

“We’re one of the biggest sellers of handguns in the state,” she said proudly. “I hope you aren’t one of them. I mean those people who, you know—don’t know his ass from a can of chocolate sauce.”

Gary hardly heard what she was saying. She sounded like a truck driver but she looked like one of those girls on the cover of
Maxim
. “I don’t really know much about guns,” he said carefully. 

“I could teach you,” Rebecca said, smiling. “I know a
lot
about guns. I was two-time NRA pistol champion in my age division.” She leaned over and touched his arm. He could smell her again. She smelled like coffee and some kind of sweet soap. He had a fantasy of rubbing shampoo all over her in a big shower. “We have a Fifty Caliber at the house,” she said, winking at him. “It’s
legal
, too. Did you know it isn’t really illegal to own machine guns? Not if you get a permit from the ATF. My dad got one.”

“Wow,” Gary said. He had no idea what a Fifty Caliber was, exactly. But if she owned one, great.

“He wants to get an old Army surplus Quad Four, but they won’t let him have that,” she added.

Quentin pulled up into Eileen Alexander’s driveway. They had heard the same story at the junior high that he’d heard at the high school earlier, only this story was even more bizarre. Kids hadn’t shown up for class, or had left the school grounds. Ronny Alexander had attacked a teacher, they’d been told. When a math teacher tried to stop him from leaving the room, he’d hit the teacher and run away.

“Quentin, will you come in? If he’s here, I want you to take him back to the school and find out what happened. I want you to get the teacher to stop pressing charges.
Please
. You know Ronny. He wouldn’t hurt
anyone
,” Eileen said.

The sheriff looked into his friend’s face. She was pale. He needed her to come back to the office, but he was afraid to ask. What he’d heard had scared him because he
did
know Ronny Alexander. He was a bookish kid, who rarely spoke above a whisper. The principal had said he’d attacked his math teacher. They’d had to call an ambulance for the teacher, whom Ronny had beaten horribly and left unconscious
.
The principal told Quentin
that Ronny had fought off another two teachers and run away. And he wasn’t the only kid who had acted violently that morning. Several teachers had been attacked. The principal had closed the school for the day and sent everyone home.

“None of this makes any sense,” Quentin said. He looked at the front yard buried in snow. He wondered where his daughter was. He heard the car door open and knew he had to go inside with Eileen. But he didn’t want to. He wanted only to find Sharon. Nothing else seemed important.

I’m not going to panic,
he told himself.
Don’t panic.
He remembered the look that young father had when Quentin was forced to tell him they hadn’t found his daughter.

Oh God, that
can’t
happen to us, Marie.

“Is Dad home?” Sharon asked. Lacy had picked up the ringing landline on the way out of the house. She’d almost decided to not answer. She and Robin had had a terrible fight. She’d said the word “abortion” and Robin Wood had gone ballistic. He hadn’t heard anything else she’d said.

“Where are you?” Lacy asked.

“I’m in town. At someone’s house,” Sharon said.

“What do you mean, at someone’s
house
? Why aren’t you at
school
?”

“What difference does it make? Just tell me where Dad is,” Sharon said.

“I don’t know. He left here and went into town. He wants to talk to you. What happened between you two?”

“He won’t leave me alone about stuff.”

“What stuff?” Lacy said.

“Never mind.”

“Sharon, are you sleeping with that dirt bag who picked you up this morning?”

“None of your business.”

“Are you being careful? Are you using a condom?” She tried to imagine her little sister now. In some biker’s crash-pad, feeling grown up.

“Are you?” Sharon said. “Tell Dad I’m okay. All right? I’ve decided. I am not coming home for a while. Okay? Tell him I’m okay. I’m going to school. But I’m not coming home for a while. I just can’t take it right now. I need some space.”

“Sharon … ” The line went dead. Lacy put down the phone and called her father, but the call went to voice mail. Then she went outside and loaded her VW bug and left for town to buy a new cell phone before leaving for the Bay Area.

CHAPTER 11

They were driving Bell to the Army’s regional stockade in Sacramento, as ordered by the colonel. Two young MPs had put Bell in leg irons and loaded him into a white government van that would take him to jail. It was still snowing softly, the way it had been earlier that morning when he and his sergeant had landed their chopper. It was difficult for Bell to believe that all that had happened only a few hours ago. He’d tried to explain to the colonel, but he hadn’t listened. Instead he’d assumed that Bell was crazy.

Riding in the MPs’ van Bell decided he would have to tell another story. No one was going to believe the truth; he understood that now. And for the first time, he was scared.

Why didn’t they send another helicopter up there? Why didn’t they look at the tracks in the snow? They would still be there if they hurried. He hadn’t killed Sergeant Whitney—that was absurd
.

Bell listened to the conversation between the two young MPs. They were talking about their upcoming plans for the weekend as if everything were normal. The young soldiers’ scalps were gleaming white under their very short military-style haircuts.
Just as the snow had gleamed around us
, Bell remembered. He heard Sergeant Whitney yelling at the things again as the two of them fought for their lives by the creek.

*   *   *

They saw more of the creatures dropping off the snow bank down into the creek, half a dozen more. Others were already in the water, too many to fight. Bell and the sergeant helped each other out of the shallow water. The sergeant began to move up the bank. The lieutenant followed him out of the creek, pistol in hand.

“There’s too many, sir!”

“I’ve got an extra clip,” Bell said. His breath appeared as fog in the cold air.

“No good, Ken.” It was the first time the sergeant hadn’t called him sir. “Look at them. There’s twenty or more in the river.”

Bell watched more of the things drop into the river and start to swim-float toward them. They all wore the same dull and strange expression, man or woman. “We have to get to the chopper.
They’ll
have to run through the snow, too.” Bell said. “Let’s wait until they all drop in.”

“I’m fucking scared, sir.”

“Bill.” The lieutenant looked at the sergeant.

“Yes, sir.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m just as scared. I want to shit my pants.”

“Yes, sir!” They watched the horde of human-like things drop into the fast-moving creek, some sliding down the bank on their butts and into the water. One of them started to howl, then another.

“They look just like
people
,” the sergeant said.

“Well, they
aren’t
people,” Bell said. The first one was twenty yards and coming, floating down the creek, his chest up out of the water. Bell raised his pistol and fired, hitting the thing in the mouth. Hurrying, he and Whitney helped each other up the snowy bank and started to run toward their chopper through the deep snow.

*   *   *

The MPs’ van stopped at a traffic light. Everything seemed so normal, hours later. Not like out there in the snow running toward the helicopter that looked close but wasn’t. It must have been about nine in the morning, Bell thought, when they ran toward the chopper. If running was the word for it. The sun had come out without them noticing. They crawled, helping each other up the steep snow-covered creek bank, standing in four feet of snow now. The lieutenant heard the sergeant’s labored breathing. He could hear it now, again, the sound of Bill Whitney’s breathing and the look of terror in the older man’s eyes.

*   *   *

They could see their helicopter only seventy yards away, sitting in the open field, the dull Army-green color standing out on the snow. He’d let the chopper down on a rocky boulder-strewn field spotted with fresh snow; it was a high spot that Bell had guessed would support the Apache.

“There’s some of them around the chopper!” the sergeant said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bell said. He didn’t know what else to say. The chopper seemed to be their only chance. They started to trot toward it. The sun came out and the glare on the open field was explosive. He saw a bluish crystal-burn on the icy surface of the fresh snow in front of him, strangely psychedelic. The sergeant was ahead of him. They ran with their hips deep in snow. Sergeant Whitney was charging, bent slightly forward like a halfback trying to break a tackle. The lieutenant could hear Whitney grunting. The deep snow was pocked and crushed by Whitney so that Bell could follow in the bigger man’s trail. But it was slow going; the snow was wet and deep and seemed to hold them in place at times.

It dawned on Bell that the creatures would be able to use their trail, too.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“Are they coming, sir?” The sergeant stopped. Bell could hear him breathing very hard. The sergeant, older, in his late forties, was sweating, his red face wet with it.

“Keep going, Bill. You have to keep going!” The lieutenant was afraid to turn around. He forced himself to stop and look behind him. He saw nothing behind him. But he was shocked how close to the creek they still were. They’d only come fifteen yards, at most.

The sergeant was bent over, taking gulps of air. Bell heard him spit. “Tired. Have to rest a moment.”

“All right, I’ll go first,” Bell said. He stepped around the sergeant, having to push through the snow that came up to his crotch. He handed Whitney his Beretta.

Bell looked at the clean snow in front of him. It was belt-high, the top frozen and hard. He looked up at the helicopter. It was still more than fifty yards away, an eternity it seemed. He started forward. Immediately the wet fresh snow gathered around his waist and made going forward difficult and exhausting.

Bell leaned forward, feeling the snow barely separate. His legs started to burn. He tried to hop as a way of clearing his body, but it only made him sink deeper in the snow. He tried to get a rhythm he could maintain, his leg muscles straining with the effort. The snow fell away as he broke a narrow trail, narrower than the sergeant’s.

The sun came out through a fissure in the clouds and blinded him. The glare off the field made him squint to see anything. Bell made himself think of his control panel in the helicopter. He made himself see each dial, each knob, the smooth red knobs of the flight control, the chopper’s clean windshield. He made himself feel the thing lifting off the ground. He was sitting in the pilot’s seat, watching himself and Whitney run toward him, turning on the engine, listening to the whine of the engine and the movement of the heavy dark blades that would save them.

Move, you SOB—move, move, move.

“Run, Lieutenant, they’re behind us! RUN, LIEUTENANT! OH GOD, RUN!”

Bell felt the sergeant’s hand on his back, pushing him. He tried to tell him to stop it, that he was going to fall forward, but he couldn’t speak. Bell was sucking hard for air. He heard a gunshot shot.

“LIEUTENANT, RUN!”

Bell heard a second shot, very close to him. Something pushed him from behind. He fell face forward in the snow and everything went dark.

Horribly confused, the lieutenant struggled to stand up. He heard the howling near him, very loud. He stood and managed to turn around. Whitney had one of the things, a woman, by the hair. He was pulling her head back, bending her backwards violently. Another creature, a man in a blue suit and dark glasses was running down the snowy glistening path, howling. The thing’s not-quite human face contorted, long strings of white thick-looking spit dripping from its reddish lips. The woman Howler, despite being pulled backwards, backhanded the sergeant, knocking him away from her. Bell saw the sergeant fall to his knees, pistol in hand. Panicked, Whitney fired at the woman, the bullets catching her in the chest, then the stomach. The Howler stood up from where she’d fallen, unfazed, and kicked the sergeant in the face, knocking him toward the lieutenant. The struggle was compacting the snow around Whitney into a scooped-out bowl.

Bell looked at the bullet hole in the in the women’s breast. Blood poured out onto the trampled snow staining it red, but she was unaffected.

“
You fucking bitch!
” the sergeant yelled. This time he took careful aim and fired. Nothing happened.

The Howler looked at him, her mouth open in a strange snarling glare. She walked over to the sergeant and picked him up.

“OH God, Lieutenant, help me! God, Lieutenant!”

The Howler bent him over her knee, trying to snap Whitney in two like a stick.

“OH GOD! OH GOD! AAH!”

The lieutenant heard the sergeant’s spine snap, saw the man’s hands and feet twitch horribly, his back broken. The Howler threw Whitney aside as if he were a broken toy.

The one behind her, in the suit, stopped howling and trotted up the carved narrow trail toward Bell.

The lieutenant stood up. He looked at the Beretta laying in the trampled snow a few yards in front of him and knew it needed to be reloaded. He took the extra clip from his service holster hanging from his arm.

“You fucking—” The lieutenant jumped for the weapon. The woman came at him in a crouch, stepping over the sergeant’s still-twitching body. Bell, grabbing the weapon, managed to drop the clip and ram home the fresh one. He fired at her. He caught her in the neck, then fired again at almost point blank range. Her head exploded and she ran aimlessly, face punched out. Bell fired again, this time at the back of her head, hitting it and seeing the back of the thing’s skull smashed open and fall apart.

The Howler in the suit pushed the head-shot Howler out of its way, knocking her down. The Howler with the sunglasses stood in front of Bell, long strings of spit hanging from its slightly open mouth. The thing turned and looked at the squirming sergeant, his body twitching in agony. Bell saw that the thing wore a name tag on its coat and an American flag on its lapel. It said:
Hi, my name is Paul
. The lieutenant looked at the tag in horror.

“Why are you doing this? Why?” Bell said. The lieutenant raised his pistol.

The Howler looked at him. The Howler opened his mouth and made a kind of hissing sound.

“Hey, Paul!
Fuck you
!” The lieutenant fired into the thing’s howling mouth. It fell backwards, stone dead. Bell ran to the sergeant lying face up in the blood-sprayed snow.

The sergeant looked up at him, still alive. “Shoot me, sir. Please. Please. I won’t make it. Please,
God
! Don’t leave me alive.”

Bell knelt down and put the pistol’s barrel on the center of Whitney’s forehead. They locked eyes; Bell fired several rounds, each seeming louder than the next. He finally turned and started toward the helicopter, the pistol and his hand covered in Whitney’s blood and brains.

   Bell turned to rest a few yards from the chopper. He saw one of the creatures—a small young woman, no older than fifteen—lift the sergeant’s dead body over her head and throw it out of her way. The sergeant’s dead body flew several yards. It was impossible, but he’d seen it with his own two eyes.
How could she lift the body like that?
He caught his breath. He dropped the pistol’s clip into his palm and saw he had only a few rounds left.

I’ll save the last one for myself.
 

He turned around and started running again, his entire body burning from the effort. The snow dropped away as he reached the rocky area. But he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything but hate. He wasn’t afraid anymore. Three teenage Howlers, standing near the chopper, were screaming so loud it hurt his ears. He killed all three and climbed into the chopper. He heard himself yell with excitement at having cheated death; he started the engines and lifted off the ground and saw, he guessed, a hundred of the things coming through the snow in single file past the sergeant’s dead body splayed out in the snow.

*   *   *

“We have to take you to the Nevada City jail,” the MP said. “Something’s going on down the freeway. We just got a call. The freeway into Sacramento is closed.”

“What do you mean it’s
closed
?” the lieutenant said.

“I don’t know, sir. Just got a call on my cell. Weren’t you listening?”

Bell shook his head. He’d been back there starting the helicopter and seeing a hundred or more of the things coming toward him in a long line. He opened up with the Apache’s cannon and cut down half of them, hovering at just 50 feet, turning the ship’s nose, the sound of the cannon overwhelming the terrible howling sound. He finally took his finger off the trigger and flew over the destroyed column of things, many of them still trying to crawl. A few, untouched by the cannon, were howling at the Apache as it flew over their heads.

   The magnitude of what had happened to them hit him. He’d been forced to stop Whitney’s horrible suffering—what other choice was there? They’d both known it. He couldn’t have just run off and left Whitney alive. He’d never forget the sergeant’s look as they’d locked eyes:
grateful
. He was grateful.

“No.”

“We’ve been ordered to take you to Timberline and leave you there. The MPs from Sacramento will come and get you later, when the highway opens again.”

“Why is the highway closed?” the lieutenant asked. “It’s Howlers, isn’t it? They’re all over, aren’t they?”

The MP looked at him. “Sorry, sir. What’s a Howler?”

“You’ll see,” Bell said.

The kid looked at him, then turned around. He winked at the corporal who was driving.

*   *   *

“Why didn’t you say you knew people in this town, boy?” Mr. Worden, the pet shop owner, wasn’t mad that Summers was late. “I’ve known Rebecca Stewart since she was a little girl.” Worden, in his seventies, put his arm around Rebecca and hugged her.

“I have to go back to the store,” Rebecca said. “He was afraid you’d be mad at him for being late, Mr. Worden. But I told him you wouldn’t be if you knew he was with me.” Rebecca turned and looked at Gary. “You see, Mr. Worden and my pop are very tight. And besides, Mr. Worden is my godfather. I told you not to worry.”

“He still thinks he’s in the big city where nobody knows anybody,” Worden said, smiling. “Who you know in Timberline matters, son. Now if you’re a friend of Rebecca Stewart’s, then you’re a friend of mine.”

“I’ll come by the video store later,” Gary said.