HOWLERS (21 page)

“The government is calling out the National Guard in Los Angeles. It’s pretty bad there, according to the TV,” Marvin said.

“They say anything about us up here?” Patty lowered her pistol, letting it hang from her neck.

“No. It’s all been about L.A. and San Francisco. They haven’t gotten to San Francisco.” Poole said. “It’s probably safe there.”

“You think I could have a cup of coffee?” Patty said. “I’m pretty cold. I skied down from Emigrant Gap. It’s bad up there. They must have come up the freeway from Sacramento. There were so many of them.”

“Yes, of course. Was that one of them?” Poole said and gestured toward the street. “I knew him. Miles Hunt.”

“I didn’t ask,” Patty said. “I’ve been shooting those things all morning.” She bent over to push her ski-pole tip onto the button that released her boot from her ski, then she released the other.

“It’s more than twenty miles to Emigrant Gap,” the doctor said, watching her get out of her skies, amazed that she’d managed it.

Patty walked into the foyer carrying her cross-country skis, afraid to leave them outside. The skis had saved her life. She pulled off her hood. Her hair fell over her shoulders. The doctor shut the door. His little girl scurried off toward the living room. CNN was playing on a huge flat-screen television in the living room, a red banner headline over the anchorwoman’s head, almost pushing her face off the screen: PANIC IN CALIFORNIA, it said.

Reports continue to come into CNN headquarters in Atlanta that the city of Los Angeles is experiencing the worst riot in the history of that city, or any American city.

We warn you that the film footage we are about to show is some of the most upsetting ever run on CNN. But in the interest of the public good, and after much soul searching here in Atlanta, we have decided to show you some of what our cameras have been recording over the last twenty-four hours. We are also getting reports that the riots are spreading to several other cities and towns in California: Bakersfield, Sacramento ...

Patty and the doctor moved across the white living-room rug toward the television. On screen they saw live footage shot by a helicopter hovering above the streets of Santa Monica in Los Angeles.

“We just flew over Santa Monica this morning. Gloria, we have seen things that are impossible to explain. The only thing we can say is that chaos reigns in the city. You can see below that pitched battles are being fought in the streets of Los Angeles. Houses have become forts, businesses have been overrun by ...”
The reporter paused, obviously shaken up and frightened, trying to get his composure “
…
by people that have become somehow changed.”

A house in Santa Monica was shown on screen. They could see the flash of gunfire coming from the house. Howlers, hundreds of them, were attacking the place. They had gotten up the house’s long driveway and were breaking into the bottom floor. An older man was shooting at the Howlers from a second-story window. The helicopter lowered, the shot of the horde of Howlers very clear as they poured into broken windows on the ground floor.

The doctor watched the TV, unable to turn away from the dramatic pictures. The creatures’ strange faces were caught on camera as the helicopter hovered over the house, at times giving them close-ups of the things howling or loping along on all fours up the driveway. The things wore the same ugly expressions Marvin had seen out on the road. The things on TV all seemed to have the same slight elongation of their arms, thickness to their jaw lines too. He could hear their weird, ear-shattering howling sound.

  “Turn it off.” Patty said, frightened by what she was seeing and what it meant: there might not be any escape.

“We did it,” Crouchback said.

Patty turned around as a man in his fifties in pajamas and a robe, in his bare feet, stepped into the living room.

“We did it.”

“What are you talking about?” Patty said.

“Up at Genesoft. We’ve done this,” the man said.

“He thinks it’s the food that Genesoft designed,” Poole said.

“I don’t think. I know.” Crouchback turned on him. “I worked it out at the computer this morning. We designed a new protein. We didn’t tell anyone—top secret. No one thought a simple protein could be—well, do this.”

“Where’s that coffee?” Patty said, looking at the old man. “I could use a cup.”

The doctor’s landline rang.

“I thought you said the phone was out?” Patty said.

“It was out.” Poole ran to the phone in the kitchen, hoping against hope that it meant things were getting better.

*   *   *

Rebecca had changed into her deer-hunting clothes: winter-print camo pants, camo t-shirt, and long-sleeved shirt. She wore ammo belts crossed over her chest, filled with shotgun shells. They were watching the CNN reports on an old black-and-white television in the basement. Sometimes, while they watched, they heard the steel basement door shake, and the awful howling sound coming from above them.

Gary had started to shake involuntarily with fear. Every time Summers heard the pounding on the steel door leading to the shop, he was sure that the Howlers would break it down and get through.

Rebecca shot a disgusted glance at him. “Stop doing that!” she snapped.

“I’m sorry,” Gary said. “It’s just—”

“If they do come down here, what’s the worst they can do?” Rebecca said. “Kill you. Okay. Fuck! You’re making me nervous.”

“Maybe some of them are friendly,” Stewart said. Like his daughter, he seemed to find the whole thing slightly funny.

Gary looked at the father and daughter and realized he didn’t understand them at all. They were either the stupidest people he’d ever met, or the bravest; it might be a little of each.

Rebecca had set up a camping stove and was brewing coffee. Rebecca’s father had put on winter-print camouflaged hunting clothes too, and was wearing a blaze orange baseball cap.

“Hey Pop, you think that Quentin can make it back? Maybe we should get down to Sacramento on our own.”

“He’ll be back,” her father said. “I’ve known that boy since he was a kid. If Quentin says he’ll come back for you, you can put your last dollar on it.”

A monstrous loud crash came from the shop above them—glass being broken. It was much louder than anything they’d heard. Mr. Stewart turned down the TV and looked at his daughter. He walked to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at the door. It shook on its hinges as the Howlers tried to tear it down.

He didn’t want to show it, but he was terrified.

CHAPTER 17

Lieutenant Bell made small talk. It seemed like the only thing he could do. He told the girl about his parents’ place in Mississippi, near Tupelo, where he’d grown up. He described the town. He told her about summertime back home: the humidity, his parents’ nursery, the fact that all the men in his family had served in the military, going back to The Spanish American War. He talked to make himself feel better. He told the girl that he’d never been in the snow until he went on a Boy Scouts-sponsored trip to Colorado when he was fifteen.

The girl had listened to him, but not really been there with him. Bell could sense it as they drove down the two-lane country road. The road had been freshly plowed, as the Sheriff promised. The only time she spoke was to give him directions. “Turn here,” she’d said. And then she’d not said another word until the next time she told him, “Turn right here,” in the same flat tone of voice.

Each turn had produced a narrower country road. The one they were on now stretched straight as a black string in front of them. To their left and right was a seemingly endless pine forest, white-carpeted, the trees tall, old-growth pine. Here and there he could make out a summer cabin, set back in the woods. He had to remind himself that things weren’t as they appeared, that the world had been turned on its head. Staring down the road, he remembered the title of a rockabilly song his grandfather used to play on his old-school phonograph: “I Forgot To Remember To Forget.”

“You ever been down South?” Bell asked. His left side was hurting, but talking seemed to be the best medicine. He wanted to talk, and not think about all the horrible things he’d seen in the last twelve hours. Bell waited for an answer, but the girl didn’t speak. He turned and looked at her. “It’s different down there in winter. It doesn’t snow too much in Tupelo,” Bell said.

Still nothing from the girl.

He looked out on the road, listening to the pleasant sound of the Volkswagen’s engine. It was a sound he knew well; his mother had an old bug that his parents had had for years. It was the first car he’d ever driven.

The road was empty. They had seen no one at all since they’d pulled out of Timberline.

He turned to look at the girl. She was beautiful, even in profile. He thought she looked like Gwyneth Paltrow. Her hair was very blond, summertime-hay color, her complexion peaches and cream.
Wish I’d met her before all this happened.
He looked out on the road again. A deer, just a greyish specter a hundred yards in front of them, sprang from the right side and quickly disappeared into the forest. Bell glanced down at the fuel-tank gauge. It was full.

“You were lucky to gas up,” Bell said. “Is there a heater in this thing?”

“Yes.” It was the first time she’d answered a question since she’d gotten in the car. She reached forward and turned on the heater. Bell watched her fingers work the knob and felt a rush of warm air hit his boots.

“Thanks.”

“You’re bleeding,” Lacy said. “I have a friend nearby. I think we should stop in. He’s a vet, maybe he can help you.”

“Am I that ugly?” Bell said, trying to joke. He looked down at his wound. The bandages the medic at the base had wrapped him in were heavily stained and filthy. Newer bleeding stained the darker dried blood. The lieutenant saw she had almost smiled.

“Your dad said I should take you to this Phelps place,” Bell said.

“It’s up here, on the right. My friend’s place,” Lacy said. “Please.”

She turned and looked at him. It was a painful thing to see. She was trying to keep from crying. He could see her lips quivering and he felt as if he should stop the car, or reach out and take her hand; but he did neither, afraid he would do or say the wrong thing.

Lacy reached over and touched his arm. “Please?”

“Okay. Sure,” Bell said. He slowed the car down. They had been passing a painted-white fence for the last quarter-mile. Lacy faced the road again.

“It’s here. Up this driveway,” Lacy said.

Bell slowed the car. He reached behind him for the pistol. Quentin had given him his service automatic and two full clips; Bell had tossed the weapon and ammo onto the car’s backseat when they’d gotten into the VW. He brought the pistol up and laid it on his lap as they turned into the driveway and past a sign that said: “Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Robin Wood.” 

Bell pulled the VW up a driveway to the front of a single-story ranch-style house from the ‘60s. An old blue Japanese pickup truck was parked next to a newer Prius in the carport. He turned off the engine and reached for the pistol in his lap. He had the idea that they hadn’t come because of his wound at all, but for some other reason. Some horses trotted over from a corral and hung their heads over the fence that faced the house. Bell saw the front door of the house open. A man about his age stood in the doorway.

Lacy got out of the car and walked toward the door. She was crying, and Bell brought the gun up in case the man in the door was one of them. But it was clear from the look on his face, and the length of his arms, that he was human. Bell watched the girl fall into the young man’s arms. Seeing how he held her, Bell understood why they’d stopped here: she had a boyfriend and she’d wanted to be with him.

He got out of the car and noticed the bloodstain he’d left on the driver’s seat. He felt light-headed and held onto the roof of the car as he climbed out. He hesitated as the couple in the doorway embraced. He looked away, out to where the horses had been standing in the big corral. The horses had moved into the field, and were galloping for no good reason.

He watched them and thought of the sergeant. It was silly, but he wanted to talk to Sergeant Whitney again. He wanted to tell him what had happened to the world in just a few short hours, tell him that the world had been turned on its head since they’d landed in that field. No one had warned them when they’d gotten into their helicopter that morning, fresh from a good night’s sleep, full of breakfast and bravado, that nothing would be the same for either one of them—ever. But he would never have that conversation. He put the pistol in the big pocket of his flight suit and walked slowly toward the front door, which had been left open for him.

As he got near the door he could hear Lacy crying. It was sounded very loud and her tone was that of a child who had been hurt. It was awful. For the first time in his life, he thought of suicide. The idea of it welled up from some deep ugly pit. It was this new reality, where nature itself had become perverted and hostile, that was too much to take. It was as if the world hated him, specifically, hated the sergeant, hated everyone.

The crazy idea of suicide broke apart in his head like one of those big table-top puzzles.  The pieces of the strange idea pulled apart and scattered, becoming random pieces. He stopped just inside the doorway. He knew since he’d been forced to shoot Sergeant Whitney that he was not quite right in the head. Had the girl sensed that about him? She was sobbing, held in the young man’s arms, the two of them standing in the middle of the living room. The young man nodded to Bell, motioning for him to come on in and shut the door.

“I put her in the shower. I thought it would do her good. My name’s Robin Wood,” the veterinarian said, walking into the kitchen. Bell was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him, the pistol on the table. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand exactly who you are, and—is that necessary?” Wood asked, looking at the pistol.

Bell could hear a dishwasher going on behind him and wondered how the house had power. The kitchen smelled of coffee and was neat, verging on luxurious. It was the kind of house his mother would have loved. It was the kind of house his family could never afford, but that his mother would go out and visit on Sundays, visiting realtor’s “open houses,” an opportunity for ordinary people like her to see the homes of the county’s well-to-do.

Bell looked at the young man in front of him and recognized a secure I’m-in-charge glossiness, the stamp of the wealthy that Bell had seen his whole life in Mississippi. The big land-owning families who rode around their cotton and palm-oil plantations in sixty-thousand dollar Dodge pickups, equipped with the latest GPS, weather-spotting, link ups—high kings. Everywhere the rich looked across their Delta cotton land, it was flat and green with their cotton, the way it had been for over a hundred years. It may have been the New South, but with the same old poor people, white and black, working for the Man in the big truck. He decided he didn’t like Wood.

“Yes, sir. I think it is.” Bell dragged the pistol over closer to him. He’d forgotten to bring in the extra clips from the backseat of the car. He almost got up to get them, but realized that he was probably safe here. He’d seen nothing on the road to make him think the things had gotten this far.

“Lacy said you would explain what’s going on,” Wood said.

“Well, everything I would tell you is going to sound crazy, and I’m not sure you’ll believe me,” Bell said. He took a swallow of coffee. “How is she?”

Wood came over to the table and sat down. He glanced in the direction of the bathroom and then looked at Bell.

“Apparently she was raped,” Wood said. “Does her father know?”

Bell put down his coffee cup, shocked. “I don’t know. When? I guess at that house, where I found her?”

“Listen—Lieutenant, right? Lieutenant, I don’t understand. Lacy said that her father— that Sharon Collier was killed there, in front of the house where Lacy was raped. I really don’t understand what is going on. This doesn’t make any sense. You bring my girlfriend in here carrying a gun. She tells me her father has shot her sister out in the middle of the street in cold blood. Is she mad?”

“No,” Bell said. “She isn’t crazy. I saw it too.”

“You saw her sister?” Wood said.

“Yes. Only it wasn’t her sister anymore,” Bell said. He met Wood’s gaze evenly.

“I’m sorry, I can’t believe any of this. What are you talking about?” Wood said.

   Bell looked away. He could see the corral from the kitchen window with snow-dusted horses standing near the fences. He tried to formulate some kind of explanation that would make sense, or at least sound reasonable, but he was exhausted, and the effort of trying to explain everything he’d seen in the last few hours was too much.

“Listen, doctor.”

“Yes.”

“I’m very tired right now. I think I’ve lost a lot of blood and I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” Bell looked at the clock on the stove, everything shiny and clean. It was 3:00 p.m., according to the clock.  “And I’m very hungry. Do you think I might have something to eat? Maybe later, I can explain.”

There was the sound of a door opening and closing in the house. The two men looked at each other.

“Pick up your land line,” Bell said. The lieutenant glanced at the phone hanging on the wall of the kitchen. “Go ahead.”

Wood looked at him, then got up and went to the phone and lifted the receiver off the hook, a slightly annoyed look on his face.

“It’s dead, isn’t it?” Bell said.

Wood nodded. “How long has it been out?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But I think the TV is probably out, too. Where have you been all day?”

“I had a call last night, there was a horse had a ruptured tendon emergency at the Cohn ranch. I just got back an hour ago. I was there most of the night.”

“Well, let’s just say things have changed,” Bell said.

“You want me to take a look at that? You’re bleeding,” Wood said.

“I saw a satellite dish. Is it yours?” Bell said.

“Yes. There’s no cable this far from town.”

“That might work,” Bell said. “There might be some news on that.” He stood up, and everything went black around him.

Miles stood up, still in shock. The bullet the girl had fired at him had passed through his thigh but had missed the femoral artery. He’d bled onto the snow where he’d pretended to be dead and saw the red-ochre colored stain where he’d been lying, and prayed that the girl who shot him wouldn’t come back outside. He had instinctively shoved a palm full of fresh snow in the entrance wound; the cold snow had stopped the pain. He pulled his pants down in the middle of the road, and turning to look at his butt and the back of his thigh, he examined the bullet’s exit wound with his fingers. It was the size of a fifty-cent piece.

“I’m going to die,” Miles said out loud. Lying there, he saw a car’s headlights and realized it was coming straight at him. Two Howlers were hanging onto the car’s ski rack, pounding on the roof of the car as it drove toward him. The car passed him as he struggled to roll toward the curb. The car, just missing him, kept right on going at a high rate of speed until it was gone from sight, the Howlers still hanging on it. His pants still down, he crawled up on the sidewalk and packed snow into the exit wound. It stung horribly, and then he felt nothing. He pulled up his jeans and cinched his belt.

The girl who had shot him was gone, but anyone might mistake him for a Howler, especially now. He stood up and noticed Crouchback’s distinctive old Porsche 911 parked in a driveway a few houses down the street. He’d seen the man driving it around Timberline. He limped toward the house’s open front door and walked in, stepping over the body of the woman, laying in the foyer, that he’d seen earlier.

“Crouchback! MR. CROUCHBACK!” There was no answer. The house was dark. He tried the light switch, but nothing happened. He walked into the living room and looked out onto a snow-covered patio with a covered pool through a set of French doors. The house was cold. He walked to the fireplace, picked up a black wrought-iron fireplace tool and walked into the kitchen holding the heavy fire poker. The kitchen was clean and tidy. He saw a coffee pot with coffee in it, poured himself a cup and drank it down quickly, as if he would be driven out of the house at any moment. The coffee was lukewarm but tasted wonderful. His hand was shaking and stained with his own blood, all his fingertips pinkish.

He moved to the kitchen sink and washed his hands. It was very quiet when he turned off the tap. He could hear a clock ticking somewhere from one of the nearby rooms—powered by a battery, he guessed.  He looked down into the sink and saw a dirty plate with a knife and fork, the plate flooded with soapy water. He must be dreaming, he was sure of it. He’d dreamt that he’d driven to work in the snow with the top on his car inoperable—of course, how strange. It was all a nightmare. It all had to be a dream. He would wake up. He took a good look around him saw the poker resting nearby on the black-colored granite counter top. A dream! A nightmare. Everyone has them. They’re so lifelike! And about the Good murders—that too! Surely the murders were a dream.